February 2, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



197 



ing form, while relieved from the need, which 

 they have experienced during the past ten 

 years, of withholding a large part of the current 

 revenue annually for the protection of this 

 property whenever the improvement of the 

 streets through it should be ordered by the city. 

 As a first step in the marked advance to be 

 looked for, the Trustees have authorized the 

 immediate grading of about twenty acres of 

 ground adjoining the present Garden, according 

 to plans prepared some years since by Olmsted, 

 Olmsted & Eliot, the intention being to plant 

 this area as a permanent addition to the 

 grounds, in such a way as to add greatly to 

 their attractiveness and to present in a compact 

 form the leading features of the North Amer- 

 ican flora, which it is proposed to arrange 

 essentially in the well-known botanical sequence 

 of Bentham and Hooker ; while some eighty 

 acres adjoining are expected to be improved 

 within a few years, in accordance with plans 

 furnished by the same landscape architects, in 

 such a manner as to represent as many as pos- 

 sible of the natural orders of plants, so ar- 

 ranged as to exemplify the more modern classi- 

 fication of Engler and Prantl. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



The American Academy of Arts and Sciences 

 has granted from the income of the Rumford 

 fund $500 to Professor B. C. Pickering, for the 

 purpose of carrying out an investigation on the 

 brightness of faint stars by cooperation with 

 certain observatories possessing large telescopes, 

 and $100 to Professor T. W. Richards, in aid of 

 a research on the transition points of crystal- 

 lized salts. 



Colonel F. F. Hilder, of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, has just been detailed as 

 a special agent of the Government Board of the 

 Pan-American Exposition, to visit the Philip- 

 pines, for the purpose of making scientific and 

 especially ethnologic collections. It is his plan 

 to visit as many of the islands as practicable 

 before the opening of the rainy season, and 

 make collections illustrating the industries, 

 modes of life and social conditions prevailing 

 among both the wild and settled tribes. 



Mk. Edward G. Gardiner, Secretary of the 



Marine Biological Laboratory, accompanied by 

 Mr. George M. Grey, Collector and Curator of 

 the Supply Department, have left for Puerto 

 Rico for a few week's tour along certain por- 

 tions of the coast, with the intention of exam- 

 ining and making collections of the marine 

 fauna. Mr. Gardiner expects to have the com- 

 panionship and assistance of Admiral Grinell, 

 retired, who is familiar with the language and 

 mode of life in this island. 



Sir Michael Foster, professor of physiology 

 in the University of Cambridge, one of the sec- 

 retaries of the Royal Society and last year 

 president of the British Association, has con- 

 sented to become a candidate for the University 

 of London's seat in Parliament, vacant by the 

 elevation of Sir John Lubbock to the peerage. 



The Hon. Richard Olney has been appointed 

 to the vacancy in the Board of Regents of the 

 Smithsonian Institution caused by the death of 

 D. P. Johnston. 



Dr. H. C. Bolton has been elected president 

 of the Chemical Society of Washington, and Mr. 

 Whitman Cross president of the Geological So- 

 ciety of Washington. 



Professor Milne-Edwards has been elected 

 vice-president of the Paris Academy of Sciences. 



Dr. F. Freiherr von Richthofen, profes- 

 sor of geography at Berlin, has been given the 

 Bavarian Maximilian order for art and science. 



Dr. E. R. Schneider, professor of chemistry 

 at Berlin, has been given an order of the crown 

 on the occasion of the celebration of the fiftieth 

 anniversary of his doctorate. The same order 

 has been given to Dr. Felix Klein, professor of 

 mathematics at Gottingen. 



M. Th. Ribot, professor of psychology of the 

 College de France, has been elected to the chair 

 of the Paris Academy of Moral Sciences made 

 vacant by the death of M. Nourrisson. 



Professor Henry S. Carhart of the de- 

 partment of physics of the University of Michi- 

 gan, who has been spending the year in Ger- 

 many, is now in Ziirich studying the subject of 

 electrical engineering with Professor Weber. 



Professor W. P. Mason, of the Rensselaer 

 Polytechnic Institute, has gone te Europe to be 

 absent until May. 



