Januaey 17, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



97 



lishment of a federated Bureau for Botany. It 

 is, moreover, almost certain that a similar step 

 will be taken in Brussels for yet other sciences 

 by a powerful organization founded under the 

 patronage of the Belgian government. It is, 

 therefore, not excessive optimism to predict^ 

 that it may be possible to realize in 1900 the 

 great project of the Royal Society of London. 



In the December number of Entomological 

 News, Mrs. Annie T. Slosson gives a list of in- 

 sects and spiders captured on or near the sum- 

 mit of Mt. Washington, N. H. With two pre- 

 vious lists, already published, the number of 

 species foots up to 830, all taken at or above 

 5,500 altitude. This number does not represent 

 the total fauna of this interesting region, as a 

 number of Coleoptera, collected there by Mr. 

 F. C. Bowditch, are not included. At first 

 sight it appears surprising that so many insects 

 should be found at such an altitude. However, 

 it appears that the list includes, besides those 

 indigenous to the climate and found in Labrador 

 and northward, many living throughout the 

 New England States, and doubtless not breed- 

 ing on the summit of the mountain. The 

 peculiar position of the peak, isolated in the 

 midst of a temperate climate and of small ex- 

 tent, must facilitate the frequent occurrence of 

 almost any of the more active insects from the 

 surrounding valleys. To this fact, as well as to 

 Mrs. Slosson' s industry in collecting, her suc- 

 cess may be attributed. 



Hakrison G. Dyae. 



The editorial board of the Astrophysical Jour- 

 nal has decided that the Roland scale of wave- 

 lengths, the ten millionth of a millimeter 

 as a unit in which wave-lengths shall be 

 expressed, the kilometer as the unit to be 

 used in measurements of motion in the line of 

 sight, and the nomenclature proposed by Vogel 

 and Huggins for the hydrogen series be adopted. 

 It also favors printing maps of spectra with the 

 red end on the right and tables of wave-lengths 

 with the shorter wave-length at the top. These 

 standards will be used in the Astrophysical Jour- 

 nal, and it is hoped that they will be generally 

 adopted. 



The annual meeting of the New York Zoolog- 

 ical Society was held on January 7th, and the 

 following officers were re-elected : President, 

 Andrew H. Green; First Vice-President, Charles 

 E. Whitehead; Second Vice-President, J. Hamp- 

 den Robb; Treasurer, L. V. F. Randolph; Sec- 

 retary, Madison Grant. The committee on a 

 site for the new zoological garden reported that 



D. G. Elliot, of the Field Columbian Museum; A. 



E. Brown, of the Philadelphia Zoological Gar- 

 den, and Frank Baker, of the Washington 

 Zoloogical Garden, had examined the eligible 

 sites in the city parks and regarded most favor- 

 ably Van Cortlandt Park. It is the intention of 

 the society to establish a garden in which the 

 animals will not be closely confined but placed 

 as far as possible under natural conditions. 



At a meeting of the American Philosophical 

 Society on October 3d, Frederick Fraley was 

 re-elected President and E. Otis Kendall and 

 J. P. Lesley were re-elected Vice-Presidents. 

 William Pepper was elected one of the Vice- 

 Presidents in place of the late W. S. W. Rus- 

 chenberger. The Secretaries elected are : George 



F. Barker, George H. Horn, Patterson DuBois 

 and Persifor Frazer. 



Aeeangements are being made for the annual 

 reception and exhibition of the New York 

 Academy of Sciences, which will be held at the 

 American Museum of Natural History and 

 probably early in March. Professor H. F. 

 Osborn is chairman of the executive committee 

 and seventeen sciences are represented on the 

 committee of arrangements. It is hoped that 

 the cooperation of institutions outside of the 

 city of New York may be secured to a greater 

 extent than hitherto in the exhibits. 



We have received a list of the prizes conferred 

 by the Paris Academy of Sciences on December 

 23d. These are too numerous to give in detail 

 in this journal, but it may be interesting to note 

 that the number of prizes ofiered is as great as 

 sixty-nine. Several of the prizes are of the 

 value of 10,000 fr., and one, for a method of 

 curing an epidemic disease, is 100,000 fr. This 

 prize was not, however, awarded this year. 



It is stated in the daily papers that Dr. John 

 S. Billings, director of the Department of Hy- 

 giene in the University of Pennsylvania, has 



