Professor S. C. Prescott, of the department of biology and public health of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been appointed to a commission as major in the food division of the Army Sanitary Corps.
Professor Charles P. Berkey, of Columbia University, as chairman of the committee on highways for the state of New York, has transmitted to the National Research Council a report on road materials and conditions controlling the construction of highways and other roads in New York.
Victor Yngve has been engaged as research chemist by the Oldbury Electro Chemical Company of Niagara Falls, N. Y., and will have charge of their research laboratory.
For the New Mexico Association for Science, officers for 1918 have been chosen as follows: President, Dr. John D. Clark, of the University of New Mexico; vice-president, J. E. Brownlee of the Normal School; secretary, Professor Higley of the Agricultural College; treasurer. Professor Goddard of the Agricultural College; members of the Educational Council, Paul A. F. Walter, for three years, Professor Rodgers of the Normal University for two years and Professor Barnes of the Agricultural College for one year.
Professor J. F. Adams, of Pennsylvania State College, is on leave of absence for a year and is spending the time at Columbia University and at the New York Botanical Garden. He is making a detailed study of a group of microscopic fungi, many of which occur as parasites on living plants.
Vilhjalmur Stefanssen, the Arctic explorer, last heard from in a letter received in March, 1916, has arrived with his party at Fort Yukon, according to word received by thenaval department. Stefanssen, head of the Canadian Arctic Expedition has been in the far North since 1918 and lately there was some anxiety as to his safety.
Professor Wilder D. Bancroft, of Cornell University, lectured before the District of Columbia Chapter of the Sigma Xi on December 20, on Colloid Chemistry.
Professor R D. Salisbury of the University of Chicago spoke on "Geography and geology work about Camp Grant," the National Army cantonment at Bockford in northern Illinois, at the Post-Vacation Luncheon of the Geographic Society at Chicago, on November 17.
At the request of the Medical Research Committee of Great Britain, Professor W. M. Bayliss last August visited various centers in France, to discuss with workers there special problems in the field and the application to them of methods devised in the laboratory. Acting upon suggestions made to it from France the committee appointed a special investigation committee for the purposes of further combined study of shock and the better correlation of laboratory and clinical observations. This committee consists of Professor F. A. Bainbridge, Professor W. M. Bayliss, F.R.S., Professor W. B. Cannon, Dr. H. H. Dale, F.R.S. (secretary), Lieutenant-Colonel T. R Elliott, F.R.S., Captain John Eraser, Professor C. S. Sherrington, F.R.S., Professor E. H. Starling, F.R.S. (chairman), and Colonel Cuthbert Wallace, C.B. Professor W. B. Cannon, of Harvard University, whose work in this connection is of great value, is making arrangements for coordinating the work of this committee with that of a similar committee of American physiologists, and a further memorandum on the subject will probably be issued.
The Romanes lectures at the University of Oxford, which were not given in 1917, will next year be given by Mr. Asquith, lately premier, who is honorary fellow of Balliol College.
Portraits of the late Professor Raphael Meldola, painted by Mr. S. J. Solomon, were in December 18 presented to the Royal Society and to the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland.
