288 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



meeting of the Egypt Exploration Fund. 

 The science had made great advances, one 

 indication of which was the unexpectedly 

 large circulation of books on the subject. 

 There had, too, been a more scientific spirit 

 shown in its treatment, and problems were 

 approached simply with the desire to learn 

 the truth, and not with the expectation of 

 proving something. The time had indeed 

 come when archicology was regarded as one 

 of the elements of a liberal education. It 

 was now fully recognized that it was not a 

 mere fad or dilettant amusement, but had 

 thrown great light on the history of the 

 human mind. 



NOTES. 



At the meeting of the Coimcil of the 

 American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, held at Washington April 21st, 

 Prof. Theodore Gill, as senior vice-president, 

 succeeded under the constitution to the posi- 

 tion of acting president, vice E. D. Cope, de- 

 ceased. Prof. Gill was requested by vote of 

 the Council to prepare an obituary notice of 

 President Cope, and to deliver it before the 

 association at the Detroit meeting in lieu of 

 the ordinary presidential address by the re- 

 tiring president, and he undertook to do so. 

 Prof. Leland 0. Howard was nominated vice- 

 president for the Section of Zoology (Sec- 

 tion F), vice G. Brown Goode, deceased. 



The observations of Mr. Percival Lowell 

 at Flagstaff, Arizona, in which he assumes 

 to have had vastly more distinct views of 

 the planet's disk than were ever before ob- 

 tained, indicate that the period of the di- 

 urnal rotation of Venus is identical with 

 that of its revolution round the sun. 

 Hence it has one side constantly turned 

 toward the sun and the other constantly 

 averted from it everlasting burning heat 

 on one side and never- intermitted cold on 

 the other. 



A PROPOSITION is under consideration in 

 the English scientific societies for the estab- 

 lishment, in commemoration of the sixtieth 

 year of her Majesty's reign, of a Victoria 

 Research Fund, to be administered by repre- 

 sentatives of the various scientific societies 

 for the encouragement of research iu all 

 branches of science. 



The people of Detroit are working ear- 

 nestly in preparation to give the American 

 Association a cordial welcome and hospitable 

 entertainment at its coming meeting there. 

 A general interest seems to be taken in the 

 matter, as was exemplified by the recent at- 

 tendance of an audience of twenty-five hun- 

 dred persons upon a lecture by the secretary 

 of the association, Prof. Putnam. The 

 press is co-operating with the citizens' com- 



mittee in making the interest lively, and the 

 effect is apparent in the subscription lists. 

 While it is already reasonably certain that 

 all who go to the meeting will be well and 

 amply taken care of, the people hope that 

 their invitation will be responded to by a 

 large attendance of Americans and English- 

 men and others interested in science. 



The work in anthropology in the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, for the present associated 

 with that in sociology, includes courses in 

 general anthropology, general ethnology, 

 prehistoric archaeology (European and Amer- 

 ican, in alternation), ethnology (the Amer- 

 ican race), physical anthropology (elementary 

 and laboratory courses), laboratory work, 

 Mexican ethnography and archaeology, eth- 

 nology of Japan, the pueblos of New Mex- 

 ico, and lectures by Dr. W. I. Thomas on 

 folk psychology, primitive art, and Slavic 

 ethnology. Several important collections 

 are on deposit in the university, represent- 

 ing Mexican archfcology, the cliff dwellings 

 and cave house of Utah, the Aleutian Is- 

 lands and Eskimos, Japan, and the collec- 

 tion of the International Folklore Associa- 

 tion. 



The Blue Hill Meteorological Observa- 

 tory, Massachusetts, was established in 1885 

 by Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch, and is main- 

 tained by him at his own expense. By 

 arrangement it co-operates with the ob- 

 servatory of Harvard College, and its obser- 

 vations are published, partly at Mr. Rotch's 

 expense, in the annals of that institution. 

 Since the land surrounding the observatory 

 has been taken for a public park, a lease 

 for ninety-nine years has been taken of the 

 ground it needs, which will enable its work 

 to be continued under invariable conditions 

 of exposure. 



The French journal V Anthropologie pub- 

 lishes an account of the discovery of the 

 Moi race of tailed men by M. Paul d'Enjoy 

 in Indo-China. M. d'Enjoy saw only one of 

 the men, the rest of the village having run 

 away, but he conversed with this one and 

 saw where the people lived. The man was 

 found in a large tree, into which he had 

 climbed for honey. His climbing was like 

 that of a monkey, and in coming down he 

 applied his sole to the bark. The tail is not 

 the only peculiarity of this race, for their 

 ankle bones are extraordinarily developed, so 

 as to resemble the spurs of roosters. The 

 Mois use poisoned barbed arrows, and are 

 treated by the natives around them as brutes. 



Baron Constantin Ettingshacsen has 

 died at Graz, aged seventy-one. Beginning 

 his scientific career as a doctor, he later on 

 devoted himself to the study of botany and 

 paleontology. He arranged the paleonto- 

 iogical collections in the British Museum 

 (natural history). He wrote many papers 

 for the Proceedings of the Royal Society, and 

 for the journals of other learned bodies. 



