A large section of Tuscany, particularly the region around Monte Amiata, was visited by a quake on January 8 that lasted twelve seconds, damaging the towns of Abbadia, San Salvatore, Pian Castagnajo, Radicofani, Castel del Piano, and Arcidosso.. On March 4 a severe earthquake took heavy toll of life in the Peloponnesus. A cliff, shaken from a mountain side, rolled down into a valley, crushing a passenger train and killing many of the passengers. One hundred and ninety houses collapsed during a heavy quake at Denizli, Asia Minor, on March 16, seven persons being killed and many injured. Despatches from Sebastopol reported a series of geological disturbances advancing out of the Caucasus Mountains and traveling toward the Black Sea, at the rate of about seven feet a day. The movement was especially noticeable in the Crimean Peninsula between Sebastopol and Yalta, making both railroads and highways impassable. Half of the resort city of Alupka was reported destroyed and serious damage was wrought at Yalta. A quake which occurred on the 26th of June seriously damaged the museum at Candia, Crete. The total damage on the island was estimated at about $150,000, and 10,000 people were forced to camp out because of the destruction of or damage to their homes. The minaret of St. Titus' Church was thrown out of plumb and leans like the Tower of Pisa. On the same day the village of Arkhangelo, on the Island of Rhodes, was wiped out and many other towns were seriously damaged. thousand buildings were destroyed. Several Central Sumatra was visited by a quake on June 28. The Governor's residence at Padang and the homes of many Europeans were badly damaged. That and the shocks that followed during the period of a week resulted in the death of 222 people. Santa Barbara, Cal., experienced a shock on July 29, the anniversary of the tremblor that last year wrecked the business district. A toppling chimney killed one child. Styria, in lower Austria, was visited by an earthquake on July 7. Hardly a building in the town remained untouched. On August 3 a quake, whose ceater was about eleven miles seaward from Tokyo, was strong enough in the Japanese capital to put the lighting system temporarily out of commission, burst water mains, and interrupt tramway lines. A large area, extending almost through the whole midland counties and as far south as Barnet, within ten miles of London, was visited by a series of shocks on the 15th of August. A destructive earthquake wrecked the city of Horta In the Azores, killed half a dozen people, and inJured some 400 on Aug. 31. The quake also produced a tidal wave which added to the destruction. Returning to Seattle, Wash., Nov. 3, 1925, the United States Coast Guard cutter Algonquin reported the greatest volcanic activity in the Alaskan Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands since Mount Katmal erupted in 1912. Prof. Wilbur A. Nelson, geologist of the University of Virginia, found evidences of a huge volcanic eruption in prehistoric Kentucky, which scattered ashes over a region from the Great Lakes to Alabama and far to the east and west. It apparently stood on the edge of the great Lowville Sea in Ordovician times, when the only living things upon the earth appeared to be the brachiopods and similar beginnings of early life. The cone is estimated to have contained sixty-six cubic miles of ash. Deposits attributed to this eruption include a layer of white clay an inch thick in Minneapolis. In Kentucky, beds 6 and 7 feet thick have been found which are also attributed to it. A new volcano on Albemarle Island, of the Galapagos group, off the coast of Ecuador, was seen to be in eruption on the 5th of January. Lassen Peak, the only active volcano in continental United States, was in eruption on the 23d of February. Arrangements were made by the Geological Survey and the National Park Service for continuous observation of Lassen Peak under the direction of Dr. Thomas A. Jaggar, who has heretofore been volcanologist in charge of the station in the Kilauea section of the Hawailan National Park. The discovery of a large vent in the southeast side of the peak caused Dr. Jaggar to establish the observation station at King Meadows, instead of at Mineral. A lava river flowing down the sides of Mauna Loa, Hawall, wiped out the village of Hoopuloa and rushed on, boiling into the sea on the 18th of April. Dr. Thomas A. Jaggar predicted the eruption and warned the people of Hilo of its coming. The Observatory keeps a record of the scores of earthquakes felt on Mauna Loa each week, showing what takes place just before, during, and after the tion. From the time of the beginning of the pa Inary outbreak on April 10 to the end of the of shocks on April 28, 647 quakes were recorde Observatory seismographs. A Coast and Geodetic Survey expedition the United States in September and plans to a study of the value of gravity at the crate Kilauea and Mauna Loa and at the seaport of Hilo, Hawaii, in December, 1926, after ta part in the longitudinal determinations at Hon in October and November. Bogoslof Island, on the south side of Bering was in heavy eruption on the 17th of August ENGINEERING. A world study of insulation, to solve the pro of leakage of electric current, was being made di the year under the direction of the Research c mittee of the American Institute of Elect Engineering and the National Research Cou with Prof. John B. Whitehead of Johns Hop