774 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 518. 



the Department of Chemistry at the Univer- 

 sity of Alabama and a volunteer on the stafi 

 of the Geological Survey. From 1883 to the 

 time of his death he was chief assistant on the 

 Geological Survey, in which capacity he 

 traveled over the greater part of the state, 

 and prepared reports dealing mainly with the 

 coal and iron. He was secretary and treasurer 

 of the Alabama Industrial and Scientific So- 

 ciety; member of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science; member of 

 the American Institute of Mining Engineers, 

 and fellow of the Geological Society of 

 America. 



The deaths are announced of Forstineister 

 Schering, formerly professor of mathematics 

 and geodesy in the School of Forestry at 

 Munich; and of Dr. Francesco Chizzoni, pro- 

 fessor of geometry at Modena. 



We regret also to record the death of Dr. 

 Karl Senhofer professor of chemistry at the 

 University of Innsbriick; of M. J. Mace de 

 Lepinay, professor of physics, and of M. Pau- 

 chon, professor of agricultural botany, both of 

 Marseilles. 



Mr. Otto Young has donated $100,000 to 

 the endowment or building fund of the Mc- 

 Cormick Memorial Institute for Infectious 

 Diseases, Chicago. 



Nature states that Mr. James Cosmo Mel- 

 vill has presented his general herbarium to 

 the Manchester Museum of the Victoria Uni- 

 versity. The herbarium has taken nearly 

 forty years to collect, and it was formally 

 opened in its new quarters by Sir W. T. 

 Thistelton-Dyer, K.C.M.G., on October 31. 



The teachers of mathematics in the Mid- 

 dle States and Maryland met at Princeton on 

 November 28. Professor Gustave Legras of 

 the College of the City of New York, who is 

 chairman of the New York section of the 

 Association, read a paper on ' Present Ten- 

 dencies in the Teaching of Mathematics in 

 Other Countries.' 



The annual meeting of the Association of 

 Mathematical Teachers in New England was 

 held at Harvard University. William A. 

 Francis of Exeter, N. H., was elected presi- 

 dent. Professor Nathaniel F. Davis of Brown 



University vice president and Mr. George W. 

 Evans of the English High School, Boston, 

 secretary. 



We learn from Nature that the inaugural 

 meeting of the Association of Economic Biol- 

 ogists was held at Burlington House on Tues- 

 day, November 8. Mr. F. V. Theobald occu- 

 pied the chair, and in the course of his 

 introductory remarks he detailed the steps 

 taken by Mr. Walter E. Collinge to found the 

 association. He hoped that the association 

 would welcome all investigators in economic 

 biology, whether agricultural, medical or com- 

 mercial. The relationship between biology 

 and agriculture was apparent to all, but only 

 recently had the importance of its relation- 

 ships with medicine and commerce been real- 

 ized. Membership of the association will be 

 confined to workers in economic biology. The 

 following officers have been elected for 1904-5 : 

 president, Mr. Fred V. Theobald; vice-presi- 

 dent, Mr. A. F. Shipley, F.E.S. ; council. Pro- 

 fessor G. S. Boulger, Professor A. H. R. 

 Buller, Professor Geo. H. Carpenter, Dr. 

 Francis Marshall, Mr.- Robert Newstead, 

 Major Ronald Ross, F.R.S., Mr. Eraser Storey, 

 Mr. Cecil Warburton; hon. treasurer, Mr. 

 Herbert Stone; ho7i. secretary, Mr. Walter E. 

 Collinge. The next meeting will be held at 

 Birmingham in April, 1905: 



The forthcoming second edition of the Ger- 

 man version of Mr. Balfour's presidential ad- 

 dress to the British Association has brought, 

 as we learn from the London Times, to the 

 translator, Dr. M. Ernst, London correspon- 

 dent of the Neues Wiener Taghlatt, the fol- 

 lowing letter from the Prime Minister: 



10, Downing-street, Whitehall, S. W., 



Nov. 10, 1904. 



My dear Sir: — I am much gratified to learn 

 that there has been a sufficient demand for the 

 German translation of my address to the British 

 Association to make it worth while to issue a 

 second edition; and all the more because the ad- 

 dress touches on a middle region between physical 

 science and philosophy, in which, as a rule, neither 

 men of science nor philosophers are greatly inter- 

 ested. 



At Cambridge, where the address was delivered, 

 I had the honour of meeting some most distin- 

 guished German men of science, who took an im- 



