PROFESSOR EDGAR JAMES SWIFT, head of the department of psychology and education in Washington University, gave an address on "The psychology of testimony and rumor" at the Naval War College, Newport, R. I., on January 26. THE annual meeting of the Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers was held at the Hotel Pennsylvania from January 24 to 20. Among the papers presented were: "The Control of Blower Motors", by Henry H. Issertel, and "The Underfeed Stoker," by Frank A. De Boos. THE Mathematics Club of the University of Southern California, which the late Professor Paul Arnold helped to found, proposes to establish as a memorial to him the Paul Arnold Library of Mathematics. A COMMITTEE has been formed with Mrs. Mary K. Bryan, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, as chairman, to establish a memorial to Miss Eunice R. Oberly, librarian of the bureau from 1808 until her death on November 5. It is planned that the money given by her friends shall be used to establish a prize to be awarded for the work in which Miss Oberly was interested. SIR GERMAN SIMS WOODHEAD, professor of pathology in the University of Cambridge, died on December 29, at the age of sixty-six years. DR. REGINALD FARRAR, of Harrow, England, died on December 29, of typhus fever at Moscow, whither he had gone to assist Dr. Nansen in organizing arrangements for famine re-, lief in Russia, under the auspices of the League of Nations and the League of Red Cross Societies. DR. GEORGE STEWARDSON BRADY, F. R. S., who died at Sheffield on December 25, in his ninetieth year, was engaged in the practice of medicine and in 1875 became professor of natural history at Armstrong College, Newcastle, retiring as professor emeritus in 1906. He had done much useful work on the material gathered by the Challenger Expedition, having published reports on the ostracoda and copepoda. He also wrote a monograph of the free and semi-parasitic copepoda of the British Islands, and collaborated in a monograph of the ostracoda of the North Atlantic and Northwestern Europe. THE annual joint meeting of the American Geographical Society and the Association of American Geographers will be held in New York City on April 28 and 29. The program will be published about April 1. All interested are invited to attend the sessions to be held at the building of the American Geographical Society. THE Royal Institute of Public Health will hold a congress in Plymouth from May 31 to June 5. In addition to conferences on various matters there will be four sections: (1) state medicine and municipal hygiene; (2) naval, military and air; (3) bacteriology and biochemistry; (4) women and public health. The Harben lectures will be given during the meeting by Dr. T. Madsen, director of the State Serum Institute, Copenhagen. THE thirteenth annual meeting of the Paleontological Society was held at Amherst, Mass., from December 28 to 30, as the guest of Amherst College, in affiliation with the Geological Society of America. The special meetings of the society were held in the Geology-Biology building, while the members were comfortably lodged in the fraternity houses on the campus. Seven new members were elected at the meeting, making the membership at the end of 1921 total 214. The officers elected for 1922 were as follows: President, W. D. Matthew, New York City; First Vice-President, E. S. Riggs, Chicago, Illinois; Second Vice-President, E. W. Berry, Baltimore, Maryland; Third VicePresident, B. L. Clark, Berkeley, California; Secretary, R. S. Bassler, Washington, D. C.; Treasurer, Richard S. Lull, New Haven, Connecticut; Editor, Walter Granger, New York THE Russian Academic Group held its first annual meeting on January 12. The group consists of scientific men and women from Russia living in the United States. They have organized with the purpose (1) of studying the social, economic and industrial problems involved in the further development of Rus sia; (2) of effecting a closer contact between scientific and educational institutions of America and Russia, and (3) especially of helping the reconstruction of the academic life of the Russian universities and bringing relief to their members. A LETTER has been received from the Attorney-General of the United States by the University of Chicago in appreciation of Professor Henry C. Cowles, of the department of botany, for his ecological investigations along the Red River for use in connection with a suit between the states of Oklahoma and Texas in the Supreme Court of the United States. "Dr. Cowles' investigations and testimony," the letter states, "have been of great value to the government, and, I am informed, to the cause of science in that they bring to the aid of engineering and physiographic investigations the comparatively new science of ecology, whereby the approximate time of the occurrence of changes in rivers, their flood plains and banks, is now definitely determined." UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES In addition to previous