emulsion having been provided by the manufacturers. The faintness of the comet on the plate of September 17 was due to the poor sky, and not to any change in the comet's brightness. The brightest star shown in the pictures, near the left-hand edge, slightly above the center, is of magnitude 8.7, or about ten times fainter than the limit of naked-eye visibility. Stars at least as faint as the seventeenth magnitude, or twenty-five thousand times fainter than naked-eye visibility, are shown on the original negatives, and the comet's brightness must have been considerably less than this, more accurate determinations being now in prog ress at the hands of Mr. Parkhurst. The comet was first observed visually by Professor Burnham, with the fortyinch telescope, on September 15. It was also observed visually by Professor Barnard on September 17 and several subsequent nights. Professor Barnard's visual estimate of the comet's brightness at his last observation before the moonlight interfered, on the early morning of September 27, was that it was of magnitude 14 or 14.5. His measures indicated a diameter of about 10", but the object was without definite boundary. SCIENTIFIC ITEMS WE record with regret the death of Dr. Washington Irving Stringham, professor of mathematics in the University of California; of Dr. Leonard Pearson, dean of the Veterinary School of the University of Pennsylvania, and of Professor Anton Dohrn, the eminent zoologist, founder and director of the Naples Zoological Station. DR. A. LAWRENCE LOWELL was in stalled as president of Harvard University on October 6, and Dr. Ernest Fox Nichols was installed as president of Dartmouth College on October 14. The inaugural addresses, which are devoted to the condition of the American college, are printed in Science for October 15. DR. EDMUND C. SANFORD, A.B. (California, '83), Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins, '88), professor of experimental psychology in Clark University, has been elected president of Clark College to succeed the late Carroll D. Wright.Dr. J. F. Anderson has been appointed director of the Hygienic Laboratory, chologist, who made the principal address, was given the title of excellency. He was also made an honorary citizen of the city of Leipzig. Washington, D. C., to succeed Dr. M. J. Rosenau, who retires from the Public Health Service to accept a professorship of preventive medicine and hygiene at Harvard University. DR. IRA REMSEN, president of the National Academy of Sciences, has consented, at the request of Dr. H. F. Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, and Mr. Archer Huntington, president of the American Geographical Society, to appoint a scientific commission to examine the records of Lieutenant Peary and Dr. Cook, in case they are ready to present them to such a commission. Lieutenant Peary has accepted the suggestion. PROFESSOR GEORG LUNGE, the eminent chemist of Zurich, was presented on September 19 with a gold medal bearing his portrait and the sum of 40,000 francs to celebrate his seventieth birthday and the jubilee of his doctorate. Chemists were present from many countries and addresses were delivered by a number of delegates. Professor Lunge in his reply announced his intention of giving the money to the Polytechnic Institute for the aid of students of chemistry.-On the occasion of the recent Leipzig celebration Dr. Wilhelm Wundt, the eminent psy Ar the meeting of the Chemists' Club, New York, held on October 8, it was announced that a Chemists' Building Company had been organized, for the purpose of acquiring a plot of ground and erecting thereon a large scientific building, the lower floors of which are to be rented to the Chemists' Club on a long lease, to contain scientific meeting rooms, a library and a museum, as well as the ordinary facilities required by a social organization, including sleeping apartments for its members. The upper floors of the building are to be leased for scientific offices and laboratories. YALE UNIVERSITY has received from Mr. William D. Sloane and Mr. Henry T. Sloane the sum of $475,000 to build, equip and endow a physical laboratory. The University of Pennsylvania proposes to erect during the coming year a building for its graduate school, costing $250,000.-The Pratt Institute of Brooklyn has received the sum of $1,750,000 from Mr. Charles M. Pratt, son of the founder and now its president, and from his five brothers and his sister, Mrs. E. B. Dane. Entered in the Post Office in Lancaster, Pa., as second-class matter. CONTENTS OF SEPTEMBER NUMBER Capacity of the United States for Population. Professor ALBERT PERRY BRIGHAM. Peale's Museum. Dr. HAROLD SELLERS COLTON. The Origin of the Nervous System and its Appropri Collecting and Camping Afoot. A. S. HITCHCOCK. What is a Living Animal? How much of it is alive? Abandoned Canals of the State of New York. ELY The Progress of Science: Tennyson and the Science of the Nineteenth Cen- CONTENTS OF OCTOBER NUMBER The Origin of the Nervous System and its Appropriation The Service of Zoology to Intellectual Progress. Profes- The Emmanuel Movement from a Medical View-point. The Atlantic Forest Region of North America. SPENCER Latin vs. German. Professor RALPH H. MCKEE. The Last Census and its Bearing on Crime. The Rev. Simple Lessons from Common Things. Professor FRAN- The Progress of Science : The Winnipeg Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; Science and Adventure; The Population of the United States; Scientific Items. The MONTHLY will be sent to new subscribers for six months for One Dollar SUBSCRIPTION ORDER To THE SCIENCE PRESS, Publishers of THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, Sub-Station 84, New York City. Please find enclosed check or money order for three dollars, subscription to THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for one year, beginning November, 1909. Please find enclosed from a new subscriber one dollar (sent at your risk), subscription for six months to THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, beginning November, 1909 Name. Address. Single Numbers 30 Cents Yearly Subscription, $3.00 THE SCIENCE PRESS GARRISON-ON-HUDSON, N. 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