at the recent anniversary meeting—Dr. William H. Welch, professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University, president; Dr. Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, vice-president; and Dr. A. L. Day, director of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, home secretary—promise an administration under which the advice of the academy may be of service to the government.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary there has been published a history of the first half century of the academy, prepared and edited by Dr. Frederick W. True, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution under the charge of a committee of which Dr. Arnold Hague, the home secretary, was chairman. From this volume we take the portraits of the seven distinguished men of science who have successively been presidents of the academy.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We record with regret the death of Dr. Lester F. Ward, professor of sociology at Brown University, formerly paleontologist of the U. S. Geological Survey, and of Professor William Morris Fontaine, for thirty-one years professor of natural history and geology in the University of Virginia.
Under the present admistration Dr. B. T. Galloway, chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, has been appointed assistant secretary of agriculture and Professor Adolph C. Miller, who holds the chair of economics and commerce in the University of California, first assistant secretary of the interior. Dr. Hugh M. Smith has been promoted to be commissioner of fisheries. Dr. John Bassett Moore, professor of international law and diplomacy in Columbia University, has been appointed counsellor to the department of state.
The National Academy of Sciences has elected the following new members: Henry Andrews Bumstead, professor of physics, Yale University; L. E. Dickson, professor of mathematics, University of Chicago; Ross G. Harrison, professor of comparative anatomy, Yale University; Gilbert Newton Lewis, professor of physical chemistry, University of California; A. O. Leuschner, professor of astronomy, University of California; Lafayette B. Mendel, professor of physiological chemistry, Yale University; George H. Parker, professor of zoology, Harvard University; L. V. Pirsson, professor of geology, Yale University; Edward B. Rosa, chief physicist, Bureau of Standards; Erwin F. Smith, pathologist in charge, Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture.
The American Philosophical Society at its stated meeting on April 19 elected the following members: Dr. George F. Atkinson, professor of botany, Cornell University; Dr. Charles Edwin Bennett, professor of the Latin language and literature, Cornell University; Dr. John Henry Comstock, professor of entomology and invertebrate zoology, Cornell University; Luther P. Eisenhart, professor of mathematics, Princeton University; George Washington Goethals, U.S.A., chief of engineers of the Panama Canal; William Crawford Gorgas, assistant surgeon general, U.S.A.; Dr. Ross Granville Harrison, professor of comparative anatomy, Yale University; George Augustus Hulett, professor of physical chemistry, Princeton University; Dr. Clarence Erwin McClung, professor of zoology, University of Pennsylvania; John Dyneley Prince, professor of Semitic languages, Columbia University; Dr. Samuel Rea, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company; Dr. Henry Norris Russell, professor of astronomy, Princeton University; Witmer Stone, curator of ornithology of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Three foreign members were elected as follows: Sir Arthur John Evans, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Sir Joseph Larmor, Lucasian professor of mathematics, Cambridge; and Dr. Arthur Schuster, secretary of the Royal Society, London.
