552 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 825 



the " cultured relations " between the United 

 States and the German empire. 



The second International Conference for 

 the Study of Cancer was opened by M. Dou- 

 mergue, minister of public instruction at 

 Paris, in the Great Hall of the Medical Fac- 

 ulty at the Sorbonne on October 1. 



The British Medical Journal states that the 

 evening meetings of the Eugenics Education 

 Society will be held at Denison House on 

 October 19, when Mr. J. H. Koeppern will 

 read a paper on " The Eugenic Value of Ma- 

 ternity Insurance " ; and on November 16, 

 when Dr. F. W. Mott, E.E.S., will read a 

 paper on " Heredity and Insanity " (giving 

 the results of a recent inquiry). On Decem- 

 ber 14 there will be a discussion on " The 

 Biological Factor in Infant Mortality." 

 Afternoon meetings will be held in the Caston 

 Hall, "Westminster, on November 1, when a 

 paper on " Woman's Progress in Eolation to 

 Eugenics " will be read by Dr. Murray Leslie ; 

 and on December 1, when Mr. Edgar Schuster 

 will read a paper entitled " Methods and Ee- 

 sults of the Galton Eesearch Laboratory." 



De. E. C. Pickering, director of the Har- 

 vard College Observatory, announces that a 

 new star, whose approximate position is E. A. 

 16" 31"" 4' Dec. — 52° 10'.6 (1875), was dis- 

 covered by Mrs. Fleming, in the Constellation 

 Va, on October 13, 1910. It appears on 21 

 photographs taken at Arequipa with the 8- 

 inch Bache and 1-inch Cooke telescopes, be- 

 tween April 4, 1910, and August 3, 1910. 

 The magnitude has been estimated as varying 

 from 6.0 to 10.0 between these dates. The 

 spectrum is quite faint but shows, on three 

 plates, the bright lines, 5007, H^g, 4670, Hy, 

 HS, He and H^, one of the plates showing also 

 the bright line Ht^. Apparently this object 

 had passed into a nebulous condition before 

 its spectrum was photographed. The star does 

 not appear on 44 photographs, taken between 

 August 20, 1889, and March 19, 1910, although 

 almost all of them shew stars fainter than the 

 twelfth magnitude, and two plates show stars 

 as faint as the fifteenth magnitude. Of the 

 sixteen new stars found during the last 



twenty-five years thirteen have been found at 

 this observatory, one by Miss A. J. Cannon, 

 two by Miss H. S. Leavitt from photographic 

 charts and ten by Mrs. Fleming from the 

 Draper Memorial photographs. 



Since March of the present year, Mr. Eoy 

 C. Andrews, of the American Museum of 

 Natural History, has been studying and col- 

 lecting the Cetaceans taken at the whaling 

 stations on the west coast of Japan. He has 

 secured skeletons of whales according to the 

 following list : finback more than 69 feet long, 

 humpback 47 feet long, sperm 60 feet long, 

 sulphurbottom 78 feet long and two kill 

 whales 22 and 28 feet, respectively. In addi- 

 tion, he has procured a number of skeletons of 

 several species of porpoises. These skeletons, 

 four of which have already made the long 

 journey to the museum, have been presented to 

 the museum by the Oriental Whaling Com- 

 pany of Japan. 



Among the recent gifts to the American 

 Museum of Natural History are the Lender's 

 collection of costumes of the Plains Indians, 

 presented by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan; a val- 

 uable collection of Navajo blankets, presented 

 by Mrs. Eussell Sage, and two specimens of 

 the African elephant as well as two of the 

 square-mouthed or white rhinoceros, collected 

 and presented by Mr. Eoosevelt. 



The " Entomology " by Professor J. W. 

 Folsom, of the University of Ulinois, has ap- 

 peared in a Japanese translation, made by 

 Messrs. Miyake and Uchida, of Tokyo. 



An arrangement has been made with the 

 Cambridge University Press by which that 

 institution will take charge of the publications 

 of the University of Chicago Press in Eng- 

 land. The Cambridge Press thus becomes 

 agent for these books and journals in all parts 

 of the British Empire outside the western 

 hemisphere. This arrangement applies to all 

 future publications and, subject to certain 

 existing arrangements, also to books abeady 

 published. 



The General Electric Company of ScheneC' 

 tady, New York, has presented the University 

 of Illinois with a recording steam meter, a de- 



