Apeil 3, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



501 



psychology and zoology. The entire equip- 

 ment and the collections of each of these four 

 sciences are destroyed, and the department 

 libraries of geology, physics and zoology. As 

 a consequence, these departments are seriously 

 crippled and are in great need of assistance. 



The collections of the geology department 

 were very valuable and some were very rare 

 mineral specimens. Eecently many new cases 

 had been acquired and space for exhibition. 

 The lantern of this department was the only 

 piece of apparatus that survived the fire, but 

 the thousands of lantern slides were destroyed. 

 The more important losses to physics are 

 lantern slides, collection of crystals, a unique 

 collection of ISTicol prisms, and complete files 

 of the important scientific journals, some 

 dating back to 1800. 



Besides the actual equipment, the most seri- 

 ous loss to the psychology department is the 

 destruction of its records of experiments, 

 memory and intelligence tests on normal and 

 abnormal subjects, the results of several years 

 of work. 



The zoology museum was far richer than 

 was generally known. It was inadequately 

 lioused and crowded, and its specimens were 

 never displayed to advantage. The collections 

 represented the results of many years of labor 

 and of careful selection, and were essentially 

 study collections, planned for special courses, 

 and constantly in use by different groups of 

 students. The losses which will be felt most 

 keenly by the individual courses are the North 

 American birds and insects, the general inver- 

 tebrate collections, recently enriched by mate- 

 rial from the zoological station at Naples, the 

 mounted and disarticulated skeletons, the his- 

 tology and embryology slides, and the physiol- 

 ogy apparatus. 



The personal losses of the teaching staff are 

 very great. In the zoology and psychology 

 departments alone, original work, drawings, 

 notes, collections, microscopes and apparatus, 

 books and reprints, all are gone. 



Aid has come already in generous measure 

 to the four stricken departments from many 

 colleges and museums near Boston, from 

 dark University, Mt. Holyoke College, the 



University of Pennsylvania, Vassar College, 

 and from former students and friends of 

 Wellesley; and material has been lent and 

 given that will enable the scientific courses to 

 reopen with the rest of the college on April 7, 

 in the laboratories of the departments of 

 astronomy, botany, chemistry and hygiene, all 

 of which are in separate buildings and are 

 therefore untouched by this disaster. 



Our future needs are very great, buildings, 

 equipment, material for work, museum speci- 

 mens, books. May the realization of these 

 needs bring yet more help to our support. 



CAROLmE Burling Thompson 

 Wellesley College 



THE PRESIDENCY OF TEE UNIVERSITY 

 OF IOWA 



The president of the University of Iowa 

 has, under the date of March 20, 1914, ad- 

 dressed to the Iowa State Board of Education, 

 the following letter: 



By this letter I submit to you my resignation, as 

 president of the State University of Iowa, to take 

 effect at your earliest convenience. Some expla- 

 nation of this action is due to you and to those in- 

 terested in the welfare of the university. Such 

 explanation follows: 



At the meeting of your board held at Cedar 

 Falls, March 11, you considered in executive ses- 

 sion a number of administrative matters concern- 

 ing the university. Among other things at that 

 time you dismissed a professor of the university 

 without a hearing and without the knowledge or 

 advice of the chief executive of the institution. 

 Whether or not the facts, if you have them, war- 

 ranted the professor's dismissal is not now the is- 

 sue to which I call your attention; and I pass 

 over for the moment the obvious fact that the pro- 

 fessor himself had a right to be heard. I can not 

 avoid the inference that your action is deliberately 

 intended to express lack of confidence in the ad- 

 ministration of the university. 



Before I came to the university in 1911 I asked 

 you in writing to consider thoroughly the step you 

 proposed; it was for you to decide whether or not 

 I was the man for the place and I called your at- 

 tention to this fact. As part of the terms on 

 which I finally accepted the position you agreed 

 in writing that all recommendations for appoint- 



