Neutral countries may be admitted later. The next meeting of the conference will be held in London on July 15-18, that being the date of the annual meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry.

So far as Britain is concerned, the choice of representatives and the supervision of the arrangements for the first meeting will be in the hands of the Federal Council for Pure and Applied Chemistry, of which Sir William Pope is president and Professor H. E. Armstrong the honorary secretary. Until the various nations concerned have chosen their representatives, little can be done, but Sir William Pope and Professor Louis are provisionally acting as the British representatives, and are in communication with their French colleagues.

The meeting in Paris was held under the auspices of the French chemical societies, especially the Société de Chemie Industrielle, the president of which, M. Paul Kestner, presided at some of the meetings.

THE BRITISH IMPERIAL ANTARCTIC
EXPEDITION

PLANS are being prepared for another Antarctic expedition, which will sail in the famous ship, Terra Nova, and be assisted by the latest improvements in aviation and wireless telegraphy. The organization is already in an advanced stage.

It will be known as the "British Imperial Antarctic Expedition," its leader being Mr. John L. Cope. Mr. Cope's name is well known in connection with expeditions to the Antarctic. He accompanied the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914-17 as surgeon and biologist to the Ross Sea party, and was one of the party of nine who were left on the Great Ice Barrier to lay deposits after the Aurora had broken away from her moorings. Since returning to England Mr. Cope has served in the R.N.V.R. as a lieutenant, but he has never abandoned the idea of organizing a further venture at the earliest possible date.

Arrangements are so far advanced that the expedition will be able to leave England in June, 1920, and Mr. Cope states that the ex

years continuous communication is to be maintained with the centers of civilization by means of wireless equipment.

The main objects of the expedition will be:

1. To ascertain the position and extent of the mineralogical and other deposits of economic value known to exist in Antarctica, and arrange for their practical development as a further source of imperial wealth.

2. To obtain further evidence of the distribution and migration of the whales of economic value, and to create a British industry. 3. To investigate the meteorological and magnetic conditions of the Ross Sea area and at Cape Ann (Enderby Land) in connection with their influence on similar conditions in Australasia and South Africa, respectively. Such results have been proved of great value by the stations established by the Argentine government in the South Orkneys and by that established on Macquarie Island by the commonwealth of Australia, which has been given up owing to the war.

4. Generally to extend knowledge of Antarctica, especially with a view to obtaining further scientific data of economic importance.

Mr. Cope states that arrangements are being made to take an aeroplane to assist in surveying the interior of the continent. With this machine even a flight to the South Pole is contemplated.

The reason for calling the enterprise the "British Imperial Antarctic Expedition" is that the efforts of Mr. Cope and his comrades will be directed solely for the benefit of the British Empire. The temporary headquarters of the expedition are at 17, Somerset Street, W-1.

OUTLINE MAP OF THE UNITED STATES THE United States Coast and Geodetic Survey has completed a new outline map of the United States on the Lambert conformal conic projection, scale 1-5,000,000.

This map is intended merely as a base to which may be added any kind of special information desired. The shore line is compiled from the most recent Coast and Geodetic Survey charts. State names and boundaries, prin

cipal rivers, capitals and the largest cities in the different states are also embodied.

The map is of special interest from the fact that it is based on the same system of projection as that employed by the armies of the allied forces in the military operations in France. To meet those requirements and at the request of the army, special publications were prepared by the Coast and Geodetic Sur

vey.

Many methods of projection have been designed to solve the difficult problem of representing a spherical surface on a plane. As different projections have unquestionable merits as well as equally serious defects, the announcement states, any region to be mapped should be made the subject of special study and that system of projection adopted which will give the best results for the area under consideration.

The Mercator projection, almost universally used for nautical charts, is responsible for many false impressions of the relative size of the countries differing in latitude, according to the survey statement. The polyconic projection, widely used and well adapted for both topographic and hydrographic surveys, when used for the whole of the United States in one map has the serious defect of unduly exaggerating the areas on its eastern and western limits. Along the Pacific coast and in Maine the error in scale is as much as 6 per cent., while at New York it reaches 41 per cent.

