FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



511 



manual-training school in the United 

 States, is now in its sixteenth year, hav- 

 ing been founded in 18S3 by the Com- 

 mercial Club of Chicago. It has been, 

 since 1897, an integral part of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago. \ATiile its pecul- 

 iar feature is manual training, it also 

 furnishes instruction in the essential 

 studies of a high-school course. The sliop 

 work and drawing are eminently prac- 

 tical. The making of a machine, such 

 as a lathe or steam engine, is begun by 

 the pupils in the drawing room, and is 

 followed by them through the pattern- 

 making shop, the foundry, and the forge 

 room, and is perfected in the machine 

 shop. The forge tools and engine-lathe 

 tools are made by pupils. The courses 

 of the school include a business course, 

 a technological course, and a college 

 preparatory course. 



NOTES. 



The Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology has received, by the will of Mr. 

 Edward Austin, deceased at the age of 

 ninety-four years, a bequest of $400,000, 

 the interest of which is to be used for 

 the assistance of needy and meritorious 

 teachers in prosecuting their studies. 

 In addition to this bequest, the insti- 

 tute received, during 1898, an accession 

 of $928,000 to its general funds, and one 

 of $46,000 to its scholarship funds. 



At the recent meeting of the Al- 

 lied Scientific Societies, at New Haven, 

 Conn., Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the United 

 States Geological Survey, was chosen 

 to act as retiring President of the Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, in place of Prof. Edward 

 Orton, deceased. 



The meeting of the Allied Scientific 

 Societies of the United States was held 

 in New Haven, Conn., during holiday 

 week. It was much larger than either 

 of the meetings previously held, and was 

 attended by nearly five hundred mem- 

 bers, representing ten societies — viz., the 

 American Society of Naturalists, the 

 Association of American Anatomists, 

 the American Morphological, Physio- 

 logical, Psychological, and Chemical So- 

 cieties, the Society for Plant Morphol- 

 ogy and Physiology, the American As- 

 sociation for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, and the Archaeological Association 



of America. The discussions were all 

 interesting. 



The great Roman Catholic Mission- 

 ary Society, the Sacred Congregation of 

 the Propagation of the Faith, is reported 

 to have sent a circular to all its mis- 

 sionaries urging them to interest them- 

 selves in the collection of natural-his- 

 toiy specimens for scientific societies 

 and institutions. This is intended, it is 

 said, to interest and encourage mission- 

 aries who have a scientific bent, and to 

 inform the world that the Church is not 

 hostile to biological research. 



We have to record, among the later 

 deaths of men in science, the names of 

 Francis Guthrie, formerly Professor of 

 Mathematics in Graaflf Reinet College 

 and aftei-ward in South African College 

 till 1898, aged sixty-eight years; he was 

 interested in botany, on which he gave 

 public lectures, and, with Harry Bolus, 

 revised the order of Heaths for Flora 

 capcnsis; Prof. P. Knuth, botanist and 

 author of researches on the relations of 

 insects and flowers and on cross-fertili- 

 zation, at Eael, Germany, aged forty- 

 five years; he had published two of the 

 projected three volumes of the Eand- 

 buch der Bliiten Biologie; Prof. R. Ya- 

 tube, Japanese botanist; Ferdinand Tie- 

 mann, honorary Professor of Chemistry 

 in the University of Berlin; Alexander 

 McDougall, inventor, sixty years ago, 

 of an atmospheric railway, and since of 

 many useful mechanical and chemical 

 appliances, at Southport, England; Dr. 

 Camera Pestana, chief of the Bacterio- 

 logical Institute at Lisbon, Portugal, of 

 plague, which he contracted while ex- 

 perimenting with it at Oporto; and 

 Prof. Elliott Coues, an American natu- 

 ralist, most distinguished in ornithology, 

 in Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, 

 December 2.5th, after a surgical opera- 

 tion, aged sixty-seven years; he had 

 been a professor in Norwich University, 

 Vermont, and in the National Medical 

 College in Washington, and had done 

 scientific work while in the military 

 service of the Government, in the Geo- 

 logical Survey, and in the United States 

 Northern Boundary Commission; and 

 was the author of several books on or- 

 nithology and on the Fur-bearing Ani- 

 mals, besides editing the journals of 

 Lewis and Clark and other books of 

 American exploration. 



