August 14, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



207 



Dr. Edmund Otis Hovey has returned to 

 the American Museum of Natural History- 

 after an absence of three months in the West 

 Indies. The principal points visited by him 

 were the islands of Martinique, St. Vincent, 

 Guadeloupe, Grenada and Barbados, in aU of 

 which he made collections for the museimi 

 supplementary to those previously obtained by 

 him. He was particularly fortunate in se- 

 curing photographs showing the changes which 

 have taken place during the last five years in 

 both of the active volcanoes, having camped 

 out on Mt. Pele for ten days and on La Sou- 

 friere for five days. Temperature observations 

 on the f umaroles were made, including pyrom- 

 eter observations on the high-temperature 

 vents of the STimmit of the new cone of Pele, 

 where a heat of 959° F. was found. No dust 

 or debris is being discharged at Pele, although 

 there is abundant and vigorous steam action. 

 The Soufriere of St. Vincent is absolutely 

 quiet. The bottom of the crater is now occu- 

 pied by a beautiful lake, which is apparently 

 as large as that for which the volcano was 

 famous before the eruptions of 1902-3. Dr. 

 Hovey also obtained many interesting data 

 regarding the extent of erosion and the ad- 

 vance of vegetation and cultivation in both 

 devastated areas. Mrs. Hovey accompanied 

 him on the expedition, including even the 

 camping out on the volcanoes. 



A RECENT letter from Mr. V. Stefansson, 

 who, with Dr. R. M. Anderson and party, left 

 New York City in April on an expedition to 

 the mouth of the Mackenzie River under the 

 auspices of the American Museum of Natural 

 History and the Geological Survey of Canada, 

 reports the successful arrival of the party at 

 Smith's Landing on the Slave River, from 

 which point they were planning to push on to 

 Macpherson in time to make connections with 

 the mail leaving there about the middle of 

 July. 



Word has been received from Mr. Roy C. 

 Andrews, who is now on the Pacific coast near 

 Victoria, B. C, for the purpose of collecting 

 Cetacean specimens for the American Musexmi 

 of Natural History, that he has secured a fine 

 skeleton of a humpback whale, together with 



a complete set of baleen. At the time of 

 writing he had measured, photographed and 

 described twenty-four whales of this species, 

 having at the same time made a careful study 

 of their external and osteological characters 

 with a special view to showing individual 

 variation. There being a scarcity of sulphur- 

 bottom whales at this point, Mr. Andrews was 

 planning to go to Kynquot, on the other side 

 of Vancouver Island, in the hope of obtaining 

 one of these animals, terminating his expedi- 

 tion with a trip to Murderer's Cove, Alaska, 

 where dolphins are reported to be very plen- 

 tiful. 



We learn from the Journal of the Ameri- 

 can Medical Association that a life-size statue 

 of S. P. Botkin, 1832-1889, was unveiled in 

 the grounds of the Military Medical Academy 

 at St. Petersburg on the eighteenth anniver- 

 sary of his death. May 25. In the memorial 

 address Sirotinin stated that of the seventy 

 pupils who worked under Botkin's direction 

 more than half have become professors at 

 various universities. Botkin founded in 1869 

 and maintained the Russian Archives for In- 

 ternal Medicine, and in 1880 founded the 

 Weekly Clinical Gazette, better known as 

 Botkin's Gazette, which became very popular. 



James Duncan Hague, a well-known con- 

 sulting engineer and mining expert of New 

 York City, at one time connected with the TT. 

 S. Geological Survey, fellow of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science 

 and of the American Geological Society, died 

 at his country home at Stockbridge, Mass., on 

 August 3, at the age of seventy-two years. 



Me. Arthur Lister, F.R.S., of Leytonstone, 

 the son of J. J. Lister, F.R.S., and the 

 younger brother of Lord Lister, eminent for 

 his work on the Mycetozoa, died on July 19, at 

 the age of seventy-eight years. 



Mylius Erichsen, the Danish explorer, and 

 two companions have perished in a snowstorm, 

 while carrying on explorations on the north- 

 eastern coast of Greenland. 



Sir John Banks, an Irish physician, known 

 for his work on nervous diseases, died on July 

 16, at the age of ninety-seven years. 



