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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 714 



in various continental towns, it was agreed 

 to invite the congress to meet next year in 

 London for the first time. That invitation 

 having been accepted, arrangements are now 

 being made for the twelfth congress to be held 

 during the week beginning July 18, 1909. 

 The congress, which is to last a week, will 

 probably meet at the Imperial Institute, 

 and the delegates will be present from nearly 

 every country in the world. 



Dr. W. D. Matthew, one of the members of 

 the American Museum Expedition to Ne- 

 braska, has recently returned from the field. 

 The investigations of the party have been con- 

 fined mainly to the Miocene beds of Sioux 

 County. Much interesting material has been 

 collected from the Lower Miocene in the 

 vicinity of Agate; and farther to the south. 

 Dr. Matthew and Mr. Harold Cook discovered 

 two new fossil-bearing levels from which were 

 obtained collections especially rich in fossil 

 horses. Several incomplete skeletons of the 

 Middle Miocene horse have been secured, to- 

 gether with abundant fragmentary material 

 from a higher level which may prove to repre- 

 sent a new and large fauna that hitherto has 

 been very little known. 



The expedition to James Bay and vicinity 

 by Mr. Alanson Skinner, for the American 

 Museum of Natural History, has obtained not 

 only ethnological material from the Cree 

 Indians, but much new information regarding 

 their religious and social customs. The Cree 

 are essentially hunters, and the complete set 

 of specimens brought back by Mr. Skinner 

 will add greatly to the ethnological interest 

 of the collections already installed in the 

 museum halls. Mr. Skinner's attempt to 

 study the Naskapi (a little-known tribe) was 

 fruitless, as the Indians no longer frequent 

 the east coast of Hudson Bay, but remain in 

 the country bordering the Atlantic. The 

 members of the expedition covered more than 

 a thousand miles in an eighteen-foot canoe, 

 and narrowly escaped starvation while return- 

 ing through the forests of northern Canada. 



According to the Paris correspondent of the 

 London Times, the Pourquoi Pas, conveying 

 the Charcot mission on the second voyage of 



discovery of its commander. Dr. Frangois 

 Charcot, to the Antarctic regions, left the 

 port of Havre on August 16. Some 30,000 

 persons bade it God-speed from the quays, and 

 a little company of distinguished guests were 

 present at this dramatic leave-taking. Among 

 them were M. Doumer, whose intervention se- 

 cured from the French parliament a subsidy 

 of $160,000 for the expedition. Dr. Charcot 

 expects to be absent about two years. One of 

 his objects in returning to the regions of the 

 South Pole is to bring back samples of the 

 fossils to which Dr. Nordenskjold has already 

 drawn attention. He intends to transport 

 them to one of the open ports of the Antarctic 

 continent, either Port Lockroy or Port Char- 

 cot, and then to go on to Loubet Land to begin 

 his exploration of the regions to the south. 

 He takes with him provisions for twenty per- 

 sons for more than two years. The Pourquoi 

 Pas will reach the southern ice at the begin- 

 ning of the austral summer towards December 

 15, at about 800 kilometers south of Cape 

 Horn. Dr. Charcot's staff will then have 

 their work cut out for them. They include 

 M. Bougrain, who will make the astronomical 

 observations ; M. Eouch, specialist in meteorol- 

 ogy and oceanography; M. Godefroy, who will 

 study the hydrography of the coast and the 

 tides ; M. Gourdon, geologist, and Dr. Jacques 

 Liouville, marine zoologist and botanist. The 

 commander himself is a good bacteriologist. 



The measures devised by the governor of 

 Uganda, Sir Henry Hesketh Bell, for com- 

 bating the spread of sleeping sickness are, 

 according to Renter's Agency, meeting with 

 a considerable measure of success. During 

 1907 there were no new cases among Euro- 

 peans, and the deaths among natives during 

 the twelve months numbered less than 4,000. 

 The whole of the population has been removed 

 from the shores of the Victoria Nyanza, and 

 it is hoped that the disease-carrying fly in that 

 belt, if not reinfected, will gradually cease to 

 be a source of danger. Several thousands of 

 the sufferers from sleeping sickness are being 

 maintained in segregation camps, but the 

 treatment by atoxyl is not proving of much 

 avail. Consistent and vigorous action will be 



