March 17, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



291 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NOTES 



It is announced that Vassar College plans to 

 erect two new buildings, a $150,000 physics 

 laboratory and a $100,000 alumnffi building. 



It is announced from Brussels that a legacy 

 of $100,000 goes to Louvain University, Bel- 

 gium, for the erection of a special building for 

 cancer research. 



Dr. Haelow Shaplet, who was appointed 

 director of the Harvard College Observatory 

 last fall, has been elected to the Paine profes- 

 sorship of practical astronomy, which has been 

 vacant since the death of Professor Edward C. 

 Pickering, in 1919. 



Dr. Charles W. Flint will be installed 

 as chancellor of Syracuse University on 

 June 15. 



Professor Francis Hartman has recently 

 been elected dean of the Day Technical School 

 of Cooper Union, New York City. This ap- 

 pointment is in recognition of his long service 

 at that institution as head of the department of 

 physics and electrical engineering. 



Dr. Ralph A. Waldron, formerly instructor 

 in Pennsylvania State College and the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania, has been elected professor 

 of biology in Thiel College, Greenville, Pa. 



E. W. Markle, who has been connected with 

 the educational and recreational work of the 

 United States army as principal and senior 

 instructor of the electrical department, voca- 

 tional schools, Camp Funston, Kansas, has 

 been appointed assistant professor of elec- 

 trical engineering at the Agricultural and Me- 

 chanical College of Texas. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPOND- 

 ENCE 

 HAVE THE STREAMS OF LONG ISLAND 

 BEEN DEFLECTED BY THE EARTH'S 

 ROTATION? 

 During the summer of 1920 Mr. Henry 

 Hicks, of Westbury, Long Island, pointed out 

 to me the very interesting difference between 

 the east and west banks of one of the short 

 streams flowing across the almost flat southern 

 slope of the island. Looking west across the 

 almost imperceptibly sloping eastern bank pf 



the stream-way one sees the western bank ris- 

 ing quite steeply and very much resembling 

 a railroad embankment in height and steep- 

 ness. 



This peculiar situation has long been ac- 

 cepted rather generally by geologists and 

 physiographersi as due to the westerly deflec- 

 tion of streams by the earth's rotation. How- 

 ever, when one considers the weakness in flow 

 of these streams, their very slight fall, and the 

 fact that they are mostly less than ten miles 

 long, serious doubts arise.- To one who, like 

 the writer, has studied the cumulative effects 

 of wind and vegetation upon wind-borne ma- 

 terials, it appears very probable that the de- 

 flective effect is very slight as compared with 

 the resultant effects of these other agencies. 



During glacial times and for some time after- 

 wards there must have been, during dry weather 

 and at times of high winds, a considerable 

 movement of loose residual sands and glacial 

 materials over the flat plain south of the ter- 

 minal moraine which forms the backbone of 

 Long Island. The general southwesterly winds 

 would deposit their main load on the lee-side 

 of any north-south trending bank and this 

 deposition would be augmented and the drift- 

 ing materials held by the denser vegetation of 

 the moister stream margin. Probably tundra 

 prevailed here for a long period during glacial 

 times and, even yet, the region has not been 

 entirely covered by forest, so that the effects 

 of the notoriously strong winds of the South 

 Shore would have been greater in the past than 

 at present. It is suggested that someone make 

 a careful study of a cross-section of one of 

 these steeper west banks to determine the na- 

 ture of the deposit and whether it may have 

 been built as is here suggested. 



Pittsburgh, Pa. ^- ^- J^^^^^s 



1 Lewis, Elias, Jr., Ain. Journ. ^ci., 3rd Ser., 

 13: 215-216, 1877. 



Gilbert G. K., op. cit., 27: 427-432, 1884. 



Puller, Myron L., ' ' The Geology of Long 

 Island," U. S. G. S., Prof. Paper 82: 9, 10 and 

 50, 1914. 



2 See also in this connection, Geikie, Sir Archi- 

 bald, Encycl. Brit., 11th edit., 11: 649, 1910. 



