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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The prizes will be awarded as fol- 

 lows- For physical science and chemis- 

 try by the Swedish Academy of Sci- 

 ences; for works in physiology or medi- 

 cine by the Carolin Institute of Stock- 

 holm; for literature, by the Academy 

 of Stockholm: finally for the work of 

 peace, by a committee of five members 

 elected by the Norwegian Stortung. It 

 is my expressed will that nationality 

 shall not be considered, so that the 

 prize may accrue to the most worthy, 

 whether he be a Scandinavian or not. 



The organization for executing this will 

 has, after an interval of about three 

 years, been completed, and its nature 

 has been formally announced in an 

 official communication to our govern- 

 ment. Nobel's intentions have not 

 been exactly carried out, . the chief 

 deviations being that part of the money 

 is used for the establishment of certain 

 Nobel institutes, the objects of which 

 are not exactly defined. On these in- 

 stitutes and on the incidental expenses 

 of awarding the prizes, one-fourth of 

 the income may be expended. Further 

 —and this seems to be in direct viola- 

 tion of the provisions of the will — 

 prizes need be given only once in five 

 years, and the money thus saved may 

 be used to establish special funds 'to 

 encourage otherwise than by prizes the 

 tendencies aimed at by the donor.' It 

 is to be hoped that the administrators 

 will make only judicious use of these 

 provisions, for Nobel's purpose to estab- 

 lish for eminence in science and litera- 

 ture a few rewards as munificent as the 

 world gives in politics, war or business 

 is too wise to be neglected. Any at- 

 tempt to divert the funds to the en- 

 couragement of local institutions or to 

 the education of inferior men should 

 be carefully guarded against. Nobel's 

 will explicitly ordered that the money 

 be awarded in prizes for eminence and 

 without any consideration of national- 

 ity. 



New York University received 

 early in the year a gift of $100,000 from 

 Miss Helen Gould for the erection of a 

 Hall of Fame. On the colonnades are to 

 be inscribed the names of the most emi- 



nent Americans, and thirty of these 

 have recently been selected by the Sen- 

 ate of the University, in accordance 

 with the votes of certain prominent men 

 selected as judges. Ninety-seven of 

 these handed in their votes, and the fol- 

 lowing eminent Americans received the 

 majority required: George Washington 

 97, Abraham Lincoln 96, Daniel Web- 

 ster 96, Benjamin Franklin 94, Ulysses 

 S. Grant 92, John Marshall 91, Thomas 

 Jefferson 90, Ralph Waldo Emerson 87, 

 Robert Fulton 85, Henry W. Longfel- 

 low 85, Washington Irving 83, Jona- 

 than Edwards 81, Samuel F.B. Morse 80, 

 David Glasgow Farragut 79, Henry Clay 

 74, Nathaniel Hawthorne 73, George 

 Pe'abody 72, Robert E. Lee 69, Peter 

 Cooper 69, Eli Whitney 67, John James 

 Audubon 67, Horace Mann 67, Henry 

 Ward Beecher 66, James Kent 65, Jo- 

 seph Story 64, John Adams 61, William 

 Ellery Channing 58, Elias Howe 53, Gil- 

 bert Stuart 52, Asa Gray 51. It will be 

 noticed that the list contains four in- 

 ventors—Robert Fulton, S. F. B. Morse, 

 Eli Whitney and Elias Howe— while 

 there are but two scientific men— J. J. 

 Audubon and Asa Gray, unless Benja- 

 min Franklin be included. The judges 

 probably were more interested in birds 

 and flowers than in the history of sci- 

 ence in America. Audubon and Gray 

 should certainly be included in a list 

 of eminent scientific men, but not to 

 the exclusion of Benjamin Thompson 

 (Count Rumford), Joseph Henry and 

 others. Twenty further names are to 

 be added in 1902 and thereafter five at 

 intervals of five years. 



The papers and discussions before 

 many of the congresses of the 

 Paris Exposition were technical in 

 character, as is demanded by the ad- 

 vanced and specialized state of the sci- 

 ences, but there also met at Paris dur- 

 ing August and September a number of 

 congresses devoted to the mental and so- 

 cial sciences which perhaps presented 

 more aspects of interest to those who 

 are not special students. The only one 

 of these congresses that can be noted 



