518 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 404. 



nan, W. R. Cooper, S. Cowper-Coles and H. 

 V. Simpson. This committee has held meet- 

 ings from, time to time at which the best 

 methods of procedure have been discussed. 

 The question of working in conjunction with 

 one of the existing societies has been con- 

 sidered, and several societies have been ap- 

 proached on the matter, but the committee 

 takes the view that such an arrangement is 

 not likely, at any rate for the present, to 

 have the desired effect. Steps in the direction 

 of organizing an independent society have 

 therefore just been taken. 



The season at the Minnesota Seaside Sta- 

 tion on the Straits of Jiian de Fuca was 

 brought successfully to a close late in Au- 

 gust. Thirty-eight botanists and zoologists 

 were in attendance, only four of whom were 

 from the Pacific slope. A new laboratory 

 building, 24 x 40 feet, two stories high, was 

 opened and this afPorded space for the work 

 in advanced and elementary botany. The old 

 laboratory was devoted to the department of 

 zoology. Courses, with lectures, laboratory 

 and field work, were conducted by Professors 

 Conway MacMillan and Raymond Osburn, 

 and by Miss Josephine E. Tilden. Out-door 

 lectures on plant and animal ecology, given 

 in the forest and on the shore, were a feature 

 of the season. 



Professor L.\nnelongue, of Paris, has pre- 

 sented $7,500 to the Paris Academic de Mede- 

 cine for the endowment of a triennial prize. 



Me. James N. Jabvie, who has erected a 

 library building for Bloomfield, N. J., at a 

 cost of $100,000, has added an endowment 

 fund of $50,000. 



A PRESS dispatch from Alexandria says the 

 total number of fresh cholera cases in Egypt 

 in the week just ended was 6,587. There were 

 5,983 deaths. In the previous week there were 

 9,805 fresh cases and 8,497 deaths. Since the 

 commencement of the epidemic, July 15, to 

 the present time there have been 30,931 cases 

 and 25,734 deaths. 



A Reutee telegram from Rome states that 

 the Italian postal authorities have examined a 

 scheme submitted by an engineer, named Pis- 

 cieelli, for the establishment of an electric 



postal service. It is proposed, by means of 

 this system, to transmit letters in aluminium 

 boxes, traveling along overhead wires at the 

 rate of 400 kilometers an hour. A letter could 

 thus be sent from Rome to Naples in 25 min- 

 utes and from Rome to Paris in five hours. 

 Signer Galimberti has appointed a technical 

 commission to report on the system before 

 instituting a series of experiments between 

 Rome and Naples. 



The Scottish National Antarctic expedi- 

 tion, under the leadership of Mr. William S. 

 Bruce, will sail for the Antarctic regions on 

 the Scotia early in October. 



The managing- director of Marconi's Wire- 

 less Telegraph Co., writes to the London 

 Times that Mr. Marconi, who left England on 

 August 23 on the Carlo Alberto, the flagship of 

 the Italian Navy, has been in daily communi- 

 cation by wireless telegraphy with their long- 

 distance station at Poldhu, Cornwall. They 

 have received from him from Spezia a tele- 

 gram in which he says that he has received 

 perfect messages direct from Poldhu inside 

 Gibraltar Harbor, and throughout the entire 

 course of the Mediterranean tour. A reference 

 to the map of ^Europe shows that the messages 

 must have passed across the Bay of Biscay and 

 Spain, across Prance, and across the Alps. 

 Telegrams for the King of Italy and the Ital- 

 ian Minister of Marine have been sent from 

 Poldhu and correctly received on the tape of 

 the wireless telegraph receiving apparatus on 

 the Carlo Alberto in Spezia harbor. Mr. Mar- 

 coni has been commanded to visit the King of 

 Italy, and has been informed by the Italian 

 Minister of Marine that the Carlo Alberto is 

 at his disposal for taking part at once in a 

 transatlantic test of long-distance stations. 

 The ship will, therefore, take him to Cape Bre- 

 ton, where the Canadian station for transat- 

 lantic telegraphy is installed, and subsequently 

 to the long-distance station installed on Cape 

 Cod, and now owned by the Marconi Wireless 

 Telegraph Company of America. 



The British Sanitary Institute opened its 

 annual congress in Manchester on Sept. 9, 

 with two thousand delegates in attendance. 

 The president. Lord Egerton, said in his ad- 



