# Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 60.djvu/296

Newcomb and Young who have estimated that the visible stars are fifty to one hundred millions in number. Assuming the average mass of these stars to be equal to the mass of our sun, the amount of mass in the visible universe is about 2 ${\displaystyle \times }$ 1036 metric tons.
The great Nobel prizes, each of the value of about $40,000, have now been awarded for the first time as follows: In Medicine to Professor Behring, in physics to Professor Röntgen, in chemistry to Professor van't Hoff. The prize for the promotion of peace has been divided between Dr. Dumant and M. Passy, and the prize in literature has been awarded to M. Prudhomme. The Copley Medal of the Royal Society has been awarded to Professor J. Willard Gibbs, of Yale University.—Director W. W. Campbell, of the Lick Observatory, has been elected an associate member of the Royal Astronomical Society.—Professor F. Lamson-Scribner, of the United States Department of Agriculture, has been given charge of the Bureau of Agriculture established in the Philippines. The most important scientific news of the month is Mr. Carnegie's offer of$10,000,000 to endow a national university or institution for scientific research at Washington. The national government hesitates to accept the bonds of the United States Steel Corporation offered by Mr. Carnegie, but this is a detail which will doubtless be arranged.—On the same day that Mr. Carnegie's gift became known, it was announced that Mrs. Stanford had signed the final papers transferring property, estimated at \$30,000,000, to Leland Stanford Junior University. It appears that the endowment of Stanford is now about equal to the combined endowment of our three richest universities—Harvard, Columbia and Chicago.