Decesibes 27, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



891 



Yucutan,' by Charles Frederick Millspaugh. 

 The collection which forms the basis of this 

 monograph was made last January, during an 

 expedition to the ruined city of Chichen Itza, 

 and the Islands of Mugeres and Cozumel, and 

 is, according to the author, incomplete and 

 fragmentary, on account of the excessive dry- 

 ness of the season and the rapidity of move- 

 ment of the party. The expedition was gen- 

 erously planned and carried forward by Mr. 

 Allison V. Armour, of Chicago, and as it was 

 conducted in his steam yacht it gave an oppor- 

 tunity of visiting the islands that would other- 

 wise have been unattainable. In order that 

 the work should be made as complete as pos- 

 sible, a careful compilation was made of all the 

 publications concerning previous collections. 



A SIMILAR report, by Mr. John M. Holzinger, 

 has been issued by the U. S. National Herbar- 

 ium of the Department of Agriculture, on a 

 collection of plants made by J. H. Sandberg 

 and assistants principally in northern Idaho, 

 but to some extent in the adjacent parts of 

 Washington and Montana, in the year 1892. 

 The monograph contains 287 pages and includes 

 a catalogue of species and a list of 1272 speci- 

 mens obtained on the expedition. An index is 

 appended. 



Aeeangements have been made with the 

 Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Com- 

 pany of New York by which the Weather Bureau 

 will transmit information regarding weather 

 forecasts to the general public. Any one may 

 hereafter call for answers to special questions 

 at any time and be sure of an immediate answer. 

 Moreover, any subscriber who wishes to have 

 all important weather news can send his name 

 to the telephone company, and he will thereafter 

 be telephoned by them whenever any marked 

 change is expected. 



At the Annual Meeting of the Royal Society 

 of Edinburgh, which took place on November 

 25th, the following officers were elected : Presi- 

 dent, Lord Kelvin ; Vice-Presidents, Prof. 

 Copeland, Prof. James Geikie, the Hon. Lord 

 Maclaren, the Rev. Prof Flint, Prof. J. G. 

 McKendrick and Prof Chrystal ; General Sec- 

 retary, Prof. P. G. Tait ; Secretaries to Or- 

 dinary Meetings, Prof Crum Brown and Mr. 



John Murray ; Treasurer, Mr. Philip R. D. Mac- 

 lagan ; Curator of Library and Museum, Mr. 

 Alexander Buchan. 



We learn from the American Geologist of the 

 death, on October 27th, of Antonio del Castillo, 

 director of the Mexican Geological Commis- 

 sion. 



The death is announced of Rev. A. E. Phil- 

 limore Gray, of Wallasey, England, a well- 

 known authority on antiquarian and archse- 

 ological subjects. He was elected a Fellow of 

 the Society of Antiquarians in 1887. 



The annual meetings of the American Eco- 

 nomical Association under the presidency of 

 Prof. John B. Clark of Columbia College, and of 

 the Political Science Association of the Central 

 States, under the presidency of Prof Albion W. 

 Small of the University of Chicago, will be held at 

 Indianapolis beginning on December 27th and 

 continuing until January 2d. The first-named 

 association will hold sessions on December 27th, 

 28th and 30th, and the latter on December 30th 

 and January 1st and 2d. The program for De- 

 cemer 31st is a joint one. 



Senator Squire introduced in the Senate on 

 December 10th a bill providing for the increase 

 of members of the engineer corps of the navy 

 to 303, and providing for the teaching of naval 

 engineering in properly qualified technological 

 schools. 



At the eleventh annual dinner of the London 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers, on Decem- 

 ber 13th, speeches were made by the president, 

 Mr. R. E. Compton, the Duke of Cambridge, 

 and others. Sir J. Crichton Browne said that 

 electrical engineers had added enormously to 

 those nervous diseases with which he and his 

 colleagues had to deal. Their discoveries had 

 increased the strain and stress of existence, and 

 had contributed to those wear and tear diseases 

 that were one of the features of modern civili- 

 zation. 



Professor W. A. Herdman delivered a lec- 

 ture on ' The Culture of the Edible Oyster ' be- 

 fore the Malacological Society of London on 

 December 12th. The lecture dealt with the 

 cultivation of the oyster and chiefly with its 

 cultivation in France. Among the important 



