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of the English Trias, J. Lomas; extraordinary daily fluctuations in a Karroo well, Prof. A. Young; and other papers on the Karroo or Trias. Joint meeting with Section E (Geography).-The physical geography of Cape Colony, H. C. Schunke-Holloway; Glacial periods in South Africa, A. W. Rogers; changes of climate, as shown by movements of the snow line and upper tree line since Tertiary times, Prof. A. Penck; physiographical subject, Prof. W. M. Davis; Baviaan's Kloof, a contribution to the theory of mountain folds, E. H. L. Schwarz; the Stormberg formation in the Cape Colony, A. L. Du Toit; on the geology of South Victoria Land, H. T. Ferrar. Johannesburg: President's address; magnetic segregation of sulphide ores, Dr. A. P. Coleman; marginal phenomena of granite domes, Prof. G. A. J. Cole; relation of the igneous rocks to the crystalline schists, F. P. Mennell; the indicators of the goldfield of Ballarat, Prof. J. W. Gregory; petrographical subject, Prof. R. B. Young; the diamond pipes and fissures of South Africa, H. S. Harger; recent work of the Transvaal Geological Survey, H. Kynaston; the Victoria Falls, G. W. Lamplugh; the great laccolitic intrusions of the Bushveld, Dr. G. A. F. Molengraaff; evidences in the Transvaal of Glacial conditions in permo-Carboniferous times, E. T. Mellor; geological notes on the excursion to Pretoria, A. L. Hall; the great West Rand upthrust, Dr. J. T. Carrick; notes on a sedimentary formation older than the Witwatersrand beds, E. Jorissen; interesting outlines of the Witwatersrand formation, Dr. J. T. Carrick.

Section D (Zoology).-Cape Town: President's address; the Triassic reptiles of South Africa, with remarks on the origin of mammals, Dr. Broom; a comparison of the Permian reptiles of Russia with those of South Africa, Prof. Amalitzky; South African scorpions, Dr. Purcell ; recent work on gametogenesis and its bearing on theories of heredity, L. Doncaster; the migration of birds in the southern hemisphere, W. L. Sclater; the ostrich, A. H. Evans. Johannesburg: Pearl oysters and pearls, Prof. Herdman; recent discoveries in the South African deep sea, Dr. Gilchrist; cephalodiscus, Dr. Harmer; the growing-point in vertebrates, Prof. Cleland; South African ticks, Drs. Cooper-Foster and Nuttall.

Section E (Geography).-Cape

Town: President's

address; afforestation of South Africa; the unveiling of the coasts of Africa (lantern views of old maps), H. Yule Oldham; the Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom, Colonel Johnston; a comparison of the periodicity of the meteorological conditions of London and Cape Town, Dr. H. R. Mill; Gough Island, Rudmose Brown; terrestrial globes as a necessary adjunct to the teaching of geography, Captain Creak; excursions as a means of teaching geography (lantern), J. Lomas. Johannesburg: The evolution of Africa, Dr. J. Scott Keltie; a new rainfall map of Africa, A. J. Herbertson and P. C. Waite; boundaries and areas in Africa, J. Bolton; the physical geography of the Transvaal, Tudor Trevor; notes on the geography of Africa south of the Limpopo, F. S. Watermeyer; the game preserves of the Transvaal, Major Stevenson Hamilton, D.S.O.; the Sikhim Himalayas and Tibet, Douglas W. Freshfield; Asiatic subject, Prof. Cordier. Section G (Engineering).-Cape Town: Metcalfe Zambezi Bridge and Rhodesian railways; ocean turbine boats, Prof. Byles; roller bearings, wire ropes in mines, and probably automobiles. Johannesburg: President's address (irrigation); strength of winding ropes in mines, Prof. Perry.

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Section H (Anthropology).-Cape Town: President's address; the totemism of the Bantu, E. S. Hartland; the musical instruments of the natives of South Africa, Hy. Balfour; American Negroes, Miss Pullen-Burry; artificial deformation in Africa, Dr. von Luschan. Johannesburg: arts and crafts among the natives of South Africa, Dr. Schoenland; stone implements in South Africa, Mr. Johnstone; bushman paintings with reproductions, Dr. Squire; the affinities of the Hottentots, Dr. von Luschan; the Modjadje, Rev. Reuter; the Bawenda, Rev. Gottschling; report on Zimbabwe, Mr. Maclver; the Basuto, H. E. Mabille.

