December 23, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



895 



Mr. Luther Burbank, the well-known Cali- 

 fornia expert on plant-breeding, lias been ap- 

 pointed a special lecturer at Stanford Univer- 

 sity. It is reported in the daily papers that 

 Mr. Burbank has received a liberal grant 

 from the Carnegie Institution, which will 

 permit him to devote himself to scientific work 

 for the next ten years. 



As already announced, the council of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh has awarded the 

 Gunning Victoria Jubilee prize for 1900-1904 

 to Sir James Dewar. In addition, the council 

 has awarded the Keith prize for 1901-1903 to 

 Sir William Turner for his memoir entitled 

 ' A Contribution to the Craniology of the 

 People of Scotland ' and for his ' Contribu- 

 tions to the Craniology of the People of the 

 Empire of India,' Parts I., II.; the Mak- 

 dougall-Brisbane prize for 1902-1904 to Mr. 

 John Dougall, M.A., for his paper on ' An 

 Analytical Theory of the Equilibrium of an 

 Isotropic Elastic Plate ' ; and the Neill prize 

 for 1901-1904 to Professor J. Graham Kerr, 

 M.A., for his researches on Lepidosiren para- 

 doza. 



The Astley Cooper prize of £300, which is 

 offered triennially for medical research on a 

 specified subject, has been awarded to Mr. 

 W. Sampson Handley, Hunterian professor in 

 the Eoyal College of Surgeons, for an essay 

 entitled ' Epigastric Invasion of the Abdomen 

 in Breast Cancer.' 



Assistant Professor Carl Kinsley, of the 

 department of physics of the University of 

 Chicago, will go abroad on the first of January 

 to spend six months in study at the laboratory 

 of Professor J. J. Thomson in Cambridge. 



Mr. Chas. T. Kirk, a graduate student in 

 geology at the University of Oklahoma, is 

 conducting some investigations on the sub- 

 ject of concretions. He desires to correspond 

 or to exchange specimens with any one inter- 

 ested in this particular subject. 



Professor Hely-Shaw, who has held the 

 chair of engineering for the past twenty years 

 at Liverpool, has accepted the post of prin- 

 cipal organizer under the Transvaal Tech- 

 nical Council. 



The death is announced of Miss Achsah M. 

 Ely, since 1887 professor of mathematics at 

 Vassar College. 



We regret also to record the death of Dr. 

 Karl Ueberhorst, professor of philosophy at 

 the University of Innsbruck. 



Several specimens of native gold, some of 

 especial value on account of their crystalline 

 form, have disappeared from the mineral cab- 

 inet of one of the leading educational institu- 

 tions. Collectors and curators of museums 

 are respectfully asked to report to Pinkerton's 

 Detective Agency any information that may 

 lead to the identification of the thief or to the 

 discovery of the whereabouts of the specimens. 



It is said that Mr. Andrew Carnegie has 

 given $540,000 for the establishment in Boston 

 of an institute similar to Cooper Institute, 

 which is to be added to a fund of $270,000, 

 which has grown from $5,000 left one hundred 

 years ago by Benjamin Franklin. 



The constitutional amendment exempting 

 the California Academy of Sciences from 

 further taxation was carried at the election 

 November 8, 1904, by a majority of nearly 

 11,000. 



The seventh biennial convention of the So- 

 ciety of the Sigma Xi will be held on Thurs- 

 day evening, December 29, 1904, at eight 

 o'clock in the auditorium of Houston Hall, 

 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 



A western meeting of the American Phys- 

 ical Society is to be held in the Ryerson Phys- 

 ical Laboratory on April 22, 1905. The ar- 

 rangement of the program is in the hands of 

 Professor Robert A. Millikan, of the depart- 

 ment of physics of the University of Chicago. 



The Pele Club will hold its third annual 

 session at Philadelphia, on the evening of De- 

 cember 28. The organization hopes to be of 

 service to the science of geography in collect- 

 ing and studying phenomena. 



We learn from the British Medical Journal 

 that a meeting of medical men was held in 

 Paris on November 25, when it was resolved 

 to invite British physicians and surgeons to 

 pay a return visit to Paris. Professor Bouch- 

 ard, member of the Institut, was elected presi- 

 dent of the Paris committee, and the opinion 



