debt he FF oan epegareces ¥ bali ptatesy S23 Seta ne ebinies Pt batt as! use iay i * ¢ ene el iserice. anon’ REET naPSs oe sree tee Bone ees fee Peale) ot? Paes, | SCIENCE AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL BOP LST FAD. LAr ek Pay VOLUME III JANUARY—JUNE 1884 CAMBRIDGE MASS. piers, Ce Were COO eM PAN Y 1884 COPYRIGHT, 1884, By THE SCIENCE COMPANY. RAND, AVERY, & COMF / = B OSTON. — CONTENTS OH VOLUME. : TIT. SPECIAL ARTICLES. PAGE Abbot, Henry L. Andrew Atkinson Hitec YS. Portrait. . 476 Gouverneur Kemble “Warren. Portrait 276 ebbott, A. V. Improvements in testing- machines. 312 Winrott, ‘Charles C. The intelligence of batrachians. 66 The intelligence of snakes . . 2538 Notes on hibernating mammals. "Til. . 538 Adams, J.C. The definition of mean solar time . 323 Allen, W. F. Primitive communities . . - 786 American awards of the Geological society of London . 384 American fish-cultural association Siemon tetas 719 American institute of mining-engineers c 326 American medical association: its EeSHne in Washing- ton. So) ot oe a) no OSE American society of mechanical engineers. 723 Ancient human skeleton from Mentone, France. Tl. 5 541 Anthropological ache in Petermann’s mittheilungen for 1883 : 415 Armsby, H. = Loss of nitrogen from arable soils . 17 The Woburn rotation experiments. . . .. . 716 Artificial production of rain. . 229 Ashburner, Charles A. Pennsylvania ‘anthracite. 310 Astronomical laborsof Mr.Common . 544 Babbitt, Franc E. Indian implements ‘of the north. west. Jil. 589 Barton, George ‘H. Notes on the lava-flow of 1880-81 from Mauna Loa. Jil. . 410 Bell, Robert. Geology and mineralogy of northern Canada. . 755 Bestowal of the grand honorary Walker prize ‘on Profes- sor James Hall. Portrait . . O71 Bidwell, Shelford. An explanation 0 of Hall’s phenom- enon. . : 386 Biological institute at Philadelphia 56 617 Biological ory of the Johns Hopkins ‘university. The 350 Blair, H. W. The international bureau of weights 2 and measures : 305 Brauns, D. The Ainos of Yezo. ill. . 69 Conn, H. W. Evolution of the decapod zoea. Ill. . 513 Crevaux expedition - 2 , 387 Crosby, W.O. The colors of natural waters . ; 445 Cruise of the Albatross from ree to sal aia in February and March - C 6 590 W.H-. Thouar and Crevaux : 660 Da W. H. Head waters of the Atna or Copper River 779 Invertebrates of the Talisman capeaiien: Te es 657 Journey of Lessar to Seraks . . 5 628 A new volcano island in Alaska. Ml. ot 89 Recent work on brachiopods. . ...... .e 325 The state of exploration in Africa . Ae 413 Danish expedition to Kast Greenland . .. . 286 Darwin on instinct 15 Davidson, George. The new “Bogosloff ‘volcano. in Bering Sea. Jil.. 282 ane aus of Mount St. Augustin, Oct. 6, 1883. 186 Davis, W. “M. " Meteorological “charts of the North At- lantic. Jil... : 654 The older wind-charts of the North Atlantic. ihe é 593 Whirlwinds, cyclones, and tornadoes. J/I. 40, 63, 93 Dawson, G. M. Recent geological observations in the Canadian north-west territory . 647 Determination of theohm . nets 10 Difficulty of preventing the Ohio floods” 385 Diller, J. S. Volcanic sand which fell at Unalashka, Alaska, Oct. 20, 1883. JI/. 651 ~ aa Henry H. Localization in the brain. cae 484 Dumas, Jean- Baptiste- André. Portrait 750 Duty on imported scientific text-books . . 62 Eaton, H. W. Electric-lignt tests at the ‘Louisville ex- position ca? : eerie ee. ees a The Toepler- Holtz ‘machine. De 753 Elliott, Henry W. The monk-seal of the West Indies, Monachus tropicalis Gray. Til. . 3 752 Encke’s comet and the resisting medium 660 PAGE Explosions on the underground a aye of London . - 516 False prophet of the Sudan 199 Ferrel, William. The maxima and minima tide- _pre- dicting machine. JUl.. 408 Filhol, H. The deep-sea Crustacea dredged by the Talis- man. 0d. - 713 The deep-sea “dredging apparatus of the Talisman. i. 448 The deep-sea fishes collected bom the Talisman. Jil. . . 623 Floodsinthe Ohio ... . Ae ots Sat 22 Fol, H. Microbes. . 128 Fritsch, Anton. A human skull from the loess of Pod- baba, near Prague. Jil. . . 735 Gage, Simon H. The application of photography to the production of natural-history figures. J//. . 443 Gannett, Henry. The geodetic work of the Beye den and Wheeler surveys . . 447 Garman, S. A peculiar selachian. 11. a EPAG Gatschet, A. S. Recent linguistic researches. . 759 Gill, Theodore. The rubyoloeipal peculaTes of the bassalian fauna. J/d,. . 620 Government and economic entomology « 646 Great comet of 1882 . of ES ine 287 Great telescopes 487 Greely search 377 Greene, Charles E. "The cantilever- bridge at D Niagara Falls. Jd. : : 572 Green- Mountain railway, Mount Desert Island 415 Grinewetzky’s crossing of Novaia Zemlia. . 16 Guyot, Arnold. Portrait. 218 Hague, Arnold. Red skies in China five years ago - 5 Hae Hall, Edwin H. ON to Bidwell’s } explanation of Hall’s eae ae 387 _inertiay i 2 Ce aaah oi cha, Te 482 Hall phenomenon in liquids ae 560 Halsted, Byron D. Conditions of growth of the wheat- rust. 457 Hazen, H. "A. The motion of waves of cold in the United States. Idd. . 149 Holmes, W. Eccentric "figures. from southern mounds. {il.. . . Sly oN OA One NO rertu tomo mer ser 2 SF Howell, William H. The new Berebolacs! element of the blood : alge’ 6: Lene cenaeLO Hyatt, A. The business of the naturalist. . Eyre Evolution of the Cephalopoda. Jil. 122, 145 International scientific association. . 245 James, Joseph F. The flora of Labrador . 359 Jurassic dinosaurs. Jil. . - 542 Karsten, G. Red skiesa century. ago a a3! Koch. Sixth report of the German cholera commission . 574 Kunz, George F.. Five Brazilian diamonds. Jil. . 649 Laboratory i in modern science : 172 McCook, H. C. How egg-cocoons ‘are made by a Ly- cosa. . 685 Martin, H. Newell. Modern physiological laborato- ries: what and why they are . , 100 Mason, O The relation of the mound. builders ‘o the historic Indians. . “cate - 658 Mendenhall, T. C. A question of exposure 306 Migration of birds in England . . 158 Minot, S. Development of the thyroid and. thy mus glands and the tongue . 0 Hon Ter Morphology of the pee and ‘leg. Tt. $3) ae: Natal observatory . : 356 National academy of sciences, April session : 503 Nautical almanac office. . eustes 2s 588 New and strange dinosaur. Tl. 199 Newberry, J. S. The industrial arts as factors in mod- ern history . 597 Newcomb, Simon. The great Vienna telescope. Til. 380 New method of mounting reflectors % & Ponte woe President Eliot on a liberal education 704 Recent determinations of stellar parallax . 456 What is a liberal education . 435 Osborn, ear y, L. The Johns Hopkins marine labo- enone, SMS 8c 7 The water- ets of the lamellibranch foot : 130 Palms. . J us 629 Peabody museum of American archaeology 287 bel 2 iv SCIENCE. — CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. PAGE ew: D.P. Some peculiarities of plant- arena ose, GC. B. The critical state of gases oe Powell, J. W. The fundamental Sheena of dynamic geology . 2 On the state of the interior of the earth . . Se We Sallis Present sun-spot maximum . . Presentation of the Rumford medals to Professor Rowland. Sis 6 Me Protection of alpine plants nay, ©. mie Us: meteorological ‘station at Point Eaiours | JS ae ee ana ral Retrospect and prospect . Richards, R. H. Economy of fuel in iron “manufacture, The hot blast in makingiron. . on. or Riley, C. V. Entomography of Hirmoneura . The use of naphthaline as an insecticide . yee FVOLATONOfePILeT 2 @ - 6 6 -) © ys ah. 6 Royal society of Canada . . eens ce rok Royce, Josiah. After-i ‘images ‘ i Russell, Israel C. Lakes of the Great Basin. Russian meteorological service. TJil.. Salmon, D. E. The discovery of the ‘germ of swine- plague . A Sargent, C. s. George Engelmann. Scales of Coleoptera. His & 0 Schwatka, Frederick. The Alaska military recon- noissance of 1883. Jil... . : 5 PAY, An arctic vesse] and her equipment. Ml. So ¢ Icebergs and ice-floes. Ji. . . . oy No tao or en uthemMaddle Yukon JUS) ee oe al er SIONIK, Wintering in the Arctic. Jl. Sicko ier Scientific method in historicalstudy . . Sechenoff, I. The scientific activity ‘of the Russian universities during the last twenty-five years Smith Sound and its Pe ee eae Study at home . : aes Style in scientific writing 59 Tarr, Ralph S. Carnivorous habits of the muskrat . Cod: hatching experiments at Gloucester : Portrait Technical education in Europe . ee gk Cee systems at the ( Cincinnati exposition. Thomas, Cyrus. " The Etowah mounds. ahi) Iron from North- Carolina mounds. Ji. . 2 Thurston, Robert H. Anewmotor ..,.. Sir Charles William Siemens. Portrait . . Tissandier, G. Tissandier’s electric balloon. ‘Il. BOOK REVIEWS. PAGE Aboriginal literature of America 732 Agricultural experiment-stations . - 492 Albrecht’s Logarithmic-trigonometric tables A 5 oo 6 6 onl Art catalogue of the New-England manufacturers’ institute, 263 Ashburner’s Geology of the Panther-Creek coal-basin 690 Bacteria and the germ-theory of disease no 133 Barrois’ Geology of the Asturias and Galicia 726 Barrus’s Tabor steam-engine indicator . 601 Bassler’s Weather . . . 262 Bastian’s Ethnological psychology 204 Becker’s Comstock lode . 48 Berthelot’s Explosive materials . 76 Besant’s Treatise on hydromechanics 78 Biological theories of an artist . ess, ok Asis 332 sporderland of science and faith <2. . . « - « » « » Jol Brooks’s Law of heredity. . 388 Browne and Behnke’s Practical guide for r singers and speak- ONS ier lien ve. Steers.) uo aaotere 231 Bulletin astr onomique : 581 Calderwood’s Relations of ‘mind and brain 686 Carpenter’s Energy in nature . : 491 Cohn’s Die pflanze hy.s2 asl, vce Peaoets 160 Connett and Frazer’s Patents on inventions c 522 Coues’s Biogen. By Josiah Royce . . F 661 Daniell’s Text-book of the eens of physics : 631 Darwinism c 5 461 Duncan’s Heroes of science . 261 Dutton’s Tertiary histor xe of the Grand ( Caiion district. Tl. 327 Dynamic electricity . 692 Economic entomology . 2932 Exploring voyage of the Challenger. Il. By G. Brown Goode . 576 Galton’s Life- history album, and Record of family faculties, 734 Geological relatives of Krakatoa, and its late eruption. Til. 7€2 Geological survey of Alabama . 5 RE 418 Gladstone and Tribe’s Secondary batteries | 5 51 Gordon’s Electricity and magnetism . c 262 Graves’s Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton . 19 Guatemaltec languages. . . ‘ = 794 Guyot’s Creation . . ' 599 Hahn’s Handbuch der klimatologie é 162 Hammond’s Electric light in our » homes . ‘ 521 Todd, David P. The Dearborn observatory 629 Humidity and chronometer rates . ofS 287 Researches on astronomical spectr um-photography : Trelease, W. Insects and fermentation . . Ey ae Trowbridge, John. Progress of. electrical science . during 1883. . 258 Tucker, R. H., jun. The distribution of comets = with reference to solar motion. - . 650 U., W. The winter of 1879-80 i in 1 Europe aneuete 362 M‘Alpine’s Botanical atlas . . . . +. « « « = «= «© =) doe M‘Alpine’s ZoGlogical atlas . . . . - « « » « «= « « doo Marie’s History of the sciences. . . . . = « « = = ao Martin’s Elementary physiology .. .. . « « «%» 49 Mascart’s Electricity and magnetism. . .... . . 202 Meteorological journals. = = ~ 5) )) <= ». 734 Miguel’s Organisms of the air . . .... . » - 518 Minor book notices . . ‘fs ORIG Nourse’s American exploration in the i ice- zones . Poe eee | alo Packard’s Briefer zoGlogy ...... .- 4 50 Pasteur, Louis. J.. o 6) ae 546 Planté’s Recherches sur "Vélectricité O30 0 549 Proceedings of the American society of microscopists 460 Recent works on the micro-chemistry of plants. . .. . 602 Report of the commissioner of agriculture for 1883 - » 689 Report of the observatory at ee Hungary... . . 664 Report on sorghum sugar. . 2 Lise (eos ee 161 | Romer’s Bone-caves of Poland. ...... - oe "152, 196 726 SCIENCE. — CONTENTS PAGE Rosny’s Codex Cortesianus. BY ares ign ere te 408 Scientific linguistics ... . anal ter O04: Seribner’s Where did life begin . Sere ame ce. tis) 5! 202 Spang’s Lightning protection . ee rc eemrmen es cc 160 Stokes’s Burnett lectures on light . yee mate e dete 5° G0 Stokes’s Mathematical and a sical pooper Reem ce fa 204: Thomson’s Vortex rings . . bi) bie Os in aye se0) OF VOLUME ITI. Vv PAGE Topographical surveying . . Ais Veutd a or Cee Tryon’s Structural and systematic conchology 5 dette g sy OL Wagner’s Geographisches jahrbuch . . Shs Hens! Way UZOD Nvatie’s) Maniallot chenistrys). 9), sms 2s) + see 2) a00 Webster’s Outlines of chemistry . ene a7! Wyckoff’s Silk-manufacture in the United States . | . . 290 Yarrow’s Check-list of North-American reptiles . . . . 264 INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Engineers’ school of application, Willets Point, New York, 665. Geological survey of Canada, 605. U.S. geological survey, 26, 52, 80, 135, 166, 205, 234, 265, 2938, 333, 365, 391, 421, 463, 493, 522, 551, 582, 608, 636, 665, 692, 735, 766, 795. U.S. national museum, 109. U.S. naval observatory, 108, 137. U.S. signal-office, 767. RECENT PROCEEDINGS Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, 209, 236, 267, 294, 334, 367, 396, 423, 553, 606, 637, 666, 736. Academy ofnatural sciences, Philadelphia, botanical section, 694. Albany institute, 666. American philosophical society, Philadelphia, 79. American society of civil engineers, New York, 463, 528. Anthropological society of Washington, 605. Appalachian mountain club, Boston, 366, 553. Biological society, Washington, 208, 294, 423, 738, 769. Boston society of natural history, 337, 553, 605. Brooklyn entomological society, 7367 Brookville society of natural history, 523, 637, 768. Cambridge entomological club, 25, 207. Canadian institute, Toronto, 165, 266. Chemical society, Washington, 294, 463, 583. Chicago academy of sciences, 237. Cincinnati natural- history society, 79, 236, 367. Colorado scientific society, Denver, 523, 667. Cuvier club, Cincinnati, 209. Davenport academy of ‘natural sciences, Iowa, 737. Engineers’ club, Philadelphia, 295, 367, 494, 552, 606, 693. Entomological society of Washington, 768. Franklin institute, Philadelphia, 51, 108, 266. OF STATE INSTITUTIONS. New-York state survey, 421. University of Kansas, i//. 53. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. Harvard college herbarium, 235. Harvard college observatory, 167. Museum of comparative zodlogy, Cambridge, 206. Peabody academy of science, Salem, 393. SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Linnaean society, New York, 294, 366, 552. Massachusetts institute of technology, zl. 80. Minnesota academy of natural sciences, 494, 695. Natural-history society of Cornell university, Ithaca, 737. Natural-history society of New Brunswick, St. John, 769. Natural science association of Staten Island, New Brighton, 24, 165, 423, 583, 694. New-York academy of sciences, 165. New-York microscopical society, 797. Numismatic and antiquarian society, Philadelphia, 524, 606. Ottawa field-naturalists’ club, 26, 107, 164, 235, 337, 394. Ottawa microscopical society, 25. Philosophical society of Washington, 166, 208, 336, 396, 555, 607. Philosophical society of Washington, mathematical section, 26 424, Princeton science club, 107, 165, 266. San Diego natural-history society, 24, 464. Scientific club, Manhattan, Kan., 208. Society of arts, Boston, 79, 165, 267, z//. 394, 583, 667, 738, 796. Torrey botanical club, New York, 236, 523, 636. Trenton natural-history society, 395, 494, 768. Vassar brothers’ institute, Poughkeepsie, 51, 237. COMMENT AND CRITICISM, 1, 29, 57, 85, 113, 141, 169, 213, 241, 271, 299, 343, 371, 399, 427, 471, 499, 529, 557, 585, 6138, 648, 2/7. 671, 699, 745, 773. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, i//. 3, 31, ill. 59, 86, 114, 142, i/. 171, 215, ild. 243, id. 278, ill. 302, id. 345, id. 378, itd. 401, zd. 429, 473, 501, ill. 531, 559, 586, i//. 614, 644, 672, 700, il. 747, ill. 775. NOTES AND NEWS, 667, 696, 7/1. 739, ail. 769, 797. 27, 54, 82, 110, 138, 168, 2/7. 209, 238, 268, 296, 337, 368, z//. 396, 424, id. 464, id. 495, il. 524, ill, 555, 584, 607, 637, Pietra Cubs RATIONS. PAGE Aino man, 70; but, 69; anold Aino. . - 71 Alaska and adjoining region, map of, 187, 284; new volcano island in (9 figs.) . IgA sane eet COOL Arctic vessel and rat equipment (4 figs. ) Mn een. at UG—009 Arrow-points at Evansville, Ill. A oF 2 Le 6 PAI Baffin Bay, the channels north of, ; 2 ‘opposite 317 Balloon, Tissandier’s flying, ite end view of, "154; batteries for,196; basketof.. . ee ae eee LOT PAGE Basins at Mammoth Hot-Springs of Gardiner’s River. . . 106 Baie We Chay 6 eo 6 belo komo 0 fol) (on folson cer ws!) Batrachichthys . ire ee Sst Blaze which had been covered by many ‘years’ erowth : 355 Bogosloff Island, distant ten miles, as seen by Krenitzen and Levasheff, 1768- 69, 283; the new volcanic, as seen Sep- tember-October, 1883 Seen Te oa hs ale ver Mugs Mol, nat es Se RD Brain of dog, functionalareasin) . «+. . . . .« « «. « 484 vl SCIENCE. — CONTENTS PAGE Brdee over the Niagara River, cantilever c ge: Wetoe ne . Bue Canoe, method of tracking, up arapid . Reteet 3 ay 775} Caulinites fecundus Lesqx. . Poe eo CSR Cephalopoda, evolution af the (7 figs. Ns rene tees’ na AG) Challenger, the, 577; natural history workroom on board _ 578 Chlamydoselachus anguineus . 116 Cold, November, 1881, map showing motion of waves of . 151 Coleoptera, s scales of (8 fIGS3))) se sr A Colorado, Granite Falls, a scene in the inner gorge of Kaibab district, Grand Caiion of the, opposite 299; dikes in the caiion-wall of the inner gorge, Grand Caiion of the, 328; niches or panels in the red-wall sandstone, Grand Canoy of the . 5) UBEID Comet, path of Pons- Brooks, 68; as seen Sept. 26, 1883 . . 69 Cucumber, flower growing upona. . Ba Bo Cyclone cloud at Rochester, Minn., 1883 P: iC te S04 Diamonds, Brazilian (6 figs.) Boon wigs in, Ete poate el ee, (G49 Dinosaur, a new and strange (3 figs.) 198, 199 Dinosaurs, new Jurassic (5 figs.) . - 542, 543 Dogs, kennels for mad, 548; cage for same . ee eenrs OLS Dumas, Jean-Baptiste- ‘André, portraitof . . doll Dynamometer used at Cincinnati exposition, 1883 (3 figs. )) 176 Earthquake in England, April 22, 1884, map showing . . 741 Electric machine, Toepler- Holtz, 754; signals, clock for sending . atest 243, 401 Electrical erhipision building at Philadelphia 2) ea eeteeooS Engelmann, George, portrait and signatureof .. . . . 405 Mimmypbanvirxspelecanoldes) S 0-0 2-0 ie wie Be O20 Eustomias obscurus. . SM fc) 3 Meet Vee Me) ete. ee OO Faults of south-western Virginia (enoCUN outa o Ie eeEeS SOLD, Galathodes Antonii . . > ante ee Gastrostomus, the pedunculated ‘lateral- line organ of (2 figs.) . : Paces 6: a Geyser in action, 1871, Old Faithful . . 104 Glacial boundary, map of southern Indiana and Ohio, show- ing eee th. ¥ a cia Suge) ct doe se. Glaciology, some Indiana ae cos Meise ks: wee’ SULS Guyot, Arnold, portrait and signature eC eee 0 . 219 Hall, James, portraitof . . = wol2 Humphrey s, Andrew Atkinson, "portrait and signature of . 417 Icebergs and ice-floes (2 figs.) . 536, 537 Indian. implements of the north-west (2 figs. y play = OS Johns Hopkins university, marine laboratory of the, 7; in- terior view of,8; yacht and steam-launch of, 9; biologi- cal laboratory of the, plans and views (6 figs.) . . 390-353 Kansas university, plans of new chemical laboratory (2 figs.), 53; view of same x Sok ed Krak: toa, atmospheric waves s from, 531; before and after the eruption, 211; the late eruption and the geological relatives of (8 figs. ), 768, 764; water-waves from (map and fig.). . MeO Cad Lava falling into a "pool ‘of Ww ater, a cataract of red-hot . . 412 Lava-flow of 1880-81 from Mauna Loa ........ 4il Leaf, expulsion of water froma growing . ... . . . 245 Macrurus australis, 621; globiceps . a a 62D Magnetic engine, 274; observatory at Pawlowsk, Russia se 19 Malacosteus niger eer So ayes ree ee 8S Melanocetus Jobnsoni ee <<) s)iw ee GE aL Meteorological station at Pawlowsk, Russia — ai tet 4) lve! Se Oy Microbes, warm room for the culture Olen ss Se Coe, Micropterus salmoides, osteology of . . . .... . . TA49 Mole, the star-nosed. . Sar Coe) oe me wo. Bete Monk-seal of the West Indies temo Gs arches Tal ot eso Morphology of the pelvis and leg. . a tes 6) Aa EOS Mounds, the Etowah (11 figs.), 780- 784: iron from North- Car olina (2 figs.), 308, 509; eccentric als from south- ern (6 figs.) . . - « 4837, 438 Mount St. Augustin after the eruption, as seen aad be: es Cullie, Nov. 10,1888 . . 188 OF VOLUME III. Mouse, the white-footed ‘ eae Nelumbium luteum, longitudinal section of iyi eed Nematocarcinus gracilipes ......... Neostoma bathyphilum . . - New Jersey, map showing geological survey nteeae North Atlantic, the older wind-charts of the (5 figs.), 594- 596; meteorological charts of the (3 figs. and map), 655, 656, opposite 656; track-chart i the. “a Far oer. moms Onoclea sensibilis Lesqx. . . o Tabseh: ee er Pendulum, gyration of a vibrating <1, ae Photographie camera for natural- history objects (2 figs. ), 448, 444 Photographic laboratory of mis institute of tech- nology, planof . . - 0 cole Pipe found near Charleston, WaVae eee > ts 619 Point Barrow, signal-station at, 478; ice-arch formed near . 479 Pottsville conglomerate, peculiarities of wears in the (ates) “a 6c 6 Vere Jones 12-14 Ptychogaster ‘formosus . . oe so Se) hd et nnn Reflections, experiments with ree soe 5 AG, OIL Ripple-marks (5 figs.) . . Be 5 a Rumford medal, presented to Prof. H. A. Rowland 2 ee Romeo Siemens, Charles William, portrait and signature of . . . 35 Skeleton from Mentone, France, ancient human (2 figs.) . . 541 Skull, human, from the loess of Podbaba, near Prague (3 figs.) . . 5 a Seems 785, 786 Spider’s device in lifting et: oye) el AS Strawberry-flower, retrograde metamorphosis ofa oe 302 Talisman, deep sea dredging apparatus of the (18 figs.), 448— 455; deep- sea fishes collected by the (4 figs.), 624-627; invertebrates collected by the, 658; ee sea Crustacea dredged by the (8 figs.) : fe - 113-715 Telegraph, the Delany sy nehronous PEC io hoo Oe Telephone, glove (2 figs.) . . « . « = « = eels sieemmNiInOMmIgl Telescope, the great Vienna. . : 381 Testing-machines, improvements in (5 figs. ) "313, 315, 317-319 Tide- predicting machine Ec - . 409 Tornadoes, diagram showing their yelation. to ‘the ° prevailing Winds; . ". ¢ ees Aeon ota Tree, remains of a ‘prehistoric 66 © 2 et a) oer Trilobite, appendages of (3 figs.) . 280, oy Vertebra, seventh cervical, in man . Voleanic sand which fell at Unalashka, Alaska, Oct. 20, 1883, én Walking a log, as practised by the Alaskan inane position of the feetin . . Py p35 Warren, G. K., portrait. and signature of 2 ome - 277 Whirlwinds, cyclones, and tornadoes, diagrams and. maps explaining (10 figs.) - 43, 44, 65, 94, 95 Wind velocities and directions near Chicago a tate su We "495 Winds within the storm-disk (2 figs.) ..... . - 403 Wintering in the Arctic (10 figs.) ae " 566-571 Yellowstone, Grand Canon in the. . - «. 105 Yukon River, map of Upper, 221; Dayay valley, looking up Nourse-River valley, 222; a view in the Dayay valley, 224; Lake Lindeman on, 225; Lake Bennett from Payer Portage, 247; Miles Canon from its southern entrance, 250; Indian village of Kitl-ah-gon in the von Wilczek val- ley, 251; view looking into the mouth of the Pelly Riv- er, 677; view looking up the Yukon from the mouth of the Pelly River, 678; looking across the, 679; Ayan In- dians and their birch-bark canoes on the, 688; section of paddle used on the, 680; plan of hut on the, 680; Kon- itl, chief of the Ayans, on the, 681; gambling ‘chips,’ 682; section of the, 682; map of the Middle, 707; sec- tion of bank of the (3 figs.) 708; Indian village of Klat- ol-klin on the, 709; fishing-net used on the, 710; fish- cluF used on the, 711; moss hanging, from banks of . a all Zamiostrobus mirabilis Leeqx. eo » oo se we 488 Zoea, evolution of . . .« « «= » » » 6 S>=heemnelin inns mmemmEEDICH SCIENCE AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. Vérité sans peur. CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: THE SCIENCE COMPANY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Tue thoughts and actions of young men of ‘intellectual strength, in whom is vested the future fate of scientific progress in this coun- ‘try, are worth attention, and are of the deep- est interest to those who are, or soon -will be, no longer explorers of new fields. The meet- ‘ing last week in New York, of the new society -of naturalists, composed almost wholly of young men, was remarkable for the force and directness of the discussions, and the absence -of pointless and wearisome talk. It became plain that we have men capable of the best work, and that we are preparing for a brilliant future of investigation, whenever the instru- ‘mentalities necessary for fullest success are ‘sufficient. The spirit of independence, and the disregard of purely personal influence, were ‘as great as could be desired. All propositions, from whatever source, met with an equal and -critical treatment ; and no clique or locality had ‘the slightest claim for consideration. Phila- -delphia was best represented ; while there was -a striking absence of delegates from Wash- ‘ington, New Haven, and Cambridge. Tue International conference for fixing upon ‘a universal prime meridian and a universal system of time has at length been called by the State department to meet in Washington, ‘Oct. 1, 1884. Diplomatic proceedings are always expected to go on with a certain dig- _-nified leisure; but the arrangements for the meeting of this conference have been delayed far beyond any thing customary, even in di- plomacy. The act authorizing the conference ‘became a law in August, 1882. As there was No. 48.—1884.. ‘ some doubt whether there would be a sufficiently general response to the invitation to insure the suecess of the conference, a preliminary cir- cular requesting the views of the various govern- ments interested, and an expression of their willingness to enter the conference, was issued from the State department toward the end of 1882. ‘The responses were in some cases favor- able, and in others negative or undecided. A desire was felt by the Europeans to have a pre- liminary discussion of the subject at the In- ternational geodetic conference at Rome in October, 1883. The feeling at this conference having shown that there would be little dif- ficulty in the universal adoption of the Green- wich meridian, the final step of calling the conference was taken. Why so late a date was chosen we are not informed. In our issue of Dec. 14 we published an article under the title of ‘ The signal-service and standard time,’ criticising the action of the chief signal-officer in not adopting the new standards of time at signal-service stations. We have since learned that our criticism was not well founded, as the information upon which it was based gave an incomplete idea of the position of the service in this matter. It is true that the observers of the service are still governed by the local times of their respective stations ; but this is only a temporary arrange- ment, and will be changed as soon as possible. The reason of the delay is this: the inter- national observation, which is taken at many stations of observation throughout the whole world, is made at seven A.M., Washington time. It is proposed to make this observation eight minutes earlier, or at seven a.m. of the time of the 75th meridian, which is exactly Greenwich noon; but, before this change can be made, the co-operating weather-services and numer- 2 | SCIENCE. ous independent observers must first be notified, and their consent obtained. Correspondence has already been begun, and a circular letter sent to all who co-operate in the international work, asking consent to the proposed change. Favorable replies are being received ; and there is little doubt that the change will be. made, probably Jan. 1, 1885. It should be remem- bered that the international observation is made largely by observers who kindly co-oper- ate with the chief signal-officer, but who are not under his orders: a change of this kind cannot, therefore, be summarily ordered, but must be made by mutual consent. Ir would, of course, be easy to make the change in this country without waiting for the action of observers elsewhere; but this was thought inadvisable. Itis a mistake, however, to suppose that the observers are really gov- erned by local times. All observations are made at seven a.m., three p.m., eleven P.M., or other hours of Washington time, and have been so made ever since the establishment of the weather-service. Under Gen. Myers’s man- agement, it was thought that it would save confusion at the several stations if the observ- ers kept their clocks at local times instead of Washington time, and observed at the proper corresponding times. This arrangement con- tinues at the present day, though the observa- tions are in reality all made on Washington time. Now, in view of the proposed change in the time of the international observation, it was thought inadvisable to make any change - in existing arrangements until the whole change required could be made at one time. The chief signal-officer is in full accord with the reforms in standard time now being introduced, as he has shown in many ways; and he pro- poses to bring the whole work of the service into conformity with the new system as soon as this can be done without introducing con- fusion in the different departments of the ser- vice. For more than three hundred years, access to the sacred city of Villa Rica, in Araucania, We ie +o, “ has been prevented by the Indians. Its name_ indicates its importance and wealth in the days of Indian supremacy. Now it is a mere col- — lection of ruins, overgrown with herbage and shrubbery ; though the forms of antique monu- ments and buildings are still traceable, and — invaluable for archeological study. Very re- cently, Chile has taken possession of the terri- tory; and its treasures of antiquity are, or will soon be, accessible to ethnologists. A. scHEME for conveying brine by pipes from the Cheshire salt-fields to the Mersey, for manu- facture there, was started two yearsago. The pumping-works are erected, but so far with no results. The scheme was floated on the Lon- don exchange ; but no ‘ salt man’ joined there- in, the general opinion being, that in flowing through pipes for so long a distance the salt would cake, and the stopping-up and corrosion of the pipes would necessitate repairs sufficient to swallow up profits. This would apply to the western New York and Lehigh valley scheme. It is to be hoped that the state weather- services, of which several are now established, will give attention to questions apart from the ordinary statistical side of meteorological observation, which at present takes so much of their time. ‘Thunder-storms especially need detailed examination from many closely placed observers, such as the state services may pos- sess; for these storms are commonly so small that they often slip, unobserved, through the necessarily coarse meshes of the general sig- nal-service network of stations. There are as yet, in this country, no obser- vations — at least, none published — of dura- tion or detail sufficient to determine how many hours before its arrival a thunder-storm can be foretold. The antecedent conditions, the area, the average and abnormal tracks, and the du- - ration of these small storms, have yet to be © carefully studied. The blowing of the winds about them is imperfectly known. There are no data for determining the relation of the fre- an ey [Vou. IIL, No. 48, — mat JANUARY 4, 1884. ] quency and violence of lightning to the differ- ent parts of the storm-area, or for discovering its possible preference for one or another topographical or geological district when it ‘strikes.’ Some of these points have been studied in Europe, but much remains to be done even there. Indeed, there is no depart- ment of meteorology in which local and close- ly placed observers can attain an end so distinctly original, and so far out of reach of the government service, as in this; and ten years’ observations from stations near one another, and numerous enough, would yield results of the greatest practical and theoreti- eal interest. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to beas brief as possible. The writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good fuith. Mr. Francis Galton’s proposed ‘family registers.’ MAny obliging letters reach me from America, offering family information for my use, of the kind described by my friend, Mr. Henry F. Osborn, in your issue No. 39, as that which I want. The scheme there described is one that I circulated to gather opinions and to obtain guidance before de- termining its precise form. This is now done, and with your permission I will say a few words upon it. The information wanted applies to so many differ-. ent individuals in the same family group, and differs so much in minuteness, according to the degree of kinship, and it has to be arranged in so special a manner, that a copious explanatory description and numerous tables are requisite. There is no real com- plexity; nevertheless, 1 feel assured, that, without considerable guidance, endless mistakes will arise. Correspondents will send pages of useless matter; and, on the other hand, they will be silent about simple facts, the absence of which will seriously diminish the value of otherwise copious returns. I therefore found it necessary to prepare a book containing a full account and explanation of what was wanted, in order to exhibit the varous hereditary tendencies that converge upon any given person, and containing at the same time all the necessary schedules. This I have done: it is in the press, and will be published about Christmas by Macmillan, and will be procura- ble in America. As regards the prize scheme, I found it inadvisable to restrict it to medical men, and I have thrown it open to ‘British subjects resident in the United Kingdom.’ I could not extend it farther, owing to the extreme difficulty of verifying statements of facts alleged to have occurred abroad.. My self-imposed task will be hard enough as itis. The conditions of the prizes are fully explained in a fly-leaf to the Eng- lish edition. ; Let me take this opportunity of saying a few words about another book to which my name is at- tached as editor, and which will appear at the same time. It is called the ‘ Life-history album,’ and was prepared by a sub-committee, of which I was asked to be chairman, who acted by direction of the Col- lective investigation committee of the British medical SCIENCE. 3 association. This book gives explanations and sched- ules for the registration of personal data as life ad- vances, just as the Record gives for a comprehensive account once for all of family data; the details, how- ever, being very different in the two books: they are much more medical in the ‘Album.’ It is believed by the Life-history sub-committee that the medical value to the possessor, of his own life-history up to date, would be considerable, and of great service to the children. They also feel, that, if these albums are commonly kept, it will be possible hereafter to ob- tain extracts of a great many of them for purely sta- tistical purposes, which would be of high scientific value. The albums will contain a vast amount of information which is now left to perish, and the lack of which is a great hinderance to obtaining that com- plete and comprehensive knowledge of the family antecedents of numerous persons, which is at present the paramount desideratum to inquirers into heredity. I shall be very grateful to any of your readers who may see my forthcoming ‘ Record of family faculties,’ and may make themselves acquainted with what I want, who will send me information concerning their own families. But I cannot explain my wants with sufficient brevity either here or by letter, and must, ' perforce, refer those who care to know them to the book itself. FRANCIS GALTON. 42 Rutland Gate, London, December, 1883. The red sunsets. I have recently noticed several articles upon the gorgeous sunsets lately seen in this country, and de- sire to put down a few notes on the same. The red glare was so brilliant the evening of Nov. 27, that the fire-alarm was sounded in New Haven, Conn., calling out the engines. On the succeeding night the deep red glow was magnificent, appear- ing far’above blocks in the busiest part of the city. Careful observation has shown the phenomenon very nearly as brilliant at sunrise as at sunset. The deep red has appeared the last of all the colors in the sky at sunset, and invariably the first in the morning. There has been, in addition to this, agrayish afterglow at night, and in the morning a slight effulgence be- tokening the rising sun. This afterglow, or efful- © gence, has made it possible to observe the sky directly at the region where the deep red had just appeared, or was soon to appear; and this invariably showed fine fleecy clouds at a great height, generally stratified horizontally, and extending with slightly increasing density to the south-west or south-east horizon. - These light stratified cloud-appearances were visible, even though the sky appeared absolutely cloudless a few minutes before and after the effulgence. The stars the past month have shown, night after night, most extraordinary twinkling, and the air has been saturated with moisture. Again and again, with a high barometer and a perfectly clear sky, sometimes even with a cold north-west wind, I have been aston- ished to find the relative humidity a hundred per cent. - As to a probable explanation, the wildest theories have been advanced: meteors, cosmical dust, zodia- cal light, comets, electricity, volcanic gases and ashes, etc., have each had their adherents. Of these, the last is the only one worthy of consideration. The recent (?) eruptions at Java, 11,000 miles distant, are advanced as a sufficient cause for the presence of the ashes. That volcanic ashes may be carried great distances is well known. Loomis’s ‘ Meteorology,’ p. 77, gives an instance in which ashes were carried 700 miles to the north-east and 1,200 miles to the west of the vol- cano Coseguina. Notwithstanding this evidence, it ' from particles of dust or water-droplets. 4 SCIENCE. would seem well-nigh incredible that the upper cur- rents and the power of suspension of the ashes could have combined in carrying the particles 11,000 miles. Common cloud-coloring is caused by diffraction Light of different wave-lengths has a greater or less power of passing through dust, smoke, water-droplets, ice- spiculae, etc. It is stated that the light at the blue end of the spectrum has less power of penetration | than at the red end: hence the light is sifted out, as it were; and the blue disappears first, then the orange, and, last of all, the red (Scott’s ‘ Meteorology,’ p. 205). Why may it not be possible that the blue, having the greater refrangibility, is refracted to such an extent as to be intercepted by the earth long before the red has disappeared? ‘Taking into account the great abundance of moisture, the appearance of ice-spiculae (which, however, may have been volcanic ashes), and the fact of the appearance being precisely similar to ‘that ordinarily seen upon clouds, there is no neces- sity of resorting to the at best doubtful theory of the volcanic origin of the phenomenon. The similarity between the ordinary sunset and this phenomenon was finely illustrated one evening by a magnificent red-cloud sunset, manifestly caused by clouds comparatively near the observer. These clouds, gradually fading away, were followed by the deeper red so prominently noticed recently, and evi- dently produced by ice-spiculae at a great distance. G,- A. WN On the evening of Dec. 22 ared glow was noticed upon the clouds which overspread the whole heaven. On the 23d the cloudiness was complete, and even denser than on the previous evening; but the glow tinged the whole visible vault down to the eastern ho- rizon, and continued for at least an hour after gunset, fading first in the east. On the 24th the clouds were slightly broken. Before 5 p.m. (standard time) a yel- lowish tinge began to be apparent. At 5.10 the color was reddish, and reached the horizon on all sides. At 5.20 the color was a deeper red, with clouds more broken. At 5.30 the clouds were thin, and showed faint but distinct blood-red color on the eastern hori- zon, though a little brighter in the west. At 5.40 the cloudiness was reduced to a partial thin film, but a dusky redness was still perceptible in all parts of the sky. At 5.55 the sky was everywhere thinly veiled, but a dark ruddy tint could still be faintly seen all around the horizon. At 6.10 the sky was mostly cloudless, though few stars were visible. A dark-red glow could be discerned in all parts of the heavens, and in the west it rose in broad, ill-defined bands from the position of the sun. At 6.20 no clouds, but only stars of first three or four magnitudes were vis- ible. At first no ruddiness was seen, but shortly it became unmistakably apparent. It was a faint dusky red still obscurely barred in the west. This glow lasted two hours and eight minutes after sunset: atmosphere calm; thermometer sinking from 28° to 25° F. The observations possess interest in connec- tion with similar ones recently made in various ‘parts of the world.: ALEXANDER WINCHELL. Ann Arbor, Dec. 25, 1883. Plant distribution in Lower California. ‘I would call attention to the fact, that many Ari- zonian, New Mexican, and Mexican species of plants, together with more northern species, are found on the narrow strip of tablelands in northern Lower California. Emoryi and Q. pungens, Astragalus Sonorae, Fouqui- era splendens,. and many. others, with,» Geranium * Among them I may mention Quercus - caespitosum of the Rocky Mountains, Ivesia Baileyt of Nevada, Galium pubens, Quercus agrifolia, the common Pteris, Aquilegia truncata, and a number of introduced (?) species well known throughout the United States. CHARLES R. ORCUTT. San Diego, Cal., Dec. 15. Kames near Lansing, Mich. A few years since, I spent one or two days at Mason, some ten miles south of Lansing, Mich. Ihad hoped to return at some future time, and complete my ob- servations upon some peculiar ridges cf sand, gravel, and bowlders in the vicinity of that village; but, as it. may be some years before 1 shall be able to do so, I _ would like to lay the observations before the readers of Science, hoping that some of the Michigan read- ers may have time to investigate the subject fully. The surface is here nearly plane. The front mo- - raine of the Saginaw glacier lobe lies some thirty-five: miles to the south-south-east, beyond Jackson. ‘These: ridges trend towards this moraine from some unknown point north of Mason to another unknown point. ten or more miles south-south-east. I was informed that. some of these ridges were six and eight miles in length, and are sometimes used as ahighway. The drainage is: to the northward at present, parallel with the course” of the ridges, though I noticed one or two instances: where cr eeks had intersected the ridges instead of being guided by them. The ridges seemed to persist in a northerly course, though with many local ex- ceptions. I noticed one instance in which the main ridge turned nearly at an angle of 100°; but the main course was continued farther north in the heavier ridge, and at the elbow by a much lighter one. The ridges are quite variable in elevation. Perhaps the’ mean lies between twenty and thirty feet. The slope: was not measured, but is, as a rule, too great to per- mit their being crossed by teams at the natural grade. The component material is all water-worn, and evi-: dently deposited through the agency of water. The: bowlders are of all sizes, up to twelve inches. Per- haps forty per cent were sandstone, similar in litho~ logical characters to the subjacent rock strata. The remainder were metamorphic or igneous species, ex— cept some limestone pebbles. Whether these ridges were formed in the longitudi- nal crevasses and river-channels of the ancient glacier, or not, must be determined by a more careful survey of the region than the writer’ was able to make in the: few days spent at Mason. L. C. WoostER. Eureka, Kan., Dec. 17, 1883. Longevity in a fasting spider. On the fifteenth day of October, 1881, I enclosed a. spider in a small paper box. From that day to the seventh day of May, 1882 (204 days), I carefully watched and daily inspected the prisoner, and can positively affirm that he partook of no food or water. The box in which he was confined was as clean and white as white paper could make it, and remained so- while he continued to occupy it, except for the ap- pearance of a few dark specks which I suppose to be the droppings of the prisoner. I carefully observed him every day, and sometimes two or three times in — a day; and I was unable to detect any emaciation or ° symptoms of weakness, or even irritability of temper, while he lived. He always appeared as active, and looked as plump and healthy, as he did the day L dropped him into.the box, until within three days of his death, when I first observed that wheu the box was tipped he would fall from his position, = We JONES, MD. Newburgh, N.Y. WILD JANUARY 4, 1884.] The pedunculated lateral-line organs of Gas- trostomus. The recent discovery of a form of deep-sea fishes closely allied to the Eurypharynx described by M. Vaillant, by the U.S. fish-commission steamer AI- batross, has afforded excellent opportunities for a more thorough examination of the external charac- ters presented by the skin of these forms. This species of eurypharyngoid fishes, — the one studied by Professor Theodore Gill and myself, and named by us Gastrostomus Bairdii, — upon closer examina-. tion of the region of the lateral line, discloses features which appear to be somewhat remarkable, if not unique, amongst organs of the kind hitherto known. The lateral line is in its usual position, and begins just behind the head. There is no mucous canal covering the end-organs; but these are isolated in groups of from two to five, standing on the skin in an — oblique row at the hind margin of each muscular somite. The groups con- sist, in fact, of from two to five stalked organs, as shown in fig. 1 in the cut. The stalks are not pig- mented at all, except at the tips, where they sup- port a discoidal cup- shaped organ, which is more or less completely pigmented internally. In some instances these end- organs are very distinctly cup-shaped; in others that form is less clearly apparent. The base from which the stalks arise is not so deeply pigmented as the surrounding skin, Fie. 1. which is very densely loaded with pigment, and very | black. The pigment on the basal disks is, in fact, arranged in a slightly reticular manner: the pig- mented layer is continuous with the outer clear sheaths of the stalks; and the medullary portion of the stalk can be seen in some cases to consist mainly of nerve-fibrils, which pass outwards to the cup-like organs at the tip. In afew cases there appears to be a clear space in the centre of the cup-like end- organ, as shown in fig. 2, surrounded by a dense circle of pigmented tissue. ¢ The function of these side-organs of Gastrostomus is apparently tactile, or may serve a special purpose at the great depth in which this fish lives. ‘They re- mind one very forcibly of the rows of comb-like end- - organs which have recently been described by F. Leydig on the head of the cave-fish (Amblyopsis spelaeus DeK.); but in this case the stalks are not so robust, and are much more slender, and relatively longer. It may even be that these lateral bands of side-or- gans of Gastrostomus are phospho- rescent at their tips, like the side- organs of scopelids, steroptychids, etc. The lateral bands made up of short oblique rows of these organs, as the fish moves through the water at a depth of five to fifteen hundred fathoms, may possibly become luminous. That they are also sensory in function there can be no doubt, being found in the usual position of the lateral line, as in common fishes, and, like it, prob- ably innervated from the vagus. The stalks are fully a sixteenth of an inch long, and are apparent SCIENCE. 5 on the side when the fish is immersed in alcohol or water, and project outwards quite freely, so as to be visible along the sides when the fish is viewed from above. These naked side-organs remind one also somewhat of the naked nerve-hills on the sides of the body of young fishes, such as those of Gadus and Gambusia. In the former the stiff sensory hairs of the nerve-hills project immediately from the surface of the hill into the surrounding water, but in no em- bryo fishes am I aware that the side-organs are ever pedunculated. In fact, the side-organs of Gastros- tomus Bairdii, like the whole of the rest of the orga- nization of the animal, particularly its skull and branchial apparatus, present an extreme phase of specialization. J. A. RYDER. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. Wire the present number Science enters upon the second year of its existence. The time is an appropriate one, while extending a cordial greeting to its readers, to call their at- tention to its work and its purposes. That a journal of popular science, with the varied and informal contents appropriate to a weekly pub- lication, would, if judiciously conducted, prove a welcome addition to the list of American periodicals, has long been felt by those most interested in scientific progress; but, when the numberless difficulties in the way of suc- cess had to be considered in detail, they were found to be numerous and perplexing. The general scope of the journal was the only fea- ture about which little doubt could be felt. Two quite distinct yet inseparable objects of existence presented themselves: one was to keep the readers of the journal informed of the progress of science in all its branches; the other, to give expression to the well-matured views of scientific men upon all public questions connected with the increase of knowledge, and thus to become, so far as possible, an organ of public opinion upon scientific affairs. In pursuing the latter object the path of duty was too plain to require discussion. The journal must be the organ of no individual, clique, or party, but must, while preserving entire impartiality, give plain and fearless expression to its convictions upon any question in which the interests of science at large were involved. How far it has fulfilled this require- ment is a question to be decided by its readers and patrons, without argument from ourselves. The question of the contents of the journal in detail was a far more intricate one. Shall its articles be designed exclusively for the spe- cialist, or shall the results it makes known be popularized by the omission of all purely tech- nical nomenclature? Shall they be long and elaborate, or short at the risk of incomplete- ness’ Shall they be strictly and purely scien- 5 SCIENCE. tific, or shall the speculative, sentimental, and poetic sides of things be allowed to appear? Shall its chronicles of progress consist of the briefest possible memoranda of all important current researches, each duly labelled for ref- erence, or shall a selection be so made that each account shall be prepared with a state- ment of the origin, place, and object of the research, with a view of making its true signifi- cance known? In the case of scientific arti- cles, where shall we draw the line between what belongs to this journal and what to those in- tended for the publication of original re- searches? These are merely a few of the more important questions which the projectors were obliged to meet, and which they have endeav- ored to decide in the way best fitted to give general satisfaction. ‘The result is seen to a certain extent in the present number ; but some aspects of the subject may be profitably con- sidered from a broader field of view. The difficulty arising from the technical na- ture of scientific researches admits of being partially resolved, so far at least as the gen- eral principle is concerned, by a very obvious consideration. Science must be almost as much popularized, to be made accessible to all scientific readers, as to be readable by the educated public who were never in a labora- tory. A new formula in thermodynamics is as incomprehensible to a botanist as to a member of Congress. ‘The average physicist knows as dittle about a brachiopod as the average mer- chant. What the most modest well-read cler- gyman may fairly think he knows about Darwinism far exceeds all that the common run of chemists really do know. The obvious conclusion is, that, should we seek to make dis- cussions of current scientific researches accessi- ble to all scientific readers, we cannot avoid being somewhat popular in style. On the other hand, if the journal should present to its readers only that class of read- ing-matter which they get for nothing in the daily papers, its very existence would be a superfluity. To justify the publication of any periodical devoted to a specialty, it must pre- sent its readers with a kind of matter which they cannot find in the public prints. The term ‘ popular science’ is often made to include a class of discussions quite different from the presentation of scientific truths in common language. Science at the present day is the ideal of democracy. Its work and its honors, from the highest to the lowest, are thrown open, without restriction, to all men. There is no authority which can say to the humblest worker, ‘‘ 1 know this, and you do not: I am therefore above your criticism, and you must accept my statements without essay- ing to inquire into the validity of their founda- tion or the soundness of their application.’’ There is no tribunal in the scientific world which has the power to proclaim what is and what is not proved; what problems are and what are not solved. To one who has never considered this state of things, the’first im- pression felt is, that it must imply universal anarchy ; thatina community where every one has equal authority —that is, no authority at all — there can be no such thing as permanent and widely received opinions. But the very opposite is the truth. A system which requires every doctrine to stand on its own merits, and to maintain itself only by being proof against every assault, is the very one under which truth stands the best chance of showing its perma- nency. A long-established scientific doctrine stands like the Matterhorn, not through being protected from assault, but by being able to — resist the storms of ages. Now, there is in every civilized country a class of writers who avail themselves of this principle of equality to discuss subjects of which they have no accurate knowledge, to pro- pound new theories, and to attack old ones. A voluminous literature thus arises which is the work of the lay element in the scientific community, and which is therefore sometimes called popular science. Such productions must stand on their merits as much as the proposi- tions of the professional scientific man, and are entitled to consideration only according to their merit. The policy of Science is to admit nothing to its pages which does not belong to the domain of knowledge, excluding with es- pecial care speculations upon subjects like the nebular hypothesis in which many active minds are so fond of indulging. After a careful consideration of the form in which the results of current researches should be presented, it has been decided to substitute for the weekly summary heretofore presented brief discussions of current work which shall be of more interest to the general reader. To combine brevity with perspicuity in such cases is often a very difficult problem, in which the golden mean affords the only solution. The form in which Science is now presented has been to a large extent the result of care- ful inquiry among its accessible friends and patrons. be developed in a single number ; but we hope that a few weeks will show our purpose to make Science of greater value than heretofore + to our widening circle of readers. Manifestly, the plan in view cannot — . in southern waters. ' JANUARY 4, 1884.] THE MARINE LABORATORY OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. Tue Chesapeake zodlogical laboratory was instituted by the trustees of the Johns Hopkins university as part of the biological department of that university in 1878, and Dr. W. K. Brooks was appointed director. Its purpose is twofold, —to furnish complete facilities for original studies in marine zodlog ey, and a place for more elementary instruction. The fauna of the southern waters of the United States was selected for study. In providing thus a place \ s}— | i y=] = =)= SCIENCE. 7 Topsail Inlet, ten miles west from Cape Look- out, protected from the ocean, except in its worst moods, by a broad sand-bar, and yet so near that an hour’s sail carries one out upon the high seas. Owing to the configuration of the coast-line, the warm Florida current flows by and almost bathes the shore. This warm cur- rent, setting up from the shores of the Gulf, sweeps along with it many pelagic animals which belong to a hotter climate. Yet, while the ocean-life is decidedly southern, the climate of Beaufort is not oppressive : indeed, the place and its neighbor, Morehead City, are summer MARINE LABORATORY AT BEAUFORT. for advanced work, this university has taken the initiative among American colleges; the various summer schools held along our coast being more particularly concerned in instruc- tion than in investigation of new problems. The first and second sessions in 1878 and 1879 were held in the lower parts of the Chesapeake Bay. In 1880 the laboratory was moved to Beaufort, N.C. Beaufort has been a favorite haunt of natu- ralists ever since 1860, when it was visited by Drs. Stimpson and Gill. No better place could be selected for the study of the forms of life It lies at the mouth of Old resorts. The town, standing almost in the ocean, is swept by nearly constant breezes, which temper the heats of July and August. The place is quite accessible, being only two miles from Morehead City, the eastern termi- nus of the North Carolina midland railway, and may be reached by steamer from Norfolk vid Newberne, and by rail from points north and west vid Goldsboro. The site of the laboratory at Beaufort is most convenient, being at the very water’s edge. A pier built out from the front gate to the deep water crosses a flat of black soft mud, bare at every low tide, and a place where the 8 SCIENCE. specimen hunter is richly rewarded. A search here obtains for one crabs and hermits, Porcel- lana in tubes with Chactoptorus, Alpheus, an- nelids, mollusks, echinoderms, ascidians, and barnacles upon the wharf-piles. The general student can here find material to illustrate his study of almost any of the larger groups liter- ally within a stone’s throw of his work-room. From the end of the wharf at high water the dip-net secures not only quantities of things to interest. the general student, but crustacea, medusae, Sagitta, and larvae of the greatest interest to the specialist. Across the channel which runs along the ea TT eta te ae [Vou. IIL, 1 Trawling in the sound procures starfish, echi- noids and ophiurans, Chiton, Fissurella, Lepto-— gorgia, Astrangia, often with large masses of coral. High tides sweep in pteropods, Sagitta, Leucifer, Siphonophora, pelagic larvae, and medusae of. great interest, such as Liriope and Cunina. The rocks upon the artificial break- water furnish Penophora, tubularian hydroids, and several species of actinians. On shells in- shore are found the known genera of entoproc- tan Bryozoa. But I cannot give a complete list of the fauna here, nor even mention all the attractions. I have not tried to do so, but merely to inti- a> ST eee INTERIOR OF MARINE LABORATORY AT BEAUFORT. water-front is a large sand-shoal, uncovered during several hours every day ; and here are the favorite haunts of myriads of interesting crea- tures. I say myriads advisedly, for one of the most striking features of the Beaufort fauna is the extreme abundance of almost all the forms which occur there at all. The inner side of this shoal is literally honeycombed by a colossal species of Balanoglossus often three feet long ; and on the outer edge are to be found Mellita in great numbers, and dead shells of Mellita inhabited by Thallasema, as many as one has ‘the patience to collect. All over the shoal ereep Limulus. In the deeper water just off the shoal are Renillas without limit and the beautiful nudibranch Pleurophyllidia. mate the exceeding variety and abundance of forms of the greatest interest. Though Beau- fort has been the resort of naturalists for the last twenty-five years, it has not yet been to any degree exhausted. Since Beaufort was felt to be a somewhat transient location for the laboratory, a perma- nent building, with all the modern conveniences for work, was not erected. A _ two-storied double house, with eight rooms, was rented for work-room ; and houses adjoining were secured © as living-quarters for the party. Thus, both in their work and in the life out of the shop, — the party was kept pretty well together; and the members had that opportunity of forming personal acquaintance with one another, the January 4, 1884] . | SCIENCE. 9 value of which does not require comment. The furnishing of the building was simple, —tiled capable of taking us to any points about the tables, with lights only; and other luxuries sounds and rivers, or even of venturing out to were dispensed with. Not even were pumps’ sea when Old Prob did not menace with dan- erected to maintain a constantly renewed ger-signals. ‘The launch was most useful, and stream of salt water circulating through the was in service almost every day for dredging, aquaria. In their place was used the cheaper trawling, or carrying parties out to tow in the and yery effective device of aeration by means open ocean. She is, however, but a passing and with a draught of about thirty inches, of a stream of fresh air constantly forced stage, as her name Nauplius implies; and we through the aquaria by a Sprengel pump. hope some day to possess a full-grown steam- Se eee Cob es okies eile, ae fT i oa es ieeaume 0) Ed ee = J CA ie Reh, fe Be Sy ae ee SSS ee ae Ni ees Oa) gee co hc UNCLE TAA ST i POR a cet ee ‘; =a a YACHT AND STEAM-LAUNCH OF JOHNS HOPKINS MARINE LABORATORY. Facilities for work were not, however, in the vessel, in which we can with safety explore the least curtailed ; and all the apparatus for cap- deeper waters offshore, which are as yet al- ture and means for getting about were pro- most entirely unstudied. vided. The dredge and trawl, spade and sieves During the past summer the navy has re- for bottom fauna, towing and dipping nets of ceived an important addition in the form of a silk bolting-cloth for surface forms, and many yacht, to be called the Zoea, though at present special traps devised for the capture of partic- otherwise registered. She is a full-rigged ular animals, formed a complete array of appli- sloop, forty-seven feet long, fifteen feet beam. ances. [Besides its small boats, the laboratory She won a silver cup in a regatta upon the has for several years possessed a steam-launch Potomac while in her former service, and her of Herreschoff pattern, twenty-seven feet long, speed was a pleasant feature of collecting-trips 10 in her. Her sailing qualities do’ not at all unfit her for our work. Her cabin has ample accommodations for four persons, and could stow eight; and the cuddy forward has room and all the utensils for the cook: so that cruises to a distant dredging-ground can be undertaken without inconvenience, by a fair-sized party. Of the usefulness of the Chesapeake zodlogi- cal laboratory we may feel assured, though it is still in its infancy. It has held six sessions. During that time there has been a total attend- ance of fifty, of whom fourteen have been in attendance at least two sessions. ‘These fifty men have been gathered from more than twelve different colleges, and are at present located in fourteen different states, besides two who came from Canada, one from Cambridge, Eng., and one from Japan. In 1879 the laboratory was in co-operation with the Maryland fish-commission ; and Dr. Brooks devoted most of his own time during the season to a study of the oyster, with espe- cial reference to its embryology and its artifi- cial propagation. ‘The theoretical results of his work are of the greatest significance ; but he succeeded in artificially fertilizing the oys- ter’s eggs, and shedding such light upon the habits of reproduction that the greatest interest was aroused, and zeal in the search for some practicable method of oyster-culture, to replen- ish the waning oyster-beds. This interest has resulted in the discovery of a practicable method. I will not recapitulate all the scientific papers published as resulting from work done in the laboratory: suffice it to say, that important memoirs have been published upon Lingula, Squilla, Leucifer, Renilla (the last two being published in the Philosophical transactions of the Royal society), Thallasema, and a mono- graph, not yet complete, of the Hydromedusae of the south coast. Beside these memoirs, the various members of the laboratory have writ- ten numerous shorter papers, which have been published in the Quarterly journal of micro- scopical science, the university Studies, and Carus’s Zoologischer anzeiger. These articles, -embodying the results of the laboratory’s work, number, in all, fifty-nine separate titles. For the most part, the laboratory has been morphological in the aspect of its work; not exclusively so, however, for both in 1881 and 1883 Dr. Sewall worked there upon selachians with reference to the equilibrium-sense func- tion of the semicircular canals. Last summer (1883), after three years i Beaufort, the laboratory was moved back to the Chesapeake Bay, and located in a building SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No rented from the Hampton normal school. The — location was in many respects not a good one, for it was far away from the best collecting- grounds and supplies of pure salt water; but it was selected to permit the laboratory to co-operate with the Maryland state oyster com- mission in experiments upon artificial propa- gation, and other expedients for a rapid and reliable method of restocking the oyster-beds in Chesapeake Bay. Lieut. Winslow, U.S.N., detailed for special service, was with us during most of the summer; and in the early part of the season the oyster-police boat, Gov. Hamil- ton, was stationed at the lower end of the bay. The results of the season’s work are not yet. so far worked up as to permit one to speak about them. We had among us Mr. William Bateson of Cambridge, Eng., who came over to work upon Balanoglossus. His work in- cludes a more thorough knowledge of the lar-. val history of Balanoglossus than has been hitherto attained, and promises much that will be of greatest interest in respect to that most. problematical creature. Hrnry L. Osporn. THE DETERMINATION OF THE OHM. Tue importance of having a uniform stand- ard of electrical resistance is so apparent, that the establishment of a unit which shall be suitable for practical work, and will also satisfy the demands of electrical science, has for a number of years been regarded by all electri- cians as of the first importance. The requirements of such a standard are, that. it shall be easily reproduced or verified ; that it shall have a simple relation to the units of work, heat, etc., and therefore be based on the funda- mental units of length and time; and, finally, that it shall be of so great resistance as to be suitable for all ordinary practical work. ° In the year 1862 the British association de- cided that a unit of resistance based simply on. the earth quadrant, or ten million metres, as. the unit of length, and the second as the unit. of time, would be of such a magnitude as to. best satisfy the requirements of the case. Ex- periments were then undertaken by a commit- tee of the British association with a view to. the construction of standards which should accurately represent this unit of resistance, or ohm as it was called. Owing to some minor defects in experimentation, and to an unac- countable error in the determination of the co- efficient of self-induction of the revolving coil, their result was in error. This standard Brit- ish association unit, as it is now called, is con- fessedly too small; but it is the basis of the JANUARY 4, 1884.] so-called ohm-coils that are in current use. The latest experiments indicate that the value of the British association unit is .9867 ohms ; this result having been obtained by Lord Ray- leigh by two distinct methods, and by Mr. Glazebrook by still another method. But dif- ferent observers still differ quite widely in their results. : The International committee on electrical units, which met in November, 1882, in Paris, in view of the present unsettled state of the case, and the necessity for the speedy adoption of a suitable standard, decided that when the length of a column of pure mercury of one square millimetre section, and having a resist- ance of one ohm, shall have been determined to within one part in a thousand, the ohm shall then be defined as the resistance of such a column of pure mercury of the determined length; and the different governments repre- sented were urged to prosecute experiments for the accurate determination of this length. For this purpose, among others, an appropria- tion of twelve thousand five hundred dollars was made by the last Congress of the United States. The work on the unit of resistance is under the charge of Professor Rowland of the Johns Hopkins university ; and the experiments are being carried on in Baltimore, both at the university and at Clifton Park, two miles from the city. Owing to some unexpected delays in the construction of necessary apparatus, the work that has been undertaken first is the de- termination of the specific resistance of mer- cury in British association units. This has been experimented upon by measuring the resistance of columns of pure mercury contained in glass tubes of various calibers and lengths, so that. the resistances of the columns experimented upon range from one to ten British association units. The remaining part of the work is the determination in ohms of the resistance of the British association standard used in this deter- mination of the specific resistance of mercury. Two principal methods will be employed for this purpose. First, the resistance will be found by means of the mechanical equivalent of heat. The ap- paratus used by Professor Rowland, in his well- known work on that subject, has been set up for this purpose. It is proposed to heat some non-conducting liquid, such as alcohol or tur- pentine, by means of the heat developed by the passage of the current of electricity in a con- ductor whose extremities are kept at a known difference of potential. The same heating will then be produced, under the same circum- stances, by purely mechanical means; and the SCIENCE. 11 resistance of the conductor will thus be deter- mined directly from the work-equivalent of the heat developed in the conductor. The second method to be used is that of Kirchoff, as modified by Rowland in his deter- mination of the ohm in 1876. ‘The instruments will, however, be in large part new, and con- structed expressly for this research ; so that a new set of instrumental constants will be in- volved. A third method, the earth-inductor method of Weber, will also be used if time permits. For these experiments it is proposed to use, as a source of electricity in the calorimetric method, fifty Planté cells charged by a small dynamo machine. For measuring large cur- rents of electricity an electrodynamometer has been constructed, with the Helmholtz arrange- ment'of two large coils and a single small suspended coil. The diameter of the large coils is about one metre: that of the small suspended coil is about twenty-five centimetres. There are two sets of large coils, —one wound with large wire, about no. 8 ; and the other with much smaller, about no.15. Thereare also two small suspended coils wound to correspond. This ar- rangement gives the instrument great power and range. ‘The divided circle was made by Fauth & Co. expressly for this instrument. Four in- duction-coils are to be wound in four parallel equidistant grooves, turned on the outside of a brass cylinder about one metre in diameter. ’ These coils will each consist of about two hun- dred turns of no. 15 copper wire. This arrange- ment will afford great variety in the manner in which the several coils may be combined; for the inductive action of each coil upon each of the others may be taken, giving three simple combinations for each coil. The trustees of the Johns Hopkins university have kindly placed the Clifton House at Pro- fessor Rowland’s disposal for the conduct of these experiments; and, as it stands in exten- sive grounds at a considerable distance from the road, it will be peculiarly suitable for delicate electrical experiments. Piers have been built for the different instruments, and a small steam- engine set up for supplying the power necessary for running the dynamo machine and the me- chanical equivalent of heat apparatus. The actual experimentation will be carried on, under Professor Rowland’s direction, by A. L. Kim- ball, assisted by H. R. Goodnow and Ensign Louis Duncan, U.S.N.; the latter having been specially detailed for the work by the Navy department. It is hoped that a satisfactory conclusion will be reached by September, 1884. i 12 SCIENCE. PECULIARITIES OF WEATHERING IN THE POTTSVILLE CONGLOMERATE. Tue striking characteristics of the Potts- ville conglomerate in eastern Pennsylvania are its highly siliceous composition and _ its solidity. Owing to a consequent great dura- bility, it stands out prominently along the Fig. 1.— Outcrop showing weathering along the plane of stratification. different mountain ridges which surround the anthracite coal-basins; but though, as com- pared with the associated rocks, its resistance to weathering is very great, the effects of this action are everywhere revealed on examina- tion. The surfaces of the finer and more compact varieties are frequently seen to be covered with numerous small holes, or pit-marks, resulting from the removal of separate grains. Blocks of the coarse pudding-stone have generally a very rough surface, the pebbles projecting half their thicknesses above the surrounding ma- trix ; and fragments of this rock are sometimes so thoroughly permeated and softened by per- colating water that they can be crushed to grains by the hand. Along the planes of stratification the sub- aerial decay of this rock is particularly well marked. Deep clefts and gashes are found along these planes, which frequently cut en- tirely across large masses, dividing them into separate slabs. -This action is best developed along the upturned edges of steeply inclined dips, where water has the best opportunity to accumulate and to prolong its action in incipi- ent grooves; and, with isolated blocks only slightly inclined, the increased decay along the upturned edges, due to this same cause, is often noticeable. A somewhat remarkable fact about such weathering is, that clefts parallel to the stratification are found in an apparently homo- geneous rock. In such cases a difference or deficiency of cementing-material must be the- directing cause. a | Weathering action across the plane of strati- fication is exhibited in its first stages by shal- low and narrow grooves, which run sinuously across ¢he rock. These have their origin in — little streams of rain- water which flow from the -surface down the sides of the rock. Once started, such a groove forms a channel whose drainage capacity con- stantly increases as the depression enlarges ; and by degrees the fine groove grows to a decided fis- sure, half a foot or more across, which the contin- ued action of rain-water cuts deeper and deeper into the rock. This fis- sure is generally of ap- proximately uniform breadth ; but, as it enters farther into the rock, the water drains into it from all sides, and an enlargement is some- times formed at the end, which I have seen to result in an almost circular hole, completely penetrating the rock. . The most peculiar and remarkable of all the results of this weathering action are, however, Her ha We | "y | A, ‘ Ny Sy ees 0) ae a\ ay ) Ye epi aN eae : I Ny 4 7 Si ee Fia. 2. — Isolated conglomerate mass showing increase of weath- ering along the planes of stratification on the upturned edge. ew ae he those produced by a superficial action in the plane of stratification. Over flat surfaces of the rock, white, washed-looking patches oceur ; _— JANUARY 4, 1884.] accumulates and stands, and as a consequence the grains of the rock in immediate contact are loosened, and, on the evaporation of the water, blown away. Thus the depressions which were at first, perhaps, only a frac- tion of an inch, are deepened, and, by de- grees, basins of as much as a foot in depth are eaten out. These are -often so regular in outline, and with such smooth sides, that they might readily be mistaken for pot-holes ; and, indeed, it was such that I first considered them, and was puzzled to account for the peculiar channel in which the waters produ- cing them must have flown. _A dis- tinguishing feature of these depres- sions, however, is that each one has an outlet cut down to near the bottom of the cavity; and this is easily accounted for, on the theory of their subaerial origin, by considering, that, once such a basin started, the overflow would always pass off over the lowest edge, and as the basin increased in depth, by continued dissolving action, so would the outlet also. A further confirmation of this is furnished by the facts, that in inclined rocks the out- let is always towards the lower rim, and the bottom of these cavities is either horizontal or sloping towards the outlet. In the bottom is also generally accumulated a small amount of gravel and sand recently loosened from the bed. These basins are of all sizes, up to three feet Fie. 3.— Weathering across the plane of stratification. ) - payll Vo /}) i - i i+ Fie. 4. — Enlargement at end of fissure. Fig. 5.— The results of superficial weathering in the plane of stratification. : and more in diameter. ‘Their shapes are va- ried, — sometimes circular, sometimes oblong, —with gently sloping sides, or steep, even re- SCIENCE. 13 curving ones, according to the character of the rock. They are frequently connected in strings by narrow channels, like a miniature lake sys- tem; and, with the enlargement of these chan- nels, a simple, deep groove across tlie rock results, all this action combining to give the rock a very rugged appearance. The, very preponderance of silica grains in this rock, to the exclusion of any good cement- -ing-material, is probably one of the chief reasons for its decay. Rain-water is, without doubt, one of the most active agents ; but the secretions from the thick growth of moss and lichens, which frequently covers the surface and penetrates into the cavities of the rock, have probably also their effects. The deep gashes produced by the action of the rain- water offer excellent opportunities for frost to continue the work of destruction ; the ice form- ing in these clefts, and, by its prying action, completing the separation of the already par- tially divided mass. As a consequence of this wide-spread weath- ering process, large continuous outcrops are rarely found. Collections of huge blocks gen- erally mark their site; and the thick accumu- lations of smaller fragments, which are so frequently found over conglomerate areas, eee : SS La, = ee Peg AGN ULL L 7 arm ee seh 4 eae ~ 4 vet ES, — See _— — a | VW, = i \ Sil ZB = \ — =— — ‘ P a v \ 7 La? e A —— i} Ny “ NG a x , ate \ ) y F Wri eee aS i ft rr ait “yf Pa 2 | H))) Wee \ a Tees = dj YEP aif BeewZ, => wh oan ZZ fi (ore 7, ‘So Se Ys ia oN ZG } \ = IG eae) = i Qe= : _— Sp we ——~— —-F== = — a LE Cae 4 es Sy ee eid SS —_~——— result, without doubt, from the further subdi- vision of these larger blocks. The products of decay either accumulate in place, are washed down by streams, or blown away by the wind. On the top of Broad Moun- tain, and elsewhere, the disintegration in sifu, - I am informed, is so great that the loose rock is dug out as gravel; and, in valleys watered by streams flowing down from conglomerate ridges, deep deposits of siliceous sand are found, val- uable for building-purposes. The decay of the sandstones and shales, as- sociated with or underlying the conglomerate, is even more pronounced than in that rock. Changes of color, especially from the greenish tints to red, brown, and yellow, are the most * ~~ 14 frequent results ; and this is often accompanied by a softening to a barely coherent sand or clay. Erroneous conclusions are thus frequent- ly drawn from surface indications, as to the na- ture of the underlying rock. The subject of the decay of rocks has re- SCIENCE. > %, ees =Ne —-— Hf, Ss El SB — ene z ‘ [Vou. IIL, Sniith, J. A. Tanner, M.D., and H. W. Eaton, Ph.D., Louisville — was not appointed till about | three weeks before the close of the exposition : hence thorough tests were impossible. As the U. S. company did not enter into — the contest, there was no competition on the r Fie. 7.— Broken conglomerate outcrop. cently been admirably treated by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt,’ chiefly with regard to the crystalline rocks ; and it deserves to be further studied, in the case of these more recent rocks, from its evi- dent importance in chemical geology, its inter- esting and well-known relation to topography, and its economic bearing. ArrHuR WINSLOW. Pennsylvania geological survey. ELECTRIC LIGHT TESTS. AT THE LOUISVILLE EXPOSITION. Tue display of electric lights at the Louis- ville exposition, as to number, was the great- est ever made in and around one building. The number of lights used varied somewhat, but the average was about as follows : — | Incandescent Are- lights. | lights. | Edison isolated lighting company . 4,600 - U.S. electric light company ... . | 210 29 Fort Wayne Jenney electric light com- [PEAT SS Ge Oe SOO Ce tic Tea ~ 100 Thomson Houston electric light com- PAE tere diver aye, Yes! ol eeliie) aitee tyaneke - 36 The jury — consisting of Benjamin Rankin, Louisville; W. W. Weaver, Chicago; Charles 1 The decay of rocks geologically considered. By T. Sterry he LL.D., F.R.S. American journal of science, September, incandescent lights. However, the following tests were made: connection was made with a circuit containing 315 lights at what was con- sidered an average point in the circuit ; and fif- teen lamps, five of them new and the balance selected systematically from the circuit while lighted, were tested in a specially constructed photometer-room while indicator-cards were being taken from the engine. A Bunsen photometer with a twelve-foot bar was used, and the horizontal intensity deter- mined with the carbon at an angle of 45°. The intensity of the (nominally) 16-candle lights varied from 12 to 19.66 candles, aver- aging 13.77 candles; and the average horse- power was 32.50. These figures give 9.70 lights, or 133.57 candles, per mechanical horse- power. The action of the automatic regulator was *then tested with a light in the photometer, first 50 and then 100 lights being thrown off and on. In one of the six cases the variation was 1.23 candles, but in all the others it was less than .66 of a candle. Only a momentary flicker was noticed as the lights were thrown off and on. Pie The jury reported as follows: ‘‘ The tests ned of the Edison system are most satisfactory as to the efficiency of the various appliances, the steadiness of the light produced, and the JANUARY 4, 1884.] during the 100 days of the exposition, with over 4,000 lights burning, there was not at any time a suspension of light from failure of the appliances of the Edison electric lighting com- pany.”’ Of the arc-lights, lamps were chosen, one at a time, from the circuits, and inserted in the same circuit in the photometer-room, care being taken that no change was made in the circuit adjustments. Indicator-cards were taken from the engine used, during the test- ing of each lamp. The strength of current, and fall in electromotive force, were also de- termined with an amperemeter and voltmeter ; but, as only relative results were desired, these instruments were not graduated. The photometer-bar was fifty feet long ; and tests showed that there was no reflection vi- tiating the results, from the dead-black surface of the walls of the room. The photometric tests were made with an Edison incandescent light as a standard. Fifteen tests from candle to incandescent, and ten from incandescent to arc lights, were made for each lamp, five arc- light tests being between the same number of tests of the standard. _ The are-light was cut out during the tests of the standard, and a new cup was allowed to form before the next set of tests was made. The dynamos were worked to their full advertised capacity in regard to the number of lights in the circuits; and four lights were tested in each case, with the following re- sults : — _ | Thomson Jenney. Houston. Total number of lightsin circuit. . .. 