662 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 



Mr. Bascombe Britt Higgins, Ph.D. (Cor- 

 nell, '13), has been appointed botanist and plant 

 pathologist of the Georgia Experiment Sta- 

 tion. Dr. Higgins began his work in Georgia 

 early in October. 



Professor George V. N. Dearborn, of the 

 Tufts College Medical and Dental School, has 

 been appointed consulting physiologist to the 

 Forsyth Dental Infirmary, Boston. 



W. J. Wintemberg has been appointed pre- 

 parator in archeology in the Geological Sur- 

 vey Branch of the Department of Mines, by 

 the Civil Service Commission of Canada. 



The council of the Victoria Institute has 

 appointed Mr. E.. Walter Maunder to the 

 secretaryship of the institute, vacant by the 

 death of Mr. F. S. Bishop. Mr. Maunder 

 ■will retire on November 4 from the Eoyal 

 Observatory, Greenwich, where he has been 

 superintendent of the Solar Department for 

 40 years. 



Professor C. G. Barkla, recently elected to 

 the chair of natural philosophy in the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh, gave his inaugural lecture 

 on October 16, Principal Sir William Turner 

 presiding. The subject of the address was, 

 " What we know of Electricity." 



The Bradshaw Lecture before the Royal 

 College of Physicians of London was delivered 

 on November 4 by Dr. T. R. Glynn, professor 

 of medicine in the University of Liverpool, 

 whose subject was " Hysteria in some of its 

 aspects." Two Fitz-Patrick Lectures were 

 announced to be delivered on November 6 and 

 11 by Dr. C. A. Mercier, on " Astrology in 

 medicine." 



Dr. Hermann Aron, who made important 

 contributions to electrial engineering, has died 

 at the age of sixty-eight years. 



M. Chables Tellier, the inventor of the 

 cold storage system, has died at eighty-six 

 years of age. 



The U. S. Civil Service Commission an- 

 nounces an examination for assistant in agri- 

 cultural technology, for men only, on Decem- 

 ber 3, to fill vacancies in the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, Department of Agriculture, at 

 salaries of from $1,250 to $2,250. 



In connection with the sixth international 

 congress of mathematicians, to be held in 

 Stockholm in 1916, King Gustav V. of Sweden 

 has founded a prize, consisting of a gold medal 

 bearing a portrait of Weierstrass and a cash 

 sum of 3,000 crowns, for the best contribution 

 to the theory of analytic functions. 



The annual joint meeting of the American 

 Anthropological Association and the American 

 Folk-lore Society will be held in the American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York City, 

 December 29-31. Titles of papers and ab- 

 stracts should be sent not later than December 

 1 to Professor George Grant MacCurdy, Tale 

 University Museum, New Haven, Conn., who 

 is responsible for the joint program. The 

 program will be mailed to members about the 

 tenth of December. 



The American Mathematical Society has 

 accepted the invitation of Brown University, 

 extended through the committee on the cele- 

 bration of her one hundred and fiftieth anni- 

 versary to hold its fall meeting at Brown Uni- 

 versity in September, 1914. 



The London Times says that Dr. Mawson 

 and his comrades, who were practically ma- 

 rooned in the Antarctic by the sudden onset of 

 winter last year, are still stranded. Like 

 nearly every other polar expedition of recent 

 years, this exploration party started south 

 without having the definite assurance that it 

 would receive sufiicient financial support to 

 enable it to complete its undertaking. The 

 Australian state governments voted Dr. Maw- 

 son £20,000 and the commonwealth govern- 

 ment £5,000, but these amounts, togethej with 

 other public and private donations, have not 

 covered the cost of the expedition. At the 

 present moment its liabilities amount to about 

 £11,000 and its assets total some £5,000. It 

 requires the difference, £6,000, to bring the 

 members of the expedition back to Australia, 

 when the relief ship Aurora can reach them. 

 Appeal has been made to the commonwealth 

 government by Professor David, of Sydney, for 

 a further vote of £5,000, and it is hoped that 

 the extra £1,000 will be raised by private sub- 

 scriptions. 



