March 23, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



475 



interesting paper by Dr. E. G. Dexter, entitled 

 'The Mental Eifects of the Weather' in which the 

 relations between certain weather elements and 

 the occurrence of certain misdemeanors in New 

 York City were discussed. In Nature for Feb- 

 ruary 15th, Dr. Dexter returns to this subject 

 in a communication which is supplementary to 

 the article just referred to. In this note the 

 writer refers to the results of a study made by 

 him to determine the relation between tem- 

 perature conditions and drunkenness in New 

 York City. The number of arrests (males) for 

 drunkenness for each day during the three 

 years, 1893-1895, was taken from the records of 

 the New York police force. The mean tem- 

 perature, pressure, humidity and wind move- 

 ment for each of these days were obtained 

 from the records of the Weather Bureau in 

 New York City. The curve showing the num- 

 ber of arrests for drunkenness plotted with ref- 

 erence to the twelve months of the year shows 

 that the prevalence of intoxication during the 

 cold months is much in excess of that for the 

 warm ones. The curve of arrests for drunken- 

 ness plotted with reference to mean tempera- 

 tures also shows, as a whole, a decrease in the 

 number of cases of intoxication with increasing 

 temperature. 



INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL CONGRESS. 



An International Congress of Meteorology is 

 to be held at Paris from September 10th to 16th 

 of the present year. The President of the 

 Commission d^ Organisation of the Congress is 

 M. Mascart, Director of the Central Meteoro- 

 logical Bureau of France. The Secretary is M. 

 Angot. Membership in the Congress may be 

 had on payment of 20 francs. The preliminary 

 program includes a long list of subjects in mete- 

 orology proper, as well as in oceanography, and 

 terrestrial magnetism and electricity. 



RETIREMENT OP MR. E. H. SCOTT. 



It has already been announced in this 

 Journal that Mr. E. H. Scott, F.R.S., was 

 to retire from the post of Secretary to the Me- 

 teorological Council of the Royal Society on 

 February 28th. At the end of the year 1899, 

 Mr. Scott had completed 33 years of service in 

 the Meteorological OflBce, and for the last 25 

 years he has acted as Secretary of the Inter- 



national Meteorological Committee. Mr. Scott 

 is to be succeeded by Mr. W. N. Shaw, P.R.S., 

 Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and 

 up to this time Assistant Director of the Caven- 

 dish Laboratory, and Lecturer in Physics in 

 the University of Cambridge. 



R. Dec. Ward. 

 Harvard University. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



Professor P. Tacchini has resigned the 

 directorship of the Royal Italian Bureau of 

 Meteorology and Geodesy after forty years of 

 service. Professor Luigi Palazzo has been ap- 

 pointed temporary director. 



The Royal Academy of Turin has elected Dr. 

 Charles S. Minot a corresponding member. 



Professor Mitag-Lefflbr of Stockholm, 

 has been elected a corresponding member of 

 the Paris Academy of Sciences in the Section of 

 geometry. 



Glasgow University has offered the degree 

 of LL.D., honoris causa, to Mr. A. Smith Wood- 

 ward, the vertebrate paleontologist of the 

 British Museum. 



The University of Aberdeen will confer the 

 degree of LL. D. on Mr. W. R. Sorley, professor 

 of moral philosophy in the University of Aber- 

 deen. 



Mr. Dean C. Worcester, whose appoint- 

 ment as a member of the new Philippine Com- 

 mission we announced last week, has resigned 

 the assistant professorship of zoology in the 

 University of Michigan. It is reported that 

 Mr. Worcester has been oflFered a salary of 

 $15,000 a year 'as manager of certain mining 

 interests in the Philippine Islands and that 

 when his duties as commissioner are fulfilled he 

 may accept the offer. His salary at the Uni- 

 versity of Michigan was $1600. 



Professor Perry G. Holden has resigned 

 the chair of agriculture in the University of 

 Illinois to become manager of the agricult- 

 ural department of the Illinois Sugar Refining 

 Company. 



Mr. W. A. Taylor, assistant chief of the di- 

 vision of pomology, department of agriculture, 

 has sailed from New York to take charge of 



