742 SCIENCE. 
A DEPUTATION representing the committee of 
the proposed university for Birmingham has 
come to America to study American univer- 
sities. The deputation includes Professor J. 
H. Poynting whose address as president of the 
Physical Section of the British Association was 
recently published in this JOURNAL. 
PROFESSOR BATTISTA GRASSI has gone to 
Grosseto in order to complete his researches on 
the mosquitos concerned in the transmission of 
malarial infection. 
Tuer Allahabad Pioneer Mail, as quoted in 
Nature, states that Mr. Douglas Freshfield has 
‘started from Darjeeling, with a party of friends 
and Alpine guides, to explore the glaciers and 
little-known passes of the Kanchenjunga range 
of the Himalayas, 
Miss Sustm P. Nicuots, B.S., Cornell Uni- 
versity, 98, and Fellow in Botany at Cornell 
University, 1898-99, has been appointed holder 
of the Woman’s Table at the Zoological Station 
at Naples for the autumn of 1899 and spring, 
1900. She is engaged upon certain studies in 
the embryology of plants and has already en- 
tered upon her work at Naples. 
THE Medical Club of Philadelphia gave last 
week a reception to Professors Simon Flexner 
and John C. Clarke, who have this year severed 
their connection with the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity to accept the chairs of pathology and 
gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania. 
Nature states that copies in bronze of the 
medal presented to Sir G. G. Stokes at his jubilee 
can now be obtained from Messrs. Macmillan 
and Bowes, Cambridge, price fifteen shillings 
each. 
Tue death is announced of Dr. A. Ernst, 
Director of the National Museum, Cardcas, 
Venezuela. 
Dr. EpwArD Perri professor of geography 
and anthropology, in the University of St. 
Petersburg, has died at the age of forty-five 
years. 
Mr. OrtTMAR MERGENTHALER, the inventor 
of the linotype machine, died at Baltimore on 
October 28th. The linotype substitute for type 
setting was first devised by him in 1880 and is 
now extensively used in newspaper offices. 
[N.S. Vou. X. No. 255. 
THE death is announced of Mr. James Simp- 
son, curator of the anatomical museum of the 
University of Edinburgh. He did much to- 
wards devising methods of mounting and dis- 
playing museum specimens and was the author 
of papers on various scientific subjects. 
PROFESSOR ANDREW GRAY, Lord Kelvin’s 
successor at the University of Glasgow, chose 
as the subject of his inaugural address ‘ The 
Interaction of Theory and Practical Applica- 
tions in Physical Science.’ 
AT a special meeting of the Appalachian 
Mountain Club on November 22d, President T. 
C. Mendenhall, of Worcester Polytechnic Insti- 
tute, will address the Club on the ‘Controversy 
over Alaska.’ President Mendenhall it will be 
remembered was one of the Commissioners on 
the Alaskan boundary. 
Tue lecture courses offered by the National 
Geographic Society in Washington, of which a 
preliminary program has already been pub- 
lished in SCIENCE, have been successfully in- 
augurated. The Society is at present in a most 
flourishing condition, numbering some 1,200 
active and 1,200 corresponding, or non-resident 
members. 
THE collection of birds secured by Professor 
Charles F. McClure and Mr. Sylvester, who 
were members of the recent Peary Relief Expe- 
dition, have been placed in the ornithological 
museum of Princeton University. 
AT the Detroit Art Museum there is now a 
special exhibition of 28 paintings and 38 
sketches by Mr. Frank Wilbert Stokes, made 
while on the Peary Relief Expedition of 1892, 
and the North Greenland Expedition of 1893— 
94. Most of those of scientific interest are of 
geographical or geological subjects. 
THE Folk-Lore Society of Great Britain has 
offered to place on permanent deposit in the 
Museum of Archeology and Ethnology of 
Cambridge University the collection of objects 
illustrating the Folk-lore of Mexico, presented 
to the Society by Professor Starr of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago, and the Antiquarian Committee 
has recommended that the offer be gratefully 
accepted. The collection consisting of upwards 
of 600 objects was made by Professor Starr in 
Mexico and was exhibited last June at a joint- 
