Junk 5, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



917 



Me. William Talbot Aviline, for many 

 years engaged on the Geological Survey of 

 Great Britain, died on May 12, at the age of 

 eighty-one years. 



A TELEGRAM has been received at the Har- 

 vard College Observatory from Professor Per- 

 cival Lowell, at Flagstaff, Arizona, stating 

 that a large projection on Mars was found 

 by Slipper, May 26, at 15135" Greenwich 

 mean time. The position angle was 200° and 

 the projection lasted thirty-five minutes. 



The expedition organized for a scientific 

 survey of the Bahama Islands by the Geo- 

 graphical Society of Baltimore, to which we 

 have already referred, left Baltimore on June 

 1. It is under the direction of Dr. G. B. 

 Shattuck and includes more than twenty 

 members. 



As the result of an expedition to Florida 

 during the spring the Carnegie Museum has 

 added to its ornithological collections over 

 1,300 specimens in fine condition. 



The anniversary dinner of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society was held on May 18. The 

 president. Sir Clements Markham, proposed 

 the toast of ' The Medallists,' to which Mr. 

 Douglas Freshfield and Dr. Sven Hedin re- 

 sponded. The president next proposed ' Suc- 

 cess to the Antarctic Expedition.' Major L. 

 Darwin proposed ' The Guests,' and Sir W. 

 Huggins and Mr. Pember Eeeves responded. 

 The president then gave ' The Staff,' and the 

 secretary (Dr. J. S. Keltic) replied. Mr. E. 

 Gosse proposed the last toast, ' The President 

 and the Society,' to which the president re- 

 plied. 



According to a cablegram to the daily 

 papers Premier Balfour announced in the 

 House of Commons on May 26 that the gov- 

 ernment was prepared to contribute to the 

 relief of the ofiicers and men of the Antarctic 

 steamer Discovery, now icebound in the Ant- 

 arctic region. At the same time, the Premier 

 criticized the action of the Royal Geograph- 

 ical Society and the Royal Society in sending 

 out the expedition without being fully pre- 

 pared to safeguard it, and said that even the 

 limited aid the government was accustomed 



to give to scientific research was only justified 

 so long as the government felt absolute con- 

 fidence that the scientific bodies inviting help 

 had given all the information regarding the 

 cost and limits of the proposed action. That 

 confidence had been rudely shaken in the 

 present case. 



A Stockholm correspondent vn-ites to the 

 London Times on May> 19 : Serious uneasiness 

 has arisen here about the fate of Dr. Norden- 

 skiold's expedition on board the Atitaixtic. 

 Contrary to expectation, the ship has not yet 

 returned to South America. She had not a 

 very large stcJck of provisions on board, and 

 it is feared that a second winter out might 

 prove disastrous, as the ship's company con- 

 sists of 27 men all told, one Argentine officer 

 being among them. A plan for a relief ex- 

 pedition under the command of Lieutenant 

 Gylden of the Swedish Navy, who has pre- 

 viouly conducted an expedition to Spitzbergen, 

 has just been formed; 50,000 crowns have been 

 collected by private siibscription, and the 

 Riksdag to-day granted 200,000 crowns for the 

 expedition, which is to start towards the end 

 of August next. The Argentine Government 

 has offered its cooperation. 



Foreign journals announce that a Nor- 

 wegian expedition, commanded by Captain 

 Roald Amundsen, has left Christiania with the 

 object of fixing the exact situation of the 

 magnetic North Pole. The party are ex- 

 pected to be absent for four years, the route 

 taken being by Lancaster Sound, Boothia 

 Felix, where a magnetic observatory will be 

 established for a period of two years under 

 control of two members of the scientific staff, 

 and back by the North-West Passage, Victoria 

 Land and the Behring Straits. 



The executors of the late Mr. Reyner Hur- 

 rell have made a donation of £500 to the funds 

 of the Brown Animal Sanatory Institution, 

 London. 



The following committee of organization 

 for the United States, for the Eleventh Inter- 

 national Congress of Hygiene and Demog- 

 raphy, to be held in Brussels, September 2-8, 

 1903, has been appointed, at the request of the 

 Belgian government, by the State Depart- 



