Mat 12, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



683 



A LEA^TE of absence for the second half of 

 the academic year 1916-17 has been granted 

 by Harvard University to Professor Theodore 

 W. Eichards, director of the Wolcott Gibbs 

 Memorial Laboratory. 



Assistant Professor ISTorman MacLeod 

 Harris, of the department of hygiene and bac- 

 teriology at the University of Chicago, has 

 been granted a year's leave of absence, begin- 

 ning with the autumn quarter, in order that 

 he may give his professional services to the 

 Canadian contingent in the European war. 



Dr. Frank M. Chapman, curator of ornith- 

 ology at the American Museum of Natural 

 History, proposes to make explorations in the 

 Andes during the present summer. The ex- 

 pedition is part of a plan to secure several new 

 habitat groups of birds in South America, in- 

 cluding the condor and the rhea. Mr. George 

 K. Cherrie and Mr. L. E. Miller will accom- 

 pany Dr. Chapman. 



A SERIES of five lectures has recently been 

 given on the Hitchcock Foundation at the 

 University of California by Professor Thomas 

 Hunt Morgan, professor of experimental zool- 

 ogy in Columbia University. The topics of 

 the lectures were as follows: 



April 12. "A Eevelation of the Evidence oa 

 which the Theory of Evolution was based. ' ' 



April 14. "The Bearing of Mendel's Discovery 

 on the Origin of Hereditary Characters shown by 

 Wild Species. ' ' 



April 17. "The Factorial Hypothesis of He- 

 redity and the Composition of the Germ Plasm." 



April 19. "Sex Factors and the Mechanism of 

 Sex Determination. ' ' 



April 21. "Is Selection a Creative Process?" 



At a meeting of the California Chapter of 

 Sigma Xi on April 19, Professor F. P. Gay, of 

 the department of pathology, University of 

 California, as the retiring president, presented 

 an address upon " Specialization and Research 

 in Science." Officers for the ensuing academic 

 year were elected as follows : President, C. L. 

 Cory, dean of the College of Mechanics ; Vice- 

 president, G. ]Sr. Lewis, professor of physical 

 chemistry; Recording Secretary, T. B. Bur- 

 nett, assistant professor of physiology; Corre- 

 sponding Secretary, Edmund O'Neil, professor 



of inorganic chemistry; Treasurer, A. C. 

 Alvarez, assistant professor of civil engi- 

 neering. 



During the exercises in connection with the 

 Shakespeare Tercentenary Commemoration at 

 the University of Texas, April 22-26, Pro- 

 fessor William E. Eitter, director of Scripps 

 Institution for Biological Eesearch at La 

 Jolla, California, delivered an address com- 

 memorative of Harvey's demonstration of the 

 circulation of the blood in 1616. The subject 

 of the address was " ' Know Thyself ' — ^Inter- 

 preted by Socrates, Shakespeare, Harvey and 

 Men of To-day." On the evening of the 

 twenty-seventh, at the annual banquet of the 

 Texas Chapter of Sigma Xi, Dr. Eitter read a 

 paper entitled, " Are we obliged to assume that 

 Spontaneous Generation ever occurred? 



On March 21, Dr. Shepherd Ivory Franz, of 

 Washington, D.C., addressed the students of 

 Swarthmore College on " The Psychology of 

 Delusions " and on March 28, Professor War- 

 ner Brown, of the University of California, on 

 " The Psychology of Advertising." 



Dr. John W. Harshberger, professor of 

 botany in the University of Pennsylvania, con- 

 ducted an illustrated science conference on 

 " Field Eesearch in Plant Geography and 

 Ecology " on Saturday evening, April 22, at 

 the Brooklyn Institute. 



Professor E. S. Moore, of the Pennsylvania 

 State College, lectured before the Mining and 

 Geological Society of Lehigh University on 

 April 13, and before the students of the depart- 

 ment of geology at Cornell University on 

 April 26 on " Some of the Mining Fields of 

 Australia and India." 



At the annual meeting of the Alabama So- 

 ciety of Mental Hygiene held in Birmingham, 

 on April 8, Dr. Thomas W. Salmon, New York, 

 medical director of the National Committee ort 

 Mental Hygiene, delivered an address to the 

 society on " Feeblemindedness." 



Mr. J. S. DiLLER, of the Geological Survey, 

 and Dr. Arthur L. Day, of the Carnegie Geo- 

 physical Laboratory, addressed the Geological 

 Society of Washington, on April 12 on ". Lassen 

 Peak, California." 



