April 29, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



665 



The New York Botanical Garden has ar- 

 ranged spring lectures to be delivered in the 

 lecture hall of the museum building of the 

 garden, Bronx Park, on Saturday afternoons, 

 at four o'clock, as follows: 



April 30—" Spring Flowers," Dr. N. L. Britton. 



May 7— " CJollecting in Southern Mexico," Dr. 

 W. A. Murrill. 



May 14—" The Origin and Formation of Coal," 

 Dr. Arthur Holliek. 



May 21— "Water Lilies," Mr. Greorge V. Nash. 



May 28—" An Expedition to the Panama Canal 

 Zone," Dr. M. A. Howe. 



June i — " Summer Flowers," Dr. N. L. Britton. 



June 11— "The Rose and its History," Mr. 

 George V. Nash. 



June 18—" The Native Trees of the Hudson 

 Valley," Mr. Norman Taylor. 



June 25—" The Extinct Flora of New York City 

 and Vicinity," Dr. Arthur Holliek. 



July 2— "The Fungous Diseases of Shade 

 Trees," Dr. W. A. Murrill. 



The Third International Physiotherapeutic 

 Congress was inaugurated by President Fal- 

 lieres in the courtyard of the School of Med- 

 icine at Paris, on March 29. The London 

 Times states that a large number of members 

 of the French government and the diplomatic 

 corps in Paris, including the British and 

 American ambassadors, were present at the 

 ceremony. M. Fallieres in his address de- 

 clared that all questions relating to the public 

 health were the intimate concern of every 

 government. He spoke of the advance of 

 medical science in having established the fact 

 that some diseases which were the great 

 scourges of humanity could no longer be re- 

 garded as " inevitable," and he ventured to 

 look forward to the day when by the aid of 

 medical science these diseases would be actu- 

 ally eliminated. He also felt that the medical 

 profession was justified in its hope of a future 

 population which would be better adapted 

 physically for the struggle of modern life in 

 the office and in the workshop. 



priate $10,000 toward its maintenance, has 

 passed the New York assembly. 



The mining engineering building of the 

 University of Wisconsin, formerly the old 

 heating plant, has been entirely rearranged 

 for its new purposes, and is nearing comple- 

 tion, much of the equipment of modern min- 

 ing machinery having already arrived, and 

 the laboratories will soon be in readiness for 

 research and instruction. 



Dr. a. Stanley McKenzie, professor of 

 physics at Dalhousie University, and previ- 

 ously at Bryn Mawr College, has accepted a 

 chair of physics at the Stevens Institute of 

 Technology. 



Dr. Charles A. Kofoid, associate professor 

 of histology and embryology in the Univer- 

 sity of California, has been appointed pro- 

 fessor of zoology in that institution. 



Mr. Henry Homan Jeffcott, head of the 

 meteorology department of the British Na- 

 tional Physical Laboratory, has been appointed 

 to the chair of engineering in the Royal Col- 

 lege of Science for Ireland. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 Assemblyman Whitney's bill to establish a 

 state school of sanitary science and public 

 health at Cornell University, and to appro- 



DI8CU8SI0N AND CORRESPONDENCE 



THE PLANET MARS 



To THE Editor of Science: I should very 

 much like to urge the importance of the sug- 

 gestion made by Professor E. G. Aitken in 

 the issue of Science for January 21, 1910, 

 that Mr. Percival Lowell invite a committee 

 of recognized experts in planetary observa- 

 tion, to go to Flagstaff and with him to ob- 

 serve the planet Mars (and if possible Venus 

 and Mercury also). 



I find here in South America just as keen 

 an interest by the public in the real state of 

 our knowledge as to Mars, as anywhere in the 

 world, and am sure that no greater service 

 could be rendered to astronomical science 

 from the standpoint of the intelligent public, 

 than to settle some of the many open ques- 

 tions relating to the surface markings of 

 Mars. 



As Professor Aitken points out, " doctors 

 disagree " in this matter and to such an ex- 



