animals being used. Already numbers of patients, mostly the subjects of phthisis, are in regular attendance.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS.

THE Trustees of Trinity College have deIcided to erect a Natural Science Hall at a cost of $40,000.

THE bi-centennial celebration of Yale University will begin on Sunday, October 20, 1901, and will continue for four days. On Wednesday a commemorative address will be made and honorary degrees will be conferred.

THE fund which since 1880 has been collecting for a retirement fund for professors of Harvard University has now reached $340,000, and the plan will be put into effect at the beginning of the next academic year. Professors who have served for twenty years and who are over sixty years old will be allowed one-third salary, with an increase for longer terms of service, which, however, is not to exceed two-thirds of the salary.

THE following table shows the enrollment of the University of Michigan, February 9, 1899:

A MEETING was held in London on January 31st for the purpose of forming the Cambridge University Association, the chief object of which is to improve the financial condition of the University. The Duke of Devonshire, Chancellor of the University, presided and made an address. Other addresses were made by Dr. Hill, the Vice-Chancellor; Professor Jebb, Master of Trinity; Sir Richard Webster, Professor Allbutt, Professor Ewing, Lord Rothschild and the Bishop of London. stated that the sum of about $2,500,000 was needed. Toward this sum the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Rothschild each subscribed £10,000. It was also stated that the Drapers'

It was

Company would subscribe £800 a year for ten years in support of a professorship of agriculture. Since the meeting Sir Walter Gilby has subscribed £200 for ten years for a readership of agriculture, and in addition to smaller subscriptions £3,000 toward the general fund has been given by Mr. Benjamin L. Cohen.

DR. J. C. BRANNER, professor of geology in Leland Stanford Jr. University, has been appointed Vice-President of the University.

THE chairs of pathology vacant at Cambridge, by the death of Professor Kanthack, and at Glasgow, by the death of Professor Coats, will be filled during March. In accordance with the English custom, applications for these chairs should be presented to the University authorities.

M. RIEFFEL-SCHIRMER, professor of geography at Lyons, has been appointed lecturer in the University of Paris for the present year, in the place of M. Gallois, who has been given leave of absence.

THE John Lucas Walker Studentship, of the annual value of £200, for the furtherance of original research in pathology, has been conferred upon Mr. Edward Sydney St. Barbe Sladen, M.A., M.D., B.C., of Gonville and Caius College. The studentship is tenable for three years.

Dr.

DR. HÖLDER, professor of mathematics of the University at Königsberg, has been called to Leipzig, and will be succeeded at Königsberg by Dr. Schönflies, of Göttingen. Dr. Alois Lode has been made associate professor of hygiene at Innsbruck, and Dr. Helferich, of Greifswald, has been called to Kiel as successor to Professor v. Esmarch, who has retired. Otto Wiener, of Giessen, has been appointed to a full professorship of physics in the University at Leipzig, and Dr. Hans Held has been promoted to an assistant professorship of anatomy in the same University. Dr. Walter König has been appointed professor of theoretical physics in the University at Heidelberg, and Dr. Jakob Früh, professor of geography in the Polytechnic Institute at Zurich. Dr. Pelikan has been promoted to an assistant professorship of mineralogy in the German University at Prague.

in the hands of a civilian, and civilian methods have been applied in the administration. At the present time it has been continuously under the Treasury for a period of sixty-two years. Although statistics do not always give an adequate conception of the work to which they are supposed to bear testimony, a general idea of the activity displayed may be had from the following statement of work done:

350,000 square miles (906,500 sq. kilo.) of triangulation, embracing

15,000 stations for horizontal measures, and determining

28,500 geographical positions at which

1,000 astronomical coordinates have been observed.

38,500 square miles (99,710 sq. kilo.) of topography, embracing

11,600 miles (18,670 kilometers) of general coast line and more than

100,000 miles (160,900 kilometers) of shore line (rivers, etc.), also including

51,000 miles (82,080 kilometers) of roadways.

545,000 miles (877,100 kilometers) of sounding, covering

164,000 square miles (424,800 sq. kilo) of area, besides

93,000 miles (149,700 kilometers) of deep sea sounding, in which

14,000 bottom specimens were obtained.

4,600 original topographic and hydrographic sheets, from which

1,300,000 charts have been made and distributed; 30,000 original volumes of observations, including magnetic records from

1,100 stations.

BASE LINES.

Two hundred and three base lines have been measured, of which nineteen, on account of their accuracy, length and geodetic connection, are classed as primary. The average length of these is 9,892 meters. The probable error, which includes both that of measurement and the comparison with the standard, is 22.2 millimeters, or about 1/445,000 of the length stated. Speaking of the three types of apparatus used in the

Survey, and referring now to errors of measurement purely, it may be said that with the different forms of metallic bars, compensating and otherwise, the error is one-millionth part of the length measured. With the tape line the accuracy may be increased to 1/2,000,000, while with a rod in melting ice 1/5,000,000 is easily attainable. In the first form the contacts are material; in the last, optical; with the tape they are linear. The cost is greatest for the rod in melting ice, and least with metallic bars.

Attention may here be called to a new form of base apparatus named the Duplex and designed by Assistant William Eimbeck. It consists of two bars, brass and steel, five meters in length, so arranged that the measure may be made with each component separately and simultaneously. It may also be employed as a Borda scale, or the temperature may be directly observed. Some unique features, which need not here be described, are employed in its manipulation. The Salt Lake base, measured in 1896, gave results with either component having a probable error of less than 1/5,000,000 part of the measured length.

TRIANGULATION AND ARCS.

