816 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 308. 



along the Lake of Como. Their larvse live 

 freely in salt water, and seaside places, though 

 usually exempt, are not invariably so. Pro- 

 fessor Grassi, in conclusion, confirms the obser- 

 vations of Christophers and Stephens on the 

 occasional presence in the salivary glands of 

 the culex of bodies which resemble, but which 

 he does not believe to be, sporozoites. He calls 

 them pseudo-sporozoites. 



A PAPER on the metric system read by Mr. 

 Rufus C. Williams, president of the New Eng- 

 land Association of Chemistry Teachers, has 

 been published in a pamphlet by the Decimal 

 Association of London. It gives a very clear 

 account of the advantages of the metric system. 

 Mr. Williams reports that under the Govern- 

 ment the system is used in the following cases : 



1. In the Department of the Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey, the meter was adopted as the standard in the 

 beginning and has been so used ever since. 



2. In the Agricultural Department, in all scien- 

 tific work in chemistry, etc.; and in the Natural 

 History work metric measurements are exclusively 

 used. 



3. The Post Office Department uses it for foreign 

 mails to metric countries, but not for domestic. 

 Postal cards are of metric dimensions, and certain 

 coins have been made to metric weights and 

 measures. 



4. In the Department of Surgeon-General of the 

 Arn\y and also that of the Navy, all contracts for 

 medical supplies embody the metric system, and all 

 containers — boxes and bottles — are of metric di- 

 mensions. 



5. Regulations for U. S. Marine Hospital Service, 

 1897, made its use compulsory. 



6. In Cuba and Porto Rico the Government uses 

 the system exclusively in all official and domestic 

 work. These countries adopted it years ago. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



Me. Andrew Carnegie proposes to erect 

 and furnish buildings for a polytechnic school 

 in Pittsburg, giving it an endowment fund of 

 $1,000,000. The city of Pittsburg is to fur- 

 nish the site. 



The amendment to the constitution of the 

 State of California, permitting Leland Stanford 

 Jr. University to receive bequests from those 

 not citizens of the State, and permitting the 

 legislature to exempt part of the property of 



the University from taxation, was adopted at 

 the recent election. 



We recorded last week the partial destruc- 

 tion by fire of the N. Y. State Veterinary 

 College of Cornell University. It appears that 

 the damage to the building, which is estimated 

 at $30,000, is covered by insurance. The de- 

 partments of histology and bacteriology, how- 

 ever, lost equipments valued at $25,000 and 

 collections that can scarcely be replaced. The 

 loss of Professor Gage's collections, made in the 

 course of twenty years, is especially serious. 

 It is thought possible that the fire originated in 

 the lamps of incubators in the department of 

 bacteriology which were kept burning all night. 



Professor George J. Brush, of Yale Uni- 

 versity, has given $1,000 to a special fund 

 for the Sheffield Scientific School. The general 

 funds of the school have been increased by a 

 gift of $2,500 from an anonymous donor. 

 The university has also received the following 

 gifts and bequests: $5,000 from Mrs. Isaac 

 H. Bradley, the income of which is to be de- 

 voted to a course of lectures on some subject 

 connected with journalism, literature or public 

 aflfairs ; $700 by the will of the late James 

 Campbell, of the medical faculty, to maintain 

 the senior prize, provided for by him since 1888 

 and known as the Campbell gold medal ; $1,000 

 from Mrs. H. F. English for the Alice Kimball 

 English prize fund in the Art School and $1,000 

 from ex-President Dwight for the general funds 

 of the Art School. 



James Milliken, the Decatur (111.) banker 

 and philanthropist, has added $400,000 to his 

 gift to the proposed industrial school to be es- 

 tablished in Decatur. He had previously given 

 $316,000. Citizens gave $100,000, and the 

 Cumberland Presbyterian churches of Illinois, 

 Indiana and Iowa will give $100,000. 



A COMPOUND engine to be placed in the 

 boiler house erected by President Morton in 

 connection with the Carnegie Laboratory of 

 Engineering has been presented to the Stevens 

 Institute of Technology by the Stevens family at 

 Hoboken. 



Dr. a. Kossel, professor of physiology at 

 the University at Marburg, has been called to 

 Heidelberg. 



