662 
University. He had published several syste- 
matic papers on the Diptera. 
ProFeEssor J. B. CARNoy, of the Catholic 
University of Louvain, died at Schuls in the 
Engadine on the sixth of September. He was 
well known by his uncompleted manual of Bi- 
ologie cellulaire and by his memoirs upon de- 
velopment of the sexual elements. He also 
founded the journal La Cellule. His writings 
were characterized by great lucidity but also 
by a marked positiveness and by a polemical 
tone which sometimes caused his assertions to 
be received with reserve. He was nevertheless 
an able and conscientious observer. 
Mr. GRANT ALLEN died on October 25th. 
He was born at Kingston, Ont., in 1848, and 
was well known, both for his writing on popu- 
lar science, and more recently for his novels 
and other literary works. His books on ‘ Phy- 
siological Atsthetics’ (1877) and the ‘Color- 
Sense ’ (1879) promised serious contributions to 
science, and his work on the ‘ Evolution of the 
Idea of God’ (1897) was an anthropological 
study of value, but most of his books and articles, 
which are extremely numerous, are of a popular 
character devoted especially to explaining the 
doctrine of evolution. 
THE date of the celebration of the centenary 
of the Royal College of Surgeons in England has 
been fixed for July 25th, 26th and 27th, 1900. 
THE National Geographic Society, Washing- 
ton, announces the following lectures during 
November and December : 
The popular course: November 3d, ‘The Alaskan 
Boundary,’ by Hon. John W. Foster ; November 17th, 
‘ Arctic Explorations in 1898-’99,’ by Walter Well- 
man ; December Ist, ‘ Glaciers of Alaska seen by the 
Harriman Expedition,’ by Dr. G. K. Gilbert ; De- 
cember 8th, ‘ The Philippine Islands,’ by Hon. John 
Barrett ; December 15th, ‘ Natives of the Philippines,’ 
by Professor Dean C. Worcester. 
The technical course: November 10th, ‘ Tide- Levels 
of the Great Lakes,’ by Mr. A. J. Henry ; November 
24th, ‘Explorations in Patagonia,’ by Mr. J. B. 
Hatcher ; December 22d, ‘Gila River and its Irriga- 
tion Possibilities,’ by F. H. Newell. 
Succeeding lectures for which partial arrange- 
ments have already been made will be an- 
nounced on January 1st. 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. X. No. 253. 
The British Medical Journal announces that 
during the coming session of the Pathological 
Society of London an important new departure 
will be made in regard to the meetings of this 
Society. Four of the fifteen meetings which 
have hitherto been held at the rooms of the 
Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society are to 
be held at different London laboratories, in 
connection or not, with medical schools, the ob- 
ject being that demonstrations may be given 
which it would be extremely difficult or impos- 
sible to carry out elsewhere. This is the reali- 
zation of a proposal made some years ago by 
the late Professor Roy. It has, moreover, been 
determined that the report of an author’s com- 
munication or demonstration given at any of 
the four laboratory meetings shall be made 
public only if the author himself so wish. The 
chief reason for this regulation is that the work 
being carried out at laboratories may be at such 
a stage of progress when brought forward that 
its publication would be premature and injudi- 
cious. The next meeting of the Society will be 
held at the Jenner Institute of Preventive 
Medicine on November 7th, and subsequent 
laboratory meetings will be held at University 
College, London (February 6th), at the Lab- 
oratories of the Royal Colleges of Physicians 
and Surgeons (March 6th), and at King’s Col- 
lege (May Ist). 4 
Ir is expected that the Chicago Drainage 
Canal, carrying the waters of Lake Michigan to 
the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, will be open 
in December. It was constructed, in the first 
instance, to divert the sewage of Chicago from 
Lake Michigan, from which the city draws its 
water supply, but it may also be used as a ship 
canal, if the Illinois River is deepened, connect- 
ing Chicago and New Orleans. The canal is 35 
miles in length, over 150 feet in width, and 20 
feet deep, and has been constructed at a cost of 
about $30,000,000. 
AN Institute for the study of malaria has 
been established at Mery as a department of 
the St. Petersburg Institute of Experimental 
Medicine. The staff consists of a director with 
three assistants. 
Nature states that in compliance with the re- 
quest made by Russian men of science to the 
