DECEMBER 24, 1897. ] 
meet next year in New York. It is hoped that 
the Geological Society, at the approaching Mon- 
treal meeting, will also decide to hold its next 
winter meeting in New York. 
THE ninth annual meeting of the American 
Folk-Lore Society will be held at the Johns 
Hopkins University, Baltimore, on December 
28th and 29th. 
THE chair in the section of chemistry of the 
Paris Academy of Sciences, vacant through the 
death of M. Schiitzenberger, has been filled by 
the election of M. Ditte, professor of chemistry 
at the Sorbonne. 
Dr. NANSEN will sail from New York on 
February 19th, and will return directly to 
Christiania. 
PROFESSOR HE. JADERAN has proposed to the 
Swedish Academy of Sciences that an expedi- 
tion be sent next summer to Spitzbergen to 
make preparations for the measurement of a 
degree of latitude in the polar regions. It is 
then proposed that Russia should be invited to 
cooperate in the final measurement of a degree 
in 1899 and 1900. 
WE learn from Nature that the French gov- 
ernment, through its embassy in London, has 
presented to Sir Archibald Geikie a handsome 
vase of Sévres porcelain in recognition of the 
‘services rendered by him to the Geological Sur- 
vey of France. 
ACCORDING to the recently published pro- 
ceedings of the German Zoological Society it 
contains 205 members, of whom only one, 
Professor Leuckhart, of Leipzig, is an honorary 
member. 
Mr. V. H. BLACKMAN, Hutchinson Research 
Student of St. John’s College, Cambridge Uni- 
versity, and Mr. W. Morley Fletcher, Fellow of 
Trinity College, have gained the Walsingham 
Medals for biological research. 
‘A COMMITTEE has drawn up a memorial to be 
presented to the New York Park Board, sug- 
gesting that the services of the late William A. 
Stiles be commemorated by giving his name to 
one of the newly projected parks in the city. 
THE death is announced of Dr. Anthony 
Brownless, Chancellor of Melbourne Univer- 
sity and founder of the medical school of the 
SCIENCE. 
955 
University, and a distinguished physician and 
man of science. 
Mr. JAMES BATEMAN, the botanist and horti- 
culturist, died at Worthing, England, on No- 
vember 27th, aged 86 years. He was one of 
the large group of Englishmen of wealth and 
leisure to whom science in Great Britain is so 
greatly indebted. In 1833 he sent the collector 
Colley to Demerara and Berbice to collect 
plants, and procured many orchids from Guate- 
mala and elsewhere. In 1837 Mr. Bateman 
commenced the publication of his work on the 
‘Orchidaceze of Mexico and Guatemala,’ which 
he completed in 1848; this book, in atlas folio, 
comprised the most remarkable series of colored 
plates which had up to that time appeared, 
each of the plates costing over £200. His 
“Monograph of Odontoglossum’ appeared be- 
tween 1864 and 1870. 
Dr. von MARz has presented to the Munich 
Academy of Sciences the original spectrom- 
eter of Fraunhofer, together with his prisms 
and his manuscripts. As an acknowledg- 
ment of this gift the Academy has conferred its 
gold medal on Dr. von Marz. 
Mr. ALFRED HARMSWORTH has loaned The 
Windward, the steamship used by the Jackson- 
Harmsworth expedition to Franz Josef Land, 
to Lieutenant Peary for his expedition next 
year. 
A RESOLUTION has been introduced,in the 
House of Representatives appropriating $20,000 
for the representation of the United States at 
the International Fisheries Exposition to be 
held at Bergen, Norway, from May to Septem- 
ber of next year. 
THE bill passed by Congress prohibiting pe- 
lagic sealing by citizens of the United States con- 
tains a provision as follows: Section 9. That 
the importation into the United States, by any 
person whatsoever, of fur-seal skins taken in 
the waters mentioned in this act, whether raw, 
dressed, dyed or manufactured, is hereby pro- 
hibited, and all such articles imported after this 
act shall take effect shall not be permitted to 
be exported, but skall be seized and destroyed 
by the proper officers of the United States. 
Proressor S. B. Brown, of West Virginia 
University, is preparing for the State Geological 
