January 23, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



137 



manuscript lie had prepared, the accumula- 

 tion of perhaps ten years, were completely de- 

 stroyed by fire. 



As the result of infection by glanders bacilli 

 while working in the laboratory, Mr. A. M. 

 Jansen, instructor in the veterinary college of 

 Ohio State University, died on January 4. 



The United States Geological Survey is in 

 receipt of a cablegram from St. Petersburg in 

 which " the Geological Survey, of Eussia, an- 

 nounces with profound grief the unexpected 

 death of its director, Theodosie Tehernycheff, 

 in the fifty-seventh year of his life." 



A MEMORIAL fund raised by the friends of 

 the late Humphrey Owen Jones, F.R.S., fellow 

 of Clare College, who, with his wife, was killed 

 in the Alps in August, 1912, has been grate- 

 fully accepted by the university, and a Hum- 

 phrey Owen Jones lectureship in physical 

 chemistry has been established. 



The U. S. Civil Service Commission an- 

 nounces a competitive examination for re- 

 search chemist, to fill two vacancies in this 

 position in the Bureau of Animal Industry, 

 Department of Agriculture, Washington, 

 D. C, at salaries of $1,800 a year. 



The completion of the 30-inch photographic 

 refractor of the Allegheny Observatory has 

 been long delayed by the difficulty of manu- 

 facturing suitable glass disks. These have 

 now been delivered by Schott and Co., of Jena, 

 Germany, and it is expected that the telescope 

 will be in use early next fall. 



At a recent meeting of the board of trustees 

 of the University of Illinois, Mr. R. Y. Wil- 

 liams was appointed director of the miners' 

 and mechanics' institutes, which are to be es- 

 tablished under the direction of the depart- 

 ment of mining engineering. Authority for 

 the establishment of these institutes was 

 granted by an act of the state legislature in 

 1911, but no appropriation was made to carry 

 out the authorization until the latter part of 

 the recent sesion of the legislature, at which 

 time an appropriation of $15,000 per annum 

 was made. The purpose of the miners' and 

 mechanics' institutes is somewhat similar to 



that of the farmers' institutes, but their spe- 

 cific purpose is to assist men who are prepar- 

 ing themselves to pass the tests required by 

 the state before they can hold official positions 

 about the mines. Mr. Williams graduated 

 from Princeton University in 1901. 



It is stated in the British Medical Journal 

 that Dr. L. W. Sambon, who left England in 

 August last to investigate pellagra in the West 

 Indies, returned to London at the beginning 

 of January. By invitation he first proceeded 

 to the United States of America, and in Spar- 

 tanburg, Columbia and Charleston he met sev- 

 eral of the men who have recently devoted 

 themselves to the study of pellagra, and deliv- 

 ered addresses before medical societies in these 

 cities. Dr. Sambon found that in the United 

 States the interest in the disease was very 

 keen, owing no doubt to the evidences of 

 the existence of pellagra to a serious ex- 

 tent in many parts of the country. As is weU 

 known. Dr. Sambon's opinion is that pellagra 

 is not due to the consumption of maize, 

 whether diseased or sound, but that it is caused 

 by an infection brought about most probably 

 by a fly. His investigations in southern and 

 eastern Europe suggested that the intermedi- 

 ary was a simulium, an insect closely allied to 

 the group represented by the sandfly. In the 

 United States Dr. Sambon found many men 

 ready to accept this hypothesis, and was greatly 

 impressed with the work which was being car- 

 ried out by the Thompson-MacFadden Pel- 

 lagra Commission in South Carolina. After 

 leaving the North American continent he pro- 

 ceeded to the West Indies, where he visited 

 Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, Trinidad, Gren- 

 ada, St. Vincent and other islands. In the hos- 

 pitals, asylumns and rural districts he met with 

 many cases of pellagra, and proved the exist- 

 ence of the disease in several areas in which its 

 presence had previously been unknown. Dr. 

 Sambon also visited British Guiana, and found 

 pellagra along the coast from the Demerara to 

 the Berbice rivers. In part of his trip Dr. 

 Sambon was accompanied by Captain Siler, 

 U. S. Army, chief of the American Pellagra 

 Commission, and by Mr. Jennings, of the Ento- 

 mological Bureau, Washington, D. C. 



