634 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXrV. No. 880 



Ms.. A. B. Stout, of the University of Wis- 

 consin, has been appointed director of the 

 laboratories of the New York Botanical 

 Garden to succeed Mr. Fred. J. Seaver, who 

 has been transferred to a curatorship. 



Dr. Eugene P. Humbert, associate biologist 

 of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion, has resigned to become agronomist in the 

 Agricultural College and Experiment Station 

 of New Mexico. 



Sir William E. Smith, C.B., superintendent 

 of construction accounts and contract work, 

 has been appointed to succeed Sir Philip 

 Watts, K.C.B., F.K.S., as director of naval 

 construction for Great Britain. 



Professor A. J. Cook, the veteran head of 

 the department of biology at Pomona College, 

 Claremont, California, has been appointed by 

 Governor Johnson horticultural commissioner 

 of California. He succeeds Mr. J. W. Jeffrey, 

 who has held the ofSce for seven years. Pro- 

 fessor Cook was for many years prior to 1891 

 connected with the Michigan Agricultural Col- 

 lege. He has written a number of books about 

 horticultural subjects and is the author of a 

 manual of apiculture. The position to which 

 he has just been appointed is one of great 

 importance, especially on account of the quar- 

 antine measures permissible under the Cali- 

 fornia law and which look toward the preven- 

 tion of the importation of new insect pests and 

 plant diseases. 



E. R. Hedeick, professor of mathematics; 

 J. L. Meriam, professor of school supervision; 

 M. F. Miller, professor of agronomy, and F. P. 

 Spalding, professor of civil engineering, have 

 returned to the University of Missouri after a 

 year's leave of absence. 



Professor A. E. Guenther, of the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska, has been granted a leave of 

 absence for the present academic year. He has 

 received a special fellowship in the department 

 of physiology of Columbia University, where 

 he is engaged in research work. 



Dr. Arthur Hollick, curator of the New 

 York Botanical Garden, has been granted a 

 leave of absence for the purpose of continuing 

 his study of the paleobotanical material col- 



lected by him in Alaska in 1903, under the 

 direction of the U. S. Geological Survey. 



Sir Frederick W. Moore, director of the 

 Royal Botanical Gardens, Dublin, has re- 

 turned from a visit to the eastern United 

 States and Canada. 



Dr. Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus 

 of Harvard University, whose departure for 

 Europe was noted in the last issue of Science, 

 goes, it is now announced, as a representative 

 of the Carnegie Endowment for International 

 Peace. Dr. Eliot will proceed, via the Suez 

 Canal route, to India, and after spending some 

 weeks in that country, will reach China in the 

 month of February. If conditions in China 

 permit, he will make an extended journey 

 through the interior of the country, visiting 

 the leading statesmen and men of aiiairs and 

 conferring with them as to the objects of his 

 visit. An important part of Dr. Eliot's work 

 will lie in Japan, which he expects to reach in 

 April, 1912. Dr. Eliot will return to the 

 United States in July next. 



The first course of Wagner Free Institute 

 of Science lectures under the Richard B. 

 Westbrook foundation will be delivered early 

 in 1912 by Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr., on 

 " Civilization in Ancient Babylonia and As- 

 syria." The course will consist of five lectures, 

 the exact dates and sub-topics of which will be 

 announced later. The lectures will be free to 

 the public. 



At the installation of the honorary fra- 

 ternity Phi Kappa Phi at the Iowa State Col- 

 lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, on 

 October 23, President Edwin E. Sparks, of the 

 State College of Pennsylvania, delivered an 

 address on " Shifting Ideals of Student Life." 



Dr. Nansen, who is to give an address be- 

 fore the Royal Geographical Society next 

 - month, has arranged to arrive in London in 

 time to preside at the lecture which Sir Ernest 

 Shackleton is to deliver on Friday evening, 

 November 3, at the University of London. 



A bronze monument to the memory of 

 Amedeo Avogadro was unveiled at Turin on 

 September 24, erected, as the result of an 

 international subscription, under the auspices 



