JtiLT 15, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



11 



held at Cambridge, Mass., May 28, 1910. The 

 object in the calling of the conference was to 

 procure such action as should lead to uni- 

 formity of definition in the varioiis divisions 

 of mathematics which are required for admis- 

 sion to college. The conference organized by 

 appointing Professor Osgood, of Harvard, 

 chairman, and Dean Ferry, of Williams, secre- 

 tary. After much discussion, it was voted to 

 recommend to the colleges that they omit 

 from their definitions of elementary algebra 

 any topics which are not included in the Col- 

 lege Entrance Examination Board's definition 

 of that subject, and that they state their re- 

 quirements in elementary algebra in such a 

 manner as to show which, if any, of the topics 

 in the College Entrance Examination Board's 

 definitions are omitted or are not emphasized 

 by them. It was voted further that the con- 

 ference recommend to the colleges the adop- 

 tion of the College Entrance Examination 

 Board's definitions of the requirements in 

 plane geometry, solid geometry, plane and 

 solid geometry, trigonometry, plane trigonom- 

 etry and advanced algebra, and that the mem- 

 bers of the conference endeavor to persuade 

 the faculties which they respectively represent 

 to adopt these definitions. It was voted also 

 that the conference recommend to the College 

 Entrance Examination Board that no reduc- 

 tion in the time allowed to the individual 

 subjects of mathematics in the examination 

 schedule be made; but that mathematics a 

 and mathematics cd continue to have three 

 hours and that all other divisions of mathe- 

 matics continue to have two hours each in 

 the time schedule of the board's examinations. 

 The faculties of many of the colleges con- 

 cerned have already adopted the definitions of 

 the College Entrance Examination Board in 

 all admission subjects. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 Sir William Ramsay has been elected a for- 

 eign associate of the Paris Academy of Sci- 

 ences to fill the vacancy caused by the death 

 of Alexander Agassiz. 



The Albert medal of the Royal Society of 

 Arts for the current year has been awarded to 

 Madame Curie for the discovery of radium. 



Dr. C. Hart Merriam has resigned as chief 

 of the Biological Survey of the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture and is succeeded by Mr. 

 H. W. Henshaw. Dr. Merriam, who will re- 

 tain ari official connection with the survey as 

 consulting biologist, will devote himself to the 

 preparation of a worlv on the mammals of 

 North America, under an endowment pro- 

 vided by Mrs. E. H. Harriman. 



Dr. William T. Councilman, professor of 

 pathology in the Harvard Medical School, gave 

 the annual address at the commencement ex- 

 ercises of the Yale medical school. 



Professor O. Fuhrmann, of the University 

 of Neuchatel, has left for a two-years' scien- 

 tific expedition to explore the Cordilleras 

 basin of the Andes. 



Mr. Robert Newstead, lecturer in economic 

 entomology and parasitology at the Liver- 

 pool School of Tropical Medicine, has gone to 

 Malta to investigate the menace to health by 

 the sand-fly. 



Dr. F. p. Mall, professor of anatomy in the 

 Johns Hopkins University, is at present in 

 Germany. 



Miss M. A. Willcox has resigned the pro- 

 fessorship of zoology at Wellesley College, re- 

 ceiving the title of professor emeritus. Her 

 future address will be Maiden, Mass. 



The prize of £50 from the Gordon Wigan 

 fund, Cambridge University, for a research 

 in chemistry has been awarded to Mr. J. 

 Thomas, Trinity, for experimental investiga- 

 tions on " The isolation of the aromatic sul- 

 phinic acids " and " The resolution of ex- 

 ternally compensated quinoline derivatives 

 containing two asymmetric carbon atoms." 



The British birthday honors in so far as 

 they concern men of science are summarized 

 in Nature as follows : Among the new privy 

 councillors is the name of Sir William 

 Mather, who has done much to promote tech- 

 nical education. The honor of knighthood 

 has been conferred upon Mr. H. Hall, inspec- 

 tor of mines for the Liverpool and North 

 Wales district, and Dr. A. Hopkinson, vice- 

 chancellor and principal of the Victoria Uni- 

 versity of Manchester. Colonel F. B. Longe, 



