NovEMBER 17, 1899. ] 
They simply show that the limited quantity of 
alcohol that was given with other food material 
in the diet of healthy men for periods of a few * 
days was almost completely burned in the body 
and yielded a certain amount of energy, and 
that this energy was actually utilized by the 
body, as is the energy which the body obtains 
from sugar, starch, fat and other ingredients of 
food. The clear evidence of this fact presented 
by these experiments is an important contribu- 
tion to our knowledge concerning the nutritive 
action of alcohol. 
These experiments mark only a single step 
toward the settlement of the broad questions 
involved in the use of alcoholic beverages. It 
is believed that the facts presented by them are 
reliable. But it should be remembered that 
the physiological action of alcohol involves 
much beside its nutritive effect. Its influence 
upon the circulatory and nervous functions is 
especially important. These matters are not 
treated in Professor Atwater’s experiments. 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 
Dr. SAMUEL W. STRATTON, associate professor 
of physics in the University of Chicago, has 
been appointed director of the Bureau of 
Weights and Measures, United States Coast 
and Geodetic Survey. 
Tue Rumford Committee of the American 
Academy of Artsand Sciences has appropriated 
the sum of $500, to Professor E. B. Frost of the 
Yerkes Observatory, to assist in the construction 
of a spectrograph especially designed for the 
measurement of stellar velocities in the line of 
sight. 
Proressor H. A. RowLanpd of the John’s 
Hopkins University has been elected a foreign 
member of the Royal Society of Lombardy. 
Av the November meeting of the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, Mr. Rudyard 
Kipling was elected a foreign honorary mem- 
ber in Class III., Section 4; and Sir Benjamin 
Baker of London, a foreign honorary member 
in Class I., Section 4 ; the latter in the place of 
the late Sir Henry Bessemer. 
Ow1Nne to the press of his official duties as the 
Hydrographer of the United States Geological 
Survey, Mr. F. H. Newell has been obliged to 
SCIENCE. 
741 
resign the Secretaryship of the National Geo- 
graphic Society (Washington, D. C.), an office 
which he has ably and zealously filled for the 
last two years. Asa successor to Mr. Newell 
the Society has been fortunate in securing the 
acceptance of the office by Mr. Joseph Stanley- 
Browne, well known as the editor of the publi- 
cations and proceedings of the Geological So- 
ciety of America. 
THE National Academy of Sciences is hold- 
ing its annual autumn meeting at Columbia 
University as we go to press. 
Tur American Society of Naturalists will 
meet at Yale University, New Haven, on 
Wednesday, December 28th. The discussion 
in the afternoon will be on ‘ The Position that 
Universities should take in Regard to Investi- 
gation.’ 
PRELIMINARY announcements have also been 
prepared in regard to the meetings at New 
Haven of the American Psychological Associ- 
ation and of the. Anthropological Section of the 
American Association for the Advancement of 
Science. The meetings will be on Wednesday, 
Thursday and Friday, December 27th, 28th 
and 29th. In the case of the Psychological As- 
sociation the address of the president, Pro- 
fessor Dewey, will be given on the afternoon of 
Wednesday, followed by an informal discussion, 
while on Thursday morning there will be si- 
multaneous sectional meetings for technical 
papers. 
TuE New York Zoological Park was formally 
opened to the public on the 8th inst. An ad- 
dress of welcome was made by Professor Henry 
F. Osborn, Chairman of the Executive Commit- 
tee of the Zoological Society, which was re- 
sponded to by Mr. Bird S. Coler, Controller of 
the City, and Mr. August Moebus, Park Com- 
missioner of the Borough of the Bronx. Mr. 
Levi P. Morton, President of the Zoological So- 
ciety, then formally declared the Park open. 
Twenty-five buildings and other installations 
for animals have been completed, and these 
now contain 850 animals. 
M. Bénarp, the French architect whose 
plans for the University of California are de- 
scribed in the present issue of SCIENCE, will 
leave Paris this month for Berkeley. 
