Apeil 28, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



655 



mittee tliat the date of the congress shall be 

 changed from July 29 to August 6, as previ- 

 ously fixed, to August 4 to 9, 1913. 



The local committee of the American So- 

 ciety of Mechanical Engineers, E. M. Herr, 

 chairman, Elmer K. Hiles, secretary, having 

 in charge the preparations for the convention 

 of the society, which v^ill be held in Pitts- 

 burgh, Pa., from May 30 to June 2, inclusive, 

 has nearly completed the work of arranging 

 the program for each day during the meeting. 

 It has been settled that the arriving guests 

 V7ill be received and registered at the Hotel 

 Schenley, the society headquarters, on Tues- 

 day morning. May 30. In the evening there 

 will be an informal reception for the members 

 and ladies in the parlors of the hotel. The 

 extensive alterations being made by the new 

 management of the hotel will add very largely 

 to the comfort and enjoyment of visitors dur- 

 ing the convention. The professional sessions 

 will be held in the lecture hall of the Carnegie 

 Institute, near the headquarters, Wednesday 

 morning and evening, Thursday and Friday 

 morning. In the meantime there will be a 

 number of inspection trips to various indus- 

 trial plants in the vicinty; a boat excursion 

 for the members and ladies up the Mononga- 

 hela River, a reception and ball at the Hotel 

 Schenley on Thursday evening and, finally, on 

 Friday evening, a smoker and entertainment, 

 given by the Engineers' Society of "Western 

 Pennsylvania in their rooms in the Oliver 

 Building. A carefully prepared program for 

 the entertainment of the lady visitors has been 

 arranged by a committee of ladies from Pitts- 

 burgh and vicinity, which includes a number 

 of social functions. Judging from the num- 

 ber of inquiries, which have already been 

 received from expected guests, a very large 

 attendance is looked for, and everything indi- 

 cates that this meeting in Pittsburgh will be 

 one of the most successful " spring meetings " 

 the society has ever held. 



The twenty-second season of the Biological 

 Laboratory of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts 

 and Sciences will be held at Cold Harbor, 

 Long Island, from June to September. The 

 regular class work will begin July first and 



continue for six weeks. The courses offered 

 include field zoology by Dr. H. E. Walter, Dr. 

 C. B. Davenport and Mr. Sidney I. Korn- 

 hauser; bird study by Mrs. Alice Hall Walter 

 and Mr. G. Clyde Fisher; comparative anat- 

 omy by Professor H. S. Pratt and Dr. A. A. 

 Schaefl^er; general embryology and micro- 

 scopic technique by Miss Mabel Bishop; 

 cryptogamic botany by Professor D. S. John- 

 son and Mr. H. H. York; plant ecology by 

 Professor Henry S. Conard and Miss Euth 

 Higley; beginning investigation in animal 

 bionomics, evolution, cryptogamic botany and 

 ecology by instructors in those subjects. A 

 training course for field workers in eugenics is 

 offered. Twenty scholarships are available for 

 properly qualified college graduates with bio- 

 logical training who wish to prepare for 

 positions as field workers in connection with 

 institutions and hospitals. About two thirds 

 of those receiving scholarships may look for 

 appointments in such investigation. A bio- 

 logical club meets two or three times a week 

 during the evening. One scholarship of a 

 hundred dollars is available. The announce- 

 ment of the laboratory may be obtained by 

 writing to the director. Dr. C. B. Davenport, 

 at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. T. 



On April 11 Governor Tener sent a special 

 message to the Pennsylvania legislature, rec- 

 orhmending immediate legislation for control 

 of the bark disease of the chestnut. A bill has 

 since been reported providing for a commis- 

 sion to undertake this work, and carrying a total 

 appropriation of $285,000. So far it is only 

 the eastern and southeastern counties of Penn- 

 sylvania that are completely infected with this 

 disease, and it is hoped, by the elimination of 

 spot infections in advance of the line of gen- 

 eral occurrence of the disease, to restrict its 

 spread to this area. The great chestnut for- 

 ests of the state which, according to the state 

 department of forestry, have a total valuation 

 of approximately $50,000,000, are still essen- 

 tially untouched by the disease, and the great 

 object of the proposed legislation is to save 

 these. Experiments made by the national 

 department of agriculture appear to have 

 demonstrated practical methods of quarantine 



