from the varying effects of shadows which make the study of the moon itself possible only to specialists. With the advance which has taken place in the interpretation of topographic forms in the last twenty years, it seems not too much to hope, now that this model has been made accessible to students of science, that its study will bring to light new facts regarding the nature and history of our satellite..

OLIVER C. FARRINGTON. FIELD COLUMBIAN MUSEUM, CHICAGO.

LEHMANN AND HANSEN ON THE TELEPATHIC

PROBLEM.'

TO THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: I can assure Professor James that I do not knowingly leave unread anything that he or Professor Sidgwick writes. I carefully considered the two papers to which he refers, at the time of their appearance, and have recently turned to them again. I am afraid, however, that I cannot make the admission that Professor James expects. Even if I granted all the contentions of criticism and report I should still see no reason to change the wording of my reference to Lehmann and Hansen. But there is a great deal that I cannot grant. While, like Stevenson's Silver, ‘I wouldn't set no limits to what a virtuous character might consider argument,' I must confess that, in the present instance, the grounds for such consideration have not seldom escaped me. Professor James rules that the Phil. Studien article is 'exploded.' I have tried to take up the position of an impartial onlooker; and, from that position, I have seen Professor James and Professor Sidgwick and Herr Parish handling the fuse, but I have not yet heard the detonation.

E. B. TITCHENER.

ASTRONOMICAL NOTES.

THE NOVEMBER METEORS. REPORTS of meteor observations made this year between the 11th and 16th have been published from England, France and the United States. These are sufficient to show the characteristics of the display and to furnish hints as to the methods which should be followed in future years. The greatest number of meteors was noted on the morning of the

15th (civil reckoning), when the rate reached two each minute at some stations in the United States. A single observer could count forty or more per hour. It is probable that the maximum had already passed, as more meteors were noted on the preceding than on the following night at the few stations where the skies were clear on those nights. On the 14th a single observer at Lyons, France, noted 134 between 1:04 a. m. and 4:05 a. m. On account of the cloudy weather at Paris M. Janssen made a balloon ascension and observed above the clouds. We are told that this plan of securing clear skies will be used more extensively next year. The number observed this year is fully ten times as great as those observed in

1897 and is about the same as that noted at Grenwich in 1865, the year preceding the great shower of 1866. This augurs well for the year 1899.

Observers report several interesting facts: (1) Many meteors with the characteristics of the Leonids did not proceed from the radiant ar area within the 'Sickle of Leo.' The discrepancies in locating the radiant point are not to be wholly explained by the errors to which all eye estimates of meteor tracks are liable, but are in part real. (2) The radiant area has for its center a point which is farther south than that calculated from the observations of 1866, which was R A. 10 h. 0 min., Decl. + 22°.9. The records this year, as far as known, range between 9 h. 50 min. and 10 h. 20 min. in R. A. and 18° to 22° in Decl. A preliminary determination from the photographed trails of four meteors made at Harvard Observatory gives 10 h. 6.8 min., Decl. + 22°16′. (3) There were very few brilliant meteors compared with the total number. At Providence fourteen only out of nearly five hundred were brighter than the first magnitude.

The practicability of the photographic method of studying meteors needed no demonstration, but its possibilities are greater than was supposed. An ordinary camera, such as those in use by amateurs, will photograph the brighter meteors. Thus one with an aperture of only one inch and focal length of nine inches, if carefully focussed, will give trails of meteors as bright as the 0 magnitude. The camera need

not be driven by clockwork if the time of the appearance of the brightest meteors in the region towards which the camera is directed is noted. For then the exact positions of the comparison stars in their curved trails while the plate is exposed is known. Amateur assistance in meteor photography is, therefore, valuable. Of still greater value is the photographic record by the larger instruments. Not only can the paths of the meteors be located with accuracy and the position of the radiant points determined, but special characteristics of the trails may be studied. Thus the Harvard Circular, No. 35, mentions that the light attained a maximum and then diminished as rapidly as it increased ; that sudden changes due to explosions are well shown; that the trail is sometimes surrounded by a sheath of light, and that in one case the trail remained after the meteor had passed. That these characteristics, which have been noted visually heretofore, should now submit to a permanent photographic record shows that photography will have a large place in this branch of astronomical study.

