RECENT DEATHS 



WORLD EXPERT IJT BOTANY 



I One o£ the most interesting of scientific 

 lectures wan delivered at the Polyclinique . j 



No. 4360, May 20, 1911 



Profe«sor Cyrnn Gnernner Prti»«le 

 Wan Cnrator of Herbarium at tlie 

 Inlversltj- of Vermont 



Professor Cyrus Guernsey Prlngle, cu- 

 rator of the herbarium at the T'nivpislty 

 of Vermont and one of the i 

 botanists In the United Stair- 

 terday at BurlinKto.n, Vt. 

 seventy-three years old. On Uin lis' 

 search for spring blossoms he caught a 

 severe cold, which developed Into pneu- 

 monia and the end came at the Mary 

 Fletcher Hospital. His herbarium at the 

 University of Vermont was aald be 

 one of the larj o - - • 

 la America. 

 I Professor Pr 



VWorWs most fj KEFORMED CALENDAR 



leal research. ^ 



endM with his to A CALENDAR project which ignores the im- 

 pLrnfs^he'suoo! character of the week has slight 



In reaching grei chances of being adopted because the week 

 ""Born in chai ^^^'^ religious observance iu all christian 

 Mr. Pringie frc nations. The calendar here proposed is based 

 possessed a pasi on the week as a fundamental unit. It is 

 ers. The death , , . 



his taking a Closely similar to the calendar recently pro- 

 botany In the posed by Dr. C. G. Hopkins, but differs in 

 but hn devoted ,i , • \ ,. , . 



Kb became an i ^"^^ it Consists o± a year of thirteen months, 

 , New England a each four weeks in length, instead of Dr. 

 lsa"Gra3^"of^'Hf" Hopkins's twelve months divided into quarters 

 up certain plai of three months, each quarter containing two 

 itr?^a^"ooiiectc months and one five-week month, 



j scura of Nature Dr. Hopkins's reason for retaining twelve 

 fsta^^^oVwasl™""'^'^ ^^""^ quarters of the year may 

 ; made, and atyl be even months, but the value of the quarter 

 liters" by Prof es year as a unit of time is incomparably less 

 iiarvard^ ^fjoi^* than the value of the month. It is highly 

 ear hp wi desirable to have all the months the same 

 and brought o* l^^S'tli for the reason that salaries, wages, 

 ,to 30,000 speclr rent, board and many other ordinary ailairs 

 enfic'h^the^he'r- ^'ounted in months. The advantage to be 

 sity and the U gained by having months of uniform length is 

 sets have been, one of the most marked advantages to be 



ta«ilcal museuK . , , ,, . ^. , , " 



American unl P'iHnea by a reform ot the calendar, 

 rlohcd by ^ bkU Tii the present project the new mouth is 

 6 '^"iC-^C inserted between June and July. This is the 

 - ' month in which the summer solstice occurs in 

 the northern hemisphere and the winter sol- 

 stice in the southern hemisphere, hence it 

 may properly be called " Sol " — ^the month of 

 the solstice. 



In the new calendar the quarters are easily 

 found, as each consists of thirteen weeks. 

 The four quarters would end on the following 

 dates: first quarter, April 7; second quarter, 

 Sol 14; third' quarter, September 21; fourth 

 quarter, December 28; and these dates would 

 all be Sunday in the new calendar. The 

 present project therefore contains all the ad- 

 vantages of Dr. Hopkins's project, and the 

 additional advantage of having all the months 

 the same length, as well as multiples of the 

 week. 



Other advantages of the new calendar are: 

 the year always begins on Monday; every 

 month begins on Monday; the same day of 

 the year always occurs on the same day of 



Henri de Rotlischild at the end of March 

 by Prof. S. Pozzi, and has just been printed 

 at length in the Revue Scientifique. Ifc 

 described a visit lately paid by the lecturer 

 to the Institute Serumtherapico of Butantan, 

 near to Sao Paulo in Brazil, where the cure 

 of snake-bites by a senun taken from horses 

 and asses made immune by injections of 

 snake poison is practised. One of the un- 

 expected effects noticed was that the horse 

 towards the end of the treatment became 

 much heavier in weight, but lost this 

 increase when the daily dose of attenuated 



SCIENCE 



gato 



LN. 8. Vol. XXXIII. No. 857 



the week; the same is true of the days of the 

 month. Thus, the first, eighth, fifteenth and 

 twenty-second of every month would fall on 

 Monday; the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first 

 and twenty-eighth of every month would fall 

 on Sunday, 



If desired Sunday may as well be taken as 

 the initial day of the week, month and year. 



An additional advantage is that a calendar 

 for one year is good for all future time, as 

 the years are all alike in all respects except 

 that every fifth year has an extra week added 

 to December, with exceptions noted below. 

 The details of the project are as follows: 

 Common years consist of thirteen months 

 of four weeks each, namely, January, Febru- 

 ary, March, April, May, June, Sol (the month 

 of the solstice), July, August, September, 

 October, November and December; 



Long years differ from common years in 

 having an extra week added to December; 



Years divisible by five are long years, with 

 the exceptions noted below: 



The extra week is omitted from years 

 divisible by 50. It is also omitted in the year 

 '25 following centennial years divisible by 400, 

 and in the year '75 following centennial years 

 divisible by 25,000. This makes a calendar 

 good for more than 300,000 years. 



In order to cause less confusion, this cal- 

 endar should be adopted in a year that begins 

 on Monday. In the near future these years 

 are 1912, 1917 and 1923. 



In order to secure the adoption of a re- 

 formed calendar, we must secure the appoint- 

 ment of an international commission with 

 representatives from all civilized nations. It 

 seems to nie that our present duty is to begin 

 a serious attempt to secure the appointment 

 of such a commission. Can -we not form an 

 organization for this purpose? 



• W. J. Spill MAX 



Washington, D. C. 



QUOTATIONS 



THE SCIEKCE MUSEUM AND TUE NATURAL 

 HISTORY MUSEUM 



Di KiNO the past few weeks we have printed 

 letters from several, distinguished correspon- 



