438 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 402. 



draftsman in the Coast and Geodetic Survey — 

 two at a salary of $900 per annum each, and 

 one at a salary of $700 i^er annum. 



At the meeting of the Corporation of the 

 Marine Biological Laboratory held in Wood's 

 Holl, August 13, 1902, it was voted to raise 

 the fee to $4.00 a year, and to send the Bio- 

 logical Bulletin to all members in good stand- 

 ing. The Bulletin will be published as here- 

 tofore, under the auspices of the Marine Bio- 

 logical Laboratory and its scope will include 

 zoology, general biology and physiology. It 

 will contain original articles in these fields, 

 and also occasional reviews, and reports of 

 work and lectures at the Marine Biological 

 Laboratory. Preliminary statements of im- 

 portant results will be made a special feature. 

 The Marine Biological Station of the Uni- 

 versity of California at St. Pedro has had a 

 successful session. The laboratory has been 

 under the direction of Professor W. E. Ritter, 

 Professor C. A. Kofoid and Dr. H. B. Torrey. 

 Professoh C. D. Perrine discovered a comet 

 at the Lick Observatory on September 1. It 

 is in the constellation Perseus and is moving 

 slowly northwest. It is slightly elongated, 

 4' in diameter, with a tolerably well defined 

 nucleus and a tail less than 30' long. 



The expedition under the leadership of Col. 

 Willard Glazier, of New York, which left St. 

 John's on July 10 on the steamer Virginia 

 Lake to explore the unknown parts of Labra- 

 dor, has returned. 



The Census Bureau has issued a statement 

 showing the increasing age of the population 

 from decade to decade. The median age of 

 the total population in 1900 was 22.8 as com- 

 pared with 21.9 in 1890. The median age of 

 the white population in the last census year 

 was 23.4 and the colored, including Negroes, 

 Indians and Mongolians, was 19.7, while in 1890 

 that of the white population was 22.4 and the 

 colored 18.3. The report shows that there 

 was an increase in the median age of the white 

 population in each decade from 1810 to 1890, 

 amounting in the ninety years to 7.4 years. 

 The statement says : Many complex influences 

 have cooperated in producing as a resultant 

 this steady change in the age composition of 



the population. Three may be mentioned — 

 the rapid progress of medical and sanitary sci- 

 ence, which has tended to increase the aver- 

 age length of life ; the decrease in the relative 

 niunber of children born, which has made the 

 earlier age periods less preponderant numer- 

 ically in the total population, and the influx, 

 especially since 1840, of great numbers of 

 advilt inunigrants, increasing the number in 

 the older age periods. 



The Medical News gives an account of 

 the Pathological Museum, established by 

 Professor Virchow at Berlin, which con- 

 tains 23,066 preparations. A similar institute 

 does not exist in the world, and the well- 

 known and doubtless as prominent Musee 

 Depuytren in Paris, in comparison with 

 Virchow's creation, is but a fragment. How 

 completely throughout and in what minute de- 

 tail the pathological museum has been planned 

 can be seen by the fact that besides the apart- 

 ments for the director, assistants and drafts- 

 man, microphotographic rooms have been 

 built, workrooms provided for the mounting of 

 preparations and their temporary conserva- 

 tion, and even a bathroom furnished for the 

 laboratory attendants. Self-dependent as in 

 certain respects this new pathological mu- 

 seum is, it yet stands in organic and local 

 connection with the pathological institute, 

 which, like the whole Hospital of the Charite, 

 will be remodeled in compliance with modern 

 demands, and will also in a short time be re- 

 built in new and more splendid form. Besides 

 the relation which exists between the patho- 

 logical institute and the clinical divisions of 

 the hospital, because the necropsies are per- 

 formed there, various physical, clinical and 

 bacteriological sections will be added separ- 

 ately in the new institute for scientific pur- 

 poses. 



The Journal of the American Medical As- 

 sociation gives the following statistics in re- 

 gard to students in the United States : One 

 hundred and fifty-six medical colleges, with 

 6,776 instructors, enrolled 27,501 students and 

 gTaduated 5,002 students in the school year 

 1901-2. In the year previous, 1900-1, 156 

 colleges, with 5,958 teachers, enrolled 26,417 



