June 28, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



1015 



braska, for the purpose of studying certain 

 plant diseases in the field. He returned to 

 Florida in the latter part of June. 



F. C. Lincoln, lately fellow in geology at 

 Columbia University, has gone to Alaska for 

 the summer in his professional capacity of 

 mining engineer. 



Mr. Charles Louis Pollard, formerly as- 

 sistant curator of the division of plants in 

 the United States National Museum, and 

 more recently botanical editor for the G. and 

 C. Merriam Company, of Springfield, Mass., 

 has been appointed curator of the Staten , 

 Island Association of Arts and Sciences. 

 Pending the removal of the museum of the 

 latter to the quarters assigned to it in the 

 new Richmond borough building the tempor- 

 ary office of the curator is in Room 18 of the 

 Staten Island Academy at New Brighton. 

 Mr. Pollard recently returned from a lecture 

 tour in New England and Canada in aid of 

 the cause of plant protection, the trip being 

 made under the auspices of a grant from the 

 Stokes fund of the New York Botanical 

 Garden. 



Henry G. Hanks, at one time state geolo- 

 gist of California, and author of contributions 

 to geology and chemistry, died at Alameda, 

 Cal., on June 19, aged eighty-one years. 



Dr. Alexander Stewart Herschel, P.R.S., 

 honorary professor of physics at the Durham 

 College of Science, died on June 18. Pro- 

 fessor Herschel died at the Observatory 

 House, Slough, Buckinghamshire, where his 

 father and grandfather made their great dis- 

 coveries. 



Dr. L. Fischer, honorary professor of 

 botany at Bern, has died at the age of seventy- 

 nine years. 



There will be a civil service examination 

 on July 10 for the position of assistant in 

 soil bacteriology in the Bureau of Plant In- 

 dustry at a salary of $1,400, and for the posi- 

 tion of laboratory aid in economic botany at a 

 salary of $600. 



The Japanese government announces an 

 appropriation of $5,000,000 for the interna- 

 tional exposition to be held at Tokyo in 1912. 



The money is to be paid in installments from 

 1908 to 1914. 



The next Esperanto Congress will be held at 

 Cambridge, where the delegates will be the 

 guests of the university. 



It is reported from Ottawa, Canada, that 

 the Georgian Bay Canal Commission has 

 practically completed, at a cost of some $600,- 

 000, a thorough survey of the proposed 21- 

 foot waterway from Georgian Bay to Mon- 

 treal via the French River, Nipissing, and 

 the Ottawa River. The engineers of the com- 

 mission have not compiled a final estimate 

 as to the whole cost of the canal, but from 

 information now available it is stated that 

 the total expenditure required for a continu- 

 ous and easily navigable waterway, with a 

 minimum depth of 21 feet from Georgian 

 Bay to tide water, will be close to $105,000,000. 

 It is said that the canal will shorten the dis- 

 tance from Fort William, on Georgian Bay, 

 to Montreal by over 400 miles. It is esti- 

 mated that with the completion of the canal 

 there will be 500,000 horsepower available 

 along its course — almost as much as is avail- 

 able at Niagara. "With so much cheap power 

 available and with its great resources of iron- 

 ore and timber the Ottawa Valley is ex- 

 pected to become one of the greatest manu- 

 facturing centers of the continent. Referring 

 to the early construction of the canal. Sir 

 Wilfrid Laurier recently said that if he had 

 the money to do so he would begin work im- 

 mediately. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 



We noted last week that the legislature had 

 increased the appropriation of the University 

 of Michigan from one fourth to three eighths 

 of a mill. It may be further added that this 

 will give the university the sum of $650,000 a 

 year. The additional increase, together with 

 the readjustment of values, which was accom- 

 plished last year, added about $250,000 to the 

 annual income of Michigan. 



At the annual alumni dinner of Vanderbilt 

 University on June 17 Chancelor Kirkland 

 announced a gift of $100,000 from Mr. W. K. 



