636 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 381. 



to Boston after a visit to Em'ope to inspect 

 foreign laboratories, in view of the erection of 

 the new laboratories of electrical engineering 

 at the institute. 



Dr. a. Graham Bell, president of the Na- 

 tional Geographical Society, gave a dinner on 

 April 12 to Mr. C. E. Borchgrevinlv, the ant- 

 arctic explorer. 



Dr. Andrew S. Draper, president of the 

 University of Illinois, has been thrown from a 

 carriage and seriously injured. One of his 

 legs has been amputated and it is feared that 

 his condition is serious. 



King Edward has approved the award of a 

 civil list pension of £75 per annum to Mrs. 

 J. Viriamu Jones, widow of Principal Jones, 

 the eminent physicist, in recognition of his 

 services to higher education in Wales. 



Professor Vambery, the well-known eth- 

 nologist of Buda Pesth, has celebrated his 

 seventieth birthday. 



The Institute of France has awarded from 

 the Desbrousses foundation 20,000 frs. to M. 

 Curie for his researches on radium. 



Dr. W. W. Keen, professor of surgery in the 

 Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, at- 

 tended the recent meeting of the German 

 Surgical Association in Berlin and was elected 

 an honorary member of the Association. 



Dr. Seaman A. Knapp has just returneil 

 from a nine months' trip as agricultural ex- 

 plorer for the Department of Agriculture. He 

 visited Japan, China,, the Philippines, and 

 India, returning via Hawaii, where he spent a 

 few days. The main object of his trip was the 

 study of rice, although considerable attention 

 was also given to other subjects bearing- upon 

 certain phases of the development of agricul- 

 ture in the southern States. 



Under the leadership of Mr. 0. F. Cook, in 

 charge of its tropical work, the Department of 

 Agriculture has despatched an expedition to 

 Guatemala and southern Mexico for the pur- 

 pose of studying tropical agriculture as prac- 

 ticed in those countries. Rubber and coffee 

 culture are to receive particular attention, and 

 many interesting facts concerning the botany 

 and the commercial cultivation of the Central 



American rubber tree {Castilloa elastica) are 

 anticipated. 



Professor C. II. Eigenmann has returned 

 from a trip to the western part of Cuba in 

 search of blind fishes. He was accompanied 

 by Mr. Oscar Riddle, a senior in the Indiana 

 University, as assistant and interpreter. The 

 results of the trip are highly satisfactory. 

 Many specimens of both species of blind fishes 

 known from Cuba were secured. Their known 

 distribution was widely extended. It has been 

 found that the blind fishes which inhabit the 

 caves of the interior and are immigrants from 

 the abysmal regions of the ocean bring forth 

 living young about an inch long. At the time 

 of birth the eyes are well developed and may 

 be functional; they degenerate and become 

 covered with a thick layer of tissue with age. 

 The fishes are becoming readjusted to living in 

 the light in the sink holes along the courses of 

 the underground waters. 



Marshall H. Sa^ ille, curator of Central 

 American and Mexican archeology in the 

 American Museum of Natural History, has 

 been exploring in Oaxaca, Mexico, since last 

 December, under the auspices of the due de 

 Loubat. He has already been very successful 

 and has found, among other things at Cuilapa, 

 seven tombs, about a dozen stone graves, two 

 stone drains and two lines of terra cotta 

 tubing, as well as many jade specimens. He 

 will return about June 1. 



Nature learns from the Victorian Naturalist 

 that the Central Australian expedition under 

 the leadership of Professor Baldwin Spencer 

 and Mr. F. J. Gillen reached the Macarthur 

 river. Northern Territory, but was detained at 

 Borroloola, a small township about fifty miles 

 from the mouth of the river, owing to the 

 foundering of the steamer which should have 

 taken them on to Port Darwin as previously 

 arranged. The matter of affording the expedi- 

 tion some relief was brought before the Com- 

 nionwealth Parliament without result. How- 

 ever, the Premier of Victoria (Hon. A. J. 

 Peacock) placed himself in conxmunication 

 with the Queensland Government, and it was 

 arranged to send a small steamer from Nor- 

 manton and bring the party on to that port. 



