piece which she had played a number of times. This he did absolutely independently of any teaching whatever. Only a special anatomical basis for musical ability seems competent to explain a case like this.
Among recent events of scientific interest, we note the following: Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, was inaugurated as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on October 24.—Sir Michael Foster has been reelected a member of the British Parliament, representing the University of London.—Cambridge University has conferred the degree of Doctor of Science on Professor S. P. Langley, director of the Smithsonian Institution.—Professor George F. Barker, for twenty-eight years professor of physics in the University of Pennsylvania, and Professor F. H. Bonney, for thirty-three years professor of geology in University College, London, have retired.—A committee has been appointed to erect a memorial to the late Spencer F. Baird at Wood's Holl. Subscriptions may be sent to the Hon. E. G. Blackford, Fulton Market, New York City.—The Rumford Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has voted a grant of $200 to Mr. C. E. Mendenhall of Williams College for the furtherance of his investigations on a hollow bolometer, and a grant of $500 to Professor George E. Hale of the Yerkes Observatory in furtherance of his researches in connection with the application of the radiometer and a study of the infra-red spectrum of the chromosphere.—Professor Ernst Haeckel is at present in Java, seeking for further remains of Pithecanthropus erectus.—Dr. Robert Koch has returned to Berlin after fifteen months spent in the study of malaria, chiefly in the German colonies.—Harvard Observatory has sent an expedition to Kingston, Jamaica, to observe the planet Eros in its approaching opposition.—Mr. E. P. Baldwin is planning an expedition to the North Polar regions, the expenses of which will be defrayed by Mr. Ziegler, of New York City.—The New York Board of Health is building, at a cost of $20,000, a laboratory to be wholly devoted to the study of the bubonic plague.—The great Serpent Mound of Ohio, which has long been a subject of study and research for American archeologists, has been given by the Harvard Corporation to the Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society.—The fine new lecture hall of the American Museum of Natural History was opened with appropriate exercises on Tuesday, October 30. At the same time the new anthropological collections were exhibited.—The new National Museum at Munich, containing the collection of Bavarian antiquities, has been opened, and the valuable collections can be viewed to much better advantage than hitherto. The building contains more than a hundred rooms and has been erected at a cost of about $1,000,000.—The Authors' Catalogue of the British Museum, containing four hundered large volumes and numerous supplements, has now been completed. The compilation of the catalogue has occupied twenty years and cost $200,000. A subject-catalogue is now in course of preparation.—The Russian Government has decided to adopt the metric system of weights and measures, and the ministry of finance is now engaged in considering the time and manner of introducing this reform.
