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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 865 



these will be supplemented by a series of about 

 eight more technical seminars. The lectures, 

 open to the general public, will give an out- 

 line of modern inquiries into the problems of 

 genetics. The seminar meetings are intended 

 for a limited group of investigators and ad- 

 vanced students, and will give opportunity for 

 more critical and informal discussions of 

 special researches in this field. A more de- 

 tailed announcement will be made by the sec- 

 retary of Columbia University toward the 

 opening of the academic year. 



Among those on whom, the University of 

 Birmingham conferred the honorary degree 

 of LL.D. on the occasion of the annual meet- 

 ing of the British Medical Association, which 

 opened in Birmingham on July 21, are the 

 following: Sir Francis Lovell, president of 

 the Tropical Medicine Section; Dr. R. H. 

 Chittenden, professor of physiology at Tale 

 University; Professor H. Oppenheim, neurol- 

 ogist of Berlin; Professor Paul Strassman, 

 assistant professor of obstetrics, Berlin; Dr. 

 Byron Bramwell, president Royal College of 

 Physicians, Edinburgh; Dr. J. A. Macdonald, 

 chairman of council, British Medical Associa- 

 tion; Dr. R. A. Reeve, ex-president British 

 Medical Association and professor of ophthal- 

 mology at Toronto; Professor Sims Wood- 

 head, professor of pathology at Cambridge. 



The Leipzig Seismological Society has 

 awarded its gold Eduard Vogel medal to Dr. 

 L. Sehultze, of Jena. 



Dr. T. C. Mendenhall, emeritus professor 

 of physics in Ohio State University and form- 

 erly president of the Worcester Polytechnic 

 Institute, has returned to the United States 

 after a long trip abroad and a trip around the 

 world. 



Dr. Lester E. Ward, who is giving a course 

 of lectures in the summer session at Columbia 

 University, will sail for Norway on August 

 17 as a delegate of Brown University to the 

 centennial celebration of the University of 

 Christiania. From there he will go to Ham- 

 burg to attend the Congress of Monists which 

 meets there September 8. He will remain 

 abroad until October in order to attend the 



Congress of the International Institute of 

 Sociology at Rome, before which he is to read 

 two papers on " Social Progress." 



Mr. Donald F. MacDonald, geologist to the 

 Isthmian Canal Commission, formerly with 

 the U. S. Geological Survey, has just returned 

 to his headquarters at Culebra, Canal Zone, 

 from a month's professional visit to Costa 

 Rica. While there he made some collections 

 of Tertiary fossils, which will be sent to the 

 National Museum, and visited the Abangarez 

 and Boston groups of mines on the Pacific 

 slope of the Costa Rican Cordillera. 



Mr. Floyd W. Robinson, formerly state 

 analyst of the Michigan Dairy Food Depart- 

 ment, who testified in the benzoate of soda 

 case in the Federal Court at Indianapolis that 

 benzoate of soda is a harmful preservative and 

 that its use should be prohibited by law, has 

 been dismissed as an employee of the United 

 States Bureau of Chemistry " for the good of 

 the service." Mr. Robinson protests against 

 being dismissed without having an opportun- 

 ity to know what charges are brought against 

 him. 



Professor James Franklin Collins has re- 

 signed as assistant professor of botany and 

 curator of the herbarium at Brown Univer- 

 sity to accept a position as forest pathologist 

 in the Bureau of Plant Industry. 



Professor T. D. Beckwith, bacteriologist 

 and plant pathologist at North Dakota Agri- 

 cultural College and Experiment Station, 

 has been elected head of the department of 

 bacteriology at Oregon Agricultural College 

 and state bacteriologist for the Experiment 

 Station. He will take up his duties at Cor- 

 vallis. Ore., on September first. 



The Royal Society has awarded the Mac- 

 kennon studentships for the ensuing year to 

 Mr. T. F. Winmill, of Magdalen College, Ox- 

 ford, for research in structural chemistry, and 

 to Mr. T. Goodey, of Rothamsted Experi- 

 mental Station, for research on protozoa in 

 relation to the fertility of soil. The Joule 

 studentship for the ensuing period of two 

 years has been awarded to Mr. Albert Eagle, 

 * Imperial College of Science, for research on 



