March 19, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



263 



university life which is developed nowhere so 

 much as at St. Petersburg : it is the large number 

 of students who receive ' stipends ' (scholarships). 

 About one-fourth of the students (in all, 577) re- 

 ceive regular scholarships ; and, as those of the 

 first year are excluded from them, the percentage 

 is much higher in the three later years. The 

 yearly expenses of the university in 1885 were 

 four hundred and thirty-five thousand rubles. 



O. E. 



St. Petersburg, Feb. 26. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The Rev. W. C. Winslow, 429 Beacon Street, 

 Boston, treasurer and vice-president of the Egypt 

 exploration fund for America, writes as follows : 

 " The invaluable labors of our society in the Delta 

 were successfully resumed in December. The 

 splendid results of 1883-84 and 1884-85, for classical, 

 historical, and biblical elucidation and illustration, 

 are familiar to scholars and to a large portion of 

 the reading public. The work is in the hands of 

 masters ; but these labors cannot go on without 

 continued support. To those who contribute so 

 small a sum as five dollars the elaborate memoir 

 of the season, annual reports, etc., are sent. The 

 book 'Naucratis' (forty plates and plans) is in 

 preparation ; * Tanis II.' (Zoan) will follow. The 

 officers and the committee all give their services 

 gratuitously. To all interested a circular and 

 other information will be gladly furnished by the 

 treasurer." 



— The winter habitat of the mackerel is not yet 

 definitely ascertained. It is interesting, therefore, 

 to place upon record the fact, noted in the cir- 

 cular of the Boston fish bureau of March 5, that 

 the schooner Fitz J. Babson of Gloucester was 

 struck by a heavy sea on the 27th of February, 

 when about twenty miles north of Georges 

 Banks. When the water had disappeared, eight 

 mackerel were found flipping about the deck. 

 The spring mackerel fleet is being fitted out some- 

 what earlier than has been usual in former years, 

 on account of this indication of the proximity of 

 the mackerel schools to the coast. 



— A committee of geologists and naturalists 

 invite subscriptions to a monument to Oswald 

 Heer, whose death two years and a half ago 

 closed the work of one of the most eminent 

 naturalists of this century. It will take the form 

 of a marble bust on a stone pedestal, to be placed 

 under cover in the Botanic garden at Zurich. 

 One thousand dollars are desired, and those will- 

 ing to contribute are invited to send their con- 

 tributions to Dr. C. Schroter, Professor, Hot- 

 tingen, Zurich, before the first of May next, or to 



the editor of Science, 47 Lafayette Place, New 

 York, who will see that they are forwarded. 



— Dr. Austin Flint, the most celebrated of 

 American physicians, died in New York, March 

 13, aged seventy-four. Probably no one person 

 has ever exerted so great an influence in medical 

 education, and in the medical profession of Amer- 

 ica, as has Dr. Flint through his text-books and 

 teachings. 



— Professor Ward's ' Sketch of paleobotany ' 

 (Fifth annual report, U.S. geol. surv.) is an excel- 

 lent work, and one to which the title does not do 

 justice. The work comprises biographical sketches 

 of twenty-two of the most eminent leaders of the 

 science, followed by a ' sketch ' of the early his- 

 tory and subsequent progress of paleobotany, 

 which must have involved a large amount of 

 labor. After this follows a discussion of the classifi- 

 cation of fossil botany. 3etween eight and nine 

 thousand species of fossil plants are now known, 

 two of which are from the Cambrian, nearly 

 fifteen hundred from the carboniferous, and over 

 three thousand from the miocene, with only sixty- 

 nine from the trias, and less than four hundred 

 older than the carboniferous. In his introductory 

 remarks upon the inter-relation of geology, paleo- 

 botany, and botany, the author expresses surprise 

 that the mutual dependence of botany and paleo- 

 botany has received so little recognition among 

 scientific men, and presents the importance of 

 studying fossil and living plants together. Cer- 

 tainly with this view every naturalist ought hear- 

 tily to concur. What he complains of in fossil 

 botany has been unfortunately too true in other 

 branches of paleontology. 



— Mr. Gilbert's report on the ' Topographic 

 features of lake shores,' in the ' Fifth annual re- 

 port of the geological survey,' is of especial 

 interest from the author's wide experience on the 

 ' fossil ' shore-lines of the evaporated lakes of the 

 Great Basin, and from his studies of the former 

 expansion of Lake Ontario, now in progress. The 

 several topographic forms are well defined, and 

 illustrated by maps and views. The plates of the 

 Cup Butte and other portions of the old Bonne- 

 ville shore-line in Utah are particularly valuable. 

 A large share of shore-work is attributed to the 

 waves and littoral currents of great storms, just 

 as the greater part of river-channel topography is 

 determined by the heavy and exceptional floods. 

 The bars at the western end of Lake Superior are 

 adduced in illustration of the statement that the 

 greatest waves, and not the prevailing winds, of 

 a shore, will define its topography. 



— Mr. Westwood Oliver, with the assistance of 

 a number of astronomers, has in preparation a 



