674 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 176. 



Survey, with a salary of $1,800. The examina- 

 tion will be held on the same day and will cover 

 the hydrographic work of the Survey, naviga- 

 tion and knowledge of the lighthouses, buoys 

 :and genei-al geography of the Pacific Coast. 



The Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia has appointed Mr. Wm. W. JefFeris 

 special curator of the William S. Vaux collec- 

 tion for the current year. The following have 

 been appointed the committee on the Hayden 

 Memorial Geological Award : Messrs. Persifor 

 Frazer, Angelo Heilprin, Theodore D. Kand, 

 Benjamin Smith Lyman and J. P. Lesley. 

 The award consists of a bronze medal and the 

 Tjalauce of the interest arising from the endow- 

 ment fund and is conferred annually for the 

 "best publication, exploration, discovery or re- 

 search in the sciences of geology and paleon- 

 tology, or in such particular branches thereof 

 as may be designated. The recognition is not 

 confined to American naturalists and has been 

 granted as follows : 1890, James Hall ; 1891, 

 Edward D. Cope ; 1892, Edward Suess ; 1893, 

 Thomas H. Huxley ; 1891, Gabriel Auguste 

 Daubree ; 1895, Karl A. von Zittel ; 1896, Gio- 

 vanni Capellini ; 1897, A. Karpinski. 



The Geographical Society of Philadelphia 

 held its annual meeting and reception on May 

 4th. Professor Angelo Heilprin, the retiring 

 President, delivered au illustrated lecture on 

 'A Winter Trip to the Grand Canon of the Colo- 

 rado.' The annual election of ofiicers resulted 

 as follows : President, Henry G. Bryant ; Vice- 

 Presidents, Amos Bonsall, Dr. Daniel G. Brin- 

 ton ; Recording Secretary, Dr. Paul J. Sartain ; 

 Corresponding Secretary, Edwin S. Balch ; 

 Treasurer, Miss Mary Blakiston ; Directors, 

 Professor Angelo Heilprin, Miss E. E. Massey, 

 George G. Mercer ; Reception Committee, Miss 

 Ida Cushman, Mrs. J. B. Lippincott, Mrs. 

 Charles Roberts, Miss Rachel Sweatman ; Ex- 

 cursion Committee, Miss Mary S. Holmes, Miss 

 . Maude G. Hopkins, Charles S. Welles, Dr. H, 

 Emerson Wetherill. 



An International Committee has been formed 

 for the purpose of collecting an endowment 

 fund in memory of the late Edmund Drechsel, 

 professor of physiological chemistry at the Uni- 

 versity of Berne, Professor R. H. Chittenden, 



of Yale University, being the American repre- 

 sentative. As we have already stated, it is 

 wished to mark with a memorial stone the 

 burial place of Drechsel at Naples, and to se- 

 cure a fund for the education of his sons. Con- 

 tributions, which, it is hoped, will in some 

 cases take the form of an annual contribution 

 for five or ten years, should be sent to the 

 'Deutsche Depositenkasse A,' Berlin W., Mauer- 

 strasse, account of Professor Tschirch for the 

 Drechsel-Endowment, or to the Treasurers of 

 the local committee at Berne, Professor 

 Tschirsch, dean of the faculty of medicine, or 

 Professor Kronecker, director of the physio- 

 logical institute. 



Me. Alfred V. Allen, of Bath, died on 

 March 24th, at the age of 64 years. We an- 

 nounced recently the discontinuation of the 

 Journal of Microscopy and International Science, 

 of which Mr. Allen had been editor since 1882. 



Nature announces the death of Dr. John 

 Shearson Hyland, F.G.S., at the early age of 

 thirty-two. The second son of Captain P. Hy- 

 land, of Great Crosby, he was educated at the 

 Merchant Taylors' School, at University Col- 

 lege, Liverpool, and subsequently at Leipzig. 

 At the University of Leipzig he studied miner- 

 alogy and petrology under Dr. Zirkel, and took 

 the degree of Ph.D., his thesis being entitled 

 ' Ueber die Gesteine des Kilimandscharo und 

 dessen Umgebung,' and published in 1888. In 

 the same year he joined the staff of the Geo- 

 logical Survey, and was for three years occu- 

 pied in the Irish branch in investigations on the 

 eruptive rocks of the country. During this 

 period he published several papers on petro- 

 logical subjects and gave great promise of a 

 brilliant career. Being of an active, enterpris- 

 ing nature, he relinquished the work of the 

 microscope, and, throwing up his post on the 

 Geological Survey, took to the more practical 

 work of reporting on mineral resources in the 

 United States, subsequently in British Central 

 Africa, and finally on the treacherous west 

 coast of Africa, where he died at Elmina on 

 April 19th. 



From the Chemist and Druggist, Nature quotes 

 the following details regarding the late Dr. J. 

 G. N. Dragendorff, for many years Director of 



