January 4, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



37 



of the changes briefly outlined above, is that 

 during this, or possibly some previous earth- 

 quake, vast quantities of snow and ice were 

 shaken down from the mountains upon the 

 gathering grounds of these glaciers, starting a 

 wave of advance whose thrust is now being 

 felt by some of the glaciers, the thrust being 

 sufficiently powerful to crowd forward and 

 break up even the nearly stagnant termini. 

 The selective action of this process, by which 

 some of the glaciers are caused to advance and 

 others not, may be only apparent, for it is 

 possible that the wave of advance has not yet 

 affected glaciers which will ultimately begin 

 to move forward. It is highly probable, how- 

 ever, that in some instances the supply ground 

 of the glaciers did not have conditions favor- 

 able to the large accession of snow necessary 

 to cause a rapid crowding forward. 



The future progress of this interesting phe- 

 nomenon should be carefully watched. In 

 order to discover and definitely prove its 

 cause, we need to have a series of observa- 

 tions extending through successive years to 

 see what happens to those glaciers which have 

 just advanced, and to determine whether other 

 glaciers are influenced in the same way, and 

 exactly how they are affected. There is no 

 region of active glaciers known to me which 

 promises to yield more important results than 

 this, if carefully watched for the next few 

 years. Ealph S. Taer 



COKNELL UNIVEESITT, 



Ithaca, N. Y. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 De. Edward L. Nichols, professor of phys- 

 ics in Cornell University, has been elected 

 president of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science for the meeting to 

 be held next year at Chicago. The New York 

 meeting, held from December 27 to January 1, 

 under the presidency of Dr. W. H. Welch, 

 professor of pathology in the Johns Hopkins 

 University, has had no equal in size and prob- 

 ably no parallel in its service for the advance- 

 ment and diffusion of science. The full re- 

 port of the general secretary will be printed 

 in the next issue of Science, and reports of 

 the proceedings of the national scientific socie- 



ties which met in affiliation with the associa- 

 tion will follow. 



The council of the British Association has 

 now appointed the presidents of sections for 

 the meeting of the association to be held at 

 Leicester next year. Of Section A (mathe- 

 matical and physical science) the president 

 will be Dr. Love, Sedleian professor of natural 

 philosophy at Oxford; Section B (chemistry). 

 Professor A. Smithells, professor of chemistry 

 in the University of Leeds; Section (geol- 

 ogy), Dr. J. W. Gregory, professor of geology 

 at Glasgow; Section D (zoology). Dr. W. E. 

 Hoyle, keeper of the museum in the Victoria 

 University, Manchester; Section E (geog- 

 raphy), Mr. George G. Chisholm; Section E 

 (economic science and statistics). Professor 

 W. J. Ashley, dean of the Faculty of Com- 

 merce in Birmingham University; Section G 

 (engineering). Professor Silvanus Thompson; 

 Section H (anthropology), Mr. D. G. Ho- 

 garth; Section I (physiology), Dr. A. D. 

 "Waller, director of the Physiological Labora- 

 tory in London University; Section K 

 (Botany) Dr. J. B. Earmer, professor of 

 botany in the Eoyal College of Science; and 

 Section L (educational science), Sir Philip 

 Magnus. 



Professoe Thomson, of Cambridge, M. 

 Moissan, of Paris, Professor Golgi, of Pavia, 

 and Professor Ramon y Cajal, of Madrid, were 

 present at Stockholm on December 10 to re- 

 ceive the Nobel prizes awarded to them. 



Dr. Henry Rutgers Marshall, of New 

 York City, has been elected president of the 

 American Psychological Association, and Dr. 

 H. N. Gardiner, of Smith College, has been 

 elected president of the American Philo- 

 sophical Association. 



Mr. E. H. Newell, chief engineer of the 

 Reclamation Service has been elected president 

 of the Washington Society of Engineers. 



Graf von Zeppelin, known for his work in 

 aeronautics, has been given the honorary doc- 

 torate of engineering by the School of Tech- 

 nology at Dresden. 



De. Adolf Lieben, formerly professor of 

 chemistry at Vienna, has celebrated his seven- 

 tieth birthday. 



