•60 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol.. XVIII. No. 444. 



Myer, Virginia; Lieutenant-Colonel James 

 Allen, on completion of present duty, will 

 take station in this city as signal officer of 

 the Department of the East; Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Eichard E. Thomson is relieved from 

 duty at Fort Myer, and ordered to Vancouver 

 Barracks, Washington, for duty in the De- 

 partment of the Columbia, in addition to 

 which he will assume charge of the military 

 system in Alaska ; Captain George C. BurneU, 

 at Juneau, Alaska, has been ordered to Seattle, 

 Wash., where he will assume charge of the 

 cable system between Puget Sound and 

 Alaska. 



Professor William Elder, of the depart- 

 ment of chemistry at Colby University, died 

 on Jime 25. He was born in Nova Scotia 

 about sixty years ago. He graduated at the 

 Provincial Normal School in 1860 and at 

 Acadia College in 1868. The next year he 

 studied at Harvard under Professors Agassiz, 

 Cooke and Shaler. Erom 1869 to 1873 he 

 was professor of physical sciences at Acadia 

 College. In 1873 he was called to the pro- 

 fessorship of chemistry and natural history 

 at Colby University and remained at the head 

 of that double department till 1885, when he 

 became Merrill professor of chemistry. 



The United States Civil Service Commis- 

 sion announces that, owing to the small num- 

 ber of applications filed for the examination 

 scheduled for June 29-30 for the position of 

 teacher in the Philippine Service, the ex- 

 amination will be postponed to July 22-23. 

 The salary at first is from $900 to $1,200 with 

 opportunity for advancement. There are 

 now about 850 American teachers in the 

 Philippine service. The subjects of the ex- 

 amination include the ordinary branches 

 taught in normal schools, and optional sub- 

 jects may be taken, including the sciences. 

 It seems unfortunate, and may perhaps ac- 

 count for the small number of applications, 

 that the result should be based almost ex- 

 clusively on an elementary written examina- 

 tion, eighteen points being given for this, 

 and only two points for experience, training 

 and fitness. 



The International Institute of Sociology 

 holds its fifth congress this year in the 

 Sorbonne, at Paris, from July 6 to 9, under 

 the presidency of Dr. Lester F. Ward, of 

 Washington. The leading subject for dis- 

 cussion will be the relation of Sociology to 

 Psychology. The Institute was founded in 

 1894 with Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) 

 as its first president. It is thoroughly inter- 

 national and each of the presidents annually 

 chosen represents a different country. Dr. 

 Ward is its first American president. It has 

 published nine volumes of Annals, in which 

 a great variety of subjects relating to the 

 social sciences are discussed from a strictly 

 scientific point of view. 



A telegram has been received at the Har- 

 vard College Observatory from Professor 

 Kreutz, at Kiel, stating that a comet was dis- 

 covered by Borelly at Marseilles, June 21, 

 469, G. M. T. in E. A. 211' 53111 52s and Dec. 



— 8° 10'. The comet had a daily motion of 



— 7' in E. A. and + 44' in Dec. Nucleus 

 and tail were observed. 



We learn from the report in the London 

 Times that there was a very large audience 

 at the Eoyal Institution on June 19 to hear 

 Professor Pierre Curie, of the Sorbonne, 

 Paris, lecture on radiiun. Sir William 

 Crookes was in the chair, and among those 

 present were Mme. Curie, Lord Kelvin, Lord 

 Eayleigh, Lord Avebury, Sir Frederick Bram- 

 well. Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor Dewar, 

 Professor Eay Lankester, Professor i\yrton. 

 Professor S. P. Thompson and Professor 

 Armstrong. Professor Curie, who spoke in 

 French, began with some experiments to illus- 

 trate the properties of radium. He showed 

 that it was capable of spontaneously and con- 

 tinuously disengaging heat, that it had the 

 power of rapidly affecting photographic plates 

 even through opaque bodies, and that it could 

 provoke luminous phenomena in phosphores- 

 cent substances such as platinocyanide of 

 barium, not losing its power even when cooled 

 to the temperature of liquid air. He next 

 proved its ability to render air a conductor 

 of electricity, by showing that a charged elec- 

 troscope was at once discharged when a frag- 



