May 20, 1904,] 



SCIENCE. 



807 



Horace McFarland. There was an exhibition 

 of plants and flowers. 



The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sci- 

 ences held, on May 10, a memorial meeting in 

 honor of Herbert Spencer, the principal ad- 

 dress being made by President J. G. Schur- 

 man, of Cornell University. 



A COMMITTEE has been formed to prepare a 

 memorial of the late Leslie Stephen, .which 

 in the first instance will consist of an engra- 

 ving of a portrait by Mr. Watts, which will be 

 presented to institutions with which Sir Leslie 

 Stephen was closely associated. 



Propessoe a. W. Williamson, P.E.S., the 

 eminent British chemist, died on May 6, at 

 the age of eighty years. 



We regret also to record the death of Sir 

 Henry M. Stanley, the African explorer, of M. 

 Leidie, professor of chemistry at Paris, and of 

 Dr. W. Thiermann, lecturer on applied elec- 

 tricity at the Technical School at Hamburg. 



The annual conversazione of the Eoyal So- 

 ciety was held on May 13. 



There will be a civil service examination 

 on June 16 to fill the position of laboratory 

 aid in physiology and pathology in the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture at a salary of $720. 



The government of Iceland has appropri- 

 ated about $10,000 a year for twenty years 

 to establish wireless telegraphic connection 

 with Great Britain and between the towns of 

 Iceland. 



Under date of March 8, 1904, U. S. Consul 

 H. L. Washington, of Geneva, reports that 

 during the month of February the advance 

 in piercing of the Simplon Tunnel was only 

 15 feet 7 inches per each working-day, and 

 this work was entirely on the southern side. 

 The tunneling work in the gallery on the 

 northern side had not been resumed. In each 

 of the two galleries a system of safety doors 

 was being placed to lessen the effect of floods 

 that may be caused by the springs. These 

 doors would be completed about the middle of 

 March and the mechanical boring would not 

 be resumed untQ then in both galleries. At 

 the end of February, 1904, a little more than 

 11.295 miles had been drilled, leaving 0.964 

 mile to be tunneled. 



Mr. Archibald Eogers, a member of the 

 board of trustees of the American Museum of 

 Natural History, has presented to the museum 

 an exceptionally perfect copy of the first edi- 

 tion of Audubon's ' Birds of the United States 

 of America.' It is believed that not more than 

 175 copies of this edition of ' Audubon ' are 

 now in existence, of which about one half are 

 thought to be in this country. Published in 

 87 parts at ten dollars each, the work is now 

 valued at $3,000. 



Mr. Max J. Baehr, consul at Cienfuegos, 

 writes to the Department of State in refer- 

 ence to the use of the metric system in Cuba, 

 stating that it is established by law and is 

 adopted in all transactions at the custom- 

 house, city haU, and in the registry and rec- 

 ords .of property; in fact, it is compulsory 

 and adhered to in all official acts. In grocer- 

 ies, aU solid goods are sold by the ounce and 

 pound, the United States pound being used, 

 as the scales are mostly of American manu- 

 facture, a few only being imported from Ger- 

 many. Liquors are usually sold at wholesale 

 in original packages and at retail by the bottle 

 or fraction of a bottle, the poor people some- 

 times buying a few cents' worth. The coun- 

 trs^'s products, such as cereals, are sold by the 

 pound or fraction thereof, except that com 

 when sold in ears is sold by the f anega, which 

 is 1,000 ears of corn. Vegetables are gener- 

 ally sold by the pound, the arroba, or 25 

 pounds. Cabbages and bananas are sold in 

 numbers from one up to one hundred or more. 

 Civil engineers and land surveyors employ the 

 metric system throughout their measurements. 

 Mechanics in general make use of English 

 inches as their unit measure. 



The next meeting of the Museums Associa- 

 tion will be held at Norwich, during July 14 

 to 17, under the presidency of Dr. Sydney 

 Harmer, F.E.S., keeper of the Museum of 

 Zoology at Cambridge University. The mem- 

 bership of the association has increased so 

 greatly of recent years that a large attend- 

 ance is expected. We are asked to state that 

 American visitors will be particularly wel- 

 come. Further information may be obtained 

 from the secretary, E. Howarth, Public Mu- 

 seum, Sheffield, England. 