University as the Director of the research. A new instrument was brought out whie altitudes of one mile measures elevation a eight times as accurately as the ordinary barom The apparatus is electrical and is based on the that a heated object cools more quickly in ad than in a rare air. This cooling affects the trical resistance of the wire employea, the mea ment of which gives a change in altitude. The Baden-Baden, the first rotor ship to croS Atlantic, arrived in New York from Hambury May, after covering 6,200 miles in thirty-e days. The sonic depth finder, by which the time takes a sound to reach the bottom of the ocean to return to the ship can be measured, has perfected at the Washington Navy Yard, makes possible the determination of the dept! water beneath the ship equipped therewith at stage of the journey across the seas. With itse section of the floor of the ocean can be accurs plotted with the ship traveling at its normal sp Employing artificial wind velocities of more t 700 miles per hour, the Bureau of Standards proved that thin metal propellers are more effic than built-up or laminated wood propellers airplane construction. Work accomplished during the year indie that the $100,000,000 project to make the C River navigable the year round from Pittsburg! Cairo, III., will be completed in 1929. The 1 nage for 1925 amourted to 15,737,000 tons, against 10,866,000 tons in 1924. Through the completion of a powerful underw electric cable, Danish municipalities are now to get light and power from Swedish water on the Lagan River. The State of Maine, by popular lar vote, rath the bill passed by the legislature for the deve ment of tidal power in the Bay of Fundy. estimated that the cost of harnessing tides will about $100,000,000, but that the power det will be equivalent to that produced by the bur of $10,000,000 worth of coal annually. The world's fastest cable, the nineteenth to the Atlantic, was completed in September. Thro the use of permalloy it has been given a sped 2,500 letters per minute. The last contract was let for the completion the new Welland Canal, the first link in a water scheme which will ultimately permit ocean to reach Duluth, Chicago, and Cleveland. Radio photographs were successfully transmi from England to America in May through stations of the Radio Corporation of America the Marconi Wireless Company of England. Associated Press news was telephoned across Atlantic through the American Telephone Telegraph Company's wireless telephones in M Dr. Curt P. Richter of Johns Hopkins Univer with a string galvonometer and specially constru electrodes, was able to measure the intensity sleep. The galvonometer registered the chat in the electrical resistance of the body of the se ing person. Heart beats were successfully recorded on pho graph records and reproduced before a clas physicians at the Massachusetts General Hosp In June. A new method of engraving charts and ma metal was perfected by the Hydrographie of the Navy Department. The machine which this is accomplished is known as the pa graver. With It engravers can compile charts maps directly on metal printing plates, and pense with the preparation of a finished dra beforehand. With the machine 4,500 figur ky can be produced as contrasted with 300 by a illed hand engraver. A $100,000 dam was being built on the San Joaquin ver, California, for the purpose of watching its struction and therefrom determining various destions of dam engineering. Construction was begun on a $6,000,000 port aminal at Albany, N. Y., which will permit 80 cent. of the shipping coming into the Port of York to discharge and receive cargo at Albany soon as the work of deepening the Hudson to feet is completed. The Holland vehicular tunnel under the Hudson ver was being pushed to completion during the Its length is 9,250 feet and its capacity is pposed to be 46,000 vehicles a day. The world's longest tube, though not its longest bsay, running sixteen and one-half miles from arth to South London, and serving 2,500,000 eople, was opened Sept. 13. The Moffat tunnel, six miles long, through the loky Mountains, is rapidly nearing completion. opening will cut down the distance between ever and Salt Lake City 173 miles. Provision be made for the transportation of automobiles cars through the tunnel at certain hours flat the day. A tunnel seven and three-quarter miles long ercing the Cascade Mountains was begun by the Feat Northern Railroad. It will shorten the reat Northern line eighteen miles, lower the sum1,000 feet, and eliminate 2,000 degrees, which quivalent to nearly 6 circles of track curvature. The Delaware River bridge, costing $30,000,000 connecting Camden, N. J., with Philadelphia, 18 opened July 1. It has a capacity of 6,000 Meles an hour. Four trolley lines cross it and it a57-foot roadway and two 10-foot walks for Mestrians. Ground was broken in September for two bridges hich will connect Staten Island with New Jerseyleone from Tottenville to Perth Amboy, and the her from Howland Hook to Elizabeth. The world's largest and most powerful locomotive electric giant 152 feet long, made up of series of units and developing 7,125 horsepower put into operation on the Virginian Railway. The State of Washington has undertaken a udy of the proposal to build a thirty-two-mile tomobile and railroad tunnel through the Cascade dountains. A committee appointed by the last alature is expected to report on the feasibility the