complete study of the climate of Cairo, using the observations made at the observatory for the twenty-one years, 1868-1888. Monthly bulletins were issued up to October, 1898, and in February, 1899, the observatory was transferred to the Survey Department, Public Works Ministry. In 1900 this department issued 'A Report on the Meteorological Observations made at the Abbassia Observatory, Cairo, during the years 1898 and 1899.' This report included the mean values derived from the observations of the previous thirty years, and was very fully illustrated by means of plates showing the mean daily and annual variations of the different weather elements. The work at the observatory has been carried on under the direction of Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E., Director-General of the Survey Department. Recently (1902) there has been issued a second Report on the Meteorological Observations made at the Abbassia Observatory, Cairo,' including the observations of the year 1900, together with the Alexandria means derived from the observations of the previous ten years. Eye readings made every three hours have been replaced by self-recording instruments. Meteorological stations have been established at Port Said, the Barrage, Assiut and Aswan. The diurnal and annual variations of the different weather elements are illustrated by means of numerous

curves.

The Abbassia Observatory, and the cooperating stations, under the wise direction of Captain Lyons, are carrying on a valuable work in a country whose meteorology has always been of the greatest interest, and in which increasing numbers of Americans seek health during the winter months.

THUNDERSTORMS AND THE MOON.

IN Popular Astronomy for June, Professor William H. Pickering summarizes some published statistics of thunderstorm occurrence in relation to the moon's phases, using data collected by Polis, van der Stok, Köppen, Hazen and others. The conclusion reached is that there really is a greater number of thunderstorms in the first half of the lunar

month than in the last half, and also that the liability to storms 'is' greatest between new moon and first quarter and least between full moon and last quarter. The difference is, however, not large enough to be of any practical importance.

RAIN AND DUST FALL IN EDINBURGH IN 1902. IN the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (XXIX., 1903, p. 134) Dr. W. G. Black gives the results of his catch of dust and soot in the central district of Edinburgh during the year 1902. The fall of dust and soot in an open dish or gauge of 75 square inches amounted to 2 ounces, giving 3.8 ounces per square foot, or about 24 pounds for every 100 square feet.

R. DEC. WARD.

NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL PARK. THE Zoological Society has recently received at the Zoological Park the following interesting animals, as reported by Director Hornaday: (1) A bear cub, six months old, collected at Port Muller Bay, Alaskan Peninsula, and evidently representing a species recently described as Merriam's Bear (Ursus merriami); this is probably the first specimen of its species to come into captivity. It is of a uniform bluish-gray color, quite different in appearance from all other bears that have thus far been received from Alaska by the Zoological Society. (2) Mr. Charles Sheldon has succeeded, after more than two years of constant effort, in securing a grizzly bear cub from Mexico. A fine young specimen, which, in spite of its black coat, is evidently a grizzly, arrived on July 15, from Mexico, as a gift from Mr. Sheldon. If this animal really is a grizzly, it represents the most southern form of that group of bears. (3) A Clouded Leopard (Felis nebulosa) was brought to the society by Captain Golding, from Singapore. This is a full-grown specimen, and at the proper time will be placed on exhibition in the Small Mammal House. (4) A fine halfgrown specimen of the Siamang (Hylobates syndactylus), received from Captain Golding, is, in all probability, the first representative of its species to reach America alive. It is

(6)

a large black gibbon, with web fingers and a large air-sac, or pouch, under the throat. This specimen is in good health, and in zoological collections it even surpasses the gorilla in rarity. (5) A large and very fine specimen of the Tcheli Monkey (Macacus tcheliensis), of northern China, was also brought by Captain Golding. Its nearest relative is the Japanese red-faced monkey. Like the latter, it is a shaggy-haired and hardy animal. A fine adult specimen of the Great White Heron (Herodias egretta), recently received from Miami, Florida, is probably the only captive representative of its species alive in North America. It was acquired by purchase, and reached the Park in perfect health. (7) Two specimens of the so-called 'Giant Bear' of Corea have been purchased by cable of Mr. Hagenbeck for one of the new bear dens, and will be shipped to the park very shortly. H. F. O.

