192 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 214. 



being made, and preserved for the most part iu 

 formalin. Exhibition space in this museum has 

 been extended by the addition of an upper 

 gallery. Chief among recent acquisitions is a 

 large series of rocks collected in the Northwest 

 District by J. B. Harrison and H. I. Perkins, 

 to illustrate a government report. The chief 

 difficulty in the curatorial work of this museum 

 is presented by atmospheric changes and over 

 much moisture. It is satisfactory to learn that 

 many inquiries are made at the museum, both 

 personally and by correspondence, and that it 

 is becoming more and more a general educating 

 force in the colony. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



At the annual meeting of the Board of Re- 

 gents of the Smithsonian Institution, held in 

 Washington on January 25th, an inquiry was 

 raised as to the propriety and expediency of 

 taking action toward the establishment of a 

 national university, and a committee was ap- 

 pointed to investigate and report at the next 

 meeting. The committee is : John B. Hender- 

 son, of Washington ; Alexander Graham Bell, of 

 Washington ; William L. Wilson, of Virginia 

 (the three members of the Executive Committee 

 of the Board of Regents); James B. Angell, of 

 Michigan, and Robert R. Hitt, of Illinois. 



Columbia University is making plans to es- 

 tablish a summer school during and after the 

 summer of 1900. The courses, as is usual in 

 summer schools, will be planned with special 

 reference to the needs of teachers, and the re- 

 sources of the Teachers College will be fully 

 utilized. 



The Cornell Medical College proposes to es- 

 tablish a summer school of medicine to be given 

 in New York hospitals and dispensaries. 



The State University of Iowa announces a 

 course of lectures on the Elements of Anthro- 

 pology, to be delivered early in March by W 

 J McGee, Ethnologist in charge. Bureau of 

 American Ethnology. 



Dr. E. B. McGiLVARY, of the University of 

 California, has been called to the Sage profes- 

 sorship of moral philosophy at Cornell Univer- 

 sity, vacant by the removal of Professor Seth 

 to the University of Edinburgh. 



Professor C. A. Keffer, of the Division of 

 Forestry, Department of Agriculture, has been 

 elected professor of agriculture and horticul- 

 ture in the New Mexico Agricultural College. 



Mb. J. S. E. TowNSEND, B.A., of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, has been elected to the 

 Clerk Maxwell scholarship. 



Dr. G. Meyer, till now first assistant in the 

 Physical Institute, has been elected to an assist- 

 ant professorship of jihysieal chemistry in the 

 University of Freiburg. Dr. Zehinder, assist- 

 ant professor of physics at Freiburg, in Br., 

 has been called to Wiirzburg as first assistant 

 to Professor Rontgen. Dr. Otto Wiedeburg, 

 docent in physics in the University at Leipzig, 

 has been promoted to an assistant professorship. 

 Dr. Sidler, assistant professor of astronomy at 

 Berne, has been given an honorary professor- 

 ship. In the Faculty of Science at Nancy the 

 following changes have been made : M. Flo- 

 quet, professor of pure mathematics, has been 

 made professor of analytical mathematics ; M. 

 Molk, professor of applied mathematics, has 

 been made professor of mechanics ; M. Haller, 

 professor of chemistry, is professor of organic 

 chemistry, and M. Giintz has been appointed 

 professor of miueralogical chemistry. 



Two of the more important chairs at Oxford 

 are vacant — the Sedleian professorship of 

 natural philosophy, so long filled by the late 

 Dr. Bartholomew Price, and the Linacre pro- 

 fessorship of comparative anatomy, vacant by 

 the removal of Professor Ray Lankester to the 

 British Museum. Natural Science reports that 

 the past students of Professor W.F. R. Weldon, 

 of University College, London, are signing a 

 testimonial to their former teacher in view of his 

 candidature for the latter chair. Among others 

 whose names are mentioned as candidates are Mr. 

 P. E. Beddard, prosector to the Zoological Society 

 of London ; Mr. G. C. Bourne, who for many 

 years has been demonstrator and lecturer at 

 Oxford ; and Mr. W. Baldwin Spencer, formerly 

 demonstrator to Professor Moseley and now 

 professor of zoology at Melbourne. The last 

 mentioned is now visiting Great Britain. The 

 method of filling chairs at Oxford is not above 

 criticism. On the board appointing a successor 

 to Professor Lankester theology and medicine 

 are well represented, but not natural science. 



