Maech 31, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



481 



any legally binding effect whatever upon the free- 

 dom of their action. And I declare that it shall 

 be lawful for the senate of the said university, if 

 they shall think fit so to do, to postpone the elec- 

 tion of the first or any subsequent professor of 

 eugenics for a period of not exceeding four years 

 from the date of my death, or from the date of 

 the occurrence of any vacancy in the office as the 

 case may be. . . . 



I declare it to be my wish, but I do not impose 

 it as an obligation, that on the appointment of the 

 first professor the post shall be offered to Pro- 

 fessor Karl Pearson, and on such conditions as 

 wiU give him liberty to continue his Biometric 

 Laboratory now established at University College. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



The National Academy of Sciences will 

 hold its annual meeting in Washington, be- 

 ginning on Tuesday, April 18. 



The American Philosophical Society will 

 hold its general meeting in the hall of the so- 

 ciety at Philadelphia on April 20, 21 and 22. 

 On the evening of April 21, Professor Svante 

 Arrhenius, of Stockholm, will give an illus- 

 trated lecture on the physical condition of the 

 planet Mars, which will be followed by a re- 

 ception in the hall of the College of Physi- 

 cians. On the evening of the twenty-third 

 the annual dinner of the society will take 

 place at the Bellevue- Stratford. 



Dr. William H. Welch, professor of pathol- 

 ogy in the Johns Hopkins University, has re- 

 ceived from the emperor of Germany the 

 decoration of the royal crown of Prussia, sec- 

 ond class. 



De. Lewis Boss, director of the Dudley Ob- 

 servatory and of the department of meridian 

 astronomy of the Carnegie Institution, has 

 been elected a corresponding member of the 

 Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg. 



Dr. S. W. Stratton, director of the Bureau 

 of Standards, represents the United States 

 government at the International Convention 

 on Weights and Measures at Paris, beginning 

 on March 29. 



Professor Albert A. Michelson, head of 

 the department of physics in the University of 

 Chicago, will give a course at the University 



of Gottingen in the coming summer semester. 

 At the invitation of the Department of 

 Education of the Philippine government. 

 Professor J. Paul Goode, representing the 

 University of Chicago, will deliver a series of 

 lectures to the Teachers' Assembly at Bagino 

 in May. 



The expedition that was sent to Argentina 

 two years and a half ago under the auspices 

 of the Carnegie Institution for the purpose 

 of making meridian measurements of posi- 

 tion of stars down to the seventh magnitude 

 that are south of — 20° of declination, and 

 generally inaccessible for exact measurement 

 at observatories of the northern hemisphere, 

 has completed its meridian-work. In 1909 

 and 1910 about 87,000 meridian-determina- 

 tions of positions were made with precision. 

 The observations were conducted on a funda- 

 mental basis, and correspond to others to be 

 secured at the Dudley Observatory at Albany 

 as an integral part of the entire enterprise. 

 The instruments were shipped to Albany from 

 Buenos Aires early in March and the mem- 

 bers of the staff, of which Professor Richard 

 H. Tucker is director, are arriving at various 

 times. 



The magnetic survey yacht the Carnegie 

 arrived at Capetown on March 20, having 

 completed successfully a voyage of about 

 14,000 miles in the Atlantic Ocean since last 

 June. Dr. Bauer left Vancouver on March 

 24 to make magnetic observations in the 

 Samoan Islands during the total solar eclipse 

 of April 28 and to meet the Carnegie at Co- 

 lombo, Ceylon. 



It is stated in Nature that at the recent 

 meeting of the Australasian Association for 

 the Advancement of Science in Sydney, the 

 Mueller memorial medal was awarded to Mr. 

 Robert Etheridge, curator of the Australian 

 Museum, in recognition of the value of his 

 numerous contributions to the paleontology 

 and ethnology of Australasia. 



The trustees of Dartmouth College have 

 voted that Charles Henry Hitchcock be made 

 Hall professor of geology, emeritus, and that 

 Gabriel Campbell be made Stone professor of 



