The American Chemical Society has gained 232 members during the past year, making the present number 1,540. The report of the committee on the analysis of coal, submitted to the recent meeting of the society at Columbus, Ohio, embodied detailed instructions in regard to the best methods of analyzing coke, and outlined a plan for securing uniformity in such analysis by chemists throughout the land. This report was adopted.
At the recent annual meeting of the American Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science Prof. W. J. Beal reported concerning the germination of seeds, after long keeping, that experiments had been tried with various seeds five, ten, fifteen, and twenty years old, from which it appeared that seeds of a large number of important plants would germinate after fifteen years, but the number sprouting after twenty years was small.
A paper was read by Dr. L. O. Howard, at the recent meeting of the American Society of Entomologists, recording the success which has been obtained by the fig-raisers of California in fertilizing the Smyrna variety of figs by the aid of the blastophaga which issues from the Capri figs covered with their pollen. A generation of the blastophaga has been developed at Fresno by which many Smyrna figs have been satisfactorily fertilized, and there is considerable probability that the insect has at last established itself on California soil.
The five hundredth anniversary of the birth of Gutenberg, associated with the invention of printing, is to be celebrated at Mayence, June 24, 1900. It is hoped that the foundation of a Gutenberg Museum may be a result of this movement. An exhibition illustrating the art and progress of printing is also expected to be held.
The conclusion is drawn by the Italian, Signor Albini, from investigations on the nutritive value of whole-meal bread, that it is inferior to that of ordinary white bread, and that a further disadvantage comes from the excessive quantity of indigestible matter, formed of the harder parts of the pericarp of the grain, which it contains.
We have to add to our obituary list of men known in science the names of Edward Orton, LL. D., Professor of Geology in Ohio State University, late State Geologist of Ohio, and late President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Columbus, Ohio, October 16th, in his seventy-first year, of whom we shall shortly give a more extended sketch, with portrait; Grant Allen, writer of several scientific books and articles, and a contributor to the Popular Science Monthly; Prof. Theodore Elbert, German geologist, aged forty-two years; Dr. Max Barth, Director of the Agricultural Station of Rufach, Alsace, aged forty-four years; M. Paul Janet, member of the Paris Academy of Moral Science, and formerly professor at the Sorbonne; Edward Case, English engineer, well known for his method of groining to prevent the sea from encroaching on the coast, September 22d; Hamilton Y. Castner, whose name is associated with the establishment of processes for the electrolytic production of alkali and bleaching powder from common salt, and for the extraction of aluminum; Dr. Oscar Baumann, of Vienna, African explorer, author of a map of the Congo, geographical articles, and books relating to his explorations; and Dr. J. W. Hicks, Bishop of Bloemfontein, formerly demonstrator in chemistry in the University of Cambridge, and author of a text-book on inorganic chemistry.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A paper read before the Viking Club of London on December 16, 1898; also before the Section of Anthropology of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Boston meeting, August, 1898.
[2] The translations are from the Icelandic texts in The Finding of Wineland the Good by Arthur Middleton Reeves. Henry Frowde, London.