THE LISTER INSTITUTE.*

IN 1896, the centenary of Jenner's crucial experiment in proof of the efficacy of vaccination, a movement was started at St. George's Hospital to perpetuate his name by some suitable national memorial. It was decided that it should be associated with the then newly-established British Institute of Preventive Medicine, the form which it was to take being left to be determined by the Council of the Institute, according to the amount of money which might be raised. It was determined that if this amount should be so large as to place the funds of the Institute in a thoroughly satisfactory position, the name should be changed to the Jenner Institute; if the sum proved to be considerable, but less than enough for this purpose, it was to be applied to the endowment of a Jenner professorship, while if a still smaller amount were obtained it was to be devoted to founding a Jenner scholarship. The sum actually raised proved not more than adequate for the founding of a scholarship, but the Council of the Institute wishing to honor the pioneer of preventive medicine, resolved that the name of

the institute should be changed. Afterwards, however, it was found that there already existed in London a commercial firm trading under the name of the Jenner Institute for calf lymph, and that it had a prior claim to the name of Jenner Institute. It was hoped, however, that as the Institute of Preventive Medicine was not preparing calf lymph, and in fact had agreed with the proprietor of the other institute not to do so while it retained a similar name, no confusion between the two would arise. This hope, however, was falsified as the two institutes were frequently supposed to be one and the same to the inconvenience of both. The mistake acquired additional probability from the fact that the local government board rented certain laboratories in the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine wherein the government staff prepared the lymph issued to public vaccinators. The governing body, finding the inconvenience so great, apart from the restriction mentioned above, and all efforts to meet the difficulty having failed, have determined again to change the name of the institute. The Jenner memorial committee has acquiesced with regret, and it has been agreed that its contribution shall remain invested in a Jenner memorial studentship in the institute under its new name. governing body proposes that the institute shall in future be called the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine. The name has, we are informed, been chosen against Lord Lister's own strong personal wish; but we believe that the profession and the public at large will agree with the governing body in thinking that no name could more appropriately be identified with the institute than that of the founder of antiseptic surgery. The proposed change has the approval of Lord Iveagh, whose munificent endowment of the institute was made just after the previous change had been effected; indeed, we are informed that it is no secret that, had it not been for that change, Lord Iveagh would then have suggested that the British Institute should be definitely associated with the name of Lister, as the similar institute in Paris is with the name of Pasteur.

The

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. REAR ADMIRAL GEORGE W. MELVILLE, chief of the Bureau of Steam-engineering of the navy, retired from active service on August 8.

PROFESSOR E. C. PICKERING, of Harvard College Observatory, has been given the degree of Doctor of Science and Mathematics by the University of Heidelberg on the occasion of the celebration of the centenary of its reopening.

PROFESSOR CARL PEARSON, of University College, London, will give this year the Huxley memorial lecture, his subject being 'On the Inheritance in Man of Moral and Mental Characters and its Relation to the Inheritance of Physical Characters.'

DR. A. G. LEONARD, assistant state geologist of Iowa, has been elected state geologist of North Dakota.

DR. CHARLES B. HARE, of the University of Michigan, has been appointed government bacteriologist in the Philippines.

THE University of Edinburgh has conferred its honorary LL.D. on Professor S. S. Laurie, lately professor of education in the university, and on Sir Henry MacLaurin, chancellor of the University of Sydney, who has made various contributions to medical literature.

GENERAL A. W. GREELY, chief of the Signal Service, represented the United States at the conference on Wireless Telegraphy, which met at Berlin on August 4, on the call of the emperor of Germany.

He

PROFESSOR VICTOR GOLDSCHMIDT, of the University of Heidelberg, the distinguished mineralogist and crystallographer, arrived in New York on the Kurfürst, on August 5, and will remain in this country until November. will visit the Pacific coast and the Yellowstone Park, and be the guest of American mineralogists at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, the Kingston (Can.) and Houghton (Mich.) Mining Schools, the University of Wisconsin and the Case School of Applied Science.

DR. E. O. HOVEY sailed for Europe on the Moltke, on August 6. He will represent the American Museum of Natural History at the

International Geological Congress at Vienna, and afterwards will spend some time in the Puy de Dôme region of southern France.

