March 14, 1902 ] 



SCIENCE. 



437 



route of the Panama canal. This season can 

 be used for especially difficult engineering 

 operations. Furthermore, the heaviest work is 

 in the interior, where the rainfall is not exces- 

 sive. The conditions are less favorable in 

 ■ISTicaragua. Near the Gulf coast, where the 

 heaviest excavations are required, the rain- 

 fall appears to be about 250 inches and there 

 is no dry season. On the Pacific coast and in 

 the interior there is less rainfall, and there is 

 also a dry season. Even here, however, the 

 rainfall seems to be somewhat greater than in 

 the corresponding portions of the Panama 

 district. 



DAY DiVEKNESS IN LONDON". 



A SHORT article of some interest in 

 Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine for 

 January concerns the number of hours during 

 which artificial light was necessary in a Lon- 

 don office (J. E. Clark, 'Day Darkness in the 

 City')- The record has been kept since Sep- 

 tember, 1897, and runs through 1901. Office 

 hours were from 9 to 5, and to 1 P. M. on 

 Saturdays. A curve illustrates the diurnal 

 distribution of dark quarter hours. There is 

 a rapid rise from 9 to 10.15; then a marked 

 fall to just before noon; then a slight rise; a 

 fall after 12:30 until just before 1; a rise till 

 after 1 and a steady and marked , rise from 

 about 2 on. The first rise is believed to be 

 associated with the lighting of office fires. The 

 noon rise seems to follow luncheon prepara- 

 tions in the restaurants, and that an hour later 

 is thought to be due to the fact that lunching 

 is then in full swing. The results of these 

 observations are not without interest, but the 

 explanation of the facts discovered on the 

 basis of so few records cannot be accepted as 

 at all convincing. . R. DeC. Ward. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The National Observatory question has 

 assumed a new phase through the action of the 

 secretary of the navy, in sending to Congress 

 through the secretary of the. treasury an esti- 

 mate for the salary of a director of the naval 

 (or national) observatory. The committees 

 of Congress thus have the matter before them 

 in a form in which it was never before pre- 



sented, and it lies with Congress to decide 

 whether it will accede to the recommendation. 



Professor Hermon C. Bumpus, formerly of 

 Brown University, who has held during the 

 past year the position of assistant to the presi- 

 dent in the American Museum of Natural 

 History, New York, was appointed director of 

 the museum at the annual meeting of the 

 board of trustees. This places the museum in 

 the same position as regards administration 

 as the Zoological Park and the Botanical Gar- 

 den of New York. Morris K. Jesup was 

 reelected president, William E. Dodge first 

 vice-president, and Henry F. Osborn second 

 vice-president. 



Professor W. H. Brewer, for thirty-seven 

 years professor of agriculture in the Sheffield 

 Scientific School of Yale University, will 

 retire from the active duties of the professor- 

 ship at the end of the present academic year. 



Dr. J. Kjnyoun, who has for fifteen years 

 been connected with the U. S. Hospital Ser- 

 vice and is at present commanding officer and 

 chief surgeon of the hospital at Detroit, has 

 resigned from the service. 



Mr. Alexander Agassiz has had a portrait 

 of himself painted by M. Jules Lefevre. The 

 painting in which he is shown in the robe 

 of members of the Paris Academy will be 

 presented to Harvard University. 



M. Andre, of Lyons, has been elected a cor- 

 respondent of the Paris Academy of Sciences 

 in the Section of Astronomy in the room of 

 the late B. A. Gould. 



The Zoological Society of London will con- 

 fer its gold medal on Sir Harry Johnston, 

 whose remarkable discovery of the okapi has 

 recently attracted so much attention, and its 

 silver medal on Mr. E. W. Harper, of Calcutta, 

 who has given many rare Indian birds to the 

 society's collections. 



Sir John S. Burdon-Sanderson, professor 

 of physiology at Oxford University, has been 

 given the degree of Doctor of Science by 

 Owen's College, Manchester. 



The University of Jena has awarded and 

 conferred an honorary doctorate on Herr Wil- 

 helm Winckler, in recognition of his astro- 

 nomical researches. 



