838 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 282. 



for the occasion a Festschrift setting forth the 

 history of the Society and in general the part 

 pluyed by the natural sciences in the advances 

 of the past fifty years. 



In 1833 General Arakezeyew bequeathed to 

 the Russian Academy of Sciences the sum of 

 50,000 roubles which were to accumulate till 

 1925, when three-fourths of the sum should be 

 given to the best history in Russian of Alex- 

 ander I.'s reign. The other quarter was to be 

 spent in printing the work, in having it trans- 

 lated into French and German, and for a prize 

 to the second best work. It is said that the 

 fund now amounts to 1,500,000 roubles and 

 would in 1925 consequently be in the neighbor- 

 hood of $1,500,000. 



At a meeting of the members of the Royal 

 Institution on May 7th, thanks were given to 

 Professor F. Clowes for his donation of £20 to 

 the fund for the promotion of experimental re- 

 search at low temperatures. The following 

 vice-presidents for the ensuing year were an- 

 nounced from the chair: Sir F. Bramwell, 

 Lord Lister, Dr. Ludwig Mond, Sir A. Noble, 

 Mr. A. Siemens, the Hon. Sir J. Stirling, Sir 

 J. Crichton Browne, treasurer, and Sir W. 

 Crookes, honorary secretary. 



A SOCIETY at Gera, Germany, offers prizes 

 for essays calling attention to the need of pro- 

 tection of plants by the young. It is proposed 

 to circulate the essays widely through the 

 schools. 



The University of Zurich offers a prize for an 

 essay on the use of alcohol in acute diseases. 



SiGMi Xi, the Scientific Society correspond- 

 ing to Phi Beta Kappa, has established a chap- 

 ter at Brown University with Professor B. F. 

 Clarke as president. 



Under the direction of Captain J. F. Pratt, 

 of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 preparations are being made to despatch the 

 United States steamers Pathfinder and Patter- 

 son to Behring Sea early next month, where 

 they will be engaged during the season in sur- 

 veying the coast of Alaska between St. Michael 

 and Cape Prince of Wales. 



Professor Linck, director of the mineralog- 

 ical laboratory at Jena has undertaken a scien- 

 tific expedition to the Soudan. 



Reuter's Agency learns that Dr. Louis Sam- 

 bon and Dr. G. C. Low, who, as we have al- 

 ready reported, are about to experiment with a 

 view to proving that malaria is spread by mos- 

 quito bites, expect to begin work seriously on 

 June 1st, by which time they would have all 

 their arrangements completed. They were 

 leaving London immediately. They had hit 

 upon a suitable spot in the Campagna, on the 

 line of the railway running from Rome to 

 Tivoli, and there they would begin their work. 

 Their house would be put together at a spot 

 about a mile from the little station of Cervel- 

 lata, 30 minutes' run by rail from Rome, where 

 a colony of Lombards were trying to reclaim 

 that part of the Campagna. So far as malarial 

 conditions were concerned no place could be 

 worse. 



The New York Evening Post contains the fol- 

 lowing note : " Commander Chapman C. Todd, 

 chief hydrographer of the Navy, has been sus- 

 pended from duty by Secretary Long, pending 

 an investigation by the department into a charge 

 that he had endeavored to influence the action 

 of Congress in a matter affecting the naval ser- 

 vice. The suspension grew out of the contro- 

 versy in Congress over the reduction by the 

 House Committee on Appropriations of the 

 appropriation for surveys to be conducted by 

 the Navy, and the refusal of the committee to 

 agree to turn over the surveys of the insular 

 possessions of the United States to the naval 

 service. Commander Todd is one of the best 

 known officers of the Navy. He commanded 

 the gun-boat Wilmington in the Spanish- Amer- 

 ican war, and was in charge of the operations 

 at Cardenas in May, 1898, in which Ensign 

 Worth Bagley and some enlisted men of the 

 torpedo boat Winslow were killed. After the 

 war he made a cruise in the Wilmington up the 

 Amazon River, penetrating to regions where 

 no foreign vessel had ever been." 



A telegram was received at the Harvard 

 College Observatory, on May 14th, from the 

 Arequipa station of this Observatory, stating 

 that the correction of the ephemeris of Eros, 

 computed by Mr. Daniel N. Jones, Jr. , is zero, 

 In the Bulletin issued on April 29th, and pub- 

 lished in this Journal, it will be noticed that 

 the correction to this ephemeris is almost exactly 



