March 10, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



345 



the contents and purposes of the museum, as well 

 as misinformed in regard to the paltry amount 

 really involved in admitting the public. That is 

 more than probable since, when I was its director, 

 I was frequently told by the eminent politicians 

 and other public men — who had unfortunately been 

 appointed trustees of the museum — that they had 

 never visited its galleries, and really felt little in- 

 terest in its contents. The action of those who 

 desire to pose as economists in making a paltry 

 saving by treating science with contempt can only 

 be explained by their disastrous ignorance. 



Lord Morley writes to the same journal in 

 regard to the ISTatural History Museum: 



The saving to be effected would be nearer 

 £2,000 than £3,000 per annum. I need not dwell 

 on the disadvantage to students; that is obvious. 

 Then, as the Archbishop said, not at all too 

 strongly, ' ' there would be a great deal of disap- 

 pointment to such institutions as convalescent 

 homes in the neighborhood of the Natural His- 

 tory Museum, which had been largely visited by 

 wounded officers and men." Besides these, Lon- 

 don has a host of colonial visitors just now, and 

 experience shows that the Natural History Mu- 

 seum is one of the places the best of them most 

 desire to see. Interest in the Elgin Marbles at 

 Bloomsbury may, if ministers like, be more or 

 less of an acquired taste. Interest in and curiosity 

 about the animals, birds, insects and all the other 

 wonders in the collection at South Kensington 

 are simple and natural and instructive. To shut 

 your doors in face of curiosity and interest so 

 general, wholesome, and enlivening as this, for 

 the sake of a few hundred pounds in a budget 

 counted by thousands of millions, seems a singular 

 and not quite a diminutive example of perversity, 

 even in our civilized world's present saturnalia of 

 perversity. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



The Hebert Prize of the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences has been awarded to Professor M. I. 

 Pupin, of Columbia University, for his theo- 

 retical and experimental researches in elec- 

 tricity. 



The William H. Mchols medal will be pre- 

 sented to Dr. Claud S. Hudson at the meeting 

 of the Nevr York section of the American 

 Chemical Society, on March 10. Dr. Hudson 

 will make an address on " The Acetyl Deriva- 

 tives of the Sugars." 



Dr. Simon Flexner, director of the labora- 

 tories of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical 

 Research, has been appointed Cutler lecturer 

 at the Harvard Medical School for 1915-16. 



Dr. Bradley Moore Davis, professor of bot- 

 any at the University of Pennsylvania, has 

 been elected a fellow of the American Acad- 

 emy of Arts and Sciences. 



The committee of the British Privy Coun- 

 cil for Scientific and Industrial Research has 

 appointed the Hon. Sir C. A. Parsons, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S., to be a member of the advisory coun- 

 cil in place of Professor B. Hopkinson, F.R.S., 

 who has been forced to resign by the pressure 

 of special work connected with the war. The 

 committee has also appointed Professor J. F^ 

 Thorpe, F.R.S., to fill the vacancy on the ad- 

 visory council caused by the death of Pro- 

 fessor Raphael Meldola, F.R.S. 



Dr. Henry K. Benson, professor of indus- 

 trial chemistry at the University of Washing- 

 ton, has been^appointcd director of the newly 

 established Bureau of Industrial Research, the 

 first such institution on the Pacific coast. 

 One fellowship dealing with a problem of the 

 iron and steel industry and amounting to 

 $2,000 has already been established as a re- 

 sult of the cooperative spirit existing between 

 the bureau and the business men of the Pa- 

 cific northwest. Other fellowships are con- 

 templated. Men interested in the by-products 

 of the fisheries industries have also assigned 

 one of their problems to the bureau for spe- 

 cial investigation. The bureau will attempt 

 to coordinate the research activities already 

 undertaken by the university, with a view to 

 the utilization of the resources of Washing- 

 ton. 



Dr. Frederick H. Blodgett, since 1912 

 plant pathologist and physiologist at the Texas 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, on January 

 1, assumed his duties as pathologist in the 

 Extension Service of the Agricultural and 

 Mechanical College of Texas. The increasing 

 volume of correspondence and the need of 

 definite information by field observations and 

 demonstration projects on disease control will 

 be met by this addition to the staff. 



