74 



SCIENCE. 



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



anti-toxin was not used during the first three days 

 and those in which the patients were moribund 

 at the time of injection or died within twenty- 

 four hours, the mortality is reduced to 4.8 per 

 cent. The report is regarded as very favorable 

 to the use of anti-toxin. There is no question 

 but what the reported percentage of mortality 

 is much lower than formerly, but such reports 

 are not entirely convincing, partly because they 

 are likely to come from physicians who have 

 secured favorable results, and partly because all 

 cases in which the Lceflfler bacillus is found are 

 reported as diphtheria, whereas formerly mild 

 cases might not have been recognized. 



The steamer Hope, chartered by Lieut. Peary, 

 has sailed for Sydney, Cape Breton. As we 

 have already stated, Lieut. Peary will be ac- 

 companied by two parties, one in charge of 

 Prof. Tarr, of Cornell University, and one in 

 charge of Prof. Burton, of the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology. The latter party will 

 include, besides Prof. Burton, Prof. George H. 

 Barton, of the Institute of Technology, geolo- 

 gist ; Mr. G. R. Putnam, assistant in the United 

 States coast and geodetic survey, detailed to 

 make pendulum and magnetic observations ; 

 Mr. Russell W. Porter, a student in the archi- 

 tectural department of the Institute of Tech- 

 nology, artist and photographer ; Mr. John C. 

 Phillips, student at Harvard, assistant geologist. 

 This party will be landed on the Umanak 

 Fjord, and have planned a topographical survey 

 of a portion of the uncharted northern shore of 

 this fjord, with its main glaciers ; the detailed 

 geological study of these glaciers and measure- 

 ments of their motion ; the determination of the 

 force of gravity and the deflection and dip of the 

 magnetic needle at several different points of 

 the west coast of Greenland. 



We regret to announce that Dr. H. B. Pollard, 

 lecturer on biology and comparative anatomy 

 at Charing Cross Hospital, died on June 14th. 

 Nature states that, elected a scholar of Christ 

 Church, Oxford, in 1885, Dr. Pollard graduated 

 B. M. with first-class honors in morphology in 

 1890,and concurrently gained similar distinction 

 in the London intermediate and final B.Sc. ex- 

 aminations. He subsequently studied for two 

 years under Prof. Wiedersheim at Freiburo- 



and in 1892 was appointed to the Oxford table 

 at Dr. Dohrn's laboratory at Naples. In 1893 

 he was elected Berkeley Fellow of the Owens 

 College, Manchester, and in 1895 lecturer at 

 Charing Cross Hospital. He was granted the 

 degree of D.Sc. by London University for a 

 thesis on Polypterus. Dr. Pollard made a 

 special study of fish, and in a series of papers 

 contributed to German scientific periodicals he 

 originated a theory of their development which 

 has received considerable attention from biolo- 

 gists. He was writing a text-book on the sub- 

 ject at the time of his death, which took place 

 at Dover, in his twenty-eighth year. He was 

 apparently stunned by a fall while bathing and 

 drowned. 



CoMO is the birthplace of Volta, and will cele- 

 brate in 1899 the 100th anniversary of his in- 

 vention of the voltaic battery by an electrical 

 exhibition and congress. 



The President of the New York Board of 

 Health has reported to the Mayor that the 

 death rate of New York during the first six 

 months of the year 1896 is less than for the 

 same period in any recent year. The deaths 

 reported and the death rate since 1890 are as 

 follows: 



Deaths reported Death 



Jan. 1 to June 30. rate. 



1891 22,495 27.11 



1892 22,953 26.88 



1893 23,734 27.00 



1894 *...• 21,555 23.83 



1895 22,355 23.79 



1896 21,585 22.32 



The President of the National Geographic 

 Society, the Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, has is- 

 sued a circular giving a synopsis of a popular 

 course of lectures for 1896-7. ' 'The course will 

 show the effects of environment on the devel- 

 opment of civilization from the earliest to the 

 most recent times, as illustrated by different 

 peoples and races, and also the geographic 

 agencies and conditions which have shaped hu- 

 man progress, and the forces which, affecting 

 institutions, industries, arts, commerce and re- 

 ligion, have contributed to the development of 

 the successive stages of civilization." In addi- 

 tion to the first lecture, which will be of a gen- 

 eral character, opening the course and explain- 



