The following officers were elected:

President: Chas. H. Herty, formerly editor of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry.

Vice-Presidents: C. N. Turner of the Dyestuff Section; Herman Seydell of the Pharmaceutical Section; S. W. Wilder of the Intermediate Section; B. T. Bush of the Fine Organic Chemical Section. Members of the Board of Governors: R. S. Burdick; R. C. Jeffcott; August Merz; M. R. Poucher; P. Schleussner and F. P. Summers.

The remaining four members of the Board of Governors, one from each section, will be elected later. The president and the four vicepresidents are ex-officio members of the board of governors.

THE EDITORSHIP OF THE "JOURnal of INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY"

MR. HARRISON E. HOWE has been elected to succeed Dr. Charles H. Herty as editor of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry and director of the A. C. S. News Service, which are conducted by the American Chemical Society. Dr. Charles L. Parsons, of Washington, secretary of the society, states that Mr. Howe has accepted the positions.

Mr. Howe was graduated from Earlham College and the University of Rochester. As chief chemist of the Sanilac Sugar Refining Company, in like capacity with the Bausch and Lomb Optical Company of Rochester, New York, and as manager of the commercial department of A. D. Little, Incorporated, of Boston, and manager of the Montreal offices of that organization, he became familiar with the broadest phases of industrial chemistry. In the war he was consulting chemist of the nitrate division of the Ordnance Bureau of the United States Army. Until his election to his present position Mr. Howe was at the head of the division of research extension of the National Research Council. He writes extensively for magazines on applied chemistry and is the author of a recently published popular work, "The New Stone Age."

Dr. Herty resigned the editorship to which Mr. Howe succeeds to accept the presidency

of the newly formed Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers' Association of the United States, which has opened offices on the 34th floor of the Metropolitan Tower at No. 1 Madison Avenue. Dr. Herty's career in chemical journalism has been varied by many public activities. By special appointment of President Wilson he went to Paris in 1919 as the representative of the United States in the matter of the distribution of German dyestuffs under the economic clauses of the Peace Treaty. Dr. Herty was also chairman of the committee of the American Chemical Society advisory to the Chemical Warfare Service, member of the dye advisory committee of the Department of State, and chairman of the advisory committee of the National Exposition of Chemical Industries. Before beginning this work, Dr. Herty had been a professor in chemistry at the University of Georgia and at the University of North Carolina. In his new position he will devote himself to the development of American synthetic organic chemical industry.

DIRECTOR OF THE HARVARD COLLEGE

OBSERVATORY

As was noted last week in SCIENCE, Dr. Harlow Shapley, formerly of the Mt. Wilson Solar Observatory at Pasadena, Cal., and for the past eight months observer at the Harvard College Observatory, has been appointed director of the Harvard Observatory. That post has been vacant since the death of Professor Edward C. Pickering in 1919.

An article in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin states that Dr. Shapley was born thirty-five years ago at Nashville, Miss. He studied at the University of Missouri, and received the degree of Ph.D. at Princeton. From 1914 until last spring, when he came to Harvard, he was attached to the Mt. Wilson Observatory.

At Mt. Wilson he perfected methods of measuring star distances photometrically, and applied these methods to the problem of the distances and structures of the great starclusters. His work has given a new percep tion of the size of the stellar universe, and

shown that it is at least a thousand times larger than it was thought to be before the distances to the clusters were measured. Dr. Shapley has discovered, furthermore, that the sun is not at the center of the sidereal universe, as was formerly supposed, but several hundred quadrillion miles away from it.

sun.

Dr. Shapley's studies of the famous starcluster in Hercules known as "Messier 13" have proved that this cluster has a diameter of more than two and a half quadrillion miles, and contains probably more than 50,000 stars, each of them intrinsically brighter than the His researches have also played a large part in establishing the fact that the great star-clusters are found only at immense distances from the plane of the galaxy, or Milky Way, but appear to be falling into it. Dr. Shapley's hypothesis is that the Milky Way itself may be composed of former star-clusters which have dissolved.

Dr. Shapley is also known as an entomolɔgist, and has done interesting work in investigating the ants of the California mountains. He discovered that the speed at which these creatures move depends on the temperature, and that for some species the time of running through a "speed-trap," as shown by the stop-watch, gives the temperature of the surrounding air within one degree. He found that the ants went twelve times as fast at 100 degrees as at 50 degrees.

Professor Solon I. Bailey, who has been associated with the Harvard Observatory for more than thirty years and has been Acting Director since the death of Professor Pickering, expects to leave Cambridge within a few months for Arequipa, Peru, to take charge of Harvard's South American astronomical station there and place it again on a productive basis after a period of dormancy due to war conditions. He will resume his observations on the variable stars in southern clusters.

A SOUTHERN FOREST EXPERIMENT
STATION

DURING July a new forest experiment station was established by the Forest Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, with

headquarters, for the present, at New Orleans, La. Experiments will be conducted in the large and important timber region extending from eastern Texas, through Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, to the Carolinas. Mr. R. D. Forbes, until recently superintendent of forestry for the Conservation Commission of Louisiana, has accepted the directorship of the station. Mr. Lenthall Wyman, formerly a member of the Forest Service in Arizona and Montana, and more recently in the State Forester's office in Texas, will be one member of the staff. Mr. W. R. B. Hine, a recent graduate of the Cornell School of Forestry, is the second member. One vacancy in the technical staff remains to be filled.

