1899] NEWS 305 
life, directed by Prof. Roberts, the instruction in each case being eminently 
practical. The course is attended chiefly by teachers, and the report gives an 
impression of sound and thorough work. 
The new lecture hall of the American Museum of Natural History is 
expected to be ready next month. It will seat 1700. 
We learn from our esteemed contemporary, the American Naturalist, 
that the state of Wisconsin has appropriated $10,000 for two years for 
a geological and natural history survey of the state, under the direction of 
Prof. E. A. Birge. Some of these “appropriations” may be contrasted with, 
for instance, the apparent impossibility of getting Government support for the 
survey of Scottish lakes. But the subsidy for the Antarctic Expedition must 
silence our grumbling in the meantime. 
The fine collection of Scottish agates made by the late Prof. Heddle is now 
arranged in the Museum of Science and Art in Edinburgh. Mr. J. G. 
Goodchild has prepared a guide to the collection, incorporating Prof. Heddle’s 
explanatory notes. 
According to the Sczentific American, the creation fof a great national 
forestry and game reserve in northern Minnesota, embracing 7,000,000 acres 
around the headwaters of the Mississippi River, with many lakes of rare 
beauty, well stocked with fish, will be advocated before Congress next winter 
by prominent citizens of Chicago and Minnesota. The promoters of the plan 
are not likely to experience much difficulty in interesting Congress. The game 
and the virgin forests of the United States are disappearing so rapidly that it 
is exceedingly important that measures be taken, before it is too late, to save 
some of the great wooded areas of the continent. 
The report of the South African Museum for 1898 by the Director, Mr. W. 
L. Sclater, gives details as to the growth of the collections. The rocks of the 
Kimberley mining district have been arranged and displayed, and considerable 
progress has been made with the collection of South African mammals. 
The recently-published British Museum blue-book takes account of the 
additions to the Natural History collection during 1898, e.g. the first instal- 
ment of the Norman collection of marine invertebrates, the rare molluse Plewro- 
tomaria beyrichii, the rare fossil Elasmobranch Squatina alifera, the late Rev. 
P. B. Brodie’s collection of fossil insect remains, the Piper collection of fossils 
from the strata of the Ledbury tunnel, and a selection from the late Rev. T. T. 
Lewis’s collection of Old Red Sandstone fossils. 
It is noted in Sczence that Dr. A. B. Meyer, the energetic director of the 
museums in Dresden, is now in the United States inspecting American museums 
before the new buildings in Dresden are erected. 
We learn from the Victorian Naturalist that the desirability of removing 
the National Museum at Melbourne to a more central and accessible site was 
affirmed at a meeting of the trustees on June 1, and that Professor Baldwin 
Spencer was appointed honorary director in succession to the late Sir Frederick 
M ‘Coy. 
It is reported in Sezence that the Boston Public Library will undertake the 
publication of a card catalogue of physiology with brief abstracts, under the 
editorship of Prof. W. T. Porter of Harvard Medical School. 
We learn from Wature that the city of New York has allocated 63,000 
dollars for the zoological garden in Bronx Park, and that it is proposed to raise 
the appropriation for the American Museum of Natural History from 90,000 to 
130,000 dollars annually. 
