668 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 404. 



therium, they are more specialized than any 

 recent armadillos. 



MARSUPIALS AND MONOTREMES. 



Professor C. F. W. McClure* contributes 

 an exhaustive paper on the venous system of 

 Didelphys, based on the examination of very 

 extensive material which shows wide indi- 

 vidual variation, partly reversional. In gen- 

 eral, the venous system runs back through the 

 monotreme to the sauropsidan or reptilian 

 type, and exhibits profound differences from 

 the venous system of the Placentalia. 



Dr. B. Arthur Bensleyf contributes a valu- 

 able paper in which he demonstrates that the 

 groove on the inner side of the jaw of the 

 Jurassic mammalia erroneously described by 

 Owen and Osborn as a ' mylohyoid groove ' 

 is actually a ' meckelian groove,' lodging the 

 Meckelian cartilage. After very extensive 

 comparison of this groove in various types of 

 mammals, he finds it frequently present in 

 the Marsupialia, Edentata and certain Insec- 

 tivora and Cetacea. It is, however, absent in 

 the Multituberculata ; the groove is also want- 

 ing in the Echidna, owing perhaps to the 

 degeneration or reduction of the jaw. The 

 paper is fully illustrated. 



HORSES AND MAN. 



A MOST interesting recent contribution to 

 the Gomptes Bendus des Seances de I'Acad- 

 emie des Sciences is by Emile Eivieref on 

 the prehistoric figures of horses in the cave de 

 La Mouthe found with figures of the reindeer, 

 antelope, bison, buffalo, mammoth. Although 

 for the most part crude outlines, they all 

 possess a certain artistic value.§ H. F. 0. 



* ' A Contribution to the Anatomy and Develop- 

 ment of the Venous System of Didelphys mar- 

 supialis (L.),' Part I., Anatomy, Amer. Jour. 

 Anat., Vol. II., No. 3, July 1, 1903, pp. 371-404. 



t ' On the Identification of Meckelian and 

 Mylohyoid Grooves in the Jaws of Mesozoic and 

 Recent Mammalia,' University of Toronto Studies, 

 No. 3. 



t ' Les figurations prehistoriques de la grotte de 

 La Mouthe (Dordogne),' Gomptes Rendus des 

 Stances de VAcademie des Scieiices, 28 July, 1902. 



§ ' Les Parois gravfes et peintes de la Grotte de 

 La Mouthe (Dordogne),' Extr. de ' I'Homme 

 prghistorique,' t. I., fasc. 3, 1903. 



THE ENDOWMENT OF APPLIED SCIENCE 

 AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 



Bv the will of the late Gordon McKay, of 

 Newport, R. I., inventor of the sewing ma- 

 chine that bears his name. Harvard University 

 receives a very large bequest for applied sci- 

 ence, estimated by the daily papers to be 

 ' about $4,000,000 and eventually many mil- 

 lions more.' According to the terms of the 

 will, Harvard University is to receive $1,000,- 

 000 when this amount has accumulated from 

 the income, and is thereafter to receive SO 

 per cent, of the balance of the income after 

 annuities have been paid, and is to receive 

 the entire residue of the estate after the death 

 of the last surviving annuitant. 



The portion of the will defining the object 

 of the bequest is as follows: 



The net income of said endowment shall 

 be used to promote applied science. 



First, by maintaining professorships, work- 

 shops, laboratories and collections for any or 

 all of those scientific subjects which have, or 

 may hereafter have, applications useful to 

 man ; and 



Second, by aiding meritorious and needy 

 students in pursuing those subjects. 



Inasmuch as a large part of my life has 

 been devoted to the study and invention of 

 machinery, I instruct the president and fel- 

 lows to take special care that the great sub- 

 ject of mechanical engineering, in all its 

 branches and in the most comprehensive sense, 

 be thoroughly provided for from my endow- 

 ment. 



I direct that the president and fellows be 

 free to provide from the endowment all grades 

 of instruction in applied science, from the 

 lowest to the highest, and that the instruc- 

 tion provided be kept accessible to pupils 

 who have had no other opportunities of pre- 

 vious education than those which the free 

 public schools afford. 



I direct that the salaries attached to the 

 professorships maintained from the endow- 

 ment be kept liberal, generation after genera- 

 tion, according to the standards of each suc- 

 cessive generation, to the end that these pro- 

 fessorships may always be attractive to able 

 men and that their effect may be to raise, in 



