Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

Thompson, Sir St. Clair, London, England. Bégouin, Paul, Bordeaux, France.

Lemaitre, Fernand, France.

Picqué, Robert, Bordeaux, France.
Alexion, Alexander, Greece.
Constas, John, Greece.

Allen, Belle Jane, Baroda, India.
Fletcher, A. G., Taiku, Japan.
Kamaimura, Asajiro, Tokio, Japan.
Kodama, Ryuzo, Japan.
Uchimo, Senichi, Tokio, Japan.

Holst, Peter F., Norway.
Muro, Felipe, Lima, Peru.

Ingvar, Sven, Lund, Sweden.

HONORARY DEGREES AT YALE UNIVERSITY

AT the commencement exercises on June 18 Dr. Theodore Salisbury Woolsey, professor of international law, emeritus, in presenting candidates for honorary degrees said as public

orator:

MASTER OF ARTS

Orville Wright: The survivor of two brothers who by their mechanical skill, ceaseless experimentation and accumulated knowledge of physics, have led the way in mastering human flight. The inventive genius of Mr. Wright in a brief sixteen years has filled the sky with its creations, has changed the methods of warfare, has captivated the youth of all lands and now ventures to cross the ocean. Samuel Hosea Wadhams: A graduate of Sheffield, in 1894, a surgeon in the regular army, serving in the Spanish War, early sent to France as an observer, placed later on the General Staff, in tact, in vision, in ability preeminent, Colonel Wadhams, more than any one else, has shaped the policy of his department. During our share in the war, he has borne the entire responsibility for the wounded in the battle area, has won the admiration of

his fellow workers and has earned the honor which his university desires to pay.

DOCTOR OF SCIENCE

Samuel Wesley Stratton: Mathematician, physicist, professor in the Universities of Illinois and Chicago, a naval officer in the Spanish war, since 1901 director of the National Bureau of Standards in weight and measures.

Dr. Stratton's work in this bureau has been conspicuous and constructive, recognized beyond our own limits, vitally important in war and war research. A man weighed in the balance and not found wanting.

Harvey Cushing: Son of Yale and Harvard professor, a leader in the new field of neurological surgery, in operations of the brain preeminent, surgeon in chief of the model Brigham Hospital, honored at home and abroad. Colonel Cushing served with the French in 1915 and 1917, with the British at Messines and Passchendaele, being mentioned in dispatches. At this time organizing intensive study of penetrative skull wounds, he reduced their mortality by one half. Under our own flag he became chief consultant in neurological surgery for the A. E. F. A gentleman, a bold investigator, an artist in the operative field.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY has conferred the doctorate of science on Dr. John M. Clarke, director of the State Museum of New York, and the degree of master of arts on Mr. Lester E. Jones, director of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.

DR. DAVID F. HOUSTON, Secretary of agriculture, has received the degree of LL.D. from Brown University.

THE honorary degree of doctor of science has been conferred upon Dr. Raymond Foss Bacon, director of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, by De Pauw University.

ON the occasion of the annual commencement of the University of Pittsburgh on June 13, the honorary degree of doctor of engineering was conferred upon Mr. Vannoy H. Manning, director of the United States Bureau of Mines, in recognition of his noteworthy accomplishments in the investigation of problems of mineral technology. The university also conferred the honorary degree of doctor of chemistry upon Dr. Willis R. Whitney, director of the Research Laboratory of the General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York, because of the valuable service which he rendered to the government as a member of the

Naval Consulting Board. These honorary degrees were given upon the recommendation of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, an integral part of the University of Pittsburgh.

DURHAM UNIVERSITY has conferred its doctorate of science on Sir E. Rutherford, Sir G. T. Beilby, Professor A. A. Herdman and Professor J. J. Welsh.

SIR J. J. THOMSON has been appointed a member of the advisory council to the committee of the privy council for scientific and industrial research.

DR. GISBERT KAPP is about to resign the professorship of electrical engineering in the University of Birmingham.

