is a hopeful one, and inspired the feeling that we are well on the way to the establishment of the Ministry. The tone adopted by Dr. Addison is significant of this also, as is the translation of Sir George Newmann to the Local Government Board, and the granting to him of the title of "chief medical officer," with the status of a secretary of the board.

Nature continues: "One part of the bill which has been carried over unaltered from its predecessor is that relating to the appointment of consultative committees, and Dr. Addison, by his utterances, has shown himself to be firmly wedded to this idea, and expectant of results of great value from the work to be done by these bodies. The Consumers' Council at the Ministry of Food, which may be regarded as more or less analogous, though it was occasionally sneered at, must have assisted the food controller considerably. There is no reason to suppose that the Ministry of Health consultative committees will be any less helpful. Indeed, since they are to consist of carefully selected experts on matters having a bearing on national health, they are almost bound to be more valuable. In any event, the consultative committee idea has this to recommend it that it will popularize health work. The committees will serve as a most effective link between the department doing the work

and those for whose benefit the work is done. The department and the workers will be less cloistered; the workers and those who are worked for will be more intimately associated. The public will see and hear of what is being done, and will come to recognize the necessity for assisting in, and taking advantage of, the efforts made. So far there have been remarkably few comments on the bill, but on the whole the reception has been entirely favorable."

THE COLLEGE OF FISHERIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE

THE College of Fisheries just established by the University of Washington, at Seattle, enjoys the distinction of being the only one in the world outside of Japan. The Imperial Fisheries Institute at Tokio is a government

institution and has been in existence since 1897. It has so conclusively proved its worth that a number of subsidiary schools have been established in the various provinces of Japan.

When the matter of the establishment of a College of Fisheries in this country was first broached by Dr. H. M. Smith, U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries, his attention was called to the fact that Seattle is the only American city within whose corporate limits, or in territory immediately adjacent, can be found in active operation practically every type of plant used in turning the raw fishery material into all forms of manufactured articles both for food and for use in the arts and sciences; fishery operations were carried on even in Seattle harbor; while the great salmon, halibut, cod and herring fleets operating in Alaska waters had their headquarters mainly in the city, outfitting there and bringing back the products for shipment to all parts of the world; also that one of the leading universities of the country was already established there and could take up the work.

The College of Fisheries will offer a fouryear course divided into three divisions-Fishing, Technological and Fish Cultural. Students will be given as much practical training as possible in the college, but for certain periods in the last two years of the course will be expected to pursue their studies by work in commercial establishments devoted to the preparation of fishery products, aboard fishing vessels, or at hatcheries.

important part of the work of the College of As the university is a state institution, an Fisheries will be in rendering assistance and advice whenever called upon by the state authorities, and also to aid the commercial fishermen not only of the state but of the nation in solving the many problems which beset them, and to aid in the conservation and perpetuation of our wonderful fishery resources. Research work along the lines of utilization of hitherto neglected species, and of waste products, will be carried on and it is hoped will result in materially increasing the wealth of the state and nation.

The director, Mr. John N. Cobb, who is also

professor of fisheries, is known in connection Iwith the economic fisheries of the United States, and has been active in the industry since 1895, when he was appointed a field agent of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries.

BUFFALO MEETING OF THE AMERICAN
CHEMICAL SOCIETY

THE spring meeting of the American Chemical Society will be held with the Western New York Section in Buffalo, April 7 to 11, inclusive. There is every prospect that the meeting will be one of the largest ever held by the American Chemical Society as unusual interest has developed in problems of reconstruction, in the future utilization of war-time products, in heretofore secret information on chemistry warfare that can now be released, in the development of a comprehensive compendia of the literature of chemistry, and in many other problems which the Buffalo meeting will consider. A large number of chemists who have already signified their intention to be present assures also an unusual opportunity for meeting and discussing chemical problems with chemists who have been closely in touch with the nation's affairs. The Western New York Section is making arrangements for interesting excursions to industrial plants of importance.

