794 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XL No. 5281. 



when it is best adapted to its surroundings, so 

 that the less it is adapted, the more variable 

 does it become." 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



The Committee of Coinage, Weights and 

 Measures of the House of Representatives has 

 unanimously agreed to report as an amendment 

 to the Sundry Civil Bill the measure establish- 

 ing a United States Standardizing Bureau. A 

 full account of this Important measure was pub- 

 lished in the issue of this Journal for May 4th. 



In accordance with the recommendation of 

 the Eumford Committee, the American Aca- 

 demy of Arts and Sciences has voted to award 

 the Rumford Medal to Professor Carl Barus of 

 Brown University for his various researches in 

 heat. 



The Academy has further granted from the 

 Eumford Fund the sum of $230 to Mr. Arthur 

 L. Clark of the Worcester Academy in further- 

 ance of his research on the ' Molecular Pro- 

 perties of Vapors in the Neighborhood of the 

 Critical Point.' 



Two excursions were recently given under 

 the auspices of the Geological Department of 

 the Johns Hopkins University, in honor of 

 Professor W. C. Brogger, of the University of 

 Christiania, Norway, who completed. May 3d, 

 his course of George Huntington Williams Me- 

 morial lectures on the Principles of Geology at 

 the Johns Hopkins University. The first ex- 

 cursion was made upon the State steamer Qov- 

 ernor McLane to southern and eastern Mary- 

 land to examine the several formations of the 

 Coastal Plain, and was participated in by Mr. 

 S. F. Emmons, of the U. S. Geological Survey ; 

 Professor B. K. Emerson, of Amherst ; Profes- 

 J. A. Holmes, of North Carolina, and Professors 

 William Bullock Clark, Joseph S. Ames and 

 Harry Fielding Reid, of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity. Several days were spent along the es- 

 tuaries of the Chesapeake Bay in studying Cre- 

 taceous and Tertiary deposits. 



Anothbe excursion was organized by Pro- 

 fessor Clark at the close of Professor Brogger's 

 lectures on May 4th, the steamboat of the Gen- 

 eral Manager of the Chesapeake and Ohio 

 Canal being placed at the command of the 



party, who made an all-water trip from Wash- 

 ington to Cumberland, in the heart of the 

 Allegheny Mountains, spending six days en 

 route in the study of the rocks of the Piedmont 

 Plateau and the Appalachian Region, and sub- 

 sequently passing a day as the guests of the 

 Western Maryland Companies, studying the 

 coal deposits of the Georges Creek Basin. Hon. 

 C. D. Walcott, Director of the U. S. Geological 

 Survey, and Messrs. Arnold Hague, C. W. 

 Hayes, Bailey Willis and Arthur Keith, of the 

 same organization, and Professors Clark, Reid 

 and Matthews participated in this excursion. 



The Franklin Institute has awarded an 

 Elliott Cresson medal to Professor W. O. At- 

 water and Mr. E. B. Rosa for their respiration 

 calorimeter. 



Professor R. W. Wood, of the University 

 of Wisconsin, has been elected a fellow of the 

 London Physical Society. 



Mr. Carl Hering has been appointed a 

 member of the jury of award for the electrical 

 group of the Paris Exposition. 



Mr. S. Harbert Hamilton, former Jessup 

 scholar in geological chemistry at the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, has ac- 

 cepted a call to the Museum of Geology and 

 Archaeology of Princeton University. 



George Grant MacCurdy, instructor in 

 prehistoric anthropology at Yale University, 

 has been made a corresponding member of the 

 Society of the Institute of Coimbra, a society 

 especially interested in developing literature, 

 science and the liberal arts. Coimbra was 

 once the capital of Portugal and is still the seat 

 of its only university, an institution founded in 

 1290. 



The seventieth anniversary of the birth of 

 Dr. A. Jacobi, clinical professor of the diseases 

 of children in Columbia University, was cele- 

 brated by a banquet in New York City on the 

 evening of May 5th. Addresses were made by 

 Dr. Joseph D. Bryant, Dr. William H. Thom- 

 son and Dr. Carl Schurz, and a poem by Dr. S. 

 Weir Mitchell was read. A ' Festschrift ' was 

 presented to Dr. Jacobi, containing scientific 

 contributions from fifty -three medical men rep- 

 resenting eleven nations. 



