Febeuaky 14, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



237 



mana's Annalen for January, that by a 

 small modification in Maxwell's equations 

 to satisfy the conditions of high rarefaction, 

 which is met with in a Crookes tube, longi- 

 tudinal ether waves are possible, which 

 would possess many of the properties of the 

 so-called cathode rays. 



Arthur W. Goodspeed. 

 University op Pennsylvania, Feb. 8. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. ' 



GENERAL. 



An admirable portrait of the astronomer 

 Schiaparelli forms the frontispiece to Minerva 

 for 1896. 



Dr. S. p. Langley has been elected one of 

 the Foreign Members of the Royal Society of 

 London. There are now six from the United 

 .States, Alexander Agassiz, B. A. Gould, S. P. 

 Langley, Simon Newcomb, H. A. Newton and 

 H. A. Rowland. 



New honors are being bestowed upon the 

 discoverers of argon. First came the Barnard 

 gold medal of Columbia College, then the $10,- 

 000 Hodgkins prize, then the prize of 50,000 

 francs from the French Institute and now it 

 is announced that Lord Rayleigh and Professor 

 Ramsay have been made Knights of the Legion 

 of Honor, by order of the French Government. 



Me. W. L. Sclatee, son of the veteran sec- 

 retary of the Zoological Society of London, has 

 been appointed curator of the South African 

 Museum at Capetown. Mr. Sclater was for 

 :Some time deputy superintendent of the Indian 

 Museum at Calcutta, and has more recently 

 been assistant master at Eton. Mr. Sclater is 

 a well trained zoologist. His predecessor at 

 Capetown, Mr. Rowland Friman, was a botanist. 



Mr. Robert Ridgway', of the National Mus- 

 eum, has gone to Southern Florida to study the 

 spring bird migrations, during February and 

 March. His son, Audubon Ridgway, a prom- 

 ising young ornithologist, is his companion. 



Mr. Frank Hamilton Gushing, of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, is still engaged in the 

 investigation of the ancient lake dwellings 

 of southern Florida, where he has been since 

 December. 



The aquarium, which was so attractive a fea- 

 ture in the display of the United States Fish 

 Commission at the Atlanta Exposition, has been 

 transferred to the custody of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, and will be installed in the National 

 Zoological Park in Washington. 



The delay of President Cleveland in appoint- 

 ing a Commissioner of Fisheries to succeed the 

 late Colonel Marshall MacDonald is quite unac- 

 countable. The requirements of the law as to 

 the qualifications for this office are so explicit 

 that there ought to be no difficulty in making a 

 choice. There are few men in the country who 

 possess ' proved scientific and practical knowl- 

 edge of the fishes of the coast.' The position 

 was created for the late Prof. Baird, who cre- 

 ated the organization, and brought it to a high 

 state of efficiency. It would seem a matter of 

 necessity that his successor should be a natu- 

 ralist and one who has had experience in the 

 study of iishes and the fisheries. 



The government of Greece has granted to 

 the American School of Archaeology, at Athens, 

 the privilege of making excavations on the site 

 of ancient Corinth. 



The appointment of Dr. John S. Billings to 

 be chief librarian of the consolidated libraries 

 of New York City is a most excellent one — 

 though it is to be regretted that his work in 

 sanitary science should be interfered with. 

 His admirable abilities as an administrator will 

 have full exercise in this new position, and there 

 can be little doubt that he will be able to or- 

 ganize some new advances in bibliography as 

 well. Dr. G. E. Wise, of the Newberry Library, 

 Chicago, in a recent article in the Library 

 Journal, gives an appreciative survey of his 

 Index Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon 

 Generals Office — the extent and importance of 

 which is just beginning to be appreciated out- 

 side of the medical profession. 



One of the most extensive zoological works 

 of modern times will be Das Tierreich projected 

 by the Zoological Society of Berlin, to be edited 

 by Professor F. E. Schulze. It is to contain 

 descriptions of all the known species of animals, 

 prepared upon a uniform plan. 



The pictures of living walruses, in The Cos- 

 mopolitan for February, are from photographs 



