190 



SCIENCE, 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 606. 



for dinosaurs in the Cretaceous beds of 

 Montana; Mr. Walter Granger is searching 

 for fossil mammals in the Eocene formations 

 of Wyoming, and Mr. Albert Thomson is ex- 

 ploring the later Tertiary formations of South 

 Dakota. 



Mr. Almon Harris Thompson, geographer 

 of the U. S. Geological Survey since 1882, and 

 previously in charge of geographic work under 

 Major Powell, died at Washington, on July 

 31, at the age of sixty-seven years. 



Mr. Joseph H. Batty, a well-known natural 

 history collector and taxidermist, was killed 

 by the accidental discharge of his gun, while 

 on an expedition in Mexico for the American 

 Museum of Natural History. 



Sir Walter Buller, F.R.S., of Wellington, 

 New Zealand, the author of important con- 

 tributions to ornithology, died on July 19, at 

 the age of sixty-eight years. 



The underground water investigations will 

 be conducted by the United States Geological 

 Survey in the eastern United States as usual 

 this summer, notwithstanding the reduction 

 of the hydrographic appropriation by congress. 

 Work is under way in Maine, Connecticut, 

 Virginia, Florida, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana 

 and Iowa, and will be extended to New York, 

 Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Caro- 

 lina and Minnesota later in the season. Mr. 

 M. L. Fuller will supervise the investigations 

 in the states mentioned. 



Lord Selby will act as chairman of a Royal 

 Commission which is to be appointed to con- 

 sider the subject of experiments on living 

 animals and the law relating thereto. Since 

 the passing of the cruelty to animals act of 

 1876, no inquiry into its working has been held. 

 The terms of the commission's reference will 

 be " to inquire into and report upon the prac- 

 tise of subjecting live animals to experiments, 

 whether by vivisection or otherwise; and also 

 to inquire into the law relating to that prac- 

 tise and its administration, and to report 

 whether any, and if so what, changes are de- 

 sirable." 



Nature states that the Natural History Mu- 

 seum has just received an important collection 



of bird and mammal skins from Mount Eu- 

 wenzori. East Central Africa, obtained with 

 the aid of subscriptions from a number of 

 persons interested in natural history. The 

 collection is said to include a number of new 

 forms, or of forms previously known only by 

 a single specimen or so of each. 



Plans have been filed in New York for a 

 new museum to be built on Audubon Park 

 Terrace, on 155th St., west of Broadway, for 

 the American Numismatic and Archeological 

 Society, of which Mr. Archer M. Huntington 

 is president. The edifice will be 39.8 feet 

 front and 63.3 feet deep, of concrete construc- 

 tion. It will be three stories in the classic 

 style, with Ionic columns. The main floor 

 and the second story will be devoted to the 

 library and the meeting halls and exhibition 

 galleries. The building is to cost $55,000. 



The foundation has been laid for the 

 building of a new Bacteriological Institute 

 at Constantinople, intended especially to pro- 

 vide anti-toxic sera to the Turkish empire. 



We learn from Nature that Mr. G. Monte- 

 fiore-Levi, of Brussels, formerly a member of 

 the Belgian senate and president of the Asso- 

 ciation of Engineers, has bequeathed a portion, 

 probably exceeding £100,000 in value, of his 

 residuary estate, to be applied for the pre- 

 vention of consumption. 



A press despatch from Washington reports 

 that negotiations have been in progress for 

 some time in London between the American 

 embassy and the British Foreign Office rela- 

 tive to the protection of the seal herd in 

 Bering Sea. Several years ago congress au- 

 thorized the wholesale killing of all the seals 

 on the Pribilofi Islands rookeries unless some 

 arrangement could be made with the British 

 government for the prevention of pelagic seal- 

 ing. The award of the arbitrators in the 

 Bering Sea case prescribing closed zones 

 around the Pribiloff Islands, and a close sea- 

 son in the seal waters has completely failed to 

 meet the needs of the case, hence the direction 

 of congress. There has been some desultory 

 correspondence between the governments at 

 Washington and London for several years, but 

 only recently has the matter been taken up in 



