CHEMISTRY.-Chemistry of the cotton plant, with special reference to Upland cotton. ARNO VIEHOEVER, LEWIS H. CHERNOFF, and CARL O. JOHNS. Journ. Agr. Res. 13: 345–352. May 13, 1918. This paper represents the first part of a chemical and biological investigation of the cotton plant (species of Gossypium), undertaken with the purpose of isolating and determining the nature and location within the plant of the substance or substances which prove so attractive to the boll weevil. The isolation of an ethereal oil from different parts of the plant is described. Upon investigation the Bureau of Entomology found this oil to be decidedly attractive to boll weevils. This volatile oil showed characteristics different from those of an ethereal oil obtained from the rootbark of Gossypium herbaceum. It distills mainly between 200° and 300°C., the lower fractions having a yellow to greenish yellow, the higher fractions a light green to dark blue color. The plants contained an average of 0.0015 per cent of the ethereal oil, the squaring plants apparently yielding the largest amounts.

The isolation from Upland cotton of the glucosides quercimeritrin and its isomer isoquercitrin, formerly found in other types of cotton, is also discussed. In the leaves and flowers, with petals removed, quercimeritrin was found, while from the petals both quercimeritrin and isoquercitrin were obtained. The glucoside gossypitrin and its product of hydrolysis gossypetin, both found in other types of cotton, could not be isolated from Upland cotton. The chemical results throw an interesting light on the relationship of different species of cotton. A. V. and C. O. J.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

The Mission of French Scholars to the United States visited Washington on November 18, 1918. The visiting members were: Professors EMANUEL DE MARTONNE, FERNAND BALDENSPERGER, and CHARLES CAZAMIAN, of the University of Paris; Dr. ETIENNE BURNET, of the Pasteur Institute; Dr. THEODORE REINACH; Mr. CHARLES KOECHLIN; and Mr. SEYMOUR DE RICCI.

A new Hygienic Laboratory of the Public Health Service will be built on the grounds occupied by the present Laboratory at Twentyfifth and E Streets. The new laboratory will cost approximately $250,000.

Mr. ROBERT SOMERS BROOKINGS, of St. Louis, chairman of the price fixing committee of the War Industries Board, has been elected by the Senate to succeed the late Charles W. Fairbanks as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

Major SAMUEL AVERY of the Chemical Warfare Service has been permitted by the War Department to resign his commission in order to resume his duties as chancelor of the University of Nebraska.

Mr. H. S. BAILEY has resigned from the Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and is with E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., of Wilmington, Delaware.

Dr. WILLIAM N. BERG, of the Bureau of Animal Industry, has been commissioned a captain in the Sanitary Corps, and has been detailed to the Yale Army Laboratory School at New Haven, Connecticut.

Brig. Gen. WILLIAM H. BIXBY, U. S. A., Retired, formerly chief of engineers, has been relieved from emergency duty at St. Louis, and has been transferred to Chicago.

Mr. H. E. Howe, formerly manager of the commercial department of Arthur D. Little, Inc., of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been appointed consulting chemist to the Nitrate Division, Ordnance Department of the Army.

Mr. EDWIN HENRY INGERSOLL, chemist in the Bureau of Animal Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, died of influenza on November 5, 1918. Mr. Ingersoll was born in the District of Columbia

in June, 1887. He was a graduate of George Washington University and had been in the government service for thirteen years, acting also as instructor at the University during a part of that time. He was a member of the Chemical Society.

Mr. FREDERICK KNAB, of the Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, died on November 2, 1918, in his fifty-fourth year. Mr. Knab was born at Würzburg, Germany, September 22, 1865. He was engaged in entomological work in Massachusetts and Illinois for a number of years, and then entered the service of the Bureau of Entomology in 1906. His scientific studies and publications were concerned chiefly with the coleoptera and diptera. He was a member of the Biological and Entomological Societies of Washington. In his will, dated July 6, 1918, he bequeathed funds to the Entomological Society for its publication fund, and his library and collections to the National Museum.

Lt. Col. GILBERT N. LEWIS has returned from France and has been in Washington for several weeks on business connected with the Chemical Warfare Service.

Dr. ARTEMAS MARTIN, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, died on November 7, 1918, in his eighty-fourth year. Dr. Martin was born in Steuben County, New York, August 3, 1835. He had been connected with the Coast Survey since 1885. For many years he had been a frequent contributor to mathematical journals, and he also edited and published the Mathematical Visitor and the Mathematical Magazine. His writings dealt chiefly with properties of triangles, logarithms, properties of numbers, diophantine analysis, probability, and elliptic integrals. He was a member of the Philosophical Society of Washington and of many American and foreign mathematical societies.

Colonel JOHN MILLIS, of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, has been transferred from the Engineer Office at Savannah, Georgia, to the Headquarters of the Central Department, at Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. CHARLES REITELL, formerly Professor of Economics and Cost Accounting at the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania, has recenty been appointed Economist at the Bureau of Standards.

Dr. CHARLES RICHARD VAN HISE, President of the University of Wisconsin, and a nonresident member of the ACADEMY, died on November 19, 1918. President Van Hise was born at Fulton, Wisconsin, May 29, 1857. His entire academic career was spent at the University of Wisconsin, where he became successively professor of metallurgy, professor of mineralogy and petrology, professor of geology, and finally

president of the University (in 1903). He was associated also with the Wisconsin Geological Survey and the U. S. Geological Survey. His publications, which include several monographs of the U. S. Geological Survey, were concerned chiefly with metamorphism, ore deposits, structural and Pre-Cambrian geology, and, latterly, conservation and economics. He was a member of the Geological Society of Washington, the National Academy of Sciences, and many American and European scientific societies.

Dr. EDWARD HASLAM WALTERS, formerly a biochemist in the Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, died in France of bronchial pneumonia on September 25, 1918. Dr. Walters was born December 12, 1891, graduated from the Utah Agricultural College and the University of California, and entered the Bureau of Chemistry in 1910. He was transferred to the Office of Soil Fertility Investigations, now a part of the Bureau of Plant Industry, in 1913. In December 1917 he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps, N. A., and was assigned to the Central Medical Department Laboratory of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. He was the author of several papers on the isolation of certain organic compounds in soils. He was a member of the Chemical Society.

INDEX TO VOLUME VIII

An denotes an abstract of a published paper. At denotes an abstract of a paper presented before
the Academy or an affiliated Society. A § indicates an item published under the head Scientific
Notes and News.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY AND AFFILIATED SOCIETIES

AUTHOR INDEX