PROFESSOR Robert W. Wilson has retired from the chair of astronomy at Harvard University.

THE Royal Society of Arts, London, has awarded its Albert medal for 1919 to Sir Oliver Lodge "in recognition of his work as the pioneer of wireless telegraphy." The medal was instituted in 1864 to reward "distinguished service in promoting arts, manufactures and commerce."

PROFESSOR G. ELLIOT SMITH has been elected president of the Manchester Literary and Philosophic Society.

DR. RAY LYMAN WILBUR, president of Stanford University, who has always taken particular interest in the sociological problems connected with diseases, has been elected president of the California State Conference of Social Agencies.

Ar the annual meeting of the Linnean Society on May 24, Dr. A. Smith Woodward, of the British Museum of Natural History, was elected president.

CHARLES W. LENG, secretary of the New York Entomological Society and research associate in the American Museum of Natural History, has been appointed director of the Museum of the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Leng has been interested in the natural history of Staten Island, where

he was born and lives, since boyhood. Entomologists and other naturalists, visiting New York City, can reach the museum of the institute by a pleasant half hour's sail across the bay on the Staten Island ferry.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

AMONG the gifts announced at the commencement of Harvard University were the following: From the estate of Mrs. Robert D. Evans, $15,687; one half each to the Arnold Arboretum and the Dental School. The James C. Melvin Fund, anonymous $53,750 for tropical medicine. Anonymous gift of $11,250 for the departments of agriculture and landscape architecture. Estate of Mrs. Charles H. Colburn, $97,052, for the study of tuberculosis. Mrs. Winthrop Sargent, $27,500, of which $25,000 goes to the Blue Hill Observatory. From the Nathaniel Canners' Association, $15,000 for studies in public health.

DR. LEROY S. PALMER, assistant professor of dairy chemistry in the college of agriculture of the University of Missouri, has been appointed associate professor of agricultural biochemistry in the college of agriculture, University of Minnesota, and dairy chemist in the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station. George E. Holm, Ph.D., Minnesota, 1919, has been appointed assistant professor of agricultural biochemistry and assistant agricultural biochemist in the Experiment Station. He will devote his time almost exclusively to research on the proteins.

A. F. KIDDER has resigned as professor of agronomy in the college of agriculture of the Louisiana State University to accept the position of agronomist and assistant director of the State Agricultural Experiment Station, Baton Rouge.

DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER, of the pharmaceutical department of the University of California, will go next September to the University of Nebraska as professor of pharmacognosy and director of the experimental medicinal plant garden.

PROFESSOR H. H. CHAPMAN returns to the Yale Forest School to assume his duties as Harriman professor of forest management. He has been assistant district forester, in charge of silviculture at Albuquerque for the past two years.

AT the recent commencement the following appointments were made in the department of zoology, college of liberal arts, Syracuse University: Dwight E. Minnich, Ph.D. (Harvard, '17), of Oxford, O., instructor in zoology; Harry S. Pizer, M.Sc., of Brooklyn, N. Y., assistant in zoology.

DR. FRANK A. HARTMAN, of the department of physiology, the University of Toronto, has been appointed head of the department of physiology at the University of Buffalo.

COLONEL J. G. ADAMI, F.R.S., professor of pathology, McGill University, Montreal, has been elected vice-chancellor of the university

in succession to Sir Albert Dale.

PROFESSOR GRAFTON ELLIOT SMITH, professor of anatomy in the University of Manchester, has been appointed to the chair of anatomy at University College, London.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE TECTONIC FORM OF THE CONTINENTS

OUR prevailing notion concerning continental mass is strictly geographic in significance. In our definition tectonics finds no place. Relation of sea and land is made causal and essential; whereas it is only accidental and trivial. The outstanding feature is a broad basin with high mountainous rim and a low sea-level interior. This is a statement of the observation of the late Professor J. D. Dana. In its larger, or telluric, aspects this definition is genetically without meaning.

