M. Hildebert Richard, of Avignon, France, relates that he experimented upon two adult geranium plants, both healthy and of vigorous growth, under like conditions of exposure, watering one (A) with well water and the other (B) with water containing a measured proportion of butylic alcohol daily. A kept on with its healthy growth. B, after four days of alcoholization, showed an enfeebled growth, with symptoms of jaundice, drowsiness, and intoxication; a special odor perceptible in all parts of the plant, partially burned spots, and melanosis and geotropism in the leaves. * * * * * In his papers on The Art and Customs of Benin, Mr. Ling Roth concludes that the art of that savage land consists of mixed elements, partly European forms which the native mind was prone to copy, partly introduced from other parts of Africa. It is characterized by boldness, freedom, clearness in execution, originality, and variety. Among the customs he mentions are the practice of human sacrifice and the sprinkling of the blood of the animals killed at the periodical sacrifices on the ivories and on the cast-iron or bronze figure-heads placed on the altars. When there was too much rain, a woman had a message saluting the rain god put into her mouth. She was then killed and set up in the execution tree, so that the rain might see. * * * * * Our scientific obituary list of the month includes the names of Sir William Dawson, the distinguished Canadian geologist, of whom a fuller notice is given in another place; Dr. Luther Dana Woodbridge, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Williams College, at Williamstown, Mass., of heart disease, November 3d, aged forty-nine years; Dr. Oscar Baumann, African explorer, geographer to the Austrian Congo Expedition of 1885, who made studies for the projected railroad from Tanga to Karog; Dr. F. Kuhla, botanical explorer, at Manáos, Brazil; Percy B. Pilcher, inventor of flying machines, from an accident while experimenting, September 2d; Professor Hayduck, Privat Docent in Chemistry in Berlin; M. A. Snow, Instructor in Entomology in Leland Stanford Junior University, drowned October 10th in San Francisco Harbor; he had also been Instructor in Entomology in the Universities of Kansas and of Illinois, and was the author of several systematic papers on _Diptera_; Prof. J. B. Carnoy, of the Catholic University of Louvain, author of _Biologie Cellulaire_ and of papers on the development of sexual elements, and founder of the journal _La Cellule_, at Schuls, Switzerland, September 6th; Dr. A Ernst, Director of the National Museum, Caracas, Venezuela; Dr. Edward Petri, Professor of Geography and Anthropology in the University of St. Petersburg, aged forty-five years; Dr. Ottmar Mergenthaler, inventor of the linotype type machine, in Baltimore, Md., October 28th; and Dr. Henry Hicks, an English geologist and Lyell medalist, at Hendon, England, November 18th, aged sixty-two years.