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positions with basic salaries of $2,000 to $2,500 a year, as vacancies occur. Applications must be filed with the Civil Service Commission, Washington, D. C., prior to the hour of closing business on April 12, 1921. Prospective candidates should apply to the Civil Service Commission, Washington, D. C., for a copy of form 1312, stating the title of the examination desired.

THE late Professor Emil Fischer bequeathed 750,000 marks to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, the income of which is to be used to aid young German chemists doing research work in organic, inorganic or physical chem

istry.

THE Journal of the American Medical Association reports that the Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift records that Dr. Lange, of Chicago, has sent to Professor Paltauf, of Vienna, 7,000,000 crowns collected in America. Also that another sum of $10,000 has been forwarded from America to aid the university professors. It was sent to Professor Pirquet for distribution. The Rockefeller Foundation has also appropriated $60,000 for assistance to the Vienna clinics. This sum is said to be equivalent to 40,000,000 crowns at the present rate of exchange. The salaries of the regular university professors at Vienna were increased materially last year, being 45,000 crowns, increasing by 4,000 crowns every fourth year to a maximum of 70,000. The Münchener medizinische Wochenschrift likewise reports that Dr. A. Stein, chief of the Lenox Hill (formerly the German) hospital, has recently sent a large sum collected in America to Frankforton-the-Main to be applied for scientific purposes.

WE learn from the British Medical Journal that the London School of Tropical Medicine has arranged to send an expedition to British Guiana to investigate filariasis with the view of obtaining information as to its prevention and treatment. The expedition is being sent at the request, made shortly before he left the Colonial Office, of Lord Milner, who considered that the government required further advice as to the best method of controlling the disease.

At the suggestion of Sir expedition will visit also islands, choosing one, such the rate of attack is high, Grenada, where it is low. comparing and contrastin of two such islands light m conditions which favor fil the expedition is Professo rector of the helminthology London School of Tropical members are Dr. G. M. V of helminthology in the Anderson, Dr. Chung Un L med Khalil of the Egyptia The expedition will sail thi

SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON Polar expedition to the A to be away for two years. London Times he proposes in May or June next, and a dozen men, chiefly those him on former expeditions whaling boat Foca I., bou for this new expedition, Tromsö, and will be delivere month. In all probability the first instance, to Hudso dogs will be taken on boar pedition will proceed via B will be reached, it is hope July, provided ice conditio through Lancaster Sound, Land. Thence Sir E. Sha explore the islands eastwar this being the main object These islands have been 1 Otto Sverdrup, Godfred H but Shackleton believes t much scientific work to be d He will procure his equip and hopes to receive a qua rial which the English u during the war. He was, bered, employed by the Bri see that the troops in N properly equipped for Foca I. is said, by experts

Manson the West Indian -bados, where ther, such as oped that by

rcumstances rown on the

he leader of Leiper, diment of the e; the other emonstrator Dr. John

Dr. Mahomal Service.

ing a new He expects ng to the England with him ompanied orwegian aristiania lying at

and next

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best boats in the Norwegian Whaling Fleet. It has a large and spacious deck, so that there will be plenty of room for dogs and sledges. Sir E. Shackleton has told an acquaintance in Christiania that he has given up the idea of exploring the South Polar regions, and in future will devote himself to the Artic.

THE Journal of Industrial Chemistry reports that the International Chemical Conference last June decided to hold the next conference in Poland, at the invitation of Mr. Kowalski. At that time the situation in that country seemed fairly settled, but since then affairs have become disturbed, and the council of the union has decided that the next meeting can not be held in Warsaw. Dr. Parsons has extended an invitation from the American Chemical Society to hold the 1921 meeting in the United States, but European chemists are Therenot in a position to make this move. fore the council has decided to hold the next meeting at Brussels, at the end of June. However, Mr. Paul Kestner, president of the Société de Chimie Industrielle, will attend the Canadian meeting of the British Chemical Society as the French delegate, and will return by way of the United States, where he will attend the meetings of the American chemical societies.

