Septembek 15, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



351 



towards the expenses of the proposed school 

 of research in connection with the university. 

 The school is to inquire into the natural re- 

 sources of the tropical possessions of the em- 

 pire. Lord Mountmorres is to be the first 

 director. 



The city of Hamburg will reestablish the old 

 astronomical observatory at Bergedorf. The 

 observatory has been presented with 50,000 

 Marks for the purchase of a photographic tele- 

 scope. 



The Landmarks Club for more than ten 

 years has been safe-guarding and preserving 

 the old missions of southern California. It 

 has raised over $7,000 and applied these 

 moneys in protective repairs to these monu- 

 ments. It has reroofed about 60,000 square 

 feet of the principal buildings at four mis- 

 sions ; and by these and other repairs has saved 

 them from destruction. If this work had not 

 been done when it was these buildings would 

 by now be hopeless mounds of adobe. There 

 is far more of this work still to be done, 

 which the Landmarks Club will do. It has 

 long leases on three of the missions. 



The committee of the British Association 

 of Botanical Photographs reports that forty 

 photographs have been added to the register 

 since the last meeting. They have been re- 

 ceived from various persons, but it would 

 mention in particular a series of photographs 

 by Mr. E. Welch illustrating the coast flora 

 of Ireland, and a number of photographs by 

 Professor Yapp, of Aberystwyth, illustrating 

 some aspects of the vegetation of the Malay 

 Peninsula. A printed list has been prepared 

 of the photographs so far contributed to the 

 register, and this will be ready for circulation 

 in July. The recently established committee 

 for the Botanical Survey of Great Britain 

 contemplates the establishment of a collection 

 of botanical photographs of British vegeta- 

 tion, and it is hoped that that committee will 

 collaborate with the committee of the British 

 Association by taking over the work of col- 

 lecting and arranging photographs relating to 

 British vegetation. 



The Experiment Station Record states that 

 the Minnesota legislature at its recent session 



passed two laws of considerable importance to 

 the agriculture of the state. One of these 

 provides for the establishment of a branch 

 school of agriculture at Crookston, to be a 

 department of the University of Minnesota 

 under the direction of the board of regents of 

 the university. The other provides for local 

 option in the establishment and maintenance 

 of county schools of agriculture and domestic 

 economy, limiting to $20,000 the amount that 

 any county may. appropriate for this purpose 

 in one year. The initiative in the matter of 

 establishing such schools may be taken by the 

 people or by the county commissioners, but the 

 county commissioners can not finally establish 

 a school until the question has been submitted 

 to the electors in the county. Two or more 

 counties may unite to establish a school of 

 agriculture and domestic economy. The 

 schools are to be under the control of a county 

 school board of three members, the secretary 

 of which shall be the county superintendent 

 of schools, and the other two members are to 

 be elected by the county commissioners. Each 

 school must have connected with it a tract of 

 land, suitable for purposes of experiment and 

 demonstration, of not less than ten acres. 

 Tuition is to be free to residents of the county 

 or counties contributing to its support. The 

 state superintendent of public instruction is 

 to have general supervision over the schools, 

 and with the advice of the dean of the College 

 of Agriculture is to prescribe the courses of 

 study to be pursued. 



The British Medical Journal says times 

 have greatly changed in France, as elsewhere, 

 since the days when Claude Bernard had for 

 his laboratory in the College de Prance, some- 

 thing little better than an indifferent cellar, 

 and Pasteur a kind of something that might 

 have served as a granary in the Ecole Nor- 

 male. But since no rule lacks an exception, 

 we find some of the most distinguished scien- 

 tists still without that provision for scientific 

 work which would enable them to follow the 

 bent of their genius without having to think 

 of ways and means. Thus, in Paris, the center 

 of academic and scientific institutions, we find 

 M. Becquerel making with his own hands the 

 apparatus by means of which he observed the 



