Suny 2, 1897.] 
taries, Professor A. Threlfall, M.A., J. Arthur Pol- 
lock, B.Se. 
Section B—Chemistry. President, T. C. Cloud, A- 
R.S.M., F.LC., F.C.S.; Secretary, W. M. Hamlet, F 
I.C., F.C. 
Section C—Geology and Mineralogy. President» 
Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., F.G.S.; Secretaries’ 
Professor T. W. E. David, B.A., F.G.S., E. F. Pitt 
man, A.R.S.M., F.G.S. 
Section D—Biology. President, Professor T. J. 
Parker, D.Sc., F.R.S.; Secretaries, Professor W. A. 
Haswell, M.A., D.Sc., F.L.S., J. H. Maiden, F.C. 
S., F.L.S. 
Section E—Geography. President, to beappointed. 
Secretary, H. S. W. Crummer, Secretary Royal Geo- 
graphical Society of Australasia. 
Section F—Ethnology and Anthropology. Presi- 
dent, A. W. Howitt, F.G.S.; Secretary, John Fraser, 
B.A., LL.D. 
Section G—Economic Science and Agriculture. 
President, R. M. Johnson, F.L.S.; Secretaries, R. R. 
Garran, B.A., F. B. Guthrie, F.C.S. 
Section H—Engineering and Architecture. Presi- 
dent, H. C. Stanley, M.I.C.E.; Secretaries, J. W. 
Grimshaw, M.I.C.E., M.I.M.E., H. C. Kent, M. A. 
Section I—Sanitary Science and Hygiene. Presi- 
dent, Hon. Allan Campbell, M.L.C., L.R.C.P.; Sec- 
retary, Dr. F. Tidswell, M.B. 
Section J—Mental Science and Education. Presi- 
dent, John Shirley, B.Se.; Secretary, Professor Fran- 
cis Anderson, M.A. 
THE business meeting of the British Medical 
Association will be held in London on July 
27th, to discuss the reports of the Council and 
of the various committees, and will then ad- 
journ for the meeting at Montreal, beginning 
on August 31st. The meeting at Montreal, 
the first to be held outside the United King- 
dom, promises to be very successful. The Do- 
minion government has voted a sum of £1,000 
to the reception fund, the government of the 
Province of Quebec £500, and other public 
bodies have been equally generous. The 
British Medical Journal has published an ex- 
tended list of those who have signified their in- 
tention to be present, including the names of 
many eminent British physicians and men of 
science. 
THE current number of Nature contains the 
first of a series ofarticles by the editor, Professor 
Norman J. Lockyer, on the approaching total 
eclipse ofthe sun. It appears that the weather 
SCIENCE. 
99 
prospects of the eclipse to be observed in India? 
on January 22d of next year, are extremely fav- 
orable. The meteorological reporter to the gov- 
ernment of India states that the chances of any 
given day in January being rainy in Konkan is 
less than one in one hundred and fifty. The Joint 
Committee of the Royal and Royal Astronom- 
ical Societies have determined to send out three 
parties to observe, one on the coast and two 
inland, at stations to be subsequently decided 
upon. It has been arranged that the party 
from the Solar Physics Observatory will occupy 
the coast station if the Admiralty can grant the 
use of a man-of-war to allow an attempt to be 
made to repeat the Volage programme of 1896. 
In this case the station will possibly be the old 
fort at Viziadurg. The land parties, which will 
include the Astronomer Royal, Professor Tur- 
ner and Mr. Newall, representing the Observa- 
tories of Greenwich, Oxford and Cambridge, 
together with Dr. Common and Captain Hills, 
occupy stations near the central line on the rail- 
ways shown on the map (Fig. 1). 
Ir is reported in the daily papers that Dr. 
David Starr Jordan stated before leaving for 
Alaska that, as the British government has 
not come to satisfactory terms with the 
United States for the protection of fur seals 
in Bering Sea, the United States will be- 
gin this summer, through the Fur Seal Com- 
mission, the work of branding the female seals 
in the Pribilof Islands. This will spoil the 
skins of branded seals and stop pelagic sealing 
by making it unprofitable. One of Dr. Jordan’s 
assistants, Elmer Farmer, expert electrician, 
has invented an electrical machine for branding 
seals, and if it prove satisfactory it will doa 
great deal toward settling the seal question. 
There is a possibility that the female seals may 
be coralled on one of the islands during the 
sealing season. 
AN International Congress of Technical Edu- 
cation took place in London on June 15th, 16th, 
17th and 18th. M. Saignat, the retiring Presi- 
dent, made some remarks in introducing the 
President, the Duke of Devonshire, who ad- 
dressed the Congress at length. Papers were 
presented by Professor Otto N. Witt, of the 
Berlin Polytechnic Institute; Dr. H. E. Arm- 
