160 SCIENCE toric Studies, held at the Hotel Plaza, New York, on February 3, 1921, Professor George Grant MacCurdy was elected first director of the foundation. Dr. Charles Peabody is chairman of the board and for the present will also serve as treasurer of the foundation. The year's work will open at La Quina (Charente) on July 1. After a stay of some three months at La Quina, there will be excursions in the Dordogne, the French Pyrénés and to the Grimaldi caves near Mentone. The winter term will be in Paris; and the work of the spring term will include excursions to the important Chellean and Acheulian stations of the Somme valley, to Neolithic sites of the Marne or other suitable locality, and to Brittany for a study of megalithic monuments. Students may enroll for an entire year or for any part thereof. Those who contemplate entering for either the year or the first term, should communicate immediately with the director, at Yale University Museum, New Haven, Conn.; or with Dr. C. Peabody, Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass. One foundation scholarship of the value of The year. 2,000 francs is available for the first special qualifications of the applicant, together with references, should accompany each application. The foundation is open to both men and women students. The address of the director after June 15 will be care of Guaranty Trust Company, Paris. SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS AT the recent meeting of the Mathematical DR. GEORGE ELLERY HALE, director of the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, has been awarded the Actonian prize by the Royal Institution of Great Britain in recognition of his work on solar phenomena. Os PROFESSOR HENRY FAIRFIELD MME. MARIE CURIE has been invi DR. HENRY NORRIS RUSSELL, P HARLOW SHAPLEY, of the Mo DR. HENRY H. ROBINSON, of THE trustees of Bernice Pa as curator of collections Dr. Stanley C. Ball, professor of biology in the International Y. M. C. A. College, Springfield, Mass. Leaving Springfield in March Dr. Ball will visit museums in Albany, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago and San Francisco, reaching Honolulu about May 1. DR. RALPH C. RODGERS, previously in charge of the work in the physics of photography, at Cornell University, has been appointed assistant secretary of the illuminating engineering society. THE board of trustees of the American Medical Association reelected the following members of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry: L. G. Rowntree, Rochester, Minn.; Torald Sollman, Cleveland, and Lafayette B. Mendel, New Haven; and to fill a vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Professor Henry Kraemer, Dr. Charles W. Edmunds, professor of therapeutics and materia medica, University of Michigan. PROFESSOR DEXTER S. KIMBALL, of Cornell University, represented the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the federated American engineering societies at the annual convention of the Engineering Institute of Canada, at Toronto. Ar the next meeting of the Canadian Research Council, to be held in Ottawa, February 19, an interim appointment of chairman will be made to succeed Dr. A. B. Macallum, who resigned to accept the chair of biochemistry in McGill University, Montreal. The appointment of a permanent chairman will depend on the action of the federal government. DR. LYNDS JONES, of the department of zoology of Oberlin College, announces a special trip under the auspices of the summer school, through the northwest, terminating in the town of Mora, Washington, on the Pacific coast. A special study of insect, bird, plant and animal life will be made and attention will be given to topographical geology. The trip will probably be made by automobile and will be in the field for eight weeks. DR. L. O. HOWARD, chief of the Bureau of Entomology, retiring president of the Ameri can Association for the Advancement of Se ence, delivered an address on How the go ernment is fighting insects," before th Washington Academy of Sciences on Fel ruary 17. DR. A. N. RICHARDS, professor of pharma cology, University of Pensylvania, will delive the seventh Harvey Society Lecture at th New York Academy of Medicine on Saturda; evening, February 26. His subject will b "Kidney function." DR. GEORGE THOMAS STEVENS, of New York City, author of contributions to opthalmology and neurology, died on January 30 at the age of eighty-eight years. DR. HENRY HARRINGTON JANEWAY, of New York City, known for his work on cancer, attending surgeon to the Memorial Hospital, died on February 1, at the age of forty-seven years. PROFESSOR HENRY MATTHEW STEPHENS, since 1899 professor of biology in Dickinson College, died on February 5, aged fifty-four years. DR. LEOPOLD LANDAU, professor of surgery at