958 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 285. 



Peofessoe Eenst Haeckel has been elected 

 an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences 

 at Bucharest. 



The Literary and Philosophical Society of 

 Manchester has elected the following honorary 

 members : Professor James Dewar of the Royal 

 Institution, Professors A. Ewing and A. B. For- 

 syth of Cambridge "University, Professors Ernst 

 Haeckel of Jena, and H. A. Lorentz of Leiden, 

 Mr. Robert Ridgeway of Washington, and Mr. 

 Beau champ Tower of London. 



Peofessoes Joseph Le Conte and William 

 Carey Jones, of the University of California, 

 have been granted a year's leave of absence 

 from the University which they will spend 

 abroad. 



Peofessoe Macfaelane, of the State Nor- 

 mal College, Ypsilanti, Mich., has returned 

 from Vienna, where he has been studying geol- 

 ogy for the past year with Professor Penck. 

 During the autumn months he will be at Har- 

 vard University, carrying forward his studies 

 with Professor Davis. 



De. Chaeles F. Chandlee, professor of 

 chemistry in Columbia University, president of 

 the Society of Chemical Industry, which meets 

 next month in England, sails for England on 

 June 16th. 



Peofessoe Geoege F. Sevee, of Columbia 

 University, has accepted the position of super- 

 intendent of electrical exhibits of the Pan- 

 American Exposition. 



Miss Maey H. Kingsley has died at Sim- 

 onstown. South Africa, where she had been 

 superintending the arrangements of the military 

 hospitals. Miss Kingsley, who was the daugh- 

 ter of Dr. G. H. Kingsley and a niece of Charles 

 Kingsley, made in 1893 and in 1896 journeys 

 through little known parts of Africa and pub- 

 lished accounts of her explorations in two inter- 

 esting volumes ' Travels in West Africa ' and 

 ' West African Studies. ' She also made valu- 

 able botanical collections in St. Paul de Loanda, 

 Old Calabar and the region of the Niger coast 

 protectorate. 



Me. G. F. Goeansson who made important 

 improvements in the Bessemer process for mak- 

 ing steel has died in Sweden at the age of 81 

 years. 



We also regret to notice the death at the age 

 of 77 years of Mr. James Thomson of Glasgow, 

 known for his geological work especially on 

 Scottish carboniferous corals. 



Me. Willaed N. Cltjte, editor of the Fern 

 Bulletin, has returned from Jamaica with sev- 

 eral species of plants that were unknown to 

 science. He will probably return for more 

 specimens. In the eastern part of the island 

 away from the cities he saw but few remains of 

 prehistoric peoples. The present natives often 

 bury their dead In their own front yards, erect- 

 ing over each grave a rectangular structure of 

 brick and mortar the size of the grave and 

 about two feet high. This is covered with a 

 large flat stone or stones. The negro folk-lore 

 of Jamaica is being recorded by Mr. Edward S. 

 Earle, of Kingston. 



Peesidbnt Joedan and Mr. John O. Snyder, 

 of the Department of Zoology in Stanford Uni- 

 versity sailed June 6th on the steamer Gaelic, 

 for the purpose of making a collection of the 

 fishes and insects of Japan. They will be as- 

 sisted in Japan by S. Kuwana, an assistant in 

 entomology at Stanford, who sailed to his na- 

 tive country on an earlier steamer, by Kein- 

 osuke Otaki, a graduate of Stanford, now 

 teacher in a royal military academy in Tokyo, 

 and by James F. Abbott, also a graduate of 

 Stanford, now teaching in a governmental 

 school at Otsu. The expedition is under the 

 patronage of Mr. Timothy Hopkins, founder of 

 the Hopkins Seaside Laboratory at Monterey. 

 It is hoped that a full survey of the fish fauna 

 of the islands may be made, and generous col- 

 lections of other forms of life are expected. 



G. B. GOEDON, who has charge of the explora- 

 tions to be made at Copan, has secured from 

 President Sierra of Honduras, for Harvard 

 University, by treaty arranged at Tegucigalpa 

 on February 22d, the control of the ruins of 

 Copan and the lands pertaining thereto, for a 

 period of ten j'ears, with the right to make 

 excavations and to remove to Cambridge for 

 preservation a portion of the objects that may 

 be found. 



It is stated in Nature that Mr. J. S. Budgett 

 has left Liverpool on his second expedition to 

 the Gambia, where he is going in order to com- 



