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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 476. 



M.P. ; to be a committee to inquire and report 

 as to the statutory requirements relating to 

 the illuminating power and purity of gas sup- 

 plied by the metropolitan gas companies, and 

 as to the methods now adopted for testing 

 the same, and whether any alteration is de- 

 sirable in such requirements or methods, and, 

 if so, whether any consequential alteration 

 should be made in the standard price of gas. 



The Swiney prize, founded by Dr. Swiney, 

 who died in 1844, for a work on jurisprudence, 

 has been awarded to Sir Frederick Pollock, 

 H-.D., D.C.L., and Professor Frederic Will- 

 iam Maitland, LL.D., D.C.L., for their book 

 on ' The History of English Law before Ed- 

 ward the First.' The prize consists of a silver 

 cup of the value of £100 and money to the 

 same amount. The award is made jointly by 

 the Society of Arts and the Royal College of 

 Physicians, and the prize, under the terms of 

 Dr. Swiney's will, is given every fifth year 

 on the anniversary of the testator's death. 



Professor Debove, dean of the Medical 

 Facility of the University of Paris, has been 

 appointed president of the French Consulta- 

 tive Committee of Hygienfe, in the room of 

 Professor Brouardel, who has been named 

 honorary president. Dr. Roux, sub-director 

 of the Pasteur Institute, has been reelected 

 vice-president of the committee. 



Professor Angelo Heilprin lectured before 

 the People's Institute at Cooper Union, New 

 York, on February 5, his subject being ' Mount 

 Pelee Revisited.' 



Dr. Charles B. Dudley, chief chemist of 

 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, deliv- 

 ered a lecture on February 1, at the Cosmos 

 Club, "Washington, on ' The Work of a Chem- 

 ist on a Railroad.' 



Lord Rayleigh will give a coiirse of sis 

 lectures, at the Royal Institution, London, 

 on ' The Life and Work of Stokes,' beginning 

 on February 20. 



An oil painting of the late Dr. Thomas G. 

 Morton was presented to the Pennsylvania 

 Hospital by the Association of Resident 

 Physicians of that institution, January 11. 

 Dr. Morton was connected with the hospital 



in various capacities for more than forty 

 years. 



We regret to announce the death of Arthur 

 William Palmer, D.Sc. (Harvard), head of 

 the Department of Chemistry of the Univer- 

 sity of Illinois. Dr. Palmer was graduated 

 from the University of Illinois in 1883, and 

 was for two years assistant in the Department 

 of Chemistry. In 1890, after studying for two 

 years at Harvard University and one year in 

 Germany, he was appointed professor of chem- 

 istry and has since served continuously in 

 that capacity. As member of the Chemical 

 and Biological Survey, he had lately com- 

 pleted an important report on the water sup- 

 ply of the state of Illinois, and was the au- 

 thor of many papers embodying the results 

 of chemical investigation. 



The Rev. Dr. Jacob Cooper, professor of 

 philosophy and rhetoric in Rutgers College 

 since 1893 and previously professor of Greek, 

 has died at the age of seventy-three years. 



Dr. Friedrich von Hefner-Alteneck, the 

 eminent German engineer, died on January 7 

 at the age of fifty-eight years. 



Reuter's Agency reports that on January 

 16 the chief of the laboratory of the Imperial 

 Institute of Experimental Medicine for the 

 preparation of plague remedies, whose name 

 is not given, was taken ill after having been 

 engaged in experimenting with living plague 

 cultures. He died of plague on January 20, 

 in spite of every medical assistance and re- 

 peated injections of anti-plague serum. In- 

 jections of the anti-plague serum were made 

 in good time into all persons who had been in 

 contact with him. The laboratory is in Fort 

 Alexander I., which is on a small island com- 

 pletely isolated from Kronstadt and the other 

 forts. 



Dr. Felix Kanitz, known for his archeolog- 

 ical and ethnographical researches in the 

 Balkan peninsula, died at Vienna on January 

 5, in his seventy-fifth year. 



We also regret to record the death of Dr. 

 August G. Garcke, professor of botany at 

 Berlin, at the age of eighty-four years. 



A despatch from Buenos Ayres to the 

 Figaro announces that the Franqais, with 