Registration will take place at the Hotel Statler beginning at 3 P.M., Monday, April 7. An information bureau will be located at the hotel, and competent guides placed at all railroad stations. The general program is as following:

MONDAY, APRIL 7

4.00 P.M.-Council meeting at the University Club. Dinner for the council as guests of the Western New York Section at 6.30 P.M.

TUESDAY, APRIL 8

9.30 A.M.-General Meeting, Hotel Statler. "The Future of American Chemical Industry," by Wm. H. Nichols, President American Chemical Society.

One other general address to be announced.

2.30 P.M.-General Symposium on the Chemistry and Technology of Mustard Gas. Wilder D. Bancroft, chairman. Numerous interesting papers are

offered. These will take up the whole of the afternoon of Tuesday and may continue on Wednesday morning in the Biological, Physical and Inorganic, and Organic Divisions.

8.15 P.M.-Smoker, Hotel Statler.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9.

Divisional meetings-9.30 A.M., 1 P.M. and 2.30 to 5.30 P.M., at Technical High School.

6 P.M.-Dinner to Council at Canisius College. 8.30 P.M.-At Hutchinson High School-Public Address, "A Chemical Story," by Edgar F. Smith, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania.

THURSDAY, APRIL 10

9.30 A.M. to 1 P.M.-Divisional meetings.

2 P.M.-Excursion. National Aniline & Chemical Company.

The

7 P.M.-Banquet-place to be announced. capacity of the hall requires that only 400 tickets be issued.

The usual meetings will be held by all the Divisions except the Fertilizer Division, and by the Rubber Chemistry Section, with the following special program: The Division of Industrial Chemists and Chemical Engineers will make a special effort on papers on the probable future of those chemicals which have been abnormally stimulated during the war and on the library of the industrial laboratory. The Pharmaceutical Division announces a symposium on "The Possibilities in Drug Research." The Rubber Chemistry Section will apply for permission to organize at this meeting as a division.

Excursions are being arranged to include the works of the Buffalo Foundry and Machine Company; J. P. Devine and Company; Larkin Company; Municipal Laboratories and Water Purification Works; Oil Crushers; Pratt and Lambert, varnish makers; Spencer Kellogg Company; and tour of the city. Also, excursion to Niagara Falls, including visit to Power Plant, luncheon at Chamber of Commerce, pictures and exhibits of Niagara Falls products, drive along the Gorge and visit to Canadian side and Victoria Park. To accomplish the full program of excursions, it may be necessary to arrange for part of these excursions on Saturday.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

THE annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences will be held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington on April 28, 29, and 30. The William Ellery Hale Lecture will be given by James Henry Breasted, professor of Egyptology and oriental history, University of Chicago, on "The Origin of Civilization."

COLONEL HARVEY CUSHING, of the Harvard Medical School, has returned to the United States.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL J. H. HILDEBRAND, who has recently been Commandant of Hanlon Field, near Chaumont, France, which included the Experimental Field and the A. E. F. Gas Defense School of the Chemical Warfare Service, has returned after an absence of a year in France to his position of professor of chemistry in the University of California.

MAJOR C. B. STANTON, formerly professor of civil engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, who has been with the 15th Engineers in France for nearly two years, has notified the dean of the Science School that he has been appointed a professor in the American University for American soldiers at Beaune, France. Major Stanton was with his regiment at Bordeaux awaiting orders to board a transport and come home when he received the unexpected order of reporting to this "soldier university" as professor of civil engineering.

MAJOR WILLIAM B. HERMS, associate professor of parasitology in the University of California, has resumed his university duties. Major Herms has been serving with the Sanitary Corps of the U. S. Army for a little over a year, stationed since April, 1918, at the port of embarkation, Newport News, Va., where he was in charge of malarial drainage operations, delousing stations and assisting in general sanitary inspection.

PROFESSOR FRANK E. MORRIS has returned to the Connecticut College for Women as professor of psychology and ethics, which position he left last year when he enlisted in the psychological department of the Sanitation Corps of the Army.

LIEUTENANT A. C. CHANDLER, assistant professor of zoology at the Oregon Agricultural College on leave of absence, has been ordered to the front with the American soldiers to make a study of rat parasites in France.

