August 14, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



237 



July 21. After she sailed news was received 

 that the ice about Wrangell Island was un- 

 usually firm, and the Eussian government de- 

 cided to send the powerful Taimyr, which can 

 cut a way where the wooden Bear would be 

 helpless. 



According to its program, the ninety-seventh 

 annual meeting of the Swiss Scientific Asso- 

 ciation will be held at Berne, on August 31 to 

 September 3. The general addresses include: 

 " The Influence of Natural Science on Modem 

 Medicine," by Professor H. Sahli, of Berne; 

 " The Synthetic Dyes," by Professor Noelting, 

 of Miihlhausen, and " The Primates of the 

 New World," by Dr. H. Bluntschild, of Ziirich. 

 The association meets in nine sections for the 

 reading of special papers. 



We learn from the Journal of the Ameri- 

 can Medical Association that an international 

 school hygiene congress will be held in Brussels 

 next year. The program takes up the follow- 

 ing subjects: school buildings and equipment; 

 medical inspection of urban and rural schools ; 

 prevention of contagious diseases in schools; 

 the teaching of hygiene to teachers and pa- 

 rents ; school hygiene in its relation to physical 

 education of children; methods, syllabuses and 

 school equipment in their relation to school 

 hygiene; school hygiene in its relation to the 

 children, and school hygiene in its relation 

 to adolescents. The congress is under the 

 patronage of the King of Belgium, and under 

 the auspices of the National Institute of 

 Pediology and the Belgian Pedotechnic Insti- 

 tute. The committee of organization is pre- 

 sided over by M. J. Gorman, director general 

 department of sciences and art, and Dr. J» 

 Demoor, director of the Free Institute in 

 Brussels. 



According to the Bulletin of the American 

 Geographical Society a large relief model of 

 the Yosemite Valley is being constructed at 

 the Office of Public Eoads in Washington for 

 the government exhibit at the Panama-Pacific 

 Exposition. It is twelve feet long, six feet 

 wide and carries relief to a height of 18 

 inches. The vertical dimension is not exag- 

 gerated, and as a consequence all features are 



shown in their correct proportions. Indeed, 

 so rugged is the topography of the Yosemite 

 Valley, that any increase in the vertical scale 

 would have resulted in a peculiar, distorted ap- 

 pearance of the great cliffs, domes and spires. 

 The model is being executed, with painstaking 

 exactness, by an expert model maker, and is 

 based upon the detailed topographic map of 

 the Yosemite Valley, prepared in 1905-06 by 

 Mr. F. E. Matthes, of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey. Portions of this map were en- 

 larged photographically to five times the orig- 

 inal scale, that is, to a scale of 440 feet to the 

 inch. The contour lines then were used as 

 patterns for the sawing out of thin wooden 

 boards. These boards were built up in layers 

 and the rough form thus obtained was plas- 

 tered over with a special preparation of great 

 durability that will bear transportation across 

 the continent. Large numbers of photographs 

 are being used for local details, and a special 

 effort is being made to reproduce with fidelity 

 the peculiar cliff sculpture which is so promi- 

 nent a factor in the Yosemite landscape. In- 

 asmuch as these sculptural forms are inti- 

 mately associated with the lines of structure 

 in the granites in which the valley lies hewn, 

 the model promises to become an unusually 

 fine medium for the study of these relations of 

 form to structure. Students of geology and 

 geography will therefore, in all likelihood, find 

 it an object worthy of a special visit at the 

 San Francisco Exposition. Explanatory leg- 

 ends will be placed on the sides of the case at 

 various places, directing attention to the most 

 interesting features. In order to heighten the 

 sense of reality, small streams of water, blown 

 to spray by atomizers, will represent the water- 

 falls. 



The committee appointed by the Paris Aca- 

 demy of Sciences to allocate the amount placed 

 at its disposal by Prince Bonaparte is reported 

 by Nature to have made the following pro- 

 posals for grants during 1914 : 2,000 francs to 

 Dr. Pierre Breteau, for the continuation of his 

 researches on the use of palladium in analysis 

 and organic chemistry; 2,000 francs to M. 

 Chatton, to enable him to continue his re- 

 searches on the parasite Peridinians; 3,000 