plan. GEOGRAPHY. General-Sir Eric Geddes, at the annual meeting of the shareholders of the Imperial Airways, declared at if the first India air service of the company, Cairo to Karachi, proves successful when Bablished, there will be extensions to Bombay, Bleutta, Rangoon, and Singapore. Direct airplane service from Florida to Cuba nd South America was established early in the eat. The Army Aviation Service has developed a amera with which it can take photographs at unmal distances. Pictures taken at 3,200 feet devation are so clear in detail that pedestrians on he streets are shown. Preparations were being Bade to take pictures of Detroit from Dayton, 118 miles away. With such cameras, the mapping great reaches of territory will be much expedited, and surveys of large expanses of coasts and harbors. all lands, and mountain regions will be much simplined. Nothing since the return of Christopher Columbus from his voyage of exploration has excited as much Interest in Spain as the return of the intrepid aviators Franco, Ruiz de Alda, Duran, and Pablo Rada, after their flight across the Atlantic to Argentina. They reached Buenos Aires on Feb. 10, having left Palos, Spain, Jan. 22. The plane in which they made their trans-Atlantic flight was a Plus Ultra. They made the 6,232-mile flight from Palos to Buenos Aires. in sixty-two hours and fifty-two nutes. Bernardo Duggan, starting his flight from New York May 24, arrived In Buenos Aires Aug. 13, after numerous mishaps to his plane. The English aviator Sir Alan Cobham flew from London to Cairo and thence to the Cape of Good Hope in ninety hours flying time, the distance covered being approximately 8,000 miles. He when returned to London from Cape Town by way of Sollum, Athens and Paris. His next adventure was a 28,000-mile round trip from London to MelDourne. This gave him the world's record for flight listance in a single year. Two of the Spanish aviators who started from Madrid on April 5 reached Manila on May 13. The Increased flying range of airplanes in con stant service, as demonstrated by the foregoing and many other major flights in 1926, points to a vast development of airways during the years which lie immediately ahead. The Marchese de Pinedo, with a lone mechanician assistant, finished a 35,000-mile flight successfully, going from Rome via the Malay Peninsula and around Australia to the Philippines, and returning via Japan and Calcutta. Asia-Sir Aurel Stein reported that amid the hills and crags of the upper domain of the Ahkoond of Swat he found the site of ancient Aornos, the great rock that, according to legend, resisted the assault of Hercules but fell before Alexander the Great and his Macedonian warriors. The Netherlands expedition to the Karakoram Range, under the leadership of P. C. Visser, reported that it visited the Hunza Valley and then branched off into the Bara-Khun Valley, which drains a vast region of glaciers and peaks of more than 22,000 feet elevation. It explored much of the adjacent region and reported that it contains the largest expanses of ice in the world outside of the polar regions. William J. Morden and James L. Clark spent the season in making a reconnaissance of SouthCentral Asia for future expeditions. North America-The United States Navy sent an expedition, made up of picked naval aviators, photographers, and mechanics, and equipped with three amphibian planes, to Alaska to make an aerial survey of 40,000 square miles of the Alaskan Peninsula. The expedition was commanded by Lieut. B. H. Wyatt. Twelve Federal Bureaus co-operated with the Navy in making the survey the most thorough ever undertaken from the air in large scale work. Revillagigedo Island and the adjacent mainland proved to be a veritable mine of white coal, with total water power when united into one system amounting to 85,000 horse power. It was suggested that this would make an ideal location for the manufacture of wood pulp, with vast supplies of timber close at hand. The rumor extant for fifteen years of a wonderful tropical valley in the midst of icy plains somewhere in the Candian Northwest was found by an aviator, Col. Williams, and his mechanic Caldwell, to have a basis in fact. They reported such a valley some fifty miles long, with steam arising from innumerable hot springs a sort of Canadian Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The Canadian Geological Survey named a peak in Eastern Canada Mount Collins, in honor of Prof. J. Franklin Collins, United States Department of Agriculture. The Canadian Government also named one of the high peaks of the Canadian Rockies Mount Jobe, in honor of Mrs. Carl Akeley of New York-Mary L. Jobe having been her maiden name. Lieut. Eugene C. Batten, assisted by Lieuts. Edward C. Plank and J. T. King, mapped from the alr a large stretch of the boundary between the United States and Canada, using the big cameras of the Army Air Service. Three volcanoes were added to the map of American territory as a result of the United States GeologIcal Survey activities in the Aleutian Island region of Alaska, under the leadership of R. H. Sargent. One having a crater six and one-quarter miles in diameter, was named Aniakchak Crater, the second Purple Crater, and the third Wenfaminoff. A topographic and geologic mapping of the north coast of Alaska in connection with Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 has been undertaken by joint forces of the Navy and