MR. HARLAN I. SMITH, assistant curator of archeology, is making investigations in the state of Washington for the American Museum of Natural History.

MR. ADOLPH HEMPEL, an American engaged in scientific work in Brazil, recently shipped to the zoological laboratory of Harvard University several living specimens of Cavia aperea, the wild guinea-pig of Brazil. Three of the animals have reached Cambridge in safety and will be used in experimental studies in heredity.

THE expedition of investigation sent to the Bahama Islands by the Baltimore Geographical Society returned on July 30.

THE Antarctic relief ship Terra Nova is expected to proceed to Hobart, Tasmania, at the end of the present month by way of the Suez canal. She will there be joined by the Morning.

PROFESSOR J. A. EWING, F.R.S., has been appointed a member of the Explosives Committee of the British government in the place of the late Sir W. C. Roberts Austen.

THE Royal Society has awarded its Mackinnon research studentships to Mr. F. Horton in physics and to Mr. A. L. Embleton in biology.

MR. W. E. HARTLEY, B.A., of Trinity College, has been appointed assistant observer in the Cambridge Observatory.

DR. GEORGE R. PARKIN, who recently visited the United States to make arrangements in regard to the Rhodes scholarships, is at present in South Africa on the same mission.

THE plan of changing the name of the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine to the Lister Institute of Medicine, referred to elsewhere in this issue of SCIENCE, has been carried into effect by a unanimous vote of the members of the institution.

THE centenary of the birth of C. C. J. Jacoby, the mathematician, occurs next year

and will be celebrated by the preparation of a memorial volume under the auspices of the third International Mathematical Congress and edited by Professor Königsberger.

Nature states that the monument which was unveiled last month at Bonn, in honor of Professor Kekulé, stands away from the city and just in front of the building of the chemical laboratories of the University of Bonn, the place in which Kekulé labored and taught for so many years and with such pronounced and conspicuous success. The statue stands on a granite pedestal, and is life-size and of bronze. On each side of the sculptured figure of Kekulé is a sphynx. The character of the man, simple and unpretentious yet convincing, is well brought out, and some of his greatest scientific achievements are clearly represented in relief on the pedestal. At the unveiling ceremony many universities and scientific bodies, foreign as well as German, were represented, and so also were numerous firms engaged in the chemical industry.

A BUST of the late Sir William Henry Flower, F.R.S., director of the Natural History Department of the British Museum, the work of Mr. Brock, R.A., was formally presented to the trustees of the British Museum by the Flower Memorial Committee, of which Lord Avebury is chairman, at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, on July 25.

Speeches were made by Professor Ray Lankester, Lord Avebury, Dr. Sclater and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

WE regret to record the death of Dr. W. C. Knight, professor of geology and mining engineering in the University of Wyoming, who died on July 8 from peritonitis after a brief illness.

DR. HAMILTON LANPHERE SMITH, professor of physics and astronomy in Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y. until 1890, died in New London on August 1, at the age of eighty-one

years.

WE note with regret the death of Mr. William Earl Dodge which occurred at Bar Harbor on August 9. Mr. Dodge was one of the most public spirited citizens of New York

City, who gave not only of his means, but also of his time to educational and scientific institutions. He was the first vice-president of the American Museum of Natural History and of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts; one of the trustees of the Carnegie Institution and of the New York Botanical Garden, and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and of the American Geographical Society.

M. EDMOND NOCARD, the well-known student of comparative pathology, died at Paris on August 2.

M. RENARD, professor of mineralogy at the University of Genth, has died at the age of sixty years.

DR. FRANZ BAUER, docent for geology in the Technical Institute at Munich, died on June 21 as the result of an accident while on a geological expedition.

THE third International Mathematical Congress will be held at Heidelberg in August of next year. Professor A. Krazer, of Karlsruhe, is the secretary.

THE second International Seismological Conference was held at Strasburg at the end of last month with representatives in attendance from about twenty countries.