Section I (Physiology).-Cape Town: Discussion on the effect of climate on health, opened by Sir T. Lauder Brunton (Dr. David Ferrier, Prof. McKendrick, Dr.

Gregory, Dr. Jasper Anderson, Prof. Bohr, and Dr. J. A. Mitchell will take part); so-called scurvy of South Africa, Dr. Gregory; on plague, Dr. J. A. Mitchell; leprosy_in Cape Colony, Dr. A. S. Black; South African drugs, Dr. Moberley; discussion on horse-sickness and allied diseases, opened by Dr. Edington (Dr. Hutcheon, Mr. du Plessis, Dr. Wm. Robertson, Colonel Bruce, and Prof. Sims Woodhead will take part); stock diseases in South Africa, Dr. Hutcheon; ticks as a means of conveying disease in South Africa, Mr. Lounsbury. Johannesburg: President's address; horse-sickness, Dr. Theiler; rinderpest, Dr. G. Turner; a discussion on lung diseases in connection with mining (Dr. Sims Woodhead) is under consideration; nervous diseases, Prof. Ferrier; the life-history of coloured labourers in the Transvaal, Dr. D. Macaulay and Dr. Louis Irvine; dysentery, Colonel Cecil Birt.

Section K (Botany).-Cape Town: The present position of our knowledge of seaweeds, Prof. R. W. Phillips; the fossil floras of South Africa, A. C. Seward; educational methods in the teaching of botany, Harold Wager; notes on irrigation farming on the Orange River, F. B. Parkinson. Johannesburg: President's address; photography as an aid to œcological research, Prof. F. E. Weiss; the problems of heredity, R. P. Gregory. It is expected that Prof. Engler, Prof. Pearson, and others will contribute

papers.

Section L (Educational Science).-Cape Town: President's address; the teaching of science, Prof. H. E. Armstrong; the teaching of science in South Africa, Dr. Hahn; rural education, appropriate to colonial life in South Africa, and agriculture, A. D. Hall; the higher education of women in South Africa, Miss Clark; disabilities of South African school boys, W. A. Way; Cape education, its difficulties and development, Rev. W. E. C. Clarke. Johannesburg: Changes in the Dutch language since its introduction into South Africa, Dr. Brill; education on the veldt, Mr. Corbett; prospects of secondary schools in the Transvaal, Mr. Hope; teaching of agriculture, F. B. Smith; native education, Hobart Houghton; progress of education in the Transvaal, H. Warre Cornish; education in Rhodesia, G. Duthie; a school of forestry, T. R. Simms; the teaching of architecture, R. G. Kirkby; education in the Orange River Colony, Hugh Gunn; manual instruction in the Transvaal, T. Lowden; recent improvements in the training of infants, with special reference to South Africa, Miss Welldon; discussion with Section A, the teaching of elementary mathematics.

THE PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY.1

THE HE principles are, notwithstanding the origin of the word, the last things you attain to in the course of scientific investigation; but they are what you first explain to another who is commencing his study. You may make a further selection of such parts as are for any reason the easiest or most suitable for him to begin with, and call them the elements. Lyell's classic work has pretty well fixed what shall be the conventional meaning of "The Principles of Geology." They are the laws or explanations which we arrive at in respect of the phenomena exhibited in the earth's crust from direct observation of those phenomena themselves or of the recent operations of nature which we see producing analogous results. Their value depends upon the opportunities afforded of obtaining evidence and upon the personal faculty of eliminating sources of error.

In the case of geology, the subject is so vast that its different branches are growing further and further apart, until they seem to have an intergrowth with the branches from other subjects the original stem of which was far removed from their own.

From the observation of rock masses inferences have been drawn as to the conditions which prevailed in past times, and theories have been propounded as

1 "Structural and Field Geology." By Dr. Jas. Geikie. Pp. xx + 435; (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd; London: Gurney and Jackson, 1905.) Price 125. 6d. net.

to the forces which have rolled up the strata and produced such varied superficial and deep-seated phenomena. These form the principles of dynamical geology, and it is the description of the resultant structures and the methods of observation which form the chief subject of the interesting handbook just published by Dr. James Geikie under the title "Structural and Field Geology.'