The value of the new outline map on the Lambert projection can best be realized when it is stated that it shows that throughout the largest and most important part of the United States, that is, between latitude 30 degrees and 49 degrees, the maximum scale error is only one half of 1 per cent. This amount of scale error of one half of 1 per cent. is frequently less than the distortion due to the method of printing and to changes from the humidity of the air. Only in southernmost Florida and Texas does this projection attain its maximum error of 2 1-3 per cent.

The Lambert projection is well adapted to large areas of predominating east and west dimensions in the United States where the dis

tance across from east to west is 14.5 times that of the distance north and south.

The strength of the Polyconic projection, on the other hand, is along its central meridian. The merits and defects of the two systems of projection may be stated in a general way as being at right angles to each other.

Special features of the Lambert projection that are not found in the Polyconic may be stated briefly as follows:

1. The Lambert projection is conformalthat is, all angles between intersecting lines or curves are preserved, and for any given point (or restricted locality) the ratio of the length of a linear element on the earth's surface to the length of the corresponding map element is constant for all azimuths or directions in which the element may be taken.

2. The meridians are straight lines, and the parallels are concentric circles.

3. It has two axes of strength instead of one, the standard parallels of the map of the United States being latitudes 33 degrees and 45 degrees, and upon these parallels the scale is absolutely true. The scale for any other part of the map, or for any parallel, can be obtained from special publication number 52, page 36, U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. By means of these tables the very small scale errors which exist in this projection can be entirely eliminated.

The map measures 25 inches by 39 inches and will be sold by the government at 25 cents.

THE LECONTE MEMORIAL LECTURE IN THE YOSEMITE, 1919

THE University of California through its university extension division will offer free to the public a course of scientific lectures in the Yosemite Valley during June and July, 1919. These are to be known as the LeConte Memorial Lectures in the Yosemite in honor of the name of Joseph LeConte, the famous naturalist and geologist who was for many years a member of the faculty of the University of California. The lecturers and topics for 1919 and the tentative dates are as follows: I. Professor W. L. Jepson, department of botany, University of California.

1. The Origin and Distribution of But

molluscan studies in the interest of the Geological and Natural Survey of Wisconsin.

DR. J. H. GRISDALE, who has been for several years the director of the Experimental Farms Branch of the Dominion Department of Agriculture at Ottawa, has recently been appointed to the position of deputy minister of agriculture.

DR. SAMUEL C. PRESCOTT, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, formerly major in the Sanitary Corps, U. S. A., has been appointed expert in charge of dehydration investigations in the Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, and will continue the investigations on this subject carried on during the war under the direction of the War Department.

C. M. WOODWORTH has resigned as instructor in genetics at the University of Wisconsin in order to take a position with the Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture. He will devote his attention principally to a study of disease resistance in flax. The field experiments will be mostly in North Dakota, but Mr. Woodworth will retain Madison, Wis., as his permanent headquarters.

CAPTAIN S. T. DANA has resumed his duties with the Forest Service as assistant chief of forest investigations. During the war he was on the general staff as secretary of the army commodity committee on lumber, and in charge of determining wood requirements of the army.

W. FAITOUTE MUNN, formerly chemist in charge at the Baker and Adamson Works of The General Chemical Company, Easton, Pa., has accepted the position as chief chemist for The Brewster Film Corporation of East Orange, New Jersey.

PROFESSOR CHARLES E. FAY, of Tufts College, Massachusetts, president of the American Alpine Club, and Henry G. Bryant, of Philadelphia, have been elected honorary members of the French Alpine Club.

COLONEL E. LESTER JONES, superintendent of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, has been made by the king of Italy an officer of the Order of S. S. Maurizo e Lazzaro.

SIR ERNEST RUTHERFORD, recently elected Cavendish professor of experimental physics at the University of Cambridge, has been elected to a fellowship at Trinity College.

THE British Electrical Research Committee has appointed Mr. E. B. Wedmore as director of research.

THE British Institution of Civil Engineers has made the following awards for papers read and discussed at the meetings during the session 1918-19:-A Telford gold medal to George Hughes (Horwich), a Telford gold medal and an Indian premium to R. B. Joyner (Bombay), a Watt gold medal to W. S. Abell (London), a George Stephenson gold medal to the Hon. R. C. Parsons (London), a Webb prize to F. E. Gobey, (Horwich), Telford premiums to James Caldwell (London), H. B. Sayers (London), J. Reney Smith (Liverpool), and F. W. Scott (Benoni, Transvaal), and a Manby prize to E. L. Leeming (Manchester).

