3. Zea indurata, the flint corns, in which the corneous endosperm encloses a mass of starchy endosperm, the summit of the kernel being in all cases covered by the corneous layer. Sixtynine varieties are recognized, among which the common 'Eight-rowed corn of New England' is a familiar example.

4. Zea indentata, the dent corns, in which the corneous endosperm occurs at the sides only of the kernel, the starchy endosperm extending to the summit. By the drying and shrinkage of the starchy matter the summit of the kernel becomes indented, whence the name 'dent' corn. No less than 323 varieties are recognized as belonging to this 'species group,' of which the common corn of the Central States, North and South, furnishes many examples.

5. Zea amylacea, the soft corns, characterized by the absence of corneous endosperm. Twentyseven varieties are recognized. Tuscarora, Cuzco and Zuni are examples. "The mummy corns, from Peru and Chili, that I have examined have been soft corns in four varieties."

6. Zea Zaccarata, the sweet corns, characterized by the translucent, horny appearance of the kernels, and their more or less crinkled, wrinkled or shriveled condition. Sixty-three varieties are recognized.

While we may not be willing to accept these species groups' as species in the ordinary sense, it is fair to say that, in our opinion, they are as much entitled to specific rank as many of those which have been described recently. If the systematic botanists ever turn to such plants as Maize, Wheat, etc., we may expect not only the acceptance of the forms indicated above as good species, but also the addition of many more.

THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF KANSAS.

A RECENT Experiment Station Bulletin (No. 87) issued by the Kansas Station contains some matter of more than usual interest to botanists. It deals with the grasses of importance to agriculture, and on that account might be supposed to contain little, if anything, of value to the scientific botanist, but it requires only an examination of this bulletin to show that one cannot judge of the value of a paper by the title.

Professor Hitchcock has made a paper of much interest to the botanist, and we dare say that it is not one whit less useful to the farmers for whom, primarily, it was written. Twenty-six species of wild grasses are mentioned, and, by means of illustrations and popular descriptions, their identity will not be difficult for the farmer and stockman. To the botanist the neat little maps which show the distribution of the species are full of interest, as are also the paragraphs which indicate, popularly, it is true, the main phytogeographic features of the State. The latter are as follows: Wooded regions; sloughs, swales and wet meadows; bottom lands ; prairies of eastern Kansas; sandy regions; stony hills; salt plains and alkali spots. One cannot but regret that the text is disfigured by the spelling 'thru' and 'thruout,' but we surmise that this is not to be laid at the door of the writer of the Bulletin.

DISEASES OF THE SWEET POTATO.

THAT delicious vegetable, the sweet potato, is affected most grievously by diseases which must make life a burden to the grower, whatever they may do to the unfortunate plants themselves. In a recent bulletin issued by the Maryland Experiment Station, Dr. C. O. Townsend described eight diseases of the sweet potato. These are known under the following names: Black Rot, Soil Rot, Soft Rot, Stem Rot, White Rot, Dry Rot, Scurf, Leaf Mould. In every case the disease is produced by a fungous parasite which attacks the tissues. Thus Black Rot is caused by Ceratocystis fimbriata; Soil Rot by Acrocystis batatas; Soft Rot by the ubiquitous 'black mould' Rhizopus nigricans ; Stem Rot by Nectria ipomax; White Rot by some Penicillium; Dry Rot by Phoma butatæ ; Scurf by Monilochates infuscans; Leaf Mould by Albugo (Cystopus) ipomax-panduranæ. years ago Dr. Halsted, of the New Jersey Experiment Station, published a similar paper (Bulletin 76) in which he described still another disease of this sorely afflicted plant, viz., Leaf Blight caused by Phyllosticta bataticola, making nine diseases in all. The remedies to be employed by the growers include the following: Discard all diseased sets; spray with Bordeaux mixture; rotate crops; treat the soil with sul

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phur, four hundred pounds to the acre; gather and burn all diseased roots at the time the crop is harvested; destroy all related weeds, avoid bruising the tubers; store in dry places at a temperature of about 70°; remove and burn diseased tubers as soon as they begin to decay. Surely the grower of the sweet potato must be alert to bring his crop to a successful issue. CHARLES E. BESSEY.