In the final analysis of the major relief features of our globe the hydrosphere is for simplicity's sake left out of account. The effect then is as if the entire face of the earth were a land area. A condition is premised analogous to that of our waterless moon. Genetically the oceans serve only to obscure the tectonic essentials of relief expression.

Recent experimental reproductions, in spheroidal masses, of those broad basinal tracts that correspond to the oceanic depressions of the geoid are accompanied by results having curious significance. They point to the fact that we shall have to modify our basic conceptions concerning all the major deformations of the earth's crust.

Instead of distinguishing between continental elevations and oceanic depressions, a circumstance imposed by an unweening importance attached to the presence of the sea, a notion handed down from time immemorial, the proper discrimination to be made is between the cordilleran ridges of the continental borders and the intervening lowlands, whether above the level of the waters in the continental interiors, or beneath sea-level in the oceanic On this basis the tracts which we are accustomed to designate the oceanic depressions and the sea-level interiors of the continents are arranged in the same taxonomic category. Consideration of any such datum plane as sealevel may be with full propriety entirely neglected. The meridional disposition of the continents thus comes to be readjusted as relatively narrow orographic ridges in place of broad basin-shaped plateaus.

areas.

The tectonic consideration of a waterless earth casts a new light upon the schematic form of our globe. In its logical consequences the contractional hypothesis finds expression in such figments of the imagination as the reseau pentagonal of Elie de Beaumont, and the tetrahedral globe of Lothian Green. To be sure the form known as the tetrahedron is of all geometric solids the one form which possesses the least volume in comparison with a given surface area, while the sphere contains the greatest bulk within the same surface; yet the collapse of the latter is not necessarily a crystallographic shape as that indicated by the former.

In the present state of our knowledge any schematic form of our earth is largely conjectural. However, it is suggested lately that in the case of a collapsing spheroid the initial tendency towards a faceted form would prob

ably not be directly in the line of any limiting shape, as a four-sided figure, but towards something intermediate between a limiting shape and the most general form, or a figure having twelve or twenty-four faces. That the rhombic dodecahedron is possibly the real plan, if there be any, although having in nature curved surfaces, seems to be borne out by the trend of the chief mountain ranges of the world, and by the situation of the main volcanic activities at the sharp solid angles or the points where each set of faces intersect.

Viewed, then, in their telluric relations the continents are probably best regarded not as broad basins with upturned rims but as somewhat irregular, interrupted, meridianally disposed ridges. These ribs appear to be directly traceable in their genesis to released cumulative tension that depends upon the secular retardation of the earth's rotation. CHARLES KEYES

AMERICAN ASSISTANCE FOR RUSSIAN
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Revolution, war and anarchy threw Russia out of the rut of normal life. And in no phase of Russia's national life have the results been so disastrous as in public education, which can not be placed again on an adequate and normal footing without the assistance of the Allies.

Just before the war, there was adopted a plan for universal education, also for opening a number of higher institutions of learning, especially, technical and agricultural colleges. These educational institutions are open, but on account of complete lack of the supplies needed for conduct of studies and practical work of the students, and, because it has been impossible to obtain apparatus, tools, etc., from Germany and Austria whence they formerly came, it becomes necessary to conduct the studies one-sidedly and incompletely and it is difficult to expect good results from such studies.

There is only one way of obtaining such supplies for Siberia, where several higher institutions of learning have recently been opened, and that is to purchase the supplies in the United States where, at present, most of

the laboratory instruments and other technical supplies, so far as I know, are manufactured and are quite satisfactory as to quality.

The writer, who came to this country as the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, would like to dwell upon this mattter in reference to the laboratories and institutions in different branches of agriculture and experimental stations and also to throw light upon the general aspect of this question.

Equipment of the Russian educational institutions with necessary supplies is furthermore complicated by other circumstances, such as: lack of means and complete impossibility of making purchases for cash owing to very low exchange rate of the rouble at the present time. And, meanwhile, the matter of education is urgent and a way out of this difficult situation is possible only in case the American scientific and academic circles would realize that the problem of education in Russia at present is tragic, if they would have a desire to come to aid and organize such aid.

