September 5, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



329 



The exhibition of specimens illustrating the 

 modification of the structure of animals in 

 relation to flight which has been in prepara- 

 tion for many months at the Natural History 

 Museum has, as we learn from Nature, been 

 opened to the public. It occupies the fourth 

 bay on the right of the central hall, and com- 

 prises 166 mounted objects and twelve micro- 

 scopic specimens for the purpose of elucidating 

 the subject in a popular manner. The adapta- 

 tfon of each kind of flying animal for aerial 

 locomotion is explained, and the changes that 

 must have taken place in the struture of the 

 body before the animal could really fly are indi- 

 cated, and attention is directed to the remark- 

 able fact that the power of flight has been 

 evolved independently in different groups of 

 animals — e. g., bats, birds, Pterodaetyles and 

 insects. 



Dr. Henry Godd.^rd Leach, secretary of the 

 American-Scandinavian Foundation, has re- 

 turned from an oiEcial tour of Sweden, Nor- 

 way and Denmark. The foundation was en- 

 dowed by the late Niels Poulson, president of 

 the Brooklyn Iron Company, with $600,000 to 

 maintain an interchange of students, teachers 

 and lecturers, and to promote in other ways 

 intellectual relations between this country and 

 -Scandinavia. Fellowships have been awarded 

 to two representatives from each of the three 

 countries, and they will enter universities in 

 this country this fall. Plans also have been 

 discussed for an exchange of professors be- 

 tween the University of Copenhagen, the Uni- 

 versity of Christiania, the University of Up- 

 sala and several American institutions. Dr. 

 Leach left New York in May to confer with 

 the advisory committees of the three Scandi- 

 navian countries concerning the choice of fel- 

 lows, who will pursue their studies here. One 

 of those chosen is Ellen Gleditsch, from Nor- 

 way, who has studied for five years with Mme. 

 Curie in Paris, and will take up her work here 

 in Johns Hopkins University. Her country- 

 man, Arnt Jacobsen, is a student of bridge 

 construction. Denmark is represented by C. 

 M. Pederson, a student of technology, who 

 will enter the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology, and Vilhelm Slomann, a student 



of library methods, who will go to the State 

 Library in Albany. Sweden will send Erik 

 Koersner, a civil engineer, and Einar Corvin, 

 an investigator in experimental psychology. 



According to a cablegram from New Zea- 

 land to the daily papers, relief arrived just in 

 time to save Dr. Douglas Mawson, the Aus- 

 tralian Antarctic explorer, and his five com- 

 panions who were left last March on Mac- 

 quarie Island in the Antarctic Ocean when 

 the remaining twenty-four members of Dr. 

 Mawson's expedition returned to Tasmania 

 from their South Polar trip. The six men 

 were believed to have ample provisions to last 

 them until the Antarctic spring, but the com- 

 mander of the government steamer recently 

 sent to their relief reports that the explorers 

 had exhausted all their supplies. Two mem- 

 bers of the Mawson expedition — Lieutenant 

 Ninnis, an English army officer, and Dr. 

 Xavier Mertz, a Swiss scientific man, lost 

 their lives in accidents on the ice. The orig- 

 inal expedition left Hobart, Tasmania, on 

 December 2, 1911, its principal object being 

 the exploration and survey of the Antarctic 

 coast line. When the Aurora went to fetch 

 the explorers back, early this year, the vessel 

 was forced to leave before taking on Dr. Maw- 

 son and five of his companions forming one of 

 the parties, as the ship was in danger of being 

 crushed by the ice. 



A CONFERENCE On the Binet-Simon tests was 

 arranged by Professor Lewis M. Terman, 

 of Stanford University, to be held at Buffalo 

 on August 29 in connection with the Fourth 

 International Congress of School Hygiene. 

 The special purpose of the conference is to 

 consider matters relating to needed revisions 

 of the scale and to its proper use. The follow- 

 ing papers were in the program: 



Dr. Henry H. Goddard: "The KeliabiUty of the 

 Binet-Simon Scale. ' ' 



Dr. Otto Bobertag, of the University of Breslau : 

 "Some Theses regarding the Scientific Manage- 

 ment of the Binet Scale." 



Dr. F. Kuhlmann: "The Degree of Mental De- 

 ficiency in Children as expressed by the Relation 

 of Age to Mental Age. ' ' 



Professor Josiah Morse: "The Use of the Binet 

 Tests in the Investigation of Eacial Heredity. ' ' 



