June 12, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



867 



sponding Secretary, Professor James Mc- 

 Mahon, department of mathematics; Treas- 

 urer, Professor W. A. Eiley, department of 

 biology; Program Committee, Professor H. N. 

 Ogden, civil engineering; Professor H. S. 

 Jacoby, civil engineering; Professor A. W. 

 Gilbert, department of plant breeding, and 

 Professor A. W. Browne, ex-officio. 



Professor W. M. Davis gave a lecture in 

 the Town Hall at Suva, Fiji, on April 30, on 

 " The Origin of the Coral Eeefs of Fiji," in 

 which he presented the chief results of his 

 seven weeks' visit to those islands as a part of 

 his Shaler Memorial study of coral reefs in 

 the South Pacific. On May first he left for 

 New Zealand. 



On May 25 Professor M. A. Eosanoff, of 

 Clark University, presented before the re- 

 search staflF of the Mellon Institute, Univer- 

 sity of Pittsburgh, a theory of the mechanism 

 of sugar inversion by acids. 



De. Amos Lawrence Mason, senior physi- 

 cian of the Boston City Hospital and formerly 

 associate professor of clinical medicine at the 

 Harvard Medical School, has died at the age 

 of seventy-two years. 



The death is announced of Miss Ida Preund, 

 late lecturer in chemistry at Newnham Col- 

 lege, Cambridge. 



Mr. William West, lecturer at the Brad- 

 ford Technical College, known for his contri- 

 butions to botany, died on May 14, aged sisty- 

 eight years. 



Le Figaro for May 9 contains an announce- 

 ment of the death of the noted French mathe- 

 matician Jules Molk, who is especially well 

 known to American mathematicians as the 

 principal editor of the French edition of the 

 large mathematical encyclopedia, which is now 

 being published jointly by Gauthier-Villars of 

 Paris and B. G. Teubner of Leipzig. 



The U. S. Civil Service Commission an- 

 nounces ani examination for assistant bio- 

 chemist in the U. S. Public Health Service, 

 for duty in the field, at $2,000 a year, and for 

 assistant mining engineer, in the Bureau of 

 Mines, for service in the field, in relation to 



coal mining or metal mining, at salaries 

 ranging from $1,800 to $2,400. 



On the afternoon of May 23, a conference 

 was held at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden be- 

 tween the garden staff and the high school 

 teachers of biology of Greater New York, as 

 represented by the New York Association of 

 Biology Teachers. The purpose of the con- 

 ference was to offer an opportunity for the 

 members of the association to become better 

 acquainted with the aims, equipment and work 

 of the garden, and to enable the latter to 

 secure from the teachers practical suggestions 

 as to how the garden may render the largest 

 service to the teaching of botany in New York 

 City and vicinity. The program was as 

 follows : 



What the garden can offer the schools. 

 The director of the garden. 

 The curator of public instruction. 

 The instructor. 

 High school classes at the garden. 



The teachers of classes that have used the 

 garden. 

 Suggestions from teachers. 



Open discussion led by the president of the 

 New York Association of Biology Teachers. 



Following the conference there was an inspec- 

 tion of the first section of the laboratory 

 building and the first two sections of the con- 

 servatories. The second section of the con- 

 servatories devoted to tropical economic plants 

 was opened to visitors for the first time on 

 this occasion and will hereafter be open to 

 the public daily. 



The Harpswell Laboratory will be open for 

 its fifteenth season from June 21 to the middle 

 of September. It is intended to offer to inves- 

 tigators an opportunity to study a more north- 

 em fauna and flora than any other station in 

 the United States. Though the laboratory is 

 small, it has a good equipment, sufficient for 

 any ordinary investigations. Its location, at 

 South Harpswell, Me., on the shore of Casco 

 Bay, assures abundant material for various 

 lines of biological investigation, as well as a 

 most comfortable summer climate and fine 

 natural scenery. During the past some 

 seventy higher institutions of learning have 