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

THE preliminary announcement of the fortyeighth meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science has been issued by the local committee. It will be remembered that the meeting will be held at Columbus, Ohio, from the 21st to the 26th of August, under the presidency of Professor Edward Orton. The first general session will as usual be held on Monday morning, when the President elect will be introduced by the retiring President, Professor F. W. Putnam, and addresses of welcome will be made by the Governor of Ohio and the Mayor of Columbus. The addresses of the Vice-Presidents will be given on Monday afternoon, and the address of the retiring President in the evening. The several sections will meet as usual during the week, and Saturday will be devoted to an excursion, probably to the mounds at Fort Ancient, the coal mines in Hocking Valley and the natural-gas fields. Further information may be obtained from the Permanent Secretary of the Association, Dr. L. O. Howard, Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C., and from the Local Seetary, Professor B. F. Thomas, Ohio State Uersity. The societies me g in affiliation with the Association are as

WS:

The American Forestry Association will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, August 22d and 23d, in Horticultural Hall. Hon. James Wilson, Washington, D. C., President; G. P. Whittlesey, Washington, D. C., Secretary.

The Geological Society of America will meet on Tuesday, August 22d, at the same time and place with Section E. B. K. Emerson, Amherst, Mass., President; H. L. Fairchild, Rochester, N. Y., Secretary.

The American Chemical Society will hold a general meeting on Monday and Tuesday, August 21st and 22d, and the remainder of the week will be given to Section C. Edward W. Morley, Cleveland, Ohio, President; Albert C. Hale, 551 Putnam Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y., Secretary.

The Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science will meet on Friday and Saturday, August 18th and 19th. B. D. Halsted, New Brunswick, N. J., President; C. S. Plumb, Lafayette, Ind., Secretary.

The Association of Economic Entomologists will hold its eleventh annual meeting on August 18th and 19th. C. L. Marlatt, Washington, D. C., President; A. H. Kirkland, Malden, Mass., Secretary.

The American Mathematical Society will meet on Friday and Saturday, August 25th and 26th. R. S. Woodward, Columbia University, New York, President; F. N. Cole, Columbia University, New York, Secretary.

The Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education will hold its meeting on August 17th, 18th and 19th. Albert Kingsbury, Durham, N. H., Secretary.

The American Folk-Lore Society will probably meet with Section H on Thursday, August 24th. W. W. Newell, Cambridge, Mass., Secretary.

The Botanical Society of America will meet on Friday and Saturday, August 18th and 19th. On Friday, at 4 p. m., business meeting; 8 p. m., address of retiring President; on Saturday, 9 a. m., business meeting; 9:30 a. m., and 2 p. m., sessions for reading papers. G. F. Atkinson, Ithaca, N. Y., Secretary.

The American Microscopical Society will meet August 16th, 17th and 18th. Henry B. Ward, Lincoln, Neb., Secretary.

THE CENTENARY OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.

THE celebration of the centenary of the foundation of the Royal Institution, London, took place in accordance with the plans we have already announced. Commemorative addresses were made by Lord Rayleigh and Professor Dewar, and at the banquet on June 5th

the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge and Professor Langley, of the Smithsonian Institution, made speeches.

As part of the celebration there was an exhibition of historical apparatus, regarding which we take the following from the London Times: Most of it belongs to the Institution's own collection, but a considerable number of articles are on loan, some memorials of Davy having been sent by Dr. Humphry Davy Rolleston, his grand-nephew, and some of Faraday by his piece, Miss Jane Barnard, and other members of the Barnard family. The founder, Count Rumford, is represented by some models-a grate, fireplace, chimneys, roaster and stewpan, which may be taken as typical of the purposes which he conceived the Institution should serve. Of the first professor, Dr. Garnett, nothing seems to remain but his picture, and the objects that belonged to the second, Dr. Thomas Young, are not very numerous or striking.

Of Sir Humphry Davy, however, the relics are most interesting, for they carry the mind back to what are probably his two best-known achievements. In the first place there is a couple of the batteries or galvanic troughs with which he was able to effect the decomposition of the alkalis, and in the second a large collection of the lamps with which he experimented in the effort-finally, of course, successful-to find a form safe for use in dangerous coal mines. Other memorials of Davy include a portrait of him in court dress occupying the presidential chair of the Royal Society, the three medals he received at various times from that body, the Napoleon medal for the 'best experiment on the galvanic fluid' awarded him in 1807 by the French Institute, whose action raised a storm of indignation, because England and France were then at war, and many specimens of his correspondence, not the least interesting being some of the love letters he addressed to the charming Mrs. Apreece, his marriage with whom in 1812 terminated his connection with the Institution.

