638 
In connection with the Munich veterinary 
school, a station has been established for the 
study of the diseases of fishes. 
PLANS for the lion house of the New York 
Zoological Park have been approved by the ex- 
ecutive committee of the Zoological Society. 
Sir JOHN Murray, who has just returned 
from a six months’ expedition to Christmas 
Island, during which he crossed the island from 
end to end—the first occasion on which it has 
been traversed—has made a statement with 
reference to his travels to a representative of 
Reuter’s Agency. Christmas Island, which is 
situated in the Indian Ocean, is 220 miles from 
the nearest land, and is some 12 miles long by 
seven broad. It is covered with dense forest, 
having an area of nearly 50 miles, and the sea 
depth around its shores is between three and 
four miles. There is no good anchorage, but 
only an open roadstead. When Sir John Mur- 
ray was on the island there were 13 whites, in- 
cluding a doctor, chemist and engineer, living 
there with their families, together with 720 
Indian coolies engaged in working the rich 
phosphate deposits. The animals and plants 
on the island are of extreme interest. The 
whole place is overrun with curious red crabs 
as much as 18 inches across. They are excel 
lent tree climbers, and once a year there is a 
regular migration of these crustaceans, who 
travel in bodies like ants, taking 15 days on the 
journey, and returning inland after hatching 
their eggs. There are only five mammals on 
the island, including two species of rat not 
known elsewhere. They are of two colors, 
those on the plateau being brown, while those 
nearer the coast are black, and in order to keep 
them down a number of terriers have been im- 
ported. On the island are also to be found a 
toothless snake and a blind snake much like a 
worm. In exploring the island Sir John Mur- 
ray had to cut a track through the dense forest 
until he reached the central plateau at an alti- 
tude of 1,000 feet, where traveling was not so 
difficult. One night he got lost in the forest, 
and had to subsist on the tops of sago palms, 
which he cut down. The island is under the 
Straits Settlements Government, and a resident 
magistrate has just been despatched thither 
from Singapore, together with an official of the 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Von. XIII. No. 329. 
Public Works Department, a scientific commis- 
sion, and a force of police, 35 in all. They will 
select sites for the administrative buildings to 
be erected on the island. The climate is per- 
fect, like a hot English summer, and prior to 
the British annexation no human being is sup- 
posed to have lived on the island. 
THE annual general meeting of the Chemical 
Society was held at Burlington House, London, 
on March 28th. Professor T. E. Thorpe, the 
president, made an address in the course of 
which he said according to the London Times, 
that they were proud to think that the Society, 
in so far as it had administered to the progress 
of chemistry, might have contributed in some 
measure to the luster of the reign which had 
been eminently associated with the spread of 
science. They had never been unmindful of 
what their science owed to the royal family, 
and in particular to the late Prince Consort. 
They entered on the 20th century mustering 
2,368 members, including 33 foreign members. 
Since the last anniversary 182 communications 
had been made to the Society, a number greater 
than that of any preceding year. The volumes 
published in 1900 by the Society contained 
3,758 abstracts of papers, which had appeared 
mainly in continental journals. For some time 
past their sister society in Berlin had had under 
consideration the desirability of establishing, 
with the cooperation of the various chemical 
societies in Europe and America, a uniform 
system of atomic weights. The committee ap- 
pointed by the Society had decided to recom- 
mend that O—16 be taken as the basis of cal- 
culation of atomic weights, and that in assigning 
a number as the atomic weight of any element 
only so many figures should be employed that 
the weight might be regarded as accurately 
known to one unit in that figure. Some dis- 
cussion had taken place with regard to the 
time of the Society’s meetings, and the council 
had decided provisionally to hold the meetings 
during the coming session at 5:30 P. M. on the 
first and third Wednesdays of the month. 
Professor Reynolds J. Emerson was elected 
president for the ensuing year. 
A DESPATCH from New Orleans to the daily 
papers states that the investigation made by 
Professor Beyer for the American Ornithologi- 
