Four years later, however, an organization was adopted which gave to the Institute the latitude of a comprehensive learned society. Among all the activities planned only a few were in any way conspicuously carried out, in default of the necessary support, the most important and material of these being the establishment of a botanic garden and a museum. The former occupied the extreme eastern end of the Mall which then approached much nearer the capitol than at present, and included the site of the present United States Botanic Garden.

Starting with a cabinet of minerals which remained predominant in this connection, this feature soon developed into a general though small museum, containing specimens of zoology, botany, ethnology, archeology, fossils, etc. Transferred to the National Institution in 1841, some of the objects are now readily distinguishable in the United States National Museum, forming, it may be claimed, the nucleus of its collections.

The institute obtained its meeting places and accommodations for its museum mainly through the favor successively of the executive departments, the municipal government, and Congress. It was first located in Blodget's Hotel, containing the general post office and the patent office, followed by the treasury department and city hall, being finally assigned a permanent home, in 1824, in the western addition to the capitol building, which had just been completed. The use of the site for its botanic garden was also a grant from Congress.

However unfortunate in the realization of its ambitions, the Columbian Institute nevertheless occupied an enviable position among the earlier associations of this country for the breadth and importance of its object, even if they be regarded only in the nature of suggestions, which have since been so fully recognized in the organization of the government and elsewhere, and for its hearty and unselfish efforts to carry them out. The Columbian Institute owed its establishment and early successes to a masterful mind, that of Dr. Edward Cutbush, then a surgeon in the Navy,

and the first president of the society, though acknowledgments are also due to Thomas Law for the suggestion of such a society at the seat of government.

The membership of this institute included a great many of the prominent men of every walk of life in Washington, among them John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and well-known representatives of the Army, the government service, the medical and other professions.

AWARD OF THE JOHN SCOTT LEGACY MEDALS AND PREMIUMS AND OF THE EDWARD LONGSTRETH MEDAL OF MERIT

THE city of Philadelphia, acting on the recommendation of The Franklin Institute, has awarded the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium to Alfred Rishworth Tattersall, of London, England, for the "Midget" Marvel Flour Mill.

This device is a small and simple form of flour mill, designed to enable local millers to make a good grade of flour at a comparatively low cost. It is of especial value in farming communities in which the flour mills run by water power have been abandoned.

And has also awarded the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium to Max Ulrich Schoop, of Zurich, Switzerland, for the Schoop Metal Spraying Process.

In this process, wire of some easily fusible metal, like zinc, is fed into a device called a spraying pistol. The wire passes through a tube and at its end comes into contact with burning gas, by which it is melted, and the molten metal is sprayed by an air blast upon the surface to be covered. The use of this process has been found to greatly increase the life of patterns for castings.

The John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium has also been awarded to Thomas A. McCall, of South Akron, Ohio, for his inventions embodied in the early development of the Hooven Automatic Typewriter, and to John H. Pillings, of Hamilton, Ohio, for his inventions and improvements embodied in its later development.

The Franklin Institute has awarded its Edward Longstreth Medal of Merit to The

Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Company, of Hamilton, Ohio, for the development of ingenious methods used in the manufacture of this typewriter.

This machine is capable of producing typewritten form letters much faster than they can be written in the ordinary way.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS A SPECIAL board of chemists to investigate explosives, the uses of gases in warfare and to act as advisers to the Bureau of Mines, has been appointed. The board will study the problem of increasing the production of materials used in explosives manufacture and will advise the bureau in the operation of the recently enacted law regulating the sale of explosives. The members are: Dr. William H. Nichols, of the General Chemical Company, New York, chairman; Professor H. P. Talbot, head of the chemical department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; William Hoskins, of Chicago, a consulting chemist; Professor H. P. Venable, of the University of North Carolina; Professor E. C. Franklin, of Stanford University, and Dr. Charles L. Parsons, of the Bureau of Mines.

PRESIDENT J. G. SCHURMAN, of Cornell University, has announced that the State Food Commission, of which he is a member, had completed its organization. Its work is now in three divisions-production, under Commissioner Wieting; distribution, under Commissioner Mitchell, and conservation, under Commissioner Schurman. For each of these divisions a bureau has been established with a director at its head. Calvin Huson, a former commissioner of agriculture, heads the bureau of production, and Cyrus Miller, a lawyer of New York City, the bureau of distribution. Professor Howard E. Babcock, of the State College of Agriculture at Cornell, now director of Farm Bureaus, has been appointed director of the bureau of conservation. Professor Babcock will receive a leave of absence from the university for the period of his service with the Food Commission.

THE mission sent to France by the Rockefeller Foundation to assist in combating the

threatened increase of tuberculosis has decided to work in three sections under the general direction of Dr. Livingston Farrand. The first section will establish in one of the arrondissements of Paris and in certain large provincial towns a complete antituberculosis organization consisting of dispensaries, clinics and laboratories, with provision for domiciliary attendance. This section will be directed by Dr. Miller. A second section, under Dr. Charles White, will undertake the distribution of assistance. A third section, under Professor Gunn, will be concerned with the education of the public; it has already commenced to organize traveling exhibitions, meetings and kinematograph displays.

