reduction. Previously Mme. Curie had spent two hours at the plant of the Welsbach Company, Gloucester, N. J., and the company presented her with 50 milligrams of mesothorium. Mme. Curie, accompanied by her daughters, is now visiting the Grand Canyon and the Yellowstone Park.

THE Rockefeller Foundation gave a dinner in honor of Dr. Carlos Chagas, head of the department of health in the Republic of Brazil, at the Waldorf-Astoria, on May 20. Dr. George E. Vincent presided as toastmaster, and addresses of welcome were made by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Dr. Hermann M. Biggs, Dr. Paulo de Proenca and the Brazilian ambassador to the United States. Dr. Chagas, director of the Institute Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, gave a series of three lectures on "American trypanosomiasis" at the Harvard Medical School, May 26 and 27.

WE learn from Nature that the presentation of the first award of the Kelvin medal was made by the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour in the hall of the Institution of Civil Engineers to Dr. W. C. Unwin on May 4. The medal was founded in 1914, principally by British and American engineers, to commemorate the achievements of Lord Kelvin in those branches of science which are especially applicable to engineering.

A COMMISSION of five engineers has been appointed to visit England in June to present the John Fritz medal to Sir John Hadfield, in recognition of his scientific research work. The members of the commission are as follows: Dr. Ira N. Hollis, president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Charles T. Main, of Boston, representing the American Society of Civil Engineers; Col. Arthur S. Dwight, of New York, representing the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers; Ambrose Swasey, of Cleveland, of the John Fritz medal award board and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Dr. F. B. Jewett, of New York, of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

PRESIDENT HARDING, on June 3, designated Major Lawrence Martin as the representative

of the Department of State on the United States Geographic Board.

MR. FRANK C. BAKER, curator of the Museum of Natural History, University of Illinois, will spend the summer in Wisconsin, continuing his study of the molluscan fauna under the auspices of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey.

ARTHUR D. LITTLE, INC., announce that Chester M. Clark, formerly head of the corporation department of Stone & Webster, has been elected treasurer. Merton R. Sumner has been appointed chief engineer. Mr. Sumner was formerly chief engineer for New England of Fred T. Ley & Company, and more recently of the Fuller Industrial Engineering Corporation.

THE centenary of Bloomingdale Hospital at White Plains, N. Y., for the treatment of nervous and mental disorders, was celebrated on May 26. A special program of addresses had been arranged by Dr. William L. Russell, medical superintendent, for the morning session, and in the afternoon there were tableaux showing the origin of the asylum, its growth and the development of science in the treatment of the insane. Addresses were made by Dr. Pierre Janet, professor in the College of France, Paris; Dr. Richard G. Rowe, director of the Neuro-psychiatric Hospital, London; Dr. Llewellys F. Barker, of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, and Dr. Adolf Meyer, professor of psychiatry in the Johns Hopkins Medical School.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM CROCKER, in charge of the plant physiology department of the University of Chicago and director of the Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Yonkers, New York, gave an address on "The physiology of seed germination" before the biology club of the University of Minnesota at University Farm on May 16. The following afternoon Professor Crocker spoke on an "Effective attack on plant physiological problems" before the experiment station staff and other faculty

men.

A LECTURE entitled "The study of organic reactions occurring in living matter" was de

livered by Dr. Treat B. Johnson, professor of organic chemistry at Yale University, before the Philadelphia section of the American Chemical Society on the evening of May 14.

DR. JOHN C. MERRIAM, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, delivered a lecture at the State University of Iowa in April, entitled "Recent researches on the antiquity of man in California." He also addressed the Geology Club on "The Fauna of Rancho La Brea."

THE Committee organized in 1911 by the late Professor MacGregor to promote a memorial to Professor Tait in the form of a second chair of natural philosophy at Edinburgh, reports that the Tait chair will shortly be established.

