46 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 967 



British Museum providing for an entire revi- 

 sion of tlie group. The work on the Korean 

 mammals collected by Mr. Andrews in north- 

 ern Korea had the benefit of comparison with 

 British Museum specimens secured by the 

 Duke of Bedford's earlier expedition to Korea, 

 the British Museum being practically the only 

 institution in the world which contains any 

 series of mammals from the region. 



Me. Guy "West Wilson has been appointed 

 special agent by the U. S. Bureau of Plant 

 Industry for the study of the relation of the 

 chestnut blight fungus to tannin and other 

 plant products. He will be stationed at Eut- 

 gers College, New Brunswick, N. J., and work 

 with Professor Mel. T. Cook, of that institu- 

 tion. He began work on July 1. 



Professor A. G. Tansley, of Cambridge 

 University, England, editor of the New Phy- 

 tologisi, will spend the greater part of the 

 summer in America visiting botanical centers 

 and participating in the phytogeographical 

 excursion which is planned for the summer. 



Dr. p. E. Goddard, of the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, is preparing for a 

 trip to the upper Peace Eiver country of 

 northwestern Canada to make a study of the 

 Beaver Indians, a little known tribe of the 

 northwest; and Dr. Herbert J. Spinden will 

 spend the summer in New Mexico on ethno- 

 logical work among the Pueblo Indians of the 

 Eio Grande Valley. 



Mr. p. G. Clapp, managing geologist of the 

 Associated Geological Engineers, sailed for 

 Europe on June 24, for professional work in 

 Hungary. 



The Princeton University department of 

 geology is sending a party consisting of Pro- 

 fessor Gilbert van Ingen, in charge, Messrs. 

 Nelson C. Dale and A. F. Buddington, fellows, 

 and Mr. B. P. Howell, Jr., assistant in geol- 

 ogy, to Newfoundland, to study the geology 

 of the Conception and Trinity Bays regions. 

 Certain problems of Cambro-Ordovician strat- 

 igraphy developed by Professor van Ingen and 

 Mr. A. O. Hayes during their Newfoundland 

 work in 1912, the pre-Cambrian pyroclastic 

 and unaltered sedimentary clastic rock, and a 



highly interesting interbedded manganese de- 

 posit are the special problems to be studied. 



The Charles Pinney Cox collection of Dar- 

 winiana has been installed in a case built for 

 it and placed in the library reading room of 

 the New York Botanical Garden. The privi- 

 lege of consulting it has already been granted 

 to several students, and its value as a prac- 

 tically complete collection of the published 

 writings of Charles Darwin will constantly 

 increase. A bronze statuette of Charles Dar- 

 win is placed on top of the case. 



Sir Archibald Geikie writes to the London 

 Times, under date June 12, as follows: 



Another of the vanishing literary landmarks of 

 London is marked out for destruction. On the 

 east side of St. Martin 's-street, immediately to 

 the south of Leicester-square, there still stands 

 the house in which Isaac Newton spent the last 

 17 years of his life, and which he made the center 

 of scientific life in this country. There he wrote 

 and worked in the little observatory which he 

 constructed at the top of the house. In later years 

 the building was tenanted by Dr. Burney, author 

 of the ' ' History of Music, ' ' and there, unknown 

 to him, and betaking herself to Newton 's quiet 

 garret studio, his daughter Fanny wrote her 

 "Evelina." The house thus became as famous 

 for its literary associations as it had been for its 

 connection with the leaders of science. The whole 

 property, including this house and Orange-street 

 Chapel, belong to a trust, which is offering it for 

 sale at the price of £30,000 for the freehold or on 

 a building lease for 80 years at a yearly rent of 

 £825. Newton's house occupies about a third of 

 the site. I assume that tx) obtain an adequate 

 return for the outlay of such sums would involve 

 the demolition of the present buildings to make 

 way for modern warehouses, offices or shops. I 

 fear that no society or association, whether literary 

 or scientific, nor any combination of such institu- 

 tions could raise money enough to save Newton's 

 house from destruction. But I have thought it 

 desirable to call public attention to the matter in 

 the faint hope that means may yet be devised to 

 preserve so interesting a memorial of the past 

 intellectual life of London. 



We learn from Nature that on June 5 the 

 faculty of science of the University of Geneva 

 erected a bust to the memory of Pierre Pre- 

 vost (1751-1839), the Geneva man of science 



