68 NATURAL SCIENCE [Juty 
originated from a journalist of St Petersburg. Lieut. Olofsen explains that the refer- 
ence must simply have been to the Wakhanis, who are of true Aryan type and by no 
means dwarfs, although, owing to their mixture with Mongolians, they are not tall. 
Their domestic animals are half-starved but not dwarfed. Neither do the Wakhanis 
worship fire, as has been reported. 
LirvuT. PEAry, having obtained five years’ leave of absence, will start about July 10 
for Whale Sound on the N.-W. coast of Greenland, leaving scientific parties on the 
coast of Labrador, Baffin Land, and Greenland. In July of next year, Lieut. Peary, 
accompanied by a surgeon and six families of Esquimaux, will push up the coast from 
Whale Sound to Osborne Fjord (81°N.), where he will establish a base of supplies in charge 
of some of the Esquimaux. About March of 1899 he will start for the north limit of 
Greenland, wherever that may be, and for the Pole. 
THE Botanical Society of America will meet in Toronto, on August 17 and 18, 
immediately before the meeting of the British Association, under the presidency of 
Prof. J. M. Coulter. Dr C. E. Bessey, retiring president, will deliver his address on 
Tuesday at 8 p.m. All foreign botanists, of whom many are likely to be in Toronto, 
are invited to be associates of the society and to read papers. 
THE following bequests of the late E. D. Cope are mentioned by Science: His scien- 
tific books, osteological collection, and collection of fresh-water molluscs, to the School 
of Biology of the University of Pennsylvania ; his collection of minerals to the univer- 
sity ; duplicates of fresh-water mollusca to the Cincinnati Society of Natural History 
and the American Museum of Natural History ; spirit-specimens and skins to the Phila- 
delphia Academy of Natural Sciences. The palaeontological collections are to be sold 
in three lots, viz. (1) the North American, (2) the South American, from the Pampean 
formation and West Indies and Mexico, (8) European collections, chiefly from the 
Neogene of Allier, France. After the payment of private bequests, the money arising 
from this is to found a professorship or curatorship in vertebrate palaeontology at the 
Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. 
AN important and urgent work is the collection of anthropological data from races 
that are disappearing or losing their old customs. For this purpose Mr Morris K. 
Jessup, president of the American Museum of Natural History, is fitting out an expedi- 
tion under the leadership of Prof. F. W. Putnam, assisted by Dr Franz Boas. They 
will proceed up the north-west coast of North America, cross Behring Strait, and so pass 
down through eastern Siberia into China, and thence along the Indian Ocean to Egypt. 
The expedition will be away six years, and is expected to cost over 60,000 dollars. The 
pecial problem to be studied is the relation of the American races to those of Asia and 
Africa. 
Henry G. Bryant, of Philadelphia, accompanied by S. J. Entrikin and E. B. 
Latham, has started for Alaska for the purpose of climbing Mount St Elias and making 
explorations in the adjacent region. Mr Bryant, says Science, has had experience of 
exploration in Labrador, and has made summer trips to Greenland. Mr Entrikin was 
with Peary in Greenland and made an expedition over the inland ice. Mr Latham is a 
member of the U.S. Coast Survey, and goes equipped for geographical work. The 
party, having established a base camp on the west shore of Yakatat Bay early in June, 
will cross the Malaspina glacier to the Samovar Hills ; from there ascend the Agassiz 
glacier, and thence up the Newton glacier to the divide between Mount Newton and Mount 
St Elias. A camp will be established on the divide, elevation about 13,000 feet, from 
which the ascent to the summit of Mount St Elias will be made. On returning to the 
Samovar Hills the explorations will be continued westward through an entirely un- 
known region until a pass is discovered which will enable the explorers to cross the 
St Elias Mountains and gain one of the branches of Copper River. The return to the 
coast will be by way of Copper River. The party is well equipped, and has every 
prospect of success. 
A PHOTOGRAPH of the new South African Museum at Cape Town, which, as we have 
stated, was recently opened, is given in Nature for May 13. The building is at the 
upper end of the Municipal Gardens, and consists of two floors, the upper of which con- 
tains the principal exhibition rooms. A room 63 by 414 feet contains the birds, reptiles, 
and fishes of S. Africa, recent and fossil, while a room of equal size holds the general 
collection of vertebrates. The S. African mammals are in a smaller room, and another 
contains the anthropological collections both S. African and general. On the ground 
floor are four exhibition rooms, the two larger containing the invertebrates and the 
general geological collection; the two smaller, the collection illustrating 8S. African 
geology and mining and the local antiquities. Other rooms on this floor contain the 
library, study collestions, and offices. The taxidermist’s shop and store-room are in a 
separate building. All the cases are made of glass and iron (see Dr Meyev’s letter in 
Natural Science, vol. ix., p. 142, Aug. 1896). 
