October 6, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



435 



be subjugated and controlled for human wel- 

 fare through a continued and cumulative con- 

 quest limited only by capacity for yielding 

 necessaries of life. While other limiting fac- 

 tors may arise as mentality extends and in- 

 tensifies, that most evident to-day in this and 

 several other countries is the water supply; 

 yet even this barrier may not prove insuper- 

 able by advancing invention so long as the 

 constituents of water abound in other com- 

 binations in the external earth-crust. What- 

 ever the uncertainties, any definite estimate of 

 future population made in the light of limi- 

 tations arising in current knowledge of re- 

 sources is more likely to be found too small 

 than too large as knowledge and command 

 over nature advance with the progressive de- 

 velopment of mankind. 



W J McGek 



TBE SILLIMAN LECTURES 

 The Silliman lectures for 1911 will, as al- 

 ready announced, be given at Yale Univer- 

 sity by Professor Max Verworn, of the Uni- 

 versity of Bonn. They will be given in 

 Lampson Hall at five o'clock on successive 

 days beginning on Monday, October 9. The 

 subjects are as follows : 



I. Historical Observations on the Doctrine of 

 Irritability. 

 II. The Meaning of Stimuli. 



III. The Special Characteristics of Stimuli. 



IV. The General Effects of Stimulation. 

 V. The Analysis of Excitation. 



VI. The Conductivity of Excitation. 



VII. Eefractory Period and Fatigue. 



VIII. The Interference of Excitation. 



IX. The Interference of Excitation. 



(Continued.) 



X. The Processes of Depression. 



The preceding lectures on the Silliman 

 foundation have been: 



1903. Professor Thomson, Cambridge University: 

 Electricity and Matter. 



1904. Professor Sherrington, University of Liver- 

 pool: 



Integrative Action of the Nervous System. 



1905. Professor Rutherford, McGill University: 

 Radio-active Transformations. 



1906. Professor Nernst, University of Berlin: 



Applications of Thermodynamics to Chemistry. 



1907. Professor Bateson, Cambridge University: 

 The Problems of Genetics. 



1908. Professor Penck, University of Berlin: 

 The Problems of Glacial Geology. 



1909. Professor Campbell, Lick Observatory, Uni- 

 versity of California: 



Stellar Motions. 



1910. Professor Arrhenius, University of Stock- 

 holm: 



The Theories of Solutions. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 Professor W. S. Eichelberger, director of 

 the Nautical Almanac, will represent the 

 United States at a conference of the directors 

 of the National Nautical Almanacs to be held 

 at Paris from October 23 to 28. 



At Harvard University Professors W. M. 

 Davis (geology), P. H. Hanus (education), 

 E. V. Huntington (mathematics) and E. B. 

 Holt (psychology) have leave of absence 

 from the university for the academic year 

 1911-12; Professors Theobald Smith (com- 

 parative pathology), George Santayana (phi- 

 losophy), E. B. Perry (philosophy) and D. W. 

 Johnson (physiography), for the second half- 

 year. 



The Hanbury gold medal of the British 

 Pharmaceutical Society has been awarded to 

 M. Eugene Leger, of the Hopital St. Louis, 

 Paris. 



Dr. G. a. Hansen, president of the perma- 

 nent international committee on leprosy, was 

 one of the founders of the Medicinsk Revue 

 in Norway in 1884. On the occasion of his 

 seventieth birthday recently, as we learn from 

 the Journal of the American Medical Asso- 

 ciation, the Revue issued a special Festschrift 

 number in his honor with fifteen articles on 

 various topics, especially leprosy and pellagra, 

 all by Norwegian writers. 



Professor Charles L. Edwards, of the Uni- 

 versity of Southern California, has been 

 placed in charge of the abalone investigations 

 instituted by the Fish and Game Commission 

 of the state of California. 



We learn from Nature that Mr. J. J. Nock 

 has been appointed by the British secretary of 



