298 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



The Rev. George Henslow has been elected 

 Professor of Botany to the Horticultural Society. 



The post of patron of the International Congress 

 of Zoology, to be held at Cambridge next August, 

 has been accepted by the Prince of Wales. 



The first discoverer of the cathode-rays. Pro- 

 fessor Lenard, of Heidelberg, has received the 

 10,000 francs prize from the French Academy of 

 Sciences. 



The German Association of Men of Science and 

 Physicians will hold its annual meeting this year 

 in Leipzig, under the presidency of Professor 

 Waldeyer. 



A department for hydrophobia, similar to the 

 Pasteur Institute in Paris, is to be added to the 

 Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin, of which 

 Robert Koch is Director. 



We greatly regret to hear of the death of our 

 correspondent, Mr. A. H. Bechervaise, of Santa 

 Cruz, whose last article in this magazine appeared 

 in September last. 



The Bruce gold medal of the Astronomical 

 Society of the Pacific Coast has been awarded to 

 Professor Simon Newcomb, of Washington, D.C., 

 for his distinguished services to astronomy. 



We regret to record the death of Professor 

 Ernst Ludwig Taschenberg, known for his contribu- 

 tions to popular economic entomology, who died 

 on January 20th, at the age of seventy-nine. 



A museum of natural history is in course of 

 formation at the Vatican. It is under the direction 

 of the Marquis de Mauroy de Wassy, and at present 

 consists more especially of geological and minera- 

 logical collections. 



The Trustees of the British Museum have pre- 

 sented the Council of King's College, London, with 

 a valuable series of fossils in aid of the collection 

 of the Geological Laboratory in the Science and 

 Engineering Faculty. 



The Biological Department of the New York 

 University has selected the Bermudas as the place 

 of an expedition. It will be under the superintend- 

 ence of Dr. C. L. Bristol. A laboratory will be 

 installed at Castle Harbour. 



As President of the International Congress of 

 Zoology to be held at Cambridge, commencing on 

 August 23rd next, Sir John Lubbock invites zoolo- 

 gists to attend, so as to make this, the fourth 

 Congress, as useful and important as possible. The 

 International Congress of Physiologists will be held 

 at the same time and town. 



The municipality of the small town of Votis, in 

 Hungary, has set up a municipal installation for 

 acetylene gas lighting. The streets and squares 

 are already lit with this gas, and many private 

 houses are beginning to make use of the facilities 

 provided by this advanced municipal body. 



Dr. Eduakd Lindemann, the scientific secretary 

 of Pulkova Observatory, has died in his fifty-sixth 

 year. 



The Vatican Observatory will be under the 

 direction of Professor G. M. Searle, of Washington, 

 who succeeds the late Father Denza. 



Dr. Gillot and H. M. Leveille are forming a 

 French Botanical Association to take the place of 

 the French Botanical Society which was dissolved 

 in 1S95. 



Mr. J. Luchman has been appointed to the post 

 of Government Botanist to the Colony of Victoria, 

 which was vacant by the death of Baron Ferdinand 

 von Miiller. 



Dr. Waldemar von Schroeder, Professor of 

 Pharmacology in the University of Heidelberg, 

 and the author of several works on physiological 

 chemistry, has recently died. 



Dr. Oscar Stumpe, best known for his investi- 

 gations of the sun's motions, has died at the early 

 age of thirty-seven. For the past six years he has 

 been engaged on the Berlin Zone Star Catalogue. 



An expedition has set out from Tauris, in Persia, 

 to the Lake Ourmiah, famous for its salt waters 

 and for the number of its zoophites. Professor 

 Paladini, of Milan, is the director. He proposes 

 to make an exact plan of the lake and its surround- 

 ing neighbourhood. 



M. Arthur Kammermann has passed away, in 

 his thirty-sixth year, having been born in 1861. 

 He was educated at the Zurich Polytechnic, and 

 since 1881 has done much useful work, both astro- 

 nomical and meteorological, at Geneva Observa- 

 torj', Switzerland. 



Messrs. Nathaniel Colgan, M.R.I. A., and 

 Reginald Scally, F.L.S., friends of the late Mr. 

 A. G. More, one of the joint authors of " Cybele 

 Hibernica," the standard flora of Ireland, have in 

 the press a new edition of this work. It will 

 present some novel features, and embody much 

 information collected by its original authors. 



Dr. John Murray, Director of the Scottish 

 Marine Station, and a member of the "Challenger" 

 expedition, has received from the German Emperor, 

 as King of Prussia, the distinction of knighthood 

 in the Order Pour le Merite, founded by Frederick 

 the Great. This is a very rare honour. Lord 

 Kelvin, Lord Lister and Sir G. G. Stokes are the 

 only British men of science now living who have 

 received the Order. 



Mr. John C. Nimmo, of London, is about to 

 publish in two volumes, large 8vo, at the price of 

 £1 ios., the Journals of the celebrated American 

 naturalist, Audubon. This will be the first time 

 his journals have been printed in full. The work 

 is to be edited by his granddaughter, Maria R. 

 Audubon, with notes by Dr. Elliott Coues, which 

 is a guarantee for the scientific accuracy. The 

 volumes will contain a number of illustrations.. 



On the motion of Sir John Lubbock, M.P., 

 F.R S., the House of Commons have ordered a 

 return to be made of the income and expenditure 

 of the British Museum "Special Trust Funds" 

 for the year ending March 31st, 1S9S, and a return 

 of the number of persons admitted to the Museum 

 in each year from 1892 to 1897, together with a 

 statement of the progress made in the arrangement 

 and description of the collections, and an account 

 of the objects added to them in the year 1S97. 



