August 11, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



183 



beams also showed the same tint, but most of 

 them were of a faint silvery whiteness. They 

 lasted from a few seconds to several minutes. 



The arch gradually spread along the horizon 

 until it covered 120 degrees or more, and at 

 the same time ascended the meridian to the 

 height of 15 or 20 degrees. 



Then there were two parallel arches sepa- 

 rated by a dark space, each arch and the dark 

 space being about five degrees wide. Stars of 

 the first three magnitudes could be seen 

 equally through the bright and dark portions. 

 Even in the group of the Hyades about Alde- 

 baran the stars could be seen through one of 

 the brightest portions of the display. 



The upper arch then gradually broke up, its 

 detached pieces appearing like floating clouds. 

 They slowly drifted higher in the sky, until 

 they seemd to be parts of a broken arch which 

 extended from the west to the east points of 

 the horizon. While these detached portions 

 floated away, there seemed to be no streamers, 

 as if streamers and broken arches could not 

 exist together, but of this the writer is not 

 certain, although he wrote down his observa- 

 tions at the first opportunity that presented 

 itself the following morning. He himself ob- 

 served the aurora for an hour until its gradual 

 return to its first appearance, the dying out 

 of its beams and the drifting of the luminous 

 remnants of the arches gave him the idea that 

 the display was nearing its end. A friend of 

 his, however, kept up the watch for a second 

 hour, and reports that the various stages de- 

 scribed above repeated themselves after vari- 

 ous intervals, and that some of the luminous 

 clouds drifted as high as the zenith. How 

 long the display lasted is not known, but the 

 next morning at five o'clock the sky was com- 

 pletely overcast and there was no sign of an 

 aurora. 



On the following night there was another 

 display of the aurora. It was noticed as early 

 as 7 :15 P.M., about an hour after sunset. The 

 sky was not as transparent as on the preceding 

 night, because the wind had been from the 

 south all day. The arch was about the same, 

 except that it had shifted bodily 20 degrees to 

 the east. There were a few streamers of vari- 



ous lengths, but they died out quickly. Clouds 

 began to form, and by 9 :30 the whole sky was 

 obscured. The aurora could, however, be seen 

 to some extent through the clouds, and ap- 

 peared like the lights of a distant city reflected 

 from the clouds. It was still visible after ten 

 o'clock. But there was no sign of it the next 

 morning nor on the following night, although 

 the sky was perfectly clear. 



William Francis Eigge 

 Creighton TJniveesity Observatory, 

 Omaha, -Nebr. 



QUOTATIONS 



state support of medical education 

 The wave of reform in medical education 

 moves steadily on, and of much significance 

 is the part which state universities are taking 

 in this reform. Slowly but surely colleges or- 

 ganized and conducted on the stock corpora- 

 tion basis are either obtaining connection with 

 privately endowed universities or are giving 

 way to the state supported university medical 

 school. In the latter instance, the medical 

 school is conducted as an integral part of the 

 state's educational system. The latest in- 

 stance is in Arkansas, where two independent 

 medical schools, the College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons and the University of Arkansas 

 medical department, both of Little Rock, 

 have been united. The school formed by this 

 consolidation is to be controlled and financed 

 by the University of Arkansas. This is but a 

 repetition of what has already taken place in 

 Indiana, Minnesota, Colorado, and the other 

 states, where only one medical school remains 

 in each instance, that being the medical de- 

 partment of the state university. In several 

 other states, generous appropriations have 

 been made for state university medical 

 schools. This larger state support of medical 

 education has another significance, however. 

 It means that since the state is endeavoring 

 to provide a good training for medical stu- 

 dents it will not tolerate the turning out of 

 poorly trained doctors by low-grade institu- 

 tions. In fact, the inferior medical colleges 

 even now are reading the handwriting on the 

 wall. This accounts for the opposition, direct 



