September 15, 1898 



NATURE 



487 



Ohio State University. General Secretary : Prof, F. Bedell. 

 Secretary of the Council : Mr. Charles Baskerville. Treasurer : 

 Prof. R. S. Woodward. Vice-Presidents : Section A, Prof. 

 Alexander MacFarlane ; Section B, Prof. Elihu Thomson ; 

 Section C, Prof. F. P. Venable ; Section D, Prof. Storm Bull ; 

 Section E, Mr. J. F. Whiteaves ; Section F, Prof. Simon H. 

 Gage ; Section G, Prof. Charles R. Barnes ; Section H, Mr. 

 Thomas Wilson ; Section I, Mr. Marcus Benjamin. Next 

 year's meeting will be held at Columbus, Ohio. 



The tenth Congress of Russian Naturalists and Physicians 

 was opened at Kieff on September 3, with an attendance of 

 nearly 1500 members, under the presidency of Prof. N. A. Bunge. 

 The presidents of the different sections were the following 

 professors: Mathematics, V. P. Ermakoff; sub-sections of 

 Mechanics, G. K. Susloff; Astronomy, M. T. H. Khand- 

 rikoff; Physics, N. N. Schiller; sub-section of Aeronautics, 

 N. E. Zhukovsky ; Chemistry, N. A. Bunge ; Mineralogy 

 and Geology, K. M. Feofilaktoff ; Botany, O. K. Baranetsky ; 

 Zoology, N. V. Bobretsky ; Anatomy, Physiology, and Medical 

 Science, M. A. Tikhomiroff; Geography and Anthropology, 

 V. B. Antonovich ; Agriculture, S. M. BogdanofiF ; and Hygiene, 

 V. D. Orloff. Two papers were read at the first general 

 meeting : one by Prof. Bugaeff, on the philosophical purports 

 of mathematics ; and the other by Prof. Mendeleeff, on the 

 oscillations of the balance. 



Prof. Koch, accompanied by several assistants, has gone to 

 Italy for the purpose of continuing his researches on malaria. 

 The Italian university laboratories have been placed at his 

 disposal by the Government, which will do everything to 

 facilitate his work. On leaving Italy he will proceed to Greece. 

 This first journey will be of a preliminary character, and will be 

 finished within three months. Afterwards he will visit the fever 

 districts in East Africa, India, and New Guinea, and will be 

 absent there for about two years. The expenses of the ex- 

 pedition will be defrayed by the German Government. Colonial 

 medical officers before going to the tropics will attend courses 

 of instruction at the Institute for Infectious Diseases, in order to 

 be trained in the diagnosis and treatment of tropical diseases 

 under the special supervision of Prof. Koch and his assistants. 



Prof. Edward S. Morse has been decorated by the Em- 

 peror of Japan with the Order of the Third Class of the Rising 

 Sun. The Order was accompanied by a diploma, the transla- 

 tion of which is as follows : — " His Majesty, the Emperor, has 

 graciously been pleased to confer upon you this Order in recogni- 

 tion of your signal service while you were in the faculty of science 

 in the Imperial University in Tokio, and also in opening in our 

 country the way for zoological, ethnological, and anthropological 

 science, and in establishing the institutions for the same." 



According to Science, the New York Fisheries, Game and 

 Forest Commission proposes to purchase about 50,000 acres of 

 land in the Catskills. The State already owns some 56,212 

 acres. The Commission reports that deer are rapidly increasing 

 in the Catskills, it being estimated that the forty- four animals 

 turned loose about a year ago have increased to 150, and that 

 there will be between 400 and 500 at the expiration of the five- 

 year period during which their killing is prohibited. 



The British Medical Journal states that the second An- 

 atomical Institute of the Berlin University has been reorganised, 

 and is in future to be called the " Anatomical- Biological Insti- 

 tute." As will have been gathered from the name, the Insti- 

 tute will be devoted to work on the borderland of anatomy and 

 physiology. It has three departments— one for histological- 

 biological research, one for embryological-biological work, and 

 one for comparative anatomy. 



NO. 1507, VOL. 58] 



The twenty-fifth Congress of the German Society of Public 

 Hygiene is at the present time being held in Cologne. Among 

 the subjects announced for discussion are Imperial legislation on 

 the measures necessary for combating diseases dangerous to the 

 community, public hygiene in railway traffic, and regular super- 

 vision of private living houses, and its oiganisation on the part 

 of the authorities. 



The Indiana (U.S.A.) State Board of Health has officially 

 recommended cremation. 



A bronze statue is to be erected in Philadelphia in memofy 

 of the late Dr. William Pepper. 



The Department of Science and Art has received information, 

 through the Foreign Office, that a horticultural exhibition will 

 beheld at St. Petersburg in May 1899. 



A committee, consisting of Prof. Pickering, President 

 Mendenhall and Prof, Woodward, has been appointed by the 

 Council of the American Association " to increase the efficiency 

 of the Naval Observatory." 



Prof. Lawrence Bruner, of the University of Nebraska, 

 is making experiments to determine the methods that might be 

 used to spread among American native species a locust disease 

 studied by him in South Africa last year. 



News of a late cuckoo has been received from Mrs. E. 

 Hubbard, Kew. On Thursday, September i, at 6 a.m., and 

 again on Saturday, September 3, at an earlier hour, Mrs. 

 Hubbard states that she heard a cuckoo repeating his summer 

 call several times. But she did not see the cuckoo. 



For a long time the Franklin Institute have been publishing 

 the announcement that the Boyden premium of one thousand 

 dollars would be awarded to " any resident of North America 

 who shall determine by experiment whether all rays of light,, 

 and other physical rays, are or are not transmitted with the same 

 velocity." The problem has now been more specifically definedk 

 by the Board of Managers, as follows : — " Whether or not all* 

 rays in the spectrum known at the time the offer was made, 

 namely, March 23, 1859, and comprised between the lowest 

 frequency known thermal rays in the infra-red, and the highest 

 frequency known rays in the ultra-violet, which, in the opinion, 

 of the Committee, lie between the approximate frequencies of 

 2 X 10^^ double vibrations per second in the infra-red, and, 

 8 X 10'* in the ultra-violet, travel through free space with the 

 same velocity," 



At the recent meeting of the French Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, the Section of Hygiene, at the 

 suggestion of M. Nicolas, passed a resolution pointing out that 

 the conveyance of tuberculosis by inhalation is only one of the 

 modes of infection, and that a larger part in the diffusion of the 

 disease is played by contagion through the alimentary canal, as 

 proved experimentally and clinically, and urging the necessity 

 of taking adequate measures to ensure the sterilisation and harm- 

 lessness of articles of food. The Section expressed the opinion 

 that it is desirable in addition to take measures to suppress, or 

 at least diminish, the causes of weakening of the constitution 

 which make it fall an easy prey to the disease— overstrain, con- 

 fined air, overcrowding, and unhealthiness of dwellings. In 

 every dwelling a sufficient cubic space should be allowed in pro- 

 portion to the number of the inmates, and all apartments must 

 be freely ventilated and exposed to the sunlight ; it is alj^o 

 necessary that low-built houses should be furnished with large 

 courts to ensure perfect aeration. In this respect the English 

 cottage system represents the ideal which should be aimed at. 

 The Section further urged that the widest possible publicity 

 should be given to the modern doctrines as to the contagious 



