May 18, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



797 



the Secretary, Mr. A. H. Kirkland, Maiden, 

 Mass., at their earliest convenience, titles of 

 papers that they desire to read. 



The council of the Royal Geographical Society 

 has awarded the two Eoyal Medals for this 

 year to Captain H. H. P. Deasy and Mr. James 

 McCarthy. The Founders' Medal has been 

 awarded to Captain Deasy for the exploring 

 and survey work which he has accomplished in 

 Central Asia during two expeditions lasting 

 three years altogether. He was incessantl5' en- 

 gaged In surveying in districts where an ex- 

 perienced professional surveyor would find ex- 

 ceptional difficulties. As tested by the Indian 

 Survey Department, his mapping is scientifi- 

 cally constructed on thorough survey principles. 

 His observations on the great extent of country 

 traversed and on the people are of high geo- 

 graphical value. Mr. McCarthy is the Govern- 

 ment Surveyor of Siam, and the Patron's Medal 

 has been awarded to him for his great services 

 to geographical science in exploring all parts of 

 the Kingdom of Siam, for his laborious work 

 during twelve years in collecting materials for 

 a map, to form the basis of a survey system, 

 and for his admirable map of Siam just com- 

 pleted. The other awards have been made as 

 follows : The Murchison award to M. Henryk 

 Arctowski for the valuable oceanographical and 

 meteorological work which he performed on the 

 Belgian Antarctic expedition ; the Gill Mem- 

 orial to Mr. Vaughan Cornish for his researches, 

 extending over several years, on sea-beaches, 

 sand-dunes and on wave-forms in water ; the 

 Back grant to Mr. Robert Codrington for his 

 journeys in the region between Lakes Nyassa 

 and Tanganyika, during which he removed, on 

 behalf of the Society, the section containing the 

 inscription from the tree under which Livings- 

 ton's heart was buried ; and the Cuthbert Peek 

 grant to Mr. T. J. Alldridge for his journeys 

 during the past teu years in the interior of Sierra 

 Leone, during which he has done valuable geo- 

 graphical work. 



The 71st anniversary meeting of the Zoolog- 

 ical Society of London was held on April 30th. 

 The report stated that the income had been 

 £28,879, a decrease of £328 as compared 

 with that for 1898. The average annual re- 



ceipts of the Society for the previous ten years 

 had been £26,370. The ordinary expendi- 

 ture of the Society for 1899 had amounted to 

 £26,884, an increase of £904 over that of the 

 previous year. Besides this a sum of £2537 

 had been paid and charged to extraordinary 

 expenditure, having been devoted mainly to 

 the construction of new buildings in the gardens 

 and to the acquisition of a young male giraffe. 

 After payment of the ordinary and extraor- 

 dinary expenditure a balance of £1043 had 

 been carried forward. The number of visitors 

 to the gardens in 1889 had been 696,707, being 

 14,241 less than the corresponding number in 

 1898. The number of animals living in the 

 Society's gardens on December 31st last was 

 2753, of which 821 were mammals, 1471 birds, 

 and 461 reptiles aud batrachians. Amongst the 

 additions made during the past year 13 were 

 specially commented upon as being of remarka- 

 ble interest and in most cases new to the So- 

 ciety's collection. Of these by far the most 

 noticeable objects exhibited for the first time 

 were the splendid pair of Grevy's zebras, placed 

 under the care of the Society by the Queen on 

 August 14, 1899. These animals had been pre- 

 sented to her Majesty by the Emperor Menelek, 

 of Abyssinia. The Council also called special 

 attention to the young male giraffe, acquired 

 on April 1, 1899, by purchase for £800. It was 

 believed that this animal, together with the 

 female purchased in 1895, formed the only pair 

 of young giraffes now to be found in any of the 

 zoological gardens in Europe. The meeting 

 elected the new members of the Council and 

 the officers for the ensuing year as follows : 

 Lord Avebury, Mr. William Bateson, F.R.S., 

 Sir Joseph Fayrer, F.R.S., Mr. P. Chalmers 

 Mitchell and Mr. Oldfield Thomas to the Coun- 

 cil in the place of the retiring members, and the 

 Hon. Walter Rothschild, BI. P., Professor George 

 B. Howes, F.R.S., and Lieutenant-Colonel 

 Leonard H. Irby re-elected. The Duke of Bel- 

 ford was re-elected President, Mr. Charles 

 Drummond, Treasurer, and Mr. Philip Lutley 

 Sclater, F.R.S., Secretary. 



Professor Frederick Starr, of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, has returned from his tenth 

 journey of study and investigation in Mexico. 

 The expedition was assisted by Mrs. Frank G. 



