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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

would be distinct from the international affiliation for the sake of holding popular congresses. The delegates seemed not wholly of one mind in regard to this. The American members of the international committee as at present provisionally organized are Messrs. van Wagenen, Woods, Pearl and Kellogg.

It will not be possible to present here ever so slight a report of the papers read at the congress, and of the no less important and animated discussions which most of these papers aroused. It must suffice to say that these papers ranged over a wide field of biologic, medical and sociologic study, with the subject of heredity ever being the special one chiefly in evidence. The papers and discussions ran also a long gamut between the extremely speculative and the extremely practical. But there was in most of them a gratifying tendency to hug closely the shore of real scientific ground. To different nations the term eugenics seems to have different nuances of meaning, but there is in them all a sufficient commonness to make desirable international consideration of eugenics problems.

The inauguration of this new series of international congresses is another witness of the growth of that best type of internationalism that leads scientific men to step unhesitatingly across political imaginary lines whenever they feel that they can work more effectively together than apart.

SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

We regret to record the death of M. Jules Henri Poincaré, the great mathematician and man of science; of M. Floris Osmond, eminent for his contributions to the metallurgy of steel, and of Mr. Andrew Lang, Known for his contributions to anthropology as well as for his literary and critical work.

The presidents of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Surgeons have formed a large and representative committee for the purpose of establishing a memorial to the late Lord Lister.—A committee representing the engineering societies of the British Empire and the United States has been formed to carry into effect a proposal for the erection in Westminister Abbey of a memorial window to the late Lord Kelvin.

Professor Jeremiah W. Jenks, of Cornell University, has been appointed financial adviser to the Chinese republic—Professor Charles Lincoln Edwards has been appointed naturalist of the Park Department of the City of Los Angeles, with the commission to plan a Zoological Park and Aquarium.

The following lectures will be delivered at the International Congress of Applied Chemistry to be held in New York in September: "The Rôle of the Infinitely Small in Biological Chemistry," by M. G. Bertrand, of Paris; "Oxidation of Atmospheric Nitrogen in Norway," by Dr. S. Eyde, of Christiania; "The Most Recent Problems of Chemical Industry," by Dr. C. Duisberg, of Elberfeld; "Permanent Fireproofing of Cotton Goods," by Professor W. H. Perkin, F.R.S., of Manchester; "Synthetic Ammonia," by Dr. H. A. Bernthsen, of Ludwigshafen; "The Photochemistry of the Future," by Mr. G. Ciamician, of Bologna, and "Priestley in America," by President Ira Remsen, of the Johns Hopkins University.