CHARLES PICKERING BOWDITCH, known for his research in the field of archeology, died on June 1, in his seventy-ninth year.

THE death is announced of Abbott Thayer, the distinguished artist, known also for his studies of protective coloration.

DR. E. J. MILLS, F.R.S., emeritus professor of technical chemistry in the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, died on April 21, at seventy-nine years of age.

THE American Society of Mechanical Engineers extended an invitation to members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to attend the May meeting of the Society at Chicago. The program of this meeting gave special emphasis to the problems of Chicago as a mid-western rail-water gateway. Two excursions were planned: one to McCook Field, for those interested in aeronautics, and the other to the Rock Island Arsenal.

THE Engineering Foundation assumes responsibility for sending the following note to the daily press: "Dr. Charles Benson Davis, of New York City, claims in a paper which he has prepared and submitted to Engineering Foundation, that he can make and has made some of the chemical elements, such as gold, silver, platinum and copper, by transmutation of a common element. He has shown samples of the metals he claims to have made to mem

bers of the Engineering Foundation in New York City, and has requested that body to investigate his claims and his methods. Dr. Davis is a reputable chemist, a member of the Society of Chemical Industry, a Fellow of the British Chemical Society, and an Honorary Member of the Société Académique d' Histoire Internationale. He is the author of several papers which have been published in chemical journals."

DR. EDWARD A. SPITZKA, formerly professor of anatomy at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, has donated to the U. S. National Museum his collection of brains of distinguished persons.

WE learn from the Journal of the American Medical Association that at the annual meeting of the New York Association for Medical Education held at the Academy of Medicine on March 7, the by-laws were amended and the board of directors was reconstituted to apportion the control of the association's affairs to the five medical schools of greater New York; namely, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons; Cornell University Medical College; the Long Island College Hospital; the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, and the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College. This means that for the first time in the history of New York City the five medical schools will cooperate to develop New York City as a medical teaching center. The mayor, the commissioner of health, and the commissioner of public welfare are ex-officio members of the board of directors. Unnecessary duplication of courses of instruction by the several medical schools will be done away with. New courses and a higher type of graduate work will be instituted. The new officers of the association are: president, Dr. Haven Emerson, formerly health commissioner of New York City, and at present in charge of the War Risk Bureau; secretary, Dr. Otto V. Huffman, at present associate professor of medicine at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, formerly secretary of the state board of medical examiners, and secretary-treasurer of the Federation of

State Medical Boards of the United States, and formerly dean of the Long Island College Hospital; treasurer, Dr. George W. Kosmak, attending surgeon of the Lying-In Hospital, and formerly secretary of the American Association of Obstetricians.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS

A DORMITORY for foreign students at Columbia University and other schools in New York has been made possible through a gift promised to members of the Cosmopolitan Club, an organization of students in Columbia and New York University. Plans for the dormitory provide for a building of 500 rooms to be erected at a cost approximating $1,000,000, on Riverside Drive opposite Grant's tomb. The newspapers report that the donor is John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

DR. F. S. HARRIS, director and agronomist of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station and professor of agronomy at the Utah Agricultural College, has resigned to become president of the Brigham Young University, at Provo, Utah, where he succeeds Dr. George H. Brimhall, who has been made president emeritus. Professor Wm. Peterson, station geologist and professor of geology in the college, has been appointed to succeed Dr. Harris as director of the station.

DR. NATHAN FASTEN, who went to the Oregon Agricultural College last September from the University of Washington, has been promoted to the headship of the department of zoology.

