man a change more significant than any other in history has taken place within the last fifty years. Thanks to the applications of science, the food supply is ever increasing; but the supply of children decreases in an ominous manner. The population of a country is no longer limited by the food supply, but by a conflict between instinct and rationalism, and by physiological fertility under the conditions of modern civilization. It is not likely that the population of any country will ever again be so large as its food supply would support.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
We record with regret the deaths of Professor Emil Hansen, the eminent physiological botanist of Copenhagen, and Dr. Otto von Bollinger, professor of pathology at Munich.
Dr. C. M. Gariel, professor of medical physics at Paris, has been elected president of the French Association for the Advancement of Science for the meeting to be held next year at Toulouse.—At the celebration of the fifth centenary of the University of Leipzig some ninety honorary degrees were conferred, including a doctorate of medicine on Professor E. B. Wilson, of Columbia University, and doctorates of philosophy on Professor Jacques Loeb, of the University of California, and Professor A. A. Michelson, of the University of Chicago.—At its recent celebration the University of Geneva conferred one hundred and fifty honorary doctorates. Among the men of science included were Lord Lister, Professor Haeckel, Professor Ostwald and Professor Engler.
Professor R. C. Allen, of the University of Michigan, has been elected state geologist to succeed Mr. A. C. Lane, who resigned to accept a chair in Tufts College.—Dr. Juan Guitaras has consented to remain director of sanitation and chairman of the National Board of Health for Cuba, in view of the fact that the government has now appropriated sufficient funds for the work of the department of sanitation.—Dr. E. D. Durand, the director of the census, has announced the appointment of experts in statistics, economics, agriculture and manufactures to cooperate with him in the formulation of the census schedules on which the enumerators will enter the information they obtain next April. The conferees on the agricultural schedule are: Dr. J. L. Coulter, instructor in agricultural economics in the University of Minnesota; Dr. H. C. Taylor, professor of agricultural economics in the University of Wisconsin; Dr. C. F. Warren, Jr., professor of farm management in Cornell University, and Dr. T. M. Carver, professor of economics in Harvard University. The conferees for manufactures and on population are leading experts, being in most cases university professors.
While the British are reorganizing the College of Medicine and the Technical Institute at Hong Kong into a university, the Germans have established a school of university grade at Kiao-chau. It is said that the German government has appropriated $160,000 for its establishment and will contribute $50,000 annually for the support of the institution.—The assembly of Iceland has decided to establish a university at Reikjavik, with four faculties and sixteen professors and lecturers.
By the will of Cornelius C. Cuyler, the New York banker and a trustee of Princeton University, $100,000 is bequeathed to Princeton University. The residue of the estate, which is said to be very large, will go to the university after the death of Mrs. Cuyler.—The council of the city of Cincinnati has appropriated the sum of $576,000 to erect three new buildings for the University of Cincinnati.
