stone. Addresses were made by M. Armand Gautier and M. Duclaux, who said that the improved laboratories now enjoyed by scientific institutions in Paris were largely due to Pasteur's efforts.
The minor planet recently discovered by Witt, remarkable as having an orbit that comes within that of Mars, and provisionally known as DQ, has been named Eros. An examination by Professor Pickering and Mrs. Fleming of the Harvard photographs has revealed traces of this body on twelve plates taken in 1893 and 1894, and on four plates of 1896. By the aid of these plates it has been possible to determine its elements with greater accuracy than would otherwise be possible. Its mean distance from the sun is 1.45810, its shortest distance 1.13334, and its greatest distance 1.78286 that of the earth; the eccentricity of its orbit is 0.222729, and its period is 643.10 days. Its synodical period is such that it has three oppositions in seven years. The next opposition will be in the last months of 1900, and will be a moderately favorable one for observation.
The courses in pure science of the New York University include undergraduate, graduate, and summer courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, and biology, with laboratory privileges and provision for special students and independent work in chemistry. The university last year was attended by 1,717 students in its three faculties and six schools, and 720 non-matriculant students and auditors. A new feature this year is the inauguration of the Charles F. Deems lectureship of philosophy, under an endowment of $15,000 by the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, with Prof. James Iverach, D. D., of the Free Church College, Aberdeen, Scotland, as the first lecturer. A feature of the university organization is the institution of a woman's advisory committee co-operating with the council. A woman's law class is supported by the Woman's Legal Education Society, the purpose of which is to make business women and women in private life acquainted with existing law.
The new Science Building of the City Library, Springfield, Mass., recently completed, is being inaugurated by a Geographical and Geological Exhibition. It includes the best and latest maps, models, globes, charts, relief maps, and photographs, special attention being paid to the most effective modes of teaching. One of the most attractive features of the exhibition is the work from the Springfield public schools.
An ingenious method for thawing out frozen water pipes has been used by Prof. R. W. Wood, of the University of Wisconsin. It consists simply of passing a current of electricity through the pipe. In one case it is said that one hundred and fifty feet of frozen pipe was thawed out in eighteen minutes. The ordinary street current was used, the voltage being reduced to about fifty.
In a summary of inspectors' reports of the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company for 1898 it is stated that of 78,349 boilers, inspected both internally and externally, during the year, there were 11,727 dangerous defects discovered and 603 entire boilers were declared unsafe for further use.
The recent death list of men known in science includes the names of Charles Naudin, an eminent French botanist, Dean of the Botanical Section of the Academy of Sciences and author of a book on Hybrids in the Vegetable Kingdom, at Antibes, France, March 19th, aged eighty-four years; Dr. G. W. Leitner, an eminent Orientalist and linguist. Lecturer on Oriental Language at King's College, London, Principal of Lahne College, and Registrar of Punjaub University, where he introduced the use of their own language and literature in teaching Indian students, founder of the Anglo-Indian Institute at Woking, England, and author of works in Education, the Races of Turkey, The Races and Languages of Dardistan, Græco-Buddhist Discoveries, and other Oriental subjects, at Bonn, March 24th, in his sixty-ninth year; Dr. Angelo Knorr, Docent in the Veterinary School of Munich, February 22d; Elizabeth Brown, astronomical observer and author of papers on solar phenomena, at Cirencester, England, March 6th; Dr. Wilhelm von Müller, Professor General Chemistry in the Institute of Technology, Munich; Dr. Friedreich von Lühmann, mathematician, at Straslund, Prussia; Dr. Charles Fortuun, mineralogist, in London; Alfred Feuilleaubois, author of researches on Fungi, at Fontainebleau, France; Dr. Heinrich Kiefert, a geographer and cartographer whose fame was world-wide, whose maps and atlases are everywhere recognized as authorities, at Berlin, April 21st, aged seventy years; and Prof. Sophus Lie, of the University of Christiania, an eminent mathematician, February 18th, in his fifty-seventh year.
