Notes and Comments. 
243 
ART MUSEUMS. 
Art museums in America seem to be fostering art, if we 
may judge from the following letter received from a prominent 
official in New York : — ‘ The artistic wave, which is sweeping 
over the city/ writes the agent, ‘ is having precisely the same 
effect on its business men as a similar artistic development 
had upon the population of ancient Greece. Every public- 
spirited citizen is now striving to make New York beautiful. 
Therefore, I submit to you a request of one of my clients, an 
automobile concern of high reputation, who has asked me to 
obtain for him the use of West Side Metropolitan Museum of 
Art for the purpose of advertising his latest car. With 
commendable civic interest, my client proposes to beautify 
the building by painting thereon, in immense size, a suitable 
woodland scene to delineate an attractive roadway passing 
through woodland glens, with, if the city wishes, a little 
river in the background. The motor-car, of course, will 
figure in the roadway, the letter intimates, and ‘ to avoid 
suggestion of the city’s lending itself to the advertising of a 
cheap automobile the name of the latter is painted on the 
side in large letters.’ ‘ The car,’ the letter concludes, ‘should 
certainly have occupants, or it would look abandoned. My 
client, therefore, suggests that for the sake of educating the 
youth of the city one, at least, of the occupants should be a 
prominent city official.’ 
DESTRUCTION OF ORCHIDS. 
We take the following from the press : — Upper Wharfedale 
district has been known for 200 years as the habitat of the 
‘Lady’s Slipper’ — Cypripedium. Mr. W. H. Stansfield, 
of Shepherd’s Bush, with Dr. Stansfield, of Reading, known 
as a leading authority on British ferns, found 17 plants 
growing wild last year. Mr. Stansfield writes to say that a 
visit last month showed that all these plants had been dug up 
and removed by people for whom no punishment would be too 
great. But he understands that Mrs. Miller, hostess of the 
Ealcon Inn, Arncliffe, still has a fine specimen of this rare 
and beautiful plant with seven blooms in her garden. 
AN INSPIRING GEOLOGIST. 
Professor Percy Fry Kendall, who has just retired from 
the Chair of Geology at the University of Leeds, has been the 
recipient of gratifying tributes upon the occasion. Recently 
the staff of the University entertained him to dinner, and 
later a gathering of no fewer than thirty-six of his old students, 
including members of His Majesty’s Geological Survey, 
entertained him at a social gathering in Leeds. Since then, 
at a large gathering at the Philosophical Hall, Leeds, he was 
1922 Aug -Sept. 
