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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1117 



A PUBLIC meeting of the District of Colum- 

 bia Chapter of the Society of the Sigma Xi 

 ■was held in the auditorium of the U. S. Na- 

 tional Museum, on May 19, 1916. Mr. Frank 

 N. Meyer, agricultural explorer for the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, gave an illustrated 

 lecture entitled " Travel and Exploration in 

 China." About two hundred members and 

 guests of the chapter were present. This was 

 the first public lecture that has been given by 

 the recently organized alumni chapter in 

 "Washington, D. C. 



At the meeting of the New York Academy 

 of Medicine, on May 4, Dr. Walter B. Cannon, 

 George Higginson professor of physiology in 

 the Harvard Medical School, delivered an ad- 

 dress on " An Explanation of some Disorders 

 supposed to have an Emotional Origin." The 

 discussion was opened by Dr. Henry Rutgers 

 Marshall. 



Professor Frederic Slocum, of the depart- 

 ment of astronomy of Wesleyan University, 

 gave an address, on May 19, before the Brown 

 Chapter of Sigma Xi at Brown University on 

 " The Structure of the Sidereal Universe." 



An appeal was made to the medical frater- 

 nity of Philadelphia at the College of Physi- 

 cians, on May 5, to supply at once fifty physi- 

 cians and surgeons for service in China. The 

 appeal was made by Professor W. H. Welch, 

 of the Johns Hopkins University, a member of 

 the Chinese Medical Board and Dr. H. J. 

 Howard, connected with the Canton, China, 

 Hospital. 



At the meeting of the Chemical Society, 

 held at Burlington House on May 18, the last 

 of the three lectures arranged for this session 

 was delivered by Professor F. Gowland Hop- 

 kins, F.E.S., whose subject was : " Newer 

 Standpoints in the Chemical Study of Nutri- 

 tion." 



The annual meeting of the British Iron and 

 Steel Institute was held at the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers on May 4 and 5. An inaug- 

 ural address was delivered by the new presi- 

 dent, Sir William Beardmore, and the Besse- 

 mer medal for 1916 was presented to Mr. F. W. 

 Harbord. 



In memory of the late Professor Charles 

 Simeon Denison, whose death occurred three 

 years ago, a bronze tablet has been placed in 

 the arch of the engineering building of the 

 University of Michigan, and the arch has been 

 named the Denison Archway. Professor Deni- 

 son was for forty-two years a member of the 

 engineering faculty, and was the first to foster 

 the idea of the construction of the Engineer- 

 ing Arch. 



Elmer Lawrence Corthell, distinguished 

 as a civil engineer, died at Albany on May 16, 

 aged seventy-six years. 



The twenty-first summer meeting and eighth 

 colloquium of the American Mathematical So- 

 ciety will be held at Harvard University during 

 the week beginning Monday, September 4, 1916. 

 The first two days will be devoted to the reg- 

 ular sessions for the presentation of papers. 

 The colloquium will open on Wednesday morn- 

 ing and close on Saturday morning. Courses 

 of five lectures will be given by Professor G. 

 C. Evans on " Topics from the Theory and 

 Applications of Funetionals, Including Inte- 

 gral Equations," and by Professor Oswald 

 Yeblen on " Analysis Situs." 



The Secretary of State, on the recommenda- 

 tion of the superintendent of the United States 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Secretary 

 of Commerce, has recently appointed Mr. 

 William Bowie, of the Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey as the member from the United States 

 of the Permanent Commission of the Inter- 

 national Geodetic Association. Since 1909 

 Mr. Bowie has been chief of the Division of 

 Geodesy of the United States Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey, and in 1912 he was one of the 

 delegates from the United States to the con- 

 vention of the International Geodetic Asso- 

 ciation, which met in Hambvu-g, Germany. 

 This association was organized more than fifty 

 years ago for the purpose of securing the co- 

 operation of the European nations in under- 

 taking certain geodetic problems which were 

 international in scope. In 1886 the association 

 invited nations outside of Europe to join and 

 three years later Congress gave the United 

 States permission to become* a contributing 

 member. Previous to the present war twenty- 



