August 27, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



281 



The death is announced in his seventy-sec- 

 ond year of Mr. George Newlyn, formerly con- 

 nected with the Kew Botanical Garden and a 

 writer in popular science. 



M. F. P. J. Gdeguen, late professor of bo^;- 

 any in the School of Agriculture at Grignon, 

 has died at the age of forty-three years. 



Dr. Jiordano, professor in the University of 

 Palermo, known for his work on the diseases of 

 miners, died on July 10. 



Dr. Alfred Schliz, the German anthropol- 

 ogist, has died at Heilbrun, at the age of sixty- 

 six years. 



PoLLOWiNG out the provisions of the late 

 Mrs. Keenan, who left $300,000 to establish 

 and maintain a free medical dispensary in Mil- 

 waukee, a meeting is soon to be held between 

 the trustees of the fund and the city health 

 department to work out the arrangements as 

 contemplated in the will. 



During the present summer the regents of 

 the University of New Mexico have instituted 

 a survey of the lands in the university state 

 endowment, of which there are nearly 300,000 

 acres still owned by the university. Charles 

 T. Kirk, of the New Mexico Natural Resources 

 Survey, and John D. Clark, of the department 

 of chemistry at the University of New Mexico, 

 have been placed in charge of the work. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 Dr. Edgar Nelson Teanseau, now a pro- 

 fessor in the Southwestern Normal School, 

 Charleston, 111., goes to Ohio State University 

 next year as professor of plant physiology. 



Professor Roy H. Porter, of Iowa State 

 College, has become head of the department of 

 mechanical engineering at the New Hamp- 

 shire College to succeed Professor Richard E. 

 Chandler resigned. Professor Porter took his 

 B.S. degree in mechanical engineering at the 

 University of Maine in 1906 and the degree 

 of mechanical engineer at Iowa State College 

 in 1912. He has been instructor in mechanical 

 engineering at Iowa State College, was made 

 assistant professor there in 1908 and asso- 

 ciate professor in 1913. 



At Brjm Mawr College Dr. Frederick H. 

 Getman, associate professor of chemistry, has 



resigned, and Dr. James Llewellyn Crenshaw 

 has been appointed associate in physical chem- 

 istry. Dr. Crenshaw has been instructor in 

 chemistry in Centre College and in Princeton 

 University. From 1911 to 1915 he has been 

 research assistant in chemistry in the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington. 



Dr. p. H. Romee, director of the Institute 

 of Hygiene at Greifswald, has been called to 

 Halle as successor to Professor Franken. 



Professor Harries, of Kiel, director of the 

 chemical laboratory, has declined a call to 



Gottingen. 



Dr. Konrad Piohorius, professor of ancient 

 history at Breslau, has been appointed pro- 

 fessor at Bonn, as successor to Professor Ulrich 

 Wilcken. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 

 elementary mechanics 



The letter of Professors Franklin and Mac- 

 Nutt^ is a helpful contribution to the discus- 

 sion of the laws of motion. I wish especially 

 to endorse their remarks upon the law of action 

 and reaction. The idea that action and re- 

 action, because equal and opposite, are bal- 

 anced forces, is responsible for more confu- 

 sion, perhaps, than any other error connected 

 with the laws of dynamics. An instance of 

 this occurs in a comparatively recent article 

 in which tlie author assumes that a body acted 

 upon by an unbalanced force must be retarded 

 by an equal and opposite " ether-friction " in 

 order to satisfy the law of action and reaction; 

 forgetting that if such were the case the force 

 would really be balanced and the body would 

 have no acceleration. The explanations given 

 by Professors Franklin and MacNutt of the 

 second law of motion and of popular and 

 scientific usage regarding the terms mass and 

 weight are also, in the main, calculated to pro- 

 mote clear thinking about these matters. That 

 "the result of weighing a body on a balance 

 scale " is a proper measure of " amount of 

 material," however, certainly requires explana- 

 tion to the beginner. 



The writers apparently attribute to me some 



1 Science, July 9, 1915, p. 56. 



