Septembee 7, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



319 



will be held this year at Milan, from Sep- 

 tember 30 to October 7. A program for con- 

 tinuing the meteorological exploration of the 

 atmosphere will be adopted, and it is expected 

 that the president of the commission. Pro- 

 fessor Hergesell, will state the results of 

 soundings of the atmosphere, which he has 

 just executed near Spitzbergen from the 

 Prince of Monaco's yacht, and that Messrs. 

 Teisserenc de Bort and Rotch will give an 

 account of the second Pranco-American ex- 

 pedition which they sent last winter to the 

 tropical Atlantic for a similar purpose. This 

 country will be represented at the meeting by 

 Mr. A. Lawrence Eotch, director of Blue Hill 

 Observatory, who is the American member of 

 the commission. 



We learn from Nature that the Otago Uni- 

 versity Museum has been enriched by a valu- 

 able collection of eggs of New Zealand birds 

 presented by Dr. Fulton, and also by the gift 

 of a large series of ethnological objects from 

 Mr. and Mrs. James Mills. The latter, which 

 are chiefly weapons, are mostly Polynesian, 

 and were collected some twenty-five years ago. 



The work of the State Geological Survey 

 on the coal fields of Illinois is going rapidly 

 forward. A large number of mines already 

 have been visited, and careful samples taken 

 for laboratory study, 160 such samples being 

 now on hand. Director Bain recently visited 

 the Livingston and La Salle County fields, 

 preparatory to making careful surveys. J. A. 

 Udden is now engaged in working out the 

 faults near Peoria, which have been such a 

 constant source of annoyance and expense to 

 operators in that vicinity. T. E. Savage is 

 making a detailed study of the Springfield 

 mines. J. J. Kutledge has taken up an in- 

 vestigation of the coals of the East St. Louis- 

 Belleville area and P. W. De Wolf is about 

 to begin work in Saline and Gallatin counties. 

 His work, as also that of David White, who 

 is making collections of fossil plants through- 

 out the field, is carried on by the IJ. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey in cooperation with that of the 

 state. Topographic surveys preparatory to 

 next season's work are being carried on near 



Harrisburg, Marion, Herrin, Murphysboro, 

 Trenton, Edwardsville, Alton and Talhula. 

 A preliminary report upon the composition 

 and character of Illinois coals is in press. 



In his report on the general progress at the 

 British Museum (Natural History), Dr. E. 

 Ray Lankester, director and acting keeper of 

 zoology, states, according to an abstract in the 

 London Times, that in 1905, for the first time 

 since the opening of the Natural History Mu- 

 seum, the number of visits paid to the galleries 

 by the public in any one year exceeded half a 

 million, the total number recorded being 566,- 

 313, an increase of 95,756 over the total in 

 1904 and of nearly 80,000 over that of any 

 previous year. The number of visits recorded 

 as having been made on Sunday afternoons 

 was 70,084, as against 60,909 in 1904. The 

 average daily attendance for aU open days 

 during the year was 1,560.09; for week-days 

 only, 1,600.73; and for Sunday afternoons, 

 1,322.34. The total number of visits paid 

 during the year to the department of zoology 

 by students and other persons requiring as- 

 sistance and information amounted to 11,811, 

 as compared with 11,824 in 1904 and 11,627 

 in 1903. 



An exhibition of apparatus useful in the 

 teaching of regional geography was held in 

 the Outlook Tower, Edinburgh, from July 6 

 to 14. The exhibition had special reference 

 to the region immediately round Edinburgh. 



It is said that Staten Island has been prac- 

 tically freed from mosquitoes by the expendi- 

 ture of an appropriation of $17,000. An area 

 of salt marshes equal to twenty square miles 

 has been drained. It is estimated that 230 

 miles of ditches, ten inches wide by two feet 

 deep, have been dug this siunmer. Literature 

 giving directions for the care of private prem- 

 ises directed toward the prevention of the 

 propagation of mosquitoes has been distrib- 

 uted. 



The fourteenth International Congress of 

 Hygiene and Demography will be held in 

 Berlin from September 23 to 29, 1907. The 

 work of the congress will be distributed among 

 eight sections, as follows : (1) Hygienic Micro- 

 biology and Parasitology; (2) Hygiene of 



