766 
mittee to consider and report on the expediency 
of uniting all the public libraries in the city. 
Mr. Green, Mr. Lewis C. Ledyard and General 
Philip Schuyler were appointed members of the 
committee. The intention of this resolution is 
to put all the public libraries under one work- 
ing head and management and systematize the 
work throughout the city, the New York Free 
Circulating Library being the library that the 
the Trustees especially desire to have united 
with the New York Public Library. 
THE corner stone of the new building for the 
Bellevue Medical College, replacing that de- 
stroyed by fire and necessary owing to the fail- 
ure of the plan for consolidation with New 
York University, was laid on the afternoon of 
November 13th. Mr. D. Ogden Mills, Presi- 
dent of the Board of Trustees, made an address, 
and addressés were made in the Carnegie 
Laboratory by the Rey. Roderick Terry, of the 
Board of Trustees; Dr. Langdon Gray, repre- 
senting the Alumni, and Dr. John 8. Billings, 
for the medical profession. The new building, 
which occupies a plot of ground 75x 100 feet, 
will be of granite and brick, five stories in 
height, and is expected to be ready in the spring. 
AT the inaugural meeting of the Réntgen So- 
-ciety, to which we referred last week, after the 
address by Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, 
there was an exhibition of apparatus and photo- 
eraphs. In its account the Times mentions only 
two exhibits, both from America: ‘‘In the halla 
splendid assortment of photographs was ex- 
hibited, perhaps the most striking being a life- 
sized skiagram of the entire skeleton of a 
full-grown living woman, taken by Dr. W. J. 
Morton, of New York. Apparatus for the pro- 
duction of Rontgen rays was also on view, the 
chief novelty being an electric oscillator, made 
and specially sent by Mr. Tesla, in the con- 
struction of which no thin wire is employed. 
When one of Tesla’s own tubes is excited with 
this machine the emission of R6ntgen rays is so 
intense that, standing 50 feet away from it, 
one can still obtain on a luminescent screen 
the shadow of the bones of one’s hands.”’ 
WE learn from the Botanical Gazette that Dr. 
J. M. Rose returned from his Mexican trip 
early in October. His work was chiefly con- 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. VI. No. 151. 
fined in the little-known parts of the Sierra 
Madre. He visited Guaymas, La Paz (L. C.), 
Mazatlan and Acaporeta, on the western side, 
crossed the two ranges of the Sierra Madre 
north of the Acaporeta and made two excur- 
sions into them, one from the west at Rosario, 
and the other from the east at Bolanos, the 
latter being one of Seeman’s stations. The 
States chiefly explored were Durango, Jalisco, 
Zacatecas and the Territory of Tepic. The col- 
lection contained 2,000 numbers, and is espe- 
cially rich in umbellifers, agaves and orchids, 
many living specimens of the two latter groups 
having been shipped for cultivation. 
Mr. A. P. Morse, curator of the zoological 
museum of Wellesley College, has returned 
from a collecting expedition to the Pacific coast, 
planned under the direction of Mr. 8. H. 
Seudder. He has brought back large collec- 
tions, especially of orthoptera, for class work 
and for the museum. 
A CABLEGRAM from Stockholm states that 
King Oscar and a number of private persons 
have contributed sufficient sums of money to 
insure the despatch of a Swedish Polar expedi- 
tion in 1898, which will be led by Professor 
Nathorst, the geologist. The cost of the expe- 
dition is estimated at 70,000 crowns. 
THE seals caught at sea during the present 
season are said to be fewer than last year. The 
figures reported are as follows: Total catch of 
seals in the north Pacific for the present season, 
38,700 against 73,000 last year. The catch in 
Bering Sea, which is that portion of the north 
Pacific in which the United States is interested, 
is 16,650 for the present season, against 29,500 
last season, a reduction of about one-half. Of 
the catch in Bering Sea, British vessels took 
15,600, American vessels 1,050. 
Mr. H. C. Mercer and Professor H. C. 
Warren have retired from the board of associ- 
ate editors of the American Naturalist. We 
understand that hereafter anthropology and 
psychology will not be included in the scope of 
the journal. 
THE Asa Gray Bulletin, eidted by Mr. J. H. 
Hicks, is now being published at Washington 
as a bi-monthly magazine for popular botany. 
BEGINNING with next year, a journal, enti- 