DR. LIVINGSTON FARRAND, chairman of the central committee of the American Red Cross, sailed for France on March 9, to be gone until the latter part of April. Having set in motion at headquarters the plans for the future of the Red Cross, Dr. Farrand goes abroad to study the organization's problems in Europe, and to confer with Henry P. Davison, formerly chairman of the war council, who is now at Cannes arranging for the international conference of Red Cross societies called to meet at Geneva 30 days after the declaration of peace. Dr. Farrand has arranged to have a number of American health experts join him at Cannes for the purpose of conferring with similar experts from the allied countries relative to matters that are to be taken up at Geneva.

DR. T. A. HENRY, superintendent of the laboratories at the Imperial Institute, London, has been appointed director of the Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories, London. Dr. F. L. Pyman, the former director of these laboratories, has accepted the professorship of technological chemistry in the College of Technology, University of Manchester.

DR. H. C. TAYLOR, of the University of Wisconsin, has been appointed to be chief of the office of farm management of the Department of Agriculture.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM D. HURD, director of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, has resigned and will enter the service of the National Fertilizer Association. He is to have charge of educational projects in the middle west. Professor Hurd undertook the organization of the state system of extension work in 1909. There are now twenty fulltime workers at the college engaged in projects of food production, distribution and conservation.

DR. ARTHUR LACHMAN, formerly professor of chemistry in the University of Oregon, is

now connected with the Great Western Electro-Chemical Co., San Francisco, Cal.

THE annual meeting of the District of Columbia Chapter of the Society of the Sigma Xi was held in the auditorium of the National Museum, on March 6. Major R. M. Yerkes, Sanitary Corps, U. S. Army, gave an illustrated lecture on the "Relationship of Army Mental Tests to Education and Vocational Guidance." Officers for the ensuing two years were elected as follows: President, C. L. Shear; Vice-president, H. L. Shantz; Secretary, M. W. Lyon, Jr.,; Treasurer, D. Roberts Harper 3d; Councillors, Charles E. Tullar and C. A. Briggs.

A CANADIAN branch of the American Phytopathological Society was recently organized. The purpose of the organization is to correlate the work of plant pathologists in Canada and keep them in closer touch with each other, at the same time retaining a close union with the plant pathologists in the United States. The officers are: Professor J. E. Howitt, president; Mr. W. A. McCubbin, Vice-president; Dr. R. E. Stone, Secretary-treasurer.

THE following officers and council of the Royal Astronomical Society were elected at the annual general meeting on February 14: President: Professor A. Fowler; Vice-presidents: Sir F. W. Dyson, Astronomer Royal, Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher, Major P. A. MacMahon, and Professor H. F. Newall; Treasurer: Mr. E. B. Knobel; Secretaries: Dr. A. C. D. Crommelin and Rev. T. E. R. Phillips; Foreign Secretary: Professor H. H. Turner; Council: Professor A. E. Conrady, Dr. J. L. E. Dreyer, Professor A. S. Eddington, Brig.Gen. E. H. Hills, Mr. J. H. Jeans, Dr. Harold Jeffreys, Mr. H. S. Jones, Lieutenant-Colonel H. G. Lyons, Mr. E. W. Maunder, Dr. W. H. Maw, Professor J. W. Nicholson, and Lieutenant-Colonel F. J. M. Stratton.

WE learn from The British Medical Journal that a House of Commons Medical Committee has been formed to include all medical members and other members of the House of Commons interested in scientific matters akin to medicine. All the medical members, except

ing the ministers, have joined, and also Sir Philip Magnus (member for the University of London) and Sir Henry Craik (one of the members for the Scottish Universities). The chairman is Sir Watson Cheyne, and the secretary Major A. C. Farquharson. The executive committee consists of Sir William Whitla, Lieut.-Colonel Nathan Raw and Captain Elliott. The objects of the committee are to exchange opinions so as to secure representation of agreed views on medical subjects in Parliament. The committee is open to receive representations on all such matters from the colleges and corporations, and from societies and associations, and will hold conferences when considered desirable. It will not allow itself in any way to be identified with any one particular body. A subcommittee has been appointed, consisting of Colonel Nathan Raw (England), Sir Watson Cheyne (Scotland), and Sir William Whitla (Ireland), to watch the ministry of health in its progress through the House.

