104 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 186. 



mentioned, the removal of the Museum of 

 Practical Geology from Jermyn street to South 

 Kensington. Many protests have been made 

 against this plan and a memorial signed by 

 about 500 members of the Geological Society 

 has been presented to the government urging 

 serious objections to it. 



It is stated in Nature that the fourteenth an- 

 nual general meeting of the Marine Biological 

 Association was held on June 28th; Professor E. 

 Eay Lankester, F.R.S., President, being in the 

 chair. The Report of the Council dealt largely 

 with the work done at the Plymouth Labora- 

 tory during the year. Reference was made to 

 Mr. Garstang's investigations of the habits and 

 migration of the mackerel ; to Mr. Holt's re- 

 searches on the reproduction and development 

 of fishes living in the neighborhood of Plymouth, 

 and their distribution at diflFerent ages ; as well 

 as to the experiments with floating bottles for 

 determining the surface drift in the English 

 Channel, and to the systematic investigation of 

 the dredging and trawling grounds between the 

 Bddystone and Start Point. Twenty-two na- 

 turalists and eight students were reported as 

 having worked at the Laboratory since the last 

 annual meeting, in addition to the members of 

 the regular staff. The following were elected 

 members of Council for the year: President, Pro- 

 fessor E. Ray Lankester ; Hon. Treasurer, J. 

 A. Travers ; Secretary, E. J. Allen. Council : 

 F. E. Beddard, Professor Jeffrey Bell, G. C. 

 Bourne, Sir John Evans, G. H. Fowler, S. F. 

 Harmer, Professor Herdman, Professor Hick- 

 son, J. J. Lister, Sir John Murray, P. L. 

 Sclater, D. A. Scott, Professor C. Stewart, Pro- 

 fessor W. F. R. Weklon. 



It will be remembered that sometime since 

 Baroness Hirsch presented 2,000,000 fr. to the 

 Pasteur Institute, Paris. It has been decided 

 to use this sum for the construction and main- 

 tenance of a biological institute, which shall be 

 placed opposite the Pasteur Institute, on the 

 rue Dutot. M. Duclaux will be Director of the 

 new Institute, while M. Gabriel Bertrand will 

 have charge of the laboratories of physiological 

 chemistry. 



The Academy of Medicine of Paris has for 

 forty years had no home, says the New York 



Medical Record, its meetings being held in the 

 old chapel of the Charite Hospital. It owns 

 ground near Luxembourg, which the govern- 

 ment has appropriated for a school of chem- 

 istry. In compensation for this lot the French 

 legislature has appropriated a sum sufficient for 

 the purchase of a site for a building on the rue 

 Bonaparte. On this ground the Academy will 

 soon erect a suitable building, where its meet- 

 ings can be held and which then will be used 

 for storing transactions, for the library, or for 

 the various departments which are under the 

 care of the Academy — for instance, the vaccina- 

 tion department, the board in charge of pro- _ 

 phylaxis and treatment of epidemic diseases, 

 the board to which is intrusted the care of the 

 various mineral springs, the sanitary and statis- 

 tical departments, and the oflice for dealing 

 with awards granted for sundry scientific re- 

 searches. 



We learn from the London Times that the 

 Lord Mayor of Liverpool opened on July 4th 

 another institution in connection with Uni- 

 versity College in that city. This is Ashton- 

 hall, a museum and school of hygiene. The 

 building was presented by the late Mr. George 

 Holt, and remodeled with funds provided by 

 Mrs. and Miss Holt and the Technical Instruc- 

 tion Committee. It is a large building, with 

 well-lighted museum, laboratories and lecture 

 room, the latter fitted with an electric air lamp. 

 The museum rooms are well fitted, and are al- 

 ready stocked with numerous useful exhibits. 

 The opening ceremony took place in the Arts 

 Theatre of University College, under the presi- 

 dency of Councillor Willink, Chairman of the 

 Sanitary Science Instruction Committee. Dr. 

 E. W. Hope said it was the late Mr. Holt's 

 wish that the building should be devoted to 

 some branch of medicine having for its object 

 the promotion of public health, and the med- 

 ical faculty of the College thought they would 

 be giving effect to his wishes by using the build- 

 ing for a museum and school of instruction in 

 public health matters and for research in sub- 

 jects connected therewith. The building was 

 well equipped for these purposes, including in- 

 vestigation of advanced sanitary problems, 

 such as the purification of water and sewage, 

 the action of disinfectants, and so forth. The 



