DR. WALDEMAR T. SCHALLER has severed his connection with the Great Southern Sulphur Co., Inc., of New Orleans, La., and has returned to the United States Geological Survey, Washington, D. C.

PROFESSOR CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN, of the University of Chicago, has been invited to deliver a lecture on Cycads before the Botanical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He goes as the guest of the association, which meets at Cardiff, Wales, on August 24.

PROFESSORS L. E. DICKSON, of the University of Chicago, and L. P. Eisenhart, of Princeton University, have been elected delegates of the American section of the International mathematical union to attend the meeting of the union at the University of Strasbourg beginning September 18, 1920.

DR. F. BURT WOLBACH, of Harvard Medical School, who has been abroad for six months in an effort to establish definitely the organism causing typhus, has returned to the United States.

DR. ARTURO GARCIA Y CASARIEGO, assistant professor of pathologic anatomy and histology of the School of Medicine of the University of Havana, has been designated by the government to make a trip abroad to study matters relating to the teaching of these subjects. Dr. Gillermo Díaz y Macias, professor of practical pharmacy, has been commissioned to study the organization of pharmacologic laboratories abroad.

THE Harveian Oration of the Royal College of Physicians, London, will be delivered by Sir Frederick Andrews on October 18; the Horace Dobell lecture by Sir William Leishman on November 2; the Bradshaw lecture by D. R. C. B. Wall on November 4; and the FitzPatrick lectures on the History of Medicine by Dr. E. G. Browne, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, November 9 and 11.

Ir is stated in Nature that the Rayleigh Memorial Committee has decided that the memorial to the late Lord Rayleigh in Westminster Abbey shall take the form of a mural tablet to be erected near the memorials to

Sir Humphry Davy and Dr. Thomas Young. The execution of the tablet will be entrusted to Mr. Derwent Wood. It is expected that after all expenses are met there will be a balance remaining, and this the committee proposes shall be used to establish a library fund at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, with which Lord Rayleigh was closely associated.

DR. WALTER FAXON, in charge of mollusca and crustacea in the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University, from 1886 until about five years ago, and previously assistant professor of zoology at the university, died on August 10. Dr. Faxon graduated from Harvard College in the class of seventy-one.

THE death is announced of Professor Felix Guyon, a former president of the Paris Academy of Medicine, head of the Hôpital Necker and known for his work on the diseases of the urino-genital organs.

THE Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society announces the following deaths among mathematicians: Professor P. van Geer, on October 3, 1919, at the age of seventyeight years; Professor M. Haid, of the Karlsruhe technical school, on November 15, 1919; Professor A. Boersch, at Homburg; Professor R. Heger, at Dresden, at the age of seventy-three years; Professor Paul Stäckel, of the University of Heidelberg, on December 13, at the age of fifty-seven years; Professor R. Malstroem, of the department of mechanics at the technical school at Helsingfors.

THE United States Civil Service Commission announces for September 21, 1920, an open competitive examination for Naturalist on the Steamer Albatross in the Bureau of Fisheries at $2,200 a year with a possible bonus of $20.00 a month. Competitors are not required to report for examination at any place but will be rated on education, experience and thesis or publication. Further information may be obtained by application to the Civil Service Commission, Washington, D. C.

A FIRST-HAND study of Alaskan reindeer and land fur-bearing animals is now being made

by Dr. E. W. Nelson, chief of the Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture, and several specialists belonging to the staff of the bureau. Dr. Nelson will spend from two to three months in Alaska, while the other specialists will be in Alaska under permanent appointment acquiring information which will be valuable in the administration of new duties assigned to the Department of Agriculture by recent acts of Congress, namely, the improvement of reindeer herds as a source of meat in the Territory, fox farming, and the protection of land fur-bearing animals. One of the men accompanying Dr. Nelson-Dr. Seymour Hadwenwas formerly connected with the health of animals branch of the Canadian department of agriculture. He and a new member of the the staff, formerly connected with the Alaska Reindeer Service of the Department of the Interior, are devoting their attention to diseases among the reindeer. Two other members of the party, formerly grazing examiners with the Forest Service, are investigating the grazing areas of Alaska to determine the regions best suited to the reindeer.

THE timber on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska is said in a report issued by the United States Forest Service to be of particular importance in connection with the paper situation. It is estimated that there are about seventy billion board feet in Sitka, spruce and western hemlock well suited for paper making. The timber is located in a comparatively narrow belt along some 1,200 miles of coast line. Water power is available, as is also deep water transportation from numerous mill sites. It is estimated that the cut from this region alone would insure a perpetual supply large enough to meet one half of the present newsprint requirements of the United States. Alaska is one of the centers to which the newsprint industry of the United States should look for a large future development, says the report. The same is true of centers in the west where immense resources of pulp wood supply are now almost wholly undeveloped. Much of this timber is in the national forests. To bring about

properly the development of the pulp and paper industry in new regions of abundant timber supplies the report recommends a comprehensive survey to furnish exact information upon the stand and location of suitable timber and other needed data.

