March 20, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



437 



with the life history of the Crustacea in later 

 palaeozoic and in neozoic times. The Wollaston 

 medal was awarded to Prof. E. Suess, the 

 Murchison medal and part of the proceeds of 

 the Murchison fund to T. Mellard Reade, and 

 the Lyell medal and part of the proceeds of the 

 Lyell fund to A. Smith Woodward. 



The Academy of Science of the University 

 of Oregon was organized at Eugene, Ore., on 

 January 10th. A constitution was adopted and 

 Prof. Condon was elected President; Dr. T. W. 

 Harris, Vice-President, and Prof. F. L. Wash- 

 burn, Secretary and Treasurer. At the first 

 regular meeting, which was held on January 

 25th, Prof. Condon read a paper on ' Two re- 

 cently discovered fossils, ' and several informal 

 communications were presented. 



Prof. Agassiz and his party, which includes 

 Dr. W. McM. Woodworth and Dr. A. G. 

 Mayer, are now in San Francisco, and will sail 

 shortly for Australia in the steamship Monowai. 

 A steamer has been chartered in Australia for 

 the expedition to the Great Barrier Reef. 



Mb. J. B. Hatcher, of Princeton College, 

 special agent and collector for the Bureau of 

 Ethnology at Washington, and Mr. O. A. Peter- 

 son, collector for the American Museum of 

 National History, New York, have embarked 

 for Patagonia on the steamship Galileo. 



A Parisian company has placed pneumatic 

 tires on twenty of its cabs. It is claimed that 

 these not only add greatly to the comfort of 

 those using them, but also efl'ect an actual 

 economy. The average cost for repairs on a 

 Paris cab is about 50 cents a day, and it is said 

 that the pneumatic tires reduce this to one-half. 

 The weight saved in the tires is about 100 lbs. 

 and the whole vehicle may be built more lightly. 

 It is also probable that even apart from the 

 decrease in weight it is easier for a horse to 

 draw a carriage with pneumatic tires. 



We take from Natural Science the following 

 items : An expedition of sixteen men, headed 

 by Dr. Cook, has started in two small vessels of 

 100 tons each for the bay of Erebus and Terror. 

 Six of the men are students of science. The 

 naturalists, Messrs. Austen and Cambridge, on 

 the Siemens telegraph expedition to the Ama- 

 zon, have already begun successful operations, 



the fact that the ' Faraday ' was stuck for a 

 whole week on a mud-bank at the west end of 

 Parana de Buyassu in no wise interfering with 

 the aims of the collectors. The chief find at 

 present has been two specimens of Peripatus, 

 belonging apparently to different species. The 

 naturalists decided to stay at Santarem, while 

 the ' Faraday ' proceeded to Manaos, which 

 place it reached on February 8th, all well. 

 Prof. H. de Lacaze Duthiers will, as in for- 

 mer years, conduct an excursion at Banyuls 

 during the Easter vacation, that is, ft'om March 

 28th to April 11th. Those joining the party 

 can obtain return tickets from Paris to Banyuls 

 for 46 francs. Among those who will attend 

 are Professors Von Graff, of Graz ; Pruvot, of 

 Grenoble, and Yung, of Geneva, and probably 

 some naturalists from Barcelona. The Pro- 

 fessor desires to extend through us a cordial 

 invitation to any English naturalists. The 

 hydrographical exploration of the Skagerack 

 has just been begun under the auspices of the 

 Swedish government and the direction of Prof. 

 O. Pettersson. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

 The bill establishing a National University 

 of the United States has been reported favor- 

 ably by the Senate committee. It grants a 

 charter to the University, provides for its gov- 

 ernment, grants it the ground in the city of 

 Washington designated by President Washing- 

 ton as a site for a national university, and ap- 

 propriates $15,000 for the fiscal year ending on 

 June 30, 1897, and $25,000 for the year follow- 

 ing. 



At the recent meeting of the Board of Trus- 

 tees of the College of New Jersey at Princeton 

 it was voted to change the charter name of the 

 institution to Princeton University. The fund 

 which is being raised in commemoration of the 

 Sesquicentennial next October is already over 

 $900,000, a large proportion of which, it is said, 

 will be devoted to the development of the grad- 

 uate department. 



At a special meeting of the Yale corporation 

 it has been decided to construct a new dormi- 

 tory on York street to cost $100,000. 



Prof. James Seth, now of Brown Univer- 



