Febbuaey 28, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



323 



"where something like four hundred acres of 

 land, partly in Minnesota and partly in Wis- 

 consin, have been acquired as a public reserva- 

 tion. The Falls proper are not high, but the 

 Dalles, with their lofty and precipitous rocks 

 on either side, stained with brilliant colors 

 from oxides of copper, or painted with Lichens 

 and Moss, make a most interesting passage of 

 natural scenery. 



Chkistophe Negri, the Italian economist 

 and geographer, died in Florence on February 

 18, aged 86 years. 



Db. Zelle, of Brandenburg, has exhibited 

 before the Emperor of Germany specimens of 

 his work in photographing in colors. 



The House Committee on Military Affairs 

 has heard arguments in support of the bill of 

 Mr. Fairchild, of New York, appropriating 

 $500,000 for the establishment of a national 

 military and naval park embracing the Palisades 

 on the Hudson River. 



GiNN & Co. will publish at once, in their 

 ' Classics for Children ' series, Whitens Natural 

 History of Selborne, edited, with an introduction 

 and notes, by Prof. Edward S. Morse. 



The New Jersey Library Association met at 

 Newark, January 30th. The main topic was 

 the relation of the State to libraries, with a 

 view to establishing a New Jersey Library Com- 

 mission. The two plans chiefly discussed were 

 those of Massachusetts and of New York with 

 its system of traveling libraries. The Massa- 

 chusetts plan was presented by S. S. Green, of 

 the State Commission, and that of New York 

 by W. R. Eastman, Library Inspector. 



According to the British Medical Journal the 

 Orphanage School of St. Margaret's, in the 

 town of East Grinstead, has been recently visi- 

 ted by diphthera ; two of eleven cases proved 

 fatal. Every method was adopted for ascer- 

 taining the predisposing cause of the outbreak, 

 but with no success so far as the buildings were 

 concerned. But at length the health ofiicer 

 had the drains outside the institution exposed, 

 when he found that the house drain in its 

 length of communication with the sewer crossed 

 the playground ; this length was in a most de- 

 plorable state. The communication pipe was 

 only a few inches below the surface, was an old 



land drain, uncemented at the joints, and these 

 gaping an inch or two ; the surrounding soil, 

 whereon the children played, was saturated 

 with sewage. The matter was, of course, put 

 riglft, but only after human life had been sacri- 

 ficed, and many children had been sufferers. 

 Moreover, the school inmates had for some time 

 prior to the outbreak been noticed as looking 

 pale and ill, the result, no doubt, of constantly 

 playing in so unhealthy a situation. 



In notes presented before the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences, on January 27th and February 3d, 

 M. Gustave Le Bon claimed that he had demon- 

 strated by photographic effects that ordinary 

 sunlight and lamplight are transmitted through 

 opaque bodies, and states that the body might 

 be a sheet of copper. 0.8 mm. in thickness. His 

 experiments have however been questioned by 

 M. Niewenglowski, who states that he has ob- 

 tained the same effect in complete darkness, 

 and attributes them to luminous energy stored 

 up in the plates. 



The Physical Bevieiv for March-April will have 

 among the principal articles ones on the Visco- 

 sity of Salt Solutions by B. E. Moore; on the 

 the Theory of Oscillating Currents by Stein- 

 metz; on Induction Phenomena in Alternating 

 Currents Circuits by F. E. Millis; on the Mag- 

 netic Properties of Cylindrical Rods by C. R. 

 Mann, and a Photographic Study of Arc Spec- 

 tra by Caroline W. Baldwin. There are several 

 interesting Minor Contributions and a number 

 of Book Notices. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



President John M. Coulter has resigned 

 the presidency of Lake Forest University to 

 become head professor of botany in the Univer- 

 sity of Chicago. It is understood that part of 

 the money recently given to the University by 

 Miss Culver has been used to endow this chair. 



President Eliot has for some time advo- 

 cated the reduction of the collegiate course of 

 Harvard University from four to three years. 

 The Boston Transcript states that at a recent 

 meeting of the Harvard faculty an informal 

 vote on the proposition showed fifty in favor of 

 the plan and thirty-five against it. Several 

 years ago the faculty formally approved the 



