Decembeb 24, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



899 



of Sciences and officers of the New York 

 Academy of Sciences, music at San Francisco, 

 and other demonstrations, — all audible to all 

 participants by individual receivers. 



The Plant World announces the offering of 

 two prizes for the best papers embodying ori- 

 ginal work in soil physios. The first prize will 

 be $50 and the second $25, with the reserva- 

 tion of the right to withhold both prizes if no 

 worthy papers are submitted or to combine the 

 prizes for the rewarding of a paper of excep- 

 tional merit. The conditions governing the 

 award will be similar to those employed in con- 

 nection with the prizes for papers on the water 

 relations of plants which were offered in April, 

 1915. The contesting contributions should be 

 in the hands of the editor of The Plant 

 World by December 1, 1916, and the announce- 

 ment of the award will be made not later than 

 March 1, 1917. 



The annual series of free public lectures 

 under the auspices of the Harvard Medical 

 School vTiU be given, as usual, at four o'clock 

 on Sunday afternoons at the Harvard Med- 

 ical School. The lectures are : 



January 2. — Dr. E. B. Greenougli : ' ' Cancer. ' ' 



January 9. — Dr. W. H. Potter: "Military 

 Dentistry; Experiences in a Three Months' Serv- 

 ice in the American Ambulance Hospital, Paris." 



January 16.— Dr. K. P. Strong: "Progress in 

 Combating Epidemics of Some Infectious Dis- 

 eases. ' ' 



January 23. — Dr. E. B. Osgood: "Orthopsedio 

 Problems Presented by the European War." 



January 30. — Dr. J. A. Honeij : "Leprosy." 



February 6. — Dr. C. M. Smith: "Syphilis." 



February 13. — Dr. F. H. VerhofE: "Some 

 Simple Facts Kegarding the Eyes that every one 

 Should Know. ' ' 



February 20.— W. H. Eobey, Jr.: "The Value 

 of Physical Examination to the Individual." 



February 27. — Dr. C. J. White: "Occupation 

 as a Contributing Factor to Certain Skin Dis- 

 eases. ' ' 



March 5.— Dr. W. K. Bloor : "The Eole of Fat 

 in the Nutrition of Man." 



March 12.— Dr. F. S. Newell: "The Care of 

 Pregnancy." (To women only.) 



March 19. — J. L. Goodale: "Hay Fever and 

 Asthma. ' ' 



March 26.— Dr. F. W. White: "Chronic Indi- 

 gestion. ' ' 



April 2. — ^Dr. J. E. Torbet: "A Comparison of 

 the Methods for the Eelief of Pain in Childbirth." 

 (To women only.) 



April 9.— Dr. P. G. Stiles: "The Present Con- 

 ception of an Adequate Diet. ' ' 



April 16. — Dr. G. B. Magrath: "Death by Acci- 

 dent; Some of its Causes and How to Eliminate 

 Them. ' ' 



April 23. — Dr. H. P. Mosher: "The Manage- 

 ment of Foreign Bodies in the Trachea, Bronchi 

 and Esophagus." 



April 30.— Dr. C. V. Chapin: "What the Indi- 

 vidual Can Do to Protect Himself from Infec- 

 tion." 



May 7. — Dr. E. I. Lee: "The Importance of 

 Physical Examination in Health as Shown by the 

 Examination of Harvard Students. ' ' 



The exploring excavations in the Mesa 

 Verde National Park which the Department of 

 the Interior is conducting under the direction 

 of Dr. Jesse W. Tewkes, of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, are successful to a degree scarcely 

 anticipated when the work was begun, accord- 

 ing to a statement by Mr. Enos Mills, sent out 

 by the Dep artment of the Interior. The new ex- 

 cavations are across the canyon from the Cliff 

 Palace. This remarkable prehistoric village 

 stands beneath the rim of the east side of the 

 canyon while the structure now unearthedstands 

 upon the rim of the west side. For many years 

 visitors to the Mesa Verde National Park have 

 noticed a huge mound opposite the Cliff Palace 

 with trees growing upon it. It is this mound 

 which the Department of the Interior deter- 

 mined to explore and under which Dr. Fewkes 

 has found the most remarkable prehistoric 

 structure north of the Aztec architecture in 

 Mexico. It is of cut and polished stone. The 

 building has the form of a capital D. The 

 straight elevation is 123 feet long and the 

 curved part 245 feet. The outer walls are 

 double and between them are a series of nar- 

 row rooms. As the outer walls are unbroken, 

 the entrance to this building must have been 

 either subterranean or by the means of ladders 

 through the top. Dr. Fewkes believes the ruin 

 was an uncompleted fortress abandoned when 

 the cliff dwellers disappeared from the Eocky 

 Mountain region. At Moki Spring, a short 

 distance from these ruins, there are a number 



