NOVEMBEK 22, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



689 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The State Boai-d to select a new magazine 

 rifle for the National Guard of the State of 

 New York organized at Albany, Tuesday, 

 ISTovember 12th, Col. A. D. Shaw, of Water- 

 town, in the chair. The other members are 

 Professor E. H. Thurston, of Ithaca, and 

 Mr. E. W. Bliss, of Brooklyn. Mr. H. E. 

 Abell, of Brooklyn, was made secretary to 

 the board. After consultation with Gov- 

 ernor Morton and the Adjutant General's 

 ofBce, it was determined to notifj^ inventors 

 that they would be allowed until December 

 15th to present arms for examination and 

 test at the office of Adjutant General of the 

 State. Onlj' American inventions can be 

 accepted for examination. All tests are to 

 be made at the State Camp at Peekskill. 

 The purchase of 15,000 guns is authorized 

 at a price not to exceed, for guns and acces- 

 sories, $20 each. Aside from the construc- 

 tion and action of the lock and repeating 

 mechanism and the behavior of the gun in 

 action, it is expected that the question of 

 varying the calibre from that of the TJ. S. 

 Army, and that of interchangeability in 

 other respects with the army gun, will be 

 carefully studied. 



A BILL has been introdviced into the 

 Congress of Mexico empowering Marshal 

 Saville, the agent of the American Museum 

 of Natural History, in New York, to make 

 archaeological excavations in Mexico. The 

 bill provides that half of the objects secured 

 shall be the property of the museum, and 

 is said to have the approval of President 

 Diaz. 



Prof. Feedeeick Stare, of the Univer- 

 sity of Chicago, will go in December to 

 Guadalajara, Mex., to study a submerged 

 city in Lake Chapala, and the mountain 

 dwarfs inhabiting the mountains near by. 

 His intention is to try to detei'mine whether 

 these people are racially small or have be- 

 come so by disease. 



A PETITION praying the Royal College of 

 Physicians, of London, to admit women to 

 examinations and diplomas was the subject 

 of an interesting debate before the Comitia 

 on October 24th. The petition was rejected 

 by fifty-nine votes to fifty. Eighteen years 

 ago the same question was debated in the 

 College, and the admission of women was 

 rejected by sixty-eight votes to sixteen. 



M. Peerotin described before the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, on October 28th, the 

 new observatorj' on the summit of Mounier, 

 in the Maritime Alps. The observatory 

 was planned by M. Bischoffsheim as an an- 

 nex to the Nice observatory and is at an 

 altitude of 2,741 m. In addition to a stone 

 house for the astronomer and his assistant, 

 there is a i-evolving dome, 8 m. in diameter, 

 in which is mounted a 38 cm. equatorial 

 telescope. A meteorological station has 

 been organized in conjunction with the ob- 

 servatory. The observatory is connected 

 by telephone with the village of Beuil, 8 

 km. distant. 



The Conseil Municipal of Ai'bois, the 

 birthplace of Pasteur, has decided to erect 

 a statue to his memory, and that hence- 

 forth the municipal college shall be called 

 the Pasteur College. 



The first number of a new quarterly jour- 

 nal, ' Terrestrial Magnetism,'' is announced' 

 for January, 1896. It will be edited by 

 Dr. L. A. Bauer, of the University of 

 Chicago, with the cooperation of the leading 

 students in America and Europe of terres- 

 trial magnetism and allied subjects. 



Feiedeich Vieweg und Sohn, Bruns- 

 wick, have issued a list of their scientific 

 publications which can doubtless be ob- 

 tained on application to them. The cata- 

 logue extends to one hundred pages, and 

 includes a large number of important works 

 in the natural and physical sciences. 



Prof. Charles S. Minot, according to 

 the American Naturalist, will give a special 



