476 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1427 



appointed ethnologist of the Bureau of Ameri- 

 can Ethnology, has left for field-work in Alaska, 

 Oregon and Washington. He will first proceed 

 to the Kasaan National Monument, Alaska, to 

 study the architecture, totem poles and other 

 objects at this village and will be accompanied 

 by a half-breed Haida, related by marriage to 

 Chief Skoul. It is expected that considerable 

 legendary data bearing on history and sociology 

 of the f oi-mer inhabitants of Kasaan will also be 

 collected. Should the results justify further 

 work it is planned to continue field-work on 

 place names and aboriginal village sites of 

 Alaska to be followed later by work on strati- 

 graphic archeology in more northern latitudes in 

 order to discover if possible traces of the oldest 

 Indians in this supposed prehistoric gateway of 

 the migration of man into North America. 



According to the correspondent of the Asso- 

 ciated Press, boring into the crater of Kalauea, 

 the active volcano on the Island of Hawaii, will 

 be started May 1 in an effort to ascertain the 

 heat undergi-ound and to discover whether it 

 can be tui-ned into industrial channels. A con- 

 tract has been signed and the work, which will 

 consume approximately six months, will be 

 under the direction of Professor T. A. Jagger, 

 voleanologist, in charge of the KOauea observa- 

 tory. Holes will be bored to various depths on 

 all sides of the Kilauea crater, the great Kau 

 desert to the south and at accessible spots on 

 the floor of the crater. It is planned to bore 

 into the lava flows of 1921, 1919, 1918, 1894, 

 and in some more ancient flows, to ascertain 

 whether any of the heat generated by those dis- 

 turbances remains underground. 



The Collins collection of algte, covering 

 both the seaweeds and their fresh-water rela- 

 tives, has recently been acquired for the 

 herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden 

 in Bronx Park through the generosity of its 

 direetor-in-chief, Dr. N. L. Britton. The new 

 accession includes more than 40,000 specimens 

 from nearly all parts of the world. New 

 England, Bermuda, Florida, California, Alaska, 

 the Philippine Islands, Japan, the Dutch East 

 Indies, South Africa, Australia and the South 

 Sea Islands being esiiecially well represented. 

 Frank Shipley Collins of Maiden and later of 



North Eastham, Mass., was a business man 

 who devoted his leisure to the advancement of 

 scientific knowledge. The Collins collection is 

 the latest of an importnt series of large collec- 

 tions which have been purchased to facilitate 

 the scientific researches that are carried on in 

 the Bronx Park institution. Among these are 

 the J. B. Ellis collection of fungi, numbering 

 about 80,000 specimens; the Mitten collection 

 of mosses and hepatics, including about 50,000 

 specimens; the Underwood fern collection, with 

 16,000 specimens; the Otto Kuntze herbarium 

 of more than 30,000 miscellaneous specimens, 

 presented to the Garden by the late Andrew 

 Carnegie; the Vigener herbarium of more 

 than 20,000 specimens, also presented by Mr. 

 Carnegie ; the A. Henry collection of Chinese 

 plants, including nearly 8,000 specimens, and 

 the Jenman collection of West Indian and 

 South American ferns, comprising about 4,000 

 specimens and given by the late D. 0. Mills, 

 the first president of the Board of Managers 

 of the New York Botanical Garden. The num- 

 ber of specimens in the entire herbarium of 

 the garden is now approaching 2,000,000 . 



The ninth annual Faculty Research Lecture 

 at the University of California by election by 

 the Academic Senate was given by Dr. Charles 

 A. Kofoid, professor of zoology in the univer- 

 sity who spoke on Charter Day, March 22, on 

 "Amoeba and man." The discovery was an- 

 nounced of the detection of amoeba in the bone 

 marrow in cases of Ely's second type of 

 arthritis deformans in man. The amcebic na- 

 ture of the parasites in the bone lesions was 

 demonstrated by their mode of cell division 

 and the number of chromosomes which differ 

 from those of human cells. 



The correspondent of the London Times at 

 Paris, under date of February 15, writes that 

 the solemn reception of Mme. Curie by the 

 Academy of Medicine is a fait accompli. The 

 secretary-general read the terms of the decree 

 by which the president of the republic ap- 

 proved the election of Mme. Curie. As an un- 

 precedented mark of honor, M. Behal made a 

 speech to welcome the first Academicienne. He 

 reminded her that it was about twenty years 

 ago that, in response to his request, she gave 

 a lecture at the Sorbonne on radium, which she 



