with reference to the needs of students who desire instruction in the biological sciences for general culture, as a preparation for teaching or original investigation, or as a foundation for the professional course in medicine. They include in the courses in arts and sciences the electives, the biology-chemistry group, and the botany-zoölogy group, each set including several classes; the four-year course in biology, which appeals particularly to students who wish to become teachers or to take up special work as investigators in biology, and the two-years' course in biology, which is designed especially for those who desire some systematic training in natural science before taking up the study of medicine. Both of these courses are open to men and women alike. An ample equipment is provided for the biological department in the shape of spacious class rooms and laboratories, a botanic garden, an herbarium, a vivarium, zoölogical and auxiliary collections, a marine laboratory at Sea Isle, New Jersey, tables at Woods Holl, library facilities, two serial publications, and clubs and societies.
We learn from the London Lancet that besides the special ward of twelve beds at the Royal Southern Hospital of Liverpool, which was formally opened by Lord Lister on April 29th last, arrangements have been completed for a school for the study of tropical diseases at Liverpool. Lord Lister, on the occasion of the school's foundation, said: "The medical student in the ordinary hospital has rare opportunities of seeing these diseases, and for a man who is about to practice in the tropics it is essential that he have opportunities for studying them here before embarking on his tropical career. The possession of tropical colonies makes such institutions in the home country very necessary, not only for preparing the colonial doctors, but for the protection of the home population, which is sure to be brought into contact more or less with the infectious tropical diseases."
An interesting paper by Mr. C. J. Coleman on The Electrical Protection of Safes and Vaults is described in the Electrical World and Engineer. He divided the methods into two systems, in one the alarm depending on the opening and the other on the closing of a circuit-—the latter of the two being the one most in use. Among the curious devices mentioned are cementing narrow tin-foil strips on the inner surfaces of window glass, so that any breakage or fracture of the glass will open the circuit; the use of glass tubes filled with mercury and connected in circuit, or tubes filled with water or compressed air. In reply to questions as to the use of electricity in perforating safes it was stated that a five ply chrome steel safe, seven inches and a half thick, was burned through by three hundred ampères in twenty-five minutes, and holes were burned through a solid block of vault steel twelve inches thick in twenty-six minutes with three hundred and fifty ampères, and in fifteen minutes with five hundred ampères.
The Royal Institution of Great Britain, on the occasion of its one hundredth anniversary, has elected as honorary members the following Americans: Prof. Samuel Pierpont Langley, astronomer, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.; Prof. Albert Abraham Michelson, physicist, of Chicago; Prof. Robert Henry Thurston, mechanical engineer, Director of the Sibley College of Cornell University; Prof. J. S. Ames, of Johns Hopkins University; George Frederick Barker, physicist, Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and Prof. William Lyne Wilson, President of Washington and Lee University, ex-Congressman, and Postmaster-General.
The foundation stone of an oceanographic museum, instituted by Prince Albert of Monaco, was laid in that city April 25th. The museum is designed, primarily, to receive the large and valuable collections obtained by the prince in the voyages of ocean exploration which he has conducted, and to become a general depository for oceanographic spoils. The principal address was made by the governor-general, who glorified the prince's meritorious scientific career. The German Emperor, who is named a patron of the museum, and the French President were represented on the occasion by deputies.
The City Library Association of Springfield, Mass., has been holding, during April, May, and June, an elaborate and instructive exhibit of geographic appliances of special interest to teachers in the elementary schools. The exhibition included a number of sets of wall maps,
