Januaey 31, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



165 



them ft-om Sydney to Funifuti, in the Central 

 Pacific, which has been selected as the scene of 

 operations. Mr. W. W. Watts writes to the 

 same journal that it would have been impossible 

 to undertake the work without the assistance of 

 the Departments of Mines of the New South' 

 Wales government, which has granted to the 

 committee a complete set of boring tubes and 

 appliances. 



The Field Columbian Museum, of Chicago, 

 will send a commission, including Professor D. 

 O. Elliot, one of the curators, and Mr. C. A. 

 Aikley, the taxidermist of the Museum, to 

 ■Central Africa to collect zoological specimens. 

 It is proposed to leave Chicago about March 1st, 

 and to spend six months in Africa. 



The New York section of the American 

 branch of the Society for Psychical Research 

 will have its next meeting at Columbia College, 

 on February 1st, at eight P. M. Prof. William 

 James will preside and will make an address. 

 Papers will be read by Prof. J. H. Hyslop on 

 ' Experiments in Crystal Vision,' and by Prof. 

 W. R. Newbold on ' Three Cases of Subcon- 

 scious Reasoning. ' A meeting will be held in 

 Boston, at Allston Hall, on the preceding even- 

 ing. 



At the annual meeting of the Anthropological 

 Society of Washington, held January 21st, 

 Prof. Lester F. Ward was elected President for 

 the ensuing year ; Surgeon General George M. 

 Sternberg, Dr. Frank Baker, Mr. W J McGee, 

 and Mr. George R. Stetson, Vice-Presidents ; 

 Dr. J. H. McCormick, General Secretary ; Mr. 

 Weston Flint, Secretary to the Board of Man- 

 agers ; Mr. Perry B. Pierce, Treasurer ; and 

 Mr. F. W. Hodge, Curator. Dr. Cyrus Adler, 

 Mr. Joseph D. McGuire, Mr. James A. Blod- 

 gett, Dr. Washington Matthews, Dr. Thomas 

 Wilson, and Prof. J. Ormond Wilson were 

 elected Councilors. Dr. Robert Fletcher, Prof. 

 Otis T. Mason, and Major J. W. Powell, former 

 presidents of the Society, are ex-officio mem- 

 bers of the Council. 



At the annual meeting of the Royal Meteoro- 

 logical Society, on January 15th, Mr. E. Mawley 

 was elected President, and the retiring Presi- 

 dent, M. R. Inwards, delivered an address on 

 Meteorological Observatories. 



The third course of annual lectures of the 

 Linnsean Society, in connection with the Amer- 

 ican Museum of Natural History, is as follows : 



January 14, 1896. The Indians of Vancouver 

 Island. By Dr. Franz Boas, American Mus- 

 eum of Natural History. 



January 18th. The Origin and Distribution of 

 North American Mammals. By Prof. W. B. 

 Scott, Princeton College. 



March 3d. Two Months in Greenland. By 

 Prof. William Libbey, Princeton College. 



Me. C. E. Boechgeevink has sent his miner- 

 alogical collection from South Victoria Conti- 

 nent to Dr. John Murray, F. R. S. Mr. 

 Borchgrevink holds that his specimens are es- 

 pecially valuable as proving the existence of an 

 Antarctic continent. 



The cost of sending an expedition from the 

 Lick Obsei-vatory to Japan to observe the ap- 

 proaching eclipse of the sun will be defrayed by 

 Mr. C. F. Crocker, of San Francisco. 



A CABLEGEAM to the daily papers states that 

 Dr. Behring has discovered an anti-cholera 

 serum, and announces that a public demonstra- 

 tion of its properties will be made at an early 

 date. 



We learn from La Nature that the Venetian 

 Society for the encouragement of pisiculture 

 has secured, from the Aquarium of the Trocadero 

 at Paris, spawn of the California salmon, to be 

 placed in the streams of the province. 



Nature states that Mr. John Donnell Smith is 

 still in Nicaragua, in pursuance of his botanical 

 explorations, which have already been so fertile 

 in additions to the Central American flora, and 

 that M. R. Schlecter is intending shortly to 

 start on a two years' botanical exploration of 

 the south and east of Africa. His program 

 includes a prolonged stay in Namaland, the 

 Ti-ansvaal, Coud-Bocke veld, Limpopo andMata- 

 beleland as far as the Zambesi. Subscriptions 

 for his collection will be received by Prof. Schu- 

 mann, Botanical Museum, Griinewald str., Ber- 

 lin. They will be at the rate of 35 marks the 

 hundred. 



Lieut. E. Asteup, the Arctic explorer who 

 was with Lieut. Peary on his first expedition to 

 Greenland, was found dead on Jan. 19th in a 

 vallej"^ in the Dovrefjeld Mountains, near Jer- 



