December 1898] NEWS 433 
it consists of living fishes, will be of great value not only to the zoological depart- 
ment, but also to the College of Forestry, in which a course in pisciculture and 
venery is to be introduced. Duplicates of this collection are to be presented to 
other institutions. 
Provost Harrison, of the University of Pennsylvania, has been elected 
president of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy, in succession to the late Dr 
William Pepper. 
Tue British Institute of Preventive Medicine has recently assigned a large 
laboratory at Chelsea to research and teaching in technical bacteriology ; it will 
be named the Hansen Laboratory and be under the direction of Dr G. Harris 
Morris. The formal opening of the Institute will take place early next year. 
AccorDING to Science, the University of Pennsylvania and the Academy of 
Natural ‘Sciences have received from Alaska nearly 13,000 specimens, secured 
near Point Barrow by an expedition under the management of E. A. M‘Ilhenny 
of Louisiana, fitted out and conducted by N. G. Buxton of Ohio and W. E. 
Snyder of Wisconsin. The zoological and botanical specimens go to the 
Academy, the ethnological to the University. 
Mr Aran Owsron of Yokohama has recently sent to this country a 
magnificent collection of hexactinellid sponges from the seas of Japan. Most of 
these have been purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum, but a fair 
number have gone to Oxford. Among the specimens are many studied by 
Professor Ijima for the monograph that he is writing on the group. 
Mr Mrcwaen Laxkrn’s donation of a large Liassie Ichthyosaurus to the British 
Museum, already announced in these pages, has necessitated a considerable re- 
arrangement of the existing collection. We understand that the old cases are to 
be removed, while the fine slabs containing these fossils will be simply covered 
with glass and exhibited upon the wall. Space is to be gained by raising a 
number of the specimens above the top of the present wall-cases. 
Dr JonatHan HurcuHinson, whose educational museum at Haslemere is well 
known, is starting a similar establishment at his native town of Selby in York- 
shire. The building has already made considerable progress. 
On October 5, a new natural history museum was opened at King Williams 
Town, Cape Colony. 
Tue U.S. Department of Agriculture has sent Mr M. A. Carleton to Russia to 
study cereals. 
Tue New York Botanical Gardens makes rapid progress. ‘The museum build- 
ing is complete up to the second storey, the skeleton of the whole being in place. 
The planting of the border will, says Science, be completed during the autumn. 
This will be about two miles long, and will contain some three hundred and fifty 
varieties of trees and shrubs. 
A rirrH International Congress of Hydrology, Chinatology, and Geology was 
held at Liittich from September 25 to October 3. 
Tue Sixth International Otological Congress will be held in London at the 
Hall of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, from August 8th to 12th 
of next year. The last meeting of the Congress was held three years ago at 
Florence, under the presidency of Professor Grazzi. 
Tur International Conference on the Bibliography of Scientific Literature 
met at Burlington House, London, in the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries on 
October 11-13. It was attended by the following delegates :—Austria, Professors 
L. Boltzmann and E, Weiss ; Belgium, Chevalier Descamps and Messrs P. Otlet 
and H. La Fontaine ; France, Prof. G. Darboux, Dr J. Deniker, and Mr E. 
Mascart ; Germany, Prof. Klein of Géttingen; Hungary, Drs A. Heller and 
