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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 792 



tators than the old game ever did. It is now 

 played in most of the leading high schools of 

 California. It is firmly and permanently estab- 

 lished on the Pacific Coast, unless, as in the East, 

 it is modified to suit the purposes of professional 

 coaches. It seems to me that our experience in 

 California should be worth something to our col- 

 leagues in the East. 



Very truly yours, 



David Stark Jokdan 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 The medical school of the University of 

 Pennsylvania has been given $100,000 by an 

 unnamed alumnus to endow a chair to be 

 known as " the Benjamin Rush professorship 

 of physiological chemistry." 



The valuable library on mathematics and 

 science of the late Oren Eoot, for many years 

 professor of mathematics at Hamilton College, 

 has been presented to the college by his son, 

 Mr. Elihu Eoot. 



The dedication of three new engineering 

 buildings at the University of Kansas oc- 

 curred on February 25. The buildings are 

 those provided for by the legislature of 1907, 

 and are a general engineering building, hous- 

 ing the departments of civil and mechanical 

 engineering and, as a temporary matter, the 

 department of electrical engineering ; a mining 

 and geology building, and the mechanical 

 laboratory and power plant. In the afternoon, 

 at 2 :30, addresses were given by Dean Frank 

 0. Marvin, Dr. Eichard C. Maclaurin, presi- 

 dent of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology, and Mr. Ernest E. Bucldey, president 

 of the American Mining Congress. Follow- 

 ing these were the dedication ceremonies, 

 under the direction of Chancellor Frank 

 Strong. In the evening a banquet was held 

 at Eobinson Gymnasium, with after-diimer 

 speeches. 



The Dutch government has appropriated 

 $100,000 for a laboratory of physical and min- 

 eral chemistry at Groningen, where Professor 

 F. M. Jaeger is head of the department. 



Dr. Bertram E. Boltwood has been elected 

 professor of radio-chemistry in the graduate 

 school of Tale University. 



Professor Seitaeo Goto has been called to 

 the chair of zoology at the Tokyo Imperial 

 University to succeed the late Professor 

 Kakichi Mitsukuri. Naohide Tatsu, Ph.D. 

 (Columbia), has been appointed assistant pro- 

 fessor. Katashi Takahashi, Ph.D. (Chicago), 

 has been appointed to the professorship of 

 zoology at the First High School to fill the 

 vacancy caused by the resignation of Professor 

 Goto. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



'•' A SUBSTITUTE FOR CROSS WIRES IN THE 

 SPECTROSCOPE 



To THE Editor of Science: Should any of 

 the readers of Science be in possession of 

 spectroscopes which are unprovided with 

 cross wires, it may interest them to learn of 

 a cheap method of supplying a substitute for 

 such desirable articles, which has been found 

 of service in this laboratory, and which, so far 

 as the writer knows, has not hitherto been 

 published. 



The method consists in inserting, either in 

 the ocular, or telescope tube, at the proper 

 focal point, a thin glass disc on which is 

 etched a cross with lines about as heavy as the 

 wires in an ordinary cross wire eyepiece. 

 This cross, when in focus, appears as per- 

 fectly opaque lines, which fully answer the 

 purpose of cross wires. 



These discs have been in use here for some 

 time, and their working has been compared 

 with that of the regular cross wire eyepieces 

 without any difference between the two being 

 noticed. In fact, the cross wires of one of our 

 instruments being somewhat too heavy, we 

 removed them, and substituted a ruled disc 

 with manifest gain in ease of working. The 

 glass disc does not seem to obscure any por- 

 tion of the spectrum; all portions, both of 

 emission and absorption spectra, having been 

 observed therethrough with instruments of 

 various powers, both prism and grating, with- 

 out any appreciable loss of either brightness 

 or definition. 



For observing a bright line spectrum it is 