the Geological Survey. Capt. Gerhard Folgera and three companions sailing from Bergen, Norway, May 17, in a 42-foot Viking boat, the Leif Ericson, reached the Philadelphia Navy Yard on Aug. 22, after touching the Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. South America-A United States Hydrographic Office air reconnaissance over the jungles of the coast region of Colombia came near to ending disastrously. Engaged in getting photographs from the air for the construction of navigation charts, Lieut. L. A. Pope and his associates found engine trouble that threatened a forced landing in the very midst of a district peopled with head-hunters. Dr. Herbert S. Dickey and his bride of a few mouths led a party from Guayaquil, Ecuador, across the Andes, and into the lands of the head-hunters of the headwaters of the Amazon. Because Dr. Dickey was able to save one of the members of the tribe from death by snake polson, his party was given a kindly reception and permitted to film their head-curing activities. He states that headhunting is a penalty enforced only on those enemies which steal their women. Commander George M. Dyott led an expedition to Brazil for the purpose of following the trail of the late Col. Theodore Roosevelt down the Rio Theodore. It was the plan of Commander Dyott to remain in the jungle for two years getting a motion picture record of the region. Europe-Commandant Paul Hellbronner, a French geodetic expert, succeeded in sending a beam of light from the French coast to Corsica, a distance of 160 miles, at an altitude of 8,400 feet. With data thus gathered he was able to produce accurate computations as to the curvature of the earth's surface, and therefrom to determine that the Island of Corsica has been moving toward the coast of Italy at the rate of 9 inches a year. Africa-Major and Mrs. Curt Treatt of London made a motor car journey from the Cape to Cairo for the purpose of mapping motor transport routes for the future. The going at times was immensely difficult; at one place five days were required to advance only 7,000 yards. G. Londt succeeded in reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro, the noblest mountain in Africa. Its height is 19,328 feet. Prof. Schwartz, returning to Johannesburg from an expedition in behalf of the Ethnological Museum, announced that he had found the Lake Ngami area In the Zambesi country to be a vast expanse of grass, supporting numerous large herds of cattle. In a Fossils collected by a party of scientists sent oud by Princeton University and the Smithsonian Insti tion tend to confirm the theory that Europe and America were connected by a land bridge during the Paleozoic Age. Further study will be made with a view to ascertaining whether these fossils confim or oppose the Wegener theory of drifting continent a theory arising out of the fact that the conforma tions of the shore lines of North America harmonis with those of Europe, while that of South America dovetails into that of Africa in jigsaw puzale fashion. Through the study of microscopic toothlike fossla called conodonts, the Smithsonian Institution hat given the oil industry a new method of locating petroleum deposits. They occur almost entiraj In the oll-bearing shales of the Paleozoic strata and doubtless are all that remain of minute primitiw fishes that swarmed the Paleozoic seas and whow flesh contributed much toward the formation petroleum. Where they are found the geologis is reasonably sure to discover oil. The torsion balance was used successfully is locating mineral and oll deposits. Its extreme sensitivity enables it to register the difference in gravity where minerals are present and where the are not. It also detects salt domes out of whleng much of the world's oil has been secured. A method of retaining the gas in petroleum 200-mile voyage up Botletle River the expedition brought to the surface has been worked out and found the forests gradually drying and being replaced by thorn trees. Oceanographic-Lieut. Leo P. Delsasso, United States Naval Reserve, who is physicist at the University of California, has perfected a depth sounder which not only shows the depth of the ocean as the ship sails over it, but automatically makes a chart thereof. This not only advises the navigator of the depth at a particular moment but shows gradients, approach or recedence of shallows, and in general gives warning of any untoward condition beneath the waters on whose surface the ship is riding. The Navy Aircraft tender Patoka on a trip from Port Arthur to Key West encountered, north of the western end of Cuba, a phosphorescent sea so bright that a newspaper could be read on open deck at night. The wake showed marked red and green colors besides the phosphorescent hue. The Netherlands submarine K-XIII arrived at San Francisco Aug. 24, on what is said was the longest voyage ever attempted by an undersea craft. The vessel left Helder, Holland, May 27, and planned to return by way of the Dutch East Indies. Studies relative to the ellipticity of the Equator and investigations concerning the bottom of the seas are being made en route. In his search of the Pacific Islands for clues to their past, Dr. Herbert E. Gregory, director of Bishop Polynesium Museum, Honolulu, reached the conclusion that these islands were virtually treeless and plantless before their settlement by man. GEOLOGY. At the May meeting of the American Geophysical Union the