238 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 267. 



tions of the past year. Professor Marey suc- 

 ceeds him iu the presidency and Professor 

 Guyon has been elected vice-president. 



The annual general meeting of the Neu' 

 rological Society of London was arranged for 

 February 8th, when it was expected that the 

 president-elect, Dr. A. D. Waller, F.E.S., would 

 deliver an address on the ' Excitability of 

 Nervous Matter, with special reference to the 

 Retina.' 



Wb regret to learn of the death of Mr. John 

 Bernard Stallo, who died at Florence, on Jan- 

 uary 6th. He was born in Oldenburg in 1823, 

 and came to the United States when he was 

 sixteen years old. Mr. Stallo was a lawyer by 

 profession, had been a judge at Cincinnati, 

 Ohio, and had been minister of the United 

 States at Rome, and had lived in Italy since 1885. 

 He was the author of a volume in the Inter- 

 national Scientific Series entitled, ' The Con- 

 cepts and Theories of Modern Physics,' which 

 is in many ways a remarkable and important 

 work. He was also the author of ' General 

 Principles of the Philosophy of Nature,' and 

 ' Redung. Abhandlungen und Briefe.' 



A TELEGRAM has been received at Harvard 

 College Observatory from Professor Kreutz, at 

 Kiel Observatory, stating that a comet was dis- 

 covered by Giacobini at Nice, January 31'^ 

 .292 Greenwich Mean Time in R. A. 2" 57" 44 

 and Dec. — 7° 55'. 



A COMMITTEE of the Pan-American Medical 

 Congress has asked the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture to cooperate with other nations in 

 an investigation of the medicinal flora of the 

 United States, and Secretary Wilson has asked 

 for an appropriation of $10,000 for this purpose. 



On the 21st of February the Senate com- 

 mittee on the District of Columbia will hold a 

 hearing on the subject of the anti-vivisection bill 

 now pending before the Senate. This hearing 

 will be attended by leading advocates of vivi- 

 section from all parts of the country, as well as 

 by those who favor the pending bill. Dr. W. 

 W. Keen, president of the American Bledical 

 Association, has published in the Philadelphia 

 Medical Journal an appeal to the medical pro- 

 fession of the United States in regard to the 

 bill. Dr. Keen in his appeal states that the 



"Bill is speciously drawn to seem as if it were 

 intended only in the interest of prevention of 

 cruelty to animals," that the "real object of 

 the Bill is twofold : first, to prohibit vivisection, 

 and secondly, to aid the passage of similar Bills 

 in all the State Legislatures." He says "that 

 this would seriously interfere with, or even ab- 

 solutely stop, the experimental work of the 

 Bureau of Animal Industry, and the three med- 

 ical departments of the Government — the Army, 

 the Navy and the Marine Hospital Service." 

 He therefore appeals ' ' to the entire profession 

 of the country to exert themselves to the ut- 

 most to defeat this most cruel and inhuman 

 eflFort to promote human and animal misery and 

 death, and to restrict scientific research." 



The Senate Committee on Commerce, on 

 February 1st, practically decided on a favor- 

 able report upon the bill creating a department 

 of commerce, but owing to the desire to change 

 some of the details of the measure, it will not 

 be reported for some time. 



At a recent meeting of the Board of Trustees 

 of the University of Wyoming, the herbarium 

 connected with this institution was officially 

 recognized as The Rocky Mountain Herbarium, 

 and Dr. Aven Nelson, professor of botany in 

 the University, was named curator. The object 

 of the herbarium is to make an accessible and 

 serviceable collection of the plants of the Rocky 

 Mountains. The collection will be a general 

 one but plants of economic importance will 

 have special attention. It is especially desired 

 to represent fully forage of all kinds, useful and 

 ornamental trees and shrubs, and herbaceous 

 plants which are of interest to the gardener or 

 are desirable for the decoration of the home 

 grounds. Besides these the parasitic fungi and 

 the fleshy fungi are to be fully represented. 

 The present collection numbers nearly 18,000 

 sheets. The cooperation of botanists and col- 

 lectors is requested. Sets of plants collected in 

 the Trans-Mississippi portion of the United 

 States are especially desired as well as co-types 

 or representative specimens of new species from 

 this region. Correspondence concerning speci- 

 mens and exchanges should be directed to the 

 curator. 



Plans are being made for the enlargement 



