Jakuaby 15, 1909] 



8CIENCB 



105 



ing on the evening of January 12, when an 

 address on " Charles Darwin and his Influ- 

 ence " was made by Professor Edward G. 

 Poulton, of Oxford University. 



As we have already annoimced, arrange- 

 raents have been made for the celebration of 

 the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of 

 Charles Darwin by the New York Academy of 

 Sciences on February 12 at the American 

 Museum of Natural History. In addition to 

 the presentation to the museum of a bust of 

 Darwin — ^the presentation to be made by 

 Charles F. Cox, president of the academy, 

 and the acceptance by Henry F. Osborn, 

 president of the museum — addresses will be 

 made on " Darwin's work in botany," by Pro- 

 fessor N. L. Britton; on "Darwin's work in 

 zoology," by Professor H. C. Bumpus; and on 

 "Darwin's work in geology," by Professor J. 

 J. Stevenson. 



Dr. George Gore, F.E.S., formerly lecturer 

 on chemical and physical science at King 

 Edward's School, Birmingham, the author of 

 works on electrometallurgy and other subjects, 

 has died at the age of eighty-two years. 



A RECENT communication from Vienna an- 

 nounces the death, after a long and painful 

 iUness, of the eminent Austrian physicist and 

 meteorologist, Hofrat Professor Dr. Josef 

 Maria Pernter on December 20, 1908, at Arco, 

 Tyrol, Austria. Professor Pernter was the di- 

 rector of the Austrian Central Institution for 

 Meteorology and Geodynamics, Hohe Warte, 

 Vienna, a member of the International Meteor- 

 ological Committee and vice-president of the 

 Austrian Meteorological Society. His death 

 at the comparatively early age of sixty may 

 leave still incomplete his important " Treatise 

 on Meteorological Optics." 



We learn from the Journal of the American 

 Medical Association that the recent small epi- 

 demic of yellow fever at Saint-Nazaire, on 

 the French coast, has impressed on the au- 

 thorities the necessity for more effectual 

 measures against yellow fever in the French 

 colonies, whence the disease was imported. 

 The task was entrusted to Drs. Simond and 

 Marchoux, who spent some time in Brazil two 

 or three years ago in study of tropical dis- 



eases. They left for Martinique November 

 11, fully equipped for the extermination of 

 yellow fever and malaria mosquitoes in Mar- 

 tinique and Guadeloupe. 



The appropriation biU in which are in- 

 cluded the appropriations for carrying on the 

 work of the Bureau of Education has passed 

 the House of Representatives and is now in 

 the Senate Committee on Appropriations. 

 The only increase over appropriations for the 

 previous year made by the House of Repre- 

 sentatives is provision for an editor at two 

 thousand dollars per annum. The bureau 

 needs badly provision for larger and more 

 sanitary quarters than it now occupies,, a con- 

 siderable increase in its staff, as well as an 

 increase in the salaries of the present mem- 

 bers of the staff, and is endeavoring to secure 

 these increases in the Senate. 



A Bulletin from the Harvard College Ob- 

 servatory, under date of January 5, states 

 that the variable star, 154428, R Coronse 

 was found by Mr. Leon Campbell to be faint 

 on January 1, 1909, magn. 8.2. This star is 

 usually of the magnitude 6.0, but occasionally 

 undergoes marked and apparently irregular 

 diminutions in light, sometimes becoming as 

 faint as magnitude 13. The last diminution 

 in brightness lasted from February 8 to Sep- 

 tember 6, 1905. On November 12, 1908, its 

 magnitude was 6.1, and on December 13, 

 1908, it was 6.9. Only two other stars of this 

 class have been as yet discovered, 1910SS, R 

 J Sagittarii and 054319— Tauri, the latter 

 being now exceedingly faint. All three of 

 these stars are being followed closely, both 

 photographically and visually. 



The American Museum Journal states that 

 through Edward L. Dufourcq, the directors of 

 the Minas Pedrazzini Company at Arizpe, 

 Sonora, Mexico, have presented to the mineral 

 cabinet a remarkable specimen of crystallized 

 polybasite. This ore of silver (sulphanti- 

 monide of silver with some of the silver re- 

 placed by copper) furnishes a large part of the 

 vein material from which the silver is obtained 

 in this mine. At favorable points there have 

 developed beautifully crystallized specimens of 

 the mineral upon a scale of magnitude almost 