gifts to the building fund totalling $800,000, Mr. Samuel Mather, of Cleveland, has announced to the trustees of Western Reserve University that he will provide funds for the erection of the new building of the School of Medicine. The estimated cost of the school building is $1,910,000, of the animal house $93,500, of the power house $473,000, and of connecting tunnels $53,700, totalling $2,529,700. Plans and specifications are complete and construction will begin in the near future. The medical school building is the first of a group, to be followed by the construction of the Children's Hospital, the Maternity Hospital and the Lakeside Hospital, all of which are affiliated with the School of Medicine. The entire group will be situated on the university campus. A BEQUEST of $150,000 to Wesleyan University is contained in the will of Mrs. Dexter Smith of Springfield, Mass. The money will be available either towards erection of a new library building or for the general endowment fund at discretion of the trustees. E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND COMPANY have authorized the continuance of the du Pont chemical fellowships of the total value of $15,000 in twenty colleges and universities throughout the United States for the academic year of 1922-3. The fellowships are for postgraduate work. MORLAND KING, who went to Lafayette College last year from Union College as associate professor of electrical engineering, has been made professor and head of the electrical engineering department. A. L. PITMAN has been appointed assistant director of the Bangor Station of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's school of chemical engineering practice. H. R. THEALTON, lately with Stone & Webster in Boston, has been appointed assistant professor of engineering at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. DR. R. H. ADERS PLIMMER has been appointed by the senate of London University to the university chair of chemistry, tenable at St. Thomas's Hospital Medical School, beginning with the new year. At present he is head of the biochemical department of the Rowett Research Institute at the University of Aberdeen. DISCUSSION AND CORRESPOND ENCE ABRAHAM COWLEY AND THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE I HAVE recently come upon a very interesting piece of history relating to agricultural education, while re-reading the essays of Abraham Cowley. The paper on agriculture in volume II of the 1707-1712 edition of his works contains one of the first recorded recommendations that I can find regarding the organization of agricultural colleges. In that essay he has the following to say: Did ever a father provide a tutor for his son to instruct him betimes in the nature and improvements of that land which he intended to leave him? . . . I could wish (but can not in these times much hope to see it) that one college in each University were erected, and appropriated to this study, as well as there are to Medicine, and the Civil Law. There would be no need of making a body of scholars and fellows, with certain endowments as in other colleges. It would suffice, if after the manner of Halls in Oxford, there were only four professors constituted (for it would be too much work for only one Master, or principal as they call him there) to teach these four parts of it. First Aration, and all things relating to it. Second, Pasturage. Thirdly, Gardens, Orchards, Vineyards, and Woods. Fourthly, All parts of Rural Economy, which would contain the government of Bees, Swine, Poultry, Decoys, Ponds, etc., and all that which Varro calls Villaticas Pastiones, together with the sports of the field and the Domestical Conservation and uses of all that is brought in by Industry abroad. The business of these Professors should be.. to instruct their pupils in the whole method and course of this study, which might be run through perhaps with diligence in a year or two. The above essay was written about the year 1659 to 1665, and it is very interesting to note that till more than a century after, in 1796, was a Department of Rural Economy organized at Oxford, and Professor John Sibforth elected to be the first head of the department. We do not find references to agricultural colleges again, however, till the beginning of the nineteenth century. It will therefore be observed that Cowley was distinctly in advance of his times. Bacon had suggested schools for experimental research, but did not suggest the idea of an agricultural college. We do unquestionably notice Bacon's influence on Cowley in many respects, and especially in his "Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy." In the organization of the Royal Society in 1662, Cowley evidently saw a partial realization of his philosophy as outlined in the "Proposition," and he became one of the original members of the society. Heretofore we have known Cowley the poet and Cowley the essayist, but he has not before been known as Cowley the scientist, and Cowley the educator. A modern