240 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1418 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NOTES 



The Roekefellei- Foundation has given six 

 million dollars to Johns Hopkins University 

 for the endowment and buildings of the School 

 of Hygiene and Public Health. 



It is planned to establish a forest experi- 

 ment station in connection with the University 

 of California. There are twenty million acres 

 of forest lands in the state. 



The five hundred members of the senior class 

 at the Pennsylvania State College have voted 

 unanimously to give the college $100 each, 

 making a total of $50,000 as their class memo- 

 rial endowment. 



At Yale University the degree of master of 

 science in civil engineering, electrical engineer- 

 ing, mechanical engineering, mining engineer- 

 ing, or metallurgical engineering may here- 

 after be awarded to holders of a bachelor's 

 degree from a college or technical school of 

 }iigli standing who specialize for at least two 

 undergraduate years in that branch of engi- 

 neering in which the degree is to be taken. 



Dr. M. C. MeerilIj, professor of horticulture 

 at the Utah Agricultural College, Logan, Utah, 

 has resigned his position at that institution to 

 accept the deanship of the school of applied 

 arts at the Brigham Young University, at 

 Provo, Utah. Dr. Merrill will assume his new- 

 work on July 1. 



Dr. Horatio B. Williams, assistant pro- 

 fessor of i:)hysiology in the College of Physi- 

 cians and Surgeons of Columbia University, 

 has been promoted to te Dalton professor of 

 physiology. 



Dr. Karl Schlaepfer, of the University of 



_ Zurich, Switzerland, has been appointed asso- 



, eiate in surgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical 



School. Dr. Ernst Huber, also of the Univer- 



. sity of Zurich, has teen appointed associate 



in anatomy'. 



Professor W. H. Davis, of the Iowa State 

 Teachers' College, has been granted a Ph.D. 

 degree by the University of Wisconsin and has 

 assumed his work in mycology and plant 

 pathology at the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 -College, Amherst. 



Mr. R. W. Palmer, of the Geological Survey 

 of India, has been appointed senior lecturer in 

 geology at the University of Manchester. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPOND- 

 ENCE 

 DUTY ON ENGLISH BOOKS 



In a book-importer's catalogue we read : 



' ' It may be noted that all foreign books can be 

 imported free of duty, as well as English books, 

 more tlian twenty years old at the date of im- 

 portation. ' ' 



Such, in fact, is the law of the land; but, in 

 its appKcation we have found grave modifica- 

 tions. 



Importing a series of Englisli scientific maga- 

 zines some months ago we were infonned that 

 the shipment was in the hands of an import- 

 ing or forwarding agency and would be seen 

 through the customs and sent on upon ptajTiient 

 for services and duty charges. In compliance 

 with this request an amount covering charges 

 for services and the portion of the series duti- 

 able at the usual fifteen per cent, was forwarded 

 the agency. The books arrived safely, appar- 

 ently untouched or undisturbed in any way by 

 customs officials. The dutiable portion con- 

 stituted one fourth the entire shipment. After 

 some time a bill came requesting payment for 

 duty on the remaining three-fourths of the 

 shipment, on that portion of the series printed 

 over twenty years ago. Inquiry elicited the 

 information that duty had been demanded and 

 had been paid by the agency on the whole ship- 

 ment. Further inquiry established the fact that 

 duty on the whole shipment had been based 

 on a certain precedent where an importer of 

 books had brought in this country an integi'al 

 "set" of books, some less, some more than twen- 

 ty years old and that the "set" was looked 

 upon as all dutiable, indivisible. So in the 

 "spirit" of the law our magazines were all 

 dutiable, whatever might be their age or the 

 age of the majority of them. So the law might 

 call, as it did in our case, for a duty of $6.00, 

 but its "spirit" called for $18.00 more. 



Conclusion for individual importers : see to 

 it that your foreign exporters do not send you 

 the older and newer numbers of magazines in 

 the same box or shipment. 