opinion was expressed that the core of the earth is a ball of solid iron or iron-nickel alloy nearly 4,000 miles in diameter. Dr. P. R. Heyl of the Bureau of Standards announced the continuance of his work of weighing the earth, and Dr. R. B. Sosman, of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution announced the conclusion that the depth of the surface crust is about thirty-six miles. Dr. W. J. Humphreys of the Weather Bureau asserted that the evidence in hand points to the conclusion that the oceans came from the inside of the earth, the water locked up in the earth's interior being blown off as steam through voicanoes and fumaroles, and condensed to form seas. In the test to find the earth's exact weight Dr. P. R. Heyl employs the torsion balance. It is sensitive to forces of attraction which can be ex pressed only in millionths of a grain. The apparatus is constructed on the same general principle of that used by Prof. Boys which was so small that it could be placed in a silk-hat box, and employed filaments of spun quartz less than a thousandth of an inch in diameter. Through studies in atomic disintegration, Prof. Alfred C. Lane and his associates of the Geological Society of America, have reached the conclusion that the pre-Cambrian rocks were formed more than 1,500,000,000 years ago. This is three times as far as the geologists have hitherto gone in estimat ing the age of the earth, and more nearly approaches the estimates of the astronomers heretofore made. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology established a seismographic and geodetic station near Machias, Me., for the study of the causes of coastal tilt toward the sea. said to promise to treble the output of new wells. Prof. Joseph T. Singewald of Johns Hopki announced that studies made by him indicate th the Andes mountains are at least 10,000,000 yea younger than previously believed. Fossils were found at an elevation of 14,000 feet. Observations of the Swiss Topographical Bures since 1888 Indicate that the Motto d'Arbino, a moun tain 5,550 feet high near Bellinzona, is moving sto the rate of an inch a year. Large deposits of platinum were found in South Africa and Canada. Interglacial deposits of gold were found in Sweden and in western Ontario during the year. The Ontario Government acquired a deposit of helium gas at Inglewood. PALEONTOLOGY. It was Prof. C. J. E. Heberlein of the Netherlands Go ernment Medical Service discovered at Tri In Central Java, a complete skull of the histo apelike creature Pithecanthropus erectus. found at the same place that Prof. Eugene Dubois of Amsterdam University discovered in 1892 the upper part of a skull, two teeth, and a thigh bone from which was reconstructed the famous Java man Dr. Ales Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution announced that the results of his studies in Alasks and Asla leave not the slightest doubt that Asiatic peoples came to America by way of the Alaska Peninsula. At the dedication of the Evolution Museum al Yale, Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn declared that paleontology has proved the undeviating order of gradual variation. Of the hundreds of scientista present there was not an atheist and the majority were church members. A nearly complete skeleton of the big iguanodont dinosaur Trachodon was found in an Upper Cre taceous conglomerate on the Amur River, below the mouth of the Ayan, in Siberia. It seems to be closely related to Trachodon (Claosaurus) annectens from a corresponding formation in Wyomlag. Dr. Grigorovich announced the discovery, in a clay pit near Moscow, of what he believes to be the fossilized brain of a prehistoric man, together with a fragment of a second brain. Nearby he found the tooth of a mammoth. The fact that its structure showed a close similarity with the present day brain led to the conclusion that it was not a misleading freak of petrified mud. Excavations at Big Creek and West 128th Street, Cleveland, Ohlo, show beautifully preserved fishes, sharks of a primitive type, and other fossils of Devonian history. A twelve-foot tree trunk embedded in the mud of Ohio's ancient sea had been flattened and turned into a film of coal one quarter of an inch thick. Dr. Charles W. Gilmore of the Smithsonian In stitution was engaged in restoring a skeleton of the great dinosaur Diplodocus discovered by him at the Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, in 1924. The tall is 30 feet long and is composed of thirty two vertebrae. Dr. Gilmore also discovered reptile tracks 1,800 feet below the rim of the Grand Canyon dating from the Permian Age, estimated at 25.000,000 years ago. Many of them are being preserved in the United States National Museum. Dr. Byron Cummings reported the discovery of plant shoulder blade of a prehistorie elephant | Research Laboratory of the General Electric Com resty-five miles southwest of Tucson, Ariz., iu bell bed at least ten aeres in extent. Prof. Fataff of the Leningrad Academy of Science orted the finding of a frazen body of a mammoth the bank of the River Amur in eastern Siberia. The fossil shull of a species of animal related to and salamanders was found in Oklahoma described by Dr. Maurice G. Mehl of the Uniity of Missouri. It was about 5 inches wide di Inches long. The upper jaw had numerous teeth. It dates from Permian times, which the Coal Age. Artiens of a human skull, ineluding the frontal apparently