'640 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 23. 



method of determining tlie heat radiation 

 from the nucleus of a sun spot. — London 

 Times. 



GENERAL. 



President Cleveland has extended the 

 ■Civil Service Eules in the Department of 

 Agriculture so as to include all officers and 

 emploj^ees, excepting the Secretary and the 

 Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and their 

 private secretaries, the Chief of the "Weather 

 Bureau and his private secretarj^, the chief 

 ■clerk of the department, and the laborers 

 and charwomen. 



In congregation at Oxford a new statute 

 has been promulgated, adding anthropology 

 to the list of subjects in the Honor School of 

 Ifatural Science. 



A memorial tablet to John Couch Adams, 

 "the Cambridge astronomer and mathema- 

 tician, was unveiled in Westminster on 

 May 9th. 



The province of Ontario is to have a great 

 reservation for the preservation of its ani- 

 mals and plants. The Algonquin Natural 

 Park will comprise about a million acres of 

 forest land. No hunting, trapping or de- 

 struction of animal life will be allowed 

 vpithin its precincts. — American Naturalist. 



It is announced that the sum of $250,000 

 or more has been given to the Universitj^ 

 of the City of New York for the purpose of 

 •erecting a central building on University 

 Heights to contain the library, commence- 

 ment hall, museum, and offices of admini- 

 stration. In accordance with the wish of 

 the donor the name is not announced. 



Maj. J. "VV. PoAVELL is announced as lec- 

 turer on the ' Histoiy of Culture,' and Prof. 

 ■Otis T. Mason as lecturer on the ' Origin of 

 Culture,' in Columbian University. 



According to the accounts of Oxford Uni- 

 versity for 1894, recentlj' presented to con- 

 vocation, the revenue amounted to £63,760 

 and the payments to £64,390. 



Sir George Buchanan, M. D., F. R. S., 

 died on May 3d, at the age of 6-4. He was 

 one of the first medical officers of health in- 

 London, having been appointed to St. Giles's 

 in 1S56. He originated methods of in- 

 quirj' in sanitary matters not before at- 

 tempted, working at the relation of over- 

 crowding and other insanitarj' conditions 

 of disease, at the prevention of smallpox, 

 typhus fever, cholera and consumjjtion, and 

 originating a sj^stem of collecting statistical 

 information of the public health of the dis- 

 trict. He was chairman of The Eoj^al 

 Commission on Tuberculosis, which reported 

 shortly before his death. 



The death is announced of Mr. Arthur 

 Edward Durham, a member of the Council 

 and late vice-president of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons, of England. He was the au- 

 thor of Sleeping and Dreaming and The Phj- 

 siology of Sleep. 



Francis P. Harper announces The Expedi- 

 tions of Zehidon Montgomery Pike to the head- 

 waters of the Mississippi River, the interior 

 parts of Louisiana, Mexico and Texas, in 

 the years 1805-6-7, reprinted in full from 

 the original Philadelphia edition of 1810, 

 with full explanatorj', geographical and sci- 

 tific notes to the text, compiled from manj' 

 unpublished sources of information and in- 

 cluding the results of a canoe voyage of the 

 editor to the sources of the Mississippi 

 River, a new memior of Pike and an index 

 to the whole by Dr. Elliott Coues. 



An Austrian expedition for polar re- 

 search under the direction of M. Julius von 

 Paj^er will start for Greenland in June, 

 1896. 



At the recent meeting of the Boston Sci- 

 entific Soeietj' it was stated that Dr. Perci- 

 val Lowell would observe the opposition of 

 Mars in December, 1896, from a suitable 

 location, not yet decided on. For this pur- 

 pose a telescope of twenty-four inches' aper- 

 ture has been ordered. 