Ar the annual general meeting of the Association of Economic Biologists, as we learn from Nature, the following were elected officers and councillors for the year 1921: President: Sir David Prain. Hon. Treasurer: Dr. A. D. Imms, Hon. Secretary (Gen. and Bot.) Wm. B. Brierley. Hon. Secretary: (Zool.): Dr. S. A. Neave. Hon. Editor (Bot.): Wm. B. Brierley. Hon. Editor (Zool.): D. Ward Cutler. Council: Dr. W. Lawrence Balls, Professor V. H. Blackman, F. T. Brooks, A. B. Bruce, Dr. E. J. Butler, F. J. Chittenden, A. D. Cotton, J. C. F. Fryer, Professor J. B. Farmer, E. E. Green, Dr. G. A. K. Marshall and Dr. E. J. Russell. In view of the very great increase in the publishing costs of the Annals of Applied Biology, "Publication it was decided to establish a Fund," to which all interested in the progress

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UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

Ar the Founders' Day Celebration of Johns Hopkins University, announcement made that the trustees of the university wo supplement the fund of $215,000 raised by Alumni Association for a memorial dormi building at Homewood, so that the total of the building might be provided for.

In response to the recent appeal of the versity of Edinburgh for £500,000, the sur £200,000 has now been subscribed.

GENERAL LEONARD WOOD has conferred the trustees of the University of Pennsylv in regard to accepting the provostship of university, vacant by the retirement of Edgar F. Smith.

PROFESSOR FRANK AYDELOTTE, professo English in the Massachusetts Institut Technology, has been elected presiden Swarthmore College, to succeed Dr. Jo Swain.

DR. GUY POTTER BENTON, formerly I dent of the University of Vermont, has appointed president of the University of Philippines, with a salary and perquisit 33,000 pesos (normally $16,500). The has been vacant two years.

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258

omy the writer fails to see much force in the
objections raised in the February 18 number
of SCIENCE to the name "Historical and Philo-
logical Sciences" for Section L of the Amer-
ican Association for the Advancement of
Science. From the fact that the special com-
mittee appointed by the President of the Asso-
ciation recommended that the words "and
philological" be dropped it appears that the
rest of this name would have been satis-
factory to the committee. If this is the case
the main objection to the suggested name
seems to be due to a fear that the philologists
might at some future time "step in and give
rise to a heterogeneous, incoherent group of
workers, having no interests in common."

It is not much more than a century ago
that the philologists opened for mathematical
historians rich fields by the discovery of a
key to the cuneiform inscriptions of the
ancient Babylonians and the discovery of a
key to the writings of the ancient Egyptians.
The history of the ancient scientific develop-
ments is fundamentally connected with the
languages of the people of antiquity and
hence there seems to be little reason to object
to a closer contact between the philologists
and the historians of science, especially
during the early stages of the development of
the history of science in our country. As an
instance of the fruitfulness of this contact it
may be noted that L. J. Richardson, pro-
fessor of Latin in the University of Cali-
fornia, contributed an interesting article on
"Digital reckoning among the ancients" to
the first volume of the American Mathe-
matical Monthly after it became the official
organ of the Mathematical Association of
America in 1916.

During the Chicago meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science a good beginning was made towards the encouragement of workers in the history of science in our country. It would seem that only the most serious considerations should be allowed to interfere with the continuance of this encouragement under the influence of a strong national organization. In particular,

differences of opinion as to
temporary name of the sect
unite the workers in the
in our land should not be
seriously the efforts of th
such a union. If the mode
and the modern astronomer
moniously for so many ye
that the historians of scien
fear from the presence of
especially in so far as th
scientists are seeking comm

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

FOSSILS-ARE THEY MEREL
OR MUST THEY ALSO BE

66

79 66

age

I AM perfectly willing in nition of "fossils" to acce the term age," as sugge Field in his contribution to ruary 4, if only authorities it shall be. Of the various logical and archeological ti period, epoch, age-each b designations for the time cene. LeConte refers to this as "Psychozoic era," Schuchert cent epoch." with these designations, Ch isbury call it the "human Field in the contribution speaks of it in one place a era," and in another as "th epoch." For other coordin divisions we read in vario pressions as "Quaternary p ternary epoch" (Brigham) riod," "Gunz glacial stage glacial period" (Geikie), " (Lartet), "Prehistoric perio

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We see in the above varia usual fate of recommenda congresses when they attem draft into the exacting servi that have long led a life of of our common vernacular.

