718 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 435. 



suits of whicli will be shortly published in 

 a bulletin. 



Dr. Jean Charcot, of Paris, has decided 

 to go to the Antarctic instead of the Arctic 

 regions. He will go first to Terra del Fuego 

 and thence to Alexander Island, whence he 

 will endeavor to penetrate as far as possible 

 into the South Polar continent. 



Articles of incorporation of the John Fritz 

 Metal Fund Corporation have been filed at 

 Albany. It will be remembered that the 

 medal is to be conferred under the auspices 

 of our four great engineering societies. The 

 directors of the corporation are J. J. R. Croes, 

 Alfred Noble, C. W. Hunt, E. E. Olcott, E. 

 O. Spilsbury, James Douglass, 0. Kirchoff, 

 New York City; Robert Moore, of St. Louis; 

 Gaetano Lanza, of Boston; John E. Sweet, of 

 Syracuse; Robert W. Hunt, of Chicago; S. 

 T. Wellman, of Cleveland; Arthur E. Ken- 

 nelly, of Cambridge, Mass.; Carl Hering, of 

 Philadelphia; Charles P. Steinmetz, of Sche- 

 nectady, and Charles F. Scott, of Pittsburgh. 



Dr. Josiah Willard Gibbs, since 1871 pro- 

 fessor of mathematical physics at Tale Uni- 

 versity, died on April 28. 



Dr. Moritz Lazarus, honorary professor of 

 psychology at the University of Berlin, died 

 on April 13, at the age of seventy-nine years. 



Mr. Andrew Carnegie, before leaving for 

 Scotland on April 24, offered to give $1,500,- 

 000 for the erection of a court house and 

 library for the permanent court of arbitration 

 established at The Hague by the treaty of 

 July 29, 1899. Mr. Carnegie also gave last 

 week five per cent. U. S. Steel Company first 

 mortgage bonds, the par value of which is 

 $600,000 and the market value about $500,000, 

 to the endowment fund of the Tuskegee Nor- 

 mal and Industrial Institute. 



A Reuter telegram from Wiesbaden re- 

 ports that the International Conference on 

 Deep-sea Investigation was opened there on 

 April 17, under the presidency of the Prince 

 of Monaco, those present including professors 

 of geography and other geographical experts 

 from England, Germany, France, Norway and 

 Sweden. The committee appointed by the 



Geographical Congress which met in 1899 pre- 

 sented a report on questions connected with 

 oceanic research at great depths. The con- 

 ference was engaged in the preparation of 

 charts of the ocean beds to be sent to the next 

 International Geographical Congress, which 

 is to meet at Washington in 1904. 



Nature states that the biennial Hunterian 

 Oration was delivered on the afternoon of 

 February 14, by Sir Henry Howse, presi- 

 dent of the Royal College of Science, in 

 the theater of the college. He devoted the 

 greater part of his oration to interesting 

 biographical incidents concerning John Hunt- 

 er, who was elected a fellow of the Royal 

 Society in 1767, and appointed surgeon- 

 extraordinary to the King in 1776. The col- 

 lection of the objects in his museum was 

 Hunter's chief interest through many years 

 of his life, and at his death there were 14,000 

 specimens in the museum, on which Hunter 

 spent 70,000Z. A banquet took place in the 

 evening in the library of the college, at which 

 the honorary fellowship of the college was 

 conferred on Lord Roberts, who, in his reply, 

 referred to the outbreaks of enteric fever at 

 Bloemfontein and Kroonstad during the lata 

 war, and expressed his admiration for the way 

 in which the medical officers managed to meet 

 all emergencies with a minimum of appliances. 



It is announced from Washington that Sec- 

 retary Hitchcock, of the Interior Department, . 

 has granted authority for the acquisition of 

 necessary property, rights of way, etc., prior 

 to the construction of irrigation works in five 

 localities. These projects are: Wyoming, 

 Sweetwater dam; Montana, Milk River; Col- 

 orado, Gunnison tunnel; Nevada, Truckee; 

 Arizona, Salt River reservoir. These projects 

 are estimated to cost $7,000,000, and will pro- 

 vide for the irrigation of about 600,000 acres 

 of arid land. In addition thereto the Gray 

 Bull reservoir project is to be taken up imme- 

 diately. The construction remains subject 

 to the feasibility of obtaining the necessary 

 rights and the adjustment of private claims. 

 The authority granted relates to the projects 

 upon which the examinations have been made 

 in sufficient detail to justify estimates of cost 