The two first chapters are devoted to an examination of the rock-forming minerals. These are very few in number if we leave out all except those which are the essential constituents of the common rocks. After studying their composition and characteristics in hand specimens or small Slices adapted for examination under the microscope, there is much to be

Photo. by H.M. Geological Survey. Fig. 1.-Fault-rock, River Garry, at Dalnacardoch, Perthshire. (Reproduced on a reduced scale from "Structural and Field Geology," J. Geikie.)

learnt as to the history of the earth's crust from the observation of large masses of rock. We can see whether they were laid down in comparatively tranquil water, or hurled along by torrents, or dashed against a shore. We notice that what was once mud or sand or shingle is now solid rock, and we try to make out in each case whether this was brought about by the introduction of some cementing material or caused by the pressure of superincumbent masses, and whether the changes were helped by the action of the high temperature experienced by rocks depressed to great depths or crushed by irresistible earth movements. Chemical reactions and the crystallisation of

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various minerals out of the material of the rock produce changes on a small scale, as seen in concretions and drusy cavities, or on a large scale as in the case of the formation of vast beds of crystalline limestone from the calcareous fragments of various organisms. We can infer from a comparison of certain rocks with the products of recent volcanoes that ancient volcanoes also injected molten matter through the riven rocks, poured out vast sheets of lava, and covered wide areas with volcanic ash.

The rocks so formed and so altered have yet to be regarded from another point of view. They have been depressed, uplifted, and thrown into all sorts of positions, now being dragged out, now crumpled up into every variety of fold, the compressible portions often making up by vertical thickening what they lose in horizontal extent, and those that would not yield to such molecular re-arrangement being reduced to the same dimensions by crumpling.

Divisional planes are developed in them, some being due to crush, some to shrinkage, some to the variety in the succession of deposits, and when the strained and bending rock must break it is apt to give along these lines of weakness, so that we find faults commonly coinciding with master joints, thrusts with bedding planes, and so on.

The last seven chapters are more specially devoted to the second subject in the title of the book, namely, field geology. This could not be altogether dissociated from the observations recorded in the earlier part of the work. The information there given is the outcome of original observations in the field, but our author now deals more with the methods employed, and explains what are the most useful appliances for the work and what are the indications which the surveyor must be on the alert to detect. Perhaps, having regard to the numerous monographs which have recently been published on the subject of scenery, he has given greater prominence to the causes than to the effects, to the earth structures to which most scenic features must ultimately be referred rather than to the total result of movement and denudation by which anomalous river flows and abnormal features must be explained.

A study of recent organisms enables us sometimes to establish the relation between the soft and perishable parts and the hard parts which alone are commonly preserved in the rocks, and thus by a comparison of the fossil forms with their nearest recent representatives to learn something of the order of succession of life upon the earth and the conditions under which fossil plants and animals existed. Such analogies must not, however, be pressed too hard. Even such a recent case as the occurrence together of the remains of lion, hyæna, and hippopotamus with the hairy elephant and woolly rhinoceros in our gravel terraces can hardly yet be said to have received an altogether satisfactory explanation. Before we draw inferences from the abundance or rarity of certain fossil organisms we must carefully consider their mode of entombment and the conditions which favour the preservation or the destruction of their remains. Dr. Geikie has dealt very shortly with these principles of palæontology, but devotes most of his work to the inorganic side of geology.

Even with this limitation of subject the work takes a somewhat encyclopædic character owing to the great number and variety of the observations and inferences which have to be recorded. The treatment is rather dogmatic than critical. With an author so experienced and acute in observation this may be for many an advantage, but students require a discussion of arguments where conclusions differ, and references to other authors where they may find the matters more fully treated which are here of necessity briefly stated.

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The formation of ripple marks, for instance, wants fuller explanation than the statement that "they owe their origin to a wave-like motion set up in the semifluid sediment by the water passing over it."

The work is illustrated by a large number of diagrammatic sketches by the author and photographs by members of the staff of the Geological Survey. As examples, we reproduce the pictures of two common phenomena which have many points of general resemblance to one another but a very different origin. Plate xxxix. represents a fissure the strata on either side of which have been relatively displaced by earth movements, either repeatedly in one direction or with a to-and-fro motion, so that the walls of the fissure have been rubbed smooth,

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Our author has wisely avoided most of the shibboleths which it is the fashion for specialists to introduce into their explanations of the simplest phenomena, but though students may escape the interruption of having to consider the exact application of mylonisation and schillerisation, which are not in the index, though one is found in the text, they must learn the meaning of such terms as synclinorium or geanticline. Difficulties and absurdities in nomenclature perhaps characteristic of the present phase of scientific literature, and our author has been wonderfully considerate in this matter, and has given us a very useful handbook, admirable in the freshness and terseness of its descriptions and the clearness and abundance of its illustrations.

