Januaby 10, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



79 



Each state requires a state medical examination 

 before a doctor can practise within its borders. 

 The academy proposes that a uniform examina- 

 tion be held in every state and that a doctor who 

 has passed this examination in one state may be 

 admitted to practise in any other state without 

 again talcing an examination. 



Damages to the amount of $456,746.23 were 

 awarded the New Liverpool Salt Company on 

 Decemher 31, by Judge Olin Wellborn, in the 

 United States District Court, against the 

 California Development Company on account 

 of the destruction of its property in the 

 Salton Sea caused by the overflow of the Colo- 

 rado Eiver. The overflow resulted, it was al- 

 leged, from the construction of canal intakes 

 by the development company. 



In the material received from the Belgian 

 government for the Congo exhibition, at the 

 American Museum of Natural History, are 

 extensive assortments of native mats, baskets, 

 iron implements and musical instruments. 

 Among the musical instruments are an 

 unusually long ivory trumpet and a drum five 

 feet in length. Other articles of interest are 

 those which constitute a Congo sorcerer's out- 

 fit, consisting of a face mask, a dog-tooth 

 necklace and several fetishes in the form of 

 human figurines rudely carved in wood. The 

 museum has secured from Professor Eugene 

 Schroeder a collection of ethnological material 

 from the Bismarck Archipelago in the South 

 Pacific Ocean. Among the objects in the col- 

 lection are several Malagans, or idols, from 

 a Tabu, or Ghost house; an example of the 

 ancient Death Drum, which was sounded only 

 on the demise of a chief, and several masks 

 which were used by the men in the Init dance. 

 The remainder of the collection consists of 

 implements of war and the chase, musical in- 

 struments, personal ornaments, clothing and 

 household utensils. 



The Nation, which now has a department 

 devoted to science, says : " Professor Charles 

 Moureu of the Ecole Superieure de Pharmacie 

 has studied various springs at the spot where 

 the water gushes from the ground. He finds 

 that they give out continuous emanations of 

 radium and comparatively large quantities of 

 such rare gases as argon, neon and helium. 



The single spring of the Lymbe at Bourbon- 

 Lancy yields annually more than 10,000 litres 

 of helium. The Academie de Medeeine com- 

 missioned three young physicians, having 

 proper scientific attainments, to study certain 

 well-known springs. M. Ameuilles- found 

 Plombieres and Bad Gastein in Austria the 

 most active, with an emanation which has all 

 the properties of radium emanation. The 

 sediment is also radio-active, and the sur- 

 rounding atmosphere lightly so. An observa- 

 tion, which explains why it is not the same 

 thing to use bottled waters and ' take the 

 waters ' at the springs, shows that this radio- 

 activity disappears in a short time; within 

 four days half of it was lost in water taken 

 away from the spring. It is even probable 

 that all spring water, taken at its source, is 

 slightly radio-active." 



The London Times states that the Indian 

 Humanitarian Committee recently called the 

 attention of Mr. Morley to the strong feeling 

 which exists among Indian people against the 

 multiplication of Pasteur institutes and the 

 spread of " preventive inoculation " under the 

 patronage of the government of India, and 

 expressed the hope that steps would be taken 

 to lessen the large sum of animal suffering 

 which is inflicted in physiological laboratories. 

 The secretary has received the following reply 

 from Mr. Morley's private secretary, saying 

 that the secretary of state has " recently been 

 in communication with the government of 

 India regarding the restrictions enforced in 

 that country on experiments on living ani- 

 mals, and that the principles of the English 

 act (which have been generally observed in 

 practise), will be formally applied to all labo- 

 ratories and institutes. When the Royal Com- 

 mission has reported, the subject will be fur- 

 ther considered in the light of its recom- 

 mendations." 



The coal fields of thirteen states and ter- 

 ritories were examined by geologists of the 

 United States Geological Survey in 1906, and 

 the results of this work have been published 

 by the survey as Bulletin No. 316. The im- 

 portance of the coal industry at the present 

 time is well illustrated by a comparison of the 