IN connection with the meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union in Washington, D. C., this year, the local committee plans to hold an exhibit showing the history and development of zoological illustration as applied to birds, including original drawings, paintings and photographs. The pictures, which may be mounted on cards, but not framed, will be exhibited under glass in the Library of Congress where the exhibit will be held together a month or more. So far the consensus of opinion is that to keep the exhibit within bounds, each artist shall be limited to original drawings or paintings and each photographer to 2 prints.

AN advisory council for the Board of Surveys and Maps was organized, at a meeting held in Washington, Monday, July 12, to serve as an agency through which the Board can reach the map-using public and the public offer suggestions or criticisms regarding the work of the various bureaus of the Federal Government engaged in making surveys and maps. The Board of Surveys and Maps has greatly increased the cooperation between the different government bureaus and has established a central office from which information may be obtained regarding any map published by any government bureau. It remains for the public to utilize the facilities offered in the same spirit of cooperation. The advisory council consists of twenty or more representatives of the various national engineering, scientific, and map-issuing associations of the country who are interested in improving the efficiency of the government map-making agencies and the character and usefulness of the maps produced. It is hoped that suggestions of unmet needs, improvements in technique, or ways in which the government maps and engineering information can be made more useful to the map-using citizens

of the country will be sent to the officers of the Council, Edward B. Mathews, chairman, National Research Council, or A. G. Seiler, secretary, Touring Bureau, A. A. A., Riggs Building, Washington, D. C.

THE annual meeting of the Society for Extending Rothamsted Experiments was held on June 18 at Rothamsted, Harpenden. Mr. J. F. Mason presided. It was reported by Dr. E. J. Russell, director, that the work of the station had again become normal. The staff was now complete, and operations active in all departments. The staff of the station at present numbers 70, and there are large laboratories and a 300-acre farm. The Ministry of Agriculture has now asked that the station shall undertake the study of the diseases of plants, and although the work has been begun the present facilities are quite inadequate. It is proposed to buy an adjoining site to build there a special laboratory for this work. For this £4,000 is needed, and half will be provided by the government. The remainder has to be found privately, and a fourth of the amount has already been subscribed.

ACCORDING to an Associated Press despatch an expedition fitted out by the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography of Stockholm has left Yokahama to make a scientific survey of the peninsula of Kamchatka. The work will last for at least two years. The members of the expedition are from the University of Stockholm and are under the direction of Even Bergman. They are prepared for a zoological, botanical ethnographical, geological and geographical survey of the whole penin

sula. The collections will be donated to the Swedish Geographical Society and to the University of Stockholm. Kamchatka is known to have a rich and varied flora and fauna, but it is comparatively unknown to scientists. The plant life is particularly interesting, as it is unusually extensive for the high latitude, and many of the forms belong to regions much farther south. Birds and animals are numerous, and as far as known are similar to those of Alaska.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
NEWS

THE Harvard University School of Medicine has received $350,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation for the development of psychiatry, and $300,000 for the development of obstetric teaching.

MR. M. DOUGLAS FLATTERY, an American, has presented the Institute of Bacteriology at Lyons with 100,000 francs for an annual scholarship for a student who will specialize in laboratory work on the bacteriology of infectious diseases.

AT the University of Minnesota Dr. W. H. Hunter has been appointed professor of chemistry and acting head of the division of organic chemistry; Dr. C. A. Mann, professor of industrial chemistry and acting head of the division of industrial chemistry; Dr. G. H. Montillon, associate professor of industrial chemistry, and Dr. R. E. Kirk, of Iowa State College, assistant professor in general chemistry.

DR. DANIEL STARCH, of the University of Wisconsin, has become associate professor of psychology in the school of business administration at Harvard University.

PROFESSOR JAMES NEWTON MICHIE, assistant professor of mathematics in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, has been appointed adjunct professor in the department of applied mathematics at the University of

sity of Amsterdam, has been appointed professor of mathematics; Professor R. von Mises, of the Dresden technical school, has been appointed professor of applied mathematics, and Dr. Issai Schur has been promoted to a full professorship of mathematics. Professor C. Carathéodory has resigned, to accept a professorship at the National University of Athens.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE EFFICIENCY IN THERMAL CALCULATIONS

THERE is something wrong with the commonly accepted definitions used in calculating efficiency when applied to thermal phe

nomena.

Take the following case as an example. An ice-making machine is placed in a room that requires heating. Let us calculate the efficiency of the operation of heating the room. Assuming the machine to be operated by an electric motor, the heat supplied to the room consists of two parts, the heat equivalent of the electric current, and the heat withdrawn from the water in making ice. As the entire machine is located in the room, there are no losses, all friction being utilized as useful heat. We therefore have a case where the useful heat is greater than the heat we paid for, or an efficiency of over 100 per cent.

For another illustration, consider the heating of a room by an electric heater. The efficiency is 100 per cent., as all the energy of the current goes into the room. But this same current could have been used to run machinery in the room, such as fans, sewing machines, etc., that would have returned all the heat to the room eventually. Should not this additional work be considered in calculating the efficiency of the outfit?

