122 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1073 



drawing and descriptive geometry; Leicester 

 F. Hamilton, instructor in analytical chemis- 

 try, and Ruth M. Thomas, research associate 

 in organic chemistry. 



Dr. Ward J. MacNeal has been appointed 

 director of laboratories of the New York Post- 

 graduate Medical School and Hospital, suc- 

 ceeding Dr. Jonathan Wright, resigned. Dr. 

 Morris Fine has been promoted to adjunct pro- 

 fessor of pathologic chemistry; Dr. Eichard 

 M. Taylor, to adjunct professor of pathology 

 and Paul A. Schule, to a lectureship of bac- 

 teriology. 



Mr. E. H. Bogue, for three years instructor 

 in chemistry in the Massachusetts Agricul- 

 tural College, has accepted a position as assist- 

 ant professor of agricultural chemistry at the 

 Montana Agricultural College. His place in 

 the Massachusetts College has been filled by 

 the appointment of Paul Serex. 



Dr. F. D. Fromme, formerly of the botany 

 department of the Indiana Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station, has been appointed to the 

 professorship of plant pathology and bacteriol- 

 ogy in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. 



Guy West Wilson, formerly agent, U. S. 

 Laboratory of Forest Pathology, stationed at 

 the Agricultural Experiment Station, New 

 Brunswick, N. J., has been appointed assistant 

 professor of mycology and plant pathology. 

 State University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESFONDENCE 



NOTE ON THE MERIDIONAL DEVIATION OF A 

 FALLING BODY 



Introductory Remarhs. — Various definitions 

 have been given for the meridional deviation 

 of a falling body and various potential func- 

 tions have been assumed in the mathematical 

 determination thereof. It is therefore per- 

 fectly natural that the results found by differ- 

 ent writers on the subject do not agree. How- 

 ever, when once the equations of motion of 

 the falling body, the definition of the devia- 

 tion, and the potential function have been 

 fixed, the solution of the problem is unique. 



1 Transactions of the American MafhematicaX So- 

 ciety, Vol. XII., pp. 335-53, ilid., Vol. XIII., pp. 

 469-90. 



In 1911^ I published a general formula for 

 the meridional deviation which included as 

 special eases the apparently discordant for- 

 mulse of several other writers. This was pos- 

 sible because my formula could be broken up 

 into parts which corresponded to different 

 kinds of meridional deviation, and also because 

 it was expressed in terms of the symbol repre- 

 senting the potential function, which symbol, 

 when replaced by particular forms of this 

 function, made it yield the results of the writers 

 who had used these particular forms. In 1913^ 

 Dr. R. S. Woodward treated the problem using 

 the equations of motion, the definition of the 

 deviation and one of the potential functions 

 which I had used. Therefore he should have ob- 

 tained the result which I did for that potential 

 function provided my solution was correct. 

 But he got a different result. This lack of 

 agreement was the means of interesting Pro- 

 fessor F. E. Moulton in the problem. In June, 

 1914, Professor Moulton published an article^ 

 in which he solved the problem treated by Dr. 

 Woodward and his result was the same as 

 mine. Shortly after the appearance of Pro- 

 fessor Moulton's article, I published a paper* 

 (which, however, was prepared at the same time 

 as Professor Moulton's, and independently of 

 it) showing that Dr. Woodward's methods, when 

 applied to his initial assumptions, should lead 

 to my results. In reply to Professor Moulton's 

 article and my last paper. Dr. Woodward has 

 just published a note'' in which he states that 

 he did not solve the problem which Professor 

 Moulton and I had solved. The present article 

 is my reply to this note. 



Granting that " two different problems have 

 actually been solved," I will show that this is 

 so because Dr. Woodward has not solved the 



z Astronomical Journal (Nos. 651-52), August 

 4, 1913. 



3 "The Deviations of Falling Bodies," Annals 

 of Mathematics (Second Series), Vol. 15, pp. 184r- 

 94, June, 1914. 



*" Deviations of Falling Bodies," Astronomical 

 Journal, Noa. 670-72, pp. 177-201, January 22, 

 1915. 



5 "Note on the Orbits of Freely Falling Bod- 

 ies," Science, New Series, Vol. XLI., No. 1057, 

 pp. 492-95, April 2, 1915. 



