Februaky 1, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



199 



History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

 The city is to provide the land and is to erect 

 the buildings, while the corporation is to 

 secure by private subscription not less than 

 $300,000 for equipping the nautical museum 

 and observatory and for prosecuting the other 

 objects of the institution. 



The different chapters in future volumes of 

 the series ' Mineral Resources of the United 

 States,' which the U. S. Geological Survey 

 has been publishing for the past twenty-one 

 years, will hereafter be written by members of 

 the survey. In this report they will differ 

 from their predecessors, which have been pre- 

 pared mainly by outside experts for each of 

 the mineral industries, working under ap- 

 pointments as special agents of the survey. 

 This corps of experts included Messrs. Charles 

 Kirchhofi, George F. Kunz, James M. Swank, 

 Joseph D. Weeks, Charles D. Yale, John 

 Birkinbine, Joseph Hyde Pratt, F. H. Oli- 

 phant, Heinrich Eies, Edmund Otis Hovey 

 and F. J. H. Merrill. In the introduction to 

 the last volume, which covers the calendar 

 year 1905, Dr. David T. Day, chief of the 

 division of Mineral Resources, in making this 

 change, acknowledges his great indebtedness, 

 to them for their monumental work in build- 

 ing up and maintaining this series and his 

 regret at the breaking of the ties of a score 

 of years of joint endeavor. This series of re- 

 ports was beg-un in 1883. Its object then, 

 as now, was to give an account of the known 

 mineral resources of the United States and 

 present a statistical statement of the produc- 

 tion of these materials and the uses to which 

 they were applied. At that time the study of 

 economic geology in the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey was greatly limited by insuiS- 

 cient appropriations from congress and by the 

 fact that the training possible for an eco- 

 nomic geologist in the leading colleges and in 

 the geological survey itself was not sufficient 

 to secure an efficient corps of trained men for 

 studying in any comprehensive way the min- 

 eral deposits of the entire country. The 

 cooperation was therefore invoked of those 

 who were recognized as the best experts of the 

 country for each of the mineral industries. 

 In most cases this work was entered upon by 



the experts without the possibility of obtain- 

 ing any such compensation as they would 

 have demanded for private reports. In gen- 

 eral, their services have been practically for 

 an honorarium sufficient only to cover the 

 clerical aid. 



The London Times states that considerable 

 additions have been made during the past year 

 to the natural history collections of the 

 Bristol Museum. The skin of Rajah, the fine 

 tiger which lived for about ten years in the 

 Clifton Gardens, was presented to the mu- 

 seum, for which it was well mounted by Row- 

 land Ward, who also supplied about a dozen 

 nesting groups of British birds, arranged on 

 the plan in vogue at the Natural History Mu- 

 seum. The local collection of birds has been 

 increased; Mr. H. J. Charbonnier presented a 

 fine collection of two-winged flies, and another 

 of bees and ants, collected in the district; and 

 the display of game trophies has been made 

 more interesting by collections of heads, 

 horns and antlers deposited on long loan by 

 friends of the museum. 



We learn from Nature that the preliminary 

 program of the second International Congress 

 on School Hygiene, to be held on August 5-10, 

 190Y, at the University of London, South 

 Kensington, has been issued. The work of 

 the congress will be divided into eleven sec- 

 tions, each presided over by an authority on 

 the subject dealt with. The organizing com- 

 mittee is inviting educational and public 

 health authorities, universities, colleges, 

 schools, societies and others to appoint dele- 

 gates to the meeting, and is appealing for 

 donations to meet the large expenditure in- 

 volved in organizing the congress, which it is 

 estimated will be not less than 3,000Z. The 

 president of the congress is Sir Lauder Brun- 

 ton, F.R.S., and the hon. secretaries are Dr. 

 James Kerr and Mr. E. White Wallis. 



Noting that all persons in the United King- 

 dom whose incomes exceed $850 per annum 

 are assessed for income tax. Consul R. W. 

 Austin, of Glasgow, summarizes an official re- 

 port just issued, showing the amounts assessed 

 for the year ended April 5, 1905, which indi- 

 cates the various gross incomes in that 



