358 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 663 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



Dr. E. Ray Lankester will retire from the 

 directorship of the Natural History Museum, 

 London, in October. It is understood that 

 the inadequate pension originally proposed by 

 the trustees has been about doubled. The trus- 

 tees have decided not to appoint a new di- 

 rector, though it is possible that this plan may 

 be changed. 



Lord KEL^^N will open the new science 

 buildings of Queen's College, Belfast, on Sep- 

 tember 20. 



Professor J. P. Iddisgs, of the Univeraity 

 of Chicago, Dr. John M. Clarke, director of 

 the Science Division of the New York Educa- 

 tion Department, and Professor E, S. Tarr, of 

 Cornell University, will represent the Ameri- 

 can Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence at the celebration of the centenary of the 

 Geological Society of London to be held this 

 month. 



Among the honorary degrees conferred on 

 the occasion of the celebration of the three 

 himdredth anniversary of the University of 

 Giessen, was that of doctor of philosophy on 

 Dr. Ernest W. Rutherford, professor of 

 physics at Manchester, and doctor of medicine 

 on Dr. A. A. W. Hubrecht, professor of 

 zoology at Utrecht. Dr. Hubrecht is at present 

 in this country as delegate to the International 

 Zoological Congress. 



An honorary doctorate of medicine has been 

 conferred by the medical faculty of Heidel- 

 berg on Baron J. v. Uexkiill for his researches 

 on the processes of stimulation in nerves and 

 muscles. 



The John Scott legacy medal and premium 

 of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia has 

 been awarded to Professor J. A. Ewing, F.R.S., 

 and Mr. L, H. Walter for their method of de- 

 tecting electrical oscillations. 



Dr. C. de Bruyn, professor of botany and 

 zoology at Ghent, is president of the Flemish 

 Congress of Naturalists, which meets this 

 month at Malines. 



President William DeWitt Hyde, of 

 Bowdoin College, will, owing to the state of 

 his health, probably be unable to return to 



this country to resume his duties during the 

 present year. 



News has been received from the expedition 

 under Mr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, which in 

 the schooner Dutchess of Bedford has been ex- 

 ploring north of the Mackenzie River, that all 

 the members of the expedition are safe. 



The daily papers state that Professor Carl 

 C. Lorentzen, of New York University, has 

 arrived at Copenhagen with the object of 

 furthering a scheme for an exchange of pro- 

 fessors between Danish and American uni- 

 versities similar to that in vogue between 

 Germany and the United States. Count 

 Raben, the foreign minister, expressed sym- 

 pathy with the idea and said he would present 

 the proposal at the next session of Parliament. 



Under the auspices of the New York 

 Academy of Sciences Dr. D. Le Soiief, 

 director of the Zoological Gardens, Melbourne, 

 Australia, gave an illustrated lecture on " The 

 Wild Animal Life of Australia" at the 

 American Museum of Natural History, on 

 Monday evening, September 9. 



Professor Gaylord P. Clark, A.M., M.D., 

 dean of the College of Medicine, Syracuse 

 University, died very suddenly at his resi- 

 dence on September 1. He had but recently 

 returned from several months absence in Eu- 

 rope, and was actively organizing the work of 

 his college for the coming opening. His death 

 is a serious loss to the college and to the uni- 

 versity, as well as to the community, and will 

 be greatly regretted by a large circle of his 

 collaborators in physiology. 



The deaths are also announced of Dr. E. 

 Petersen, decent in chemistry at the Univer- 

 sity of Copenhagen, at the age of fifty-one 

 years, and of Giuseppe Grattarola, professor 

 of mineralogy in the Institute for Higher 

 Studies at Florence. 



The U. S. Civil Sei-vice Commission an- 

 nounces an examination on October 23-24, 

 1907, to fill a vacancy in the position of an- 

 atomist (male), at $1,600 per annum, in the 

 Army Medical Museum, office of the Surgeon 

 General, and other similar vacancies as they 

 may occur there. 