CHASE'S COMET (J. 1898). THE discovery of this comet on the plates exposed at New Haven, on the radiant region of the Leonids, is the most interesting episode of the meteor observations. The photographic brightness was estimated to be equal to a star of the 11th magnitude, but it was much fainter in a visual telescope. It was hoped that it might be connected with the meteor stream, but its orbit shows that it simply chanced to be in that direction when observed. The preliminary orbits thus far published are unusually discordant, perhaps due to the combination of the photographic and visual determinations of position.

STELLAR MOTIONS.

PROFESSOR W. W. CAMPBELL, of the Lick Ob. servatory, in the publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, announces the rapid movement towards us of two stars, Cephei and Herculis. From four photographs of their spectra he determines a relative velocity of 53.9 miles per second for the former and 43.7 for the latter, Allowing for the motion of the solar system, these figures are reduced to 46.0 miles

THE AMERICAN HERO-MYTH.

Two studies have lately appeared on the widely diffused myth of the 'culture-hero' in America. The one is by the Count de Charencey, on the legend of Huitzilopochtli, printed in the Proceedings of the French Association for the Advancement of Science, 1897; the other is by Dr. Franz Boas, reprinted from the Memoirs of the American Folk-lore Society, Vol. VI., and treats of the Salish Raven Myth and others from the Northwestern tribes.

All these myths are strikingly alike in many details, and both these writers agree that 'it is inconceivable that they originated independently.' Hence Dr. Boas claims that the various raven and coyote tales have a common source; and with precisely the same and equally strong arguments M. de Charencey shows that the myths of the Mayas and Nahuas originated in

eastern Asia.

To my thinking, not the similarities (for these we should expect from the constitution of the human mind), but the differences in such myths are what should command our chief attention.

THE PRIMITIVE SAVAGE.

To

'WAS primitive man a modern savage?' is the question asked by Dr. Talcott Williams in the Smithsonian Report, just issued, and answered by him in a constructive negative. Dr. Williams, primitive man was a peaceful, happy creature, knowing not war or cannibalism, with a surprising primitive development,' which later on degenerated into civilization. This early man enjoyed a juster conception of the divine' than his descendants. His gods were peaceful, communication free, hospitality open. "The earth was still empty and happy and young."

If Dr. Williams intends this as a pleasant, humorous sketch, it will pass; if a serious inference from the ascertained facts of prehistoric

investigation, its author is about a century behind time, as every student of the actual remains of earliest man knows the painful but irrefutable evidence of his worse than barbarous, his really brutal, condition, apart from all comparisons with modern savages.

A BOOKLET ON ETHNOLOGY.

DR. MICHAEL HABERLANDT is a 'Privatdocent' in the University of Vienna and also Curator of the Ethnographic Collection in the Royal Museum of that city. A few months ago there appeared from his pen a duodecimo treatise on Ethnography which offers much the best summary of the science which I have anywhere seen. Of its 200 pages half are devoted to general principles, those which belong to 'Ethnology;' and the remainder to descriptive ethnography. Both are characterized by thorough familiarity with the facts, and careful, independent reflection on them. The introduction discusses, with remarkable clearness, the principles of social degeneration and evolution.

Just such brief, clear, up-to-date books as this are what we need in anthropology in this country. It is better to write them than to translate them, and it is unfortunate that we still lack them. (Völkerkunde, G. F. Goschen, Leipzig. 1898.)

D. G. BRINTON,

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS.

IN the present issue of SCIENCE—which opens a new volume-the short notes are placed at the end, in the part of the number which is the last to be printed. These notes should contain reliable, prompt and full information, and men of science in America and abroad are requested to contribute items of news whose publication will forward the objects of this JOURNAL.

THE Paris Academy of Sciences has awarded its Lalande prize to Dr. S. C. Chandler, of Cambridge, Mass., and the Damoiseau prize to Dr. George W. Hill, of Columbia University.

PROFESSOR G. W. FARLOW, of Harvard University, has been elected President of the American Society of Naturalists. Professor H. C. Bumpus, of Brown University, to whom the recent growth and successful meetings of the

Society have been in large measure due, has resigned the Secretaryship and is succeeded by Professor T. H. Morgan, of Bryn Mawr College.

