OcroBER 15, 1897.] 
Imperial University of Tokyo, and Shirofujita, 
Director of the Commercial Bureau of the De- 
partment of Agriculture, have been appointed 
commissioners from Japan to attend the confer- 
ence on the seal fisheries to be held shortly at 
Washington. M. Pierre Botkin has been ap- 
pointed commissioner from Russia. If the 
commission is composed of men of science of 
high rank the results of the conference will 
earry much weight, even though Great Britain 
and Canada decline to send representatives. 
Proressors J. J. STEVENSON, J. F. Kemp and 
R. E. DopGE gave an informal reception to Pro- 
fessor Albrecht Penck, of Austria, at the Teach- 
ers’ College, New York City, on October 7th. 
Owing to the short time allowed for arrange- 
ments, but a small party were present, com- 
posed largely of the geologists and geographers 
of the vicinity of New York. The Committee 
were also very fortunate in being able to greet 
Sir John Evans, who was in the city for but a 
few days. The New York Academy of Sciences 
had planned to give a reception to Sir John 
Eyans and Lord Kelvin, but a time could not 
be arranged. 
Dr. FRIDTIOF NANSEN will read a paper on 
some of the scientific aspects of his recent 
Aretic exploration before the American Philo- 
sophical Society on Friday afternoon, October 
29th. 
Dr. NEwTon C. BATES has been appointed 
Surgeon-General and Chief of the Bureau of 
Medicine and Surgery of the Navy, to succeed 
Surgeon-General Tryon. 
PROFESSOR VLADIMIR I. BELAJEFF, professor 
of botany in the University of Warsaw, has 
been appointed Director of the Botanical Gar- 
den in that city, and Professor Vladimir I. Pal- 
ladin, of Kharkoff, has been made Director of 
the Pomological Garden at Warsaw. 
THE College of Physicians of Philadelphia 
has awarded its Alvarenga prize for 1897 to 
Dr. Joseph Collins, of New York, for a paper 
on ‘ Aphasia.’ 
We learn from Natural Science that the first 
Flukiger medal—an honor to be awarded every 
five years by the German and Swiss Pharmaceut- 
ical Societies alternately—has been presented to 
SCIENCE. 
591 
Mr. Edward Morrell Holmes, Curator of the 
Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great 
Britain. An account of Mr. Holmes’ work in 
botany, illustrated by a portrait, appears in the 
Pharmaceutical Journal for September 4th. 
THE Zoological Society, London, has con- 
ferred its silver medal on Mr. Alexander White, 
for his studies. on the fauna of Nyassaland. 
Mr. G. H. DARWIN, professor of astronomy 
at Cambridge, now on his way to America to 
give a course of ten lectures on ‘Tides’ at the 
Lowell Institute, has been elected a foreign 
member of the Academia dei Lincei, Rome. 
Messrs. Ropert G. AITKEN and W. H. 
WRiGHT have been appointed assistant astron- 
omers at the Lick Observatory. 
PROFESSOR F, W. CLARKE, Chief Chemist of 
the Geological Survey, has been appointed, by 
the Secretary of the Interior, Representative of 
the Department of the Interior and its several 
bureaus at the Omaha Exposition. Professor 
Clarke, who now represents the Department at 
the Nashville Exposition, has held a similar 
position in connection with every previous ex- 
position in which the general government has 
taken part in recent years. 
Dr. WESLEY MILs, professor of physiology 
in McGill University, has been given leave of 
absence for a year, which he wil! spend abroad. 
Correspondence, however, addressed to MeGill 
University will be forwarded to him. 
A STATUE of Balboa, the discoverer of the 
Pacific Ocean, will be erected in Golden Gate 
Park, San Francisco. It will be executed by 
Mr. Douglas Tilden, and is the gift of Mayor 
Phelan. 
WE regret to record the deaths of Professor 
Charles T. Roy, since 1884 professor of pathol- 
ogy in Cambridge University, aged forty-seven 
years ; of Mr. W. A. Stiles, Park Commissioner 
of New York City and editor of Garden and 
Forest, in Jersey City on October 6th, at the 
age of sixty years; of Dr. Herman Welcker, 
formerly professor of anatomy at the Univer- 
sity at Halle, at Winterstein at the age of 
seventy-five years, and of Dr. Konrad Bohn, 
professor of mathematics and physics at the 
Forestry Institute at Aschaffenburg. 