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Fig. 2.-Basalt Dyke Cutting Sandstone and Shale, Kilbride Bennan, Arran. (From "Structural and Field Geology," J. Geikie.)

fluted, and polished by the movement. The triturated rock and the fragments broken off fill the crack, and this débris is often penetrated by mineral matter and consolidated into a mass harder than the rocks through which it passes. The walls of the fissure are sometimes altered mechanically and by infiltering water to a considerable depth.

In Plate xliv., on the other hand, we see a rift in the rocks filled with matter which has welled up from deep-seated rock which has become molten. In this case, also, the immediately adjoining portion of the rock which it traverses is altered, and very commonly shows slickensides when earth movements have acted upon these two rocks of such different tenacity and hardness; but the composition of the traversing rocks is so unlike in the two cases, and the character of the marginal alterations so dissimilar, that there is seldom any room for doubt as to the origin of each.

NOTES.

AMONG those who are the recipients of the King's birthday honours we notice the following:-Lord Rayleigh, O.M., F.R.S., has been made a Privy Councillor; Knighthoods have been conferred upon Prof. T. McCall Anderson, of the University of Glasgow; Mr. E. W. Brabrook, C.B., formerly Registrar of Friendly Societies; Dr. A. B. W. Kennedy, F.R.S., Emeritus professor of engineering and mechanical technology at University College, London, and president of the Admiralty Committee on Machinery Designs; Dr. Boverton Redwood; and Dr. W. J. Smyly, president of the Royal College of Physicians, Ireland. Colonel D. Bruce, F.R.S., has been made a Knight Commander of the Bath. Dr. W. T. Prout, principal medical officer, colony of Sierra Leone, and Dr. J. W. Robertson, late Commissioner of Agriculture and Dairying of the Dominion of Canada, have been made C.M.G.'s. The

honour of Knight Bachelor has been conferred upon Dr. E. S. Stevenson, member of the medical council of the Cape of Good Hope; and Mr. Philip Watts, F.R.S., Director of Naval Construction, is made an ordinary member of the Civil Division of the Second Division, or Knight Commander, of the Order of the Bath.

A MEETING of Members of Parliament, presided over by Mr. Haldane, met on Tuesday last in a committee room of the House of Commons to consider the question of a request for an additional State grant to the National Physical Laboratory. Dr. Glazebrook having made a statement as to the aims and needs of the laboratory, was followed by Mr. Chamberlain, who in the course of his remarks said that the real problem of the nation was how to improve our highest education. He felt convinced that if they were to speak of the whole matter as an investment, it was from higher education that they would gain the largest return. He asked in what way the National Physical Laboratory was distinct from other universities, such as those of Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield. He asked this because it was not merely the object of the universities to educate young persons; it was their object to carry on post-graduate research in the largest possible way-to make precisely the experiments which the laboratory was making. They did not want in any way to discourage that work in these separate universities; they did not want to centralise any branch of scientific work. He had himself rather a horror of central institutions, and he had a great belief in the freedom and the competition of a number of separate centres. He was sure that there was no idea of injurious competition in the minds of the promoters of the meeting; but he would like to be certain that it might not have that effect. After all, they were all more or less dependent, and they would be increasingly dependent, upon State aid, of which they had had very little up to the present. Were the universities, each of them, to apply separately and frighten the Treasury, or were they to put their forces together, and go as one body representing the whole and ask for a very largely increased grant, leaving it for consideration afterwards how that grant should be divided? Why were they making a special demand at that time for that particular institution? He was all in favour of giving assistance to any institution of the kind. But he should like to know in what way this was to be distinguished from the University of Liverpool or any of the others where they were carrying on the work of physical research. He would even ask why the promoters of this institution should operate alone-whether they would not do much more if they all came together. In that case they would, of course, have very much larger Parliamentary support. If each institution was to ask for what it wanted he was afraid the chances of success would not be great. He might be considered to be throwing cold water on the matter at the beginning, but as a fact he most entirely sympathised with the general object. He thought that such an institution was absolutely necessary, and if there were no others, then he would say most distinctly that it would have a special claim upon them. But as there were, and as they were all in their infancy, he wished to know in what way it was thought best to treat the matter when they approached the Government, whether as a whole on behalf of scientific instruction generally or whether on behalf of the claims of that particular institution. The chairman said they were all interested in what Mr. Chamberlain had said, and his suggestion of a collective movement in favour of the