PROFESSOR R. S. WOODWARD, of Columbia University, has been elected President of the American Mathematical Society in succession to Professor Simon Newcomb.

PROFESSOR JOHN DEWEY, of the University of Chicago, has been elected President of the Aerican Psychological Association.

THE office of Mr. W. T. Hornaday, Director of the New York Zoological Park, has been moved from 69 Wall Street to the Park, Southern Boulevard and 183d Street, and communications should now be sent to this address. The offices are temporarily established in the Elk House, near the southwest corner of the Park.

THE Rev. Dr. Bartholomew Price, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, and until last year Sedleian professor of natural philosophy, died on December 29th in his 81st year. He was the author of works on dynamics and on the calculus.

DR. JOHN B. HAMILTON, formerly SurgeonGeneral of the U. S. Marine Hospital Service, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association and professor of surgery at the Rush Medical College, Chicago, died at Elgin, Ill., on December 24th.

DR. WILLIAM MUNK, the well-known London physician, died on December 20th, aged 73. He was formerly Librarian of the Harveian Library of the Royal College of Physicians and author of the Roll of the College and other works, both of a biographical character and on medical subjects.

THE New York Section of the American Chemical Society was able to receive the Society at its recent New York meeting in the Chemists' Club, newly established in the building at 108 West 55th Street. The club-house contains a large assembly room for meetings, smaller rooms and accommodation for the library, which it is expected will be deposited there. The President of the Club is Professor Charles F. Chandler, of Columbia University.

THE Royal Institution, London, was founded

in 1799 and will this year celebrate its centenary by special exercises, the character of which has not yet been announced.

THE Boston Medical Committee has awarded

its prize to Dr. Guy Hinsdale, of Philadelphia, for an essay on Acromegaly, which has just been published. For 1900 two prizes are offered by the Committee: (1) A prize of one hundred and fifty dollars for the best dissertation on 'The Results of Original Work in Anatomy, Physiology or Pathology,' the subject to be chosen by the writer. (2) A prize of one hundred and fifty dollars for the best dissertation on 'The Method of Origin of Serpentine Arteries and the Structural Changes to be found in them; Their Relation to Arteria-capillary Fibrosis, Obliterating Endarteritis and to Endarteritis Deformans.' Dissertations on these subjects must be sent on or before January 1, 1900, to the Secretary of the Committee, Dr. W. F. Whitney, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.

THE Paris Academy of Medicine has held its annual public meeting for 1898 and awarded the large number of prizes at its disposal. No less than forty prizes were given, not including a large number of medals.

DR. NOLAN has presented to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, as a memorial of the late Dr. Joseph Leidy, five volumes of biographical notices, portraits, autograph letters and original drawings. The first volume contains several addresses and articles prepared on the occasion of Dr. Leidy's death and other interesting biographical material. The second volume contains botanical drawings and notes and the remaining three volumes zoological drawings and notes. The volumes are carefully indexed.

AT the next meeting of the British Medical Association, which will be held at Portsmouth from the 1st to the 4th of August, the address in medicine will be given by Sir Richard Powell and the address in surgery by Professor Alexander Ogston.

AMONG those who will give Friday evening discourses before the Royal Institution, London, during the present season are Lord Rayleigh, Professor H. L. Callandar, Mr. Victor Horsley,

Professor H. S. Hele-Shaw and Professor Dewar, who will give the first lecture on January 20th, on Liquid Hydrogen.

THE English papers contain details of the meeting to further the objects of the National Association for the Prevention of Consumption, held at Marlborough House on December 20th. The Prince of Wales presided, and addresses were made by Sir William Broadbent, Sir Granger Stewart, President of the British Medical Association, Dr. Moore, President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Sir James Sawyer, Dr. Andrew, President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and Professor McFadyean. The Marquis of Salisbury moved the following resolution: "This meeting desires to express its approval of the effort which is being made by The National Association for the Prevention of Consumption and other Forms of Tuberculosis' to check the spread of the diseases due to tubercle, and to promote the recovery of those suffering from consumption and tuberculous disease generally. It also commends the method adopted by the Association of instructing public opinion and stimulating public interest rather than the advocacy of measures of compulsion." This resolution was seconded by Sir Samuel Wilkes, President of the Royal College of Physicians, and carried unanimously. Remarks were made by Lord Rosebery, Mr. Walter Long, M. P., and the Prince of Wales. It was announced that the London partners of Werner, Beit & Co. had contributed £20,000 for the erection of a sanitarium to be administered by the Association.

