280 
Legislature to exempt portions of the property 
of Leland Stanford Junior University from 
taxation. A bill has now been passed to the 
third reading in the Assembly by a vote of 47 
to 15, exempting from taxation the real estate 
occupied by the University and bonds held by it. 
THE higher court has sustained the decision 
upholding the validity of the will of Colonel 
Joseph M. Bennett which, it will be remem- 
bered, left a large estate to the University of 
Pennsylvania. 
By the will of Daniel A. Buckley, late pub- 
lisher of the Cambridge (Mass.) News, an estate, 
valued at between $50,000 and $60,000, is be- 
queathed to the city of Cambridge to be used 
for the education at Harvard of such graduates 
of non-sectarian schools as a committee may 
deem worthy. 
Iv appears that the school fund of the State 
of Minnesota has been increased by the dis- 
covery of iron ore. Ten million tons have 
been sold in position for $2,500,000, and it is 
said that at least 50,000,000 tons can be dis- 
posed of in the same way. The State school 
fund now amounts to $12,500,000, invested in 
bonds and securities, and the school and uni- 
versity lands are valued at more than $20,000, - 
000. 
THE Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, 
N. Y., has in operation a new electrical labora- 
tory containing sixteen machines, generators 
and transformers, together with a full equip- 
ment for practical tests. The laboratory for 
the testing of materials of engineering has been 
increased by the addition of one 300,000 pound 
testing machine and one 100,000 pound testing 
machine; and a 10,000 pound wire testing ma- 
chine. There is also a new cement testing 
laboratory fully equipped for the most approved 
modern tests. z 
THE ladies of the Temple Emanu-El in San 
Francisco, one of the largest Jewish congrega- 
tions on the Pacific Coast, have founded two 
graduate fellowships in Semitic languages in the 
University of California. They have pledged 
themselves to pay to the University in cash, 
within two years, the full amount of the endow- 
ment, $15,000. Some years ago the ladies of 
the congregation presented to the university a 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Von. XIII. No. 320. 
Semitic library of over three thousand volumes. 
Jacob Voorsanger, D.D., rabbi of the Temple 
Emanu-El, has for some years served without 
remuneration as professor of Semitic languages 
and literature in the university. 
LoRD GEORGE HAMILTON has refused to grant 
the inquiry asked for by the dismissed members 
of the teaching staff at the Royal Indian Engi- 
neering College at Coopers Hill, but it is un- 
derstood that leading English scientific men 
will continue the agitation for such an inquiry. 
JOHN Hupson PECK has resigned the presi- 
dency of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 
and a committee of the Board of Trustees is 
considering a successor. 
Dr. FRED. C. ZAPFFE has been appointed 
professor of histology in the medical school of 
the University of Illinois. 
Dr. WALTER T. KRETZ has been appointed 
lecturer in astronomy in Columbia University. 
W. SMYTHE JOHNSON, Ph.D. (Yale), has been 
appointed to the chair of psychology in the 
State Normal School at Natchitoches, and Dr. 
Matataro Matsumoto, assistant in the psycho- 
logical Jaboratory of Yale University, has been 
appointed professor of psychology in the Im- 
perial Normal School of Tokyo, Japan. 
Mr. P. Y. BEvAN has been appointed an 
assistant demonstrator in physics at Cambridge 
University, and Mr. H. A. Wilson, has been 
elected to the Clerk Maxwell studentship in 
experimental physics. 
Mr. W. H. Wittcox, M.B., B.Sc. (Lond.), 
has been elected to the post of lecturer on 
chemistry and physics at St. Mary’s Hospital 
Medical School, London. 
Dr. G. C. Scumipt, of Eberswalde, has been 
elected to an associate professorship of theoret- 
ical physics in the Univerity of Erlangen. Dr. 
H. Boruttan, docent in the University of Got- 
tingen, has been promoted to a professorship of 
physiology. Dr. Heyn, o the Mechanical In- 
stitute of Berlin, has been appointed professor 
of engineering in the Technical Institute at 
Stuttgart. At the same institution Dr. Englisch 
has qualified as docent in scientific photography. 
Dr. Max Reess, professor of botany in the Uni- 
versity of Erlangen, has retired. 