The articles associated with Faraday are still more numerous. There is the original apparatus with which he obtained the magneto-electric spark; the big electro-magnet with a copper

disc spinning between its poles, which formed the first machine for continuously generating an electric current by means of magnetism, and which is, therefore, the direct ancestor of the modern dynamo; early forms of galvanometers and electrical-influence machines; a series of delicate glass vessels filled with various gases, which he used in his determinations of magnetic and diamagnetic properties, together with the 'diamagnetic box' he presented to Tyndall; the apparatus employed in the first experiments on the liquefaction of gases, with some of the tubes filled by himself; many specimens of the heavy glass in which he did such memorable work; and a curious bit of apparatus, consisting apparently of a block of this glass, surrounded with a coil of fine wire, which he doubtless used in one of his numerous experiments to discover a connection between light and magnetism. The way in which the last is put together shows plainly the influence of the apprenticeship to a bookbinder which Faraday served in his early life, and another beautifully neat example of his expertness in this craft may be seen in a bound manuscript volume of Davy's lectures 'taken off from notes by M. Faraday,' which is particularly interesting as having led to his engagement as an assistant in the institution's laboratory.

Secretary of the Insplendid series of paratus for experi

Among the apparatus belonging to men more recently connected with the Royal Institution may be mentioned that used by Tyndall in his investigations on radiant heat and on germ life, the electrical instruments of Dr. Warren de la Rue, and last, but not least, the magnificent collection of physical apparatus that was the property of the late Mr. William Spottiswoode, successively Treasurer stitution. This includes Nicol's prisms and other menting in the polarization of light, a huge electro-magnet made by Ducretet, of Paris, and the famous induction coil containing 280 miles of wire in its secondary circuit and capable of giving a spark 3 feet long. The whole has just been presented to the Institution by Mr. W. Hugh Spottiswoode, and it will form a most worthy memorial of the year in which that society completes its century of useful and honorable existence.

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS.

SECRETARY LONG, of the Navy Department, has appointed a Board of Visitors to examine and report upon the U. S. Naval Observatory, to consist of Senator Wm. E. Chandler; Representative Alston G. Dayton; Professor Geo. C. Comstock, Director of the Observatory of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Professor Geo. E. Hale, Director of the Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay, Wis.; and Professor Edward C. Pickering, Director of the Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, Mass. This Board of Visitors will meet at the Naval Observatory on the 30th of the month.

WE learn from Dr. Tiessen, of Berlin, that the Norwegian Storthing has passed an act regulating the administration of the Nobel foundation. The prizes, which it will be remembered are in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and for the promotion of peace, will each be of the value of 15,000 crowns (about $11,000) annually. The prizes are to be conferred on the anniversary of Nobel's death, on the 18th of December, and for the first time in 1901. The prizes in physics and chemistry are to be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences and the prize in medicine or physiology by the Medico-Surgical Institute of Stockholm. Any one making application for one of the prizes is thereby excluded. A prize may be divided between two persons who have carried out a joint work. It appears that part of the income is to be used for the establishment of Nobel Institutes, regarding the scope of which we are not informed.

SEVERAL years ago Dr. Robert Lamborn bequeathed to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences his entire estate, valued at over $600,000. The will was contested and a compromise has now been effected by which half of the property is received by the Academy.

THE American Geographical Society, New York, has bought a plot of land 50 x 102 feet on the north side of West 82d St., near Central Park, and facing the open square on which stands the American Museum of Natural History. In addition to the legacy of General Cullum, subscriptions amounting to $30,400 have been received, and the Council proposes to

begin the construction of a fire-proof building, completing it at present only so far as may be necessary to provide for a library and offices.

On the occasion of the official inspection of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, on June 3d, the new buildings were opened to visitors. The new Observatory building, which has been in progress since 1891, was completed last March by the addition of the east and west wings, and a new magnetic pavilion, in an enclosure in Greenwich Park, about 360 yards from the Observatory, was completed last September. Among the distinguished visitors present were M. Cornu and Professor Newcomb.

THE University of Oxford, on June 8th, entertained the delegates to the centenary of the Royal Institution and conferred the honorary D.C.L. upon the following: Henri Becquerel, Membre de l'Institut, professor of physics at the École Polytechnique, Paris; Guglielmo Körner, professor of chemistry in the Scuola Superiore d'Agricultura, Milan; Matthias Eugen Oscar Liebreich, Director of the Pharmacological Laboratory, and professor of pharmacology in the University of Berlin; Henri Moissan, professor of toxicology in the École Supérieure de Pharmacie, Paris, and Simon Newcomb, U. S. Navy and Johns Hopkins University. At the luncheon, given in the hall of Christ Church, Professor Newcomb responded to the toast in honor of the guests.

