any myths about it, and this is the more remarkable because primitive races, as a rule, retain some shadowy recollection or myths of antecedent peoples for a great many centuries. Nowhere else in South America has there been the slightest trace discovered of a culture resembling this, or of several cultures, and it is very unfortunate that just now there does not seem to be any material at hand to solve the mystery. These colossal funeral jars are the most important features of this part of the exhibit. Some of them are large enough to admit two entire bodies seated side by side.

On the other side of the room in which this ancient pottery is shown Dr. Farabee has installed a great collection of several hundred pieces of the Conebo pottery. This is entirely modern and is the most striking pottery of the kind to be found anywhere in the world, and in fact only a few specimens of the smaller kind are to be found in any museum. About half a dozen of these jars are four feet high and about the same diameter, but resting on a very small base and having the general appearance of an inverted, truncated cone. They will hold several barrels each and are used by the natives to hold the beer, which they greatly enjoy.

Before the war 90 per cent. of the artificial colors and dyes were imported, five or six concerns with 400 operatives producing 3,300 short tons per year. Now there are over 90 enterprises, each making special colors, and 100 concerns making crudes and intermediates.

Sulphuric acid, the chemical barometer, has doubled in production. In 1916, 6,250,000 tons of 50° Bé. were produced. The estimate for 1917 is much greater, and the production for 1918 will again greatly increase.

By-product coking doubled its capacity in the last three years, yet in 1918 the United States will make half her coke in beehive ovens. Light oil, which contains the benzene and toluene needed for explosives, jumped from 7,500,000 gallons in 1914 to 60,000,000 gallons in 1917, and is again being largely increased. Ammonia production has increased 100 per cent. in three years and the visible supply is insufficient to meet demands.

Gasoline production has increased from 35,000,000 to 70,000,000 barrels per annum since 1914.

Potash importation from Germany stopped by the war, which has stimulated production in this country. The production from January to June, 1917, was 14,023 short tons of potash. This is a small production, but sodium salts have been substituted for almost all purposes except agriculture. Shortage of labor and coal is seriously interfering with the potash-brine evaporation in Nebraska, which was yielding about 90 tons per day.

The production of explosives and consequent consumption of nitric acid has increased enormously. The nitric acid is still almost entirely made from Chili saltpeter, but synthetic nitrogen plants are under process of construction, and we have large quantities of coal-tar ammonia which can be used for munitions if necessary.

Before the war 40,000 tons of barite were imported from Germany for the manufacture of lithopone. Now five companies are producing this article from deposits in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Missouri.

The smelting of all metals, iron, zinc, copper, antimony, tin, mercury, etc., and their

alloys has increased to meet the country's needs.

Domestic supplies of manganese and pyrite have been augmented.

These are but a few instances of our chemical progress. The matter can be summarized by saying that American chemists have met the country's needs as ably and completely as did the chemists of Germany. We can go forward with every confidence of no serious shortage of the many chemical products required for domestic consumption.

THE AMERICAN METRIC ASSOCIATION THE association will meet in Pittsburgh on December 28 and 29 under the presidency of Dr. George F. Kunz, of New York. The first two sessions are to be held in conjunction with the Section on Social and Economic Science of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The program will be as follows:

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28

2 P.M. Mr. George W. Perkins, of New York, and Mr. J. W. McEachren, of the Crane Company, Chicago, will present papers for discussion.

Friday evening will be free for the opening session and reception of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Iwith which the American Metric Association is affiliated.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29

10 A.M. The officers will render their annual reports. These will be followed by Dr. William C. Wells, chief statistician of the Pan-American Union; Mr. Henry D. Hubbard, of the United States Bureau of Standards, and others dealing with the general problem of international standards and their application to important industries in the United States and Canada.

2 P.M. Dr. John A. Brashear, past president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, will introduce the speakers who have prepared papers for the Standards Committee of the American Metric Association. Engineers and business men are especially re

quested to attend this session. Technical problems in connection with the general use of metric weights and measures will be given special attention at this time.

6.30 P.M. An informal "Metric Dinner" will be served at the Hotel Schenley. The charge will be two dollars per cover, and those who desire to attend are asked to leave their names at the hotel office.

8 P.M. The final session in the Hotel Schenley, at which time officers for the ensuing year will be elected, and necessary business disposed of. The present rapid metric progress and the best methods for final success will be discussed by leaders in the metric movement.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS

THE secretary of agriculture has announced the appointment of Dr. John Robbins Mohler as chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture. Dr. Mohler succeeds the late Dr. Alonzo D. Melvin, who died on December 7. Dr. Mohler has been in the service of the Bureau of Animal Industry since 1897, and has been assistant chief of the bureau since July 1, 1914. During the long illness of Dr. Melvin, Dr. Mohler performed the duties of acting chief as well as those of chief pathologist.

A PORTRAIT of Professor Thomas C. Chamberlin, head of the department of geology and paleontology at the University of Chicago, has been presented to the university by graduates and former students of the department.