There is one long established law that gives the clue to more suitable definitions of thermal heat units. Carnot established the fact that the efficiency of an ideal heat engine was equal to (T,-T2)/T, where T, equals the absolute temperature of the source of heat and T2 the temperature of the exhaust. In other words the work that it is possible to obtain from heat depends upon the difference

2

in temperature as well as upon the calories present.

Our efficiency terms would be of more practical value if instead of using the calories we should use a modified heat unit consisting of the calory multiplied by the ratio referred to above, taking the value T, as the lowest temperature of the surrounding air, condenser water, etc.

This would, of course, increase the mathematical difficulties, but why say that a boiler has an efficiency of 80 per cent. when but one third of that 80 per cent. can be used by an ideal engine. This method would also bring out forcibly the tremendous losses in heating houses by coal, without making use of the power as a by-product. The inefficiency of the steam locomotive is frequently commented upon, but the inefficiency of raising the temperature of a house 10° F. is so much greater that it should be made evident to all.

There is one serious objection to the use of a ratio such as that of Carnot's cycle as part of a unit of heat. That is, is Carnot's cycle the best possible cycle? None other has been developed as yet, but we have not established the proposition that none can be developed. ALLAN W. FORBES

WORCESTER, MASS.

IN Mr. Forbes's interesting communication, which the editor has been good enought to let me see, he has perhaps overlooked the fact that in a reversible cycle, the efficiency being defined as the ratio of work done to heat taken in for a motor, always less than unity, if the efficiency of a freezing machine or heating plant be defined as the ratio of heat taken up to work done, this will be the reciprocal of the efficiency of the motor, and consequently greater than unity. Evidently the efficiency will be greater the smaller the temperature interval to be covered. This was pointed out many years ago by Lord Kelvin, who called attention to the enormous waste in heating a house, the difference of temperature employed being that from the red heat of combustion of the coal to the temperature desired, when all that is needed is the small

range between indoor and outdoor temperatures. Lord Kelvin actually proposed to heat a house by a reversed heat engine or refrigerating machine. I am not aware whether this has actually been tried in practise.

By the efficiency of a boiler we mean the ratio of the energy, contained in the hot water and steam into which it has been converted, to the amount of heat that may be realized by burning the coal. This suffices to indicate the performance of the boiler, while that of the engine is a separate thing, and suffices to compare the performance of the engine with that of a perfect engine, limited as it is by the second law of thermodynamics. Mr. Forbes casts doubt upon Carnot's cycle being the most perfect one, but that was thoroughly proved by Carnot to be the case. In fact the gas-engine and the Diesel, which approach most nearly to the Carnot cycle, have the highest efficiency that has been attained. Mr. Forbes is correct in pointing out the fact that the efficiency of electric heating is unity, a fact which interests the consumer, who in this rare case knows that the meter can not do him an injustice, and yet, for all that, this is not a cheap method of heating. Electricity can compete with the ice-man.

ARTHUR GORDON WEBSTER

REVERSAL OF THE SODIUM LINE

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: On a recent visit to a large plate-glass factory in the vicinity of Charleston, West Va., I had the good fortune to note the reversal of the wellknown sodium line "D." The instrument used was a small pocket direct-vision spectroscope, which I carry with me on technical trips.

The furnace was a 200-ton plate-glass type, gas fired; and the reversal was noted at the peep-hole near the charging end, and shortly after the introduction of a fresh charge of the "mix." The reversal was noted in the case of two furnaces, one of these giving a steady reversal, and one giving a wavering and intermittent reversal. The phenomenon was noted both by myself and also by three distinguished technical friends attendant on the

trip. Of course the reversal of the sodium lines is frequently observed in the electric arc, but this is the first instance in my experience that I have noted such reversal in a fuelfired furnace. The temperature of the furance was probably approximately 3,000° F.

The observation may be more common in the experience and observation of others; but if this brief note should prove of value, the writer will be glad to answer any detailed questions regarding this rather unique matter. I have long held the opinion that the spectroscope has not been-and is not yetused for its full technical worth in the practical arts.

CHARLES S. PALMER

UNITED FUEL GAS Co., CHARLESTON, West Va.

THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION AND RESEARCH

IN THE COLLEGES

IN a paper on college government and the teacher's salary, in the 14th annual report of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the statement is made that much of what passes for research in American universities is only imitation research, which is detracting from the quality of the teaching to which the students are entitled. The conclusion is drawn, by inference at least, that the large sums of money spent on this kind of research could be expended much more profitably in strengthening the teaching work. It is unnecessary to debate the correctness of the writer's judgment as to the quality of the research work done in the universities. A large part of the research work done everywhere is mediocre or poor and it would be surprising indeed if this did not imply also to the colleges. No doubt the work done in some institutions is inferior to that of some others just as the teaching is of different degrees of perfection. It seems, however, that the writer has entirely overlooked one aspect of research work which in the colleges should be given the most serious consideration.

For many years the appreciation of the value of research has been growing in this country. This interest has been greatly stim