138 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 995 



Seventy-five per cent, of a highly valuable 

 fertilizing material in the form of tankage and 

 blood from the country slaughter of food ani- 

 mals is being wasted throughout the country 

 districts, according to a recent bulletin of the 

 Department of Agriculture. Tankage, a 

 product of slaughter houses consisting of such 

 waste material as bones, horns, hoofs, hair, 

 etc., contains a large percentage of nitrogen 

 and other products used in commercial ferti- 

 lizer and in the larger packing houses is care- 

 fully saved. In country killing, however, only 

 25 per cent, of the tankage and blood are 

 saved for fertilizer. The nitrogen content of 

 tankage is said to vary from 5 to 8 per cent, 

 and its phosphoric acid content between 5 and 

 12 per cent. Dried blood is perhaps the 

 richest in nitrogen of all the organic materials 

 used in the fertilizing industries. Unadulter- 

 ated blood when quite dry contains 14 per 

 cent, of nitrogen, but as obtained on the 

 market its content varies from 9 to 13 per 

 cent. From the figures estimated by the Bu- 

 reau of Animal Industry, Department of 

 Agriculture, as representing the total slaugh- 

 ter of cattle, calves, swine, and sheep in the 

 United States, in 1912, it has been calculated 

 that if all the materials rendered available by 

 this slaughter had been saved and converted 

 into tankage and dried blood, they would have 

 produced 222,535 tons of tankage and Y9,Y94 

 tons of dried blood. The introduction of a 

 cooperative system among American farmers 

 undoubtedly would result in an increased 

 utilization of blood and tankage for fertilizing 

 purposes. In Denmark country killing is be- 

 ing practised on a cooperative basis in small 

 country abattoirs, and the blood is carefully 

 preserved. • 



UNIFEBSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 



A NEW art building to cost $125,000 is now 

 guaranteed for Oberlin College. The names 

 of the donors are at their request withheld. 



Me. F. W. Bradley has offered a gift of 

 $1,000 a year for at least ten years to endow 

 a loan fund for students in the college of min- 

 ing of the University of California. Both 



principal and income of the gift are to be 

 available for these loans. 



Harvard University has received the sum 

 of $7,500 with which to establish a scholarship 

 in memory of the late Francis Harden Burr, 

 '09. This fund is to be known as the Francis 

 H. Burr 1909 Fund, and the yearly income 

 therefrom is to be used in helping deserving 

 undergraduates who combine as nearly as pos- 

 sible Burr's remarkable qualities of character, 

 leadership and athletic ability. The fund was 

 raised principally from the members of Burr's 

 class, but some of his older friends also con- 

 tributed. 



By the will of the late Miss Emily M. Eas- 

 ton £10,000 are bequeathed to the Durham 

 College of Medicine, Newcastle, and £5,000 to 

 Armstrong College. 



The dedication at the winter convocation 

 of the University of Chicago of the new addi- 

 tion to the Ryerson Physical Laboratory 

 marks a great increase in the research facili- 

 ties of the university in the field of physics. 

 The new addition is connected with the orig- 

 inal building by corridors and consists of a 

 basement and three floors. It contains the 

 liquid air and refrigerating plants, the dyna- 

 mos and motors, the machine and instrument 

 shops, and the switchboard for distributing 

 electric currents of all kinds to all parts of 

 both buildings. It has besides two large stu- 

 dent laboratories, a lecture room and four re- 

 search rooms. The old Ryerson Laboratory 

 has been renewed by the installation of a mod- 

 ern electric light and power system of unusual 

 completeness, by the insertion of new steel- 

 concrete floors in all the ground-floor rooms, 

 and by the remodeling of the entire basement 

 into a series of special research rooms, of great 

 value where freedom from vibration and con- 

 stancy of temperature are required. 



The associates of Radcliffe College have 

 elected Miss Bertha May Boody to succeed 

 Miss Mary Coes as dean of the college. Miss 

 Boody is a native of Brookline and received 

 the A.B. degree from Radcliffe in 1899 and the 

 A.M. degree from Columbia in 1912. She has 



