288 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1051 



forest extension, and Mr. L. D. Cox, formerly 

 landscape architect to the Park Commission of 

 Los Angeles, as assistant professor of land- 

 scape engineering. 



Sir Henry Miers, formerly professor of 

 mineralogy at Oxford, has resigned the prin- 

 cipalship of the University of London to be- 

 come vice-chancellor of Manchester Univer- 

 sity. 



Mr. L. G. Owen has been appointed pro- 

 fessor of mathematics at the Government Col- 

 lege, Rangoon. 



Dr. Rudolf Hober has been made professor 

 of physiology at Kiel, in succession to Pro- 

 fessor A. Bethe, who has accepted a call to 

 Frankfurt. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBSSPONDENCE 



Professor 



A TYPICAL case 



graduated at 



Uni- 



versity and, taking a post-graduate course, 

 received the degree of Ph.D. He then went 



abroad, studied at the University, and 



returned to America, fuU of enthusiasm for 

 original research. He had published an im- 

 portant memoir for a thesis^ which was well 

 received, his instructors encouraged him and 

 his fellow students appreciated and were in- 

 terested in his work. 



He now received an offer of a professorship 

 in a small country college, married, and 

 began his new life expecting to continue his 

 investigations. He soon found that his en- 

 tire time was occupied in teaching, and that 

 he was obliged to eke out his small salary by 

 writing and lecturing. He could not bear to 

 abandon his great object, the advancement of 

 human knowledge, and found that he could, 

 by extra efforts, devote a portion of his even- 

 ings to research, amounting to a fourth of his 

 entire working capacity. He went to the 

 president of the college, asking for an appro- 

 priation for an assistant, who could do the 

 routine work of copying, computing, etc., as 

 well and as rapidly as he could himself. In- 

 stead of a quarter of his time, he would thus 

 have one and a quarter, or five times as much, 

 and could make rapid progress at smaU ex- 



pense. The president told him that the ob- 

 ject of the institution was teaching, not re- 

 search, and that it was impossible to grant 

 his request. A fellowship was, however, va- 

 cant, and might answer his purpose. This, 

 however, would be of no use to him, as the 

 fellow would not want to do routine work, but 

 to undertake a research of his own, and would 

 expect to be taught how to do it. His associ- 

 ates were teachers, not investigators, and took 

 no interest in his plans. After repeated trials 

 and discouragements, he abandoned his ef- 

 forts and settled down as a teacher only, with 

 no ambitions beyond enabling his classes to 

 pass their examinations. 



While good teachers are as much needed as 

 investigators, the work of the latter may be 

 greatly impeded if their main energy is de- 

 voted to instruction. The finding of such 

 men, and enabling them to carry on the great 

 work, for which they are fitted, by providing 

 them with apparatus, assistants, or means for 

 publication, is one of the principal objects of 

 the Committee of One Hundred on Scientific 

 Research. Edward C. Pickering 



January 27, 1915 



A SPHENOIDAL SINUS IN THE DINOSAURS 



The work which has been done recently on 

 the accessory nasal sinuses in man and the 

 mammals by H. W. Loeb, J. P. Schaeffer, 

 Onodi, Ernst Witt, Ritter, A. W. Meyer, as 

 well as the earlier work of Zuckerkandl, may 

 receive some interesting additions from pale- 

 ontology. While in no sense intending to 

 aflSrm any genetic relations between the dino- 

 saurs and mammals it is yet an interesting 

 fact that a large sinus occurs in the sphenoidal 

 region of dinosaurs and labyrinthodonts. It 

 has previously been largely confused with the 

 pituitary fossa near which it lies but recent 

 work tends to show a distinction between this 

 fossa for the lodgment of the hypophysis and 

 the recessus lasisphenoidalis as it is called by 

 Osborn^ who has figured this cavity very 

 clearly in Tyrannosaurus rex, the huge carniv- 

 orous dinosaur from the Cretaceous. The 



1 Osborn, H, F., 1912, Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. 

 Hist., N. S., Vol. 1, Pt. 1, Pis. III. and IV. 



