DECEMBER 10, 1897.] 
ARRANGEMENTS have been made for lectures 
_ by Professor Shaler and Professor James, of 
Harvard University, before the Teachers’ Col- 
lege, New York. 
Dr. FRANZ Boas, of Columbia University, 
lectured on December 8rd at the Peabody 
Museum, under the auspices of the Harvard 
Folk-Lore Club, his subject being ‘The Growth 
of Indian Mythologies in British America.’ 
SURGEON-GENERAL GEORGE M. STERNBERG 
addressed a recent meeting of the Pittsburg 
Academy of Medicine on the ‘Relations of 
man and microbe.’ 
Dr. SvEN HeEprn, to whose travels in Central 
Asia we have several times referred, gave an 
account of these before the Royal Geographical 
Society, London, on November 22d. 
A LETTER from Mr. Charles M. Harris, who 
is now at the head of the Rothschilds expedition 
to the Galapagos Archipelago, has been re- 
ceived by his brother, Dr. W. H. Harris, of 
Augusta, Me. Mr. Harris sailed from. New 
York for Panama on March 20th, where he ex- 
pected to charter a schooner, but three of the 
party there died from yellow fever. Mr. Harris 
then proceeded to San Francisco, where he re- 
organized the party and reached the islands 
after a passage of forty days. He states that 
he has been successful in making extensive col- 
lections of the fauna and flora of the islands, 
and expects to return to San Francisco in the 
spring. 
THE Washington correspondent of the New 
York Tribune states that Dr. Henry S. Pritchett 
assumed charge of the United States Coast and 
Geodetic Survey on December ist. The dis- 
patch continues: ‘‘It will be highly gratifying 
to scientific circles and the friends of this Bureau 
to learn that the President and Secretary Gage 
are determined that the Bureau shall be con- 
ducted on scientific and business principles and 
that their plans will be carried out. Dr. 
Pritchett was selected entirely on the recom- 
mendations of scientific men, regardless of 
political views. * * * * He is a worthy 
successor of Dr. T. C. Mendenhall, whose ad- 
mirable administration of the Bureau from 1889 
to 1894 is so well remembered.”’ 
In addition to volumes of the Contemporary 
SCIENCE. 
877 
Science Series (Mr. Walter Scott, London; im- 
ported by Messrs. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New 
York) requiring special notice we have received 
two volumes—one a translation and one a new 
edition, to which attention may be called. 
Professor Ribot’s ‘Psychologie des sentiments,’ of 
which we gave a detailed review at the time of 
its publication, has been translated into Eng- 
lish, thus much enlarging the audience of the 
acknowledged leader of French psychology. 
Dr. Moll’s ‘Hypnotism’ has been issued in a 
fourth edition, being apparently more in de- 
mand than any other volume of the series. 
We have not the third edition at hand for com-- 
parison, but the book has been much altered 
and enlarged since the publication of the first. 
edition in 1889. The popular interest in hyp- 
notism is in part morbid, and the numerous. 
and widely circulated books, journals and 
articles on the subject do not usually add much 
to its scientific study, while they in some eases. 
promote credulity and amateur experimenting. 
Dr. Moll’s book, however, is sane and scientific, 
and it is to be hoped that some who come for a. 
‘sensation’ may go away with an increased 
knowledge of mental phenomena. 
UNDER the title ‘An Unusual Phyto-bezoar,’ 
Professor Trelease has published, in the Trans- 
actions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis, 
an account of certain balls, composed of the- 
felted barbed trichomes of Opuntia, obtained. 
from the stomach of a Mexican bull, and com- 
parable with similar formations described in 
1896 by Dr. Coville as occurring in the stomach 
of a horse, and composed of the calyx hairs of” 
a species of Trifolium. 
Tue fourth and revised edition of Professor 
Thurston’s Engine and Boiler Trials has just 
been issued. In the front of the book the pub- 
lishers print a descriptive list of nineteen of 
Dr. Thurston’s works. 
THE explosives department of the British 
Home Office has, as we learn from Machinery, 
recently had under consideration the question 
of the restrictions to be applied to the manufac- 
ture and keeping of acetylene gas, and has con- 
ducted various experiments with the object of 
gaining information on this matter. The results 
show conclusively that acetylene gas per se, 
