■92 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 160. 



A BILL will be brought before the next ses- 

 sion of the British Parliament appropriating 

 upwards of $15,000,000 for the rebuilding of 

 South Kensington Museum. 



Mr. E. W. Maunder, Mr. C. Thwaites and 

 the Eev. J. M. Bacon, with the parties under 

 their direction sent by the British Astronomical 

 Association for the observation of the total 

 solar eclipse which occurs to-morrow, had, as 

 we learn from the London Times, arrived at 

 Bombay on January 4th The other observing 

 parties had also arrived. The different observ- 

 ing stations will be as follows: Mr. Maunder 

 and Mr. Thwaites will be stationed at Talni, 

 on the Great Indian Peninsula Eailway, between 

 Amraoti and Nagpur; the Eev. J. M. Bacon at 

 Baxar. Mr. W. H. Christie, the Astronomer 

 Eoyal, and Professor H. H. Turner, forming 

 the third oflScial party sent out by the joint 

 committee of the Eoyal Society and the Eoyal 

 Astronomical Society, will be stationed at Sah- 

 dol, between Katni and Bilaspur. The observ- 

 ing party from the Government Observatory at 

 Madras, under the direction of Professor Michie 

 Smith, will be at Indapur. 



Me. Jacob H. Schiff has given $10,000 to 

 iihe New York Public Library for the purchase 

 of scientific books. 



A BRONZE statue of Charcot by Falguiere 

 ■will be erected in the Saltpetriere, Paris. 



We learn from the Auk that Mr. George K. 

 Cherrie has resigned his posision as assistant 

 curator of ornithology in the Field Columbian 

 Museum, and has sailed for Bolivar, Venezuela, 

 which he proposes to make the base of explora- 

 tion in the upper Orinoco region for the period 

 of a year or more. 



The Academy of Sciences, Paris, has nomi- 

 nated as first choice M. Maquenne, and as sec- 

 ond choice M. Andre as candidates for the 

 chair of physiological botany in the Paris Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, vacant by the death 

 of M. Georges Ville. 



M. EenA Cagnat has been made a member 

 of the French Commission on Scientific Mu- 

 seums, in the place of the late M. du Courdray 

 Xia Blanchere. 



MM. Berthelot, Bourgeois, Fallieres and 



Liard have been appointed members of the 

 Council of the Paris Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, with M. Berthlelot as President. 



It is stated in Nature that Mr. George Shar- 

 man retired at the end of last year from the 

 post of paleontologist to the Geological Survey 

 of Great Britain, with which he had been con- 

 nected since 1855. 



Dr. Otto Finsch has been appointed direc- 

 tor of the ornithological division of the museum 

 at Leiden, in succession to Dr. J. Biittikofer, 

 who, as we announced sometime since, has ac- 

 cepted the directorshiij of the zoological garden 

 at Eotterdam. 



Mr. Walter Siche, the traveler and florist, 

 has, says Enoivledge, returned from an expedi- 

 tion to the Cilician and Cappadocian Taurus, 

 with a large number of alpine plants and ten 

 thousand examples of various species of the 

 asphodel family, with varieties of fritillary, 

 galanthus, colchioum, iris and many other 

 plants. Mr. Siche has been the means of intro- 

 ducing many new flowers to the domain of 

 English horticulture. 



The Eev. Charles L. Dodson, from 1855 to 

 1881 mathematical lecturer at Oxford and the 

 author of valuable contributions to mathe- 

 matics and logic, has died at the age of sixty- 

 six years. Mr. Dodson is known to every one 

 as 'Lewis Carroll,' author of ' Alice in Wonder- 

 land' and other tales, which have delighted in- 

 numerable children and older people. 



We regret also to record the deaths of Sir 

 Charles Hutton Gregory, an eminent English 

 civil engineer, on January 10th, at the age of 

 eighty-four ; of Mr. Charles Cornevin, pro- 

 fessor of hygiene and zoology at the Veterinary 

 School at Lyons, and of Dr. Edward Linde- 

 man, astronomer at the Observatory of Pol- 

 kowa, aged fifty-three years. 



The National Geographic Society has an- 

 nounced for to-night a meeting in honor of the 

 late Gardiner G. Hubbard, at the time of his 

 death President of the Society. Mr. Alexander 

 Graham Bell, will preside, and the program 

 thus far arranged includes addresses by the fol- 

 lowing: Surgeon-General George M. Stern- 

 berg, U. S. A., on behalf of the joint scientific 

 societies of the District ; Dr. Philip G. Gillette, 