critic has said of him that he had "delicacy of feeling and unfeigned enthusiasm for the nobler and purer joys of life, for great literature, friendship, science, and nature." In this fair esti mate by Dr. Gough, we have Cowley the scientist, as well as the poet and essayist. In reviewing the early agricultural literature, I find references to a "Colledge of Experiments," by Gabriel Plattes in 1639, and "An Essay for Advancement of Husbandry Learning or Proposition for the erecting Colledge of Husbandry, etc.," by Samuel Hartlib in 1651. In this last the writer had no such clear conception of the proposition as Cowley had. Adolphus Speed in his essay "Adam out of Eden," 1659, suggests "Diverse excellent Experiments Touching the Advancement of Husbandry." If the readers of SCIENCE have more detailed information on this matter I should like them to offer it to the public through these columns. A study of these books on English husbandry has renewed my interest in Cato, Varro and Columella on Ancient Husbandry, and I, for one, would like to see these valuable treatises on agriculture brought out in such a series as the Loeb Classical Library. R. J. H. DELOACH THE ARMOUR CORPORATIONS, CHICAGO THE LOST FOXHALL JAW; ROBERT Since the note concerning Dr. Collyer printed in the issue of SCIENCE for January 20 was written, the records of the Berkshire Medical College have been searched and they indicate that Dr. Collyer was not of American birth, as supposed by Mr. J. Reid Moir and the writer, but of English birth, inasmuch as the registration entry is: "To the President and Professors of the Berkshire Medical College. This Thesis [on the Progression of Animal Life] is respectfully dedicated by R. H. Collyer, A.B.— of the Isle of Jersey, British Channel, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, November 1st, 1839." This registration renders it unlikely that further records of Dr. Collyer himself will be found in the United States. Mr. Moir is now searching the British university records, also the records of the Isle of Jersey. In the forthcoming number of Natural History (November-December) appears a full account of Dr. Collyer's discovery. JANUARY 16, 1922 HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN THE RUSSIAN BUREAU OF APPLIED BOTANY TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: It might be of interest to the American scientific workers, engaged along agricultural and botanical lines, to know that Professor N. I. Vavilov, director of the Bureau of Applied Botany of Petrograd, Russia, who recently visited this country, has established a permanent New York office, which represents the Bureau of Applied Botany of the Agricultural Scientific Committee, and of which the undersigned is now in charge. The object of this office is to secure seeds and other material needed for the work of the Russian Bureau of Applied Botany. We hope to widen and permanently maintain the cordial contact recently established with American institutions and individuals in corresponding lines of research work, as well as with the various seed concerns. The office has already been in existence for three months, and during this short period was in a position to forward nearly 5,000 packages of seeds to Russia for the experimental stations; also, several boxes of agricultural and scientific literature received from various American institutions. Professor N. I. Vavilov expects to return to Petrograd in February, 1922, after a brief visit to England, Sweden and Germany. Since mail is now being accepted for Russia, all letters to Professor Vavilov may be addressed directly to him at the Bureau of Applied Botany, Morskaja, 44, Petrograd, Russia. Books and parcels should be addressed to Mr. D. N. Borodin, 110 West 40th Street (Room 1603), New York City. NEW YORK CITY D. N. BORODIN, Agricultural Explorer. MEMORIAL TO WILHELM WUNDT PROFESSOR PFEIFER, the sculptor, tells me that the sum of Mk. 25,000 is still needed for the execution in marble of his monumental bust of Wundt. Family and friends all approve the bust, which was shown last June in the Aula of the University of Leipzig, and hope that it may be transferred from plaster to the more durable material and placed per THE RHODESIAN SKULL1 Of greatest interest was the discussion of the recently unearthed Rhodesian skull at a recent meeting of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain. I do not know whether the American papers or scientific journals have published an account of it up to this time or not. You have probably had some information, but I thought you might like to have some first-hand, whether it be additional, or merely a repetition of what you have read. The skull, along with some other human bones and many bones of animals, and some very crude instruments in flint and quartz, was found by the miners of the Broken Hill Mining Company in a cave which they unearthed some 60 feet below the surface in one of the mines in southern Rhodesia. It finally found its way into the British Museum