belonging to the Neanderthal race, discovered at Devil's Tower, Gibraltar, by B. Garred of Oxford University. With it crude implements. Carge P. Sternberg dug up a fossil fish of the Portheus. in whose skeleton was inclosed undigested meal. This consisted of another e nearly 6 feet long. It was prepared by the States National Museum for exhibition at Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition. The feasil remains of a chordate fish were dis red in the Middle Cambrian rocks of Vermont Prol. B. F. Howell of Princeton University. Dr Herbert Bolton of the Bristol Museum diswed the remains of six-winged insects in fossil rial from Coal Age beds. letter to Dr. Charles W. Gilmore of the United National Museum, from A. Riabinion, the en seientist, announced the discovery of bones d-footed, horned, and flesh-eating dinosaurs, soft shell turtles, near Tashkend in Turkestan. Roy Chapman Andrews of the American Museum Natural History was forced to give up his Gobi rt explorations by the refusal of Chinese bandits mit him to enter Mongolia. MAJOR EVENTS SINCE OCT. 1, 1926. New Cathode Ray Tube. W. D. Coolidge, Assistant Director of the AMERICAN RED The American Red Cross operates under its arby set of Congress of Jan. 5, 1905, "to volunteer ald to the sick and wounded of in time of war in accordance with the conof Geneva; to act in matters of voluntary er and in accord with the military and naval horities as a medium of communication between De American people and their army and navy; to inue and carry on a system of national and national relief in time of peace and to apply same in mitigating the suffering caused by lence, farmine, fire, floods, and other great mal calamities, and to devise and carry on sures for preventing the same." Calvin Coolidge is President of the American Red Cross and John Barton Payne is Chairman the Central Committee, the governing body mposed of eighteen persons, six of whom repré the Federal Government. National headparets is located at Washington, D. C., and from the setivities of 3,881 chapters are directed through are diviistonal headquarters. & accounts of the American Red Cross are ted by the War Department, through which the annual report of the organization is subwed to Congress. The report for the fiscal year June 30. 1926, shows that, in addition to ensive relief through donations following disers in other countries, the Red Cross expended total of $3,871,827.10 in affording relief after two major disasters in the United States. The report shows that 2.686 chapters carried on service work for disabled veterans and their Sales, expending 33,628,178.18 for this purpose, which sum the national organization appropri$1,641,178.18. The nursing service of the organization has ento date a total of 43,503 Red Cross nurses reserve and a source of supply for the army, w. Public Health Service, United States Veterans' su, and for duty in emergency. The active enrollment of Red Cross nurses is than 27,000 who by law are a reserve of the By Nurse Corps, and by request also serve the Veterans' Bureau and the United States Ple Health Bureau. During the fsical year 57,870 students were inmed in home hygiene and care of the sick, of wich number 38,152 were school students, to Dom 28,023 certificates were issued. A total of 6616 were certificated. Public Health nurses were maintained by 568 Red Cross chapters. They 1,274,539 home visits, 49,254 school visits, and pected 1.175.128 children. The nutrition service ched an average of 15,413 individuals each month, with regular nutrition instruction; 94,000 pany, on October 20 described at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, a new cathode ray tube by which he is able to convert streams of electrons traveling at the rate of 150,000 miles a second. Us Ing 350.000 volts in the tube, he produced as many electrons as could be obtained from a ton of radium. As less than a pound of the latter had been produced in the whole world since its discovery by Mme. Curie, the importance of this new source of radiation can be imagined. With the electronic rays thus produced he was able to turn acetylene gas. into a yellow powder, castor oil into a solid, and transparent rock salt crystals into a black mass. With them, also, he was able to produce permanent negative electrical changes in certain substances; to kill bacteria, including spores; to kill fruit flies; to turn pure, crystal-clear quartz purple with streaks and clouds; to make many minerals glow with brilliant colors, some for long periods; to profoundly alter living cells, producing a scab on a rabbit's ear which, when it came off, took the hair with it, the affeeted part thereafter growing snow-white hair instead of brown twice as long as normal. The rays are brought out of the tube through a nickel plate 1-2000 of an inch in thickness, which, thin as it is, is made up of approximately 500,000 layers of nickel atoms. The interstices between the atoms are relatively so large that few of the electrons of the rays are stopped in passing through the window. Light Travels 186,173 Miles a Second. Prof. Albert A. Michelson announced before the autumn meeting of the National Academy of Science on November 8. that his work at Mt. Wilson indicates that the velocity of light is 299,796 kilometres or 186,173 miles per second. This is about 40 miles a second slower than Prof. Michelson's previous experiments had indicated. This determination is