1 T who had held this office virtually since the foundation of the committee. On the occasion of his recent visit to Buenos Aires, Professor Albert Einstein was elected an honorary member of the Argentine Academy of Science. DR. HANS VON EULER-CHELPIN, professor of chemistry at the University of Stockholm, and Dr. Paul Meyer, of Karlsbad, have been elected foreign members of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute of Biochemistry in Berlin. PROFESSORS PAUL APPELL and Emile Picard, of Paris, have been elected honorary members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. THE medals awarded to Professors Heitz-Boyer, Pasteur Vallery-Radot and Mathé, Paris, by the Cuban Academy of Sciences were presented to them recently by Professor M. Fernández, president of the academy, at a banquet at the Paris-Latin America Club. THE Beal medal, awarded for the best technical paper presented at the 1924 meeting of the American Gas Association, has been presented to Dr. Ralph L. Brown, of the United States Bureau of Mines, for his paper on "Gummy deposits in gas meters-causes and prevention." SAMUEL L. N. NICHOLSON, assistant vice-president of the Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Company, received the first award of the electrical manufacturers' medal and purse under the James H. McGraw award on November 10, at the annual banquet of the Associated Manufacturers of Electrical Supplies which took place in New York City. WILLIAM L. ABOTT, chief operating engineer of the Commonwealth Edison Company, of Chicago, has been elected president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, in succession to Dr. William F. Durand, professor emeritus at Stanford University. PROFESSOR ALAN M. BATEMAN, of the department of geology of Yale University, recently took over the active editorship of the American Journal of Science, now in its 108th year. Several changes for the betterment of the journal have been introduced by Professor Bateman. D. MONROE GREEN, formerly with the U. S. Bureau of Animal Industry, has been transferred to the Bureau of Biological Survey as assistant in the division of fur resources, and will devote much of his time to the rabbit industry. DR. MYNIE G. PETERMAN, associate in pediatrics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., has accepted the position of director of laboratory and research at the Children's Hospital, Milwaukee. PROFESSOR BRADLEY M. DAVIS, of the department of botany at the University of Michigan, has been granted a leave of absence for the next semester. He will go to Jamaica where he will study the varied conditions of the island's vegetation, the tropical rain forests and desert regions and the coral reefs. PROFESSOR M. S. SHERRILL, of the department of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been granted a leave of absence from the institute until next fall. He will go to Pasadena, Calif., to write a book in conjunction with Professor A. A. Noyes. DR. AUSTIN M. PATTERSON, professor of chemistry at Antioch College, has returned from a six months' absence in Europe, during which he attended meetings of the international committees on organic and inorganic chemical nomenclature and was a delegate of American organizations to the International Conference on the Use of Esperanto in the Pure and Applied Sciences in Paris, the Conference of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in Bucharest, and the Congress of Industrial Chemistry in Paris. DR. H. J. HANSEN, chief of the medical statistical office of the National Board of Health, of Denmark, is visiting the United States under the auspices of the International Health Board. DR. SVEDRUP, in charge of the Amundsen scientific Arctic expedition, has returned from a three years' stay in the Arctic region north of Siberia and recently visited the Astrophysical Observatory in Washington. DR. WARREN H. Lewis, professor of physiological anatomy, Johns Hopkins Medical School, will deliver the third Harvey Society lecture at the New York Academy of Medicine on Saturday evening, December 12, at eight thirty. His subject will be "On the origin of macrophages and epitheloid cells from mononuclear blood cells." DR. ARTHUR L. DAY, director of the Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, gave an illustrated lecture on the Santa Barbara earthquake at the Carnegie Institute of Washington on November 24. DR. GEORGE P. MERRILL, of the United States National Museum, will give a series of four public lectures on meteorites at Harvard University, under the auspices of the department of geology, on December 8, 9, 10 and 11. DR. WILLIAM H. HOBBS, of the University of Michigan, addressed a joint meeting of the Washington Academy of Sciences and the Geological Society of Washington on November 19, on the subject of "The glacial anticyclones: The poles of the atmospheric circulation." DR. F. O. BOWER, professor