JuLy 23, 1897.] 
failure, the directors resigned one after the 
other, and it was due to Sir John Pender alone 
that the undertaking was not abandoned in the 
period from 1858 to 1864. 
WE regret to record the deaths of Samuel 
Brassai, professor of mathematics at Klausen- 
berg, at the age of one hundred years; and 
of Dr. H. Wankel, of Olmuttz, known for his 
researches in anthropology and archeology. 
THE Librarian of Congress has made several 
excellent appointments, but has offered the po- 
sition of chief of the art department of the 
Congressional Library to a newspaper corre- 
spondent. Itis, perhaps, thought that connec- 
tion with the New York World gives an ade- 
quate training in modern art. 
THE government of La Plata has made ar- 
rangements for securing the services of a bac- 
teriologist whose duty it shall be to make an 
experimental study of tropical epidemics. 
Messrs. KApby, Berg and See, architects, 
have submitted to the Department of Buildings, 
New York, plans for two additions to the 
American Museum of Natural History, one a 
lecture hall at the north end of the Museum to 
cost $150,000, the other a six-story building at- 
tached to the west wing to cost $400,000. 
THE Boissier Herbarium at Chambésy, near 
Geneva, which recently acquired the books on 
lichens and the dried specimens of the late Dr. 
J. Miller, is, according to Natural Science, fol- 
lowing the example of the trustees of the 
Tuckerman Memorial Library of Lichenology, 
Amherst, Mass., and has established a ‘ Lichen- 
otheca Universalis Miiller-Argau.’ The cura- 
tor, M. Eugene Autran, appeals to botanists for 
copies of publications bearing on lichens and 
also for specimens of new and rare species. 
THE Prince of Wales Hospital fund had, up 
to the beginning of the present month, received 
donations amounting to about £130,000 and 
promises of annual subscriptions amounting to 
about £2,500. The hospital Sunday fund is, 
however, this year smaller than usual. It is 
stated that Americans resident in England have 
endowed with £1,000 each beds in five London 
hospitals, to be used in the first instance by 
Americans. 
SCIENCE. 
127 
Sir ANDREW NOBLE has given £100 to the 
Royal Institute, London, for the fund for the 
promotion of experimental research at low tem- 
peratures. 
THE State Department has transmitted to 
Congress a copy of the note from the Minister of 
Norway and Sweden, inviting the United States 
government to participate in the International 
Fisheries Exposition to be held at Bergen, Nor- 
way, May 16th to September 30, 1898, with a 
recommendation that an appropriation be made 
for this purpose. 
THE seventh annual meeting of the Paris So- 
ciety of Hypnotism and Psychology was an- 
nounced for July 19th, under the presidency of 
M. Dumontpallier. 
THE eighteenth annual meeting of the Ger- 
man Anthropological Society will be held from 
the 3d to the 5th of August at Liibeck. Ex- 
cursions are arranged to Schwerin and to Kiel 
on the days following the meeting. 
THE Board of Directors of the American 
Chemical Society have authorized the establish- 
ment of a local section at Columbus, O., the nec- 
essary steps having been taken as required by 
the constitution of the Society. 
Ir can scarcely be hoped that the letter ad- 
dressed by the Secretary of State to the Ambas- 
sador at London, and for some inexplicable 
reason published in the daily papers, will con- 
duce to a scientific solution of the question of 
the results of pelagic sealing in the Bering 
Sea. It is unfortunate when scientific testi- 
mony is used for conflicting political interests. 
It would apparently have been best for the 
British and American scientific experts to have 
drawn up a joint report containing only the 
facts on which they were agreed. 
THE daily papers contain accounts of the ar- 
rival of a steamship from the Yukon district of 
Alaska, reporting great success:in the Klondyke 
gold fields. It is reported that single indi- 
viduals have taken out in two and a-half 
months more than $150,000 in gold. 
THE steamer Svensksund has reached Nor- 
way from Spitzbergen with the news that Herr 
Andrée and his companions began their voyage 
on July 11th, at2:30p.m. The balloon was 
carried in a northeasterly direction. 
