852 



SCIENCE, 



[K. S. Vol. IX. No. 233. 



University, in April, 1900. Professor Brogger 

 has published a series of memoirs upon the 

 geology of southern Norway that have given 

 him rank among the leading investigators of 

 his time. Professor Brogger comes as the suc- 

 cessor in the Williams course to Sir Archibald 

 Geikie, the Director-General of the Geological 

 Surveys of Great Britain and Ireland, who 

 opened the lectureship two years ago with a 

 course upon 'The Founders of Geology.' Pro- 

 fessor Brogger will lecture upon ' Modern De- 

 ductions regarding the Origin of Igneous 

 Rocks. ' 



President McKinley has appointed a com- 

 mission to determine the best route for a canal 

 across the Isthmus of Panama or Nicaragua as 

 follows : Rear-Admiral John G. Walker, re- 

 tired ; Samuel Pasco, of Florida ; Alfred Noble, 

 C. E., of Illinois; George S. Morrison, C. E., 

 of New York ; Colonel Peter C. Hains, U. S. 

 A. ; Professor William H. Burr, of Columbia 

 University ; Lieutenant-Colonel Oswald H. 

 Ernst, U. S. A.; Lewis M. Haupt, C. E., of 

 the University of Pennsylvania, and Professor 

 Emory R. Johnson, of Pennsylvania. The sum 

 of $1,000,000 has been appropriated for the ex- 

 penses of the Commission and a number of sur- 

 veyors will accompany the party which will 

 shortly leave for Colon. 



The Editorial Board of the National Geo- 

 graphic Magazine has been enlarged, and, as ap- 

 pears from an announcement in the June num- 

 ber, an effort is being made to extend the 

 field of usefulness of the journal. The new 

 Board is as follows : Editor, John Hyde, Statis- 

 tician of the U. S. Department of Agriculture ; 

 Associate Editors, A. W. Greely, Chief Signal 

 OflBcer, U. S. Army ; W J McGee, Ethnologist 

 in Charge, Bureau of American Ethnology ; 

 Henry Gannett, Chief Geographer, U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey ; C. Hart Merriam, Biologist of 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture ; David J. 

 Hill, Assistant Secretary of State ; Charles H. 

 Allen, Assistant Secretary of the Navy ; Willis 

 L. Moore, Chief of the U. S. Weather Bureau ; 

 H. S. Pritchett, Superintendent of the U. S. 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey ; O. P. Austin, Chief 

 of the Bureau of Statistics, U. S.; Eliza Ruha- 

 mah Scidmore, author of ' Java, the Garden of 



the East,' etc.; Carl Louise Garrison, Principal 

 of Phelps School, Washington, D. C; Assistant 

 Editor, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Washington, 

 D. C. 



The Cape of Good Hope University has con- 

 ferred the degree of D.Sc, on Mr. A.W. Roberts, 

 of Lonsdale, for his astronomical discoveries 

 andthedegreeD.Litt. on the Rev. Dr. Brincker 

 for researches on the native language. 



Professor Koch and his assistants have been 

 pursuing their investigations on malaria at 

 Grosseto, a town between Rome and Genoa, 

 where much land has been reclaimed from the 

 marshes, thus greatly reducing the prevalent 

 malaria. 



Professor Lars Fredrik Nilson, Director 

 of the Agricultural Chemical Experiment Station 

 at Stockholm, died on May 14th, aged 59 years. 



M Adolphe Legeal, a French geologist, has 

 been killed by the natives while making ex- 

 plorations in the French Soudan. 



A CABLEGRAM to the daily papers from Japan 

 states that a party of scientific men, eleven 

 Japanese and one German, the names not being 

 given, while making explorations nearTosang, 

 on the Liao Tung Peninsula, were made pris- 

 oners by Russian cavalry and shot as spies, 

 without a trial. 



We are requested to announce that the 

 Royal Academy of Sciences of Turin will award 

 in 1903 the first Vallauri prize for the most 

 important work on physical science (the term 

 being used in its widest sense) published dur- 

 ing the four preceding years. The value of the 

 prize is about $6,000, and it is open to Italians 

 and foreigners on equal terms. Professor To- 

 masso Vallauri, Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, 

 who died in 1897, left his whole estate to the 

 Turin Academy for the establishment of two 

 prizes, one for scientific research and the other 

 for the study of Latin literature. 



We have now received a proof of the an- 

 nouncement of the approaching Dover meeting 

 of the British Association, which, however, does 

 not contain much information beyond what has 

 already been published. The President, Profes- 

 sor Foster, will deliver his address on Thursday 

 evening, September 14th. Professor Charles 

 Richet will lecture on Friday evening on ' La vi- 



