166 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 57. 



kin, Norway. He started from Christiania be- 

 fore Christmas to make an exploring trip on 

 skis in the mountains. He had apparently 

 been overcome by fatigue and cold. Lieut. 

 Astrup was only 31 years of age. 



At a general meeting of the London Institu- 

 tion of Electrical Engineers, on January 16th, 

 Mr. Crompton, the retiring President, gave up 

 the chair to Dr. John Hopkinson, who delivered 

 his inaugural address, reviewing at length the 

 progress which had been made in the direction 

 of practical applications of electrical knowledge 

 during the past sixty years. 



We have received the first bulletin of the In- 

 stitut Internaiional de Bibliographie, which will 

 hereafter be published from the office of the In- 

 stitute, 11 Rue Ravenstein, Brussels. It contains 

 the address of Chev. Descamps given at the 

 close of the recent International Congress of 

 Bibliography, the rules of the Institute, the plans 

 proposed for a general bibliography by MM. 

 H. La Fontaine and P. Otlet, and notes on the 

 decimal system of classification. 



The Engineer has offered a prize of a thous- 

 and guineas for a contest of horseless carriages 

 to take place in England in October, and ar- 

 rangements are being made by American manu- 

 facturers for a similar contest between Jersey 

 City and Philadelphia with a prize of $5,000, to 

 take place as soon as the roads are in good 

 condition in the spring. 



Arrangements have been made for the fol- 

 lowing lectures to be given before the Royal 

 Institution before Easter: Dr. J. 6. McKen- 

 drick, professor of physiology in the University 

 of Glasgow, six lectures on ' Sound, Hearing 

 and Speech;' Prof. Charles Stewart, Fullerain 

 professor of physiology, R.I., eleven lectures 

 on the ' External Covering of Plants and Ani- 

 mals: its Structure and Functions ' ; Mr. H. 

 Marshall Ward, Professor of Botany in the 

 University of Cambridge, three lectures on 

 ' Some Aspects of Modern Botany ' ; Lord Ray- 

 leigh, professor of natural philosophy in the 

 Royal Institution, six lectures on 'Light.' The 

 Friday evening meetings will begip on January 

 17th, when a discourse will be given by Lord 

 Rayleigh on ' More about Argon.' Succeeding 

 discourses will probably be given by Prof. Bur- 



don Sanderson, Dr. John Murray, Dr. Edward 

 Frankland, Prof. T. R. Eraser, Prof. Dewar 

 and other gentlemen. 



According to the Lancet the trustees of the 

 Bellahouston fund have made the following 

 additional bequests to Glasgow Infirmaries : 1. 

 To the Royal Infirmary (1) a grant of £2,500 in 

 supplement of an equal sum already paid by the 

 trustees for the better equipment of the medical 

 school; and (2) a grant of £7,500 towards the 

 erection of a pathological museum and labora- 

 tory and another operating theatre, to be called 

 the ' Bellahouston theatre. ' 2. To the Western 

 Infirmary (1) a grant of £3,500 for the erection 

 of another operating theatre, to be called the 

 ' Bellahouston theatre ' ; and (2) a grant of 

 £5,000 towards the erection of pathological 

 buildings. 3. To the Victoria Infirmary a grant 

 of £6,000 for the erection and equipment of a 

 dispensary for out-patients, to. be called the 

 ' Bellahouston dispensary. ' 



The annual loss to Pennsylvania by forest 

 fires is estimated by the State Forestry Commis- 

 sioner to be at least .$1,000,000. He holds that 

 the Aires are always due to ignorance, careless- 

 ness or crime, and that these may be controlled. 



The multiplication of laboratories for the 

 study of experimental psychology has nearly 

 ceased, only because almost every school of any 

 importance now possesses such a laboratory. It 

 is already evident that a second era in this 

 movement is beginning. A few weeks ago it 

 was announced that the department of psy- 

 chology at Cornell University had just taken 

 possession of splendid new quarters on the 

 fourth floor of Morrill Hall, comprising a series 

 of nine rooms and some 4000 feet of floor space. 

 Word now comes from Nebraska that psychol- 

 ogy has just moved into the first floor of the 

 new library building and occupies a series of 

 five rooms with a floor space of about 3000 

 square feet. The rooms comprise a lecture 

 room that will accommodate one hundred stu- 

 dents ; a study that may be used also as a pri- 

 vate laboratory ; a shop equipped with lathe 

 and tools, to the value of about $300 (this room 

 is also used as laboratory at certain hours); and 

 two large rooms for general laboratory practice, 

 one of which has a small dark room cut off. 