DR. LIGHTNER WITMER, professor of psychology in the University of Pennsylvania and director of the psychological laboratory and clinic, sailed last week for Europe. He expects to have the direction of social service work in a foreign country under a commissioner appointed by the War Council of the American Red Cross, and has been granted leave of absence by the university for the remaider of this year. During Dr. Witmer's absence, Dr. Edwin B. Twitmyer will be acting director of the psychological laboratory and clinic.

PROFESSOR ANTON JULIUS CARLSON, chairman of the department of physiology, at the University of Chicago, has been assigned to the Sanitary Corps of the United States Army and is expected soon to be in France.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR FREDERICK E. BREITHUT, in charge of municipal chemistry in the department of chemistry in the College of the City of New York, has been appointed director of food conservation by the United States Government Food Commission, to cover the territory of Greater New York City.

DR. HUGO DIEMER, major in the ordnance department, U. S. R., is in charge of the Ordnance Inspection at Lowell, Mass., including accountability for all materials of United States property, production progress, shipping, and ballistic inspection.

ARTHUR H. NORTON, vice-president, and head of the department of mathematics of Elmira College, has been granted a leave of absence for the remainder of the year. He

sailed for France on December 12 to take charge of a Young Mens' Christian Association base camp.

PROFESSOR ARTHUR W. BROWNE, of the department of chemistry of Cornell University, has been appointed chemical expert of the Ordnance Department. He will continue his work at Cornell University.

MR. RALPH MCBURNEY, instructor in the department of bacteriology of Oregon Agricultural College, has been commissioned as first lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps of the United States Army. According to orders he has reported at Letterman Hospital, San Francisco.

To Dr. Edwin F. Hirsch, of the department of pathology, of the University of Chicago, has been given leave of absence for service on the medical staff of the Officers' Reserve, United States Army.

DR. CHARLES W. STILES, of the United States Public Health Service, has been given jurisdiction over sanitary affairs in the zone about Camp Hancock, near Augusta, Ga., and

will work in cooperation with the health forces already in operation there.

DR. GUSTAV F. RUEDIGER, for the last three and a half years director of the Hygienic Institute for LaSalle, Peru, and Oglesby, Illinois, has resigned that position to become director of the State Hygienic Laboratory of Nevada, University of Nevada, Reno.

PROFESSOR C. L. MCARTHUR, bacteriologist, University of Arkansas, has been appointed to be assistant bacteriologist in the department of bacteriology at Oregon Agricultural College.

THE Council of the Institution of Civil

Engineers of Great Britain has made the following awards for papers published in the proceedings without discussion during the session 1916-17: A Watt gold medal to Major H. S. B. Whitley (Neath); Telford premiums to W. C. Popplewell (Manchester), H. Carrington (Woodley, Stockport), Dr. A. A. Stoddard (Bournemouth), A. E. L. Chorlton (Lincoln), and B. M. Samuelson (Rangoon); the Manby premium to R. Bleazby (Perth, W.A.); the Webb prize to J. B. Ball (London), and the Howard Quinquennial prize to Dr. W. C. Unwin.

SECTION K of the American Association for the Advancement of Science has arranged for a symposium at Pittsburgh on the "Medical lessons of the war." Lieutenant George Loewy, of the French Army, is expected to give the principal paper.

THE third annual meeting of the Mathematical Association of America will be held at the University of Chicago on Thursday and Friday, December 27-28, 1917, in conjunction with the Chicago Section of the American Mathematical Society which meets on Friday and Saturday of the same week. The program reports of standing committees will be presented as follows:

1. Committee on Mathematical Requirements. "Scientific investigations of the committee," Professor A. R. Crathorne, University of Illinois. "The work of a committee representing the Central Association of Science and Mathematics Teachers," Mr. J. A. Foberg, Crane Junior College, Chicago.

2. Committee on Libraries. Discussion opened by Professor H. E. Slaught, University of Chicago. 3. Committee on Mathematical Dictionary. Preliminary report by the chairman, Professor E. R. Hedrick, University of Missouri.

AT a meeting of the teachers of physics in Indiana colleges held at Bloomington, Indiana, on December 10, steps were taken toward an organization of the physics research work throughout the state. Dr. A. L. Foley, head of the physics department of the University of Indiana and chairman of the Scientific Research Committee of the State Council of Defense, was chosen as director of this movement. It is hoped that this organization will survive the war period and prove a valuable aid in developing research work in physical science in Indiana.

PROFESSOR GEORGE SARTON, lecturer on philosophy at Harvard University and editor of Isis, gave at the University of Chicago a public lecture, with illustrations, on December 7, his subject being "Science and civilization at the time of Leonardo da Vinci."

DR. WILLIAM CURTIS FARABEE, curator of the American section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, lectured on "Exploration in the valley of the Amazon," before the Geographic Society of Chicago on December

14.

RICHARD SWAN LULL, professor of vertebrate paleontology at Yale University, gave an illustrated lecture on the Luther Lafflin Kellogg Foundation, under the auspices of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Rutgers College, on December 7. His subject was "The pulse of life."

