November 3, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



575 



Among the lectures to be given before the 

 Royal Institution of London during the cur- 

 rent session are the f ollovi^ing : ' The Origin 

 of the Elephant,' Professor E. Ray Lankester, 

 E.R.S.; ' Submarines,' - Sir W. H. White, 

 KC.B., F.R.S.; 'Geographical Botany inter- 

 preted by Direct Response to the Conditions 

 of Life,' Rev. George Henslow ; ' The Upper 

 Nile,' Sir Charles Eliot, K.C.M.G.; 'Varia- 

 tion in Man and Woman,' Professor Karl 

 Pearson, F.R.S.; 'Our Atmosphere and its 

 Wonders,' Professor Vivian B. Lewes. 



The Traill-Taylor memorial lecture of the 

 Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain 

 was delivered at the New Gallery, Regent 

 Street, London, on October 24 by Mr. Chap- 

 man Jones, F.I.C., E.C.S. The subject was 

 ' Photography, the Servant of Science.' 



At the meeting of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers on November 7, Sir Alexander R. 

 Binnie, the president, will deliver an in- 

 augural address, and the presentation will 

 take place of the council's awards. 



Before the Pupil's Physical Society of 

 Guy's Hospital, on October 12, Dr. William 

 Osier, the regius professor of medicine of 

 Oxford University, delivered an address upon 

 ' Sir Thomas Browne,' who was born on Oc- 

 tober 19, 1605. 



Dr. Sylvester Dwight Judd, formerly as- 

 sistant biologist in the U. S. Department 

 cf Agriculture and professor of biology in 

 Georgetown LTniversity, conunitted suicide on 

 October 22, two weeks after his discharge 

 from the insane asylum. Dr. Judd, who was 

 thirty-four years of age, graduated from Har- 

 vard LTniversity in 1894. He had made val- 

 uable contributions to economic ornithology. 



The annual meeting of the American Physio- 

 logical Society will be held at the University 

 of Michigan, Ann Arbor, December 2Y and 28. 



The twenty-third annual congress of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union will be held 

 at the American Museum of Natural History, 

 New York City, beginning on the evening of 

 Monday, November 13. The evening session 

 will be for the ejection of officers and mem- 

 bers, and for the transaction of routine busi- 



ness. Tuesday and the following days will 

 be for the presentation and discussion of sci- 

 entific papers, and will be open to the public. 

 The tenth International Geological Con- 

 gress will meet in the City of Mexico at the 

 beginning of September, 1906. Extended ex- 

 cursions have already been arranged to precede 

 and follow the congress. 



At a joint meeting of the Royal Society 

 and the Royal Astronomical Society, held on 

 October 19 at Burlington House, the following 

 reports were presented on the subject of the 

 total eclipse of the sun on August 30: 'Pre- 

 liminary Account of the Observations made 

 at Sfax, Tunisia,' by Sir William Christie, 

 the astronomer royal ; ' Preliminary Report 

 of the Observations made at Guelma, Algeria,' 

 by Mr. H. E. Newall ; ' Report of the Eclipse 

 Expedition to Pineda de la Sierra, Spain,' by 

 Mr. J. Evershed ; and ' Expedition to Aswan,' 

 by Professor H. H. Turner. A report was also 

 presented by Professor H. L. Callendar, E.R.S. 



Erance, following the example of England, 

 Germany and other countries, has decided to 

 create an Order of Merit. The new decora- 

 tion is intended for Frenchmen who shall 

 have distinguished themselves at home or 

 abroad, but whose services would not entitle 

 them to the Legion of Honor. There are to 

 be three grades — chevalier, officer and com- 

 mander — and the ribbon is to be dark blue. 

 The new order is intended to take the place 

 of the medals and decorations now conferred 

 for special services. 



By the will of the late Benjamin P. Davis, 

 a civil engineer of New York City, $250,000 

 is bequeathed for public purposes, including 

 $50,000 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 

 $50,000 to the Phillips Exeter Academy of 

 New Hampshire and $25,000 to the American 

 Museum of Natural History. 



The Royal College of Surgeons has pre- 

 sented to the medical department of Cam- 

 bridge University a number of portrait en- 

 gravings of eminent physicians and surgeons 

 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 



The valuable collection of succulent plants 

 made, during his travels abroad by the late 



