638 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 620. 



Dr. Edmund Howd Miller, professor of 

 analytical chemistry at Columbia University, 

 died on November 8, at the age of thirty-eight 

 years. Dr. Miller received his bachelor's, 

 master's and doctor's degrees from Columbia 

 University, and was promoted to be assistant, 

 tutor, instructor, adjunct professor and pro- 

 fessor at that institution. He was a fellow 

 of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science and has been chairman of the 

 New York Section of the American Chemical 

 Society. He had carried out researches on 

 fire-assay methods, including assays of tin, 

 platinum, etc. 



The death is announced of Dr. Ernst 

 Caesaro, professor of mathematics at Naples. 



Civil service examinations are announced 

 as follows : On November 30, for the position 

 of laboratory assistant qualified in practical 

 optics in the Bureau of Standards at a salary 

 of $1,000; on December 5, for the position 

 of aid in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, at a 

 salary of $720; for the position of preparator 

 of fossils in the Geological Survey, at $75 a 

 month; for the position of psychologist in 

 the Government Asylum for the Insane, at a 

 salary of $1,500, and for the position of arbori- 

 culturist in the Bureau of Plant Industry, at 

 a salary of $2,000. 



The University of California has received 

 by donation the herbarium and botanical 

 library of Mr. and Mrs. T. S. Brandegee, of 

 San Diego. The herbarium is one of the 

 most important in the west, since it contains 

 something over 100,000 sheets of carefully 

 selected plants, mostly representative of the 

 Mexican flora, which for many years has been 

 Mr. Brandegee's chosen field, and of the flora 

 of California and neighboring states, which 

 has received careful treatment at the hands 

 of Mrs. Brandegee. It contains the sole re- 

 maining duplicate types of many species, the 

 originals of which were lost in the recent fire 

 that destroyed so large a portion of the Cali- 

 fornia Academy of Sciences herbarium, as 

 well as the types of practically all the new 

 species described by Mr. and Mrs. Brandegee 

 themselves. Among the noteworthy sets rep- 

 resented are Bebb's Willows, Parry's Man- 



zanitas and Chorizanthes, a majority of the 

 Mexican sets distributed by Palmer, Pringle, 

 Lumholtz, Purpus, etc., and a selection of 

 tyjjes and duplicate types from the Orcutt 

 and Cleveland herbaria. It is probable that 

 no other herbarium contains so nearly com- 

 plete a representation of the North American 

 Borraginacese. It is also rich in Mimulus, 

 Eriogonum and other groups in which Mrs. 

 Brandegee has been particularly interested. 

 The university herbarium, as now enlarged, 

 numbers approximately 250,000 sheets, a ma- 

 jority of which are mounted in permanent 

 form. The whole collection is available for 

 study and occupies fire-proof quarters in one 

 of the buildings recently erected on the uni- 

 versity campus. Here visiting botanists de- 

 siring to study the west American and Mexi- 

 can flora or to consult the working library of 

 the herbarium, will be welcome and given 

 every opportunity for research work. Mr. and 

 Mrs. Brandegee will continue their studies at 

 the university, where Mr. Brandegee has been 

 appointed honorary curator of the herbarium. 

 Mail matter may hereafter be addressed to 

 them at the university. 



The Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia has recently acquired two notable 

 zoological collections. One of these is the 

 Gulick collection of Hawaiian land shells, 

 which served as the basis of Eev. John T. 

 Gulick's well-known work, 'Evolution: Racial 

 and Habitudinal.' It contains elaborate series 

 representing the numerous geographic and 

 local races, not a few of which are to-day 

 quite extinct. The other accession is the 

 Tristram collection of birds numbering some 

 7,000 skins and representing upwards of 3,000 

 species. This is the second collection made 

 by the late Canon Tristram, the first one 

 having been secured some years ago by the 

 Liverpool Museum. The present collection 

 comprises birds from all parts of the world, 

 but is especially rich in insular forms and in 

 northern South American birds. Several' 

 other collections obtained by the academy dur- 

 ing the last few years — ^notably the Sumatran 

 collection, obtained and presented by Mr. A. 

 C. Harrison, Jr., and Dr. H. M. Hiller; the 



