organic compounds. He was called to the chair of chemistry in the newly-organized university of Strassburg in 1872, where he had as students Emil and Otto Fischer, and three years later went to Munich as Liebig's successor. Liebig, who established the first chemical laboratory, had gone to Munich on the condition that he should do no laboratory teaching, and it remained for Baeyer to build up a university laboratory. Here he with his pupils and assistants has since continued to carry forward important researches in organic chemistry. His most important work, however, was the artificial production of indigo, accomplished in 1870, and made commercially possible in 1880. This has given Germany a new and important industry. It is a fine example of the interdependence of pure and applied science.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
The German emperor has conferred on Professor Simon Newcomb, the eminent astronomer, the order 'pour le merite' in science and the arts.—At a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, on February 9, Ambassador Reid received the gold medal for 1905, conferred by the society on Professor William Wallace Campbell, director of the Lick Observatory.
It is planned to present to the city of Philadelphia a statue of Dr. Joseph Leidy, to be erected in the City Hall Plaza. Dr. Leidy, who was born in that city in 1823 and died there in 1891, added much to its scientific eminence, and as president of the Academy of Natural Sciences, professor of human and comparative anatomy and zoology in the University of Pennsylvania, and president of the Wagner Free Institute of Science, accomplished much for these institutions.
The U. S. government has commissioned President David Starr Jordan, of Stanford University, and Professor Charles H. Gilbert, head of the department of zoology, to conduct an investigation of the fish and fisheries of Japan and the Island of Sakhalin during the coming summer.—Dr. Otto Nordenskjöld and Capt. Mikkelsen were the guests of honor at a dinner given by the Arctic and Explorer's Clubs in New York City, on February 7. It was announced that Dr. Nordenskjöld would sail on the 8th inst. for his home in Sweden, to arrange for another voyage in search of the south pole. Capt. Mikkelsen is getting ready an expedition to the Beaufort Sea, an unexplored Arctic area west of the Parry archipelago.
