Mazrcu 8, 1901.] 
THE Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 
will celebrate the tercentenary of the death of 
Tycho Brahe by a special session on October 
94th. The Academy has also undertaken to 
issue a facsimile reproduction .of the astrono- 
mer’s great work, ‘Astronomiz Instaurate 
Progymnasmata,’ which was printed under the 
‘ author’s direction and of which but five copies 
are known to exist. 
THE death is announced of Dr. Robert Pohl- 
mann, the geologist, curator in the Natural 
History Museum at Santiago, Chili. 
Dr. OscAR SCHLOMILCH, formerly professor 
of mathematics at the Technical School at 
Dresden, died on February 7th, at the age of 
seventy-eight years. 
Mr. MAurIcE THompson, the eminent poet, 
critic and novelist, who died recently, did good 
work as a naturalist. He was originally a civil 
engineer and was at one time State geologist of 
Indiana. 
_ Apyicrs have been received from Para, Bra- 
zil, regarding the death of Dr. Walter Myers, 
of the expedition from the Liverpool School 
of Tropical Medicine. The attack of yellow 
fever followed a prolonged autopsy and Dr. 
Herbert Durham also contracted the disease. 
As cable advices to the contrary have not, how- 
ever, been received, it may be assumed that he 
recovered. 
A Cryit SERVICE examination will be held on 
March 26th to fill the position of nautical ex- 
pert in the hydrographic office, Navy Depart- 
ment, at asalary of $1,000 er annum. The 
examination will be in pure mathematics, 
physical geography and navigation. 
THE Department of State has received a note 
from the legation of Sweden and Norway, dated 
Washington, February 2, 1901, stating that the 
managers of the Nobel fund have been author- 
ized to correspond directly with interested 
parties abroad without using the channel of 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Stockholm. 
THE London correspondent of the New York 
Evening Post cables that an extensive collection 
of Central American land fresh-water shells 
has been presented to the Natural History Mu- 
SCIENCE. 
399 
seum by Mr. Frederick Godman, F.R.S. There 
are nearly ,000 specimens, including types of 
70 new species. Mr. Godman also presented a 
large and important collection of butterflies of 
Central America, containing 2,500 specimens. 
THE Paris Academy of Sciences has decided 
to award annually in memory of Lavoisier a 
gold medal for distinguished services to chem- 
istry. 
THE fifteenth free lecture course of the Field 
Columbian Museum of Chicago will be given on 
Saturday afternoons at three o’clock, as fol. 
lows: 
March 2—‘ The Kiowa Indians—A Typical Buffalo 
Tribe,’ by James Mooney, Bureau of Ethnology, 
Washington, D. C. 
March 9—‘ The Hills and Valleys of Wisconsin and 
eir Life History,’ by Dr. E. R. Buckley, Wisconsin 
Geological and Natural History Survey. 
March 16—‘ The Diamonds of the Kettle Moraine 
and their ancestral Home,’ by Professor William H. 
Hobbs, University of Wisconsin. 
March 23—‘ The Evolution of Means of Transpor- 
tation in America,’ by Professor Edwin Erle Sparks, 
University of Chicago. 
March 30—‘ Some Interesting Insects,’ by Mr. Ed- 
ward Benjamin Chope, Assistant in Department of 
Zoology, Field Columbian Museum. 
April 6—‘ Deep Sea Fishing and Fishes,’ by Dr. 8S. | 
E. Meek, Assistant Curator, Department of Zoology, 
Field Columbian Museum. 
April 13—‘The Ancient Pueblos of Arizona,’ hy 
Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, Bureau of Ethnology, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 
April 20—‘ Tour of the Plant World—West In- 
dies,’ by Dr. Charles F. Millspaugh, Curator, Depart- 
ment of Botany, Field Columbian Museum. 
April 27—‘ Jamaica—The Princess of the Antilles,’ 
by Dr. Charles F. Millspaugh, Curator, Department 
of Botany, Field Columbian Museum. 
THE second annual banquet of the Sigma Xi 
Society of the University of Nebraska was held 
in connection with charter day and mid-winter 
commencement on February 14th. Afterwards 
an address was made before the Society by Pro- 
fessor C. C. Nutting, of the University of Iowa, 
his subject being ‘ The Conditions of Life at the 
Bottom of the Sea.’ 
Dr. C. HART MERRIAN, chief of the Biolog- 
ical Survey, lectured before the Linnean So- 