DR. JOHN W. M. BUNKER, who has been for several years at the head of the bacteriological department of the Digestive Ferments Company of Detroit, has been elected assistant professor of biochemistry and physiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING RECENT AURORAS, MAY 13 AND MAY 14, 1921

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: On the evening of May 13, 1921, there occurred a great aurora,

not visible here on account of clouds, but again on the evening of May 14 there was another great display visible here in spite of the half moon and a low-lying fog which tended to spoil the visibility. As in other great auroras, the great bundles of streamers appeared to converge toward the zenith from the south as well as from the north, east and west. The sky at times was virtually covered with auroral light. The outburst of May 13 caused great disturbance to telegraph and telephone wire transmission and must have been of unusual magnitude. All the effects noted in the aurora of May 14 a day later conformed to the perspective ideas, pointed out in my paper, “ Inferences concerning auroras,' ," read at the Boston meeting of the National Academy of Sciences on November 14, 1916, and published in its Proceedings, Vol. 3, pp. 1-7, January, 1917.

It is rarely that one great aurora follows so closely on the heels of another and at an interval so short as a day. In fact I have no record or recollection of such a happening in my time of observation, which now extends over fifty years, more or less. Hence the cor ditions lead to the inquiry whether any unusual condition existed in this instance.

An examination of the solar surface appears to provide, or at least suggest, a possible explanation, and at the same time throw light on the nature of the relation of the aurora to the solar disturbances.

On May 15 there were to be seen on the solar surface two large spot areas, separated by an interval of about one-fourteenth of the diameter of the sun, the one following the other as the sun revolved. These two spot areas, quite distinct from each other, were nearly round, the first a single spot, the second a compact group with a much disturbed area adjacent. They were located near the center of the solar disc.

As the solar revolution takes place in nearly 26 days, the interval between the spots appears to be approximately one day of the surface movement.

This means that in about one day the sec

ond spot would replace the first in relation to the earth. If the first spot gave rise to emission of ions, radially, which in its orbital motion the earth reached and in which it became enveloped, the aurora of May 13 was possibly the result. The same relation repeated a day later by the second spot replacing the first would account for the aurora of May 14.

The relation of the two auroras in time, and the sequence of spot positions on the revolving sun are significant to say the least.

In this connection it may be noted that the great aurora of March 22, 1920, had a very long and unusual duration, beginning early in the evening of that day and continuing all night, even being observed just before sunrise on the 23d. It may have continued during part of that day, invisibly of course. At that time an examination of the solar surface disclosed a remarkably elongated spot area or chain of spots, and at each end of the chain or elongated group was a well-marked rounded spot. The group was fairly uniform in width extending in a direction nearly parallel to the solar equator, and its length would amply account for the long continuance of the aurora if emanations were pouring out from the whole group as it revolved with the the sun.

Moreover, its advance past the meridian of the sun was apparently much the same before the aurora as with the two spots believed to have caused the auroras of this year on May 13 and 14. Such an advance points to a period (several hours possibly) required for the ionic emanations from the spot area to traverse the radius of the earth's orbit, from the sun.

Another matter of interest may be mentioned. In many auroras, especially during the greater outbursts, there occurs at times the peculiar streaming upward, as if a luminous wave was running up toward the zenith crown; a sort of flaming effect. The motion is fairly rapid, perhaps one half second being required to traverse the length of the streamer. The point I wish to make is that the apparent velocity of this wave-like luminosity upward seems to be constant in all auroras that I

THE LANDSLIDE NEAR MONT BLANC

THE March Bulletin of the Royal Italian Geographical Society contains an account, well illustrated with map and photographs, by Professor U. Valbusa of the landslides near Mt. Blanc which occurred on the 14th and 19th of November last and made much stir in the newspapers, even to the point of exciting fear that the round-topped "monarch of mountains" had lost some of its height (4,807 meters). Such was by no means the case, as the head of the slide was on the eastern side of the subordinate dome known as Mt. Blanc de Courmayeur (4,709 m.), two kilometers east of and nearly 500 meters lower than the main mountain dome. Granite rock masses about half a square kilometer in total slanting area, were dislodged from the oversteepened side of an east-facing spur, the top of the gray slide-scar being a little lower than the terminal point of the spur which has an altitude of 4,381 meters. The detached rock masses first slid down into a second-order cirque of small size between the spur of origin and the Aiguille blanche de Pétéret, near by on the southeast; there they turned a short distance northeastward and descended from the hanging outlet of the small cirque to a level of about 3,200 meters on the Brenva glacier at the western side of the great first-order cirque in which this glacier gathers its névé branches, and from which a narrower glacial tongue cascades southeastward into the over-deepened trough-locally known as the Allée blanche of the uppermost Dora Baltea. On reaching the main glacier beneath the small cirque, the slide turned to the right, and gathering ice as it rushed along spread over the whole 3-kilometer breadth of

