JUNE 28 1901.) 
observatory department. Bushey-house, in 
spite of its aristocratic history, would make an 
admirable laboratory. The building was very 
solid and substantial, and there was a good 
basement under the main central block with a 
roof of brick groining which afforded a very 
steady support for the floors above. The 
lecturer illustrated its plan with a number of 
slides, and compared it with the Reichsanstalt, 
which had an available space seven or eight 
times greater. But size alone was not an un- 
mixed advantage, and personally he would 
prefer to begin in a small way if only he was 
in a position to do the work thoroughly. But 
there was a danger of starvation. Even with 
all the help the committee got in freedom from 
rent and taxes, outside repairs, and main- 
tenance, the sum at its disposal was too small ; 
£14,000 would not build and equip the lab- 
oratory, and £4,000 a year would not main- 
tain it as it ought to be maintained. In America 
the Bill for the establishment of a laboratory 
which had just been passed authorized an outlay 
of £60,000 on buildings and site and an annual 
expenditure of £9,000. Was there no one who, 
realizing the importance of the alliance between 
science and industry, would come forward with 
more ample funds to start the laboratory with a 
fair prospect of success? Was there no states- 
man who could grasp the position and see that 
with double the income the chances of doing a 
great work would increase a hundred-fold? 
Give the institution means to employ the best 
men and it would answer the difficult problems 
it had to solve; starve it, and then quote its 
failure showing the usefulness of science applied 
to industry. In the concluding part of his lec- 
ture Mr. Glazebrook gaye an account first of 
some problems of industry which had already 
been solved by the application of science, e. g., 
glass for optical purposes, and then of some 
others which still.remained unsolved and which 
the laboratory hoped to attack, e. g., alloys, 
wind-pressure on bridges and similar structures, 
the exact determination of the relations be- 
tween the scales of the mercury, hydrogen, and 
electrical resistance thermometers, and the mag- 
netic testing of specimens of iron and steel, be- 
sides the standardization and calibration of 
various scientific instruments. 
SCIENCE. 
1037 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 
AT the convocation exercises of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago last week, a departure was 
made, in celebration of the tenth anniversary of 
the University, from the usual custom of not 
conferring honorary degrees. The LL.D. de- 
gree was conferred on ten men of eminence, 
including in the sciences, J. H. van’t Hoff, 
professor of physical chemistry in the Univer- 
sity of Berlin; Dr. A. Kovalevski, professor of 
zoology in the University of St. Petersburg; 
Dr. HE. C. Pickering, director of the Harvard 
College Observatory ; Dr. Charles D. Walcott, 
director of the U. S. Geological Survey, and 
Dr. E. B. Wilson, professor of zoology in Co- 
lumbia University. 
Proressor A. 8. PACKARD, who has held 
since 1878 the chair of zoology and geology at 
Brown University, has been elected a foreign 
member of the Linnean Society of London. 
The other American members of the society 
are: Alexander Agassiz, emeritus director of 
the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard 
University ; W. G. Farlow, professor of eryp- 
togamic botany, Harvard University; D. H. 
Campbell, professor of botany, Stanford Uni- 
versity, and C. O. Whitman, professor of zool- 
ogy, University of Chicago. 
At its recent commencement Cornell Col- 
lege, Iowa, conferred the degree of LL.D. upon 
Mr. W J McGee, ethnologist in charge of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington. 
Dr. McGee is of Iowa birth and education, and 
one of his most important works, a classic in 
glacial geology, is ‘The Pleistocene History of 
Northeastern Iowa.’ The honor thus comes 
with special propriety from an Iowa school. 
M. BeRTHELOT (Paris) was elected an honor- 
ary member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences 
on June 1, and the following corresponding 
members were at the same time elected: Pro- 
fessors Schlegel (Leyden), Oppert (Paris), Linde 
(Munich), Retzius (Stockholm) and Kovalevski 
(St. Petersburg). 
AT the recent meeting of the Royal Society of 
Canada, Professor A. B. Macallum, of the Uni- 
versity of Toronto, and Mr. Lawrence M. 
Lamb, of the Geological Survey of Canada, 
