170 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 



lent motion pictures taken underground in 

 actual coal mines. They are the first successful 

 motion pictures taken underground, and they 

 give a vivid idea of the actual conditions met 

 in coal mining. 



On January 20, Professor W. Bateson be- 

 gan a course of six lectures at the Royal Insti- 

 tution on animals and plants under domesti- 

 cation. Beginning on January 22, Mr. W. 

 McDougall gave a course of two lectures on 

 the mind of savage men. The Friday evening 

 discourse on January 23 v^as delivered by Sir 

 James Dewar on " The Coming-of-age of the 

 Vacuum Plask." 



A MEMORIAL to Captain Scott will be un- 

 veiled on February 5 on the Col de Lautaret 

 in the French Alps, whither the British ex- 

 plorer went in March, 1908, to make a trial of 

 his motor sleighs. 



John James Rivers, born in England on 

 January 6, 1824, known for many years as a 

 naturalist on the Pacific coast, died at his 

 home in Santa Monica, California, on Decem- 

 ber 16, 1913. 



The death has occurred, in his eighty-fourth 

 year, of Mr. John Phin, the author of popular 

 scientific books, and formerly editor of several 

 New York technical papers. 



The death is announced of Dr. A. F. Le 

 Double, professor of anatomy at the School 

 Medecine in Tours, France. Professor Le 

 Double was an indefatigable worker and pub- 

 lished a number of works of special value to 

 anatomy and anthropology on the variations 

 of the muscular system, of the bones of the 

 skull, those of the face and those of the spine. 

 Death overtook him in the sixty-sixth year of 

 age and in the midst of preparation of further 

 work on the variations of the human system. 



The U. S. Civil Service Commission an- 

 nounces an examination for assistant in road 

 economics, to fill a vacany in this position in 

 the office of public roads, Department of Agri- 

 culture, Washington, D. C, at a salary of 

 $1,500 a year. 



The council of the Royal Geographical So- 

 ciety has made a grant of £1,000 towards the 



expenses of Sir Ernest Shackleton's trans- 

 antarctic expedition. 



Work has begun on the Magee Hospital for 

 maternity cases at Pittsburgh to be erected at 

 a cost of $800,000 provided by the late Chris- 

 topher L. Magee as a memorial to his mother. 

 The hospital is affiliated with the school of 

 medicine of the University of Pittsburgh. 



Messrs. Samuel and Harry Sachs, to per- 

 petuate the memory of their parents, the late 

 Joseph and Sophie Sachs, have given to Mount 

 Sinai Hospital, New York, the sum of $125,000 

 to endow two neurological wards. The hospital 

 will receive the sum of $100,000 under the will 

 of Benjamin Altman and has received a $100,- 

 000 legacy from Mrs. Louis W. Neustader. 



The Russian ministry of the interior has 

 given consent to the free admission of Jewish 

 members of the twelfth International Ophthal- 

 mological Congress, to be held at St. Peters- 

 burg from July 28 to August 2, but it limits 

 the time they can stay in the country to Sep- 

 ember 15. In view of this restriction. Pro- 

 fessor Julius Hirschberg, president of the Ber- 

 lin Ophthalmological Society, has proposed 

 that opthalmologists should refrain from at- 

 tending the congress. 



Marohese Raffaele Capelli, president of 

 the tenth International Congress of Geography, 

 has communicated to the U. S. Geological Sur- 

 vey, the following resolution adopted by the 

 recent congress, on motion of M. Le General 

 Schokalsky : 



The Tenth International Congress of Geography 

 approves the impulse given to the project of an 

 atlas of forms of terrestrial relief and the com- 

 mencement of the execution of the work. It 

 strongly recommends to all geographers and to the 

 scientific institutions to aid this enterprise in every 

 manner. 



He requests that wide circulation be given to 

 this resolution of the congress, in order to ob- 

 tain cooperation on the part of the geograph- 

 ers of difl'erent countries. 



In accordance with plans recently formu' 

 lated by a special committee appointed by the 

 secretary of agriculture whose recommenda- 



