September 5, 1902.] 



■SCIENCE. 



399 



The London board of trade has commis- 

 sioned Lieutenant Colonel Horatio A. Torke, 

 chief inspecting officer of railways for the 

 board of trade, to prepare a report on the 

 workings of American railways. He will sail 

 for New York on September 19. 



The centenary of the birth of the eminent 

 mathematician, Abel, is being celebrated at 

 Christiania this week. 



A MONUMENT in memory of Cassini de 

 Thury, the French astronomer, was unveiled 

 at Clermont on July 27. 



A BUST of the French naturalist, Eamond, 

 known for his explorations in the Pyrenees, 

 was unveiled at Bagneres-de-Bigorre on Au- 

 gust 3. 



The Reverend Dr. Thomas Gallaudet, widely 

 known for his work on behalf of the care 

 of the deaf and dumb and until recently pas- 

 tor of a church for deaf mutes, died on August 

 27, at the age of eighty years. Dr. Gallaudet's 

 father, the Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gal- 

 laudet, founded the first permanent school for 

 deaf mutes in 1817, and his brother. Dr. Ed- 

 ward Miner Gallaudet, has since 1864 been 

 president of the Gallaudet College for the deaf 

 at Washington. 



The death is announced of General A. Fer- 

 rero, of Rome, known for his contributions to 

 geodesy and mathematics. 



Peofessor a. N. Beketow, the Russian bot- 

 anist, has died at the age of seventy-seven 

 years. Dr. Johann Janko, director of the Eth- 

 nographical Division of the National Museum 

 -at Budapesth, has died at the age of thirty- 

 four years. 



Through the will of the late John Dolbeer, 

 of San Francisco, the Astronomical Society 

 of the Pacific will receive the sum of five 

 thousand dollars. Mr. Dolbeer had been a 

 member of the Society since 1891 and was one 

 of its past presidents. He took an active in- 

 terest in astronomy and defrayed the expenses 

 of the expedition sent out from the Chabot Ob- 

 servatory of Oakland, to Georgia, to observe 

 the total solar eclipse of May 28, 1900. This 

 is the second bequest to the society by de- 

 ceased members. Mr. Marvin Reimer, of Chi- 



cago, left the sum of five hundred dollars. 

 These funds will bear the names of the givers 

 and will be invested. The income will be used 

 by the society in diffusing astronomical 

 knowledge. 



An exhibit to illustrate the state of educa- 

 tion in the British Empire will be sent by the 

 government to the St. Louis Exposition. 



It is stated in Nature that Messrs. Cook, the 

 tourist agents, have put forward a proposal 

 to run an electric railway to the crater of Ve- 

 suvius from the Naval Arsenal in Naples to 

 take the place of the funicular railway now 

 used. The faculty of science in the University 

 of Naples has forwarded a strong protest 

 against the scheme to the Italian government, 

 on the grounds that it would interfere with the 

 seismic and magnetic observations and records 

 which are made at the university. 



In the House of Commons, as we learn from 

 Nature, the decision to close the observatories 

 at Ben Nevis and Fort William has been 

 brought forward, and the first lord of the treas- 

 ury was asked whether he would order an in- 

 quiry to be made into the distribution by the 

 meteorological council of the annual grant of 

 15,300L, so as to secure that an adequate al- 

 lowance be made to these observatories. In 

 his reply, Mr. Balfour referred to an inquiry 

 held about twenty years ago, at the close of 

 which the committee recommended that the 

 inquiry should be repeated from time to time, 

 a recommendation that has not been followed. 

 In the circumstances he thought it would be 

 right to have an investigation and to repeat it 

 from time to time. This would involve no 

 slight on the scientific committee which allo- 

 cates the funds. 



The Baldwin-Ziegler Antarctic excursion 

 can scarcely be regarded as a scientific expedi- 

 tion. We may, however, quote the following 

 information, which Mr. Baldwin has given the 

 Rueter's Agency: This year's work has been 

 successful. An enormous depot of condensed 

 foods has been established by sledge on Rudolf 

 Land within sight of the Italian expedition's 

 headquarters. A second depot has been formed 

 in lat. 81° 33', and a third depot at Kane Lodge, 

 Greely Island, which has been newly charted 



