February 2, 1899] 



NATURE 



325 



Pkot. MENDELfiEFF has been elected a corresponding 

 member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, in-succession to the 

 late Prof. KeUuIc. 



Proi". E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S., has been elected 

 Foreign Associate of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Arts, and 

 Belles Lettres of Belgium, in succession to the late Prof. 

 Leuckart, of Leipzig. 



M. Dybowski, director of agriculture in Tunis, and professor 

 at the Agronomic Institute, has been appointed director of the 

 colonial garden about to be established at Vincennes upon the 

 plan of the Royal Gardens at Kew. 



I\f. MiLNE-EnwARDS, director of the Paris Natural History 

 Museum, has been promoted to a commandership of the Legion 

 of Honour. Among the new chevaliers of the same order are 

 Prof. Floquet, of Nancy ; Dr. Hanriot, member of the Paris 

 Academy of Medicine ; Prof. Dufet, of the lycee Saint-Louis ; 

 and Prof. Desmons, professor of mathematics at the lycee 

 Janson-de-Sailly. 



The Council of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical 

 Society have awarded the Wilde Medal of the Society for 1899 

 to Sir Edward Frankland, K.C.B., F.R.S., and the Wilde 

 Premium for 1899 to Dr. Charles H. Lees. The Wilde Lecture 

 will be delivered by Prof. W. Ramsay, F.R.S., on February 28, 

 when the presentation of the medal and the premium will also 

 be made. 



The Marquis of Salisbury has forwarded to the Mayor of 

 Dover (Sir W. H. Crundall) a subscription of too/, towards 

 the fund for entertaining the members of the British Association 

 on the occasion of their meeting at Dover this year. 



Keuter reports that the Emperor of Russia has granted the 

 Russian Geographical Society the sum of 42,000 roubles towards 

 (he fitting out of a scientific expedition to Central Asia. 



Dr. Fleurent has been appointed professor of industrial 

 chemistry at the Paris Conservatoire des Arts et metiers, in 

 succession to the late M. Aime Girard. 



The municipal council of Nuits-Saint-Georges, Department 

 of Cute-d'Or, have decided to erect a monument in honour of 

 W. Tisserand, the distinguished astronomer and late director of 

 the Paris Observatory, and have voted a sum of one thousand 

 francs towards it. M. Tisserand was born at Nuits-Saint- 

 (Jeorges on January 13, 1845, ^'"1 ^^ erection of a monument 

 in his native town will be an appropriate memorial of his 

 scientific work. A strong patronage committee, having the 

 Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts as honorary 

 president, and M. Faye as president, has been formed. The 

 president of the organising committee is Dr. Boursot, Mayor of 

 Nuits-Saint-Georges, and the treasurer is M. Desmazures, the 

 municipal receiver of that town. Admirers of Tisserand's work 

 are invited to send to M. Desmazures subscriptions in aid of the 

 memorial which it is proposed to raise. 



Dr. H. N. Stokes has been elected president of the 

 Chemical Society of Washington. 



The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected 

 Prof. C. D. Walcott, ofi Washington, an Associate Fellow in suc- 

 cession to the late Prof. James Hall, and Mr. Oliver Heaviside, 

 F.R.S., a Foreign Honorary Member. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death of the Rev. 

 Thomas Hincks, F.R.S., distinguished by his works in several 

 departments of marine zoology. 



The annual general meeting of the Physical Society will take 

 place on Friday, February 10. The Royal Astronomical 

 Society will hold its anniversary meeting on the same day. 

 NO. 1527, VOL. 59] 



The Britis/i Medical /oiinial Annonnces that Prof. William 

 Osier, F. R.S., of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 

 has accepted an invitation to deliver the Cavendish lecture for 

 1899, before the West London Medico-Chirurgical Society. 



The Paris correspondent of the Times states that the selec- 

 tion, by the Institution of Civil Engineers, of M. Picard, 

 Commissioner-General for the Paris Exhibition of 1900, as an 

 honorary member in succession to the well-known ironmaster, 

 the late M. Schneider, of Creusot,has given great satisfaction in 

 Paris. 



Reu TKR reports that an earthquake, lasting three minutes, 

 occurred in Me.\ico at nine minutes past five in the afternoon of 

 January 24. The earth-movement was partly from north-east 

 to south-west, and partly from north-west to south-east. More 

 than two hundred buildings were seriously damaged, and ten 

 houses completely collapsed. 



Sir William McGregor, K.C.M.G., who has been ap- 

 pointed Governor of Lagos, is an M.D. of the University of 

 Aberdeen, and has held various medical appointments in Scotland 

 and the Colonies. In 18S8 he was made the first Administrator 

 of British New Guinea, and in 1895 Lieutenant-Governor of the 

 Colony, a post he has held up to the present time. He has 

 received the honorary degrees of LL.D. from Aberdeen, and of 

 D.Sc. from Cambridge. 



The Lancet states that the occasion of the delivery, by Sir 

 William MacCormac, of the Hunterian Oration at the Royal 

 College of Surgeons of England this year will be distinguished 

 by the presence of the Prince of Wales, who has also consented, 

 at the president's invitation, to dine with the College the same 

 evening. It is not the first time that the Prince of Wales has 

 honoured the Hunterian orator by attending the delivery of the 

 oration. He was present when Sir James Paget and Mr. 

 Bryant were the orators. 



We have already mentioned the retirement of Prof. Alexander 

 Agassiz from the directorship of the Museum of Comparative 

 Anatomy at Cambridge (Mass.). It appears that Prof Agassiz's 

 resignation was accompanied by conditions which covered a 

 deed conveying to the President and F'ellows of Harvard 

 College munificent gifts of natural history collections. Ar- 

 rangements have been made by which the late director will 

 have the use of certain rooms and storehouses, as well as a 

 claim on the clerical services of some members of the museum 

 staff. In addition to the collections, there are handed over, 

 as late personal belongings, all the copies remaining in stock 

 of the volumes of the Bulletin, and of the Memoirs, together 

 with all the publications received in exchange for these issues, 

 about 3500 volumes, and the books which Prof. Agassiz has 

 purchased during the past twenty years, about 5000 volumes. 

 Prof. Agassiz intends now to devote his time to explorations 

 and the publication of reports of these undertakings. 



The twenty-sixth annual dinner of the old students of the 

 Royal School of Mines, with Mr. F. W. Harbord, metallurgical 

 chemist to the Indian Government, in the chair, was held on 

 Friday last, January 27, at the Hotel Cecil. Of the Professors, 

 Sir W. Roberts-Austen, Riicker, Tilden, and Howes were 

 present, and about 120 of the past and present students. 

 The Chairman, in proposing the chief toast — that of the mining 

 and metallurgical industries — dwelt upon the modern conditions 

 of capital, labour, transport and education, and their bearing on 

 the old students who had to direct those industries. Other 

 speakers were Prof. Roberts-Austen, Prof. H. McLeod, Prof. 

 A. W. Riicker, Sir H. Trueman Wood, Mr. R. C. Styles, Mr. 

 L. C. Stuckey, Mr. Bennett H. Brough, Colonel J. Penny- 

 cuick, Mr. Bedford McNeill, and the honorary secretary, Mr. 

 H. G. Graves. 



