310 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 



fices on the part of a few. We venture, how- 

 ever, to ask those members of the Association 

 who can to subscribe to the Journal. Some 

 of those who are already subscribers may be 

 willing to make one or more additional sub- 

 scriptions to be used in sending the Journal to 

 members of the Association who cannot them- 

 selves afford the subscription. 



GENERAL. 



The Paris Academy of Sciences undertook, 

 on the occasion of the Hundredth Anniversary 

 of the death of Lavoisier in 1894, to erect a 

 monument in his honor. An international sub- 

 scription was opened, and the Academy has just 

 published the subscriptions received up to 

 August 1st of the present year. The names 

 of the subscribers fill fifty pages, the sum so far 

 collected being 47,553.30 fr. We note that the 

 Academy is not without patriotism. Alsace is 

 given the rank of one of the leading nations, 

 being placed between France and Germany, It 

 is a matter for great regret that only the small 

 sum of 500 fr. has been subscribed in the United 

 States, and of this one-fifth is from a zoologist, 

 one-fifth from an electrician and one-tenth 

 from an economist. The subscription is not yet 

 closed, the French Minister of Public Instruc- 

 tion, the City of Paris, the Emperor of Eussia 

 and other individuals and institutions intending 

 to assist. It is consequently not too late for 

 subscriptions to be forwarded from America, 

 and it is much to be hoped that the American 

 Chemical Society will undertake to see "that 

 America is better represented than a country 

 such as Servia on the final list. 



The Critic^ which early in the summer pub- 

 lished a list of large gifts to American colleges, 

 gives in its current issue from official sources a 

 corresponding list of large gifts and bequests to 

 libraries. The largest of these are as follows : 

 New York Free Library, from members of the 

 Astor family, about $1,650,000 ; from James 

 Lennox, $735,000, in addition to books and land; 

 from the Tilden estate, $2,000,000 ; John Crerar 

 Library, of Chicago, from the founder, about 

 $2,700,000 ; Newberry Library, of Chicago, from 

 the founder, about $2,500,000; Carnegie Li- 

 brary, of Pittsburg, from the founder, $2,100,- 



000 ; Enoch Pratt Free Library, of Baltimore, 

 from the founder, about $1,080,000 ; Library 

 Co., of Philadelphia, from the founder, Dr. 

 Rush, about $1,060,000 ; President Low's gift 

 of $1,000,000 for the Library of Columbia Uni- 

 versity is omitted from the list. 



Prof. W. A. Herdman has contributed to 

 Nature a further account of the arrangments for 

 the approaching meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion. Programs of the excursions arranged for 

 four of the sections are given, and an article on 

 the scientific work of the sections is promised 

 for the following week. The Local Secretaries 

 hope to secure Dr. Nansen's presence at the 

 meeting. Before he sailed in the Fram, Nan- 

 sen promised a Liverpool shipowner that be 

 would visit him immediately on his return. He 

 has now been reminded of that promise by tele- 

 gram to Vardo. 



The American Social Science Association met 

 at Saratoga, beginning on Monday evening, Au- 

 gust 31st. The program is a strong one, demon- 

 strating most clearly the needless weakness of 

 Section ' I ' of the American Association. Steps 

 should be taken to secure, if possible, an aflSlia- 

 tion between the Social Science Association and 

 the American Association. 



The death is announced by cablegram of 

 Nicolas Rudinger, professor of anatomy at 

 Munich. He was sixty-four years of age. We 

 also learn with regret of the death of Dr. H. E. 

 Beyrich, professor of geology and paleontology ^ 

 at Berlin. 



According to Popular Astronomy, Professor 

 A. Hall, Jr., director of the observatory of the 

 University of Michigan, has secured an exten- 

 sive series of observations of Polaris for latitude 

 variation. He is also engaged on the division 

 errors of the meridian circle, as no examination 

 of the errors has been made for a long time. 



We are glad to notice, in Appleton' s Popular 

 Science Mouthy for September, the beginning of 

 a series of articles on ' The Vivisection Ques- 

 tion,' by Prof. C. F. Hodge, of Clark Univer- 

 sity. Prof. Hodge is, himself, making experi- 

 ments on the lower animals which alone will 

 probably alleviate more human and animal suf- 

 fering than has been caused by all the vivi- 

 section experiments that have ever been made. 