merely a refinement of previous determinations and does not necessitate any revision of our theories of light or any change in astronomical doctrines. CROSS IN 1926. persons were instructed in first aid by the surgical staff of the Red Cross first aid instruction car which visited 125 cities. About 20,000 persons completed the rigid first aid course during the year and were awarded certificates. A total of 102,076 men, women and children are now enrolled in the Red Cross Life Saving Corps. Welfare service was provided for families by 535 chapters. There were 5,549,428 school children enrolled in the American Junior Red Cross June 30, 1926. Volunteer workers in chapters during the year made 145,824 garments, 1,678,409 surgical dressings and completed 136,599 pages of Braille for the blind. Expenditures for fiscal year 1925-1926 were: $7,381,869.35 $4,511,000 Revenues of the national organization during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1926, were $3,206.743.17, or $4,175,126.18 less than expenditures. There having been at the beginning of the fiscal year a balance of $21,411,606.58, there was on June 20, 1926, a balance of $17,236,480.40. There having been budgeted for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1927, $3,942,392.69 and $9,489,193.08 set aside for specified activities, there remained on June 30, 1926, unobligated funds totaling $3,804,894.63. The membership of the American Red Cross at the end of the last fiscal year was 3,012,055 adults and 5,549,428 juniors. ARCTIC EXPLORATION IN 1926. re (By the National Geographic Society, Gilbert Grosvenor, LL.D., Litt. D., President.) On the 9th of May, at 9.02 A. M., Greenwich | Museum of Natural History of Chicago, on civil time, Lieutenant Commander Richard E. expedition financed by Frederick H. Rawson Byrd, Jr., U. S. N. (Ret.), and Floyd Bennett, in the Josephine Ford, a triple-engined Fokker airplane, flew over the North Pole, completely verifying the observations of Rear Admiral Peary and demonstrating the feasibility of using airplanes in any part of the globe. Peary was out of touch with civilization for 400 days in his conquest of the Pole. Byrd left civilization in the morning and turned the same evening. He had observed thousands of square miles of the Arctic Sea. The Bumstead sun compass was used both to guide the airship to the Pole and also to direct it back to Spitzbergen. The fact that the flight was made to the Pole and back, a total distance of 1,545 statute miles, and that on the return they found Grey Point, for which they were aiming, dead ahead, illustrates the precision of this instrument devised by Albert H. Bumstead, chief cartographer of the National Geographic Society, in polar region navigation when the sun is shining. Commander Byrd paid it the tribute of saying that without it he could not have located the Pole, and probably could not have located even Spitzbergen on the return. Vast risks were involved in the landing of the plane at Kings Bay, and in flying over the polar ice cap. When the expedition returned it was greeted with acclaim everywhere, and the Hubbard Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society was presented to Commander Byrd by President Coolidge, in recognition of his great feat. A gold medal of the society was also presented to Floyd Bennett by President Coolidge for his share in the flight. and Rowe B. Metcalf, spent the season in the Labe dor-Baffinland-South Greenland region seeki evidence of Norse habitations there during tenth century. The expedition brought ba on the Bowdoin and Sachem III. several hundr specimens of birds, fishes, and animals for t Field Museum. It discovered in Labrador 1 ruins of six buildings of rectangular shape on ro foundations, which correspond in many ways to Norse ruins in the Godthaab fiord region of Gree land. Commander MacMillan also found Eskie traditions of a fierce race of warriors known them as Tunit. The Tunit, he believes, were t Norsemen. Commander MacMillan expects spend the next five years trying to unravel ethnographic mysteries of the Labrador-Baffinlan Greenland region. The Detroit Arctic Expedition, headed by Capt. George H. Wilkins, made a dramatic effort to reach the North Pole through Point Barrow, Alaska, but after a long series of accidents and misfortunes was forced to abandon the attempt. Snow motors were tried out for transporting the camp and supplies to Point Barrow, but they failed. Then efforts were made to move the camp and equipment by airplanes and dog trains. On one of his flights from Fairbanks to Point Barrow, Capt. Wilkins made a reconnoitring dash of seventy miles off shore from Point Barrow, on March 31. In their third freighting trip between Fairbanks and Point Barrow with a single-motored monoplane he and his pilot were missing for thirteen days. Flying from Point Barrow to Fairbanks with with a patched propeller is but one example of the daring and the courage of Wilkins and his associates. But one after another his three planes went out of commission under grueling usage, and the expedition had to be abandoned. Commander Donald B. MacMillan, heading a party of nine scientists, representing the Field The Greenland Arctie expedition of the Americ Museum of Natural History, under the directi of George Palmer Putnam, and including in personnel Capt. Robert A. Bartlett, command of the Roosevelt under Peary: Knud Rasmusse the Danish explorer: Robert