990 



SCmNGE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 130. 



a fresh-water biological station at Hemlock 

 Lake, under the direction of Professor Charles 

 W. Dodge. 



An International Congress of Librarians will 

 be held in London from 13th to 16th of July. 

 Dr. Melvil Dewey will be one of the representa- 

 tives of the United States government. 



There has recently been opened at the Crys- 

 tal Palace an exhibition in commemoration of 

 the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, in 

 which the progress made by science during the 

 reign is said to be well represented. 



The Rev. Professor Wiltshire has presented 

 his valuable geological library, containing 

 about 1,500 volumes and pamphlets, to the 

 Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge University. 



The Drapers' Company has offered to erect 

 a new building for the accommodation of the 

 Radcliff Library at Oxford, at a cost of £15,000. 



The library building of the University of 

 Iowa was struck by lightning on June 19th and 

 destroyed by fire. The physical laboratory 

 was on the first fioor of the building. The total 

 loss is estimated at $100,000. 



The second ' International ' Congres olym- 

 pique will be held at Havre during the last week 

 of July. The subjects to be discussed are physi- 

 cal exercises and games in their relation to 

 pedagogy and hygiene. 



A RoNTGEN Society was inaugurated in 

 London on June 23d. Professor Sylvanus P. 

 Thompson was elected President, and forty- 

 four members were enrolled, of whom about 

 one-half were made ofiicers. 



The Academy states that the third part of 

 the late George John Romanes' ' Darwin and 

 After Darwin' is in the press. The subject- 

 matter consists of post-Darwinian questions. 

 Isolation and Physiological Selection. 



A NUMBER of Swedish zoologists have pre- 

 pared a volume of contributions to zoology as 

 a Festschrift on the occasion of the eightieth 

 birthday of Dr. Wilhelm Lilljeborg. 



The annual visitation of the Royal Observa- 

 tory at Greenwich took place on June 5th, and 

 the Astronomer Royal submitted his annual re- 

 port for the year ending May 10th. 



As we have announced, a census of the Rus- 

 sian Empire was taken on February 9th, none 

 having been taken since 1851. The total popu- 

 lation is now given as 129,211,113, having 

 about doubled in a period of forty-six years. 



At the annual general meeting of the Victoria 

 Institute on June 2d, Lord Kelvin made an ad- 

 dress on the ' Age of the Earth as an Abode 

 fitted for Life.' Lord Kelvin maintained the 

 position taken by him thirty years ago, that this 

 earth could not have been a habitable globe for 

 more than thirty million years. 



It is reported that Professors Koch's anti- 

 toxin treatment for the rinderpest has proved 

 to be of no value. Nine-tenths of the cattle 

 north of Cape Colony have been exterminated, 

 and it is feared that Cape Colony will fare no 

 better. There is great mortality from fever in 

 the region, supposed to be due to pollution from 

 the numbers of cattle which have died from 

 rinderpest. 



The British Medical Journal states that at the 

 conference of Ministers of Agriculture repre- 

 senting the Australian colonies, recently held 

 at Sydney, it was decided that the colonies 

 combine in offering a reward of £5,000 to any 

 person who discovered and made known a 

 satisfactory remedy for the tick disease which 

 has caused so much destruction amongst cattle. 



The New York Independent addressed a 

 number of ' representative ' men and women, 

 asking what, in their opinion, was most char- 

 acteristic of the period of Queen Victoria's 

 reign. As might be expected, the replies differ 

 greatly, one holding it to be the growth of 

 democratic politics, another the security that 

 has been given to the monarchy, one the grind- 

 ing, bleeding system of rule in India, and an- 

 other the growing attachment between the 

 mother country and her colonial empire ; but 

 one-half of those who reply, including such 

 diverse points of opinion as those of President 

 Eliot and Madame Patti, hold that the most 

 important characteristic of the past sixty years 

 is the progress of science and its applications. 

 In the same number of the Independent there is 

 published an admirable article by Professor 

 Newcomb on ' Science during the Victorian 

 Era. ' 



