298 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 791 



president of the Carnegie Foundation for the 

 Advancement of Teaching; Col. E. A. Stevens, 

 of Castle Point; Hosea Webster, '82, of the 

 Babcock & Wilcox Boiler Co. ; H. M. Brincker- 

 hoff, '90, president of the Alumni Association 

 and electrical associate of Wm. Barclay Par- 

 sons; and E. H. Peabody, '90, of the Babcock 

 & Wilcox Co., the toastmaster. President 

 Humphreys announced that he had recently 

 received $63,500 of the $1,250,000 which he 

 expects to raise for the improvement and ex- 

 tension of the institute. This money is to be 

 used for the purchase of the Castle Point 

 estate, for the erection of several buildings, 

 including a dormitory, a mechanical labora- 

 tory and an electrical laboratory, and to pro- 

 vide an adequate endowment fund. 



The Minnseota Alumni WeeMy states that 

 President A. Eoss Hill, of the University of 

 Missouri, has notified the authorities of the 

 University of Minnesota that he could not 

 consider an offer of the presidency of the 

 university. 



E. D. Thomson, a graduate of Harvard 

 University in the class of 1907, has been ap- 

 pointed instructor in electrical engineering in 

 the University of Vermont. 



Dr. H. Irving Eleshinger, associate in 

 chemistry at the University of Chicago, has 

 been appointed professor in the University of 

 Pekin. Professor Oscar Eckstein, formerly 

 instructor in chemistry in the University of 

 Chicago, is director of the department of 

 science. 



Mr. a. J. Hebeetson, reader in geography 

 at Oxford University, has been appointed to a 

 professorship of geography. 



Mr. a. C. Seward, professor of botany at 

 Cambridge University and a former fellow of 

 St. John's College, has been elected to the 

 professorial fellowship vacated by Mr. Bate- 

 son's resignation of the professorship of biol- 

 ogy. Mr. Bateson has been made honorary 

 fellow of the college. 



At Oxford University Dr. Walter Eamsden, 

 fellow of Pembroke ; Dr. H. M. Vernon, fellow 

 of Magdalen, and Mr. S. G. Scott, B.M., Mag- 

 dalen, have been appointed demonstrators in 

 physiology. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



ON the so-called NORWOOD " METEORITE " 



The issue of Science for January 28 con- 

 tains an article by Professor Erank W. Very 

 entitled " Fall of a Meteorite in Norwood, 

 Massachusetts," descriptive of what he sup- 

 poses to have been a meteoritic stone said to 

 have fallen on the farm of Mr. W. P. Nicker- 

 son, of Norwood, Mass., during the night be- 

 tween October 7-8, 1909. On account of the 

 specific character of the description and for 

 fear that this may be successful in giving the 

 " Norwood meteorite " a place in the litera- 

 ture, I feel that another opinion with regard 

 to the character of the specimen should be 

 placed on record. 



I saw the newspaper account of this fall 

 directly after its occurrence, and after cor- 

 respondence with Mr. Nickerson took the first 

 opportunity that presented itself to examine 

 the specimen, which was then on exhibition 

 in a " dime museum " in Boston. Mr. Nick- 

 erson himself met me there and showed me the 

 stone. Professor Very's account of the ap- 

 pearance of the mass is sufficiently accurate, 

 but his interpretation of it is entirely errone- 

 ous. As a matter of fact, the specimen is a 

 characteristic glacial bowlder of a basic igne- 

 ous dike rock, the matrix in which has been 

 weathered so as to leave the characteristic 

 large phenocrysts of plagioclase projecting 

 from the surface. There is no surface indica- 

 tion whatever of flowage or of the skin which 

 is characteristic of freshly fallen stony 

 meteorites. I broke off a piece of the stone 

 and examined the fresh fracture with the 

 greatest care under a hand lens without find- 

 ing any indication of the existence of metallic 

 iron in the mass. Since reading Professor 

 Very's article, I have had a thin section of 

 my fragment made. Microscopic examination 

 of this proves the rock to be ordinary labra- 

 dorite-porphyry — a diagnosis which has been 

 confirmed by Dr. H. S. Washington, who has 

 called my attention to his description of this 

 rock type from Essex County, Mass.' 



Mr. Nickerson told me about the broken 

 bars of the gateway under which the mass was 



^Journal of Geology, Vol. 7, p. 290, 1899. 



