December 21, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



967 



the collimation error of the telescopic sights, 

 and had promised a large flat surface for optical 

 work. Mrs. Sworn had given two thermome- 

 ters (used by her late husband). The report 

 dealt also with the disturbance of magnetic ob- 

 servatories by electric railways, the steel rails 

 committee, and the national Antarctic Ex- 

 pedition. With respect to the latter it was 

 stated that the commander of the expedition. 

 Commander R. F. Scott, R.N., the head 

 of the scientific staff, Professor Gregory, and 

 three other officers had been appointed, and it 

 was confidently hoped that the expedition 

 would be ready to start by August, 1901, 

 when the German Antarctic Expedition was 

 also expected to sail. Funds had been raised 

 exceeding £91,000, including the grant from 

 her Majesty's treasury of £45,000. This fund 

 was raised in view of an expedition lasting two 

 years, but appeals were being made for more 

 funds to enable the expedition to remain in the 

 Antarctic for three years, for which the sum of 

 £120,000 was required. The report also dealt 

 with malaria, into which the results of the in- 

 vestigations had now been published in part. 

 Other [^subjects were the ' Solar Eclipse of May 

 28, 1900,' and the ' International Catalogue of 

 Scientific Literature,' on which considerable 

 progress had been made. Her Majesty's Gov- 

 ernment had guaranteed £1,000 a year for five 

 years, ' to make good to the Royal Society a 

 part of any loss which might be incurred by the 

 publication of the proposed catalogue.' At the 

 International Association of Academies, the first 

 meetings of which were held at Paris on July 

 31 and August 1, 1900, the Royal Society was 

 represented by Professor Riicker. As matters 

 at present stood, the Royal Society being re- 

 garded as a scientific society only, the United 

 Kingdom could only be represented on the 

 scientific section of the Association. With re- 

 spect to the Maokinuon Bequest it had been 

 decided that the award should be in the 

 nature of a studentship for the encourage- 

 ment of research rather than a prize for 

 the reward of past achievement, and tha 

 the studentship (which at present amounted to 

 about £150 per annum) should be devoted to 

 the maintenance of a student engaged in re- 

 search. Under the will of the late Professor 



Hughes, a bequest of £4,000 had been made to 

 the Royal Society with a direction to award the 

 income annually as a prize either in money or 

 in the form of a medal, or partly one and partly 

 the other, for the reward of original discovery 

 in the physical sciences, particularly electricity 

 and magnetism, or their applications, the prize 

 or medal to be given under conditions to be 

 fixed from time to time by the Society on lines 

 similar to those followed in the bestowal of the 

 Copley, Rumford and Royal medals. The re- 

 port also dealt with terms of bequest, the apart- 

 ments of the Society, electric lighting, the li- 

 brary, publications, the publication fund, the 

 catalogue of scientific papers, the Government 

 grant, general business and the presidency. 



TEE HARTMAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND 

 ARCHEOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 



Theee has just been exhibited at Stock- 

 holm a fine collection of archeologic and 

 ethnographic objects from Central America, 

 made by Dr. C. V. Hartman (formerly natural- 

 ist of the Lumholtz Expedition to North 

 Mexico) at the instigation and expense of 

 Engineer Ake Sjogren. In a short guide to the 

 exhibition by Dr. Hj. Stolpe, we are told that 

 Dr. Hartman began his researches in 1896 at 

 Mercedes, where he discovered a large work- 

 place for the manufacture of stone gods and 

 other antiquities of unusual interest. Among 

 those now exhibited are two standing figures 

 of stone, the largest as yet brought to Europe 

 from Central America, which were erected at 

 the east end of a large oval tumulus, about 300 

 feet in circumference and covered with stone 

 to a height of 22 feet. East of this was a 

 rectangular court, walled with stone on three 

 sides, with a cairn of about 90 feet in circum- 

 ference and 12 feet in height in each of its 

 eastern angles ; and on the flat tops of these 

 lay fragments of smaller statues. Afterwards 

 Dr. Hartman went up to the high plateaux of 

 the interior and investigated many cemeteries, 

 especially those of Orosi, Chiricot (3,000 feet 

 above sea level), Lemones and Santiago. The 

 graves were examined in the most exact and 

 scientific manner, such as had never before 

 been attempted in these parts, and a foundation 

 was thus laid for a chronological grouping of 