16 12 Total mechanical horse- -power. . - 26.92 11.79 Average horizontal intensity in candles 496.5 291.8 Average intensity per horse-power . . 306.5 296.9 Relative efficiency of lamps from light, current, and fall in electromotive force . 1.055 i From these tests, and an examination of the dynamos, lamps, regulators, etc., the awards were made as follows: to the Edison company, for isolated lighting, medals for the best incandescent system and light, and for the best dynamo and lamp for the incandes- cent light; to the Fort Wayne Jenney electric lighting company, medals for the best system and dynamo for arc-lighting; but, to the Thomson Houston electric lighting company, a medal for the best arc-light, because, ‘‘ while the light of the Jenney was slightly stronger per horse-power of electrical energy used in the lamp, it was not quite so steady as the Thomson Houston.”’ H. W. Eaton. SCIENCE. , 15 THE LATE MR. DARWIN ON INSTINCT.! AT the meeting of the Linnean society this even- ing (Dec. 6) a highly interesting posthumous paper on Instinct, by Charles Darwin, will be read and discussed. We have been favored with an early abstract of the same, which we here present to our readers. After detailing sundry facts with reference to the migratory instincts of different animals, Mr. Darwin proceeds to suggest a theory to account for them. This theory is precisely the same as that which was subsequently and independently enunciated by Mr. Wallace in Nature, vol. x. p. 459. Thus, to quote from the essay: ‘‘ During the long course of ages, let valleys become converted into estuaries, and then into wider and wider arms of the sea; and still I can well believe that the impulse [originally due to seeking food] which leads the pinioned goose to scramble northward would lead our bird over the trackless waters; and that, by the aid of the un- known power by which many animals (and savage men) can retain a true course, it would safely cross the sea now covering the submerged path of its ancient journey.”’ The next topic considered is that of instinctive fear. Many facts are given showing the gradual acquisition of such instinctive fear, or hereditary dread, of man, during the period of human observa- tion. ‘These facts led Mr. Darwin to consider the instinct of feigning death, as shown by sundry species of animals, when in the presence of danger. Seeing that ‘death is an unknown state to each living crea- ture,’ this seemed to him ‘a remarkable instinct:’ and accordingly he tried a number of experiments upon the subject with insects, which proved that in no one case did the attitude in which the animal ‘feigned death’ resemble that in which the animal really died; so that the instinct really amounts to nothing else, in the case of insects at all events, than an instinct to remain motionless, and therefore incon- spicuous, in the presence of danger. From the facts given with regard to certain vertebrated animals, however, it is doubtful how far this explanation Ps be applied to them. A large part of the essay is devoted to Aen and habitation,’ with the object of showing, by an accumulation of facts, that the complex instincts of nest-building in birds and of constructing various kinds of habitations by mammals, all probably arose by gradual stages under the directing influence of natural selection. The essay concludes with a number of ‘ miscella- neous remarks’ on instincts in general. First the variability of instinct is proved by sundry examples; next the fact of double instincts occurring in the same species; after which, ‘‘as there is often much diffi- culty in imagining how an instinct could first have arisen,’’ it is thought ‘‘ worth while to, give a few out of many cases of occasional and curious habits, which cannot be considered as regular instincts, but which might, according to our views, give rise to 1 From Nature of Dec. 6. 16 eR SCIENCE. such.”’ Finally, cases of special difficulty are dealt with. ‘These may be classified under the following heads: 1. Similar instincts in unallied animals; 2. Dissimilar instincts in. allied animals; 3. Instincts apparently detrimental to the species which exhibit them; 4. Instincts performed only once during the lifetime of an animal; 5. Instincts of a trifling or useless character; 6. Special difficulties connected with the instinct of migration; 7. Sundry other in- stinets presenting more or less difficulty to the theory » of natural selection. , The ‘conclusion’ gives a summary of the general principles which have been set forth by the whole essay. This, therefore, we shall quote in extenso :— “We have in this chapter chiefly considered the instincts of animals under the point of view whether it is possible that they could have been acquired through the means indicated on our theory, or whether, even if the simpler ones could have been thus acquired, others are so complex and wonderful that they must have been specially endowed, and thus overthrow the theory. Bearing in mind the facts given on the acquirement, through the selec- tion of self-originating tricks or modification of in- stinct, or through training and habit aided in some slight degree by imitation, of hereditary actions and dispositions in our domesticated animals, and their parallelism (subject to having less time) to the in- stincts of animals in a state of nature; bearing in mind that in a state of nature instinets do certainly vary in some slight degree; bearing in mind how very generally we find in allied but distinct animals a gradation in the more complex instincts, which shows that it is at least possible that a complex in- stinct might have been acquired by successive steps, and which, moreover, generally indicates, according to our theory, the actual steps by which the instinct has been acquired, inasmuch as we suppose allied instincts to have branched off at different stages of descent from a common ancestor, and therefore to have retained, more or less unaltered, the instincts of the several lineal ancestral forms of any one species, — bearing all this in mind, together with the certainty that instincts are as important to an animal as their gerferally correlated structures, and that in the strug- gle for life under changing conditions slight modifi- cations of instinct could hardly fail occasionally to be profitable to individuals, I can see no overwhelming difficulty on our theory. Even in the most marvel- lous instinet known, that of the cells of the hive-bee, we have seen how a simple instinctive action may lead to results which fill the mind with astonishment. ‘* Moreover, it seems to me that the very general fact of the gradation of complexity of instinets within the limits of the same group of animals, and likewise the fact of two allied species placed in two distant parts of the world and surrounded by wholly different conditions of life, still having very much in common in their instincts, support our theory of descent, for they are explained by it; whereas, if we look at each instinct as specially endowed, we can only say that itis so. The imperfections and mistakes of instinct on our theory cease to be surprising: indeed, it would be wonderful that far more numerous and flagrant cases could not be detected, if it were not that a species which has failed to become modified and so far perfected in its instincts that it could continue struggling with the co-inhabitants of the same region, would simply add one more to the myriads which - have become extinct. “It may not be logical, but to my imagination it is far more satisfactory, to look at the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, ants making slaves, the’ larvae of the Ichneumonidae feeding within the live © bodies of their prey, cats playing with mice, otters and cormorants with living fish, not as instincts — specially given by the Creator, but as very small. parts of one general law leading to the advance- ment of all organic bodies, — Multiply, vary; let the strongest live and the weakest die.”’ DR. GRINEWETZKY’S CROSSING OF NOVAIA ZEMLIA. On the = November, Dr. Grinewetzky described, before the Geographical society-of St. Petersburg, his travels on this island. He first started on foot on the = August, with Kriwoskeya and a Samoyede (a few of whom are.found near Karmakuly). The weather — was beautiful, the thermometer 5° C.; but soon after. reaching a mountain with a very extensive view, where they passed the night, they were overtaken by a violent snow-storm, and compelled to return. _In- April, 1883, the Samoyede Hametz crossed the island to the south-east coast, and found Samoyede chums (tents). Hearing of this, Grinewetzky, accompanied by Hametz and another Samoyede, set out in sleds drawn by dogs. They had scarcely any food for the - dogs, but were assured they would find plenty, as_ wild reindeer were abundant. This proved not to be the case; and on the fifth day the poor dogs were near starving, when a large herd of reindeer was met. Many shots were fired without effect, due to the difficulty of seeing distinctly, as the men’s eyes” were much affected by the reflected sunlight, and, in addition, their hands were benumbed by the cold (— 20° to —25°C.). Atlast two were killed, and the dogs saved. At first a number of very steep parallel ridges, principally of black slate, were encountered. - At some places, hard and exceedingly steep snow- drifts had to be avoided by ascending the surround- ing hills. Excepting these drifts, there was but little _ snow, as, if loose, it was swept away by the strong east-south-east wind prevailing. After the water- shed between the west and east coasts is passed, the country becomes a low plateau, and the snow softer and rather deep and regular. On the aa with the temperature at —27° C., they prepared toreturn, as they had already proceeded two days farther than was intended, and no chums were in sight; and, al- though one of the Samoyedes said the chums were only three miles distant, they began the return. _ This expedition is important as the first cross of Novaia Zemlia by civilized man. 1 information collected by Tjagin (1878-79), Pak oe rm tak Mia JANUARY 4, 1884.] sow, Ziwolka, and Moisseew (1882-39), and a few notes by Hofer and Nordenski6ld, and from his own observations, Grinewetzky gives the following sketch of the south ,island of Novaia Zemlia. It may be divided into three parts. The northern lies between Matotschkin Shar on the north and the Pukowaja River on the south: this part has the highest moun- tains (four thousand feet), forming isolated groups rather than ranges. The central part, extending to the Karelka and Belushia, Rivers, has five or six parallel ridges, rnnning generally north and south; black slate is common; and the watershed is about seventeen miles from the west coast. The southern part is a rather low plateau: the Goose Land (Gusi- waya Zemlia) isincluded in this part, which is free from snow by the end of June, andin July has arather rich vegetation, especially on the gently sloping ground. Dr. Grinewetzky also expressed the opinion that the wild reindeer of the northern island belong to a totally distinct sub-species from those of the south- ern island. LOSS OF NITROGEN FROM ARABLE SOILS. THE renewed attention of agriculturists has of late -been drawn to the question of the nitrogen supply of cultivated soils. On the one hand, Schulz, in Germany, claims to have brought about a gain of nitrogen on a sandy soil by means of the cultivation of Jupines, and manuring with kainit. On the other hand, Lawes, Gilbert, and Warington,! in England, have published results which show that a very considerable annual loss of nitrogen occurs in the drain-water of cultivated fields; and experiments by Dehérain,? in France, show, according to his inter- pretation of them, an alarming decrease in the total nitrogen of the soil in the course of a few years, and in spite of abundant manuring. Schulz’s experiments have added nothing to our knowledge of the natural supply of nitrogen to the soil, and it is not proposed to consider that topic here. The results of Lawes, Gilbert, and Waring- ton, and of Dehérain, however, have attracted much attention. If they are to be accepted without re- serve, they lead to the conclusion that the fertility of our cultivated fields, so far as it depends upon their nitrogen, is being removed in the drainage-water, or in other ways, at a comparatively rapid rate. The instigation to Lawes, Gilbert, and Waring- ton’s experiments was given by the observation, that, in the field-experiments carried on for a series of years at Rothamsted, scarcely a third of the nitrogen of the manure was found in the crop under the most favor- able conditions, while, in those cases in which no mineral manures were applied, the deficit was much greater. The most obvious conclusion was, that there must be a great loss of nitrogen in the drainage; and experiments were instituted to test this idea, Their earlier experiments were with three lysimeters. Ex- cavations were made under and around an area of 1 Journ. roy. agric. 30c., xvii. and xviii. 2 Annales agronomique, Viii. 321. SCIENCE. 17 a thousandth of an acre. The mass of soil thus isolated was supported by perforated iron plates, and surrounded by masonry, thus leaving the soil with its natural structure. The quantity of water percolating through this soil has been determined since 1870; and since May, 1877, its content of nitrates has been also determined. The soil was uncultivated and free from vegetation. Numerous interesting facts are disclosed by these determina- tions, but that which now interests us chiefly is the quantity of nitrogen found in the drain-water. This amounted, in the average of four years, to 46, 36, and 44 pounds per acre, at depths respectively of 20, 40, and 60 inches. Subsequently the same experimenters have de- termined the nitrates in the drainage-waters from their experimental wheat-field, each plot of which is drained by a single lateral at a depth of 24 to 30 inches. Having no means of measuring the drainage, the authors take,:as the basis of their calculation of the loss of nitrogen, the amount of drainage-water yielded by the 60-inch deep lysimeter at the same time. On this assumption, the annual loss of nitrogen varied from 15 and 16 pounds per acre, on unmanured plots, to as high as 74 pounds per acre. It is greatly to be regretted that the authors were not able to measure the drain-water in these experi- ments; for the method which was adopted to supply the deficiency leaves much to be desired. The soil in the lysimeter was uncultivated and bare of vege- - tation: that of the wheat-field was cultivated, and bore crops of wheat varying considerably in amount. Both these circumstances affect the amount of drain- age-water. Cultivation, especially of a clay soil such as that-at Rothamsted, may affect very markedly the ease with which water passes downward through it, the amount of water which it can retain in its inter- stices, and the rapidity of evaporation from its sur- face. The growth of vegetation exerts a still greater effect on the movements of water in the soil. It has been shown by numerous observers, that much more water evaporates from a soil covered with vegetation than from a bare soil, and that cousequently much less of the rainfall percolates through the soil. The diminution of the drainage-water in this way has also been directly proved by Wollny. Furthermore, the various plots in these experiments carried un- equal quantities of vegetation, so that the amount of evaporation due to this source must have been unequal also. It appears, then, in the highest de- gree improbable, that the quantity of drainage-water actually was the same for each plot as was assumed, and unlikely that it was as great as was assumed. When we add to these considerations the fact, that it is uncertain whether the soil of the lysimeter represented an average of the soil of the field, and, further, that all errors of the lysimeter are multiplied a thousandfold when the results are expressed per acre, we are forced to the conclusion that the figures given for the total amount of drain-water, and con- sequently those also for the total loss of nitrogen in this way, can be, at best, only approximations, and are most likely too large. 18 SCIENCE. Even if we allow them their full value, however, they do not in all cases cover the entire loss of nitro- ‘gen. On the basis of the results just described, the authors have calculated the average annual amount of nitrogen in the manure, crop, and drainage of fourteen experimental wheat-plots for a period of thirty years. In seven cases the nitrogen found in crop and drainage is from 14 to 40 pounds per acre less than the amount applied as manure. Analyses of the soil of one plot in 1865, and again in 1881, showed that about a third of this amount was still present in the soil, the latter having gained nitrogen. The authors believe the remainder either to have escaped the drain-tiles, and been carried into the lower strata of the soil, or to have been set free in the gaseous state in the soil. Dehérain’s experiments were intended to determine the total loss of nitrogen by the soil. Three series, of four plots each, were laid out, each plot having an area of one are (equal to about four square rods). The first series bore fodder-maize; the second, potatoes; the third, beets, fodder-maize, and esparcette succes- sively. During the first three years, one plot in each series was unmanured; one received, per hectare, 80,000 kilograms of stable-manure; one, 1,200 kilo- grams of nitrate of soda; and one, 1,200 kilograms of sulphate of ammonia. During the following four years none of the plots received anymanure. At the beginning of the experiments, and at the end of three and seven years respectively, the percentage of nitro- gen in the soil was determined. With the aid of these determinations, a balance was struck for each plot be- tween the nitrogen originally present and that added in the manure, on the one hand, and that removed in the crops and remaining in the soil at the close of the experiments, on the other hand. In every case except that of the esparcette, a very great loss of nitrogen was found to have occurred. The following table contains the annual loss of nitrogen from a portion of the plots, reduced to pounds per acre to compare with Lawes, Gilbert, and Warington’s results :— Maize plots. Manuring. First period. | Second period. Stable-manure . — 257 — 118 Nitrate of soda. | = shi: ==) hee Sulphate of ammonia = 820 — 132 Nothing 5 — 338 ==" 5 Esparcette plots. First period | 1 4 Manuring. (roots and psec maize). (eer . Stable-manure . — 808 cel Nitrate of soda . = — 663 + 134 Sulphate of ammonia — 732 + 135 Nothing 3 ont + 149 Compared with the losses observed in Rothamsted, some of these figures are enormous, being over nine Oe oot Sw Aad [Von. IIL, No. times as great as the highest obtained there. When we consider that the soil was calculated to contain, — to a depth of 14 inches, only about 7,000 pounds of nitrogen per acre, they seem to show that but a com- paratively short time would be required to reduce the supply of nitrogen to the point at which culture ceases to be profitable. In order to be able to judge of the force of these results, it is desirable, in the first place, to consider somewhat more in detail the method by which they were obtained. At the beginning of the experiments the soil was found to contain .204% of nitrogen; and this was made the basis of the calculation for all the plots. Itis highly improbable that this assumption of uniformity among all the plots, as regards nitrogen, is correct; and, when we consider that a difference of .001% corresponds to a difference of about 34 pounds of nitrogen per acre, we are led to question, not only the accuracy of Dehérain’s results, but the possibility of discovering small losses of nitrogen by means of soil-analysis. The absolute quantity of nitrogen was calculated on the further assumption that one hectare of soil to a depth of 35 centimetres weighed 38,850,000 kilograms, which, again, involves a possibility of error. Finally, the determination of the quantity of nitrogen removed in the weighed crops rests on assumptions as to the percentage of nitrogen they con- tained, while it is a well-established fact that consid- erable variations in this respect occur. Especially does heavy manuring with nitrogenous fertilizers, such as some of these plots received, tend to increase the percentage of nitrogen in the crop. To recapitulate: Dehérain’s conclusions involve three improbable assumptions; viz., pertect uniform- ity of soil as regards nitrogen, equal weight of soil over equal areas, and a uniform and average percent- age of nitrogen in the crops. On the other hand, all but a few of the plots show a loss of nitrogen ; and while, for the reasons just stated, the accuracy of the reults is very questionable, it would appear that we must admit some loss of ni- trogen to be probable in most of the experiments. | Aside from these considerations, however, there are others which should be borne in mind. During the first three years the manured plots were very heavily manured. Sulphate of ammonia and nitrate of soda. were applied at the rate of 1,070 pounds per acre, and stable-manure at the rate of over 35% tons per acre, — quantities much greater than would be used under any ordinary conditions. Moreover, from the fact that the unmanured plots yielded nearly as large crops at the close of the experiments as at their beginning, we may conclude that the soil was naturally of good quality. ; -Dehérain’s calculations show that but a very small proportion of the nitrogen of the manures was utilized by the crops; and, though the exactitude of his fig- ures may be questioned, the general result is what we should expect. A large excess of available nitrogen was evidently present in the soil. The latter was oc- cupied by crops for only four or five months of the year, at most (except the esparcette plots); and, during the remaining two-thirds of the year, leaching, and other JANUARY 4, 1884.] natural agencies which tend to remove nitrogen from the soil, had undisputed possession of the field. When the manuring was discontinued, the losses of nitro- gen, according to Dehérain’s results, sank very mate- rially, though still remaining considerable. From the combined results of both these investiga- tions, it would appear that we may fairly conclude, that, under ordinary conditions of tillage, there is con- siderable loss of nitrogen from the soil. Lawes, Gil- bert, and Warington’s experiments show that much nitrogen may escape in the drainage; and, according to their calculations, more nitrogen was removed from six out of thirteen of their experimental plots in crop and drainage, during thirty years, than was supplied in the manure. From Dehérain’s experiments we learn that a soil under constant tillage may grow poorer in nitrogen in spite of heavy manuring. In fact, of all the elements of the soil which are required for plant-growth, nitrogen is one of the most mobile. The soil, it is true, has the power of fixing ammonia in insoluble combinations; but both ammonia and organic nitrogen are constantly being converted into nitric acid in every fertile soil, and this compound the soil has no power to retain. Under natural con- ditions, when the soilis thickly covered with vegeta- tion, this nitric acid is assimilated by the roots as rapidly as it is formed, while the compact state of the soil hinders access of oxygen to the deeper layers, and thus moderates nitrification. This action of plant- roots in arresting nitrates on their way to the lower strata of the soil is shown very plainly in Lawes, Gilbert, and Warington’s experiments already cited. While the land carried a crop of wheat, the drain-water contained little or no nitrates, except when an excess of nitrogen had been given in the manure; but as soon as the crop was removed, nitrates made their appearance in the drain-water. But an untilled soil is not only protected against losses of nitrogen: it is also in condition to retain the nitrogen brought to it in rain, snow, etc. This comes partly in the form of ammonia, which is fixed by the soil, and partly in the form of nitric acid, which is fixed by the vegetation. In this way a soil carrying permanent vegetation may be continually gaining nitrogen. This is indicated by Dehérain’s results on the esparcette plots, and, aside from them, is suffi- ciently evident from the facts, that at some period of the world’s history all its nitrogen must have existed in the free state, and that, so far as we know, the combined nitrogen of atmospheric precipitates is the sole natural source of nitrogen to the soil. Tillage alters this state of things very materially. By breaking up and mellowing the soil, it facilitates the access of oxygen, and increases the rapidity of nitrification. At the same time, the natural vegetation is replaced by one occupying in many cases but a part of the ground, and occupying it for but a portion of the year. Add to this that by diminishing the amount of vegetation we diminish the evaporation of water, and thus leave the soil moister, and at the same time expose it more fully to the sun’s rays, thus rendering it warmer, both of which conditions favor nitrifica- tion, and we see that cultivation both increases the SCIENCE. | 19 flux of nitrogen in the soil, and decreases the means of utilizing it. The clear recognition of this state of things brings with it the suggestion of at least a partial remedy, which is to keep the soil occupied as fully and as long as possible with growing vegetation. The roots of the living plant lend to the soil an absorptive power for nitrogen compounds, similar to that which it has of itself for other elements of plant-food, and enable it to store up these compounds against future needs, To prevent a loss of nitrogen, we must make use of this power as fully as possible, both in the system of cultivation adopted, and in other ways. After taking off a crop in the early fall, instead of leaving the land bare, let it be sown with some quick-growing crop, e.g., rye, which shall serve solely to store up the nitrogen which would otherwise be lost. In the spring this crop is ploughed under, and furnishes nourishment for the succeeding crop. Such a plan has been adopted here and there with advantage. Its general use would turn largely, of course, on the question of expense. On a virgin soil containing already large reserves of nitrogen, no appreciable benefit might result from it, though even there the preservation of the present fertility is worth striving for. But between this con- dition and the state of relative exhaustion to which the soil of our older states has been reduced, there must be a point where saving nitrogen in this way would be of immediate as well as prospective benefit. The exact methods of applying the principle involved to particular cases it is not the province of this article to discuss. The principle itself, however, is very simple. Keep growing roots present in the soil as long and as extensively as possible to seize upon the nitrogen (and other elements as well) which will otherwise be washed out of the soil, and to store it up in insoluble forms, ready for the needs of future crops. H. P. ARMSBY. THE LIFE OF HAMILTON. Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Knt., LL.D., D.C.L., M.R.I.A., Andrews professor of astron- omy in the University of Dublin, and royal astron- omer of Ireland, ete. : including selections from his poems, correspondence, and miscellaneous writings. By Rosert Percevar GRAVES, M.A., snb-dean of the Chapel royal, Dublin. Vol. i. London, Longmans, Green, § Co., 1882. 20+698 p. 8°. Turis volume, which forms one of the latest issues Of the Dublin university press series, has been prepared partly through the assist- ance furnished by the Board of Trinity college, and published by the provost and senior fel- lows. Mr. Graves had at first, however, un- dertaken the biography of Hamilton:on his own responsibility, and unassisted in the labor which it involved; and we ought not to pass unremarked his especial fitness for the per- formance of this arduous task. In the first place, he was unconnected with Hamilton by 20 any tie of kindred. Both had experienced unbroken friendship from early youth. Ham- ilton, in his will, had nominated Mr. Graves as his literary executor ; and the sons of Hamil- ton asked him to undertake the task, seconded by the approval of several of the most influ- ential friends of the great mathematician. And, while Mr. Graves has to confess himself to be no mathematician, he combined — what was of greater import — the requisite amount of personal knowledge with the appropriate scientific attainments and freedom from incom- patible engagements. In his preface, the au- thor very gracefully says, by way of allusion to his self-distrust in assuming the control of Hamilton’s voluminous papers and correspond- ence, ‘‘I gave a reluctant consent, wishing that the memory of my friend had been more fortunate, but at the same time conscious that by me would be devoted to it the warmth of honest affection and admiration, and the desire to be just and truthful.’’ In recording the successive mathematical discoveries of Hamilton, Mr. Graves does not attempt accurately to appreciate their impor- tance, or to give them their exact place in con- nection with precedent or subsequent discovery. He has taken pains to secure that the mathe- matical statements in his work are correct, giving them generally in the ipsissima verba of Hamilton himself, and, where in doubt, con- sulting friends of competent authority. This course begets a desirable confidence in the accuracy of the entire work, — which is, how- ever, taken as a whole, almost purely a literary biography. It is not so much to the credit of Mr. Graves as may at first seem probable, that he leaves the letters of Hamilton almost unaided to tell the story of his life. The con- tributions from the author’s pen are very largely of the nature of disconnected comment, usually upon a subjoined letter: in fact, there is nothing approaching a continuous analysis of the life or work or character of Hamilton, such as we may hope to see in a subsequent volume, and which Mr. Graves, from his evi- dently keen insight, and thorough acquaintance with the subject of his biography, is of all per- sons most fully qualified to write. Nor could the book have been otherwise than improved, had he drawn very largely from his own asso- ciation and personal recollection of Hamilton in the interest of those who never knew him. - The name of William Hamilton has con- ferred a threefold distinction upon the king- doms of Great Britain. An early article on the subject of this biography reminds its readers that each isle has its Sir William Hamilton. SCIENCE. of art, the Scotchman was among the first in philosophy, and the Irishman was among the first in mathematics. And the promise of great- ness the young Irishman gave at that early day failed in no sense of entire fulfilment in the development of mature years. Of the three Hamiltons, William Rowan was easily the chief. We recall in this connection what some of his most distinguished contemporaries have said of him. The celebrated Dr. Brink- ley, astronomer. royal of Ireland (later Bishop of Cloyne, and whose successor in the former office the youthful Hamilton was so soon to be), said of him at the age of eighteen, ‘‘ This young man, I do not say will be, but 7s, the first mathematician of his age.’’ ‘The brilliant and learned Professor Sedgwick, referring publicly to Hamilton in 1833, spoke of him as “‘ a man who possessed within himself powers and tal- — ents perhaps never before combined within one philosophical character.’’ Hamilton was born in Dublin, Aug. 4, 1805, anddied in the same place, from an attack of gout, Sept. 2, 1865, being then royal astronomer of Ireland. His early life is the story of alarming pre- cocity, not of invention, but of acquisition. Nothing could have seemed more certain to those who knew the boy of half a score than that middle life would easily insure him rank as the chief of linguists. At five he was able to read and translate Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; at eight, he knew Italian and French; and be- fore the age of ten his father wrote of him, ‘* His thirst for the oriental languages is una- bated. He is now master of most, indeed of all except the minor and comparatively pro- vincial ones. The Hebrew, Persian, and Ar- abic are about to be confirmed by the superior and intimate acquaintance with the Sanskrit, in which he is already a proficient. The Chal- dee and Syriac he is grounded in, and the Hindoostanee, Malay, Mahratta, Bengali, and others. He is about to commence the Chi- nese.’’ One of Hamilton’s earliest productive efforts was the preparation of a little manu- script book of thirty pages, formally entitled ‘A Syriac grammar, in Syriac letters and characters,’ etc. (p. 51). He was not as yet twelve years of age; and before another year had passed, his works included (these are the titles given by the boy himself) ‘A gram- mar of the Sanskrit language,’ ‘An Arabic © praxis,’ ‘ An analysis of a passage in Syriac,’ and ‘ A compendious treatise of algebra,’ — which latter proceeds as far as quadratic equa-— tions. Up to this point, Hamilton seems to have had no marked disposition toward scien- iv ng The Englishman was noted for his patrot ply ; wy JANUARY 4, 1884.] tific studies. He had been fascinated by tele- scopic views of the planets, and had visited the Royal observatory at Dunsink. Unquestion- ably one of the most important events in his early career was the meeting of Zerah Col- burn. The two had engaged in trials of arith- metical skill when the former was only twelve ; but two years later they re-met, Hamilton be- ing ‘‘ not so much the antagonist as the critic and the investigator of the methods of the gifted computist.’’ That it would be difficult to over-estimate the significance of this occur- rence is evident from a letter by Hamilton to his cousin Arthur, in 1822, wherein he says (p- 111), ae ‘‘T was amused this morning, looking back on the eagerness with which I began different branches of the mathematics, and how I always thought my pres- ent pursuit the most interesting. I believe it was seeing Zerah Colburn that first gave me an interest in those things. Fora long time afterwards I liked to perform long operations in arithmetic in my mind; extracting the square and cube root, and everything that related to the properties of numbers. It is now a good while since I began Euclid. Do you remem- ber when I used to go to breakfast with you, and we read two or three propositions together every. morn- ing? Iwas then so fond of it, that, when my uncle wished me to learn algebra, he said he was afraid I would not like its uphill work, after the smooth and easy path of geometry. However, I became equally fond of algebra, though I never mastered some parts of the science. Indeed, the resources of algebra have probably not been yet exhausted.’’ The practical bent of his young mind in scientific matters is interestingly shown by his invention of a telegraphic signal-code, which, for a youth of fifteen, is not a little remark- able. The letters of the alphabet were first arranged in the following scheme (p. 88) : — ie, 2 te igste 5 vy A B OC DF ee Ppteee br od 4 Ou eS Ok Ma RE REY Twice U = W Then five readily distinguishable positions | of the arms were chosen. Each letter, thus, would be indicated, after the manner of a double-entry table, by its position at the inter- section of a horizontal and a vertical column ; and the numbers of these intersecting columns, transmitted from one station to the other by SCIENCE. 21 the pre-arranged signals, would thus spell out any desired message. It will be observed that the duplication of any given position of the arms always indicates a vowel. ‘This device for communicating at a distance was for a time practically employed by Hamilton and a play- mate of his, each being provided with a tele- scope, so that he could readily discern the successive positions of the arms of the other. His devotion to astronomy had by this time taken firm hold ; and Hamilton realized this so fully himself, that he forcibly made in his stud- ies a ‘sudden transition to natural philosophy,’ excusing himself therefor to his friends by ex- plaining that the ‘‘ intention was to prevent my giving up too much time to astronomy by diverting my thoughts to another channel: ‘atqui emovit veterem mire morbus novus,’ for I am now as deeply engaged in the study of pendulums.’’ In a short paper, at the age of sixteen, he brings science to the assistance of the classics, finding astronomical calculation to help in the decision of a moot-point in the chronology of the Aeneid. It is most interesting to follow the growth of Hamilton’s young mind as his fondness for the mathematics increased, and his devotion to the classics waned. His pre-collegiate letters abound in passages evincing the radical change which was going on, and the solid permanency with which his new favorites had taken posses- sion. A passage from a letter to his sister Eliza, shortly after his entering Trinity college, is cited here as a vigorous illustration of this : — ‘One thing only have I to regret in the direction of my studies, that they should be diverted — or rather, rudely forceed—by the college course from their natural bent and favorite channel. ‘That bent, you know, is science —science in its most exalted heights, in its most secret recesses. It has so capti- vated me — so seized on, I may say, my affections — that my attention to classical studies is an effort, and an irksome one.”’ Immediately on abandoning his absorbing interest in the classics, his work of original research in mathematical optics began. Mr. Graves quotes the title of an ‘* Essay on equa- tions representing systems of right lines in a given plane,’’ etc.,—a paper of twenty- one folio pages, to which Hamilton himself had appended the following note: ‘* (This curious old paper, found by me to-day in settling my study, must have been written at least as early as 1822. It contains the germ of my investigations respecting Systems of rays, begun in 1823. W. R. H., February 27, 1834.)”’ 22 Hamilton’s college career was a most bril- liant one. During no small portiog of his lei- sure, he was at work developing the germs of the above-named investigation, which, in the spring of 1827, was presented to the Royal Trish academy, having been expanded into ‘ A theory of systems of rays.’ The first part was published the following year in the fifteenth volume of the academy’s transactions. His collegiate course had not been completed, when, less than twenty-two years of age, he was unan- imously elected Andrews professor of astronomy in the University of Dublin, and royal astrono- mer of Ireland, — an extraordinary preference for an undergraduate, who had for competitors men of high standing and eminence in two uni- versities. His appointment under these cir- cumstances involved another exceptional event : by the donor’s direction, the professor of as- tronomy is one of the examiners for Bishop Law’s prize, which is yearly bestowed upon the best answerer in the higher mathematics among candidates of junior bachelor standing. The new occupant of the chair of astronomy was, within a few days of his appointment, called upon to take his part in the examina- tion ; an undergraduate thus officially examining graduates in the highest branches of mathe- matics. In the following autumn, Hamilton met the poet Wordsworth. ‘Their correspondence of years, in terms of close intimacy, is very fully given by Mr. Graves, and forms the richest extra-scientific contribution to this biography. We may appropriately allude, in this connec- tion, to Hamilton’s poems, with which a very considerable fraction of this large volume is filled. Wordsworth criticised these effusions very freely, and not a few of them are certainly unworthy of Hamilton’s better moments. The subjects chosen for versification, however, show an instinctive correctness in the choice of ob- jects and impressions, which, treated by a poet, would be poetry, but, as dealt with by Hamilton, are in general merely healthy ideas plainly and unpoetically expressed in rhyme or verse. Another friendship of Ham- ilton’s we should not omit to mention, — that of the philosopher Coleridge, whom he met in London shortly before the former’s - death. Their spirited metaphysical corre- spondence is a very agreeable feature of the present work. To the wisdom of the same board of electors which, without doubt, saved Hamilton to sci- ence from the church (for he had at one time serious intention of entering that body, and was more than once offered ordination) , are due SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. f oe sels Nae the thanks of mathematicians perpetually for their prompt recognition of the true sphere of his intellectual activity. The duties of his uni- versity chair, as director of the observatory, were in large part uncongenial to him, and his brief career as a practical astronomer was not a successful one. His tastes being almost en- tirely in the direction of mathematical research, it was ultimately fortunate, that, from the com- mencement of his practice as an observer, his vigor of constitution was seriously impaired. Near the close of 1830 he writes to Sir John Herschel, ‘‘ I cannot say much for my dili- gence in observing, but perbaps may have a better account to give of this department after some time; though among other temptations to indolence, I have that of always suffering in health when I attempt night work in the tran- sit-room.’’ He had constant cold in the head and chest, and was much of his time confined to the house. The proposal was soon made that he should change the professorship of as- tronomy for that of mathematics ; and consult- ing with his friend, the late Dr. Robinson of Armagh, the latter replied. — ‘‘Your course appears to me so clear that there can be no hesitation. As a mathematician you will probably have no equal in Britain, as an astronomer some superiors; for you certainly have not the practi- cal enthusiasm which is essential to make one sustain the uniform progress of observing. Iwas well aware © that you are not very fond of observing; but you know you have that in common with Encke (who hates it), Airy, and Pond (now never observing).” In November, 1831, the university board passed a resolution which more than doubled Hamilton’s salary, and completely defined his future relations to the university; giving him entire liberty to pursue, as a first ob- ject, his mathematical researches, and thus assuming the responsibility of his continuing as a mathematician rather than an astrono- mer. 7 Hamilton’s friends were not. slow to do them- selves the honor of proposing his membership of scientific bodies. Through Sir John Her- schel he became a member of the Royal astro- nomical society at the age of twenty-two ; three years later he was introduced to the British as- sociation for the advancement of science ; Lub- bock was ready to insure his election to the Royal society (of which, however, he never be- came a fellow) ; and in a letter, in 1832, to his intimate companion, Aubrey de Vere, he says, (p. 610), ‘* A hand has lately been stretched forth to me across the Atlantic; a diploma having been sent, with great pomp of broad- seal, and so forth, to tell me that I have been ‘vay? January 4, 1884.] elected fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences — “Ueber linder und meer reichen sich beide die hand.”’ A picture of curious interest may be drawn from Mr. Graves’s occasional touches, portray- ing Hamilton as a speaker and lecturer. He **had two voices — one deep, rich, sonorous, rhythmical, and solemn, which flowed forth when he delivered a prelection or a speech, or recited poetry ; the other soaring acutely into high regions, when he burst into an explana- tien, or gave vent to some ebullition of good spirits or cheerful comment.’’ At the meeting of the British association in 1832, at Oxford, his speech returning thanks on behalf of the Royal Irish academy contained ‘‘a graceful ex- pression of the feelings stirred in him by his peculiar position as the solitary and youthful representative of Ireland on the occasion.’’ Babbage told him, in congratulation, that ‘‘ an astronomer had no business to be able to speak so well.’’ We have space for only a word from Mr. Graves’s charming sketch of Hamilton as a lecturer (pp. 497-498) : — ** When he spoke . . . it was plain to see that he was absorbed by a reverential consideration of the grandeur of astronomy. ... As he poured out in his sonorous tones his thoughts thus blending poetry and science, he appeared. . . absorbed in awed and delighted contemplation of the truths he had the solemn privilege of enouncing; there was no ap- parent consciousness of his own personality, he was a worshipper revealing the perfections of the object of his worship; and towards the youthful audience who surrounded him he took the attitude not so much of a superior authority and a teacher as of a worshipper desirous that other intelligent spirits should take fire from the flame of his devotion. . . . In these intro- ductory lectures he was wont to indulge himself in refined and eloquent disquisition, in poetic language, quotation and allusion, in tracing the history of the development of the science, and in marking out the achievements of its great promoters. . . . The subse- quent lectures of the course were altogether different in style, being rigorously mathematical and demon- strative. ... They were delivered with an eager simplicity, in a voice often breaking into a high key, strangely contrasting with the deep roll of his oratori- cal effusions.”’ One of Hamilton’s grandest achievements was the theoretical discovery of conical refrac- tion ; and in the popular history of physics he is chiefly known by this. Its prompt confirma- tion by Dr. Lloyd, in the laboratory of the Dublin university, tended strongly to heighten the dignity of the discovery. It was charac- terized in terms of most extravagant applause by the greatest physicists of that day. But Hamilton himself, with the unaffected simplicity of true genius, describes it to Coleridge as a ‘subordinate and secondary result.’ The dis- covery had no parallel in the history of exact SCIENCE. 23 science ; apd, as Mr. Graves appropriately re- marks, it is only ‘‘ to be classed with that pre- diction of the existence of the planet Neptune which has immortalized the names of Adams and Le Verrier.’’ Nothing, perhaps, will better exemplify Ham- ilton’s rare elevation of character than the fol- lowing brief words of his biographer : — ‘“Tt is to Hamilton’s honour that the impression he made upon young men, his coevals and his juniors, was such as to create in them the warmest affection, admiration, and respect. This arose from his unaf- fected humility and his cheerful communicativeness, combined with his power to solve most difficulties ad- mitting of solution, his frankness in confessing igno- rance, his reverential and profound treatment of all great questions.’’ In so far as it is possible to know the dis- tinguished Irishman from his letters, — and they are presented in the fullest profusion, — the most commanding feature of his character is the absolute absence of every thing akin to meagreness of build : in other words, a thorough and genuine nobility. Repeated illustrations of this might be cited from his correspondence ; and it is the most conspicuous element of the admirable frontispiece which has been auto- typed from a photograph by Chancellor, Dublin, of a miniature bust executed by Terence Far- rell in 1838. We should like to express the hope, that, before the conclusion of his task, Mr. Graves will present a print from the other bust of Hamilton, executed, at the request of Lord Dunraven, by the Dublin sculptor, Kirk ; in preparation for which a cast was taken from the head, and which thus, as faithfully repre- senting his cranial development, can hardly fail to possess a permanent value. It is most irksome to be forced from the con- templation of this great genius; for, with this initial volume of his biography, we have to leave him at the age of twenty-seven, and al- most in entire anticipation of his characteristic scientific life. His unique researches in the highest fields of mathematical investigation, his great contributions to the science of dy- namics, were yet unmade; and the calculus of quaternions, if at all thought of, had no more taken shape than the vague indefiniteness of a dream. If Mr. Graves has disappointed any of his readers in the execution of his task, they must be few, and among those who were so favored as to have enjoyed the intimate ac- quaintance of the great mathematician. The successive instalments of this exceedingly valu- able biography cannot fail to be watched for with eagerness, and welcomed with enthusiasm, by all whose interests embrace the history and development of the exact sciences. RECENT PROCEBDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SO CIE TIES. San Diego natural history society, Nov. 2. —The following officers were elected: president, Dr. G. W. Barnes; vice-president, Joseph Winchester; recording secretary, E. W. Hendrick; corresponding secretary, Rosa Smith; treasurer, C. J. Fox; librarian, Mrs. Z. R. Cronyn; curator, Dr. D. Cave; directors, D. Cleveland, G. W. Barnes, C. J. Fox, E. W. Morse, J. G. Capron. The following papers were read. Historical no- tice of Pinus Torreyana; by C. C. Parry. —In the spring of 1850, when connected with the Mexican boundary survey, my attention was first called to a peculiar species of pine growing on the Pacific coast, at the mouth of the Soledad valley, San Diego county, by a casual inquiry from Dr. J. L. LeConte, then staying in San Diego, asking what pine it was, grow- ing near the ocean beach at that locality. Not hav- ing any specimens to show, he simply mentioned at the time its dense cones, and its long, stout leaves (five in a sheath). Not long after, an opportunity offered to the writer for a personal investigation, having been ordered by Major W. H. Emory to make a geological examination of the reported coal- deposits on the ocean bluff above Soledad. From the notes and collections there made, a description was drawn up, dedicating this well-marked new species to an honored friend and instructor both of Dr. LeConte and the writer; viz., Pinus Torreyana, Parry. Of the few specimens then collected, a single cone and bunch was sent to Dr. Torrey to be figured for the Mexican boundary report. While there, it fell under the notice of some inquisitive botanist, who extracted some of the loose seeds, which were planted, but by some in- advertence were mixed with another three-leaved species. When growing, the two different kinds be- came confounded, and it was inferred that the present discoverer was mistaken in regarding this species as five-leaved. Prof. Parlatore, the elaborator of Co- niferae in de Candolle’s ‘Prodromus,’ added to this confusion by ignoring the name first proposed, and substituting that of Pinus lophosperma. Subse- quently, frequent collectors have visited this locality, bearing away to the remotest portions of the world seed of this pine, which, as far as is known, is exclu- sively confined to a coast-line of not more than four miles, lying between San Dieguito and about a mile below Soledad, and extending scarcely a mile inland. The bulk of the tree-growth is here mainly confined to a series of high broken cliffs and deeply indented ravines on the bold headlands overlooking the sea south of Soledad valley, and within the corporate lim- its of the town of San Diego. Here, within a radius of not more than half a mile, this singular species may be seen to the best advantage, clinging to the face of crumbling yellowish sandstone, or shooting up in more graceful forms its scant foliage in the shelter of the deep ravines, bathed with frequent sea-fog. One of the finest specimens seen reaches a height of nearly fifty feet, and shows a trunk eighteen inches in diameter at base. SCIENCE. Bi) ye aie The chair was instructed to appoint a committee of three (to be named hereafter), to report and act. upon such measures as may be deemed best for the preservation of the remnant of the Pinus Torreyana. at Soledad, treated of in the communication of Dr.. Parry. Additions to our flora and fauna; by C. R. Orcutt. — The writer stated, that, since the last annual meet-. ing, over a dozen d ieovenies have been made in species. of plants indigenous to this section, while many more: have been discovered unknown hitherto in California. Notes upon spiders; by Rosa Smith. — Zilla rosa, which I discovered at San Diego less than a year ago, is the commonest orb-weaver in San Francisco and vicinity, spinning its delicate snare on trees, bushes, and fences about the city, at Golden Gate Park, and at the Cliff House. Even inside the walls of the Cal- ifornia academy of sciences, I have seen its lovely web, accompanied by silken cocoons of its eggs. This spider is easily known by the free radius in the snare, —‘a good wedge cut out of the pie,’ Dr. McCook expresses it, — which is peculiar to the genus Zilla. At Aptos, near Santa Cruz, I secured an Epeira, and cocoon of eggs and young spiders, which have revealed some curious facts in regard to insect para- sites. Of these Dr. McCook writes, ‘* One interest- ing thing about the Epeira atrata cocoon is, that it is" strangely infested by parasitic and other enemies, no less than four. There were first a number of small reddish ants alive, probably a species of Solenopsis, who no doubt were feeding upon the eggs and débris ; second, several larvae of Dermestidae, probably At- tagenus pellio. These were creeping into the silky — interior at will, though some of them were ensconced within the empty cells of some ichneumon. Next I found alive a very small ichneumon fly. I have never yet seen quite such a ‘happy family’ within the bounds of a spider’s egg-nest. The spiderlings. seemed to be contented, and indifferent to the pres- ence of these intruders.’? A few days later, Dr. Mc- Cook sent more information, as. follows: ‘* Since writing you, I find from Mr. Cresson that the larger ichneumon is a Pezomachus; and the small one, as I. conjectured, a chalcid of some sort, which is parasitic upon Pezomachus. As Pezomachus is parasitic upon spiders’ eggs, their presence within the cocoon is thus accounted for. By the way, there is a yet minuter chalcid that is parasitic upon the chalcid, that is par- asitic upon the Pezomachus, that is parasitic upon the eggs of Epeira atrata and other spiders.” Natural science association of Staten Island, Dec. 8.—Mr. Hollick gave an account of the recent discoveries of fossil leaves at Tottenville. There are three distinct kinds of rock containing — these fossils, —a hard red or gray ferruginous sand- stone, a soft gray sandstone, and a peculiar con-_ glomerate composed almost wholly of vegetable — remains cemented together with what is apparently: In the soft baad limonite or sesquioxide of iron. JANUARY 4, 1884.] sandstone the remains are not yet destroyed, but are in the form of carbon or lignite. In the other rocks the vegetable tissue has almost entirely disap- peared, and only the impressions remain. The rocks are found in blocks or fragments, none of them greater than a foot square, scattered along the beach, mostly at the base of the bluff, which is composed of drift. From our present knowledge, it is not pos- sible to decide whether they were torn up from an outcrop below high-water mark and cast upon the beach, or washed out from the base of the bluff: they no doubt belong to the cretaceous, although our present proofs are not yet sufficient to state this to a certainty. A note was read from Dr. Britton of Columbia college, in which he stated that the occurrence of similar fossiliferous sandstones on the beach near Glen Cove, Long Island, and vicinity, had been known for some time. There they are found in precisely the same position as at Tottenville, and are associated with extensive beds of fire-clay, kaoline, etc. The Tottenville station is not immediately on these clays, but they are found near by in several directions, notably at Kreischerville. That the two localities mark outcrops of the same geological formation, and probably approximately of the same Strata, is almost certain. The physical structure of the Glen Cove series is exactly parallel to that of certain of the clay beds of Middlesex county, N.J., which are well known to belong to the cretaceous epoch. In the absence of sufficient fossil evidence, we cannot state with absolute certainty that the two deposits are equivalent; but there is little doubt that this will ultimately be proven, and that the New Jersey and Staten Island clays, kaolines, lignites, etc., find another and their most northern outcrop on the north shore of Long Island, at or near Glen Cove. The exact parallelism between our Staten Island specimens and those from Glen Cove, continued Mr. Hollick, can be seen at a glance: in fact, they would be indistinguishable but for the labels, with the ex- ception of the leafy conglomerate before described, which does not seem to be represented elsewhere; it is possibly peculiar to Staten Island. In determining the genera and species of fossil plants, we have to depend mostly upon the veining of the leaves, which is not by any means so satisfac- tory as we could wish. Genera can be determined with comparative accuracy. Thus we have no doubt that one of our Tottenville fossils is a willow, though what particular species, it is impossible to say; another is undoubtedly an evergreen, allied to our juniper or arborvitae. The larger specimens are probably wil- lows, viburnums, and sour gums. There are also a few fragments with parallel veins, —no doubt, belong- ing to the grasses, —a small fruit or nut, and a piece of what appears to be an equisetum or horse-tail rush. These, with other indistinguishable fragments, complete our list. Cambridge entomological club. Dec. 14. — Mrs. A. K. Dimmock showed a collection representing stages of thirty-eight species of insects SCIENCE. 25 which are foung’ upon Betula alba, the white birch, which will be given later in Psyche. Mr. G. Dimmock showed the two halves of a split wing of Attacus cecropia, in which the two layers of the wing had been separated by the following mode. The wing from a specimen that had never been dried is put first into seventy per cent alcohol, then into absolute alcohol, and from the latter, after a few days’ immersion, into turpentine. After remaining a day or two in turpentine, the specimen is plunged sud- denly into hot water, when the conversion of the tur- pentine into vapor between the two layers of the wings so far separates these layers that they can be easily . parted and mounted in the usual way as miscroscopi- cal preparations on a slide. This is an easy way of demonstrating the sac-like nature of the wings of insects. Dr. H. A. Hagen showed preparations to illustrate organs of undetermined function, found on the larvae of Gomphidae, Libellulidae, and Aeschnidae, but not as yet found on Agrionidae, which he believes to be traces of segmentai organs. The organs in ques- tion are little cavities or invaginations of the epider- mis between the segments, one on each side of the median ventral line, on one, two, or three abdominal segments, according to the family to which the larva belongs. Ottawa microscopical society. Dec. 18. — Mr. Henry M. Ami read a paper on the use of the microscope in determining fossils, with especial reference to the Monticuliporidae. Late microscopic investigations proved that the more minute organisms found in our rocks were both deserving and requiring such careful investigations; for geologists had been led into erroneous ideas re- garding the particular horizon, and range in geologi- cal time, of certain species of these fossils from the mere cursory examination given them. Later pale- ontologists, pursuing their researches in a more scientific manner, had recourse to thin sections of these Monticuliporidae, or fossil Polyzoa, by means of which the true external and internal structures of the zoarium or skeleton of the genera and species belonging to this family were satisfactorily ascer- tained. The work of foundation and means devised by Dr. Nicholson (at one time a professor in one of our Cana- dian universities) inaugurated a new erain the study of these interesting forms. The mode of procedure in preparing thin sections of these fossils was then considered and explained. The different kinds — tan- gential, longitudinal, transverse, and axial sections — were described, and illustrations of them exhibited in charcoal drawings of some of the common species - found about Ottawa city, — Prasopora Selwyni Nichol- son, Batostoma ottawaense Foord, and Monotrypella trentonensis Nicholson; the various points exhibited in these sections —such as the large and smaller tubes; cystoid, curved, and straight diaphragm or floors; the spiniform tubuli, etc. — were then de- scribed, showing how minutely and accurately their structures and affinities can by this means be detected. ‘ 26 SCTE NCE There was still a rich and wide field open for inves- tigation in the study of the Monticuliporidae; and care should be taken first to ascertain with the new and more scientific means the true relations and affinities of the species described previous to 1881. Mr. Whiteaves exhibited a choice series of recent Polyzoa for comparison with the fossils described in the paper. Ottawa field-naturalists’ club. Dec. 20.— Mr. James Fletcher read a paper entitled ‘Notes on the Flora ottawaensis, with special refer- ence to the introduced plants,’ which was explana- tory of the lists of plants hitherto published by the club, and in which the non-indigenous species are not indicated. Mr. Fletcher first defined the district from which the plants had been collected, and which lies within a circle of twelve miles radius. He then noted certain of the more interesting of rare or intro- duced species, and presented lists tabulating the lat- ter plants under the headings of ‘ Aggressive species,’ ‘Species able to perpetuate themselves indefinitely,’ ‘Species dying out after short periods,’ ete. An animated discussion ensued, confined principally to the conditions affecting introduced plants, and the spreading of certain species. Philosophical society of Washington; Mathematical section. Dec. 19. —Mr. M. H. Doolittle gave a paper on the rejection of doubtful observations, in which obsery- , [VoL. IIL, No. 4 , ing-errors were sharply divided into two classes, — those resulting from blunders in recording, pointing on wrong objects, neglect of essential precautions in instrumental adjustment, etc.; and those resulting from an unusual accumulation of similar elements of error. The latter class, because by their magnitude in one direction they indicate that the remaining ob- servations are in error in the opposite direction, he proposed to call instructive errors, and claimed that the larger they were the more instructive, and the greater the necessity of retaining them. In practice, however, the best rule with suspected observations is to reject them when they exceed the limit of error pos- sible to the ‘instructive’ class, and when they fall within it to assign a weight proportional to the chance that the error belongs to the latter class, and not the former. As the law of distribution of the former class of errors (if any such law exist) is very different from the recognized law of the latter class, these questions cannot be decided by computation with a ‘criterion,’ but must be left to the judgment. Prof. A. Hall gave as a general result of the debate of this vexed question by Peirce, Airy, De Morgan, Stone, Glaisher, Chauvenet, Gould, Winlock, and others, that every one can devise a criterion that suits himself, but it will not please other people. Hestrong-- ly opposed using such machinery in the discussion of observations as eliminated the knowledge. and judgment of the investigator, and giving to results a fictitious accuracy by any sweeping rejection of dis- cordant data. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Topographical field-work. — Mr. H. M. Wilson, in charge of one of the topographical parties in Prof. A. H. Thompson’s Wingate division, surveyed, dur- ing the season of 1883, about ten thousand square miles in north-western New Mexico and north-eastern Arizona. The area covered by his work lies between parallels of latitude 36° and 37°, and extends from meridian 109° to 111°. He also worked some smaller detached areas outside of the limits thus indicated. This region has hitherto remained a terra incognita, partly on account of its aridity and barren condition, and partly on account of the difficulty of traversing it. So little has been known of it, that within the area surveyed by Mr. Wilson a small mountain range has been indicated as occupying two places on the Same map. On the engineer’s map of 1879 it is called Calabesa Mountains in the northern place, and Squash Mountains in the southern; and, on the land-office map for 1882, both areindicated without names. Mr. Wilson’s work proves that they are one and the same, occupying a position very close to that assigned to the Squash Mountains. ; On the 11th of September Mr. Wilson and one of his men made the ascent of Navajo Mountain (called by the Indians Nat-sis-aii), and they are probably: the first white men who have ever stood upon its summit. Navajo Mountain lies on or near the line between Utah and Arizona, and is a dome-shaped mass rising about four thousand feet above the gen- eral level of the surrounding country, and sixty-five hundred feet above the beds of the San Juan and Colorado rivers, which are close to its base, the for- mer on the north, and the latter on the west. Its ele- vation above sea-level is ten thousand four hundred feet. It slopes abruptly, especially on the east, to a: plateau of six to seven thousand feet, which extends south-eastward for fifteen or twenty miles to the cafion where Mr. Wilson left his pack-train in camp.: This was on a trail that leads to Fort Defiance, vid the north side of the Mesa de la Vaca and the valley of the Rio de Chelly. Another trail leads south- ward to Mo-eu-kap-i (a Mormon settlement) and to Oraybe and the other Moqui villages. From a point a few miles south of the Navajo Mountain, a third trail leads westward to Lee’s Ferry, on the Colorado River. Mr. Wilson thinks there is also a trail leading’ to the mountain from the north-west. He says all the trails in this section are exceedingly rough and difficult to travel, on account of the numerous cafions, of five hundred to a thousand feet in depth, which are cut into the red sandstones (triassic?) that form the JANUARY 4, 1884.] surface-1ock of the country. On the summit of the mountain, which is about a mile in length, a brownish sandstone oecurs, which may possibly be Jurassic or even cretaceous; but all the rocks are probably refer- able to the Jura-trias, with the exception of some dark igneous rocks which occur as dikes on the slopes of the mountain. Within about a thousand feet of the summit is a spring of good water, where there is a good camping-place. The slopes are timbered; scrubby firs and balsams occurring on the top, with scrub-oaks below, and tall pines still lower down. Among the latter are many beautiful parks. The plateau-level surrounding the mountain is well covered with fine tall grass, over which are scattered patches of pifion pines and small areas of bare red sandstone. In the walls of a short cafion on the east side of the mountain, passed through by Mr. Wilson in hisascent, ruins of cliff or cave dwellings were seen in a cave or hollow in the rocks about five hundred feet above the bottom, and a hundred feet below the top. Ascent of Mount Shasta.— Mr. Clarence King, in his ‘ Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada,’ says, “‘ There is no reason why any one of sound wind and limbs should not, after a little mountaineering practice, be able tomake the Shastaclimb. There is nowhere the shadow of danger, and never areal piece of mountain climbing, — climbing, I mean, with hands and feet, — no scaling of walls, or labor involving other a than simple muscular endurance.”’ Mr. Gilbert Thompson, who, during the Batt sum- mer and fall, spent about two months in topographic work on the slopes and summit of Mount Shasta, in- dorses this statement of Mr. King, and would add that there is no reason why a train of pack-mules may not be taken to the top of the peak. Mr. Thompson and one of his packers (Thomas Watson), on Sept. 10, 1883, tied their riding-mules to the iron signal- post which marks the extreme summit of the cone, and are the first who have ever taken riding-animals to the top of Mount Shasta. On Oct. 12, 1883, the pack-train was taken to an altitude of 13,000 feet, and would have been taken to the top had not the early snows prevented. Another season, however, _Mr. Thompson expects to camp with hisentire train upon the summit of Mount Shasta, From one of his camps, at an elevation of 7,400 feet, it required seven hours to go to the top with the riding-animals, while one member of the party, starting from the same camp on foot (taking, of course, amore direct route), reached the summit after a climb of six hours. It took two hours to get back to this camp, and three- quarters of an hour sufficed for the return to the camp which was located at the elevation of 13,000 feet. Mr. King and his party in September, 1870, made the as- cent from thenorth-west. The first day they left their riding-animals at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, and climbed as far as the crater on the north-western spur, which point they reached about half-past one o’ clock in the afternoon. They spent the night here, and on the following day, after a climb of four hours and a half, reached the summit. Mr. Thompson’s ascent, mentioned above, was along a spur that ex- SCIENCE. 27 tends toward the south-east. Up this spur he says there is a natural trail, only 500 or 600 feet of which will require any work to make it perfectly safe for mules or horses with packs. The route described by Mr. King, and the one vid a south-western spur, are the routes usually followed by those who make the ascent from Strawberry valley, on the west side of the mountain. One member of Mr. Thompson’s party climbed the mountain also from the east, which makes, altogether, four different routes by which it has been ascended. Mr. Thompson says there are two other possible ways by which the mountain can be climbed. These are on the north-east side. He reports, also, that there are seven glaciers located on the north and east slopes of Mount Shasta. Those on the north and north-east are connected at their heads. A north-west and south-east line would divide the glacier-bearing side of the mountain from the non- glacier-bearing half. However, some of the fields of snow and ice on the west side have considerable re- semblance to glaciers, and may eventually be so de- termined. Mr. Thompson suggests that Mount Shasta would be the best point in this part of the west for a perma- nent high meteorological station like those located on the summits of Mount Washington and Pike’s Peak. Among the several reasons for this opinion, he men- . tions its accessibility, and the presence of hot-springs, which might be utilized in heating such a station, but more especially the fact that it is an isolated peak, rising high above the surrounding low country, and free, therefore, from the disturbing meteorological conditions induced by the presence of contiguous mountain ranges. Mount Shasta, Mr. Thompson says, does not belong to the Sierra Nevada nor to the Cascade Range, but stands alone. During the season a line of levels was begun at Berryville, where connection was made with the rail- road level, and carried some distance up the moun- tain. Next year this line will probably be carried to the summit of the peak. NOTES AND NEWS. THE Society of naturalists of the eastern United States, whose organization and aims were described in Science last spring, held a very successful and in- teresting meeting at Columbia college, New York, on Thursday and Friday of last week. The attend- ance was very large, and included many distinguished men. The membership has grown very rapidly, and now includes a large majority of the leading profes- sional naturalists of the eastern states. The papers presented were of a high character, and many of them provoked a discussion such as is rarely heard in any scientific body; for seldom are so many men, devoted to one branch of pure science, gathered to- gether. The communications, almost without excep- tion, referred to problems of practical interest, and dealt especially with methods and the organization of scientific work, and also with methods of teaching. Upon methods were read several papers, — Pro- 28 fessor James Hall, On a method of preparing rock- sections; Prof. B. G. Wilder, On the preservation of hollow organs, particularly the heart and brain; Prof. S. H. Gage, On the uses of peroxide of hydrogen in preparing skeletons; Dr. George Dimmock, On the uses of carminic acid in microscopical work; Mr. ‘J. H. Emerton, On models of gigantic cephalopods; Dr. E. B. Wilson, On methods of section-cutting. Upon organization we may note Professor Wilder’s paper, On the arrangement of a museum of verte- brates, and Professor Cope’s, On academies of science in America, etc. Among the educational communi- cations were those of Dr. Wadsworth, Upon methods of teaching in petrography and mineralogy, and Pro- fessor Bickmore’s, Upon methods of teaching em- ployed at the American museum, etc. The meeting surpassed in interest all expectations, and assures the future standing and prominence of the society, which, although so young, is yet through its member- ship so strong. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: president, Professor Alpheus Hyatt; vice-presidents, Profs. H. N. Martin and A. S. Packard, jun.; secretary, Dr. Charles S. Minot; treasurer, Professor William B. Scott; members at large of the executive committee, Profs. H.C. Lewis and Lester F. Ward. — The Swiss earthquake of 1881 had its centre of intensity in Berne and nearest vicinity, and is one of the best observed as to its extent and details. The geologic formation of the Swiss plateau, where the motions were most intensely felt, consists of a ter- tiary sandstone of unknown depth, called molasse, while the limestone rocks of the northern Alpine belt and of the Jura ridge were scarcely touched by it. Prof. Dr. A. Forster, the director of the telluric observatory at Berne, has collected a large amount of well-ascertained details on this earthquake, and pub- lished it in an interesting quarto memoir of twenty- nine pages, — ‘Das erdbeben der schweizerischen hochebene vom 27 Januar 1881 (Berner beben),’ Berne, B. F. Haller. The scientific results obtained by him may be summed up as follows: the principal shock occurred on Jan. 27, in the afternoon, at 2h. 19m, 58 sec., and was preceded and followed by light oscillations of the soil. It took place at a coincidence of the perihelion with the perigee, the new moon be- ing two days and a half later. There were no dis- turbances of terrestrial magnetism noticed for several days before and after; but a long period of frost had just given way to a sudden thaw, and the upper cul-, mination of the moon had occurred five hours before. The whole area of seismic motion, with its longitu- dinal axis of two hundred and sixty kilometres, expe- rienced the shock at one and the same astronomic time. following the shock took place simultaneously upon the whole line. In the majority of places, villages, etc., it consisted of a brief, succussory shaking, fol- lowed immediately by a few lateral and less energetic oscillations, all of them possessing a direction run- ning approximately from east to west. The mean duration was but three to four seconds, the intensity varying from three to eight degrees of the Swiss- SCIENCE. There was no central shock, for the dislocation . Italian seismic seale. Noises usually, connecteiignlaaen the heavier earthquakes were heard by most observ- 24 ers who happened to be outdoors: they preceded the — shock or were synchronous with it, and none were is heard after the shock. South of Martleny (Valais) and north of Mulhouse (Alsace) no disturbance was noticed; though numerous oscillations had occurred one and two weeks before, in southern Germany, Piedmont, and Lombardy. Compare A. Heim, on ‘Swiss earthquakes in 1881,’ published in the Annu- al of the telluric observatory of Berne (1881). — Messrs. Cassino & Co. and Estes & Lauriat, of Boston, have issued a prospectus of the ‘Standard — natural history,’,—a work in six volumes, imperial octavo, fully illustrated, and under the editorship of Dr. Elliott Coues and Mr. J. S. Kingsley. The staff of writers announced consists of forty-two names, including the larger part of our best-known authors, — and all are men of repute. The first volume, on the lower vertebrates, will be by W. K. Brooks, S. F. Clarke, J. W. Fewkes, A. Hyatt, C. S. Minot, A. S. Packard, and others; the second, on the arthropods, by E. A. Birge, J. H. Comstock, A. J. Cook, J. H. Emerton, G. H. Horn, J. S. Kingsley, A. S. Packard, C.V. Riley, P. R. Uhler, ete. ; the third, on the lower vertebrates, by E. D. Cope, T. Gill, S. Garman, D. 8S. Jordan, etc. ; the fourth, on birds, by Dr. Elliott Coues alone; the fifth, on mammals, by E. D. Cope, E. Coues, T. Gill, S. Lockwood, G. Macloskié, R. R. Wright, and others; and the sixth, on the races of man, by C. C. Abbott, L. Carr, W. H. Dall, F. W. Putnam, and S. Salisbury. The work will be published in about sixty serial parts, of forty-eight pages each. The numbers already issued leave nothing to be desired in typography, good taste, and excellence in illustration; and we heartily wish so serious a ven- ture every success. — A new work on the ‘‘ Theory of deflections and of latitudes and departures, with special applications to curvilinear surveys for alignments of railway- tracks’’ is in press by Van Nostrand. The author, Isaac W. Smith, is an engineer for some time con- nected with the construction bureau of the Northern Pacific railroad. | — ‘The legends of the Panjab,’ in monthly num- bers from August, 1883, by Capt. R. C. Temple, Bengal staff corps, records, in a form useful to in- vestigators, the stories and legends preserved in the memories of the wandering bards of the Panjab. The legends are given in original in the Roman char- acter, exactly as they were fan down from the lips of the narrators, with translations. The work is be- ing published at the Education society’s press, Bom- bay, and by Triibner & Co., Ludgate Hill, London. — ‘The Nautical almanac and astronomical ephem- | eris for the meridian of the Royal observatory at Greenwich’ for the year 1887, commonly known as — tk of the British nautical almanac, was published in Lon- don late in November. sales of this publication for the last ave 7 picoany exceeded 15,500 ani ti j : According to Nature, the ~ SCIENCE. FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. TxHeE authorities at Washington show hope- ful signs of an interest in the administration of the Naval observatory by proposing the ap- pointment of three eminent astronomers as a board of visitors, who shall annually inspect the establishment, advise with the superintend- ent respecting the scientific portion of his duties, and report to the secretary of the navy. This measure was recommended by the secre- tary in his annual report, with the hope that many of the objections now urged against the administration might thus be removed. That he should have expected such a result from this simple measure, leads us to doubt whether the grounds of the objections referred to are fully appreciated, and to suspect that the sub- ject is viewed too much from the stand-point of the politician. The astronomers of the coun- try stand in readiness to give any department of the government any advice which they are assured will be followed, at least in spirit ; but they have no taste for the cheap compli- ment of being consulted for the pleasure of the thing. That fondness of being ‘ con- sulted,’ that appreciation of the privilege of giving advice, and that love of carrying ‘weight’ in public affairs, which are so strong in the breast of the politician, are nearly un- known among eminent astronomers. The lat- ter have too many more important affairs on hand to permit of their enjoying the pleasures and duties which fall annually to the boards of visitors of the naval and military academies. They are quite ready to give the government the benefit of their advice, provided they have some assurance that the advice will be acted upon, but not otherwise. Their complaint against the observatory is not that they are not sufficiently consulted, but that the organiza- tion of the establishment does not fulfil the No. 49.— 1883. condition which common sense shows to be necessary to the efficient administration of a scientific institution. We have already pointed out what we be- lieve to be the chief administrative wants of the observatory. Briefly summarized, they are, a well-considered plan of operations, to be devised by the highest expert talent of the country, within or without the establishment, and to be obligatory upon the superintendent, and such an organization as shall give reason- able assurance that the plan agreed upon shall be carried out in all the details necessary to its success. For a mere board of advice, it is difficult to see the slightest necessity. The observatory has never been without one or more able astronomers, whose advice the superintendent can command whenever he desires, and who have the great advantage of an intimate acquaintance with the instruments and other means at the disposal of the super- intendent. If there is any difficulty in getting and using advice from this ‘source, it is be- cause the situation is such that something else is needed. JAPAN may well be proud of the honors that have just been won by two of her sons in two of the best universities in Germany. A gold medal was offered about a year ago, by the University of Leipzig, for the best original work that should be produced within a year, on the embryology of the fresh-water planari- ans. The subject is a very difficult one, and on this account has hitherto received very little attention. Mr. Isao lijima, formerly a student in the University of Tokio, under Professor Morse, and subsequently under Mr. Whitman, was one of the few students selected by the Japanese government in 1882 to be sent to German universities. Mr. Iijima began work at Leipzig, in the laboratory of Professor Leuckart, early in the spring of 1882. At the 30 suggestion of Professor Leuckart, he turned his attention to the subject announeed for the prize. From the report of the rector, Pro- fessor His, which was read at the last Rector- wahl, it appears that the prize has been awarded to Mr. Iijima. The following remarks, taken from the printed report, will certainly be of interest to all who are watching the course of events in Japan : — ‘¢ The work receives the highest commenda- tion of the faculty. With regard to its actual contents, it must be pronounced a highly suc- cessful work. It is rich in fine observation and thoughtful discussion, and furnishes the best evidence of the ability, knowledge, and insight of the author. It is a permanent gain for zodlogy, inasmuch as it places in clear light the organization and development of a croup of animals, which, notwithstanding the importance of its systematic relations, was hitherto very imperfectly understood. Aperta scidula repertum est nomen auctoris, Isao Tijima.”’ In Berlin another Japanese student, whose name we have not obtained, has recently been appointed, over the heads of able competitors, to the post of assistant in anatomy. Tue report of the secretary of the navy for 1883 contains a repetition of his recommenda- tions of last year, that all national work con- nected with the ocean, carried on by other departments, should be transferred to the navy department, to be supervised and performed by naval officers. Most important among the transfers suggested is that of the coast-survey, which is now under the -treasury. This he would have placed under the naval hydro- graphic office, because there are now sixty- seven naval officers and two hundred and eighty seamen employed in the coast-survey ; and he adds, that in view of the facts that no part of the hydrographic work of the coast- survey has the faintest traceable connection with the general purposes of the treasury, that its effectual performance is of vital importance to the navy, and that an office exists to-day in the navy department where similar work is SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL., No. 49, necessarily carried on, it is inconceivable why so inconvenient, artificial, and indefensible an arrangement should be perpetuated. The secretary ignores the fact that the work which these officers perform is routine, the plans and methods for which have been de- vised and developed by civilian experts; and he fails to compare the character and quality of the work which the hydrographic office and the coast-survey have performed, and to show that an improvement in the quantity or quality of work would be consequent on the transfer. Since, then, the present method of employ- ing our superfluous navy, under the intelli- gent supervision of civilian experts, works no injustice to the navy, and since it is and has been found essential to employ civilian experts to carry on the work of the hydrographic office, we see no benefit which can result from the transfer, except the aggrandizement of the navy; and we doubt if this be a sufficient rea- son. Should the efforts of Mr. Chandler to absorb all the national work on the ocean prove successful, the fish-commission, like the coast- survey, must be transferred to the navy de- partment. Tue red glow in the skies long after sunset and before sunrise has attracted the attention of every one in all parts of the world during the last few months. As showing the hesita- tion of physicists to attack the matter, it is singular that nothing on the subject had been sent to us until within three weeks, since which time a number of letters, describing the appear- ance as seen by single observers, have been received. In this number an article is printed in which the facts at the disposal of the sig- nal-service are made use of, and the often- broached Java earthquake theory, which has so many adherents among the best scientifie men, is again put forward. The not incon- siderable upheaval in Alaska may also have played its part. It would be interesting to know if the records of earlier times contain — any mention of similar red skies following ~ large volcanic eruptions. if JANUARY 11, 1884.] LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to beas brief as possible. The writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. Sense of direction. I HAVE been much interested in the different meth- ods of preserving the relative situation of places, as given in late numbers of Science, and will venture to add my own experience. I refer all objects to two rectangular co-ordinate . axes which agree with the cardinal points. In all places where I feel at home, these lines are conscious- ly present, and all roads running north and south, or east and west, coincide with, or seem to be parallel to, these axes. All places which I have visited, from Massachusetts to Nebraska, are, with few exceptions, connected together in one system. The principal origin of this system is in the north- west corner of a schoolhouse in Hamilton county, O. There, when a boy, I sat under the direction of a teacher to study geography. With face toward the north, I looked through a window along the meridian. I could at pleasure see east or west, or, if need be, south, through opposite windows. A thorough course in geography fixed in my mind the axes of my sys- tem, which have been present with me ever since, a secondary origin going with me everywhere. All places with which I am familiar form parts of this system, and any new place visited is immediately referred to its proper location. Now for the exceptions. There was another school- house, where I attended sometimes, at which I was turned a quarter round. East was north, south was east, etc. I account for the anomaly in this way: in going to the schoolhouse where my system was fixed, I went east, along a road from which I turned to the left into the south or front door of the school- house; but, in going to the second school mentioned, I went through fields into a road along which I passed toward the south some distance, and then turned toward the left into the west or front door of the schoolhouse. [I lost the direction of my axes of refer- ence in crossing the fields; so that the west side of the new schoolhouse seemed to coincide with the south of the old, and thus unconsciously my axes were turned aquarterround. No plan I could adopt had the least effect in changing the apparent position of the cardinal points. Many a laugh was raised at my expense because of my promptness in pointing in wrong directions; and to this day, after nearly half a century, if I wish to think of directions from that schoolhouse, I am obliged to change my first decisions through an angle of ninety degrees, ‘Washington City is another place which is entirely out of my system. [I entered the city after nightfall. Somewhere between Baltimore and Washington, I lost my co-ordinate axes, so that, when I came to con- sider directions, Pennsylvania Avenue was turned half round, east was west, west, east; and I had not and have not the least sense of north or south. No study of maps, and no thinking over the subject, has the least effect in arranging things properly. Boston is another place which is not in my regular system. In that city and vicinity, Washington Street _takes the place of my usual east and west axis, and the street that leads to Mount Auburn is the other axis; but these are not in my mind coincident with my principal axes. Mistakes made at different times have been quite a study to me. Once, in a city which is regularly laid out, going along the west side of a street toward the south, I crossed the street, and turned toward the north upon the opposite side, and went into an office SCIENCE. 31 at my right hand. Coming out, and wishing to con- tinue my course toward the south, I really went north, and spent several minutes before I could convince myself of my error. Possibly the mistake arose in the following manner. I lost my axes in passing from the street-crossing to the sidewalk, and turned north when I supposed I turned south; going into the office toward the right, Iseemed to go west; com- ing from the office, I seemed to be going east; and turning to the right, I was to my mind going south. It is my custom to travel with a map before me; and, on visiting a city for the first time, I secure a plan and study the direction of the principal streets, obtaining correct knowledge of the points of compass, I then carefully classify my acquisitions, and com- monly have no difficulty in finding my way without a guide. Mitton L. Comstock. Knox college, Galesburg, Ill. Barn-owls in southern Ohio. Until recently barn-owls have been of rare or accidental occurrence in this part of the Ohio valley. In the records of the birds in the vicinity of Cincin- nati, there were only three specimens noted; and in the record of the birds of Franklin county (Indiana), there has been a vacancy under the head of this species. On Oct. 25, 1883, I was pleased to have a friend bring me a fine male of this species, killed within a half-mile of this town. Soon after this a number of specimens were taken near Cincinnati, at Glendale, where they had taken up their quarters in the town-hall; and others were killed near Jones Station, O. In all, this makes fourteen specimens that I know to have been taken within fifty miles of Cincinnati. A. W. BUTLER. Brookville society of natural history, Brookville, Ind. Phosphates in North Carolina. The successful exploration last spring, under the direction of our board of agriculture, of the large beds of phosphatic nodules embedded in marl in New Han- over and Pender counties, started the search for phos- phates in North Carolina again. Stray coprolites had frequently been found; but these nodules, forming beds four to five feet thick, and extending through the country for twenty miles or more, suggested an origin different from that of the true coprolite. Phosphatic rock has recently been discovered in the up-country, which corresponds exactly to the water-worn nodules entering into the calcareous con- glomerate of the lower Cape Fear. In the latter region, about Wilmington, and twenty miles above, we find the nodules embedded in, and forming the lowest layer of, a ground and hardened eocene marl. The nodules show the same fossils, but differ from the marl in the large amount of sand they contain. They vary in composition from fifteen to fifty-two per cent of phosphate of lime, neighbor- ing fragments having often very varied composition, of all shapes, but mostly kidney and egg shaped; perforated; color, gray to greenish black; specific gravity, 2.6 to 2.7. Freshly broken or rubbed, they give the odor of burnt powder characteristic of such phosphates. Higher up the country, in Sampson, Duplin, and Jones counties, we find the eocene marl above, and the phosphatic rock below, in distinctly separate lay- ers. Here the formation is such as to leave little doubt that the rock is phosphatized marl (according to Holmes’s theory), and not true coprolites. It is found in large indented slabs, six to eighteen inches thick, and weighing sometimes several tons, or in 32 - smaller pieces, evidently broken from this, and some- what worn. ‘This rock presents all of the character- istics and all of the grades of the nodules found in the marl] conglomerate, —the same shells, same large amount of sand, and the same appearance. The character of the rock changes gradually here. Be- tween Warsaw and Kenansville it is richest, yielding forty to fifty per cent phosphate, while both east and west it grows more sandy. Between Sampson on the west and Jones on the east we find all the grades of rock which were found in a single place in the con- glomerate beds of the lower country. We conclude, therefore, that this conglomerate was formed from extensive breaking up and mingling of beds similar to those seen at the present time in Sampson, Duplin, and Jones counties, and not from stray coprolites, as has been supposed. Whether this field will yield any phosphate of more than local value depends upon conditions yet to be determined. CHas. W. DABNEY, Jun. N. C. experiment-station, Jan. 2. Radiant heat. While it appears that Mr. Fitzgerald’s criticism upon Dr. Eddy’s hypothesis is conclusive, yet the latter makes a statement in your issue of Dec. 21 which is misleading, since it implies that the device will produce the desired result. Dr. Eddy says, — ‘‘Thus the fact remains, that, although a definite amount of heat from B remains entangled in the region mn, which is not increased with the lapse of time, there is a continued passage of heat through this region into B, that being the very object sought to be accomplished by my process.”’ l m n 4 aa i | , | Now, the fact is, there cannot be ‘a continued pas- sage of heat through this region into B,’ without permitting the passage of heat from B to A, by any of the processes described. Granting that heat is entrapped in the space m n, it will escape into the space 1 m whenever the door y is opened for the pas- sage of heat from A into the space m n; and the heat so entrapped in the space lm will pass on to A whenever x is opened to admit heat from A. This is so plain, that it is only necessary to call attention to the fact, to have it admitted. If the only object sought, as stated in the above extract, was to permit the passage of heat from A to B, it could be secured at once without any device between A and B. As originally stated, the object was to transfer more heat from A, the colder body, to B, the hotter one, than was passed in the opposite direction. The writer has shown in another place! that Dr. Eddy’s system of moving screens fails to accomplish this result. ° DE Vouson Woop. Limits of tertiary in Alabama. The announcement in Science (ii. 777) of Profes- sor Johnson’s extension of the border-line of the tertiary in Alabama to a position ten miles north of 1 American engineer, Chicago, 1883, Jan. 12, Feb. 9, 23, and April 6; also Journ. Frankl. inst., May, 1883, 347. SCIENCE. [Vor. IIL, No. 49. Allenton, and six north of Camden, recalls similar observations made by Alexander Winchell in 1853, and published in Proc. Amer. assoc. adv. sc. for 1856, © pp. 88, 89. These sub-Claiborne beds he designated ‘buff sand;’ and the overlying ledge of calcareous grit was traced by him ‘‘ eight and a half miles north of Allenton, which ”’ was ‘‘ twenty-five miles farther north than the tertiary beds had been hitherto recog- nized in this part of the state.’’ The undescribed fossils collected were left with Professor Tuomey, who pronounced them eocene, and held them for de- scription till his death in 1857. A few years later the vicissitudes of war involved the destruction of the — Tuscaloosa cabinet by fire. Mr. Winchell’s observa- tions were communicated orally in December, 1853, to Professor Tuomey, who noted them down on a manuscript map, from which was compiled the map published in 1858 in Tuomey’s (posthumous) second report, edited by Mallet. This places the boundary of the eocene a mile north of Allenton, which, as shown above, is not so far north as Winchell traced the formation. There is, however, nothing in the text of the report on which any change in the older map of this region could be based. Professor Tuo- mey’s observations had been directed to other parts of the state; and Mr. Thornton, his assistant, reports tracing this line through Monroe county, while the map shows it located nine or ten miles north of that county, and, if fully conformed to information in Professor Tuomey’s possession, would have shown it seventeen and a half miles north. These statements are only important on the principle of swum cuique. Italics for scientific names. The scientific name of every described plant and animal consists of two or more words: namely, that of the genus, used as a substantive; and the specific name, which follows, and is an adjective adjunct. A species may have a dozen or a hundred common or vulgar names, in half as many languages; but there is only one name in the dead, unchanging, scientific nomenclature. It seems to me that the importance of scientific names, over all others, makes them de- serving of a more emphatic type than that of the gen- eral text. In the ordinary print—as that of this — page of Science—any scientific name should be given in italics. Take, for example, the American larch, tamarack, or hackmatack. This tree of our swamps may have many local names, but it has only one in science the whole world over. The emphasis of this fact is largely lost if it is written without an under- score, or printed thus, Larix Americana. It would be only a short step farther to have it larix améri- cana. It does not follow that names of groups need to be italicized. Thus we can have the order Liliaceae, which contains the genus Lilium with its Canada lily (Lilium Canadense), the golden-banded lily of Japan (Z. auratum), and L. candidum, or the common white lily. Quercus, Pinus, Prunus, Ranunculus, and the thousands of other genera of plants and animals, when used alone, may be set in the common type of the. page, and stand thus, —quercus, pinus, prunus, and ranunculus; but I do not like it. Many of the ge- neric names are derived from proper names, as Lin- naea, Magnolia, Tournefortia, Begonia, etc.; and these certainly should begin with capitals. When, however, the name of any genus is the common name of all the plants in that genus, it is reasonable to use it without a capital, when employed in a general way. _We may say of a plant, it is a fine begonia, or a stately magnolia, or a delicate linnaea, and the absence of JANUARY 11, 1884.] capital letters is well enough, even though the names have been derived from proper names; but, if we say -it is a choice specimen of Begonia Rez, the case is different. The word ‘begonia’ now becomes a part of the scientific name of a species of plant. In the same manner the stately magnolia may be Magnolia glauca or M. grandiflora. Science does not use emphatic type for the scien- tific names of genera or species, and doubtless for good reasons. I should like to learn what views the editor and other authorities in scientific nomenclature hold on the above subject. Byron D. HALSTED. - New York, Dee. 31, 1883. [We do not agree with our correspondent in his estimate of the value of the scientific names of plants and animals. They are a simple convenience, and have no higher value; and the use of italics for their proper mission — that of emphasis, or as catch-words — is lost if the page bristles with italics having other meaning. ] - The skidor in the United States. In Science, No. 44, mention is made, in Norden- skidld’s account of the Greenland inland ice, of the ‘skidor,’ or Norwegian snow-shoe. teresting to your readers to know that it is the snow- shoe most commonly used in Colorado. It is much preferred to the Canadian or web snow-shoe, and in the mountains in winter is often the only means of getting about from place to place —as from the mines on the mountains to the towns, and from one small mining town to another— when there is not enough travel to keep a road open through the deep snow. I know of one case in which a daily mail is carried twenty-five miles on snow-shoes; two men having the route, each making a single trip in a day, but going - in opposite directions. The motion can hardly be called ‘running,’ as it is in the footnote on p. 7387, as the shoes are not lifted from the surface of the snow at all, but slid forward at each step, the foot being raised slightly at the heel as in commen- cing a step in ordinary walking. The shoes that I have seen are from six to eight feet long, and about four inches wide. A pole about seven feet long is used as a guide and support, especially in sliding down hill, when a tremendous pace is often attained on a long slope. E. R. WARREN. Colorado Springs, Jan. 1. Standard thermometers. In your editorial in this week’s Science you quote the report of the chief signal-officer of the army, im- plying that a sensible difference exists between the theoretical standard thermometer adopted by this observatory and that of the International committee of weights and measures, and that the signal-service of the army has adopted a new standard thermome- ter more nearly agreeing with the latter. I should be very greatly obliged to the chief signal- officer if he will anticipate the regular course of pub- lication of. the scientific work of his office, and give to the scientific public the results, at least, of the work from which it is concluded that the signal-service of the army has reached a nearer approximation to the Standard thermometer of the International commit- tee. I have no doubt that there is a small difference be- tween the standard air thermometer and the particu- lar mercurial standard adopted by this observatory as its practical representative, at points distant from the freezing and boiling points; but, as our own stand- It may be in-: SCIENCE. 33 ard has never been compared with any air standard in the possession of the signal-service of the army, I shall be quite interested to see the work by which it is concluded that there exists a sensible difference between the two. LEONARD WALDO. Dec. 31, 18838. Romalea microptera. In 1879, in Alabama, I had many opportunities for observing the habits of the ‘lubber grasshopper;’ and, if my memory serves me, my observation showed that the hissing referred to by Capt. Shufeldt (Science, ii., 813) is due in large part to the forcible expulsion of air from the thoracic spiracles. It was always no- ticed on the occasions referred to by him, but at no other time. A. YT: Synchronism of geological formations. I cannot agree with Professor Heilprin in the line of argument adopted in his letter to Science of Dec. 21, based, as it mainly is, on the assumed non- occurrence of ‘evidence of inversion.’ Professor Heilprin asks, ‘‘ Why has it just so happened that a fauna characteristic of a given period has invariably succeeded one which, when the two are in superposi- tion all over the world (so far as we are aware), in- dicates precedence in creation or origination, and never one that can be shown to be of a later birth ?”’ In reply I would say, that some years previous to Professor Huxley’s address on this subject, Bar- rande, in his ‘Systeme Silurien de la Bohéme,’ had shown such evidences of inversion to exist in the Silurian formation of Bohemia; and though many ‘geologists and paleontologists disagreed with Bar- rande at that time, as to his theory of ‘ colonies’ by which to account for the facts, yet none could dis- pute the facts cited by him. If we now turn to the old red sandstone of Scotland, we find still further evidences of inversion of like kind; for, while the crustacean genus Pterygotus, common to both the upper Silurian and lower old red sandstone, has been recently found also high up in “the middle series of this formation, the carboniferous limestone shells, Productus giganteus, P. punctatus, Spirifer lineatus, and others, have been found in the old red sandstone far below the fish genera Pterichthys and Holopty- chius, so characteristic of: the upper old red division. Though there appears to be no reason why such in- stances of inversion should not have occurred over and over again, one can readily understand why, through the imperfection of the geological record, and the comparatively small fraction of the earth’s surface which has been systematically examined, their occurrence is almost unknown. With reference to the doctrine of migration, I judge, that, from Professor Heilprin’s argument, we look at the matter from two different stand-points. He ap- parently takes no account of the generally accepted view of biologists, that, while organic development has been closely similar in all parts of the world, the rate at which it proceeded has varied within the widest limits, even in adjacent regions. I cannot help looking on the various formations as the records of that development; and, judging of the past distri- bution of life on the earth from what we at present see before us, I am forced to believe that identity of organic contents in widely separated strata, instead of being evidence of chronological contemporaneity, is exactly the reverse. Instead of encroaching further on your valuable space, I would refer to Prof. A. Geikie, who, in the current issue of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th 34 edition, subject geology, part 5), gives exactly that view of the matter which I consider the logical basis on which Professor Huxley rested his argument, and which recent researches have in no way tended to upset. E. NUGENT. Pottstown, Dec. 27, 1883. SIR CHARLES WILLIAM SIEMENS. Carv WILHELM Siemens died in London on the 20th of November last, at the age of sixty. This distinguished man, better known to the people of Great Britain and the United States as Charles William Siemens, one of eight sons of Ferdinand Siemens, was born at Lenthe, near Hannover, April 4, 1823. Hewas one of a family of men of science several of whom have become well known by their success in the invention and introduction of improvements and modification of standard methods of engi- neering and metallurgical work. Among these, his brother, Ernst Werner Siemens, is the most famous. The two brothers have worked together, with frequent assistance from a younger brother, Friedrich, in nearly every field of applied science. They have been most successful in the departments of metallurgy and electricity. The elder brother, Ernst, entered the army of Prussia, joining the artillery ; and Carl was sent to the University of Gottingen. Carl re- ceived his preparatory education at the Gym- nasium of Lubeck and in the Art school of Magdeburg, near what was formerly the home of Otto von Guericke. After graduation from the university, he entered the Stolberg engi- neering-works, in 1842, as an apprentice, but remained only a year, leaving for the purpose of going to London to patent and introduce his first invention, the ‘ differential governor’ for steam-engines, and a method of silvering devised by his brother Ernst. He settled in London, opening an office as civil engineer, and making that city his home, becoming ‘ natural- ized’ in 1849, but frequently visiting Germany to meet his brothers, who finally joined him in business. In 1846 the brothers began the study of methods of economizing in the use. of fuel in metallurgical operations demanding high tem- peratures; and the result of their labors, in course of time, was seen in the invention of the Siemens regenerative furnace, —an invention which has since revolutionized the methods of production of steel and of heating iron, and _ which is still modifying all the industrial opera- tions dependent upon the attainment of maxi- mum heat in furnaces ; such as the manufacture of glass, and the reduction of ores of zine and SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 49. ‘ other ‘useful’ metals. In 1849 the brothers William and Werner, as they came to be called, — attracted the attention of all who were inter- ested in the applications of science by the an- nouncement of their invention of a method of ‘anastatic printing,’ modifications of which have now become generally introduced for the production of the simpler kinds of line-engray- ings. This invention greatly interested Pro- fessor Faraday, and he was very soon sufficient- ly well convinced of its value to volunteer to describe it in a lecture before the Royal insti- tution. His helpful aid was one of the most effective means of making the talented young inventors known and of giving them a start in a career bringing them continually increasing fame. Siemens next turned his attention to the new- ly announced dynamical theory of heat, and in 1847 adapted a ‘regenerator’ to a superheated steam-engine. Modifications of the governor for controlling the motion of clock-work were pro- posed by him at nearly the same time, and his ‘ chronometric governor’ has been long in use on the instruments of the Greenwich observa- tory. In1851 he brought out his water-meter, | —an instrument in which was a screw with its recording or indicating mechanism sealed in a chamber having a glass window, through which the readings could be made, and so free from friction that it gave most accurate measures of the flow. The regenerative furnace now began to take such shape that the brothers found it to their interest to devote their attention to that ; and in 1856 they worked the invention into such form that they could see in it the promise of complete success. By the year 1861 they had patented some of its’most essential features. The inventors succeeded in raising the neces- sary capital, and erected their furnace in works at Birmingham in 1866, and made steel by their process, which was exhibited at Paris at the in- ternational exhibition of the following year. The primary object held in view by the invent- ors was the manufacture of steel directly from the ore. In this they were less successful than in the making of the steel by mixture of wrought-iron scrap with cast iron on the hearth of their reverberatory furnace. ‘This last-named process has become a well-known method of producing the soft ingot-irons mis- named steels, ‘ mild’ or ‘low’ steels, which ma- terials are now so exclusively adopted by many makers of steam-boilers and of rails. Such steel is steadily driving puddled iron from the market: it is called, sometimes ‘ Siemens,’ and often ‘ Siemens- Martin’ steel ; the first attempts to manufacture steel by this method having been © JANUARY 11, 1884.] successful in Great Britain through the efforts of Siemens, and in France by application of the Siemens furnace to this use by Martin. The Landore steel-works, started at Landore, Wales, in 1868, were the first to make steel by the Siemens methods on a considerable scale; and it was there that the great engi- neer conducted the more successful experi- ments of later years. _ The tastes and the studies of the brothers led them, at an early date, to the exami- nation of the lines of devel- opment of ap- plied electrici- - ty. In 1848, or earlier, they became inter- ested in tele- graph - work, and both Charles and Werner began to apply their inventive tal- ents to the production of telegraph in- struments and apparatus of various kinds used in elec- trical measure- ~ments. Ten years later the firm of Siemens & Halske, of Berlin and of London, was formed; and they soon be- came the most extensive man- ufacturers of electrical apparatus in Europe. They began the construction of submarine tele- graph-cables at an early date, and established, later, factories at Woolwich, England, and in Berlin and St. Petersburg. They finally built up their business to such an extent that it be- came necessary to havea large steamer constant- ly and exclusively employed in laying down their cables. The Faraday, named for their early SCIENCE. 35 friend, was constructed under the direction of Dr. Siemens, and has been since employed in the laying of the principal long cables under the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and under parts of the Indian Ocean. From this branch of electrical work to that of electric lighting was but a short step for these great men; and they have, during the past half-dozen years, been as well known for their success in the introduc- tion of the Sie- mens system of lighting, and for inventions of apparatus and machinery in connection with it, as for their earlier in- ventions in other fields. All successful dynamo - elec- tric machines have the Sie- mens arma-~ ture; that method of winding, and its peculiar form, being es- pecially fitted for introduc- tion into the modern forms of dynamo. Their lamp has proved to be one of the best in use; and a multi- tude of details, worked out with character- istic ingenuity and care, has z given their system, as a whole, a completeness, and a degree of per- fection in operation, which have contributed in no small degree to the fame of Dr. Siemens. The wonderful combination of scientific knowl- edge with practical experience and information possessed by Siemens made him eminent in every department of application to which he chose to turn his attention. His success in raising capital for large operations was due to 36 his personal character, however, quite as much as to his reputation as a scientific man and a talented engineer. The firm of Siemens & Halske was thus able to secure concessions from the Austrian government for probably the most extensive system of elevated electric railways yet projected, and has begun its con- struction in the city and suburbs of Vienna. _ The success of such railways at the electrical exhibition was such as to give great confidence that such railway systems will supersede those now in operation by steam. Physicists will honor Sir William Siemens as the inventor of the ‘electric resistance pyrometer,’ to which is so closely related Professor Langley’s ‘bolometer.’ They will remember him as the discoverer of the influ- ence of the electric light on vegetation, and as the inventor, also, of the ‘ bathometer’ and the ‘attraction meter.’ His papers are numerous, and many of them important: they usually relate to sub- jects closely connected with his work and his inventions and discoveries. The greatest commercial and financial suc- cesses of Siemens and his partners have been in their telegraph-cable work, and, above all, in the introduction of the Siemens system of generating heat for metallurgical operations. This system is estimated to save, in the steel- works of the country, thirty to fifty per cent of the fuel used by earlier methods, to permit an increase of work done per furnace used in nearly equal proportion, to give a finer product in consequence of the purity of the flame, and many incidental advantages. It has saved to the people of the United States alone between twenty-five and thirty millions of dollars dur- ing the comparatively few years that these fur- naces have been in general use. The name of Charles William Siemens is honored in every civilized country ; and every nation capable of appreciating the good work done by him has given expression to this appreciation. ‘The British institution of en- gineers admitted him to membership many years ago, and made him a member of its council. He was awarded the Telford medal for his inventions, a distinction only accorded to the greatest of engineers for the greatest of inventions or constructions, and was given the Royal Albert and the Bessemer medals later. He was made a fellow of the Royal society of Great Britain, a member and a pres- ident of the British association for the ad- vancement of science, and a member of the councils of both those societies. He was elected president of the British institution of SCIENCE. -[Vou. IIL, No. ae mechanical engineers and of the Society of telegraph engineers, and was made a member -of many foreign societies, both scientific and engineering. He was an honorary member of the American philosophical society and of the © American society of mechanical engineers. He was given the degree of D.C.L. by Oxford, and of LL.D. by the universities of Dublin and Glasgow. He received many decorations, one of the latest of which was that just offered him by Austria at the Vienna electrical exhi- bition. ° He was knighted, a few months before his death, by Queen Victoria; and his sudden and premature death — for he was a man physi- cally strong and sturdy, and evidently con- structed for an octogenarian — did not occur so early as to deprive him of more numerous and greater honors of this formal sort than usually fall to the lot of even the greatest of men. Sir William Siemens was a man of large, well- shaped frame, muscular rather than fat in his early years, but inclining to stoutness as he grew old. He had a noble, well-shaped head ; large, strong, and characteristic features, which were mobile, kindly, and unusually expressive. His manners were those of a man who had grown to know his place in the world and to feel sure of a high place among men, quiet, composed, confident, without being in the slightest degree self-asserting, or at any time disagreeable to his associates, to friends, or to competitors in business. Equally at home in the courts of royalty, in the halls of science, and in the offices of business-men, he impressed every one whom he met with his strength, talents, knowledge, and savoir faire. He numbered among his friends the great in every department, —states- men, men of science, engineers, inventors, and capitalists. He was equally honored and be- loved by all, and loved equally well to entertain them all in his fine London mansion and in his beautiful country place, in both of which hospitable homes he met his guests with a plain, simple, and kindly greeting and conversation, which made them at once at home, and at ease with their entertainer. One of his most pleas- ing powers was that of adapting himself to the temperament and the methods of conversation of those whom he met, whatever their rank in life or their personal interests and lines of thought. In his death is lost, to his intimates, one of the truest and best of friends ; tohisemployees, a kind benefactor ; to science, one of her most splendid workers ; to the arts, one of the great- est among their promoters ; to the world, one of the noblest among its few great benefactors. Rosert H. TuHurston. JANUARY 11, 1884.] THE RED SKIES. THE remarkable atmospheric phenomenon which has recently attended sunrise and sun- . set, has attracted great attention not only from the general public, but from scientific men, who have endeavored to give a satisfac- tory explanation of it. Similar appearances have been noted in former years ; but they have been of limited extent, and attributable to local causes. The distinguishing characteristics of the present manifestation are its enormous ex- tent, since it has been observed over nearly the whole earth, its persistence, and the fact that the times of its first appearance have varied in different countries, thus suggesting a progres sive motion. : In the United States the reports of observ- ers of the signal-service show that its earliest appearance was in October. At Pensacola, Fla., on the 8th, the phenomenon was observed at both sunrise and sunset. Near the middle of the month it was noted along the southern border from southern California to the Gulf of Mexico. At the close of the month it was ob- served in great brilliancy in the southern and south-western states. In the more northern portions of the country, during October, the sunsets were characterized by unusual bril- liancy; but the peculiar ‘afterglow’ which marked the later appearances was not noted. In the early part of November the phenome- non was still observed on a few days in the south and west; but after the 20th it appeared in its full beauty over nearly the whole country. In New England, the Atlantic, Gulf, and cen- tral states, the lake region, the north-west, and along the Pacific coast, the phenomenon was observed, beginning at various dates after the 21st, according to the weather conditions of the different localities. The 27th was the date in which the appearance was first es- pecially marked in the eastern states. Since that date, to the end of the year 1883, the skies have been characterized by the same brilliancy, whenever the weather conditions have been favorable to its observation; the 27th and 28th of December revealing the ap- pearance in the eastern section of the country to a marked degree. The sky seems to have had essentially the same characteristics wherever the phenomenon has been observed. In Europe and America, however, if we may judge from the published descriptions, the green or blue appearance of the sky has been less noticeable than in India, where the earliest observations were made. In this country the ‘afterglow’ has been SCIENCE. 37 ruddy, with at times an orange or greenish tint. The observer at Memphis, Tenn., under date of Oct. 30, writes, ‘‘ For more than one hour after sunset there was in the west a segment of red light, whose intensity and brilliancy appeared equal at all points in the segment. The position (altitude?) of the seg- ment was about 30°, azimuth 45° to 120°.”’ On Oct. 31 the appearance was similar, ‘‘ ex- cept that in the north-east quarter of the seg- ment a few converging bands, apparently dark, entered the segment from a clear sky. While no stars were visible in the illumined part of the segment, they were visible in all other parts of the sky, and also in the bands, which, it appears, were dark in contrast.’’ At Wash- ington, on Dec. 29, a ruddy arch arose in the early morning, and was about 25° high an hour and ten minutes before sunrise. Soon after, the usual twilight arch appeared, also of a ruddy tint; and the two were seen simul- taneously, the former losing its outline, and growing paler as it became tranfused over the sky. During the day, the material causing the appearance was plainly visible as a white haze surrounding the sun to a distance of about 30°. At sunset on the 27th and 28th the phenomena were as at sunrise, but in re- verse order, the secondary glow lasting an hour and three-quarters after sunset. While the glow at the end of December is perhaps not as intense in color as when first seen a month earlier, it is the same in other respects. It has been described in profuse detail in the daily press; and several English magazines, notably Nature, have devoted much space to it. Three different hypotheses have been advo- cated to explain the phenomenon, assigning its cause to aqueous vapor, meteoric and vol- canic matter respectively. It is undoubtedly atmospheric, and due to the, presence of some matter in unusual quantities. The persistence of the phenomenon, and its great extent, are objections to the view that it is due to aqueous vapor. There would certainly have been, ere this, extensive precipitation, were aqueous va- por the cause; but reports indicate nothing abnormal in the rainfall. Moreover, the glow has been most noticeable when the air has been driest: it has been a characteristic of the cold, dry weather, which attends areas of high baro- metric pressure. In addition, the spectroscope has confirmed the indications of the psychrom- eter.. The pocket-spectroscope shows a very weak rain-band, and a strong development of the bands designated by Piazzi Smyth as a and 6, and ascribed by him to ‘ dry air,’ the 38 latter known especially as the ‘ low sun-band.’ ‘The same result has been obtained in England and in America. A careful examination of the spectrum with a powerful grating spectroscope, made at sunset on Dec. 28, showed that the aqueous lines were feeble; and the spectrum, at its disappearance, was much farther extended towards the green than is usual in a clear sky. From all these considerations, it seems that the hypothesis of an excess of aqueous vapor in the atmosphere is not tenable. It seems not unreasonable to suppose that the upper regions of the atmosphere have re- ceived from some source an accession of light matter which reflects the sunlight. Of the two suggested sources, — meteoric dust encountered by the earth in its progress, and volcanic mat- ter projected to an enormous height, — either would be a satisfactory explanation. The for- mer would seem in itself the more reasonable, were there not in this instance special consid- erations which give additional weight to the latter. Both of these hypotheses have been independently suggested by various writers. Mr. Ranyard advocates the meteoric view in Knowledge for Dec. 7, and Mr. Lockyer the volcanic theory in the London Mail of Dec. 10, and current numbers of Nature. English scientific men have shown great interest in this investigation; but few references to it have been made, as yet, in the publications of other countries. It will be of interest to classify the dates at which the atmospheric phenomenon has been earliest observed in different countries. The following table contains a list of the dates and countries, with the approximate distance and direction of each country from the Straits of Sunda, in which occurred the tremendous vol- canic outburst of Aug. 26. It should be noted, that, while the dates given have been collated from the best evidence at hand, there is a possibility that they may be too late in some cases, either from the fact that earlier observations have not been reported, or were not made owing to unfavorable weather: they must therefore be taken as only approximately accurate. A few have been derived from gen- eral statements in which the exact dates were not mentioned. This table has been derived mainly from English periodicals and from the records of the U.S. signal-service. The important references to New Ireland and the Hawaiian Islands were received by letter from Mr. S. E. Bishop of Honolulu, who has also obtained from shipmasters the information that the phenom- enon has been extensively seen on the Pacific SCIENCE. ok & [Vor. IIL, No. 49. Ocean since Sept. 1. It is also reported from China, but no date is assigned. Distance and direc- + Date. Country. tion from Straits | of Sunda. 1883 Miles. Aug. 28 .| Rodrigues 3,000 S.W. 28 . | Mauritius 3,500 S.W 28 .| Seychelles 3,500 W. 30 .1| Brazil. 5 10,500 W. Sept. 1 . | Gold Coast . 7,500 W. . | NewlIreland . ' 8,000 E. 2 .{| Venezuela . 12,000 W. 2 West Indies 12,000 W. 2 Peru) P3.s% ove 18,000 W. 5 .| Hawaiian Islands. 7,000 N.E. 8 . {| Southern India 2,000 N.W. 8. ce WCeylons i330 see eo 2,000 N.W. 15 Southern Australia . 3,000 S.E. 15 Tasmania fg Sante 4,000 S.E. 20 Cape of Good Hope. 6,000 S.W. Oct: 8 ~. |) Mlorida ei ee 13,000 N.W. 19 .{| California ah Se 9,500 N.E. 20 .} Southern United States 11,000 N.E. Nov. 9 . | England . set fukn! 7,500 N.W. 20) <5.) oinke yrs. clk 7,000 N.W. 21 +. United States . 11,000 N.H. 25 .| Italy 7,000 N.W. 26 .| France 7,500 N.W. 28 . | Germany 7,000 N.W. 30 .| Spain . 8,000 N.W. 30 .| Sweden 7,500 N.W. An examination of this table shows at once the wide-spread character of the phenomenon, and its progressive motion. It is impossible — not to conjecture a connection with the vol- canic eruption in the Sunda Straits, by which, on Aug. 26, the island of Krakatoa disappeared wholly from the face of the earth. The terri- ble nature of this outburst can hardly be real- ized: the sky was darkened for several days, the noise was heard two thousand miles, mag- netic disturbances were noted, the tidal wave was distinctly felt at San Francisco, and the atmospheric disturbance was sufficient to cause marked barometric fluctuations, which were noted by the barographs on the continent, in England and America, for several succeeding days. Coincidence in dates is not a proof of a connection between the atmospheric and the volcanic phenomena; but it is certain that the former were first observed near the scene of the latter, and that similar atmospheric effects have been heretofore recorded over limited areas in connection with volcanic outbursts. Assuming the origin of the atmospheric effects to be the volcanic eruption, the table shows an extremely rapid progression in both an easterly and a westerly direction, —the former over the Pacific Ocean, the latter over the Indian and Atlantic oceans, to South America and the West Indies. Mr. Lockyer considers that the latter continued westward to the Hawaiian Islands, and does not regard an eastward pro- JANUARY 11, 1884.] gression at all; but the later evidence from the Pacific shows that the phenomenon was seen several thousand miles east of Java on Sept.1. This extremely rapid progression has been mentioned as an objection to the volcanic theory, but it is not impossible to believe in its truth ; and we know little or nothing of the motions of the higher strata of the atmosphere. Besides, it is not necessary to reckon from Aug. 26, the date of the volcanic catastrophe ; for the volcano had been in eruption since May 20, and the steamship Siam, on Aug. 1, in latitude 6° south, longitude 89° east, sailed for more _ than forty miles over floating pumice. There seems also to be a well-marked southern pro- gression, though the dates for Australia and Tasmania are probably too late. It is difficult, however, to trace with cer- tainty a progression northward. The October appearances in the United States, and the November appearances in the United States and Europe, if the result of the August erup- tion, show a rate of progress very much slower than that in an easterly or westerly direction. There seems also to be a gap in the dates ; for, with the exception of the three dates in Oc- tober, there is a September group covering a large territory, and a similar group in Novem- ber over a different territory. The October records, which are all in the United States, are definite, but few in number. During this month, and up to the 20th of November, there was a well-marked brilliancy in the sunrise and sunset colors over a large portion of the United States, but it did not possess the marked in- tensity which seemed to suddenly begin after the 20th. It is possible that the sudden in- crease in the latter part of November, which was noted both in America and in Europe, was due to the arrival over these countries of the volcanic matter which had been moving slowly northwards for ten weeks ; and the October ap- pearances may have been either the sequel of the progression towards the West Indies in September, or the forerunner of the later, more marked appearances. Another explanation, in consonance with the volcanic hypothesis, may be given. The eruption in the Sunda Straits is not the only volcanic outburst of great intensity which has recently occurred, though it has been better known because occurring in an inhabited re- gion. Meagre accounts have been received of a great outburst in Bering Sea, to which brief allusion was made in Science, No. 46. The October weather review of the signal-service contains a letter from Sergeant Applegate, the observer at Unalashka, Alaska, in which he SCIENCE. 39 says, referring to some sand which fell in a rain-storm of Oct. 20, — ““This sand is supposed to have come either from the Mukushin, or the new volcano adjacent to Bogos- lov. The former is at a distance of about nineteen miles south-west, but for years has only issued forth smoke or steam. The latter is a new one, which made its appearance this summer, and burst out from the bottom of Behring Sea. It has been exceedingly active, as it has already formed an island from eight hundred to twelve hundred feet high. According to the report of Capt. Anderson, the discoverer, who sails one of the company’s vessels, and who went within two thousand yards of it, it presents a most magnifi- cent sight. The fire, smoke, and lava are coming out of many crevices, even under the water-line. Large bowlders are shot high in air, which, striking the water, send forth steam and a hissing sound. Bogos- lov is about sixty miles from here, in a west direc- tion. The new volcano is ou one-eighth of a mile north-west of it.”’ This makes the position of the volcano, lati- tude, 54° north; longitude, 168° west. The San Francisco Chronicle of Nov. 23 contains a more detailed report, but adds nothing essen- tial to the above description. As this exten- sive eruption has been taking place for some months, it is not improbable that the atmos- phere has received a large accession of volcanic material from this source also; and possibly to this cause may be due, at least in part, the appearance of the sky in November. It would seem as if an examination of the dust particles brought to the earth by rain or snow would furnish final proof as to the source of the matter causing the phenomenon, pro- vided that it is not wholly above the influence of the descending precipitation. The force of gravity would certainly eventually bring to the earth portions of the material. It is not un- common for meteoric matter to be found in the analysis of freshly-fallen snow ; and an anony- mous writer in the New-York herald of Dec. 29 implies that the late snows have given indi- cations of meteoric matter. This, if verified, would tend to confirm the truth of the meteoric theory; but results of quite a different char- acter are announced in Nature for Dec. 20, which has been received since this article was begun. An analysis of fresh snow, made by Mr. McPherson in Madrid, Spain, revealed the presence of ‘‘ crystals of hypersthene, py- roxine, magnetic iron, and volcanic glass, all of which have been found in the analysis lately made at Paris of the volcanic ashes from the eruption of Java.’’ Similarly a microscopic examination of the sediment from a violent rain-storm on Dec. 13 was made at Wageningen, Holland, by Messrs. Beyerinck and Dam, and compared with a sample of ash from Krakatoa. 40 It was found that ‘‘ both the sediment and the volcanic ash contained, (1) small, transparent, glassy particles; (2) brownish, half-transpar- ent, somewhat filamentous little staves; and (3) jet black, sharp-edged, small grains re- sembling augite. The average size of the par- ticles observed in the sediment was of course much smaller than that of the constituents of the ash. These observations fortify us in our supposition, expressed above, that the ashes of Krakatoa have come down in Holland.’’ These analyses certainly tend to confirm the volcanic hypothesis, though it is interesting to note that some of the substances found by Mr. McPherson are also characteristic of meteoric matter. The evidence thus far accumulated seems to point positively to the truth of the volcanic hypothesis. ‘The opponents of this view dwell upon the improbability of so much matter being thrown up to such a great height, and of its remaining so long a time in the atmosphere. But the magnitude of the Java eruption has certainly not been overrated ; and the amount of material thrown into the atmosphere from this source alone is probably sufficient to account for the observed effects. If we add the amount from the Alaskan yol- cano, there is less reason to doubt the ability of the hypothesis to account for the quantity of material required. The objection on the ground of the persistence of the phenomenon has been met by Messrs. Preece and Crookes on electrical grounds. If the matter thrown up is charged with negative electricity, it would be repelled from the earth, and its particles would repel each other, thus causing the rapid dissemination of the material in the atmos- phere, and its retention for an indefinite period. The decline of brilliancy has been slow during the time it has been observed in this country. In the Hawaiian Islands it is still a marked phenomenon, after a lapse of several months. We may therefore expect that for some time to come we shall observe it under favorable weather conditions, but that it will gradually become less prominent until it is known only as a fact of past history. W. UPpron. Washington, D.C., Jan. 1, 1884. WHIRLWINDS, CYCLONES, NADOES.1—VII. WE are now prepared to consider and ex- plain the actual distribution and motion of cyclones. The limitation of violent cyclones to the 1 Continued from No. 45. AND TOR- SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 49. ocean is natural enough: the level surface of the sea allows a great accumulation of warm, moist air before the upsetting begins, and per- mits the full strength of the winds to reach a very low altitude. On land the air never waits. so long as it may at sea, before upsetting; it never becomes so moist; and, when in motion, the inequalities of hill and valley hold back the lower winds by friction. On land the strong part of the cyclone is relatively higher than at sea, as the records of mountain observatories show; and we know less of it. No violent cyclones are known to have oc- curred within four hundred miles of the equa- tor. Here, —where the air is warm, quiet, and heavily charged with moisture; where heavy, quiet rains are frequent ; where the conditions which have been mentioned as essential for starting a cyclone are of common occurrence, — cyclones are nevertheless unknown. They occur often enough, however, in the embry- onic form of thunder-showers, but they never reach the adult stage; and this must be be- cause at the equator the deflective effect of the earth’s rotation is zero, and the inrushing winds are allowed to move directly toward the low-pressure centre and fill up the depression, instead of increasing it by their deflection and their centrifugal force. From this we learn, that, while warmth and moisture may be suffi- cient to begin a cyclone, they alone cannot main- tain it. There would be no violent cyclones if the earth stood still. It might be inferred from this that cyclones. should increase in frequency and intensity as we recede from the equator toward the poles, for in the higher latitudes the earth’s deflective force is known to increase. It is true that storms are much more frequent in high lati- tudes than near the equator; and this is very likely due to the greater ease with which mod- — erate indraughts are here deflected so as to pro- duce a central baric depression. But the more. intense storms are all within thirty or thirty- five degrees of the equator, because, in more polar latitudes, the air is not warm or moist. enough to co-operate effectively with the deflec- tive forces, and produce violent winds. It has already been explained that a rising column of moist air cools more slowly than one of dry air ; and on this there was shown to depend much of the greater energy of oceanic storms over that. of desert whirls. It should now be added, that, of two ascending currents of saturated air, the warmer will rise much more vigorously than the cooler: hence the warm, saturated air of the tropical sea breeds hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons of greater strength than be JANUARY 11, 1884.] storms that are raised in temperate latitudes, although the latter outnumber the former on account of the more effective aid of the earth’s rotative deflection at a distance from the equa- tor. We must next examine the cause that deter- mines the season of cyclones, throws them near the western shores of their oceans, and requires them to move toward or parallel to the east- ern coast of the adjoining continents. This will be found to depend on the general circula- tion of the winds, as may be seen on examin- ing the air-currents of the North Atlantic at the seasons of the most frequent hurricanes. Poey has compiled a list of hurricanes observed in the West Indies since 1493, amounting to three hundred and sixty-five in all; and of these, two hundred and eighty-seven, or nearly eighty per cent, occurred in July, August, Sep- tember, and October. Now, these are the very months when the equatorial calms or doldrums are farthest north of the equator, and hence in a position to allow the embryonic storms to develop by the aid of the earth’s deflective force. At other seasons the trade-winds ex- tend nearer to the equator; and then, in a lati- tude where storms might grow if once started, the steady blowing trades prevent even the for- mation of an embryo. The few storms that oceur at these other seasons have less evident causes: they may arise in conflicting winds, and may be fairly thrown among those unex- plained effects that we call accidental. Once formed, the storm is carried along, by the gen- eral circulation and by the strong winds, to- ward the West Indies. On nearing them, it moves to the north-west and north, mostly be- cause branches of the trade-winds here turn to that direction in the cyclone season, so as to | avoid the mountains farther west, and to run up over the warm land of our country ; partly because of the continual polar tendency, or excess of deflection on the northern side of the storm. Even if the general surface-winds do not blow along the storm-tracks, it is very prob- able that the upper current, returning from the equatorial calms toward the prevailing westerly winds of the temperate latitudes, follows a course closely parallel to the average of the cyclone paths ; and there is good reason to be- lieve that the upper winds have a great control over the storm’s progression. If the storm should begin on the eastern side of the Atlan- tic, it would probably be held so near the equa- tor by the indraught of the trade-winds that it could not reach a destructive size. The greater Atlantic hurricanes are therefore those that begin in the western part of the calms or dol- SCIENCE. _gseribed for the North Atlantic. 4] drums when they are farthest from the equa- tor, and then, passing along their carved paths, take the West Indies and our south-eastern coast or their way up into the North Atlantic. As they go, their diameter greatly increases ; because they draw their wind-supply from longer distances, and because in the temperate latitudes the earth’s deflective force is greater than it was in the tropics. But with this in- crease in diameter there comes a diminution of intensity, because the winds are cooler and contain less vapor; and finally the storm dies away when the weakened updraught at the cen- tre fails to throw its overflow outside of the limits of the whirl. The storm is then not work- ing its way: friction will soon cause the winds to cease, and the disturbance will come to an end. As for the South Atlantic, it possesses no cyclone region, because the doldrums never extend south of the equator. In spite of the sun’s passing to the south in winter, the heat- equator, which determines the position of the doldrums, hardly passes the geographic equa- tor in the Atlantic; the excess of land in the northern hemisphere, and the strong general winds of the southern hemisphere, keep it back: and so the South Atlantic has no ecy- clones such as occur in all the other oceans. The cyclones of the Pacific and Indian oceans depend on conditions such as have been de- They are commonest in the southern hemisphere in Feb- ruary for the same reason that they are most frequent in the northern in the months about September. We have now considered the origin and mo- tions of the cyclones and hurricanes, and the regions of their occurrence. This study has its highest aim in giving timely warning of their approach and in devising rules for avoid- ing them. If their tracks lay over the land, the telegraph could in all cases give sufficient notice of their coming, for their motion is slow ; but they are at sea during much of their life, and the questions now arise, How can the cap- tain of a vessel gain the first intimation of their coming? and, What should he best do to avoid their dangerous centre? The storm’s earliest effect on the atmosphere is shown by the barometer. It is ordinarily stated that the first effect is seen in a diminu- tion of pressure; but it is very probable, both from theory and from careful observation, that a slight abnormal increase of pressure precedes this diminution. ‘The tropical seas, where cy- clones are most violent, have, as a rule, very small and very rare irregular changes in at- 42 mospheric pressure ; and careful watching will pretty surely show a rising barometer, as the annulus of high pressure that surrounds the storm (see fig. 8) moves over the observer. The weather may still be clear, and the wind moderate and from its normal quarter ; but this change in the glass demands renewed watch- fulness. Let.us suppose that such an observa- tion be made on board a vessel lying east of the Lesser Antilles. The chart shows the cap- tain that he is in the stormy belt. He may be directly in the path of the advancing storm, where he will feel its full violence; and he must make the best of his way out of it. Fol- lowing the rising pressure, three other signs of increasing danger may be observed, — first, faint streamers of high cirrus-clouds may be seen, slowly advancing from the south-east to the north-west, or from the east to the west, in the high overflow from the storm’s centre ; this unpropitious change may accompany the rising of the barometer, or may be first seen when the barometer is highest : second, the ba- rometer begins to fall, slowly at first, but more and more quickly when it reaches and passes twenty-nine inches; the vessel is then within the limits of the storm: third, the wind has shifted so as to blow from a distinctly northern quarter, and its strength goes on increasing ; this is the indraught, blowing spirally toward the centre. There is then no longer any ques- tion that a storm is approaching; and as soon as a heavy bank of clouds makes itself seen, moving southward across the eastern horizon, then the central part of the storm is in sight. These clouds are the condensed vapor in the rising central spirals, and rain is falling from them. In deciding on a course to be pursued, the first point to be determined is, where is the storm’s centre? That being known, its prob- able path can be laid down with considerable certainty in this part of the ocean; and then, perhaps, the greatest danger may be avoided. But here a very practical difficulty arises. To find the direction of the storm-centre, we must know the incurving angle of the wind’s spiral, —the angle of inward inclination that it makes with a circle whose centre is at the storm’s cen- tre. ‘The earlier students of the question — Dove, Redfield, Reid, and Piddington— cone sidered the course of wind to be concentric cir- cles, or inward spirals of very gradual pitch; so that they said the inclination of the wind is practically zero, and a line at right angles to its course must be a radius leading to the centre. Later studies showed this to be incorrect. The inclination of the wind inward from the circle’s tangent was found to vary from 20° to 40° or SCIENCE. 50°: but it was. thought that this inclination was symmetrical on all sides; so that, with an average inclination of 30°, the storm’s centre must always bear 60° to the left of the wind’s course. Finally, the most recent results seem to show that the wind’s course is neither circu- lar nor symmetrically spiral; that the wind’s inclination is very distinctly different in differ- ent latitudes, on different sides of the storm, in the different conditions found on sea and land, at different distances from the centre and at different altitudes. In so complicated a case, much judgment will be required to find where the storm-centre lies. First, in regard to the latitude of a storm. Without considering its progression, the nearer it is to the equator, the less its indraught winds will be deflected to the right by the earth’s ro- tation, —the more nearly radial they will be. But, as they move with much energy, they will gain in rotary motion rapidly as they ap- proach the centre, and there will whirl around in almost perfect circles. Storms in low lati- tudes will therefore tend to have a compara- tively small but violent central whirl, only one or two hundred miles in diameter, within which the winds may be almost circular; and the centre will there be nearly at right angles to the wind’s course. Farther from the centre, the winds would be nearly radial; and, if storms could arise on the equator, they would have simply radial indraughts with a very small cen- tral whirl. On the other hand, in the temperate zone the inflowing winds will be strongly de- flected to the right of their intended path; and they must depart widely from a direct line to the centre of low pressure, forming a whirl often one thousand miles in diameter: but, un- less they inclined inward at a distinct angle, it would take them too long to reach the centre, and their strength would be lost in overcoming friction on the way. ‘Their average inclination is therefore well marked. The steeper incli- nation of the winds close to the centre, ob- served in some northern storms (Toynbee), may be an effect of the tornado action in the cyclone, yet to be described. Second, in regard to the sides of the storm, as affected by its progression. The inclination — will generally be less than the average in front and on the right, and greater in the rear and on the left of the centre; for in whatever manner the storm advances, either by bodily transfer- rence or by successive transplanting, the motion of the wind must partake both of the direction of whirling and direction of progress, when seen by an observer not moving in either of these directions. In the case of bodily trans- JANUARY 11, 1884.] ferrence, the direction of the wind as shown by -a vane will be the simple resultant of its whirl- ing and progressive motions: in the case of successive transplanting, it will be the result- ant of the earth’s deflecting force and a curve of pursuit; a curve of pursuit being the path followed by a body moving towards a point that is continually changing its position. In either case, the effect may be sufficiently represented by fig. 18, in which the broken arrows show the motion of the wind with respect to the storm-centre, and the straight dotted lines measure the velocity of the storm’s advance. The wind will seem to blow along the result- ant of these two directions, as shown by the full arrows ; and the resulting inclinations are Fig. 19. manifestly less in front than in the rear, and less on the right than on the left. With the variation of inclination, there will be an in- verse change in the wind’s velocity. It will blow faster on the right and rear or dangerous side of the storm, and slower on the left and front or manageable side. In the North Atlan- tic, where the storms often move rapidly, while a hurricane prevails south of the centre, very SCIENCE. 43 moderate winds may blow on the north; the difference between the two being about twice the storm’s progressive motion. The change in inclination has been shown to occur in some of the West-Indian hurricanes, but it is not ‘very pronounced in the land-storms of the temperate zone. Its best application is in storms on mountain summits; as on Mount Washington (fig. 19), and again in the case of the outflowing winds in the upper half of the storm, as shown by the motion of cirrus- clouds, and illustrated in fig. 20. Of course, in this case of outward motion, the less incli- nation is in the rear, and the greater in the front. Third, in regard to land and sea storms. The inclination will be greater in the former than in the latter. On the sea, the centrifugal force of the earth’s deflection will be most pro- nounced, and the winds will be more nearly circular than on land, where friction will tend Fie. 20. to destroy their original motion, and so allow them to run more directly into the storm-cen- tre. ‘This is fully borne out by observation, and is especially well shown in the contrasted cases of storms on the opposite sides of the northern Atlantic. Fig. 21 shows an average storm in the eastern United States, about ready to embark on the ocean ; and in this the inclina- tion of the winds is less on the sea than on the land side. This effect is doubtless produced in part by the preceding condition concerning the front and rear sides of the storm. But in ex- amining a storm just about landing on the western shores of Europe, as shown in fig. 22, it is seen that here the front winds have the greater, not the lesser, inclination : hence posi- tion in regard to the centre cannot be the cause of the differing inclinations here. A better ex- planation is found in the fact that the eastern 44 | SCIENCE. side of the storm receives its winds from the land, and the western side from the sea; and, in accordance with this, the eastern side should have the greater, and the western side the lesser inclination, as is the case. The fact that European storms have a less velocity of pro- gression than those in this country would still further allow the land and sea conditions to control the inclination in the former region. Fie. 21 Fourth, it is manifest from all the preceding cases that the outermost winds of a storm are nearly radial, and that their direction becomes more circular as they advance. This results directly from the faster motion and less radius, consequently the greater centrifugal force near the centre, and requires no special illustration. It need only be noted, in recalling the first or latitude condition, that, at large distances from , the centre, equatorial storms are generally more radial than those of the temperate zones ; but, at small distances from the centre, this rule may have to be reversed. This is quite in accordance with the greater size but less in- tensity of the storms in the temperate zone. 28 38 3 4 rss aon 3s” 13 , mete WV Fig. 22. Fifth, in regard to altitude. The absence of strong friction will allow the upper winds to whirl in even more circular paths than they do at sea. Indeed, at a moderate altitude, say 7,000 feet, the winds are probably perfectly circular in the core of the storm; and at a little greater height they assume an outward inclination as they change to the outward spiral of the upper overflow. It is common, therefore, to note that the surface-winds of a. storm are not parallel to the motion of the clouds. As the latter are more fully in control of the earth’s deflecting force, they will always. tend to the right of the former ; and, in the extreme contrast of surface-indraught and up- permost outflow, the cirrus-clouds may drift. slowly (in appearance) 90° or 120° to the right. of the surface-winds. It is therefore usually to storm-disturbances of the general atmos- pheric circulation that the irregular drifting of different cloud-layers is to be ascribed. And -now, after this long digression, we may return to the rescue of the vessel in the West-Indian hurricane. (To bé continued.) THE BUSINESS OF THE NATURALIST. THE Society of naturalists of the eastern United States is an association in which all preliminaries should be brief, and ceremonious speeches out of place. Our first official meeting at Springfield was, however, almost wholly occupied with the technical- ities of organization, and we necessarily gave but little time to other matters. The attendance at that meeting, on account of the natural aversion of sci- entific men to details of such an uninteresting nature, was small, compared with the numbers now present; and our list of members is also more than double what it was then. Under these circumstances a few preliminary words of explanation will not be wholly without usefulness. Our correspondence with scien- tific men also shows that the novelty of the organi- zation and objects of this society requires some explanation in a comprehensive and condensed form from some one person. So far as I am aware, this is the first attempt to form an association for the transaction of what may be called, without derogation to the dignity of our future labors, the business of naturalists. Heretofore scientific associations have been founded and conducted upon the idea that the technical inter- ests of science were necessarily inseparable from the results of scientific work, and should be considered by the same body which also attends to the presenta- tion, discussion, and publication of the records of dis- covery and research. It has seemed to me for at least seven years past, that, on the contrary, a division of labor was necessary, and ought to be brought about. The technicalities of science have increased to an enormous extent within the last dec- ade; and some effectual means of mutual culture and - 1 Address delivered in New York before the Society of nat- uralists of the eastern United States, Dec. 28, by the herr. gs Professor Alpheus Hyatt of Cambridge. [Vou. IIL, No. 49, 2 JANUARY 11, 1884.] co-operation should be found which can be of great benefit, not only to those whose opportunities have been small, but also not less to those who are capable of contributing most in such a scheme for the gen- eral good of science-workers. The contact of fellow- workers not only stimulates the intellect to its best efforts in the presence of appreciative hearers, but enables the mind to broaden its outlook, and avoid the effects of the cloister-like seclusion in abstraction, which has had such fascination for the students of all ages, and which has also had such serious effects upon the usefulness of individual life. The miscon- ceptions and difficulties which science has to contend with have also become of greater importance; and one has only to mention the word ‘vivisection’ to justify this remark, and at the same time indicate a field for practical effort on the part of this society, which should bear good fruit in the immediate future. In fact, whichever way we turn, whether to the purely practical details of making sections, or other prepara- tions in any branch of natural science, or to the broader questions of a technical nature which inter- est the public at large, we find in every direction paths of usefulness opening, which must lead to beneficial results for the future of science and science-workers, if properly and judiciously handled. They seem to us to embody questions which are vital to the unimpeded progress of science. We can, it is true, get along without any efforts to ameliorate the present condition of affairs; but will this be the most desirable course for the interests of science and for our own future satisfaction? Will the amount of time we may gain for investigation by remaining at home, and standing aloof from disturbing causes, repay us for the inevitable loss of influence, and the possible loss of future facilities for the prosecution of work? In some classes of work such losses are sure to be visited upon us, or our immediate succes- sors, through the growth of ignorant prejudices we have taken no trouble to correct or prevent. An able writer in Science of Oct. 26, on the sub- ject of vivisection, points out the necessity of taking some immediate steps for the information of the pub- | lic upon this question, and, it seems to us, uses very able arguments to support the conclusion, which is, that ‘‘the only danger lies in the ignorance of the great majority of ordinarily well-informed people re- garding such subjects.”? This writer, in conclusion, remarks with great force, ‘‘ Secrecy, not publicity, is what American physiology has to fear.’’ The society may disagree with me, and perhaps consider it unnecessary to take any active steps in this direction ; but the unavoidable effects of the gen- eral discussion of such a question will be very reas- suring to the men who will have to bear the brunt of the coming struggle; and every one who takes part in it will find that his opinions and future course may be more or less influenced, and perhaps even determined, by what he may hear. Those most deeply interested in the eda association will surely be willing to grant that such questions can be more effectively handled in a society composed of purely professional men, whose undi- SCIENCE. 45 vided attention can be given to them, whose inter- est is of the deepest nature, and who can be de- pended upon to give sufficient time and work when appointed on committees. Another question which seems to me of absorbing general interest relates to a matter about which great differences of opinion may exist, even among scientific men themselves; and in this I speak purely as an advocate of one side. What can we do to call the attention of the institutions of learning to the fact that their duties to science and the future of investigation demand a change of policy? Through- out the country, and even in the higher institutions, false views are prevalent with regard to the qualifica- tions necessary for teaching science. We find science- teaching placed on the same basis as mathematics and the languages, in which books are the necessary media for the communication of ideas. It is com- monly supposed that a man can learn his lesson, and repeat it to scholars, and that one may be a good teacher of a science of observation without being him- self an observer. In some places even, a tendency to- wards investigation is considered a disqualification, ‘since it withdraws the mind from giving full atten- tion to the practical duties of the classroom. Insuch places education is measured by the quantity, and rule of thumb, by the amount of supposed knowledge gained, without relation to how it is gained, or what habits of mind are cultivated in the operation. Un- doubtedly, the teacher in such places may need and acquire a certain amount of dexterity and success as a mental taxidermist; but that he will ever inten- tionally train a single student to do original work is beyond belief. The slight amount of respect and consideration shown to the claims of the investigator are in part due to this evil, and in part to a custom which is exces- sively hard to deal with. We refer to the habit, very prevalent in this country, of sending children to the same colleges at which the parents themselves have been graduated. This habit shows some signs of break- ing up, and the technical schools are doing fine work in this direction; still, the American mind is conser- vative in respect to education, and tends to keep the hereditary colleges full, irrespective of their intrinsic worth. If these institutions should have to rely solely upon their educational attractions, we should find that the individuality of instructors, their reputation for sound learning and original thought, and their capacity to do the highest kind of teaching, would eventually command the same respect, and perhaps the same emoluments, as in Germany. Can we, as a body, arrive at any general agree- ment of what should be done with regard to such vital questions? or can we even do any thing towards the formation of an opinion of what it would be desir- able todo? ‘This last result will seem tame to many energetic minds; but the speaker is old enough to have seen the mighty effects of active and determined agitation upon what is familiarly known as public sentiment. Sooner or later—and generally much sooner than any but the most sanguine agitator can anticipate — the times become ripened, and the last 46 SCIENCE. steps of the process of change to the new order of things follow in rapid succession. An event may be long in preparation, but its consummation takes place with a rapidity which must be experienced to be fully appreciated. Another question of the greatest and at present time-absorbing interest is, what can be done to force the schools to properly prepare students for the col- leges and universities? We use the word ‘force,’ rather than ‘induce,’ because all arguments except those which can be supported by the pressure of the entrance examinations fail to awaken these schools to the needs of science-teachers in these higher insti- tutions. The following remarks appeared in Science of May 18, 1883, and can be used appropriately in this connection : — ‘In the brief, informal discussions [which took place at the Springfield meeting], the opinion was very generally expressed, that one of the most important questions with which we have to deal, and one which needs immediate attention, is the prepara- tion necessary for the study of natural science in colleges. The great difficulty in making a success of college instruction in the sciences lies in the fact that not one young man in twenty knows either how to observe, or how to think about facts of observation. His education in that line is very deficient, or else entirely want- ing; he is utterly helpless without his books, and seems quite unable to see or to correlate facts for himself. No other branch of the curriculum is so inefficiently treated by the preparatory schools and academies. It is the reverse of right that the col- lege professor, with a class of from forty to eighty men, should have to make the vain attempt to teach the lowest step in the observational sciences. Methods which can alone guarantee success in imparting to the eye and the mind the rudiments of science cannot be employed under such conditions. Moreover, it is a matter for the deepest regret, that young men who are soon to be in places in the world where they have no books, and where the keenest exercise of the powers of observation, and the judgment of facts, are demanded, should in so many cases have no opportunity, or next to none, either in school or college, for the acquisition of a training upon which the success of their life- work, in the larger number of professions and occupations, is de- pendent. ‘*It is to be hoped that one needs only to mention such objects as these, to bespeak for this new association the sympathy and support of all naturalists, and earnest workers in science.” In the above remarks expression is given to opinions some of which, we know, will meet with general approbation, and others will very properly be regarded as merely personal views. We shall, however, have attained the object for which this address was writ- ten, if we have made it evident that this society can, if it be so disposed, take up questions of the highest importance to the public service of science, and help towards their solution by its deliberations. We be- lieve it can do this wherever it can unite the majority of scientific men in opinion and in effort. The power which can be wielded by such an organization is in exact proportion, not to its numbers, but to its earnestness, determination, and especially its fearless support of what is just and right. After referring further to the work of the society, as outlined in the article already referred to, Pro- fessor Hyatt proceeded : — Enough papers to occupy nearly the whole time which can be devoted to them will be announced by the secretary. Though these and kindred subjects - will be our most important objects, it was due to the society to show that its scope was not necessarily wholly confined to such details; and this we have endeavored to accomplish in the first part of the pre- ceding remarks, In conclusion, we beg leave to report that the execu- tive committee has had great responsibilities thrust upon it since the first meeting. These they have en- deavored to meet to the best of their ability; and we believe that the present attendance, and the many honorable names on our list, will help to extenuate the errors inseparable from haste and overwork. . In place of Professor Clarke, whose absence in Europe we regret, the executive committee appointed Dr. C.S. Minot, and he has faithfully and acceptably — performed the duty of secretary pro tem. THE NEW MORPHOLOGICAL ELEMENT OF THE BLOOD. WITHIN recent years it has been established beyond doubt by the labors of Hayem, Bizzozero, and others, that there exists in the blood of mammals, and ap- parently of other vertebrates, a third type of corpuscle, differing morphologically from both the red and the white corpuscle, and possessing certain distinctive properties of the greatest importance in coagulation. These elements were called hematoblasts by Hayem upon the supposition that they are eventually trans- formed into red corpuscles. As this view is by no means established, it will be better to speak of them as blood-plates, the name given to them by Bizzozero. These blood-plates must not be confounded with the ‘invisible corpuscles’ of Norris. The latter, accord- ing to the testimony of most observers, are simply. ordinary red corpuscles, from which the haemoglobin has been removed by the method of preparation. As might be supposed, the presence of these bodies was more or less clearly noticed by some of the many observers who for years past have made the blood a subject of investigation. That they escaped detec- tion in the great majority of cases, is owing, doubt- less, to the very rapid alterations which they undergo after the blood is shed, unless especial measures are taken to preserve them. To Hayem belongs the credit of their real discovery. His investigation of their form, and, to a certain ex- tent, of their properties, was so thorough, and his method of demonstrating their presence so simple, that the attention of other observers was forced to — the subject; and his results were soon confirmed, with the exception of certain details of structure which are still open to investigation. On account of the quickness with which they are destroyed after the blood has escaped from the vessels, it is necessary to make use of certain preservative liquids which have the power of fixing these corpuscles in their normal shape. Thesolution recommended by Hayem is com- posed, of water 200 parts, sodium chloride 1 part, so- dium sulphate 5 parts, and mercuric chloride .50 — parts. Bizzozero recommends a .75% solution of sodium chloride, to which some methy] aniline violet has been added. Osmic-acid solution, 1%, may also be used. To obtain good specimens of the blood- — [Vou. ILI., No. 49. ' Cave. JANUARY 11, 1884.