414 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 



The Royal Saxon Antiquarian Society of 

 Dresden celebrated its seventy-fifth anniver- 

 sary on September 26th. 



A Pasteur Institute has been opened at 

 Kasauli, a hill station in the Punjab district of 

 India, about thirty miles from Simla. 



The University of Aberdeen has received 

 from Miss Cruikshank botanical gardens, 6 acres 

 in extent, with an endowment of £15,000. The 

 gift is made in memory of her brother Dr. 

 Alexander Cruikshank. 



The Botanical Gazette states that the private 

 herbarium of Harry N. Patterson, of Oquawka, 

 Illinois, containing about 30,000 sheets, has 

 been secured by the Field Columbian Museum, 

 and will be installed with the rapidly growing 

 collections of that institution as promptly as the 

 careful cataloguing practiced in all departments 

 will admit. The botanical department of the 

 museum is to be congratulated upon this acces- 

 sion of one of the notable private herbaria of 

 the country ; one that will add a complete col- 

 lection of Pringle's Mexican plants to its al- 

 ready excellent representation of the flora of 

 that region and the Antillean islands. Mr. 

 Patterson's herbarium is more or less contem- 

 poraneous with that of the late Mr. Bebb 

 which the museum secured some three years 

 ago, and as Mr. Patterson made it his aim to 

 secure a complete series of the species of North 

 America, its addition to the collections of the 

 museum will be of great value to botanical 

 students and specialists in the west. 



De. L. a. Bauer, in charge of the magnetic 

 work of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 has left Washington for a three month's trip to 

 Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands, in order to 

 select the sites for the magnetic observatories 

 in those regions. A third magnetic observa- 

 tory, known as the Principal Magnetic Base 

 Station, is now being built sixteen miles south- 

 east of Washington, D. C, and a fourth obser- 

 vatory is at present in operation at Baldwin, 

 Kansas, centrally situated to the area now be- 

 ing surveyed by the various magnetic parties. 

 The last named observatory will be shifted 

 about in the western states according to the re- 

 quirements of the magnetic survey. It is the 

 intention to have the four observatories ready 



in time to co-operate with the various antarctic 

 expeditions. 



Dbs. L. Diehls and E. Pritzel have under- 

 taken a botanical expedition to Australia on 

 behalf of the Berlin Museum. They will ex- 

 plore the little known western parts of Aus- 

 tralia. Also in the interests of the Berlin 

 Museum Dr. Ule has gone to the sources of the 

 Amazon to make botanical collections and es- 

 pecially to study the gutta-percha plant. 



Me. Geoege Vandeebilt is defraying the 

 expenses of an expedition to Java by Mr. David 

 J. Walters of New Haven, who proposes to 

 search for remains of Pithecanthropus erectus. 



The daily papers report that the Stella 

 Polaris with the Duke of Abruzzi and his party 

 has returned to Norway from the Polar re- 

 gions. The steamship lay for eleven months 

 in the ice in latitude 82°, but several parties pro- 

 ceeded further with sleighs and Captain Caigni, 

 who was gone 104 days, reached latitude of 

 86° 33', a little further than the point reached 

 by Nansen in 1895. The Duke of Abruzzi was 

 himself disabled by having two fingers frost- 

 bitten, and did not take part in the expeditions. 

 The party appears to have suffered a good 

 many hardships. No report has yet been 

 received that throws any light on the possible 

 value of the scientific results of the expedition. 



In connection with the meeting of the Ger- 

 man Colonial Society at Coblentz a prize of 

 3000 Marks is ofiered for first finding gutta- 

 percha plants in the German colonies and trans- 

 planting them to one of the experimental sta- 

 tions or to the central station in Berlin. 



The National Educational Association ofiers 

 prizes as follows : For the best essay submitted 

 on each of the following topics : the seating, the 

 lighting, the heating, and the ventilating of 

 school buildings, $200 ; for the second best essay 

 submitted on each topic, $100 > Each essay 

 shall be limited to ten thousand words and shall 

 be submitted in printed or typewritten copy 

 without signature, but with name of the author 

 enclosed with it in a sealed envelope. Three 

 copies of each essay shall be submitted, and 

 addressed to the chairman of the committee, 

 Mr. A. E. Taylor, at Emporia, Kansas. They 

 must be mailed not later than February 1, 1901. 



