October 20, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



509 



Professor Oskar Kellner, director of the 

 Agricultural Experiment Station at Mockern, 

 died on September 22, aged sixty years. 



Among the positions that will be filled by a 

 New York State Civil Service examination on 

 November H is that of inspector in mathe- 

 matics in the Education Department, at a 

 salary of $2,000. 



Announcement has been made by the board 

 of trustees of Stanford University of a gift of 

 $10,000 made by Dr. Adolph Barkan, San 

 Francisco, professor emeritus of the medical 

 school, for the establishment of a special li- 

 brary dealing with diseases of the eye, ear, 

 nose and throat. A gift of $5,000 from 

 Charles C. Stanford for medical library pur- 

 poses was also announced. 



The fourth annual meeting of the Associa- 

 tion of Official Seed Analysts will occur in 

 connection with the other meetings for work- 

 ers in agricultural science at Columbus, Ohio, 

 November 17 and 18. 



Professor Albert S. Bickmore has given 

 his personal library and almost unequalled 

 collection of lantern slides to the American 

 Museum of Natural History. The collection 

 comprises more than 20,000 lantern slides, of 

 which about 12,000 are colored. 



The American Institute of Mining Engi- 

 neers held its 101st meeting in San Francisco 

 beginning on October 10. After the meeting 

 members had arranged to embark on the steam- 

 ships Manchuria and Siberia, leaving San 

 Francisco on October 17 and arriving in Yoko- 

 hama on November 3. It is planned to spend 

 eighteen days in Japan, leaving Yokohama on 

 November 21, arriving in San Francisco on 

 December 7. The excursion in Japan will 

 include trips to the Tokio, Nikko and Chu- 

 zenji district, Kiota, Nara, Osaka, Kobe, 

 Ikuno, silver mine, imperial steel works, etc. 



A MEETING of the International Commission 

 on Mathematical Teaching was held at Milan 

 on September 18-21, Professor F. Klein pre- 

 siding. It is stated in Nature that the main 

 subjects discussed were : (1) The question of 

 rigor in teaching mathematics, especially 



geometry. It appears that of European coun- 

 tries Italy is the most wedded to rigorous 

 methods, while Germany and Austria stand 

 at the other end of the scale, and admit in- 

 tuitive methods freely. France and England 

 adopt a middle course, France inclining 

 toward the Italian practise and England 

 toward the German. It was agreed that 

 Euclid does not satisfy modern standards of 

 mathematical rigor. (2) The question of 

 " fusion," 6. g., of geometry with algebra, of 

 plane with solid geometry, of geometry with 

 trigonometry, of solid geometry with descrip- 

 tive geometry, of analytical with geometrical 

 conies, of differential with integral calculus. 

 (3) The provision of mathematical instruc- 

 tion for students of such subjects as chemis- 

 try, biology and economics. Such courses 

 were at one time provided in French universi- 

 ties, but are now entrusted to the schools. In 

 other countries there does not appear to be 

 any systematic provision of this kind. The 

 reports issued by the various national sub- 

 commissions were presented; of these, the 

 French reports are now complete ; eight of the 

 thirty-four English reports have been issued 

 by the Board of Education (Wyman and 

 Co.), and a large amount of literature has 

 been issued by the German subcommittee, 

 whose labors, however, will not be completed 

 for two years more. Arrangements were 

 made for the educational subsection at the 

 International Mathematical Congress to be 

 held at Cambridge (England) on August 

 22-28, 1913. 



The new session of the Eoyal Geographical 

 Society, of which Lord Curzon is president, 

 will be opened on November 6, when, as we 

 learn from the London Times, Dr. Fridtjof 

 Nansen will give a paper on the Norsemen in 

 America. On November 20 Dr. Tempest 

 Anderson will give a paper on Volcanic 

 Craters and Explosions. At the next meet- 

 ing, on December 4, Sir Alfred Sharpe, who 

 has recently retired from the Governorship of 

 Nyasaland, where he has been for many 

 years, will deal with the geography and eco- 

 nomic development of British Central Africa. 

 On December 18 Dr. D. T. McDougal, of the 



