February 2, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



199 



The deaths are announced of Professor H. 

 Eavl-Ruekhard, doeent in anatomy at Berlin, 

 and of Dr. Chelius, professor of geology in the 

 Technical School at Darmstadt. 



By the will of Marshall Field, filed on 

 January 24 in Chicago, the city receives 

 $8,000,000 for the endowment and maintenance 

 of the Field Columbian Museum, now situ- 

 ated in Jackson Park. The bequest is on 

 condition that within six years from the death 

 of Mr. Field there shall be provided a satis- 

 factory site for the permanent home of the 

 museum. 



By the will of W. C. Putnam, the Daven- 

 port (Iowa) Academy of Sciences becomes 

 prospectively one of the most richly endowed 

 institutions of its kind in the world. Mr. 

 Putnam left an estate of $700,000 with pro- 

 visions for limited incomes to relatives, the 

 remainder of the revenues to be paid the 

 academy and the entire estate to go to that 

 institution, at the death of the surviving 

 brothers and sisters. His art collection and 

 library, each the most valuable private collec- 

 tion in the state, are left to the academy, with 

 provision for a fireproof building in which 

 they are to be installed. 



At its annual meeting on January 24 the 

 board of regents of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion adopted a resolution accepting the offer 

 of Mr. Charles L. Freer, of Detroit, to convey 

 to the institution the title to his art collection, 

 and to bequeath $500,000 for the construction 

 of a fireproof building in which to house it. 

 Mr. Freer is to make the conveyance at once, 

 although the collection is to remain in his pos- 

 session until his death. 



By the will of the late Charles H. Nelson, 

 of Grafton, Mass., his home and $75,000 is to 

 be given to the city of Grafton for a library, 

 and $10,000 is to be given to Vassar College, 

 both bequests to take effect after the death of 

 his widow. 



By the will of the late Dr. John C. Warren, 

 professor of anatomy and surgery at Harvard 

 University, who died in 1856, the most perfect 

 mastodon skeleton in the world and many 

 other specimens of great value are likely to 

 pass into new hands. Dr. Warren wrote a 



still classical monograph on the ' Mastodon 

 Giganteus of North America ' in 1852, in 

 which the skeleton in question was described. 

 He put it into a private museum of his own 

 in company with many other curious speci- 

 mens. There is the great ' Shawangunk ' 

 bead, which is that of a still larger mastodon. 

 There are many non-articulated bones of the 

 Baltimore mastodon. The very fine collection 

 of fossil foot-prints may be mentioned, but 

 the reader is referred for further details to 

 the Harvard Bulletin of January 17, 1906. 

 Dr. Warren left this collection to be held by 

 his children in trust as long as any should 

 survive, after which it is to be shared by the 

 living grandchildren. The time has now come 

 for the latter to consider what disposition they 

 will make of it. Professor J. Collins Warren 

 and Professor Thomas Dwight, both of the 

 Harvard Medical School, are among the heirs. 



The Eoyal Botanic Society, London, has re- 

 ceived £1,000 from Dr. Robert Barnes, £200 

 from Lord Lister and other gifts. 



The department of mammalogy of the 

 American Museum -of Natural History re- 

 ceived in December a series of eight hippo- 

 potamus skulls showing various stages of 

 growth from the young to the adult from Lake 

 Ngami, South Africa. The department has 

 also secured four huge giraffe skulls from 

 Bechuana Land, South Africa. Comparison 

 with the skull of the museum's mounted 

 giraffe skeleton shows that these newly ac- 

 quired skulls must have belonged to animals 

 IS feet high. 



The government of Brazil has decreed a 

 prize of $10,000 for any one who exhibits 100,- 

 000 Manigoba rubber trees within 18 months 

 from the date of the announcement, and three 

 other prizes for the three next largest planta- 

 tions, the smallest of which, in order to gain 

 a prize, must not be of less than 20,000 trees. 



We learn from the London Times that the 

 first expedition sent out to West Africa by 

 the Liverpool Institute of Commercial Re- 

 search in the Tropics left the Mersey on 

 January 6 by the Elder-Dempster steamer 

 Zungeru. The members, who are conducted 

 by Lord Mountmorres, director of the insti- 



