Maech 4, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



343 



time. But a no less distinctive quality of 

 polonium is the comparatively rapid rate at 

 vehich it disappears. Whereas it takes one 

 thousand years for radium to disappear com- 

 pletely a particle of polonium loses 50 per cent, 

 of its weight in 140 days. The products of its 

 disintegration are helium and another body, 

 the nature of which has not yet been ascer- 

 tained, but Mme. Curie and M. Debierne are 

 inclined to believe it to be lead. Its identity, 

 however, will shortly be established, and at the 

 same time science will have had the experi- 

 mental proof of the transformation of a body 

 which had been believed to be elementary. 



A CODRSE of nine illustrated lectures upon 

 science and travel has been arranged by the 

 Field Museum of Natural History at the Art 

 Institute for Saturday afternoons in March 

 and April, at three o'clock, as follows: 



March 5 — " Snapping Live Game on the Roose- 

 velt Hunting Trail," Mr. A. Radelyflfe Dugmore, 

 New York City. 



March 12—" The Call of the West," Mr. C. J. 

 Blanchard, Statistician, U. S. Reclamation Service. 



March 19 — " Mongolia and Siberia," Professor 

 Roland B. Dixon, Harvard University. 



March 26 — " Our Forests and What They Mean," 

 Dr. Charles F. Millspaugh, curator. Department 

 of Botany. 



April 2 — " Cliff Dwellers and Pueblos," Mrs. 

 Gilbert McClurg, regent general. The Colorado 

 Cliff Dwellers Association. 



April 9 — " Some Alaskan Glaciers," Professor 

 U. S. Grant, Northwestern University. 



April 16 — " Fossil Hunting," Mr. E. S. Riggs, 

 assistant curator, Division of Paleontology. 



April 23 — " Human Development and Evolu- 

 tion," Dr. Frank R. Lillie, University of Chicago. 



April 30 — " The Colorado River," Professor 0. 

 0. Farrington, curator. Department of Geology. 



We learn from the Journal of the American 

 Medical Association that the first biennial 

 meeting of the Far-Eastern Association of 

 Tropical Medicine is to be held in Manila, 

 March 5-14, 1910. The association was estab- 

 lished with the idea of bringing together work- 

 ers in tropical medicine in that part of the 

 ■world, and is important in that it brings 

 English-speaking scientific workers together 

 for mutual social and scientific improvement. 



The sessions in Manila will be held in the new 

 building of the Philippine Medical School 

 near the Bureau of Science and the new Gov- 

 ernment Hospital. The sessions in Baguio 

 will be held in one of the government build- 

 ings. The government has appropriated a lib- 

 eral sum for entertainment of guests during 

 the meeting. Visits have been arranged to 

 points of interest in the neighborhood. The 

 museums of the Bureau of Science and of the 

 Philippine Medical School will be thrown open 

 and demonstrations of the specimens wiU be 

 given. There will be a commercial exhibit of 

 remedial appliances and medical equipment 

 appropriate for use in the tropics. 



President David Starr Jordan, of Stan- 

 ford University, has addressed to President 

 Charles E. Van Hise, of the University of 

 Wisconsin, the following letter: 



Will you permit me a word in regard to reform 

 in football? I believe that no refonn worth con- 

 sideration is possible so long as the game allows 

 the play known as " interference," by the legaliza- 

 tion of which the Rugby Game was some twenty 

 years ago perverted into the " American Game." 

 As results of the legalization of " offside play " 

 or " interference," forbidden in Rugby, we have 

 the four most objectionable features of the Amer- 

 ican Game, (a) mass play and "downs," (6) low 

 tackling in the open field, (c) play directed to 

 break down individuals of the opposite side, (d) 

 the domination of professional coaches, whose in- 

 terests are wholly at variance with those of the 

 university. 



In 1904, at the height of the football obsession 

 in California, the presidents and committees on 

 athletics of the two universities notified the stu- 

 dents that no form of football having mass play 

 would be again permitted. The students then 

 adopted the Rugby game. It has been tested for 

 five seasons, and it is wholly satisfactory to all 

 concerned. The game demands a much higher 

 grade of skill and alertness. It is far more inter- 

 esting to watch. It is interesting to the players. 

 It is a sport and not a battle. As witu baseball, 

 so with Rugby, each player must know the game. 

 It is played not in armor, but in cotton knee- 

 breeches, and there have been in five years no 

 injuries of any consequence. 



The game is now played in the universities and 

 colleges of California and Nevada. It attracts 

 (perhaps unfortunately) larger numbers of spec- 