| plates, the following method is suggested by Laker. A drop of preservative liquid is placed on the slide, and a drop of blood on the cover-slip, and the slip laid quickly on the slide, so that the two drops come in contact. As many as possible of the red corpuscles are then drained off by means of a piece of filter- paper applied to the slip on the side opposite to the drop of preservative liquid; or the two drops may be placed on the slide, and the cover-slip laid on from the side of the preservative liquid. The one precau- tion which it is necessary to observe is to lose as little time as possible in transferring the blood to the pre- servative liquid. Obtained in this way, the blood-plates of the mam- mal are small, non-nucleated, discoid bodies from one-fourth to one-half the size of the red corpuscles. Hayem states that they are bi-concave, like the red corpuscles, and that many of them have a slight greenish or yellowish color due to the presence of haemoglobin. Bizzozero, on the other hand, main- tains that they are perfectly colorless and not bi-con- Mayet supports Hayem’s statement with regard to the presence of haemoglobin in some, at least, of the blood-plates; while Laker thinks that the pale greenish hue possessed by them is owing to a reflection of light from the upper surface. The same tint may be observed in white corpuscles; and, further- more, when the blood-plates are collected in masses, this color does not become more distinct. Laker con- firms Hayem’s statement that the plates are bi-con- caye, and says that he has often obtained from them the well-known optical phenomenon shown by the red corpuselés. The blood-plates occur in considerable numbers. According to Hayem, they are forty times more numerous than the white corpuscles, and twenty times less numerous than the red corpuscles. Stain- ing-reagents have but little action upon them. Water causes most of them to disappear, though some indi- vidual plates may resist its action for a long time. Dilute solutions of acetic acid or caustic alkali quickly destroy them, while a 35% solution of caustic potash is without any marked action. Laker states, that, in their general behavior towards reagents, they resem- ble most the nucleus of the white corpuscle. With regard to their origin, nothing is known. That they are not simply remnants of broken down white cor- puscles is evident, in the first place, from the typical form they possess, and, in the second place, from the difference in chemical composition between the two, as shown by reagents. Bizzozero has proved conclusively that they are not pathological forma- tions arising after the blood has been shed, since he has seen and studied them inthe mesenteric blood- vessels of living animals. Hayem believes that the blood-plates are finally transformed into red corpuscles. His reasons for this belief are as follows: 1. They possess a similar form; 2. They have a similar chemical composition, both containing haemoglobin; 3. The appearance of many intermediate forms between the typical blood- plate and the ordinary red corpuscle, especially in certain pathological conditions — after a severe hem- orrhage, for instance. Under these conditions, Hay- SCIENCE. 47 em states that the plates become more abundant, and gradually return to their normal proportion as the number of red corpuscles increases, In the main, these statements are confirmed by Mayet; but, as we have said, the similarity in form, and the presence of haemoglobin, are denied by others, especially Biz- zozero; and neither Bizzozero nor Laker was able to detect any intermediate forms between the blood- plates and the red corpuscles. Perhaps the most interesting result that has come out of the study of these elements is the knowledge of the important part they take in the coagulation of blood. This property has been thoroughly investigated by Bizzo- zero. His conclusions may be briefly stated as fol- lows. Liquids which have a tendency to prevent coagulation also preserve the blood-plates more or less completely from destruction. Experiments made upon blood kept within the living blood-vessel show that as long as the blood remains uncoagulated the blood-plates are unchanged, while the rapid coagu- lation of portions of ,the blood removed from the ves- sel is always preceded by a destruction of the plates and the formation from them of granular masses. When a drop of blood is whipped with small threads for about fifty seconds, the threads withdrawn, washed gently in .75 % sodium-chloride solution, and then examined under a microscope in the methylated soda solution, they are seen to be covered with a layer of plates, together with some white corpuscles. If the whipping is continued longer, the plates are converted into a granular mass, and covered witha layer of fibrine. If this process is reversed, and a slow stream of blood is allowed to pass over a thread watched under the microscope, the different stages of the process can be observed, —the deposition of the plates, their fusion into a granular mass, and the subsequent formation of fibrine. When one of these threads, to which the blood-plates and a few red and white corpuscles are adhering, is added to a liquid containing the two fibrine factors, but not fibrine ferment, coagulation takes place. That this coagula- tion is not owing to the thread or to the red corpus- cles is easily demonstrated: it must result from the addition of either the white corpuscles or the blood- plates. When, however, bits of tissues rich in leuco- cytes — such as the spleen, lymph-glands, medulla of bone — are added to the above liquid, no coagulation at all, or else a very imperfect coagulation, follows. The inference, then, is, that the coagulation in the first case results from the addition of the blood-plates. In his latest communication, Bizzozero states, that if to afew drops of peptonized plasma, which coagu- lates very slowly, some water or carbon dioxide is added, and the preparation is examined under the microscope, the blood-plates will be seen collected . into large heaps in which the individual blood-plates may still be recognized. In a few minutes the plates fuse together into a granular mass which be- comes vacuolated, and at this moment coagulation begins. From the periphery of the granular heaps hundreds and thousands of fine processes radiate, and form a network which slowly spreads into the sur- rounding plasma. 48 SCIENCE. Bizzozero attributes the origin of thrombi in blood- vessels to the destruction of these corpuscles. He has been able to watch the process of formation in the mesenteric vessels of living animals when a lesion of the walls of the vessels was produced in any way. In the blood of animals with nucleated red cér- puscles, Hayem has described a form of corpuscle which has properties analogous to those possessed by the blood-plates of mammals. These gorpuscles may be preserved for study by the use of the liquids mentioned above. They are colorless, nucleated, slightly flattened bodies, bearing a general resem- blance in shape to the red corpuscles, though usually more elongated at one or both of the poles. They vary greatly in size, but as a rule are somewhat larger than the white corpuscles. They are distinguished from the white corpuscles mainly by a difference in form and by the changes which they undergo after the blood has been shed. The white corpuscles are ' always more or less spherical, while the plates are flattened disks. After the blood has been shed, they ‘become exceedingly viscous, and form granular masses from which fibrous processes radiate. Their functional value in coagulation appears to be the same as that of the blood-plates in mammals with non-nucleated red corpuscles. WILLIAM H. HOWELL. THE COMSTOCK LODE. Geology of the Comstock lode and the Washoe dis- trict. By Grorcr F. Becker. (Monographs U.S. geol. surv., ili., with an atlas.) Washing- ton, 1882. 422 p. 4°. THE appearance of the second of the new series of monographs published by the U.S. geological survey will be greeted with pleasure by the scientific world, not only on account of the amount of new information it contains regarding the geological and physical character of one of the most important ore-deposits on the globe, but also as an index of the increas- ing interest which is being taken in this coun- try in a very important but comparatively new branch of geological research. Becker’s report contains, with perhaps one exception, the most considerable contribution yet made by an Amer- ican to microscopical petrography, and deserves for this reason, aside from its other merits, high commendation. Referring, for a historical, economic, and technical treatment of the Comstock lode, to the works now in preparation by Messrs. Lord and Eckart, the author devotes himself to a purely scientific investigation of this inter- esting region. _ <_ — ~~ Again: the measurement of | JANUARY 11, 1884.] very rocks forced him to the opinion that pro- pylite has no right whatever to be regarded as an independent rock-type, but is always an alteration product of diabase, diorite, or ande- site, by the change of the bisilicates to uralite or chlorite. In chapter iv. the author discusses theo- retically the structural results of faulting. He regards the schistose structure, so often ob- served in the andesite, as the result of faulting under intense lateral pressure, and shows that such sheets would naturally tend to arrange themselves in a logarithmic curve, as seems to be the case at the Comstock. The chapter on chemistry is not very satis- factory. But few new rock analyses are offered, and none are ably discussed in connection with the microscopic diagnosis. The finding of very small quantities of ore in the accompanying rocks, especially the diabase, would seem to suggest just the reverse course of reasoning from that adopted ; and certainly none of the facts presented appear to warrant the sup- planting of von Richthofen’s theory, that the ores came from great depths, by one ascribing their deposit to segregation produced by ordi- nary solvents (hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide) from the rocks at the side of the lode. The discussion of the heat-phenomena of the lode receives especial attention in chapter vii. The rapid increase of temperature is well known to be one of the great hinderances in working the mines, being nearly double the average observed elsewhere. This has been accounted for by some by chemical action: as, for instance, the oxidation of pyrite, or the kaolinization of felspar. The author con- cludes, however, in light of the careful experi- ments conducted by Dr. Barus in reference to the latter theory, that such an explanation is untenable; and that the source of the heat must be sought in former, and not entirely extinct, volcanic activity. The observations of Dr. Barus, bearing on the electrical activity of ore-bodies, are re- corded in chapter x. They relate as well to the deposits at Eureka as to those in the Com- stock, and, while not directly productive of results of practical importance to the pro- spector or miner, possess a very considerable scientific interest. The execution of the plates and maps is up to the usual high standard of the survey pub- lications. The chromolithographic representa- tions of rock-sections in polarized light are particularly successful, and, as far as,my expe- rience reaches, are the best of the kind yet produced anywhere. SCIENCE. 49 MARTIN'S ELEMENTARY PHYSIOLOGY. The human body: an elementary text-book of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene. By H. NewEeLt Mapr- TIN. New York, Holt, 1883. 11+355 p., 4 pl., ikastr. * 16°. Tus volume forms the second volume in the ‘ American scientific series, Briefer course,’ published by the Messrs. Holt. It is an abridgment of a larger work by the same author, and is intended for use in schools and academies. The demand for such a book, and the difficulty of preparing one, are well known to any one who has sought in vain, among the numerous text-books now in the market, for one really scientific, and suited to the age and needs of his pupils. It is a book of about three hundred and fifty pages, but how it could well have been made smaller we do not see. The language is simple, the style clear, and the book, at the same time, easily comprehensible and thoroughly scientific. It is elementary without being superficial. The essential facts are pointed out to the pupil without taxing his memory with a mass of unimportant details, or vexing him with con- flicting theories on unsettled questions. At the end of each chapter these are condensed, and their connection shown in a brief summary, which aids the memory, and excites the interest of the pupil. From the physiological facts are deduced the most important laws of hygiene, while the student gains glimpses of wider fields of anatomy and zoology in the footnotes. A new and most important characteristic of the work is the series of directions to teachers for demonstrating on frogs and rats the main outlines of anatomy, and for physiological ex- periments accompanying each chapter. These are all clearly explained, and easy, yet it is to be feared that they will be neglected by three-fourths of the teachers using the book. Their importance might well and justly have been far more strongly urged in the preface. We hear every year less of the objections to such dissections. The great difficulty is, that most of the teachers in our schools and acade- mies have been taught physiology in the old way; and many of them have never even seen the inside of a frog. They greatly over-esti- mate the difficulties of such dissections and experiments, and do not appreciate that the sight of the real organ or process is worth more to the pupil than an hour’s study of text- books or charts. If the teacher will once try fairly the experiment of following these direc- tions, he will be surprised at the small amount of extra work caused, and at the enthusiasm 50 | SCIENCE. which they call forth in his class. The figures of the book are large and clear: in one or two of the plates so much has been attempted that they appear, at first sight, confused; but this is a slight blemish in a book worthy, in other respects, of all commendation. The book is well fitted, in the language of the author in his preface, to ‘‘ prepare the student for the work of subsequent daily life by training the observ- ing and reasoning faculties.’ PACKARD’S BRIEFER ZOOLOGY. Zovlogy. By A. S. Packarp, jun. New York, Holt, 1883. 5+334 p., illustr. 16°. Tue Zodlogy of the same series as the pre- ceding is also an abridgment of and intro- ductory to the larger text-book by the same author. Of the 315 pages of the text, only 130 are devoted to invertebrates: of the 180 pages devoted to vertebrates, many are occu- pied by large and very ornamental but hardly useful pictures. Of about 3800 cuts, 90 are devoted to birds and mammals, and 40 to fish: of these a few are anatomical, the rest illus- trations. The removal of many of these cuts would leave room for more print, without affect- ing the attractiveness of the book. The book is intended for young pupils, and yields to the common prejudice that birds and mammals are most interesting to this class. Yet precisely these animals come least within their reach, and their study of birds especially involves far more memorizing than observation on the part of most young pupils. ‘These same pu- pils, in one afternoon excursion, could collect scores of insects, in which Professor Packard, as his other books show, could easily interest them. But to insects proper only 16 pages are devoted. Here a few pages of tables for determining the families, at least with one or two of the most common and familiar species as examples under each, would encourage the young student to new search and observa- tion. Of most of the lower types and classes the young student sees generally only one or two specimens, if any. Here clear, sharp, and exact definitions are needed to enable him to distin- euish between essential and non-essential char- acters. ‘These we miss; and here, as under certain types in the larger text-book, the stu- dent becomes bewildered in the attempt to burden his memory with a mass of, to him, equally. important data. This is especially noticeable in the treatment of the difficult type of the Coelenterata, but more or less marked elsewhere. The points of affinity and difference between the succeeding types and the struc- tural characteristics -which form the basis of — classification in the subdivision of those types are not clearly or sharply stated. ‘There are no grand outlines to direct the student’s atten- tion. Ina text-book intended exclusively for use in the laboratory, it is perhaps admissible | that typical and specific characteristics should appear side by side, and with equal emphasis ; in a text-book designed largely for use in the classroom as well, it is a great defect. These outlines are little, if any, clearer in the abridg- ment than in the larger book. The anatomical suts are generally good, but they are most of them small, much smaller than those of the elk or moose; and in some of them so much has been attempted that the organs are sometimes difficult to trace. Larger and more schematic drawings would have been more useful. Bar- ring certain of these defects, Professor Pack- ard’s larger work is the best text-book which we have for use in our higher schools and col- leges, but it certainly has not been improved by abridgment. MARIE’S HISTORY OF THE SCIENCES. Histoire des sciences mathématiques et physiques. Par M. Maximinien Marie. Tomel. De Thalés d PRoehan Paris, Gauthier- Villars, 1883. 286 p- - Tuts volume is devoted to the mathematics of the Greeks, and covers nearly a thousand years (640 B.C. to 825 A.D.). The author divides this time into three peri- ods, roughly distinguished by the nature of the work done in geometry; the first period (640 B.C. to 310 B.C.) being that in which no at- tempt was made to apply arithmetic to geome- try, but exclusive attention was given to dealing with and comparing concrete magnitudes with- out reference to their numerical measures. During the second period (310 B.C. to 150 B.C.), numerical measures of complex magni- tudes began to be investigated, — for example, Archimedes obtained a first approximation for the ratio of the circumference of the circle to its diameter ; but the numerical work was merely incidental, and was usually suggested by some problem connected with astronomy: while, in the third period (150 B.C. to 325 A.D.), rea- soning on concrete magnitudes began to be largely replaced by reasoning on their measures, and geometry developed mainly in the direction of trigonometry. At the beginning of the history of each of these periods is an introductory chapter con- [Vou. IIL, No. 4% JANUARY 11, 1884.| taining a brief résumé of the principal char- acteristics of the period, together with a short account of the progress made during the period in each of the branches of the mathematical sci- ence of the time, — geometry, arithmetic, phys- ics, and astronomy. ‘This is followed by the biographies of the mathematicians and physi- cists of the period and an analysis of their work. The three introductory chapters, taken to- gether, form a short and interesting history of Greek mathematics ; while the biographies are sufficiently full, and the analyses are remarka- _ bly clear and concise. SECONDARY BATTERIES. The chemistry of the secondary batteries of Plante and Faure. By J. H. Guapstone and ALFRED Trise. London, Macmillan & Co., 1883. (Na- ture series.) 11+59p. 16°. Tue valuable papers.of Gladstone and Tribe, originally printed in Nature, have been pub- lished in a collected form in the present volume, which contains much information as to the chemical actions going on in the Planté and Faure batteries. In successive chapters the authors consider the subjects of local action, SCIENCE. a1 the chemical changes occurring in the charge and discharge of the cell, the function of the sulphate of lead formed, and some minor top- ics. The chapter devoted to the function of the sulphate of lead, which the authors have shown to be formed in the normal action of the battery, is especially interesting. In the formation of a Faure cell, sulphate of lead, originally produced by local action, is oxidated to a peroxide on one plate, and reduced to spongy metallic lead on the other; and, when the cell is discharged, lead sulphate is finally produced on both plates. On recharging the battery, the authors consider that the lead sul- phate is again oxidated on one plate, and reduced on the other, as when the cell was originally formed, —a point which is a very practical one, as the lead sulphate, if not oxi- dated, will soon prove fatal to the usefulness of the cell. This view, announced in the original papers, is substantiated by a number of recent experiments, notwithstanding the doubts that have been thrown upon it; so that, in charging and recharging, the plate of the cell is not corroded. It is also shown that the fact noticed by Planté, that elevation of tempera- ture facilitates the formation of the cell, is explained by the more rapid formation of lead sulphate under these conditions. RECENT PROCEEDIN GS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Vassar brothers’ institute, Poughkeepsie. Dec. 5.— Professor W. B. Dwight gave the results of a recent re-examination by himself of Van Duzer’s iron-mine, Cornwall station, Orange county, N.Y. Here a low ridge presents a red rock of sandstone and conglomerate, running into red shales to the south, in contact conformably with a highly fossiliferous limestone in nearly vertical layers. No other com- bination of the kind is apparent in this region, and there was much speculation among early geologists as to the horizon. W. B. Rogers called the red rock the triassico-jurassic sandstone; Dr. W. Horton con- sidered it the Medina group, and assigned the lime- stone some place lower; Prof. Mather, with some doubt, concurred with Horton, and further assigned the limestone to the Catskill shaly limestone. Prof. Dwight, after a careful study of the locality, is satis- fied that the red rocks are of the Medina epoch, and the limestones lower Helderberg; but by the fossils ' he identifies, in addition to the Catskill shaly lime- stone, the tentaculite limestone and the lower pen- tamerous groups. He finds no foundation for the statements of Horton, indorsed by Mather, that the iron ore occurs in layers between the layers of lime- stone. On the other hand, it is a bed of limonite formed at the base of the ridge superficially, as in other iron-mines of the region, by the decomposition of the red ferruginous shales at the junction with the limestone. Five hundred and sixty-two specimens, represent- ing various departments of natural history and archeology, were reported to the museum by the secretary. Franklin institute, Philadelphia. December 19.— A special committee, appointed to consider the propriety of recommending the councils of the city of Philadelphia to pass an ordinance requir- ing steam-engineers to pass an examination and to be provided with a license, as evidence of their com- petency, made majority and minority reports; the first taking the view that such action on the part of the society would be inexpedient, and the latter recommending such action. The reports were freely discussed, pro and con; and the subject was post- poned for final action until the stated meeting in January. Mr. G. Morgan Eldridge then read a paper on ‘ The British patent designs and trade-marks act of 1883 as affecting American inventors,’ explaining the pro- visions of the new law to go into operation on the 1st 52 | SCIENCE. of January, 1884, and especially clearing up many points wherein the technical journals, which had favorably reviewed its provisions, had erred. Prof. E. J. Houston introduced Mr. Patrick B. Delaney of New York, who thereupon described in detail his lately invented system of synchronous- aR od ok AD [Vou. IIL., No. 49. i multiplex telegraphy, illustrating the same with the aid of detail-drawings and lantern-slides of essential portions of his apparatus. Mr. Delaney’s system, as thus far perfected, permits of the sending of seventy- two separate and distinct messages over a single wire simultaneously. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Geological field-work.— Mr. J. S. Diller, in his reconnaissance of the Cascade Range, passed through the Dalles, at the north end of the range, and fol- lowed it southward into California. The following is an abstract of the preliminary report made by him to Capt. C. E. Dutton, who has charge of the investi- gation of the volcanic rocks of that region. Ande- sites and basalts are found on the west side; and at Oregon City the lavas have a thickness of three hundred feet. The massive rocks stretch far south- ward towards Salem; and on them rest «extensive alluvial deposits which form fertile plains in the val- ley of the Willamette, French’s Prairie being one of them. Between Salem and Albany the eruptive rocks also occur; but at Jefferson, a short distance north of Albany, the miocene sandstone occurs, and is extensively used in the neighborhood for build- ing-purposes. From Albany to Eugene City, both eruptive rocks and the miocene sandstones occur, the latter being well exposed at Springfield and before reaching the Calapooia Mountains. Thirty- five miles south of Eugene City the miocene sand- stone is frequently penetrated by basaltic and other eruptive rocks. Near Cottage Grove the sandstone resembles somewhat a tufa, but contains coal, like the miocene north-east of Lebanon. Coal with a thickness of five feet is said to occur at the great bend of Pit River, but was not seen by Mr. Diller, as he did not visit the locality. The Calapooia Moun- tains are made up mainly of recent volcanic rocks, especially on the north side. Fragmental rocks are found on the south; but whether they are paleozoic, or not, remains in doubt. ‘These beds extend to near Oakland, where well-marked tertiary appears. South of Rosebury is a belt two miles in width, of olivine enstatite rocks, altered, for the most part, into serpen- tine. It is bounded on the south by a highly tilted conglomerate, which resembles the millstone grit of the Alleghanies. No fossils were found in it, but on petrographical grounds it was referred to the creta- ceous, which Mr. Diller says has not been recognized north of Rogue River valley, from which it is sepa- rated by a belt of crystalline stratified rocks, — the eastward continuation of the Rogue River Moun- tains. South of Myrtle Creek, schistose rocks occupy a belt along the southern branch of Umqua River to Cafionville, where crystalline schistose rocks form the prominent mountain ridge through which the gorge of Cafion Creek is cut. These rocks are pene- trated by a granite which has probably been land- surface foralong time. This granite outcrops fre- quently in southern Oregon and northern California, especially in the Siskiyou Mountains, which are prin- cipally made up of it: it also forms Trinity Moun- tain and Castle Rock. The crystalline rocks representing the eastern pro- longation of the Rogue River Mountains are limited on the south by the supposed cretaceous rocks of Rogue River valley. Mr. Diller thinks that both cretaceous and tertiary rocks are embraced in the section seen on the north-east side of Stewart’s Creek (a tributary of Rogue River extending east- ward from Jacksonville). These rocks extend into California, where they are covered by the great flow of recent eruptive rocks in the plain north of Mount Shasta. Little Shasta valley, especially between Shasta post- office and Mount Shasta, is an extensive plain cov- ered by a flow of basic lava like that on the great plain east of the Cascade Range in central Oregon. Mount Shasta rises above a similar plain. At the Haystacks, a short distance north of the base of Shasta, granite occurs. Between Mount Shasta and Lassens Peak, Cambrian, mesozoic, and tertiary occur. Around the eastern base of Shasta to Burney valley, and westward over the mountain crest to Buzzard Roost, little else is seen than basic voleanic rocks. Four miles west of Furnaceville the road leaves Cow Creek, and ascends to the ‘plain,’ which is covered with angular bowlders and thin soil underlaid by coarse conglomerate. From Buzzard’s Roost a cafion along Cow Creek is cut in carbonifer- ous limestone and other altered sedimentary rocks. At Furnaceville, in the metamorphic rocks found west of the limestone, mining operations have been carried on; but at present the openings are deserted. Farther west, cretaceous (?) strata come in, dipping towards the Sacramento; and above them, tertiary rocks full of fossils. The latter extend to the alluvial plain of the Sacramento. The Cascade Range, constituted almost wholly of basic lavas, is a low, broad arch, not less than seventy-five miles in diameter, rising from 3,300 feet at Summit Prairie, near Mount Hood, to 5,600 feet at Crater Lake. About the head of Deschutes River the general plain, which more or less gradually merges into the slope of the mountains, has a height of 4,700 feet. Throughout Oregon this plain lies about a thousand feet below the general crest of the range; and both are formed of lava sheets arising from fissure eruptions. There are numerous topographi- ‘JANUARY 11, 1884.] cal elements on the broad arch produced by local extrusions, or subsequent erosion; lava having been poured from many craters that rise from eight hun- dred to eight thousand feet above the arch, forming an irregular series of ridges having here and there a radial arrangement. Some are on a line, as if from a common fissure; but, for the most part, they are irregular in distribution. The great peaks of the range are all remnants of old craters. The larger ones form the most prominent peaks of the system, and, although post-miocene in age, are older than many of the smaller ones, which are mainly cinder- cones, which retain their crater-form more or less perfectly. As a rule, also, the latter are basaltic, while the chief mass of the larger ones is andesitic. While Pit River, and perhaps some of its promi- nent tributaries, as well as the Umqua and Rogue rivers, are examples of antecedent drainage, it is probable that the Klamath and Columbia rivers, with their tributaries, are, in part at least, consequent. However, the trip was too hasty to make completely trustworthy observations on this point. — During July, August, and September, Dr. F. V. Hayden, with Dr. A. C. Peale as an assistant, made a geological reconnaissance along the line of the Northern Pacific railroad from Bismarck, Dakota, to Helena, Montana. Geological sections were made at various points, especially with reference to the line between the Fox Hills cretaceous and the Laramie group. Collections of fossil plants and shells were made at Sims, Gladstone, and Little Missouri, in Dakota, and at Glendive, Miles City, Billings, the Bull Mountains, Stillwater, Livingston, Bozeman, and other places, in Montana. ‘The various coal- mines along the line of the road were visited and examined, as were also the borings for artesian wells at Bismarck, Dakota, and at Billings, Montana. STATE INSTITUTIONS. University of Kansas, Lawrence. + The new chemical laboratory. — The regents of the university have wisely provided for the increased growth and importance of the chemical department by the construction of a building for laboratory pur- poses. It is built of native limestone, with dressed stone and brick trimmings, and, as may be seen from the engraving, is in the form of a T. The part extending east and west is 80 by 35 feet, and the L north of this is 40 feet square. The main laboratory and lecture-room are finished to the rafters, and all the rooms on the main floor are provided with additional light and abundant ventilation by sky- lights. The ground-floor rooms are 12 feet in the clear, and well lighted. These are occupied by an assay- room with crucible and muffle furnaces and complete apparatus for the fire assay of ores, and also by labo- ratories for blow-pipe work. The east wing of the main floor, which is 14 feet to the eaves, is occupied by a lecture-room, seated in amphitheatre style, and capable of accommodating from 80 to 100 students. In addition to the ventilating apparatus above mentioned, the plan includes flues SCIENCE. | 53 in the wall, connected with hoods, and hoods in the centre of the main laboratory, which are ventilated by glazed pipes terminating above the roof. GROUND-FLOOR PLAN. A, fire assay room; B, storeroom; C, metallurgical and blow- pipe laboratory; D, wet assay room. All the rooms are supplied with running water, and gas, and heated by steam. The laboratory intended for qualitative students has over 25,000 cubic feet of air-space, and is intended for 54 students, each to be supplied with cupboards, sets of reagent bottles, etc. The tables are to be furnished with slate tops, and, in the quantitative room, with filter-pumps. SECOND-FLOOR PLAN. A, washroom; B, lecture-room; C, storeroom; D, specialists’ laboratory; E, balance-room; F, professor’s office; G, quali- tative laboratory; H, porch; I, stairway. Protection from fire is insured by means of a large tank in the attic, from which pipes supply the differ- ent rooms. o4 The building was erected at a cost of $12,000; and this sum, wisely and economically expended, leaves the chemical department as amply provided with facilities for instruction as any institution west of the Mississippi. E. H. S. BAILEY. Lawrence, Kan. NOTES AND NEWS. Nature states that the Swedish frigate Vanadis has just started on a cruise round the world. King Oscar’s second son participates in the cruise, as well SCIENCE. =F Pay [Vou. III., No. ing in the Parc de Montsouris for the use and annual exhibitions of the Central society of apiculture and insectology. It is hoped to hold there the exhibition of 1885. —M. Bourdalou having published in 1864, in his work ‘Nivellement général de la France,’ that the average level of the Mediterranean is by 0.72 metre lower than that of the Atlantic, this result was re- ceived with some distrust by geodesists. Gen. Tillo points out now, says Nature, that this conclusion is fully supported by the results of the most accurate levellings made in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Feil am | HET Mh mal Hi NEW CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. as Dr. Hjalman Stolpe, who has been commissioned by the government to collect materials for the nu- cleus of a national ethnographical museum in Stock- holm. The frigate, whose mission is chiefly scientific, will call at many places of interest, as, for instance, the Straits of Magellan, the Marquesas and Hawai- ian Islands, the remarkable Malden Island, etc. A Swedish merchant, M. Firstenberg of Gothenburg, has contributed six hundred pounds for the purchase of objects of scientific value. — The Conseil municipal of Paris has granted a sub- sidy of 38,000 francs for the construction of a build- and Spain, which have been published this year. It appears from a careful comparison of the mareo-. graphs at Santander and Alicante by Gen. Ibanez, that the difference of levels at these two places reaches 0.66 metre, and the differences of level at Marseilles and Amsterdam appear to be 0.80 metre when compared through Alsace and Switzerland. The ‘Comptes rendus de la commission permanente de l’association géodésique internationale’ arrive at 0.757 metre from the comparison with the Prussian levellings; whilst the fifth volume of the ‘ Niyvelle- ments der trigonometrischen abtheilung der lan- desaufnahme’ gives 0.809 vid Alsace, and 0,832 vid JANUARY 11, 1884.] Switzerland. The difference of levels at Trieste and Amsterdam, measured vid Silesia and Bavaria, ap- pears to be 0.59 metre. Each of these four results (0.72, 0.66, 0.80, and 0.59) having a probable error of 0.1 metre, their accordance is quite satisfactory; and we may admit thus that the average level of the Mediterranean is in fact lower by 0.7 metre than that of the Atlantic. —Many years ago the late Mr. Leonard Horner communicated to the Royal society the results of a “series of borings which he had caused to be made in the upper part of the delta of the Nile, with a view of ascertaining the antiquity of the civilization of Egypt. Since that time, Figari Bey, an Italian geolo- gist in the service of the Egyptian government, has made and published the results of a large series of borings effected in different parts of the delta; but his work is hardly on a level with the requirements of modern science. It has been thought advisable, therefore, by the British government, to take ad- vantage of the presence of its troops in Egypt in order to carry out a series of borings across the mid- dle of the delta, in the full expectation that such borings, if made with proper care, and carried down to the solid rock, will afford information of the most important character, and will throw a new light upon the natural and civil history of this unique country. Instructions have been sent to the officer command- ing the engineers to undertake the operations; and it is hoped, that, before long, information will reach us which will be of no less interest to the archeologist than to the geologist. — The committee of the British association for the advancement of science, consisting of Profs. G. H. Darwin and J. C. Adams, for the harmonic analysis of tidal observations, made its report at the South- port meeting of the association last year (1883). Pro- fessor Darwin, who is the author of the report, states, that, although it is drawn up in a form probably dif- fering widely from that which it would have had if Professor Adams had been the author, the latter agrees with the correctness of the methods pursued. The general scope of the paper is to form a manual for the reduction of tidal observations by the har- monic analysis inaugurated by Sir William Thomson, 4nd carried out by the previous committee of the association; and it is intended to systematize the exposition of the theory of the harmonic analysis, to complete the methods of reduction, and to explain the whole process. The method of mathematical treatment differs considerably from that of Professor Thomson; he having followed in particular, and ex- tended to the diurnal tides, Laplace’s method of referring each tide to the motion of an astre fictif in the heavens, considering that these fictitious satellites are helpful in forming a clear conception of the equi- librium theory of tides. Professor Darwin, however, having found the fiction rather a hinderance than otherwise, has departed from this method, and con- nected each tide with an ‘argument,’ or an angle increasing uniformly with the time, and giving by its hourly increase the ‘speed’ of the tide. In the SCIENCE. 55 method of the astres fictifs, the ‘speed’ is the differ- ence between the earth’s angular velocity of rotation and the motion of the fictitious satellite amongst the stars. ‘The committee practically found itself engaged in the question of the reduction of Indian tidal ob- servations; since it is only in that country that any extensive system of observation, with systematic publication of results, exists. Professor Darwin has discussed the entire subject with Major A. W. Baird, R.E., the officer in charge, at Poona, of the tidal de- partment of the survey of India; and their general agreement as‘to the modifications to be made in the notation of the old reports appears to insure a har- monious course of future procedure. Major Baird returned to India in the spring of 1883, and lately began revising all the published results, so as to bring them into the uniform system here recommended. — The southern part of the peninsula of California has recently been explored by Dr. H. Ten Kate, who reports (Rev. d’ethnogr., ii. 8321-326) that there are no longer Indians of pure race dwelling in that region. The blood of the ancient Pericuis and Coras flows, it is true, in a great number of métis; but they resemble the Spaniard far more than they do the Indian. In the graves of the dead few relics are found. Here and there on the cliffs are rock-paintings, a few of which Dr. Ten Kate reproduces. The paper closes with the account of a discovery in Sonora. M. Emeric has found upon the shore of the sea, about ten metres above the water-mark, under innumerable blocks of lava, objects resembling fishes and turtles cut out of marble and a hard green rock. He also found several stone knives smoothly polished. — The Society of naturalists of Moscow has sent Kudriaotzeff to examine in detail the geology of the region drained by the upper waters of the Oka. Do- kuchaeff undertakes similar studies for the region traversed by the Volga. Both these investigations are made at the special request of the authorities of the provinces named; and their results, combined with those already derived from the studies of Russian geologists for other districts, will go far toward a basis for a satisfactory geological map of this part of Europe. — The calculation by Gladisheff, of Stebnitzki’s astronomical data for the position of Ka-uchit Kala, the capital of the Merv oasis, has been concluded, and places it in 37° 35’ 19” north latitude, and 59° 27’ 20’- east longitude, from Paris, — a position tolerably near that derived from older and less perfect observations. — Some interesting facts regarding the public col- lections of American archeology in the United States are given by Henry Phillips, jun., in a paper to the American philosophical society. Judging by this report, there are six museums of the first class in this country, containing upwards of five thousand speci- mens, — the Academy of natural sciences in Philadel- phia, the Davenport academy of natural sciences, the National museum at Washington, the Peabody museum of American archeology and ethnology at Cambridge, the Peabody academy of science at Salem, 56 | SCIENCE. and the Wisconsin historical society at Madison. To these must doubtless be added the American museum of natural history at New York, and the Peabody museum at New Haven, from which he received no reports. Four museums should apparently be grouped in a second class as important ones, but not so extensive as those of the first class; namely, Amherst college, the New London county historical society, the Wis- consin natural history society of Milwaukee, and the Wyoming historical] and geological society at Wilkes- barre, Penn. Eleven other museums are reported to have collections of considerable interest. To judge from the statements given in this paper, the Peabody museum at Cambridge is the largest in the country. A list of twenty-five other institutions believed to have collections, and from which no information was received, is appended. We have already referred to two. It may be remarked concerning these, that the Boston society of natural history has no such collec- tions, and that there is no institution bearing the title ‘ Academy of natural sciences, Baltimore, Md.’ — Dr. George M. Beard and Mr. Herbert Spencer almost simultaneously sound the alarm against our modern worry in the words, ‘The gospel of work must make way for the gospel of rest.’ An English writer, signing himself E. S., protests, in the Journal of science, against a theory of civilization which makes the acquisition of material wealth almost its sole object, and which brands all men not engaged in such pursuit as idlers. ‘‘We have under its inspiration stripped our own country, over a great and increas- ing part of its surface, of every beautiful feature. We have blackened its skies with smoke-clouds, pol- luted its air with sulphurous acid, filled its streams with liquid filth, covered its hills with ‘ spoil-banks,’ blighted its green fields, cut down its woods, and ex- tirpated many of its most lovely animal and vegetable species. Our cities, from London downwards, pre- sent, as their main feature, meanness, monotony, and ugliness by the square mile; rarely, indeed, re- lieved by a street or a single building upon which the eye may rest without pain.’”’ The diseases caused by over-work, public morals, and the effect of our system on true intellectual progress, receive vigorous treat- ment. The author concludes that our industrial civ- ilization is found wanting in every particular. ‘‘ It has broken down more rapidly and more disastrously, even, than the military régime which preceded it, and will be found to have left upon the human race even deeper marks of its failure.”’ — About half way between the mouth of the Santa Cruz River and the base of the Andes, and situated along the left bank, Signor Moreno has discovered an eocene deposit rich in mammalian remains. It lies at the base of an elevated terrace some eight hundred and twenty-five feet in height, and is made up of alternate lacustrine and marine strata (eocene, mio- cene, and pliocene), whose summit is mantled by an extensive accumulation of glacial detritus. The most important find here was the skull of a huge mammalian named by Burmeister ‘ Astrapotherium [Vou IIL, No. 49. patagonicum,’ and by him supposed to be closely re- lated to Brontotherium, but which Moreno (under the new name of Mesembriotherium Brocae) considers to be a generalized type of marsupial, probably aquatie in its habits, and having certain characters in the skull to ally it with the Carnivora. In the same de- posit were found the remains of a true marsupial. At a somewhat newer horizon, Moreno found the skulls of two genera of small-sized mammalians, which form a direct transition between the rodents and toxodonts. No traces of either miocene or eocene edendates were detected. In a deposit apparently transitional between the cretaceous and eocene were found two molars, with part of the cranium, of an ani- mal (Mesotherium Marshii) whose true position has not as yet been absolutely ascertained, but which ap- pears to represent the most ancient South American mammalian thus far discovered. Contrary to the opinion of geologists before him, Moreno considers Patagonia as the region whence the mammalia (late tertiary and quaternary) of the more northern regions have been derived. Instead of there having been a late southward migration into Patagonia, it is con- tended that a northerly migration set in with the advent of the glacial period; of which last, it is fur- ther claimed, there is convincing evidence. Patago- nia is believed to have been united with the Antarctic continent on the one hand, and with Australia on the other. — One of the reasons which led to the construction of inductive coils of the large diameter, employed by Professor Rowland in his present work on the ohm, is the hope of using them in a determination of the ohm according to the method of Lorentz. Their large size will admit of the use of a revolving- disk of more than half a metre in diameter. — The auk, a quarterly journal of ornithology, the continuation of the Nuttall bulletin, as the organ of the American ornithologists’ union, begins with Jan- uary, 1884, under the editorial supervision of Mr. Allen, with Dr. Elliott Coues, Mr. Robert Ridgway, Mr. William Brewster, and Mr. Montague Chamber- lain as associate editors, and with Messrs. Estes & Lauriat as publishers, necessitating the same general character as heretofore the Nuttall bulletin has borne, but with increased size and enlarged facilities. } — The Saturday lectures under the auspices of the Anthropological society and the Biological society of Washington will be delivered this year, as heretofore, in the lecture-room of the U.S. national museum, Saturday afternoons, at half-past three o’clock, be- ginning Jan. 5. The series will include twelve or more lectures, and will be divided into courses of four lectures each. The programme for the first course is herewith presented. The lectures are free, and the public are invited to attend. Jan. 5, Mr. Grove K. Gilbert, Cliffs and terraces; Jan. 12, Pro- fessor Otis T. Mason, Child-life among savage and — uncivilized peoples; Jan. 19, Professor Edward S. Morse, Social life among the Japanese; Jan. 26, Major J. W. Powell, Win-tun mythology. ma, WA E. FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1884. COMMENT AND. CRITICISM. Tue Philadelphia local committee for the reception of the American and British associa- tions for the advancement of science, which will meet in that city on the 3d of next September, is taking active’steps to make the meeting a memorable one. The well-known hospitality of Philadelphia, together with the unusual at- tractions offered by the combined meeting ot the two great scientific bodies, will undoubtedly secure a very large attendance. Under the auspices of the Franklin institute, an inter- national electrical exhibition will be opened ' simultaneously with the meeting of the asso- ciations, and a congress of electricians will at the same time be convened. Excursions of unusual interest and extent are being planned. Hon. John Welsh is president, and Prof. H. Carvill Lewis and Dr. E. J. Nolan secretaries, of the local committee, which consists of a hundred and fifty of the most influential citi- zens, representing all the prominent institu- tions of the city. Communications for the local committee should be addressed to its head- quarters, —the Academy of natural sciences. The meeting will probably be held in the build- ings of the University of Pennsylvania, which have been offered for that purpose. It is sincerely to be hoped that the local com- mittee at Montreal will take no steps which, by excursions or otherwise, may prevent a full attendance at Philadelphia of members of the British association. The committees at Mon- treal and Philadelphia should work harmoni- ously, arranging for combined excursions at the close of the Philadelphia meeting. With the aid of the Montreal committee, the Phila- delphia meeting can be made the most impor- tant scientific gathering that has ever been held in this country. No. 50.—1884. Mr. THeopore Link, in the Naturalist for December, pleads forcibly for the betterment of zodlogical gardens. These ordinarily are, indeed, to speak paradoxically, nothing but stationary travelling-shows, — Barnum’s me- nageries called to ahalt. What is required for the animals’ happiness and health is obvious enough ; but, as questions like the present are generally decided from man’s point of view, let us shift to that. The mission of these gardens, as Mr. Link says, is ostensibly ‘‘ the study and dissemination of a knowledge of the natural habits of the animal kingdom.’’ There- fore an opportunity for such habits among these animals is essential to the student visiting them. Perhaps most visitors, however, go for amusement, or for the pleasure of easy instruc- tion. We go to see something opposite to the restraints of our own civilization, to behold the wonders of untrammelled instincts, to en- joy the beauties of free motion. But as it is, we seek a pleasure-garden, and find it a prison. We find no animated vigor there to cheer and to excite us, but helpless misery too much like the poorer side of human life. The great difficulty, it seems to us, is in attempting with limited means too big and mis- cellaneous collections, imperfect, unsatisfac- tory, and uninstructive, about in proportion to their excess of size. Would it not be better in a given half-acre to have a single pair of lions, or of any other much admired brute, rather than a subdued camel, a cramped tiger, a dilapidated ostrich, and a discouraged croco- dile, all obliged to stand as nearly as possible on one leg, for want of any thing better to do? Any chance and inducement given to the ani- mals to breed naturally and freely, certainly might be a direct and valuable economy to any zoological society in keeping up its stock. ACCORDING to a2 communication made to the London section of the Society of chemical in- 08 dustry by Mr. Weldon, it does not seem that we are much nearer to cheap aluminium than we have been fora long time. A short time since, it was announced that a new method of production had been invented and was in use; but Mr. Weldon says this inven- tion only relates to the production of anhy- drous alumina from potash alum; and, if the method of obtaining this were fifty per cent cheaper than that of M. Pechiney of Salindres, it would only cheapen aluminium by five per cent. Apropos of the present discussion of the excessive requirements of Greek and Latin in our colleges, let us not forget the neglect of English. One of the reasons most commonly given for the study of the ancient languages is that they aid the understanding of our own. ‘This is undoubtedly true, but they are not the best aids ; and if a good understanding of Eng- lish be the desired end, as it certainly should be, there can be no question that it will be sooner and better attained by the study of English itself. The derivation of our words can be very satisfactorily taught along with ad- vanced spelling, and the meaning of a large number of roots, prefixes, and suffixes, can then be acquired, so as to give most practi- cal assistance to the comprehension of English ; much better, we venture to say, than if etymo- logical study be limited to the languages from which the roots, prefixes, and suffixes come, and direct statement of their use in building up our own language be omitted. It is cer- tainly very common to find students who have ‘passed’ in Greek and Latin still unable to explain the meaning of not unusual scientific terms. Indeed, so large a share of the time allowed to linguistic study is now given to Greck and Latin considered simply as dead languages, without reference to their living descendants, that no time is left in which the general student can learn what he certainly should know about his mother-tongue. There is pressing need of collegiate study of English as a language: and few subjects would be more attractive than this might be made by a lecturer who would tell his class where and SCIENCE. 2 ve ‘ [Vou. Ill, No. Fs : when the language attained enough of its pres- ent characteristics to be entitled to its present name, what were its ancestors, and how they mingled and changed their form in producing their descendant ; who would describe how the language itself has varied in recent centuries, and how its unsystematic spelling, so unlike the phonetic simplicity of Italian and Spanish, depends on its complex origin; who would point out the historic reasons for its depend- ence on earlier languages for words expressing abstract ideas, in contrast with the relative unabhingigkeit of German. All this would no more require a knowledge of ancient or foreign languages than an appreciation of elementary lectures on chemistry needs an understanding of organic analysis; but it would give a very different knowledge of English from that de- rived from the study of Latin declensions and Greek accents. We cannot doubt that it would be of great service to all who have to write out what they think, and that it would attract to philological studies many students who are now repelled from them. We understand that the scientific work of the Army signal-office is likely to form a feature of increasing importance in the future development of that department, and that Gen. Hazen desires to secure the services of the best talent in the country. It would seem that the study of mathematics, mechanics, and _ physics, as bearing on meteorology, has been sadly neglected in our universities; and it is by no means easy to find any who have been studying the sciences with a view to the pursuit of investigations in meteorology. As a general rule, those who have studied and practised astronomy for a few years are the best prepared to advance meteorology. The fine library of the signal-office, its unequalled mass of observations and maps, its courses of lectures, its annual classes of men under instruction at Fort Myer, its collection of appa- ratus, all offer to young meteorologists oppor-_ tunity and stimulus to farther advancement ; while the publications of the office offer every facility for making known the results of origi- JANUARY 18, 1884.] nal investigations. Even meteorologists out- side the office, or employed by it as consulting specialists, may find it to their advantage to avail themselves of this opportunity for publi- eation. Considering the great future evidently in store for meteorology, it is not surprising that Professor Abbe is, as we understand, dili- gently inquiring for those who are willing to come to his assistance in the effort to develop a systematic, deductive, and exact science of meteorology. We commend this subject to those whose studies have taken this direction. There are needed the investigator, the teacher, and the expert consulting-meteorologist, pre- cisely as in other branches of science. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to beas briefas possible. The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. Chemical geology. IT appears to me, that in his interesting communi- cation in the number of Science for Dec. 28, Pro- fessor Winchell has fallen into an error, which, while diminishing by more than one-eighth his estimate of the secular increase of the earth’s mass, is yet more serious from the stand-point of chemical geology. In determining the amount of carbon dioxide abstracted from the atmosphere and fixed in the earth’s crust, he estimates, first, that represented by the carbonate rocks (limestone, dolomite, etc.), and, second, that re- quired for the decomposition of an assumed thick- ness of decomposable silicate rocks; and both these amounts are included in his grand total. But this is certainly bad book-keeping, for a portion of the carbon dioxide is counted twice. The decay of the silicate rocks is a necessary antecedent of the forma- tion of the carbonate rocks; and the carbon dioxide of the latter is precisely the same as that which has previously decomposed the former. In general terms, this grandest of all chemical processes proceeds as follows: the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere de- composes the felspars, hornblende, augite, micas, etc., of the silicate rocks, leaving the alumina and iron with the silica as a more or less ferruginous kaoline, and forming carbonates of the alkalies and alkaline earths, which are carried away in solution, and ul- timately reach the sea, where the latter are deposited as limestone and dolomite, and the former react with the calcium and magnesium chlorides of the sea- water, producing alkaline chlorides (chiefly common salt) and more limestone aud dolomite. As Dr. Hunt has so clearly shown, the kaoline on the land, and salt in the sea, are merely incidental results of the fixation of the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere in the carbonate rocks. W. O. CRosBy. Osteology of the cormorant. Dr. Shufeldt’s letter in Science (ii. 822) calls for a few remarks. In relation to his first statement, that ‘the occipital style of the cormorant is not an ossification in tle tendon of any muscle’ of the neck, Selenka wrote as follows: ‘“‘ Eigenthiimlich ist dem Carbo cormoranus und C. graculus, aber auch nur SCIENCE. a9 diesen beiden, ein an dem occip. superius durch band- masse verbundener, dreieckig pyramideiformiger, nach hinten gerichteter knochen, welcher die atsatz- flache der den kopf bewegenden muskeln soz. vergrés- sert; er ist ein sehnenknochen und gehort nicht zum schadel ’’ (Thierreichs, 19). In view of such emi- nent authority, it would seem that something more than simple denial is required to upset a_ state- ment accepted by anatomists for many years. It is worthy of note that Dr. Shufeldt does not mention the nature of the bone in his article, and that, in ignoring the point to which I took exception, he virtually acknowledges his mistake. It is difficult to understand how one who does not know the posi- tion of a bone is qualified to expound its nature; and in all cases it is wise, if we would convince, to give reasons for dissent from authorities. As to his second statement, that my ideas of the morphology of the rotular process are wrong, I would simply remark that the ideas referred to are not mine, but those of Nitzsch, of Meckel, of Tiedemann, of Owen, of Selenka, and of Mivart, and suggest that it would be appropriate to read such eminent author- ities before disposing of them with an empirical de- nial. Dr. Shufeldt’s paper clearly intimates that the rotular process of the divers is the homologue of the patella in other birds. The coexistence of the two disproves this by reductio ad absurdum. I would invite Dr. Shufeldt to quote the passage to which ~ he refers when citing Owen as considering any pro- cess of the tibia as the analogue of the patella. Lastly, Dr. Shufeldt states ‘‘ that, furthermore, I find myself misquoted more than once.’’ I would remind Dr. Shufeldt that I quoted him but once; and of the accuracy of this, any one may satisfy himself by referring to Science, ii. 642, 2d column, line 19. J. AMORY JEFFRIES. Electric time-signals. Your correspondent who describes his method of making electrical signals in a recent number of Science (ii. 823) can greatly simplify and thereby improve his arrangement by inserting within the clock a couple of thin metallic springs with platinum contacts, the circuit being completed by the pressure of the hammer on the ‘ outward stroke.’ The writer has had such an attachment to an ordinary ‘ pro- gramme clock’ in constant use for about ten years, as is doubtless the case with many others who have had occasion to distribute time. The signals are transmitted to several buildings, in one of which an ‘electric gong is struck, and in others a number of ‘vibrating’ bells are rung. Mercury contacts are generally troublesome. The arrangement described seems unnecessarily com- plicated: besides, it is difficult to see the necessity for insulating the clock ‘on a square of plate glass.’ M. Columbus, O. Capitalization of names of formations. The use of capitals is a literary rather than a sci- entific matter; but geologists, nevertheless, suffer as a class from the existing confusion in regard to the names of formations. Authors who are consistent with themselves in this matter fall into three classes. Those of the first class speak of the Potsdam, and of the Carboniferous, but of potsdam strata and carboniferous strata. In so doing they class the names of formations as proper nouns, but refuse to recognize proper adjectives. This practice employs a German idiom not otherwise coun- tenanced in our language: we do not say german 60 | _ SCIENCE. idiom. Another objection is, that the practice intro- duces a distinction difficult to maintain on account of the graduation of the nominal into the adjective sense. ‘The Carboniferous’ may or may not imply some such noun as formation, and the degree of such impli- cation is variable. Authors of the second group speak of the Potsdam and Potsdam strata, but of the carboniferous and carboniferous strata. The distinction thus made is etymologic, being based on the immediate derivation of the name of the formation. To this there are two objections. First, it is contrary to the analogies of the language, for capitalization is generally controlled by meaning. We speak of ‘the Pacific,’ although the designation is etymologically acommon noun; and we call the recently popular feminine waist-gear a jersey, although the designation is etymologically a proper noun. Second, it has the effect of recalling attention continually to the derivation of names, and thus retaining their connotative meaning. For mne- monic reasons, and for these only, it is convenient that names of formations should originally be conno- tative, but it is of prime importance that they should eventually become merely denotative. There was a certain original utility in having ‘ Potsdam’ eall to mind a place, and ‘ carboniferous’ a character; but the names having become securely attached to their several formations, it is now imperatively demanded that each shall designate a certain portion of the strat- igraphic column and a certain portion of geologic time, without connotating place or composition. Indeed, the reason why modern usage .employs geographic terms in the naming of new formations, instead of designating.them by their physical characters, is that a minimum of connotation is thus secured from the outset. Authors of the third class capitalize all names of formations, whether used as nouns or adjectives, and in so doing escape these evils. The only objection I see to their practice is, that it classes with proper nouns a group of names which may fairly be compared with other groups not so classed. The demarcation between common and proper nouns is essentially somewhat obscure; and the drawing of the line is largely a matter of practical convenience. It is note- worthy that no author whatever has so drawn it as to include all names of formations with common nouns. The capitalization of all formation names has the manifest advantage that it enables one to say that the Carboniferous rocks are not the only carboniferous rocks, or, in other words, that it doves not deprive the geologist of the independent use of words indicative. of rock cbaracter which have been appropriated for the names of formations. If the use of capitals were altogether discarded in the designation of formations, this advantage would be lost, but another would be gained; for we should then be able to speak of the rocks of Potsdam without implying their potsdam age. G..K. GILBERT. Remsen’s ‘ Theoretical chemistry.’ Will you kindly allow me to correct an error into which it seems that I fell, in my notice of Professor Remsen’s ‘ Theoretical chemistry’ (Science, ii. 826) ? It cannot be denied that the statement, ‘‘ Of the sub- stitution products of benzene which contain three substituting groups, more than three varieties have been observed,’’ is literally true. form of expression were such that I could not but think this assertion was made of those derivatives in which the three substituting groups were alike. Had it occurred to me that the statement was not thus lim- The cqntext and: Synchronism of geological formations. I trust that you will permit me a little more space — to reply to the further remarks of Mr. Nugent on this subject (Science, iii. 33), seeing that your correspond- ent has failed to grasp the point which I had in- tended to elucidate in my last communication. Mr. Nugent is correct when he contends that I rest’ my case on the non-occurrence of ‘ evidences of in- versions;’ and, if my line of argument based on this fact fails to meet with his approval, I sincerely regret it. Paleontology, as far as Iam aware, has thus far failed to show a single unequivocal case of faunal inversion such as I have indicated; nor does there ap- pear at the present time very much likelihood of its ever being able to do so. Nor would the discovery of a solitary instance materially affect the question, inasmuch as, upon the theory of very broad contem- poraneity suggested by Huxley, instances of inversion ought to be about as numerous as those of non-inver- sion. My courteous critic admits that ‘‘ there is no reason why such instances of inversion should not have occurred over and over again,”’ and that at the present time their ‘ occurrence is almost unknown;’ but his appeal to the ‘imperfection of the geological record’ (both geological and geographical), in expla- nation of the overwhelming negative testimony, will, I am afraid, scareely meet the situation. The special cases referred to — Barrande’s colonies, and the intermixture of Silurian and Devonian, and Devonian and carboniferous fossils in the old red sandstone of Scotland —are far from being of the character desired. The former need scarcely to be commented upon, since they have always been in- volved in a certain amount of obscurity; and their very existence as such has very recently been denied by Marr, who personally examined the region, Lap- worth, and a host of other geologists. In the case of the old red sandstone of Arran, where there is an in- tercalation of a band of marine limestone containing Productus giganteus, P. semireticulatus, P. puncta- tus, Chonetes hardrensis, Spirifera lineata, and other well-known carboniferous fossils, Professor Geikie (who, we believe, first made the observation) distinctly affirms that these organisms must ‘‘ have been in ex- istence long before the formation of the thick Arran limestone,”’ and that their habitat during the period of the deposition of the underlying sandstone was im- mediately outside of the basin or basins that through upheaval were now being gradually isolated from the sea: in other words, we have here merely an instance where the range of a certain number of organic forms has been extended somewhat lower down in the geo- logical scale than it had hitherto been indicated. These same forms re-appear in the superimposed lower carboniferous limestones, and, as Professor Geikie observes, they must have been living during the long interval coincident with the sedimentation of the intervening sandstone ‘ outside of the upper old red sandstone area.’ The same relation holds with the Siluro-Devonian mixture in the basal old red of Lan- arkshire. Noonecan deny the local displacement and interchange of portions of two consecutive faunas, especially at about the beginning or close of their own — respective series; but these displacements are not of the nature of the inversions that ought to illustrate the doctrine of broad contemporaneity. To what extent similar or identical faunas indicate — absolute chronological relationship can probably never ited, I certainly should not have pronounced it rash, but so cautious and incomplete that it must inevita- bly mislead even the most careful reader. } THE CRITIC. JANUARY 18, 1884.] be determined; but I believe it may be safely as- sumed that the synchronism is defined within com- paratively narrow limits; or, as previously expressed, **formations characterized by the same or very nearly related faunas in widely separated regions belong, in very moderate limits, to approximately the same actual age, and are to all intents and purposes syn- chronous or contemporaneous’”’ (Science, No. 41). Professor Geikie, who is quoted by your correspond- ent as supporting the orthodox doctrine of homo- taxis, or homotaxis in its broadest limits, judiciously refers to chronological divergences of only thousands of years, and not of millions (‘ Text-book of geology,’ pp. 617-619). ANGELO HEILPRIN. Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, Jan. 12, 1884. Free cervical ribs in the human subject. I send you a photograph of a notable and very in- teresting anatomical preparation well worthy of be- SCIENCE. 61 in possessing two demifacets, instead of a full facet above and a demi-one below. The same subject was also badly put together in some other respects; e.g., one of the long thoracic ribs (I think the fifth) bifur- cated atthe sternalend. The specimens were handed to me by one of my pupils, Mr. Arthur J. Hall. The anomaly here figured, while not new, is so rare that I think I have seen but one illustration of it; namely, that given by Professor Owen in his ‘ Comparative anatomy and physiology of vertebrates.’ ELLIoTrT CovuEs. Smithsonian institution, Washington, Jan. 4, 1884. A possible solution of the standard time question. Although the adoption of five standards of time for the movement of railroad-trains in the United States has simplified the time question for the trav- Seventh cervical vertebra of the human subject, life size, seen from above; showing well-developed and freely articulated pair of cervical ribs. ing engraved and published in Science. It is the seventh cervical vertebra of the human subject, natural size, viewed from above, showing a pair of free cervical ribs. This demonstrates the fact that the so-called transverse process of a cervical vertebra consists of a diapophysis with a coalesced pleura- pophysis, the vertebrarterial foramen so characteristic of cervical vertebrae being an opening between these two apophyses. The photograph shows the prepara- tion so well that little description is required. The whole bone is seen to be a little distorted, and the two ribs are seen to be of different shape and size. The ribs are photographed a little apart from their respec- tive articulations, otherwise in situ. Each freely articulates, as usual with ribs, by its head with the body, and by its shoulder with the diapophysis, of the vertebra. The base of each diapophysis presents anteriorly a nick (deeper and more regular on the left than on the right side) which is a part of the vertebrarterial foramen proper, the rest of which is circumscribed by the rib itself; the whole space be- tween the vertebra and the neck of the rib being thus a large continuous opening of irregular contour. The lower border of the body of this vertebra pre- sents on each side a demifacet (not shown) for half of the head of the next (first dorsal) rib; so that the first dorsal vertebra must also have been anomalous elling public, I believe it is a matter of deep regrets that, since a change has been made, that change could not have been to a single standard instead of five, and that Greenwich time, as Mr. Schott very significantly queries in Science, No. 88. This is the more to be regretted, since the railroad companies have found it impracticable to make the changes on the proposed meridians, and since, as Mr. Schott rightly appre- hends, all ordinary business must always be con- ducted on local mean solar time. It appears to me that this whole question could be very simply and forever settled by the adoption of Greenwich time for the movement of all public con- veyances the world over, and the construction of time- pieces which would indicate at once both local mean solar time and Greenwich time. The only modifica- tion of the ordinary time-pieces needed, to enable them to indicate both times, is to provide them with two dials, one of which shall be movable about an axis, and capable of being set at any desired point. It is immaterial which dial is stationary: the same set of hands would sweep both dials, and indicate, of course, both times, at once. Thus provided, a person desiring to take the next train would be governed simply by the Greenwich dial. Furthermore, should his time-piece lose or gain, it would only be necessary to set it by either local mean solar time or by that of 62 any station, to have it right again both at home and with the world. The adoption of such a standard would not necessi- tate the substitution of new time-pieces for those now in use, nor expensive alteration of them. A very simple, inexpensive way of adapting existing watches to the suggested change would be to etch the Green- wich dial upon the watch-crystal in a little smaller circle than that of the dial proper. The crystal could then be set to indicate the difference of time between the given place and Greenwich, and secured by a little white wax. Clocks could be similarly changed also. If the hours are to be read from one to twenty-four, as seems desirable, and as some roads have already agreed to do, this will necessitate not only a change in the rate of motion of the hour-hand of time-pieces, but in the dial also. Now, since a change is to be made anyway, why not avoid twice changing by re- considering at once the action already taken, and move immediately in the direction Mr. Schott has suggested. This would avoid the necessity of pub- lishing in time-tables local times; while the traveller would have simply to consult his time-table, and refer to his Greenwich dial, to know at what moment to take a public conveyance, not only anywhere in the United States, but anywhere in the civilized world. Train-men and station-hands could experience no inconvenience in being guided by their Greenwich dial, it being necessary simply to make that dial the more conspicuous which is to be consulted oftenest. F. H. KING. River Falls, Wis. THE DUTY ON IMPORTED SCIENTIFIC TEXT-BOOKS. Avr the last meeting of the American asso- ciation for the advancement of science, there was some discussion of the effects of the existing tariff on foreign text-books on our school system. This is the first considerable effort to call the public attention to the results of our Chinese commercial policy upon the edu- cation of our youth. ‘That system of policy is such a vast elaboration of rules, and the effects of its regulations are so hard to trace in the machinery of our society, that it has derived a strength and a safety from its very magnitude and its obscurity. The ordinary mind shrinks from the effort to trace the complication of its effects on great labor-employing industries like pig-iron manufacture. It requires the courage of a great soldier to give battle to the tariff on such fields; for, however convinced the free- trader may be of the right of his cause, he sees that his victory will mean destruction to many whom he cannot regard as foes. But here and there around the tariff jungle there are places that may be improved without danger of any serious consequences to great interests. Some years ago, in a lapse into discretion, if not into rationality, the tariff men took off the duty on quinine. A few score men had to seek other employment, probably to their serious but not permanent inconvenience, and that greatest of SCIENCE. all helpers of the sick was free to go untaxed to its users. | As real though less sympathetic claim may be urged for the removal of the tax on educa- tional materials and methods. Even in our money-earning state of society the amount that can be spared for the education of our chil- dren is so small that such money should be the last thing to receive the burden of taxation. What would have been thought, if in the fier- cest struggle of the war, when we were taxing the physician’s right to minister and the drug’s power to heal, if some legislator had proposed to tax each college-student, say, three dollars a year, for the privilege of pursuing his educa- tion in the most effective manner? ‘Taxes on this principle may be warranted in a besieged city ; but even on our darkest day such a meas- ure would have been laughed out of Congress, would have been denied even the rites of decent burial in a committee. Yet substantially this is what is practically done in this day of un- paralleled prosperity, when, for the first time in all history, a government is sore burdened with its revenues. A commission of well- paid experts, charged to contrive some means to clear away this excess of income, retains this amazing tax after a year of pondering on the subject ! The singular character of the tax is evident enough in the most. general statement of its nature, but close inquiry shows us that it be- comes even less comprehensible the better we understand its details. The books excluded by the tax are not the spellers, readers, arith- metics, etc., that are made by the million. Against these, no foreign books would stand any chance whatever, unless they were intro- duced to the schools through the existing pub- lication-houses. ‘The books that are affected by the lawgare those that have at best a narrow sale. They are principally books in French, German, Latin, or Greek, used only in college classes for special purposes, which it would not pay any American publisher to reproduce. But let us suppose that the English, German, or other printers could furnish a set of school- books so decidedly better and cheaper than our own that our thrifty publishers should be driven from the field: will any reasonable man say that we should continue to maintain them by a head-money tax on the pupils of our schools? There is no good reason to fear that our pub- lishers would lose by a free trade in educa- tional materials. If the change be made in such fashion that they may have as good a chance in foreign markets as foreigners should — have in our own, we can trust the business JANUARY 18, 1884.] capacities, and the stimulated energies of our text-book makers, to keep our place in the struggle. But grant the truth of the sad pre- sages of those who see the deluge in free trade, can we afford either the principle or the effects of levying a poll-tax on education? WHIRLWINDS, CYCLONES, AND TOR- NADOES.1—VIII. Tue barometer was falling more and more _ rapidly, and the wind blowing with increased violence from the north, in the example that was described. Then, if a transparent storm- card, drawn to proper scale after the pattern of fig. 9, be placed on the chart so that its strong north wind shall pass the position of the vessel, it will give the best indication of the general form of the hurricane; and a course may be laid by which the dangerous centre will be avoided. In this case, the safest course will be to run southward, or a point or two west of south, till the barometer begins to rise ; and then, if desired, a more easterly course may be followed. Even if the vessel be on its way to a European port, this will be its safest method of avoiding the storm; for, in attempting to beat against the wind and leave the storm to the south, there is too much risk that its increasing strength will prevent the vessel making sufficient headway to escape being caught in the central whirl: it would be better to sail around the southern side of the storm, and, after the centre had passed on the west, then shape a north-easterly course with the wind on the starboard beam. Some- times it has happened from ignorance of such sailing-rules as these, or from inability, even with their aid, to escape from the sudden vio- lence of a storm, that a vessel finds itself on the storm-track at the time of the passage of the centre; and there is then observed the peculiar and dreadful calm within the whirl,.to which sailors have given the name of ‘ the eye of the storm.’ Let us suppose, in the example given above, that the vessel endeavored to force its way against the increasing north wind, and, failing in this, remained on the path of the storm till the centre advanced on it. During its approach there will be no very marked change in the direction of the wind; but its force increases even beyond what seems its greatest possible strength, and goes on increas- ing, blowing in tremendous and terrible gusts, till the vessel is stripped of its canvas, and the yards and masts are cracked and broken away, 1 Continued from No. 48. SCIENCE. 