894 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1121 



gaged in business in Boston, lias been elected 

 president of the college, to succeed President 

 Ernest Fox Nichols, who has resigned to ac- 

 cept a chair of physics at Yale University. 



At the University of Nebraska, Dr. David 

 D. Whitney, now at Wesleyan University, 

 Middletown, Conn., has been appointed pro- 

 fessor of zoology, in charge of coiu-ses in the 

 fields of genetics, evolution and experimental 

 zoology. Homer B. Latimer, now professor 

 of zoology in Nebraska Wesleyan University, 

 has been appointed associate professor of zool- 

 ogy, in charge of work in vertebrate anatomy, 

 embryology and histology. 



George Frederic Ordeman, Ph.D., has been 

 elected associate professor of chemistry, and 

 Eobert William Dickey, Ph.D., associate pro- 

 fessor of physics in Washington and Lee Uni- 

 versity. 



At Sibley CoUege, Cornell University, the 

 following instructors have been promoted to 

 the grade of assistant professors : Clarence 

 Andrew Pierce, in power engineering; Myron 

 A. Lee, in machine design, and John George 

 Pertsch, Jr., in electrical engineering. Joseph 

 Franklin Putnam has been appointed assistant 

 professor of electrical engineering. He has 

 been professor of physics in St. John's College, 

 Shanghai. Frederick George Switzer has been 

 appointed instructor in the mechanics of engi- 

 neering. 



Vera Dantschakoff, M.D., of the Rocke- 

 feller Institute for Medical Research, has been 

 appointed instructor in anatomy, and Rosalie 

 F. Morton, M.D., as attending surgeon at 

 Vanderbilt Clinic of the College of Physicians 

 and Surgeons of Columbia University. 



Recent additions to the faculty of the Uni- 

 versity of Ai-kansas are J. Sam Guy, Ph.D. 

 (Johns Hopkins), head of the department of 

 chemistry, succeeding the late Dr. C. G. Car- 

 roll; F. G. Baender, M.S. (Cornell Univer- 

 sity), formerly assistant professor in the Uni- 

 versity of Iowa, head of the department of 

 mechanical engineering; P. B. Barker, late of 

 the agricultural faculty of the University of 

 Missouri, head of the department of agronomy. 

 Arthur M. Harding, Ph.D. (Chicago), returns 



to the university, after a year's leave of ab- 

 sence, as professor of mathematics and uni- 

 versity examiner. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



CORAL REEFS 



To THE Editor of Science : In his article on 

 " Coral Reefs " in the April Scientific Monthly^ 

 Professor Davis gives an abridged and distorted 

 version of Alexander Agassiz's theory, thus 

 setting up a dummy to be conveniently knocked 

 down. A careful consideration of all the 

 forces suggested by Agassiz as contributing to 

 the formation of atolls and barrier reefs should 

 convince Professor Davis that the hypothesis 

 calls for neither cliils, deltas nor talus on the 

 islands enclosed by barrier reefs. For the 

 ring of living corals breaks the force of the 

 waves; and the great quantities of water piled 

 over the reef by the trade winds forms a gi- 

 gantic modified pothole which scours out the 

 material eroded from the island. Professor 

 Davis has stated that any theory would ac- 

 count for the formation of atolls and barrier 

 reefs themselves. He appears to forget that 

 it was because many investigators in the field 

 were unable to reconcile the facts observed 

 with the theory of subsidence that led them to 

 suggest other explanations. Any one at all 

 familiar with the methods of work of both the 

 elder and younger Agassiz would never think 

 of quietly assuming that either was ignorant 

 of the literature of his subject. 



G. R. Agassiz 



ANOTHER POISONOUS CLAVICEPS 



The results of the experiments by Brown 

 and Ranch, showing the poisonous action of 

 Claviceps paspali Stevens and Hall on ani- 

 mals, published in Technical Bulletin 6, Mis- 

 sissippi Agricultural Experiment Station, has 

 just been received by me and read with un- 

 usual interest, as I have followed the history 

 of this interesting fungus since 1902. 



I first noticed the disease produced by 

 Claviceps very abundant and conspicuous on 

 Paspalum Iwve in Maryland in the summer of 

 1902, and in the autumn of the same year a 

 sample of it was received from a Maryland 