THE British Industrial Research Committee of the Board of Education have made a grant to Professor G. H. Bryan, F.R.S., of the University College of North Wales, which will enable him to devote the whole of next session to the carrying on of some special research work in aeroplane construction of national importance. In the first instance Professor Bryan proposes to work at the University of Bristol.

THE following-named officers, Engineer Officers' Reserve Corps, are relieved from duty at the Engineer training camp, and will report by letter to the director, United States Geological Survey, for assignment to duty connected with military mapping: From Fort Leavenworth, Kans., Second Lieutenants Elmer LeC. Goldsmith, John W. Lewis, Edward J. Francis, Elmo N. Murphy, Carl R. French, William D. Lewis, and Charles B. Moore. From American University, District of Columbia, Second Lieutenants Charles M. Madden, Edward H. Stelle, Frederic E. Smith, Edward P. Asbury, George B. Davidson, Frederick W. Look, Gordon D. Cooke, Joseph W. Geary, Jr., and Walter K. Wood, and also Second Lieutenant Herman J. Switzer, Engineer Officers' Reserve Corps.

MR. A. H. GILBERT has accepted a position as a pathological inspector with the Federal Horticultural Board with headquarters at Washington, D. C. Mr. Gilbert was formerly

associate professor of botany at the University of Kentucky.

UNDER a grant from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. C. H. Kauffman spent the month of August, 1917, in the state of Colorado studying the genus Cortinarius for his proposed monograph. In September, Dr. Kauffman began his work as a pathological inspector with the Federal Horticultural Board with headquarters at Washington, D. C.

THE Herbert Spencer Lecture for 1917 was delivered by Professor Emile Boutroux, member of the "Institut" and the French Acadamy, and Doctor of Letters of the University of Oxford, on October 20, in the Oxford University Museum. The subject of the lecture "The relation between thought and action from the German and from the classical point of view." The lecture was delivered in English.

was

THE Bradshaw Lecture on The causes of disease" was given before the Royal College of Physicians on November 8 by Professor Ernest S. Reynolds, physician to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. The FitzPatrick lectures were delivered on November 13, 14 and 15, by Dr. Arnold Chaplin, known for his studies of the Napoleonic period, on "Medicine in England during the reign of George III."

DR. J. S. FLETT gives this year the course of twelve Swiney lectures on geology at the Royal Society of Arts on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, beginning on Tuesday, November 13. The subject is "The Mineral Resources of the British Empire."

MEMORIAL services were held at Cornell University Medical College for the late Dr. Lewis A. Stimson, professor of surgery at the college from the time of its foundation in 1898 to his death on September 17, this year. Among the speakers were Mr. Elihu Root, President Jacob Gould Schurman, of Cornell; Dr. Gilman Thompson, professor of medicine, emeritus; Howard Townsend, president of the board of governors of New York Hospital, and Dr. Edward L. Keys.

PROFESSOR EDWARD HULL, LL.D., F.R.S., late director of the Geological Survey of Ireland, died on October 18, in his eighty-ninth

year.

A BRONZE tablet commemorating Dr. Simon Baruch's connection with the campaign for public baths in New York City was unveiled at the Simon Baruch Public Baths, formerly the Rivington Street baths on October 29. The tablet was donated by Mrs. Belle Baruch through the Association for the Promotion of Hygiene and Public Baths. Borough President Marcus M. Marks made the address of acceptance in behalf of the city.

Nature states that the late Mr. Cawthron left £250,000 to the city of Nelson, New Zealand, for scientific research. The trustees are the bishop of the diocese, the member for the district, the mayor of Nelson, two chairmen of local bodies and a personal friend of the deceased. The site of the proposed institute has been purchased, and the appointment of a director and staff is under consideration. The object of the institute is, primarily, scientific research work for the benefit of the province of Nelson and the Dominion of New Zealand. The province of Nelson is mostly concerned with fruit, agriculture and minerals.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

By recent decision of the court Wilberforce University has come into possession of $30,000 of the Charles Avery estate in Pittsburgh. The fund is to be used for endowment purposes.

COMMITTEES representing Leander Clark College, of Toledo, and Coe College, of Cedar Rapids, recently voted to merge these two institutions. Coe College will absorb Leander Clark with its endowment of about $250,000.

SIR WILLIAM TATEM has given £25,000 for a laboratory at the University College of South Wales, Cardiff.

As has been already announced Dr. Ralph H. McKee has been appointed to take charge of the graduate work in industrial organic chemistry (department of chemical engineer

ing) at Columbia University, New York City. Dr. McKee was at the head of the department of chemistry of the University of Maine from 1909 to 1916, leaving this position a year ago to enter commercial chemical work in New York City as head of the research department of the Tennessee Copper Company. While at Maine he initiated and developed the department for the making of pulp and paper, the first of its kind to be established in any college in this country.