of botany in the University of Glasgow, gave an illustrated lecture on the "Phylogeny or natural classification of the ferns," at Columbia University on November 24. DR. E. E. SLOSSON, director of Science Service, gave a public lecture on "Chemistry and human welfare" on November 9, under the auspices of the University of Chicago. The lecture was preceded by a brief address by Professor Stieglitz on "The Science of chemistry," illustrated by a few experiments. A MEMORIAL service for Professor James Crosby Chapman, of Yale University, who was drowned in Lake Chautauqua on July 15, was held in Battell Chapel recently. President James Rowland Angell presided and addresses were made by Professor George S. Counts and Professor Luther A. Weigle. THROUGH the interest of Professor William Trelease, who had personal relations with three generations of the distinguished botanists commemorated, the City of Geneva has marked their one-time residence at no. 3 Cour de St. Pierre with a tablet bearing the following inscription: Ici ont véçu et travaillé pendant un siècle 1778-1841 Alphonse de Candolle 1806-1893 Casimir de Candolle 1836-1918 Augustin de Candolle 1868-1920 DR. WILLIAM EMORY STUDDIFORD, director of the Sloane Hospital for Women and professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, died on November 17, in his fifty-ninth year. DR. HAROLD W. NICHOLS, chief engineer in charge of radio research work for the Bell Telephone Laboratories, died on November 16, at the age of thirtynine years. DR. J. N. LANGLEY, professor of physiology at the University of Cambridge, died on November 5, in his seventy-third year. DR. HENRY JACKSON WATT, reader in psychology at the University of Glasgow, recently died, aged forty-six years. DR. O. VAN DER STRICHT, the Belgian biologist who recently lectured at various universities in this country, has died. DR. KARL ZSIGMONDY, professor of mathematics at the Vienna School of Technology, has died, aged fiftyeight years. JOHN K. HILLERS, formerly of the United States Geological Survey, died on November 14, aged eightytwo years. A correspondent writes that the death of Jack Hillers removes a member of the few survivors of the early personnel of the U. S. Geological Survey. He was a photographer and accompanied Major J. W. Powell in his western journeys, notably in the wonderful voyage down the Grand Canyon in 1873. For a long time, later, he was in charge of the Photographic Laboratory of the U. S. Geological Survey in Washington. His numerous large photographs of notable western geologic features were not only of highest technical quality, but admirable in lighting and composition. They have been used extensively for illustrating geologic reports and text books, for transparencies and for lantern slides, which have been of great value to teachers of geology in this and other countries. THE seventh annual meeting of the Southwestern Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be held at Phoenix, AriThe zona, on February 15, 16, 17 and 18, 1926. president of the division this year is Professor T. D. A. Cockerell, of the University of Colorado. THE annual meeting of the American Psychological Association will be held from Monday to Wednesday, December 28, 29 and 30, in Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell University, Ithaca. Because of the increased pressure for places upon the program, the program committee will continue the practice of holding sessions on the afternoon of the third day of the meetings. So far as possible papers of general and theoretical import will be placed in the session of Monday, December 28. The business meeting will be held on Tuesday evening. In place of an afternoon session devoted to a symposium, the program committee hopes to schedule a sufficient number of round table conferences to occupy Tuesday afternoon. The annual dinner of the association, followed by the presidential address and smoker, will be on Tuesday evening. Wednesday, December 30, will be devoted to sessions of the section of clinical psychology. The official headquarters of the association will be at Prudence Risley Hall on Thurston Avenue. Accommodations for most, if not all, members may be had there. A HUNDRED years ago on November 3 the Hungarian Academy of Science was founded as the result of the efforts of Count Stephen Széchenyi. A distinguished company of Hungarians and foreign vis 2 itors attended a ceremony held to mark the occasion in the academy building in the public garden facing which stands a statue of Count Széchenyi, among them being the regent, Admiral Horthy, and scientific men from many nations. The president of the academy delivered a speech in which he reviewed the literary achievements of the past century. 