1881.] Scientific News. 683 
Mr. W. M. Hamlet. The cultivating fluids used comprised Pasteur’s 
fluid, beef-tea, hay-infusion, brewer’s wort, and extract of meat; 
these were sterilized by boiling for ten minutes in Pasteur’s flasks, 
cooled with suitable precautions, and then seeded with hay solu- 
tion and the substance under examination added. Many gases, 
&c., were tried. Chlorine and hydric peroxide were fatal to 
bacteria, while chloroform, creosote, carbolic acid, salicylic acid, 
&c., hindered their development, but did not destroy them. 
— The appointment, by President Garfield, of Hon. George 
B. Loring as Commissioner of Agriculture, has been regarded on 
all sides as peculiarly fitting. It isa new departure to havea 
commissioner who is not only a gentleman of broad culture, but 
one who sympathizes with scientific men, and will, undoubtedly, 
encourage, as no former commissioner has done, the develop- 
ment of applied botany atid zodlogy, particularly entomology. 
Ss an earnest of his intentions in this direction, the commissioner 
has appointed Professor C. V. Riley entomologist of the depart- — 
ment, in place of Professor Comstock, resigned. 
— We learn from the Wation that the International Congress 
of Americanists will be held at Madrid, Sept. 18-22. The first 
day will be devoted to American geology, the history of Pre- 
columbian times, and the history of the discovery ; the second 
day to archeology ; the third to anthropology and ethnography ; 
the last to linguistics and palzography. The general secretary 
is Captain C. F. Duro Sauco 13 duplicado, Madrid. The pro- 
gramme, list of officers, delegates, etc., has been issued by M. 
G. Hernandez, of Madrid. 
— We have received Bulletin 4 of the Illinois State Labora- 
tory of Natural History, comprising a catalogue of the birds of 
Illinois, by R. Ridgway. ‘This list will be of use in the more 
important biological work carried on in this institution, which is 
a great credit to the state, and will do much to turn naturalists 
away from “species work” and induce them to study the rela- 
tions of animals to one another, and to their physical sur- 
roundings, 
applicable to geological maps and sections, including those of 
small scale. The competitive papers were demanded by the end 
— Near Liitzen, in Saxony, a number of sepulchral urns have 
been discovered in a brickfield, and accompanying them skulls 
and bones, showing that cremation and burial were both practiced 
by the depositors. Professor Virchow says that one of the skulls 
he has examined resembles the Neanderthal skull, but differs 
