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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 876 



PEOFESSOn JOEANNSEN'S COLUMBIA 

 LECTURES 



Professor Johannsen's lectures on the mod- 

 ern principles of heredity at Columbia Uni- 

 versity, briefly announced in a previous issue 

 of Science, will deal with the following topics : 



October 13 — "The Problem of Personal Char- 

 acters." Old Conceptions of Heredity; Trans- 

 mission of Personal Characters; Variation and 

 Phenotypes; Selection; Galton's Law of Eegres- 

 sion; The Study of Pure Lines; Explanation of 

 Galton's Eegression; Criticisms of the Transmis- 

 sion Conception; The Genotype Conception; Per- 

 sonal Characters Irrelevant; Constancy of Geno- 

 typical Elements; Modern Definition of Heredity. 



October 20— "The Problem of Unit Factors." 

 Homozygotes and Heterozygotes ; Hybridization; 

 Mendelism; Segregation and Combination of Geuo- 

 typieal Elements; Genetic Constructions; Personal 

 Characters as Eeaetions of Genotypical Elements; 

 Complicated Cases. 



October 27 — "Problems of Correlation and 

 Sex." Exceptions to Mendelian Behavior; Blend- 

 ing Characters; Eepulsion and Coupling of Geno- 

 typical Elements; Sex-limited Inheritance; Cyto- 

 logical Questions. 



November 3 — ' ' The Problem of New Biotypes. ' ' 

 Mutations; External Factors acting upon Geno- 

 typical Elements; Mutations and Mendelism; 

 Acquired Personal Characters; Criticisms of La- 

 marekian Views; Facts and Speculations; Morpho- 

 logical Views versus Chemical Views in Genetics; 

 Summary. 



These lectures are given under the auspices 

 of the departments of botany and zoology and 

 will constitute the twelfth series of Columbia 

 biological lectures. They will be given in 

 Room 305, Schermerhorn Hall, at 4:10 p.m., 

 and are open to the public. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 By invitation of the trustees of the New 

 York Public Library the autumn meeting of 

 the National Academy of Sciences will be 

 held in its new building, Forty-second Street 

 and Pifth Avenue, beginning on Tuesday, 

 November 21. The first business meeting of the 

 academy will be held on Tuesday morning at 

 eleven o'clock and the first open scientific ses- 

 sion will be at two o'clock in the afternoon. 

 Titles of papers should be sent to Dr. John 



S. Billings, secretary of the local committee, 

 New York Public Library. 



Owing to the epidemic of cholera, the vari- 

 ous international congresses, geographical, 

 agriculture and tuberculosis, will not meet in 

 Rome this autumn. They have been post- 

 poned until the spring of 1912, the exact date 

 not yet being determined. 



Among the degrees given by the University 

 of Vermont on the occasion of the installation 

 of President G. P. Benton were doctorates of 

 laws on Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, president of 

 the Carnegie Foundation; Dr. E. F. Nichols, 

 president of Dartmouth College, and Dr. Har- 

 vey W. Wiley, chief of the Bureau of Chemis- 

 try. 



Professor A. A. Mighelson, head of the de- 

 partment of physics, at the University of Chi- 

 cago, has returned from the University of 

 Gottingen, where he has been exchange pro- 

 fessor during the summer semester. 



Dr. C. Willard Hayes, chief geologist of 

 the U. S. Geological Survey, has retired to 

 engage in technological work in Mexico. 



Dr. Edward Eenouf, collegiate professor of 

 chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University 

 since 1890, has retired from active service. 



Dr. Franz Mertens, professor of mathe- 

 matics at Vienna, has retired from the active 

 duties of his chair. 



Associates of the Harvard University Mu- 

 seum for five years from September 1, 1911, 

 have been appointed as follows : Robert Tracy 

 Jackson, S.D. (paleontology) ; Frank Springer, 

 Ph.B. (paleontology) ; Frank Shipley Collins, 

 A.M. (botany) ; Edward Phelps Allis, Jr., 

 LL.D. (zoology) ; Arthur Cleveland Bent, A.B. 

 (ornithology) ; William Barnes, S.B., M.D. 

 (entomology) ; Frederick Blanchard (entomol- 

 ogy) ; Andrew Gray Weeks, A.B. (entomology). 



Dr. L. E. Geissler, of Cornell University, 

 has been appointed associate psychologist in 

 the physical laboratory of the National Elec- 

 tric Lamp Association, Cleveland, O. 



Professor Luigi Carnera, director of the 

 International Latitude Stations at Carloforte 

 and Oncativo, has been appointed professor of 



