18 



SCIENCE 



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



tral department of minerals and metals " 

 under government auspices to collect and im- 

 part information bearing on tlie sources of 

 minerals and the production of metals, as be- 

 ing imperatively necessary in the public in- 

 terest. This is advanced in a letter sent to the 

 chairman of the " advisory council of scien- 

 tific and industrial research " by the presidents 

 of the " institution of mining engineers," " in- 

 stitute of mining and metallurgy " and " in- 

 stitute of metals." The letter points out that 

 there is at present no connecting link between 

 various organizations, that there is consider- 

 able overlapping and much waste and con- 

 fusion. If a properly organized and efficiently 

 conducted department of minerals and metals 

 had been in existence much valuable time, 

 many lives and vast sums of money would have 

 been saved to the nation in the conduct of the 

 present war, and much of the cost and incon- 

 venience to British industries depending 

 largely for their raw material on mineral 

 products would have been saved. The follow- 

 ing are some of the duties suggested by the 

 new department: Arrangement for expediting 

 the completion of mineral surveys of the 

 United Kingdom and crown colonies and other 

 British possessions. Systematic collection and 

 coordination of information bearing on the 

 occurrence, uses and economical value of min- 

 erals and their products; special attention be- 

 ing devoted to securing industrial applications 

 for newly discovered minerals or metallurgical 

 products and to finding mineral materials re- 

 quired for new metallurgical products or in- 

 ventions. 



According to Nature the Gazette de Hol- 

 lande emphasizes the use made in Germany of 

 geological advice in trench warfare, and Pro- 

 fessor Salomon, of Heidelberg, is said to have 

 urged the formation of a special organiza- 

 tion of geologists in connection with the army. 

 It is said that excellent use has been made by 

 the British military authorities of the Geo- 

 logical Survey staff, members of which have 

 been of technical assistance in fields as wide 

 apart as the deeply dissected strata of Gallipoli 

 and the undulating Cretaceous expanses of 



the Paris-Brussels basin. The geologist has 

 been found of service in military mining as 

 well as in questions of water supply, and the 

 memoir recently issued by the Geological Sur- 

 vey on " Sources of Temporary "Water Supply 

 in the South of England and Neighboring 

 Parts of the Continent " was drawn up spe- 

 cially to meet the needs of camps. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



Muskingum College, ISTew Concord, Ohio, 

 has received an anonymous gift of $150,000 

 for endowment and buildings, on condition 

 that the college pay an equal amount. 



With the desire to encourage the study of 

 Eussian, in view of the commercial inter- 

 course between Russia and Hull, Capt. H. 

 Samman has expressed to the Hull Chamber 

 of Commerce his willingness to start an en- 

 dowment fund for the purpose with a sum of 

 £10,000. 



0. R. Sweeney, Ph.D. (Penna.), for the 

 past six years instructor in qualitative anal- 

 ysis at the University of Pennsylvania has 

 been appointed instructor in industrial chem- 

 istry at the Ohio State University where he 

 formerly graduated from the chemical engi- 

 neering course. 



C. H. Snyder, the consulting structural 

 engineer, has been appointed lecturer in civil 

 engineering in the University of California. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



PHOSPHATES 



Some experimental results in a comparison 

 of different phosphates at the Tennessee Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station have recently 

 been referred to by Dr. C. G. Hopkins^ in such 

 a way as to be easily misunderstood. The 

 writer wishes to say that neither now nor in 

 the past have these results allowed us to advo- 

 cate, as intimated by Dr. Hopkins, the use of 

 unacidulated bone meal. Erom the standpoint 

 of economy the data obtained here have been 



1 Science, p. 652, November 3, 1916. 



