November 20, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



671 



turod before the Royal Geographical Society, 

 London, on November 10. He is at present 

 engaged in examining the naval barracks of 

 foreign countries as a member of a com- 

 mission recently appointed by President 

 Roosevelt. 



A MEMORi.\L to Professor Joseph Le Conte, 

 has been constructed by the Sierra Club of 

 San Francisco in the Yosemite Valley at a 

 cost of $8,000. It is a building of granite, 

 erected under the walls of Glacier Point. 

 The building is divided into three parts, the 

 main room measuring 28 x 38 feet. Above 

 the main room a Gothic roof rises to the 

 height of thirty-five feet. Inside are a large 

 reading table, wall seats and a large bookcase 

 in which are kept books and papers pertaining 

 to travel and research and maps and papers 

 furnished by the Sierra Club. 



The library of the late Professor Virchow, 

 containing seven thousand volumes has been 

 presented by Mrs. Virchow to the Berlin 

 Medical Society. 



The bronze shield subscribed for by the 

 students of the British Institution of Elec- 

 trical Engineers was placed on the tomb 

 of Volta, at Camnago, Italy, near Como, on 

 October 4. The shield is mounted on a slab 

 of green marble supported on gi-anite in front 

 of the tonili. 



The position of paleontological draughts- 

 man in the U. S. Geological Survey will be 

 filled by civil service examination on De- 

 cember 8. The salary of this position is 

 $840 or $900 a year. 



A CONFEREN'CE of Eastern hydrographers, 

 called by ilr. F. H. Newell, chief engineer of 

 the liydrographic division of the Geological 

 Survey, was held in Washington from October 

 28 to 31, inclusive. The following districts 

 and divisions of the work were represented : 

 New England, Mr. N. C. Grover; New York, 

 Mr. Robert E. Horton; Central States, Mr. 

 E. G. Paul; Southern States, Mr. M. R. Hall; 

 Mississippi Valley States, Mr. E. Johnson, 

 Jr.; general inspection, Mr. E. C Murphy; 

 Washington office, Messrs. G. B. Ilollister and 

 John C. Hoyt ; hydro-economics, Mr. M. O. 

 Leighton; hydrology, Mr. M. L. Fuller. 



According to a Renter telegram from St. 

 Petersburg, dated October 25, the search for 

 Baron Toll, the missing explorer who set out 

 on May 23, 1902, in company with the astron- 

 omer M. Seeberg and two Yakuts to explore 

 Bennett Island and who has not been heard 

 of since, stiU continues. M. Brousnicff, an 

 engineer, who was sent to relieve Baron Toll, 

 arrived in New Siberia with his expedition 

 on March 11, but found nobody on the island. 

 Five days later he set out across the ice in the 

 direction of Bennett Island, but about 30 kilo- 

 meters from the coast a stretch of open water 

 at least five kilometers broad was encountered, 

 and the expedition was obliged to turn back. 

 No news has been received of the relief party 

 under Lieutenant Koltchak, which was to have 

 endeavored to reach Bennett Island by boat 

 via New Siberia, and which was expected to 

 reach its goal last June. There is hardly any 

 prospect of further news being received either 

 from the missing explorer or from the relief 

 expeditions before December, as communica- 

 tion between the islands and the mainland will 

 be interrupted until then. 



The Vienna Academy of Sciences has ap- 

 pointed a committee to study pitchblende, the 

 mineral from which radium is derived. Baron 

 Auer von Welsbaeh has placed his laboratories 

 at the service of the committee during its 

 researches. 



The Italian Congress of Pathology was held 

 at Florence in October and appointed Milan 

 as the place for the next meeting, which will 

 be held during the spring of 1905. Professors 

 Golgi and Foa were appointed a committee 

 to confer with the German Pathological So- 

 ciety as to whether the approaching congress 

 could be made international. 



The Now Zealand Parliament has passed a 

 bill empowering the Governor to introduce 

 after January, 1906, the metric system, which 

 is then to become the only system of weights 

 and measures for the country. 



Cooperative arrangements have been made 

 between the United States Geological Survey, 

 through its Hydro-Economic Section, and 

 Professor Chase Palmer, of the Central Uni- 

 versity of Kentucky, at Danville, for the main- 

 tenance of an extended series of chemical ex- 



