impurities in the gas from the burners and especially to arsenic. The slightest trace of this element at once inhibits the action of the platinum.
The success of this process has not only introduced a competitor which must eventually very much restrict the use of lead chambers, but one which possesses two important advantages, one in that it is more economical to manufacture a strong acid at once, thus doing away with concentration plants, and the other that it furnishes an acid which is free from arsenic. This may well be considered the greatest triumph of technical chemistry in the last decade.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS.
Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, professor of philosophy and education, and since the resignation of Dr. Seth Low acting-president of Columbia University, was elected president of the University on January 6 by unanimous vote of the trustees. The ceremonies of installation will take place on April 19.
Johns Hopkins University celebrated on February 21 and 22 its twenty-fifth anniversary, when President Remsen was formally installed. Dr. D. C. Oilman, president emeritus, delivered the commemorative address on the afternoon of February 21. President Remsen made his inaugural address on February 22.
'The Races of Europe,' originally published as a series of articles in this magazine, by Professor W. Z. Ripley, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and professor-elect of economics at Harvard University, has been 'crowned' by the award of the prix Bertillon of the Société d' Anthropologie of Paris.—Professor J. W. Gregory has been appointed acting head of the Geological Survey of Victoria, with a view to its reorganization.—Dr. Eugen Warming has been appointed director of the Geological Survey of Denmark.—At the meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences on January 6, M. Bouquet de la Grye, the engineer, succeeded to the presidency.
Mr. Andrew Carnegie and the descendants of Peter Cooper have respectively given $300,000 to Cooper Union, New York City, doubling the gifts made by them to the Union three years ago.—Mr. and Mrs. Harold S. McCormick, of Chicago, have founded a memorial institute for infectious diseases to commemorate their son who died recently from scarlet fever. The endowment of the institute is said to be $1,000,000. Dr. Frank Billings is president of the board of trustees and Dr. Ludvig Hektoen has been appointed director of the institute.—The Laboratory of Engineering, presented to the Stevens Institute of Technology by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, at a cost of $55,000, was dedicated on February 6.—The British National Physical Laboratory at Bushy House will be officially opened on March 19.
Dr. W. A. Herdman, F.R.S., professor of zoology at University College, Liverpool, sailed for Ceylon on December 26, 1901, to undertake for the government an investigation of the pearl oyster fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar.—Professor Ralph S. Tarr, of Cornell University, is spending the winter in geological study in Italy and will spend the spring and summer in the study of the glacial deposits of Germany and the British Isles.—Professor C. H. Eigenmann has leave of absence during March, and will visit some of the caves of western Cuba to secure a series of the cave fauna.