here, and of course its investigation became the happy privilege of Dr. Smith-Woodward, who gave the description and showed the skull and other fragments of bone found with it, to the Anatomical Society. The skull is in some features the most primitive one that has ever been found; at the same time it has many points of resemblance to (or even identity with) that of modern man. Fortunately, the face is perfectly preserved. The supra-orbital region is astonishingly gorilla-like, in its enormous size and its unusually great extension laterally; the cranium is almost flat on top, extending backward from the huge supra-orbital ridges, rising only a little above the level of their upper borders. It is very broad in the back, however, so that its total capacity is surprisingly large. At 1 Extract from a letter written from England to an American scientific man. least one prominent authority thinks that this man had quite as much gray matter as the average modern man. Another striking thing to be seen at the back of the skull is the evidence (in the size of the ridges and the contrasting deep impressions), of the tremendous and powerful mass of neck muscles the creature must have had. This is one of the points upon which is based the opinion that the skull is the most primitive yet found. But to get back to the face! Dr. SmithWoodward pointed out the fact that the suture of the nasal with the frontal bone is in a straight line rather than at a definite angle as in the apes; he also called attention to the small tubercle of bone in the mid-line of the nasal fossa which he says is distinctly a human trait. The zygomatic process is small. All of the bone of the face below the orbit is relatively undeveloped, but the length from the floor of the orbit to the alveolar border of the maxilla is phenomenal, as is also the length from the floor of the nasal cavity to the alveolar border of the maxilla. The palate is beautifully arched, and the teeth form a perfect horseshoe at its border. The wisdom tooth is reduced in size-another point in common with modern man and never found before in a fossil skull. Unfortunately, the mandible was not found; the closest approach that could be found in the British Museum to the type this man had, was the Heidelberg jaw, but it is a bit too short and too narrow, though the ramus is too broad. Another thing that has shocked the anthropologists is the unmistakable evidence of dental caries, and even of abscesses at the roots of the teeth. Now I guess we will have to lift the blame for caries off the shoulders of modern civilization. Won't we? In contrast to the Neanderthal man who is supposed to have walked in a crouching position (because of the rather curved femur and other bits of evidence), this man is believed to have maintained the upright position, because the femur is relatively straight and when fitted to the tibia (which was also found) presents a perfectly good, straight leg. But it would be altogether foolish for me to attempt any speculation on what I've seen! Of course, the scientific world here is much excited and many of its members are in danger of letting their imagination run away with them, but Dr. Eliot Smith at least is quoted as leaning to the belief that further study will reveal the fact that "the missing link" in the ancestry of man is represented in this individual-referring, of course to European man. The Neanderthal man would then represent a branch off of the main ancestral tree. SPECIAL ARTICLES A PRELIMINARY ATTEMPT TO TRANSMUTE LITHIUM IF an electron could be introduced into the nucleus of a lithium atom, a nucleus would be obtained which would possess the same resultant charge as a helium nucleus; if two electrons were introduced the nucleus that resulted would have the same charge as a hydrogen nucleus. Both of these products are gases the spectroscopic tests for which are of exceeding delicacy. It consequently does not appear entirely futile to subject lithium to bombardment by a stream of electrons traveling with a high velocity in the hope of causing some of them to penetrate the lithium nucleus. Experiments to this end were undertaken by the writer three years ago in the laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry of the Department of Chemistry, Cornell University. At that time it was hoped to be able to pursue the subject further with more powerful apparatus; that possibility now seems far distant so that it may not be amiss to record briefly the results of the preliminary experiments then made. The experiment consisted essentially of bombarding either metallic lithium or some salt of lithium with as powerful as possible a stream of electrons, absorbing all of the gases present after the bombardment except hydrogen and helium, compressing this unabsorbed residue into a capillary Plücker tube and examining it spectroscopically. Such a procedure introduced many serious experimental difficulties. In the first place if metallic lithium was used, it is so readily volatile that |