146 
NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT. 
Dr. Homer D. House, who was connected with the Garden 
and Colu nee University in 1902-04 and again in 1907-08, has 
recently accepted the position of associate director in the Bilt- 
more Forest School 
Dr. Raymond H. Pond, research scholar at the Garden at vari- 
ous times during 1905, 1906, and 1907, has been appointed 
biologist of the Metropolitan Sewerage Commission of New 
York, toi tigate important biological problems connected with 
New York Harbor. 
Mrs. Cornelius Van Brunt has recently given the Garden an 
assortment of over five hundred museum bottles, which will be 
used chiefly for preserving in alcohol or formalin the flowers of 
rare orchids as they appear in the conservatories. 
Mr. n Tiirckheim, the veteran botanical collector of 
Coban, Gees visited the Garden August 13 and 14, onhis 
way to Europe. He began collecting for Mr. John Donnell Smith 
his collections, directly or indirectly, for the past ten years or 
more. Practically all of his collecting work was done in 
Guatemala. 
The severe drought which was experienced during June and 
the first part of July was broken by the showers at the middle 
of July, and there has been sufficient rainfall ever since, although 
the rainfall of the summer is still considerably below the average. 
Grass has grown again on the burnt portions of lawns and banks 
and, while newly planted shrubs were considerably set back, the 
actual loss has not been very great, much less indeed than was 
eared. This experience has emphasized the need for an exten- 
sion of the water-supply system, and it is planned to accomplish 
this by the expenditure of a portion of the recent additional ap- 
propriation for construction made by the city. 
An additional construction appropriation of $25,000, voted by 
the Board of Estimate and Apportionment June 26, 1908, adopted 
by the Board of Aldermen July 21, and approved by His Honor 
