May 12, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



759 



suits to be available both to the Bausch & 

 Lomb Optical Company and the Bausch, 

 Lomb, Saeg-muUer Company. 



Senator Wm. A. Clark, of Montana, has 

 contributed to the University of Montana 

 Biological Station a sum sufficient to defray 

 the expenses of an expedition among the un- 

 known mountains of Montana. The expedi- 

 tion will be under the direction of Professor 

 M. J. Elrod, and will visit the high moun- 

 tain on whose summit is the United States 

 Geological Survey monument. Several un- 

 explored glaciers lie high up on the mountain. 

 Later the party will visit other summits in the 

 drainage of the South Fork of Flathead River. 

 T. A. Bonser, of the Spokane High School, 

 will look after the botany on the expedition. 

 Later the party will return to Flathead Lake 

 to take up the work of the University of 

 Montana Biological Station. The expedition 

 will start about June 20, and the return to 

 Flathead Lake will be about the middle of 

 July. 



William S. Champ has sailed for Liverpool 

 to head a relief expedition on the ship Terra 

 Nova, which is awaiting him in London. Mr. 

 Champ's instructions from Mr. Ziegler are said 

 to be to remain in the north until he has found 

 Captain Fiala or his party. Mr. Champ is 

 accompanied by Dr. Oliver L. Fassig, of 

 Johns Hopkins University, a geographer, who 

 will sail on an independent expedition on the 

 Belgica to the east coast of Greenland, where, 

 at Shannon Island,, caches of food will be es- 

 tablished for Captain Fiala, in the belief that 

 he may return from the Arctic by that route. 

 The expeditions will start about June 1. 



The New Zealand legislature passed in 1903 

 a law under which the metric system of 

 weights and measures might be adopted at any 

 time subsequent to January 1, 1906. The 

 government has now announced its intention 

 of adopting the system after an interval of 

 twelve months. 



At the annual meeting of the Zoological 

 Society of London, on April 28, the report 

 was presented by the secretary, who stated 

 that the number of fellows was greater than 

 at any time in the history of the society. 



There was an increase of 48,866 in the num- 

 ber of visitors at the gardens, the total being 

 706,074, as against 657,208 in 1903. The cost 

 of feeding the stock at the gardens was £3,423 

 4s. 5d., against £4,858 2s. in 1902. The total 

 number of vertebrate animals in the menagerie 

 was 2,552—640 mammals, 1,448 birds, 343 

 reptiles and amphibia and 121 fish. 



According to Terrestrial Magnetism and 

 Atmospheric Electricity there will be a meet- 

 ing of the International Committee on Ter- 

 restrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Elec- 

 tricity at Innsbruck during the meeting of 

 the International Meteorological Congress. 

 The opening meeting will be on September 9, 

 the special meetings of the committee will 

 probably be deferred, however, for a few days, 

 in order to give ample time for those mag- 

 neticians and electricians to attend who will 

 participate in the eclipse observations of Au- 

 gust 30. It is very much hoped that there 

 will be a full attendance of investigators in 

 terrestrial magnetism and atmospheric elec- 

 tricity. 



The same journal states that in the future 

 the Kew magnetic observatory work is to be 

 carried on at Eskdalemuir, Scotland. The 

 site is in the valley of the Esk, towards the 

 north of Dumfriesshire, one of the southern 

 counties of Scotland. Being over fifteen 

 miles from the nearest railway and in a rather 

 inaccessible position, the probability of future 

 disturbance is small. In addition to the 

 mag-netographs, the equipment, which is not 

 yet fully decided upon, will consist of self- 

 recording instruments for at least atmospheric 

 electricity and earth tremors. In addition to 

 the variometer building two absolute observa- 

 tion huts are being erected. The standard- 

 izations of magnetic instruments will be con- 

 tinued as heretofore, at the Kew Observatory, 

 Richmond. 



We learn from The Observatory that Pro- 

 fessor H. H. Turnei-, Savilian professor of 

 astronomy at Oxford, gave a series of three 

 afternoon lectures at the Royal Institution on 

 March 2, 9 and 16. The series was entitled 

 ' Recent Astronomical Progress,' and in the 

 first the lecturer, dealing with solar matters, 



