place. The building has been fitted up as a center of scientific interest for the community, classes in astronomy being there conducted under the general direction of Miss Cannon, of the Harvard Observatory. This summer Professor Mary W. Whitney, a student of Maria Mitchell and her successor at the Vassar Observatory, spent a week at Nantucket, where she gave lectures and informal talks on Maria Mitchell and recent work in astronomy. It is intended to use the building for natural history as well as astronomy.
In March of the present year a five-inch equatorial telescope, made by Alvan Clark and formerly owned by Miss Mitchell, was given to the association, and it is proposed to build an observatory that will properly house the telescope in a fire-proof building. Efforts to complete this building, to enlarge the equipment and to maintain the work are being made, and those who are interested in the work of Maria Mitchell or in a scientific institution such as is planned for Nantucket are invited to join the association, which they can do by paying one dollar annually or ten dollars as a life member.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We record with regret the death of Professor Lucien M. Underwood, head of the department of botany of Columbia University; of Dr. Edward Gardiner, of the Marine Biological Laboratory; of M. Maurice Loewy. director of the Paris Observatory, and of Mr. Howard Saunders, the British ornithologist.
A memorial meeting in honor of the late James Carroll was held by the Johns Hopkins Hospital Historical Club on October 14. Addresses were delivered by Drs. William H. Welch. Howard A. Kelly and William S. Thayer.—The Geographical Society of Philadelphia will hold a meeting on November 6, in memory of the late Angelo Heilprin, founder of the society. —Friends of the late Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, formerly Linacre professor of comparative anatomy at Oxford, have offered the university a sum of about £1,000 for the foundation of a prize, with a view to perpetuate the memory of Professor Weldon and to encourage biometric science.
The Royal Society has this year awarded its Davy medal to Dr. E. W. Morley, emeritus professor of chemistry. Western Reserve University, and its Copley medal to Dr. A. A. Michelson, professor of physics, the University of Chicago.—Dr. Richard Wettstein, Ritter von Westerheim, professor of systematic botany at Vienna, has been elected president of the Association of German Men of Science and Physicians for the meeting to be held next year at Cologne.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science meets at the University of Chicago during convocation week, which this year begins on December 30. Together with the American Association meet the Society of American Naturalists and the special societies devoted to anthropology, botany, chemistry, mathematics, physiology, anatomy, psychology", geography and entomology. It is to be hoped that all who are able will plan to attend this meeting—not only professional men of science, but also readers of this journal who are interested in the progress of science. At the New York meeting last year, there were about 2,000 scientific men in attendance, and there is every reason to believe that the Chicago meeting will be equally important.
