November 22, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



713 



Mr. Henry Groves, who with his brother, 

 Mr. James Groves, is the author of important 

 contributions to botany, died in London on 

 November 2, aged fifty-seven years. 



Dr. Heinrich Eitthausen, formerly pro- 

 fessor of agricultural chemistry at Konigsberg, 

 has died at the age of eighty-seven years. 



UNIVEBSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 



Mr. George F. Baker, president of the First 

 National Banls of New York City, has given a 

 large sum, reported in the newspapers to be 

 $2,000,000, to bring about an alliance between 

 the New York Hospital and the Cornell Med- 

 ical College. 



Dr. Arthur T. Cabot, a fellow of Harvard 

 University, has bequeathed $100,000 to the 

 Harvard Medical School and the larger part 

 of his estate, estimated at $500,000, to Har- 

 vard University, after the death of Mrs. Cabot. 



According to the accounting of the execu- 

 tors of the estate of George Crocker, Columbia 

 University receives $1,566,635 for the Crocker 

 Cancer Eesearch Fund. 



It is announced at the University of Roch- 

 ester that $262,510 has been contributed to the 

 endowment fund by alumni living elsewhere. 

 Dr. L. E. Holt, of New York City, gave $10,- 

 000; J. Sloat Fassett, of Elmira, $5,000, and 

 F. E. Welles, of Paris, $12,000. 



An annual fund of $15,000 for the purpose 

 of carrying on research work in medicine at 

 the University of Toronto has been subscribed 

 for five years by a few citizens of Toronto, who 

 have become interested in medical education 

 through the efforts of Professor Alexander Mc- 

 Phedran, head of the department of medicine. 



Mr. Andrew Carnegie has offered to the 

 University of Paris the last $20,000 necessary 

 for equipping the new Institute of Chemistry 

 in course of erection in the Eue Pierre Curie. 



Graduate students in the department of bot- 

 any at the University of Chicago have re- 

 ceived the following appointments from other 

 institutions for the present year: Joseph S. 

 Caldwell, fellow in the department, to be pro- 

 fessor of botany at the Alabama Polytechnic 

 Institute; Charles A. ShuU, to be assistant 



professor of plant physiology at the Univer- 

 sity of Kansas; Ansel F. Hemenway, to be 

 professor of biology at Transylvania Univer- 

 sity, Kentucky; Claude W. Allee, to be in- 

 structor in plant physiology at the University 

 of Illinois ; Norma E. Pf eiifer, to be instructor 

 in botany at the University of North Dakota, 

 and Eachel E. Hoffstadt, to be instructor in 

 charge of biology at Marshall College, West 

 Virginia. 



Donald W. Davis, for the past three years 

 a student in the graduate school of arts and 

 sciences of Harvard University, has been ap- 

 pointed assistant professor of zoology in Clark 

 College, Worcester, Mass. 



In consequence of the additional grant made 

 by the London County Council to the Univer- 

 sity of London, professorships of mathematics 

 and of civil engineering have been established 

 at King's College. To the former Dr. J. W. 

 Nicholson, lecturer at Cambridge, has been 

 appointed, and to the latter Mr. A. H. 

 Jameson, engineer of the Thirlmere aqueduct. 

 A professorship of mathematics has also been 

 established at Bedford College, to which Mr. 

 Harold Hilton, of the college, has been 

 promoted. 



Dr. p. Ehrenfest, of St. Petersburg, has 

 been appointed professor of physics at Leiden. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 

 a simple demonstration of the action op 



NATURAL selection 



In a recent presidential address, an eminent 

 biologist referred to " such highly speculative 

 disciplines as natural selection, Neo-Lamarck- 

 ianism, neo-vitalism, etc." The criticism of 

 natural selection implied by such association 

 would have been quite in place a few years 

 ago. Since it represents a widely prevailing 

 opinion at the present time, it may not be out 

 of order once more^ to direct attention to the 

 fact that natural selection is no longer neces- 



^ The progress which has recently been made by 

 biometricians in the investigations of the selective 

 death rate — the mortality which is not random 

 but which is a function of the characteristics of 

 the individual — has been reviewed in a paper, 



