574 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 798 



to the nitrate-of-soda deposits of Chile, 

 making but a brief water transportation 

 necessary for delivery, and the existence of 

 pyrites in great abundance in the vicinity 

 of the Isthmus making the production of 

 sulphuric, and hence mixed, acids easy and 

 simple, were a few of the many advantages 

 which would follow the adoption of this 

 plan. But not the least would be the civil- 

 izing influence which chemical manufac- 

 ture always exerts. It is unnecessary to 

 say that up to the present, I have been 

 unsuccessful in my endeavors to introduce 

 chemical manufactures into the Central 

 American states, but I trust that you, who 

 have done me the honor to listen to me, 

 may succeed where I have failed. 



Charles E. Muneoe 

 Geoege Washington Univeesitt 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 The funeral of Mr. Alexander Agassiz was 

 held in Appleton Chapel, Harvard University, 

 on Sunday, April 3. 



A TESTIMONIAL dinner to Dr. Charles Fred- 

 erick Chandler was given at the Waldorf -As- 

 toria on April 2, to permit his former students 

 and associates to express, before his retire- 

 ment, their appreciation of his forty-six years 

 of service to Columbia TJniversity, and his 

 lifetime of devotion to the cause of education 

 and science. It was announced that a lecture- 

 ship in honor of Dr. Chandler would be en- 

 dowed by his former students and that the 

 chemical museum of the university would be 

 named in his honor. 



Dk. T. Mura, F.E.S., has been elected presi- 

 dent of the South African Association for the 

 Advancement of Science for the meeting in 

 Cape Town, the date of which is not yet set. 

 Dr. Eichaed Dedekind, professor of mathe- 

 matics at Brunswick, has been elected a for- 

 eign member of the Paris Academy of Sci- 

 ences. 



SiE James Dewae, F.R.S., has been elected 

 an honorary member of the American Chem- 

 ical Society. 



Mr. Frederic A. Lucas, curator-in-chief of 

 the Brooklyn Museum, has been elected a life 

 member of the American Museum of Natural 

 History on account of the practical assistance 

 which he has rendered it and because of his 

 contributions to science. 



A dinner was given in honor of Sir John 

 Murray in London on April 5, in connection 

 with the Michael Sars expedition for the ex- 

 ploration of the North Atlantic. 



Professor L. A. Wait, head of the depart- 

 ment of mathematics at Cornell University, 

 will retire from active service at the close of 

 the present academic year. 



Dr. a. E. Ward, director of the State 

 Hygienic Laboratory at Berkeley, Cal., has 

 been appointed chief of the veterinary corps 

 of the Philippine Islands. 



At the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory Dr. E. O. Hovey has been promoted to 

 the curatorship in geology to succeed Dr. E. 

 P. Whitfield, who shortly before his death be- 

 came curator emeritus. In the department of 

 anthropology. Dr. Pliny E. Goddard has been 

 appointed associate curator, Mr. Harlan I. 

 Smith has been advanced to associate curator- 

 ship. Dr. Herbert J. Spinden has been ap- 

 pointed assistant curator and Mr. Alanson 

 Skinner has been added to the list as assistant. 

 A new department of public health has been 

 established with Professor C. E. A. Winslow 

 as curator. A new department of woods and 

 forestry has been established, with Miss Mary 

 C. Dickerson in charge. 



Dr. Hermon C. Bumpus, director of the 

 American Museum of Natural History, is ma- 

 king an expedition to Mexico to plan the re- 

 production of certain prehistoric ruins for 

 structural use in the new hall of Mexican 

 archeology. Mr. Frank M. Chapman, curator 

 of ornithology, accompanied Dr. Bumpus to 

 make studies and collect specimens for a 

 group of Mexican birds. 



Chauncey Juday, lecturer in zoology at the 

 University of Wisconsin and expert on the 

 staff of the Wisconsin Natural History Sur- 

 vey, has just returned from a five-weeks trip 

 through Central America, where he studied 



