3o6 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. N(.. 282 



will be closed on Sept. 22. It will be equipped as fully as the 

 means permit. Microscopes will not be provided, but it is believed 

 that investigators will find most of their indispensable wants satis- 

 fied. The fee for an investigator's table will be fifty dollars for the 

 present season. 



Rooms accommodating two persons may be obtained near the 

 laboratory at prices varying from three to four dollars a week, and 

 board from four and a half to seven dollars. Applications for 

 places in the laboratory should be made immediately to the secre- 

 tary of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Nahant, Mass. 



Wood's HoU, owing to the richness of the marine life in the 

 neighboring waters, offers exceptional advantages. It is situated 

 on the north shore of Vineyard Sound, at the entrance to Buzzard's 

 Bay, and may be reached by the Old Colony Railroad (two hours 

 and a half from Boston), or by rail and boat from Fall River and 

 New Bedford. 



The new laboratory is intended to continue and extend the work 

 of the laboratory at Annisquam, carried on for six years by the 

 Woman's Education Association, with the co-operation of the Bos- 

 ton Society of Natural History. 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON. 



A New Building in the National Museum ; more than Twelve Thou- 

 sand Accessions made to the Museum since 1882, and nearly Seven 

 and One-Half Million New Entries made in its Catalogues ; Hun- 

 dreds of Thousands of Interesting Specimens yet unpadded ; Ex- 

 hibits for which there is not even Storage-Room. — How the 

 Cholera was spread in Japan in 18S6. — The Proper Treatment of 

 Inebriety as a Disease. — More about the Proposed Vacuum Air- 

 Ship. 



The Proposed New Building for the National Museum. 



The Senate Committee on the Library has reported favorably a 

 bill to provide for the erection of an additional fire-proof building 

 for the use of the National Museum. The appropriation made 

 for this purpose is $500,000, and the new building is to cover an 

 area of 300 feet square, and to consist of two stories and basement. 

 The site of the building is to be to the west of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution, flanking it on that side as the present building does upon 

 the east. The present building contains about 80,000 square feet 

 of floor-space available for exhibition and storage. The building 

 proposed will contain about 220,000 square feet. The amount of 

 room for offices and laboratories will be about the same in each. 

 The net area in the new building available for exhibitions, storage, 

 and office-rooms, as estimated, will be between five and six acres. 



The cost of the present National Museum building was $3 15,400, 

 and that cost was less than that of any similar building in exist- 

 ence in this country. The proposed structure can now be erected 

 at proportionately smaller cost, responsible builders having offered 

 to build it for $473,000. Plans of the interior and eievatioiis of the 

 proposed new building were sul^mitted with the report of the com- 

 mittee. 



To show the necessity of providing at once more extensive ac- 

 commodations for the National Museum, the following interesting 

 extracts from a letter written to the committee by Prof. S. P. Lang- 

 ley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, June 7, are given : — 



" Since the erection of the present museum building there have 

 been more than 12,000 accessions to the collections, chiefly by gifts. 

 From the year 1859 to 1880 the accessions numbered 8,475. It is 

 thus evident that within the last eight years the number of acces- 

 sions has been half as large again as during the previous twenty- 

 one. 



" Many of the more recent accessions are of very great extent, as, 

 for instance, the bequest of the late Isaac Lea of Philadelphia, 

 which contains 20,000 specimens of shells, besides minerals and 

 other objects ; the Jeffries collection of fossil and recent shells of 

 Europe, including 40,000 specimens ; the Stearns collection of 

 mollusks, numbering 100,000 specimens; the Riley collection of in- 

 sects, containing 150,000 specimens; the Catlin collection of In- 

 dian paintings, about 500 in number ; the collection of the Ameri- 

 can Institute of Mining Engineers, for the transportation of which 

 to Washington several freight-cars were required. 



" There are also the extensive collections obtained at the Fisher- 

 ies Exhibitions at Berlin and London and at the close of the New 

 Orleans Cotton Cen'tennial ; the Shepard collection of meteorites ; 

 the Wilson collection of archasological objects ('more than 12.000 

 specimens) ; the Lorillard collection of Central American antiqui- 

 ties ; and very many others nearly as extensive. In addition to 

 these are the annual accretions from the work of the United States 

 Fish Commission, the United States Geological Survey, and the 

 Bureau of Ethnology, as well as the contributions from several ex- 

 peditions of the government, from army and navy officers, and 

 from other government officials. These are very extensive, and are 

 yearly increasing in bulk and value. 



" In the Armory Building are stored many hundreds of boxes of 

 valuable material which we have not room to unpack, and the 

 great vaults under the Smithsonian building and many of the attic 

 and tower rooms are similarly occupied. 



" For several important departments of the museum no exhil)i- 

 tion space whatever is available, and no portion of the collection 

 can be publicly displayed. Indeed, the growth of many of the de- 

 partments is in large measure prevented by the fact that we have 

 no room for additional exhibition-cases, or even for storage. Many 

 valuable collections elsewhere than in Washington are at the ser- 

 vice of the museum, but we have no space for their reception. 



" At the close of the last fiscal year (June 30, 1887) a very care- 

 ful estimate showed that the collections were sixteen times as great 

 in number of specimens as in the year 1882. 



" The museum is growing, as it is fitting that the national 

 museum of a great country should grow ; and it is not only neces- 

 sary to care for what is already here, but to provide for the recep- 

 tion and display of what is certain to be placed in our hands within 

 the next few years. 



" The present museum building is not more than large enough 

 for the ethnological and technological material already available. 

 The proposed new building will afford accommodation for the 

 natural-history collections, which are at present very inadequately 

 housed. For instance, the amount of space assigned to the col- 

 lection of mammals is about 6,500 feet. At least double that 

 amount of space will be needed to accommodate the material now 

 on hand as soon as the taxidermists of the museum shall have been 

 able to prepare it for exhibition, it being our desire to have mounted 

 groups, similar to the buffalo family recently finished, in order to 

 preserve for future generations representations of the large quad- 

 rupeds native to this continent, which are on the verge of extinc- 

 tion. 



" The collection of birds, which, so far as North America is con- 

 cerned, is the finest in the world, is very inadequately shown, and 

 requires double the case-room now available. 



"The collection of mollusks, which is one of the most complete 

 in the world, and contains more than 450,000 specimens, is at pres- 

 ent almost entirely unprovided for. 



" The collection of insects, which, though smaller, is, so far as 

 North America is concerned, equally perfect, is also practically 

 without any exhibition space. And so I might continue. 



" It should be borne in mind that under the roofs of the Smith- 

 sonian and new museum buildings are grouped together collections 

 which in London, Paris, or any other of the European capitals, are 

 provided for in a group of museums, for the accommodation of 

 which a much larger number of equally commodious buildings is' 

 found needful." 



Causes of the Cholera Epidemic in Japan in 1886. 



The Marine Hospital Abstract of Satiitary Reports for last Sat- 

 urday contains extracts from a Japanese official publication on the 

 cholera in that country in 1886. It spread over the whole empire, 

 there being 155,574 cases, among which I io,oS6 were fatal. There 

 were only seventeen days in the whole year in which no cases were 

 reported. The following paragraphs from this report are interest- 

 ing, because they show, what has been so often shown before, 

 the effect of bad sanitary conditions upon the spread of an epi- 

 demic : — 



" As to the cause of its outbreak and propagation, accurate evi- 

 dence is wanting ; it is an undeniable fact, however, that it sprang 

 and was propagated from the widely spread germs of the disease 



