770 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 49. 



useful scientific toy. They are sold at the mod- 

 erate price of seventy-five cents. 



Nature states that an International Marine 

 and Fisheries Exhibit will be held at Kiel 

 next year, in connection with a provincial ex- 

 hibition in Schleswig-Holstein, and will be 

 opened from May 13th to the end of September. 



Johannes Adolf Overbeck, for forty-two 

 years professor of archaeology at the University 

 of Leipzig, died recently, aged sixty-nine years. 



M. PoiNCAEE reported to the Paris Academy 

 on November 11th that he had found that the 

 moon influences the production and direction 

 of cyclones. 



Mr. W. R. Brooks, director of Smith Ob- 

 servatory, Geneva, N. Y., discovered on the 

 morning of November 21st a comet in the 

 southeastern sky. The position was right as- 

 cension 9"" 51" .50', and declination S. 17° 40'. 

 The comet has a northerly motion. 



We have received part I. of Vol. V. of the 

 proceedings of the California Academy of 

 Sciences, issued on November 18th. The pro- 

 ceedings contain 27 papers, extending to 784 

 pages and including 75 plates. The work of 

 the Academy is of great interest and importance, 

 more especially as most of the papers are con- 

 cerned wish the fauna, flora and physiography 

 of California. Among the papers are a Review 

 of the Herpetology of Lower California, by John 

 van Denburgh ; California Water Birds, by 

 Leverett M. Loomis ; The Neocene Stratig- 

 raphy of the Santa Cruz Mountains of Cali- 

 fornia, by George H. Ashley; The Fishes of 

 Sinaloa, by David Starr Jordan; Contributions 

 to Western Botany, by Marcus E. Jones, and 

 Explorations in the Cape Region of Baja Cali- 

 fornia, by Gustav Eisen. 



Dr. Julius von Schroder, professor of 

 chemistry at the School of Forestry at Tharandt 

 died on October 27th, at the age of 52. The 

 deaths are also announced of Edward Combes, 

 a well-known Australian engineer; of Lieuten- 

 ant Otto E. Ehler, the German explorer, who 

 was drowned while making his expedition 

 across British New Guinea; of Oscar Borchert, 

 the African traveler, who died of malerial fever 

 at the Bethlehem Institute, near Ludwgslust, 



and of George Edward Dobson, a writer on 

 natural history, who died on November 26, at 

 the age of 51. 



Me. F. O. T. Delmae, of Bayswater, who died 

 on October 14th, has left £100,000 to his trus- 

 tees to form a fund to be called the Delmar 

 Charitable Trust. Nine-tenths of the annual 

 income from this fund is to be divided between 

 selected charitable institutions in London or its 

 neighborhood, ' having regard to the relative 

 importance and magnitude of each institution.' 

 The testator expresses his desire to benefit in 

 particular the establishments for the care and 

 treatment of epileptic and cancerous patients 

 and the Royal Society for the Prevention of 

 Cruelty to Animals. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



The Medical Department of Vanderbilt Uni- 

 versity was reorganized last spring. A new 

 faculty was elected and a graded course of 

 three years was adopted. The faculty consists 

 of ten professors and twenty instructors, lec- 

 turers and assistants. Dr. Wm. L. Dudley is 

 dean of the faculty and Dr. Richard Douglas 

 secretary. Dr. W. M. L. Coplin, late of Jeifer- 

 son Medical College, Philadelphia, fills the 

 chair of pathology and bacteriology. The de- 

 partment has removed this session into the 

 Medical College building lately erected and 

 furnished at a cost of $70,000. 



The Chemical Laboratory of the Rose Poly- 

 technic Institute was burned on the morning of 

 November 9th. The walls of the Laboratory and 

 a part of the floor were saved, but the rest of the 

 building and the entire equipment were de- 

 stroyed. The loss was about $7,500, of which 

 $5,000 was covered by insurance. The chem- 

 ical lecture room is in another building, and 

 provisions has already been made for students 

 of the chemical course to continue their labora- 

 tory work. A new equipment has been ordered 

 and the building will be rebuilt as soon as pos- 

 sible. 



The ninth annual convention of the Associa- 

 tion of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the 

 Middle States and INIaryland was held at Lafay- 

 ette College, Easton, Pa., under the presidency 