Berlin, died on December 28, 1920, at the age of seventy-two years. A REGULAR meeting of the American Physical Society will be held in Fayerweather Hall Columbia University, New York, on Saturday, February 26, 1921. If the length of the program requires it, there will also be sessions on Friday, February 25. Other meetings for the current season are as follows: April 22-23, 1921, Washington; August 4, 5, 1921, Pacific Coast Section at Berkeley. THE Royal Agricultural College at Ciren cester, the oldest place of agricultural instruction in the British Empire, is threatened with extinction at the end of the year unless a minimum capital sum of £25,000 can be raised by private munificence to save it. The college, which was founded seventy-five years ago under the patronage of the Prince Con sort, has since 1915 been occupied by a girls school from the east coast, whose tenancy ends at Christmas. The Ministry of Agricul 162 ture are asking the governors to reopen the WE learn from the Journal of the American NEW YEAR honors conferred in Great Medicine; Dr. S. S. Sprigge, editor THE Journal of the American Medi ciation states that its Paris exchange last week in December were crowded counts of the elaborate festivities of tenary of the Academy of Medicine. tire issue of the Presse médicale for 25 is devoted to an illustrated descrip the addresses delivered by Laveran, th president of the academy, and oth official delegates from other countries sixteen from England, five from th States; eleven from Belgium, inclu det, Brachet and Willems; Arteaga, livia; O. de Oliveira, from Brazil; Donoso, Orego and Sierra, from guerra and Machado from Colomb and Villamar, from Ecuador; No Nobles from Guatemala; Arce an from Argentina; two delegates also f Silva, from Salvador; Carlos, Fonse Rincones, Rísquez and Velásquez, f zuela; Ito and Tsuchiga from Japa Huan, from China; Robert from Cassens from Haiti. Twenty-nine were represented in all. A medal to rate the occasion was struck. The p the republic of France was present his ministers and all the préfets of t ment. The celebration concluded w quet and a reception at the Pala Toasts were offered at the banquet for Haiti; Recasens, for Spain; var for Holland; Cueva, for Ecuador; for Greece, and Lucatello, for Ital of England, was seated at the rig the president of the academy. We learn from Nature that the British Air Ministry announces that the cabinet has approved, subject to parliamentary sanction, the grant of a sum for the direct assistance of civil aviation. During the financial year 1921-22 payments under this grant will be limited to a maximum sum of £60,000, and will be made to British companies operating on approved aerial routes. The routes at present approved are London to Paris, London to Brussels, and London to Amsterdam. Extensions to these routes and additional routes, such as England Scandinavia, on which the possibilities of a service employing flying boats or amphibian machines or a mixed service of sea and land aircraft can be demonstrated, may be approved. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT has been made at Brown University of the completion of the Nathaniel French Davis Fund in honor of Professor Davis, now emeritus, who was for forty-one years a teacher of mathematics in the university. The fund amounts to ten thousand dollars and the income is to supplement the regular library appropriations in purchasing mathematical books and periodicals for the mathematical seminary. DR. VICTOR C. VAUGHAN, for thirty years dean of the University of Michigan Medical School, has resigned. Dr. Vaughan has been professor of hygiene and physiological chemistry since 1884. AT Colgate University, Associate Professor A. W. Smith has been made full professor and head of the department of mathematics as successor to Professor J. M. Taylor. Professor T. R. Aude, of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, has been appointed associate professor of mathematics. DR. SOLON MARX WHITE, Minneapolis, professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, has been appointed chief of the department of medicine to succeed Dr. Leonard G. Rowntree, now associated with the Mayo Clinic. