854 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 805 



Professor Franklin C. Eobinson, of Bow- 

 doin College and the Medical School of Maine, 

 died on May 25. He had been professor of 

 chemistry in these institutions since his gradu- 

 ation in 1873. He was a member of the 

 American Chemical Society, the Society of 

 Chemical Industry, a fellow of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 member of the Maine State Board of Health, 

 chairman of the Maine State Survey Commis- 

 sion, and ex-president of the American Public 

 Health Association. 



Robert H. Gordon, long interested in the 

 geology of western Maryland and the donor 

 of extensive collections of the finely preserved 

 Lower Devonic fossils of this region to the 

 U. S. National Museum and to Tale Univer- 

 sity, died on May 10, at the age of fifty-eight 

 years. 



Mr. W. E. Head, for many years a collector 

 and student of Paleozoic sponges, died at his 

 residence in Chicago on May 10, at the age 

 of eighty-one years. 



Dr. Robert Koch, professor of hygiene in 

 the University of Berlin, died at Baden-Baden 

 on May 27. 



The well-known city engineer and paleon- 

 tologist of Eeval, Russia, August von Mick- 

 witz, died on April 20 last at the age of sixty- 

 one years. His best known work in paleon- 

 tology treats of the Upper Cambric Obolidse 

 and Lingulidae of western Russia. 



By arrangement between the Bermuda Nat- 

 ural History Society and Harvard University 

 the Bermuda Biological Station for Research 

 will be open this summer for about six weeks 

 beginning the middle of June, under condi- 

 tions substantially like those of previous 

 years. For particulars application should be 

 made to Professor E. L. Mark, 109 Irving 

 St., Cambridge, Mass. 



In 1906, on recommendation of the then 

 Italian minister of public instruction Boselli, 

 there was created by royal decree the Comi- 

 tate Nazionale per la Storia del Risorgi- 

 mento. In 1909 this committee, consisting of 

 nineteen members, was organized, with Sena- 

 tor Pinali, president of the Court of Cassa- 



tion, as its head. Among its members are 

 Ernesto Nathan, syndic of Rome; Professors 

 d'Ancona, Bosselli, Martini, Abba, Pitre and 

 Casini; Marquis Emilio Visconti-Venosta, 

 and Car. H. Nelson Gay, formerly of Boston, 

 but for many years a resident of Rome, and 

 the leading authority on the bibliography of 

 the Risorgimento. The objects of the com- 

 mittee are (1) to establish in Rome, in the 

 monument to Victor Emanuel, a museum, 

 archives and a national library of the Risor- 

 gimento; (2) to promote Risorgimento mu- 

 seum and archives in the chief towns and 

 cities of Italy; (3) to prepare and issue a 

 bibliography; (4) to publish documents, and 

 (5) to direct special works for illustrating 

 the most important material. The committee 

 already possesses many invaluable collections 

 — the Crispi Papers, the Jessie White Mario 

 Papers, Mazzini manuscripts, the Pepe cor- 

 respondence, etc. ; and when the new quarters 

 are ready, there may be transferred to them 

 the vast collections of the National Library 

 at Rome. At a recent meeting, the com- 

 mittee chose a few foreign corresponding 

 members, including George M. Trevelyan 

 (England), Professors Harnack and Del- 

 briick (Germany) and William Roscoe 

 Thayer (United States). 



The Smithsonian Institution has published 

 a " Bibliography of Aeronautics," which has 

 been issued as volume 55 of the Smithsonian 

 Miscellaneous Collections. Nearly one thou- 

 sand pages are required to present the 13,500 

 references which have been arranged alpha- 

 betically by authors, subjects and titles cover- 

 ing the subject down to July, 1909. Mr. Paul 

 Brockett, the assistant librarian of the insti- 

 tution, is the compiler, and in his introduction 

 he reviews the long association of the institu- 

 tion with aeronautics, pointing out that as 

 early as 1861 assistance was solicited for 

 carrying out experiments to cross the Atlantic 

 by means of a balloon. Two years later there 

 were published by the institution two papers 

 on the general subject of aeronautics and 

 since then thirty-five publications on various 

 phases of the subject have been issued. In 

 greater detail Mr. Brockett reviews the con- 



