30 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol.. XX. No. 490. 



Professor V. M. Spalding, of the Univer- 

 sity of Michigan, has received a grant from 

 the Carnegie Institution for the continuance 

 of an investigation at the Desert Laboratory 

 of the absorption and transpiration of water 

 by the creosote bush and other desert shrubs. 

 He will be located at Tucson, Arizona, during 

 the winter of 1904-5. 



The oiEce of Vegetable, Physiological and 

 Pathological Investigations of the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry has arranged with Professor 

 L. li. Jones, of the University of Vermont, to 

 do some special work on the diseases of the 

 potato. Professor Jones has been instructed 

 to obtain all available information in regard 

 to European varieties, and to obtain seed 

 tubers of valuable sorts, especially disease- 

 resistant strains, for testing in various sec- 

 tions of the United States. He has been ap- 

 pointed a temporary special agent of the 

 Bureau of Plant Industry of the Department 

 of Agriculture for this purpose and is now in 

 Europe engaged in the work. 



Mr. Thomas Manns, of the North Dakota 

 Agricultural College, has resigned his position 

 as instructor in botany and has accepted a 

 position with the War Department in the 

 Philippines. During the past two years Mr. 

 Mann has been conducting investigations 

 upon soil fungi as affecting the character of 

 the crops upon the rotation plots of the Ex- 

 periment Station. The results of this work 

 are very promising and the board of trustees 

 have instructed Professor H. L. Bolley of the 

 department of botany to find a young man to 

 continue the work. 



Dr. J. W. LowBER, F.R.A.S., of Austin, 

 Texas, has been elected a member of the 

 Belgian Astronomical Society, Brussels. 



Professor Henry Landes, head of the de- 

 partment of geology in the Washington State 

 University, who has been absent studying at 

 the University of Chicago during the year, 

 will resume his work in Seattle next Sep- 

 tember. 



Professor Alexander L. Nelson has cele- 

 brated the fiftieth anniversary of his professor- 

 ship of mathematics at Washington and Lee 

 University. 



At the alumni dinner of the State Univer- 

 sity of Iowa, the former students of Professor 

 Samuel Calvin, to the number of over two 

 thousand, united in the commemoration of the 

 completion of his thirtieth year in a professor- 

 ship at that institution. The recognition took 

 the form of a costly silver loving-cup, designed 

 especially for the purpose of symbolizing the 

 scientific achievements of the recipient. The 

 cup is a classic Greek vase sixteen inches in 

 height, and stands on a base of serpentine five 

 inches high. It is adorned with casts taken 

 directly from fossils, with a drainage-map of 

 Iowa, with crossed geological hammers, a 

 microscope, and the more conventional spray 

 of laurel, owl of wisdom and torch of learning, 

 — all in relief. One side bears an appropriate 

 inscription in raised letters. Professor Calvin 

 was elected to the chair of natural history in. 

 Iowa's university thirty years ago. The chair 

 has since been subdivided into four distinct 

 departments. Professor Calvin retaining the 

 department of geology. He has been state 

 geologist of Iowa during the last twelve years. 



The Warren Triennial Prize of the value of 

 $500, in the gift of the Massachusetts General 

 Hospital, has been awarded to Dr. Max Borst, 

 extraordinary professor of pathological anat- 

 omy in the University of Wiirzburg, for a dis- 

 sertation entitled ' Neue Experimente zur 

 Frage der Eegenerationsf ahigkeit des Gehirns.' 



Dr. N. S. Davis, of Chicago, died on June 

 16, aged eighty-seven years. Dr. Davis was a 

 voluminous writer on medical subjects and 

 took an important part in the organization of 

 the medical profession. He was, in 1845, 

 chairman of a committee whose report led 

 to the establishment of the American Medical 

 Association, and he was the first editor of its 

 journal. 



Mr. Andrew Carnegie has given £1,200 to 

 the Royal Institution, to enable Professor 

 Dewar and Mr. E. A. Hadfield to prosecute 

 their investigation on the physical properties 

 of steel and other alloys at low temperatures ; 

 Dr. Frank McClean has given £100 to the re- 

 search fund of the institution. 



It is said that Colonel Gorgas, chief sani- 

 tary officer of the Isthmian Canal, estimates 