63 and the hull lies helpless and unmanageable. Rain falls in driving torrents, and the sea rolls in great broken waves. ‘The roaring of the winds rises to a screaming pitch; and when at its most fearful strength, it suddenly dies away. In five minutes, perhaps even less, the air is quiet ; and only the heavy sea, and the commotion of the clouds, and a distant fading sound of the retreating wind, tell of the yvio- lence that has passed by. ‘The vessel is in a cushion of quiet air left under the core of the storm. ‘There is generally but a short time given to suffer the suspense of this unnatural quiet. In half an hour or an hour, according to the size and rate of motion of the storm, the centre passes away, and the opposite side of the whirl suddenly falls on the unhappy wreck, coming again with all the roar and fury that was felt before, but now blowing in the oppo- site direction, —a terrific hurricane from the south, chopping the waves into the dreaded cross-sea, where the water rises in pyramids instead of in linear crests, and changes its form so rapidly and with such broken rhythm as to strain great leaks in the worn-out hull, and leave it to founder in clearing weather, while the storm goes on in its destructive path. There is yet much to be learned concerning the curves followed by the winds in these storms. The diagrams, as described above, are based on observation and theory, but must be regarded only as provisional until proved by the average of many more observations than have yet been made. Rules for various cases may be easily devised on the plan above de- scribed, but they are not infallible: there is still much to be done in perfecting them. Only one additional point need be mentioned: care is needed to avoid sailing after and overtaking a slow-moving storm, and so falling into its power. ‘This would seldom happen in our lati- tude, but might well occur in the Indian Ocean, where some storms have been found to rest almost stationary over one district of the sea for more than a day. A case is reported where a vessel thus fell into the dangerous whirl, and could not escape, but was carried round and round the centre, while scudding under bare poles, till it made five complete revolutions before the storm left it behind. There remains to be described the storm- flood produced when a storm runs upon a low shore, as often happens at the head of the Bay of Bengal. The cyclone advances with grow- ing strength till it reaches the flat delta of the great Indian rivers. It finds the land here perfectly level, and so little raised above the water that its cultivated surface has to be pro- 64 tected from river-overflows by dikes ten or’ twelve feet high built along the shores. But the inblowing winds brush the water of the bay up against the land; the diminished at- mospheric pressure about the storm-centre allows the heavier surrounding air to lift the water here, and for every inch that the mercury falls in the barometer the water will rise a foot ; the rain alone may contribute nearly a foot of water in a day; and finally, if a strong tide conspire with these other causes, a great flood is produced, that overwhelms even the dikes, and drowns out all the low country; and the poor people, unprovided with sufficient means of escape from the winds and the waters that come from above and below, are lost by the thousand. Six storms alone, that have devas- tated this coast since 1700, have, if the records ean be trusted, destroyed over half a million lives. The disappearance of a storm has already been alluded to. ‘The storm will fail, or greatly decrease in strength, when.running from the sea on the land; for friction here is greater, and there is less moisture in the air from which heat can be obtained to overcome the increased friction and continue the existence of the dis- turbance. Again: the storm must decrease in intensity as it recedes far from the equator ; for it then enters regions of less warmth, and con- sequently less moisture. Finally, it must end when the updraught caused by heat derived from the falling rain fails to throw the overflow out- side of the storm’s limits; for then more air enters the storm than flows out of it, and the pressure at the centre will increase. The re- verse of this is worth noting: the storm will increase in size and in total strength, although perhaps not in central intensity, as long as the updraught is active enough to throw some of its volume outside of the area occupied by the surface-indraught; for then the pressure at the centre will decrease, and the development of the embryo will continue. Before proceeding to the consideration of tornadoes, we may devote a little space to the special features of our own storms east of the Rocky Mountains, as determined chiefly by Pro- fessor Loomis in his careful study of the signal- service maps. The storm-areas, as indicated by the curved lines of equal pressures, are ovals about twice ° as long as wide, with the longer axis generally north-east and south-west. The average direc- tion of progression of nearly five hundred storms, in 1872-74, was north 81° east, with a mean velocity of twenty-six miles an hour, or six hundred and twenty-four miles a day: the SCIENCE. [Vot. III, No, 50, maximum velocity was above eighteen hundred, miles a day. Some of these barometric de- pressions begin on the Pacific Ocean, or in our north-western territories; most of them are first noted within the western mountainous dis-. trict; and a good share of the remainder arise on the plains. Very few come from the West Indies. After passing us, they sweep out over the ocean, generally turning well to the north- east, and, if continuing long enough, running to Norway or Iceland rather than to Great Britain. The probability that a storm which leaves our coast will arrive in England is only one in nine. The average tracks of a large number of storms from the Rocky Mountains to the Ural are shown on the accompanying map, pre- pared by Képpen (Annalen der hydrographie, 1882). If storms moved only according to these averages, their prediction would be made easy and accurate; but they naturally fail to do so, and hurry or slacken their pace, or turn to one side or the other of their average course, in what seems to be the most capricious fashion. It is the early discovery of these individual peculiarities that tasks the acuteness of the | weather-men. With regard to velocity, storms advance much faster in February than in August (174: 100), and in the late afternoon and evening than at other hours (125: 100). If the tele- graphic reports show a rapidly rising barome- ter, and a weak wind in the rear of the storm, it will probably move rapidly. ‘The rain, also, exercises a marked control on the storm, as is shown by comparing the forward extension of the rain-area with the rate of progress : — Forward extension of rain. Progression of storm-centre. 640 miles. 40.1 miles an hour. 568 29.2 Ci: 539 66 Pep 8 66 66 66 492 ce 15.3 6e 6eé 6é further, by comparing the axis of the rain-area with the course of the storm : — Axis of rain-area. Course of storm. finally, by comparing the rainfall with the in- crease or decrease of the central’ barometric depression : — i - JANUARY 18, 1884.] SCIENCE. Average rainfall within isobar 29.80”. 0.078” 0.149 0.159 Change of central depression in twenty-four hours. + 0.10” (i.e., storm decreasing). — 0.05 — 0.128 (i.e., storm increasing). Rain, therefore, is shown to aid in determining the velocity, direction, and development of our storms, as has already been inferred. Thus far in regard to the motion of the storm 65 tions here shown has already been discussed. It should be added, that the unexpected ap- proach to equality in the wind’s strength on the right and left (south and north) sides of the storm is probably in large part due to the wind on the north coming but little retarded from the sea, while that on the south has lost much of its proper velocity by blowing long over land; so that, while the winds should theoretically show a less velocity on the left than on the right side of the track when the storm moves over a uniform surface, this inequality might be largely i oO 70 CO oO G0 O. = z - Ae LO IDO 9 80 70 60 50 40 50:20 10 0 4020 60 £0 SO7 GO Ae s ¥] B N of > = z a7 ek Grn s = 30 and more == About 3s storms in the year. 25 30 4 5 12-15 (6k ‘6 SSO E 9-12 «6 Gc. ee TT ‘ 6-9 6¢ 6 ee 6é y = = 3-6 66 66 66 66 ae SS 5-10 SS Under 5 oO GO. 50 HO “OO AVERAGE TRACKS OF STORMS FROM THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS TO THE URAL. as a whole. The winds of the storm blow faster, the more marked the central depression and the closer the isobars. If the space on the signal-service maps between adjoining isobars (the difference of their pressure being one-tenth of an inch) measure one hundred and thirty miles, the wind will probably blow five miles an hour ; if eighty miles, thirty miles an hour ; if forty-five miles, fifty miles an hour. There is, however, much variation from this rule, depending on the form of the ground and the neighborhood of the lakes or the sea. The average direction, inclination, and velocity of our storm winds in the four quadrants is shown in fig. 21. The relation of the several inclina- counteracted by the relations of sea and land that obtain in the eastern part of our country. This is confirmed by finding the winds on the left side of the storms of northern Europe much weaker than on the right; for here the progres- sion of the storm, and the relation of sea and land, combine to produce this effect. Our space forbids more detailed consideration of the vari- ation of our storms with the seasons; and the reader desirous to pursue the subject farther should provide himself with the government daily weather-maps, which may be had by sub- scription to the chief signal-officer in Wash- ington, and should consult Professor Loomis’s essays in the American journal of science for 66 SCIENCE. recent years, the circular on the practical use of meteorological reports and weather-maps (issued by the signal-service, 1871), and the appendices on the relation of rain and winds, and on the course of storms in the different months, in the signal-service reports for 1878 and 1874. (To be concluded.) THE INTELLIGENCE OF BATRACHIANS. In his recent volume on Animal intelligence,? Mr. Romanes devotes less than two pages to the intelligence of batrachians. He remarks, On the intelligence of frogs and toads very little has to be said.’ That our author should have included toads in the above seems strange; as instances of cunning, and proofs of the general intelligence, of these animals, are numerous. In conversation with practical observers of animal life, I have never yet found one that did not accord a marked degree of intelligence to toads. In short, toads may readily be tamed, will come when called, and have been seen to place matter attractive to flies, their principal food, near their hiding- places, so they could remain at home and at the same time be sure of a sufficiency of food. This evidence of foresight, on the part of toads, is no uncommon occurrence, and quite effectually establishes their claim to a credit- able degree of intelligence. Of the spade-foot or hermit toad (Scaphio- pus solitarius) and the tree-toad (Hyla versi- color) I have but little to record. The former is but rarely seen, and I have had no oppor- tunity to experiment with it with a view to testing its mental capabilities. The habits of the animal, as described by Agassiz and Putnam, would lead one to conclude that in- tellectually they are to be classed with the common toad. The tree-toad, or Hyla, being crepuscular in habits, was found difficult to study, and nothing was determined that bore upon the question of its intellectual capacity. I can but state my impression, which is, that they are not so cunning as the common toad. On the other hand, I am pained to confess that my many observations and experiments with the several species of true frogs found here, conducted without an intermission for four months, have yielded but little evidence that these creatures possess a particle of intel- ligence. It almost proved, indeed, to be labor lost, — ‘To perch upon a slippery log, And sit in judgment on a frog.’ 1 Animal intelligence. By George J. Romanes. sc. series, no. xliv.) New York, Appleton & Co. (Internat. ° UN eo ee 5 ¢ : ee [Vou. III., No. 50. Mr. Romanes remarks, that, if frogs are re- moved to a long distance from water, they will take the shortest route to the nearest pool or brook. Even this, I find, is only usually true. Quite ten per cent of such ‘removed’ frogs started off, when released, in the direction of the most distant water, rather than that which was nearest. One of my many experiments was as follows: I placed a pail filled with water in a dry, dusty field, burying it to the brim. It was protected by a cap of coarse wire sieving. I then liberated a frog within twenty yards of | it. It hopped in the opposite direction, towards water nearly three hundred yards distant. I then placed a frog on the opposite side of the buried pail, so that the distant brook could only be approached by passing near or directly over it, if the frog took a direct course. This | the frog did, and less than a score of leaps brought it to the water covered by the sieve. It seemed quite satisfied with the fact that a little water was in sight, although out of reach. Here the frog remained until morning. The following day I removed the pail, and buried it | within fifty yards of a running brook. I then took seven frogs of three species, and placed them upon the sieve, which was about half an inch above the surface of the water. Here five of them remained during the whole day, exposed to the glare and heat of a cloudless midsummer day. ‘The evaporation from the water beneath them barely kept them alive; and yet within so short a distance was a run- ning brook, with all the attractive features of ideal frog-life. IT repeated this experiment, with slight modi- fications, several times, and always with essen-. tially the same results. In his Travels in North America (Eng. trans., vol. ii. p. 171), Peter Kalm refers to certain habits of the bull-frog (Rana Catesbyana) which seemed to indicate that the frogs of this species occupying the same pond were some-_ what governed by a leader. His remarks are, ‘¢When many of them croak together, they make an enormous noise. . . . They croak all together, then stop a little, and begin again. It seems as if they had a captain among them: for, when he begins to croak, all the others follow; and, when he stops, the others are silent ;’’ and he adds that the ‘ captain ’ appar- ently gives a signal for them to stop. This, if true, would be evidence of considerable in- telligence; but it is only apparently true of them. I have very carefully watched the bull- frogs in a pond near my house, and have found that the croaking of the ‘captain’ is not always that of the same individual. At times JANUARY 18, 1884.] the initial croak would come from one side of the pond, then the other, and so continue to vary. This shows at once that not any one individual started and stopped the croaking of its companions. Hoping to find that in the pursuit of prey, which is principally insects, frogs would dis- play some intelligence, I tried several experi- ments to test their ingenuity; but it was of no avail. Unless the food could be easily reached by making the simple exertion of a single leap, the frogs would go hungry. Sub- sequently I placed a large fly upon a piece of thin mica, and surrounded it with a circle of fine needles, piercing the plate. The fly thus protected could only be seized by the frog suffering a severe pricking of the jaws. ‘This, I found, a frog would suffer indefinitely, in its attempts to secure the fly. In one instance, the frog, which had been fasting for seventy- two hours, continued to snap at the needle- protected fly until it had entirely skinned its upper jaw. I concluded from this, that the wits of a frog were too limited to be demon- strated. Some weeks after having completed these experiments, I had the good fortune to cap- ture two fully grown specimens of the bull- frog (Rana Catesbyana) ; and, noticing their enormously distended sides, I examined the stomach-contents of the two. In one was a full-grown chipmunk (Tamias striata) ; in the other, a garter-snake (Eutania sirtalis) meas- uring eighteen inches in length, and also a field-mouse (Arvicola riparia). On close ex- amination, I found that the snake had partially swallowed the mouse ; and, while thus helpless, the frog had evidently attacked the snake, and swallowed it. It is evident, I think, that the frog recog- nized the helpless condition of the snake at the time, and took advantage of it. If so, it is evidence of a degree of intelligence, on the part of the frog, which the results of my ex- periments on the frogs generally, had not led me to expect. Certainly a frog, however large, will not attack even a small snake if it is pos- sessed of its usual activity. The salamanders, on the other hand, by their active movements, wandering disposition, quickness of hearing, and other minor charac- teristics, give evidence of greater intelligence. This I can state of them, however, as an im- pression only; for my efforts to prove them possessed of cunning were not successful. The purple salamander, it is true, fights when cap- tured, curving its back, and snapping vicious- ly. This no frog ever does. The common SCIENCE. 67 spotted triton (Diemyctelus) becomes quite tame when kept in an aquarium, and, as I found, is soon able to determine the difference between a fly held against the glass and one held over the water. I frequently held a fly against the glass, and very near the triton ; but it took no notice of it, after one or two efforts to seize it, but would follow my hand, and, when the fly was held over the surface of the water, the triton promptly leaped at and seized it. This is, indeed, but meagre proof of intelligence, but seems to show, I think, that a salamander is more cunning than a frog. My observations lead me to conclude, that the habits of an animal have much, if not all, to do with the intellectual capacity it possesses. Frogs, as a class, are not migratory. They fre- quent a given pond or stream; and, sustained by the insect-life that comes to them but is not sought, they pass an eventless life, trust- ing, as it were, to luck. Such an existence requires no intellectual exertion, and none is made. ‘The salamanders, on the contrary, are far more wandering and active. They appear to be ever in search of food, and, when lying in wait for it, choose such positions as experi- ence has taught them are best adapted for the purpose: at least, my studies of such speci- mens as I have kept in confinement lead me to believe so. Intellectually, therefore, the salamanders are in advance of the frogs; but the batrachians as a class, although higher in the scale of life than fishes, are, I believe, in- ferior to them in intelligence. Cuas. C. Appott, M.D. THE PONS-BROOKS COMET. Tue comet which is now being observed at its first predicted return was discovered by Pons, at Marseilles, two hours after midnight of July 20, 1812. Pons was at the time concierge at the Marseilles observatory, but afterwards became its director. He died in Florence, Oct. 14, 1831, at the age of seventy, having, between the years 1801 and 1827, dis- covered no less than thirty-seven comets ; this one, according to Zach (Monatl. corr., xxvi. 270), the sixteenth in ten years. Pons describes the comet at the time of discovery as an irregular, nebulous mass, with- out coma or tail, and invisible to the naked eye. Having made sure, from the motion, that it was really a comet, he announced his discovery on July 22; and, from July 25 to Aug. 3, it was bright enough to be observed, at lower culmination, with the Marseilles in- 3 68 | SCIENCE. struments. The comet. seems to have been discovered independently at Paris by Bouvard, who describes it thus: ‘‘ Cette cométe était trés petite. Elle ne fut visible 4 la simple vue que pendant quelques jours. Le 18 aoit son noyau, assez brillant, était entouré d’une né- bulosité qui offrait l’apparence d’une cheve- lure et d’une queue d’environ 2° de longueur.”’ Bode reports the comet visible to the naked eye on Sept. 9, 1812, and on Sept. 14 he gives the tail as 1° long; while on the same date, at Seeberg, the tail is given as 2° 17’, and the diameter of the nucleus 5.4 seconds (time). The last observation which we find at Peon tn this appearance was at Mar- seilles on Sept. 27, 1812, the comet being then just visible in the morning twilight. tol From the observations of 1812, covering a period of not PR. 25. S MAY 25: PATH OF PONS-BROOKS COMET. quite ten weeks, several orbits were com- puted, that of Encke assigning a period of 70.68 years. More recently Messrs. Schulhof and Bossert, from an exhaustive discussion of all the observations available (including some not known to Encke), predicted a return to perihelion about September, 1884, though they pointed out that in their period there was an uncertainty of +5 years. The comet was actually found by Brooks (Phelps, N.Y.) on Sept. 1, 1883, some time before it had reached the sweeping ephemeris of Schulhof and Bossert ; but its identity was soon established. The annexed diagram will assist in forming an idea of the path in which the comet is moving. The earth’s orbit (the northern side uppermost) is shown orthographically pro- Ta ¥ [Vor. III., No. 50. jected upon the plane of the comet’s orbit. The data necessary for defining the ellipse in — which the comet moves are, the angle Q (254°), the longitude of the ascending node ;° the angle IT— 8 (—161°), the difference be- tween the longitude of the node and the longi- tude of perihelion (11) ; the angle 7, the incli- nation between the earth’s orbit and that of the comet; q, the perihelion distance (0.775) expressed in units of the earth’s distance from the sun; 7’, the date of perihelion passage ; and e, the eccentricity (0.96), or ratio, — distance from centre to focus semi-axis major Q and TI — 9 are shown in the figure ; and, to form the complete picture, we are to imagine the plane of the comet’s orbit revolved about the line A B, the line of nodes, until it makes an angle of 74° (7) with the plane of the paper. The directions in which the comet and the earth are moving are indicated by arrows. ‘The positions of the two bodies on a number of dates are also given. ‘The peri- helion is reached on Jan. 25, 1884, when the comet is seventy million miles from the sun, and sixty-eight million miles from the earth. The nearest approach to the earth, about fifty- three million miles, is upon Jan. 8, 1884. The brightness, as far as depending upon the distance from the sun and from the earth, should reach a maximum about Jan. 11, a hundred and forty-five times as bright as when discovered by Brooks, and five times as bright as at the time of Bode’s observation, when, as already noted, the comet had a tail a degree in length. We might expect, then, that it aa--: would be visible to the naked eye from the middle of December to the middle of February, equalling, at its best, the brightness of a star of the third mag- nitude; but unusual and unexplained fluctua- tions in the brightness have been observed, which render these predictions a little untrust- worthy. In the first week in December the comet passed within about seven degrees of the bright star a Lyrae, and continued its motion rapidly towards the south and east. Since its discovery by Brooks, our visitor has behaved in a most peculiar manner as regards brightness. The theoretical change is given in Professor Boss’s article in Science, ii. 449. On the following page we find obser- vations made at Harvard college observatory on Sept. 21, 22, 23. The variability remarked — at Harvard is confirmed by observations made ~ at about the same time at Paris, Hamburg, and Dresden; so that we find a pretty well defined - JANUARY 18, 1884. ] maximum of from the seventh to the eighth “magnitude, reached between Sept. 22 and 24, falling off suddenly on either side ; for on Sept. 21 the comet was ‘ very faint,’ with ‘a slight _condensation,’ and on the 28th it was tenth to eleventh magnitude. Bigourdan says, ‘‘ It had for some time a brilliancy thirty or forty times what might have been expected, —a -fact difficult to explain on the theory that comets have no light of their own.”’ As regards any variability at its former ap- pearance, the observations of 1812 are not suf- ficiently precise to furnish conclusive evidence. A rough sketch of the comet, as seen with the 26-inch equatorial of the Naval observato- ry, Washington, was made on Sept. 26, 1883 ; and by permission of the superintendent of the observatory, Rear-Admiral R. W. Shufeldt, it is here given, with the observer’s note. ** Sept. 26.39, 1883 ; — observer, Winlock ; — PONS-BROOKS COMET, SEPT. 26, 1883. 26-inch equatorial, magnifying power 183. The comet appeared as an oval, nebulous mass, with a fairly well defined stellar nucleus, some- what elongated in the preceding following direc- tion, the nucleus being situated at about the centre of the nebulosity. The whole mass was some 6’ or 8’ in diameter.”’ The spectrum of the comet was examined by Konkoly,? Sept. 27, 1883. It consisted of three extremely faint bands, — the middle one brightest, the third (from the red end) next, and the one towards the red faintest. The bands ended in points, and were unequal in length. They sometimes lighted up for one or two seconds; and at these times they seemed to be much shorter than ordinarily, —a phe- nomenon quite new to the observer. - From the similarity of the orbits of the com- ets of 1812 and 1846, IV., Kirkwood has sug- gested (Amer. journ. sc., 2d series, xlviii. 255) that they were doubtless members of a come- tary system, and were brought into the solar system 695 years before the Christian era by 1 Astron. nachr., No. 2547. The observatory, November, 1883, 333. SCIENCE. 69 the influence of Neptune. Schulhof and Bos- sert, In pointing out an error in Kirkwood’s calculation, modifying somewhat his conclu- sion, say that the remarkable resemblance be- tween the orbits of these comets indicates that there was originally some intimate connection between them. Indeed, these two comets, and the comets of 1815, 1847, V. (Brorsen), and 1852, IV. (Westphal), seem to belong to the same family. As to the proper designation of this comet of Pons and of Brooks, authorities and prece- dents differ. In The observatory for November, 1883, Mr. W. T. Lynn writes, ‘‘ I presume the designation Pons-Brooks’s comet is understood to be only provisional. According to rule, it should be Pons’s comet; ... its permanent name must therefore be ‘ Pons’s long-period comet,’ or ‘ Pons’s periodical comet of 1812.’ ”’ The shortest designation seems likely to pre- vail; and doubtless the comet will be known hereafter as the ‘ Pons-Brooks comet,’ or per- haps simply as the ‘ Comet of 1812,’ it being the only comet that was seen in that year. Wi. C.” WiInLock. THE AINOS OF YEZO.1 ALTHOUGH the literature relating to the Island of Yezo, andthe Ainos, — the inhabitants of this island as well as the southern half of Saghalien (or Karafuto), the Kurile Islands, and the southern extremity of Kamtchatka, — has increased much in recent years, still a description of the same, based upon personal observation, may be of use in explaining the many contradictory reports and opinions of ethnologists. Two facts should be borne in mind, — first, that the Ainos are not, even in the most remote way, to be classed with the dark races; and, second, that they are in no way related with their southern neighbors, the Japanese. With regard to their color, I must remark, that I have not found the Ainos of either sex darker than many Europeans: indeed, it is not rare to find in southern and eastern Europe darker individuals than are to be seen among the aborigines of Yezo. The assertion that the Ainos are dark brown, or even black, is sometimes made by those who do not take into consideration the fact that superstition prevents them from washing, and that consequently their complexion appears at times much darker than it really is. The real color, which may be best seen to advantage among the Ainos living on the seashore, is a little lighter, and less reddish, than that of the Japanese. The development of hair is somewhat re- markable: in the case of the men it covers the entire body to about the extent seen in very hairy Euro- peans. The beard is luxuriant and beautiful: the women imitate it by tattooing. The curly or wavy 1 By Professor BRAUNS of Halle. Translated from the me moirs of the Berlin anthropological society. 70 character of the hair of the head is quite striking. The physique is much better than that of the Japa- nese; the thigh is not so strikingly shortened; and the muscles are more strongly developed, while there is a weaker development of sub- cutaneous adipose tissue. The physiognomy and cra- nial conformation are also very different. The eyes are more deeply set than in the Japanese; and, as with us, they are shaded by heavy brows. Theorbits, as shown by the skeleton of the face, are less high; and therefore the lids are horizontal, ex- cept in some hybrids. In contrast with the Japanese race, the forehead is straight; prognathism, when present, is very slight; and the nose and chin are generally well developed. The facial ex- pression differs also from that of the Japanese: it indicates a certain fearlessness, joined with ingenuousness and a happy disposition. The in- tellectual characteristics cor- respond, as might be expect- ed, to the impression pro- duced by external features. As has often been noted, the generous and respectful hospitality of the Ainos never fails to make a more favorable impression on the traveller than ‘is re- KEWIS ENG COS ASTIN SCIENCE. er MAP AN W014) v on AN AINO MAN. tal lamps. nothing of the language of either race, and who re- garded the Japanese language, which is spoken flu- ently by the Ainos, as the © vernacular of the Ainos. All those who (as Dawidoff, Kla- proth, Dobrotworsky, Pfiz- maier, v. Siebold, Scheube, Batchelor, Miss Bird) have prepared larger or smaller Aino vocabularies have es- caped this error. These observations were forced upon me on my first acquaintance with the Ainos in and around Sapporo, where I learned to know, also, the Ainos that were brought from Saghalien to Yezo at the time the former island was ceded to Russia. My conclusions were further supplemented and confirmed through a fes- tival instituted by the gov- ernment of Sapporo (July 9, 1881), in order to show me, ~ as they said, the earlier con- ditions of the island, as well as the products of modern civilization. At one end of a large hall, in which we were seated, were seen a number of Saghalien Ainos regaling themselves with saké (rice-wine) under the mellow radiance of orien- Upon a signal to begin, a young man arose, and led on the women to a round dance, while the older men remained ceived among seated. The the Japanese. women, with In the south- their faces western parts of the island the character changes some- what under the influence of the domi- nant race; and here hybrids are quite nu- merous. The latter fact has doubtless giv- en rise to er- roneous opin- ions as to the affinities of the two races; for no one would assert AINO HUT. i if I | ) ' | turned to- AWE EME Co BOTT ON.” ward the cen- tre of the cir- cle, alternate- ly prostrated them selves and arose, at the same time festively mov- ing onward in the circle. Picturesque: as was their costume, con- sisting of long robes made from the bast of the elm, and metal gir- dles on which a relationship of language, except travellers whoknew hung carved knife or sickle scabbards, this dance was [Vou. III., No. 50. a a s q JANUARY 18, 1884] of inconsiderable interest, in comparison to the soft, melancholy, but melodious music, with its perfect time, which accompanied it. This singing would not have surprised me in the least in Norway, for exam- ple; but here it appeared in the most striking con- trast with similar efforts of the Japanese, and indi- eated quite a different cast of mind. In the vicinity of Sapporo was Juishikari, an Aino * village of especial interest. It was here that I came to know the construction of their huts (great squares with smaller additions, all hung with rushes and reeds), many of their customs, their touching adhesion to their old nature-wor- ship, their worship of the sun by the Inawo (a sacred staff frilled with shavings pendent from its upper end, and placed in the eastern window of the hut), and their fear of the dead. Their food con- sists mainly of millet and salted salmon. The intelligence ef the Ainos is byno means small. They learn the Japanese language very easily, accustom them- selves very readily to all innovations which are not in conflict with their religious concep- tions, occasionally make improvements, and are ready to answer ques- tions in a precise man- ner. They never betray their age, and pretend not to know it. With this exception, I learned every thing I wished fromthem. I obtained, for example, a detailed account of their terms for different colors. Af- _ter what I had seen, I was not surprised to find that these terms quite conformed to our own, and deviated fundamen- tally from those of the Japanese. The Japanese have only one word for blue and green ; while the Ainos have distinct names for both colors, which often appear to be confounded when interpreted by the Japanese. In Saru (or Sara) I had an opportunity to see all of an ancient state organization that has survived the introduction of a village government. Here I found the seat of the chief among the village elders, which was formerly located somewhat farther in the inte- AN OLD AINO. SCIENCE. 71 rior, at Biratori or Piratoru. The chief was regarded by the Ainos as a sort of king. Under Japanese domination his power and rank were lost. The mode of travelling has been well described by Miss Bird. It is impossible to make any progress without horses; and these, although not of the mean- est sort, are most shamefully abused by the Japanese. In this respect the Ainos generally prove useful and agreeable servants, but they are often the too sub- servient tools of their masters. However, I have never seen the Ainos abuse their horses, their only domestic animals, in the reckless and bru- tal manner observed among the Japanese: indeed, I have _ wit- nessed on many occa- sions quite the opposite mode of treatment. In my journeys along the coast, I became con- vineed that the popula- tion of the Ainos had been under - estimated, just as that of the Japa- nese had been over-esti- mated. While the num- ber of the latter is cer- tainly less than a hun- dred thousand, instead of more, as officially re- ported, the number of the Ainos (said to be eighteen thousand) must be trebled in order to reach approximately accurate figures. The erroneous estimate of the Japanese govern- ment is explained by the fact that it takes no ac- count of the large num- ber of Aino villages on the large rivers of re- mote parts of the island, aud particularly along the coast, but is based on therelation of the square surfaces of known and unknown parts. In some of the better known parts of the island, especially in the south-west, the Ainos have been completely dislodged; and in the mixed dis- tricts their number has also been much reduced. From all these observations, as well as from the traditions of the Ainos, in which are ever-recurring laments for a better past, and from many peculiari- ties in their customs (e.g., loss of the use of really good weapons, the poisoning of the arrows and snares for beasts of the chase, particularly bears), we must conclude that the Ainos are to be classed with those peoples that have earlier been more richly supplied { WW coat \ ous Nc \\) ee aw AUN 72 with the implements of civilization, but have become degraded intellectually through isolation. Prehis- toric discoveries, particularly those made in the re- gion of Otaru, on the west coast of the island, favor this view. The pits found there for dwellings indi- cate that the Ainos came from the north to Yezo. The shell-heaps contain, besides very elegant pot- sherds, many stone implements, especially obsidian heads of lances and arrows, and ornaments of differ- ent kinds, as stone-beads and the like. In all these respects the shell-heaps are distinguished from those found throughout Japan, from latitude 39° north to the southernmost point of the coast of Kiushiu, within which limits the shell-heaps are destitute of ornaments, poor in stone implements, and entirely without obsidian. These facts point to a higher civil- ization of the Aino race, and at the same time refute the assumption that the Ainos formerly settled a large part of the main island (Nipon), — an assump- tion erroneously supposed by some to be supported by prehistoric discoveries. As there is no near rela- tionship between the Ainos and the Giljaks of North ‘Saghalien, who are less hairy, more prognathous, and more like the Tchuktchi race, we must assume that the Ainos were displaced by the Giljaks, and that their nearest relatives, judging from important analo- gies of language, and especially from their ‘ naturell,’ are to be sought among the Kaoli of northern Corea (Oppert’s Caucasian type of Koreans). The latter have symmetrical features and luxuriant beards, and are therefore called ‘ bearded barbarians’ by the Jap- anese. They stand to the inhabitants of southern Corea in many respects as the Ainos to the Japanese, The Kaoli have had, to be sure, a history very differ- ent from that of the Ainos; for they became a civil- ized people, while the Ainos in the primeval forests of Yezo became more and more uncivilized. This fact is not opposed to the assumption of a kinship of the two races; and this assumption is supported not only by the particulars already alluded to, and the undeniable capacity of the Ainos for greater intel- lectual activity than they now exhibit, but also by the -act, that, notwithstanding the developed culture of the Coreans, certain things (e.g., the lance-shaped turrets on grave monuments) recur which remind one of Yezo. Besides, the traditions of the Kaoli, and certain names of places in the southern part of Amur (on the Sungari and its south-eastern tributaries), point to earlier dwelling-places of the race. From here the Ainos probably spread over the lower part of Amur and Saghalien. Other attempts to bring the Ainos and the North-Coreans into close relation- ship with other peoples are too hypothetical to require mention here. It is certainly to be hoped, but un- fortunately it can hardly be expected, that the silent but eloquent appeal for friendly sympathy which the hearty greeting of the Ainos and the melancholy look given to strangers seem to make cleat, may meet with some practical response: at all events, we should not withhold our most cordial good will from these sons of the primeval forests of our temperate zone, who are unquestionably the most peaceful and good- natured of all the so-called ‘ savages.’ SCIENCE, "Ww THE HOT BLAST IN MAKING IRON. At the last few meetings of the Iron and steel in- 7 stitute of Great Britain very important papers. have been presented and discussed, showing the direction in which competition has brought about economy in iron-manufacture. These papers, notably those of Messrs. Cochrane, Hawdon, Bell, Cowper, and How- son, give to the technical reader a very good idea of the latest opinions of the foremost iron-makers of England. . The institute held its September meeting in Mid- dlesborough,—the place in which it was organized | fourteen years ago. This anniversary naturally led to some general reflections on the progress made in that time, which can be appreciated by the general public. The only drawback to the discussions was the absence, owing to illness, of Mr. I. Lowthian Bell, who has been present at all the previous meet- ings. In 1828 Mr. J. B. Neilson patented a process for heating the air before it was blown into the blast- furnace, claiming that a gain in economy of working was the result. The idea was received with disbelief in most quarters. A little later Mr. Neilson proved conclusively to all that one hundred pounds of coal burned in heating the air for the blast were able to save three hundred to four Rundred pounds of the fuel used within the furnace. The first step was made, and the iron-makers had to accept the conse- quences. From this small beginning the tide of invention and enterprise went on, until the air used for blast was no longer heated by coal burned for the pur- pose, but by the combustion of what were formerly waste gases issuing from the top of the furnace. One improvement after another was introduced, until the temperature of the blast was raised to 900° F., and even to 1000° F. At this point it seemed that the metal pipes used in the stoves for heating had reached their limit of endurance; and a portion of the iron-making world made up their minds that creater heat than this could not be economically maintained, and that, even if the question of obtain- ing the heat was solved, there was still a balance of chemical reactions within the furnace which would prevent the greater heat from being advantageous. Meanwhile, by the use of the Siemens regenerator _ principle, two different inventors, Cowper and Whit- well, each manufactured stoves which contained fire-brick chambers, within which the waste gases burned for a period, until the fire-bricks were at a red heat. The gases were then turned off to the alter- nate stove, and the air for the blast-furnace was driven in through the heated stove until the other one had become sufficiently heated. change was again made, and so on. ‘These various devices have resulted in the production of a blast of — air for the furnace heated up to 1600° F., or even to 1700° F. be Now let us see what has been the result of this change. The blast-furnaces of 1869 produced, on an average, a little over 180 tons of iron per week. To- Pow, [Vou. IIL, No. 50. | The inter- a JANUARY 18, 1884.] day they produce, on an average, upwards of 300 tons per week, in some cases 800 or 900 (and in one of the Pittsburg furnaces the enormous output of 1,800 tons has been reached). Mr. Charles Cochrane, an advocate of the hottest hot blast, stated, that, at the works at Ormsby, they began in 1855 with a furnace of 7,000 cubic feet capacity, and with a temperature of air between that of molten lead and molten zinc, using 39.64 cwts. of coke to the ton of pig. In 1857 they used 33.87 cwts.; in 1867 it was only 29.66; in 1877 it had become reduced to 22.64; and in 1882, 21.18 cwts. was the average for all furnaces, small and large, while the larger furnace of 34,000 cubic feet capacity worked the whole year through on 19.38 ewts. per ton of pig. Hence from 1855 to 1883 the saving was 20.34 ewts. of coke per ton of iron; and, in Mr. Cochrane’s opinion, fully half this sav- ing was due to the use of the Cowper fire-brick stoves. Mr. Cochrane has recounted some of the theo- retical calculations that have been made. In 1879 he ventured to predict that a ton of iron could be made with 17.90 cwts. In 1881 he had made iron with 18.40 ewts. Another iron-master stated that a furnace has run for eight weeks on less than 18 ewts. Mr. Hawdon claims that heating the blast from 990° F. to 1400° F. resulted in a saving of 1.5 ewts. of coke to the ton of iron, and that a further heating to 1550° F. was followed by a total saving of 2.5 ewts., bringing the coke down to 21.3 cwts. In the discussions which took place at the meet- ings referred to, the prominent iron-manufacturers generally took the ground that the hotter the blast the better the result, up to the temperature of melt- ing iron. Mr. I. Lowthian Bell, however, dissents from this view, and thinks, that, in real ultimate economy, 1000° F. will prove to be about the limit of heat for the blast which it is worth while to strive for. R. H. RICHARDS. MODERN PHYSIOLOGICAL LABORATO- RIES: WHAT THEY ARE AND WHY THEY ARE.1—I. ‘A LITTLE more than seven years ago I announced from this platform that the old biological laboratory was ready for usé,—that set of rooms in the third story of this building, which, inconvenient in many respects as they were, will, I trust, always be re- membered by some of us with affection, and mayhap with a little pride. This night on which we have met to celebrate the completion of the new laboratory is, however, an occasion for looking forward rather than backward. But before proceeding to speak in detail of the new building, I feel sure I do but what every one of the members of the biological department present would think me remiss to omit, in pausing a moment to ex- 1 An address delivered on the occasion of the formal opening of the new biological laboratory of the Johns Hopkins uni- versity, Jan. 2, 1884. By H. NeweLut MARTIN, M.D., Dr. Sc., M.A., professor of biology in the university. SCIENCE. - 73 press our gratitude to those to whom we owe it, — first to our founder, Johns Hopkins, for his munificence; and next to his trustees. Probably very few pres- ent realize how much time and thought the trustees spent on the building before a stone of its foundation was laid, and during its erection. No one but myself knows how often I have been put in good heart by the cheering words, ‘‘ Well, Dr. Martin, let us get it right when we are about it.”? In this connection I cannot refrain from saying, that, though we owe all so much, we owe a special debt of gratitude to Mr. Hall Pleasants, the chairman of the building com- mittee. Throughout the whole summer there was hardly a morning on which he did not visit the build- ing, and that not merely for a glance, but far more often to spend an hour or two hours about it, and make sure that all was going right. The material result of this liberality, forethought, supervision, and ¢are, is that stately building on the top of the hill. Handsome though not ostentatious, comfortable but not luxurious, pleasant to work in without unnecessary finery, it stands there, for its purpose unrivalled in the United States, and not surpassed in the world. Substantial, solid, well thought out, suited to its ends, and with no frippery about it, it is now for us to see that our work agrees in character with the building. There are many here to-night, who, not being bi- ologists, may desire to know what such laboratories are for, and why there is any need of them. [I shall perhaps best begin my attempt to answer these ques- tions by stating briefly what our own laboratory is. It is a building constructed primarily to afford fa- cilities for instruction and research in physiology; and, secondarily, similar opportunities in allied sci- ences, aS comparative anatomy and botany, some training in which is essential (and the more the bet- ter) to every one who would attain any real knowledge of physiology. Asso many distinct branches of bio- logical science are pursued in it, we call it in general the biological laboratory; but it is a biological labora- tory deliberately planned that physiology in it shall be queen, and the rest her handmaids. If, therefore, you visit the building prepared to see a great zoolo- gical museum or an extensive herbariuin, you will be disappointed. I do not underrate, and no one connected with this university can, — bearing in mind the brilliant anatomical researches of Dr. Brooks and others, made among us, — the claims of morphology; and in time I trust we may see a sister building spe- cially designed for study of the structure, forms, and development of plants and animals. But one or the other had to be first chosen, unless we were to do two things imperfectly instead of one well, and there were strong reasons for selecting physiology. In the first place, I think even the morphologists will admit that hitherto, and especially in the United States, they have had rather more than their fair share; innumerable museums and many laboratories have been built for their use; while physiology, if she got any thing, was usually allotted some out-of- the-way room in an entirely unsuitable building, if 14 | SCIENCE. no one else wanted it, and was very glad to get even that. A second and still stronger reason is, that as medicine is slowly passing out of the regions of em- piricism and rule-of-thumb treatment, or mal-treat- ment, it has become evident that sound physiology is its foundation; and this university will at no dis- tant day have a medical school connected with it. As you walk presently through the rooms of the new building, and see the abundance of instruments of precision for teaching and research —the batteries, galvanometers, induction-coils, and spectroscopes; the balances, reagents, and other appliances of a chemical laboratory; the microscope for every stu- dent; the library of biological books and journals; the photographic appliances; the workshop for the construction and repair of instruments — when you see these things, it may interest you to recall that sixty years ago there was not a single public physio- logical laboratory in the world; nor was there then, even in any medical school, a special professor of physiology. So late as 1856 Johannes Muller taught in Berlin, human anatomy, comparative anatomy, pathological anatomy, physiology, and embryology. DuBois-Reymond, now himself professor in Ber- lin, has graphically described the difficulties of the earnest student of physiology, when he attended Miiller’s lectures in 1840.1 ‘We were shown (he says) a few freshly prepared micro- scopic specimens (the art of putting up permanent preparations being still unknown), and the circulation of the blood in the frog’s web.” So much for the histological side. ‘* We were also shown the experiment of filtering frog’s blood to get a colorless clot, an experiment on the roots of the spinal nerves, some reflex movements in a frog, and that opium-poison- ing was not conducted along the nerves. ‘There were some bet- ter experiments on the physiology of voice, —a subject on which Miller had recently been working; and there was finally a dem- onstration of the effect upon respiration of dividing the pneu- mogastric nerves.” In all, you see six experiments, or sets of experi- ments, in the whole course, in addition to the exhibi- tion of some microscope slides; and all these mere demonstrations. It was hardly thought of, that a student should use a microscope, or make an experi- ment, himself. If he desired to do so, the difficulties in his way were such as but few overcame. ‘He must experiment in his lodgings, where on account of his frogs he usually got into trouble with the landlady, and where many researches were impossible — there were no trained assist- ants to guide him — no public physiological library — no collec- tion of apparatus. We had to roll our own coils, solder our own galvanic elements, make even our own rubber tubing, for at that time it was not an article of commerce. We sawed, planed and drilled — we filed, turned, and polished. If through the kind- ness of a teacher a piece of apparatus was lent to us, how we made the most of it — how we studied its idiosyncrasies — above all, how we kept it clean! ” Of course certain men, the men who were born to become physiologists, and not mere attendants on lectures on physiology, surmounted these difficulties. 1 Emil DuBois-Reymond. Der physiologische unterricht, sonst und jetzt. Berlin, 1878. The quotations from this pam- phlet, while giving, I trust, a true idea of the substance of Du- Bois-Reymond’s statements, have been curtailed, and are not to be regarded as literal full translations of the original. —H. N. M.- TE ee ye [Vou. III., No. 50. One has only to recall the names of DuBois-Reymond himself, and of such of his contemporaries as Briicke, Helmholtz, Ludwig, Vierordt, Donders, and Claude Bernard, to realize that fact; and undoubtedly there was a good side to it all. Triflers, at any rate, were eliminated; and the class of individuals wasunknown who sometimes turn up at modern laboratories (and, judging from a good deal of current physiological literature, sometimes get admitted to them) with a burning desire to undertake forthwith a complicated research, though they would hardly know an ordinary physiological instrument if shown to them, much less — how to handle it. They never can wait: they must begin the next morning, believing, I presume, that modern laboratories are stocked with automatic appa- ratus, — some sort of physiological sausage-machines, in which you put an animal at one end, turn the han- dle, and get a valuable discovery out at the other. With one exception, Berlin was not in 1840 worse off than other German universities, so far as facili- ties for physiological study were concerned, and cer- tainly better off than any university in England or the United States. The exception was in Breslau, where the celebrated Purkinje, single-handed, had founded a physiologicalinstitute. It has usually been supposed that in this he followed the example given by Liebig, who founded at Giessen the first public chem- ical laboratory; but this, pace my colleague Profes- sor Remsen, can hardly have been the case. It is to Purkinje that the honor belongs of founding the first public laboratory. Liebig undoubtedly conceived the plan when working in Paris in Gey Lussac’s private laboratory, but it was not until 1826 that he began to put it into execution; and at that date Pur- kinje had already, largely at his own cost, started a physiological laboratory at Breslau, open to students, —on avery small scale, itis true, but still the germ of all those great laboratories of physics, chemistry, and biology, which are now found in every civilized coun- try, and to which, more than to any thing else, modern science owes its rapid progress. Of these there must be at least forty now organized for physiological work ; and almost every year sees an increase in their num- ber. How has this come about in the fifty odd years which have passed since the origination of Pur- kinje’s ill-equipped and little known workrooms?. First and foremost, because of the improvement in philosophy which took place as men began to break loose from the trammels of Greek and mediaeval meta- physics, and to realize that a process is not explained by the arbitrary assumption of some hypothetical cause invented to account for it. So long as the phe- nomena exhibited by living things were regarded, not as manifestations of the properties of the kind of matter of which they were composed, but as mere exhibitions of the activity of an extrinsic independent entity, —a pneuma, anima, vital spirit, or vital prin- ciple which had temporarily taken up its residence in the body of an animal, but had no more essential connection with that body than a tenant with the house in which he lives, —there was no need for physiological laboratories. Dissection of the dead body might, indeed, be interesting as making known JANUARY 18, 1884.] the sort of machine through which the vital force worked, — just as some people find it amusing to visit the former abode of a great author, and see his library and writing-table and inkstand; and there might be discussions as to the locality of the body in which this vital force resided; to carry out our simile, as to what was its favorite armchair. Various guessers placed it in the heart, the lungs, the blood, the brain, and so forth. Paracelsus, with more show of reason, located it in close connection with the stomach, on the top of which he supposed there was seated a chief vital spirit, Archaeus, who super- intended digestion. Itis mainly to Descartes,! who lived in the earlier half of the seventeenth century, that physiology owes the impulse which set it free from such will-o’-the-wisps. Putting aside all con- sciousness as the function of the soul, he main- tained that all other vital phenomena were due to properties of the material of which the body is com- posed; and that death was not due to any defect of the soul, but to some important alteration or degen- eration in some part or parts of the body. The influence of Descartes, and in the same half- century the demonstration of the circulation of the blood.by Harvey, gave a great impulse to experimen- tal physiology. Both Harvey and Descartes, how- ever, still believed in a special locally placed vital spirit or vital force, which animated the whole bod- ily frame as the engine in a great factory moves all the machinery in it. What a muscle did, or a gland did, depended on the structure and properties of the muscle or gland; but the work-power was derived from a force outside those organs, —on vital spirits supplied from the brain along the nerves, or carried to every part in the blood. As the pattern of a carpet will depend on the structure and arrange- ment of the loom,— which loom, however, is worked by a distant steam-engine, — so the results of muscular or glandular activity were believed to be determined by the structure of muscle and gland; but the mov- ing-force came from some other part of the body. The next essential advance was made by Haller, about the middle of the eighteenth century. He demonstrated that the contracting-power of a muscle did not depend on vital spirits carried to it in nerve or blood, but on properties of the muscle itself. Others had guessed, Haller proved, that the body of one of the higher animals is not a collection of ma- chines worked by a central motor, but a collection of machines each of which in itself is both steam-engine and loom; leaving aside, of course, certain of the purely mechanical supporting and protecting appara- tuses of the skeleton. This was the death-blow of the ‘vital force’ doctrine. Extensions of Haller’s method showed that it was possible to destroy the brain and spinal cord of an animal, and separate its muscles, its heart, its nerves, its glands, and yet keep all these isolated organs working as in life for many hours. The life of an animal could be no longer re- garded as an entity residing in one region of the body, from which it animated the rest; and the word gradu- 1 See Huxley: The connection of the biological sciences with medicine (The lancet, Aug. 13, 1881). SCIENCE. 75 ally became simply a convenient phrase for expressing the totality or resultant of the lives of the individ- ual organs. Physiologists began to see that they had nothing to do with seeking a vital force, or with essences or absolutes; that their business was to study the phenomena exhibited by living things, and leave the noumena, if there were such, to amuse meta- physicians. Physiology thenceforth became more and more a study of the mechanics, physics, and chemistry of living organisms and parts of organisms. Progress at first was necessarily very slow; physics and chemistry, as we now know them, did not exist; galvanism was not discovered; osmosis was unknown; the conservation of energy was undreamed of; while modern chemistry did not take its rise until the dis- covery of oxygen by Priestly, and the extension and application of that discovery by Lavoisier towards the close of the last century. Physiology had to wait then, as now, for its advance upon the development of the sciences, dealing with simpler forms of matter than those found in living things. But little by little, step after step, so many once mysterious vital pro- cesses have been explained as merely special illustra- tions of general, physical, and chemical laws, that now the physiologist scans each advance in these sci- ences in full confidence that it will enable him to add another to the phenomena of living bodies, which are in ultimate analysis not peculiar or ‘ vital,’ but simply physico-chemical. Apart from the phenomena of mind, whose mysterious connection with forms of matter he can never hope to explain, if a modern physiologist were asked what is the object of his sci- ence, he would answer, ‘‘ not the discovery or the localization of a vital force, but the study of the quantity of oxidizable food taken into the stomach, and the quantity of oxygen absorbed in the lungs; the calculation of the energy or force liberated by the combination of the food and oxygen; and obser- vation of the way in which that force has been ex- pended, and the means by which its distribution may be influenced.’’ Once it was recognized that at least the great majority of physiological problems were problems ad- mitting of experimental investigation, the necessity for special collections of apparatus suitable for experi- ment on living plants and animals, and for affording students an opportunity to study the play of forces in living organisms, had not long to wait for recognition. Physiological laboratories were organized at first in such rooms as could be spared in buildings constructed for other purposes; later, in structures built for this special end. The first laboratory specially erected for physiological work was built for Vierordt, in Tibin- gen, less than twenty years ago. So far as I know, our own is the first such building in the United States. There is still another reason which has combined with the recognition of the independence of physiol- ogy as a science to make the modern laboratory, open to all properly prepared students, a possibility; and physiology owes it to this country. I do not forget how Brown-Sequard in Philadelphia clinched and completed Bernard’s great discovery of the vaso-motor Ell 76 _ SCIENCE. nerves; nor the researches of Weir Mitchell on the functions of nerve-centres, and the action of snake- poisons; nor, in later years, the researches of Wood on the physiology of fever; and on various subjects by Bowditch, Arnold, Flint, Minot, Sewall, Ott, Chitten- den, Prudden, Keyt, and others. But speaking with all the diffidence which one, who, at least by birth, is a foreigner, must feel in expressing such an opinion, I say, that considering the accumulated wealth of this country, the energy which throbs through it, and the number of its medical schools, it has not done its fair share in advancing physiological knowledge, but for one thing, which makes the world its debtor. I mean the discovery of anaesthetics. When Morton, in 1846, demonstrated in the Massachusetts general hospital that the inhalation of ether could produce complete insensibility to pain, he laid the foundation- stone of our laboratory, and of many others. No doubt the men whose instincts led them to physiological research, and who realized that by the infliction of temporary pain on a few of the lower animals they were discovering truths which would lead to allevi- ation of suffering, and prolongation of life, not only in countless generations of such animals themselves, but in men and women to the end of time, would have tried to do their work in any case. But the men who can steel their hearts to inflict present pain for a future greater gain are fewin number. The discovery of anaesthetics has not only led to ten physi- ological experimenters for each one who would have worked without them, but by making it possible to introduce into the regular course of physiological teaching, demonstrations and experiments on living animals, without shocking the moral sense of stu- dents or of the community at large, has contributed inealculably to the progress of physiology. On the occasion of the opening of the old labora- tory I used these words:} — ‘‘Physiology is concerned with the phenomena going on in living things, and vital phenomena cannot be observed in dead bodies; and from what I have said you will have gathered that I intend to employ vivisections in teaching. I want, however, to say, once for all, that here, for teaching purposes, no painful experiment will be performed. Fortunately the vast majority of physiological experiments can nowadays be performed without the infliction of pain, either by the administration of some of the many anaesthetics known, or by previous removal of parts of the central nervous system; and such experiments only will be used here for teaching. With regard to physiological research, the case is different. Happily here, too, the number of necessarily painful experiments is very small indeed; but in any case where the furtherance of physiological knowledge is at stake — where the progress of that science is concerned, on which all medicine is based, so far as it is not a mere empiricism —I cannot doubt that we have a right to inflict suffering upon the lower animals, always provided that it be reduced to the minimum possible, and that none but competent persons be allowed to undertake such experiments.” Those words were a declaration of principle and a pledge given to this community, in which I was about to commence my work. That the work has been carried on for seven years among you, without a mur- mur of objection reaching my ears, is sufficient proof that Baltimore assents to the principle; and, grati- 1 Pop. sc. monthly, November, 1876. fying as the building of our new laboratory is to me from many points of view, there is none so grateful as its witness, that, in the opinion of our trustees and of my fellow-citizens, I have carried out my pledge. There has been no hole-and-corner secrecy about the matter: the students in the laboratory have been no clique living isolated in a college-building, but either your own sons, or boarders scattered among dozens of families in this city; and no room in the labora- tory has ever been closed to any student: what we have done has been open to all who cared to know. On this occasion, when we formally make a fresh start, I desire to re-assert the principle, and repeat the pledge. (To be concluded.) BERTHELOT’S EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS. Explosive materials, a series of lectures delivered by M. P. E. BerTHetor ; translated by Marcus BENJAMIN. A short historical sketch of gunpowder, translated from the German of KARL BRAUN by Lieut. Jonn P. WisserR, U.S.A. A bibliography of works on explosives; reprinted from Van Nos- trand’s magazine, No. 70. N.Y., Van Nostrand, pe (Van Nostrand’s science series.) 180 p. TueE lectures of Berthelot, which form the more important part of this collection, are de- voted to a popular exposition and amplifica- tion of the theories which he has from time to time advanced, concerning the constitution and mode of action of explosive substances. The principal topics treated are, the force of ex- plosives; the origin, duration, and speed of propagation of the explosive reactions ; inflam- mation and detonation as modes of inducing explosions ; and explosions by influence. The force of an explosive may be under- stood in two ways: it may be considered either as.the pressure developed or as the work accom- plished. The pressure depends principally upon the nature of the gases formed, their vol- ume, and their temperature. The work, on the other hand, is principally dependent upon the amount of heat given off in consequence of the chemical decomposition. In practice, as, for instance, in guns, the transformation of this heat into useful work is never complete, since heat is absorbed by the gun, gases, and projec- tile, and a portion of the work produced is lost in moving the gases and air projected. Taking all these facts into consideration, it has yet been difficult to explain the great differences which result from the different methods employed for inducing explosions. Berthelot holds that this diversity depends upon the rapidity with which the explosive reaction propagates itself, and the more or less intense pressures which result from it, and he illustrates it as follows : — s JANUARY 18, 1884.] Let the case be the simplest one, such as an explosion caused by the fall of a weight from a certain height. At first one would suppose the effects observed to be due to the heat developed by the pressure of the suddenly arrested weight. But calculatton shows that the arresting of a weight of several kilograms, falling .25 to .50 of a metre, would not be capable of raising the temperature of the explosive mass more than a fraction of a degree, if the resulting heat were dispersed uniformly throughout the entire mass: while for a body such as nitro- elycerine, for instance, it is necessary to heat it to 190° to induce explosion. It is by another process that the mechanical energy of the weight, which is transformed into heat, becomes the originator of the observed effects. It is sufficient to assume, that, as the pressures which arise from the shock exerted on the surface of the nitro- glycerine are too rapid to become uniformly dispersed throughout the entire mass, the trans- formation takes place locally among the layers first reached by the shock. If it is sufficiently violent, they may thus be rapidly heated to the necessary temperature; and they will be immediately decomposed, and produce a large quantity of gas. This production of gas is in its turn so violent that the shocking body has not time to displace itself; and the sudden expansion of the gases of explosion produces a new shock, probably more violent than the ~ first, on the layer situated below. ‘The mechani- Aq cal energy of this shock is changed into heat in the layers which it reaches, and produces an explosion ; and this alternation between a shock developing mechanical energy which changes into heat, and a production of heat which ele- vates the temperature of the layers up to the degree necessary for a new explosion capable of reproducing the shock, propagates the reac- tion, molecule by molecule, through the entire mass. The propagation of the deflagration takes place in this way in consequence of phe- nomena comparable to those which produce a sonorous wave; that is to say, by producing a real explosion which advances with a rapidity incomparably greater than that of a simple burning provoked by the contact of a body in ignition, and operating under conditions where the gases expand freely in proportion to their production. The reaction started by the first shock in a given explosive material is propagated with a rapidity which depends upon the intensity of the first shock; and this intensity may vary considerably, according to the method by which it is produced. Marcel Duprez has SCIENCE. T7 shown that the effect of a blow from a hammer may vary in duration from the hundredth to the ten-thousandth of a second, according as one strikes with a hammer having a flexible handle or with a block of steel. From this it follows that the explosion of a solid or liquid mass may develop itself according to an infi- nite number of different laws, each one of which is determined, all other things being equal, by the original impulse. The more vio- lent the initial shock, the greater will the result- ing violence of the decomposition be, and the greater will be the pressures which are exerted during the entire course of this decomposition. One and the same explosive substance may hence produce very different effects, according to the method of ignition. Among these methods of ignition, by far the most curious and inexplicable is the determin- ing of the explosion of one mass by the ex- plosion of another mass near by, but not in contact with it, which is termed by Berthelot ‘explosion by influence.’ Abel has offered his theory of synchronous vibrations to explain this phenomenon, and the theory seemed to be con- firmed by the interesting experiments of Cham- pion and Pellet ; but Berthelot regards them as inconclusive, or else directly opposed to Abel’s theory, and he offers a theory of his own, which is but an expansion of that of shocks explained above. . | Working, as Berthelot is, under the direct auspices of the French government, he has had the best of facilities for the study of explosive substances and the phenomena of explosions ; and no one has. probably engaged in a more critical or extended physical and chemical ex- amination of these bodies, and hence he speaks with authority. Yet some of his theories have failed to find general acceptance, especially that concerning the influence of dissociation upon the force of explosives; and it is notice- able that this theory finds no place in these lectures. Karl Braun’s sketch is bright and entertain- ing but iconoclastic, and, while wresting the honor of the discovery of gunpowder from Ber- thold Schwartz, intimates that the. knowledge of its manufacture was brought from the orient to Augsburg in 1353 by a Greek Jew named ' Typsiles. Of the ‘ Bibliography of explosives ’ the best that can be said is, that it is an unsystematized collection of titles, that it is filled with errors of the grossest kind, and that it is unworthy of both compiler and publisher. In fact, it must be said the book throughout is marred by printers’ errors. 78 | SCIENCE. HOUSTON’S ELEMENTS OF CHEM- TSin The elements of chemistry ; for the use of schools, acade- mies and colleges. By Epwin J. Houston. Philadelphia, Eldredge, 1883. 444 p., illustr. 8°) Hovuston’s ‘ Elements of chemistry’ is a brief compilation of the latest facts in regard to the science, arranged for the use of schools, acade- mies, and colleges. Its use will be confined to the first named, or at least to institutions where the rudiments of chemistry are taught. The work is divided into three parts, — theo- retical, descriptive or experimental, and organ- ic, —and the arrangement is in most respects good. In the first part the fundamental laws are clearly and concisely stated, and present the subject in a form as well adapted to beginners as we have seen in any text-book. A short description of the different systems of crystal- lography concludes this portion. In the de- scriptive part the elements are discussed under the head of non-metals and metals in an order based upon their quantivalence ; but the divis- ion of the metals into perissad and artiad is not one which most text-books follow. A brief outline is given, in the seventy-five pages of the third part, of the chemistry of the car- bon compounds ; and the author has sueceeded in condensing into this space many important facts; there are, however, several erroneous statements and a general lack of complete- ness. The division of the carbon com- pounds into single link, double link, etc., is simply investing an old classification with a new name, and there is no gain in point of clearness. A large portion of the book, nearly one- fourth, is repetition in the form of a syllabus and questions for review, at the end of each chapter, and, at the close of the book, ques- tions for examination. ‘This seems to be for the purpose of aid, in case the teacher should have had insufficient training in the subject. Indeed, so great is the help afforded, that with it any one with little or no knowledge of chem- istry could assume the instruction of a class. We cannot but deplore the introduction of such a system of teaching at a time when it is all- important that chemistry should be scientifi- cally taught in our elementary schools. In- struction in chemistry, to be thorough, should depend upon the teacher, and not upon the text- book. Only a good instructor can impress up- on a beginner the necessity for observation, which is the prime requisite for successful work ; and a text-book intended to be crammed tends to destroy the sense of observation. The space Oe ee i ie devoted to this system could have been profit- ably devoted to increasing the number of ex-’ periments and illustrations of experiments; which last are few and illy executed, and often do not show the best method of conducting the experiment. We object to the use of the Fahrenheit scale and English measures as causing a needless confusion, inasmuch as the’ centigrade scale and metric system are the accepted scientific notation. BESANT’S HYDROMECHANICS. A treatise on hydromechanics. Part i., hydrostatics. By W. H. Besant, F.R.S., mathematical lec- turer of St. John’s college, Cambridge. 4th ed. Deighton Bell & Co., 1883. 288 p. 8°. Tuts is ‘‘a reproduction, with considerable alterations and additions, of the first part of a treatise on hydrostatics and hydrokineties, the third edition of which was published in 1877,”’ and is intended as a text-book upon this sub- ject, for those preparing for the mathematical tripos examinations at Cambridge, England. The principal heads treated are, the general conditions of fluid equilibrium; surfaces otf equal pressure ; resultant pressures; the equi- librium, stability, and oscillations of a floating body (metacenter) ; the pressure of the atmos- phere; the tension of flexible surfaces, and their relation to capillary phenomena; and, finally, the figure of equilibrium of a mass of rotating fluid, acted on by the mutual attrac- tion of its parts. This work requires, as do most of the Cambridge mathematical text- books, that the reader shall have perfect facil- ity in the employment of the differential and integral calculus. There is a plentiful list of examples, selected from previous examination papers, at the end of each chapter. It is per- haps superfluous to speak of the important place which the subject of hydromechanics has occupied in modern mathematical physics since the labors of Helmholtz, Maxwell, and Thom- son, in reducing the mathematical treatment of electricity and magnetism to that of the mo-. tion of incompressible fluids. This volume is put forth as an introduction to the discussion of fluid motion or hydrokinetics, of which the elements will be given in part ii., which the author hopes to have in readiness early in 4 1884. It is a matter of great regret that the state of mathematical training among our colleges is of such elementary character, that there are comparatively few of them where the excellent text-books of this grade can be profitably be | by the undergraduates. [Von. IIL, No. 50. & i , > F JANUARY 18, 1884.] SCIENCE. 79 RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. American philosophical society. The Proceedings of the society, vol. xxi., No. 114, from April to December, 1883, to be distributed to the members and correspondents of the society in January, contains: 1. A memoir on the migration of the Tutelo tribe of Indians, by Horatio Hale (with fa map); 2. Medieval sermon-books, etc., by Prof. I. F. Crane of Cornell university; 3. The latitude of Haverford college, by Isaac Sharpless; 4. A crinoid with movable spines, by H.S. Williams (with a plate) ; 5. The role of parasitic photophytes, by W. N. Lock- ington; 6. The reversion of series, and its applica- tion to the solution of numerical equations, by J. G. Hagen, S.J.; 7. The conversion of chlorine into hydrochloric acid in the deposition of gold from its solutions by charcoal: 8. A brief account of the more important public collections of American archeology in the United States, by Henry Phillips, jun.; 9. Photodynamic notes, No. viii., by Pliny E. Chase; 10. Introduction to a study of the North-American Noctuidae, by A. R. Grote; 11. Revision of the Lysiopetalidae, by A. S. Packard, jun.; 12. The Perry county fault, by E. W. Claypole; 13. Seeds sprouting in ice, by Joseph Lesley; 14. A relic of the native flora of Pennsylvania, by E. W. Claypole; 15. The Portage rocks in Perry county, by the same; 16. The genus Rensselaeria, by the same; 17. A _ large Catskill crustacean, by the same (with a plate); 18. Cbituary notice of Henry Seybert, by Monclure _ Robinson; 19. The zone of asteroids and ring of Saturn, by Daniel Kirkwood; 20. Obituary notice of Dr. John F. Meigs, by Dr. William Pepper; 21. _ Kintze’s fire-damp indicator, by Charles A. Ash- burner; 22. Obituary notice of Oswald Heer, by Leo Lesquereux; 23. Obituary notice of Dr. John L. LeConte, by Dr. George H. Horn; 24. Aerial ships, by Russell Thayer, C.E.; 25. Section of Chemung rocks at Le Roy, Bradford county, Penn., by A. T. Lilley; 26. Distribution of Loup Fork formation in New Mexico, by E. D. Cope; 27. Second addition to the knowledge of the Puerco epoch, by the same; 28. The trituberculate type of tooth in the mammalia, by the same; 29. Delaney’s synchronous multiplex telegraph, by Edwin J. Houston; 30. The micro- scopic examination of timber with regard to its strength, by Frank M. Day (with a plate). Several papers requiring illustrations are left over to be pub- lished in No. 115, as it is the custom of the society to publish its two annual numbers of its proceedings as nearly on the 1st of January and June as possi- ble. No. 114 includes pp. 1 to 350 of the current vol. xxi. The society has also published, as part i. of vol. Xvi. of its transactions, a Dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics, by Edward Y. McCauley, U.S.N. (240 p., 4°), printed from relief-plates photographed from Commodore McCauley’s manuscript. The society is printing the last pages of its library catalogue, the fourth and last part of which will be published in February or March. The whole cata- ce logue (three parts of which have been distributed in previous years) will make about fifteen hundred pages octavo. There will be subsequently published an alphabetical index of author’s names, and a sup- plement of books received since a certain date. The society is also printing, as a volume of about five hundred pages octavo, a succinct transcript of its minutes from 1744 to 1837, made by the secretary in 1882. Its proceedings were first published in 1838, and subsequently in one series up to the current No. 114. The possible destruction of the minute-books, by fire or otherwise, has always been a cause of anxi- ety. When this volume from 1744 to 1837 is printed, a complete history of the society will be secured. Already proof-reading has reached p. 288 (minutes of 1800), and the volume will probably be published in May next. Cincinnati society of natural history. Jan. 8. —Dr. Walter A. Dun read a paper on some recent explorations of mounds in the Scioto valley. The paper gave a detailed description of the mound, a large one, its dimensions being thirty-three feet in height, and a hundred and fifteen feet in diameter. The shaft sunk from the top showed several intrusive burials, and that the mound was constructed of suc- cessive layers of sand and clay. At the depth of twenty-five feet a vault constructed of logs was found, in which was a large quantity of root-like fibres, with a skeleton in a fair state of preservation. The skull was saved almost entire, and was described in detail by the doctor, who found it to compare closely with the figures of mound-builder skulls in Squier and Davis’s ‘Monuments,’ and Morton’s ‘Crania americana.’ A number of flint arrow-points, shell beads, and a small octagonal piece of sandstone, were also found in the ‘vault.’ The vault was eight feet high, five feet and a half long, and four feet wide. The discovery of an authentic mound-builder’s skull was regarded as important, and worthy of rec- ord, Dr. Dun also read a detailed description of the teeth and jaw of the skull, prepared at his request by Dr. E.G. Betty. Mr. Joseph F. James remarked that a skull found near Memphis, Tenn., associated with some earthen pots bearing dates of 1654-1708, showed the same remarkable flattening of the occipital region shown in Dr. Dun’s specimen. Mr. J. R. Skinner said that he had lately observed that the symbol of the Aztec god, Itzcoatl («HUA was the same as a marking upon what is known as the Richardson tablet from Wilmington, O. Society of arts, Massachusetts institute of technology. Dew. 27. — Mr. John Ritchie, jun., exhibited and explained a model showing the orbit of the comet of 1812, and Mr. J. R. Robinson described his safety- seam steam-boiler. Mr. Robinson’s first invention consisted in reaming out the edges of the rivet-holes in the plates on the inside, or where they come in contact, making them conical for a short distance. 80 SCIENCE. When the rivet is put in, it flows out and fills the space thus formed, becoming, therefore, of greater diameter at the middle than at the ends. When the plates are under tension, the rivet will cant, and the ring-like projection around its centre will pry the plates slightly apart, as Mr. Robinson has satisfac- torily demonstrated by experiment, thus allowing the escape of the steam in the case of a boiler, and avoid- ing an explosion; while, on the removal of the stress, the plates come tightly together again, provided the strain on the rivet were adapted not to exceed its elastic limit. The simple conical reaming-out of the holes, however, was not found. to be just what was wanted; as it was possible for the metal of the rivet to be forced out between the plates farther than was wished, preventing their coming together tightly at q all, even at first. To obviate this objection was the object of Mr. Robinson’s second invention, which — consists in cutting out a small hemispherical ring in each plate around the rivet-hole, and reaming out to this ring, so that when the plates are put together the conical enlargement of the hole at the centre is fol- lowed by a chamber in the shape of a circular ring; and into this ‘ relief-chamber’ the metal of the rivet can flow out. But, as the amount of metal to be so forced out is never to be great enough to fill this chamber, the plates are brought closely together in - the process of riveting, while the action of the rivet under great pressures is the same as has been de- scribed. i INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Geology. — Prof. L. C. Johnson reports that the Ripley group of the cretaceous in Alabama and Mis- sissippi presents some curious and interesting fea- tures. It is an interrupted formation. Beginning in Mississippi, north-west of the Corinth group, it runs southward one hundred miles, and there runs out. It also appears in the extreme south-east, on the Chattahoochee River, in Barbour county, Ala., and extends westward to a point undetermined, but not reaching the Alabama River. It also occurs as a wedge between the elder cretaceous and the great lignitic A. Chemistry. —'The chemical division of the survey is at work on analyses of alkaline and saline waters from the Great Basin, collected by Mr. G. K. Gil- bert and I. C. Russell; notably, the waters of Hum- boldt River, Walker Lake, Pyramid Lake, Mono Lake, Lake Tahoe, ete. There are also on hand, awaiting analysis, specimens of water from Helena hot-springs, Montana, from warm springs of Emigrant Gulch and from Livingston, in the Yellowstone valley, in Mon- tana, collected by Dr. A. C. Peale during the past summer. Prof. F. W. Clarke is also engaged upon a complete revision of his specific-gravity tables, which form part i. of the Smithsonian Constants of nature. A white porcelain-like clay from the Detroit copper- mine, near Mono Lake, California, proves, upon analy- sis by Professor Clarke, to be a very pure halloysite, thus adding another to the list of localities for this mineral. A mineral sent in from Big Springs, Texas, said to occur there in abundance, proves to be a mixture of gypsum and sulphur, the latter predominating. Miscellaneous. — The topographical parties have all returned to the office in Washington. The total area surveyed during the season ainounts to fifty-one thou- sand square miles. . Early in September, while attempting the ascent of the ‘ Three Sisters,’ a group of peaks in the Cascade range in Oregon, Ensign Hayden, who accompanied Mr. J. S. Diller in his reconnaissance of the Cascade range, was thrown from the edge of a cliff by the crumbling of the rocks, and seriously injured. Asa result of the accident, he has recently had to suffer an amputation of one of hislegs. The operation was performed at Portland, Or. Mr. Diller, in rescuing Mr. Hayden, was also hurt, but not seriously, by the falling rocks. The library of the survey has just secured a copy of the. ‘Codex Cortesianus,’ by Léon de Rosny, of which eighty copies have just been published in Paris (1883). The line of Mexican manuscripts for the study of the Maya alphabet, in the library of the survey, is now complete, with the exception of a manuscript in the possession of Sefior D. Alfredo Chavero, in the city of Mexico. It is entitled ‘A MS. explana- tion in Italian of the Codex Borgiana, by Fabregat.’ Steps are being taken to secure a copy of it for publi- cation. The manuscript for two survey bulletins has been sent to the government printer: viz., No. 3, ‘On the fossil faunas of the upper Devonian, along the me- ridian of 76° 30’, from Tompkins county, N.Y., to Bradford county, Penn.,’ by H. S. Williams; and No. 4, ‘ Lists of elevations,’ by Henry Gannett. Five volumes of the monographic publications of the Hayden survey are still unpublished. The gen- eral direction of the completion and publication of these quarto reports has been put in charge of the director of the geological survey. Two of these vol- umes are almost wholly in type, and will be issued shortly. The London Graphic of Nov. 17 has a double-page illustration of the Transept in the Kaibab Grand Cafion of Colorado River, which is an engraving re-. duced from plate xviii. of the atlas accompanying Capt. Dutton’s ‘ Tertiary history of the Grand Cafion’ (vol. ii. of the monographs of the survey). PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. ~ Massachusetts institute of technology. The new photographic laboratory. — Since the re- ‘cent invention of the gelatine dry-plate, photogra- — a 4 JANUARY 18, 1884.] phy has been advancing rapidly in the number of its applications to the arts and to the industrial and applied sciences. The Institute of technology has not been behindhand in recognizing this fact; and in the new building, now nearly completed, a large room in the south-west corner of the basement has been appropriated to the establishment of a photo- graphic laboratory, perhaps the first ever constructed in connection with a scientific institution, for the especial instruction of students in photographic manipulations, and for purposes of original research, in this most interesting department of applied science. The following plan shows the arrangement of a portion of the room, which measures sixty feet in length by thirty in breadth. P, P, are two brick piers surmounted by solid stone slabs, and constructed on foundations entirely in- dependent of the building, in order to avoid all pos- sibility of shock or jarring. Upon one of these, brick columns are built, which pass through the ceiling into the ‘fourth-year’ physical labora- tory, which occupies the room above. The other one reaches a height of three feet, and forms a solid founda- tion for the support of a heliostat, microscope, spectroscope, or other instrument. A and B are the two dark rooms, entirely separated from one another by a partition, and by a wooden frame containing the gas- jet G, which is partially surrounded on three sides by sheets of Carbutt’s ruby paper. S, S, S, are soapstone sinks, the two former of which are supplied with vacuum pipes for the purpose of accelerating filtration. T, T, T, represent tables, the one in the window being used for printing purposes, while the others are to sup- port photographic apparatus and ac- cessories. Gas will be introduced into the dark rooms over the sinks for lighting when they are not in photo- graphic use. It will also be supplied at the small square table in the larger dark room for heating pur- poses, such as boiling emulsions. C' is a case of shelves and drawers to contain books, paper, and ap- paratus. J# is a series of shelves for the storage of plates and chemicals. M is.a square wooden box resting on the pier, but connecting by an aperture measuring ten inches by twelve with the interior of the larger darkroom. This is to contain a microscope for researches in photomicrography, the light coming from the heliostat through a small hole in the box. The image is thence projected upon a screen placed inside the dark room, where the operator can examine it at his leisure. This screen is supported upon the focusing table R, which rolls upon a track, and may be placed at any distance less than three metres (ten feet) from the aperture at M. The dark room is thus converted into a large camera, inside of which the operator stands and exposes his plate, while he may at the same time be developing another one pre- SCIENCE. 81 viously taken. - The greatest efficiency, convenience, and economy of time are thus combined by this arrangement. Both dark rooms are constantly ventilated by a system of double walls, with openings at the ceiling and floor, whilst the draught of the lamp G is utilized to increase the circulation. The light thus becomes a source of health, instead of vitiating the atmos- phere, as is the case in most dark rooms. The room A is provided with double doors, so that the operator may leave the room at any time during an exposure, without the slightest fear that even the most sensitive plate could possibly be fogged by a chance ray of stray light. This arrangement, though convenient at all times, will be particularly so when working with long exposures of two or three hours in length; and, indeed, it is only by some such arrangement that these exposures become possible. Besides the aper- ture at M, a smaller one six inches square is made through the wall of the dark room. This is intended VM ou Vp__V7, PLAN OF PHOTOGRAPHIC LABORATORY. for spectroscopic and astronomical work. Either window may be closed by a sliding shutter when the other is in use. Between the brick columns of the pier P is placed a shelf, on which will be kept a large carboy contain- ing a saturated solution of potassium oxalate, from which the developer bottles may constantly be replen- ished by means of a siphon permanently attached. We thus avoid the trouble of continually making up fresh solutions, and at the same time do not require to have the developer bottles inconveniently large. The hyposulphite-of-soda and sulphate-of-iron solu- tions will be similarly provided for, the latter being covered with a thin film of oil to prevent oxidation from the air. The routine work of the department will be ar- ranged somewhat as follows. Only those students at the institute taking the courses in mechanical and electrical engineering, architecture, chemistry, natu- ral history, physics, and the general courses, will 82 SCIENCE. receive photographic instruction. Each of them will be required to perform at least ten hours’ work, di- vided into five days of two hours each. Some experience has already been attained in teach- ing photography upon a small scale (last year this department had sixteen students); but, should the present venture prove a successful one, it is hoped it may be adopted by other colleges, and that photog- raphy may in the future come to be regarded as a necessary portion of every professional man’s college education. Wo. H. PICKERING. NOTES AND NEWS. Ir is generally known that Williams college secured a table early last year at Dohrn’s international station at Naples. The table may be occupied by any Amer- ican scientific scholar recommended by the faculty of the college. Any one wishing to use the table should send an application to President Carter, and the application should be accompanied by evidence of ability to improve the unrivalled facilities for original investigation afforded at Naples. Each occupant is expected, soon after his return, to give a brief course of lectures at Williamstown on some subject connected with zodlogical work. The lectures by the first occupant, Dr. Edmund B. Wilson, formerly fellow in the Johns Hopkins univer- sity, are to be given in January and February. In assigning the table, any regular graduate of Wil- liams college will be recognized as entitled to preced- ence; but, in case no graduate of the college worthy of the honor is an applicant for the position, the ap- pointment will be determined as far as possible by distinction already attained. The successful appli- cant will be at once informed of his appointment, and his name communicated to Science and the American naturalist for publication. The table is at present used by Dr. Samuel F. Clarke, professor of natural history in Williams college, but will probably be vacated on or before April 1, 1884. — The department of the interior, at the request of. the Italian government, has issued a circular, calling attention to the Bufalini prize of five thousand lire for an essay on the experimental method in science, and giving the conditions under which writers must compete. The character of the essay may be gath- ered from the following extract from Bufalini’s will: — ‘* Let the learned consider, therefore, whether they can pardon me for daring to appeal to them ten years after my death, and after that every twenty years, to solve the following problem: the necessity of the experimental method in arriving at the truth and the relation of all the sciences being assumed, it is re- quired to demonstrate in a first part how far the said method is to be used in every scientific argument, and, in a second part, to what extent each of the sciences has availed itself thereof during the time that has elapsed since the last competition for a prize, and how they may be brought to a more faithful and complete observance of the method itself.” — According to Nature, a meeting was recently held in Sheffield for the purpose of carrying out, in connection with Firth college, a proposed technical department having reference to the trade of the dis- trict. Among those who spoke were Mr. Mundella [Vox. IIL, N and Dr. Sorby; and all agreed as to the desirability — of establishing such a department, and the necessity — of educating the captains as well as the privates of — industry in the principles of their crafts. For that, Mr. Mundella insisted, is the true technical educa- tion. He gave the experience of a friend who has ~ just been visiting the United States, and inspected — the means for technical education existing there. The distinct conclusion was, ‘‘that there is more skill and intelligence in American industrial pursuits than there is in our English industrial pursuits.’ — At the meeting of the Institution of civil engi- neers, Noy. 27, the paper read was on ‘The new | Eddystone lighthouse,’ by Mr. William Tregarthen — Douglass. The necessity for the construction of a new light- house on the Eddystone rocks had arisen in conse- quence of the faulty state of the gneiss rock on which Smeaton’s tower was erected, and the frequent eclips- ing of the light by heavy seas during stormy weather. The latter defect was of little importance for many years after the erection of Smeaton’s lighthouse, when individuality had not been given to coast-lights; but, with the numerous coast and ship lights now visible on the seas surrounding this country, a reliable dis- tinctive character for every coast-light had become a necessity. The tower of the new Eddystone is a con- cave elliptic frustum, with a diameter of 37 feet at the bottom, standing on a cylindrical base 44 feet in di- ameter and 22 feet high, the upper surface forming — a landing platform 2 feet 6 inches above high water. The cylindrical base prevents in a great measure the rise of heavy seas to the upper part of the tower, and has the further advantage of affording a convenient landing-platform, thus adding considerably to the opportunities of relieving the lighthouse. With the exception of the space occupied by the fresh-water tanks, the tower is solid for 25 feet 6 inches above high-water spring-tides. At the top of the solid por- tion the wall is 8 feet 6 inches thick, diminishing to 2 feet 3 inches in the thinnest part of the service-room. All the stones are dovetailed both horizontally and vertically, as at the Wolf Rock lighthouse. Each stone of the foundation-courses was sunk to a depth of not less than 1 foot below the surface of the sur- rounding rock, and was further secured by two Muntz- metal bolts 14 inches in diameter, passing through the — stone and 9 inches into the rock below, the top and bottom of each stone being fox-wedged. ‘The tower contains nine rooms, the seven uppermost having a — diameter of 14 feet and a height of 10 feet. These — rooms are fitted up for the accommodation of the — jight-keepers and the stores necessary for the effi- cient maintenance of the lights. They are rendered as far as possible fireproof, the floors being of granite ~ covered with slate. The stairs and partitions are of iron, and the windows and shutters of gun-metal. The oil-rooms contain eighteen wrought-iron cisterns capable of storing 4,300 galions of oil; and the water- | tanks hold, when full, 4,700 gallons. The masonry consists of 2,171 stones, containing 62,133 cubic feet of granite, or 4,663 tons. The focal plane of the up- JANUARY 18, 188+4.] per light is 133 feet above high water, its nautical ‘range is 174 miles, and in clear weather it overlaps the beam of the electric lights from the Lizard Point. The lantern is of the cylindrical helically-framed type adopted by the Trinity House. The light is de- rived from two six-wick ‘ Douglass’ burners, the illu- minant being colza-oil. With aclear atmosphere, and the light of the Plymouth breakwater lighthouse (10 miles distant) distinctly visible, the lower burner only is worked at its minimum intensity of 450 candles, giving an intensity of the flashes of the optical ap- paratus of 37,800 candles; but, whenever the atmos- phere is so thick as to impair the visibility of the breakwater-light, the full power of two burners is put in action, with the aggregate intensity of 1,900 candles for the lamps, and an intensity of the optical apparatus of 159,600 candles. This intensity is about 23.3 times greater than that of the fixed light latterly exhibited from Smeaton’s tower, and about 3,282 times that of the light first exhibited in the tower from tallow candles. The new tower was built at a distance of 130 feet from Smeaton’s lighthouse, a large portion of the foundation being laid below the level of low-water spring-tides. The estimate for the work was £78,000, and the cost £59,255. The first landing at the rock was made in July, 1878, and the work was carried on until December. Around the foundation of the base of the tower a strong coffer- dam of brick and Roman cement was built for getting in the foundations. By June, 1879, the work was sufficiently advanced for the stones to be laid in the lower courses, and every thing was arranged for H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh to lay the foundation- stone on the 12th of the month; but, the weather be- ing stormy, the ceremony was postponed until the 19th of August. On the 17th of July, 1880, the cylindrical pase was completed, and the 38th course by the early part of November. On the Ist of June, 1881, the Duke of Edinburgh, when passing up the Channel in H.M.S. Lively, landed at the rock, and laid the last stone of the tower. On the 18th of May, 1882, the Duke of Edinburgh completed the work by lighting the lamps and formally opening the lighthouse. The edi- fice was thus erected and fitted up within four years of its commenc-ment, and one year under the time estimated. The whole of the stones, averaging more than 2 tons each, were landed and hoisted direct into the work from the deck of the steam-tender Hercu- les, by a chain-fall working between an iron crane fixed at the centre of the tower, and a steam-winch on the deck of the Hercules, which was moored at a distance of 30 fathoms from the rock. The town council and inhabitants of Plymouth having expressed a desire that Smeaton’s lighthouse should be re-erected on Plymouth Hoe, in lieu of the Trinity House sea-mark thereat, the Trinity House made over to the authorities at Plymouth the lantern and four rooms of the tower. After the removal of the structure to the floor of the lower room, the en- trance-doorway, and well-staircase leading from it to the lower room, were filled in with masonry, and an iron mast was fixed at the centre of the top of the frustum. SCIENCE. 83 — The U.S. naval institute offers a prize of a gold medal, one hundred dollars, and a life membership, to the writer of the best essay offered on the subject of ‘The best method for the reconstruction and in- crease of the’navy.’ The judges selected to adjudge the prize are Dr. D. C. Gilman, Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers, Senator J. R. Hawley. —E. & F. N. Spon announce the publication at an early date of a book on ‘Sorghum, its culture and manufacture economically considered,’ by Peter Collier; also ‘ Electricity, magnetisin, and electro- telegraphy,’ by D. T. Lockwood. — Professor Gustavus Hinrichs, director of the Iowa weather-service, has again issued an attractive annual pamphlet, entitled this year ‘The seasons in Iowa, and a calendar for 1884,’ with appropriate illus- trations, and much valuable meteorological informa- tion. The notable weather features of the several months are given in detail; so that observers may judge at any time whether an occurrence is normal and probably to be continued, or abnormal and likely soon to disappear. ‘The chief peculiarity of the cli- mate is its variability, common to interior stations on the track of frequent cyclonic storms, and of which several striking examples are given; and there is found to be much probability of a cold snap late in January, a snow-storm at the close of April, a cold spell in May, tornadoes in June, squalls in July, heavy local rains in August, and frost early in September. Since 1875, tornadoes have occurred in Iowa on the following dates: April 8, 18, 21, 23; May 9, 13, 18, 19; June 1, 4, 9, 11, 12, 14, 17, 24; July 2; Oct. 8, 15, 28, 380 (the more severe ones in bold type). June is the month most disturbed by these storms; and directly after it a three-month period, July 3 to Oct. 8, has no record of tornadoes. It is said that the dan- ger from tornadoes in Iowa has been greatly exag- gerated. The rainfall maps for every month and for the year are repeated from last year. Precipitation is almost three times as great in summer as in winter. Professor Hinrichs hopes next year to illustrate his annual from home sources exclusively, and asks for sketches and photographs of halos, hail stones, de- structive effect of wind and lightning, meteors, cloud- forms, or any other phenomena. Drawings of Iowa scenery, as well as detailed maps of storms, hail, and floods, will all be welcome. We wish the director success in his excellent work. — The publications of the census office so long ex- pected are now being issued in rapid succession by the Government printing-office. .Thus far, three quarto volumes, besides the compendium, have appeared, and several others are very near completion. The three which have been issued are those upon population, manufactures, and agriculture. The first, which saw the light some two months ago, comprises ‘ Popula- tion, part 1,’ as issued by the census office a year and a half ago, with, as additions, the tables relating to race, nativity, age, sex, parentage, Occupations, il- literacy, the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes, and the newspaper and periodical press. The tabular matter is preceded by a somewhat full discus- 84 sion of the progress and movement of population, which is illustrated by numerous colored charts relat- ing to the progress of settlement, and the distribution of the different elements of the population. Other subjects, such as inter-state migration, immigration and nativity of the population, and occupations, are ably discussed by the late superintendent, Gen. Walk- er, in remarks introductory to the tables relating to these subjects. The volume is a bulky one, contian- ing, with its full index, 1,050 pages. It contains, also, forty-two colored maps, of which twenty-eight are dou- ble-page maps, and thirty other full-page illustrations. The volume upon manufactures, which has but recently appeared, is an equally bulky tome, com- prising 1,248 pages. ‘The opening discussion, by Gen. Walker, is brief, comprising but thirty-five pages; and, while it is suggestive rather than ex- haustive, it skims the cream from the whole body of statistics. The tables present: 1°. General sta- tistics regarding manufactures, by states and terri- tories, in 1880, 1870, 1860, and 1850; 2°. The statistics for the whole country, of certain specified indus- tries, some three hundred and fifty in number; 3°. Similar statistics for each state and territory; 4°, General statistics by counties; 5°. Statistics re- _ garding selected branches of manufactures by coun- ties; 6°. The manufactures of a hundred leading cities; and 7°. Special statistics regarding certain leading industries. The statistical portion of the volume occupies four hundred and seventy-six pages. The report of Mr. Hollerith upon ‘Power’ consists of tables, showing by states the amount of steam and of water power in use, and also the power ap- plied to certain leading industries in the several states. The statistics are prefaced by a few pages of discussion, in which the leading points are brought out. The report is accompanied by four colored charts of the eastern part of the United States, show- ing, by shades of color, the total power in use, the steam-power, and the water-power, each in proportion to area, and the local excess of steam and of water power. There are also three sheets of diagrams, illustrating the proportions of power in different industries and in the several states and territories. In his able treatise upon the Factory system of the country, Col. Wright sketches the origin and history of that system; treats of its evil effects, both moral and physical, particularly upon women and children, of its influence upon wages, prices, and production; and summarizes the legislation of the several states in regard to factory operatives. To the houses of factory operatives he devotes much attention, illus- trating his text with plans and elevations of many houses for operatives, selected from foreign and American examples. This paper isa very instructive one, both economically and socially. The report of Mr. Fitch, upon Interchangeable mechanism, treats of the manufacture of fire-arms, ammunition, sew- ing-machines, locomotives, watches, clocks, and agricultural implements. He sketches the history and progress of these branches of manufacture in this country, and details the most recent improve- ments. This report, as well as that by the same SCIENCE. author upon hardware and cutlery, is fully illustrated with cuts. The report upon Iron and steel pro- duction, by James M. Swank, secretary of the Amer- ican iron and steel association, is here reprinted. It was first issued by the census office as a separate publication, being the first complete report published by that office. Mr. Swank precedes the statistics of production by a very full discussion, and closes the report with an extremely interesting and valuable history of the iron and steel industry, not only in this country, but in the civilized world; beginning with Tubal Cain, in the seventh generation after Adam. The report is illustrated with six double- — page charts, showing the iron-producing regions of the country, and the production, by counties, of pig- iron, rolled iron, wrought-iron blooms, and steel. The report upon Silk manufacture, by Mr. Wyckoff, consists of a summary of its history, and a very full sketch of its present condition in this country. That upon Cotton manufacture, by Mr. Atkinson, is ex- tremely brief, comprising only sixteen pages: it opens with a summary of the cotton-producing countries of the globe, the sources of supply of the staple, and goes on to discuss the methods of manu- facture, and the relative qualities of the product of this and European countries, and the facilities offered by different parts of this country for this industry. The report of Mr. Bond consists entirely of statistics relating to the industry of wool manu- factures, prefaced by a few introductory remarks. The report upon Chemical products treats of the production of soda, manufactured manures, phos- phates, sulphur and sulphuric acid, potassium bi- chromate, potash, phosphorus, borax, bromine, nitro- glycerine, acetate of lime and salt. The volume closes with Mr. Weeks’s report upon Glass manufac- ture. In addition to full statistics regarding this industry, Mr. Weeks summarizes and discusses the statistics fully. ‘This portion of the report .is fol- lowed by a treatise upon glass, the materials used in its manufacture, and the methods employed both in manufacture and in working. The report closes with a history of the industry from the earliest historic times. An admirably full and complete general index is given, in addition to the indices to the several reports. Probably with a view to a separate publication of each special report, each is paged by itself on the top, while at the bottom the paging runs consecutively through the volume. —S. E. Cassino & Co. desire us to state that they have bought the interest of Estes & Lauriat in the ‘Standard natural history,’ and are now the sole pub- lishers of that work. Mr. J. H. Emerton, whose name was given as a contributor to this work, writes that he is only so in so far asa part of the chapter on spiders is quoted from what he had published elsewhere. — La Nature, Dec. 15, 1888, apologizes for an error in stating that Mr. Ferry crossed the English Chan- | . nel on the water-tricycle figured in Science, Dec. 14, ia and gives illustrations of the tricycle, convertible ‘ite : a boat, in which the passage was actually made. __ ie [Von. IIL, No. 50, SS ree SD a = ee ee a ae ee pee Nee. FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Mr. A. Grawam BELL’s recent communica- tion to the Washington philosophical society, discussing various common fallacies as to the dumbness of deaf children, is a clear and con- vincing presentation of the arguments for teaching deaf children with no defects in their vocal organs to speak, though they cannot learn as other children do, being unable to hear. To teach lip-reading is certainly practi- eable in many such cases, if not in all; and - therefore it would seem that the attempt ought _ to be made in every case, to the exclusion of a purely conventional language of signs. Mr. Bell points out the real nature of the problem and its difficulties, indicating, among other things, the importance of the context to the deaf lip-reader in distinguishing words which look alike to his eye, such as pat, bat, mat, because he cannot see the workings of all the organs of speech, and laying emphasis on the fact that even very imperfect speech, if intelligible, is far better than no speech at all. After reading his communication and the discussion which followed, especially his an- swer to objections and to arguments for the use of signs in teaching the deaf, we must give full assent to all the essentials of his arguments. Any student of linguistic science realizing the importance of a clear conception of the nature of language, and the value of careful phonetic analysis, will find this paper of interest, and must hope for the spread of such views as those here expressed, in the interest of his own studies as well as of the deaf-mutes, who may yet be taught to speak. THERE is an entertaining field for some lin- guistic geographer to cultivate in this country by mapping out the distribution of the various No. 51.— 1884. kinds of town, county, river, and other names according to their origin and derivation. ‘The great bulk of newer names has no significance in this regard, being purely local, personal, and commonplace; but places of older date often give an interesting clew to the former homes of their first settlers. Distinctively English names have but a slight penetration beyond the Atlantic coast, except in Canada. The French follow a well-marked line up the St. Lawrence and down the Mississippi. Dutch and German names give local color to the Hudson valley and parts of eastern Pennsyl- vania; and the Spanish have a broad occur- rence in the far south-west. Indian names occur everywhere, from the euphonious Min- nesota to the doubtful Tuscaloosa and the abrupt Oshkosh. The proper sorting-out of these last would require a rarer knowledge, as it would give more valuable results than the rest of the work; but all might be graphically shown with great clearness. Tue hydrographic office of the U.S. navy department has issued the Pilot chart of the North Atlantic for January, on which are given the latest reported positions of floating wrecks. The number of such wrecks which were re- ported as seen from Nov. 22 to Dec. 25, and of which the positions are charted, is twenty- two. Nine of them were along the eastern coast of the United States, from Maine to Cape Hatteras; seven were on the Atlantic, in the track of vessels going from the United States to England; two were near the West Indies; and three off the coast of Spain. Some months ago the more or less impractica- ble suggestion was made, of employing naval vessels to chase these dangerous obstructions, and blow them to pieces. The navy depart- ment has done good work in locating their positions ; but, on account of the winds and ocean-currents, the results can only have value for a short time. It is desirable that some 86 way should be invented of doing away with this additional danger of ocean travel. Ir is not uncommon to hear complaints of the methods of teaching geography in our lower schools. The faults most frequently mentioned are, that the beginning is not made properly ; that there are too many lists of places com- mitted to memory; and that the teaching is too lifeless, and is not made real enough by illustration and description apart from the text- book. The first error can be easily corrected by adopting the German method of instruction, where, instead of beginning with the definitions of meridians and parallels, that are so often found misplaced on the opening pages of our text-books, the pupils first study the arrange- ment of the schoolroom, then of the play- ground, next the geography of the town and of the surrounding country, and thus learn the meaning of the maps from which they after- wards study about the more distant parts of the world. But this does not go very far. After laying the proper foundation, is there any way of learning geography, except by committing to memory the names and relative positions of the many mountains, rivers, capes, bays, lakes, cities, and towns, that give features to the earth? Detail may, of course, be carried too far, if a precise knowledge of distant, and to us unimportant, countries be required ; but for the average scholar of this country, who should become well acquainted with the geography of North America and Europe, there is no easy path, no royal road, over the broad, rough field of fact that he must cross. We fancy, there- fore, that the second criticism touches, not a fault, but a difficulty inherent in the study. Names and positions of places must be learned ; but, as books of moderate cost can give very little more than the barest mention of them, the study is apt to become lifeless, and to de- generate into the learning of dull words from a dead map, unless the teacher averts this unfor- tunately common result, and enlivens the work | hy instruction beyond the text-book. This, SCIENCE. [Vou. ILI., No, 51. _ however, is more than we have a right to expect from the overworked and underpaid — teachers in the lower schools, for it is no | easy task. It demands much reading in many books; it requires illustration by numerous — maps, photographs, and diagrams, far beyond the reach not only of the teacher, but of the — school board as well. In short, the desirable, 1 the ideal teaching of even so commonplace a subject as elementary geography is an expen- sive art, requiring much study, high skill, and an extensive outfit. It is now recognized that the successful teaching of chemistry, physics, and natural sci- ence, needs that the teachers of these branches — shall know them by practical, experimental, observational work. A fair application of the same principle would require that the teacher of geography should have travelled; but how far are we now from so desirable an end! It is safe to say, that, of all the teachers of our ? common schools, not one-quarter have seen an } ocean, a harbor, or a high mountain, and not . one-twentieth of them have had any personal acquaintance with the foreign countries that — they have to describe. Under these conditions, : it is certainly no wonder that the study of ge- — ography becomes so often a tiresome exercise j of unintelligent memory; and it cannot be otherwise, without a cost that few school i boards can allow. | , LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to beas brief as possible. The writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. bi Naval officers and the coast-survey. In your issue of the 11th you refer editorially to the proposition contained in the report of the secre- tary of the navy for 1883, to transfer all national — work connected with the ocean, and conducted by | other departments, to the control of the navy depart- | ment; and in asubsequent paragraph you make some ~ criticisms upon the character of the work performed by navy officers in the coast-survey. The question as to whether the navy or the treasury department shall control the work, I do not propose to discuss ; but I must enter my protest against the assertion in a journal like Science, which goes forth to the world as authority, that the ‘‘ work which these [navy] offi- cers perform is routine, the plans and methods for which have been devised and developed by civilian experts,’ and to the assertion contained in the phrase, ‘‘ the present method of employing our super- fluous navy, under the intelligent supervision of > JANUARY 25, 1884.] civilian experts.’’— To answer these points in order, I will say, first as a matter of history, that the ‘ plan’ of the coast-survey was compiled over forty years since by a mixed board composed in part of navy officers. This plan was legalized by Congress in 1848-44, and has been mainly in force ever since ; though some modifications have necessarily been made by the judgment and experience of the emi- nent men who have held the offices of superintendent and principal assistants. By the plan referred to, it was made the legitimate duty of officers and men of ‘the navy to execute the hydrographic part of the work; and to them has ever since been assigned the bulk of that work, except during the few years when the civil war and the subsequent scarcity of officers made it impossible to do so. That period (i.e., from 1861 to 1871) developed a good many civilian hydrog- raphers who have no superiors in the world, but nearly all of these resumed their more legitimate work upon the return of navy officers to the survey. The methods of hydrography are the growth of hun- dreds of years, and have been contributed to by the seamen of all maritime nations; and, while the in- ventors of a good many instruments and special methods are known, it would be exceedingly difficult to trace the system to its source. The ‘tricks of the trade,’ so to speak, have been handed down from one to another with gradual improvement, —as a rule, too slow to give any definite point from which that improvement can be shown, though during the forty years of its existence the coast-survey has vastly im- proved the character of its work; but probably the improvement in its means (i.e., the introduction of steam-propelling power, etc.) deserves a good deal of the credit for improved methods. While civilians have had a share in the development, it is a long way from the fact, to ascribe all to them, as itis to assume that hydrography is a work which does not require skill, judgment, and care. Those who think the last have never worked in intricate waters. The officers engaged upon the coast-survey have been so assigned because it was a part of their regular duty, and not because ‘superfluous.’ Having had for five years the privilege of nominating the officers to be employed upon the coast-survey, I can speak with some authori- ty. Officers were chosen strictly for their qualifica- tions; and often, had it not been for the great interest taken in the coast-survey by the successive chiefs of the bureau of navigation, the officers selected would not have been spared from other duties. That all work of the coast-survey is supervised by the super- intendent, an expert of high order, is an undoubted fact; but his instructions to hydrographers, unless he has some special object in view, simply assign geo- graphical limits, but do not prescribe methods, a general printed manual covering all that is required in the latter. The work, after completion, has of course to pass the rigid scrutiny of the superintend- ent; but the same is the case with all other work. To this extent the work of navy officers may be said to be ‘ supervised by civilian experts,’ but no farther. In 1873 several navy officers, who without previous experience were ordered to the coast-survey, placed themselves for a short time under the instructions of civil assistants, who had been doing their work for some years; and all of them freely and gratefully ac- knowledge the assistance they received. I am free to acknowledge obligations of a similar character,— of Many a point received from my valued civil associates during the Darien Canal expedition of 1870. Nauti- cal surveying has always been taught theoretically at the Naval academy; and as much practice as possible has generally, though not always, been given. Fur- SCIENCE. 87 ’ thermore, nautical surveying and navigation are very near cousins, so that all the instruction needed to make a navigator a surveyor is to give him what I have called the ‘tricks of the trade;’ and these are being handed down by officers as they have been by their predecessors. EDWARD P. LULL, Captain U.S. navy, late hydrographic inspector U.S. coast geodetic survey. [The plan of organization of the coast-survey and the plan of work of the survey are quite different things. It is the duty of the chief of the survey to arrange and supervise the latter. That the scope and character have been extended since its organization in accordance with the views of the chief is beyond question. While from the above letter it might be inferred that the nautical work of the coast-survey is confined to marine surveying in its older sense of locating rocks and shoals, and determining the boundaries of courses of the navigable waters by time-honored methods, yet from the publications of the coast-survey, and from other sources, we had gathered that the study of ocean physics, and of the conformation and character of the ocean bottom, together with the different forms of marine life, had formed, of recent years, an important part of the work of the survey, and that it was carried out in accordance with the plans of the chiefs of the survey, and by the methods devised and developed by them and by the two Agassizs, Pourtales, Thompson, Milne-Edwards, and many other eminent specialists, modified in minor details by the circumstances of each case. It is an error to suppose we regard the employ- ment of naval officers in this work unfavorably; for, on the contrary, we think it highly desirable that they should be employed in this routine work of col- lecting data and material for discussion and study by specialists; and their skill, judgment, and care, their knowledge of organization and discipline, and their close adherence to instructions, render them ex- tremely useful. It is wise, also, that, in the present reduced condition of the navy as to ships, and its overcrowded condition as to officers, the secretary should find employment for this superfluity in the coast-survey, the fish-commission, the geological survey, the national museum, as instructors in our colleges, and as assistants in special researches. Such employment cannot but result in benefit to the navy, and assist in the advancement of science. Yet we have still to be persuaded that it will pro- mote the efficiency or the economy of the scientific organizations of the government if they are trans- ferred from the supervision of the present expert civilian heads to that of the officers of the navy. | Italics for scientific names. I agree with the editorial remarks under this head- ing in Science, No. 49, that the proper mission of italics is for ‘emphasis, or as catch-words;’ and their use for scientific names of animals and plants is, it seems to me,—contrary to the opinion conveyed editorially, — of great practical utility, especially in indexing, or in searching the pages of an article or memoir for references to particular species that may be under treatment. Italicizing such words makes them ‘catch-words,’ and gives great facility in dis- covering incidental reference to species, the eye quickly catching the italicized name, and as quickly recognizing whether it is the one sought. Consider- ing scientific names as ‘a simple convenience,’ and as having no higher value, their use is so necessary as 88 SCIENCE. i a ‘handle to facts,’ or as names of objects of which we have to speak, it seems desirable to have them so typographically distinguished that their presence on a printed page will quickly catch the eye as guide- posts to the subject of the immediate context. J. A. ALLEN. Cambridge, Mass. [The editor has yet to be convinced that typogra- phy should be moulded to suit the purposes of an indexer. | Eating horns. Indians eat the horns of the deer when in the vel- vet. One day on the Sioux Reservation, in Dakota, a deer was killed near camp, and brought in entire. At sight of it, Pahlani-ote, a Minneconjon of some fifty years, dropped his usual statuesque attitude, knocked off the horns, and, seating himself by the fire, began at the points to eat them, velvet and all, without cooking, as if they were most delicious morsels. The others of the party looked on as if they envied him. They said they always ate them so. S. GARMAN. Radiant heat. In a letter to Science of Dec. 21, 1883, Dr. Eddy has endeavored to show that I was mistaken in thinking that his proposed arrangement for proving that radiant heat is not subject to the second law of thermodynamics would not work. I can most easily explain how Dr. Eddy is again mistaken by referring to my diagram which he re- produces in his letter. Dr. Eddy says that every time the door z is opened two quantities of heat pass into the region B, one of which had originally come from A,and the other from B. I had assumed that the occasions when it opened to let heat that had come from A pass were different occasions from those when it opened to let that from B pass. I assumed this, because I could see no way of getting the heat that had come from B back again through z in the same direction as it had come out, except by a reflection from the back of y ; and of course that required y to be shut at the time of reflection, so that this heat could not reach z at the same time as any heat that had originally come from A. I have been unable to think of any method of getting the heat from A and what had come from B to travel simultaneously in the same direction; and I am inclined to think, that, if this were possible, Dr. Eddy’s doors, etc., would not be required to enable A to radiate more heat to Bb than B does to A. This supposed arrangement might, as far as I can see, go on working continuously, returning the heat to B, and simultaneously trans- mitting that from A; for this seems to me to be what Dr. Eddy postulates as possible. If the two quantities pass into B through z in two different directions, then two other quantities will escape from B in these two directions, and B will be in exactly the same condition as it would be accord- \ Ts [Vou. III., No. A. ing to my hypothesis that they passed into B at different times. { Dr. Eddy confesses to being unable to see how to accomplish what he postulates with my arrangement of screens and apertures; and I believe that the only — reason he is- unable to do so, and imagines that his — own proposed whirling tables would do so, is because my arrangement is so much simpler than his, that it is almost impossible to be misled as to where and when the heat comes in and goes out; while, with his arrangement, he has so many holes that it is almost impossible to keep before one’s mind all that is sup- posed to be going on. I cannot see how my simple arrangement is less general than Dr. Eddy’s compli- cated one, as it seems to me that a multiplicity of holes cannot be of any real use, while they produce ~ very serious complication; and, except in the number of holes, I think Dr. Eddy’s arrangement only differs from mine in that his supplies a mechanism for open- ing the apertures, which, of course, has nothing to do with the question. If Dr. Eddy will explain how he manipulates so as ‘‘ to bring the heat coming from — A into a position such that it would be in readiness to pass into B at the same time,”’ and in the same direc- — tion, ‘‘ as the heat which originally came from B is returned to B,”’ and does not rest upon the authority of Professor Gibbs that his arrangement does so, then I will agree that he has invented an arrangement by which the second law of thermodynamics may be cheated. Gro. FRAS. FITZGERALD. 40 Trinity college, Dublin, : Jan. 7, 1884. f Professor De Volson Wood makes statements in his letter published in your issue of Jan. 11 which ap- — pear to me unsupported byfacts. Were yourcolumns ~ open to a lengthy discussion, I should like to show this in detail. Suffice it to say, that in his reference to Mr. Fitzgerald’s construction he entirely overlooks the difference between radiant heat, which must be ~ moving along given lines in a determinate direction, and other heat. The heat referred to as ‘ entangled in the space m n’ is radiant heat alone. I have defi- nitely traced its path, and shown that it does not move as Professor Wood states. Instead of regard- ing this fact, he has attributed to it the properties of heat as ordinarily existing in matter. Professor Wood also refers to his papers in the American engineer, etc. The only pointin that some- — what lengthy and personal discussion upon which I understand Professor Wood to finally insist, he re- published in the Journal of the Franklin institute for — May, 1883. In my reply in the same journal for June, — 1883, I showed the fallacy of his objection. Sofaras — I know, Professor Wood has taken no notice of that — reply, and now completely ignores it. I may say that the proof he relied upon was of thisnature. He pro- — posed a certain construction or process (differing es- — sentially from mine) for dealing with radiant heat, and one which would not accomplish the end sought. He then showed that his construction was a failure, © and concluded that mine would therefore fail also, —a_ method of reasoning which seems to me inconclusive, to say the least. And now Professor Wood says that Mr. Fitzgerald’s construction is ‘conclusive.’ All it is conclusive of is, that it will not accomplish the end which I have proposed: we all agree that it will not. I have shown, however, that my proposed construc- tion differs from both in just those particulars neces- sary to make it accomplish the end sought. It is unfortunate that the velocity of radiant heat is such as to render experimental verification a mat- ter of great difficulty. H. T. Eppy. © — JANUARY 25, 1884.] A NEW VOLCANO ISLAND IN ALASKA. RECENTLY the newspapers have contained references to the rise of a new volcanic island near Bogosloff Island in the Aleutian chain. Bogosloff itself is believed to be a recent de- yelopment. Possessing some unpublished ma- terial and some sketches bearing on this topic, it has been suggested that a résumé of the subject would not be without interest for the readers of Science. The island of Joanna Bogoslova (St. John, the theologian), or Aga- shagok of the Aleuts, is commonly ~ r\ known by the shorter name of 3 ‘Bogosloff’ to the white residents of the region. Owing to its iso- lated and remote situation, it has been rarely visited, and hence is less widely known than other modern volcano-islands. It is, how- ever, one of the few instances of the sudden and violent formation of land in the sea which have been witnessed in historic times. It is situated in latitude 53° 58’, and longi- tude 168° west, approximately some forty- two miles west of the northern corner of Una- lashka Island of the Aleutian chain. At the 72) N. by E., 10 miles. Fie. 1. Note. —‘8’ is Ship Rock. time when it was observed by us it formed a sharp serrated ridge, about eight hundred and fifty feet in height, very narrow, the sides meeting above in a very acute angle, where they are broken into a number of inaccessible pinnacles. ‘There is no crater, nor appearance of a crater. The shore-line formed a tolerably regular oval, pointed at the south-east end, hav- ing its longitudinal axis trending N. W.i W. and S. E.4E. by compass, and reaching about three- Equarters of a nautical mile in length. The shores are mostly precipitous ; but at “the south-eastern extremity the waves have accu- mulated a small spit or pointed bit of beach, of talus, on which in perfectly favorable weather a landing may be had. With the least swell a heavy surf is formed here. Seen through a strong glass at a distance of four miles, it appeared of a light pinkish-gray color, devoid of vegetation or ‘water, and covered with myri- _ at the proper season. SCIENCE. 89 ads of birds. Less than half a mile north and west from the.island is a perpendicular square- topped pillar, about one hundred and fifty feet high, called on modern charts ‘ Ship Rock.’ Less than half a mile north and east from the island is a small rock rising only a few feet above the water. North, east, and south, and North, 4 ae Gos especially east-south-east from the point of the island, scattered breakers were observed, ex- tending less than three-quarters of a mile from shore. The crags of the main island afford the most secure refuge to thousands of sea- parrots, puffins, auks, and divers; and sea- lions (Eumetopias Stelleri) often rest on the talus point. It is visited in spring, if weather permits, by native egg-hunters from Una- lashka; but in 1873 several years had passed since any one had been able to make a landing My own party attempted it unsuccessfully in 1872 and 1873. Such was the condition and appearance of the island in 1873. The outline sketches here given are facsimiles of those taken on the spot as we approached the island from the south- west, and passed south of it eastward toward Unalashka. Their proportions were corrected by horizontal and vertical angles. The wind N. W. i W., 6 miles. Fie. 4. S N.by W., 6 miles. Fie. 3. & 4K N. W. by W., 63 miles. W.N. W., 7 miles. Fie. 5. Fia. 6. was light ; but there was a heavy ground-swell, which broke on the rocks and the little spit at the south-east end, rendering a landing imprac- 90 SCIENCE. [Vor. IIL, No. 51. ticable. On the line of the supposed reef, made in 1768-69. No reference to it appears which has ornamented the charts for so many years as connecting Bogosloff and Umnak, three miles from the island, we sounded in eight hundred fathoms without touching bot- tom. With the exception of a small reef near the north-east end of Umnak, and the rocks within a short distance of Bogosloff, there is water more than eight hundred fathoms deep in the abstract of their report which has been preserved for us by Coxe; but a little profile surrounded by rocks is represented off the end of Umnak on their chart, which evidently rep- resents the rock which existed before the pres- ent peak was raised. A facsimile of this part of their map appears in the corner of the Kru- — senstern map on this page. The next information is given © by Cook’s voyage in 1778, when an elevated rock, like a tower, was seen Oct. 29, at a distance ~ Sv i we Pate eo aa of twelve miles: ‘ The sea, which ES ote acne eoreee ee ei et eu ie) ran very high, broke nowhere but — Sai Hoot es fiat a E\Umnak: against it.’ On Cook’s chart it Se git) ac ees ce is called Ship Rock, but its iden-_ 5 & tity with what is now known as — 200. 2 PLAN OF THE ID. JOANNA BOGOSLOVA. Lat. 53° 55’, Lon. 168° W. Gr. PLAN FROM KRUSENSTERN’S ATLAS, 1826. on all sides of the island. The supposed reef was probably taken for granted by those who saw the white water of a tide-rip which eddies southward toward Umnak Pass on the ebb, in the wake of Bogosloff, as we ourselves observed to occur inasmall way. Ship Rock is seen on several of the sketches, standing off to the northward. ‘The earliest information in regard to this island is derived from the map of Kre- nitzin and Levasheff, prepared from surveys Ship Rock is uncertain; and at — that distance: there might have been a number of adjacent rocks or breakers not visible. We learn from Langsdorff, who visited this region from 1804 to 1806, that, previous to the ap- pearance of the present peak of Bogosloff, a rocky islet had long stood in the same situation, which the Aleuts declared from the time of their forefathers had been a notable resort of seals and sea- — lions. This could not have been ~ the present Ship Rock, which is — a huge perpendicular pillar. In 1795 the islanders marked a — local appearance, as of fog, in the neighborhood of this rock, which did not disperse even when the rest of the atmosphere was perfectly clear. This created — much uneasiness, since the na- — tives of Umnak and Unalashka ~ had been used to regard this rock as one of their great sources of food-supply. After a long time, in the spring of 1796, one of the more courageous natives visited the locality, and returned imme- diately in great terror, saying that the sea all about the rock boiled, and that the supposed — fog was the steam arising from it. It was then supposed to have become the abode of evil spirits, and was avoided by every one without exception. The disturbances were accompanied by volcanic activity in the cra- ters of Makushin on Unalashka and others on Umnak Island. The account given by Bara- noff and Veniaminoff of what followed may be > ie JANUARY 25, 1884.] summarized, it being remembered that the island is over thirty miles from the nearest land, and about forty from the nearest habita- tions on Unalashka. On the ist of May (old style), 1796, accord- ing to one Kriukoff, then the Russian American company’s agent at Unalashka, a storm arose near Umnak, and continued for several days. During this time it was very dark, and low noises resembling thunder were continually heard. By daybreak on the 3d of May the storm ceased, and the sky became clear. Be- tween Unalashka and Umnak, and northward from the latter island, a flame was seen arising from the sea, and smoke was observed for ten days about the same locality. At the end of this time, from Unalashka, a rounded white mass was seen rising out of the sea. During the night, fire arose in the same place, so that objects ten miles off were distinctly visible. Pinnacle Island, W.S. W., 10 miles. Fie. 7. An earthquake shook Unalashka, and was ac- companied by fearful noises. Stones, or pum- ice, were thrown from the new volcano as far as Umnak. With sunrise the noises ceased, the fire diminished, and the upraised island was seen as a sharp black crag. It was named -after St. John the theologian, though it does not appear for what reason. It did not rise, according to the above account, on hisday. A month later it was appreciably higher, and emitted flames constantly. It continued to rise, but steam and smoke took the place of fire. In 1800 the smoking appeared to cease, and in 1804 a party of hunters visited the is- land. ‘They found the sea warm about it, and the surface, in some places at least, too hot to walk upon, even if the distorted fragments of lava, which formed its base, were accessible to alanding. It was said to be two miles and a half in circumference, and three hundred and fifty feet high. 1 In ‘ Alaska and its resources,’ by an accident in the histori- eal chapter, the item relating to the rising of this volcano from the sea was misplaced ten years, and appears under 1806, though properly dated in the geological chapter. An agent of the cen- sus by the name of Petroff, believing apparently that a little imagination would enliven his statistics, and misled by this erro- neous date, gives in his report an account of an eye-witness of the phenomenon, ‘ born in 1797,’ and ‘ who was one of the indi- viduals who first noted’ it, and with such terror ‘that his trem- bling knees could scarce carry him back to report!’ (H.R. ex. doc. No. 40, p. 19, 1881.) SCIENCE. 91 In 1806 fissures appeared, lined with crystals of sulphur. According to Langsdorff, who saw it in this year,’ it did not exhibit any special activity, though steam and smoke arose more or less constantly. In this year three baidars visited the island. On the north side soft lava flowed into the sea, and it was too hot to ap- proach closely ; but on the southern end a land- ing was effected. The peak was too sharp and rugged to be ascended, and the rock was very hot. A piece of seal meat suspended in a crevice was thoroughly cooked in a short time. There was no soil nor fresh water. The only map or survey of Bogosloff and vicinity known by us to exist is that of Kru- senstern, published in 1826, a facsimile of which is here given, except that the evidently formal hachuring has been omitted. Since 1823, and up to the present year, the island has remained tranquil, and its form has not Li Pinnacle Island, N. N. W., 6 miles. Fig. 8. changed. The close similarity to our own, of Lutké’s profile taken in 1827, confirms this view. ‘The widely differing estimates of its height and area given by Grewingk illustrate the futility of unchecked guessing rather than any change in the island itself; and even the map, which could have had no base-line except one measured by log on the water, though rela- tively correct, represents, according to our ob- servations, a scale about one-quarter too large, the island being about a mile and a quarter long, instead of a mile and three quarters, as the map gives it. We have not space here to discuss the de- tailed process by which our conclusions have been reached, but will briefly state them. The site of Bogosloff was a low islet or clus- ter of rocks not identical with the present Ship Rock, and which were long known to the Aleuts, and mapped by Levasheff. In 1795- 96 a series of progressive disturbances oc- curred by which, in May, 1796, a considerable mass of material was upheaved and the major part of the present island formed. The reports of exactly what occurred, as well as the dates assigned, are discrepant and all unsatisfactory, when we recollect the distance from which the alleged observations were made, and that they were not noted down until several years after- 92 SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 51. ward. The -reef shown on most charts ex- shaped, with an irregular outline, rising five tended only a short distance from Umnak or Bogosloff, and was never continuous between them. | Other islands of exactly similar origin are to be found in this region, notably Koniugi and Kasatochi in the western Aleutians, and Pin- nacle Island near St. Mathew Island. Of the last, sketches are reproduced here, showing it ‘end on’ and from the side. It differs from Bogosloff in having the crest deeply chan- nelled ; and it has been reported, that within a few years light has been seen in this fissure by navigators passing at night, though there is no record of smoke or lava being ejected. Of the latest addition to the list of Aleutian voleano-islands, we are not in a position to say much. The facts reported seem in brief to be these : — During the past season, Bogosloff has been in a state of eruption, as was observed by Capt. Hague, of the steamer Dora, on two oc- casions, when passing it at a distance of a mile and a half. He describes it as entirely envel- oped in smoke and flame, with red-hot lava issuing from its central portion, and great quantities of softer lava running down to the sea. ‘This has continued up to the time of the latest reports. The natives state that the erup- tion began about six months ago, and has con- tinued in an intermittent manner ever since. Makushin voleano, on Unalashka Island, re- mained quiet. On the 16th of October a dark cloud of indescribable appearance covered the sky northward from Unalashka, and hung very near the earth for some time, completely ex- cluding the light of the sun, and accompanied by arise of temperature in the air. In about haif an hour this cloud collapsed, and covered the earth with dull gray, cottony ashes of ex- treme lightness. This was ascribed to the Bogosloff eruption which had been heard of, though not visible from Iliuliuk harbor, where these observations were made. Another ac- count says the fall of ashes occurred Oct. 24, and that the amount has been exaggerated. Subsequently Capt. Hague passed again in the vicinity of Bogosloff, and, to his astonish- ment, observed a new island which had ap- peared above the sea since his previous visit, and in a spot which he had previously sailed over. In the month of September Capt. Anderson, of the schooner Mathew Turner, had observed the new island, which was then a mass of fire and smoke, apparently not hav- ing taken shape. Capt. Hague reports the new peak to be situated half a mile north- north-westward from Bogosloff, to be cone- Se to eight hundred feet above the sea, and about three-quarters of a mile in diameter. It is stated that no further information was obtained ; and none is likely to be obtainable until next spring, as communication with Una- lashka is not kept up during the winter months. To examine it, a special expedition from Una- lashka would be necessary; as it cannot be much less than forty-five miles from [iuliuk harbor, in the open sea, and would be little more than visible from the nearest land. I would suggest for it the name of Grewingk Island, in honor of the celebrated geologist who monographed in 1850 all that was known of Alaskan geology and mineralogy.? Since the above news was received, further intelligence has come to hand in regard to vol- | canic activity in Alaska, from an unexpected locality. From the entrance of Port Graham, sometimes called English Bay, at the mouth of Cook’s Inlet on its eastern shore, may be seen the rounded summit of Augustin or Chernobour Island. It presented in 1880 the appearance of a low rounded dome without a peak, and measured about thirty-eight hundred feet in height by angles from different stations. The island of which it is the summit is about fifty miles from Port Graham in a south-west by west direction, is rounded and about eight miles in diameter, bluff to the north-west, and sloping to the south-east. There are many rocks about it, and it has been a noted haunt of sea-otters. It was known to be vol- canic, but no description of it as active is on record so far as I can discover. Accord- ing to information received from Capts. Cullie and Sands, and summarized for the press by Prof. George Davidson at San Francisco, the following observations were made at the Alex- ander Village at Port Graham. ‘Smoke first arose from the peak in August. On the morn- ing of Oct. 6 the inhabitants heard a heavy report, and saw smoke and flames issuing. from the summit of the island. The sky became obscured, and a few hours later there was a shower of pumice-dust. About half-past eight o’clock the same day an earthquake wave, esti- mated at thirty feet in height, rolled in upon the shore, deluging the houses on the lowland, and washing the boats and canoes from the beach. It was followed by others of less height. The ash fell to a depth of several inches, and the darkness required lamps to be lighted. At night flames were seen issuing 1 Capt. Hague proposed to name it New Bogosloff; but the derivation of the word ‘ Bogosloff’ is such that a different name would be preferable. ~ JANUARY 25, 1884.] from the summit, and the snow had disap- peared from the island. After the first dis- turbances were over, it was found that the northern slope of the summit had fallen to the level of the cliffs which form the shore, and the mountain appeared as if split in two. Two previously quiet volcanoes on the peninsula of Aliaska began simultaneously to emit smoke and dust; and in the ten-fathom passage be- tween Augutin Island and the mainland a new island, seventy-five feet high and a mile and a half in extent, has made its appearance. It is stated that subterranean noises had pre- viously been heard by a party of hunters, some of whom are reported missing. The volcano has not been approached nearer than ten miles since the eruption, at which dis- tance the new island was distinctly seen north- west from Augustin Island. Its dimensions, therefore, are merely approximate. The morn- ing of the eruption was perfectly clear, with a light south-west wind, and the tide extremely low. ‘Three days before, all the fish are said to have disappeared from Port Graham. At last accounts smoke was arising from a point on Augustin Island, south from the cleft above mentioned, which crosses the island from east to west. It would seem as if these events were local manifestations of an awakening of volcanic energy nearly world-wide. Wwm. H. Datt. WHIRLWINDS, CYCLONES, AND TOR- NADOES.1—IX. Tornaposs differ from the storms thus far mentioned in their excessive violence over a very restricted area, and their visibly rapid ad- vance. After a great deal of theorizing, it is now possible to explain them very satisfacto- rily and simply as whirls in the air, a little above the ground, into the vortex of which the surface-winds are drawn up with great velocity. Electricity has no essential share in their ac- tion. Recent studies, especially the reports by Mr. Finley of the signal-service, have done much to show us the regions of, and general condi- tions preceding, tornadoes. They are most numerous in Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois, although they have been recorded throughout the states east of the Mississippi, except in the far north-east and on the central Allegha- nies. So they have occurred in all the months, and at nearly all hours of the day; but their time of greatest frequency is in the afternoons of June and the months adjoining. Where 1 Concluded from No. 50. SCIENCE. 93 most fully studied, they seem to occur along the contact-line of warm southerly winds and cooler north-westerly or westerly winds. Local quiet and rather excessive warmth commonly precede them, and chilly winds come after their passage. Main and hail fall in their neighborhood, but usually at a moderate dis- tance away from the destructive wind-centre. Their advance is nearly always to the north- east, at about thirty miles an hour. When first perceived, the tornado is gener- ally described as a dark, funnel-shaped mass, hanging from heavy, dark, agitated clouds (fig. 23). Its roaring sound is heard as it comes nearer; and the whirling funnel is often seen to swing from side to side, and to rise and fall. Withinits dark column, various objects snatched from the ground may be seen rising and turn- ing round and round in the eddying winds: pine-trees appear like bushes, and barn-doors are mistaken for shingles. At a certain height these fragments are thrown laterally out of the power of the ascending current, and then fall to the ground, often with violence, from their lofty flight. If such a cloud appear in the west or south-west, one should make all possi- ble haste to the north or south of its probable track; but there is seldom time to escape. The rapidity of the storm’s approach, the noise of its roaring, the fear that its darkness and destruction naturally inspire, too often serve to take away one’s presence of mind; and, before there is time for reflection, the whirl has come and passed, and the danger is over for those who survive. The force of the wind is terrific. Heavy carts have been car- ried, free from the ground, at such a velocity, that, when they strike, the tires are bent and twisted, and the spokes are broken from the hubs. Iron chains are blown through the air. Large beams are thrown with such strength that they penetrate the firm earth a foot or more. Children, and even men, have often been carried many feet above the ground, and some- times dropped unhurt. A velocity of wind ex- ceeding one hundred miles an hour is required to produce such effects. Strange examples of the wind’s strength are found in the treatment of small objects: nails are found driven head first firmly into planks; a cornstalk is shot partly through a door, recalling the firing of a candle through a board. More than this, the wind shows signs of very unequal motions in a small space : bedding and clothing are torn to rags; harness is stripped from horses. Noth- ing can withstand the awful violence of the tor- nado’s centre; and yet, at a little distance one side or the other, there is not only no harm rT 94 done, but there is no noticeable disturbance in the gentle winds. The track of marked disturb- ance averages only half a mile, and the path of great destruction is often only a few hun- dred feet wide. The whirling at the centre is evident enough, in many cases, from the rotary motion of the funnel-cloud : it is, in all reported cases, from right to left, like the cyclones of this hemi- sphere. Ata little distance from the centre, the wind is probably nearly radial, as is shown fully enough by the direction in which fences or trees are blown over, or houses and other loose objects carried. On the right side of the track the winds are more violent, and their destructive effect consequently reaches far- ther from the whirl than on the left. .This is evi- dently because, on the right, the motion of the wind and the advance of the storm are combined, as has been explained under cyclones. Here are several examples from the Kansas tornadoes of May, 1879, as described in Finley’s report, showing the op- posed currents of air. Fig. 24 shows the fence on the right blown to the east ; the fences on the left, to the west and south ; and the hay from a stack, scattered in a curved line. *When fences are not blown over, rubbish often collects on their windward side. Fig. 25 illustrates, by arrows, the direction of the wind, by which several buildings were more or less injured ; but most peculiar is the track of a man, who, on coming out of the east side of a barn, was caught up by the winds and carried half way around the building, and there set down very dizzy, but unhurt. At the same time, two horses near by were killed, their harness stripped off and torn to pieces. A SCIENCE. Hire. 23.1 [Vor. IIL, No. 51. scantling four inches square and ten feet long — was found driven three feet and a half into the — ground, only forty-five feet from its starting-— point. A large board sixteen feet long was found two miles to the north-east, where it was identified by the color of its paint. A Fig. 26 shows a more disastrous case. The house was swept away, and its fragments filled the creek to the south-east. The trees west of the house were not hurt; but those in the grove on the track were blown over to the north-east, their bark and leaves stripped off, and their south - western’ side blackened as if burnt. In such position, branches have. been found twisted from right to left about the trunks. As the storm came on, the family occu- pying the house ran out, turning to the north and. — west. One by one they ~ were blown away, — first — a little girl, who was © found dead ; then a girl and boy, not seriously — hurt; next the mother was thrown against a — tree and killed; and last, the father, carrying — the baby, and becoming confused in the rush- — ing wind, turned back from his safe flight to the west, was caught up and thrown over one hundred yards to the north-east, and killed. The accounts of tornadoes only too often give a record like this. In six hundred and odd tornadoes, forty are recorded as fatal to the — people on their track. In these forty, four © hundred and sixty-six lives were lost, and six — hundred and eighty-seven persons were injured. In addition to the violence of the whirling winds, an explosive effect is often noted in buildings where the windows and doors. are closed. Doubtless this is one reason why roofs are so generally carried away. Doors 1 Figs. 23, 24, 25, and 26 are from Finley’ 8 Report | on torna- does of May 29 and 30, 1879. i JANUARY 25, 1884. ] and windows have been blown outward. The four walls of a house have fallen outward from the centre. Still more definite is the account of a railroad-agent who had barred the window- shutters and locked the door of his station after a train had gone by. A tornado passed over it, and burst the window open outwards. Kyidently the air of ordinary density within the building suddenly expands as the outside pressure of the atmosphere is taken off when _ the storm-centre passes. Possibly this action may aid in the plucking of poultry in torna- does: the unfortunate chickens that are caught near the centre are nearly always stripped of their feathers. So with the remarkable pene- tration of mud into clothing, which cannot be cleansed by repeated washings: perhaps the air is drawn out as the storm passes, and then the mud is forced closely into the fabric by the returning atmospheric pressure. The ground N Fe HAY STACK. RAIL .FENCE RAIL FENCE Fie. 24. is sometimes said to look as if heavily washed on the central path: it may be that the expan- sion of air in a loose soil aids such a result. Nothing can be better proven than the ex- istence of a continuous and violent updraught at the centre of the whirl. An observer far enough from the track of the tornado to watch it composedly, and yet near enough to see it with some distinctness, seldom fails to note the rapid rising of débris and rubbish in the vortex, whirling as it rises; and a current of air strong enough to lift boards and beams must ascend with great energy. Most of the fragments thus captured by the wind are thrown to one side, and allowed to fall after a short flight; but smaller, lighter objects, such as hats, clothes, papers, shingles, are often car- ried several miles through the clouds, and dropped far away from home. But observers often report, also, that the extremity of the SCIENCE. 95 funnel-clouds is seen to descend, and from hanging aloft it suddenly darts downward to the ground. How can these two contradictory motions be reconciled? Simply enough: for the last is purely an apparent motion. It is simply the downward extension of the cloud- forming space faster than the cloud-particles HOUSE NOT MOVED a HEN’ HOUSE && SORGUM MILL x BAS hg mel Fie. 25. are carried upward. The same style of ap- parent motion against the wind may be seen in some thunder-showers where a cloud forms faster than the wind blows, and so eats its way to windward. ‘There has been much needless mystification here, for the point was neatly explained by Franklin a century and a quarter ago. He wrote, that ‘‘the spout appears to drop or descend from the cloud, though the materials of which it is composed are all the while ascending ;’’ for the moisture is con- aT FATHER AND BABY aN G PEOPLE VA < ee i ~ ! < ie) oe Fie. 26. densed ‘‘ faster in a right line downwards than the vapors themselves can climb in a spiral line upwards’’ (Franklin’s Works, .Sparks’s ed., vi. 153, 154; letter dated Feb. 4, 1753). POMS Te fh Par ey ee ee, Ie RP TOMS ey Gee ty 7 me MARU ert RM 96 SCIENCE. Now let us look for the explanation of these varied effects, and discover, if possible, the reason of the extremely local development of such intense motions. The explanation given for sand-whirls in the desert fails to provide for the excessive force of the tornado. A thin, warm surface-stratum of air would be prevented by friction with the ground from attaining any very excessive ve- locity ; and, moreover, it is often excessively hot without tornadoes following, and tornadoes often happen when the air is not perfectly still. Yet, as they occur most frequently on warm or hot afternoons, surface-warmth very probably re-enforces other causes up to the point of violent storm development. The existence of conflicting winds, as already noted, gives us more aid. So long as the cold wind passes under the warm, there will be no ereat disturbance, for the equilibrium will remain stable; but, if the warm wind advances under the cold, an unstable equilibrium may result. We have already seen that warm satu- rated air requires the smallest vertical difference of temperature to destroy its stability; and also that the saturated condition may often be met in the cloud-stratum, although absent below it. For these two reasons we may infer that a tendency to upset will be more frequently reached a few hundred or thousand feet above the earth than closer to the ground. Suppose that such a condition is reached when a mass of warm southerly wind has pushed itself below the colder north-westerly stratum: the surface-air will often rest quiet and become warm below such a meeting, for the same rea- son that calms occur along the equator at the meeting of the trades ; and a change must soon relieve this unnatural arrangement. The warm wind, feeling about for a point of escape through its cold cover, soon makes or finds a vent where it can drain away upwards ; and then the entire warm mass, even a mile or more in diameter, and often more than one thousand feet in thickness, begins the rotary motion already described in whirls and cyclones, rises at the centre, and passes away. Before describing the peculiar tornado features, let us contrast the storm as now developed with the two other kinds of storms already explained. The desert-whirl arises from a thin layer of hot dry air, warmed at the place where the whirl begins, ascending in a small column through a considerable thickness of colder air. Friction with the ground prevents the attainment of an excessive velocity ; and the ascending current ean lift only sand and light objects. As soon as the bottom-air is drained away, the whirl [Vou. ITLGe 0. stops. The cyclone is fairly compared, on account of its great horizontal extension, to a broad, relatively thin disk, with a horizontal — measure several hundred times greater than its thickness, having a spiral motion of much — rapidity, inward below and outward above, but. a central ascending component of its motion - so gentle that raindrops can ordinarily fall down through it. Its continuance depends largely on heat derived from vapor condensa- tion: it is therefore self-acting after it has once begun, and goes on drawing in new air long after the original supply is exhausted. — The tornado is like a cylinder, with a height equal to or greater than its diameter. Its warmth is chiefly imported to the point where its action begins, partly as sensible, partly as ‘latent’ heat; but, unlike the cyclone, its ac- tion ceases as soon as the original mass of warm air escapes upward through its warm cover. On apprehending these peculiarities, we may better appreciate its farther develop- ment. The tornado has two rtione to be consid- ered, in addition to its general progression, — the spiral rotation, and the central updraught. The latter cannot, except under special condi- tions yet to be mentioned; become very rapid, for it depends primarily, simply on differences of temperature insufficient to produce very active motion; but the former attains a great velocity near the centre in virtue of the me- chanical principle already quoted, —the ‘ pres- ervation of areas.’ When a whirling body is. drawn toward the centre about which it swings, its velocity of rotation will increase as much as its radius of rotation decreases ; the centrifugal force will also increase, and with the square of the velocity, or inversely as the square of the radius. This law claims obedience from air, as well as from solid bodies: hence, if the air of a tornado mass have a gentle rotary veloci- ty of twenty or thirty feet a second at a thou- sand yards from the centre, this velocity will increase as the central air is drained away and the outer particles move inward; so that, when their radius is only one hundred yards, they will fly around at the rate of two or three hundred feet a second, or over one hundred — and fifty miles an hour. It must be under-— stood, however, that this requires that there should have been no loss of motion by friction, and hence can be true only for the air at a dis- — tance above the ground; and, further, that, in — spite of the great horizontal rotary motion, | there is still only a moderate vertical current. And consequently we have not yet arrived the cause of the violent central and upward “—— ' 2 JANUARY 25, 1884. ] winds that distinguish the tornado from other storms, but this cause is close at hand. Admit for a moment that there is no friction between the air and the ground. We should then have a tall vertical cylinder of air, spin- ning around near the centre at a terrific speed, at the base as well as aloft, and consequently developing a great centrifugal force. As a re- sult, the density of the central core of air must be greatly diminished. Most of the central air must be drawn out by friction into the whirl- ing cylinder, and prevented from returning by the centrifugal force. The core will be left with a feeling of emptiness, like an imperfect vacuum. If there were any air near by not controlled by the centrifugal force, it would rush violently into the central core to fill it again. Now consider the effect of friction with the ground. The lowermost air is prevented from attaining the great rotary velocity of the upper parts, and consequently is much less under the control of the centrifugal force, which is measured by the square of the ve- locity. The surface-air-is therefore just what is wanted to fill the incipient vacuum: so it rushes into the core and up through it with a velocity comparable to that of the whirling it- self; and this inward-rushing air is the destruc- tive surface-blast of the tornado. _ This explanation, first proposed by Mr. Fer- rel a few years ago, is most ingenious and satisfactory. Moreover, he has followed its several parts by close mathematical analysis, and shown that the moderate antecedent con- ditions are amply sufficient to account for all the violence of the observed results. _ There are still several points to be considered. The whirling motion has’ been described as corresponding in nearly all cases with that of northern cyclones; and yet it cannot be sup- posed that the indraught winds of a tornado are drawn from sufficient distances to show the ef- fect of the earth’s deflective force: it is more probable that the tornado is to be regarded as a small whirl within a larger one, for the warm and cold winds are probably part of a large cyclonic system in which differential and rotary motions are established ; and, when such winds form a small local whirl of their own, it will rotate in the same direction as they do, from right to left. Fora like reason the planets ro- tate on their axes in the direction in which they revolve around the sun. The constant direc- tion of rotation in tornadoes may therefore, by itself, be taken as evidence that their cause is not in a stagnant atmosphere, like that of the desert-whirls, but is connected with the con- flicting currents of a large, gentle cyclone. SCIENCE. 