so happily executed. A little while since, it is not likely that the United States would have paid Japan to refrain from killing animals which we regard as ours. The execution of such a treaty promises well for the possibility of similar efforts to preserve the sperm whales and for engaging in other enterprises of international conservation.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We record with regret the death of Dr. Carl Beck, of St. Mark's Hospital, New York City; of Dr. I. W. Blackburn, pathologist at Washington, and of Sir Rupert Boyce, professor of pathology in the University of Liverpool.
Dr. Robert A. Harper, professor of botany in the University of Wisconsin, has been elected Torrey professor of botany at Columbia University.—Mr. Leonhard Stejneger has been appointed head curator of the department of biology in the U. S. National Museum to succeed Dr. F. W. True.
Dr. Abraham Jacobi, emeritus professor in Columbia University, was elected president of the American Medical Association, at the Los Angeles meeting.—Professor William G. Raymond, dean of the College of Applied Science at the State University of Iowa, has been elected president of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education.
The University of Göttingen has conferred the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy upon Professor Albert A. Michelson, head of the department of physics at the University of Chicago, and retiring president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.—The George Washington University has conferred the honorary degree of doctor of medicine on Dr. L. O. Howard, chief of the Bureau of Entomology and permanent secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for "distinguished services to science in relation to preventive medicine."
The building named for Dr. Edward Williams Morley at the Western Reserve University and devoted to the departments of chemistry and geology, occupied this year for the first time, was opened for formal public inspection during commencement week. The building contains a tablet, bearing testimony to Dr. Morley 's work in science, and to his thirty-seven years of active service in Western Reserve University.
