June 8, 1906.J 



SCIENCE. 



891 



Sm Alexander B. W. Kennedy has been 

 elected president of the British Institution of 

 Civil Engineers. The council of the institu- 

 tion has made the following awards for papers 

 read and discussed during the past session: 

 A Telford gold medal to Mr. J. A. Saner, a 

 Watt gold medal to Mr. G. G. Stoney and a 

 George Stephenson gold medal to Dr. I. E. 

 Stanton; Telford premiums to Mr. Leonard 

 Bairstow, Mr. H. S. Bidwell, Mr. J. J. Webster, 

 Mr. Cathcart W. Methven, Mr. H. A. Mavor, 

 Sir Frederick E. Oppcott; and a Manby pre- 

 mium to Mr. D. E. Lloyd-Davies. 



Dr. Bradley M. Davis has been spending 

 the spring in Cambridge, completing a text- 

 book of botany in co-authorship with Mr. 

 Joseph Y. Bergen. His connection with the 

 University of Chicago will end on July 1. 

 He will be at Woods Hole through the 

 summer. 



Dr. W. C. Farabee, of the anthropological 

 department at Harvard University, with three 

 students, will next year conduct a research 

 expedition about the headwaters of the Ama- 

 zon. For a time a base will be established at 

 Arequipa, Peru. The party will be gone 

 three years. 



Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, president of the 

 Carnegie Foundation, will give the commence- 

 ment address at the Ehode Island College on 

 June 12, his subject being ' The Essentials of 

 Good Administration.' 



At the recent meeting of Phi Beta Kappa 

 at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. William. 

 Trelease, director of the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden, made the address. 



Professor W. J. Sollas began on May 24 

 a course of three lectures at the Royal Insti- 

 tution on ' Man and the Glacial Period.' The 

 Friday evening discourse on May 25 was de- 

 livered by Mr. Leonard Hill, on ' Compressed 

 Air and its Physiological Effects.' 



Preparations have been made for cele- 

 brating on May 15 the fiftieth anniversary of 

 the entrance on his life's work as teacher of 

 zoology of Professor Eugene Eenevier, of the 

 University of Lausanne, whose death we were 

 compelled to report last week. 



The trustees of the American Science and 

 Historic Preservation Society have recently 

 presented to congress a memorial in which 

 they ask that a monument be erected at some 

 place near the Grand Canyon of Colorado 

 Eiver to Major John Wesley Powell and his 

 companions in the exploration of the canyon 

 in 1869. 



The death is announced of Dr. Darwin D. 

 Eads, who had practised medicine for forty 

 years at Paris, Ky., and had made valuable 

 botanical collections in the central states ; and 

 of Francis Louis Sperry, a mining engineer 

 and mineralogist. 



Dr. Wilhelm Meyerhofer, docent in chem- 

 istry in the University of Berlin, died on 

 April 21; Dr. K. Pape, formerly professor of 

 physics at the University of Konigsberg, has 

 died at the age of seventy years; and Dr. 

 Ernst Schellwien, adjunct professor of geol- 

 ogy and paleontology at Konigsberg, has died 

 at the age of forty years. 



It is a matter of considerable interest to 

 scientific men that the Postal Union Congress 

 which met recently at Eome has increased the 

 weight of foreign letters requiring five cents 

 postage from 15 to 20 grams. The reduction 

 will be still greater for us, as the limit will be 

 made one ounce. The cost for each further 

 ounce will be reduced to three cents. The 

 proposal has also been made to reduce the 

 letter rate between Great Britain and the 

 United States to two cents. This would not 

 require further action by the union, and may 

 be carried into effect by negotiations between 

 the two countries. 



Mr. George Eastman, of Eochester, N. T., 

 has subscribed one thousand dollars annually 

 for the next three years to enable the con- 

 tinuance of research work in photography at 

 the Terkes Observatory of the University of 

 Chicago. The investigations will be carried 

 on by Mr. E. James Wallace, photophysicist 

 at the observatory. 



The College of Charleston Museum has ac- 

 quired the valuable conchological collection of 

 the late Dr. Edmund Eavenel, of Charleston, 



