May 29, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



803 



The candidates for the privileges of the 

 Smithsonian table are recommended by a com- 

 mittee composed of representatives of the Na- 

 tional Academy of Sciences, American Morpholo- 

 gists, Society of American Naturalists and the 

 Association of American Anatomists. 



Mb. Heebet Spencee has recently communi- 

 cated to the London Times a series of letters op- 

 posing the adoption of the metric system and 

 advocating a reorganization of the present 

 duodecimal system in preference to a change 

 which would adjust our weights and measures 

 upon a decimal system. 



We noted last week that in the occasion of 

 its millenial celebration the University of Buda- 

 Pesth will confer an honorary degree upon Dr. 

 John S. Billings. It is said that degrees will 

 not be conferred on any other Americans and 

 only on four Englishmen : Lord Xelvin, Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer, Prof. Max Miiller and Mr. 

 James Bryce. 



Peof. W. K. Beooks has been elected Fellow 

 of the Royal Microscopical Society. 



A TELEGEAM to the New York Evening Post 

 states that there has been a volcanic eruption 

 on the island of Socorro, off the Mexican coast. 

 Two months ago, which is the latest date of 

 news received, lava was running down the 

 mountain sides, overflowing the lowlands and 

 moving towards the sea. 



Gov. MoETON has signed the bill authorizing 

 the use of the land now occupied by the old 

 reservoir at Forty-second street and Fifth 

 avenue in New York City for a free public 

 library and reading room, to be erected under 

 the supervision of the New York Public Library, 

 the combination of the Astor, Lenox and Tilden 

 foundations. 



A NEW law authorizes the Brooklyn board of 

 estimate and apportionment to gi-ant $100,000 

 payable on the Mayor's order, to any corpora- 

 tion depositing an equal amount with the City 

 Treasurer for the purpose of a free public 

 library. 



Peop. Kemp and Prof. Peale, of Columbia 

 University, will conduct the summer work in 

 geology and mining of the School of Mines at 

 Butte, Montana. Prof Scott, of Princeton 

 University, will conduct a geological expedition 



which will have its headquarters at Flagstaff", 

 Arizona. 



Peof. D'Aecy Thompson and Mr. Barrett 

 Hamilton have been appointed by the British 

 government as the naturalists to investigate the 

 seals in Behring Sea. They are now on their 

 way to the United States. 



The British Government, in recently distri- 

 buting a number of sets of the Challenger Re- 

 ports to scientific institutions, selected on the 

 advice of the council of the Royal Society, sent 

 five of the sets to the United States. The 

 Institutions which receive them are the Uni- 

 versities of California, Tulane and Colorado, 

 the Woods Holl Laboratory and the Hydro- 

 graphic Bureau of the United States Navy. 



The Museum of Practical Geology, London, 

 will be opened on Sunday, from 2 p. m. to 7 

 p. m., as an experiment, the continuance of 

 which will depend on the attendance of visitors. 



An International Congress of Agriculture will 

 be held at Buda-Pesth in connection with the 

 Millenial Exposition. An International Horti- 

 cultural Exposition will be held at Hamburg 

 from May to October, 1897. The sum of 

 $100,000 has been appropriated for the purpose 

 by the city. 



The publication is announced of a journal in 

 Milan devoted to acetylene and its applications. 



The British Medical Journal states that the 

 Koch Institute is not to be transferred to Dah- 

 lem after all. The Prussian government has 

 decided to buy a plot of land close to the ground 

 on which the new fourth municipal hospital is 

 to be erected — in the See Strasse — and to build 

 an enlarged and improved Koch institute upon 

 it. The decision, simple as it seems, has been 

 arrived at only after long and wearisome nego- 

 tiations. Now it is hoped that, this knotty 

 point once solved, the rebuilding and enlarge- 

 ment of the Charite Hospital will be attacked 

 in earnest. The ground at present occupied 

 by the Koch Institute is required for the hos- 

 pital, but of course, until the future of the in- 

 stitute itself had been definitely settled, it was 

 impossible to begin work. A new museum for 

 the pathological collections is urgently needed, 

 as Virchow is terribly cramped in the Pathologi- 

 cal Institute. It is said that 1896 is to see this 