97 The progressive motion of the tornado- centre is so constant in its direction to the north-east or east, that it cannot depend on local conditions within itself, but must rather result from its bodily transportation by the prevail- ing winds, with which the tornado-tracks agree very well in direction and rate. It will last till the lower warm air, which constituted the original unstable mass, is exhausted. This generally happens in about an hour, when it has traversed a distance of nearly thirty miles. The tornado thus constituted may be likened to a. very active air-pump, carried along a few hundred feet above the ground, sucking up the air over which it passes. It is for this reason that the surface-winds are so nearly radial. For this reason an enclosed mass of air, as in a house, suddenly explodes as the vacuum is formed over it; and as the air rushes to the centre, and there expands and cools, its vapor becomes visible in the great funnel, or spout, pendent from the clouds above. No rain can fall at the centre. Bodies much heavier than rain are lifted there, instead of dropped: so the rain must rise through the central core, and fall to one side of the storm, or before or behind it. If the expansion be very great, and the altitude reached by the drops rather excessive, then they will be frozen to hail- stones before falling. Hail-storms and torna- does commonly go together: they mutually explain each other. Electricity has no impor- tant part to play in the disturbance. It was stated under cyclones that their cen- tral barometric depression had two causes, — the overflow caused by the central warmth, and the dishing-out of the air by centrifugal force. The first of these is ordinarily regarded as the effective cause of the wind’s inward blowing. It has already been pointed out that the second and greater part of the depression is also effective in drawing in the winds when friction decreases their rotary velocity. We may now call attention to a third cause of cen- tripetal motion in the cyclone already alluded to, in which it is like the tornado. The upper winds move with great rapidity, and cause a strong barometric depression at the centre of their whirling; but at the base of the storm, where friction with the sea, or still more with the land, reduces the lower wind’s motion, and so diminishes their centrifugal force, we may have an indraught of the tornado style, in which the centrifugal diminution of central pressure in the upper winds is an effective cause of centripetal motion in the lower winds. While this is not the principal cause of surface- 98 7 SCIENCE. winds in a cyclone, it may be an important aid to central warmth. Water-spouts are closely allied to tornadoes : but when seen in small form they approach the character of simple desert-whirls ; that is, they then depend merely on air warmed at the place where they occur, and not on the running to- gether of warm and cold winds from other re- gions. A probable cause for the excess of their strength above that of the sand-whirls lies in the smoothness of the water-surface on which they spring up, which will allow a long time of preparation; and in the moisture in the air, which will cause the warming of a greater thickness than if the air were very dry. _ The greater the thickness, the more their action will resemble that of a typical tornado. The appearance of the downward extension of the funnel-shaped cloud to meet the rising column of water is almost certainly only an appear- ance, and has the explanation already quoted from Franklin’s ingenious writings. We have relied largely, in the preceding ex- planations, on deductions from general prin- ciples, checked by the results of observation. The writings of many investigators have been examined, and in a few cases their names have been given; but the literature of the subject is now so extensive that full reference has been deemed unadvisable. Little attention has been paid to the older theories, in which conflicting winds and electricity were looked on as the chief causes of storms. ‘The latter is regarded as an effect rather than a cause; and, while the former has much importance when rightly con- sidered in connection with the earth’s rotation, it is of small value as originally stated, and is then limited to the production of short-lived storms in mountainous districts. The more important factors of the modern theory of storms are the consideration of the conditions of stable and unstable equilibrium of the at- mosphere, the true measure of the action of condensing water-vapor, the full estimation of the effect of the earth’s rotation, and the recog- nition of the necessary increase in the wind’s velocity as it is drawn in toward the storm- centre. W. M. Davis. THE CRITICAL STATE OF GASES. THE Philosophical magazine for August, 1883, con- tains a letter from Dr. William Ramsay which refers to observations upon the critical state of gases, pub- lished in the Proceedings of the London royal society, 1879-80. The chief observations that had previously been made upon this interesting subject are those of Cagniard de la Tour (Annales de chimie, 2° série, ‘ ™ xxi. et xxii.), Faraday (Phil. trans., 1823 and 1845), — Thilorier (Annales de chimie, 2°™¢ série, 1x.), Nat- terer (Pogg. ann., xciv.), Andrews (Phil. trans., 1869). Andrews found that when a gas was compressed i in a closed space, and was maintained at a temperature below a certain limit, the pressure of the gas increased up to a fixed pointe beyond which condensation oc- curred. The pressure at which condensation takes place increases rapidly with the temperature of the gas. Atand beyond acertain temperature — the criti- cal temperature — no amount of pressure can produce any of the usual phenomena of condensation. The isothermal lines below the critical temperature are apparently discontinuous, one portion representing — no change of pressure corresponding to a change of volume. Above the critical temperature the isother- mals are continuous. The experiments of Dr. Ramsay were made upon benzine and ether, and a mixture of equal weights of benzine and ether. In one experiment a closed glass tube, somewhat in the shape of an hourglass, was used. One end of the tube was partly filled with ether, and was heated in an inclined position. The liquid expanded until, at the moment the meniscus disappeared, it nearly filled the lower half of the tube. On cooling, the liquid all condensed in the lower half, The experiment was varied by inverting the tube after the meniscus had disappeared. On cooling, the liquid condensed in the upper half of the tube. The tube was next maintained for some time at a _ temperature above that at which the meniscus disap- peared. On cooling, an equal quantity condensed in each division of the tube. It was observed, that, after the meniscus had disappeared, the part of the tube containing liquid had a different index of refraction from the other part. The conclusion to be drawn from these results is, that, at and above the critical point, the density of the liquid is the same as that of its saturated vapor: consequently, after a gufficient time, the liquid and its vapor will become mixed. Above the critical point, the surface tension of a liquid disappears. . This conclusion is confirmed by the experiments of M. Cailletet (Comptes rendus, Feb. 2, 1880). He found that when the lower part of his experimental tube was filled with liquid carbonic anhydride at a temperature of 5°.5, and the upper part was filled with air and gas- eous carbonic anhydride, a pressure of a hundred and fifty to two hundred atmospheres was necessary to cause the liquid to mix with the gas. At the sugges- tion of Mr. Jamin (Comptes rendus, May 21, 1883), hydrogen was substituted for the air in the upper part of the tube, and it was then found that a greater pressure was necessary to produce the mixture. This result would necessarily follow if we suppose that the mixture takes place when the densities of the liquid and the gas become equal. We cannot say that pr liquid is converted into gas by pressure. Though the densities of a liquid and its oteibtl vapor are equal, above the critical point, the two states of matter are still distinguished by other physi- a cal properties. Their indices of refraction are differ — [Vou. IIL, No, 51. JANUARY 25, 1884.] ent: the liquid is capable of dissolving solids which are insoluble in the vapor. The latter fact is proved by the experiments of Hannay and Hogarth (Proc. roy. soc., Oct., 1879), and also by similar experiments of Dr. Ramsay. A small piece of potassium iodide was placed in the lower part of the experimental tube, which was partly filled with anhydrous alcohol. The “upper part of the tube was free from alcohol, but its sides were covered with a film of crystalline potassium iodide. When the tube was heated and the meniscus disappeared, the salt in the lower part of the tube was dissolved, while that in the upper part remained un- ehanged. Similar observations were made on eosine. Dr. Ramsay’s second paper contains the isothermal lines for benzine, ether, and a mixture of benzine and ether, below and above the critical temperatures. The apparatus used resembled that of Andrews. The most remarkable feature of these lines is, that, below the critical temperature for benzine, there appears to be a diminution of pressure corresponding to a diminution of volume, immediately before com- plete condensation takes place. This phenomenon appears very slightly in a mixture of benzine and ether, but is not apparent in ether alone. It has been suggested by James Thomson (Proc. roy. soc., 1871) that the isothermals for all gases might have somewhat this form below the critical temperature. Dr. Ramsay explains the fact by supposing that the molecules, when the gas has been compressed to a certain extent, begin to exert mutual attraction and relieve the pressure. The fact may be connected _ with the observed phenomenon that the meniscus of benzine remains easily distinguishable until it van- ishes, whereas the meniscus of ether soon becomes hazy. At the part of the isothermal under consid- eration the substance is evidently in a condition of unstable equilibrium, and it is difficult to see how this part of the curve could have been detected exper- imentally. The critical temperature and pressure of a mix- ture of benzine and ether were found to be not far removed from the mean of the critical temperatures and pressures of the components. No direct experiments have yet been made to ascer- tain whether heat is evolved when a gas is converted into liquid by pressure at temperatures above its critical temperature. Mr. Jamin concludes that at and beyond the critical point there is no latent heat. This conclusion, however, does not seem probable; since the molecular constitution of a liquid and its vapor are probably different, even above the critical _temperature. The conclusions which Ramsay draws from his experiments are summed up as follows: — “1°. A gas may be defined as a body whose mole- cules are composed of a small number of atoms. “2°, A liquid may be regarded as formed of ag- gregates of gaseous molecules, forming a more com- plex molecule. **3°. Above the critical point, the matter may con- sist wholly of gas if a sufficient volume be allowed, wholly of liquid if the volume be sufficiently dimin- ished, or of a mixture of both at intermediate volumes. SCIENCE. 99 That mixture is, physically speaking, homogeneous in the same sense as a mixture of oxygen and hydro- gen gases may be termed homogeneous,”’ C. B. PENROSE. COLORED SKIES AFTER AN ERUPTION OF COTOPAXI} THE remarkable sunsets which have been recently witnessed upon several occasions have brought to my recollection the still more remarkable effects which I witnessed in 1880 in South America, during an erup- tion of Cotopaxi; and a perusal of your highly inter- esting letter in the Times of the 8th inst. has caused me to turn to my notes, with the result of finding that in several points they appear to have some bear- ing upon the matter which you have brought before the public. On July 8, 1880, I was engaged in an ascent of Chim- borazo, and was encamped on its western side at 15,- 800 feet above the sea. The morning was fine, and all the surrounding country was free from mist. Before sunrise we saw to our north the great peak of Illiniza, and twenty miles to its east, the greater cone of Coto- paxi; both without a cloud around them, and the latter without any smoke issuing from its crater, —a most unusual circumstance: indeed, this was the only occasion on which we noticed the crater free from smoke during the whole of our stay in Ecuador. Cotopaxi, it should be said, lies about forty-five miles south of the equator, and was distant from us sixty- five miles. We had left our camp, and had proceeded several hundred feet upwards, being then more than 16,000 feet above the sea, when we observed the commence- ment of an eruption of Cotopaxi. At 5.45 A.M. a col- umn of smoke of inky blackness began to rise from the crater. It went up straight in the air, rapidly curling, with prodigious velocity, and in less than a minute had risen 20,000 feet above the rim of the crater. I had ascended Cotopaxi some months earlier, and had found that its height was 19,600 feet. We knew that we saw from our station the upper 10,000 feet of the volcano, and I estimated the height of the column of smoke at double the height of the portion seen of the mountain. The top of the column was therefore nearly 40,000 feet above the sea. At that elevation it encountered a powerful wind blowing from the east, and was rapidly borne for twenty miles towards the Pacific, seeming to spread very slightly, and remaining of inky blackness, presenting the appearance of a gigantic inverted |_ drawn upon an otherwise per- fectly clear sky. It was then caught by a wind blow- ing from the north, and was borne towards us, and appeared to spread rapidly in all directions. As this cloud came nearer and nearer, so, of course, it seemed to rise higher and higher in the sky, although it was actually descending. Several hours passed before fhe ash commenced to intervene between the sun and ourselves; and, when it did so, we witnessed effects which simply amazed us. We saw a green sun, and 1 From Nature, Dec. 27. A letter sent to Mr. Norman Lockyer. 100 such a green as we have never, either before or since, seen in the heavens. We saw patches or smears of something like verdigris-green in the sky; and they: changed to equally extreme blood-reds, or to coarse brick-dust reds, and they in an instant passed to the color of tarnished copper or shining brass. Had we not known that these effects were due to the passage of the ash, we might well have been filled with dread instead of amazement; for no words can convey the faintest idea of the impressive appearance of these strange colors in the sky, seen one minute and gone the next, resembling nothing to which they can be properly compared, and surpassing in vivid intensity the wildest effects of the most gorgeous sunsets. The ash commenced to pass overhead at about mid- day. It had travelled (including its détour to the west) eighty-five miles in a little more than six hours. At 1.50 it commenced to fall on the summit of Chim- borazo, and, before we began to descend, it caused the snowy summit to look like a plougbed field. The ash was extraordinarily fine, as you will perceive by the sample I send you. It filled our eyes and nostrils, rendered eating and drinking impossible, and reduced us to breathing through handkerchiefs. It penetrated everywhere, got into the working-parts of instruments and into locked boxes. The barometer employed on the summit was coated with it, and so remains until this day. That which ssed beyond us must have been finer still. It travelled far to our south, and also fell heavily upon ships on the Pacific. I find that the finer particles do not weigh the twenty-five thou- sandth part of a grain, and the finest atoms are lighter still. By the time we returned to our encampment, the grosser particles had fallen below our level, and were settling down into the valley of the Chimbo, the bottom of which was 7,000 feet beneath us, caus-. ing it to appear as if filled with thick smoke. The finer ones were still floating in the air, like a light fog, and so continued until night closed in. In conclusion, I would say that the terms which I have employed to designate the colors which were seen are both inadequate and inexact. The most striking features of the colors which were displayed were their extraordinary strength, their extreme coarseness, and their dissimilarity from any tints or tones ever seen in the sky. even during sunrises and sunsets of exceptional brilliancy. They were unlike colors for which there are recognized terms. They commenced to be seen when the ash began to pass between the sun and ourselves, and were not seen previously. The changes from one hue to another, to which I have alluded, had obvious connection with the varying densities of the clouds of ash that passed; -which, when they approached us, spread irregularly, and were sometimes thick and sometimes light. No colors were seen after the clouds of ash passed over- head and surrounded us on all sides. I photographed my party on the summit of Chim- borazo whilst the ash was commencing to fall, black- ening the snow-furrows; and, although the negative is as bad as might be expected, it forms an interest- ing souvenir of a remarkable occasion. EDWARD WHYMPER, SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No, 51. MODERN PHYSIOLOGICAL LABORATO- — RIES: WHAT THEY ARE AND WHY THEY ARE1—It. WE have seen that Haller laid the foundation of the knowledge that the body of one of the higher animals was essentially an aggregation of many organs, each having a sort of life of its own, and in health co- operating harmoniously with others for the common good. In the early part of this century, before sci- entific thought had freed itself from mediaeval guid- ance, this doctrine sometimes took fantastic forms, For example: a school arose which taught that each organ represented some one of the lower animals. DuBois-Reymond relates that in 1838 he took down these notes at the lectures of the professor of anthro- pology :— ** Each organ of the human body answers to a definite animal, is an animal. For example, the freely movable, moist, and slip- pery tongue is a cuttlefish. The bone of the tongue is attached to no other bone in the skeleton; but the cuttlefish has only one bone, and consequently this bone is attached to no other. It fol- lows that the tongue is a cuttlefish.” However, while Professor Steffens and his fellow- transcendentalists were theorizing about organs, oth- ers were at work studying their structure; and a great step forward was made in the first year of our century by the publication of Bichat’s ‘Anatomie générale.’ Bichat showed that the organs of the body were not the ultimate living units, but were made up of anum- ber of different iojceeenen textures, or tissues, each having vital properties of its own. This discovery paved Gite way for Schwann and Schleiden, who laid the foundation of the cell-theory, and showed, that, in fundamental structure, animals and plants are alike, the tissues of each being essentially made up of ag- gregates of more or less modified microscopic living units called cells. Our own generation has seen the completion of this doctrine by the demonstration that the essential constituent of the cell is a peculiar form of matter named protoplasm, and that all the essen- tial phenomena of life can be manifested by micro- scopic lumps of this material; that they can move, feed, assimilate, grow, and multiply; and still fur- ther, that, wherever we find any characteristic vital activity, we find some variety of protoplasm. Physi- ology thus became reduced, in its most general terms, to a study of the faculties of protoplasm; and mor- phology, to a study of the forms which units or ag- gregates of units of protoplasm, or their products, might assume. The isolation of botany, zodlogy, and physiology, which was threatened through the in-— creased division of labor, brought about by increase of knowledge, necessitating a limitation of special study to some one field of biology, was averted; and the reason was given for that principle which we have | always insisted upon here, —that beginners shall be taught the broad general laws of living matter before they are permitted to engage in the special study of one department of biology. , If I be asked, what have biological science in gen- eral, and physiology i in particular, done for mankind 1 Concluded from No. 50. Address by Dr. H. Newell Martin, - JANUARY 25, 1884.] to justify the time and money spent on them during the past fifty years, I confess I think it a perfectly fair question; and fortunately it is one very easy to answer. Leaving aside the fruitful, practical applica- tions of biological knowledge to agriculture and sani- tation, I will confine myself to immediate applications of the biological sciences to the advance of the theory, and, as a consequence, of the art, of medicine. So long as the life of a man was believed to be an external something apart from his body, residing in it for a while, diseases were naturally regarded as Similar extrinsic essences or entities, which in- vade the body from without, and fought the ‘vital force.’ The business of the physician was to drive out the invader without expelling the vital spirits along with it, —an unfortunate result, which only too often happened. To the physicians of the sixteenth century a fever was some mysterious, extraneous thing, to be bled, or sweated, or starved out of the body, much as the medicine men of savages try to scare it off by beating tomtoms around the patient. Once life was recognized as the sum total of the properties of the organs composing the body, such a theory of disease became untenable, and the basis of modern pathology was laid. Disease was no longer a spirit- ual, indivisible essence, but the result of change in the structure of some one or more of the material constituents of the body, leading to abnormal activity. The object of the physician became, not to expel an imaginary, immaterial enemy, but to restore the altered constituent to its normal condition. The next great debt which medicine owes to biol- ogy is the establishment of the cell-doctrine, — of the fact that the body of each one of us is made up of mil- lions of little living units, each with its own proper- ties, and each in health doing its own business in a certain way, under certain conditions, and no one cell more the seat of life than any other. The activities of certain cells may, indeed, be more fundamentally important to the maintenance of the general life of the whole aggregate than that of others; but these cells, : which, by position or function, are more essential than the rest, were, in final analysis, no more alive than they. Before the acceptance of the cell-doc- trine, pathologists were practically divided into two camps,—those who believed that all disease was primarily due to changes in the nervous system, and those who ascribed it to alteration of the blood. But with the publication of Virchow’s ‘Cellular pathol- ogy’ all this was changed. Physicians recognized that the blood and nerves might at the outset be all right, and yet disease originate from abnormal growth or action of the cells of various organs. This new pathology, like the older, was for a time carried to excess. We now know that there may be general -diseases primarily due to changes in the nervous system, which binds into a solidarity the organs of the body, or of the blood, which nourishes all; but we have also gained the knowledge that very many, if not the majority, of diseases have a local origin, due to local causes, which must be discovered if the dis- ease is to be successfully combated. An engineer, if he find his machinery running imperfectly, may SCIENCE. ent. 101 endeavor.to overcome this by building a bigger fire in his furnace, and loading the safety-valve. In other words, he may attribute the defect to general causes; and in so far he would resemble the old pathologists. But the skilled engineer would do something differ- If he found his machinery going badly, he would not jump forthwith to the conclusion that it was the fault of the furnace, but would examine every bearing and pivot in his machinery, and, only when he found these all in good working-order, begin to think the defect lay in the furnace or boiler; and in that he would resemble the modern physician in- structed in the cell-doctrine. A third contribution of biology to medical science is the germ-theory as to the causation of a certain group of diseases. To it we owe already antiseptic surgery; and we are all now holding our breath in the fervent expectation that in the near future, by its light, we may be able to fight scarlet-fever, diphtheria, and phthisis, not in the bodies of those we love, but in the breeding-places, in dirt and darkness, of cer- tain microscopic plants. From one point of view the germ-theory may seem a return to the idea that diseases are external entities which attack the body; but note the difference be- tween this form of the doctrine and the ancient. We are no longer dealing with immaterial, intangible hypothetic somethings; and the modern practitioner says, ‘‘ Well, show me the bacteria, and then prove that they can cause the disease: until you can do that, do not bother me about them.”’ It is worth while, in passing, to note that these three great advances in medical thought were brought about by researches made without any reference to medicine. Haller’s purely physiological research into the properties of muscles laid the foundation of a rational conception of disease. The researches of Schwann on the microscopic structure of plants, and since then of others on the structure of the lowest animals, led to the cellular pathology. Antiseptic surgery is based on researches carried out for the sole purpose of investigating the question as to sponta- neous generation. My friend Dr. Billings has de- scribed ‘‘the languid scientific swell, who thinks it bad style to be practical, and who makes it a point to refrain from any investigations which lead to useful results, lest he might be confounded with mere prac- tical men.’’ Well, I am sorry for the swell; because, for the life of me, I cannot see how he can make any investigations at all. The members of his class must anyhow be so few in number that we need not much grieve over them. Personally I never have met with an investigator who would not be rejoiced to find any truth discovered by him put to practical use; and I feel sure that in this day and generation the danger is rather that disproportionate attention will be de- voted to practical applications of discoveries already made, to the exclusion of the search for new truth. So far as physiology is concerned, it has done far more for practical medicine, since it began its own inde- pendent career, than when it was a mere branch of the medical curriculum. All the history of the physical sciences shows that each of them has con- 102 tributed to the happiness and welfare of mankind in proportion as it has been pursued by its own methods, for its own ends, by its own disciples. As regards physiology, this is strikingly illustrated by a comparison of the value to medicine of the gradua- tion theses of Parisian and German medical students. As probably you all know, a candidate for the doc- torate of medicine in those countries, as in many schools here, must present a graduation thesis on some subject connected with his studies. Every year a certain number select a physiological topic. ‘The French student usually picks out some problem which appears to havé a direct bearing on the diag- nosis or treatment of disease, while the German very often takes up some physiological matter which on the surface has nothing to do with medicine. Now, any one who will carefully compare for a series of years the graduation theses in physiology, of German and French candidates, will discover that even the special practical art of medicine itself is to-day far more indebted to the purely scientific researches of the German students than to those of: the French, undertaken with a specific practical end in view. Situated as we shall be here, in close relation to a medical school, and yet not a part of it, I believe we shall be under the best possible conditions for work. Not under too direct pressure of the influence of the professional staff and students, on the one hand, on the other we shall be kept informed and on the alert as to problems in medicine capable of solution by physiological methods. I must find time to say a few words as to the con- nection of physiology with pathology and therapeu- tics. ‘The business of the physiologist being to gain a thorough knowledge of the properties and functions of every tissue and organ of the body, he has always had for his own purposes to place these tissues under abnormal conditions. To know what a muscle ora gland is, he has to study it not merely in its normal condition, but when heated or cooled, supplied with oxygen or deprived of it, inflamed or starved, and see how it behaves under the influence of curari, atropine, and other drugs. From the very start of physiological laboratories, a good deal of the work done in them has necessarily been really experimental pathology and experimental therapeutics. I suppose to-day that at least half of the work published from physiological laboratories might be classed under one or other of these heads. And what has been the fruit? I can here refer only to one or two examples. It is not too much to say, that, though inflammation is the com- monest and earliest recognized of pathological states, we really knew nothing about it until the experi- mental researches of Lister, Virchow, and Cohnheim; and that all we really know as to the nature of fever is built on the similar researches of Bernard, Haidenhain, Wood, and others. As to therapeutics, so far as giv- ing doses of medicine is concerned, it, still in its very infancy, had its birth as an exact science in physi- ological laboratories. Every modern text-book on the subject gives an account of the physiological action of each drug. What the future may have in store for us by pursuit of these inquiries it is hard to limit. SCIENCE. The work of Bernard, — showing that in curari we had adrug that would pick out of the whole body, and act upon, one special set of tissues, the endings of the nerve-fibres in muscle,— and the results of subsequent exact experiments as to the precise action of many drugs upon individual organs or tissues, hold out be- fore us a hope that perhaps at no very distant day the physician will know exactly, and in detail, what every drug he puts into his patient is going to do in him. Pathology and therapeutics, while almost essential branches of physiological inquiry, have nevertheless their own special aims; and, now that the physiolo- gists have proved that it is possible to study these subjects experimentally, special laboratories for their pursuit are being erected in Germany, France, and England. These laboratories are stocked with physi- ological instruments, and carry on their work by physiological methods. Those who guide them, and those who work in them, must be trained physiolo- gists: if not, the whole business often degenerates into a mere slicing of tumors and putting up of pickled deformities: pathological anatomy is a very good and important thing in itself, but it is not pa- thology. Looking at the vast field of pathological and therapeutic research open to us, and bearing in mind the certainty of the rich harvest for mankind which will reward those who work on it, I regard as one of my chief duties here to prepare in sound physi- ological doctrine, and a knowledge of the methods of experiment, students who will afterwards enter laboratories of experimental pathology and _ phar- macology immediately connected with our medical school. If the relations of the biological sciences to medicine be such as I have endeavored to point out, what place should they occupy in the medical curriculum? That men fitted for research, and with opportunity to pursue it, should be trained to that end, is all well and good; but how about the ninety per cent who want simply to become good practitioners of medi- cine ? What relation is this laboratory to hold to such men, who may come to it, intending afterwards to enter amedical school? As apart of their general college-training, of that education of a gentleman which every physician should possess, it should give them specially a thorough training in the general laws which govern living matter, without troubling them with the minutiae of systematic zoology or botany; it should enable them to learn how to dissect, and make them well acquainted with the anatomy of, one of the higher animals; it should teach them how to use a miscroscope, and the technique of histology, and finally, by lectures, demonstration, and experiment, make known to them the broad facts of physiology, the means by which those facts have been ascertained, and the sort of basis oh which they rest. The man so trained, while obtaining the mental culture which he would gain from the study of any other science, is specially equipped for the study of medicine. Trained , in other parts of his general collegiate course to speak and write his own language correctly, having acquired a fair knowledge of mathematics and Latin, able to read at least French and German, having learned the ¢ [Vor. IIL, No. 61, .¢ JANUARY 25, 1884.] elements of physics and chemistry, and, in addition, having studied the structure and properties of the healthy body, he can, on entering the technical school, from the very first turn his attention to professional details. Knowing already the anatomy of a cat or dog, he knows a great part of human anatomy, and need do little but acquaint himself with the surgical and medical anatomy of certain regions. Knowing normal histology, he can at once turn his attention to the microscopy of diseased tissues. Well instructed in physiology, he can devote himself to its practical applications in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. The demand for an improvement in medical educa- tion, which has been so loudly heard in England and this country for some years, is (the more I think of it, the more I feel assured) to be met, not, as has been the ease in England, by putting more general science into the medical-school curriculum, but by confining that more strictly to purely professional training, and by providing, as we have attempted to do here, non- technical college-courses for undergraduates, which, while giving them a liberal education, shall also have a distinct relation to their future work. Personally I regard it as the most important of my duties, to prepare students to enter medical schools in this city or elsewhere. To advance our knowledge of the laws of life and health; to inquire into the phenomena and causes of disease; to train experimenters in pathology, thera- peutics, and sanitary science; to fit men to undertake the study of the art of medicine, — these are the main objects of our laboratory. Ido not know that they can be better summed up than in the words of Descartes, which I would like to see engraved over its portal: ‘‘If there is any means of getting a medical theory based on infallible demonstrations, that is what I am now inquiring.”’ THE CLOSING REPORT OF HAYDEN’S SURVEY. Twelfth annual report of the U.S. geological and geographical survey of the territories: a report of progress of the exploration in Wyoming and Idaho for the year 1878. Washington, Government print- ing-office, 1883. 2vols. 8°. With portfolio of maps and panoramas. In two stout octavo volumes, with an accom- panying portfolio of maps, Dr. Hayden pre- sents the twelfth and last annual report of the Geological survey of the territories. While the late reorganization and consolidation of the sur- veys which have been occupied in the scien- tific exploration of the west is indubitably a very marked step in advance, it is not without a measure of regret that we realize that Dr. Hayden’s familiar and always welcome annual report now reaches us for the last time. It is perhaps only those having some experience of similar work who can fully appreciate the ener- gy and maintained scientific enthusiasm neces- SCIENCE. 103 sary for the conduct of an organization such as that which under Dr. Hayden has built so broad a foundation for our geological knowledge of the western part of the continent. The volumes now issued constitute the re- port for 1878, the concluding season of field- work. Great care has evidently been given to the editing and printing of the report; and the number and good quality of the illustrations and maps are noteworthy features. Of plates alone, in the two volumes, there are over two hundred and fifty ; and most of them are excel- lent specimens of lithographic art. The first volume is devoted chiefly to paleon- tology and zodlogy, while the second may be regarded as a memoir on the Yellowstone na- tional park. Dr. C. A. White, in his report, under the title of ‘ Contributions to invertebrate paleontology, No. 2,’ presents the second part of his descriptions and illustrations of creta- ceous fossils. This is followed (as parts 4 to 8 of the contributions) by papers on tertiary, Laramie, Jurassic, triassic, and carboniferous fossils. The article on the Laramie, includ- ing, besides the descriptions and plates of a number of forms, a systematic enumeration of the invertebrate fossils: of the group, assumes the character of a synopsis of its fauna invalu- able to the student of this period of geological history. Mr. Orestes St. John’s very compre- hensive and systematic report on the Wind River district could be done justice to only in a separate note of some length. Mr. S. H. Seudder’s report on the tertiary lake-basin of Florissant is next in order. From this place a number of fossil plants and a few fishes and birds have been obtained: but it is specially remarkable for the wonderfully numer- ous remains of insects which it affords; ‘‘ hav- ing yielded in a single summer more than double the number of specimens which the famous localities at Oeningen, in Bavaria, furnished Heer in thirty years.’’ ‘The fossils occur in fine-grained volcanic ash-beds, which, together with coarser materials of the same origin, constitute the deposits of the old lake-basin. The age of the beds is apparently about that of the oligocene, and the climatic conditions may have resembled those of the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico at the present day. A complete description of the insects will be awaited with much interest. Mr. Packard’s monograph of the phyllopod Crustacea of North America, having been already noticed in Science,* need only be mentioned. In the latter part of the first volume, Dr. R. W. Shu- feldt treats of the osteology of the Cathartidae 1 Vol. ii. p. 571. 104 and North-American Tetraonidae, the burrow- ing owl, horned lark, and shrike. On the Yellowstone national park, or reser- vation as it may perhaps more fitly be called, much has already been written, both of a scien- tific and popular character ; but the second volume of SCIENCE. the region itself does not abound in grand scenery, consisting chiefly of high rolling pla- teaus covered with dark coniferous forest, but, along the borders of the streams, opening out into the attractive park-like country charac- teristic elsewhere of many of the sub-alpine valleys the present report is the first proxi- mately complete account of its physical and geo- logical features. The first scien- tific exploration of this wonderful region was that of the survey of the territories in 1871 and 1872; and it of the Rocky Mountains. The mean elevation, being about eight thousand feet, renders it subject to frosts through- out the summer, and quite unfit for agriculture: in- deed, the frequent reference to snow- storms as inter- is largely due to the personal ef- forts of Dr. Hay- den that the dis- trict was set apart as a national park. Though — reports more or less gar- fering with the operations of 1878 would alone be sufficient to indi- cate the sub-are- bled, of its gey- sers and_ hot- springs, were from an early pe- riod in circulation in the west, they were not gener- ally credited ; and itis a remarkable fact, that this re- gion, in the midst of so much active tic character of the climate. The geology of the park is re- ported on by Mr. W. H. Holmes, who carries with him throughout a clear appreciation of the bearing of observed facts on the causes and history of the re- markable events of which this por- exploration of the west, continued so long practically unknown. It re- mained for the ubiquitous western ‘ prospector ’ to afford some intelligible account of its character between 1863 and 1869; and Dr. Hayden’s first explo- ration followed not long thereafter. The reservation is situated mainly in north- western Wyoming, but embraces also portions of Idaho and Montana. It is about 65 by 53 miles in extent, with a computed area of 3,312 square miles, of which nearly 200 square miles are occupied by lakes. To the north and east are bounding ranges of lofty and rugged moun- tains ; but, apart from the canons of the rivers, tion of the ‘ great divide’ has been the theatre. While most of the formations known in the north-west are represented in the park, a glance at the map shows that those of volcanic origin cover by far the greatest area; and it is in connection with these that its special fea- tures have been developed. Volcanic conglom- erates of. tertiary age are particularly prominent, and attain in some places a very great thickness. Rhyolite preponderates, but basalts also fre- quently occur ; and the existence of large mass- es of obsidian or volcanic glass is a point both — of mineralogical, and, from the use made of it by the Indians, ethnological interest. [Von IIL, No. 51. . f = JANUARY 25, 1884. ] From the deeply eroded valley of the Yellow- stone, almost all the facts as to the pre-tertiary history of the park are drawn; and the line of this river appears to have been determined by a great fault for which a minimum estimate of the displacement is given at 15,000 feet. This fault was probably synchronous with the general Rocky Mountain uplift, and is presumed to be in more or less direct causal connection with the subsequent remarkable history of the dis- trict. It is not a simple fissure, but a break along which the edges of the strata have been much dragged and contorted, particularly on the dropped side; appearing, in fact, to have the character of a great flexure pushed to fracture. On its northern side rises the Yel- lowstone Range; while to the south, in the depressed area, are found the evidences of that prodigious volcanic activity of which the actual thermal phenomena are the last linger- ing stages. From the older tertiary rocks of the park have been collected a number of plants which Professor Lesquereux refers to the Fort Union group ; but, before the inauguration of the vol- canic periods, these beds, together with the paleozoic rocks, had been deeply SCIENCE. 105 of Amethyst Mountain, plants of upper mio- cene or lower pliocene age have been identified. Very much yet remains, however, to be dis- covered in the history of this prolonged period, which, in its succession of volcanic outbursts alternating with epochs of quiet river-work, much resembles that of the classic tertiary vol- canic region of central France, and may, when fully disclosed, tell as interesting a story. In Amethyst Mountain some of the latest stages are well exemplified, and we have, perhaps, the finest series of buried erect forests ever dis- covered. The volcanic rocks, here character- istically conglomeritic, show a thickness of five thousand feet, and are charged almost through- out with the silicified remains of ancient for- ests. The lower layers are comparatively fine grained, but are followed by conglomerates which become coarser and more breccia-like in ascending, but are throughout interbedded with sandstones, and shaly layers largely tufa- ceous in character, and appear to be partly water-bedded and partly sub-aerial. The in- tervals between successive eruptions have been sufficient to allow the surface to become clothed again and again by a heavy forest-growth, each of which has been destroyed and bur- scored by erosion. ied in turn. There can be lit- The earlier flows tle doubt that the of trachyte and rhyolite poured in- hot- springs have to the then exist- been continuously ing valleys till they in existence since were, in many cases at least, en- the volcanic peri- od ; and actual evi- tirely obliterated, dence of their great and the successors antiquity is found of these first rivers forced to cut new channels having in the occurrence of fragments of the characteristic cal- little or no refer- ence to the posi- tion of the old. Subsequent lava- flows again filled these later valleys, and, through the succeeding basal- tic and conglom- eritic epochs of careous deposit in some of the high- er river-terraces, since the forma- tion of which the Yellowstone has cut for itself a canon a thousand feet in depth. For an account activity, this pro- cess appears to have been repeated many times. The entire period of volcanic ac- tivity must have been of extremely long dura- tion, and may have lasted through a great part of the tertiary. From the volcanic conglomerates GRAND CANON OF THE YELLOWSTONE. of the hot-springs and geysers as found at the pres- ent day, we must, however, turn to the second section of the report, in which Dr. Peale treats the subject in an exhaustive manner, tabulat- ing over two thousand springs and seventy-one 106 t geysers. The springs,show some evidence of linear arrangement, but dispose themselves for purposes of investigation in a, series of groups, which are systematically described, mapped, and illustrated. The eruptions of the principal geysers are tabulated with the purpose of in- vestigating the regularity, or otherwise, of the eruption periods ; and, in collecting and review- SCIENCE. upper geyser basin of the Fire-Hole River : and the flow of heated water is here so great — | as to notably affect the temperature of the stream itself. In this area alone, not quite four square miles in extent, 440 springs are known, of which 26 are veritable geysers, some, during these paroxysms of eruption, pro- ducing columns of 150 to 250 feet in height. NN Q va BASINS A’ MAMMOTH HOT-SPRINGS OF GARDINER’S RIVER. ing all that has already been observed on this point, Dr. Peale has had by no means a light task. So many accounts have already appeared of the more remarkable geysers and springs, that their main features have become more or less familiar to all, in so far as they can be made so by description. The Giant, Castle, Grand, Old Faithful, Giantess, Bee-Hive, and others of the best known geysers, are included in the NurZ7 ef ty In the second part of his re- port, Dr. Peale describes, for purposes of com- parison, the gey- ser districts of Iceland and New r= en. ~w} ¥ eS A ES ae Daeg ee pa 7( re. sk alogues the thermal springs of the world. In the third, under the title of ‘Therma-hydrology,’ the gen- eral features of hot-springs are dis- cussed: their physical and thermal conditions, formations and deposits, and geyseric phenom- ena, are reviewed, bringing out many points of interest. ‘The geysers of all parts of the world are essentially similar in character. of the park are remarkable for the devel- opment of chimneys, or cones, at their orifices, —a fact attributed to the greater antiquity of the now existing vents, but which, it appears [Vor. III, No. 51. Zealand, and cat- . Those — JANUARY 25, 1884.] equally probable, may arise from the greater dryness of air in the park region as compared with that of Iceland and New Zealand. The chemical investigation of the Yellow- stone springs is not yet sufficiently complete for their satisfactory classification; but they are broadly divided by Dr. Peale into those of calcareous, siliceous, and aluminous character. The so-called aluminous springs, being those highly charged with mud, or matter in a state of suspension, will doubtless eventually be relegated to one or other of the first-named classes. The possible therapeutical value of the springs is as yet practically untested ; and it is to be remarked in this connection, that the climate is such as in any event to be unfavor- able to those suffering from debilitating dis- eases. A few experiments on the color of the waters are recorded ; but these, it must be con- fessed, are unsatisfactory, as the samples had been long in bottle; and, apart from this, it ‘is doubtful whether the waters of the park offer peculiarities so marked as to throw any im- portant light on a subject which has already been elaborately studied by physicists and chemists. The older theory of geyser action requiring a steam-chamber which blew off, from time to time, through a water-trap connecting with a tubular orifice, and implying a quite excep- tional co-ordination of circumstances, became SCIENCE. e 107 virtually untenable when geysers were discov- ered in such considerable numbers in different regions. Bunsen’s explanation, depending on the superheating of water under pressure in fissures, or more or less tubular receptacles, seriously modified in action by local circum- stances, is considered sufficient to account for the observed phenomena. Appended to this report, is a valuable bibli- ography of the park, and of the literature treat- ing of geysers and hot-springs generally. In the latter part of the volume, Mr. Gannett reviews the geographical work on which the excellent maps accompanying the report are based. Notwithstanding the amount of precise in- formation now made available on this region, much yet evidently remains to be discovered. The field-work on which the report on the park is based extended over about two months only ; and the observations have too often been of what Mr. Holmes regretfully describes as the ‘ twenty-five-mile-a-day kind.’ Armed with the present report, embodying the results so far obtained, each scientific visitor for a long time to come may well hope to add some important new facts. ‘The definition of the catchment areas from which the various groups of springs are supplied, and the circulation of the under- ground waters, may be specially noted as an important point scarcely yet touched. RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF Ss CLENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Princeton science club. Nov. 8.— Dr. L. W. McCay reported that the Perrot method for estimating P, O; can only give accurate results providing chlorine beabsent. This, however, is seldom the case in apatites, superphosphates, etc. He therefore proposes a modification, — dissolving the tri-argentic phosphate from the filter-paper with dilute nitric acid, thereby leaving the chloride, and proceeding at once to titrate the silver according to -Vallhardt. He reserves for himself the privilege of developing the subject. Jan. 10.— Dr. Halsted opened a discussion as to whether Euclid was a suitable text-book for elemen- tary geometrical instruction; — Mr. Fine read a paper on Synthetic solution of a class of problems in max- ima and minima on the partition of a segment of a circle; — Professor Macloskie, Notes on _ biological articles in recent scientific serials; — Dr. McCay, _ Analysis of beer made in state of New Jersey;— Mr. MeNeill, Determination of co-ordinates of certain stars by the meridian circle; — Professor Scott, The lamprey (the peculiar flattened shape of the spinal cord in the lamprey arises late in larval life, and is an acquired peculiarity. In the embryo the dorsal roots of the spinal nerves are all connected by a com- missure, which also connects the tenth, ninth, and seventh nerves together, and with the spinal nerves. This commissure apparently forms the lateral nerve. The third nerve arises independently, and would “seem to be of segmental value); — Professor Osborn, A method of double injection of anatomical speci- mens (by first injecting the veins through the arteries with blue gelatine, then injecting the arteries with plaster of paris, which is stopped at the capillaries, the veins and arteries can be readily distinguished) ; — Professor Young, The cause of the unusual sun- sets, On the spectrum of the Pons-Brooks comet. Ottawa field-naturalists’ club. Jan. 17.— The paper of the evening was by Mr. E. Odlum, M.A., of Pembroke, ‘On the sand-plains and changes of water-level of the Upper Ottawa;’ the portion of the river specially referred to being a stretch of some forty miles opposite the town of Pem- broke, and extending from the head of the Coulonge Lake to the entrance of the reach known as the Deep 108 River. The district thus included lies along latitude 45° 50/, between longitudes 76° 40’ and 77° 40’; the town of Pembroke being 77° 10’, with an elevation above sea-level of 423 feet. At the upper end of the district the Ottawa divides its waters, and encircles the large Allumette Island; the Culbute Channel on the north being narrow, while the southern one ex- pands so as to be known as the Upper and Lower AI- lumette Lakes. On the Quebec shore the land rises precipitously; the Laurentian Mountains seldom re- ceding more than a mile, and at times rising sheer from the water’s edge in towering cliffs of trap. On the Ontario side the land is comparatively undulat- ing, and rises by a succession of plateaus separated by ridges of rock, or by ranges of hills gradually in- creasing in height. After a graphic description of the beauties of this district, the writer outlined the princi- pal sand-plains which constitute a large portion of the steppes of the southern shore, and pointed out that their levels coincided with the well-marked terraces found on Allumette Island and at other points along the river. The formation of these sand-plains was then fully discussed ; and it was claimed that they had undoubtedly been formed from the débris transported by flowing water from the rock ranges that bound and intersect them, and toward which the surface ~ gradually changes from fine sand (or occasionally clay), through coarser sands, pebbles, etc., to bowlders. The principal plain is that called the Chalk-river sand-plain, extending from near Pembroke, twenty miles westward. It is interrupted toward the lower end by broken ridges, which harmonize in position with the rapids, and which formed parts of barriers between a higher level westward and a lower level eastward. Occasional sand-ridges occur, which lie be- tween the ancient mouths of rivers, of which some are now extinct, and others, as the Petawawa and Musk- rat, still flow in greatly diminished volume. The two principal levels of this plain correspond with two terraces boldly marked on the Laurentians near the head of Coulonge Lake, fully thirty miles away. A lake as large as, or larger than, Superior must in the past have hidden in its great depths Allumette Island, the entire Pembroke district, and adjacent sand- plains, as well as thousands of the now arable acres lying toward Renfrew. As indicated by the ter- races, there had been two distinct periods, in the first of which the water had been 200 feet deeper, and in the second 100 feet deeper, than the present level. After describing the constitution of the soils derived respectively from the granite or trap ridges, and their SCIENCE. relative capacities for agriculture, the writer very lucidly and interestingly explained the changes, as witnessed by him, which are still going on in the district, and the manner in which, by the incessant weathering and denudation of the rocks, sand-plains on a smaller scale are still being formed. The pres- ent barriers which cause the rapids interrupting navi- gation were explained to be of varying degrees of hardness, so that change proceeds more rapidly at certain points. sandstones (Potsdam) compacted with bluish clay, and are being rapidly eroded; and at a not excessively remote date the channel will be so lowered that the upper and lower lakes will form one navigable level, while the channel to the west, having a much harder bed-rock, will be changed to impassable rapids by the subsidence of the lake below them. Reference was made to various older channels which evidenced former higher levels which the existence of terraces and undoubted water-lines fully confirmed. In the discussion that ensued, several members who had visited the locality and other portions of the Upper Ottawa gave evidence as to the existence of numer- ous traces of old water-currents at points now much above the present levels. Mr. H. M. Ami presented a list of the Cambro-silu- rian fossils of the neighborhood, containing 228 spe- cies, and prefaced by a few notes as to its compilation. The report of the geological section on the summer’s work was also read, and the president announced that classes in botany and zoology would be held weekly. Franklin institute, Philadelphia, Jan. 16. — The annual report of Board of managers exhibited the addition of a hundred and thirty-nine new members during 1883, and of over three thou- sand volumes to the library. Preparations for the Electrical exhibition, to be held during the autumn of 1884, are in an advanced state. A national con- ference of electricians is in contemplation. ject of a ‘‘Proposed ordinance for the examination of steam-engineers’’ was warmly debated, pro and con, but no decisive action was taken. Mr. S. Lloyd Wiegand read a paper defending the use of cast iron in the construction of steam-boilers, it having been alleged by Nystrom and others that steam-boilers with flat cast-iron heads were dangerous. The secre- tary’s report embraced a summary of engineering and industrial progress for the past year. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. The U.S. naval observatory, Vice-Admiral Stephen C. Rowan was appointed July 1, 1882, to succeed Rear-Admiral John Rodgers as superintendent of the observatory. On May 1, 1883, Vice-Admiral Rowan was relieved by Rear- Admiral R. W. Shufeldt. The report of Admiral Shufeldt to Commodore J. G. Walker, chief of bureau: of navigation, under date of Oct. 22, 1883, covers the work of the observatory for the past year. The personnel of the observatory is as‘follows:— — Rear-Admiral R. W. Shufeldt, superintendent; Commander W. T. Sampson, assistant to superintend- ent; lieutenants, Pendleton, Moore, Bowman, Gar- [Vou. III, No. 51. Thus the channel rocks at the foot | of the river-reach in question are composed of fine © The sub- ° ' { § ; ; Se JANUARY 25, 1884.] vin, Wilson, Harris, Sewell; ensigns, Brown,! Allen, Taylor, Hoogewerff; professors, Hall, Harkness, East- man, Frisby; assistant astronomers, Skinner, Win- lock, Paul; clerk, Thomas Harrison; computer, W. M. Brown, jun.; computers (transit of Venus), Wood- ward, Flint, Wiessner, A. Hall, jun.; instrument- maker, W. F. Gardner; also three watchmen and nine laborers. The report, which is not yet published, contains a brief account of the work accomplished with the principal instruments of the observatory, —the 26- inch and 9.6-inch equatorials, the transit circle, prime vertical and meridian transit, —and the prog- ress in the chronometer department, the department of nautical instruments, the library, and also in the reductions of Gilliss’s Zones of 1850, 1851, 1852. The 26-inch equatorial. — This instrument has been in charge of Prof. A. Hall, with Prof. E. Frisby as assistant. Mr. George Anderson is employed as an assistant in the dome. The canvas covering for the opening of the dome is still used, and achange in the raising and lowering of this covering has been made in order to avoid the friction of the wire ropes. Thus far the new arrangement has worked well. This equatorial has been employed, as in preceding years, for the observation of double stars, satellites, and comets. The satellites of Saturn, Uranus, and Nep- tune have been observed; and we have now collected a large number of observations of these satellites. The ring of Saturn has been observed, but no remark- able changes have been noticed. In fact, many of the strange phenomena frequently described in con- nection with this unique ring, the observers here fail to see on the best nights. During the greatest open- ing of the ring, which is near at hand, it is intended to make a set of micrometric measures of the dimen- sions of the ring. Some observations for stellar par- allax have been undertaken; but, as the observer resides at some distance from the observatory, such work is very laborious, and it seems better to defer it until more convenient arrangements are made. At the present time the pressing need on this instru- ment is, that the observations of satellites already ‘made should be discussed for the purpose of correct- ing the orbits of these satellites, and of determining the masses of the planets. This discussion has been begun, and the numerical calculations are being made by Ensigns W. H. Allen and J. A. Hoogewerff. The transit circle. — This instrument, in charge of Prof. J. R. Eastman, was employed in the same class of work as in 1881-82. The observers were Professor Eastman, and Assistant astronomers A. N. Skinner, Miles Rock,? and W. C. Winlock. Professor Eastman was absent, in charge of a transit of Venus party at Cedar Keyes, Florida, from Nov. 1, 1882, to Jan. 1, 1883. Assistant astronomer Miles Rock, who was de- tached in September, 1882, for duty with the transit of Venus party at Santiago, Chile, was away until Feb. 10, 1884. The whole number of observations made with the transit circle from Oct. 18, 1882, to Oct. 18, 1883, is 3,880. 1 Appointed professor of mathematics, U.S.N., Oct. 13, 1883. 2 Succeeded, Nov. 1, 1883, by Prof. H. M. Paul. SCIENCE. 109 The meteorological observations have been con- tinued, as in former years, by the watchmen. The 9.6-inch equatorial. — This instrument has been in charge of Commander W. T. Sampson, assisted part of the time by Lieut. W. E. Sewell, and part of the time by Lieut. John Garvin. It has been used, as in former years, in observations of the phenomena of Jupiter’s satellites, occultations by the moon, places of comets, and for obtaining corrections to the ephem- eris places of minor planets. Prime vertical instrument. — This instrument is in charge of Lieut. C. G. Bowman, assisted by Ensign H. Taylor. Observations with it were recommenced Nov. 14, 1882. Continuous observations have been restricted to about forty stars, in no case exceeding 2° zenith distance when on the meridian; and these, with one exception, have been closely confined to the time of the two maxima of aberration. The one ex- ception referred to was in the case of a Lyrae, which has been regularly observed throughout the twenty- four hours, having in view the possibility of a deter- mination of its absolute parallax. Up to this time about five hundred and eighty observations have been secured. In the reductions, Struve’s formulae have been used; and the labor has been greatly lessened by the use of his auxiliary tables for the prime ver- tical transit. Meridian transit instrument. — This instrument has been in charge of Lieut. U. R. Harris, and Lieut. E. C. Pendleton has assisted. Since July 10, Lieuts. Pendleton and Harris have alternated in determining the correction of the standard mean-time clock. The meridian transit instrument has been used for the observations of stars of the American ephemeris for clock and azimuth corrections, and the determinations of the right ascensions of the sun, moon, and major planets. The total number of observations of the character mentioned is fourteen hundred and eight. Observations have been taken as often as practicable, to obtain each day the correction of the standard mean-time clock for setting to correct time the trans- mitting clock, which is used in sending out the time- signals from the chronometer-room, and in rating the chronometers. . National museum. Publications. — Volume 5 of the ‘Proceedings of the National museum’ has just been issued from the Government printing-office. It contains 703 pages, and includes 87 articles by 84 authors, grouped topi- cally as follows: mammals, 4; birds, 21; reptiles, 2; fishes, 48; mollusks, 3; crustaceans, 1; insects, etc., 2; plants, fossil and recent, 4; minerals and rocks, 2; art and industry, 1. Catlin Indian paintings. —The Catlin collection of Indian paintings recently given to the museum by Mrs. Joseph Harrison of Philadelphia, is now being prepared for exhibition. This collection consists of over six hundred paintings, chiefly portraits and de- lineations of ceremonies, games, and hunting-scenes, made by the artist during eight years’ residence in the western territories, Mexico, and British North America, previous to 1840. It contains authenticated 110 portraits of three hundred and fifty men and women, and over three thousand figures of Indians of the tribes known as Sacs, Foxes, Konzas, Osages, Co- manches, Pawnees, Kiowas, Sioux, Omahas, Missou- ries, Mandans, Flatheads, Blackfeet, Crows, Gros Ventres, Crees, Assineboins, Chippewas, Iroquois, Ottawas, Winnebagoes, and twenty-seven other tribes. Its value as a record of ethnological characters is in- estimable. There were two collections, — one consisting of the original paintings done in the field, exhibited by Mr. Catlin for many years in Europe; the other, copies made at a later date, which was exhibited in the old Smithsonian building many years ago, and now the property of Mr. Catlin’s heirs. The collection given to the museum is the original one, and is regarded by artists and ethnologists as by far the most valuable. The pictures, which have been for fifteen years stored away in a warehouse in Philadelphia, are in a remark- ably good state of preservation. There are also on exhibition five paintings by Stan- ley, —all that remains of the Stanley collection of Indian paintings destroyed by the fire in the Smith- sonian building in 1865. Naval officers in the museum. —In continuance of the policy adopted two years ago, the secretary of the navy has detailed six more ensigns to duty in the museum. ‘These are graduates of the Naval acad- emy in the classes of t877-79, who have just finished their first three years’ cruise, and will now give two years to scientific work under the direction of the officers of the museum. Mr. C. S. McClain has been assigned to the department of marine invertebrates ; Mr. C. H. Harlow, to that of arts and industries; Mr. H. M. Witzul, to metallurgy; Mr. H. S. Knapp and Mr. O. G. Dodge, to mineralogy. Department of mineralogy. — Prof. F. W. Clarke, chemist of the Geological survey, has been appointed honorary curator of minerals, and is preparing a se- ries of minerals for exhibition. Mr. W. S. Yeates, aid in the museum, who has been in temporary charge of the minerals since the death of Dr. Hawes, the former curator, is acting as assistant in this depart- ment. Mr. Joseph Willcox of Philadelphia has deposited his collection of American minerals in the museum, and one thousand of the choicest specimens have been placed on exhibition. Foods and textiles. —Mr. Romyn Hitchcock is acting as assistant curator, having in charge the col- lections of foods and textiles. The collection is very rich in the textile products of the Indians, and has considerable quantities of food-materials acquired from foreign governments at the close of the Phila- delphia exhibition. Explorations in Corea. — Mr. Pierre L. Jouy, of the museum staff, is attached to the American embassy in Corea, and is making zoélogical explorations. En- sign J. C. Bernadou, U.S.N., has sailed for Corea, to spend two years in ethnological and mineralogical explorations. Mr. Bernadou was one of the officers detailed to duty at the museum last year. Voyage of the Albatross. —The steamer Alba- SCIENCE, [Vou. ILL, No. 51. tross sailed from Norfolk, Jan. 8, for a four-months’ cruise in the Caribbean Sea, in the service of the hydrographic office of the navy. She is under com- mand of Lieut. Z. L. Tanner, and carries a special staff of zodlogical workers, including Mr. J. E. Bene- dict, naturalist in charge; Mr. Willard Nye, jun.; and Ensigns Miner, Garrett, and Ackerman, U.S.N., of the museum staff. Mammal department. — Mr. Frederick W. True, curator of mammals, is in England, studying methods of investigation and museum administration with Professor Flower, at the Royal college of surgeons in London. Foraminifera. — Prof. L. A. Lee of Bowdoin col- lege was in Washington, Jan. 3 to Jan. 8, studying the museum collections of foraminifera with refer- ence to his investigations upon the materials obtained by the Fish commission. Director’s office. — During the reconstruction of the east end of the Smithsonian building, Professor Baird is occupying an office in the north-west pavilion of the museum. NOTES AND NEWS. ALL the parties sent out by the various govern- ments at the suggestion of the International polar commission have returned home safely, and with valuable meteorological and magnetic records, with the exception of three. The Russian station at the mouth of the Lena will continue its work for another year, on account of delay from storms in reaching its destination. The Finnish, at Sodankyla, although it has finished one good year’s work, will continue for another, as the government of Finland has supplied the necessary funds. The misfortunes of the Greely party are too well known. — The first number of the Auk, published under the auspices of the newly organized American orni- thologists’ union, closely resembles the Bulletin of the Nuttall club, of which it is the continuation, and - bids fair to be a credit to American ornithologists. An excellent colored plate forms a frontispiece to the number, and the articles are varied and interesting. One would perhaps justly complain of the space given to disputes over words, and lament the entire absence of papers upon either the anatomy or the general structure of birds, but these are perhaps to come in future numbers; and there is a pleasant fla- vor of careful out-door observation running through some of the papers, such as those of Messrs. Brewster, Barrows, and Bicknell. The effect of the formation of the union four months ago, is already seen in the plan offered by the committee charged with the sub- ject for co-operative work in the study of bird-migra- tion on this continent. We think a brief account of the formation and purpose of the union would have been a fitting introduction to the number. — Professor F. M. Snow of the University of Kan- sas, from observations taken at Lawrence, reports that only three Decembers in the past sixteen years — have been milder than that just passed, — 1875, 1877, x JANUARY 25, 1884.] and 1881. ‘There were very few days during the month in which building operations were, not ac- tively pushed. The sky was clearer, the wind was higher, and the rainfall was more than fifty per cent smaller, than the December average. The remarka- ble prolonged crimson and orange sunset glow, which was observed in the last week of November, contin- ued with a somewhat intermittent brilliancy during the month of December. — We take the following personal notes from Na- ture : — Prof. W. H. Macintosh has been elected to the pro- fessorship of comparative anatomy in Trinity college, Dublin, vice Professor Macalister, F.R.S., who re- signed on his appointment to the anatomy chair at Cambridge. By the death of the well-known mathematician, the Rev. W. Roberts, M.A., the Rev. Richard Townsend, M.A., F.R.S., becomes a senior fellow of Trinity college, Dublin, thereby vacating the professorship of natural philosophy held by him since 1870. ——The vacancy in the professorship of geology and mineralogy, in the University of Dublin, has been filled by the election of Professor Sollas of University college, Bristol. This appointment will give great satisfaction, and will afford Mr. Sollas large opportunities for paleontological research; the large collections of fossil plants and vertebrates in the museum in Dublin remaining to this day almost unknown. —— M. Houzeau, who was only recently appointed director of the Brussels observatory, has resigned his post; and it is reported that M. de Kon- kolly of Gzalla observatory, Hungary, will succeed him. —The Swedish government intends to establish a potanico-physiological station in the north of Sweden for the study of the flora and the diseases of the crops in that part of the country. —The Finnish government has ordered a steamer to be specially built in Sweden for the scientific re- searches about to be prosecuted in the Baltic. —Lord Rayleigh has reprinted for private circula- tion, in pamphlet form, several of his most valuable | optical papers, including those on the manufacture, reproduction by photography, and theory, of diffrac- tion-gratings, and those on color-mixtures. He has also reprinted some of his papers on electricity and on absolute pitch, from Nature and from the reports of the British association, in a convenient pamphlet form. — At its annual meeting, Jan. 11, the Cambridge entomological club elected the following officers: president, Samuel H. Scudder; secretary, George Dimmock; treasurer, B. P. Mann; librarian, C. C. Eaton; executive committee, Roland Hayward and T. W. Harris. — Prof. H. Carvill Lewis, of the Academy of nat- ural sciences of Philadelphia, has been appointed lecturer on geology and paleontology at Haverford college, Pennsylvania. 3 SCIENCE. 111 — A dissertation on the ‘Proper names of Panja- bis,’ with special reference to the proper names of villagers in the eastern Panjab, by Capt. R. C. Tem- ple, Bengal staff corps, contains a study of the proper names of the peoples of the Panjab. The book contains, also, long lists of names, showing by what classes of the population the various kinds of them are used, and is provided with an index to over four thousand proper names. The book is published at the Education society’s press, Bombay, and by Messrs. Thacker Spink & Co. in Calcutta, aid Messrs. Triib- ner & Co., Ludgate Hill, London. — Sampson, Low, & Co. announce ‘ Heath’s fern portfolio,’ —a series of life-size reproductions of ferns, being in form, color, and venation, accurate repre- sentations. The work is to be published in monthly parts. — The Publishers’ weekly announces that Rey. A. B. Hervey of Taunton, Mass., has translated Dr. Behren’s book on methods of conducting microscopical inves- tigations in the botanical laboratory. He has en- hanced the value of the translation by adding the methods of work used in this country. — Cupples, Upham, & Co., Boston, have ready ‘ The amphitheatres of ancient Rome,’ by Clara L. Wells. —Schuver, during recent explorations in the Galla country, purchased from them a young negro of a race called Gambil, from whom he obtained interest- ing details in regard to his people. It appears, from his account in the Revue géographique, that the Gambils live on the Komonshi River, an affluent from the right bank of the Sobat, — a name which signifies Cow River, because in the dry season their numerous herds find forage only along its banks. Ostriches and elephants abound. They have a tree which bears a fruit two feet long, weighing ten or twelve ‘pounds, which is softened in water, dried, and eaten. The principal village is Komonshok; but some thirty others were named by this negro, among them Kepil, which is a market where iron, copper, and beads are bought by the Gambils from the Gallas. They eat fowls and eggs, which the Gallas abominate, and raise pigs. They break out the two lower incisors, and wear two little horns of the gazelle or goat on the forehead. Some years since, they were attacked by the Denkas, who almost destroyed the tribe; many of whom, for safety, offered themselves as voluntary slaves to the Lega Gallas. — At the November meeting of the London society of biblical archaeology, Mr. Pinches read a paper on Babylonian art, as illustrated by Mr, Rassam’s latest discoveries. Among the discoveries on the site of the ancient Sippar, Mr. Pinches considers the most important to be a “‘ small egg-shaped object of beau- tifully veined marble, pierced lengthwise with a rather large hole, and engraved with an inscription of seven lines (two double) containing the name of Sargon of Agade (3800 B.C.).”’ Another small object, made of a dark-green stone in a bronze socket engraved or cast in the shape of a 112 ram’s head, bears an inscription stating that it was presented to Samas, the sun-god, by a king of Hana. From the character of the writing, Mr. Pinches places the date of the relic at about 850 B.C., and draws from the fact that it was presented by a foreign king the conclusion that the shrine of the sun-god at Sip- par must have attained to great renown. Another most interesting object of about the date 685 B.C. is a lion’s head carved in white limestone, perhaps originally forming a part of some piece of furniture. ‘‘The mouth, which was opened threat- eningly, showed the well-formed teeth. Above the upper lip were, on each side, five curved, sunken grooves, which were formerly inlaid with some material, probably to enable the long feelers or whiskers to be inserted. Wavy grooves for inlaying were also to be seen above the nose. The eyes were inlaid, and the holes for the insertion of the long hairs forming the eyebrows still remained. In the middle of the forehead there had originally been in- serted the little winged figure emblematic of the god Assur.”? The accompanying inscription contains the names of the Assyrian kings Sennacherib and Esar- haddon. Among other objects mentioned were statues of the sun-god and his attendant deities, all clothed in long robes. The reader pointed out that the speci- mens of art found by M. Sarzec at Tel-lo are finer than those found by Rassam at Sippar; the former coming from the more polished Akkadian, the latter from the more powerful but less refined Semite. — The domestication of the ostrichin South Africa is of only some fifteen years standing, all previous | product of plumes being due to hunting. At first there was much opposition to the proposal; and it was fancied that the plumes of domesticated birds would prove of inferior quality, which has not turned out to be the case. In 1865 there were only eighty, but in 1883 there are more than a hundred thousand tame ostriches. They have even been introduced into California. In 1880 forty millions of capital was engaged in the business, and a hundred and sixty-three thousand pounds of feathers were ex- ported from the Cape, worth nearly $4,200,000. The birds are kept in enclosures, which, in a natural state, must be twenty or thirty acres in extent per pair. When the area is diminished, they must be supplied with food. They begin to breed at the age of four years, but produce plumes after their first year. The plumes are cut or pulled out. In the latter case inju- ries sometimes result, both to birds and manipulators 5 so that the former process is preferred, although after six weeks it is necessary to remove the withered re- mains of the shaft. The feathers are classed according to their character; as, wing feathers (white), female feathers (white), tail feathers, fancy feathers (black and white), black feathers (long, medium, and short), and lastly gray feathers. Formerly the Cape plumes took only the sixth rank after those from Aleppo, Barbary, Senegal, Egypt, and Mogador, valued in the above-mentioned order. plumes are ranked as high as any. The largest ex- SCIENCE. Now, however, the Cape - portation is from Port Elizabeth. England is the great market, followed by France. New York is lately taking an important place in the trade. ‘The value of the feathers has diminished one-third under the increase of production, but the cost of the birds has also diminished. A pair of breeders has been sold within two years for twelve hundred dollars; but at present a pair can be had for two hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars. Under good condi- tions, a bird produces fifty dollars’ worth of plumes © per annum, to which must be added the value of the eggs and chicks. — The Catholic missionaries who have recently es- tablished themselves among the Massanzé on the west of Lake Tanganyika are meeting with a good deal of success. The men of the district, great travellers, speak mostly a jargon of several languages. Their own tongue is only heard in purity from the women, by whose aid a grammar and vocabulary have been prepared. An excitement was recently caused by one of the whites cobbling a shoe over an iron last. The natives took this for an actual white man’s foot which had been cut off; and one of the missionaries was obliged to take off his foot-gear to satisfy them that white men had toes. The Uambembé, reputed can- nibals of the adjacent mountains, who have never suffered any whites to enter their territory before, have welcomed the missionaries, and offered them sites for residence in the villages of the three princi- pal chiefs. This mission-station will be re-enforced very shortly. — The Stirling Castle, constructed at Glasgow: es- pecially for the China trade, during the past season has brought from Woosung to London a cargo of tea in thirty-one days. This is four days shorter than the best previous record. ‘The vessel is supplied with engines of eighty-five hundred horse power, and main- tained a perfectly regular speed of eighteen knots throughout the journey. —JIn view of the constantly increasing number of meteorological stations in Russia, Rikacheff, vice- director of the Central physical observatory, has un- dertaken a careful verification of the instruments, methods, and conditions at the different stations. — A. Roberjot, of the French navy, gives, in the Bulletin of the French society of geography, the results of a voyage in 1879 among the New Hebrides, and accompanies them by a small chart and several woodcuts in the text. The naval vessel Second sailed from Noumea, New Caledonia, and touched at various islands, beginning at the south-east with Annatom, and ending with Espiritu Santo to the north-west. Numerous interesting facts in regard to the present condition of the natives, some short lists of words and details in regard to the character of the several islands, are given, and form a useful contribu- tion to our knowledge of a people who are rapidly changing under the influences of missionaries, civili- zation, and the so-called ‘ labor-trade,’ which appears to be a kind of slavery into which the chiefs sell their unresisting people. [Von. IIL, No. 51. | SCIENCE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. As it has now been determined that the Greely relief expedition of 1884 shall be placed in the hands of naval officers, and that suitable vessels shall be purchased for the purpose, it is perhaps advisable to remind those interested of certain essential features of the task before us. It is desirable, that, whatever plans be adopted, it be distinctly remembered that the object of the expedition is to relieve Greely and his men; that it is essential to success that training and brains should lead the expedition, and that a mere naval training is not a sufficient qualification without experience in ice-naviga- tion ; that the praiseworthy ambition common to the best naval officers does not fit them for such technical work, any more than it would to write an epic poem; and, lastly, that qualified men may be had, and should be engaged, even if not nominally in command, and their advice should have controlling weight. We pointed out some time since, that the re- sponsibility for failure would be laid where it belongs, by the public, regardless of official pride or red tape. ‘That brave men should perish because points of precedence cannot otherwise be comfortably settled, is unendura- ble. It is probably better that only one branch of the service should be concerned in the ex- pedition. That this was not the case in 1883 is generally (whether rightly or not) supposed to haye some connection with the jiasco which is now a matter of history. Apart from that, there is little doubt that Capt. Pike felt his judgment of the propriety of pushing into the ice overruled by the officer in charge, whether that officer was conscious of his influence or not. In the present expedition not the small- est loophole should be left for any such pro- ceeding, or it is predestined to failure. No. 52.