958 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No 389. 



lisliing public baths in Manhattan and Brook- 

 lyn, 



Carl Faber, of Munich, a son of the late 

 Johann Faber, the pencil manufacturer, has 

 given 1,000,000 Marks for the Germanic Mu- 

 seum at Nuremberg and to the Bavarian 

 National Museum at Munich. 



Members of the American Society of Civil 

 Engineers, the American Society of Mechan- 

 ical Engineers, the American Institute of Mi- 

 ning Engineers, and the American Institute of 

 Electrical Engineers have united to found a 

 gold medal in honor of the eightieth birthday 

 of John Fritz, the eminent metallurgist. It 

 is hoped that subscriptions of $10 amounting 

 to five or six thousand dollars will be made. 



There has been erected in Schenley Park, 

 Pittsburgh, as gift of Mr. Phipps, a Hall of 

 Botany. It adjoins the conservatory, being 

 a substantial brick building equipped v^ith 

 laboratory facilities. The hall is for the 

 study of botany by the school children of the 

 city. 



The Antwerp Geographical Society has 

 opened an exhibition in the Zoological Park 

 illustrating the recent progress of geological 

 discovery. 



In July next another German expedition 

 will start from the West African coast for 

 Lake Chad. This time it will have more of a 

 scientific nature and will really be undertaken 

 to study the products of the German terri- 

 tory up to the lake with a view of ascertain- 

 ing the commercial value. 



The British Board of Agriculture is inform- 

 ed by the High Commissioner for Canada that 

 the Canadian Government has sent Mr. A. G. 

 Hopkins, veterinary quarantine officer for 

 Canada, to England to apply the tuberculin 

 test to all cattle over six months old intended 

 for export for breeding purposes from the 

 United Kingdom to Canada. 



The California Chapter of the Society of 

 the Sigma Xi was organized this spring at 

 the University of California. The total mem- 

 bership of the Chapter now number forty- 

 nine, which includes the following students, 

 recently elected from the scientific colleges: 



Graduates: E. Baruch, F. C. Calkins, E. T. 

 Crawford, R. H. Curtiss, H. M. Hall, A. S. 

 King, H. K. Palmer, and W. J. Sinclair. 

 Seniors : A. Adler, J. S. Colbath, B. A. Etche- 

 verry, C. O. Esterly, E. Everett, D. Finley, 

 J. Newfield, G. C. Noble, C. P. Eichmond and 

 C. A. G. Weymouth. 



Mr. W. Br0CE, who is to lead the Scottish 

 Antarctic expedition, has received a letter 

 from Professor von Drygalski, leader of the 

 German South Polar expedition, announcing 

 the arrival of the Gauss at Kerguelen at the be- 

 ginning of January. The expedition will 

 therefore have made the ice at about the same 

 time as the Swedish and British ships. Dr. 

 von Drygalski has penetrated the 'Antarctic 

 region at the point of the still hypothetical 

 termination island in order to discover the 

 western side of Victoria land and clear up its 

 possible connection with the Kemp and Ender- 

 by lands. By taking this route he believes he 

 may be ultimately able to sweep westwards by 

 a high southern latitude into the South Atlan- 

 tic and emerge by way of South Georgia. 



The Berlin correspondent of the London 

 Times writes under date May 25 : — " Experi- 

 ments were made last year at the General 

 Telegraph Office in Berlin with the octoplex 

 system of typographic telegraphy invented by 

 the late Professor Henry A. Eowland, of Bal- 

 timore. The necessary apparatus for com- 

 munication with Hamburg and Frankfort is 

 being installed and will shortly come into use. 

 It is claimed for the octoplex system that it 

 enables a total of 20 officials at the despatch- 

 ing and receiving stations to send in one hour 

 18,000 words on a single wire. By the 

 Hughes system at present in use between Ber- 

 lin and the towns just mentioned it is not pos- 

 sible to send more than 2,200 words in the 

 hour. The despatching instnmient of the oc- 

 toplex system resembles the Eemington type- 

 writer, and any given letter can be telegraph- 

 ed by the depression of the proper key, where- 

 as in other systems the depression of more 

 than one key is usually necessary to form the 

 current required to telegraph a letter. The 

 labor of the despatching clerk is thus lighten- 

 ed, while at the same time the receiving in- 