THE following have been elected foreign members of the Royal Society: Dr. Ludwig Boltzmann, professor of theoretical physics in the University of Vienna; Dr. Neumayer, of the Hamburg Observatory; Dr. Anton Dohrn, Director of the Zoological Station, Naples; Professor Emil Fischer, professor of chemistry at the University of Berlin, and Dr. Melchior Treub, Director of the Buitenzorg Botanical Gardens.

ERNST A. BESSEY, A.M., of the University of Nebraska, has been appointed to the position of Assistant Vegetable Pathologist in the Division of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology in the United States Department of Agriculture, the appointment dating from June 1st.

THE subjects of Professor Emile Picard's lectures to be delivered at Clark University, in

connection with the Decennial Celebration, July 5th to 8th, are as follows: (1) Sur le développement des mathématiques, et en particulier de l'idée de fonction, depuis un siècle. (2) Quelques vues générales sur la théorie des équations différentielles. (3) Sur la théorie générale des fonctions analytiques et sur quelques fonctions spéciales.

THE statue of Benjamin Franklin, presented to the city of Philadelphia by Mr. Justus C. Strawbridge, was unveiled on June 14th with ceremonies under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, the Franklin Institute, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Hospital. The oration was delivered by U. S. District Attorney James M. Beck.

THE death is announced of Dr. A. Charpentier, professor in the faculty of medicine in the University of Paris, and the author of contributions on vision numbering over 100. His publications concern especially the time phenomena of vision, intensity, contrast, etc.

DR. LAWSON TAIT, a surgeon of Birmingham, England, who was eminent for his operations in abdominal surgery, died in London on June 13th, aged fifty-five years.

THE next meeting of the International Committee on Meteorology has been called for August 25th of the present year at St. Petersburg.

THE annual meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, London, was held on June 5th, when the medals were awarded in accordance with the announcement that we have already made. A banquet was held in the evening. Among the speakers were Count du Pontavice de Heussey, who had received one of the medals in the afternoon, and the American Ambassador, Mr. Choate.

THE 21st Congress of French Geographical Societies will be held at the building of the Paris Society of Geography, from the 23d to the 29th of July, 1900.

DR. CYRUS ADLER informs us that Comte Angelo De Gubernatis, President of the 12th International Congress of Orientalists, to meet at Rome, October 12, 1899, states that a special

section of this Congress will be devoted to researches concerning the origin of the American Indians, and that papers from students of American archæology, ethnography, mythology and folklore will be welcome.

A REUTER telegram from Stockholm, dated June 6th, says that the Anthropological and Geographical Society of Stockholm has received the following telegram from Herr Vathne, a shipowner at Mandal: "Captain Hueland, of the steamship Vaagen, who arrived there on Monday morning, reports that when at Kola Fjord, Iceland, in 65° 34' north lat., 21° 28' west long., on May 14th, he found a drifting buoy marked 'No. 7.' Inside the buoy was a capsule, marked 'Andrée's Polar Expedition,' containing a slip of paper, on which was written the following: 'Drifting buoy, No. 7. This buoy was thrown out from Andrée's balloon on July 11, 1897, 10:55 p. m., Greenwich mean time, 82° north lat., 25° east long. We are at an altitude of 600 metres; all well. Andrée, Strindberg, Fraenckel.' Herr Andrée made his ascent from Danes Island on July 11, 1897, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so that when the buoy was thrown out the explorer had only travelled seven hours and 55 minutes.

THE Stella Polare, with the Duke of Abruzzi, nephew of the King of Italy, and his polar expedition on board, sailed from Christiania on June 12th.

AMONG those who will embark on the steamship Hope for the Arctic regions are Professor Wm. Libbey, of Princeton University, and Dr. Robert Stein, of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Dr. Stein will spend the winter in Ellesmereland, and will be accompanied by Dr. Leopold Kann, who will pay special attention to the study of terrestrial magnetism.

THE New Mexico Biological Station will be conducted this summer at Las Vegas, N. M., beginning work about June 25th. Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell will be in charge, and will be assisted by Miss W. Porter. It is also expected that two parties will undertake field-investigations in New Mexico, Professor C. L. Herrick having charge of a geological party, and Professor E. L. Hewitt of an anthropological one. Professor E. O. Wooton will also be