December 28, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



1013 



Professor W. G. Johnson, state entomol- 

 ogist at the Maryland Agricultural College, has 

 resigned to become editor of the American Agri- 

 culturist. 



Dr. Peter M. Wise has been removed from 

 his office as president of the State Commission 

 in Lunacy by Governor Roosevelt on the charge 

 of soliciting subscription to a mining company 

 of which he was president from his official sub- 

 ordinates. It will be remembered that Dr. 

 Wise was largely instrumental in the curtail- 

 ment of the work of the New York State 

 Pathological Institute. 



Dr. John J. Abel, professor of pharmacol- 

 ogy in the Johns Hopkins University, was in- 

 jured in an explosion in his laboratory on De- 

 cember 19th. He was taken to the Johns 

 Hopkins Hospital and it is feared that his eye- 

 sight may be injured. 



Professors J. W. Tyrell and J. W. Bell, of 

 the Canadian Geological Survey, have returned 

 to Vancouver, after an expedition extending 

 5,000 miles through the Barren Lands of north- 

 ern Canada. The party is said to have secured 

 much valuable geological and other scientific 

 information. 



On December 20th, Dr. George Bruce Hal- 

 sted and Professor Wm. M. Wheeler started 

 from Austin on an expedition into southern 

 Mexico. Professor Wheeler will collect and 

 study Mexican ants. Dr. Halsted is interested 

 in the anthropological exploration of 'La Mesa 

 Cartujanos,' and will also be at Mitla. 



The Academy of Sciences of Vienna will send 

 a botanical expedition to Brazil next year under 

 the direction of Dr. Richard von Wettstein, 

 director of the Botanical Garden of the Univer- 

 sity of Vienna, and Dr. Viktor Schiffner, pro- 

 fessor in the German University at Prague. 



Owing to the retirement of Mr. Charles 

 Whitehead, F.L.S., F.Z.S., from the position of 

 technical adviser to the Board of Agriculture, 

 it has been arranged that the scientific and ex- 

 pert assistance required by the Board in con- 

 nedtion with these subjects will be furnished 

 respectively by the Royal Botanic Gardens, 

 Kew, and by the Natural History Departments, 

 South Kensington. 



The committee on the trust founded by the 

 late Sir John Lawes for the purposes of scien- 

 tific investigation and experiments in connec- 

 tion with agriculture held its first meeting since 

 the death of its founder, when the following 

 resolution was unanimously agreed to : "That 

 the Lawes Agricultural Trust Committee de- 

 sires to place upon record its deep sense of the 

 irreparable loss it has sustained by the sad and 

 unexpected death of Sir John Bennet Lawes, to 

 whose munificence the trust owes its existence, 

 and to whose wise counsels and hearty coopera- 

 tion any success that may have attended the 

 operations of the committee has been largely 

 due." 



The Huxley Memorial Committee has just 

 issued its final report and donation list. The 

 total sum at the disposal of the committee was 

 £3,405, 10s, 2d. The total cost of the statue, 

 now in the Natural History Museum, London, 

 was £1,813, 18s, 8d. The cost of preparing the 

 Huxley gold medal, to be awarded by the Royal 

 College of Science, was £263, 17s. The surplus 

 of the fund being insufficient to provide a third 

 object of memorial, as originally contemplated, 

 the whole sum of £1,126, 6s, 4d. has been in- 

 vested as an endowment for the medal. The 

 committee has, however, arranged with the 

 council of the Anthropological Institute to 

 allow them the use of the obverse die, for the 

 production of a presentation medal, of which 

 that body will provide the reverse die and im- 

 pression, in commemoration of Huxley's la- 

 bors as an anthropologist. The committee also 

 recalls the generous action of the Hon. J.Collier 

 in painting a portrait of Huxley and presenting 

 it to the National Portrait Gallery. The list of 

 subscribers contains about 750 names, without 

 reckoning individually the many who subscribed 

 through local societies and committees. 



Dr. J. BoERLAGE, assistant director of the 

 Botanical Garden in Buitenzorg died recently 

 while on a scientific expedition to Ternate. 



The death is announced of Dr. G. Hartlaub, 

 the eminent German ornithologist, at the age 

 of eighty-seven years. 



Dr. a. W. Momerie, formerly professor of 

 logic and metaphysics in King's College, Lon- 

 don, and the author of numerous books on 