During the difficult struggle against the Bolsheviki, Siberia had an opportunity to become acquainted with and learned to appreciate the brotherly, assistance of the American Red Cross in the matter of organizing hospitals and havens for refugees. The scientific educational matters as well as the work of the Red Cross may and must be outside of politics. It is sufficient to be in sympathy with a people in order to come to their assistance. And, if my American academic colleagues share this point of view and would give an impetus to this new movement in the matter of spiritual aid to Russia, then, I am firmly convinced, the Americans would organize this aid in as splendidly efficient a way as they have organized the Red Cross.

It is, however, self-evident that this aid must be given on an entirely different basis. There could be no question of charity, but simply the matter of facilitating the purchase of the necessary technical equipment by permitting purchases to be paid for in instalments.

I do not, by any means, offer my suggestion as the only feasible plan, but would only like

to indicate a plan which, it seems to me, could be realized and would suggest that it would be possible to work along the following lines: Let a competent American scientific-academic organization take up this matter. The writer can make a formal request on behalf of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Education. If the organization in question regards the matter favorably, i. e., it decides that it is expedient and necessary to render those portions of Russia which had been freed from the Bolshevik domination, assistance in the purchase of the books, the instruments, the glassware and other technical equipment for institutions of learning, laboratories and experimental stations, let such an organization enter into negotiation with firms who manufacture and supply the American scientific-academic institutions with technical supplies. The purpose of these negotiations would be the arrangement of easy terms of payment on the purchases which would be necessary. Further negotiations could be carried on by an authorized person who has lists of necessary articles and who might be assisted by the Russian Economic League or some other institution which does purchasing of different commodities for Russia. In this way, it will be something like a loan in goods, such loan being made with the spiritual aid of American scientific and academic circles and with certain concessions on the part of the American firms.

It might be mentioned that such concession should prove a very good business investment, since it would be an excellent foundation for substituting American apparatus and tools for the German articles which are the only ones used in Russian schools so far. This concession would be practically an equivalent of advertising American supplies in Russian educational institutions. The very fact of equipping the Russian institutions of learning with American supplies and having the Russian instructors work with the American-made apparatus and tools clears the way for general adoption of American apparatus and tools in Russia. The habit of using a certain kind of apparatus plays a more important part than may be supposed at first sight and it seems

that the time is ripe now to introduce in Russia the habit of using the products of American genius and industry.

I hope sincerely, that the suggestion set forth in this letter may be received sympathetically by the American scientists as well as by the special manufacturing and publishing firms which might be concerned with the carrying out of such a plan. I am ready to enter into all necessary negotiations in respect to this matter and I thank in advance any one who will be kind enough to help me with advice or suggestion concerning my efforts in this direction. N. BORODIN

FLATIRON BUILDING, ROOM 1010,

NEW YORK CITY

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

The Elements of Astronomy. By CHARLES A. YOUNG. Boston, Ginn & Co. 1919. Pp. x + 508.

Lessons in Astronomy. By

CHARLES A. YOUNG. Boston, Ginn & Co. 1919. Pp. ix + 420.

These are new and revised editions of the most excellent text-books of the late Professor Charles A. Young. From the time this series first appeared some thirty years ago, these books have held high rank among the many that have been written. They show a wide grasp of the fundamentals of astronomy, and these fundamentals are presented to the student in a clear and comprehensive manner.

The author's presentation of the problems involved in the study of the motions of the planets is especially noteworthy. For the mathematician these motions involve the greatest complications and require the most intricate formulas, yet Professor Young places the essential facts before the student in a simple and clear manner. By the aid of a few diagrams and some apt illustrations, the fundamentals of celestial mechanics are plained, and explained so clearly that the youngest student should have no difficulty in understanding the problems and in grasping the essential facts and principles.

ex

The present edition was revised by Miss

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »