870 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 626. 



form, arrangement of twigs, bark, lenticels, 

 buds, etc., and this is followed by somewhat 

 more than 160 pages describing the species of 

 trees arranged according to winter characters. 

 Following this is a systematic synopsis of the 

 species, arranged in their appropriate fami- 

 lies. A short bibliography and a full index 

 complete the volume of nearly 300 small 

 octavo pages. The work is very freely illus- 

 trated with drawings or half-tones of twigs, 

 buds, hairs, sections of buds, twigs, bark and 

 wood. 



Charles E. Bessey. 

 The University of Nebraska. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science and the national scientific 

 societies affiliated with it are this week hold- 

 ing, in New York City, a meeting which 

 promises to be one of the most important and 

 largest gatherings of American men of sci- 

 ence. Programs of the meetings have been 

 printed here, and there is printed above the 

 address of the retiring president of the asso- 

 ciation. Dr. C. M. Woodward, of Washington 

 University. There will be published in the 

 next and succeeding issues of Science full 

 reports of the proceedings. 



Professor J. A. Bownooker, of the State 

 University, has been appointed state geologist 

 of Ohio to succeed Professor Edward Orton, 

 Jr., resigned. 



M. ViDAL de la Blaohe, professor of geog- 

 raphy at the Sorbonne, has been elected a 

 member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 

 the room of the late Albert Sorel. 



Major Edgar A. Mearns, known for his 

 important contributions to natural history, 

 who has been chief surgeon of the depart- 

 ment of Mindanao, has been relieved from 

 duty in the Philippines and will proceed to 

 the United States. 



Dr. Alexander Graham Bell delivered an 

 illustrated address before the Washington 

 Academy of Sciences on December 13 ' On 

 Aerial Locomotion, with a few Notes of 

 Progress in the Construction of an Aero- 

 drome.' The address was discussed by Pro- 



fessor A. F. Zahm, of the Catholic University, 

 Washington, D. C, and Mr. C. M. Manly, of 

 New York City, formerly assistant to the late 

 Secretary Langley. 



Professor E. S. Chittenden, of Yale Uni- 

 versity, will deliver a series of lectures next 

 spring before the faculty and students of the 

 College of Science of the University of Illi- 

 nois. The general subject of the lectures will 

 be the physiology of nutrition. 



On Monday evenings in February and 

 March Professor Henry Edward Crampton, 

 of Columbia University, will deliver a series 

 of lectures upon ' The Doctrine of Evolution : 

 its Basis and its Scope,' at Cooper Union. 



The first public lecture of the winter will 

 be delivered in the Academy of Medicine, New 

 York City, on Saturday evening, December 

 29. The lecturer will be Dr. Wilfred T. Gren- 

 fell, C.M.G., physician to the missions of the 

 Labrador coast, who will take for his subject, 

 ' The Work of a Labrador Doctor.' 



A MAGNETIC survey of Mexico is now in 

 progress under the joint auspices of the Mexi- 

 can Government and the Department of Ter- 

 restrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion of Washington. The Mexican Govern- 

 ment has two parties in the field under the 

 direction of the Observatorio Astronomico 

 Nacional Mexieano, Engineer Senor Abel Dias 

 Covarrubias having charge of the eastern 

 party and Senor Manuel Moreno y Anda be- 

 ing in charge of the western party, embracing 

 the Pacific Coast from Manzanillo to Guay- 

 mas, inclusive of Lower California. The 

 Carnegie Institution observer, Mr. J. P. Ault, 

 will confine his operations to the part of 

 Mexico north of the 25th parallel, upon the 

 completion of which he will then proceed to 

 Campeehe, Yucatan and the Central American 

 countries. The early completion of the gen- 

 eral magnetic survey of Mexico being thus 

 assured, it will be possible within the next 

 year to construct accurate magnetic maps for 

 the region between the parallels of latitude 

 20° and 49° North and meridians of longitude 

 65° and 125° West of Greenwich. 



On the twenty-first of August last Pro- 

 fessor Olof Hammarsten was sixty-five years 



