382 SCIENCE. 
ical Congress, which will be held at Berlin from 
Thursday, September 28th, to Wednesday, Oc- 
tober 4th, under the auspices of ‘die Gesell- 
schaft fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin,’ are as follows: 
Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, President of the 
Society ; Gen. A. W. Greely, U.S.A., also 
designated by President McKinley to represent 
the United States Government; Professor 
Willis L. Moore, Chief of the Weather Bureau ; 
Hon. Andrew D. White, U. S. Ambassador to 
Germany; Miss Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, 
Foreign Secretary of the Society ; Mr. Marcus 
Baker, of the U. 8. Geological Survey ; Dr. L. 
A. Bauer, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic 
Survey; and Professor Wm. M. Davis, of Har- 
vard University. 
THE German government has sent Professor 
von Volkens, of the University of Berlin, to the 
Caroline Islands to investigate the soil and the 
flora. 
ALBERT B. PreEscotr, professor of chem- 
istry in the University of Michigan, was elected 
president of the American Pharmaceutical As- 
sociation at its meeting last week at Put-in Bay, 
Ohio. 
WE regret to record the following deaths : 
Dr. Karl Bernhard Brihl, formerly professor 
of zootomy in the University of Vienna, on 
August 14th, aged 80 years; Professor Erhardt, 
formerly director of the Museum of Natural 
History at Coburg, aged 80 years, and Professor 
Oluf Rygh, who held the chair of archeology 
at Christiania. 
Mr. O. G. Jongs, instructor of Physics in the 
City of London School, has been killed by an 
Alpine accident on the Dent Blanche near Zer- 
matt. 
Tue British Association has this week begun 
its meeting at Dover. According to preliminary 
announcements, Professor Michael Foster, the 
President, will compare the condition of science 
in 1899 and 1799, and will dwell upon the intel- 
lectual influence of science and its value as 
mental training. He will also consider the 
benefits of international efforts. The addresses 
by the presidents before the Sections will be as 
follows: Mathematics and Physics, Professor 
J. H. Poynting, on the nature of law, explana- 
tion and hypothesis as used in physical science ; 
[N. S. Vou. X. No. 246. 
Chemistry, Mr. Horace T. Brown, on the as- 
similation of carbon by the higher plants ; Ge- 
ology, Sir Archibald Geikie, on geological time ; 
Zoology, Professor Adam Sedgwick, on varia- 
tion in phenomena connected with reproduction 
and sex; Geography, Sir John Murray, on the 
floor of the ocean ; Political Economy and Statis- 
tics, Mr. Henry Higgs, on the consumption of 
wealth ; Mechanical Science, Sir H. W. White, 
on steam navigation at high speeds ; Anthropol- 
ogy, Mr. C. S. Read, subject not announced ; 
Physiology, Mr. J. M. Langley, on the motor 
nerves; Botany, Sir George King, on syste- 
matic botany in India. Professor Ch. Richet. 
will give a lecture on nervous vibration, and 
Professor Fleming one on the centenary of the 
electric current. The usual lecture to work- 
ing men will this year be omitted. 
THE systematic effort begun in June by the 
National Geographic Society toward the en- 
largement of its work by increasing its member- 
ship throughout the country is proving most 
successful. Within the last three months over 
375 non-resident members have been enrolled, 
representing every state in the Union and dif- 
ferent sections of Canada. The membership of 
the Society is now about 2,000. 
THE 18th Annual Congress of the Sanitary 
Institute of Great Britain opened at South- 
ampton on August 29th with about 1,700 mem- 
bers in attendance. The president, Sir W. H. 
Preece, made the annual address, in which he 
discussed pure air, pure water, pure food, pure 
soil and pure dwellings. 
THE burning of the buildings of the Volta 
Centenary Exposition, at Como, will not, as we 
have already stated, prevent the holding of the 
electrical congress, which opens on the 18th 
inst. Professor Righi will open the congress 
with a commemorative address on Volta. As 
part of the proceedings there will be a discus- 
sion on electrical terminology. 
THE American Museum of Natural History, 
New York City, has now twenty-three repre- 
sentatives in the field engaged as follows: The 
Jesup expedition to the North Pacific making 
archeological and ethnological researches in 
British Columbia and Northeastern Siberia ; 
the Jesup zoological expedition to the United 
