270 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 111. 



feet In height, has been ascended by the Swiss 

 guide, Zurbriggen. He was in the company of 

 Mr. Fitzgerald, who was unable to reach the 

 summit. 



At the International Exhibition at Brussels 

 in 1897 special efforts will be made to secure an 

 adequate representation of the sciences. Space 

 for scientific exhibits will be given free of charge 

 and a considerable number of prizes are offered. 



The King of Belgium has offered a prize of 

 about $5,000 for an essay on the sanitary con- 

 ditions of equatorial Africa. Papers for com- 

 petition should be presented by July 1st of the 

 present year. 



A PUBLIC library and museum will be founded 

 at Cettigne, Montenegro. The antiquities found 

 in the principality itself will be deposited in 

 the museum. The excavations recently made 

 at Dukla have produced satisfactory results. 



We regret to record the deaths of Baron von 

 Ettingshausen, professor of botany at the Uni- 

 versity of Gratz, at the age of 71 years ; of Dr. 

 Edward Ballard, F. R. S., the author of works 

 on public health and other medical subjects, 

 aged 66 ; of M. Martini, the inventor of the 

 Martini rifle ; of Dr. Wilhelm Deeke, the Ger- 

 man archfeologist, at the age of 66 ; of Kristian 

 Bahnson, the Danish ethnologist ; of Joseph D. 

 Weeks, editor of the American Manufacturer, at 

 Pittsburg, Pa. , and known for his contributions 

 to economic geology ; and of Giuseppe Proto- 

 notari. 



According to Nature, the scientific expedi- 

 tion organized by the German government to 

 study the economic and industrial conditions 

 and possibilities in the Far East intended to 

 start from Bremen on January 27th, on board the 

 North German Lloyd steamer Sachsen. The 

 nature and scope of the investigations to be un- 

 dertaken were discussed and settled at a recent 

 meeting at the Ministry of the Interior. 



Natural Science, quoting from the Daily News, 

 reports that the Imperial Natural History So- 

 ciety of St. Petersburg, intends to publish a 

 Flora, first of European Russia and afterwards 

 of Russia in Asia and the Caucasus. 



Senator Gallinger has presented, by re- 

 quest, in the Senate, a bill for a department of 



health proposed by the Pan-American Medical 

 Congress. 



A bill introduced into the Wisconsin Legis- 

 lature provides for a State bee inspector to sup- 

 press foul brood among bees. The wholesale 

 valuation of the honey and beeswax produced 

 annually in Wisconsin is $160,000. 



At a meeting of the Fellows of the Boyal 

 Botanical Society, on January 30th, it was 

 agreed that the use of the gardens should be 

 offered to the Lord Mayor, the Chairmen of 

 the London County Council and the London 

 School Board, and the secretaries of societies 

 desirous of holding receptions. 



Mr. Macartney stated recently in the Brit- 

 ish House of Commons that the question of the 

 unification of time, which is a very debatable 

 one, has received long and careful consideration 

 for many years. The alteration of the astro- 

 nomical day cannot be effected for the sea alone, 

 as it affects astronomers even more closely than 

 sailors, and it must also be carried out by inter- 

 national agreement. Foreign powers publish- 

 ing astronomical ephemerides were consulted 

 in 1894, and when it was found, from the re- 

 plies received in 1895, that the change would 

 not be accepted by all these the Foreign Office 

 was requested to inform the powers in question 

 that no further steps would be taken by the 

 British Admiralty. The Nautical Almanac for 

 1901 has therefore been calculated on the exist- 

 ing system. 



An Italian Electro-technical Society has been 

 formed in Milan, with Professor G. Ferraris, of 

 Turin, as its first president. 



Mr. Uriah A. Boyden, of Boston, has of- 

 fered, through the Franklin Institute of Phila- 

 delphia, a prize of $1,000 to ' any resident of 

 North America — including Mexico and the 

 West Indies — who shall determine by experi- 

 ment whether all rays are or are not transmitted 

 with the same velocity.' The papers must be 

 submitted before January 1, 1898. 



We learn from Nature that the University of 

 Catana has been presented with the Island 

 of Cyclops, off the coast of Sicily, by Signor 

 Gravina. The island is only a kilometer in cir- 

 cumference, but its configuration is peculiar, 

 and the center is about one hundred meters 



