October 15, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



527 



Museum has been undergoing the necessary 

 alterations so that it may now be used for 

 museum purposes as was originally designed. 

 The building is being thoroughly repaired, a 

 modern lighting system is being installed, and 

 much material of unique scientific value, which 

 has never before been displayed through lack 

 of space, is now being arranged for permanent 

 exhibition. The director of the museum, 

 which contains more than a million specimens, 

 is Dr. T. C. Chamberlin, head of the depart- 

 ment of geology; and the associate directors 

 are Frederick Starr in anthropology, Stuart 

 Weller in invertebrate paleontology, and 

 Samuel Wendell Williston in vertebrate pale- 

 ontology. 



The University of Illinois is completing 

 arrangements for the construction of a new 

 genetics building. It will contain offices for 

 Dr. J. A. Detlefson and Mr. Elmer Eoberts 

 and two laboratories — one for general genetics 

 and the other for animal nutrition with class- 

 room accommodations. When completed the 

 building will be one story in height, 140 feet 

 by 42 feet in width, and will cost approxi- 

 mately $10,000. 



By the will of Mr. W. Jackson, engineer, of 

 Aberdeen, funds are left, subject to his wife's 

 life interest, for the establishment of a chair 

 of engineering in the University of Aberdeen. 



Professor Julius Stieglitz has been made 

 chairman of the department of chemistry of 

 the University of Chicago to succeed the late 

 Professor John Ulric Neff. 



The Harvard corporation has made the fol- 

 lowing appointments for the year opening 

 September 27 : Dr. John L. Morse, associate 

 professor of pediatrics, has been made full pro- 

 fessor; Dr. Frederick T. Lewis, assistant pro- 

 fessor of embryology, has been appointed asso- 

 ciate professor; Dr. John Warren, assistant 

 professor of anatomy, has been made associate 

 professor; Dr. John L. Bremer, assistant pro- 

 fessor of histology, has been made associate 

 professor; Dr. Francis W. Peabody has been 

 appointed assistant professor of medicine and 



Dr. Herbert S. Langfeld, assistant professor 

 of psychology. 



Appointments in the department of agron- 

 omy at the Iowa State College for the year 

 include: Eoss L. Bancroft, M.Sc. (University 

 of Wyoming and Iowa State College), assist- 

 ant professor of soils; H. W. Johnson, M.Sc. 

 (Iowa State College), instructor in soils and 

 assistant in soil bacteriology; F. S. Wilkins, 

 M.Sc. (University of South Dakota and Iowa 

 State College), instructor in farm crops, and 

 Eoy Westley, B.Sc. (Iowa State College), in- 

 structor in farm crops. 



Professor A. B. Plowman, Ph.D. (Har- 

 vard), has taken up his work as head of the 

 department of biology, in the Municipal Uni- 

 versity of Akron, Ohio. 



Professor Willstaettee, member of the 

 Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, has 

 been made professor of chemistry at the Uni- 

 versity of Munich. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESFONDENCE 



POTASSIUM FROM THE SOIL 



Bulletin 182 of the Illinois Experiment 

 Station by Hopkins and Aumer, brings, under 

 the above caption, the results and discussions 

 of a three-year course of experimentation in 

 the growing of crop plants in the " insoluble 

 residue " left after digestion, according to the 

 " official method," for ten hours in HCl of 

 1.115 sp. g., of a " normal " soil from the 

 Illinois corn belt, of good productiveness. The 

 authors recall that in bulletin 123 of their 

 station it had already been shown that this 

 method of digestion extracted only 15 to 25 

 per cent, of the total potassium present, as 

 determined by the method of fusion. In the 

 present series of tests it was clearly shown that 

 red clover was able to take from the insoluble 

 residue sufficient potassium to supply a normal 

 crop, so long as nitrogen and phosphorus were 

 adequately present ; thus illustrating the futil- 

 ity of the " official method." 



It seems proper now to recall to mind that in 

 the early seventies, Loughridge at my sugges- 

 tion made an elaborate investigation of the 

 effects of the digestion of a " normal " soil with 



