December 2, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



793 



The Herbert Spencer lecture at Oxford on 

 " Evolution, Darwinian and Spencerian," will 

 be delivered by Professor R. Meldola, F.R.S., 

 on December 8. 



At the University of Bristol a course of 

 five lectures on " Aviation " has been ar- 

 ranged. The selected lecturers are Professor 

 W. Morgan, Mr. A. R. Low, Mr. E. S. Bruce, 

 Mr. L. Blin Desbleds and Mr. Joseph Clarkson. 



Professor Osler, of Oxford, delivered a lec- 

 ture, on November 17, in the theater of the 

 medical schools, Cambridge, on " Medical Edu- 

 cation in France." 



At the Royal Institute of Public Health, 

 London, on November 7, Dr. C. Levaditi, of 

 the Pasteur Listitute, Paris, gave a lecture on 

 " The Mechanism of Phagocytosis and the 

 Importance of the Phagocytes in Immunity." 

 It was explained that up to the present it had 

 been believed that the whole process was a 

 vital one in which a fight took place between 

 the living leucocyte, on the one hand, and the 

 living bacteria, on the other. According to a 

 report in the London Times the new experi- 

 ments of the lecturer in the Institut Pasteur 

 had demonstrated for the first time that in 

 the earliest and important phase of phago- 

 cytosis the role of the leucocyte is an entirely 

 passive one, the process of attachment of the 

 microorganisms being due to physico-chemical 

 processes. The lecture was illustrated by a 

 series of cinematograph films prepared from 

 Dr. Levaditi's preparations in collaboration 

 with M. Comandon, of Pathe Ereres. Another 

 demonstration of these and other films, illus- 

 trating problems in bacteriology, was given 

 at St. Thomas's Hospital on November 9. 



The Botanical Club of the University of 

 Vermont celebrated the one hundredth anni- 

 versary of the birth of Asa Gray in the rooms 

 of the botanical department. The speakers 

 announced were Dr. C. G. Pringle, " Remin- 

 iscences of My Work with Dr. Gray"; Pro- 

 fessor George P. Burns, " The Text-books of 

 Gray and their Influence on Botanical Teach- 

 ing " ; Professor B. F. Lutman. " The Devel- 

 opment of Gray's Work Since His Death." 

 Dr. Pringle, who was a life-long friend of 



Gray and his favorite collector, was unable to 

 be present and will give his paper at the next 

 meeting of the club. 



The next meeting of the American Asso- 

 ciation of Anatomists will be held at Cornell 

 University, Ithaca, N. Y., on December 28-30. 

 President: Professor George A. Piersol, Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania; secretary-treasurer: 

 Professor G. Carl Huber, Ann Arbor, Mich. 



By the will of Mrs. Mary Bacon, widow of 

 Dr. William T. Bacon, Hartford, $100,000 is 

 devised to the Hartford Medical Society. 



We learn from Nature that Mrs. TyndaU 

 has presented to the Royal Institution two 

 Nicol's prisms, constructed for the lectures 

 on light given by Dr. Tyndall in America in 

 1872, and used by him subsequently in his 

 researches and lectures; also two pieces of 

 rocksalt, the remains of a large block given to 

 Dr. Tyndall by the king of Wiirttemberg in 

 1867. 



The first chapter meeting of the year of the 

 Omega Chapter of the Sigma Xi of the Ohio 

 State University, was held on Wednesday 

 evening, November 16. Professor R. C. 

 Purdy spoke on " Fluxes and Fusions." The 

 ceramics department had on exhibition a 

 plaster cast showing some new work on the 

 coefiicient of expansion of a composition of 

 varying amounts of kaolin, feldspar and 

 quartz. Professor A. Dachnowski presented 

 an investigation on " The Diseases of Peat 

 and Muck Soils," and showed the effect of 

 filtering bog waters through quartz upon 

 plant growth. After the program proper the 

 society devoted itself to an inspection of a 

 large display of scientific apparatus collected 

 • from the various departments represented in 

 the society. A social hour followed. The 

 members of the local chapter of Phi Beta 

 Kappa were the guests of the evening. 



The annual high school conference closed 

 a three days session at the University of Illi- 

 nois, on Saturday, November 19. This con- 

 ference, which was the seventh of the present 

 series, was attended by about seven hundred 

 and eighty instructors from the high schools, 



