952 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 650 



Beginning on June 2, the Boston Society of 

 Natural History proposes to open its museum 

 free to the public on Sunday afternoons from 

 1 to 5, during June, July, August and Sep- 

 tember of this year. The exhibition rooms are 

 regularly open free on Wednesday and Satur- 

 day from 10 till 5, but it is believed that the 

 Sunday afternoon opening -will accommodate 

 many who are unable to visit the museum on 

 week days. For the last five years, under the 

 direction of its curator, Mr. Charles W. John- 

 son, the society has expended its efforts in 

 endeavoring to make the New England collec- 

 tions the chief display of the museum so that 

 at the present time a very good representation 

 of the New England fauna is on exhibition. 

 It is the society's intention to build up the 

 New England collection of animals and plants 

 so that it shall be as nearly complete as pos- 

 sible. In addition to the specimens on ex- 

 hibition, there is also a rapidly growing study 

 collection of birds, shells, insects and plants 

 which may be consulted upon application to 

 the curator on week days. Since this is the 

 only natural history museum in the city and 

 the only one whose particular scope is limited 

 to the preservation and study of the New Eng- 

 land fauna and flora, it is hoped that this 

 action on the part of the society in opening 

 its museum to visitors on Sundays will arouse 

 additional interest in the study of New Eng- 

 land natural history and that the museum 

 may be a center to which all who are inter- 

 ested in this study shall feel themselves wel- 

 come. 



The New York Medical Record states that 

 the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 

 which has been bearing most of the cost of 

 publication of the present series of the Index 

 Medicus, announces that as the journal has 

 not met with the support from the profession 

 that was hoped for, unless it appears that the 

 Index Medicus is of greater service to the 

 medical profession and can help to support 

 itself to a greater extent than in the past, it 

 may become advisable to discontinue its pub- 

 lication. The Index Medicus was established 

 in 1879, under the editorship of Dr. John S. 



Billings and Dr. Eobert Fletcher, and was 

 discontinued in 1899. The present series be- 

 gan with the number for January, 1903. 



VNIVEBSIT7 AND I!DUGATIO~N£L NEWS 

 Announcement is made that the sum of 

 $430,000 has been contributed to Columbia 

 University towards erecting Kent Hall, a 

 building for the school of law and the faculty 

 of political science. 



The Jefferson Medical College, Philadel- 

 phia, graduated, at its eighty-second annual 

 commencement held on June 3, 126 students, 

 of which 105 had received hospital appoint- 

 ments in the recent competitive examinations. 



The University of Giessen will celebrata 

 its three-hundredth anniversary from July 31 

 to August 4. 



Professor A. J. Hopkins, A.B., Amherst, 

 '85, Ph.D., Hopkins, '93, associate professor 

 of chemistry at Amherst College, has been 

 appointed head of the department in view of 

 the retirement of Professor Elijah P. Harris. 



At Dartmouth College promotions from in- 

 structor to assistant professor have been 

 made as follows: Charles A. Proctor, mathe- 

 matics ; Julius A. Brown, physics ; Dr. Charles 

 E. Bolser, chemistry. 



At Clark College, Dr. J. B. Porter has been 

 promoted to an assistant professorship in 

 psychology, and Dr. F. B. Williams, of Union 

 College, has been called to an assistant pro- 

 fessorship of mathematics. 



Mr. H. F. Eolker, of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, has been appointed private re- 

 search assistant to Dr. J. Bishop Tingle, re- 

 cently appointed to the chair of chemistry at 

 the McMaster University, Toronto. 



Dr. Alexander Hill has announced his in- 

 tention of resigning from the mastership of 

 Downing College, Cambridge. 



Mr. H. Bateman, fellow of Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, has been elected to the readership 

 in mathematical physics, endowed by Pro- 

 fessor Arthur Schuster to encourage research 

 in mathematical physics. 



