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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 717 



dress to mark the opening of the Brooklyn 

 Institute of Arts and Sciences, on which oc- 

 casion his subject will be " The Building and 

 Administration of a Modern City." 



The president of the British Local Govern- 

 ment Board has arranged for the making of 

 the following additional researches in connec- 

 tion with the annual grant voted by parlia- 

 ment in aid of scientific investigations con- 

 cerning the causes and processes of disease: 

 1. A chemical and bacteriological investiga- 

 tion by Mr. C. G. Moor, M.A., F.I.C., and Dr. 

 Hewlett, professor of pathology at King's 

 College, London, as to the influence of soft- 

 ening and of other chemical processes on the 

 purity of water supplies from the chalk, as 

 shown in actual experience and under experi- 

 mental conditions. 2. An investigation by 

 Professor Sidney Martin, T.E.S., into the 

 powers of production of disease possessed by 

 certain streptococci and by the poisonous sub- 

 stances produced, by them, in continuance of 

 previous investigations by him on the same 

 subject. 



We much regret to record here the death of 

 Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge and the in- 

 jury to Orville "Wright in the aeroplane ex- 

 periments, which up to that time had pro- 

 ceeded so auspiciously. 



Dr. Charles Harrington, professor of hy- 

 giene in the Harvard Medical School and 

 chairman of the Massachusetts State Board 

 of Health, died suddenly in England on Sep- 

 tember 11, at the age of fifty-two years. 



The death is announced of the Earl of 

 Rosse, F.R.S., who, like his father, made val- 

 uable contributions to astronomy. 



M. E. Mascart, since 1871 director of the 

 French Meteorological Office, has died at the 

 age of seventy-one years. 



Dr. Ernst Ebermeyer, formerly professor 

 of agriculture at Munich, has died at the age 

 of seventy-nine years. 



Dr. Hermann von Peetz, decent for geology 

 at St. Petersburg, died on July 18, as the re- 

 sult of an accident while engaged in geologi- 

 cal explorations. 



We regret also to record the death of M. 

 Auguste Daguillon, professor of botany at 

 Paris, and of Prince Iwan Romanowitsch 

 Tarchanow, professor of physiology at the Mil- 

 itary Medical College at St. Petersburg. 



The growth of the American Chemical So- 

 ciety has been so rapid this year that the pub- 

 lications for the early part of the year are 

 exhausted. As new members are still coming 

 in rapidly and are entitled to back Journals 

 for this year on payment of their dues the 

 Council has by the force of circumstances 

 been obliged to grant half-year membership 

 with half year dues for the last half of 1908 

 only. The size of the editions of the Journal 

 and the Abstracts has been largely increased 

 and the difficulty will probably not arise again. 



It is announced that plans have been filed 

 for the main hospital building and isolation 

 annex of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical 

 Research. The main building L to be a seven- 

 story brick edifice, and the isolation wards will 

 be in a two-story building connected with the 

 main building by steel bridges. The estimated 

 cost of the hospital is $350,000, the isolation 

 annex $50,000, and the additional power house 

 $4,000. 



It is stated in Nature that the herbarium 

 formed by Mr. Duthie, and hitherto quartered 

 at Saharanpur, has been transferred to the 

 Imperial Forest Institute, Dehra Dun; any 

 correspondence in connection with it should 

 be addressed to the imperial forest botanist of 

 that institute. 



The Second Annual Congress of the Play- 

 ground Association of America met at the 

 American Museum of Natural History, New 

 York, from September 8 to 13. The associa- 

 tion endeavors to show that properly super- 

 vised playgrounds help to produce good citi- 

 zens, and an effort will be made to interest 

 every American city in playgrounds. 



In view of the very rapid development and 

 progress of aerial navigation, it is proposed 

 to establish a section at the Royal Polytechnic 

 School of Naples, in which young engineers 

 shall be trained in all that refers to the prob- 

 lems of flight, so far as it is known, both from 

 a theoretical and practical point of view. 



