506 
“The establishment of a Botanical Garden in the 
city of New York has been actively prosecuted since 
the year 1889, the necessary legislation having been 
obtained in an act passed in 1891 and amended in 
1894 and 1896. The project through all this period 
received most cordial support from the city officials 
and from the public. The present Board of Managers 
was organized on March 21, 1895, and on June 18, 
1895, the condition of the act of incorporation requir- 
ing the subscription of $250,000 was fully met. Ata 
meeting of the managers, held on that date, a special 
committee of five members was appointed a committee 
on plans, and this committee has been since con- 
tinued. The securing of the necessary $250,500 as a 
subscription fund was reported to the Commissioners 
of Parks, as authorized and directed by the act of in- 
corporation, and the selection of site was duly ac- 
cepted by the Board of Managers. On October 30, 
1895, the present Board of Estimate and Apportion- 
ment authorized the issue of bonds to an amount not 
exceeding $25,000 for surveys, plans, etc. ; but these 
have not been issued. Prior to the organization of 
the Board of Managers, many of the members of the 
corporation had given continuous study to the 
project since its inception. Several of them have 
made critical studies of botanical gardens in the Old 
World. 
“The committee on plans, appointed in June, 
1895, studied the subject in all its aspects for a year, 
with the aid of advice and suggestion from many 
botanists, landscape gardeners, architects, and others 
interested, in this country and in Europe, and de- 
termined the principal ends desirable to be reached, 
and the most economic, artistic and practical methods 
of reaching them, having always in mind the beauti- 
ful features of the grounds and the great value of 
these to the institution; their preservation has been 
determined on from the very first. On June 17, 
1896, the preparation of a general plan to embody 
the results reached after this long and careful consid- 
eration was referred to a commission of experts, con- 
sisting of N. L. Britton, director-in-chief; R. W. Gib- 
son, architect; John R. Brinley, civil and landscape 
engineer; Lucien M. Underwood, professor of botany, 
Columbia University; Samuel Henshaw, landscape 
gardener; Lincoln Pierson, secretary Lord & Burn- 
ham Company, greenhouse architects. All these are 
men well and favorably known in their professions, 
and it is maintained that in this commission were in- 
cluded all the elements necessary or desirable for the 
purpose of the general study, the determination of 
the detailed landscape treatment and special planting 
being wisely deferred until the general scheme had 
been approved; these will be taken up under the 
best advice obtainable.”’ 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Vou. VI. No. 145. 
GENERAL, 
THE Highth International Geological Con- 
gress will meet in Paris in 1900. In 1908 the 
place of meeting will be Vienna. 
THE New York Academy of Sciences is in 
great need of a building for its meetings, for its 
library and as a center for the scientific life of 
the city. A university lecture room has not 
been a satisfactory place of meeting, and in 
view of the removal of Columbia University 
the Academy will this year meet at the Mott 
Memorial Library, 64 Madison Avenue. Visi- 
tors interested in the subjects presented are 
welcomed at the meetings, and citizens of New 
York should remember that the sections meet 
on Monday evenings as follows: Section of As- 
tronomy and Physics, first Monday of the 
month; Section of Biology, second Monday ; 
Section of Geology and Mineralogy, third Mon- 
day ; Sections of Psychology, Anthropology and 
Philology, fourth Monday. 
Or the other societies composing the Scien- 
tific Alliance of New York the Torrey Botanical 
Club will meet at the College of Pharmacy, 
the Linnean Society and the Entomological 
Society at the American Museum of Natural 
History, the Chemical Society at the College of 
the City of New York, and the Mineralogical 
Club and the Microscopical Society at the Mott 
Memorial Library. 
Tue New York Section of the American 
Chemical Society will hold its annual meeting 
on October 15th. Officers for the ensuing year 
will be elected and the retiring President, Dr. 
Wm. McMurtrie, will make an address on 
‘Some Records of Recent Progress in Industrial 
Chemistry.’ A special meeting of the Society 
was held on the evening of October 1st, in 
honor of Professor Henry E. Armstrong, of 
London, who came to this country to take part 
in the meeting of the British Association. An 
address was made by Dr. H. Carrington Bolton. 
THE first section of the Brooklyn Museum 
of Arts and Sciences was dedicated on October 
2d. Addresses were made by the President of 
the Board of Trustees, Mr. A. A. Healy, and by 
the Director of the Institute, Professor Franklin 
W. Hooper, by Mayor Wurster, of Brooklyn, 
and by President Eliot, of Harvard University, 