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCI ON THE OCCURRENCE OF AEDES SOLLICITAN IN FRESH WATER POLLUTED BY ACID WASTE It is believed to be of interest to student of mosquitoes to report the occurrence Aedes sollicitans, a salt marsh mosquito, i fresh water polluted by acid waste from 'guano factory." During October, 1920, whil making investigations concerning fishes i relation to mosquito control at Savannah Georgia, in cooperation with the U. S. Publi Health Service and the city of Savannah, th writer found mosquito larvæ in ditches which were so strongly polluted that all other anima life appeared to be extinct. The larvae wer collected from time to time and reared t the adult stage. Dr. Bassett, bacteriologis for the city of Savannah, identified the specie as Aëdes sollicitans and this determination later was verified by Dr. Dyar, of the U. S Bureau of Entomology. The acid content of the water in the ditche where the pollution was greatest was no determined but a water sample taken down stream where the pollution had become greatly diluted and where Aëdes sollicitans was re placed by Anopheles crucians and Culex sp was titrated by Dr. Bassett and found to con tain 2.08 per cent. of free acid and a larg amount of iron. It is quite probable that th water in portions of the ditches in which the larvæ of Aëdes sollicitans were common ha an acid content of fully 3 per cent. The larvæ occurred most frequently along the edges of the ditches among decaying vege tation and they displayed a stronger resistanc to the toxicity of oil than Culex and Anophele larvæ occurring in the more weakly pollute portions of the same ditches. SAMUEL F. HILDEBRAND U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES, WASHINGTON, D. C. THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND THE AMERI CAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE THE application made to the council of th American Association for the Advancement o Science for the organization of a new Sectio to be devoted to the History of Science was de 164 SCIENCE nied by the council (October 17, 1920), but permission was granted for those interested in the History of Science to enter Section L on "Historical and Philological Sciences," a Section which had never been organized and existed only in name. The special committee appointed by the president of the association for the organization of a History of Science Section, recommended, on December 16, 1920, that the words "and philological" be dropped. This recommendation was likewise rejected by the council. It is clear, therefore, (1) that the council does not deem it wise to admit a separate section on the History of Science and (2) that the organization effected in Chicago on December 29, 1920, will not meet the needs of the increasing number of men interested in the History of Science, since, at any time, those representing "Philological Sciences" and the "Historical Sciences (whatever that term may mean), may step in and give rise to a heterogeneous, incoherent group of workers, having no interIf representatives of the ests in common. Philological Sciences" and "Historical Sciences" do not appear, then Section L constitutes in reality the very kind of organization which the council decreed should not be admitted as a Section. In the judgment of the present writer, the dignified and logical procedure for those interested in the History of Science is, therefore, to withdraw altogether from organized historical work in connection with the American Association for the Advancement of Science until such time when the council and general session will be ready to welcome them into the association as a separate Section. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA FLORIAN CAJORI CONCERNING "AERIAL PHOTO- IN an article describing attempts to photo- 1 SCIENCE, December 17, 1920. These experiments proved very conclus photographs from the air, using presentment, are of little practical value to grapher (p. 575). Those interested in the study of u features may be interested in the view published in Comptes Rendus.2 were photograph in French water maximum depth of 17 m. and seve of rock were revealed by the ph which had escaped detection by other ("Plusieurs têtes de roche qui avaier aux levés détaillés et trés exacts de c ont été ainsi révélées par la photo Specific instances are given where rock dangerous to shipping, not in the hydrographic charts, were disc means of the photographs. Perhaps the statement that p taken from the air are of little prac is more conclusive than was inten WILLIS U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SOIL COLOR STANDARDS In order that there may be uni the designation of the color of soil posed that a set of color standar pared in which those colors whic soils and subsoils may be represen a set of standard colors would b value to soil survey workers and tainly lead to a better understand descriptions of soils from the vari of the United States and of the whole. In order that such a set of colo might be published representative all parts of the United States wo be examined. No doubt the Bur of the United States Department ture could lead in the work and tion with various State Soil Surve the Soil Surveys of other nations the colors and publish reproducti as Robert Ridgway did in his " ard and Color Nomenclature" (1 2 Tome 169, 27 October, 1919. |