6 A NEW Society for physical anthropology has been founded in Germany under the chairmanship of Professor Aichel-Kiel. According to Eugenical News, on motion of Professor Aichel, Professor E. Fischer, of Freiburg, was elected president, and Dr. W. Gieseler, secretary. The new society will work in harmonious relations with the old "Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte" but will support more especially physical-anthropological investigations in Germany. The first meeting of the new society will take place at Easter time, 1926, simultaneously with the anatomical meeting in Freiburg. ACCORDING to the Electrical World a series of meetings was held in Cleveland by a number of the committees of the American Society for Testing Materials on October 27, 28 and 29. The committee on electrical insulating materials, of which F. M. Farmer, chief engineer of the Electrical Testing Laboratories, New York, is chairman, received reports from subcommittees on insulating varnishes, molded insulating materials, porcelain, sheet insulation, liquid insulation, cable splicing and pothead compounds, and radio frequency tests. All these committees reported experimental progress. A new committee on metallic materials for electric heating was appointed, with Dean Harvey, of the Westinghouse Company, as chairman, and five subcommittees will deal, respectively, with life tests, physical and electrical tests, chemical analysis, standard sizes and packages, and application of data. It will be the first time that a fundamental study of this field has been made by producers and consumers of such material working together. Other committees which met were those on coal and coke, corrosion of iron and steel, rubber products, and the effect of temperature on the properties of the metals. THE sum of 50,000 liras has been presented to the medical faculty at Florence by physicians in Argentina to found the Guido Banti prize. The income from the endowment is to be awarded for the best original Italian work on pathologic anatomy. THE Yale Corporation has forwarded to the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, resolutions thanking the officers and board of trustees of that university for their cooperation in the erection of the new Yale Astronomical Observatory in South Africa. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES CORNELL UNIVERSITY has received an anonymous gift of $250,000, the income of which is to be used for the "benefit and advancement of teaching and research in chemistry." A second gift of $500,000 has been made by an anonymous donor, subject to a life interest. The income of the fund is to be at the unrestricted disposal of the trustees, the donor expressing a wish that it be used for the benefit of the college of engineering. As a contribution from Rush Medical College Alumni to the development fund of the University of Chicago, a committee of physicians throughout the country has been organized, under the leadership of Dr. Ralph W. Webster, Chicago, to raise $250,000. AT Purdue University Dr. A. R. Middleton has been appointed acting director of the department of chemistry following the resignation of Dr. E. G. Mahin. Dr. M. G. Mellon has succeeded Dr. Mahin as professor of analytical chemistry. DR. G. N. QUAM, formerly professor of chemistry in Midland College at Fremont, Nebr., has accepted a position as head of the department of chemistry at Coe College, Iowa. ELMER O. KRAEMER, National Research Fellow in colloid chemistry, has been appointed assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin. HENRY SCHMITZ, of the University of Idaho, has been appointed head of the forestry department at the University of Minnesota. PROFESSOR J. A. S. WATSON, professor of agriculture and rural economy at the University of Edinburgh, has been appointed to the Sibthorpian chair of rural economy in the University of Oxford. A CHAIR of oto-rhino-laryngology has been founded at the Toulouse Faculty of Medicine, with Dr. Escat as its first occupant. DR. WALTHER BORSCHE, head of the department of chemistry at the University of Göttingen, has been appointed to a similar position at the University of Frankfurt. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE WAS THERE A PACIFIC CONTINENT? DR. ALFRED O. WOODFORD has recently demonstrated1 that a large volume of sediments in Southern California, the San Onofre Breccia, is composed exclusively of rocks and minerals which must have come from the west. The minerals are such as are not 1 University of California Publications, Bull. Dept. Geol. Sci. Vol. 15, No. 7, pp. 159–280, 1925. found to the eastward any place, from which they could have been transported to their present position. The age of this breccia was determined to be Miocene and probably the equivalent of a portion of the "Monterey." The size of this westward land mass, now submerged, except for portions of the "Channel Islands," must have been considerable, although the exact boundaries may never be known. Many of the fragments of which the breccia is composed are