to invest their savings in improvements rather than to contract debts, but this is an open question, as it is reasonable to expect future years, and even future generations, to pay for advantages that may be bequeathed to them. The report contains a very elaborate discussion of the taxation and revenue systems of the United States and of the several states. In 1902, the total expenditures of the national government were about 617 million dollars; of the states and territories, about 85 million; of the counties, 197 million; of the cities 551 million, and of other minor civil divisions 222 million. The receipts from revenues almost exactly balance the expenditures.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We record with regret the death of Dr. William Thomson, an eminent ophthalmologist of Philadelphia, and of Dr. Gaylord P. Clark, dean of the college of Medicine and professor of physiology at Syracuse University.
Professor Ludwig von Graff will be president of the eighth Zoological Congress, which is to be held at Graz three years hence.—Professor J. J. Stevenson, of New York University, and Professor W. M. Davis, of Harvard University, were delegates from the Geological Society of America to the centennial celebration of the foundation of the Geological Society of London, which took place at the end of September.
Dr. E. Ray Lankester will retire from the directorship of the Natural History Museum, London, in October. It is understood that the inadequate pension originally proposed by the trustees has been about doubled. The trustees have decided not to appoint a new director, though it is possible that this plan may be changed.—At the Meudon Experiment Station, which is affiliated with the Collège de France, M. Daniel Berthelot has been appointed director of the laboratory for plant physics, and M. Muntz, director of the laboratory for plant chemistry.—By an act of the last legislature, the professor of geology at the State University of Colorado became also, by virtue of his office, the state geologist. $5,000 is appropriated annually for this service.
Yale University has received a bequest calling to mind that of Smithson for the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution. Archibald Henry Blount, an Englishman, who is not known to have been in America or to have had any conection with Yale University, has made that institution his residuary legatee, to which it will profit to the extent of about $400,000. Yale University has also received $150,000 for a lecture hall for the Sheffield Scientific School. This is a gift of Mrs. James B. Oliver, in memory of her son, a former student of the school, who was recently killed in an automobile accident.
