252 
tee of the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science announces that McMaster Uni- 
versity, a college residence, has been selected 
as the headquarters of the American Physio- 
logical Society during the Toronto meeting of 
the British Association. Rooms and board may 
be obtained there at $1.50 to $2.00 per day. 
THE French Association for the Advancement 
of Science will meet next year at Nantes. At 
the meeting being held this week at St. Bti- 
enne the public lecture was to have been given 
by M. Gariel, on the Rontgen rays. Subjects 
proposed for special discussion were: Section 
of Physics, ‘Atmospheric Electricity ;’ Sec- 
tion of Meteorology, ‘The Study of Clouds;’ 
Section of Geology, ‘ The Formation of the Fos- 
siliferous Basins of the Central Plateau ;’ Sec- 
tion of Hygiene, ‘The Part played by Leaves of 
Absence from School in the Spread of Conta- 
gious Diseases.’ 
A MEETING of the Council of the Australasian 
Association for the Advancement of Science was 
held at the Royal Society’s House, Sydney, on 
June 17th, with fifteen members in attendance. 
Letters were read from the Royal Society of 
Tasmania, the Melbourne Branch of the Royal 
Geographical, Society and the Medical Society 
of Queensland, suggesting a memorial to the 
late Baron von Miller. <A preliminary commit- 
tee was appointed to make arrangements for the 
meeting to be held at Sydney in January next. 
A large number of papers have been promised 
for the several sections; Section G., Economic 
Science and Agriculture, leading with twenty- 
eight papers, followed by Section F., Ethnol- 
ogy and Anthropology, and Section J., Mental 
Science and Education, each with eighteen pa- 
. pers. 
JAMES HAMMOND TRUMBULL, LL.D., the 
well-known philologist, died in Hartford, 
Conn., August 5th, aged seventy-six years. For 
many years he paid especial attention to the 
~subject of the Indian languages of North 
America. He was a member of the National 
Academy of Sciences and of many other 
learned societies. 
WE regret also to record the death of Cap- 
tain Bertram Lutley Sclater, son of the eminent 
zoologist, who died at Zanzibar on July 24th, 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Von. VI. No. 137. 
at the age of thirty-one years, of fever con- 
tracted while making surveys and explorations 
in British Central Africa ; of Dr. Golowkinskie, 
formerly professor of mineralogy and geology 
in the Universities of Kasan and Odessa, at 
Kastel, on June 9th, and of M. Etienne 
Vacherot, formerly professor of philosophy and 
assistant to Cousin, and the author of numerous 
contributions to philosophy, political economy 
and science, at the age of eighty-six years. 
M. Vacherot took a prominent part in French 
politics, haying been one of the Mayors of 
Paris during the siege. 
Dr. WILHELM THIERRY PREYER, whose 
death we recently noticed, was a man of un- 
usual versatility and originality. He was born 
in Manchester, England, in 1841, and received 
his education in that country until he was six- 
teen years old. After studying at various Ger- 
man universities and at Paris, he qualified as 
docent in the University of Bonn, first in 
zoology and afterwards in physiology. His 
first work was in zoology, and he published 
several books treating of problems in which 
zoology and physiology are both concerned, 
such as'‘The Struggle for Existence’ (1869), 
‘Hypotheses regarding the Origin of Life’ 
(1875), and ‘Spontaneous Generation and the 
Conception of Life’ (1879). In 1869 Preyer was 
made professor of physiology at Jena, but re- 
moved to Berlin in 1880 and qualified as docent 
in the University. He was not promoted to a 
professorship at Berlin and removed to Wies- 
baden in 1893. In addition to the works men- 
tioned above, Preyer wrote numerous articles 
and at least two volumes concerning the 
general problems of science, partly of a popular 
character. He published an ‘Elements of 
General Physiology’ in 1883 and had earlier 
published a book on the ‘ Five Senses of Man,’ 
translated into English in the International 
Scientific Series. He also made many contri- 
butions to the physiology of the senses and to 
experimental psychology, and was one of the 
Board of Editors of the Zeitschrift fiir Psycholo- 
gie. His volume on ‘The Child’s Mind’ (1879) 
has been the starting point of numerous similar 
observations, though it is interesting to note 
that the first scientific biography of a child was 
written by Darwin. Preyer’s versatility is 