DR. H. D. CURTIS, of the Lick Observatory, Mount Hamilton, California, gave an address on "Modern Theories of Spiral Nebula" at a joint meeting of the Washington Academy of Sciences and the Philosophical Society of Washington on March 15.

THE death is announced on February 19, at eighty-five years of age, of Dr. F. Du Cane Godman, F.R.S., trustee of the British Museum, and distinguished for his work in natural history, especially ornithology.

AN item concerning the "Goodrich conservation bill," printed on page 213 of SCIENCE for February 10, applies to the state of Indiana, and not to Illinois.

MALCOLM PLAYFAIR ANDERSON, a well-known naturalist and explorer, was killed in Oakland, California, on February 21, by the fall of a beam in a shipyard. Mr. Anderson was a graduate of Stanford University, a son of Dr. Melville Best Anderson, professor emeritus of English literature at Stanford. He was an accomplished ornithologist, his work having been largely in China and Japan, where he was head naturalist of the Duke of Bedford's ex

plorations in Eastern Asia. He was brother of Robert V. Anderson, late of the U. S. Geological Survey, now representing the War Trade Board at Stockholm.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

By the will of the late Morton F. Plant, the Connecticut College for Women receives a bequest of $250,000.

Two years ago Professor and Mrs. Herdman gave to the University of Liverpool, the sum of £10,000 to establish a chair in memory of their son, Lieutenant George A. Herdman, who was killed in action. Nature states that they have now made a further gift of £10,000 for the purpose of establishing a chair of oceanography with special reference to fisheries. The council of the university has accepted this gift with grateful thanks, and has resolved that (1) Professor Herdman be appointed professor of oceanography as from October 1 next; (2) Dr. J. Johnson succeed him on October 1, 1920, and during the twelve months from October 1 next be lecturer on oceanography at the salary derived from the endowment.

THE senate of the University of Cambridge has approved the plan for the establishment of the degree of doctor of philosophy. The syndicate dealing with this question recommends that, subject to certain exemptions, candidates for the degree, before submitting a dissertation, must have pursued a course of research for not less than three years, and the senate has determined that of this period one year in the case of a graduate of the university and two years in the case of other students must be spent in Cambridge.

SIR OLIVER LODGE has retired as principal of Birmingham University.

THE resignation of Dr. Harry B. Hutchins, as president of the University of Michigan, which was presented on October 12, 1916, has now been accepted by the regents to take effect on June 30. It is reported that Dr. James Rowland Angell, professor of psychology and dean of the department of arts and sciences of

the University of Chicago, will be asked to accept the presidency.

DR. JOHN JOHNSTON, Secretary of the National Research Council in Washington, has been appointed professor of chemistry in the Graduate School of Yale University. Professor Johnston is a graduate of the University of St. Andrews.

LIEUTENANT KARL SAX, recently discharged from military service in the coast artillery at Fort Amador, Canal Zone, Panama, has been appointed instructor in genetics at the University of California.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE DESMOGNATHUS FUSCUS (SIC).

mar.

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Professor Wilder's letter recalls a proposal made by Mr. Oldfield Thomas and myself, a proposal worth repeating. Zoological nomenclature has many inevitable difficulties to overcome, and it will save time and disputes if there be removed from it the extrinsic burden of trying to conform with the rules of Greek and Latin gramLet the convention be established that the name of a genus, whatsoever its derivation, be regarded as masculine when the genus denotes a group of living animals, feminine if it denote a group of living plants, and neuter if it denotes a fossil animal or plant. Let it be agreed that the scientific name of an existing species may be changed to accord with this conventional sex where possible, and that in the making of new names, the accord should be made by the author, corrected by the editor or by any subsequent writer. This would simplify matters and, in a considerable proportion of instances would give useful information.

P. CHALMERS MITCHELL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: I have read with interest and some amusement the letter by Mr. H. H. Wilder, on "Desmognathus fuscus [sic]." It seems to me to lend additional support to the suggestion made years ago by my friend, the Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing, that