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SCIENCE 



risr. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 931 



Bavarian governments, a ten-months' trip to 

 foreign countries, to repeat on different races 

 the investigations on myopia in the schools 

 ■which he began some time ago in the province 

 of Brandenburg. 



Mr. S. W. Foster, who for the past six 

 years has been engaged in deciduous fruit in- 

 sect investigations for the U. S. Bureau of 

 Entomology, is now engaged in the research 

 and applied work on the Pacific Coast with 

 headquarters in San Prancisco. 



Mr. Egbert C. Murphy is in charge of an 

 expedition to the South Georgia Islands, under 

 the joint auspices of the Museum of the 

 Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and 

 the American Museum of Natural History. 



Dr. Eollin D. Salisbury, head of the de- 

 partment of geography and dean of the Ogden 

 Graduate School of Science in the University 

 of Chicago, went into camp about October 1 

 at Lake Nahuel Huapi, Patagonia, in the 

 eastern Andes in latitude 41°. On his return 

 he expects to stop at Eio de Janeiro and go 

 back into the interior from that point to the 

 great iron deposits of Brazil. Professor Salis- 

 bury will resume his work at the University 

 of Chicago at the opening of the winter quar- 

 ter, 1913. 



Dr. W. J. G. Land, assistant professor in 

 the department of botany at the University of 

 Chicago, has sailed from San Praneisco for a 

 collecting trip in the islands of the southern 

 Pacific. His course includes the Hawaiian, 

 Tonga and Fiji Islands, and Australia. The 

 object of the trip is primarily to observe and 

 collect liverworts, and incidentally to col- 

 lect interesting forms of other plant groups. 



At the meeting of the Minnesota Pathologic 

 Society at the university on October 15, the 

 annual address was delivered by Dr. Ludvig 

 Hektoen on " Eecent Observation of Strepto- 

 cocci and the Streptococcal Infection." 



" Problems of the Modern City " is the sub- 

 ject of a series of lectures being given by pres- 

 ent and former professors of the University 

 of Chicago in Fullerton Hall, of the Art In- 

 stitute, Chicago, from October 15 to Decem- 

 ber 17. The course was opened by J. Paul 



Goode, associate professor of geography, who 

 spoke on "The Dynamics of the City: Its 

 Geography and Transportation." Eobert 

 Franklin Hoxie, associate professor in the 

 department of political economy, followed with 

 a lecture October 27 on " The Development of 

 Industry and the Social Problems of a City." 

 " The Health of the City " was the subject of 

 a lecture by Edward Oakes Jordan, professor 

 of bacteriology, on October 29. 



Last year there was a decrease in the pro- 

 duction of tungsten ore owing to the decrease 

 in the demand for tool steels, in which the 

 bulk of the tungsten produced is used, ac- 

 cording to Frank L. Hess, in a report on this 

 metal just issued by the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey. The production of domestic 

 tungsten ore in 1911 amounted to 1,139 short 

 tons of concentrates, carrying 60 per cent, of 

 tungsten trioxide, valued at $407,985; in 1910 

 the production amounted to 1,821 short tons, 

 valued at $832,992. Tungsten is used chiefly 

 in making steels that will hold their temper 

 when heated, but it is most generally known 

 as supplying the filament of tungsten incan- 

 descent lamps. The great improvements in 

 drawing tungsten wire and further notable 

 improvements in the size of the globe of the 

 tungsten lamp and in other mechanical de- 

 tails that add greatly to its efficiency are 

 making it encroach upon the carbon-filament 

 lamp and the arc lamp, and it is rapidly 

 driving from the market the tantalum lamp, 

 which was the first good incandescent lamp 

 having a metallic filament. Diamonds are 

 used for dies in drawing tungsten wire. At 

 first it did not seem possible to drill small 

 enough holes through the diamonds to make 

 wire sufficiently fine for lamps of small candle- 

 power, but wire 0.0006 inch in diameter can 

 now be drawn in quantity. The total quan- 

 tity of tungsten ore used for electric lights, 

 however, amounts to only a few tons a year. 

 New uses of tungsten, in making electric 

 furnaces, electric contacts and targets for 

 Eontgen rays, have been developed, and the 

 last two products are being actively manu- 

 factured. 



