v

=

in a manner similar to sodium or potassium one would expect from the analagous relations in the series of these elements to find ionization determined by the quantum relation hy eV when is the limit of the principal series = 22,786. This requires a value of V = 2.81 volts, which cannot be considered in the light of the experimental data. We believe that our work enables the prediction of a new series in thallium. It is very possibly of the form = 1.5 S mP, a single v line series of low intensity converging at 1.5 S lying between 57,000 and 60,000. The highest convergence frequency of any series so far known for thallium is 49,263. The present work again brings up the question of the separate excitation of lines constituting a doublet. Thallium appears to offer a fruitful field for work in this regard.

Although the usual time of adjournment had arrived, it was moved and carried that the program be completed, and Mr. P. D. FOOTE presented a paper on Electronic frequency and atomic number, which was discussd by Dr. SWANN.

The meeting adjourned at 10.15 p.m.

H. L. CURTIS, Recording Secretary.

BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

The 584th regular meeting of the Society was held in the Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club, Saturday, April 20, 1918; called to order at 8 p.m. by President ROSE; 35 persons present.

General T. E. WILCOX stated that he had received a communication from Ex-President Roosevelt in which he said he was presenting to the Society an autograph copy of his book entitled A Booklover's Holiday in the Open. Dr. Howard in this connection referred to the 277th meeting of the Society when Theodore Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, attended for the first and only time a meeting of the Biological Society of Washington.

The regular program was as follows:

ALEX. WETMORE: Lead poisoning in waterfowl. Mr. Wetmore said that lead poisoning in waterfowl has been known for a number of years and recently has assumed considerable economic importance. Wild ducks, whistling swans and a few other birds subject to this disease pick up and swallow pellets of shot lying in the mud in marshes and shallow lakes about old shooting blinds. These shot are held in the stomach and worn slowly away by grinding against bits of gravel taken to aid digestion, so that small particles of lead are being steadily passed out into the intestine, and in part absorbed. This causes a severe diarrhoea, the feces are stained bright green, the birds are soon unable to fly, and a slow paralysis sets in so that they become unable to stand. Cases of long standing become much emaciated though the birds eat eagerly. By experiment it was found that six number six shot when swallowed were fatal in every instance, while in one instance one shot of that size was sufficient to cause death from lead poisoning. It was also shown that the trouble was due actually to lead and not to arsenic

or combinations thereof with lead. In all cases this lead poisoning seemed to result fatally, and on certain marshes a considerable number of waterfowl are destroyed in this manner. The speaker described the symptoms and post-mortem appearances fully and gave details of experiments and observations made in the laboratory and in field work. He also exhibited specimens of shot removed from the gizzards of . ducks, showing how they had been worn by muscular action, and also shot dredged from the feeding grounds.

A. S. HITCHCOCK: Generic types. The speaker reviewed the tendencies in generic nomenclature of plants and referred to the rules concerning generic types in the American Code of Botanical Nomenclature. He also referred to the rules in the International Code which concern the use of the generic name although these rules do not recognize type species. Precision in the application of generic names is attained only when it is recognized that a genus, however limited as to component species, must include the type species. In other words, the type species of a genus should determine the application of a generic name. It is obvious that the type species is the species or one of the species included in the genus when it was established. It is recommended that the type species be designated when a new genus is published. Since the older authors in most cases did not designate their generic types, it becomes necessary to select the type species for the genera in which the types have not been designated. If there is agreement as to type species there will be agreement as to the application of generic names. Of course it does not follow that there will be agreement as to the limitation of genera. One concerns nomenclature, the other concerns taxonomy. Mr. Hitchcock has investigated 255 generic names of grasses and indicated their type species. Several examples were given illustrating the method of selecting the types.

The paper was discussed by Dr. L. O. HOWARD, W. L. MCATEE, and S. A. ROHWER.

W. W. EGGLESTON: Thomas Nuttall's trip to Oregon in 1834, with notes on the route. Thomas Nuttall was a member of Captain N. J. Wyeth's Second Oregon Expedition. Nuttall's data on localities is meager, therefore collections along his route would be useful. Collections should begin at Scotts Bluff and cover the country to the mouth of the Columbia. The more important places to visit are Scotts Bluffs, Nebraska, Laramie Mountains (Black Hills) along Platte River, Granger, Wyoming, Soda Springs, Idaho, Fort Hall (furtraders' fort), Idaho, Wildhorse Creek, Idaho, Blue Mountains, Oregon, and the region around Sauvies Island, Oregon.

In 1916 the Cusick Brothers and the writer studied the route across the Blue Mountains. This Indian trail led up Burnt River and Alder Creek to the vicinity of Pleasant Valley, where the party lost the trail. Proceeding northward the party crossed Powder River about six miles below Big Creek, passed the head of Cusick Creek, and on through Thief Valley, relocating the trail at the Powder River, crossing between North Powder and Telocaset. Thence the trail follows the foothills and along

the southern rim of Grande Ronde Valley to Ladd Canyon, thence drops into the Valley west of Hot Lake, and along the base of the rim to Le Grande where it crosses the mountains. The old wagon road from Le Grande through Meacham to Cayuse now marks this part of the trail. In 1917, the trail west of Fort Hall was traced. It passed along Big Butte to Big Lost River, thence up Big Lost to the vicinity of Arco, Idaho, thence west to Antelope Creek and down the creek to Big Lost River again, thence up Big Lost, the East Fork, and Wildhorse Creek into Thornburg's Ravine. No pass being located here the party returned the next morning to the north fork and crossed the Sawtooth Mountains by the only pass in this vicinity, the pass now used by the wagon road. M. W. LYON, JR., Recording Secretary.

ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

The 313th meeting of the Society was held at the Cosmos Club, May 2, 1918. The meeting was called to order by President SASSCER, with thirty-two members and three visitors present.

The following names were favorably acted upon for membership: Mr. C. A.WEIGEL and Mr. WM. A. HOFFMAN, both of the Bureau of Entomology.

The regular program was as follows:

W. D. PIERCE: Medical entomology, a vital factor in the prosecution of the war. This paper, which will be published in the Proceedings of the Society, deals with insects as disseminators of diseases of man and animals with special reference to the problems of army-camp sanitation. Following the reading of Dr. Pierce's paper the matter of the relation of entomology and entomologists to the health of our army was interestingly discussed by Dr. L. O. HOWARD and Mr. A. N. CAUDELL of the Bureau of Entomology, and Major ALFRED M. LUND, Captain ROBERT H. BROWN, and Lieutenant E. H. GIBSON of the army Sanitary Corps. The remarks of these army officers were especially appreciated, describing, as they did, actual experience in the practical handling of the perplexing problems of sanitary engineering in its entomological phases. J. A. NELSON: A microcephalic drone bee. This interesting description of an extraordinary aberrant drone bee will be published in the Society Proceedings.

R. A. CUSHMAN: A convenient method of handling large numbers of individuals in life-history studies. Mr. Cushman described and illustrated the decimal system of keeping records of rearing experiments. His remarks were discussed by Messrs. HYSLOP, PIERCE, CAUDELL, and ROHWER.

H. G. BARBER: The genus Plinthisus Latreille in the United States. Read by title. A. B. GAHAN, Recording Secretary.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

The Maryland-Virginia-District of Columbia section of the Mathematical Association of America held its annual spring meeting on May 4, 1918, at the Catholic University. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, A. E. LANDRY, of the Catholic University; Secretary, RALPH ROOT, of the Naval Academy; third member executive committee, L. F. HULBURT, of Johns Hopkins University.

Professor O. STEELS, of the School of Civil Engineering, University of Ghent, and Professor ALBERT VAN HECKE, of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Louvain, arrived in Washington in May as members of the Belgian Mission on Industrial Management. Professor STEELS is President of the Mission.

An "Inventions Section" has been added to the organization of the General Staff of the army, "in order to secure prompt and thorough investigation of inventions submitted to the War Department." It is headed by an advisory board of chemical, electrical, and mechanical technologists. D. W. BRUNTON, Chairman of the. War Committee of Technical Societies, is chairman of the Advisory Board of the new Section, and Dr. GRAHAM EDGAR and Lieut.-Col. R. A. MILLIKAN, of the National Research Council, are members.

The offices of the Chemical Service Section of the National Army have been removed from the building of the Interior Department to Unit F, Seventh and B Streets.

By an executive order issued May 11, 1918, the President of the United States requests the National Academy of Sciences, under its congressional charter, to perpetuate the National Research Council. The order defines the duties of the Council, which are, briefly: (1) to stimulate research; (2) to survey the larger possibilities of science; (3) to promote cooperation in research; (4) to bring American and foreign investigators into cooperation with the Government; (5) to aid in the solution of war problems; (6) to gather and collate information. The order further provides for the appointment by the President of government representatives as members of the Council, upon nomination by the National Academy, and instructs the heads of government departments to continue to cooperate with the council.

The Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in accordance with a request from Captain ROALD

AMUNDSEN, has supplied for use in his forthcoming arctic expedition a complete set of magnetic instruments, as well as the necessary directions for magnetic measurements and the program of work. Captain Amundsen plans to leave Norway this summer in a new vessel, the Maud, built specially for arctic exploration, and has made his arrangements on the expectation that his expedition will require about five years for completion. He will make scientific observations of various kinds in the arctic regions. The final details with regard to the contemplated arctic magnetic observations were arranged at the laboratory of the Department by Dr. Nansen and Captain Amundsen on April 5.

On account of difficulties with transportation, Professor R. F. GRIGGS, of the Ohio State University, has been obliged to abandon his plan to lead another expedition this summer to Mount Katmai, Alaska, under the auspices of the National Geographic Society. The work planned for this summer has not been entirely abandoned, however, as two members of last year's expedition, Messrs. SAYRE and HAGELBARGER, left for Alaska on May 2, taking with them pyrometers furnished by the Geophysical Laboratory, with which it is hoped to obtain data on the temperatures of the fumaroles in the "Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes."

Chancellor SAMUEL AVERY, of the University of Nebraska, is now connected with the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the National Research Council.

Professor WATSON BAIN, professor of applied chemistry at the University of Toronto, is in Washington as a member of the Canadian War Mission.

Mr. H. A. BAKER, chief chemist of the American Can Company, is in charge of problems of tin plate supply at the U. S. Food Administration.

Lieutenant-Colonel HIRAM BINGHAM, formerly Professor of Latin American History at Yale University, is Chief of the Air Personnel Division of the Signal Corps.

Professor W. C. BRAY, of the department of chemistry, University of California, came to Washington in May to engage in research on war problems with the Bureau of Mines.

Dr. A. D. BROKAW, assistant professor of mineralogy and chemical geology at the University of Chicago, is on the staff of the U. S. Fuel Administration, in charge of oil production east of the Rocky Mountains.

Dr. JOSEPH A. CUSHMAN, of Sharon, Massachusetts, was in Washington for a few days in May, after several weeks of geologic field work in the coastal plain of North Carolina.