highest education. He thought the work that the National Physical Laboratory was doing could not be organised in connection with any of the universities. The following resolution was then put to the meeting and carried unanimously :-"That this meeting, being satisfied of the necessity of further State aid to the National Physical Laboratory, at Teddington, as regards both equipment and maintenance, requests the chairman and conveners of this meeting to prepare and present a memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking for such additional aid, and that the memorial be signed by members here present or who, being absent, may be in sympathy with its objects." Mr. Chamberlain, who had to leave before a decision was arrived at, said that if the meeting decided in favour of the resolution his name might be attached to it.

ON Monday last Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes, President of the Board of Agriculture, was waited upon by a deputation from the Pharmaceutical Society respecting the proposed legislation to extend to other than chemists the right of selling poisonous products used in agriculture and horticulture. It was argued on behalf of the society that it would be dangerous to the public to allow any one to sell poisonous articles; that there was no difficulty in the way of farmers or horticulturists getting the articles through a chemist as cheaply as through any other person; and the public would be safeguarded by the special knowledge of the chemist and druggist. In reply, the President of the Board of Agriculture said he had received an enormous number of resolutions from all over the country in favour of a relaxation of the present law. The new regulations under the proposed Bill would provide :-(1) that no poisonous substance shall be kept in any shop or premises where articles of food are stored or kept for sale; (2) that poisons must be kept in a separate cupboard from other goods; (3) all poisons shall be sold in an enclosed vessel, labelled with the word "Poison "; (4) liquid poisons shall be sold only in bottles or tins easily distinguishable by touch from ordinary bottles or tins; (5) in granting licences the local authority shall have regard to the facilities already existing in the neighbourhood for the purchase of poisonous compounds.

ACCORDING to the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, Dr. Robert Koch has written from German East Africa stating that he has been studying the nature, habits, and anatomy of the tsetse fly, and that he has discovered a certain parasite in the fly to which he attributes the disease to which the cattle bitten by the fly succumb.

THE death is announced, at the age of fifty-five years, of Prof. von Mikulicz-Radecki, of the University of Breslau, well known as a surgeon and for his numerous papers and memoirs on surgical subjects. About a year ago he delivered the Cavendish lecture before the West London Medico-chirurgical Society, and last year he was the president of the surgical section of the German Association of Men of Science and Medical Men.

THE death is announced of Prof. P. T. Cleve, of Upsala, on June 18. He was born in 1840, and was the leading exponent of chemical research in Sweden. His hydrographical investigations were also of great importance. He was an honorary member of the Chemical Society.

THE Barnard medal of Columbia University has just been awarded to Prof. H. Becquerel for "important discoveries in the field of radio-activity, and for his original discovery of the so-called dark rays from uranium, which discovery has been the basis of subsequent research into

the laws of radio-activity, and of our present knowledge of the same." The medal has been previously awarded to Lord Rayleigh, Sir William Ramsay, and Prof. Röntgen.

A PORTRAIT of Prof. W. Osler has been presented to the University of Pennsylvania by the members of the classes which from 1885 to 1891 studied under Prof. Osler when he occupied the chair of clinical medicine at the university.

A MEDAL has been struck to commemorate the successful completion of the Simplon Tunnel. On one side of the medal is a figure of Mercury and a locomotive emerging from the tunnel, with the inscription "Aux Collaborateurs et Ouvriers du Percement du Simplon "; on the other is a representation of the meeting of the workmen when the last obstacle had been broken down, and bears the words Souvenir de la Rencontre des Galeries, Fevr. 1905."

BUSTS of Joseph Lancaster and Michael Faraday-the gift of Mr. Passmore Edwards-were unveiled on Wednesday of last week in the entrance hall of the Borough Polytechnic Institute by Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, F.R.S., who delivered an address.

