Febeuart 18, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



261. 



Hughes presided and a telegram was read 

 from President Taft whicli expressed the hope 

 that congress would take some substantial 

 notice of Commander Peary's great achieve- 

 ment. Governor Hughes presented Com- 

 mander Peary with a purse containing $10,- 

 000 which he immediately contributed toward 

 fitting out an Antarctic expedition. A bill 

 has been passed by the senate making Com- 

 mander Peary a rear-admiral of the navy and 

 placing him on the retired list. 



The Langley medal of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution, created in 1908 in commemoration 

 of Professor Langley and his work in aero- 

 dromics, was presented to Messrs. Orville and 

 Wilbur Wright on February 10. Dr. Alex- 

 ander Graham Bell and Senator Lodge made 

 addresses and Chief Justice Fuller presented 

 the medals. 



The French Academy of Moral and Polit- 

 ical Sciences has elected Professor William 

 James, of Harvard University, a foreign mem- 

 ber of the society, in the room of the late M. 

 de Martens, of St. Petersburg. Professor 

 James has been a corresponding member of 

 the academy since 1898. 



The University of Cambridge has conferred 

 the honorary degree of Sc.D. upon Dr. Mark 

 Aurel Stein, explorer; and the honorary de- 

 gree of M.A. upon the Eev. John Eoscoe, mis- 

 sionary and anthropologist. 



The Academy of Natural Sciences of Phil- 

 adelphia has appointed Professor Edwin 

 Grant Conklin a vice-president, and Professor 

 Ludwig von GrafF, a corresponding member, 

 as delegates to represent it at the eighth In- 

 ternational Zoological Congress. 



The American Institute of Electrical Engi- 

 neers has appointed Professor A. E. Kennelly 

 president of the United States national com- 

 mittee of the International Electrotechnieal 

 Commission. 



Mr. Chas. a. Scott, professor of forestry, 

 Iowa State College, has been elected state 

 forester for Kansas, under the provisions of a 

 law enacted by the legislature of 1909. Pre- 

 viously he was for several years in the Forest 

 Service of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. 



Dr. Charles B. Davenport, director of the- 

 Station for Experimental Evolution of the 

 Carnegie Institution, has given three lectures 

 on " Heredity in its Application to Animal 

 and Plant Breeding and to Man " at the 

 Johns Hopkins University as follows : 



February 7 — " The Material Basis of Heredity." 



February 8—" The Method of Inheritance of 

 Characteristics." 



February 9 — " Heredity in Man." 



The students of Professor Spalding have 

 set up a bronze tablet at the University of 

 Michigan, bearing the following inscription:. 



VOLIJET MOKGAN SPALDING 



In commemoration of twenty-eight years 

 of faithful service as teacher of botany in 

 this university (1876 to 1904) and as a token 

 of love and gratitude this tablet is erected by 

 100 of his former students. 



Per naturae opera mentem ad humanitatem 

 fingebat atque virtutem. 

 Bone in MCMIX. 



The committee having the memorial in charge- 

 consisted of Professor L. E. Jones, Professor 

 F. C. Newcombe and Dr. Erwin F. Smith. 



Dr. William Bradley Eising, professor of 

 chemistry in the University of California, 

 died at his home in Berkeley on February 9 

 at the age of seventy years. 



The German Society of Scientific Men and . 

 Physicians will hold its eighty-second annual 

 congress this year at Konigsberg from Sep- 

 tember 18 to 24. 



A CONVENTION of American Ceramic Socie-- 

 ties was held in Pittsburgh on February 7, 8 

 and 9. 



Through Dr. S. Weir Mitchell the College 

 of Physicians and Surgeons of Philadelphia 

 has received a gift of $75,000 from an un- 

 known donor. The gift relieves the college • 

 from debt. 



The Tennessee Geological Survey will be • 

 established as a bureau of the state govern- 

 ment, independent of any educational institu- 

 tion, with ofiices at the state capitol and with 

 a director who will give his entire time to the - 

 work of the survey. Chancellor Jas. H. Kirk- 

 land, of Vanderbilt University, and President 

 Brown Ayres, of the University of Tennessee, . 



