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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 883 



The De Morgan medal of the London 

 Mathematical Society has been awarded to 

 Professor Horace Lamb, F.R.S., for his re- 

 searches in mathematical physics. 



The Eoyal Scottish Geographical Society 

 has awarded its gold medal to Mr. J. Y. 

 Buchanan, F.E.S., for his services to geog- 

 raphy, especially in oceanographical research. 



Mr. Frederick Gowland Hopkins, M.A., 

 F.R.S., formerly fellow and tutor, and Mr. 

 Eowland Harry Biifen, M.A., professor of 

 agricultural botany, have been elected honor- 

 ary fellows at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. 



Professor Peter Schwamb, who graduated 

 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 

 ogy in 1878 and was appointed instructor there 

 in 1883, being since 1901 professor of machine 

 design, has retired from active work under the 

 provisions of the Carnegie Foundation. 



Mr. E. J. Godlee has been elected president 

 of the Eoyal College of Surgeons of England, 

 in succession to Sir Henry Butlin. 



In reply to an inquiry as to the award of the 

 Nobel prizes. Professor Svante Arrhenius 

 has sent to Nature the following infor- 

 mation: (1) Prize for medicine: awarded 

 on October 21, the birthday of Dr. Alfr. 

 Nobel, by the Carolinian Institute (fac- 

 ulty of medicine) in Stockholm to Dr. 

 Allvar Gullstrand (born 1862), professor 

 of ophthalmology in the University of Upsala, 

 Sweden, for his investigations in physiolog- 

 ical optics. (2) Prize for physics: awarded on 

 November 7 by the Eoyal Academy of Sci- 

 ences, Stockholm, to Dr. Willy Wien (born 

 1864), professor of physics at the University 

 of Wiirzburg, Bavaria, for his discoveries re- 

 garding the laws of radiation. (3) Prize for 

 chemistry: awarded on November 7 by the 

 Eoyal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, to 

 Mme. Marie Curie (born 1867), professor of 

 physics in the University of Paris (Sorbonne), 

 for her discoveries of the chemical elements 

 radium and polonium, and her investigations 

 regarding their chemical properties. Mme. 

 Curie received, together with her husband, the 

 half of the Nobel prize for physics in 1903 for 



their investigations regarding the Becquerel 

 rays. (4) Prize for literature: awarded on 

 November 9 by the Eoyal Swedish Academy 

 of Literature, Stockholm, to Maurice Maeter- 

 linck (born 1862). The prize for work in the 

 cause of peace will probably not be awarded 

 before December 10, the day of Dr. A. Nobel's 

 death, by the Storthing (Parliament) in 

 Christiania, Norway. 



Professor W. E. Castle, of the Bussey Insti- 

 tution, Harvard University, has gone on a 

 zoological expedition to Peru, to be absent 

 about three months. His headquarters will be 

 at the Harvard Astronomical Observatory, 

 Arequipa. 



Dr. D. T. MacDougal and Mr. G. Sykes, of 

 the Desert Botanical Laboratory, will visit the 

 region between Khartoum and the Eed Sea 

 early in 1912, and later undertake some ex- 

 tended work in the Libyan oases. Attention 

 will be devoted chiefly to the extension of 

 studies on the features of desert basins upon 

 which some work has been done in the Salton, 

 and in the Otero basin in New Mexico. Dr. 

 MacDougal sailed to join Mr. Sykes in Eng- 

 land on November 23. He will lecture on 

 " North American Deserts " before the Eoyal 

 Geographical Society on December 18. 



Lieut. Col. Edgar A. Mearns, U.S.A., re- 

 tired, associate zoologist of the United States 

 National Museum, who accompanied the 

 Smithsonian expedition to Africa, under the 

 direction of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, will 

 be attached as naturalist to the Childs Friek 

 Abyssinian expedition, which shortly sails from 

 London to make natural history collections in 

 the Abyssinian region. The party wiU consist 

 of Mr. Childs Frick, son of Mr. Henry C. 

 Frick, Mr. Blick, a friend of the former, Dr. 

 Mearns and a physician. It is the plan of the 

 organizer to make as complete a collection of the 

 animals of the Abyssinian region as possible. 

 The birds will be prepared by Dr. Mearns 

 for the National Museum, where they will 

 be studied and reported on; the other animals, 

 including big game, will be prepared by Messrs. 

 Frick and Blick, both of whom have taken pre- 

 liminary lessons in taxidermy and field prepa- 



