Industry, was improperly interested in the firm of George E. Howard and the Howard Label Company. Secretary Wilson's indorsement on the report is as follows: "Inquiry discloses the fact that Dr. Salmon had an unfortunate connection with the firm of George E. Howard & Co. While this connection was not an ideal relation for a government officer to have with a firm doing business with the department, I am convinced that Dr. Salmon never intended to profit by work done by Mr. Howard for the Department of Agriculture, and that he has never been connected with the Howard Label Company or received any benefit from the contract of that company with the department. The action of the department regarding the meat inspection service was as fair, considerate and comprehensive as the appropriations would warrant. The case does not seem to call for further disciplinary action." THE statement which we quoted from the American Geologist in regard to the change in the directorship of the Geological Survey of Michigan was incorrect. In regard to the survey, we are informed that the director, Professor A. C. Lane, is engaged in detailed studies in the copper region. Professor I. C. Russell is making an examination of the surface geology in the Upper Peninsula, and Mr. Frank Leverett, of the United States survey, is studying the same problem. They are working in cooperation. Professor C. A. Davis is studying the development and ecology of the peat bog flora. Mr. W. C. Gordon is completing a cross section of the copper-bearing formation to determine the different horizons near the Wisconsin line. Professor W. M. Gregory is finishing his report on Arenac County. Mr. W. F. Cooper is working on the Wayne County report and watching the shaft going down to rock salt, near Detroit. PLANS for the cooperative investigation of the artesian waters in the vicinity of Wilmington, North Carolina, have been arranged by the United States Geological Survey and the State Geological Survey of North Carolina. It is expected that the work will be in charge of Mr. M. L. Fuller, who will be assisted by Mr. L. W. Stephenson, of Johns Hopkins University, and Mr. B. L. Johnson, recently of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CHARLES E. BROWN, curator of the Wisconsin Archeological Society, has returned from a week in the field plotting mounds and collecting archeological data in the vicinity of Beaver Dam and Fox Lakes in the western part of Dodge County, Wisconsin, and is now preparing the society's exhibit of archeology for the state fair. ON August 9 the London County Council erected a tablet on the house in which Edward Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination, lived during 1803. It is proposed to erect a memorial to the late Professor Emerich Meissl in the agricultural experiment station at Vienna, with which he was connected for more than twenty years. PROFESSOR ELLIS A. APGAR, for twenty years state superintendent of public instruction in New Jersey and a writer on botany, died at East Orange, N. J., on August 28. DR. ROBERT BILLWILLER, director of the Swiss Meteorological Bureau, died in Zurich on August 14, at the age of fifty-six years. It appears from cable despatches to the daily papers that the weather was very favorable for observations and photographs of the total solar eclipse on August 30 for the large number of parties of different nationalities that went to Spain, Algeria, Tunis and Egypt. The weather was unfavorable on the Island of Majorca. In this country the partial eclipse was obscured by clouds. REUTER'S AGENCY telegraphs that members of the British Association arrived at Durban on August 22. They proceeded to Pietermaritzburg on August 24, where they were welcomed by the governor of Natal. A number of excursions were made on the twentyfifth, and the members left for Colenso on the twenty-sixth. THE seventy-seventh meeting of German Men of Science and Physicians was held in Meran last week under the presidency of Dr. Franz von Winckel, professor of gynecology at Munich. At the general sessions papers were presented by Professor W. Wien, of Würzburg, on 'Electrones'; Professor Nocht, of Hamburg, on Tropical Diseases'; Professor H. Molisch, of Prague, on 'The Reaction of Plants to Light'; Professor H. Dürck, of Munich, on 'Beri-Beri'; Dr. Cl. Neisser, of Lublinitz, on 'Individuality and Psychoses'; and by Professor J. Wimmer, of Vienna, on the Mechanics of the Development of Animals.' At a meeting of the entire association papers on heredity were presented by Professor C. Correns, of Leipzig; K. Heider, of Insbruck, and B. Hatschek, of Vienna. The association met in thirty sections for the reading of scientific papers, of which seventeen were in medicine and thirteen in natural science, the latter being as follows: (1) Mathematics, astronomy and geodesy; (2) physics; (3) applied mathematics and physics; (4) chemistry; (5) applied chemistry; (6) geophysics and meteorology; (7) geography; (8) mineralogy, geology and paleontology; (9) botany; (10) zoology; (11) anthropology, ethnology and archeology; (12) mathematical and scientific education; (13) pharmacology. THE sixth Congress of Criminal Anthropology will meet at Turin on April 28, 1906, under the presidency of Professor Lombroso. An exhibition of criminal anthropology will be held in connection with the congress. THE nineteenth annual convention of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations will be held at Washington, D. C., in the early part of November next. THE Sank County Historical Society has been organized, in Wisconsin, to further archeological and historical research, by Messrs. A. B. Stout and H. E. Cole, members of the Wisconsin Archeological Society. FROM June 21 to 26, 1906, a large agricultural exposition is to be held at Berlin, which will also comprise a special division for preserved-food articles, such as products of the dairy, dough, potatoes, fruits, wines and extracts, meats, beer, etc. Money prizes, diplomas and medals will be awarded. In order to test the preserving capacity of these exhibits they will be sent to the tropics. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. By direction of the late Mrs. Adolphus F. Eliott, a hospital, to cost $175,000, has been given to the University of Minnesota. THE University of Melbourne attains its jubilee next year, and preparations are already in progress to celebrate the event. THE board of Trinity College, Dublin, has instituted a diploma in economics and commercial knowledge. The course for the examination includes, as obligatory subjects, the theory of economics, commercial history and geography, accountancy and commercial law; and as optional subjects a modern language (French or German or Spanish), any one of a variety of special economic subjects, and any one of the following branches of economic and business organization-banking, railways, insurance, agriculture. THE summer course in experimental phonetics at the University of Marburg was delivered this year by Dr. E. W. Scripture. The course had been previously given by the Abbé Rousselot, of the Collège de France, Paris. MR. SAMUEL M. KINTNER, for some years professor of electrical engineering at the Western University of Pennsylvania, has been appointed associate professor of electrical engineering in the Carnegie Technical School. MR. W. P. BROOKS has been appointed director of the Massachusetts Agricultural College and Experiment Station, in succession to the late Henry Hill Goodale. M. LAVASSEUR, the statistician, has succeeded M. Gaston Paris as executive head of the Collège de France. A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO The advancement of SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE has been conferred by other institutions, but few of them have proper facilities for research. The table shows that 324 degrees were conferred this year, a considerable increase over 1904 and over any preceding year. During the first five years covered by these records there was no increase in the number of degrees, the average being 233. In 1903 there was a gain of 33 above this average, in 1904 of 48, and this year of 91. The increase in the present year is satisfactory, and if maintained may supply the demand for those competent to carry on research work. average increase of about twelve degrees a year for the past seven years is, however, small, not in proportion to the increase in the number of graduate students or of academic and other positions where competence in research is a qualification. It is further probable that the number of degrees given to American students by German universities has decreased during this period. An Attention has been called on previous occasions to the large percentage of degrees conferred by a few institutions. There is, however, a slight tendency, that will probably become more marked, for the gap between the seven institutions at the head of the list and those below to be filled in. The fact that Boston University this year conferred 14 degrees is probably exceptional, but the nine degrees conferred by the University of Wisconsin are more likely to be increased than diminished in subsequent years. Several institutions of the central and western states, of which California and Wisconsin may be especially mentioned, have greatly improved their facilities for graduate work during the period covered by these statistics. Up to the present time the universities fall into. rather well-marked groups. Chicago, Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Colum bia have, in the course of the past eight years, each conferred about 250 degrees; Pennsylvania and Cornell about 150; Clark, Michigan, New York and Wisconsin about 50; Boston, Virginia, George Washington, Minnesota, California, Brown, Bryn Mawr and Princeton about 20; Stanford and Nebraska about 10. The University of Chicago gave this year 44 doctor's degrees, of which 21 were in the sciences, and these figures place Chicago at the head of both lists, it surpassing Yale as the university which up to last year had conferred the greatest number of degrees, and the Johns Hopkins University, which up to last year had conferred the greatest number of degrees in science. Clark University this year conferred as many as 18 degrees, all in the sciences, and Boston University conferred 14 degrees, none of which were in the sciences. TABLE II. DOCTORATES CONFERRED IN THE SCIENCES. Chicago Harvard George Washington Georgetown. Lafayette 1 17 1 33 Syracuse........ 1 50 105 115 113 131 106 136 128 150 984 48 Table II. shows the number of degrees that have been conferred in the natural and exact sciences by the several institutions. The last column gives the per cent. of doctor's degrees in the sciences that each institution has conferred. It is thus seen that the study of the natural sciences is relatively emphasized in certain institutions, some universities conferring more than half the degrees in the sciences and others less than half. The third table gives the degrees conferred in each of the sciences. Chemistry maintains the position of having more than twice as many doctorates as physics, which stands next on the list. Psychology this year passes zoology, and mathematics makes a considerable gain. Maxwell Adams: 'On Some Derivations of Hydroxylamine.' Frederick Lendall Bishop: The Thermal Conductivity of Lead.' Edwin Bayer Branson: The Structure and Relationships of the American Labyrinthoɖontida.' Orville Harry Brown: 'The Effects of Certain Salts on Kidney Excretion with Special Reference to Glycosuria.' William McAfee Bruce: The Oxygen Ethers of Urea.' Mintin Asbury Chrysler: 'The Development of the Central Cylinder in Araceae and Liliacea.' Nellie Esther Goldthwaite: 'On Cyanocetic Ether.' Heinrich Hasselbring: Certain Problems of Assimilation.' Clifton Durant Howe: 'Reforestation on the Colchester-Essex Sand Plains.' Clark-psychology, 9; physics, Elodea Canadensis.' |