October 28, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



591 



'■ studies on the Venoms of Snakes and other 

 Poisonous Animals." 



The executive committee of the chapter for 

 the year consists of Professors W. L. Evans, 

 president ; C. H. Morris, vice-president, and 

 Charles Sheard, secretary. 



The Field Museum of Natural History's 

 thirty-third free lecture course is as follows : 

 October 15 — " The Bird Life of the Bahamas, 

 with Special Reference to the Nesting of the 

 Flamingo," Professor Frank M. Chapman, assist- 

 .ant curator of mammalogy and ornithology. Amer- 

 ican iluseum of Natural History. 



October 22 — " Japanese Mythology as Repre- 

 sented in their Archeology," Dr. William Elliot 

 Griffis, Ithaca, N. Y. 



October 29 — '• Through Africa with Roosevelt." 

 Professor J. Alden Loring. Owego, N. Y., field 

 :naturali5t to the Roosevelt African Expedition. 



November 5 — " Wild Game of Alaska," Pro- 

 fessor Wilfred H. Osgood, assistant curator of 

 mammalogy and ornithology, Field Museum. 



November 12 — " What Plants Mean to Man," 

 Dr. Charles F. Millspaugh, curator of botany. 

 Field Museum. 



Novemljer 19 — " Gold Mining in Alaska," Pro- 

 fessor Wallace W. Atwood, United States Geolog- 

 ical Survey. 



November 26 — " Material Basis for Perpetuity 

 • of the American People." Dr. W J McGee, Wash- 

 ington. D. C. 



December 3 — "The Indians of the Province of 

 Esmeraldas, Ecuador," Dr. S. A. Barrett, curator 

 •of anthropology. Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wis. 

 Deceraljer 10 — " Waste of Life in American In- 

 •dusrtries." Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, director of the 

 L'nited States Bureau of Mines. 



Nature states that by the bequest of the 

 late Mr. F. Tendron. for many years chairman 

 of the St. John Del Re.v Mining Company, 

 the trustees of the British Museum have re- 

 cently acquired a few choice mineral speci- 

 mens. Conspicuous among them is a magnifi- 

 cent, and probably unique, crystal of pyrrho- 

 "tite, measuring as much as fourteen centi- 

 meters across. The' suite also includes smaller 

 specimens of pyrrhotite, two specimens of the 

 rare mineral chalmersite, some well-crystal- 

 lized gold, etc. 



The Journal of the American Medical Asso- 

 •ciation states that Professor Osier's " Prin- 



ciples and Practise of Medicine " has been 

 translated into Chinese by Dr. P. B. Cousland, 

 president of the China Medical Missionary 

 Association, Shanghai. This undertaking has 

 engaged Dr. Cousland for several years. The 

 book is the only first-class work on medicine 

 that has so far been translated into Chinese. 

 Other translations are in progress. Dr. Coch- 

 rane, of Peking, is translating Heath's " Anat- 

 omy"; Dr. McAll, of Han-kau, Stengel's 

 " Pathology " ; Dr. Cormack, of Peking, 

 Hutchinson and Eainey's " Clinical Meth- 

 ods " ; and Dr. Neal, of Tsi-nan, Fuch's 

 " Ophthalmology." A new and compact 

 " Systematic Anatomy " is also passing 

 through the press. An atlas of beautiful 

 anatomic plates has just been printed for the 

 China Medical Missionary Association by the 

 Oxford Press at a cost apart from the letter- 

 press of $2,.500, a part of which has been con- 

 tributed by the China Emergency Appeal Com- 

 mittee. As dissection of the human body is 

 not yet allowed in China such plates are of 

 great importance. 



Through the generosity of Mr. John E. 

 Thayer, class of 1885, the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology of Harvard University, has 

 recently received the valuable collection of 

 letters and drawings of Alexander Wilson and 

 John J. Audubon which belonged to the late 

 Joseph M. Wade. The Wilsoniana contain 

 Wilson's sketch of the " Sorrel Horse Inn," a 

 sketch of his School House and seventy of his 

 original drawings of birds. These drawings 

 are in various stages of completeness, from 

 rough outlines to finished paintings, and are, 

 as has been noted, superior both in delicacy 

 and in perspective to the plates engraved by 

 Alexander Lawson for the American Ornithol- 

 ogy. There are sixteen autograph letters of 

 Wilson, ranging in date from 1803 to 1810, 

 two autograph poems and his book of receipts 

 for the engraving and coloring of the plates 

 of his American Ornithology. A few years 

 ago Mr. Thayer gave the museum seven vol- 

 umes containing the original ledgers, day 

 books and account books, with the list of sub- 

 scribers, kept by Audubon and his sons during 

 the publication of their works on the birds 



