582 
MaJor RONALD Ross has now returned from 
Africa, and is represented to have said that the 
authorities in Sierra Leone, acting on his ad- 
vice, are now destroying the virulent mosquito 
by every means in their power. In the judg- 
ment of Major Ross the future of the west coast 
will be assured as soon as the colonial author- 
ities take similar steps in the neighborhood of 
the principal towns, although years must elapse 
before the inland stations are improved. 
THE Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge Univer- 
sity announced on October 4th that he had re- 
ceived the following communication from the 
Colonial Office: The Government of the Straits 
Settlements desires to invite the attention of 
Radcliffe’s travelling Fellows and of holders of 
scholarships for medical and physical research 
to the study of the tropical diseases called beri- 
beri. This disease caused in the hospitals of the 
colony 730 deaths in 1896, and 692 in 1897. 
This government will be glad to assist any 
scholar who desires to engage in the scientific 
investigation of this disease in the colony, by 
providing him with furnished quarters, rent 
free, by giving him free access to all the hos- 
pitals, and facilities for studying the cases 
therein, by defraying the cost of his passage to 
the colony, and in any way which may be 
agreed upon hereafter between the scholar and 
Mr. Swettenham, the Secretary of the Straits 
Settlements. 
THE death is announced of M. Paul Janet, 
member of the Paris Academy of moral and 
political science, and formerly professor of phi- 
losophy at the Sorbonne. 
Mr. Epwarp Cass, an English engineer, well 
known for his method of groyning to prevent 
the sea from encroaching on the coast, died on 
September 22d. 
THE position of assistant in the bio-chemic 
division of the Bureau of Animal’ Industry in 
the Department of Agriculture, will be filled as 
the result of an examination on November 7th. 
The chief subject in the examination will be 
serum therapeutics. The salary will be $750 
per annum. 
THE charter of the Dental School and Museum 
of Art, provided for in the will of the late Dr. 
Thomas W. Evans, the American dentist, who 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8. Vou. X. No. 251. 
died in Paris in 1897, has been approved by 
Judge Arnold. The Museum will have an en- 
dowment of nearly four million dollars unless 
the will is broken by the legal contest now in 
progress. 
Mr. Andrew Carnegie has increased his gift 
for the Washington Public Library to $350,000. 
At the close of the last session a site on Mount 
Vernon Square was selected, and it is expected 
that the construction of the building will be 
begun very soon. 
WE learn from Popular Astronomy that the 
new observatory and great refractor of the 
astrophysical observatory at Potsdam were 
inaugurated on August 26th, in the presence of 
the German Emperor. 
THE fine collection of Scottish agates made 
by the late Professor Heddle says Natural 
Science is now arranged in the Museum of 
Science and Artin Edinburgh. Mr. J. G. Good- 
child has prepared a guide to the collection, 
incorporating Professor Heddle’s explanatory 
notes. 
THE winter meeting of the American Chem- 
ical Society will be held at New Haven, Conn., 
during Christmas week. As last year in New 
York the Society will meet at the same time 
and place as the American Society of Naturalists 
and affiliated societies. 
ABOUT seventy members of the British Asso- 
ciation took advantage of the trip through 
France and Belgium arranged to follow the 
Dover meeting. They were oflicially wel- 
comed in the different towns and cities that 
they visited. 
TuE Fourth International Congress of Applied 
Chemistry is to be held in Paris from the 21st to 
23d of July, 1900, with M. Berthelot as honorary 
president, and M. Moissan as president. An 
American Committee on Organization has been 
formed consisting of: Section I.—Analytical 
Chemistry, W. L. Dudley, W. F. Hillebrand, J. 
H. Long, Elwyn Waller ; Section II.—Inorganic 
Products, Edward Hart, Edward W. Morley, 
J.D. Pennock ; Section III.—WMetallurgy, Mines, 
Explosives, F. W. Clarke, C. B. Dudley, C. E. 
Munroe, H. H. Nicholson; Section IV.—Or- 
ganic Products, Thomas Evans, Wm. McMurtrie, 