THERE will be a civil service examination on September 2 to fill a vacancy in the position of testing engineer (male) in the Bureau of Forestry, Department of Agriculture, at $1,200 to $1,500 per annum. On September 2 and 3 there will be an examination to fill the position of miscellaneous computer at the Naval Observatory, and on September 16 for the position of nautical expert in the hydrographic office, U. S. Navy, at a salary of $1,000.

MR. MARSHALL FIELD has written to the South Park Board of Chicago to say that he is willing to go forward with the building of the permanent Field Columbian Museum on the lake front as soon as the ground is ready for building. It is said that the cost of the building will be $6,000,000.

THE daily papers report that Mr. Andrew Carnegie has given U. S. Steel Corporation

Bonds of the par value of $2,500,000 to Dunfermline, Scotland, where he was born in 1837. The income is to be used for parks, a theater, the encouragement of technical education, etc. THERE was a meeting of the British Cancer Research Fund on July 30, at which the prime minister presided and made an address. was reported to the meeting that the fund now amounts to somewhat over £50,000, and that about £1,000 had been spent during the present year, some three thousand cases of cancer having been studied.

It

A FOREST reserve of 10,000 acres in Mifflin, Juniata and Huntingdon Counties in Pennsylvania has been recently created and named the Rothrock Forest Reserve, in honor of Dr. J. T. Rothrock, the present forest commissioner.

THE Commission sent by the Marine Hospital Service to Vera Cruz, consisting of Dr. Herman B. Parker, of the Marine Hospital, and Drs. George E. Beyer and O. L. Pothier, of New Orleans, report three propositions as having been demonstrated beyond doubt, namely: 1. That the cause of yellow fever is an animal parasite, and not a vegetable germ or bacterium. 2. That the disease is communicated only by the bite of mosquitoes. 3. That only one genus of mosquitoes, Stegomyia Fasciata, is the host of the yellow fever parasite.

THE opening of the Simplon Tunnel in 1905 will be celebrated by an exposition at Milan, partly of international character. Special attention will be paid to exhibits of transportation by land and water and aerial navigation.

A REPORT has been widely circulated that a variety of basil (ocinum viride) possesses the property of driving away mosquitoes. Captain Larymore originally made the statement that several growing pots of this plant would keep a room free from mosquitoes, and that the leaves would stupefy them. Sir George Birdwood further reported that allied basils had long been used in India as a defense against mosquitoes and as a prophylactic in malarious districts. Experiments have now

been made by Dr. W. T. Prout, principal medical officer in Sierra Leone, showing that mosquitoes flourish quite as well in the presence of basil plants as elsewhere. The efficacy of other plants reputed to drive away mosquitoes is no greater, and this should be generally known, in order that dependence may not be placed on empirical methods in place of proper means for the extermination of mosquitoes.

THE Board of Aldermen of New York City have authorized an additional bond sale to the amount of $188,000 for constructing approaches to a new wing of the American Museum of Natural History, for building a foyer to take the place of the old lecture hall and for other additions and improvements about the building. Among these additions will be two assembly-rooms for the use of the New York Academy of Sciences and for other scientific meetings. Ground is being broken on Manhattan Square, west of the new lecture hall, for the construction of an addition to the museum building to contain a thoroughly modern heating, lighting and power plant. It is planned to have the apparatus for the conversion and transmission of heat, light and power open to the public, and instructively labeled and described.

THE illustrated report to the U. S. Geological Survey on Precious Stones for 1902, by Mr. George F. Kunz, is now in press. The production of precious stone in this country in 1902 aggregated $318,300 in value, as compared with $289,050 in 1901, and with $333,170 in 1900. The total value of the precious stones imported into the United States during 1902 was $25,412,776, which sum was $550,209 more than that for the previous year, and twelve times the value of the importations in 1866.

THE Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland has made the following awards under its research scheme: Research Fellowships, Chemical, (1) Charles E. Faweitt, B.Sc. Edinburgh and London, Ph.D. Leipzig; (2) James C. Irvine, B.Sc., D.Sc. St. Andrews, Ph.D. Leipzig: (3) William Maitland, B.Sc. Aberdeen. Biological, (4) John Cameron, M.B., Ch. B. Edinburgh. Historical, (5) Duncan Mackenzie, M.A. Edinburgh, Ph.D. Vienna.