July 15, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



95 



E. Plospitalier for his works on the study 

 of phenomena which by their rapidity and 

 frequency baffle ordinary methods of anal- 

 ysis. 



Mr. pi. C. Eussell, government astronomel^ 

 of New South Wales, will retire at the end of 

 the present year, after a service of forty-sis 

 years. 



Dr. a. p. Luff has resigned his appoint- 

 ment as scientific analyst to the Home Office 

 of the British government. Dr. W. H. Wil- 

 cox has been recommended by the Council of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 

 as his successor. 



Dr. JoHjf Bell Hatcher, curator of verte- 

 brate zoology at the Carnegie Museum, Pitts- 

 burg, died on July 4 from typhoid fever, at 

 the age of forty-six years. 



We regret to record the death of M. Anatole 

 de Barthelemy, the eminent French archeol- 

 ogist, at the age of eighty-three years; 

 of Dr. W. Weiss, professor of mathematics 

 at the German Technological Institute of 

 Prague, on June 18, at the age of forty- 

 five years; of Dr. V. Merz, formerly professor 

 of chemistry at Zurich; of Dr. Gilles de la 

 Tourette, the well-known French alienist; of 

 Mr. Edward Trimmer, for thirty-six years 

 secretary of the Royal College of Surgeons, 

 England; and of Lieutenant-General Dubro- 

 vin, who was for a long time secretary of the 

 Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Peters- 

 burg. 



The Geographical Magazine states that the 

 Russian Geographical Society, with the aid 

 of money subscribed by a private person, is 

 organizing a new expedition for the explora- 

 tion of the northern coasts of Siberia, between 

 the Yenisei and the Lena. The head of the 

 expedition will be M. Tolmacheff, already 

 known for his journeys and explorations in 

 Russian Asia. 



In January, 1905, the Bombay branch of 

 the Royal Asiatic Society proposes to cele- 

 brate the centenary of its foundation by a 

 public gathering, at which papers will be read 

 and an exhibition of the possessions of the 

 society held. 



The International Astronomical Congress 

 will meet at Lund, Sweden, beginning on 

 September 5. 



The subject of the essays for the Howard 

 medal of the Royal Statistical Society for 

 1905 will be ' A Critical Inquiry into the 

 Comparative Prevalence of Lunacy and other 

 Mental Defects in the United Kingdom dur- 

 ing the last 50 years.' 



A conversazione of the Institution of Elec- 

 trical Engineers was held on June 28 in the 

 Natural History Museum, London. The 

 guests, who numbered about 1,500, were re- 

 ceived by Mr. R. K. Gray, president, and Mr. 

 Alexander Siemens, president-elect. 



A CABLEGEAji to the daily papers from Lon- 

 don, dated July 8, says that the annual report 

 of the Cancer Research Fund was submitted 

 at the third annual meeting. It stated that 

 the investigations of the year had resulted in 

 discoveries having an important bearing on 

 several crucial problems in connection with 

 the disease, knowledge of which had been 

 greatly increased. Briefly and untechnically 

 stated the new facts are that cancer pervades 

 the whole civilized and uncivilized world. 

 Hence it is not, as was supposed, a product 

 of civilization. It affects animals as well as 

 human beings, and also fishes. It attacks all 

 subjects at relatively the same age. It is not 

 infectious and is not transmissible from one 

 species to another. The cancer cell can reac- 

 quire powers of self-propagation. Cancer is 

 not attributable to a parasite. It is not in- 

 creasing. Experiments have not shown that 

 radium exercises a curative effect. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

 By the death of Mrs. Susan W. Clark, Clark 

 University will receive $400,000, left in trust 

 for her use, and a further sum of $50,000 to 

 $75,000 from her estate. 



Mr. John D. Rockefeller has given Deni- 

 son Baptist University, Newark, Ohio, $100,- 

 000. 



It is reported that the Sheffield Scientific 

 School, Tale University, will have a large en- 



