February 21, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



im 



President Judson closes his last quarterly 

 statement of the condition of the University 

 of Chicago with the following words: 



During the current quarter the university has 

 been honored in the person of one of its faculty in 

 recognition of brilliant work of investigation and 

 discovery in the department of physics. Professor 

 A. A. Michelson, head of that department, was 

 awarded the Copley medal by the Royal Society 

 of London. Only one American heretofore, Pro- 

 fessor Newcomb, of Washington, has received that 

 medal. 



While Professor Michelson was on the ocean on 

 his way to receive this distinguished honor, the 

 official award of the Nobel prizes by the Royal 

 Society of Sweden was announced. Among the 

 awards Avas one to Professor A. A. Michelson for 

 his discoveries in the measurement and analysis 

 of light. Professor Michelson was obliged to con- 

 tinue his trip from London to Stockholm in order 

 to receive this new and striking evidence of the 

 importance of his tireless and brilliant scientific 

 work. Such recognition of the results of scientific 

 investigation is a renewed incentive to research in 

 all fields of university activity. We, Mr. Michel- 

 son's colleagues, unite in felicitations to that mod- 

 est gentlemen, and, on his return to his home, we 

 hope to extend our greeting and congratulations 

 in a more tangible form. 



The sixty-first birthday of Mr. Thomas A. 

 Edison was celebrated by a dinner, given by 

 the heads of the departments of his labora- 

 tory, on February 11. 



The former students and friends of Dudley 

 Allen Sargent, A.M., Sc.D., M.D., director 

 of the Hemenway Gymnasium, Harvard Uni- 

 versity, have presented him with a bronze 

 medallion. The medallion, designed by Dr. 

 E. Tait McKenzie, has above the face of Dr. 

 Sargent the words " Dudley Allen Sargent, 

 Pioneer in Physical Education, 1907," while 

 on the reverse is a row of five Harvard seals 

 below the words, " A Recognition by his 

 Friends and Students." Two hundred and 

 thirty persons contributed to the medallion 

 fund. A plaster model of the medallion and 

 a bound volume containing the autographs 

 of the contributors to the fund were 

 presented to Dr. Sargent by Dr. Luther 

 Halsey Gulick at the twenty-fifth com- 

 mencement of the Sargent Normal School 



of Physical Training, held in Sanders Theater, 

 June 1, nineteen hundred and seven. The 

 bronze medallion was finished recently and 

 presented to Dr. Sargent. The Sargent 

 Medallion Committee is having struck a 

 limited number of copies of the medal. These 

 are to be presented to President Eoosevelt, 

 William Taft, Secretary of War, Major Gen-, 

 eral Bell, Curtis Guild, Governor of Massa- 

 chusetts, and Booker T. Washing-ton, wlio 

 were all students under Dr. Sargent. 



The occupation of the Smithsonian table 

 in the Naples Zoological Station has been ap- 

 proved for three months from January 9, 

 1909, on behalf of Dr. Charles A. Kofoid, as- 

 sociate professor of histology and embryology 

 in the University of California. 



Dr. E. B. Eosa, physicist, of the Bureau 

 of Standards, has sailed for Europe, where he 

 will spend three or four months in a study of 

 methods for harmonizing standards of light in. 

 the gas and electric industries. 



W. O. Crosby, emeritus professor of geology 

 of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 has returned from Alaska, where he has been 

 engaged in private work since August. He 

 returned by way of Panama in order to see the 

 recent progress on the canal. He is now en- 

 gaged in work for the New York Metropolitan 

 Water Board. 



Mr. C. William Beebe, curator of birds in 

 the New York Zoological Park, will sail with 

 Mrs. Beebe on February 20 for Georgetown, 

 British Guiana, for the purpose of spending 

 five weeks in the exploration of some definite 

 section of the Essequibo Eiver. The object 

 will be primarily the study of the rich avi- 

 fauna of that region under natural conditions, 

 its general aspects and its relations to other 

 classes of the fauna. 



Professor Geohge D. Olds, of Amherst 

 College, is to attend the International Con- 

 gress of Mathematicians to be held in Eome 

 from April 5 to 11. 



Dr. Forrest Shreve, associate professor of 

 botany in the Woman's College of Baltimore, 

 has accepted an appointment to the staff of 

 the Desert Botanical Laboratory of the Car- 

 negie Institution at Tucson, Arizona. 



