924 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 991 



be issued in February or March, 1914. Atten- 

 tion, is drawn to the distinction between this 

 Electical Congress and the International Engi- 

 neering Congress which will be held at San 

 Francisco during the week immediately follow- 

 ing the electrical congress. The engineering 

 congress is supported by the societies of Civil, 

 Mechanical and Marine Engineers and by the 

 institutes of Mining and Electrical Engineers, 

 as well as by prominent Pacific Coast engi- 

 neers who are actively engaged in organizing 

 it. This congress will deal with engineering 

 in a general sense, electrical engineering sub- 

 jects being limited to one of the eleven sec- 

 tions which will include about twelve papers, 

 treating more particularly applications of 

 electricity in engineering work. The meeting 

 of the International Electroteohnical Commis- 

 sion will be held during the week preceding 

 that of the Electrical Congress. 



The third volume of the " Annual Tables of 

 Constants and Numerical Data, Chemical, 

 Physical and Technological," published by the 

 International Commission of the Seventh and 

 Eighth International Congresses of Applied 

 Chemistry is now in press and will be issued 

 in the first haH of 1914. A descriptive circular 

 with references to reviews of previous volumes 

 may be secured on application to the Univer- 

 sity of Chicago Press. The commissioners for 

 the United States are: Julius Stieglitz, the 

 University of Chicago; Edward C. Franklin, 

 Leland Stanford University; Henry C. Gale, 

 the University of Chicago, and Albert P. 

 Mathews, the University of Chicago. 



Beginning with January, 1914, the Ameri- 

 can Breeders' Association will be known, as the 

 American Genetic Association. At the same 

 time (starting with Vol. V., No. 1) The Amer- 

 ican Breeders' Magazine will be enlarged in 

 size and called The Journal of Heredity. The 

 cooperative nature of the association will re- 

 main unchanged, and the present scope and 

 character of the magazine will be maintained, 

 but its quality will be still further improved. 



A BACTERIOLOGICAL club has recently been 

 organized at the University of Illinois with a 

 membership of fifteen. The organization held 

 its first meeting on Monday evening, Decem- 



ber 8, at which an address was given by Dr. 

 Thomas J. Burrill who reviewed the history 

 of bacteriological research. Membership in 

 this club is open both to faculty and to gradu- 

 ate students. Earlier in the year a similar 

 society was organized for the purpose of study- 

 ing botanical subjects. 



The National Physical Laboratory, Ted- 

 dington, is in possession of the British radium 

 standard, which has been certified by the In- 

 ternational Radium Standards Committee 

 after comparison with the international 

 radium standard now deposited at the Bureau 

 International at Sevres. The laboratory is 

 prepared to determine the contents of radium 

 and mesothorium preparations by comparison 

 with the standard. 



Within the last month the University of 

 Arizona has installed a Callendar pyrheliom- 

 eter with a Leeds and Northrup recording gal- 

 vanometer. This type of pyrheliometer con- 

 sists of a horizontal surface, measuring the 

 vertical component of sky radiation. This 

 surface is made up of two platinum resist- 

 ance circuits, one blackened, the other bright, 

 mounted in a vacuum. These two circuits 

 form two sides of a Wheatstone bridge, the 

 resistance necessary to balance the bridge 

 being recorded on the sheet. The recording 

 galvanometer has five ranges, one adjusted to 

 this pyrheliometer and the others to various 

 forms of resistance thermometers. The in- 

 struments were purchased on the income of a 

 fund presented by Dr. James Douglas, of 

 New York. For standardizing the records, the 

 university has also a Smithsonian silver disk 

 pyrheliometer. It is designed thus to have a 

 permanent record of sky radiation, not only 

 for the purpose of getting data regarding solar 

 energy in that dry and exceptionally clear 

 climate but also for checking any suspected 

 large variations in the solar constant. 



UNIVEESITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 An addition to the resources of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago is the completion of the 

 addition to the Ryerson Physical Laboratory, 

 and the reconstruction of the other part of 

 that building. This work increases the re- 