large and angular, but the indications are that there were streams flowing eastward. This work, supported by exact petrographic studies, adds still another link to the chain of evidence which has been accumulating and which demonstrates almost beyond contention the existence to the westward of North America of a land mass of probably continental size. The eastern boundary of this land probably disappeared or at least was greatly lowered in elevation at the close of the Miocene epoch. During that long period of geologic time there accumulated in what is now California enormous thicknesses of sediments composed very largely of the skeletons of microscopical organisms. Some measured sections of this deposit are over 8,000 feet thick. The preponderance of these organisms over clays, sands or other materials derived from erosion of land areas demonstrates that the climate of the region throughout the period of deposition was one of great aridity. A logical explanation for this aridity exists in the supposition of a mountain range to the westward of the present shore line which cut off the moisture, just as to-day the coast ranges cause desert conditions to appear in the interior valleys of California. The close of the Miocene was marked by an abrupt change in the features of sedimentation: micro-organisms became relatively scarce and clastic materials derived from land masses made up the greater part of the deposits. It would therefore seem that the cause of the great aridity during the Miocene was suddenly removed and a period of much precipitation followed. A lowering of this offshore Pacific mountain barrier would probably produce just such a result. Of course great aridity at a given place is not necessarily dependent upon an outlying offshore barrier, as the climate of the coastal region of Chile and Peru abundantly proves, but in the California region that appears to be the most reasonable explanation. Other evidence pointing toward the existence of a land area to the westward of the present shore line is found in the existence here and there of isolated "islands" composed of granite rocks. The Farallon Islands, the tip of Point Reyes Peninsula and Point Pinos near Monterey are some of these areas, far removed from any similar rocks. Granite is generally considered to belong exclusively to the continental land masses. Farther to the south, off the west coast of Mexico, there is a larger mass of the same rock, forming the Cape Region of Lower California. Also one of the discoveries made by the California Academy of Sciences Expedition in 1925 was a granitic core in Maria Madre Island. Likewise, sixty miles west of Socorro Island, one of the Revillagigedo group, there is an isolated menace to navigation, called Roca Partida. The walls of this are perpendicular and landing was impossible, but from a row boat the rock had every appearance of being composed of granite. Can all these points be the last remnants of a continent which existed when much of Central America and California were submerged? It certainly looks as if this question might be answered in the affirmative with very little qualification. G. DALLAS HANNA CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ULTRA-VIOLET LIGHT AND ANTI- IN concluding their article on "The influence of ultra-violet light on leg weakness in growing chicks and on egg production," Hughes, Payne and Latshaw state: "The variation in the hatchability of the eggs produced by hens receiving varying amounts of ultraviolet light is perhaps due to a variation in the antirachitic vitamin content of the egg. This is merely an assumption but points the way to some very interesting research work." This year experiments have been completed in which the relative anti-rachitic vitamin content of eggs from hens receiving different amounts of ultra-violet light has been determined and, as predicted last year, the hens which receive an abundance of ultra-violet light are able to put an abundance of the anti-rachitic vitamin in their eggs, while the hens which receive a very limited amount of ultraviolet light are able to put only a small amount of the anti-rachitic vitamin in their eggs. In this experiment eggs from four pens of hens receiving varying amounts of ultra-violet light were tested by feeding the eggs to growing chicks. These four pens of hens were housed in a shed-roof type house with a south exposure. Each pen was eight feet by ten feet and had a glass window in the south side three feet by eight feet. Pens 1 and 3 were allowed a run to the south of the house, where they had access to direct sunlight. The windows in Pens 2 and 4 were kept closed at all times, so all the sun 1 Poultry Science, Vol. IV, No. 4, April-May, 1925. light received by these pens was filtered through glass. Pens 1 and 2 received a thirty-minute treatment of ultra-violet light each day from a quartz mercury arc lamp. In this