480 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



connection with the work in irrigation 

 authorized by Congress. Surveying 

 parties are in the field in California, 

 Oregon, Washington, Montana, Utah, 

 Nevada, Idaho, Arizona and Colorado. 



A statue of Pasteur was unveiled at 

 his birthplace, Dole, Jura, on August 

 3. — The centenary of the death of Bi- 

 chat, the celebrated anatomist and phys- 

 iologist, was commemorated on July 

 22, under the auspices of the Frencn 

 Society of the History of Medicine. — 

 The centenary of the birth of the Nor- 

 wegian mathematician, Niels Henrik 

 Abel, will be celebrated at Christiania 

 in September. Abel was born in 1802 

 and died at the early age of 

 twenty-seven years, but in this 

 short period attained rank among 

 the foremost mathematicians of the 

 century. — A memorial to John Fitch, 

 who is said to have been the first to 

 apply steam to the running of a boat, 

 has been erected in Warminster, Pa. It 

 bears the inscription : " John Fitch here 

 conceived the idea of the first steam- 

 boat. He ran a boat with side-wheels 

 by steam on a pond below Davisville 

 in 1785. Bucks County Historical So- 

 ciety." — A bronze tablet has been un- 

 veiled at Lafayette College in memory 

 of the late James H. Coffin. The in- 

 scription reads as follows : " In mem- 

 ory of James Henry Coffin, LL.D. 

 Long a main-stay of Lafayette Col- 

 lege, professor of mathematics, natural 

 philosophy and astronomy, 1846-1873; 

 vice-president and college treasurer, 

 1863-1873. A tireless teacher and ad- 

 ministrator, an officer of the church, 

 a friend of the slave. A member of the 

 National Academy of Sciences, author 

 of ' Winds of the Globe.' He annexed 

 the atmosphere to the realm of science, 

 and searched the highways of the 

 winds and the paths of vagrant storms. 

 Born in Williamsburg, Mass., Septem- 

 ber 6, 1806; died in Easton, February 



6, 1873. The class of 1866 has erected 

 this tablet." 



Pbofessos W. E. Ritteb, of the Uni- 

 versity of California, has secured funds 

 for the erection of a marine laboratory 

 at San Pedro, which will be used as a 

 center for the biological study of the 

 Pacific coast. — Mr. W. H. Evans, of the 

 office of Experiment Stations, U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, has return- 

 ed from Porto Rico, where he was in 

 conference with Mr. F. D. Gardner, in 

 charge of the Porto Rico Station, with 

 reference to the selection of a perma- 

 nent site and the development of the 

 station there. — The French Minister of 

 Agriculture has established an office for 

 agricultural information, the object of 

 which is to act as a bureau of corres- 

 pondence and a means of popularizing 

 scientific agriculture. — Queensland has 

 given up its weather bureau, and the 

 services of Mr. C. L. Wragge and others 

 have been dispensed with. It is hoped 

 that an arrangement may be made by 

 which the service will be continued by 

 the federal government. — Mr. J. Pier- 

 pont Morgan has presented to the Mu- 

 seum of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, 

 the collection of precious stones formed 

 by Mr. George F. Kunz for the Buffalo 

 Exhibition. 



The Berlin Academy of Sciences has 

 announced that its academic prize of 

 5,000 Marks, will be awarded in 1904 

 for an investigation of the kathode rays 

 and in 1905 for an investigation of the 

 theory of functions of several variables 

 which admit of linear substitution. 

 The income of the Cothenius legacy — 

 $2,000 — for 1904 will be awarded for 

 investigations of new varieties of 

 grain. The papers may be written in 

 English and must be presented without 

 the name of the author to the Bureau 

 of the Academy, Universtat Strasse, 8, 

 Berlin. 



