August 14, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



197 



series. He left the city August 3d and proposed 

 spending August in the field, giving a week in 

 the early part of the month to investigations in 

 the slate-belt of western Vermont and eastern 

 New York with Prof J. F. Kemp and T. Nel- 

 son Dale, and, later, going west and working 

 in the mountain regions of Nevada and central 

 Colorado. 



Prof. Charles S. Peosser is in charge of 

 the party studying the Permian and Lower 

 Cretaceous formations of central and southern 

 Kansas for the Kansas Geological Survey. 



Charles Griffin & Co. have published the 

 thirteenth annual issue of the Year-Book of the 

 scientific and learned societies of Great Britain 

 and Ireland. The work, which extends to 262 

 pages, gives the officers of the various societies 

 and the papers read before them during 1895. 

 The information is in most cases contributed by 

 the societies and ofiers an accurate and com- 

 prehensive survey of the contemporary condi- 

 tion of science and the arts in the British Is- 

 lands. The number of difl^erent societies is very 

 great, and the amount of work accomplished is 

 almost bewildering. A similar Year-Book for 

 America would prove useful, but we fear its 

 contents would be small in comparison. 



Mr. Henry Harben recently established a 

 lectureship, under the auspices of the British 

 Institute of Public Health, of the annual value 

 of fifty guineas, ' for the encouragement of 

 original research in connection with public 

 health, ' the lecturer to deliver three lectures in 

 the course of the year. Mr. Harben founded 

 at the same time a gold medal of the value of 

 fifty guineas, to be awarded annually for ' emi- 

 nent services to public health.' The medal has 

 been awarded to Sir John Simon, and Dr. Klein 

 has been chosen for the first lecturer. Dr. 

 Klein took as subjects for his lectures 'Recent 

 Research in the Identification of the Typhoid 

 Bacillus' and 'The Cholera Vibrio.' 



We take the following items from Natural 

 Science: Leon Diguet, who has recently re- 

 turned from a scientific exploration in Mexico, 

 is being set out again by the French Minister of 

 Public Instruction. He proposes to study the 

 Indians of Guadalajara, Sinaloa and Sonora, as 

 well as the Cahuila Indians of S. California. 



Dr. M. Raciborski, of Munich, has been sent 

 to the Buitenzorg Botanical Gardens. Prof. 

 V. F. Brotherus, of Helsingfors, has gone to 

 Central Asia to work out the bryological moun- 

 tain flora of Issikul. A party of four, under 

 the direction of Mr. T. H. Mobley, will start 

 from Lacomb, Alberta, to explore northern 

 ('anada from Edmonton to the Arctic Sea. The 

 trip is to occupy two years. Mr. J. C. Willis, 

 late Frank Smart Student of Caius College, 

 Cambridge, has been appointed Director of the 

 Royal Botanic Gardens of Ceylon. 



The first brochure of the third volume of the 

 Proceedings of the Rochester Academy of Science^ 

 recently published, is a monograph of 150 pages, 

 containing a study of the Plants of Monroe 

 County, N. Y., and Adjacent Territory, by Flor- 

 ence Beckwith and Mary E. Macauley, assisted 

 by Joseph B. Fuller. The list aims to include 

 the names of flowering plants growing without 

 cultivation in Monroe county and adjoining 

 counties, the area in general being the lower 

 drainage basin of the Genesee River, with that 

 of Irondequoit Creek and smaller streams upon 

 the lake border, and it is believed to be nearly 

 complete for Monroe county. A map is ap- 

 pended designed to serve as a guide to the 

 region. The total number of species native to 

 the Monroe flora is 948 ; the introduced species 

 number 250, making a total of 1198 species. 

 There are 103 native and 13 introduced varie- 

 ties, making in all 1304 species and varieties, of 

 which 1208 are found in Monroe County. The 

 monograph includes a full bibliography and an 

 index to orders and genera. 



The London Times states that the additions 

 to the museum of Royal College of Surgeons of 

 England during the past collegiate year have 

 been numerous and valuable. In the depart- 

 ment of human and comparative anatomy the 

 most noticeable addition is a magnificent speci- 

 men of the gigantic extinct bird, the Moa (Dinor- 

 nis maximus), from the South Island, New Zea- 

 land. It was obtained through the kindness of 

 Mr. Hutton, of Canterbury, New Zealand. 

 This skeleton is especially interesting, as pos- 

 sessing both coraco-scapulars and both big toes. 

 Neither of these are present in the specimen in 

 the British Museum. Professor Charles Stewart, 



