296 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 843 



and social parasitism is not a similitude. 

 Organic degeneracy and degeneracy in 

 human society are not, I take it, a mere 

 equivalence in terms, but a result in effects 

 through stages of adaptation entirely com- 

 prehensible. Sin, then, the expression of 

 degeneracy, we may reasonably hope to be- 

 lieve and perhaps eventually to demon- 

 strate from the facts of our science, is an 

 error whose cure may lie within our own 

 inherent impulses and whose existence may 

 be terminated with the stronger growth of 

 our intellectual and moral perceptions en- 

 tirely within the sphere of nature herself. 

 John M. Clakke 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE COLLEGE MEN 

 The Yale News has made an analysis of 

 "Who's Who in America" for 1910-11 and 

 finds in the book the names of 8,529 college 

 men. The data for fourteen institutions are 

 given as follows: 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 The officers of the American Museum of 

 Natural History, who were elected at the an- 

 nual meeting of the board, held February 13, 

 1911, are as follows: President, Henry Fair- 

 field Osborn; First Vice-president, Cleveland 

 H. Dodge ; Second Vice-president, J. Pierpont 

 Morgan, Jr.; Treasurer, Charles Lanier; Sec- 

 retary, Archer M. Huntington; Acting 



Director, Charles H. Townsend; Assistatit 

 Treasurer, United States Trust Company of 

 New York; Assistant Secretary, George H. 

 Sherwood. By unanimous vote of the trus- 

 tees. Professor Bashford Dean, Columbia Uni- 

 versity, was reinstated in bis post as curator 

 of ichthyology and herpetology. The trustees 

 also promoted Dr. W. D. Matthew from acting 

 curator to curator of the department of verte- 

 brate paleontology. Barnum Brown, assistant 

 curator of fossil reptiles and Walter Granger, 

 assistant curator of fossil mammals, become 

 associate curators. 



For the meeting of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, which is to 

 take place this year at Portsmouth on August 

 30 and following days, under the presidency 

 of Professor Sir William Eamsay, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S., the following presidents have been ap- 

 pointed to the various sections : Mathematical 

 and Physical Science, Professor H. H. 

 Turner, D.Sc, F.R.S. ; Chemistry, Professor 

 J. Walker, D.Sc, F.E.S.; Geology, A. Harker, 

 M.A., F.E.S.; Zoology, Professor D'Arcy W. 

 Thompson, C.B. ; Geography, Col. C. F. Close, 

 R.E., C.M.G. ; Economic Science and Statis- 

 tics, Hon. W. Pember Beeves; Engineering, 

 Professor J. H. Biles, LL.D. ; Anthropology, 

 Dr. W. H. E. Elvers, F.E.S.; Physiology, 

 Professor J. S. Macdonald; Botany, Professor 

 F. E. Weiss, D.Sc, with W. Bateson, F.E.S., 

 as chairman of the Sub-section of Agriculture; 

 Educational Science, Et. Eev. J. E. 0. Well- 

 don, D.D. 



A PORTRAIT of Sir William Crookes by Mr. 

 E. A. Walton, has been presented to the 

 Eoyal Society. 



Professor D. Oliver, F.E.S., formerly 

 keeper of the herbarium and library of the 

 Kew Gardens, known for his important con- 

 tributions to botany, celebrated bis eightieth 

 birthday on February 5. 



Membership in the Prussian House of 

 Lords has been conferred on Dr. Wilbelm 

 Waldeyer, professor of anatomy in the Uni- 

 versity of Berlin. 



The gold medal of the Eoyal Astronomical 

 Society has been presented to Dr. P. H. 



