January 2, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



21 



given his department mucli anxiety. The 

 matter was of such far-reaching importance 

 that the treasury had granted a sum of money 

 for one, two, or three years to institute a sci- 

 entiiic inquiry, and he hoped to obtain the ser- 

 vices of Professor Laurie, of the Heriot-Watt 

 College, Edinburgh, to that end. The Foreign 

 Office had also consented to inquire of the gov- 

 ernments of France, Germany, Italy, Greece 

 and America whether any treatment had been 

 evolved in these countries to combat this evil. 



An efficiency limitation of quite a different 

 type from that imposed by the inadequate 

 and dangerous quarters occupied by the 

 United States Geological Survey is presented, 

 according to the annual report of the director, 

 recently made to Secretary Lane, in the re- 

 strictions placed in one way or another upon 

 the selection of personnel. Under " lump- 

 sum " appropriations there is a fair opportu- 

 nity to obtain high-grade service in the scien- 

 tific and technical positions, yet even here the 

 restraining influence of precedent prevents 

 attaching to the higher positions salaries that 

 are more than a fraction of those which the 

 well-trained specialists best fitted for those 

 positions can obtain for similar work in the 

 service of corporations. This condition has 

 resulted in many of the members of the Geo- 

 logical Survey leaving government service at 

 the time when they have become most valuable 

 as public servants. Thus in the four and one 

 half years ending January, 1913, the number 

 of geologists who left the government service 

 for the primary purpose of bettering their 

 financial condition was 41, and these men are 

 known to have received salaries outside of the 

 public service amounting to an average im- 

 mediate advance of 149 per cent., or practically 

 two and one half times the salaries paid them 

 by the Geological Survey. 



The Euphrates barrage from Hindich north 

 to Bagdad was opened on December 12. It is 

 the portion of the great irrigation works de- 

 signed by Sir William Willcocks, the designer 

 of the Assouan dam. The system, according 

 to a dispatch from London to the Boston 

 Transcript, will cost, when completed, no less 



than $115,000,000, of which $25,000,000 has al- 

 ready been expended on the present section 

 of the work, known as the Feluja project. 

 Three million acres of what were in early his- 

 tory the finest agricultural lands are to be 

 eventually reclaimed. When the system is 

 completed the Tigris, the Euphrates and the 

 Akkar Kuf Lake will form part of a con- 

 trolled system of canals, weirs and barrages, 

 whereby the pernicious silt is to be separated, 

 floods are to be prevented, and wheat-bearing 

 land is to be nourished with water. It is esti- 

 mated that the cultivated area will be doubled, 

 and that the crop of wheat along the Eu- 

 phrates will be trebled. The scheme would 

 also result in a vast increase in the yield of 

 cotton. It consists of providing a means of 

 escape for the flood waters of the Euphrates 

 along the depressions of the Pison, but it also 

 entails the construction of a great central 

 canal, regulators to control the supply from 

 the Euphrates at the head of the Sakhnlawia, 

 a weir on the Tigris, a canal for irrigation to 

 the north of Bagdad, another canal along the 

 right bank of the Tigris, and the building of 

 a railway along the left bank of this canal for 

 the transport of the harvests. Moreover, the 

 construction work would include a railway to 

 connect Bagdad with the Mediterranean by a 

 short and cheap route. The project was sub- 

 mitted by Sir William to the Turkish govern- 

 ment in 1909, after a year's study of the situ- 

 ation, a study which he continued through the 

 two years subsequently up to the time of his 

 resignation in July, 1911, as adviser to the 

 Turkish Ministry of Public Works. 



UNIVEESITT AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 Western Reserve University will receive 

 from the McBride family of Cleveland a 

 lecture foundation with an endowment of $50,- 

 000. 



The following changes concerning the ad- 

 mission of students to the Johns Hopkins 

 Medical School have been announced. In 

 1913 the number of students in each class was 

 limited to ninety. In order to receive consider- 

 ation applications of incoming students must 



