790 



SCIENCE. 



LN. S. Vol. IX. No. 231. 



bus meeting, which opens on August 21st. It 

 is hoped that good programs may be arranged 

 for the various sections at an early date. 



Through elections at the annual meeting on 

 May 19th, and designations at the ensuing 

 meeting of the Board of Managers, the organ- 

 ization of the National Geographic Society for 

 the ensuing year was made as follows : Presi- 

 dent, Alexander Graham Bell ; Vice-President, 

 W J McGee ; Treasurer, Henry Gannett ; Ee- 

 cording Secretary, F. H. Newell; Corresponding 

 Secretary, Willis L. Moore ; Foreign Secretary, 

 Eliza Buhamah Scidmore ; additional members 

 of the Board, Marcus Baker, Charles J. Bell, 

 Henry F. Blount, F. V. Coville, G. K. Gilbert, 

 General A. W. Greely, Assistant Secretary 

 David J. Hill, John Hyde, S. H. Kauffmann, 

 Director C. Hart Merriam, Superintendent W. 

 B. Powell, Superintendent Henry S. Pritchett 

 and J. Stanley-Brown. 



The 12th International Congress of Oriental- 

 ists will meet at Rome on October 12, 1899. 

 Cards of membership ($4.00) may be obtained 

 from Mr. Cyrus Adler, Smithsonian Institution, 

 Washington, D. C. 



The New York State Civil Service Commis- 

 sion announces that examinations will be held 

 on June 9th and 10th, which will include the 

 position of assistant in zoology in the State Mu- 

 seum, with a salai'y of $900 ; the positions of 

 sanitary, electrical and heating experts in the 

 oflSce of the State Architect, with salaries from 

 $1,200 to $1,500; and the position of bridge de- 

 signer and Inspector in the State Engineer's 

 OiBce, with a salary of from $1,800 to $2,400. 

 The examination for an assistant in dietary ex- 

 periments has been postponed to June 10th. 



Dk. Daniel G. Brinton, professor of Amer- 

 ican archfeology and linguistics at the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, has presented to the 

 University his collection of books and manu- 

 scripts relating to the aboriginal languages of 

 North and South America. The collection rep- 

 resents a work of accumulation of twenty-five 

 years, and embraces about 2,000 volumes, in 

 addition to nearly 200 volumes of bound and 

 indexed pamphlets bearing on the ethnology of 

 the American Indians. Many of the manu- 

 scripts are unique. A number of the printed 



volumes are rare or unique and of considerable 

 bibliographical importance. The collection of 

 works on the hieroglyphic writings of the 

 natives of this country embraces nearly every 

 publication on the subject. The special feature 

 of the library is that it covers the whole Amer- 

 ican field, North, Central and South, and was 

 formed for the special purpose of comparative 

 study. 



The collection of shells of the late Mr. Henry 

 D. Van Nostrand, recently given to Columbia 

 University, is well known among malacologists 

 as one of the most valuable of private collections 

 in the country ; it contains the larger and better 

 portion of the land shellsof the West Indies col- 

 lected by Thomas Bland, including many types, 

 together with many of the rarest specimens of 

 the Perry Expedition. 



The Technical Education Board of the Lon- 

 don County Council is cooperating with the 

 Asylums Committee in offering a scholarship of 

 £150 a year, tenable for two years, for students 

 of either sex (preferably qualified practitioners), 

 to enable them to carry on investigations into 

 the preventible causes of insanity. The scholar 

 will carry on investigations in the pathological 

 laboratory attached to Clay bury Asylum. 



Professor A. G. Nathoest, of the Imperial 

 Museum of Natural History of Stockholm, with 

 several scientific companions, sailed from Hel- 

 singfors on May 2.5th to search along the north- 

 east coast of Greenland for Andree. Professor 

 Nathorst hopes to meet the Fram with Cap- 

 tain Otto Sverdrup. 



Mr. a. C. Harrison, Jr., Mr. W. H. Fur- 

 nessandDr. H. M. Hiller, who recently returned 

 from an exploration of Borneo, with collections 

 for the University of Pennsylvania, are about to 

 start on another expedition. They expect to 

 make explorations in the northern part of Bur- 

 mah and make archreological and ethnological 

 collections. 



We announced last week the laying of the 

 foundation stone of the new building which is 

 to complete the South Kensington Museum, 

 hereafter to be officially known as the Victoria 

 and Albert Museum. This building will con- 

 tain the art and industrial collections, while 

 new buildings for the Royal College of Science 



