jAinjABT 1, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



11 



present time for construction is $575,000. The 

 building now under way will contain a main 

 ireading-room with accommodations for 400 readers 

 and several smaller reading-rooms. There will be 

 29 seminar-rooms, 2 class-rooms, besides the usual 

 administrative departments of a large library. 

 The book stacks will have a capacity of 300,000 

 volumes and will be capable of extension indefi- 

 nitely. As an annex to the agricultural building, 

 there has recently been erected the so-called fertil- 

 izer control laboratory. The work of this labora- 

 tory is of immense importance to agriculture and 

 horticulture in California. A building for the 

 departments of hygiene and pathology is under 

 ■construction near the Rudolph Spreckels physio- 

 logical laboratory. The frame building which 

 houses the department of architecture has been 

 •enlarged this year to three times its former 

 ■capacity. On the university fs^rm, at Davis, there 

 have been erected a creamery, a live stock judging 

 pavilion, and several cottages for the members of 

 the staff. In addition, contracts have been let for 

 ■a dairy barn and sewer system. The university 

 has begun the erection of a galvanized iron tem- 

 porary building as a museum of vertebrate zool- 

 ogy. The collection of representative specimens of 

 Californian vertebrate fauna will be immediately 

 begun under the direction of Mr. Joseph Grinnell. 

 Miss Annie M. Alexander, of Oakland, has agreed 

 to give to the university the sum of $7,000 yearly 

 for seven years to equip and maintain the museum. 



The Massachusetts Association for the relief of 

 'California, organized shortly after the great earth- 

 quake and fire of 1906, has remitted to the San 

 Francisco Relief and Red Cross funds (incor- 

 porated) the sum of $100,000, being the balance 

 of the relief funds in the hands of the Massachu- 

 setts Association upon the completion of the 

 active work of relief. In accordance with the 

 recommendation of the Massachusetts Association, 

 this money has been paid over to the regents of 

 the University of California for the university 

 hospital in San Francisco, provided that the hos- 

 pital shall always maintain at least ten free beds 

 to be known as the Massachusetts beds and a 

 ward to be known as the Massachusetts ward. In 

 the assignment of these beds the university is to 

 give preference to deserving suflferers of the dis- 

 aster of April 18, 1906. 



Last year we reported the installation of the 

 Bancroft library of American history and the 

 transfer of this collection to the library of the 

 newly organized Academy of Pacific Coast History, 

 in one of the university buildings at Berkeley. 



Very soon after the Bancroft collection was 

 brought to the university, the " lost Carondelet 

 papers " were discovered among the miscellaneous 

 manuscripts of the collection. Baron de Caron- 

 delet was the last Spanish governor of Louisiana, 

 and historians have long known that his papers 

 must be in existence somewhere. An eminent his- 

 torian has declared that the discovery of these 

 papers will necessitate the rewriting of the history 

 of the southwest. 



Perhaps the most unusual gift ever made to the 

 university was that received by President Wheeler 

 on Friday, September 25. On that evening a 

 stranger called at Dr. Wheeler's house, saying 

 that he was a messenger from a man " up in the 

 woods " who wished to " grubstake " some student 

 who was working his way and needed a little 

 money to help him finish his college course. The 

 stranger then delivered a small sack containing 

 $349 in coin. The amount had been $350, but one 

 dollar had been allowed the messenger for deliver- 

 ing the money. No clew to the identity of the 

 donor could be obtained. The gift will be known 

 as the Grubstake Loan Fund. 



The University of Chicago shows a gain 

 of 242 in the fall and of 414 in the summer 

 enrollment, or one of 520 in the grand 

 total for the year, 540 summer students 

 having returned for work this fall, as 

 against only 404 last year. The greatest 

 gain in the fall registration, one of 167, is 

 found under "other courses," which em- 

 brace those given for teachers afternoons, 

 evenings and Saturdays. There is a loss 

 of 15 men ia the college, which is offset by 

 a gain of 17 women. The professional and 

 graduate schools all exhibit a small in- 

 crease. 



The enrollment of Columbia University 

 shows a highly gratifying increase in all 

 departments. The total registration repre- 

 sents a gain of almost 500 students over 

 last year, of which over 80 per cent, can be 

 credited to the fall registration. The 

 grand total this fall exceeds that of two 

 years ago by over 1,000 students, a growth 

 of 22 per cent, in that brief interval. 

 Both Columbia and Barnard colleges (arts, 

 men and women, respectively) show a sub- 



