520 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. Xo. 535. 



We learn from the London Times that the 

 annual meeting of the Anthropological Insti- 

 tute of Great Britain and Ireland was held 

 on January 21, Mr. H. Balfour, the retiring 

 president, in the chair. The annual report 

 of the council stated that the year had been 

 one of steady progress, the number of new fel- 

 lows and the net increase being greater than 

 for any year since 1898. The total member- 

 ship now stood at 442. The question of phys- 

 ical deterioration had lately been engaging 

 public attention, and the council had prepared 

 a memorial to Lord Londonderry recommend- 

 ing the organization of an anthropometric 

 survey and the appointment of an advisory 

 committee, and making other suggestions. An 

 amendment to strike out of the report a pro- 

 posal that the publication Man should be paid 

 for by fellows in order to assist in meeting 

 the annual deficit was rejected after prolonged 

 discussion, and the report was approved. The 

 treasurei-'s report stated that the income from 

 subscriptions for the past year was the highest 

 on record. Notwithstanding this highly satis- 

 factory increase of the institute's principal 

 source of income, there had been an excess 

 of expenditure over income in every year of 

 the 1900-04 period except 1902. The chief 

 cause of these deficits appeared to have been 

 the increase in the cost of the annual publica- 

 tions. The council accordingly proposed to 

 effect economies in their publications, and to 

 ask members to pay for their copies of Man. 

 The report was agreed to. Professor W. Gow- 

 land, F.S.A., was elected president for the 

 current year. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



According to the daily papers the articles of 

 agreement under which it is proposed to com- 

 bine the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 

 ogy and Harvard University have been made 

 public. They provide for a joint school of 

 industrial science, to be known under the 

 present name of the Institute of Technology, 

 to be governed by an executive board of nine 

 members, of which three shall represent Har- 

 vard, and to be maintained by present institute 

 fuhds, augmented by the income of all funds 

 of the Lawrence Scientific School, by three- 



fifths of the net income which may accrue 

 from the Gordon McKay bequest, amounting 

 to several millions, and by the income of all 

 property which Harvard may hereafter acquire 

 for the promotion of instruction in industrial 

 science. - The new institute is to occupy a 

 site on the Cambridge side of the Charles 

 River, near the present Stadium. 



The Catholic University of America will re- 

 ceive a bequest of $100,000 from Miss Helen 

 Tyler Gardiner. 



Mk. Andrew Carnegie has agi-eed to give 

 a $50,000 library to the Washington and Lee 

 University on condition that the university 

 raises an endowment of $50,000 for maintain- 

 ing the new library. 



Two new buildings are about to be erected 

 for the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. One 

 is for the departments of mathematics and 

 drawing and the other for the department 

 of chemistry. Both will be strictly fire proof. 

 Their cost will be about three hundred thou- 

 sand dollars. A motion is before the Troy 

 Common Council to make a handsome stone 

 approach to these buildings by extending 

 Broadway. 



The board of regents of the University of 

 Michigan at its February meeting voted to in- 

 vite bids for the erection of an addition to the 

 physical laboratory according to plans already 

 prepared. 



A BILL has passed the North Dakota legisla- 

 ture creating a state bacteriologic and patho- 

 logic laboratory, to be located at the State 

 University and School of Mines, and to be 

 under the control of the university trustees 

 and the professor of bacteriology at the uni- 

 versity, who is to be the director. 



It is announced that the Russian Ministry 

 of Public Instruction will at once undertake 

 the elaboration of a plan for a compulsory sys- 

 tem of primary education. Representatives of 

 the schools in the principal cities are invited 

 to participate in the drawing up of the plan. 



George V. N. Dearborn, Ph.D., M.D. (Co- 

 lumbia), has been promoted to the full pro- 

 fessorship of physiology in the Tufts College 

 Medical and Dental Schools. 



