THE FACULTY

PROFESSOR Alan Fiellin of the Government Department and Professor Earl A. Nehring of the University of Kansas have been selected as the Citizenship Clearing House National Committee Faculty Fellows for 1961. Beginning next term, Prof. Fiellin will serve as special consultant to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Dr. Nehring will hold the same position with the chairman of the Republican National Committee. The announcement was made jointly by Senators Thruston B. Morton and Henry M. Jackson, Republican and Democratic chairmen respectively, and by Rhoten A. Smith, director of the Citizenship Clearing House.

The two 1961 Fellows were chosen from among professors of political science and government throughout the nation. This is the fourth year of the National Committee Fellowships, which are designed to increase the knowledge and experience of teachers of politics and to make available to the national party committees the assistance of professional political scientists.

Professor Fiellin obtained his M.A. degree at the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from New York University. He has been active in Democratic party work in both Illinois and New Hampshire. In 1957-58 he was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, serving in the offices of Congressman Multer of New York and Senator Proxmire of Wisconsin.

ASSISTANT Professor Robert W. . Decker of the Geology Department is lecturing in 39 cities throughout the country in January and February as part of the Distinguished Lecturer Series of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Professor Decker will discuss "Renewed Activity of Anak Krakatau," a volcano in Indonesia. He recently spent eighteen months teaching at the Bandung Institute of Technology and studying volcanic activity. A year ago he led a party of twelve geologists in an expedition sponsored by the Indonesian government to study renewed volcanic activity on Anak Krakatau. This island erupted from the sea in 1927 and intermittent activity since then has built a new island nearly a mile across and 500 feet high. Professor Decker's tour is taking him to twenty states in the East, South, Midwest and Far West where he is scheduled to lecture at universities and before professional societies.

PROFESSOR James A. Sykes, pianist and member of the Music Department, is scheduled to record a program on the ethnic and cultural origins of American piano music for the United States Information Agency. The hourlong program is to be presented to audiences throughout the world. The program consists of a script prepared by Professor Sykes for native speakers, illustrated with tape-recorded piano selections. His selections.are being taped by Robert Hargraves '61.

Professor Sykes gave similar programs in Central and Latin America last summer on a three-month tour sponsored by the U. S. State Department. He first performed a cultural mission of this kind in Germany six years ago, while serving as a Fulbright visiting professor and lecturer in Berlin. Last summer's tour included both provinces and capital cities in Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Panama and Nicaragua. These performances, designed to show common elements in Latin American and American music, met responsive audiences and drew enthusiastic press reviews.

ON leave for the Winter Term are four Dartmouth professors. Severn Duvall, Assistant Professor of English, plans to spend most of his leave working at Baker Library on topics related to Southern literature in America. Professor Richard Wagner, chairman of the Art Department, will spend his leave painting at Taos, New Mexico. Daniel Marx Jr. '29, Professor of Economics and chairman of the Department, plans to be in Washington for most of the term. During his leave, however, Professor Marx will also serve on the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Selection Committee. Also on leave for the term is Professor of Government Elmer Smead.

AT the annual meetings of the Modern Language Association during the Christmas recess, Professor Arthur Wilson of the Department of Government read a paper on "Humanism in the Enlightenment." Professor Wilson's paper was one of three on the topic of Humanism in major periods of Western history. At the same meetings, Vernon Hall, Professor of Comparative Literature, presided over the comparative literature discussions for the Renaissance section of the Association. Professor Hall was named chairman of the nominating committee for the Comparative Literature section.

THE research being done by Professor Millett G. Morgan of the Thayer School has led to the laying of miles of cables in the antarctic area to test his theory that an island can serve as a radio-transmitting antenna. Professor Morgan has sought an antenna that would artificially produce certain naturally-occurring, low-frequency radio signals called "whistlers." The signals are caused by lightning discharges and have very long wave lengths of some forty miles. To produce the same signals artificially would require construction of a vertical antenna some twenty miles high. Such an antenna would allow experiments independent of the vagaries of lightning storms, and conditions of power, location and timing could be controlled.

In considering the problem, Professor Morgan hit upon the island-antenna concept. A horseshoe-shaped island about twenty miles long with a lagoon, he reasoned, might serve as a naturally resonant, very-low-frequency slot antenna of high quality. The island itself could be the insulator, the sea the conductor. With power supplied, there seemed little reason why the island antenna could not produce "whistlers" artificially.

After long poring over maps, Deception Island in Subantarctica was selected to test the theory, and two British scientists, John Kirwan and Geoffrey Thompson, are presently engaged in laying five cables across the U-shaped island so that they can put an alternating voltage from inside to outside of the horseshoe at a point opposite the lagoon entrance. If the current prefers to flow through the sea around the ends of the horseshoe instead of the shorter route across the island itself, the land can be considered an adequate insulator. If this occurs, the cables will be left in position, and next year Professor Morgan will couple them to a high-powered radio transmitter to be installed on the island and artificial "whistlers" will be broadcast from the site.

THE National Science Foundation has awarded an $11,000 grant to Dr. Arthur Samuels, Research Associate in the Department of Pathology of Dartmouth Medical School, for a study entitled "The Immuno-Enzymology of Muscle Proteins." He is investigating the process of antigen-antibody combination, using muscle enzymes as antigens to elicit antibody production in animals in the same way killed virus is used to produce immunity to poliomyelitis.

A grant of $19,200 has been made by the National Science Foundation to Associate Professor of Physiology Frank G. Carpenter for basic research on excitation of smooth muscle cells. He will investigate how chemical substances released through nerve endings activate cell function. Smooth muscle, in contrast to skeletal muscle, appears in internal organs, glands and blood vessels, largely subject to involuntary control.

IT is with regret that we record the death of William Stuart Messer, Daniel Webster Professor of the Latin Language and Literature, Emeritus. A member of the Classics Department for over thirty years and a vital force in educational policies, he will be warmly remembered by his faculty colleagues and many alumni.

Prof. Ralph A. Burns, M.A. '34 (1) received the degree of Honorary Professor of National University of Asuncion, Paraguay. University President Dr. Crispin Insaurralde bestowed the degree, which was in recognition of Prof. Burns' services as technical adviser.