196 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. Xo. .527 



Arthur Ilollick; Councilors, Professors L. M. 

 Underwood and William Ti'elease. 



The famous singing master, Manuel Garcia, 

 of London, who invented the laryngoscope 

 fifty years ago, will be 100 years old March 

 17, 1905. The London Laryngological Society 

 is collecting subscriptions for a i^resent to be 

 given to him on that occasion. 



Dh. L. p. Kinxicutt, the head of the chem- 

 ical department of the Worcester Polytechnic 

 Institute, has been appointed by President 

 Roosevelt one of the commissioners to examine 

 and test the fineness and weight of the coins 

 reserved by the several mints of the United 

 States during the calendar year 1905. 



Professor H. Marshall Ward has been 

 elected president of the Cambridge Philosoph- 

 ical Society. 



Mr. R. V. Anderson, a student in the de- 

 partment of geology of Stanford University, 

 has sailed from San Francisco for Japan, 

 where he will make a special study of geolog- 

 ical conditions. 



Assistant Professor Leonard E. Dickson, 

 of the department of mathematics of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, has completed his investi- 

 gations as research assistant to the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington for 1904. 



Capt.mn John Donnell Smith, of Balti- 

 more, has given to the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion his private herbarium consisting of more 

 than 100,000 mounted sheets and his botanical 

 library of nearly 1,600 bound volumes. Cap- 

 tain Smith's collection is probably the largest 

 private herbarium in America, being very rich 

 in tropical plants. As is well known (^aptain 

 Smith has long been a student of the flora of 

 the Central American countries, having pub- 

 lished many systematic papers on the flora 

 of Costa Rica and Guatemala. lie i)roposes 

 to continue these studies, and for this reason 

 will retain for the present the custody of the 

 greater part of his herbarium. This gift is 

 the most important of the kind ever received 

 by the Smithsonian Institution. 



The Research Laboratory of Physical Chem- 

 istry of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology has received from the William E. llale 

 Research Fund a second grant of $1,000, which 



is being applied to an investigation upon the 

 conductivity of fused salts carried out by Mr. 

 R. D. Mailey imder the direction of Professor 

 H. M. Goodwin. The Carnegie Institution 

 has also renewed the grant of $2,000 to Pro- 

 fessor A. A. Noyes for the purpose of pro- 

 moting the researches in progress in the labo- 

 ratory upon the conductivity of salts in aque- 

 ous solutions at high temperatures, which are 

 being executed by Professor W. D. Coolidge, 

 Mr. A. C. Melcher and Y. Kato. Additional 

 investigations are being carried on by four 

 other research associates or research assistants 

 as follows : ujion the rate of decomposition of 

 minerals by water by Dr. W. BiUtger; upon 

 the migration and coagulation of colloids by 

 Dr. J. C. Blake; upon the physico-chemical 

 properties of the solutions of metals in liquid 

 ammonia by Mr. C. A. Kraus; and upon the 

 dissociation relations of phosphoric acid by 

 Mr. G. A. Abbott. Other researches — upon 

 the dissociation-relations of sulphuric acid, 

 \ipon the solubility of salts in water above 

 100°, upon the heat of solution of substances 

 in relation to their dissociation, and upon the 

 qualitative detection of certain rare metals — 

 are being pursued by candidates for the Ph.D. 

 degree. 



Researc h work in chemistry at the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan is represented among 

 University organizations by the Chemical 

 Colloquium, which meets twice a month 

 through the year. Reviews are presented of 

 recently published important researches, and 

 reports are made upon investigations carried 

 on in the university laboratory. All instruc- 

 tors of the department are members of the 

 collo(iuium, and graduate students and those 

 advanced in chemistry are also eligible to 

 membership. The following topics have been 

 discussed at the meetings this year: Octulier 

 24, 1904— Professor Edward D. Campbell. ' A 

 Review of CHff'ord Richards' Work on the 

 Constitution of Portland Cement.' Xovem- 

 ber 7 — Dr. William J. Hale, ' Condensations 

 with Nitromalonie Aldehyde.' Xovember 21 

 — Professor S. Lawrence Bigelow, ' A Review 

 of Some Recent Articles on Colloidal Solu- 

 tions.' December 5 — Assistant Professor Al- 

 fred TT. ^^'llite, ' The Decomposition of Am- 



