266 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 191. 



Kansas City University has received about 

 $10,000 by the will of the late John Brown, 

 of Chilhowee. 



A NEW machinery building is under con- 

 struction for the mechanical department of the 

 University of Tennessee. The University lights 

 its own buildings and the increased demand for 

 light will be met by a direct connected genera- 

 ting set placed in the new machinery building.. 

 The machine shops will also be driven by elec- 

 tricity from the same plant, doing away with 

 all belting and line shafting. The new building 

 will also contain an electrical testing room for 

 such tests as cannot be made at the laboratories 

 of the electrical engineering department. The 

 old machine shop is being rebuilt to furnish an 

 additional dormitory. 



The Commissioners for the Exhibition of 

 1851 have made their appointments to science 

 research scholarships for the year 1898 on the 

 recommendation of the authorities of the re- 

 spective universities and colleges. The schol- 

 arships are of the value of £150 a year, and are 

 ordinarily tenable for two years (subject to a 

 satisfactory report at the end of the first year) 

 in any university at home or abroad, or in some 

 other institution approved of by the Commis- 

 sioners. The scholars are to devote themselves 

 exclusively to study and research in some 

 branch of science the extension of which is im- 

 portant to the industries of the country. A 

 limited number of the scholarships are renewed 

 for a third year where it appears that the re- 

 newal is likely to result in work of scientific 

 importance. Five scholars have been appointed 

 for a third year, seventeen have been appointed 

 for a second year, and thirteen new appoint- 

 ments have been made. Three of the scholars 

 will work in the United States, one at Harvard, 

 one at Cornell and one at Columbia. 



A BILL has been introduced into the British 

 House of Commons forbidding anyone to attach 

 to his name a degree obtained abroad, without 

 giving the source from which it has been re- 

 ceived. 



Feom oflScial statistics published by the Min- 

 ister of Public Instruction and summarized in 

 the British Medical Journal it appears that on 

 January 15, 1898, the total number of stu- 



dents in the faculties and schools of superior in- 

 struction in France was 28,782. Of this num- 

 ber 27,911 were men, 26,419 being French, and 

 1,492 foreigners ; and 871 were women, of 

 whom 579 were French and 292 foreign. The 

 total number of students in the several faculties 

 and schools of medicine was 8,064, of whom 399 

 were women ; of the whole number 734 male 

 and 168 female students were foreigners. The 

 ' extra-legal ' schools of medicine outside 

 the universities had 949 students, of whom 

 70 were women ; while the medical schools at 

 Algiers had 763, of whom 24 were women. 

 There are in Paris 11,647 students, of whom 

 3,971 are students of medicine. Next to Paris 

 in respect of student population comes Lyons, 

 with 2,335, of whom 1,106, including 33 women, 

 belong to the medical faculty. Bordeaux occu- 

 pies the third place, with 2,144, of whom 737 

 are students of medicine. Toulouse, Mont- 

 pellier, Lille, Eennes and Nancy have each 

 over 1,000 students.' 



Dr. John C. Thresh has been appointed lec- 

 turer on public health at the London Hospital 

 Medical College new laboratories, and a public 

 health museum will be opened at the College 

 at the beginning of the next session. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE. 



AN AMERICAN BLUB GROTTO. 



Many of the beautiful phenomena seen at the 

 celebrated Blue Grotto of the island of Capri 

 are reproduced on a small scale in a cavern at 

 Lake Minnewaska, New York. This lake is 

 situated on the Shawangunk range of mountains 

 at an elevation of about 1,700 feet ; it lies in a 

 basin, excavated in glacial times, about half a 

 mile long and less than a quarter in width, and 

 of a depth reaching seventy feet. The rock 

 on all sides is a white quartzite known as 

 Shawangunk grit, which rests upon shale, but 

 no outcrop of the latter is visible at the lake. 

 The quartzite is compact to granular and con- 

 tains in places pebbles of white quartz ; it is very 

 free from feldspathic admixture, so that it yields 

 to the water very little soluble matter. Bare 

 cliffs rising to the height of 150 feet bound the 

 east side of the lake, while the western banks 



