Apeil 4, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



559 



tion to Indo-Cliina under Lieutenant Hevond. 

 It has begun its labors in tlie Siamese Penin- 

 sula by preparing maps of the bay of Kam- 

 pong Som and the gulf of Ha Tien. On the 

 completion of this work the ship will retui'n to 

 the eastern coast of Indo-China, where it will 

 remain a month, in order to give the mission 

 tirae to verify the plans of the mouths of the 

 Mekong. The expedition will then carefully 

 reconnoitre the whole coast of Anam, a work 

 the duration of which it is impossible to esti- 

 mate, and will subsequently spend several 

 months in Tongking. The rest of the time 

 will be devoted to verifying the results pre- 

 viously reached. Besides its work of preparing 

 maps, the expedition will aim at gathering all 

 general geographical information of interest. 



The House committee on interstate and 

 foreign commerce has voted to report the Hep- 

 burn Pure-Food bill to prevent the adultera- 

 tion, misbranding, and imitation of foods, 

 beverages, drugs, etc., and regulating inter- 

 state traffic in such goods. The bill was 

 framed by the National Pure-Pood Congress. 



The bill appropriating $10,000 for experi- 

 menting on the destruction of mosquitoes in 

 New Jersey has been defeated in the senate 

 by a vote of 8 to 10. 



We learn from the British Medical Journal 

 that it is reported that Professor Emil v. 

 Behring (Marburg) will give the amount of 

 tlie Nobel prize recently awarded him ($40,- 

 000) to the Prussian State for the permanent 

 endowment of the Institute of Experimental 

 Therapeutics foimded by him in the Univer- 

 sity of Marburg. The gift is to be devoted to 

 the prosecution on a large scale of the re- 

 searches on serum initiated by Professor 

 Behring. The fact may appropriately be re- 

 called that several yeqrs ago Professor von 

 Behring gave the half of a French prize 

 awarded to him, equivalent to a sum of $5,000, 

 in furtherance of serum research. 



The report of progress of stream measure- 

 ments for the calendar year 1899, by Mr. F. 

 IT. Newell, with the two accompanying papers 

 noted below, has been issued as Part IV. of 

 the Twenty-first Annual Report of the United 



States Geological Survey. The whole 'makes 

 a volume of 768 pages, illustrated by 156 

 plates and 329 figures, including views of 

 rivers and the methods of measuring them, 

 with maps and diagrams of river flow. In 

 the report of progress, tables of maximum, 

 minimum, and mean discharge of streams in 

 various parts of the United States are given, 

 and other data of use to engineers and invest- 

 ors, as well as to the public in general. Fol- 

 lowing the report of progress of stream meas- 

 urements is a paper by Mr. N. H. Darton, 

 giving a preliminary description of the geol- 

 ogy and resources of the southern half of the 

 Black Hills and adjoining regions in South 

 Dakota and Wyoming. The volume closes 

 with a paper by Mr. Willard D. Johnson on 

 the 'High Plains and their Utilization,' giv- 

 ing a description of the structure of the Great 

 Plains region of western Kansas and adja- 

 cent states, and discussing the occurrence of 

 water under ground. 



The London Times states that at the last 

 meeting of the council of the Eoyal Geo- 

 graphical Society it was decided to recom- 

 mend Sir F. D. Lugard and Major Moles- 

 worth Sykes, as recipients of the two 

 Royal medals for the present year. Since 

 1888 Sir Frederick Lugard has served in 

 tropical Africa, first in Nyasaland, next in 

 what is now British East Africa, then in 

 Uganda, and since then in Ngami Land and in 

 Northern Nigeria, where he now holds the posi- 

 tion of high commissioner. During the four- 

 teen years of his African service in countries 

 \"ery little known, he has always devoted much 

 personal attention to the geography of the dis- 

 tricts through which he passed, making maps 

 and plans. Major Sykes has been awarded 

 the medal for his journeys in Persia, extend- 

 ing over nine years. Many thousands of 

 square miles of good mapping have been ob- 

 tained by his political assistance, independ- 

 ently of the large area for the geography of 

 which he has been personally responsible. The 

 other awards of the Society have been made 

 as follows: The Murchison grant to Mr. J. 

 Stanley Gardiner, for his researches in Funa- 

 futi Island in the Pacific, and the Maldive 

 Islands in the Indian Ocean; the Gill memo- 