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character. From the time (

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MILLER

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first coined by Sir David Wilson in his "Prehistoric Annals of Scotland" to express the "whole period" (age or epoch) "disclosed to us by archeological evidence as distinguished from that known by written records," down to the present it has retained in scientific literature its original meaning. It distinctly refers to a portion of the human period (epoch or age). I fail to find Dr. Schuchert anywhere using it in any different sense. He certainly nowhere "begins the Psychozoic era" with the "historic period" as claimed by Professor Field. In spite of the latter's protest, therefore, I fail to see wherein I have misstated his position. For in between his "mastodon" (mammoth ?) "preserved in the arctic ice," which is admitted to be a fossil and his "leaf buried in the gutter," which is not, there is a vast deal of time, from younger to olderhistoric, prehistoric and geologic-from only the last of which-the glacial or interglacial portion-would traces of organisms be considered fossil. Neolithic man is not fossil; some of the remains of Paleolithic man are fossil. Both are prehistoric.

Recurring to the propriety or the practise of using the term "fossil" in other than its strict scientific sense, the question presents itself: how about the use of other geological terms in analogous senses? In an article in the last Geographical Review entitled "Race Culture and Language," the author, Griffith Taylor, is found applying the terms "inlier" and "outlier" (giving credit to geology for the idea) to certain races in Europe. The former is applied to the Basques, because they constitute an island of ancient people surrounded by younger races, and the latter is applied to the Finns because they are a body separated from the main ethnic group to which they belong, and with which they were once continuous. Most of us, I think, will be disposed to congratulate Professor Taylor on the felicity of these expressions, regardless of how much Professor Field may shake his head over the liberty taken with geological terminology.

ARTHUR M. MILLER

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

THRICE TOLD TALES

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: Referring the letters of Professor Wood1 and Profe T. C. Mendenhall2 (semper juvenis), I have a story about the Lick Observatory; following their lead, hasten to make it pu and then will patiently wait for the var transmutations. Perhaps some one will p a similar occurrence in the days of A medes!

Going up to the observatory in the s with its load of Saturday night tour suddenly one of them asked aloud-" Who this Mr. Lick, any how? Did he in the telescope?"

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The purpose of this book is a presentation of the history and bibliography of representations of human anatomy by graphic means. Due consideration has been given both to anatomic illustration and to representations belonging to the graphic and plastic arts.

WHILE engaged in the preparation of the list of the anatomists of the world1 one of the most useful works of reference was found to be J. Ludwig Choulant's "Geschichte und Bibliographie der anatomischen Abbildung," which had been published in 1852 in Leipzig by this energetic physician. It was likewise of great value in studying the sources of anatomical literature2 and in other ways has proven its value as an aid in the study of the history of anatomy. Its importance in the history of medicine is indicated by the nine references to Choulant's work in Garrison's "History of Medicine."

Unfortunately this important work has long been out of print and there are few copies available for the younger generation of students. It was thus with great interest that we welcomed the announcement from the University of Chicago Press of the forthcoming translation of this important historical document by Mortimer Frank, a Chicago physician who had already earned fame by his contributions to medical history. As an associate editor of the Annals of Medical History he made his influence felt in the development of this important journal. His great collection of early medical works and engravings, since his lamented death deposited in the library of the University of Chicago, gave him a grasp of his subject such as few men are given to attain.

Dr. Frank did not live to see his book off the press and his untimely death was greatly mourned by the profession at large but especially was his loss keenly felt by those whose interests were similar to his own. His friend, Fielding H. Garrison, acted as editor and saw the book through the press.

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The book is a handson press-work is well up to other publication from thi memorial notice of Mort duces the book to the reade by Frank's biographical s thus making available for English, the life of this The succeeding pages are translation of the history tion of the bibliography t additions are made, thus r ing the work up to date.

The illustrations of the o are well reproduced in the t great value to the work in dents of art. An unfortun arrangement of the descript these being placed in the with no references to them this arrangement Dr. Fran] Choulant's plan in the Ger

Choulant's original dis various artists who forwar anatomy by their illustrativ to the art student somewhat same inequality is apparen tion; but in making such a keep in mind that Choulai discussion of the work of ea aided in the development of tration. His very brief acc angelo's work is not in any this eminent Italian's work fact that the great sculptor butions to anatomical illust

The history and bibliogr its place in the literature translation will make the all students of the subject. that our fellow worker was of seeing the book off the I rejoice that he was enabled so nearly complete as to wa tion of this important contri

COLLEGE OF MEDICINE,

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

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