October 2, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



493 



details of the meeting will be communicated to 

 the fellows of the Society in a circular to be 

 issued about November 1st. 



Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, has just returned from a 

 remarkably successful collecting season in New 

 Mexico and Arizona. Three ancient villages 

 (Homolobi, Chevlon and Chaves) were explored 

 and extensive excavations were made, more 

 than fifty boxes of pottery and other relics being 

 brought to light and shipped to the National 

 Museum. The collection is remarkably rich, 

 not only in the number of pieces, but in the high 

 grade of the ware and the elaborate symbolic 

 decoration painted on most of the vessels. Dr. 

 Fewkes' collection of last year, in the same 

 region, was the finest ever made in America up 

 to that date ; yet this year's collection is twice 

 as large and no less instructive in its symbolism 

 and associations. 



The Public Works Department of the Govern- 

 ment of Bengal has just issued a most valuable 

 * List of Ancient Monuments in Bengal, revised 

 and corrected up to August 31st, 1895 ' (Cal- 

 cutta). The particulars given are the name of 

 the monument, the district and locality in which 

 it is placed, the history or tradition regarding 

 it, its custody or present use, its state of preserva- 

 tion, and suggestions for its conservation and 

 references to particulars describing the monu- 

 ment. 



Mr. a. Trevor Battye has arrived in Eng- 

 land after his explorations of Spitzbergen. He 

 believes that the crossing of Spitzbergen by Sir 

 Conway Martin will lead to great saving of life, 

 because a route has now been laid down by 

 which a crossing may be eflfected in a few days 

 to the west, where the water always opens 

 early in the summer. This point is Advent 

 Bay, where a wooden house has lately been 

 erected, in which it is hoped supplies of food 

 may be kept against future emergencies. 



Nature states that it was announced, at a 

 banquet given to Dr. Nansen, September 10th, 

 that a Nansen fund had been formed for the 

 advancement of science. Subscriptions to the 

 amount of 210,000 kroners had already been 

 received. 



Capt. Peary has telegraphed to the New 



York Sun a detailed account of his expedition 

 on the steamship 'Hope,' which arrived at 

 North Sydney, Cape Breton, on September 

 26th. The trip was without special event. It 

 was not found possible to secure the large 

 meteorite, as the apparatus was broken in the 

 attempt to dislodge it from the frozen ground. 

 Of the scientific parties, that under Prof. R. S. 

 Tarr was landed at Melville Bay, that of Prof. 

 George H. Barton near Disco Island, and that 

 of Prof. Alfred Burton at Omanak, and accom- 

 plished the scientific work that they had plan- 

 ned. The contents of over a hundred cases 

 will, through the interest of its President, Mr. 

 Morris K. Jesup, enrich the collections of the 

 American Museum of Natural History with 

 much valuable material. The past winter in 

 Greenland has been one of unusual severity, 

 and the summer has been marked by much 

 wind and an unusual amount of exceptionally 

 heavy ice, particularly along the west side. 



It is reported in the daily papers that Dr. 

 Lewis Swift, of Echo Mountain, Cal., discov- 

 ered on September 20th a small, bright comet 

 near the sun, one degree east of it. On Sep- 

 tember 21st the object was north of the sun 

 and fainter. 



The French Congress of Medicine will be 

 held at Montpellier in 1898, during the Easter 

 holidays, under the Presidency of Prof. Bern- 

 heim, of Nancy. The annual Congress of French 

 Alienists and Neurologists will be held at Tou- 

 louse in 1897. 



Sir John Eric Ericksen died at Folkestone 

 on September 23d at the age of seventy-eight 

 years. Ericksen was an eminent English sur- 

 geon and the author of many works gn surgery 

 and physiology. He was at the time of his 

 death emeritus professor of surgery and con- 

 sulting surgeon to University Hospital, a fel- 

 low of the Eoyal Society and many other scien- 

 tific and medical associations and had been 

 President of the Royal College of Surgeons. 



A despatch from Jiminez, Mex., says that 

 Emile Renbaugh, a German naturalist, who 

 had been spending the summer in the Sierra 

 Madre Mountains, has been killed by accident- 

 ally falling from a cliflf. 



George F. H. Markoe, a chemist and pro- 



