Brown and White Vol. 10 no. 39

              lecture on nicaraugua by bernstein 04 the regular meeting of this so ciety was held on thursday even ing march sth the president opened the meeting in saucon hall and there the regular busi ness of the meeting was trans acted the proposed amendment to the constitution was adopted whereby the grade of associate members was removed and all members are designated as active are admitted to full privileges of active membership which was not the case before there was little other business transacted and the most interesting part of the evening was the talk given by bernstein 04 on the nicarauguan canal this was given in the physical labora tory whether the meeting ad journed over one hundred views were presented on the screen which wsa rendered possible by the kind ness of one of the members of the commission which investigated the country in 1898 now connected with the university of pennsyl vania these views showed many phases of the conditions in the coun try under consideration the habit and life of the people there the vegi tation and natural characteristics of the land and the difficulties and ad vantages met with in putting a canal through that country the subject was excellently handled and showed clearly the speaker's familiarity with the subject in hand after ward the meeting returned to sau con hall where refreshments were served prof green's address prof w c green of the west chester state normal school ad dressed a well attended meeting of the y m c a on sunday even ing he took as his texts the first two questions in the bible where art them and where is thy brother prof green's talk was very forceful and the points were emphasized by a large number of anecdotes committee meeting at the meeting of the athletic committee held on thursday even ing may 16 was set as the date for the annual interscholastic athletic meet to be held on lehigh field the washington trip of the basket bal team was approved subject to the approval of the faculty held with rutgers on saturday evening the gymnasium meet with rut gers scheduled for saturday even ing was at the last moment changed to a joint exhibition on account of a misunderstanding about judges the exhibition was good but lacked the keen interest of a competition the events were as follows : horizontal bar for rutgers young r o4 wil bur 05 ; levan 06 for lehigh evans 06 miller 06 hallock 06 club swinging for rutgers wilbur 05 ; ben der 05 for lehigh bruner 03 ; seipt 05 parallel bars for rutgers jones 03 cap tain ) ) ; young 04 for lehigh mervine 05 ; isert 05 rings for rutgers j ones 03 ; hubert 03 ; devan 06 for lehigh barley 05 ; hallock 06 horse for rutgers young 04 wy coff 05 for lehigh mervine 05 ; stauff er 06 tumbling for rutgers little 03 ; hotal ing 03 ; wilbur 05 for lehigh isert 05 evans 06 the exhibition closed with diving by little and pyramids by the rut ger's team jones little wilbur and devan did the best work for rutgers while mervine bruner evans and hal lock took the honors for lehigh base ball practice the first line-up of the base ball team was held on the athletic field saturday afternoon two teams were selected and three innings were played a large number of candidates were out and practiced in the positions for which they are trying a preliminary varsity will be picked within a short time coach maul will be in charge of the prac tices which will be held every after noon from 3 to 6 o'clock on the athletic field lecture on their construction by w c gotshall w c gotshall of new york de livered a lecture on electric rail way engineering in the physical laboratory on friday atfernoon it was the last of a series of lec tures on the same subject by mr gotshall and was a continuation of the subjects discussed in the two preceding lectures the computation of the amount of earth to be removed in laying out a rairoad was explained first by mr gotshall borings are made and the nature of the soil to be re moved is ascertained contractors do this work and furnish samples of the various borings for from 6 to 25 cents per foot in computing the amount of power required the line may be con sidered level and straight with a fair degree of accuracy because the ex tra load in going up grades is prac tically compensated by the coasting on down grades for a high speed road this does not apply in making up the times schedules a stop of 15 seconds is allowed at each station this may seem very short but it has been proven to be plenty of time one thousand stops were observed on the manhattan elevated road in new york and the average of these was found to be 11 seconds aluminum has been used for some of the large wires in electric railway systems and has proved a success it is used mainly in the west for overhead wires and in many cases is cheaper than copper copper wire is always used in cities and should be put under ground whenever possible alternating current has many ad vantages when used for electric railways one of the greatest of these is the ability to use high volt ages and so reduce the amonut of copper required for a system as smaller wire can be used the cost of the copper wire in establishing an electric railway is one of the larg est items of expense alternating current roads have been built in eu rope and the united states in places where the stops were four or five miles apart they are not prac ticable where the stations are close together specifications are the cause of much unnecessary frcition and liti gation much of this is caused by the specifying of small points in constructing the apparatus continued on second page the university of leipsig will celebrate its five hundredth anni versary in 1909 the yale news reached last month the age of twenty-five years the news is the oldest college daily in existence and has always main tained a high standard at the semi-annual meeting of the board of trustees of muhlen oerg college it was decided to pro ceed with the erection of the main duikling on the tract of land lately acquired the board also author ized the executive committee to prepare plans for the president's residence the scientific building and dormitory the yale-harvard debate will take place in cambridge on march 23 the subject of the debate will be published on feb 9 the work of the crew squad at columbia is progressing steadily the men are rowing in twenty min ute stretches in the gymnasium and taking short runs around the col lege grounds many of the candi dates have been weeded out by hanlan and the squad now num bers about 120 whereas when the training began there were about 170 men out six of last year's crew are now in training and are trying for places on the varsity eight of the new men who are trying for positions there are only a few who at the present time show any special promise no division of the men in squads has been made as yet they are all working un der the direction of hanlan who will have charge of both varsity and freshmen crews till the races are over dr and mrs c a huter have presented johns hopkins uinver sity 25,000 to found a memorial lectureship in the medical depart ment lehigh university south bethlehem pa monday march 9 1903 electric railways gym exhibition meeting of the civils vol x no 39 the brown and white calendar wednesday march n — at 2 p m practice base ball game le high field thursday march 12 — at 3 p m base ball practice friday march 13 — at 3 p m base ball practice saturday march 14 — at 2 p m practice base ball game lehigh field at 7 p m y m c a busi ness meeting christmas hall college notes