Septejiber 6, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



381 



AccoKDiNG to the N. Y. Medical News a 

 systematic plan for the extermination of mos- 

 quitoes has been inaugurated by the residents 

 on the north shore of Long Island from Rosyln 

 to Huntingdon. The immediate work to be 

 undertaken will be in charge of Messrs, A. C. 

 Weeks and F. E. Lutz, of the University of 

 Chicago, who will work in conjunction with Dr. 

 Chas. B. Davenport, director of the Biological 

 Laboratory of Cold Spring Harbor. 



It has been decided that the commission to 

 be sent out by the Liverpool, Manchester and 

 London Chambers of Commerce to investigate 

 the conditions of health and sanitation in West 

 Africa shall consist of one member from each 

 of the three chambers of commerce and of a 

 sanitary engineer. In addition. Major Ronald 

 Ross has been requested to attach himself to 

 the commission as expert in tropical medicine. 



We learn from the Lancet that legal authority 

 has been given for the creation of a fund for 

 scientific research in France. It is divided 

 into two sections, and its object is the promo- 

 tion of purely scientific work relative (1) to the 

 discovery of new methods of treatment of the 

 diseases which attack man, domestic animals, 

 and cultivated plants ; and (2) to the discovery, 

 apart from the medical sciences, of the laws 

 which govern natural phenomena (mechanics, 

 astronomy, natural history, physics and chem- 

 istry). The income of the fund will be derived 

 from the following sources : (1) Grants made by 

 the government, by the departments, by the 

 communes, by the colonies, and by other sec- 

 tions of the population. (2) Gifts and bequests. 

 (3) Individual or collective subscriptions. (4) 

 Grants deducted from the proceeds of the pari- 

 mutuel assigned to philanthropic or charitable 

 purposes locally ; the annual amounts of these 

 grants, which will not be less than 125,000 

 francs, will be fixed each year on the applica- 

 tion of the council of management by the 

 special commission held at the Ministry of 

 Agriculture. (5) Interest of money invested in 

 government securities or deposited with the 

 treasury. The fund is subject to the authority 

 of Ministry of Public Instruction, and is man- 

 aged by a council assisted by a technical com- 

 mission concerned with the gi-ants. 



Nature states that a committee has been ap- 

 pointed by the president of the Board of Trade 

 to inquire and report as to the best means by 

 which the state or local authorities can assist 

 scientific research as applied to problems affect- 

 ing the fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland. 

 The members of the committee are as follows : 

 The Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart ; 

 Mr. Walter E. Archer, Mr. Donald Crawford,, 

 Rev. William Spotswood Green, Professor Wil-- 

 liam Abbott Herdman, the Hon. Thomas H„ 

 W. Pelham, Mr. Stephen E. Spring-Rice, C.B.^, 

 and Professor J. Arthur Thomson. 



The daily papers report the death from yel- 

 low fever of two men and one woman who per- 

 mitted themselves to be bitten by infected mos- 

 quitoes in ord^r to become immune. It should 

 be understood that the trials were not made in 

 order to test the communication of yellow fever 

 by mosquitoes, but they are certainly very con- 

 vincing evidence. It is further reported that 

 the yellow fever commission regards the experi- 

 ments with the Caldas serum as having demon- 

 strated its uselessness and will not supervise any 

 further experiments conducted by Dr. Caldas. 



The Lancet states that the proposal to estab- 

 lish a central pathological laboratory in con- 

 nection with the lunatic asylums of Ireland has 

 taken practical shape by the insertion of a 

 permissive clause in the lunacy bill which has 

 just passed. According to it the committees of 

 any two or more district asylums may, with the 

 consent of the county council, agree to unite 

 ' in providing and maintaining a laboratory for 

 pathological research in connection with in- 

 sanity and nervous diseases,' and the commit- 

 tees of those institutions may defray the 

 expenses incurred. 



A GOVERNMENT laboratory for experimenting 

 with explosives is to be built at Sandy Hook at 

 a cost of 110,000. 



Reuter's Agency announces that the expe- 

 dition under Captain Stoekken arrived at 

 Christiania on August 17, after having explored 

 the south coast of Franz Josef Land. The ex- 

 pedition found no trace of the three lost mem- 

 bers of the Duke of the Abruzzi's expedition. 

 The memorial presented by the Duke was 

 erected on Cape Flora. 



