January 28, 



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SCIENCE. 



131 



International Congress of Hygiene and Demog- 

 raphy will be held at Madrid from April 10th 

 to April 19th. The hygienic work of the Con- 

 gress will be divided among ten sections, as fol- 

 lows : Microbiology in Relation to Hygiene ; 

 Prophylaxis and Transmissible Disease ; Med- 

 ical Climatology and Topography ; Urban Hy- 

 giene ; Hygiene of Alimentation ; Hygiene of 

 Infancy and of Schools ; Hygiene of Exercise 

 and Labor ; Military and Naval Hygiene ; 

 Veterinary Hygiene, Civil and Military ; Sani- 

 tary Architecture and Engineering. The part 

 of the work relating to Demography will be 

 divided among three sections, as follows : Tech- 

 nics of Demographic Statistics ; Statistical Re- 

 sults in Relation to Demography ; Dynamical 

 Demography (movements of population, etc). 

 The Secretary-General of the Congress is Dr. 

 Amalio Gimenoy Cabanas, professor of hygiene 

 in the University of Madrid, and the President 

 of the Executive Committee is Professor Julian 

 Calleia. 



The want of an independent water supply 

 for the Zoological Gardens of London has been 

 felt for many years by this institution, and re- 

 cently it was decided to put down an artesian 

 bored tube well. The results have been, as was 

 anticipated, the tapping of powerful springs of 

 pure water in the chalk at the depth of 450 feet, 

 yielding 240,000 gallons per day. 



A DEPARTMENT for hydrophobia — similar to 

 the Pasteur Institute in Paris — is to be added to 

 the Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin, of 

 which Robert Koch is Director. 



A DISPATCH to the daily papers from Mon- 

 treal states that Mr. McCreary, the Immigration 

 Commissioner, has taken over the herd of 

 buffaloes which Lord Strathcona has presented 

 to the Dominion government, to be placed in the 

 National Park at Banff. There are seventeen 

 animals in the herd, all thoroughbreds but one. 

 The herd will be kept at Silver Heights, Lord 

 Strathcona's estate, near Winnipeg, until April, 

 when they will be sent to Banff, where they will 

 be placed in an enclosure of forty acres, now 

 being prepared for them. 



Before the members of the Drawing Room 

 at the Waldorf-Astoria, Professor Willis L. 

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



recently delivered a lecture, in which, according 

 to report in the New York Tribune, he pointed 

 out that the practical application of science to 

 the industry of the world was uowhere more 

 fitly illustrated than in the extensive and vari- 

 ous uses made of the present weather service 

 of the United States. Briefly referring to some 

 of the more striking instances of the Bureau's 

 utility, its Chief showed that the great raisin 

 interests of California cured their fruit accord- 

 ing to the weather reports, and nearly all the 

 important vineyards were in telephonic com- 

 munication with some central point from which 

 forecasts of rain were distributed. On the high 

 plains of Montana, Colorado and the western 

 slope, Mr. Moore continued, the vast cattle in- 

 terests herded their flocks on the first warning 

 of a coming blizzard, and hundreds of cattle 

 were annually saved by reason of the forewarn- 

 ing of the greater number of destructive co],d 

 waves. On the Great Lakes the destruction of 

 life and property was but a small percentage of 

 what it was fifteen years ago, due to the fact 

 that to-day the mariners were students of the 

 weather map, and the warnings of the Weather 

 Bureau accurately foretold nearly all storms 

 destructive to commerce. 



A TABLE has been prepared by Rev. C. T. 

 Ward, of New York, showing the amount of 

 money left for benevolent purposes by testators 

 throughout the united States during the past 

 three years. The bequests amounted to $14,374, - 

 800 in 1897, $13,112,300 in 1896 and $9,401,- 

 500 in 1895. The money bequeathed for edu- 

 cational purposes last year amounted to $5,- 

 292,200. 



Professor W. L. Elkin, Director of the 

 Observatory of Yale University, in his annual 

 report for the year 1896-7, states that while in 

 Europe in 1896 he purchased a third Voigt- 

 lander lens and one by Hermagis, both of six 

 inches aperture, and since his retu.rn has pro- 

 cured two other similar ones of American make, 

 thus making six cameras available on the 

 mounting. The cost of all three of the Voigt- 

 lander lenses has been generously defrayed by 

 Cyprian S. Brainerd, Esq. Five lenses were 

 put in use in August last and eight meteor 

 trails, five of them Perseids, were secured. The 



