THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



487 



composed of five members, one select- 

 ed from each group of trustees from 

 the different organizations represent- 

 ed on the board. The present mem- 

 bers of the committee are the presi- 

 dent and vice-president of the board, 

 Dr. J. McKeen Cattell and Dr. J. C. 

 Merriam. A member from the jour- 

 nalistic group is yet to be selected. 



As editor the board of trustees has 

 selected Edwin E. Slosson, Ph.D., 

 who for twelve years was professor 

 of chemistry in the University of 

 Wyoming and for seventeen years 

 literary editor of The Independent, 

 New York. He has been associate 

 in the Columbia School of Journalism 

 since its foundation and is the author 

 of "Creative Chemistry," "Easy Les- 

 sons in Einstein," and other scientific 

 and literary publications. 



As manager of the new enterprise 

 the board has selected Howard 

 Wheeler, formerly editor of the San 

 Francisco Daily News, Pacific coast 

 manager of the Newspaper Enter- 

 prise Association, managing editor of 

 Harpers Weekly, and for five years 

 editor of Everybody's Magazine. 



The headquarters of Science Serv- 

 ice have been provisionally establish- 

 ed in the building of the National 

 Research Council, at 1701 Massachu- 

 setts Avenue, Washington, D. C. 



THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTI- 

 TUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND 

 PRESIDENT NICHOLS 

 The election of Dr. Ernest Fox 

 Nichols, as president of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology, was 

 announced by the corporation on 

 March 30. Dr. Nichols succeeds the 

 late Dr. Richard C. Maclaurin, also 

 a distinguished physicist, under 

 whose administration the institute 

 moved to its new buildings and made 

 notable progress in its educational 

 work. 



For the last twelve months Dr. 

 Nichols has been director of physical 

 research at the Nela Park Laboratory 

 of the National Electric Lamp Asso- 



ciation, Cleveland. He was born in 

 1869 at Leavenworth, Kansas, grad- 

 uated from the Kansas Agricultural 

 College and received from Cornell 

 University the degree of doctor of 

 science in 1897. In 1892 Dr. Nichois 

 was appointed to the chair of physics 

 and astronomy at Colgate University, 

 where he remained for six years. 

 More than two years of this time, 

 however, was spent on leave of ab- 

 sence during which he studied at the 

 University of Berlin. There he dis- 

 covered the metallic reflection of 

 quartz and its anomalous dispersion 

 in the infra-red spectrum, which led 

 to a new method of spectrum analysis 

 by which the spectrum was extended 

 ' to six times the previous limits. 

 Rubens, Wood and von Bayer were 

 thus enabled to make a further ex- 

 tension, detecting heat waves 1/64 

 inch in length. 



In 1898 Dr. Nichols was called to 

 the professorship of physics in Dart- 

 mouth College, where he made the 

 first measurements of the heat re- 

 ceived from several of the brighter 

 stars and planets, by using a radio- 

 meter of his own invention, and with 

 Dr. Hull, in 1901, discovered the 

 pressure of a beam of light which 

 had been predicted by Maxwell. Si- 

 multaneously the Russian physicist, 

 Lebedev, was able to detect this pres- 

 sure, but unable to measure it. 



After five years at Dartmouth, Dr. 

 Nichols was called to the chair of 

 experimental physics in Columbia 

 University. The year 1904-05 Dr. 

 Nichols spent at Cambridge, Eng- 

 land, and lectured at the Royal In- 

 stitution in London and the Caven- 

 dish Laboratory of Cambridge Uni- 

 versity. He remained at Columbia 

 until 1909, when he was called to the 

 presidency of Dartmouth, resigning 

 in 1916 to become professor of 

 physics at Yale University. This lat- 

 ter position he held until 1920, but 

 during the war he was associated 

 with the Bureau of Ordnance of the 

 Navy Department. 