The importance of this region, in which large areas of land are suitable only for growing timber, makes the establishment of this station, to work out the best methods of producing, growing, and protecting the forests, particularly opportune. Such important and valuable species as longleaf, shortleaf and loblolly pines, and cypress amply justify a considerable outlay to insure their perpetuation and increase their production.

The establishment of the Southern Forest Experiment Station was made possible by a small increase in the appropriation for the investigative work of the Forest Service for the present year. It is not sufficient to permit the construction of buildings and laboratory facilities, and it is planned for the first year to concentrate on field work in the most urgent problems.

ORGANIZATION FOR RESEARCH AT THE
PENNSYLVANIA STATE COLLEGE

THE members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Pennsylvania State College, State College, Pa., held a meeting on November 2. Dinner was served at the University Club to about thirty members. The speaker was Dr. L. R. Jones, professor of plant pathology of the University of Wisconsin and chairman of the Division of Biology and Agriculture of the National Research Council. His theme at this

meeting was "Organization for Research," in which he developed the idea of scientific research as a public service, not only in time of war but in time of peace as well, using the University of Wisconsin as an example of a state university functioning as a great public service institution through research work for the public good. He further showed how the modern state university is distinguished from the academy, the earlier type of educational institution, from the college, the modern institution which has replaced the academy in the matter of instruction, and from the modern endowed university, by the enlarged program of research for the public good which distinguishes the state university. Dr. Jones suggested as a means of fulfilling this public trust at state institutions the organization of "research committees" and "faculty subject groups " which are formed without regard to collegiate divisions. These are definite means of promulgating throughout the institution the relative importance of research as compared with other lines of activity and of emphasizing research as a much needed form of public service.

At the meeting it was voted by the members to petition the national council for a charter to form a local branch to be known as the Pennsylvania State College Branch of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The purpose of the organization is to promote and stimulate research in the institution.

SIGMA XI LECTURES AT YALE
UNIVERSITY

AT a meeting on November 8 of the Yale Chapter of the Society of Sigma Xi, which was addressed by President James R. Angell of the University, announcement was made of a series of lectures to be given under the auspices of the Yale Chapter on the general topic of "The evolution of man." The lecturers and their subjects are considered of such general interest that it has been decided to hold the series this year in Lampson Lyceum, and to invite the public to attend the lectures without charge.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

As a memorial to the late Edward C. Pickering, for forty-two years director of the Harvard College Observatory, it is proposed to erect near Cambridge an astronomical observatory, whose work will be largely concerned with the study of variable stars.

DR. HARVEY CUSHING, of Harvard University and the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, was elected president of the American College of Surgeons at its recent meeting in Philadelphia.

THE Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania has awarded its Howard N. Potts gold medal to Dr. E. V. McCollum, professor of chemical hygiene in the School of Hygiene and Public Health of the Johns Hopkins University. The medal is awarded "for distinguished work in science or the mechanic arts," and was presented by the institute in recognition of a lecture on "Nutrition and physical efficiency," delivered before its members in 1920.

SIR J. J. THOMSON succeeds Sir Richard Glazebrook as president of the Institute of Physics, London.

THE Royal Society of Edinburgh has elected as president Professor F. O. Bower. The vicepresidents are Sir G. A. Berry, Professor W. Peddie, Sir J. A. Ewing, Professor J. W.

Gregory, Major-General W. B. Bannerman and Dr. W. A. Tait.

WE learn from Nature that Professor Léon Fredericq is to be presented with a medallion in recognition of his distinguished services as professor of physiology for fifty years in the University of Liège. The presentation will take place this month, when his son will take the chair which Professor Léon Fredericq has held so long.

THE quinquennial prize for the best work in medical sciences, offered by the Brussels Academy of Medicine, has been awarded to Dr. A. Brachet, professor of anatomy and embryology of the University of Brussels, for his contributions to topographical anatomy.

THE Italian Society of Internal Medicine at its eighteenth congress in Naples on October 26, celebrated the ninetieth year of Professor Cardarelli, and the fortieth year of Professor Maragliano's work as teacher. These physicians are the directors of La Riforma Medica, one of the chief medical journals published in Italy.

PROFESSOR P. GUTHNICK has been appointed director of the Babelsberg Observatory in succession to the late Herman Struve.

ERNEST P. BICKNELL, who has been representing the Red Cross abroad, has been appointed American National Red Cross Commissioner for Europe.

DR. H. C. DICKINSON, chief of the automotive investigations division of the Bureau of Standards, has been granted a leave of absence to become director of research for the Society of Automotive Engineers. He will continue to assist in the work of the bureau in a consulting capacity.

