January 19, 1900.] 



SCIENCE 



117 



of stations was 54. Their total income was 

 somewhat over $1,200,000, of which $720,000 

 was received under the Hatch Act (in addition 

 to $35,000 for this office) and $480,000 from 

 State governments and other local sources. The 

 number of officers had increased to 669. 



With the increase in the number of the sta- 

 tions and the enlargement of their resources, 

 there has been a corresponding increase in the 

 number and variety of their publications, and 

 these have been more thoroughly distributed 

 each year. Besides the vast amount of agricul- 

 tural information which has thus been generally 

 diffused among our farmers, either directly 

 through station publications, or indirectly 

 through the public press, more than iifty books 

 on strictly agricultural subjects have been writ- 

 ten by station men during the past ten years, 

 and the results of the work of the stations are 

 being largely incorporated in books whose 

 authors are not connected with the stations. It 

 requires only a superficial retrospect to discover 

 a very remarkable difference in the freshness of 

 material and the thoroughness of treatment of 

 the published information available to our far- 

 mers ten years ago and that which is at their 

 command to-day. It is most encouraging to 

 observe that, despite the pessimistic predictions 

 in certain quartei-s, the output of carefully pre- 

 pared books for the farmer's use has notably 

 increased within the past few years, and Amer- 

 ican books for the American farmer are written 

 from an American standpoint, and on the basis 

 of accurate information obtained by American 

 investigators. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



We regret to record the death in New York 

 on January 15th of Dr. Thomas Egleston, emer- 

 itus professor of mineralogy and metallurgy in 

 Columbia University. 



At the January meeting of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, Professor 

 William M. Davis was chosen corresponding 

 secretary in the place of Mr. Samuel H. Scud- 

 der, resigned. 



M. M]6eay has been elected a correspondent 

 of the section of geometry of the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences. 



Professor Kontgen, who has accepted the 



call to the University of Munich, has been ap- 

 pointed director of the State Institute of physics 

 and metrology. 



Mr. W. N. Shaw, of Emanuel College, Cam- 

 bridge, has been chosen to succeed Mr. Scott 

 at the British Meteorological Office. 



MM. Radau and Bigouedan have been pre- 

 sented by the Paris Academy of Sciences to the 

 Minister of Public Instruction, who will select 

 one to fill the vacancy in the Bureau des Longi- 

 tudes, caused by the death of M. Tisserand. 



Professor G. Frederick Wright, of Ober- 

 lin College, has been given a leave of absence for 

 a year and three months. He will make geologic 

 studies in the Sandwich Islands, Japan, Russia, 

 Egypt, Italy and other countries. 



On the twenty-fourth of December, 1899, 

 the Physico-Mathematic Society, of Kazan, 

 Russia, celebrated a jubilee in honor of the 

 twenty-fifth year of professorial and scientific 

 service of its President, Professor A. Vasiliev. 

 It is also the fifteenth year of his presidency. 

 Professor Vasiliev has been an important figure 

 in Russian science. His discourse on Lobach- 

 evski has been translated into English by Pro- 

 fessor Halsted, and a German translation of his 

 book on ' Tchebychev ' is to be published this 

 month by Teubner at Leipzig. The first volume 

 of an edition of 'Tchebychev'sCoUected Works,' 

 in French, has just appeared, edited by the 

 Academicians Markof and Sonine. It contains 

 a fine portrait of the great mathematician and 

 the first thirty-four memoirs of Vasiliev's list. 



The two books, Whitehead's ' Universal Alge- 

 bra' and Killing's 'Einfiihruug in die Grundlagen 

 der Geometric,' which were particularly signal- 

 ized in Professor Halsted' s Report on Progress 

 in Non-Euclidean Geometry recently published 

 in this Journal, have been entered in compe- 

 tition for the Lobachevski prize of 1900. 



The American Society of Naval Engineers 

 has awarded its first prize for the best technical 

 essay submitted to Professor W. F. Durand of 

 Cornell University, for his paper on ' Electrical 

 Propulsion for Torpedo Boats.' The prize con- 

 sists of a substantial compensation, life mem- 

 bership in the Society, and a gold medal. The 

 second prize has been awarded to D. C. Ball, 

 late of the Engineer Corps, and now a consult- 