THE governors of the West Ham Municipal Central Secondary School, London, plan to call the institution "The Lister School," to perpetuate the association of Lord Lister with the borough.

THE death is announced at the age of fiftyseven years of Dr. Ramon Guitaras for many years professor of surgery in the New York Post Graduate Hospital.

WILLIAM MCKNIGHT RITTER, the astronomer, formerly connected with the Nautical Almanac

Office and there closely associated with the work of George W. Hill, died on November 6, at his home in Pottsgrove, Pa., at the age of seventy-one. In his earlier astronomical career he became, through Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor, greatly interested in the computation of orbits for minor planets, and during the later years he devoted special study to the problem of the general perturbations of these planets.

DR. AMI JACQUES MAGNIN, chief surgeon of the American hospital at Neuilly, died suddenly on November 25.

DR. J. PEYROT, professor of surgery at the University of Paris and senator, has died at the age of seventy-four years.

F. C. BARRAZA, professor of organic chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires, has died, aged fifty-five years.

WE learn from Nature that the death is announced, while leading his platoon during one of the recent advances in France, of Second Lieutenant F. Entwistle, second assistant at the Observatory, Cambridge, aged twenty-one years. Mr. Hartley, first assistant at the Cambridge Observatory, was killed on the Vanguard on July 9. The double tragedy exhausts the staff of the observatory, as distinct from the Solar Physics Observatory, except for the director.

In view of the many unusual conditions due to the war, it has been deemed inadvisable to hold a meeting of the Association of American Geographers this year, and the meeting planned for Chicago has been abandoned. Professor Robert DeC. Ward's presidential address, entitled "Meteorology and aviation: some practical suggestions," will be published in the near future. This, and other papers prepared for the meeting, will appear in the Annals for 1918.

AFTER serious consideration and correspondence with all exhibitors, the managers of the Chemical Exposition have decided to abandon plans to hold a Chemical Exposition in Chicago in the Spring. This action was taken because of insufficient support secured to make

a large and representative exposition, all the exhibitors wishing to confine their efforts toward making the Fourth National Exposition of Chemical Industries in New York, week of September 23, 1918, the greatest event in the history of American Chemical Industry.

THE directors of the Fenger Memorial Fund announce that the sum of $500 has been set aside for medical investigation, the money to be used to pay a worker, the work to be done under direction in an established institution, which will furnish the necessary facilities and supplies free. It is desirable that the work should have a direct clinical bearing. Applications with full particulars should be addressed to Dr. L. Hektoen, 637 S. Wood St., Chicago, before January 15, 1918.

A NATIONAL institute of malariology is about to be established in Italy; it will be a part of the department of agriculture. Its objects are to investigate the relations between malaria and agriculture; to study experimentally and otherwise the direct and indirect causes of the unhealthiness of malarial districts; and to organize and direct a campaign against those causes, and particularly against the Anopheles.

MR. HODGE, British minister of pensions, received on September 17, a private deputation from the Roehampton Hospital Committee regarding the proposal to establish a national experimental laboratory for the purpose of designing and controlling the manufacture of artificial limbs for disabled soldiers. By experiments, and by making full use of the experience of men who had been fitted with artificial limbs, it was hoped, the deputation suggested, to improve greatly the types of limbs supplied at present. Mr. Hodge declared his intention of taking immediate steps to seek the necessary funds for the establishment of a National Experimental Laboratory which might ultimately become a national factory for manufacturing limbs. For the present, however, he was opposed to the establishment of a national factory. It was, in his view, essential that the committee of management of the National Laboratory should be small, representative of surgeons and mechanical experts,

and distinct from any committee managing hospitals for limbless men. The laboratory committee would be directly responsible to the Ministry of Pensions, and would be empowered to ensure that the improvements which they recommended should at once be introduced into the manufacture of artificial limbs. It was proposed to submit a plan for establishing a central organization of engineers and educationists to a conference of engineers from all parts of the country which was held at the British Institution of Civil Engineers on October 25. Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice, president of the institution, presided and the honorary organizers of the movement are Mr. A. P. M. Fleming (British Westinghouse Company, Trafford Park, Manchester) and Mr. A. E. Berriman (chief engineer, Daimler Company, Coventry). The plan suggested, which includes the reinstatement of the best ideals of the old system of apprenticeship, provides for the setting up by engineering firms of a central bureau for the better coordination of engineering training and the appointment of a representative committee of engineering and educational interests to initiate action.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

A GENERAL Science Hall, erected at a cost of $60,000, is under construction at Defiance College, Defiance, Ohio. It will be a three story building and is expected to be completed by next July.

THE Provost Marshal General has sent the following telegram to the governors of all

states:

Under such regulations as the Chief of Engineers may prescribe a proportion of the students, as named by the school faculty, pursuing an engineering course in one of the approved technical engineering schools listed in the War Department, may enlist in the Enlisted Reserve Corps of the Engineer Department and thereafter, upon presentation by the registrant to his local board of a certificate of enlistment, such certificate shall be filed with the Questionnaire and the registrant shall be placed in Class 5 on the ground that he is in the military service of the United States.