Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 79 



for many years Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew, is clearly 

 and graphically presented in this little volume. Although his 

 principal writings deal with taxonomic botany and the geograph- 

 ical distribution of plants, his scientific outlook was very broad, 

 and he was one of the first naturalists to accept and defend Dar- 

 win 's theory of evolution. Among his contemporaries he occu- 

 pied a pre-eminent position, and the author confidently predicts 

 that their estimate of his attainments will be an enduring one. 



a. w. E. 



III. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. The National Research Council. — The National Research 

 Council is a co-operative organization of leading scientific and 

 technical men of the country for the promotion of scientific 

 research and the application and dissemination of scientific 

 knowledge for the benefit of the national welfare. The following 

 officers have been elected for the year beginning July 1, 1920 : 

 Chairman, H. A. Bumstead, professor of physics and director of 

 the Sloane physical laboratory, Yale University; first Vice- 

 Chairman, CD. Walcott, president of the National Academy of 

 Sciences and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; second 

 Vice-Chairman, Gano Dunn, president of the J. G. White Engi- 

 neering Corporation, New York; third Vice-Chairman, R. A. 

 Millikan, professor of physics, University of Chicago ; permanent 

 secretary, Vernon Kellogg, professor of biology, Stanford Uni- 

 versity; treasurer, F. L. Ransome, treasurer of the National 

 Academy of Sciences. 



The Council was organized in 1916 under the auspices of the 

 National Academy of Sciences to mobilize the scientific resources 

 of America for work on war problems, and reorganized in 1918 

 by an executive order of the President on a permanent peace- 

 time basis. Although co-operating with various government 

 scientific bureaus it is not controlled or supported by the govern- 

 ment. It has recently received an endowment of $5,000,000 

 from the Carnegie Corporation, part of which is to be expended 

 for the erection of a suitable building in Washington for the 

 joint use of the Council and the National Academy of Sciences. 

 Other gifts have been made to it for the carrying out of specific 

 scientific researches under its direction. 



2. International Congress of Mathematicians. — M. E. Picard, 

 President of the French National Committee, announces that the 

 International Congress of Mathematicians will hold a meeting at 

 Strasbourg, beginning on September 22, 1920. The Congress 

 will be divided into four sections, as follows : 



I. Arithmetic; algebra; analysis. 



II. Geometry. 



III. Mechanics ; mathematical physics ; applied mathematics. 



IV. Philosophical, historical and pedagogic questions. 



