June 17, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



935 



A METEOROLOGICAL station of the U. S. 

 Weather Bureau, under the charge of Mr. 

 Alexander McC. Ashley, formerly local fore- 

 caster at Syracuse, N. Y., will be established 

 at Honolulu. 



In response to a letter received from Mr. 

 Calvin W. Eiee, chairman of the American 

 Institute of Electrical Engineers' Building 

 Eund Committee, the executive committee of 

 the Iowa State College branch of the institute 

 appointed a local committee to solicit sub- 

 scriptions from the local members and ' stu- 

 dents ' of the institute. The committee con- 

 sists of Mr. B. S. Lanphear, chairman, Mr. 

 G. W. Bissell and Mr. F. A. Pielsticker. The 

 committee has been very successful, having 

 raised about $700, with several of the local 

 members yet to be interviewed. It is thought 

 that the interest which has thus been aroused 

 in institute matters will materially strengthen 

 the local organization and thus eventually 

 prove of even greater benefit to the local 

 branch than to the institute building fund. 



Eeutee's Agency reports that the Marconi 

 wireless telegraph stations at Bari and Anti- 

 vari (Montenegro) have now been erected for 

 a month, and are in regular working order. 

 Signer Marconi will personally open them in 

 July next on his return to Italy. The high 

 power station at Coltano (Pisa), near the 

 royal farm of San Rossore, will be the largest 

 in the world, and will be built entirely of 

 stone. It will be ready in August or Sep- 

 tember, after which the engines and other 

 apparatus wiU be installed, so that it may 

 begin working not later than ths beginning 

 of 1905. The Coltano station will be able to 

 communicate with Great Britain, Canada, the 

 United States and the Netherlands, as well 

 as with all vessels in the Mediterranean, the 

 Baltic, the Eed Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and 

 the Indian Ocean. Signer Marconi has signed 

 contracts with Chile and Argentina to con- 

 struct telegraph stations. 



Eeutee's Liverpool correspondent forwards 

 information with regard to the Congo expedi- 

 tion which the Liverpool School of Tropical 

 Medicine despatched to the Free State at the 

 request of the King of the Belgians, for the 



purpose of studying trypanosomiasis, or sleep- 

 ing sickness, in the autumn of 1903. The 

 expedition consisted of Dr. J. E. Button and 

 Dr. J. L. Todd, who formed the recent 

 trypanosomiasis expedition of the school to 

 Senegambia, and Dr. C. Christy, who was a 

 member of the Royal Society's commission, 

 sent to Uganda to study sleeping sickness. 

 The expedition left England early in Septem- 

 ber last, and proceeded direct to Boma, where 

 they stayed until the end of the year. At 

 Boma the Belgian authorities attached a state 

 medical officer. Dr. Heiberg, to the expedition, 

 a step which was all the more appreciated from 

 the fact that Dr. Heiberg was at one time a 

 student at the Liverpool School of Tropical 

 Medicine. After a stay of six weeks at Boma, 

 the expedition proceeded to Matadi, where they 

 remained for a few days. Dr. Dutton and Dr. 

 Christy then went through the cataract region, 

 their tour lasting three weeks, when they 

 joined Dr. Todd and Dr. Heiberg, who had 

 preceded them, at Leopoldsville. A long stay 

 of over four months was made at Leopoldsville, 

 where the government placed a spacious 

 bungalow at the disposal of the expedition, and 

 subsequently built a hospital for the special 

 study by the expedition of sleeping sickness 

 eases. Thanks to this the members were en- 

 abled to make careful observations, extending 

 over several months, of sleeping sickness under 

 the most favorable conditions possible, and to 

 work without encountering the obstacles so 

 frequently met with by expeditions in similar 

 climes, who have not had the opportunity of 

 remaining for a sufficient length of time in a 

 suitable district under such favorable circum- 

 stances. As the cases of sickness were very 

 numerous, a great amount of material was 

 available, and the expedition were able to 

 study closely all the different types of eases. 

 Dr. Christy left for home on May 1, the other 

 members. Dr. Todd and Dr. Dutton proceed- 

 ing up the Congo Eiver, where the expedition 

 will continue their researches in the little- 

 known regions of the interior. Their latest 

 report was that they were in good health. Dr. 

 Christy brought home with him to Europe 

 by the Anversville three natives suffering 



