June 28, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



1013 



light of this star shows the peculiar phenom- 

 enon of fading and recovering. The period 

 of this variation is knovcn to be about six 

 hours. During this period he took a number 

 of photographs, one half hour apart, each ex- 

 posure being twenty minutes, the remaining 

 ten minutes being employed for making the 

 necessary preparations for the next exposure. 

 He thus obtained a number of exposures of 

 the star on the same sensitive plate, but shift- 

 ed in position. After developing the plate, 

 the successive images plainly showed a fading 

 and recovering, and although the exact loca- 

 tion of the minimum brightness could not, in 

 the nature of things, be absolutely determined, 

 the approximate coincidence of the time of 

 the minimum brightness of the visible and the 

 photographed rays was obvious. These tests 

 were repeated a number of times to eliminate 

 the possibility of error and also to take in a 

 certain range of the ultra-violet rays, and 

 since favorable opportunity for making these 

 tests is not frequent, the investigation ex- 

 tended over a period of two years. 



The applicant then reasoned as follows: 

 Assvuning that the photographic minimum did 

 not exactly coincide with the observed visual 

 minimum, their difference did certainly not 

 exceed an hour, and since the distance of 

 Algol is no less than forty light years, the 

 difference of the velocities of the ultra-violet, 

 and the visual rays could not exceed one part 

 in 250,000. This close approximation estab- 

 lishes equality to aU intents and purposes. 



At the stated meeting of the Franklin Insti- 

 tute, held on June 19, 1907, the recommenda- 

 tion of the board of managers that the com- 

 mittee's report be approved and the Boyden 

 prize awarded to Dr. Paul R. Heyl was unan- 

 imously adopted, and the author wiU conse- 

 quently receive this long-delayed and much- 

 coveted award. 



SCIENTIFIC VOTES AND NEWS 

 The council of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science has nominated 

 Mr. Francis Darwin, F.R.S., foreign secretary 

 to the Royal Society, author of important 

 papers on physiological botany and of the 



' Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,' to be 

 president of the meeting next year, when, for 

 the fourth time, the association will assemble 

 in Dublin. 



On the occasion of the celebration of the 

 bicentenary of the birth of Linnaeus, the Lin- 

 nean gold medal of the Royal Swedish 

 Academy was awarded to Sir Joseph Hooker. 



At the annual meeting of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, on May 8, 

 1907, it was voted to award the Rumford 

 premium to Mr. Edward Goodrich Acheson 

 for the application of heat in the electric 

 furnace to the industrial production of car- 

 borundum, graphite and other new and useful 

 substances. 



M. H. LE Chatelier has been elected a 

 member of the section of chemistry of the 

 Paris Academy of Sciences in the room of the 

 late M. Moissan. 



Professor Theodore W. Richards, the 

 present holder of the Harvard professorship 

 in the University of Berlin, gave an address 

 upon 'Neuere Fntersuchungen iiber Atom- 

 gewichte,' to the German Chemical Society 

 in the Hofmann Haus in Berlin, on the eve- 

 ning of June 1. At the address and at the 

 dinner following there were present among 

 many others: Professors Emil Fischer, Lan- 

 dolt, Nernst, Warburg, Planck, Ladenburg, 

 Graebe, Liebermann, Gabriel, Le Blanc, and 

 Brauner. 



A portrait of President Eliot by Mr. John 

 P. Sargent has been unveiled in the Harvard 

 Union in connection with the commencement 

 exercises of the university. The portrait was 

 a gift to President Eliot on his seventieth 

 birthday, chiefly by the alumni of the class 

 of 1904. 



PRorESsoR A. E. Verrill, who has held the 

 chair of zoology and the curatorship of the 

 zoological department of the Peabody Musexmi 

 at Yale University since 1864, will retire from 

 active service at the close of the present year. 



Professor George C. Comstock, director of 

 the Washburn Observatory, University of 

 Wisconsin, was honored with the degree of 

 doctor of laws by the University of Hliuois at 



