Febeuaey 23, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



319 



Professor William James and Dr. James 

 H. Hyslop, vice-presidents of the American 

 Branch of the Society for Psychical Eesearch, 

 have issued the following letter : " In the 

 death of Dr. Richard Hodgson, the secretary 

 of the American branch since its foundation, 

 the society, as vs^ell as his personal friends, 

 has suffered a great loss. The vcork of the 

 branch, however, will be continued under the 

 direction of its vice-presidents or those ap- 

 pointed by them for the purpose, until a satis- 

 factory and efficient permanent arrangement 

 can be made. In the meantime, it is im- 

 portant that past subscriptions to the society's 

 .work should be continued, and new ones ob- 

 tained if possible, as there is a mass of docu- 

 mentary material collected by Dr. Hodgson 

 which awaits the completed critical treatment 

 he would have given it had he lived, and which 

 should now be dealt with. And there are also 

 certain new and important possibilities of in- 

 vestigation which have just come into sight." 



According to the Scottish ' Geographical 

 Magazine a silver medal has been given by 

 Mr. William S. Bruce to the members of 

 the Scottish Antarctic Expedition, including 

 the scientific staff, officers and crew of the 

 Scotia, as well as the home staff, who have 

 served throughout the expedition, as a token 

 of appreciation of the work done by them. 

 The obverse side represents the terrestrial 

 globe floating in space swathed in clouds, 

 showing especially the Atlantic Ocean and 

 the neighboring American, European, African 

 and Antarctic continents — the scene of the 

 labors of the expedition. Below is the ship 

 beset in heavy ice off Coats Land in 74.1° 

 south latitude, with a tjrpieal flat-topped 

 Antarctic iceberg in the background. En- 

 circling this design is the legend, ' Scottish 

 National Antarctic Expedition,' with a figure 

 of St. Andrew and the Cross. The reverse 

 side represents Omond House, built specially 

 by the officers and crew of the Scotia at 

 Scotia Bay, South Orkneys, showing the beach 

 and the adjacent mountains. Encircling this 

 is a wreath of thistles supported by two flags — 

 one the Scottish Lion, the other the St. 

 Andrew Cross with the letters S. N. A. E. — 



the expedition flag. Above is a scroll bearing 

 the inscription, ' for valuable services ' with 

 the recipient's name. The dates 1902-1904 in- 

 dicate the duration of the expedition. 



'The daily papers state that the eruption of 

 Mount Vesuvius is assuming alarming pro- 

 portions. The funicular railway track has 

 been damaged at six points, and the principal 

 station is threatened with destruction. The 

 authorities are taking precautions to prevent 

 loss of life. 



An" eruption of Mt. Etna began January 5. 

 The Corriere di Catania, January 7, 1906, 

 contains this notice: 



The Royal Observatory sends the following com- 

 munication: Etna, since the important eruptive 

 manifestation of July-August, 1899, has, ending 

 with yesterday, passed through a period of almost 

 absolute inactivity, interrupted, now and then, by 

 some very brief appearance of more or less emana- 

 tions of white vapor from the central crater, which 

 sometimes, but only rarely, assumed the form of 

 slight eruptions, forming on the top of the moun- 

 tain, crests which turned now in one direction, 

 now in another, according to the direction of the 

 high atmospheric current. Yesterday (5-6, Janu- 

 ary) there occurred a notable eruption of ashes 

 from the central crater of Etna, which, falling on 

 the white mantle of the recent snows, formed a 

 long, wide, dark zone on the southern slope of 

 Etna from the summit down to the region of 

 Monte Nero, Passo Cannelli, etc., where the snow 

 belt ends. The north wind carried the ashes as 

 far as, and probably beyond, Catania, where on 

 the terrace of the Observatory one could gather 

 a considerable amount. 



According to a despatch from Washington 

 to the Boston Transcript, dated Eebruary 13, 

 New England experts in the extermination of 

 the gypsy and brown tail moths were given a 

 hearing before the house committee on agri- 

 culture, that morning. Efforts were centered 

 in support of Representative Robert's bill pro- 

 viding $250,000 to be used under the direction 

 of the Department of Agriculture cooperating 

 with authorities of Massachusetts, Rhode 

 Island, New Hampshire and Maine in ex- 

 terminating the moths, $15,000 to be used in 

 importing and distributing parasites. A. H. 

 Kirkland, superintendent of the extermina- 

 tion work in Massachusetts; General Erancis 