PROFESSOR R. KOBERT died on December 27, at sixty-four years of age. He was professor of pharmacology at Rostock.

THE death of Dr. Edmund Weiss, director of the Vienna Observatory for thirty-two years, which occurred in 1917, was recently announced by the Paris Academy of Sciences of which he was a correspondent.

THE death is announced of Dr. José Penna, professor of epidemic diseases at the University of Buenos Aires.

THE British Scientific Products Exhibition, arranged by the British Science Guild, will be open in the Central Hall, Westminster, from July 3 to August 5. Its objects are to illustrate recent progress in British science and invention, and to help the establishment and development of new British industries.

WE learn from Nature that at a recent meeting of the council of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom it was announced that Dr. G. P. Bidder and Mr. E. T. Browne had each undertaken to contribute a sum of £500 towards a fund for the extension of the laboratory at Plymouth. The new building will be commenced at once, and the

scheme, when completed, will provide both a new and larger aquarium and special laboratories for physiological work.

A MESSAGE received from Rome states that in the province of Cattaniselta in the Island of Sicily, immense deposits of potash have been discovered and the preliminary investigations are said to establish these as the richest in the world. The exploitation of these deposits, if the first reports receive the confirmation hoped for, would make it quite unnecessary to have recourse to the German supplies.

MOSQUITOES representative of all species occurring at camps or posts where troops of the United States are stationed are to be collected for the Army Medical Museum in Washington. At present the collection is incomplete and medical officers have been directed to see that collections of these insects are made at the times and in the manner described in circular instructions being published. Collections of mosquitoes are to be made at each station at least biweekly, at three periods during the twenty-four hours, early morning from 5 to 6 A.M., midday, and after 7 P.M. The time of collection will vary in different latitudes, but observation will determine the time when the insects are most prevalent at each locality. They are to be collected by means of a suitable killer or by mosquito traps. The "chloroform tube" is the best and most easily obtained killer, and mosquito traps are also useful. Shipments of the mosquitoes in lots of 25 each in specially prepared boxes are to be mailed by medical officers at camps to the curator, Army Medical Museum, Washington, D. C.

IN announcing on March 20 the reopening of the Zoological Garden and the Aquarium, which had been closed by the military during the Berlin riots, the Berliner Tageblatt, as quoted in a press dispatch, notes the fact that because of the increased expense of operation the price of admission to the Zoological Garden will be advanced to 36 cents on week days and 24 cents on Sundays on April 1. In order to give the poorer inhabitants of the German capital a chance to enter the Garden there will be two "cheap Sundays" a month when the entrance fee will be only 12 cents, against the

former figure of 7 cents. Since 1910 the Berlin City Council has been subsidizing the Garden at the rate of about $5,000 a year and the Aquarium with about $6,000.

THE Virginia deer is said to have been unknown in Nova Scotia until about 1888, and was afterwards introduced. However, bones of this animal have now been found in two widely separated prehistoric Indian shellheaps in that province by archeologists of the Geological Survey, Canada. Toe bones have been found in a shell-heap near Mahone Bay on the outer coast by Mr. W. J. Wintemberg, in 1913, and a toe bone was also found in a shell-heap on Merigomish harbor on the north coast of Nova Scotia by Mr. Harlan I. Smith, in 1914. The identification of these bones has been confirmed by Dr. Gerrit S. Miller, of the United States National Museum. Other bones and teeth, supposedly of the same species, but not submitted to Dr. Miller, have also been found in these heaps.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS

THE General Education Board, founded by John D. Rockefeller, has made an appropriation of $500,000 toward a fund of two million dollars to be raised to endow a graduate school of education for Harvard University. The new fund will be named in honor of Dr. Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University.

DR. JAMES YOUNGER and his wife have given £30,000 to provide the University of St. Andrews with a memorial hall, to be used for university purposes.

Cape University by the National Bank of

THE sum of £10,000 has been given to the

South Africa.

DR. W. J. CROZIER has been appointed assistant professor in the department of zoology of the University of Chicago.

DR. E. W. LINDSTROM, who returned a short time ago from France, where he was in the aviation service, has been appointed assistant professor of genetics in the college of agriculture at the University of Wisconsin.