June 20, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



589 



Two thousand and five hundred delearates 

 from farmers' organizations in Washington, 

 Oregon and Idaho in session at Seattle on 

 June 13 subscribed $20,000 toward a fund for 

 building a temple of agriculture in Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



The sum of £200,000 is being provided by 

 the Victorian government to enable Melbourne 

 University to complete its buildings. 



The Goldsmiths' Company has given £5,500 

 to the University of Cambridge for the pur- 

 pose of extending and equipping the depart- 

 ment of metallurgy. 



Dr. Lex^erett D. Bristol has been elected 

 dean and professor of bacteriology and public 

 health of the University of Tennessee College 

 of Medicine at Memphis. 



Dk. L. J. Gillespie, of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, has been appointed professor of 

 physical chemistry in Syracuse University. 



Frederick Easmussen, who has been ap- 

 pointed Pennsylvania state secretary of agri- 

 culture, has been succeeded in the professor- 

 ship of dairy husbandry at the Pennsylvania 

 State College by Andrew A. Borlaw, of the 

 extension department. 



At the University of Chicago John A. Park- 

 hurst, of the department of astronomy and 

 astrophysics and Elbert Clark and George W. 

 Bartelmez, of the department of anatomy, 

 have been promoted to associate professorships. 



Professor C. R. Mjuishall. professor of 

 materia medica and therapeutics, in the Uni- 

 versity of St. Andrews has been appointed 

 Regius professor of materia medica in the 

 University of Aberdeen, vacant by the resig- 

 nation of Professor Theodore Cash. 



Dr. Boon, has been appointed to the chair 

 of chemistry at Heriot-Watt College, Edin- 

 burgh. 



Mr. R. W. H. Hawken has been appointed 

 to succeed Professor A. J. Gibson as professor 

 of engineering in the University of Queens- 

 land. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



THE VALLEY OF TEN THOUSAND SMOKES 



Under the caption " The Katmai National 

 Monument " in the issue of Science, January 

 3, several observations and comparisons are 

 made relative to this wonderful natural phe- 

 nomenon. Among these occurs the following: 



Rock strata superheated since the great erup- 

 tion underlie Katmai near enough to the surface to 

 turn to instant steam the spring and drainage water 

 of many a surrounding mile of foot hills. Thus 

 originates the steam which bursts from the myriad 

 valley vents. 



An acquaintance with this remarkable vol- 

 canic area would convince the writer of the 

 above observations that his explanations are 

 quite inadequate to explain the phenomena oc- 

 curring there and an examination of the gases 

 evolved would still further convince the writer 

 that he was dealing with something much more 

 closely related to the molten magma than an 

 area of residual superheated strata — presum- 

 ably so heated in 1912 and slowly cooling o3. 

 Although steam is the principal constituent of 

 the emanations yet there are many vents in 

 which steam is but a small percentage of the 

 issuing gases, the main portion of the vapors 

 being highly corrosive acids, volatile metallic 

 chlorides, sulphides and oxides. 



It is quite true that the local surface drain- 

 age disappears as it attempts to find its way 

 dovsTi the valley and some of the lesser con- 

 spicuous features of this valley are dumps of 

 volcanic debris vomited out from the throats 

 of vents into which the surface storm drain- 

 age had poured it. But the most active area 

 of the whole valley lies right on the pen- 

 insular axis itself and no one seeing the vast 

 quantities of vapors being evolved would for 

 a moment consider their origin to have been 

 up-grade surface infiltration from the distant 

 " foot-hills." 



The peninsular axis is not yet in equilib- 

 rium with the volcanic forces. In 1917 ava- 

 lanches of rocks were being precipitated down 

 the i)erpendicular face of Falling Mountain. 

 Gases were issuing from crevices distributed 

 from the bottom to the top 2,000 feet above 



