72 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 81. 



cleaued in the open air and by the aid of bel- 

 lows only. Amj)le lavatory accommodation 

 is made compulsory by the bill, which gives 

 very precise directions in this matter. One 

 washhand basin at least must be furnished for 

 each five workmen; soap and towels are to be 

 supplied to them free of charge, and a cloakroom 

 separated from the workrooms is to be pro- 

 vided. This bill, which is viewed very unfa- 

 vorably by the employerSj is on the other hand 

 declared by competent medical men to be very 

 useful. Dr. Lewin, a lecturer on toxicology at 

 the Berlin University, points out that whilst 

 the German insurance laws oblige employers' 

 associations to indemnify workmen in case of 

 accidents, they are entirely vinprotected against 

 the chronic influence of poisons. As printers 

 are liable to suffer from the effects of lead — one 

 of the strongest poisons — he thinks that pre- 

 ventive measures are necessary, but the bill 

 ought, in his opinion, to be extended to other 

 trades where lead is used, and he specially 

 mentions some of the home industries where the 

 workmen's children inhale dust impregnated 

 with lead. The children of dial-plate painters, 

 for instance, even if born healthy, die in a few 

 months with convulsions. In a village of Hesse, 

 where pottery is glazed by home workers, 71 per 

 €ent. of the children were sickly, 50 per cent, 

 died within the first five years, and the survivors 

 suffered from hydrocephaly^ or macrocephaly. 



GENERAL. 



The seventh session of the International 

 ■Geological Congress will be held at St. 

 Petersburg toward the end of the month of 

 August, 1897, and will continue about one 

 week. A committee has been organized in 

 Russia consisting of the leading geologists, 

 paleontologists and mineralogists, with A. 

 Karpinsky as president, and the Grand Duke 

 Constantine as honorary president. The com- 

 mittee has held several meetings and has sent 

 out a circular describing the plans of the Con- 

 gress and the extensive excursions that have 

 been arranged. Before the opening of the Con- 

 gress there will be an excursion to the Ural 

 Mountains lasting some 25 days, and after the 

 close of the Congress there will be an excursion 

 to the Crimea and the Caucasians lasting about 



a month. Shorter excursions have also been 

 arranged to Finland and elsewhere, and the 

 longer excursions have been divided into va- 

 rious parties that will visit different regions un- 

 der the direction of leading Russian geologists. 

 Those proposing to attend the Congress are re- 

 quested to inform the committee which excur- 

 sions they propose to take part in before 

 October of the present year. The Czar of Rus- 

 sia has ordered that geologists attending the 

 Congress be allowed free transit (first-class) on 

 all the railways in Russia, before and after the 

 Congress and including the excursions. 



Dr. D. Gill, of the Cape of Good Hope Ob- 

 servatory, has been unanimously elected cor- 

 responding member of the Paris Academy in 

 the room of the late Prof. Cayley. 



The physico-mathematical section of the Ber- 

 lin Academy of Sciences has made the following 

 appropriations : Prof. Weierstrass for the con- 

 tinuation of the publication of his collected 

 works, M. 2,000 ; Prof. Klein, of Gottingen, for 

 apparatus for researches in crystallography, M. 

 118.75 ; Dr. Burger, of Gottingen, for zoological 

 explorations in the Andes, M. 3,000; Prof. 

 Fiitterer, of Karlsruhe, for geological explora- 

 tions in the Alps, M. 1,000 ; Dr. Tornquist, of 

 Strasburg, for geological explorations in Vi- 

 cenza, M. 1,500; Prof. Wernicke, of Breslau, 

 for a photographic atlas of sections of the brain, 

 M. 2,000. 



The Munich Academy of Sciences has been 

 presented by citizens of the city with M. 71,200, 

 which it is hoped further to increase. The 

 interest is to be used for the promotion of 

 research in the mathematical and physical 

 sciences. 



We noted last week that on the occasion of 

 Lord Kelvin's jubilee the degree of LL. D. 

 was conferred on Profs. Newcomb and Abbe. 

 The other guests on whom the degree was con- 

 ferred were : Prof. C. Christiansen, Royal Dan- 

 ish Society of Science, Copenhagen ; Prof. Per 

 Theodor Cleve, University of Upsala ; General 

 Ferrero, Italian Ambassador, London ; Prof. 

 Dr. Izidor Frohlich, Academy of Sciences, Buda- 

 pest ; Prof. Lippmann, University of France, 

 Paris ; Prof. Liversidge, University of Sydney ; 

 Prof. Eleuthere Mascart, College de France, 



