likely to deal a severe blow to such progress."'
La Nature's Second Scientific Excursion.—A second scientific excursion to an interesting district of France is planned, by M. Henri de Parville, of La Nature, to start from Bayonne August 25th. It will spend about two weeks, following the chain of the Pyrenees from the ocean to the Mediterranean. Among objects of interest enumerated are the scenery at Biarritz, Pau, Cauterets, and Bigorre; fine architecture at Toulouse, Carcassonne, Elne, etc.; glacial phenomena and thermal waters along the whole mountain chain; manufactories, including iron works at Bouchain, woolen mills at Bigorre, cigarette factories at Perpignan, and the Arago Maritime Laboratory and the sanitarium at Banyuls. The excursion will be "personally conducted" by the eminent anthropologist and archæologist, M. E. Cartaillac. The excursion last year, to the Central Plateau and the Tarn, was an eminent success. The programme of the present one seems equally attractive. M. de Parville and his associates deserve great credit for their sagacity and enterprise in inaugurating these excursions, which now promise to become annual. We can conceive nothing more profitable and conducive to real pleasure in a vacation than the tour in the company of men having a common interest in the pursuit of knowledge of Nature and art, through such magnificent regions as that of the Pyrenees or through a country so full of natural wonders and novelties as that of last year's excursion. And it will be an incalculable advantage to be under the guidance of so eminent a student and one so familiar with the remarkable features and the antiquities of southern France as M. Cartaillac.
The American Association Meeting.—The forty-eighth annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be held at Columbus, Ohio, August 19th to 26th. The association headquarters will be in University Hall, of the Ohio State University, and the headquarters of the council will be at the Chittenden Hotel. The president of the meeting will be Prof. Edward Orton, of the Ohio State University. The vice-presidents or chairmen of sections will be: Mathematics and astronomy, Alexander Macfarlane; physics, Elihu Thomson; chemistry, F. P. Venable; mechanics and engineering, Storm Bull; geology and geography, J. F. Whiteaves; zoölogy, S. H. Gage; botany, Charles R. Barnes; anthropology, Thomas Wilson; social and economic science, Marcus Benjamin. The Permanent Secretary is L. O. Howard, Cosmos Club, Washington; General Secretary, Frederick Bedell, Cornell University; Secretary of the Council, Charles Baskerville, Chapel Hill, N. C.; Treasurer, R. S. Woodward, Columbia University, New York. The address of retiring President Putnam will be delivered Monday evening, August 21st. Saturday, August 26th, will be devoted to excursions to Fort Ancient and elsewhere. Receptions and shorter excursions will be provided at hours that will not conflict with the appointments of the association.
The Desire for Notoriety a Cause of Crime.—Under the title Luccheni Redivivus the London Lancet gives some interesting psychological data which have been obtained since the imprisonment of Luccheni, the assassin of the Austrian Empress. Twice since his trial and conviction he has attempted suicide. Within the last few days (May 13th) his moral condition has undergone a change confirmatory in a significant degree of the diagnosis which found vanity or megalomania at the root of his crime. The cantonal juge d'instruction in an attempt to ascertain if possible his associates in the crime, visited him in his cell and approached the subject with what seemed to himself due dexterity and caution. At once the previously downcast and abject creature brightened up, his eyes sparkling with gratified self-importance. "I giornali ripariano di me?" (So the journals are talking of me again) he exclaimed interrogatively. The judge disclosed the object of his visit. Luccheni thereupon dallied with his interlocutor, smiling at his reminiscences of the crime, assuming airs of reticence, even indulging in self-contradiction to tease if not torment his judicial antagonist. It was learned, however, that in the preliminaries leading up to the assassination he really had accomplices; beyond this nothing new was elicited from