The shore line of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is 5,452 miles (8,774 kilometers). This has been covered by triangulation, with the exception of a few hundred miles on the northwest coast. An oblique arc of 22° has been measured from the northeast boundary in Maine, to the southwest limit of Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico, and an arc of 49° on the 39th parallel of latitude has been completed, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. All of the New England States, a large part of the Middle ones, and considerable areas in the South and West, have been covered with triangulation. Adjacent regions have had careful reconnaissance. The work in this direction has been executed on a large and accurate

scale. The greatest triangle has sides of 133, 167 and 190 miles (214,269, and 306 kilometers). The highest station is over 14,000 feet (4,267 meters). Operations of such magnitude justify the introduction of refinements not usually employed. The latitudes are corrected for elevation, and the horizontal directions are changed, to reduce them to the sea level of the observed station. A distinctive feature in the final adjustment is the application of weights depending on both the station errors and those arising from the closing of figures. These are treated separately, but the final weights consist of two parts, one resulting from local conditions and varying with each direction, and the other deduced from the formation of triangles and remaining constant for the network under consideration In the California work the probable error of a direction at any station was 0.081 while that from the closing of triangles was about twice as much. The latter necessarily includes the former. The two are separated by means of the formula

which gives the resulting combination error as ±0.169. e, is the probable error of a direction from the closing of triangles, and e, is the average probable error of an observed direction from station adjustment. Each direction, therefore, enters the final adjustment with a weight derived from measures at its own station, added to the above value, which represents the constant part for the entire figure. The cost of the transcontinental arc from Cape May to San Francisco was two hundred dollars per linear mile ($124 per kilometer), three and a half dollars per square mile ($1.35 per sq. kilo.), and two thousand dollars per station.

A fine example of rapid expansion from the base to a fully developed net of triangulation is found in the vicinity of Salt Lake, and is a characteristic specimen of primary

work as carried out in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The average height of the thirteen stations composing the main scheme is 11,256 feet (3,431 meters), while the average length of the lines connecting them is 159,734 kilometers (994 miles). The distance between Mt. Ellen and Uncompagre is 294,104 kilometers (1823 miles). This remains to the present day the longest line observed from both ends and forming an integral part of a regular system of triangulation executed by any trigonometric survey in existence. Indeed, the entire chain from the Sierra Nevada on the west to the Mississippi plateau on the east is without a parallel in similar work, when we consider the magnitude of the geometrical figures, the elevation of the stations and the refinement of the individual

measures.

Referring to a part of this work-the base net at Salt Lake, Utah-the following details are of interest:

The elevation of the base above sea level is about 4,224 feet, while the mean height of the stations composing the quadrilateral is 11,088 feet. In only five steps we pass from a base 11.2 kilometers in length to a line 237,765 kilometers long (Pilot Peak, Mt. Nebo). This involves an average multiplication of 4 times for each step of expansion, which is within the limit set for development in well conditioned triangulation. The resulting quadrilateral in which the base line expansion culminates and on which the transcontinental extension rests contains nearly 10,500 square miles and is the largest yet realized. The base net including this figure (Ogden, Mt. Nebo, Ibepah and Pilot) was adjusted separately and brought out the following criteria of accuracy:

FROM STATION ADJUSTMENT.

Average probable error of a single observation of a direction...

Average probable error of an adjusted direction...

= 0.71

0 .10

Aside from the work in practical astronomy incident and necessary to the operations of every trigonometrical survey, attention has been given to various other phases of the subject. It has not alone sufficed to point out and demonstrate the utility of the method of equal zenith distances for latitude, and of the application of the telegraph to longitudes. The Coast and Geodetic Survey feeling the necessity of better star places, arising from the use of the methods just mentioned, has devoted some of its energy to the perfection of star catalogues. It is probably no exageration to say that the declinations given in our field lists are the best attainable anywhere. More than fifty of the best modern catalogues are corrected for their systematic errors, and each is given weight depending on the value of the work and number of observations. A collection of all these data, and their consolidation into one homogeneous result, eliminates as far as possible all known sources of inaccuracy, and gives us finally the most reliable positions. A list so constructed of several thousand stars has been already published, many of which are especially adapted to southern work. The average probable error of a declination may be given as rather less than of a second; a degree of precision, which enables an observer to determine his latitude from 20 pairs, in one evening, with an uncertainty of only 10 feet. This is sufficient for the

purposes of geodesy. Incidental to regular astronomic work, the Survey has equipped and sent out no less than 35 parties for the observation of solar eclipses and transits of the inferior planets, which work has required the occupation of stations in every continent and Polynesia. The variations of

latitude have been determined at three stations, each one having been occupied more than a year.

MISCELLANEOUS OPERATIONS.

The legitimate field of investigation in a geodetic service embraces many subjects outside of those already specified. In the execution of the task before us a free interpretation has been given to the law authorizing the work, and the kindred subjects of Hypsometry, Magnetism, Gravity and Physical Hydrography have been pursued along with others more strictly within our prov. ince.

Five thousand miles (8,047 kilometers) of precise levelling have been executed, including four independent determinations of the height of St. Louis. Two have been made from the Atlantic at Sandy Hook, and two from the Gulf of Mexico at Biloxi.

A comparison indicates that the surface of the Gulf is somewhat higher than the sea level at New York, and this has been verified in character, although not precisely in amount, by a line across the peninsula of Florida, three times repeated. Other subsidiary lines have been observed. The limit of error has been that usually adopted in similar work, viz., 5 mm. ✔K. The heights by spirit level have been supplemented and controlled by micrometric measurements of zenith distances. In the determination of elevations necessary to reduce the base lines along the transcontinental arc to sea level the latter method has been employed across the Allegheny and Rocky Mountains. The spirit levels are continuous from Sandy Hook to Denver and Colorado Springs.