734 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 749 



Mendeleef Institution to contain chemical and 

 physical laboratories and a museum. 



Dr. Alexander Krakau, professor of elec- 

 trochemistry at the University of St. Peters- 

 burg, died on March 29. 



The death is also announced of Professor 

 F. E. Hulme, professor of mechanical draw- 

 ing at King's College, London, and the au- 

 thor of several vpell-known books on wild 

 flowers. 



The Society of German Chemists wiU hold 

 its annual meeting at Frankfort from Sep- 

 tember 14 to 18. 



Under the provisions of the program of ad- 

 ministrative reform in preparation for consti- 

 tutional government, the ministry of the In- 

 terior of the Chinese Empire has issued 

 regulations governing the taking of a census 

 of all Chinese, both at home and abroad. 

 There will be a census of families and also of 

 individuals. The former is to be completed 

 in 1910 and the latter not later than 1912. 



The Academy of Science of St. Louis is 

 bringing together an endowment fund of 

 $15,000, the income from which is to ensure 

 continued publication of its long-established 

 Transactions. To an invested fund of $3,000 

 the council has added $1,000 from the treas- 

 ury and members have contributed an addi- 

 tional $2,500. Of the remaining $8,500, 

 $5,000 have already been subscribed. 



Over a ton and a quarter of rare earths has 

 been presented to Professor Victor Lenher, of 

 the department of chemistry of the University 

 of Wisconsin, by the largest manufacturer of 

 gas mantles in this country. The gift was 

 made in recogTiition of the work on those sub- 

 stances which has been carried on for some 

 years by Professor Lenher. The greatest 

 quantity of monazite sand, which contains the 

 rare earths in crude form, is found in North 

 Carolina, the source of supply for all North 

 American manufacture of gas mantles, as 

 Brazil is the source for European manufac- 

 ture. In the form of a by-product of gas 

 mantle manufacture, the earths look like 

 white flour, and it is in this form of oxalates 

 that the 2,500 pounds given Professor Lenher 



are stored in barrels in the chemistry build- 

 ing of the university. A number of graduate 

 students at the university, under the direction 

 of Professor Lenher, are devoting their efforts 

 to various investigations of the rare earths. 

 Three of these. Professor C. W. Stoddart, of 

 the soils department of the agricultural col- 

 lege; Professor Raymond C. Benner, of the 

 University of Arizona, who took his degree of 

 master of arts at the University of Wisconsin 

 in 1905; and Charles W. Hill, assistant iu 

 chemistry at the university, are at present 

 making such investigations the subject of 

 their dissertations for the doctor's degree. 



According to the Westminster Gazette the 

 late Mr. John Murdoek, who resided at Craig- 

 loekhart, in the county of Midlothian, by his 

 will directed his trustees to employ the residue 

 of his estate " in instituting and carrying on a 

 scheme for the relief of indigent bachelors 

 and widows, of whatever religious denomina- 

 tion or belief they may be, who have shown 

 practical sympathy either as amateurs or pro- 

 fessionals in the pursuit of science in any of 

 its branches, whose lives have been char- 

 acterized by sobriety, morality and industry, 

 and who are not less than flfty-five years of 

 age." The trustees notify that they are pre- 

 pared to grant donations or pensions to per- 

 sons " who have done something in the way of 

 promoting or helping some branch of 

 science " and who otherwise conform to the 

 requirements of the trust. 



We are requested to state that the Eoyal 

 Observatory of Belgium at Uccle is arranging 

 to publish a list of the magnetic and seis- 

 mological observatories of the world, together 

 with a list of societies and reviews concerned 

 with terrestrial magnetism, atmospheric elec- 

 tricity and seismology, and that information 

 that will make these lists as complete as pos- 

 sible will be gladly received. 



Mr. J. H. Gregory, '50, of Marblehead, has 

 presented to Amherst CoUege some 1,500 In- 

 dian implements, which include specimens 

 from South Carolina, the Connecticut Valley 

 and Marblehead. This collection consists 

 largely of spears, arrowheads, hatchets and 

 other implements of the southern Indians col- 



