May 15, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



739 



1896. Thirty-seven courses of instruction will 

 be ofi'ered in fourteen departments. 



The announcement is issued of the Fifth An- 

 nual Summer School at the University of Min- 

 nesota for the four weeks between July 27th 

 and August 21st. The school is organized in 

 two sections: University and Elementary. The 

 University section offers 19 courses, of which 

 10 are in the Sciences, as follows : 



Botany, Prof. MacMillan, 2 Courses. 



Chemistry, Prof. Frankforter, 2 Courses. 



Physios, Prof. Jones, 2 Courses. 



Physiograpliy, Mr. Goode, 2 Courses. 



Pli3'siology, Prof. Nachtrieb 1 Course. 



Physiological Psychology, Mr. Gale, ...1 Course. 



Special courses of lectures will be delivered 

 daily. Four Educational Congresses will hold 

 sessions during the month, viz.: Institute in- 

 structors ; State Normal School officers ; City 

 Superintendents, and the Society for Child 

 Study. The School is authorized under the 

 authority and supervision of the State Depart- 

 ment of Public Instruction. Tuition is free. 



Prop. Harold B. Smith, at present pro- 

 fessor of electrical engineering in the Purdue 

 University, Lafayette, Ind. , has been elected to 

 a new chair of electrical engineering, estab- 

 lished in the "Worcester Polytechnic Institute. 



American students going abroad for the 

 summer may be interested to know that there 

 M'ill be held at Jena, from the 3d to the l-5th of 

 August, a Ferienkitrse, iu eluding lectures on 

 astronomy, botany, physics, zoology, hygiene, 

 physiology, psychology, philosophy, pedagogy, 

 modern languages, literature and history. 



A COURSE of lectures on colonial botany is of- 

 fered during the present summer semester at 

 the Botanical Garden and Museum of Berlin, 

 by Profs. Engler, Schumann, Volkens and 

 Urban, and Drs. Warburg, Gilg, Lindau, Per- 

 ring, Dammer and Giirke. The course occu- 

 pies two hours per week and is given without 

 charge. 



We learn from the Academische Rundschau 

 that a regulation has been issued allowing 

 women to attend lectures at the University of 

 Berlin after securing permission from the Minis- 

 ter of Public Instruction and the instructor. 

 The University of Munich has given one woman 



permission ' experimentally ' to attend courses 

 in geolegy and paleontology. Special courses 

 for women, which include botany, physics and 

 chemistry, have been arranged at the Univer- 

 sity of Gottingen. 



The sum of 460,000 Marks has been appro- 

 priated by the government for the construction 

 of a library building for the University of Frei- 

 burg. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



PRINCIPLES OF MARINE ZOOGEOGRAPHY. 



Prof. Theo. Gill* has given a very interest- 

 ing comparison of his own views of zoogeo- 

 graphical division of the earth's surface, espe- 

 cially of the oceans, and those set forth by 

 myself in my ' Grundziige der Marinen Tiergeo- 

 graphie.' This comparison is the more inter- 

 esting since we agree in many points with each 

 other. Nevertheless, there are some differences 

 which, as Prof Gill very properly states, are 

 chiefly due to the different starting points. 

 The discussion is consequently directed at once 

 in a particular direction, and upon this I wish 

 to lay the greatest stress: namely, upon the 

 difference between my method of investigation 

 and that generally employed hitherto. While 

 the method of Prof. Gill, and of almost all the 

 other students of zoogeography, is an inductive 

 one, i. e. , constructing zoogeographical divisions 

 according to the actual distribution of animals, 

 I make use of the deductive method, consider- 

 ing merely the physical laws that govern the 

 distribution of animals. In what follows I shall 

 state briefly the reasons which have induced me 

 to urge a change in the method of zoogeographi- 

 cal research. 



1. Our knowledge of the actual distribution 

 of marine animals is extremely incomplete ; we 

 do ^ not know the exact limits of the range of 

 most of the species, so that it is impossible at 

 present to get a correct idea of the general 

 features of their distribution, and of the as- 

 semblage of the different forms of animals in 

 any particular locality. 



2. We cannot derive any divisional limita- 

 tions of general value from a particular group 



* Science N. S. III., No. 66, April 3, 1896, p. 514- 

 516. 



