Mabch 15, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



439 



and Chemistry at Annapolis in 1878. From 

 1886 to 1899, he was assistant on the Nautical 

 Almanac, and was director from 1899 to 1900, 

 when he was retired. 



M. Henri Moissan, professor of general 

 chemistry at the Sorbonne and director of 

 the Institute of Applied Chemistry, known 

 especially for his work on fluorine and with 

 the electric furnace, died at Paris, on Feb- 

 ruary 20, at the age of fifty-five years. 



Dr. Sohreiber, of the Eussian Army, died 

 at EJonstadt on March 7, from the bubonic 

 plague, which he contracted while carrying on 

 experiments with bacilli at the Alexander 

 Laboratory. Dr. Pedlevsky, who was working 

 in the same laboratory, has also contracted 

 the disease. 



Dr. Alfred Kirehhoff, emeritus professor of 

 geography, University of Halle, died on Feb- 

 ruary 8, aged sixty-eight years. 



The death is announced of Mr. Henry 

 Chamberlain Russell, F.K.S., government 

 astronomer of New South Wales since 1870, 

 at the age of seventy-one years. 



The New York assembly on March 5 passed 

 the Young bill, which provides for the estab- 

 lishment of a nautical museum and observa- 

 tory in Bronx Park, New York. 



PEEsroENT Roosevelt on March 2 signed 

 proclamations creating or increasing thirty- 

 two forest reserves in various western states. 

 The agricultural appropriation bill, then pend- 

 ing, contained a provision that such reserves 

 should not be established except by act of 

 congress. The president believed that if such 

 a law were made, important timber lands 

 would be largely dissipated before congress 

 had an opportunity to consider the matter, 

 while under the action taken they wiU be 

 preserved. In a memorandum he says that 

 these reserves were determined on and the 

 preparation of the necessary papers ordered 

 some months ago — in two thirds of the cases 

 some years ago. 



An expedition from the Desert Laboratory 

 of the Carnegie Institution of "Washington 

 conducted by Dr. D. T. MacDougal has re- 

 cently circumnavigated the Salton Sea in a 



sail boat. This lake was found to have a 

 length of over fifty miles and an area of 

 nearly seven hundred square miles. Although 

 the break in the banks of the Colorado Eiver 

 from which the main channel leads to the 

 lake was closed on February 10, yet minor 

 channels and seepage poured sufficient water 

 in the lake to maintain its level during the 

 month following at the maximum depth. It 

 is therefore to be expected that the present 

 level may be retained for some time, and that 

 the evaporation may not exceed the inflow by 

 as much as fifty inches during the present 

 year. Five stations were located and sur- 

 veyed for the study of the reoccupation of the 

 basin by vegetation as the lake recedes. A 

 second sunken basin south of the Salton and 

 lying between the Cucopa Mountains and the 

 main range of Baja California in Mexico was 

 traversed by wagon, skirting the shores of a 

 lake which partially fills it. This basin seems 

 to be subject to more frequent overflow from 

 the delta, and during 1905 a lake thirty miles 

 long and fifteen wide was formed, which has 

 now shrunken to a third of the dimensions 

 given. Some important material and data 

 bearing upon the plants and animals living in 

 saline waters, hot springs and clay deserts 

 were obtained. 



The Seventh International Zoological Con- 

 gress, to be held in America, has established a 

 section of heredity. Dr. Chas. B. Davenport, 

 Cold Spring Harbor, L. I., N. Y., as secretary 

 of this section, solicits from investigators in 

 the subject, titles of papers which they would 

 like to present to the section. 



The next meeting of the American Electro- 

 chemical Society will be held at the University 

 of Pennsylvania on May 2, 3 and 4, under 

 the presidency of Mr. Carl Hering. 



The second congress of the International 

 Surgical Society will be held in Brussels in 

 September, 1908, under the presidency of Pro- 

 fessor Czerny of Heidelberg. 



According to press dispatches the Argentine 

 Antarctic ship Uruguay, which left Buenos 

 Ayres on January 29, 1906, has arrived at 

 Scotia Bay, South Orkney Islands, after a 

 perilous voyage, during which she encountered 



