Maech 9, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



399 



March 10. — ' Some Aspects of Archeological 

 Work in Central America,' Dr. Alfred M. Tozzer, 

 Harvard University. 



March 17.— ' The Work of a State Geological 

 Survey,' Professor H. Foster Bain, director, 

 Illinois Geological Survey. 



March 24. — ' How People live in Congo Land,' 

 Dr. D. W. C. Snyder, lecturer for the board of 

 education, City of New York. 



March 31. — ' Love and War among Animals,' 

 Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, New York. 



April 7. — ' Glaciers,' Professor N. M. Fenne- 

 man, University of Wisconsin. 



April 14. — ' The Seri Indians of Sonora,' Dr. 

 W J McGee, director, St. Louis Public Museum. 



April 21. — ' How Plants breathe,' Professor C. 

 R. Barnes, University of Chicago. 



April 28. — ' The Monuments of a Prehistoric 

 Eace,' Professor Frederic I. Monsen, San Fran- 

 cisco. 



Official notice has been received from the 

 Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna an- 

 nouncing the recognition of the Wistar In- 

 stitute as the central institute for inter- 

 academie brain research in the United States. 

 Some three or four years ago, at the sugges- 

 tion of Professor His (Leipzig), the Inter- 

 national Association of Academies appointed 

 a central commission for interacademic brain 

 research. Among the duties of this commis- 

 sion was the selection of certain laboratories 

 in various parts of the world to act as central 

 institutes and the organization of an extensive 

 plan for the cooperative investigation of the 

 brain. It is in connection with this general 

 plan that the Wistar Institute is accepted as 

 the central institute for brain research in the 

 United States. Eecently Dr. Donaldson, Dr. 

 Mall (Johns Hopkins Medical School) and 

 Dr. Minot (Harvard Medical School) have 

 been elected members of the central commis- 

 sion for interacademic brain research and the 

 conduct of this work at the Wistar Institute 

 will be under the direction of Dr. Donaldson. 



In the summer of the present year a per- 

 manent station for the study of arctic sci- 

 ence will, as we have already noted, be estab- 

 lished on the south coast of Disco Island in 

 Danish West Greenland. The cost of the 

 foundation has been defrayed by a gift from 

 Mr. A. Hoick, of Copenhagen, and the Danish 



government has promised an annual grant of 

 $3,000 towards its maintenance. We learn 

 from a letter from Dr. Morten P. Porsild, 

 director of the laboratory, that it is equipped 

 with appliances and instruments, especially 

 for biological researches, and that work-places 

 will be furnished for visiting naturalists, 

 foreign as well as Danish. The establishment 

 of two such places is contemplated at present. 

 The visitors will obtain the free use of the 

 instruments, traveling outfit and library of the 

 station; lodging will be free and a small fee 

 will be charged only for board. Cheap fare 

 to and from the station, via Copenhagen, will 

 be provided. The first visitors can be re- 

 ceived in 190Y, and notices, inviting appli- 

 cation, will be issued in due course. A 

 library of arctic literature is to be founded 

 at the station and to be made as complete as 

 possible, but in view of the limited resources 

 of the station, only a small proportion of it 

 can be purchased. The director will, there- 

 fore, be pleased to receive gifts of publications 

 relating to the arctic regions and especially 

 to arctic biology. 



We learn from the London Times that 

 at a meeting of the Linnean Society of 

 London, held on February 1 at Burling- 

 ton House, Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner gave 

 an account of the Percy Sladen trust ex- 

 pedition in his Majesty's ship Sealarh to 

 the Indian Ocean. Mr. Gardiner was leader 

 of the expedition, which was the first to benefit 

 by the Percy Sladen trust. Professor Herd- 

 man, F.E.S., president of the society, re- 

 minded the audience that Mr. Percy Sladen 

 was for many years the honored zoological 

 secretary of that society, and his widow, whose 

 death had recently occurred, was the first of 

 their lady fellows whom they had lost. Mrs. 

 Sladen was the generous donor of a fund to 

 commemorate her husband, and it was by that 

 fund that Mr. Gardiner had been assisted in. 

 his explorations in the Indian Ocean. Mr. 

 Gardiner then proceeded to describe, by means 

 of maps and- charts exhibited upon a screen, 

 the region visited by his expedition, and ex- 

 plained the method by which they made their 

 soundings and dredgings, many of which pro- 



