The courses in pure science of the New York University include undergraduate, graduate, and summer courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, and biology, with laboratory privileges and provision for special students and independent work in chemistry. The university last year was attended by 1,717 students in its three faculties and six schools, and 720 non-matriculant students and auditors. A new feature this year is the inauguration of the Charles F. Deems lectureship of philosophy, under an endowment of $15,000 by the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, with Prof. James Iverach, D. D., of the Free Church College, Aberdeen, Scotland, as the first lecturer. A feature of the university organization is the institution of a woman's advisory committee co-operating with the council. A woman's law class is supported by the Woman's Legal Education Society, the purpose of which is to make business women and women in private life acquainted with existing law. The new Science Building of the City Library, Springfield, Mass., recently completed, is being inaugurated by a Geographical and Geological Exhibition. It includes the best and latest maps, models, globes, charts, relief maps, and photographs, special attention being paid to the most effective modes of teaching. One of the most attractive features of the exhibition is the work from the Springfield public schools. An ingenious method for thawing out frozen water pipes has been used by Prof. R. W. Wood, of the University of Wisconsin. It consists simply of passing a current of electricity through the pipe. In one case it is said that one hundred and fifty feet of frozen pipe was thawed out in eighteen minutes. The ordinary street current was used, the voltage being reduced to about fifty. In a summary of inspectors' reports of the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company for 1898 it is stated that of 78,349 boilers, inspected both internally and externally, during the year, there were 11,727 dangerous defects discovered and 603 entire boilers were declared unsafe for further use.