March 16, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



439 



of the Bugey district. M. Fleury-Ravarin asks 

 the State to associate itself with this philan- 

 thropic work hy conferring on the institute the 

 title of 'National,' and granting it an annual 

 subvention of £600. 



A MEETING of the Organizing Council of the 

 British Congress of Tuberculosis was held at 

 house of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical So- 

 ciety on February 22d. 



The plague has appeared in Sydney, New 

 South Wales, and on the Island of Cozumel, off 

 the coast of Yucatan. A case has occurred in 

 San Francisco. Deaths are still reported from 

 Honolulu. There is no abatement in India, 

 the deaths at Calcutta being 411 for the last 

 week of which news is at hand. 



Recent issues of the British Medical Journal 

 and Nature recommend the appointment of Pro- 

 fessor William Osier, of Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity, to the chair of the practice of physic, 

 vacant by the death of Sir Thomas Grainger 

 Stewart. Nature says : 



The desire has been widely expressed in University 

 circles in Edinburgh that the Curators of Patronage, 

 with whom the appointment to the chair of medicine 

 rests, should offer the post to Professor Osier, of the 

 Johns Hopkins University, who is well known as a 

 teacher and cliuicist of the highest scientifio eminence, 

 and whose acceptance of it would greatly strengthen 

 both the systematic and clinical teaching in the Uni- 

 versity. It would appear, however, that the Cura- 

 tors have no choice in the matter, but are bound to 

 advertise every vacancy, so that the far more satisfac- 

 tory and dignified method of appointment by invita- 

 tion is necessarily excluded. Nevertheless, it is con- 

 fidently hoped that Professor Osier may be induced 

 to send in a formal application for the chair, since it 

 is certain that his claims would receive every consid- 

 eration from tlie present Board of Curators, who have 

 more than once, on recent occasions, shown that they 

 are superior to merely local considerations, and that 

 they have regard in making these appointments solely 

 to the best interests of the University. Professor 

 Osier is a Canadian by birth, and althougli he has for 

 many years successively occupied the important chairs 

 of medicine in Philadelphia and Baltimore, behas, we 

 believe, never renounced his British nationality. His 

 appointment to Edinburgh, although it would be felt 

 as a serious loss by our kinsfolk on the other side 

 of the Atlantic, would doubtless be considered by 

 them, and especially by our Canadian fellow-subjects, 

 as a graceful recognition that we are one people bound 



together in science, aa in politics, by common inter- 

 ests, and that we ate prepared to welcome the best 

 man from whichever side of the water he may hail. 

 Applications for the post, with testimonials, must be 

 lodged -ivith Mr. E. Herbert Johnston, Secretary to 

 the Curators, at 66 Frederick Street, Edinburgh, on 

 or before April 14th." 



In his annual report President Eliot writes of 

 the observatory : "The director reports that 

 the Harvard Observatory, which in 1892 had 

 the second largest income among the great ob- 

 servatories of the world, in 1898, had only the 

 fifth largest, the observatories at Washington, 

 Pai-is, Greenwich and Pulkowa surpassing it in 

 income and expenditure. This fall is occa- 

 sioned by the decline in the rate of interest on 

 the funds of the observatory. The observatory 

 is now so well organized and so active and 

 efficient that it will be a great pity if its re- 

 sources, and, therefore, its powers of usefulness, 

 are permitted to decline. It is the only obser- 

 vatory which maintains a station in the northern 

 hemisphere and in the southern ; and its collec- 

 tion of photographs of the entire sky gives it 

 unique means of studying the recent history of 

 the stellar universe. The photographic plates 

 are now kept in a fireproof building ; but the 

 library of the observatory, which has become 

 very valuable, is in a wooden building and is, 

 therefore, exposed to complete destruction by 

 fire. A fireproof building, which need not cost 

 more than §15,000 or $20,000, ought to be pro- 

 vided for the safe keeping of this collection." 

 Four volumes of the Annals have been in proc- 

 ess of publication during the larger part of the 

 year, and more than 30 volumes of the Annala 

 have been published during the last 20 years — 

 a rate of publication that is truly astonishing. 

 "On November 28, 1898, Mrs. Williamina 

 Paton Fleming was appointed Curator of As- 

 tronomical Photographs, and in that capacity 

 her name appeared in the university catalogue 

 for 1898-99. It is believed that Mrs. Fleming 

 is the first woman who has held an ofiicial posi- 

 sition ill Harvard University. She is v/ell 

 known to astronomers as the discoverer of a 

 remarkable number of new variable stars." 



Mk. Simon W. Hanauer, Vice-Consul of the 

 United States at Frankfurt, writes to the De- 

 partment of State that nothing has been said of 