To commemorate the anniversary of the one hundred and twenty-fifth birthday of Audubon, the American Museum of Natural History has placed on exhibition a collection of Audubon relics, among which is the portfolio in which Audubon carried specimen plates while securing subscribers to his great work, together with sketches and finished plates.

A SCHEME for the establishment of a Central Research Institute at Kasauli, and a laboratory for scientific, medical, and sanitary work at the headquarters of each provincial Indian Government, to provide more adequate means for the scientific study of etiology and the nature of the diseases of the country, has been published. It is hoped that when the project has been developed, not only will it be no longer necessary for officers to go to Europe to study the bacteriology and parasitology of tropical diseases, but that workers from England and the European Continent will avail themselves of the Indian laboratories and the unrivalled material for study which the diseases of the country afford. The scheme has the approval of the Secretary of State, and the Government of India proposes to appoint as the first director of the Central Research Institute Lieut.-Colonel Semple, M.D.,

well known for his work in connection with the Pasteur Institute of India.

A NEW Society, to be known as the Harvey Society, has been established in New York under the patronage of the New York Academy of Medicine. Its purpose is the diffusion of scientific knowledge of anatomy, physiology, bacteriology, pathology, pharmacology, and physiological and pathological chemistry by public lectures given by men who are workers in the subjects presented. Each lecture is intended to represent the state of modern knowledge concerning the topic treated, and will be addressed to the general medical profession who are interested in the scientific side of medicine. The president is Dr. Graham Lusk. The members of the society consist of two classes, active and associate members. Active members are laboratory workers in the medical sciences residing in New York; associate members are such persons as may be in sympathy with the objects of the society, and reside in New York. The first course of lectures will be given at the Academy of Medicine on Saturday evenings during the winter of the years 1905-6.

A CONVERSAZIONE took place at King's College, London, on Thursday last, when many scientific and other exhibits were on view. An interesting item was a set of various forms of glow-lamps, a demonstration of which was given by Prof. E. Wilson in the Siemens electrical engineering laboratory, and which included mercury-vapour, Nernst, tantalum, and osmium lamps. There was also an exhibition of crystallisation shown on the screen by Prof. Herbert Jackson.

THE annual conversazione of the Institution of Electrical

Engineers was held on June 29 at the British Museum (Natural History), South Kensington. It was attended by upwards of 1000 guests.

THE third International Electric Tramway and Railway Exhibition was opened at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, on Monday last by Lord Derby.

THE annual general meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry will begin in London on Monday next, June 10. The society numbers among its members some 1500 Americans, and at the last annual meeting, which, with special reference to the St. Louis Exhibition, was held in the United States, an American, Dr. W. H. Nichols, was elected president in succession to Sir William Ramsay. The American visit was a great success, and the British members of the society have looked forward to the time when they would be able to welcome in Great Britain their president and American and Canadian co-members. The proceedings in connection with the forthcoming meeting have therefore been specially arranged in view of this return visit. Dr. Nichols has already arrived in England, and we understand that the guests of the society will number in all about 120. A lengthy and interesting programme has been arranged.

THE sixty-fourth annual meeting of the Medico-psychological Association of Great Briain and Ireland will be held at 11 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, on July 20 and 21 under the presidency of Dr. T. Outterson Wood. The annual dinner of the association is to take place on July 30 at the Whitehall Rooms.

THE American Anthropological Association is to meet in San Francisco, Cal., from August 29 to 31 next under the presidency of Prof. F. W. Putnam, when papers relating to ethnology, archæology, prehistoric man, physical anthropology, linguistics, and general anthropology will be read. The museum of the department of anthropology of the University of California at the affiliated colleges in San Francisco, which has recently been installed, but not yet opened to the public, will be the headquarters of the association.

A PRELIMINARY circular has been issued to announce that the tenth International Geological Conference will be held in 1906 in Mexico. An executive committee has been appointed, with M. José G. Aguilera, director of the National Geological Institute of Mexico, as president, and M. Ezequiel Ordóñez, assistant director of the same institution, general secretary. It is expected that the congress will open on September 6, 1906, and last for eight days.

THE Postmaster-General again directs attention to the fact that pathological specimens and articles of a similar nature may be forwarded only by registered letter post and in proper cases. The Post Office regulations provide that any deleterious liquid or substance sent by post must be enclosed in a receptacle hermetically sealed, which receptacle must itself be placed in a strong wooden, leathern,

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