8M 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 573. 



Our results agree entirely with those of 

 MacDougall. Discussion of their significance 

 may well be postponed until the completion of 

 an investigation, now in progress, of the rela- 

 tions of age and physiological rhythms to time 

 estimation. 



Robert M. Yerkes, 

 F. M. Urban. 

 Hakvaed University. 



preliminary announcement concerning a 



new mercury mineral from 



terlingua, texas. 



The raercury minerals of the Terlingua 

 district, Texas, are noted for the unusual 

 composition of several of their number. Be- 

 sides cinnabar, calomel and mercuric oxide, 

 two oxychlorides, eglestonite and terlinguaite, 

 have been described in detail by Professor A. 

 J. Moses (A. J. S. 166, 253, 1903), and a third, 

 as yet unnamed, has been provisionally iden- 

 tified by him as likewise an oxychloi'ide. This 

 last, the No. 5 of Professor Moses, seems to 

 be the chief mineral in a number of speci- 

 mens from the Terlingua District lately re- 

 ceived for identification from Mr. PI. W. 

 Turner. Its examination reveals a composi- 

 tion most singular and apparently represen- 

 tative of a class of compounds hitherto un- 

 known in nature, viz. : mer cur- ammonium 

 salts. So far as yet known, the qualitative 

 composition is represented by the components 

 Hg, ]Sr, CI, SO^, probably O and possibly H. 

 The tests, both qualitative and quantitative, 

 thus far made, seem to show with little room 

 for doubt that the mercury and nitrogen form 

 the mercur-ammonium radical. Dr. P. G. 

 Nutting, of the Bureau of Standards, has 

 kindly examined spectroscopically the prod- 

 ucts of progressive heating of the mineral 

 under reduced pressure; and besides nitrogen, 

 mercury, chlorine and sulphur, obtained a 

 small amount of helium. Singularly enough, 

 this last seemed to come off wholly during the 

 first warming of the mineral and before it 

 underwent any visible breaking-up. 



The complete examination of this novel 

 mineral and its associated mercury com- 

 pounds will probably consume much time. 

 In order to reserve the field for the chemical 



examination by myself and the crystallograph- 

 ical (now in progress) by Mr. W. T. Schaller, 

 this preliminary announcement is made. 



W. F. HiLLEBRAND. 



U. S. Geological Survey, 

 Washington, D. C, 

 December 14, 1905. 



QUOTATIONS. 



UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION. 



In the December Popular Science Monthly 

 Professor John J. Stevenson again takes up 

 the question of the status of American col- 

 lege professors, maintaining that the present 

 tendency to subordinate them to the trustees 

 and to the president is contrary to the real 

 interests of educational progress. The trus- 

 tees are successful men of business or profes- 

 sional life for the most part, with neither the 

 time nor the expert knowledge necessary to 

 administer wisely the internal affairs of an 

 institution of learning. The president, once 

 a good professor as well, must now be a suc- 

 cessful business manager and money-getter, 

 teaching little if at all, and, like the trustees, 

 possessing neither the time nor the knowledge 

 requisite to the sagacious exercise of the 

 powers which are generally either sought by 

 him or thrust into his hands under existing 

 conditions. The trustees, then, should confine 

 themselves strictly to the management of the 

 property and the task of securing funds for 

 the carrying out of such educational policies 

 as the teaching force may advise. Even in 

 filling vacancies in their own number, their 

 action, he is inclined to think, should be 

 subject to veto by two thirds of the full 

 pi-ofessors. Vacancies in the faculty should 

 be filled by the faculty itself, subject to con- 

 firmation of the trustees merely pro forTna, 

 or to rejection in case there are not funds 

 available for the required salary. The presi- 

 dency should be abolished altogether, each 

 faculty selecting its own executive head, who 

 should be simply primus inter pares, and the 

 mouthpiece of the faculty in its relations with 

 the trustees. It is noticeable that the editor 

 of the Monthly, in a paragraph relating to the 

 recent conference of college and university 

 trustees held at the installation of the presi- 



