558 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 224. 



Damoiseau Prize, which was awarded to him by 

 the Paris Academy of Sciences last December. 



Miss Catherine Wolfe Bruce has, through 

 Professor J. K. Rees, given $10,000 to Columbia 

 University, to be used for the measurement and 

 discussion of astronomical photographs. Miss 

 Bruce' s gifts to the department of astronomy 

 amount to $22,100. 



At the recent session of the Legislature of 

 Oregon the office of State Biologist was created, 

 whose duty it is to conduct investigations on 

 and develop the biological resources of the State. 

 Professor F. L. Washburn, of the University of 

 Oregon, has been appointed to the office by the 

 Governor. A small appropriation was made for 

 experiments in propagating Eastern oysters in 

 Oregon waters. Professor Washburn has been 

 working along this line for three years, and re- 

 sults of artificial fertilization are coming to light. 

 Some young Eastern oysters hatched and grown 

 in Yaquina Bay, Oregon, have recently been re- 

 ceived. 



Dr. W. S. Church has been elected President 

 of the Royal College of Physicians, London. 



At the fourth annual meeting of the North 

 Carolina Section of the American Chemical So- 

 ciety, the retiring President, Dr. F. P. Venable, 

 made an address on ' The Nature of Valence. ' 

 Dr. Charles Baskerville was elected President 

 of the Section. 



At the last meeting of the British Institution 

 of Mechanical Engineers, Mr. Arthur Tannett 

 Walker, a member of the Council of the Iron 

 and Steel Institute, was elected a Vice-President 

 in place of the late Sir Douglas Galton. 



Professor R. S. Woodward, of Columbia 

 University, will represent the University at the 

 Jubilee celebrations of Sir George Stokes, to be 

 held at Cambridge in June. 



Professor Henry S. Carhart, of the de- 

 partment of physics of the University of Mich- 

 igan, has been granted a year's leave of absence. 



M. Naudin, the French botanist, has died at 

 the age of 83 years. 



Madame Michelet, who shared with Jules 

 Michelet the preparation of his books on natural 

 history, has died at Paris. 



A woman assistant to the New York State 



Entomologist will be selected by civil service 

 examination on April 22d. The duties are 

 clerical, but require some scientific knowledge, 

 and entomology is part of the examination. 

 At the same time a Janitor of the Geological 

 Hall will be chosen, with a salary of $1,200. 

 This appears to be more than twice the salary 

 of many museum curators. 



Dr. Hans Delbruck, professor of history 

 in the University of Berlin, has been fined 500 

 Marks and censured by the Prussian disciplinary 

 court for criticising the action of the govern- 

 ment in expelling Danes from North Schles- 

 wig. The prosecution proposed that Professor 

 Delbruck be transferred from Berlin to another 

 university. There are evident limitations to 

 academic freedom in Germany. 



The Royal College of Surgeons, of England, 

 was founded by royal charter in 1800, and a 

 committee of the College has been appointed to 

 decide whether its centenary should be cele- 

 brated and, if so, in what manner. 



A Colorado Ornithological Association has 

 recently been organized, with Dr. W. B. Berg- 

 told as the first President. 



The French Physical Society held its annual 

 exhibition on April 7th and 8th. 



The opening ceremony of a Spinoza Museum 

 took place at Rhynsburg, near Leyden, on 

 March 24th, in the house where Spinoza lived 

 during the last years of his life, and which has 

 been restored in the 17th-ceutury style. Pro- 

 fessor BoUand, of Leyden University, delivered 

 a speech on the life and work of Spinoza. 



Communication between England and the 

 Continent was obtained on March 27th by the 

 Marconi system of wireless telegraphy. The sta- 

 tions were at South Foreland and Wimreux, 32 

 miles apart. The Morse code was used, and the 

 messages were read as distinctly as though the 

 termini had been connected with wires. 



The gift from Mr. Llewellyn W. Longstaflfof 

 £25,000 towards a British Antarctic expedition, 

 with the £15,000 already subscribed, assures the 

 sending of an expedition in 1900 to cooperate 

 with that from Germany. The Berlin Geo- 

 graphical Society has published a chart indica- 

 ting the routes that might be followed by the two 

 expeditions. It is proposed that the British ex- 



