MARCH 16, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



437 



chair of natural history in the University of 

 Maine, committed suicide on March 6th. Men- 

 tal depression resulting from overwork is as- 

 signed as the cause. He was born in 1850, 

 graduated from the Iowa Agricultural College 

 in 1868 and was appointed professor in the 

 University of Maine in 1886. He was also 

 botanist and entomologist to the Maine Experi- 

 ment Station. 



The death is announced of Senator Beltrami, 

 professor of mathematical physics in the Uni- 

 versity of Rome and president of the Accademia 

 dei Liucei. 



Here Daimler, the inventor of the motor 

 car bearing his name, has died at the age of 66 

 years. His gasoline motor may be regarded as 

 the starting point of the automobile. 



Professor E. B. Feenow of Cornell Uni- 

 versity, lectured at Lehigh University on March 

 9th, his subject being ' The Evolution of the 

 Forest. ' 



Mr. H. F. Newell, hydrographer of the 

 United States Geological Survey, delivered an 

 address before the Engineering Society of Har- 

 vard University, on March 7th, on the investiga- 

 tions being made by the division of hydrog- 

 raphy. 



A BRONZE medallion with a relief portrait of 

 Pasteur has been placed on the house in Strass- 

 burg in which he lived in 1852. 



Mr. Charles Whitehead, who has acted as 

 technical adviser to the British Agricultural 

 Department of the Privy Council, and subse- 

 quently to the Board of Agriculture, during the 

 past fifteen years, has been compelled to resign 

 that appointment owing to ill health. 



Dr. Feidt.top Nansen expects to leave 

 Christiania on May 15th in a specially con- 

 structed vessel to carry out hydrological in- 

 vestigations around Iceland for the Norwegian 

 Government. The expedition will return in 

 the autumn. 



The case of Professor Neisser, of Breslau, 

 accused of making vaccination experiments on 

 human subjects, was again brought up in the 

 Prussian Diet last week. It was reported for 

 the Minister of Education, that the question 

 had been taken up by the state attorney, but 



that prosecution was barred by the statute of 

 limitation. Disciplinary proceedings were, 

 however, in progress. 



We have already noted that Mrs. Caroline 

 Brewer Croft bequeathed $100,000 for researches 

 into the cause and cure of cancer. This be- 

 quest was originally made to Drs. H. K. Oliver 

 and J. C. Warren. They have turned over the 

 bequest to Harvard University, and the medical 

 school has organized the work to be prosecuted. 

 Dr. E. H. Nichols, '86, goes to Europe to study 

 cancer abroad. 



In 1891 Mr. J. W. Charles de Soysa offered a 

 bacteriological institute for Ceylon, but his gift 

 was at the time declined. The offer was, how- 

 ever, repeated in 1897 and then accepted. The 

 Institute, which is very well equipped, was 

 opened by the Governor on January 31st. Dr. 

 Marcus Fernando has been appointed the first 

 director. 



The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences 

 has been granted an appropriation of $300,000 

 for the erection of anew wing for the Museum. 



The estimates for the British Museum have 

 been reduced £1000 for the coming financial 

 year, but the trustees have petitioned Par- 

 liament to reconsider this decision. 



A collection of Irish antiquities, formed 

 during the last seventy years by Mr. T. R. 

 Murray, of Edenderry, has been acquired for 

 Cambridge University by Professor Ridgeway. 



The Ithaca 2)0% News, for March, 6th devotes 

 a number of columns to the publication of let- 

 ters from leading naturalists and educators, 

 advocating the establishment by the New York 

 Legislature of a State Biological Station. 



Mr. R. Horton-Smith, Q.C, M.A., of St. 

 John's College, Cambridge, has offered to the 

 University a fund of about £600 for the establish- 

 ment of a prize for medicine and pathology, in 

 memory of his son Raymond Horton-Smith, 

 M.B., who, after a distinguished career in the 

 university and at St. Thomas' Hospital, died in 

 October, 1899, in his 27th year. The prize is to 

 be awarded annually for the best thesis for the 

 M. D. degree oifered by candidates who have 

 taken honors in one of the Triposes. The 

 prize thesis is to be printed, and copies are to 