THE personnel of the department of geology and mining engineering at Iowa State College, Ames, Ia., is now as follows: Head of department, Dr. S. W. Beyer, who is also dean of the division of engineering, vice A. Marston, now major of the Battalion of Engineers, Iowa National Guard; L. C. Hodson and Dr. S. L. Galpin, associate professors of mining engineering; H. F. Staley, professor of ceramic engineering; Dr. Chas. A. Mann, associate professor of chemical engineering; John E. Smith, assistant professor of geology.

of

DR. J. E. MARR, University lecturer in geology in Cambridge University, has been elected to the Woodwardian professorship of geology in succession to the late Professor McKenny Hughes.

F. DE QUERVAIN, professor of surgery at the University of Basle, has accepted a call to the medical faculty of Berne as successor to Professor Kocher.

J. JADASSOHN, professor of dermatology at the University of Berne, has been appointed professor in Breslau in succession to Professor Neisser, who died some months ago.

plateau averaging about 3,500-4,000 feet in elevation, but rising to a little over 5,000 feet at Mt. Waialeale, almost in the center of the island.

As in all the Hawaian Islands the windward (NE.) side has a very heavy precipitation, while on the leeward side the rainfall is very light.

The central part of Kauai, culminating in Mt. Waialeale, has the heaviest precipitation of any station in the Hawaiian group, and can be equalled by very few regions anywhere, where rainfall data have been kept. In one year over 600 inches fell, and for the five years-1912-1916-the average was slightly more than 500 inches.

Waialeale is seldom free from rain clouds, and the precipitation is almost incessant. In consequence the whole region near it is a bog, partly covered with a forest of low trees, thickly draped with dripping masses of mosses and liverworts, but a good deal of the region, including the summit of Waialeale, is an open bog, covered with coarse grasses and sedges, with a few stunted shrubs and various characteristic bog plants.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE AN EXTRAORDINARY RAINFALL RECORD DURING a recent visit to the Hawaiian Islands, I had occasion to do some collecting on Kauai, the northern island of the group. While there I made a trip to a region of such extraordinary precipitation that it seemed worthy of record.

The island is almost circular in outline, rather less than thirty miles in its greatest diameter. It consists for the most part of a

THE ROCKEFELLER HEALTH RESEARCHES1

THE third annual report of the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Health Board (known previously as the International Health Commission), deals with the year 1916. The general summary, which precedes the details of different states and countries, shows that in addition to ankylostomiasis, malaria and yellow fever have been dealt with, and this would seem to indicate that the Board is prepared to tackle all tropical disease where the necessity arises. As regards the first of these scourges, ankylostomiasis, it is stated that active measures to control and prevent the disease are now in operation in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia in the United States; in certain West Indian islands -Antigua, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Trinidad; in British and Dutch Guiana, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Salvador, in South America; and in Ceylon and Siam in the East. Such widespread work, properly controlled as this is, and with no lack of funds to support it, is bound to do good, and, though remarkable results can not be looked for in a few years, nevertheless results will come, all in due time. To ensure this, permanency of the work is essential, as otherwise matters would quickly drift back. The sanitation of many of the small tropical towns and villages at the present day is very similar to that which existed in England a hundred years ago, and only time and much labor will bring them into line with modern sanitary ideas. As many tropical maladies

1 N. Goormaghtigh, Arch. méd. Belges, Paris, 1917. Tome LXX., p. 697.

are insect-borne, study of the habits of the insects concerned is essential, and engineering works, large and small, may be required to abolish their different breeding grounds. The importance of collective investigation and organized campaigns in such a task is manifest, and it is here that the great value of the efforts of the International Health Board lies. The report describes fully the means adopted in the fight against ankylostomiasis. Of great interest also is the work of the commission appointed by the board to inquire into the problem of yellow fever centers in South America. The report states that the only endemic center of the disease in South America at present is Guayaquil, Ecuador, though certain sections of Colombia, Venezuela, and the adjacent West Indian Islands are also under suspicion and require close observation. The eradication of the disease, with this knowledge as a guide, is feasible. The report suggests that Mexico and West Africa should similarly be examined. Experiments upon the control of malaria have also been commenced, and these will be extended in due course. Further, a new school of hygiene and public health has been established in Baltimore by the Rockefeller Foundation in connection with the Johns Hopkins University, and is to be opened this month with Dr. William H. Welch as director. Three main purposes will be served by the new school: first, to furnish trained men on whom the board may draw; secondly, to serve as a training center to which students from other countries may be sent for instruction; and, thirdly, to provide a laboratory for solving scientific problems which arise. This Rockefeller Foundation is a splendid conception. Untrammelled by questions of expense, its activities are unlimited, and the benefits it can and will bestow upon mankind in the tropics are inestimable. It is a dream the original workers in tropical medicine often dreamed, and it has come true. Finally, a word of congratulation is due to Dr. Wickliffe Rose, its able director-general, for the work he has already accomplished. Long may he continue to direct its energies.-British Medical Journal,