Work has been begun upon a magnetic observatory at Cornell.

There will be an optional examination in Greek 5 tomorrow.

Prof. Macvance will give a one hour examination in History 1, this afternoon.

Lasell Seminary is to have a gymnasium which will be under charge of a special instructor.

Prof. Colin has written a letter to the Nation in which M. Cazot is compared to James G. Blaine.

The next mathematical seminar will be held Thursday, December 11. Mr. A. G. Webster will continue the discussion on the "Dynamics of a billiard ball."

A Matthew Simpson memorial professorship is to be established at Dickinson College, with an endowment of $40,000 raised by elections in all Methodist churches.

Professor Richardson, of Amherst, has just completed a handbook of German words, arranged in families. It is intended to enable the student to dispense, for the most part, with a lexicon.

The Cornell Daily Sun publishes an account of the athletic troubles of Harvard under the following title: "A Possibility of Harvard's Disappearance from Future Intercollegiate Athletic Contests."

The Harvard Society of Amateur Photographers was organized last night with a membership of seventeen members.

The Cornell Era says of the petition for voluntary prayers: "This request is an eminently reasonable one, and it is probably that this rule will shortly go the way of the old ranking system, and all other relics of a half mature civilization."

A movement is on foot among the seniors of the Institute of Technology. To inaugurate some kind of class day festivities, in addition to the somewhat monotonous graduating exercises. There has been considerable dissatisfaction among the students on account of the lack of interest in graduation day, but it now seems probable that this will be remedied.

Emerson's son, Dr. Edward W. Emerson, who has charge of his father's literary and other effects, is seeking to obtain, as a fitting monument to be placed over the great philosopher's grave, a mass of hard white quartz, with rage sea-green beryls embedded in it. He has men at work in New Hampshire, trying to find what he wants.

Saturday evening's edition of the Transcript contained a very vigorous, forcible and almost violent communication, protesting against the abolishment of foot ball. The writer says at the close: "Probably the next step will be to have the inter-collegiate boat-races conducted with steam launches, because "brutal" strength is needed at the oar. Is it a pleasant prospect that not game should be allowed except those that girls can have part in, and will it improve our race. "The puny weaklings who would be exterminated in a natural state of society will taken the a affirmative."