January 31, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



119 



It is stated in Nature that the amiual 

 meeting' of the Association of Public School 

 Science Masters was held at the London Day 

 Training Ciollege on December 31, 1918, and 

 January 1, 1919, under the presidency of Sir 

 Eonald Ross. The subject of the president's 

 address was '" Observations on the results of 

 our system of education." A lecture on poison- 

 gas warfare was given by Lieutenant-Colonel 

 Smithells. There were discussions on the im- 

 partance of restricting specialization in uni- 

 versity scholarship examinations and giving 

 weight to general education, opened by Mr. F. 

 S. Young; science in the general education of 

 boys, opened by Mr. W. D. Eggar and Mr. C. 

 V. G. Civil; and courses in general science for 

 classical Sixth Forms, opened by the Rev. S. A. 

 McDowall. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



Gifts aggregating $128,000 to Yale Uni- 

 versity were annomiced on January 23. They 

 include $25,000 to the Forestry School from 

 Mr. and Mrs. GifFord Pinchot. 



The zoology department of Wabash College, 

 of which Professor A. Richards has charge, 

 has received from the estate of Professor 

 Donaldson Bodine. formerly professor of 

 zoology the sum of $5,000, to provide for the 

 purchase of books for the zoology department, 

 subject to an annuity. 



At the request of Professor Bailey Willis, 

 professor of geology at Staaford University, 

 who is continuing his war work with the House 

 Commission in New York, Professor James 

 Perrin Smith will act as executive head of the 

 department of geology and mining for the 

 coming year. Dr. Eliot Blackwelder, of the 

 University of Illinois, has been appointed 

 acting professor of geology during the winter 

 quarter. 



Mr. H. P. Stuckey, for the past ten years 

 horticulturist at the Georgia Experiment 

 Station, has been appointed director, to suc- 

 ceed J. D. Price, who resigned to accept the 

 jKJsition on the Railroad Commission to which 

 he was elected. Other changes in the station 

 staff are the appointment of Mr. T. E. Keitt, 

 formerly chemist of the South Carolina Sta- 



tion, as chemist the appointment of Mr. H. E. 

 Shiver, formerly assistant in chemistry at the 

 South Carolina Station as assistant chemist; 

 the apix)intment of J. A. McClintock, for- 

 merly extension pathologist for Georgia, as 

 plant pathologist and botanist, and the resig- 

 nation of Mr. J. C. Temple, bacteriologist. 



Dr. N. L. Bowen. of the Geophysical Lab- 

 oratory, Carnegie Institution, has been ap- 

 jwinted to the professorship of mineralogy at 

 Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



AN UNCOMMON ICE FORMATION 



While skating on the upper part of tlie 

 Charles River at Xorth Bellingham, Mass., 

 January 13, 1918, during a severe cold spell, 

 we encountered an ice formation of a kind 

 wholly new to us, though we have practised 

 river skating for many years and are both 

 fairly observant of natural phenomena. There 

 is a low dam here over wliich a good head of 

 water was flowing. Just below the dam an 

 uneven bridge of ice resting partly on rocks 

 and partly on the water formed a hood over 

 the stream, and out of this rose a considerable 

 number of upright columns of ice superficially 

 somewhat resembling stalagmites. They were 

 of pretty uniform diameter, about four or five 

 inches, and varied in height from two or three 

 inches to as many feet, while the tallest was 

 perhaps three and a half feet. This tallest 

 one and a number of the others were com- 

 pleted, being finished off with a tapering cap 

 of snow-like structure that curved over towards 

 the dam and into the wind, which was blowing 

 pretty strongly down stream. Many, however, 

 in process of formation showed how they were 

 made. 



The.v were all tubular and were built up 

 from the inside by the bursting of bubbles 

 that rose through the tubes and the freezing 

 of the resulting spray. It was evident that 

 the rush of water over the dam carried air 

 with it under the hood of ice below, and that 

 this air found vent here and there in the form 

 of bubbles, which, biirsting, gradually built up 

 these vertical columns. Each unfinished, or 

 live, column showed a crown of bursting 



