SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 112. 



Va., has been tendered informally to Post- 

 master-General William L. Wilson and that 

 he will accept the office. 



The students of the University of Athens 

 have again been engaged in rioting. The 

 trouble originated in a rebuke addressed by 

 Dr. Galvani, professor of medicine, to some 

 students who interrupted him while he was 

 performing a critical operation. The Univer- 

 sity was closed, but the students refused to 

 leave the building and were blockaded in it. 

 According to the latest reports quiet has been 

 restored, but in the riots one student was killed 

 and a number of persons were injured. 



The Yale Alumni Weekly has published fig- 

 vires showing the relative amount of time spent 

 by undergraduate students of the academic de- 

 partments of Yale and Harvard Universities. 

 The percentages for the more important groups 

 of studies are as follows : 



Yale. Harvard. 



Classics 24.2 8.7 



European languages 14.5 22.8 



Political science 11.2 9.9 



English 10.9 16.8 



History 10.4 14.3 



Mathematics 9.6 4.4 



Philosophy 8.9 6.1 



Natural sciences 8.1 10.2 



It thus appears that under the elective system 

 at Harvard only one-third as much time is 

 given to the classics and one-half as much time 

 is given to mathematics as is given at Yale, 

 where these studies are prescribed. The time 

 taken from the classics seems to be given chiefly 

 to modern languages, English and history, but 

 there is a slight increase in the sciences. The 

 same facts would be shown by a comparison of 

 the courses now taken at Yale under a partial 

 elective system, as compared with the courses 

 taken ten years ago. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



LIEUTENANT PEAKY' S EXPEDITION. 



To THE Editoe of Science : At the Wash- 

 ington meeting of the Geological Society of 

 America in December, 1896, a letter from 

 Lieutenant R. E. Peary was read, in which the 

 writer stated that a ship would be sent to 

 northern Greenland in the summer of 1897 for 



the purpose of obtaining the large meteorite 

 there and that this ship would offer means of 

 transportation for other parties who might like 

 to avail themselves of the opportunity. He 

 further stated that the coast of Greenland 

 furnishes exceptional facilities for the study of 

 glacial phenomena and suggested the feasibility 

 of several parties being formed to take part in 

 work there during next summer. After a 

 slight discussion of the subject the following 

 resolutions were drawn up and adopted by the 

 Society without opposition: 



' ' Resolved, That the Geological Society of 

 America endorse Lieutenant Peary's sugges- 

 tion that the coast of Greenland presents an 

 exceptionally fine field for the investigation 

 of glacial phenomena as well as in a more 

 limited degree of the other natural sciences, 

 and recommend that the various universities, 

 colleges and other scientific organizations of 

 the country consider the matter of coopera- 

 tion with Lieutenant Peary's expedition in the 

 summer of 1897, by sending independent par- 

 ties to be placed at various localities along the 

 Greenland coast to carry on synchronous work 

 for a period of five or six weeks. 



' ' Resolved , That the thanks of the Geological 

 Society of America be tendered to Lieutenant 

 Peary for having brought the matter of this 

 form of Arctic work to the attention of the Fel- 

 lows of the Society." 



In the summer of 1896 two parties of six 

 members each, one from Cornell University 

 under the direction of Professor Ralph S. Tarr, 

 and from Boston under the direction of Pro- 

 fessor Alfred E. Burton, of the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology, availed themselves of 

 the means of transportation offered by the 

 Sixth Peary Expedition to Greenland. The 

 former party was landed in the vicinity of the 

 Devil's Thumb, in the southern portion of Mel- 

 ville Bay, latitude 74° 7'. A brief statement of 

 this work has been published in this journal by 

 Professor Tarr*. 



The latter party, of which the present writer 

 was a member, was landed at Umanak, latitude 

 70° 35', and spent five weeks in making obser- 

 vations upon the numerous glaciers and the 

 marginal area of the inland ice along the region 



* Science, N. S. IV., 520-523. 