SECRETARY OF LABOR DAVIS has appointed a special committee to consider the welfare of immigrants coming through the principal ports of entry of the United States. The members are: Fred C. Croxton, chairman of the Ohio Council of Social Agencies; Miss Julia Lathrop, former head of the U. S. Children's Bureau; Miss Lola D. Lasker, of New York.

DR. WILFRED H. OSGOOD has been appointed curator of the department of zoology in the Field Museum of Natural History.

A GEOLOGICAL party of four, consisting of Professors R. A. Daly and Charles Palache of Harvard University, Professor G. A. F. Molengraaf of the University of Delft, Holland, and Dr. F. E. Wright of the Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, will spend the coming winter in southern Africa. in a geologic and petrologic study of the Bushfeld igneous complex in Transvaal.

THE Council of the California Academy of Sciences announces the appointment of Dr. Barton Warren Evermann as director of the new Steinhart Aquarium. The duties of this position will be in addition to those of director of the Museum of the California Academy of Sciences, which Dr. Evermann has

held for many years. It was through Dr. Evermann's interest in fishes and aquariums that the late Mr. Ignatz Steinhart was induced to give to the California Academy of Sciences $250,000 for the construction and equipment of a public aquarium building in San Francisco. The council has selected Mr. Alvin Seale to be superintendent of the aquarium. For several years Mr. Seale was director of fisheries of the Philippine Islands. He also planned the Manila Aquarium, of which he was director during his several years' residence in the Philippines. He will be on duty throughout the period of construction and thereafter. The aquarium will be situated in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, immediately adjoining the present museum of the academy.

THE new hospital of the Manchester and District Radium Institute was opened on October 7, by Lord Derby. It is the first hospital in England to be used exclusively for radium treatment.

BERT HOLMES HITE, chief chemist of the Virginia Experiment Station since 1895, professor of agricultural chemistry in the University of West Virginia since 1898, has died at the age of fifty-five years.

MISS EUNICE ROCKWOOD OBERLY, librarian of the Bureau of Plant Industry of the Department of Agriculture since 1908, whose knowledge of the organization and relations of phytopathological literature was probably unique, died suddenly at her home in Washington on the morning of November 5.

JOHN AUGUSTINE ZAHM died in Munich, Bavaria, of pneumonia, on November 11. Dr. Zahm was born in Ohio and graduated in 1871 from Notre Dame, with which university he was connected for many years as head of its scientific department, as curator of its museum, and then as president of the board of trustees. He was the author of numerous books concerned largely with the relations of science to religion.

DR. EMIL A. BUDDE, the German electrical engineer, died recently at the age of eighty. He was president of the International Electrochemical Commission, succeeding Dr. Elihu Thomson.

THE president and council of the Royal Society, London, announce that, in view of the economic condition of the country, the anniversary dinner of the society will not be held this year.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

SIR EDWARD ALLEN BROTHERTON, Bt., M.P., has given £20,000 to the University of Leeds for the development of bacterial study and research, more particularly in the interests of public health.

A VERDICT of $25,000 damages has been rendered against Cornell University in the action brought by Louise Hamburger '20. In making his charge to the jury, Justice Kellogg said that the verdict to be given rested upon one point only, as to whether the university was negligent in employing a small boy in the chemistry stock-room. A motion for retrial has been made.

R. S. Lowe, of the Nitrate Division of the Ordnance Department of the Army, has been appointed dean of the department of chemical engineering of the University of Cincinnati.

C. R. ALDEN, formerly dean of the school of engineering, Institute of Technology,

Detroit, has accepted an appointment as dean of the college of engineering, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio.

AMONG changes in the medical faculty at Yale are: Dr. Francis G. Blake appointed John Slate Ely professor of medicine; Dr. Edwards Albert Park, professor of pediatrics; Dr. Arthur M. Morse, professor and head of the department of obstetrics and gynecology; Dr. John T. Peters, Jr., associate professor of medicine and Dr. Albert T. Shoal, associate professor of pediatrics. Dr. Samuel C. Hardey, associate professor of surgery, has been placed in charge of the surgical department of the school.

DR. LANSING S. WELLS, until recently a research chemist with the Barrett Company, Frankford, Philadelphia, Pa., has accepted an appointment as assistant professor of organic and physical chemistry, Montana State College, Bozeman.

PROFESSOR H. C. PLUMMER, F.R.S., has been appointed professor of mathematics of the Ordnance College, Woolwich, England.

AT the opening of the winter session of St. Andrews University, Scotland, the newly appointed professor of chemistry, Dr. Robert Robinson, F.R.S., and the newly appointed professor of bacteriology, Dr. William J. Tullock, were inducted into their respective offices.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE LATITUDE AND VERTEBRÆ

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: In SCIENCE for December 26, 1919, is a suggestive note by Mr. A. G. Huntsman on the problem of "Latitude and Vertebræ" among fishes, a problem of reality and importance which I have thus had mostly to myself, and to which I have failed to find a solution. As Mr. Huntsman observes, not only have the northern species a progressively increased number of vertebræ, but a similar variation may occur within the limits of the species itself. In the flounder, Hippoglossoides platessoides, the northern examples have most vertebræ, while in the herring-Clupea harengus, the numbers of vertebræ decrease in passing from the