14 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1149 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



At the meetings in ISTew York last week, 

 Professor George H. Shull, professor of botany 

 in Princeton University, was elected presi- 

 dent of the American Society of Naturalists; 

 Professor Frederic S. Lee, of Columbia Uni- 

 versity, president of the American Physiolog- 

 ical Society, and Professor Robert M. Yerkes, 

 of Harvard University, president of the Amer- 

 ican Psychological Association. 



Mr. E. B. Williamson has been appointed 

 to the position of curator of Odonata in the 

 Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan. 

 He will retain his residence at Bluffton, Ind., 

 and will direct most of the work in his de- 

 partment from there, making frequent trips 

 to Ann Arbor to inspect the collections. Mr. 

 Williamson is at present on a collecting trip 

 in the Santa Marta Mountains, Colombia. 



Mr. J. Alfred Hardcastle has been ap- 

 pointed to be astronomer to the Armagh Ob- 

 servatory in the room of Dr. J. E. L. Dreyer, 

 who recently resigned to take up work at Ox- 

 ford. Mr. Hardcastle is a grandson of the 

 late Sir John Herschel, and has for many 

 years been a university extension lecturer 

 both for Oxford and Cambridge. The two dis- 

 tinguished occupants of the office who have 

 preceded him — ^Dr. Dreyer and Dr. Eomney 

 Robison — held it for almost 100 years. 



Irving Pisher, professor of political econ- 

 omy in Yale University, has been appointed 

 lecturer on the Hitchcock Eoundation for the 

 fall of 1917 at the University of California. 

 He will give a series of lectures on " Price 

 Levels," between October 1 and 14, 1917. 



Wallace Campbell, son of Director W. W. 

 Campbell of the Lick Observatory, has been 

 appointed teaching fellow in astronomy in 

 the University of California, succeeding P. J. 

 !N"eubauer, who becomes university fellow in 

 the Lick Observatory. 



Provost Edgae F. Smith, of the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania, visited Wittenberg Col- 

 lege, Springfield, Ohio, where he was pro- 

 fessor of natural science in the early eighties 

 and the Ohio State University, Columbus, 0., 

 Friday evening, November 24, where he de- 

 livered a lecture before the Columbus Section 



of the American Chemical Society on " Robert 

 Hare, a Pioneer American Chemist." 



The ninety-first course of Christmas lec- 

 tures to juvenile audiences at the Royal Insti- 

 tution of Great Britain, which were instituted 

 by Michael Faraday in 1826, are being given 

 by Professor Arthur Keith, F.R.S., on Decem- 

 ber 28, 30, January 2, 4, 6 and 9, at 3 o'clock 

 on each day. His subject is " The Human 

 Machine which All Must Work." At a later 

 date Professor C. S. Sherrington, F.R.S., will 

 give six lectures on the old brain and the new 

 brain and their meaning, and on pain and its 

 nervous basis. The first Friday evening dis- 

 course will be given on January 19, when Pro- 

 fessor Sir James Dewar will lecture on soap 

 bubbles of long duration. 



Dr. W. W. Keen, president of the American 

 Philosophical Society, writes : " In the most 

 impressive list of honors — so richly deserved — 

 bestowed upon Professor Simon Newcomb as 

 published by Mr. Archibald in your issue for 

 December 22, 1916, there is one slight inaccu- 

 racy which I beg leave to correct. Under date 

 of January 1, 1909, it is stated that Professor 

 Newcomb was elected vice-president of the 

 American Philosophical Society. Professor 

 Newcomb was elected vice-president in Janu- 

 ary, 1905, and was re-elected every year up to 

 and including 1909, the year of his death." 



Dr. T. H. Bean, chief of the division of fish 

 culture of the conservation commission of New 

 York, and prominent in the work throughout 

 the United States, died on December 28, in 

 Albany, as the result of being struck by an 

 automobile six weeks ago. 



Dr. Claude L. Wheeler, editor of the New 

 York Medical Journal, died on December 30, 

 in Brooklyn. 



Me. Clement Eeid, F.R.S., late of the Brit- 

 ish Geological Survey, died on December 16, 

 at sixty-three years of age. 



The death is announced of Mr. A. M. 

 Worthington, F.R.S., formerly professor of 

 physics at the Royal Naval College, Green- 

 wich. 



Mr. W. Ellis, F.R.S., formerly superin- 

 tendent of the magnetical and meteorological 



