tions now on record. Of indiscriminate observation there has already been too much; what is needed is discrimination. There is danger that the camera may become as powerful a fetish as the microtome has been. To spend hours in most uncomfortable positions endeavoring to secure a nature picture is not necessarily self-sacrifice in the pursuit of science; it may result in the securing of a pretty picture but it may result in nothing more. Pretty photographs are of no more value than pretty microscope slides; both are valuable only for what may be learned from them, and it is the exercise of a discrimination between what may be merely pretty and what may be instructive that gives an observation scientific value. It is not more amateur photographers that are wanted but more historians of nature.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS.
We regret to learn of the death at the age of sixty-six years of Edward W. Claypole, professor of geology at Throop Institute, Pasadena, Cal., and of the death of A. F. W. Schimper, professor of botany at Basle, who died on September 9, at the age of forty-five years.
The eightieth birthday of Professor Rudolf Virchow, which occurred on October 13, has been celebrated in Berlin with elaborate ceremonies. There was a reception in the Pathological Institute in the afternoon and a banquet in the dining hall of the Prussian Diet in the evening, followed by an official reception in the parliament hall. Professor Waldeyer, secretary of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, presented 50,000 Marks, subscribed by medical men in Germany toward increasing the Virchow research fund. The event was also celebrated in New York and other cities. The municipality of Berlin has resolved to call its new hospital, containing beds for 1,700 patients, the Virchowkrankenhaus.
A statue of Pasteur was unveiled on September 9, at Arbois, where he spent his childhood and his holidays in later life. The monument, erected at a cost of over $10,000, was designed by M. Daillon and represents Pasteur seated. On the pedestal are two bas-reliefs, one representing inoculation against rabies and the other agriculture profiting from Pasteur's discoveries. On the occasion of the unveiling addresses were made by M. Decrais, French minister of the colonies, and M. Liard, representing the Department of Public Instruction.
President Seth Low presented his resignation to the trustees of Columbia University on October 7. It was accepted with expressions of deep regret, and Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, professor of philosophy and education, was made acting president.
Surgeon-general George M. Sternberg has returned to Washington after a tour of inspection in the Philippines. —Mr. John A. Fleming, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, has arrived in Honolulu for the purpose of erecting and conducting a station for the study of terrestrial magnetism.
Mr. J. E. Spurr, of the U. S. Geological Survey, who has been employed for geological surveys by the Sultan of Turkey, has begun work in Macedonia and Albania.
The Fifth International Congress of Physiology was opened on September 17 in the physiological laboratory of the University of Turin, under the presidency of Professor Angelo Mosso. Sir Michael Foster was elected honorary president. More than 200 physiologists were present, and 186 communications were announced.—The Congress of the International Association for Testing Materials was held at Budapest, from September 9 to 14, under the presidency of Professor L. von Tetmajer, and was largely attended by engineers from all parts of the world.
