506 Scientific Intelligence. 



7. New Deposits of Radium in Africa. — It is announced by 

 the U. S. Geological Survey (Nov. 17) that important deposits 

 of minerals carrying radium have recently been discovered at 

 Luiwishi and Kasolo, near Elizabethville, in the extreme south- 

 ern part of Belgian Kongo, The veins carry pitchblende, which 

 is in large part altered to gummite, uranophane, and other 

 uranium minerals. A subsidiary company has been formed to 

 extract the radium, and a considerable quantity of ore carrying 

 many times as much radium as the carnotite ores that have 

 heretofore governed the world's markets has been shipped to 

 Belgium. It is uncertain whether these deposits will event- 

 ually yield as much radium as the deposits in the plateau of 

 the United States, though a considerable quantity can be 

 produced from the Katanga deposits at a much lower cost. 

 Hence the price of radium has now dropped from $120,000 

 per gram to $70,000. 



8. United States Geological Survey. — Dr. Philip S. Smith 

 was appointed, on November 1, acting director of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, succeeding Dr. George Otis Smith, who 

 resigned to facilitate his work in connection with the Federal 

 Coal Commission. 



III. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. National Academy of Sciences. — The Autumn meeting of 

 the National Academy was held in New York City from Nov. 14. 

 to 16 in accordance with the plans announced in the preliminary 

 program (see November number, pp. 422, 423). The attendance 

 was large, sixty-four members being present, and the list of 

 papers included some sixty-six titles. It was found of con- 

 venience to the members and the public to have these papers 

 divided into three groups read at different points in the City 

 as already planned. 



Among the papers falling most closely in line with the general 

 scope of this Journal were the following: An interesting illus- 

 trated paper on the Structure of the Jura Mountains in France 

 read by E, de Marge rie. Prof. J. C. Merriam discussed the 

 recent evidence as to the age of the Sierra Nevada; the work 

 on the subject had been done in part by R. W. Chancey and 

 C. Stock ; the conclusion reached was that the last mountain 

 movement took place after the Pliocene. Prof. W. M. Davis 

 gave new and interesting facts as to the drowned coral reefs of 

 the Liu Kiu Islands of Japan. Dr. H. S. Washington described 

 jade from Yucatan, also Mexico and Honduras. This was in 

 part in the form of beads, also disks and other small objects. 

 The petrographic study by Prof. Tozzer showed these to be in 

 part pure diopside-jadeite (tuxtlite) while others contained feld- 

 spar (albite) often in large amount. The unexpected conclusion 



