768 
ern Tibet and on the heights in that region. 
During this expedition the explorer discov- 
ered a lofty mountain range, whose highest 
peak rose about 24,000 feet above sea level. 
This was named Mount Oscar. He also found 
in this region twenty-three salt-water lakes. 
M. Sven Hedin then proceeded via Tsaidam, 
Kuku Nor, Si-ning-fu, Liang-chu, the deserts 
of Alashan and Ordos to Peking, which city 
he reached on March 14, 1897, across northern 
China. The expedition, the cost of which was 
defrayed by the King of Sweden, M. Nobel 
and several other rich Swedish gentlemen, was 
the means of securing botanical, geological and 
archeological collections, notably several an- 
cient Buddhist MSS., found at Khotan, and 
about 500 sheets of topographical plans, as well 
as a large number of photographs. 
THE lecture at the annual public meeting of 
the five Paris Academies was given by M. 
Moissan, who chose as his subject ‘The Univer- 
sity of Chicago,’ and made use of impressions 
obtained on his recent visit to America. The 
address, published in the last number of the 
Revue Scientifique, may be read with profit and 
amusement. After an introductory paragraph 
M. Moissan begins: ‘‘Il y avait une fois, 4 
Université de Yale, pres New-Haven, un pro- 
fesseur de langues hébraiques nommé Harper. 
Cet homme, qui avait beaucoup voyagé et qui 
connaissait bien les établissements d’ instruction 
de son pays, avait la prétention de fonder la 
plus grande université des Etats-Unis. Sans 
cesse il poursuiyait cette pensée, s’enfermant en 
elle et lui donnant le meilleur de son intelli- 
gence. Son idée devint une idée fixe, et ce 
qu’il y avait de plus grave, ec’est qu’il raison- 
nait parfaitement son cas. Il prétendait, ce 
professeur d’hébreu, qu’une univyersité vraiment 
digne de ce nom devyait présenter certaines 
qualités particuliéres. Il voulait, par exemple, 
la séparation compléte de l’enseignement supé- 
rieur et de l’enseignement secondaire, ce qui 
ne se fait pas souvent aux Etats-Unis.”’ 
THIS year’s experience with yellow fever in 
the South, which has cost the country more 
than sixty million dollars, says the Boston 
Transcript, has led to a movement among medi- 
cal and scientific men to haye the disease 
SCIENCE. 
LN. S. Vou. VI. No. 151. 
studied more thoroughly than heretofore and, 
if it is possible, to control it as they have other 
infectious and contagious diseases. A com- 
mittee of seven, which was appointed by the 
American Public Health Association at the 
annual meeting in Philadelphia a short time 
ago, has waited upon President McKinley 
and laid before him the urgent necessity, as 
viewed by the Association, for the appointment 
by Congress of a commission of expert bacteriol- 
ogists to be sent to Havana for the purpose of 
making a thorough study of the cause and pre- 
vention of yellow fever. This committee con- 
sists of Dr. H. B. Horlbeck, Charleston, 8. C.; 
Dr. Samuel H. Durgin, of Boston; Dr. A. H. 
Doty, of New York; Dr. G. M. Sternberg, U. 
S. A.; Josiah Hartzwell, Canton, O:; Dr. S. R. 
Olliphant, New Orleans, La., and Dr. R. M. 
Swearingen, Austin, Tex. 
THE last number of the Journal of Compara- 
tive Neurology contains the text of four ‘ Lec- 
tures on the Sympathetic Nervous System,’ 
given before the medical students of the Uni- 
versity of Michigan in May, 1897, by Dr. G. C. 
Huber. The newer literature is critically re- 
viewed in the light of the author’s own re- 
searches, which are also quite fully outlined, 
and especial attention is devoted to the problem 
of the relation of the neurons in the sympathetic 
system. The original figures illustrate the 
sympathetic endings on striated and non-striated 
muscle cells, cardiac muscular cells, blood ves- 
sels, gland cells, epithelium of the bladder and 
the cells and pericellular baskets of the sym- 
pathetic ganglia of various vertebrates, to- 
gether with diagrams in colors of the course 
and distribution of several systems of sympa- 
thetic neurous. 
THE report of the Engineer-in-Chief of the 
United States Navy, just issued, includes the 
statement of the year’s work in testing ma- 
terials for machinery by Chief Engineer EH. R. 
Freeman, who has had charge since the late 
change of policy, which permitted the assign- 
ment of work to engineer officers which had 
previously often been largely performed by in- 
expert officers of other departments. The super- 
vising inspector reports that the present system 
of conducting the inspection of steel has thus 
