24 SCIENCE 
Himam Bineuam, professor of Latin-Ameri- 
ean history at Yale University, has returned 
from a six months’ journey of exploration in 
Peru. 
Tr is stated in The Condor that Mr. W. 
Leon Dawson spent a portion of the field sea- 
son in out-door work contributory to his pro- 
jected “ Birds of California.” The Farallone 
Islands and the Mount Whitney region were 
visited. 
Mr. W. Barerson, F.R.S., director of the 
John Innes Horticultural Institution at 
Merton, Surrey, has been appointed the next 
Herbert Spencer lecturer at Oxford. The 
subject of the lecture, which will be given on 
February 28, is “Biological Fact and the 
Structure of Society.” 
We learn from Nature that the dean of 
Westminster, with the full concurrence of the 
chapter, offered to the family to permit the 
interment of Sir Joseph Hooker’s ashes in the 
abbey, on the condition that his remains were 
previously cremated. ‘The family has felt ob- 
liged to decline the offer as it was Sir Joseph’s 
express wish that he should be buried by the 
side of his father at Kew. The funeral took 
place at Kew Parish Church on December 15. 
Mr. Witwiam THynne Lynn, formerly as- 
sistant in the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 
and the author of various contributions to as- 
tronomy, especially on its history, died on 
December 11, aged seventy-six years. 
Dr. Daviw Starr Jorpan, of Stanford Uni- 
versity, one of the vice-presidents of the first 
international eugenics congress to be held at 
the University of London from July 24 to 30, 
1912, has accepted the presidency of the con- 
sultative committee for the United States. 
The officers of the congress hope that it will 
result in a far wider recognition of the neces- 
sity for an immediate and serious considera- 
tion of eugenic problems in all civilized coun- 
tries. The proof of this necessity must be 
based on the laws of heredity, on the history 
of the changes in racial characteristics in the 
past, and on what is known concerning the 
effect of all the many biological and social 
factors which tend either to improve or de- 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 888 
teriorate the innate qualities of mankind. If 
this field should be covered in a wide and com- 
prehensive manner in the papers presented to 
the congress, including an adequate discus- 
sion of the general nature of the reforms, 
moral and legislative, necessary for insuring 
the progress of the race, the records of the 
proceedings would form a presentment of the 
ease for eugenic reform which would assuredly 
be of great value to both the legislator and 
the social reformer. To achieve such a re- 
sult should be the main object, rather than 
the attempt to make the congress an arena for 
the discussion of academic questions mainly 
of interest to scientific investigators. 
Tue Society for Biological Research of the 
University of Pittsburgh held the first of its 
special meetings for the year 1911-12 on De- 
ecember 14, at which time Dr. George Neil 
Stewart, professor of experimental medicine 
and director of the Cushing Laboratory at 
Western Reserve University, presented to the 
society the results of some of his recent work 
on the rate of the blood-flow in man. This 
plan of special lectures was inaugurated dur- 
ing the year 1910-11, by addresses on the 
“ Hypophysis,” by Dr. Harvey K. Cushing, of 
Johns Hopkins University, and on “ Habit,” 
by Dr. J. George Adami, of McGill Univer- 
sity. 
Tue President of Venezuela has issued 
a decree creating a National Bureau of Sani- 
tation. Under its auspices will be inaugu- 
rated an Institute of Hygiene, which will be 
composed of a laboratory of bacteriology and 
of parasitology, a veterinary department, and 
a central station of disinfection. The staff 
of the bureau will be composed of a director, 
a subdirector, a bacteriologist, an engineer, a 
biologist, a veterinary surgeon, an inspector 
general, two technical aids, a secretary and 
two laboratory assistants. 
Tur Boston Transcript states that a bill in- 
tended to give effect to the convention be- 
tween the United States, Great Britain, Japan 
and Russia for the preservation and protec- 
tion of the fur seals in the waters of the North 
Pacific Ocean will be considered by the house 
committee on foreign affairs very soon after 
