JOTOBEB 7, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



463 



tion of the University of Berlin, October 

 10-13. 



Dr. H. D. Geddings, of the U. S. Public 

 Health and Marine Hospital Service, repre- 

 sents the United States at the International 

 Congress on Cancer, which opened at Paris, 

 on October 1. 



Professor C. K. Leith, of the University of 

 Wisconsin, sailed from New York on July 6, 

 by way of England, for South America, where 

 he was engaged in professional work for sev- 

 eral months. Mr. E. C. Harder, of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, accompanied him as assist- 

 ant. 



Dr. a. Hrdlicka, of the U. S. National Mu- 

 seum, has returned from a six months' expe- 

 dition to Argentine and other parts of the 

 South. The principal objects of the expedi- 

 tion, carried on under the auspices of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, were a study of man's 

 antiquity in Argentina, in which he was as- 

 sociated with Mr. Bailey Willis, of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, and of the coast people of 

 Peru. 



C. W. Wright, who is managing mines in 

 Sardinia, has been in Washington, completing 

 a report on the Kasaan Peninsula, Alaska, 

 for the U. S. Geological Survey. 



Dr. Heinrich Hasselbrestg, of the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture, will be in residence at the department 

 of botany in the University of Chicago dur- 

 ing the winter quarter (January-March) of 

 the present academic year. He will give a 

 course in plant pathology and will direct 

 special work dealing with parasitic fungi. It 

 is the purpose to establish in the department 

 work in plant pathology on a physiological 

 basis. 



Dr. Hjort wOl lecture before the Eoyal 

 Geographical Society in January on the 

 Michael Sars expedition for exploration in the 

 Atlantic Ocean. Sir John Murray was as- 

 sociated with Dr. Hjort in the conduct of the 

 expedition. 



Mr. E. T. A. IxxES, director of the Trans- 

 vaal Government Observatory, has just issued 

 to its contributing observers a comparative 

 table showing the average rainfall over the 



Transvaal for the six seasons 1904—05 to 1909- 

 10, inclusive. This has been arrived at by 

 dividing the Transvaal Province into a large 

 number of areas, finding the average rainfall 

 of each area, and taking the mean per unit 

 area. In considering the result it should be 

 borne in mind that the rainfall in different 

 areas of the province varies from between 15 

 and 20 inches in the southwest, to between 70 

 and 80 or even more in the northeast. The 

 six seasons' results and the average of six 

 seasons are: 



1909-10 28.8 inches on 67 days. 



1908-09 40.6 inches on 83 days. 



1907-08 22.3 inches on 65 days. 



1906-07 38.6 inches on 84 days. 



1905-06 23.2 Inches on 64 days. 



1904-05 23.4 inches on 76 days. 



Average 29.5 inches on 73 days. 



Three counties have been completed in de- 

 tail by the state soil survey field parties now 

 operating under the cooperative supervision of 

 the soils department of the College of Agri- 

 culture of the University of Wisconsin, the 

 State Geological and Natural History Survey 

 and the U. S. Bureau of Soils. The completed 

 counties are Waidcesha, Iowa and Waushara. 

 Only the field work is done, however, and a 

 large amount of mapping and soil analysis 

 remains to be completed so that reports will 

 not be issued until a year or more later. De- 

 tailed surveys are in progress in three other 

 counties. Fond du Lac, Juneau and La Crosse 

 and the field parties will push the work as 

 long this faU as the weather conditions will 

 permit. Preliminary surveys are in progress 

 in northern Ashland, Bayfield and Douglas 

 counties. Such preliminary surveys were 

 completed in the block of counties including 

 Polk, Barron, Eusk, southern Price, Lincoln, 

 St. Croix, Dunn, Chippewa, Taylor, Mara- 

 thon, Pierce, Pepin, Eau Claire, Clark, Wood, 

 Portage and the western part of Langlade as 

 well as Marinette county. This first survey 

 was mostly done by the geological and natural 

 history survey, previous to the beginning of 

 the state soil survey. The chemical analyses 

 are being completed by the present survey. 

 The U. S. Bureau of Soils is cooperating in 

 the detail surveys but not in the preliminary 