way Pen 1 received both the direct sunshine and ultra-violet light from the mercury arc lamp. Pen 2 received sunlight filtered through glass and light from the mercury arc lamp. Pen 3 received direct sunshine, while Pen 4 received only the glassfiltered sunshine. The hens were placed on the experiment October 1, 1924, and the experiment to determine the relative vitamin content of the eggs was begun six months later, April 1, 1925. Four lots of growing chicks were used to test the relative anti-rachitic vitamin content of the eggs from these four pens of hens. These pens of chicks were kept in the nutrition laboratory on a basal ration and under conditions which would cause them to develop rickets in about four to six weeks. In addition to this basal ration each pen of twelve chicks received one egg a day from one of the pens of hens. Pen 1 of chicks received an egg each day from Pen 1 of hens, etc. This feeding experiment was continued for eight weeks at which time the chicks in each lot were killed for chemical analyses. The chicks in Pens 1 and 3, which received eggs from hens receiving direct sunshine, developed normally as shown by their general appearance as well as by chemical analyses of their blood and bones. The chicks in Pen 2, which received the eggs from the hens that received sunlight filtered through glass and a thirty-minute exposure to the mercury arc lamp, developed some rickets; but they were in much better shape than the chicks in Pen 4, which received eggs from the hens that received no ultra-violet light except that which came through the glass window. This test with the growing chicks has been repeated a second time with results in agreement with the first trial. From these results we conclude that the antirachitic vitamin content of eggs will vary with the amount of ultra-violet light the hens receive when their feed is low in this substance. In this experiment the eggs from Pen 1 hatched 67 per cent.; Pen 2, 72 per cent.; Pen 3, 75 per cent.; and Pen 4, 53 per cent. These results, as well as the results we obtained last year, indicate that the antirachitic vitamin content of eggs is one factor in the development of a strong vigorous chick. Cod-liver oil at the rate of 2 cc per hen per day produced eggs which hatched as well as those from hens receiving direct sunshine. J. S. HUGHES R. W. TITUS J. M. MOORE KANSAS STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE ANENT THE "HARMLESS” CORAL SNAKE THE coral snake is poisonous, but not vicious. Two of the largest dealers in live snakes of the south and southwest know them to be poisonous from personal experience and are so cautious that they handle mimic scarlet king snakes with the same care. In spite of the fact that we have captured, studied and photographed alive about every species of snake from Georgia to Arizona, we nevertheless almost unconsciously use the same extreme caution with several species of non-poisonous scarlet king snakes. It is true that one very rarely encounters authentic cases of fatal coral snake bite. It would, however, be unwise to call the species harmless. For example, in Georgia, one of our party who was barefooted stepped on a cottonmouth in the water. The same day he reached into a wood rat's nest and, when he withdrew his hand, a cottonmouth presently came out of the nest. In neither case was he bitten. Nevertheless, he respects this snake as poisonous and will never again stick his hand in such a nest. In July and August, 1925, we saw two men who handle and have handled more gila monsters than any one else in the U. S. A. Both were bitten this summer by gila monsters with no bad effects, yet these gentlemen respect these poisonous reptiles. They feel it was their good fortune to escape. Like many of us, they do not consider these creatures vicious and make pets of them. The coral snake is a burrower, is secretive and is most active at night or after rains. The collector or the average individual seldom encounters it. It is not vicious. One example will suffice. On the 75mile practice-march of the five thousand U. S. soldiers from Ft. Sam Houston this summer, one soldier picked up a pretty snake. He and his fellows treated it as a pet for two or three days. In the end he asked the Y. M. C. A. director to care for it. This gentleman did and asked me for its identification one week later. Many Y. M. C. A. men for a week played with it. None of these were bitten. This coral snake was good-natured, yet potentially very poisonous. The coral snake, as Professor Dunn contends, can open its mouth wide enough to bite a human being. We had one captive coral snake, which frequently opened its mouth a few days previous to its approaching death. Also one evening about 8:30 P. M. (darkness) my wife discovered a coral snake at the ranch gate. The instant we laid a stick on it, it resisted capture with great vigor, and constantly opened its |