December 10, 1900] 



SCIENCE 



839 



Dr. Clemens von Pirquet, Jolms Hopkins 

 University, has been awarded the Goldberger 

 Prize of 2,000 eroT?ns by the Imperial and 

 Eoyal Society of Physicians of Vienna on ac- 

 count of his discoveries of certain phases of 

 immunity and skin reaction in the diagnosis 

 of infantile tuberculous lesions. 



Professor W. r>ATESON, F.E.S., has re- 

 signed the chair of biology in the University 

 of Cambridge to accept the directorship of 

 the John Innes Horticultural Institution at 

 Merton, Surrey. 



Dr. E. O. E. Davis, formerly associate pro- 

 fessor of general chemistry in the University 

 of North Carolina, is now soil physicist in the 

 U. S. Bureau of Soils. 



Dr. F. E. White, assistant to Mr. David 

 Barrows, director of education in the Philip- 

 pine Islands, has been appointed to this posi- 

 tion as successor to Mr. Barrows. 



Professor M. J. M. Hill, F.E.S., vice- 

 chancellor of the University of London and 

 professor of mathematics, has been elected an 

 honorary fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, of 

 which he was formerly a fellow. 



Miss E. M. Bresee. of Madison, who gradu- 

 ated from the University of Wisconsin in 

 1908 after specializing in chemistry, has been 

 appointed assistant chemist in the department 

 of feed and fertilizer inspection in the College 

 of Agriculture, to succeed Mr. W. A. Brannon, 

 who resigned to accept appointment as assist- 

 ant chemist to the State Dairy and Food 

 Commission. 



Captain Scott, the head of the proposed 

 British Antarctic expedition, has received a 

 letter from Major Darwin, president of the 

 Eoyal Geographical Society, stating that the 

 council of the society heartily approves of the 

 expedition and will contribute €500 towards 

 the sum needed. The president and council 

 of the Eoyal Society have also intimated that 

 they will be happy to subscribe £250 from 

 their private funds towards the scientific ob- 

 jects of the expedition. 



The Livingstone gold medal of the Royal 

 Scottish Geographical Society has been pre- 

 sented to Sir Ernest Shackleton, in recogni- 

 tion of his work in the Antarctic. 



Wk learn from Nature that the Eoyal So- 

 ciety of Edinburgh has presented the Mak- 

 dougall-Brisbane prize for the biennial period 

 1906-8 to Mr. D. T. Gwynne-Vaughan for his 

 papers (1) " On the Fossil Osmundacese," and 

 (2) " On the Origin of the Adaxially Curved 

 Leaf -trace in the Filicales "; and the Gunning 

 Victoria Jubilee prize for the third quadren- 

 nial period 1904-8 to Professor G. Chrystal, 

 for " A Series of Papers on ' Seiches,' inclu- 

 ding ' The Hydrodynamical Theory and Ex- 

 perimental Investigations of the Seiche Phe- 

 nomena of Certain Scottish Lakes.' " 



Lieut.-Colonel D. Prain, F.E.S., director 

 of the Kew Botanic Gardens, and Dr. F. O. 

 Bower, F.E.S., professor of botany at Glas- 

 gow, have been elected corresponding members 

 of the Munich Academy of Sciences. 



Mr. a. D. E. Elmer is about to return to 

 Manila with a large collection of plants that 

 he has made in the southern part of Mindanao, 

 from Davao as a base. The botany of this 

 region is entirely unexplored, and something 

 of its richness is indicated by the fact that 

 only two species of oak have been reported 

 from that region while Mr. Elmer finds at 

 least fourteen. 



Professor C. J. Bourne delivered the Her- 

 bert Spencer lecture at Oxford on December 

 2. The subject was " Herbert Spencer and 

 Animal Evolution." 



By the death of Mr. John Masterson, of 

 New York, at the age of ninety-seven years, a 

 gift takes effect of $4,000,000 which was made 

 in 1902 to provide for poor persons during 

 convalescence. 



The public library and museum at Kilmar- 

 nock, Scotland, was destroyed by fire on No- 

 vember 26. The building, known as the Dick 

 Institute, was presented to the town by the 

 late Mr. James Dick, of Glasgow, about nine 

 years ago. The museum contained the geo- 

 logical collection of the late Mr. James 

 Thomson, and a considerable portion of the 

 Braidwood collection of curios which belonged 

 to the late Dr. Hunter Selkirk, of Braidwood. 

 These were completely destroyed. The dam- 

 age will probably amount to about £50,000. 



