SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
THE Report of the Essex Institute for the past year is at hand. 
From it we learn that the society is likely to receive $10,000 by the 
will of the late George Plumer Smith, of Philadelphia, and an indefinite 
amount (we learn elsewhere estimated at $50,000) from the estate of 
the late George L. Ames, of Salem. The total number of additions 
to the library amount to 7123. The income for the year was $8040, 
the expenses $7970. The funds of the institute amount to over 
$100,000. The greatest present need is a stack for its library, which 
has increased far beyond its accommodations, so that many thousand 
volumes have had to be packed away. 
The expedition recently sent out by Columbia University, with 
funds provided by Mr. Charles H. Senff, to obtain embryological mate- 
rial of the African mudfish, Protopterus, was not successful in its main 
object. It however brought back a quantity of the adult fish from 
the Nile and large collections of other material from the eastern 
Mediterranean and the Red’ Sea. 
Those who have attentively examined the plates illustrating the 
papers turned out from the zoological laboratories of Harvard 
University will have noticed the peculiarity of the reference letters 
upon the figures. They are in all cases abbreviations of the Latin 
name of the structure and organ in question. At the recent Zoologi- 
cal Congress a committee was appointed consisting of Profs. F. E. 
Schulze, Paul Pelseneer, E. L. Mark, and Mr. A. H. Evans, who are 
to report upon the practicability of uniformity in abbreviations and 
other matters of terminology. 
Mr. C. F. Baker, of the Alabama Experiment Station, goes, on 
Jan. 1, 1899, on a ost ae trip to South America. He expects to 
be gone a year and a h 
John P. Marshall, ie of geology and mineralogy at Tufts 
College since its foundation, has resigned and has been appointed 
professor emeritus. 
Dr. J. H. Gerould, assistant in zoology in Dartmouth College, will 
spend this year in Europe. 
It has cost Columbia University nearly $7,000,000 to purchase 
land, erect its buildings, and to move to its new site. 
