198 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 396. 



first at the Gatty Marine Laboratory, St. An- 

 drews. 



We learn from Nature of the death of the 

 Abbe Maze, on June 17, at the age of sixty-sis 

 years. He had been for many years one of the 

 editors of Cosmos, the French weekly scientific 

 journal; his first connection with that journal 

 was as meteorologist after the Franco-Prussian 

 War of 1870-1, and he was for some time sec- 

 retary of the French Meteorological Society. 

 About twenty years ago he undertook a labori- 

 ous investigation into the periodicity of rain- 

 fall, which he has left uncompleted. He was 

 also engaged for many years on a histoi-y of 

 the thermometer, and has left in manuscript 

 a large amount of information upon this sub- 

 ject. 



We regret also to record the death of Dr. 

 Forster, formerly professor of ophthalmology 

 in Breslau ; of Dr. W. Kiesselbach, professor 

 of otology in the University of Erlangen; and 

 of Louis Solignac, a French electrical engi- 

 neer. 



The American Medical Association will hold 

 its next annual meeting from May 5-8, 1903. 



The government of the Federated Malay 

 States has established in Kiiala Lumpur, the 

 capital, a research institute which is under 

 the direction of Hamilton Wright, M.D., of 

 McGill University. 



The new botanical laboratories of the Chel- 

 sea Physic Garden, London, were opened July 

 25. 



A PORTFOLIO of twenty water colors depicting 

 Indian life by the late Colonel Julian Scott 

 of Plainfield, N. J., has been sold to the Ameri- 

 can Museum of Natural History. The pictures 

 were painted from life while Colonel Scott 

 was in Arizona in 1890 gathering material for 

 the report on the eleventh census on the In- 

 dians in the Southwest. 



Professor J. C. Merriam, head of the de- 

 partment of paleontology at the University of 

 California, returned on the 26th from exjslora- 

 tions in the Shasta fossil beds. Mr. Vance 

 C. Osmont, an assistant in geology at the Uni- 

 versity, and Mr. Eustace Furlong, who were 

 of Professor Merriani's party, have remained 

 on the ground to make further investigations. 



Nature, quoting the Times, states that the 

 Morning, the aiixiliary ship of the National 

 Antarctic Expe.dition, sailed on July 9 for 

 Lyttelton, New Zealand, en route to the Ant- 

 arctic regions, where it is intended to meet the 

 Discovery with supplies, and to render any 

 other services which may be required. While 

 the main object of the Morning is to act as 

 tender to the Discovery, still she is well equip- 

 ped with scientific instruments of various 

 kinds, some of which have been supplied by 

 the Admiralty, including survey instruments, 

 a large photographic equipment, sounding 

 gear, and apparatus for collecting at least the 

 surface fauna of the ocean. Constant meteoro- 

 logical observations will be taken, and in other 

 respects as far as possible the staff on board 

 the Morning will do its best to supplement the 

 work of the Discovery. The captain of the 

 Morning and the commander of the relief ex- 

 pedition is Mr. William Colbeck, who was one 

 of the staff of the Southern Cross Antarctic 

 Expedition, on which he took the observations 

 and drew the charts. The arrangements for 

 the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 

 under the leadership of Mr. W. S. Bruce, are 

 making satisfactory progress. The Norwegian 

 whaler Hehla, which Mr. Bruce recently pur- 

 chased for the expedition, is to be renamed the 

 Scotia. The ship is now being reconstructed 

 on the Clyde, at Troon, by the Ailsa Ship- 

 building Company, under the guidance of Mr. 

 G. L. Watson, the well-known yacht designer. 

 The Scotia is a barque-rigged auxiliary screw 

 steamer of about 400 tons register. New deck- 

 houses are being built, a larger one aft and a 

 smaller one forward divided into a laboratory 

 and cook's galley. A second laboratory and 

 dark room is to be fitted between decks. The 

 ship is being specially fitted to carry on oceano- 

 graphical research, both physical and biolog- 

 ical. Two drums, each containing 6,000 fath- 

 oms of cable, for trawling in the deepest parts 

 of the Southern and Antarctic Oceans, are 

 being taken. Mr. Bruce intends to follow the 

 track of Weddell, working eastwards from the 

 FaU^land Islands. 



The London Times states that the British 

 Forestry Departmental Committee recently ap- 

 pointed by the President of the Board of Agri- 



