NOVEMBEE 29, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



731 



an exceptional one along this stream; indeed 

 this photograph was made only a few paces 

 above the public road which crosses the 

 stream a little to the left of the view. The 

 snakes are harmless. Mr. Diggies says that 

 there is a species of water frog quite as 

 abundant in that region as the snakes, and 

 that the snakes are said to feed on the frogs. 



GENERAL. 



At the recent meeting of the French As- 

 sociation for the Advancement of Science at 

 Bordeaux a committee composed of M. Bou- 

 douin, director of the International Insti- 

 tute of Scientific Bibliography; M. E. Blan- 

 chard, general secretary of the Zoological 

 Society of France; M. Cartaz, assistant sec- 

 retary of the Covincil of the French Associa- 

 tion ; M. Gabriel, secretary of the Council 

 of the Association, and M. Ch. Eichet, edi- 

 tor of the Revue Scientifique and professor of 

 physiology in the Medical School of Paris, 

 presented a report on the titles that should 

 be given to scientific articles in order to 

 make their bibliographic classification easier. 

 The report was discussed at a special ses- 

 sion of the Association and two recommen- 

 dations were adopted: That titles should 

 be made as brief and exact as possible and 

 that the word characterizing the subject 

 treated should be italicized. In case sub- 

 divisions of a subject are treated, these 

 should be indicated by words in the title, 

 the first half of which words should be ital- 

 icized. The recent International Biograph- 

 ical Conference approved this plan, and it 

 will be adopted by several journals, includ- 

 ing the Revue Scientifique. 



A BRIGHT comet was discovered during 

 last week at Lick Observatory, in right as- 

 consion 13 deg. 44 min., north declination 

 1 deg. 40 min., in the constellation of Virgo. 

 The comet has a short tail and a stellar 

 nucleus of about the seventh magnitude. 



Dr. F. p. Poecher, a well-known physi- 

 cian and botanist, died at Charleston, S. C, 



on November 19th, at the age of seventy. 

 He was professor of materia medica and 

 therapeutics in the Medical College of the 

 State of South Carolina and was the author 

 of numerous works on pharmaceutical 

 botany. 



Cael Steckelman, known for his ex- 

 plorations in South Africa, was drowned on 

 August 28th. 



During the summer vacation Prof. G. C. 

 Comstock, director of the Washburn Obser- 

 vatory and professor of astronomy in the 

 University of Wisconsin, cooperated Avith 

 the authorites of the University of Minne- 

 sota iu determining the longitude of their 

 new observatory by an exchange of tele- 

 graphic time signals between Madison and 

 Minneapolis. Mr. A. S. Flint, assistant 

 astronomer in the University, recently pre- 

 sented to the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science the partial results 

 of an extensive series of observations made 

 at the Washburn Observatorj' for determin- 

 ing the distances of the nearer fixed stars. 

 This work is now approaching its comple- 

 tion and will be the most comprehensive 

 series of determinations of stellar distance 

 ever made. 



Prof. George M. Dawson, director of the 

 Geological Survey of Canada, who died re- 

 cently at Halifax, Nova Scotia, was the 

 son of Sir J. William Dawson, and was 

 born at Pictou, Nova Scotia, on August 1, 

 1849. The London Standard states that he 

 was appointed Geologist and Naturalist to 

 her Majesty's North American Boundary 

 Commission in 1873, and in 1875 he pub- 

 lished a detailed report on the country 

 traversed from the Lake of the Woods to 

 the Rockj^ Mountains, entitled ' Geology 

 and Eesources of the 49tli Parallel.' He 

 was appointed to the Geological Survey of 

 Canada in 1875, and had since been prin- 

 cipally engaged in the survey and explora- 

 tion of the Northwest Territory and Brit- 



