238 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 423. 



and astrophysics. These will comprise: (1) 

 A photographic investigation of stellar paral- 

 laxes by Dr. Frank Schlesinger, now in charge 

 of the International Latitude Observatory at 

 TJkiah, California. (2) Investigations in 

 stellar photometry, to be made by Mr. J. A. 

 Parkhurst. (3) A detailed study of several 

 hundred photographs of the sun, taken with 

 the spectroheliograph at the Kenwood Ob- 

 servatory in the years 1891-1896. Mr. Philip 

 Pox, formerly instructor in physics at Dart- 

 mouth College, is assisting Professor Hale 

 in this work. (4) Certain investigations in 

 solar and stellar spectroscopy, to be under- 

 taken by Professor Hale as soon as the new 

 horizontal reflecting telescope, recently in- 

 jured by fire, has been completed. 



Professor Frederick W. Putnam, curator 

 of the Peabody Museum, has been awarded the 

 Lucy Wharton Drexel medal of the Franklin 

 Institute of Philadelphia for his distinguished 

 work in American archeology. 



Commander Egbert E. Peary, TJ.S.N., was 

 elected president of the American Geograph- 

 ical Society, New York, at its annual meeting 

 on January 27. 



Professor E. B. Wilson, of Columbia Uni- 

 versity, has received leave of absence for the 

 second half year, and will be at the Naples 

 Zoological Station from February until July. 

 During his absence the direction of the De- 

 partment of Zoology at the university will be 

 assumed by Professor Bashford Dean, to 

 whom communications for the department 

 should be addressed. 



Dr. J. F. Newsom, associate professor of 

 mining and metallurgy in Stanford Univer- 

 sity, has returned from a visit to the prin- 

 cipal European schools of mining. 



President H. S. Pritchett, of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology, is confined 

 to the house by an injured knee, due to the 

 fall of a horse that he was riding. 



National Geographic Magazine (Washing- 

 ton) for February is authorized by Mr. Wil- 

 liam Ziegler, of New York City, to announce 

 that he intends to send forth another north 

 polar expedition this summer. The party will 

 go north on the America. The personnel of 



the expedition is not yet complete, so that a 

 list of the members can not now be given. 



Mr. W. N. MacMillan, of St. Louis, with 

 Mr. Isidore Morse, of Boston, and Colonel 

 John Harrington, of the British Army, have 

 started on an expedition to explore the course 

 of the Blue Nile. 



Professor E. H. Eichards, of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology, has just 

 completed a short course of lectures on ore- 

 dressing, in which he set forth the results of 

 his exhaustive study on this subject, at the 

 Missouri School of Mines at EoUa, Mo. 



Mr. Charles Francis Pidgin, chief clerk of 

 the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, has 

 been appointed chief of the bureau, to suc- 

 ceed Mr. Horace 6. Wadlin, who has become 

 librarian of the Boston Public Library. 



Dr. Brouardel, honorary dean of the Paris 

 Faculty of Medicine, has been presented with 

 a plaque by his former students, engraved by 

 M. Eoty. 



M. H. PoiNCARE, the eminent mathematician 

 and physicist, has been made a commander of 

 the Legion d' honneur. 



Professor Eobert Helmert, director of the 

 Geodetic Institute of Potsdam, has been given 

 the honorary doctorate of engineering by the 

 Polytechnic School at Aix. 



Me. Herbert Ktnaston has been appointed 

 by the British Colonial Office director of the 

 Geological Survey of the Transvaal. 



The hundredth anniversary of the birth of 

 Heinrich Daniel Ehumkorff was celebrated at 

 Hanover on January 15. A tablet was placed 

 on the house in which he was born and a new 

 street was given his name. Professor W. 

 Kohlrausch made an address on Bhumkorff's 

 scientific work. 



David Phillips Jones, chief engineer, 

 U.S.N, retired, and formerly professor at the 

 Naval Academy, died at Pittsburgh on Jan- 

 uary 30. 



Mr. Elnathan Sweet, a well-known civil 

 engineer, died at Albany, N. Y., on January 

 26, aged sixty-six years. 



Dr. John O. Quantz, professor of psychol- 

 ogy in the State Normal School of Oshkosh, 