the glacier at the cirque front, even dashing a little upward on the opposite mountain side; and then, rushing down the steep glacial cascade where it cut off séracs and clogged crévasses, it divided on the convex surface of the lower glacier and overran both lateral moraines but failed to reach the mid-extremity of the tongue on the floor of the Allée blanche. The total distance traversed by the slide was about 8 kilometers according to the map, but only 5 according to the text; the total descent was from altitude 4,300 to 1,500 meters. The time of descent of the first slide on Nov. 14, as estimated by eye witnesses, was between 2 and 3 minutes; the velocity of movement was the greater because winter snows had not yet fallen on the ice in the great cirque. The volume of the slide was roughly estimated at between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 cubic meters. Dust of rock and ice was spread by the wind blast of the slide, right and left of its course on the glacier and the mountain flanks, for a width of a kilometer or more; trees were overturned by the blast outside of the lower lateral moraines; a temporary lakelet was formed where the right lower branch of the slide, crossing the trough floor and ascending a little on the farther side, obstructed the Dora Baltea. The slide was evidently one of those spasmodic efforts by which the Alpine mountain faces, over-steepened by glacial sapping, try from time to time to regain more moderate slopes, such as they had in Preglacial time; but the volume of the fallen rock was but a trifling fraction of the spur from which it was detached.

W. M. D.

EXTRA-MUNDANE LIFE: A COMMENT

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: In discussing the highly speculative subject of intelligent life in other worlds it is well to keep in mind two serviceable precepts of scientific reasoning: First, failure to prove that A is B is not a proof that A is not B. Thus, failure to furnish evidence that other worlds are inhabited by intelligent creatures is not to be construed as proof that such extramundane life does not exist. Second, of two discordant

propositions: A is B; A is C; one of which must be true and for neither of which any evidence is forthcoming, we are intellectually bound to accord hospitality-not adoption but hospitality-to the one which is marked by the greater likelihood. Viewed without anthropometric bias this earth is, as we know, one of the less important members of the system to which it primarily belongs-a system dominated by a single undersized yellow star. If we had a time word corresponding to the space word parsec, and also had more definite geological knowledge of the past and future duration of this planet, we might express quantitatively the fact that the human race is relatively a mere episode in the history of the planet itself; while our increasing knowledge of the Milky Way with its encircled disk of stars must convince us that our solar system is, in turn, only an incident in the history of the stellar system to which it belongs. Which is more probable, that this one insignificant planet is the only world in which creatures capable of feeling and knowing have originated and developed, or that multitudes of other worlds have afforded both conditions and cause for life, including intelligent life, and are the homes of beings of both physical and mental parts. The latter supposition seems to be invested with incomparably greater likelihood. ELLEN HAYES

WELLESLEY, MASS., May 22

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS The Health of the Industrial Worker. By EDGAR L. COLLIS and MAJOR GREENWOOD, containing a chapter on Reclamation of the Disabled by ARTHUR J. COLLIS and an introduction by SIR GEORGE NEWMAN. London,

J. & A. Churchill, 1921.

The appearance of the first English book on industrial hygiene could not have been more happily timed. With a combination of an industrial depression and a glutted labor market there is a widespread tendency among American managers to scrap the elaborate personnel machinery established during the war"to safeguard the health and capacity of the