February 12, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



277 



Dr. Charcot's antarctic expedition on board, 

 reached Ushuaia, Patagonia, on January 15. 

 An Argentine vessel brought her coal supply 

 and mails, and the Fran^ais then left for the 

 south. 



There will be a civil service examination 

 on March 9 and 10 to fill vacancies in the 

 position of geologic aid and assistant geolo- 

 gist in the Geological Survey, at salaries 

 ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 per annum. 



Baron Leon de Lenval, of Nice, has given 

 3,000 francs to found a prize to be awarded 

 periodically to the otologist who has made the 

 greatest progress in the practical treatment of 

 the affections of the ear since the previous 

 award, to the inventor of a portable appara- 

 tus susceptible of notably improving the hear- 

 ing of deaf persons. The value of the prize 

 is the interest on this sum accruing in the 

 interval of two meetings of the International 

 Otological Congress. 



The Illustrated Review of Physiologic 

 Therapeutics offers the sum of fifteen hun- 

 dred dollars in cash prizes for the best essays 

 on X rays in medicine and surgery, the first 

 prize being $1,000. 



Sir Norman Lockyer's address as president 

 of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science on ' The Influence of Brain 

 Power on History ' has been reprinted from 

 LitieU's Living Age by the New England 

 Education League and International Educa- 

 tion Conference. Copies may be obtained in 

 large or small quantities at the rate of two 

 cents each (postage extra) by addressing Mr. 

 W. Scott, secretary, 40 Dover Street, West 

 Somerville Station, Boston, Mass. 



Senator Cullom has introduced a bill for 

 the preservation of aboriginal monuments, 

 ruins and other antiquities to apply to all 

 government reservations. 



The agricultural appropriation bill, as 

 passed by the house on February 5, carries a 

 total of $5,711,240, being an increase of $233,- 

 080 over the current law. Only two salaries are 

 raised by the bill, and these only temporarily, 

 being $500 each to the chiefs of the Bureau of 

 Animal Industry and the Division of Ento- 

 mology. Commenting on the amount carried, 



Chairman Wadsworth says in the report : " It 

 has been asserted by some that the United 

 States is not spending enough toward the pro- 

 motion of agriculture. Llaving this in mind 

 your committee requested the Census Bureau to 

 furnish it with statistics showing the amounts 

 spent by the several states and territories for 

 this purpose, and as near as can be ascertained 

 by that bureau the aggregate yearly expendi- 

 tures by the states and territories are some- 

 thing over $4,500,000, which, added to the 

 $6,250,000 spent annually by the United States 

 government for the same cause, makes a 

 total of $10,750,000 spent annually for the pro- 

 motion of agriculture. Certainly," the report 

 concludes, " this is a most liberal figure and 

 much more than is being exijended by any 

 other government in the world for the same 

 purpose." The bill contains the following 

 new clause regarding the relation of the agri- 

 cultural experiment stations to the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture: " The Secretary of Agri- 

 culture is hereby authorized and directed to 

 coordinate the work of the several stations and 

 the work of the stations with the Department 

 of Agriculture, to the end of preventing un- 

 necessary duplication of work, of increasing 

 the efiiciency of the stations and the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, and to unify and sys- 

 tematize agricultural investigations in the 

 United States." 



It appears from the reports in the press that 

 in discussing the agricultural bill in the 

 house on February 5, Mr. Sheppard (Dem., 

 Texas) made a determined but vain effort to 

 bring about a reform in the matter of the 

 distribxition of seeds by the government, and 

 specially for the purchase of rare and imtried 

 seeds. He read a letter from a constituent 

 who asked him to send certain seeds and in 

 addition a suit of clothes. He declared that 

 the system was degenerating into a farce, and 

 said that if the congressional comedy con- 

 tinues and drifts into a continuous perform- 

 ance, congressmen will no longer be statesmen 

 but seedsmen. Mr. Sheppard developed to the 

 merriment of the house, in a colloquy with Mr. 

 Candler, that the latter had received a request 

 from a man for a hat for himself and his 

 wife. Mr. Cochran (Dem., Mo.) said he re- 