E. Peary, son of t discoverer of the North Pole; H. C. Raven, zool gist, of the American Museum, and Carl Dunru a Western cowboy, brought back to the Amerier Museum many trophies of Arctic life, includh narwhal, walrus, and polar bear. The expediti was financed by Harrison Williams. The voyag which began at Rye, N. Y., aboard the Diesel-engin schooner Morrissey, was filled with unusual 1 cidents and dangerous situations. July 29 ship struck a submerged rock off Northumberlat Island and was threatened with destruction. Aft removing the cargo it was floated off. August 1 a walrus herd was encountered and after one the most desperate fights in Arctic history mat walrus were taken. When one giant bull waln was on the very point of capsizing the whalebo Capt. Bartlett, his rifle ammunition exhauste plunged a native spear into the body of the enrag bull, killing him therewith, and saving the da A little later narwhal were sighted, and several them captured. At another time Carl Dunrt lassoed two polar bear cubs, which, with the mother, had been found adrift on an iceberg, b not before their mother had almost swamped fl yawl and had been killed in the nick of time. R turning home the Morrissey struck ice and lo both her propeller and shaft, making the remaind of the trip under canvas. This expedition ali brought back Prof. William H. Hobbs, of the Un versity of Michigan, and party, who had spent th summer in South Greenland engaged in meteort logical observations. THE AMUNDSEN-ELLSWORTH-NOBILE TRANSPOLAR FLIGHT. The Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile transpolar flight | A. M., May 12, the airship was slowed down, fron of 1926 was a continuation of the 1925 Arctic exploration plans plans of Capt. Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth and was officially sponsored by the Aero Club of Norway. A semi-rigid airship 347 feet over all in length (about half the size of the Shenandoah), with three 250-horse power Maybach dirigible engines, capable of making 62 miles an hour; a gas capacity of 640,000 cubic feet, built by Italy as the Ni and rechristened the Norge, was used instead of aeroplanes, the choice dictated by the experience of the previous year. At the time of its purchase from the Italian Government Col. Umberto Nobile, designer and builder of the N1, became identified with the expedition as ship commander, his name added to that of the expedition as a tribute to Italy for her part in the expedition. The Norge cost $75,000. She left Rome on April 10. The line of flight was over France, England (stopping at Pelham), Norway, Sweden and Russia (stopping at Gatchina, near Leningrad) to King's Bay, Spitzbergen, a distance of about 5,000 miles, arriving May 7. At 8.55 A. M. (G. M. T.) on May 11, the start over the Polar Sea was made. The personnel of the airship was as follows: Capt. Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth, leaders of the expedition; Col. Nobile, in command of the airship: Lieuts. Riiser-Larsen, second in command: Omdal, motor expert, and Horgen, helmsman; Frederik Ramm, Journalist; Capt. Oscar Wisting (Amundsen's companion to the South Pole), helmsman; Fenn Malmgrem, meteorologist; Capt. Birger Gottwaldt, wireless expert: Friz Storm Johnsen, wireless operator; and the five other Italians, Cecioni, chief engineer; Caratti and Pomella, engineers; and Alessandri and Arduino, riggers. The polar pack showed no signs of life north of 834°. Up to this latitude polar bear and white whale were observed. Upon reaching the North Pole (600 nautical miles from Spitzbergen) at 1.30 an altitude of 300 feet, the Norwegian, America and Italian flags were dropped in the order named and the first and only hot meal of the entire 71 hour flight was partaken of. The "Ice Pole" or "Pole of Inaccessibility," thi centre of the great polar "pack," was reached about 6.30 A. M. on the 12th. Between 8 and 9 A. M. o May 12, south of latitude 86°, intermittent for were encountered and the expedition's troubles began. Fog and ice were extremely dangerous handicaps from this time on, hindering navigation and making wireless transmission and reception Impossible (In fact, after the North Pole was passed wireless communication ceased), and giving increas ing danger that flying bits of ice would shatter the propellers and cut holes in the gas bag, thus causing a forced landing. This perilous condition continued to the end of the voyage, and several times the motors were stopped to clean the lee from the blades. It was a surprise, therefore, to find from observation at 4 A. M., May 13, that the Norge was on a line striking the Alaska coast and passing only twenty-one nautical miles west of Point Barrow (1,200 nautical miles from the North Pole), which was sighted at 6.50 P. M. (G. M. T.) on May 13, 46 hours and 45 minutes after leaving King's Bay, during which the members of the ex pedition looked down upon approximately 100,000 square miles of hitherto unknown territory. A safe landing was effected at Teller, Alaska, A few minutes before 8 A. M., May 14, after a flight of 71 hours. The expedition proved that between the North Pole and Alaska lies only a deep polar sea, compiled valuable meteorological and wireless data, bisected the 1,000,000 square miles of unknown region by trail of approximately 100 miles in width, crowning with success the plans and ambitions of the leaders, who met with such a severe reverse the preceding year. |