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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 489. 



$200,000 will be collected and that work will 

 be begun a year hence. The incorporators 

 are Dr. Charles Sedgwick Minot, president; 

 John E. Thayer and Dr. Henry P. Bowditch, 

 vice-presidents; Dr. Edward G. Gardiner, sec- 

 retary; Eev. James Eells, treasurer; Outram 

 Bangs, Alexander Pope, William Ljonan Un- 

 derwood and the president and secretary, ex- 

 ecutive committee; Robert A. Boit, William 

 F. Beal, Eev. Samuel A. Eliot, Hon. John D. 

 Long, Eobert M. Burnett, Samuel Hooper 

 Hooper, Professor E. L. Mark, Dr. Samuel J. 

 Mixter, Professor Edward S. Morse, Frederick 

 Law Olmsted, Hon. Herbert Parker, John C. 

 Phillips, Dr. Morton Prince and Professor 

 William T. Sedgwick. 



It is stated in Nature that a provisional 

 program of the meeting of the International 

 Association of Academies, to be held in Lon- 

 don, has been sent to the delegates. On Tues- 

 day, May 24, the commission inquiring into 

 the anatomy of the brain will probably meet 

 at Burlington House in the morning. In the 

 evening the delegates will be entertained by 

 the Eoyal Society at a banquet at the White- 

 hall Eooms. Wednesday, May 25, and the 

 morning of the following day will be devoted 

 to the business of the assembly. The king 

 has expressed his wish, if his engagements 

 will permit, to receive the delegates, and it is 

 hoped that arrangements may be made for this 

 event in the afternoon of May 26. On Friday 

 evening. May 27, the delegates are invited to 

 a reception by the University of London; and 

 on the afternoon of May 28 it is proposed to 

 pay visits to the universities of Oxford and 

 Cambridge. On Monday, May 30, the Lord 

 Mayor of London will entertain the delegates 

 at a banquet at the Mansion House. 



At Thurlow-park, Norwood, on March 17, 

 Sir Hiram Maxim gave, as we learn from the 

 London Times, a demonstration of his new 

 ' Captive Flying Machine.' To a central 

 vertical shaft, over 60 feet high, are attached 

 ten long radial arms, supported by steel wire 

 ropes, and from the ends of these arms are 

 slung cars, each carrying six or eight passen- 

 gers, and made in the shape of fish or any 

 other form that fancy may dictate. Each is 



provided with an aeroplane, and by the varying 

 of an angle, and consequently of the lifting 

 power, of this they can, when the peripheral 

 speed is high enough, be made to move up and 

 down and perform complicated evolutions in 

 the air. The speed was not great enough to 

 bring the aeroplanes into action; exigencies of 

 space made it necessary for the cars to be hung 

 about forty feet from the ground, and the 

 diameter of the circular path they followed 

 was so small that sufficient speed to affect the 

 aeroplanes would have been accompanied by 

 an undue development of centrifugal force, 

 owing to increased speed of rotation. The 

 machine, however, is destined for Earl's-court 

 Exhibition, where it will be erected in the 

 middle of the lake; and there the cars will 

 be hung much lower, and with a large circle of 

 travel the peripheral speed will be high enough 

 to bring the aeroplanes into play with a very 

 moderate number of revolutions a minute. The 

 central shaft is driven by a gas-engine, which 

 can turn it at such a rate that the peripheral 

 speed of the cars becomes about sixty-five miles 

 an hour, and they are forced out at an angle 

 of nearly 80 degrees to the vertical; but at 

 Earl's-court the highest possible speed will be 

 35 miles an hour. A still larger machine is 

 being built for the Crystal Palace, and as the 

 space there is not limited the circle round 

 which the cars travel will be so large that their 

 speed will be high with only four revolutions 

 a minute. In building these machines Sir 

 Hiram Maxim's main object is, not to provide 

 the frequenters of places of amusement with a 

 new sensation, but to defray the cost of serious 

 experiments in aeronautics. He feels certain 

 that the time has now come when it is prac- 

 ticable to make a flying machine that can not 

 fail to be of enormous value to the country as 

 a military engine, and by the aid of the attrac- 

 tions of these captive flying machines at 

 Earl's-court and the Crystal Palace he hopes 

 to obtain from the public enough money to 

 carry his experiments to a successful issue. 



In order to promote uniform food standards 

 and a uniform and just government control 

 for the manufacture and sale of foods, there 

 will be held at the St. Louis Exposition an 

 International Pure Food Congress during the 