ACCORDING to cablegrams to the London Times, Colonel Lawrie, Plague Commissioner in Haidarabad, gave evidence on December 19th before the Plague Commission. He stated that the first indigenous case occurred in January, 1897. The measures adopted were evacuation, disinfection, and the burning of floors and walls in kilns. Haffkine's fluid was not a serum, but a putrescent organic liquid containing micrococci of putrefaction and occasionally pathogenic organisms. It was, therefore, directly against modern medicine and antiseptic surgery to inject the fluid. Inoculation had not been

adopted. The burning process was found satisfactory as a means of destroying the plague. Mr. Stevens, Deputy-Commissioner, said that 68 villages in Haidarabad territory had been attacked during 1898. Disinfection by burning in kilns had absolutely destroyed all germs. No bacteria were found in the ashes; the plague never reappeared, and the villages were completely disinfected by the kilns. The plague fugitives were sent back in charge of the police. The classes most affected were lowcaste Hindus. Mohammedans were not so liable to infection, nor were the herdsmen, who lived in the open air. Age and sex made no apparent difference. Captain Johnson, on December 20th, described experiments which had been made to determine whether living organisms were found in Haffkine's fluid. Out of six bottles five showed a distinct growth; the other was doubtful. Mazhar Husain, a native practitioner, stated that in the villages in the Naldrug district corpses and their appendages were burnt where such a course was not forbidden by religion; in other cases the dead bodies were buried eight feet deep. The kiln process was adopted with all houses irrespective of individual infection. After the evacuation the fall in mortality was striking. The villages were reoccupied two months after the cessation of deaths. No case occurred among infants. Fair success was obtained by treatment with red iodide of mercury pills. Colonel Lawrie, recalled, expressed his willingness to use Haffkine's fluid if it were rendered sterile, provided it was proved to retain its prophylactic power under those conditions. He admitted that the fluid as now used afforded considerable protection, but denied that it gave immunity. Sterilization, he thought, might render it useless. The plague returns for the second week in December showed a further rise for Bombay city and district, and also for Madras and the Central Provinces. There was a considerable fall in the returns from Mysore.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS.

IN addition to the million dollars given by Lord Strathcona for the endowment of the Royal Victoria College for Women, McGill Uni

versity and the endowment of a chair of history by Sir William MacDonald, already announced in this JOURNAL, we are informed that at the same time Lady Strathcona and the Hon. Mrs. Howard each gave $50,000 for the Faculty of Medicine and that the Board of Governors of the University gave $200,000 for general endow

ment.

AT a recent conference on secondary education convened by Victoria University at Owens College, Manchester, on December 3d, a resolution was passed recommending that the education department should be represented by a Minister of Education of Cabinet rank.

GOVERNOR ROOSEVELT will, it is understood, serve actively on the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, of which he is ex-officio a member, and will accept the Chairmanship of the Committee on the State Library. Recent Governors of the State have neglected this duty.

AT Trinity College, Cambridge, the Coutts Trotter studentship of the value of £250 for the promotion of original research in natural science, open to graduates of the College not being Fellows, has been divided between H. H. Dale, B. A. (zoology and physiology), and the Hon. R. J. Strutt, B. A. (physics), both scholars of the College.

DR. EUGEN DUBOIS has been called to a professorship in geology in the University of Amsterdam. Dr. Kippenberger has been appointed professor of chemistry in the University of Breslau. Dr. Wagner has qualified as docent in physical chemistry in the University of Leipzig and Dr. Weinschenk in mineralogy and geology in the Polytechnic Institute at Munich. In the University of Paris, M. Vidal de la Blache has been appointed professor of geography and M. Seailles has been made professor of philosophy. M. Lacour has been made associate professor in the Faculty of Science at Nancy. In University College, London, Mr. W. G. Savage has been appointed as assistant in the department of bacteriology and Mr. G. Bertram Hunt, M.D., has been appointed assistant in the department of pathological histology.