that people which in the future history of the world will exert an influence out of comparison with the pretty fables of antiquity. But in the widening current of democracy and the broader fields of modern culture room is left for those who cling to the classical traditions, and there seems to be no reason to desecrate their particular shrine.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS.
We regret to record the death of Professor A. S. Packard, the eminent zoologist of Brown University; of Mr. William Sellers of Philadelphia, the well-known engineer; of M. Paul Henry, the French astronomer, and of Professor Ernst Abbe, known for his improvements of optical instruments.
Scientific societies that met at Philadelphia during convocation week elected presidents as follows: The American Society of Naturalists, Professor William James, of Harvard University; the Geological Society of America, Professor Raphael Pumpelly, of Newport, R. I.; the Botanical Society of America, Professor R. A. Harper, of the University of Wisconsin; the Society of American Bacteriologists, Professor E. O. Jordan, of the University of Chicago; the American Anthropological Association, Professor F. W. Putnam, of Harvard University; the American Physiological Society, Professor W. H. Howell, of the Johns Hopkins University; the American Psychological Association, Professor Mary W. Calkins, of Wellesley College; the American Philosophical Association, Professor John Dewey, of Columbia University.
The city of Berlin has arranged a competition for plans for a monument to Rudolf Virchow. It is to be placed at the intersection of Karl and Luisen Streets, a square which will henceforth be known as Virchow Platz.—The famous singing master, Senhor Manuel Garcia, of London, who invented the laryngoscope fifty years ago, will be 100 years old March 17, 1905. The London Laryngological Society and other societies have arranged a celebration which includes the presentation of a portrait by Mr. John Sargent.—The Danish government has issued a stamp bearing the head of the late Professor Finsen with the object of placing within reach of the poorer classes a means of subscribing to the national monument by which it is proposed to commemorate his work.
Professor Ernest Rutherford, of McGill University, has been appointed Silliman lecturer at Yale University for 1905. The previous Silliman lecturers have been Professor J. J. Thomson, of Cambridge University, and Professor Charles S. Sherrington, of Liverpool University.—Dr. Livingston Farrand, professor of anthropology at Columbia University, has been placed in charge of the work of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis.
President Eliot, of Harvard University, has been elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute of France.—Professor Lewis Boss, astronomer of the Dudley Observatory of Albany, N. Y., has been awarded the medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.—M. L. Troost, honorary professor of chemistry at the University of Paris, is this year president of the Academy of Sciences in succession to M. E. L. Mascart, professor of physics at the Collège de France.
