222 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 450. 



Bonds of the par value of $2,500,000 to Dun- 

 fermline, Scotland, where he was born in 1837. 

 The income is to be used for parks, a theater, 

 the encouragement of technical education, etc. 



There was a meeting of the British Cancer 

 Kesearch Fund on July 30, at which the prime 

 minister presided and made an address. It 

 was reported to the meeting that the fund now 

 amounts to somewhat over £50,000, and that 

 about £1,000 had been spent during the present 

 year, some three thousand cases of cancer hav- 

 ing been studied. 



A FOEEST reserve of 10,000 acres in Mifflin, 

 Juniata and Huntingdon Counties in Penn- 

 sylvania has been recently created and named 

 the Eothroek Forest Eeserve, in honor of Dr. 

 J. T. Rothrock, the present forest commis- 

 sioner. 



The coromission sent by the Marine Hos- 

 pital Service to Vera Cruz, consisting of Dr. 

 Plerman B. Parker, of the Marine Hospital, 

 and Drs. George E. Beyer and O. L. Pothier, 

 of New Orleans, report three propositions as 

 liaving been demonstrated beyond doubt, 

 namely: 1. That the cause of yellow fever 

 is an animal parasite, and not a vegetable 

 germ or bacterium. 2. That the disease is 

 communicated only by the bite of mosquitoes. 

 3. That only one genus of mosquitoes, 

 Slegompia Fasciata, is the host of the yellow 

 fever parasite. 



The opening of the Simplon Tunnel in 

 1905 will be celebrated by an exposition at 

 Milan, partly of international character. 

 Special attention will be paid to exhibits of 

 transportation by land and water and aerial 

 navigation. 



A REPORT has been widely circulated that 

 a variety of basil (ocinum viride) possesses 

 the property of driving away mosquitoes. 

 Captain Larymore originally made the state- 

 ment that several growing pots of this plant 

 would keep a room free from mosquitoes, and 

 that the leaves would stupefy them. Sir 

 George Birdwood further reported that allied 

 basils had long been used in India as a de- 

 fense against mosquitoes and as a prophylactic 

 in malarious districts. Experiments have now 



been made by Dr. W. T. Prout, principal med- 

 ical officer in Sierra Leone, showing that 

 mosquitoes flourish quite as well in the pres- 

 ence of basil plants as elsewhere. The efficacy 

 of other plants reputed to drive away mosqui- 

 toes is no greater, and this should be generally 

 known, in order that dependence may not be 

 placed on empirical methods in place of proper 

 means for the extermination of mosquitoes. 



The Board of Aldermen of New York City 

 have authorized an additional bond sale to the 

 amount of $188,000 for constructing ap- 

 proaches to a new wing of the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, for building a foyer 

 to take the place of the old lecture hall and 

 for other additions and improvements about 

 the building. Among these additions will be 

 two assembly-rooms for the use of the New 

 York Academy of Sciences and for other sci- 

 entific meetings. Ground is being broken on 

 Manhattan Square, west of the new lecture 

 hall, for the construction of an addition to 

 the museum building to contain a thoroughly 

 modern heating, lighting and power plant. It 

 is planned to have the apparatus for the con- 

 version and transmission of heat, light and 

 power open to the public, and instructively 

 labeled and described. 



The illustrated report to the U. S. Geolog- 

 ical Survey on Precious Stones for 1902, by 

 Mr. George F. Kunz, is now in press. The 

 l^roduction of precious stone in this country in 

 1902 aggregated $318,300 in value, as compared 

 with $289,050 in 1901, and with $333,170 in 

 1900. The total value of the precious stones 

 imported into the United States during 1902 

 was $25,412,776, which sum was $550,209 more 

 than that for the previous year, and twelve 

 times the value of the importations in 1866. 



The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of 

 Scotland has made the following awards under 

 its research scheme : Research Fellowships, 

 Chemical, (1) Charles E. Fawcitt, B.Sc. Edin- 

 burgh and London, Ph.D. Leipzig; (2) James 

 C. Irvine, B.Sc, D.Sc. St. Andrews, Ph.D. 

 Leipzig; C3) William Maitland, B.Sc. Aber- 

 deen. Biological, (4) John Cameron, M.B., 

 Ch.B. Edinburgii. Historical, (5) Duncan 

 Mackenzie, M.A. Edinburgh, Ph.D. Vienna. 



