478 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 403. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



The University of Christiania has on the 

 occasion of the centenary of the birth of Abel 

 conferred honorary degrees on a number of 

 mathematicians, including Professor Simon 

 Newcomb and Professor J. Willard Gibbs. 



De. Esiil Fischer, professor of chemistry 

 at Berlin, and Dr. Carl von Voit, professor of 

 physiology at Munich, have been elected cor- 

 responding members of the Vienna Academy 

 of Sciences. 



Brigadier-General Egbert M. O'Eeilly 

 assumed the duties of surgeon-general of the 

 army on September 8. 



Major Eonald Eoss, of the Liverpool 

 School of Tropical Medicine, expects to visit 

 the United States to study malaria. 



Mr. Egbert T. Hill, of the Geological Sur- 

 vey, who was recently sent to Martinique to 

 investigate the eruption of Mt. Pelee, will be 

 engaged this season in an investigation of the 

 Trans-Pecos region of Texas, Arizona and 

 New Mexico. Dr. G. H. Girty, paleontolo- 

 gist, will be associated with Mr. Hill in the 

 work. 



Dr. Ludwig Biro, who has spent six years 

 in making zoological and ethnographic studies 

 in the Malay archipelago, especially in New 

 Guinea, has returned to Buda Pesth. 



M. Boris Fedtschenkg has returned from a 

 scientific expedition to the elevated Pamir 

 desert with a collection of plants. 



Dr. Luzjanofp, professor of pathology at 

 the University of Warsaw, and director of the 

 Institute of Experimental Medicine in St. 

 Petersburg, has been appointed deputy minis- 

 ter of public instruction by the Eussian Gov- 

 ernment. 



M. DE Gerlache, leader of the recent Bel- 

 gian antarctic expedition, has been appointed 

 curator in the Natural History Museum at 

 Brussels. 



Dr. J. B. Messerschmitt, of Hamburg, has 

 been appointed observer in the eleetro-mag- 

 netieal laboratory connected with the observa- 

 tory at Munich. 



Dr. a. Slaby, professor of electro-mechanics 

 in the Technical Institute at Charlottesburg, 



has received for his researches 20,000 Marks 

 from the fund for German industry. Dr. K. 

 von Binder, professor of thermodynamics at 

 the Munich Technical School, has received 

 10,000 Marks from the same fund. 



Dr. Alex. P. Anderson has resigned his po- 

 sition of curator of the herbarium of Colum- 

 bia University to become an expert to the 

 syndicate now engaged in developing the new 

 method of treating starchy grains, etc., re- 

 cently discovered by Dr. Anderson in the 

 laboratories of the New Tork Botanical Gar- 

 den. Dr. Anderson is fitting uis a laboratory 

 for the continuance of his work at Minneapo- 

 lis. 



A jiemgrial has recently been erected by 

 the German Association of Alienists over the 

 grave of the anatomist, Eeil. He was buried 

 in his garden at Halle, which is now part of 

 the Zoological Gardens of the city. 



Professor Eudolf Virchow was given a 

 public funeral by the city of Berlin on Sep- 

 tember 9. Services were held in the City 

 Hall, addresses being made by representatives 

 of the Eeichstag and the Town Council, and 

 by Dr. Wilhelm Waldeyer, professor of anat- 

 omy in the University of Berlin. The body 

 was buried in St. Matthew's Cemetery, which 

 is situated in a southwestern suburb of Ber- 

 lin. 



Sir Frederick Abel, known for his im- 

 portant researches on explosives, died on Sep- 

 tember 8, at the age of seventy-six years. He 

 was one of the most prominent British men 

 of science, having been president of the Brit- 

 ish Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, the Iron and Steel Institute, the Chem- 

 ical Society, the Institute of Chemistry, the 

 Society of Chemical Industry, and the Insti- 

 tute of Electrical Engineers, and chairman of 

 the Society of Arts. 



Cablegrams to the daily papers state that 

 the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science opened its seventy-second annual 

 meeting at Belfast on September 10, when 

 Professor James Dewar made his presidential 

 address. The Association has been invited to 

 meet in South Africa in 1905. It is said the 

 colonial governments have offered to contrib- 



