62 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 993 



Bryce, recently British ambassador at Wash- 

 ington. 



The National Geographical Society has 

 awarded a medal in honor of the late Pro- 

 fessor Franklin Hiram King for his work on 

 Chinese agriculture. 



Colonel Gorgas, M.D., chief sanitary offi- 

 cer of the Panama Canal, has been elected an 

 honorary fellow of the Royal Sanitary Insti- 

 tute, London. 



The executive committee of the board of 

 trustees of Cornell University has made the 

 following expression of its feeling with re- 

 spect to the resignation of Professor J. H. 

 Comstock : 



In accepting the foregoing resignation the trus- 

 tees congratulate Professor Comstock on his long, 

 honorable and fruitful service to Cornell Univer- 

 eity, with which as student and teacher he has 

 been associated almost without interruption since 

 he matriculated as a freshman, and they bear 

 grateful testimony to his success in teaching and 

 in inspiring students and also in scientific in- 

 vestigation, for the continuance of which they 

 trust his health and energy may be preserved for 

 many years to come to the honor of his alma mater 

 and the advancement of truth and knowledge. 

 After accepting the resignation of Professor 

 Charles DeGarmo, the committee adopted the 

 following minute: 



Dr. DeGrarmo came to Cornell after twenty-five' 

 years ' labor as teacher and administrator in school, 

 college and university. Under his guidance the 

 department of education was reorganized and has 

 been a large factor in the preparation of many 

 students for usefulness. During his years of serv- 

 ice to Cornell he has wielded a widespread influ- 

 ence in the country through his writings, his ad- 

 dresses to gatherings of school men, his helpful- 

 ness to those charged with school administration. 

 In the university he has inspired others by his 

 teaching and even more by the gentle nobility of 

 his character, and by his steadfast devotion to the 

 highest standards of life and work. 



Professor Simonin-, of the Paris Observa- 

 tory, Professor Abraham, of the University of 

 Paris, and Captain Carrier, of the French 

 army, the three savants cooperating with a 

 similar party of Americans in determining, 

 with the assistance of radio signals, the differ- 



ence of longitude between Washington and 

 Paris, recently delivered short addresses be- 

 fore an audience comprising the Naval Obser- 

 vatory staff and representatives drawn from 

 the naval and scientific circles of Washington. 



At the annual meeting of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union in November last it was 

 decided to increase the membership of the 

 Committee on Classification and Nomenclature 

 from seven to eleven with the object of having 

 it organize as two subcommittees, one of four 

 members to consider matters of nomenclature, 

 the other of seven members, to cover syste- 

 matic and geographic questions, especially the 

 acceptance or rejection of proposed new forms. 

 The president, Dr. Frank M. Chapman, has 

 reappointed the old committee, consisting of 

 J. A. Allen, William Brewster, Jonathan 

 Dwight, Jr., C. Hart Merriam, Charles W. 

 Richmond, Robert Ridgway and Witmer 

 Stone; and as the four additional members he 

 has named Joseph Grinnell, E. W. Nelson, 

 Harry C. Oberholser and T. S. Palmer. 



Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, F.R.S., has been pro- 

 moted to be assistant director of the Geologi- 

 cal Survey of Great Britain, and Mr. T. C. 

 Cantrill to be district geologist. 



W. S. Valiant, for twenty years assistant in 

 the geological museum of Rutgers College, has 

 been appointed curator. Professor J. Volney 

 Lewis, formerly designated curator, has been 

 made director. 



The autumn series of public lectures, given 

 at Washington University, St. Louis, came to 

 a close with an address by Dr. Eugene L. Opie 

 on " Modem Tendencies in Medicine." 



The Friday evening meetings of the Royal 

 Institution, London, will be resumed on Jan- 

 uary 23, when Sir James Dewar will speak on 

 the coming of age of the vacuum flask. Among 

 the lectures announced is one on the mechan- 

 ics of muscular effort, by Mr. H. S. Hele- 

 Shaw, F.R.S., and another on the production 

 of neon and helium by electric discharge, by 

 Professor Norman Collie, F.R.S. On Febru- 

 ary 20 Professor Arthur Keith, conservator of 

 the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 of England, will relate the results of an 



