August 29, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



299 



to note, however, that only forty-two <iay3 

 elapsed from the time Meyer cabled, June 13, 

 until every link in the chain of evidence of the 

 identity of the Chinese with the American 

 disease was complete. This included the dis- 

 covery of the characteristic " mycelial fans," 

 the making of cultures which appeared iden- 

 tical, the producing of the disease in American 

 chestnut trees by inoculation from the cul- 

 tures, and the discovery on July 24 of the 

 ascospores of the fungus, Endothia parasitica 

 (Murr.), on material later sent in. When we 

 consider that the little town in the Chili prov- 

 ince of China is a day and a half cart journey 

 from a railroad, it is interesting to note the 

 promptness with which exact laboratory re- 

 search methods in Washington can be brought 

 to bear on a field problem half way round the 

 globe. David Fairchild 



U. S. Department op Agriculture 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



The committee of the permanent commis- 

 sion for the International Congress of Medi- 

 cine to be held in Munich in 1917 has been 

 elected as follows : President, Professor Dr. 

 Friedrich von Miiller, of Munich (president- 

 elect for the eighteenth congress) ; vice-presi- 

 dents, M. Caiman Miiller, of Budapest (presi- 

 dent of the sixteenth congress), and Sir 

 Thomas Barlow, of London (president of the 

 seventeenth congress) ; secretary-general, M. 

 H. Burger, of Amsterdam; assistant secretary, 

 D. Ph. van der Haer, of The Hague; member, 

 M. L. Dejace, of Liege (president of the In- 

 ternational Association of the Medical Press). 



Dr. Roux, director of the Pasteur Institute, 

 has been appointed a grand officer of the 

 Legion of Honor. 



Mr. Robert Bridges, newly appointed poet 

 laureate in Great Britain, holds a degree in 

 medicine from Oxford and for some years was 

 a practising physician. 



The Paris Academy of Sciences has awarded 

 its Valz prize to Professor A. Fowler, F.R.S., 

 for his investigations on the spectrum of hy- 

 drogen and other contributions to astrophysics. 



Drs. a. Bacmeister and L. Kiipferle, of 

 Freiburg, have received $1,000 from the Rob- 

 ert Koch foundation for their studies on 

 Rontgen therapy in tuberculosis. 



Dr. C. F. Hodge, professor of biology at 

 Clark University, will have leave of absence 

 next year and will conduct work in Oregon 

 under the extension department of the univer- 

 sity and the Oregon state game commission. 



Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of 

 the American Museum of Natural History, 

 has been visiting the expeditions conducting 

 paleontological explorations for the museum 

 in the west. 



Dr. F. Robert Helmert, the distinguished 

 Berlin geodesist, celebrated his seventieth 

 birthday on July 21. 



Professor Archibald Barr is about to re- 

 tire from the regius chair of civil engineering 

 and mechanics at the University of Glasgow. 



The Michigan State Board of Health has 

 offered the position of state sanitary engineer 

 to Professor E. D. Rich, of the University of 

 Michigan. 



Mr. James A. Barr, who for the past year 

 has been manager of the Bureau of Conven- 

 tions and Societies of the Panama-Pacific In- 

 ternational Exposition, has been appointed 

 chief of the department of education. He 

 will have general charge of the congresses and 

 conventions as well as of the educational ex- 

 hibits. Dr. Irwin Shepard, for twenty years 

 secretary of the National Education Associa- 

 tion, has been appointed national secretary of 

 the Bureau of Conventions, in San Francisco. 

 Up to this time 151 congresses and conven- 

 tions have been scheduled for San Francisco 

 or near-by cities in 1915. At the meeting of 

 the National Education Association held in 

 Salt Lake City in July, the directors recom- 

 mended that the 1915 meeting be held in Oak- 

 land, just across the Bay from San Francisco 

 and within an hour of the Exposition grounds. 

 The directors also recommended that an In- 

 ternational Congress on Education be held in 

 Oakland in 1915, under the general direction 

 of a commission of thirty-four educators, with 