—1884. It is most unfortunate that at the present time we have probably not a single ranking officer in the navy of experience in the sort of navigation the expedition must necessarily en- counter. However, since it is the case, it should be recognized in the organization of the expedition; and, if any doubt exist as to the willingness of the naval authorities to provide for the deficiency by availing themselves of technical knowledge outside of the service, a mandatory clause to this effect might well be inserted in the act of Congress providing for the expedition. It may be thought that we reckon too lightly the effect of the grave re- sponsibility which will fall on the officers who may be selected; but the record of the two previous expeditions for the same purpose is a sufficient warranty for reasonable scepticism. In order to secure to the fullest extent the unusual advantage arising from the coincidence in the time of holding the proposed Inter- national electrical exhibition in Philadelphia, and of the meeting of the American associa- tion for the advancement of science in the same city, in connection with the anticipated visit of the members of the British association to that city, the Franklin institute has ap- pointed a special committee to confer with scientific men as to the best method to be adopted for securing, during the month of September, the assembling at Philadelphia of a conference of electricians. To defray the expenses of such a conference, a bill has been prepared, asking for a small appropriation from Congress. Scientific men interested in this measure are earnestly requested to give it all the aid in their power. Communications on the subject are respectfully requested by the committee, consisting of M. B. Snyder, Edwin J. Houston, William H. Wahl, W. P. Tatham. One cannot fail, while reading books of travel, to note the poverty of geographic terminology. 114 Even those explorers who attempt to describe closely what they see are hampered by the lack of terms of precise meaning with which to name the elements of a landscape; for, apart from the rarity of teaching in this important branch of physical geography, there is too little recog- nition of the connection that necessarily and often clearly exists between internal structure and external form, — too great neglect of the evolution of topography, during which the fea- tures of youth, maturity, and old age, succeed one another. There should be a terminology as well defined and extensive as that which botanists have invented for the description of leaves; for it is about as indefinite to call a country hilly as to call a plant leafy. There should be a collection of typical forms in models or figures marked with descriptive terms, ap- proved by some authoritative body, to serve as a standard by which travellers might be trained. The question is well worthy the attention of geographic societies and congresses. Ir is much to be regretted that it has been found necessary to suspend the operations of It was organized about two years ago, under the di- rection of Mr. Raphael Pumpelly, to obtain a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of the resources of the vast region in the north- western part of our country tributary to the Northern Pacific railroad and the associated companies, at whose cost it was undertaken. Up to that time this extensive territory, em- bracing, perhaps, one-fifth of the United States, had been very imperfectly explored geographi- cally, and was still less known as regards those resources which will contribute to the business of the railroads that traverse it. A large amount of accurate information has now been gathered, and in small part published. Mr. A. D. Wilson, of broad experience in western exploration, was put in charge of the topo- graphical work, with Messrs. Goode and Nell as chief aids; and we have just received a set of six maps, the fruit of their first season’s surveys, a notice of which will be found in the ‘ Notes and news.’ the Northern transcontinental survey. SCIENCE. |" an a oe [Vou. III., No. BQ From a circular just issued by Professor Dohrn, we learn that the cost of publishing the — Zoologischer jahresbericht for 1879 and 1880 amounted to nearly $7,000, while the income from sales of the publication amounted to only $2,317. The zodlogical station at Naples has thus been obliged to meet a large deficit, amounting to at least two-thirds of the cost of publication. It is plainly not within the means of the station to continue indefinitely this work without assistance. The governments of Italy, Germany, and Russia, as well as one or two zoOlogical societies of Holland, have made sub- ventions which cover about one-third of the — deficit. The three volumes of this work already completed speak for themselves. Every natu- ralist will learn with regret that a work of such general usefulness is in danger of being dis- continued from the cause above named. We certainly hope that Professor Dohrn’s appeal for assistance will meet with a liberal response, both in the way of subscriptions for the Jahres- bericht and in subventions. ——— ee P nat bbe LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to beas brief as possible. The writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. Earthquake waves at San Francisco. ASSISTANT George Davidson telegraphs the super- intendent of the U.S. coast and geodetic survey from San Francisco, that at 7 h. 24 m., last evening, earth- quake waves were indicated by the delicate levels of the astronomical instruments of the observatory. The — amplitude of each vibration was three seconds of are, © in three seconds of time, and they continued for twenty minutes. C. O. BOUTELLE, Assist. in charge of office, ete. Coast and geodetic survey office, Jan. 26, 1884. Influence of winds on tree-growth. : I notice at p. 471 of the issue of Science for Oct.5 some remarks by Mr. W.S. Kennedy on the influence ~ of winds on tree-growth. It may be of interest to learn that many of the trees on the seashore at Gov- ernment House, Malabar Point, Bombay, are bent — landward from the effect of the prevailing sea-breeze.-_ HH. Rivert-Carnac. Allahabad, N. W. P., India, Dee. 8, 1883. Some curious natural snowballs. On p. 237, vol. i., of Science, under notes and news, — is a reference to some curious snowballs noticed in Scientific American for March 17. Such an exhibi- tion I lately saw; and it may interest readers of Science to know the conditions favoring such a phe- nomenon. a On Jan. 8 and 9 some thirty inches of snow fell in this region, followed by warmer weather and ] rain on the night of the 10th, settling the snow in « FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] compact mass. On the 11th and 12th came freezing weather, and the fall of a small amount of very light snow. On the 13th the thermometer, toward noon, rose above freezing-point, with a stiff breeze from the south. This wind so acted on the surface-particles of the upper layer of uncompacted snow as to set some of them in motion. Each particle thus set in motion, owing to the soft condition of the surface- snow, formed a nucleus, which, as it proceeded, forced along by the wind, gathered the contiguous portion of the soft layer, and assumed the form of a cylinder, with a conical cavity at each end, and hav- ing a length about twice as great as its diameter. The size depended upon the inclination and smooth- ness of the surface traversed. The largest cylinders I saw were about three feet long, at which limit they acquired sufficient weight to indent the frozen sur- face of the under or main body of the snow. This, of course, stopped the further rolling of the mass. The only locality where they acquired the above large size was where the surface had a slight inclination to the north; and the snow was deep enough to cover all weeds, leaving a perfectly uniform and smooth sur- face for their formation. In many cases the balls were rolled up an inclination of as much as one foot in ten, when exposed to the unbroken force of the wind; but those thus formed acquired weight suf- ficient to resist the pressure of the wind, when about six inches in diameter. When the surface inclined toward or directly away from the wind, the balls traversed a straight path; but, when the surface de- clined to the north-east or north-west, the path was a curve; at its initial, approximately straight; but, as the ball acquired weight, its direction was a com- promise between that required by gravity and that by the direction of the wind, until, in some cases, the ball obeyed gravity alone. The most curious part of the display was the abundance of the balls. While travelling three miles, I saw what I estimated at over a hundred acres dotted more or less thickly with the cylinders. In some cases there were twenty-five balls to the square rod; in others, only two or three; averaging, perhaps, eight or ten. I saw multitudes in the process of formation, which was as sudden as a flash; but they almost immediately assumed a slow rate of motion, about that of a mole taking his leis- urely walk. Ina few cases the cylinders would stop, and afterward be forced into motion again. The largest examples required for their formation the traversing of from two to three rods. SAM HUSTON. Richmond, O., Jan. 16, 1884. The wind performed a very pretty feat in some por- tions of northern Ohio on the morning of Jan. 13. Loose bits of snow were caught up as a nucleus, and rolled along upon the surface until balls of consider- able size and peculiar shape were formed. The whole surface was strewn with the balls; but they were most abundant upon lawns and fields where the wind was not obstructed, every square yard, in some places, bear- ing a ball of greater or less size. The largest observed here were upon the college ball-grounds, where they reached ten inches in height, and a horizontal length of eighteen inches. Even these were swaying as the gusts passed over them; and their tapering track could be plainly traced back towards the south-west, twenty- five or thirty feet, to the apex where they started. Their shape was cylindrical, deeply hollowed at both ends, so that they looked like ‘muffs,’ and the spiral formed by the successive layers was finely regular and distinct. The meteorological conditions which made the phe- SCIENCE. 115 nomenon possible were as follows. Two days before the occurrence a slight crust was formed upon the snow. On the following day an inch of light flaky snow fell upon this crust. Then followed the warm south-west wind on the morning of the 13th, which brought the upper layer of snow into the adhesive state, and rolled the balls before the crust was weak- ened; the crust sustaining the balls, and keeping them up to the wind, and at the same time furnishing a smooth floor upon which they could be propelled. The nuclei of the balls were obtained from chance foot-tracks, walk-borders, lumps blown from trees, etc., though often it was difficult to account for them. The balls were most abundant and perfect at about nine o’clock A.M. Before noon the crust had been at- tacked, and all sunk to rounded, insignificant clumps. Oberlin, O. ALBERT A. WRIGHT. [Similar snow-rolls were seen at Sharpsville, Mer- cer county, Penn., on the same day, by J. M. Good- win. | Halos round the moon. On the evening of Jan. 12, at 9.20 (90th meridian time), my attention was called to a peculiar appear- ance about the moon. The sky was quite clear at the time, and there appeared around the moon sev- eral colored circular bands. The first was of a bright silver-gray shade, and about two diameters of the moon in width. The next was yellow, the next faint orange, and the next violet. The three bands were each about one-half a diameter in width. The outer- most band was of a green shade, and about two diam- eters in width. At ten o’clock the innermost light band remained, but all the others had been replaced by a blue band lighter than the surrounding sky. H. A. HUSTON. Lafayette, Ind., Jan. 14, 1884. Explorations in Guatemala. Looking over the back numbers of your esteemed journal, I came across a slight error. In the article ‘Lorillard City’ it is said (ii. 412), ‘‘M. Charnay found the ruins of an ancient city, which he named after his generous patron. In his exploration here, he was assisted by a young Englishman, Mr. Alfred Maudslay, with whom he shares the honor of discov- ery,’’ etc. Neither Mr. Maudslay, who arrived at these ruins before Mr. Charnay, nor the latter, can claim this honor. In fact, Mr. Maudslay distinctly states (p. 196 of the Proc. roy. geogr. soc., April, 1883) that they have been discovered by Mr. Edwin Rockstroh, tutor on the Lyceo nacional at Guatemala City. This gen- tleman made, during the first half of 1881, a geograph- ical and archeological exploration in the northern and western parts of the republic, visiting Tikal, and navigating the Rio de la Pasion, Kio de Jas Salinas, Rio de los Gacandones, and the Usumasinta as far down as the ruins mentioned. He sent a short ac- count of this voyage to Petermann’s Mittheilungen (1881, p. 396). In that account Mr. Rockstroh mentioned particu- larly the building described by Mr. Maudslay on p. 198 of the geographical society’s proceedings; and (1882, on p. 435) he clearly states that Charnay’s ‘ Lorillard City’ is the same as that discovered by him in 1881. Mr. Rockstroh mentioned in his first letter to the Mittheilungen (July 19, 1881), that the Gacandones call these ruins ‘Menche,’ and promised in his last notice (1882, p. 435) an explanation of thisname. I am not aware that he has furnished one. I find in the ‘Historia de la provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala,’ by Antonio de 116 Remesal (Madrid, 1619), libro xi., cap. xviii.-xx., pp. 720-733, a province ‘el Manché’ mentioned as one of the provinces of Vera Paz, the Indians of which were converted in the years 1603 and 1604. Mr. Mauds- lay’s map contains the Rio del Manché, an eastern tributary of the Rio Sta. Izabel, which latter, in its lower course, is called Rio de la Pasion. The prov- ince of Manché must evidently have been situated on the river of the same name, to the north of the village Cahabon, which was the starting-point of the Padres for their trip of conversion, as Remesal states. Whether the name of this province, ‘Manché,’ has any connection with the word ‘ Menche,’ as Mr. Rock- stroh says the ruins on the Usumacinta (separated by a mountain chain from the central part of the Peten district) have, remains to be seen. In regard to the notice in the same number and on the same page of Science, ‘Explorations in Guate- mala,’ I beg to add, that the ruins of Tikal had been discovered in February, 1848, by Mr. Modesto Men- dez, corregidor of the district of Peten, and by the gobernador Ambrosio Tut. Mr. Hesse, min- ister of Prussia in Central Ameri- ca, published the report of Mr. Mendez, dated March 8, 1848, in vol. i. of the ‘ Zeitschrift fiir all- gemeine erdkunde’ (Berlin, 1853, pp. 162-168), and added some general remarks, and two plates which he had carefully copied from Mr. Mendez’s drawings. These plates contain the illus- trations of four sculptures (in wood) and five monoliths discov- ered by Mr. Mendez in Tikal, and those of four monoliths dis- covered by him in 1852 in Dolores, —another town with ruins, to the south of Tikal, in the same district of Peten. The chairman of the Royal geographical society is therefore mistaken in stating (p. 203 of the Proceedings) that the ruins of Tikal were described for the first time by Mr. Maudslay. The report of Modesto Mendez is mentioned by Mr. A. F. Ban- delier in his Bibliography-of Yu- catan and Central America, in ‘Proceedings of the American antiquarian society,’ 1880, p. 92. HERMAN BIGALKE, 787 Eighth Avenue, New York. Barn-owls in Missouri. In Science for Jan. 11 the occurrence of the barn- owl in southern Ohio in unusual numbers the present winter is recorded. The same fact has been noticed here. Four have been caught in the city in as many different buildings, anda number took up their habitation in an unused chimney in one of the prin- cipal residences in the city. Another was killed a few miles out. They are so unusual here that no one knew what kind of owl they were when the first was captured. F, A. SAMPSON. Sedalia natural history society, Sedalia, Mo. A PECULIAR SELACHIAN. Tue outlines given here are taken from a shark recently discovered in Japanese waters. SCIENCE. at. It is a form of more than ordinary interest on. account of the respects in which it differs from — ‘Is it a sea-ser- — the majority of its kindred. pent?’ is asked by all who see it. ‘Those who believe in the existence of the ocean monster may certainly derive some encouragement from the discovery. About the throat the appear- ance is decidedly fish-like. The body is long and slender, five feet in total length, and less than four inches in greatest diameter; it be- comes compressed and thin toward the tail. The head is broad, slightly convex on the crown, and has a look about it that reminds one of some of the venomous snakes. The mouth is anterior and very wide. As in other sharks, the teeth are arranged in rows across CHLAMYDOSELACHUS ANGUINEUS. the jaws; they are all alike. Each tooth has three slender, curved, inward-directed cusps, and a broad base, which extends back in a pair of points under the next tooth, thereby secur- ing firmness, and preventing reversion. In the twenty-eight rows of the upper jaws, and twen- ty-seven of the lower, there are three times as many rows of the fangs or cusps. Of the six gill-openings, the anterior are very wide. Un- like other Selachians, in this the frill, or flap, covering the first opening is free across the — isthmus, as in fishes, and hangs down about an inch. On the body the slime-canals — shown by the dotted lines in the sketch — form con- tinuous grooves, as if the skin had been cut — with a sharp knife; they extend to the ex- The spiracles are so_ treme end of the tail. small as to be useless ; but, being present, they point toward an ancestor, a bottom-feeder, in FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] which they were more developed. In the nearly vertical nostril there is a peculiar ar- rangement. A fold reaching out from each side divides the opening into two, connected within, the upper of which looks forward, and, when moving ahead, catches the water, and turns it into the nasal cavity to pass over the membranes and escape by the lower aperture, which looks backward. Nictitating membranes are absent. ‘The eyes are placed to look side- wise and downward. Above the anal fin, there is a small dorsal. The pectorals are of mod- erate size. large. From these fins, if it were not for lack of firmness toward the edges, one would con- clude the animal was capable of great speed. However, taking into consideration the size of the branchial apertures — which allow the water entering the mouth free escape, whatever the rate of motion —and the position of the large fins, it seems as if the creature had the habit of bending the body and striking forward to to seize prey, as do the snakes. The broad fins, so far back on the body, secure a ful- crum from which to strike. At their margins the fins are very thin, and their extremities are produced in a sort of filament. The structure of the jaws and gill arches is such as to admit of swallowing a large object. At the same time the excessive sharpness of the teeth, and the smallness of the intestine, indicate that the prey is comparatively soft. The vertebrae and other cartilages are flexible, as those of the basking sharks Selache and Somniosus. A certain embryonic appearance in the specimen instigated a search among the fossils for allied species. Most resemblance was found in the teeth of Cladodus of the Devonian; but the cusps were erect instead of reclining, and the enamel was grooved or plicate instead of smooth. One is impressed by a study of this specimen with the idea, that, away back in times when Selachia and fishes were more alike, he would have a better chance to trace the affini- ties. The Bulletin of the Essex institute, vol. Xvi., contains description and figures under the name Chlamydoselachus anguineus. I am in- clined to consider this the type of a new order, to which the name Selachophichthyoidi might be given, and which stands nearer the true fishes than do the sharks proper. The shark was secured in Japan by Professor Ward, from whom it was purchased by the Museum of com- parative zodlogy. The sketch on the preceding page gives the entire outline, the upper and lower views of the head, and an upper view of one of the teeth. S. GARMAN. SCIENCE. Ventrals, anal, and caudal are Hi THE RUSSIAN METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE. AtTHoucH the idea that Russia is behind the other powers of Europe in civilization is true when we consider the people as a whole, yet, if we look at what has been done by the Russian government for the encouragement and advancement of science, it must be admit- ted that Russia plays a very important part in the total amount of scientific work accomplished by the world. The Russians have the best astronomical observatory in the world: they have also the best meteorological observatory. The mag- netical studies have been made in connection with the meteorological; and in the observa- tions, as well as the theoretical discussions, we find the same men engaged, and the results are published side by side. Im speaking of the meteorological work, one is forced, then, to at least mention the magnetical, on account of this close connection. The Physical central observatory at St. Petersburg was founded in 1849 through the endeavors of Kupffer. The aim of this obser- vatory was to institute physical observations and research in general, and to advance Rus- sia in the line of physics; and, as part of the latter task, the conducting and publishing of meteorological and magnetical observations was undertaken. So it will be seen that this observatory was not intended merely as a central office for a meteorological service ; but it was to become a physical laboratory, where all sorts of physical investigations could be undertaken, and in such a manner that nothing more could be desired, that is, as far as apparatus and methods em- ployed are concerned. The first director, Kupffer, separated as much as possible the two departments of the observatory, as his publications show. His researches into the elasticity of metals, pub- lished in 1860, which were cut short by his death, show the nature of the purely physical investigations undertaken by him. He pub- lished an enormous mass of meteorological material in the Annales de l’observatoire phy- sique central, 1847-64; also in the Correspon- dance météorologique, commenced in 1850. In seven places hourly observations of the meteorological elements were instituted, and in six places of the magnetical elements. These and many of the observations from other sta- tions, made a certain number of times a day, were published. In speaking of this material, Professor Wild 118 said, ‘‘ It is a complete mass of meteorological and magnetical observations published in de- tail, and therefore easily accessible to every one, and such as no other land possesses: it is of great value to the science; but it would have been much more valuable, yes, invaluable, if it was as satisfactory as comprehensive.’’ As at first organized, there were few under- officials in the observatory ; and most of them were men who received small salaries, and were not especially qualified for their positions, — or, rather, there were no positions for men qualified, —so that the director was obliged to attend personally to all work requiring much thought. A force, then, of a director and five not specially prepared men was to conduct the work of the central office, from which were to be issued the meteorological observations, and their discussion, of a country five times as large as all the rest of Europe, through which about twenty separate meteorological institutes are distributed. It is not to be wondered at, then, that Rus- sian observations lay for so many years almost unused by their meteorologists. Any one who has attempted to work with magnetic obser- vations knows that little can be done single- handed, especially if the person must also busy himself with the instruments themselves. Through inability on the part of the director to cope thus single-handed with the great work undertaken, the meteorological service went gradually into decline. The separate stations could not be properly inspected to see that the instruments were correct, nor could the neces- sary attention be given to the preparation of the observations for publication. Matters finally came to such a pass, that about 1864 a re-organization of the service was agreed upon, and the establishment of forty new meteor- ological stations. However, the next year, and before any thing could be done, Kupffer died, and Kaemtz was called to succeed him. This great meteorologist at once elaborated plans for the improvement and enlargement of the service; but a great undertaking of this kind goes forward slowly, and at his death, two years later, not much had been carried practi- cally into effect. The service, then, was in a disorganized condition when Wild took charge in 1868. Although it is probable that a great improve- ment would have taken place had Kaemtz lived, yet we can hardly hope that he would have placed the service in that high position which it now holds in reference to others, and which it assumed so shortly after the choosing of Wild as director. SCIENCE. mes | h: on ws ae Mh) dala Professor Wild doubled the corps of assist- ants, and made the positions so desirable and important that university men were glad to accept them, and good men from other con- tinental countries were easily persuaded to accept places. These men were of such ability that they could undertake and successfully carry out, under the supervision of the director, any single investigations, and thus relieve the chief of that care and constant watchfulness which would have been necessary had he had less skilful assistants. The results of these labors can be seen in the papers published in the Repertorium fiir meteorologie. But it is mainly of the Russian service as it at present exists, and especially of the meteor- ological observatory, that I wish to speak. The whole establishment is composed of several observing-stations of the first order (i.e., where either hourly observations are made, or where self-registering barometers, etc., are employed), and about a hundred and thirty stations of the second and third orders, where observations are made at stated times during the day. In order to obtain an idea of the distribution of these stations, the reader must consult the chart accompanying the Tem- peratur-verhilinisse des russischen reiches, pub- lished in 1881 by the observatory. The meteorological observatory at St. Peters- burg consists of two parts, —the Central physi- cal observatory, in the city itself; and the observatory at Pawlowsk, in the country, about thirty kilometres distant. The present build- ing occupied by the former was built about 1860, and continued to be the principal observ- ing-station until 1877, when the other was grounded. The building in St. Petersburg occupies a not prominent position at a little distance from the north bank of the Neva, in the western end of the city; but it has no longer the quiet sur- roundings that it probably had at the time of its construction, as the city is extending in that direction. All of the work of standards, instrument- comparing, preparing matter for the printer, correspondence, supplying stations with neces- sities, and the general management of the whole service, is carried on here, and for eight or nine months of the year it is the dwelling-place of the director. For the non-meteorologist, however, the only attractive feature of the institution is the large instrument saloon, where there is much fine apparatus, especially standards. The library is a very good one, and the numerous books in © foreign languages show the extent to which the [Vou. IIL, No. 62. — FEBRUARY 1, 1884. | Russians make use of foreign writings. In fact, very few of the books in the library are in the Russian, even when containing their own work. There is, however, a strong reaction in this SCIENCE. 9 to change it into such a form as he wanted. Again, the old observatory was a poor place for magnetic instruments, both on account of the unsteadiness of the instruments, and the close ai : 5 ae ae @ Lis ae i P eS: —— i, m a ie a , Ss = ——— = —ll ———s = pt SSS = SS gS SSS = = | Ve ft METEOROLOGICAL STATION AT PAWLOWSK, RUSSIA. respect ; and before many years we may expect to receive the Russian scientific publications, not in the French and German languages, as at present, but in the Russian. This will be un- fortunate for us; because the language is diffi- eult to learn, and much of their science would be buried to us for a long time at least. At Pawlowsk there is much of interest. It requires about an hour’s time on the railway to go from St. Petersburg to this place. On the way there, the clump of trees surrounding the great Pulkowa astronomical observatory is visible ; and in winter the main building itself can be plainly seen. There were several reasons for the founding of this new observatory. Professor Wild had ideas that he wished to carry out, and which he considered essential for the best results: he had found the city observatory in a settled condition, and it would have been impossible proximity to the iron ships that are constantly passing and repassing on the river, only a few hundred feet away. He also had the idea, which is shared by most meteorologists, that the city itselfis no place to make meteorological observations ; as the conditions are not the same as in the surrounding country. This observatory is situated nearly two miles distant from the town of Pawlowsk, which hes thirty kilometres south-east of St. Petersburg. This town, although thinly inhabited in the winter-time, is filled to overflowing in the sum- mer by the people from St. Petersburg, who want to enjoy what little summer country life they can find. A small portion (several acres) of the park of the uncle of the present czar has been given for the purpose of the observatory, and this piece of ground has been fenced off and the buildings erected upon it. The land lies per- 120 fectly flat, and is mostly covered with fir trees ; although, of course, part has been cleared, so as not to influence the readings of the instruments. The observatory is certainly the meteorological paradise (at least in summer); and the visitor, whether casual, or there for the purpose of study, cannot but be struck by the taste which has been displayed in its organization and con- struction. The whole establishment was erect- ed at a cost of about seventy-five thousand dollars. The accompanying illustration shows the main building from the north side. The large thermometer-shelter is seen against the build- ing; a little to the right, through the trees, is seen the stable; and still more to the right the roof of the director’s summer residence is visible. Of the smaller buildings, the one to the right is a thermometer-screen; the other = ZS=> = — —= SSS " | — SS === aS : pe SSS ——————— SCIENCE. SS: S= [Vou. IIIL., No. 52.2 another rain-gauge, and the black bulb in vacuo near these. Inside of. the little en- closure is a sand-heap in which are buried the thermometers for measuring the earth’s temper- ature at different depths. The instruments are placed both in a vertical and horizontal position. In order to get at the horizontal thermometers, a hole has been dug, which con- tains a box filled with earth, the hole being covered by a trap-door. ‘The box ean be slid from its position, and the end of the thermom- eter-cuses exposed to view. ‘These are then drawn out (horizontally) by the observer, and read without taking them from the hole. The vertical thermometers are not in this hole, but are drawn vertically out of the sand when read. The glass tubing surrounding the thermometers is so made that no moisture can reach the thermometer-bulbs. i i; Gi : Int fi i l : iy i SS — a ——— ———= = ——=—==—S === = SSS —s ——> ——_ ——_ ————————— => ——== MAGNETIC OBSERVATORY AT PAWLOWSK, RUSSIA. two for self-registering instruments, one con- taining a rain and wind measure, and the other a rain-measure and atmometer. There is also Near this sand-pile is a pond constructed for the purpose of making measures of evapora- tion on a large scale. The observations of this - FEBRUARY 1, 1884. ] kind are not, however, of a very satisfactory nature; and the pond has apparently returned to its legitimate use, viz., furnishing a home for about a million small fishes. In no place in the world is so much attention paid to magnetic observations and inyestiga- tions as here at Pawlowsk. We see in this cut the underground magnetic house, and its size can be seen by comparison with the figures in the foreground. The building consists of two chambers, separated and surrounded by air- chambers which are heated ; and the heat is thus conveyed through the walls into the observing- rooms. These rooms remain at a wonderfully constant temperature. The building is quite isolated from the remaining portions of the observatory. It was here that the observations simultaneous with those of the recent inter- national polar expeditions were made. The whole work of this institution is scien- tific in the highest degree, and there is little of what we may call popular work done; but this is unnecessary, as those who would be influ- enced by a more evidently practical result have nothing to say in regard to the conduct of the service. RED SKIES IN CHINA FIVE YEARS AGO. Tue ‘red sunsets’ which have recently at- tracted so much attention in so many quarters of the globe, and have called forth considerable discussion in various scientific journals, both in America and Europe, recall very similar phe- nomena I observed five years ago, under circum- stances which seem to me worth recording at this time. During the early part of the winter of 1878- 79, I had occasion to pass several weeks, en- gaged in geological work, along the base and among the foot-hills of the first mountain range that rises above the plain of northern China, and forms the boundary between the provinces of Chihliand Shansi. Frequently in the month of November my attention had been called to the intense coloring of the sky, and brilliant red afterglows, slowly fading away, and lasting long after the sun had set. On one occasion, Dec. 1, I left the small mountain village of Cheang-Shui, accompanied by my friend Mr. W.N. Pethick of Tientsin, for a long tramp among the hills. We travelled up the long valley, and ascended to the top of the pass commanding an extended view to the westward, over the plateau of Shansi. Although late in the day, we pushed on to the village of Tang- SCIENCE. 121 Cheng-Tsun, a mile and a half to two miles be- yond, reaching there about sunset. On our way back to the pass, I was continu- ally looking backward, astonished at the bril- liancy of the sky, the orange-red and peculiar’ brick-red colors of the horizon, and the length of time the vivid coloring remained after the going-down of the sun. How long this intense afterglow continued I am unable to say ; as, on reaching the summit, we retraced our steps down what in the Cordillera would be called the canon, and the western view was completely lost behind an abrupt wall. All the phenomena connected with the sun- set were quite similar to those recently observed in New York, except, as I now recall the scene, the colors seemed to surpass them in brilliancy. Through the month of December I was fre- quently impressed with the deep red glare of the skies, and long twilights, although none of them appeared to equal in intensity the one observed from the top of the plateau. This difference I supposed was due to the view being somewhat shut off by the high ridge to the westward. As early as November the prevailing winds in northern China blow almost continuously from the north-west, across the broad area of country covered with loess-deposits. In con- sequence, the atmosphere was never wholly free from fine loess-dust; a haziness being at all times noticeable in the mountains, while fre- quently the air was gray from the large amount of impalpable dust held in suspension. On those days when the dust was most perceptible the colorings of the skies were never remark- able, and were only fine when the lower atmos- phere seemed clear and bright. These brilliant afterglows continued at in- tervals throughout December and early part of the new year; the last one being noticed about the middle of January, from a small village seventy-five miles east of the mountains, where I had put up for the night on my way to Tien- tsin. In the following September I again vis- ited the mountains and plateau of Shansi, but do not recall any thing in connection with the sunsets at all comparable to those observed the preceding winter. But, on the other hand, the atmospheric conditions were also wholly changed ; the wind was blowing steadily from the east or ocean side; the air was laden with moisture, which was frequently precipi- tated in heavy rains; and the atmosphere, so far as the eye could detect, was free from dust. I can but think that the great brilliancy and long duration of the afterglow were intimately connected with loess-dust in some such way 122 as the recent remarkable displays have been attributed to the volcanic dusts of Krakatoa. The peculiar phenomena in the skies, like those described, were not noticed at Tientsin in the spring. This may be accounted for by atmospheric conditions being changed, and the air at this season of the year being over- charged with too much fine material derived from the dust-storms which form, during March and April, so marked a feature of the climate of northern China. I think it quite probable, how- ever, that red skies, similar to those recently observed in various parts of the world, may at times be seen throughout the winter by foreign residents at Peking and Tientsin. A few more words about loess-dust. During the winter referred to I was much interested in the question of the loess that was annually being removed from the land and carried out to sea, and not only was impressed with the amount transported by streams, but was led to believe that a not inconsiderable quantity was borne eastward by the prevailing winds, and finally precipitated upon the ocean. Inquiries brought out the fact, that, in the China seas, ships many hundred miles from land frequently report showers of fine material falling upon the decks, which in many cases have been wrongly regarded as deposits of volcanic dust. In conversation with the captain of the steam- ship China, on the passage from Yokohama to Hong Kong in the autumn of 1879, he nar- rated his experience in a dust-storm, while passing over the same route in the preceding spring. ‘The storm occurred April 25, in lati- tude 29°, longitude 128°. It lasted twelve hours, with a heavy wind blowing steadily from the north-west. Every thing on board was coated with an excessively fine dust, which, as the captain expressed it, ‘‘ was so thick that it could be taken up with the fingers like so much snuff.’’ From the rigging, one of the sailors, under orders from the captain, collected with a knife-blade a large amount of the dust, samples of which he forwarded to London for examination. Now, I very well remember that in April the whole plain of northern China was enveloped in several severe dust-storms ; two of them, at least, having a duration of three days each, and filling the air at times with dust, so as to completely obscure the sun. There is no question in my mind but that the material which fell upon the steamship came from the loess of China; and I believe that a great deal of the so-called volcanic dusts which are often reported as observed at sea are, at least in Chinese waters, derived from loess-deposits. ARNOLD HAGUE. SCIENCE. THE EVOLUTION OF THE CEPHALO- PODA.—I. CEPHALOPODS, or cuttlefishes, have struc- tural peculiarities which make them the most favorable subjects now known for the special study of the problems and laws of the evolu- tion of forms in time. In two of the orders the animals were shell-covered ; and the shell in these is so built that it preserves, even in the fossils, the embryo, the young shell, and all its stages to the full grown. Then, passing on into old age, it shows in the senile period a series of retrograde transformations, often re- versing its adult condition and aspect. This record of the entire life is fuller than any one who has not minutely studied this type can imagine from his experience in other branches of the animal kingdom. It is not only in itself a complete cycle of changes, and these of no slight or doubtful character, but the external records of the shell-structure, apertures, and other parts, are supplemented by the hard por- tions of two internal structures, which are pre- served, and also change in accordance with the age of the shell. We have, therefore, in every well-preserved specimen, the unique advantage of being able to study the complete cycle of its individual life in three distinct sets of organic parts. Wecan therefore compare the changes which we observe in the individual with the modifications which the group has undergone in its progression or retrogression in geologic times with a certain completeness of the evi- dences, at present unattainable in any other class of animals. In the Belemnites, the third order, the shell and its parts are much less instructive; and finally, in the fourth, the Sepioidea, it is so much reduced, and so frequently absent, as to lose very largely in this respect. The class has two sub-classes, Tetrabranchi- ata and Dibranchiata. ‘These were established by Richard Owen as orders, —a purely techni- cal difference, which does not change in any way the value of the structural distinctions as given by this eminent naturalist. The Tetra- branchiata are shell-covered ; and they are rep- resented by the modern Nautilus, the only existing genus. The Dibranchiata are de- scendants of the former, but enclosed the shell, and resorbed it in many forms, so that they appear as naked animals. The cuttlefishes, squid, devil-fishes, etc., are existing types. In studying these types, the author has been led i to adopt a new method of characterizing the divisions, and besides the old structural dis- tinctions, which are still available, to apply the 3 Ate Oust Sa (Vou. III., No. 52. ‘ FEBRUARY 1, 1884.| correlations of habit and structure to the eluci- dation of ordinal differences. The class Cephalopoda is composed of exclu- sively aquatic and marine animals, and conse- quently they breathe with gills. The structures of the two sub-classes coincide with two dis- tinct habitats which they respectively occupy. The Tetrabranchiata, like the Nautilus, were essentially littoral crawlers, though possessing organs suitable for swimming, and doubtless using them more or less for leaping and swim- ming. The animal of the Nautilus has a large man- tle or fleshy sac enclosing the internal organs, which can be opened around the margin, or closed, at the will of the animal. Admitting the water around the margin, they fill their mantle-cavities with water, and then, closing and compressing the mantle-sac, force it out with violence through a fleshy pipe, which is exclusively used for that purpose, and always situated on the ventral side. ‘The reaction of the stream is sufficiently powerful to drive the body of the animal with varying degrees of swiftness backwards. The fleshy pipe is therefore an ambulatory pipe or hyponome ; and we propose, in place of the old and con- fusing terms, to call it by this name. The Dibranchiata change the external shell, which they inherit from the Tetrabranchiata, into an internal organ, and taking -advantage of the powerful hydraulic apparatus of the Tetrabranchiata, which they also inherit, and increasing its efficiency, become, as is well known, exclusively swimmers. The ambulatory pipe of the Nautilus causes a corresponding depression or sinus to occur in the aperture of the shell on the outer or ventral side, and its effect is also to be seen in the striae of growth throughout the entire length of the shell on the ventral side; so that we know, from these indications in any fossil, what was the comparative size of the pipe, and whether the animal was more or less power- ful as a swimmer. Other indications, such as the openness or contracted form of the vari- ous apertures of different genera, exhibit with equal clearness what they could do in the way of crawling. ‘The wide-open apertures indi- cate powerful arms, capable of carrying and easily balancing the large spire of the shell above: the narrow contracted aperture shows that the arms were small, and that the animal could not so efficiently balance or carry the shell in an upright position, and was there- fore, according to the amount and style of the contraction, more or less inefficient as a crawler. SCIENCE. 123 In studying the different types of the Tetra- branchiata, we find that there are two orders as first defined by Professor Louis Agassiz, — the Nautiloidea and the Ammonoidea, — and, further, that these divisions coincide with dif- ferences in the outlines of the ambulatory sinuses which indicate distinctions of habit general throughout each order. The extinct Nautiloidea have large ambula- tory sinuses, and were evidently capable, like the modern Nautilus, of rising to the surface, and swimming with a jerky motion; though their open apertures, as a rule, show their nor- mal condition to have been crepitant, or bot- tom-crawling. The exceptional shells, which depart from the typical form in the sinus and apertures, exhibit their peculiarities in the adults, but not, as a rule, in the young, except in cases where direct inheritance can be proven to have occasioned the exception. ‘The excep-— tions, then, are, in fact, the most conclusive of our proofs, since they show the power of the habitat to produce permanent changes in the apertures. The orthoceratitic shells of this order are straight cones, with internal septa dividing them into air-chambers, connected by a tube uniting all the air-chambers, and opening into the body of the animal itself, which occupied a small part only of the whole length of the cone. ‘This is the simplest form: and others are, the bent or arcuate, cyrtoceratitic; the loosely coiled, but with whorls not in contact, gyroceratitic ; the closely coiled, with whorls in contact, nautilian ; and the still more closely coiled or involute shells, the involute nautilian, in which the outer whorls may simply overlap the inner, or entirely conceal them by their ex- cessive growth, as in Nautilus pompilius. The Ammonoidea in their earlier forms, the Goniatites, have apertures, with a less strongly marked ambulatory sinus, but still sufficient to show that they must have had considerable powers of rising or leaping in the water, if not of swimming, like the Nautilus. In their later forms, the Ammonitinae, however, the ambula- tory sinus is absent; and in its place project- ing beaks or rostra are developed, indicating reduction in the size and use of the ambula- tory pipe. ‘This and the generally open aper- tures enable us to see that they were more exclusively bottom-crawlers than the Nautiloi- dea. ‘The most interesting of the facts in this order lies among the exceptional shells, some of which must have been sedentary, and neither have crawled nor moved about with any ease ; but none of these, so far as we know, seems to have exhibited a type of aperture which in- 124 dicated transition to an exclusively swimming habit. These shells appear in our subsequent remarks among the geratologous and pathologi- cal types. The shells of this order have no such vari- ety of form in the paleozoic formations as we have described in the Nautiloidea. They are close coiled, and even involute, in some of the first forms found in the Cambrian. The Belemnoidea of the Jura had a solid cylindrical body, called the guard, attached to the cone-like internal shell, and partly en- closing it. Aulacoceras of the trias, as de- scribed by Branco, is a transitional form with an imperfect guard, which frequently contains fragments of other shells and foreign matter. This demonstrates an important link in our evidence, that this guard could only have been built by some external flap or enclosing sac, independent of the true mantle. This false mantle must have enclosed both the shell and the guard, and must have been at the same time open, so as to admit the foreign materials which Branco found built into the substance of the guard. One of the straight shells of the Silurian Nautiloidea, Orthoceratites truncatus, regularly breaks off the cone of its shell, and then mends the mutilated apex with a plug. This plug, we are able to say, is the precise homologue, in position and in structure, of the guard of the Belemnite. Barrande showed this plug to have been secreted by external organs, as he supposed, — two arms stretching back from the aperture like those of Argo- nauta, and reaching beyond the broken apex. The dorsal fold of Nautilus is, however, a secret- ing-organ stretching back over the shell; and, as the probable homologue of the plug-secret- ing organ of the Orthoceratites and the guard- building organ of the Belemnoidea, it enables us at once to explain how the Belemnoidea arose from the Orthoceratites, and why Aula- coceras had an imperfect mantle. ‘This fold, which was far larger among the ancient Ortho- ceratites, would have been necessarily open on the ventral side, then more but not completely closed in Aulacoceras, and finally completely closed in the later Belemnoidea, and able to construct a guard as perfect as that which they carry. The solid guard of sissies animals in a com- pact cylindrical body, such as they were known to possess, could have been only a heavy bur- den to a swimming animal. The Belemnoidea, therefore, were not purely natatory; but for these and other reasons, which we cannot here discuss, they were evidently ground-swimmers, probably boring into the mud for shelter, or as SCIENCE. a means of concealing themselves while lying” in wait for their prey. The old view, that the guard could have been in any sense a ‘ guard’ against collisions with rocks, etc., in their wild leaps backwards, is inadmissible for many reasons. ‘The most ob- vious are its position as an internal organ, its solid structure, and its weight. We think it more reasonable to suppose that it might have increased the liability to injury from collisions. In tracing the Belemnoidea to the Orthocera- tites we have simply continued the labors, and carried out more fully the sagacious inferences, of Quenstedt and Von Ihering. The modern Sepioidea are known to be almost exclusively swimming types; and the — more ancient, normal, flattened forms, and their descendants the existing cuttlefishes, have flattened internal shells, in which the striae of srowth are remarkable for their forward inflec- tion on the dorsal aspect, due to the immense comparative length of this side of the aperture. Gonioceras, a well-known Silurian type of the orthoceratitic Nautiloidea, has the same con- tours in the striae of growth on the dorsum ; and if, as we think, it had a corresponding de- pression in the aperture on the ventral side, in similar proportion to that of other forms, the aperture must have been transitional to the internal shell of Paleoteuthis Dunensis of the Devonian, and to the more modern forms. The septa, also, of Gonioceras, have similar curves to the layers of calcareous matter in the interior of the cuttlefish bone, which we look upon as aborted and retrogade homo- logues of the septa of other forms. Gonio- ceras connects directly with a series of less compressed, straight, orthoceratitic shells ; and thus the independent derivation of the Sepioi- dea from the Orthoceratites, among the shell- covered, coniform Tetrabranchiata, is probable. The enclosure and suppression of the shell have already been predicted, with a sagacity which commands our highest admiration, by Lankes- ter, from studies of the embryo of Loligo; and these facts carry out his conclusions, substi- tuting, however, the more ancient Sepioidea for the Belemnoidea, with which Lankester made his comparisons, and the hood for the two mantle-flaps which were imaged by him as the organs which enclosed the shell and formed the shell-sac. Most paleontologists have con- sidered the Sepioidea and Belemnoidea as more closely allied ; but they appear to us as two orders, certainly as distinct as, and perhaps even more widely divergent than, the Nauti- loidea and Ammonoidea. Among these two orders we recognize many [Vou. III., No. 52. FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] exceptional forms, — such as the Spirula among Belemnoidea, and among Sepioidea the octopods ; and we think they all prove our po- sition, that the habitat so closely accords with the structural changes of the type that its purely physical agency must be regarded as the efficient and direct cause of the correlated changes of structure which distinguish the different orders and sub-orders, and often of the exceptional genera and species. We will mention but one of these exceptional cases, in some respects the most pertinent, — the exist- ing Argonauta, or paper nautilus. Here a thin shell secreted by the mantle, by the edge of the mantle, and by the two pairs of long dor- sal arms, encloses completely the animal of the female alone, the male being naked. As a sexual organ for the protection of the eggs; as an adolescent and adult structure, originating at a late stage in the life of the individual, and notin the shell-gland of the embryo; and in its microscopical structure, — it is not a true shell, or similar to any true shell among Cephalopoda. Still, in form and position, and as built in part by the mantle, it is a homologue of a true shell, and has in part, also, the functions of a true external shell, and ought therefore to support or refute our hypothesis. It belongs to a swimming animal, and should therefore have the sinus and aperture and striae of growth as in Nautiloidea ; and these it certainly has. We can appeal to this example as a most convincing exception to prove the rule that the shell is a true index of the most re- markable adaptive structures, and, among the fossils, can give us exact information of im- portant differences in structure and habits. The efforts of the Orthoceratite to adapt itself fully to the requirements of a mixed habi- tat gave the world the Nautiloidea: the efforts of the same type to become completely a lit- toral crawler developed the Ammonoidea. The successive forms of the Belemnoidea arose in the same way; but here the ground-swimming habitat and complete fitness for that was the object, whereas the Sepioidea represent the highest aims as well as the highest attainments of the Orthoceratites, in their surface-swim- ming and rapacious forms. We cannot seriously imagine these changes to have resulted from intelligent effort; but we can fully join Lamarck,’ Cope, and Ryder, in imagining them as due to efforts induced by the physical requirements of the habitat, and 1 A noted French writer well known to embryologists, La- caze-Duthier, has lately asked, ‘*‘ Who, at the present time, sup- ports Lamarck?” The author can answer, that some of our leading scientific men consider Lamarck’s hypothesis to contain more fundamental truths than Darwin’s or any other. SCIENCE. 125 think this position to be better supported by facts than any other hypothesis.? Confining ourselves to the Tetrabranchiata, which we think the most favorable for our pur- poses, the next problem presenting itself is whether the two orders, Nautiloidea and Am- monoidea, have had a common origin, or wheth- er they bear internal evidence of having had a distinct origin. The embryo of all Ammonoi- dea, as shown by the author in his ‘ Embryol- ogy of the fossil cephalopods of the Museum of comparative zodlogy,’ and since confirmed by the more extensive researches of Dr. Bran- co, is the little bag-like shell first discovered by Saemann. This is attached to the apex of the secondary shell. ‘The embryonic bag is called the protoconch by Professor Owen ; and the secondary or true shell, the conch. There is no protoconch in Nautiloidea, as first shown by Saemann, then by Barrande, and subsequently by the author and Branco ; but where it ought to have been attached on the apex of the conch, or true secondary shell, there is a scar, first demonstrated by Barrande. The view brought forward by the author, that this sear indicated the former existence of a pro- toconch in the Nautiloidea, has been opposed by Barrande, Branco, and several authors, on the ground that the cicatrix demonstrated the ex- istence of a distinct embryonic form. There- fore, according to Barrande, the Nautiloidea were not similar to the Ammonoidea in their earliest stages of growth, and must have been equally distinct in origin. Our present contribution to this discussion is simple and straightforward. We have found the protoconch in several forms of Orthocera- tites, of some of which we give figures; and, further, it can probably be found on the apex of the so-called perfect shells, which have no sear or cicatrix. ‘These were discovered by Dekoninck, and supposed by him, in his ‘ Cal- caire carbonifére’ (Ann. du mus. roy. de Bel- gique), to be fatal to our conclusion. Having no scar, they could not possibly, according to DeKoninck, have had a protoconch. When the so-called perfect apex is broken off, the observer will probably find that this apex was the shrivelled remains of a protoconch which concealed the cicatrix underneath, as in Fig. 2. There is therefore no essential difference be- tween the embryos of the Ammonoidea and those of the Nautiloidea. ‘There are some of 1 We can also confidently appeal to Dohrn’s hypothesis of change of function in support of this view, in which he shows with many convincing examples that organs have latent func- tions which can be developed by any change of habits, and then become predominant over the older functions, and by their reac- tions occasion an entire change in the structure of the organs themselves. 126 minor importance which we cannot discuss here. These, however, do not interfere with the facts of general agreement ; and there is great proba- bility that the shell-covered forms of all kinds which have the protoconch — namely, the an- cient and modern Gastropoda, Tentaculites, and the ancient Pteropoda, and all the radical forms of Cephalopoda — had a com- mon origin, probably in some cham- ~ berless and septaless form similar to the protoconch. Von Ihering has already designated this proto- type as probably Tentaculites. No exact correspondent to the proto- conch is yet known to us; but cer- tainly Tentaculites is nearer to the protoconch of both Cephalopoda and Gastropoda than any other known ancient form. The young of the simplest and earliest of Ammonoidea, the Nau- tilini, have in varieties of two spe- cies, as shown by Barrande, a straight apex, like the adult shell of Orthoceras, the radical of the Nautiloidea. We have already claimed that this fact was sufficient to prove the high probability of a common origin from a _ straight shell like Orthoceras for both of these orders; and we are now able to reiterate this conclusion, and to meet the objections of the great paleontologist Barrande, and _ his supporters, more effectually than ever before. Goniatites compressus, sp. Bey- rich (Sand. verst. Nassau, pl. 11, fig. 4), is a shell which differs from all other Ammonoidea in an essen- tial and highly important charac- ter. The septa have no inner lobe. The v-shaped annular lobe which occurs in all the Ammonoidea ex- cept the Nautilini is also absent in this species. What is more to the point, this shell has the sutures of a true nautiloid, since it has the dorsal saddle, in place of the dor- sal lobe, of the sutures of its near- est allies, the Nautilini, and all of the re- maining Ammonoidea. Goniatites ambigena Barr., of the Silurian, is a close ally of this Devonian species, and the two are the only Ammonoidea which are not truly nautilian in form. The whorls are in contact; but there is no impressed zone, and no sutural lobes on the dorsum, as in true nautilian shells. On SCIENCE. ~ acter of the septa in later Ammonoidea. EG Fie. 1.— Aspect of the apex of the conch in Orth. unguis Phill., after the proto- conch has been shed in the usual manner. c, cicatrix. Fie. 2.— Aspect of the apex, after the protoconch has been accidentally broken off, fracturing the outer shell, and exposing the cicatrix. Fies. 3-5.— Apex and protoconch of Orth. elegans Munst. from the front, side, and above. Fries. 6, 7.— Another individual, said to be of the same species, less magnified. a b, as before. outer shell on the protoconch itself, showing the continuity of the shell over this part (a), and completing the evidence that it must have been the shell which enclosed the embryo, and could not have been a mere plug, as asserted by Barrande (Syst. sil., pl. 488). whet 4 the contrary, they are purely gyroceran forms, with rounded dorsum and sutural saddles in place of lobes. All of the Nautilini and G. compressus also have the septa concave, as in the Nautiloidea, in place of the convex char- As doubts may disturb the mind as to whether G. sil b, conch or shell of the apex; 6 c, as before. a, protoconch; 0, shell of apex. The author has also, in other species, traced the striae of the compressus is an ammonoid at all, we recom- mend a comparison of this shell with the young of Goniatites fecundus of Barrande, which is a miniature copy made by heredity. Bactrites is a perfectly straight form, simi- lar to these Goniatites in very important char-_ acteristics, especially the siphon and septa. This same genus includes straight cones like [Vox. III., No. 52. fs FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] Orthoceras pleurotomum Barr. (Syst. sil., pl. 296), which are undeniably transitions to true Orthoceras in their striae of growth and posi- tion of siphon. There is therefore convincing evidence in the structures of these Cambrian shells that the Ammonoidea, with their distinct embryos, arose from the orthoceran stock, and passed through a series of forms, in times, perhaps, preceding the Cambrian, which were parallel to those characteristic of genetic series among Nautiloidea; viz., straight, arcuate, gyroceran, and nautilian. The researches of Emmons and Marcou in this country, and the discovery of ten thousand feet or more of stratified rocks under the Cam- brian by the U.S. geological survey, and the inferences of Bigsby from the extended study of Silurian and Devonian fossils, are begin- ning to place the probable existence of a pre- paleozoic period beyond question, in spite of the really grand opposition and world-wide researches of Barrande. The study of the tetrabranchs teaches us, that, when we first meet with reliable records of their existence, they are already a highly organized and very varied type with many genera, and that the name ‘ paleozoic,’ as applied to these first rec- ords, is a misnomer. There was a protozoic period ; and the tetrabranchs, like their succes- sors, certainly must have had ancestors which preceded and generated them in this period, but of which we are at present necessarily igno- rant. Whatever the future may have in store for us we cannot now predict; but at present the search for the actual ancestral form, though necessary, is nevertheless not hopeful. We can, however, rely upon the facts of embry- ology, and predict without fear of failure, that, when our k owledge makes this prototypical form known, it will have a decided resem- blance in structure and in aspect to the earlier stages of the shell as observed in the fossil cephalopods. (To be continued.) SCALES OF COLEOPTERA. SomE of the more interesting forms of scales of Cole- optera described in the paper by Dr. George Dimmock, noticed in Science, i. 455, are shown in the annexed figures. The scales of the carpet-beetle, Anthrenus scrophulariae, and of the museum pest, A. varius (fig. 1), resemble in general form those of many Lepidop- tera, as do also the scales of Valgus squamiger (fig. 3). The scales of V. squamiger are, however, hairy, in fact, almost shaggy. ‘The scales of Hoplia coerulea (fig. 2) vary from round to lanceolate, those of the dorsal sur- face being transparent yellow when viewed by trans- mitted light, and blue by reflected light. Those of SCIENCE. 127 the ventral surface are purplish, purplish red, red, bluish, and colorless by transmitted light, while by reflected light they are silvery white, with at times a tendency to metallic green. The scales of the dorsum are smooth, filled with fine reticulations (fig. 2, d), but those of the ventral portions and of the tip of the : i) i | La MIG. 5: Fie. 6. EG oat Fig. 8. Fie. 1.—Scales of Anthrenus: a, of A. scrophulariae; 6, arrangement of same on portion of an elytron; c, scales of A. varius. Enlargement: @ and c, 100 diam.; 0, 50 diam. Fic. 2.—Scales of Hoplia coerulea; a, from elytron; 0, from under side of thorax; c, from femur; d, fine structure to be seen in a, with high powers. Enlargement: a, b, and c, 100 diam.; d, 500 diam. Fie. 3.— Scale of Valgus squamiger. Enlarged 100 diam. Fie. 4.— Different forms of scales from Chalcolepidius rubri- pennis. Enlarged 100 diam. Fie. 5.— Scales of Alaus oculatus: a, brown scale; 0 and c¢, por- tions of white scales to show cross-bands; d, transverse sec- tion of a brown scale. Enlargement: a, 100 diam.; 6 and c, 300 diam.; d, 500 diam. Fig. 6.— Seales and hair of Plinus? rutilus: a and b, scales from elytron; c, hair from elytron. Enlarged 100 diam. Fie. 7.—Scale of Clytus robiniae. Enlarged 100 diam. Fie. 8.— Scales of Entimus imperialis: on a, 0, and c¢, vertical lines indicate blue, horizontal lines indicate carmine red, and oblique lines yellow; where two kinds of lines cross, one color is tinged with the other; on d ard e the fine lines repre- sent the finer striation of the inner layer of the scales. En- largement: a, 6, and c, 100 diam.; d@ and e, 300 diam. abdomen are covered with fine hairs representing the branches of the ordinary hairs of scarabaeidous bee- tles. The scales of Chalcolepidius rubripennis, an elaterid, are transparent brown when seen by trans- mitted light, but by reflected light appear bronzed blue, green, or red. Their form is seen in fig. 4. The black and white scales of Alaus oculatus (fig. 5), which give rise to the entire figuration of that curi- ously marked elaterid, although not of especially pe- 128 culiar form, are very interesting; because, in the white ones, the striations of the outer lamina, which form the corrugations seen in sections of the scales (fig. 5, d), are longitudinal, while the lower lamina, or lamina toward the insect, although smooth, shows transverse bands (fig. 5, b, c). In the fact of their corrugated surfaces being turned away from the in- sect, the scales of Alaus and of some other Coleoptera agree with the scales of Lepidoptera and Diptera. The 2-7 pointed scales of Ptinus (fig. 6), which are nestled amongst its hairs, resemble in a general way the plumules of some Lepidoptera. Most of the col- oration of the well-known locust-borer, Clytus robi- niae, is due to scales (fig. 7), which are of a form not rare in the longicorn Coleoptera. The Rhynchophora or Curculionidae are the bee- tles on which scales most generally occur, and where they present their most brilliant coloration. The dia- mond beetle of South America, Entimus imperialis, often sold by jewellers on account of its brilliancy, has scales (fig. 8) and hairs which present to trans- mitted light various colors— usually red, blue, and yellow; often all three colors with gradations between them —on a single scale. By reflected light, or upon a black surface like that of the beetle itself, the pre- vailing colors are green and purple. The colors which are indicated by the direction of the lines on the fig- ure (fig. 8 a, c) are those seen by transmitted light. When highly magnified, these scales, besides other structural characters, show a very fine striation (fig. 8, d, e), sometimes in one direction on one part of the scale, and in another direction on another part. This fine striation is probably the cause of the bril- liant coloration of these scales. All the brilliant coloration of scales of Coleoptera appears to be due to interference of light, either by fine striation, or by superposed delicate lamellae; as can be proved by wetting the scales with chloroform, when the color disappears, only to reappear as soon as the chloroform is evaporated. Most of the scales of Coleoptera contain air; and this air, together with the background formed by the coloration of the in- sect itself, gives rise to the various changeable hues seen in most of the Coleoptera which have scales. MICROBES. None of the organic substances which form an essential part of our sustenance, and are useful in a thousand ways, can be kept for more than a few days: fermenting and spoiling, they are the despair of the economists. In this decomposition the sub- stance becomes filled with an immense number of very minute organisms. How can a liquid, like milk or soup, free from all foreign germs, become invaded in a few hours by these innumerable legions of mi- crobes? The first hypothesis suggested is, that all these organisms are the result of the decomposition, and that they are produced spontaneously at the ex- pense of the altered substance. ‘This is the theory 1 By Dr. H. Fou of Geneva. Crenéve. Translated from the Journal de SCIENCE. [Vou. IfI., No. 52. — of spontaneous generation, so vigorously maintained by Pouchet ; and it is certainly one of the greatest of Mr. Pasteur’s good offices, that he has refuted one by one the arguments of the supporters of this attrac- tive theory, pursued them to their last defence with his invincible logic and his unexceptionable experi- ments. The fermentation is produced by the microbes; and these, by a wonderfully rapid propagation, are derived from germs carried by the air, or adhering to the vessels which hold the fermentable liquids. The dili- gent researches of Mr. Miquel show that the com- paratively pure air of the suburbs of Paris holds from a hundred and fifty to a thousand living germs per cubic metre. In a hospital at the centre of the capital, each cubic metre of air contains from five thousand to thirty thousand, according to the season. Although these figures appear prodigious, they are nevertheless very small, compared to the number of spores which cling to all the solid objects surrounding us. A simple cleansing is powerless to remove them: only fire or strong antiseptic solu- tions can destroy them. A fermentable liquid can be preserved indefinitely if it is protected from all Microbes; but it is easily seen, after what we have just said, how difficult it must be to obtain this per- fectly insulated state. All these lower vegetable types are found in two forms, — 1°, the vegetative or active form; and, 2°, the passive form, that is, the spores, which play here a part analogous to that of seeds in plants. In the active state most microbes show little en- durance; many species cannot stand a drying of any duration; and in moisture a temperature of 70° to 80° C., continued for two or three hours, destroys them almost without exception. Spores are more hardy: boiling water does not kill them; but, for this purpose, water must be heated to 120°, 130°, and even 150°. When dry, the spores do not succumb to a temperature below 180° to 200°; and, according to Mr. Fricz, cold of 110° has no effect upon them. To disinfect clothing without burning; would, then, be an impossibility, if, fortunately, Mr. Koch had not discovered that the germs cannot resist the action of a continued current of steam at a temperature of 100°. It is peculiarly difficult to protect a liquid from all germs, or to destroy all those which have penetrated it; however, it is possible, and the liquid is then said to be barren. Certain soups are prepared in this way that they may be sown with very small particles of substances containing the microbes to be studied; and thus the desired species obtained, to the exclu- sion of every other. Laboratories devoted to these studies annually distribute hundreds and thousands of litres of these soups. The organisms which here claim our attention be- long to three families, all allied to fungi, — moulds, yeasts, and microbes proper. Each kind of fermen- tation is produced by a certain species of these small organisms, and takes place only if the species in question is present in the liquid, from the beginning of the fermentation, in sufficient numbers not to be FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] choked by other species. Thus the mycoderm of wine is found in abundance in the flower of the bit- ter grape, and is naturally scattered in the must which flows from the press. In Japan the vine grows with wonderful rapidity, and bears magnificent grapes; but the mycoderm is lacking, and the fermentation pro- duced by the other microbes yields only an undrink- able liquid. The bakers and brewers know very well how to introduce into their dough and must the species needed. Without microbes, milk would not curdle, cheese and vinegar would be unknown; the vegetable débris would not decompose, and there would be no loam. Some one has calculated that a gram of soil contains a million of these little crea- tures. We are so accustomed to associate the word * microbes ’ with the most dreaded diseases, that we lose sight of the important part they play in nature. We can confidently say that their suppression would completely overthrow the present order of things. The power of causing fermentations is certainly one of the most curious phenomena which these lower vegetable types present. This power belongs only to certain species. Mr. Pasteur was the first to discover that certain microbes live in the air, and breathe like animals: these do not produce fermentation. Others live only when protected from the air, and cause fer- mentation in the matter which contains them. To these two classes there has recently been added a third, amphibious microbes, simply vegetating while in the air, and producing fermentations only when the air is withdrawn. Fermentation thus seems to be a kind of respiration. The yeasts decompose liquids in order to obtain products rich in oxygen, which take the place with them of respirable air. These facts are highly important in explaining the mechanism of diseases. In short, from a practical point of view, we may divide microbes into three classes, — those which are useful, those which seem to have no effect, and those which are positively harmful. We havealready men- tioned the first class; the second are very numerous; for, to say nothing of the many species which inhabit all the recesses of nature, and concern us only very indirectly, we undoubtedly support quantities of them in the cavities of the surface of our bodies and of our digestive canal. Nothing equals the astonishment and confusion of very solicitous persons, when, by a turn of the hand, the micrograph shows them all the various forms which live at their expense. They are ali kinds, from the harmless Spirillum in the saliva to the Leptothrix, which is the most active agent in the decay of teeth. But.all this is on the surface: the interior of our bodies is completely free from them; and it may be said that in our organization every means is taken to defend the entrance to the organs from ordinary microbes, and to remove them if they succeed in forcing entry. There is, how- ever, a certain number of species which have the sad privilege of being able to penetrate and support themselves in the body of a subject predisposed to receive them. ‘The microbe of septaecemia enters only through an open wound, while those of tu- berculosis and leprosy attack directly the lungs or SCIENCE. £25 mucous membranes of the persons afflicted. The surfaces of the lungs and of the alimentary canal seem to be the customary points of attack for the organisms which cause various infectious diseases. Our organization is like that of a civilized nation, whose citizens are represented by our cells. The skin becomes broken (the wall of China discloses a breach), and immediately there are hordes of savage microbes which enter, at strife with the national sol- diers (our cellular tissues). The microbes multiply, and scatter around a poisonous liquid; the cells com- bine, and try to starve their dreaded enemies and to repair the breach. ‘The battle-field is small; but the victory is warmly contested, and the sight has its ex- citing aspect. The result of the struggle depends on the number of combatants and on the energy of the competing forces. The antiseptic treatment of wounds, as at present skilfully used by Professors Julliard and Reverdin, and Dr. A. Reverdin, aims to reduce as much as possible the number of microbes which enter, and to retard their developmnent; for no one familiar with the subject would think it possible to entirely exclude them. How interesting it would be to trace the events of the contest between the organism and its invaders in the case of an epidemic disease! Science, we hope, will soon be in condition to give us this history. The diseases which have been traced with certainty to parasites are as yet few in number: they may be counted on the fingers. ‘To discover the nature of a disease, there must be a uniformity of experiments and evidence, of which the public, and even the ma- jority of specialists, take no account. Nothing is easier than to examine with a microscope small parts of the various organs of a dead body, and attribute the fatal disease to the microbes found under these circumstances. These would-be discoveries, soon disproved, have only the effect of causing the public to mistrust useful investigations, and cast undeserved discredit on serious work performed in the most methodical manner. To know a parasitic disease, it is not enough to have seen the pathogenic microbe: it must have been removed from the other microbes, and cultivated through a long series of generations in sterilized soups; animals must be inoculated at various times with these pure types, and each time all the symptoms of the disease whose cause is sought must be observed. In this way Mr. Koch has re- vealed the microbes of charbon and tuberculosis; and these discoveries have been granted to science, after being examined by a number of investigators, among them Professor d’Espine. Long and very careful cultivation was necessary to show, after Dr. Hal- tenhoff’s interesting paper on this subject, that the juice of the jequirity owes its extremely virulent properties only to the microbes which it contains. We know quite satisfactorily the organisms which produce leprosy, erysipelas, and symptomatic char- bon; but for diphtheria, typhus, intermittent fevers, and many other diseases, the agents are still undis- covered. Intermittent fevers afford a good example of how easily errors ariseand spread. They were at first, and 130 without sufficient evidence, said to be caused by the palms, — comparatively high vegetable types, per- fectly innocent of the crime of which they were accused. Late investigations point to a bacterium of elongated form as the cause, but the proofs are still insufficient. To learn to recognize the enemy is certainly the most necessary thing to be done, but it is only half the task: we must then learn to resist it. The more or less effective means of combat which have been employed up to the present time have aimed, 1°, to prevent the dissemination of dan- gerous microbes; 2°, to make the organism unsuit- able for the propagation of the intruders; 38°, to retard, as far as possible, the growth of those which have entered, in order to give the organs opportunity to throw them off. The first of these measures engrosses the attention of the hygienists: hospitals, quarantines, and disinfectants are among the means employed. I will not enter upon a subject which touches so many disputed questions, but will confine myself to noticing certain facts and to rectifying cer- tain very wide-spread errors. Regarding infection, the nose is a poor guide; for the experiments of Mr. Miquel show very distinctly that substances in a state of putrefaction, so long as they are moist, do not emit living germs. The water of the Paris sewers holds eighty million microbes per litre; and yet the air of the sewers contains only eight hundred or nine hundred germs per cubic metre, about one-tenth the number found in ahospital. By inoculating a rabbit, it was shown that these germs are perfectly harm- less. ‘The moist earth does not give out living organ- isms to the atmosphere. On the contrary, the dust of our rooms, which we do not at all mistrust, shows about two millions of these living germs per gram. The bacteria of intermittent fevers, which vegetate in the soil of the Roman Campagna, begin to spread in the air and to become dangerous only when the soil, dried by a scorching sun, is raised by the wind in the form of dust. It would be easy to multiply ex- amples, and to prove, that, in point of hygiene, we must be guided by sense rather than by smell. We have as yet but begun this kind of study; for how does this total number of germs which the air or water holds interest us? We would prefer to know the number. of dangerous germs. The proportions would doubtless be very different from those which concise analysis affords. Until we are better informed, we shall do well to push cleanliness to an extreme, and especially to put little trust in disinfection. The number of sub- tances which are less injurious to man than to mi- cro-parasites is very small. The best disinfectant is perfectly useless if too weak a dose be used. For each of these substances there is one proportion which will destroy the germs, and another which will arrest their vegetation but not destroy them. This last dose is the one with which we are generally obliged to content ourselves. The experiments of Mr. Koch and Mr. Miquel show that the narcotic effect begins to be effective on microbes only when the substance in which they are vegetating contains, among a thousand parts, 95 parts of alcohol, or 70 of SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 52. borax, or 10 of salicylate of soda, or 3.2 of phenic acid, or 5 of quinine, or 0.6 of bromine, or 0.07 of bichloride of mercury, or 0.05 of oxygenated water. Certain of the substances indicated are useful in these doses; while others, as bromine, are impracti- cable. But especially let us not forget that the result is not a radical disinfection: it is merely a momentary weakening. Is it still needful to insist on the use- lessness of too mild doses? Weare constantly seeing phenic acid used at less than one in a thousand parts with the sole effect of creating a mistaken sense of security. Let me mention another almost unknown antiseptic: essence of terebinthine, according to Mr. Koch, arrests the vegetation of microbes in a dose of zst00, a quantity easily endured by man. All these hygienic precautions are bristling with difficulties. How convenient it would be to let the microbes live and to protect our bodies from their influence! Unfortunately we know but one way to effect this: it is based on a remark, made long ago, that certain diseases can be retaken only after many years, and that this freedom may be obtained by con- tracting the disease in a very mild form. This is the principle of vaccination, and also of inoculation, em- ployed by Mr. Pasteur on certain animals. The mat- ter inoculated contains the microbe of the disease from which we wish to protect the subject, but modi- fied by a special cultivation: it is a virus weakened according to the methods of Mr. Toussaint and Mr. Pasteur. We touch here upon a question, at present much contested, in regard to the regularity of specific forms of these very low vegetable types. Mr. Zopf and the school of Munich believe that the most harmless species can, under certain circumstances, be changed into dangerous ones, and vice versa. The school of Berlin thinks that artificial modifica- tions are only transient and momentary, and that the species may be considered invariable.. However this may be, it is certain, that, if the inoculations of Mr. Pasteur have no great practical importance in their present form, they at least have a considerable theoretical value. We may hope that the time will come when it will be possible to vaccinate for all dis- | eases which can seldom be taken a second time. Who knows if it will not end by discovering the na- ture of the influence which the parasitic invasion exerts on the tissues of our bodies, and in obtaining the same result in a more direct way without inocu- lation? When we consider the progress of science in the last half of the present century, we venture no longer to answer, ‘ Impossible.’ THE WATER-PORES OF THE LAMELLI- BRANCH FOOT. In 1817 Cuvier showed that in Aplysia there was a closed vascular system, and claimed the same for all Mollusca. His view was followed till 1845, when Valenciennes and others described in many lamelli- branchs pores which passed through the foot to intro- duce water into the lacunar tissue, where the blood circulates. This view found general acceptance, and FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] was taught by Siebold, Huxley, Gegenbaur, Semper, ete. Recently discussion of the subject has been re- opened by the appearance of numerous papers. Mr. Justus Carriére in several papers maintains that no pori aquiferi exist in the lamellibranch foot. Her- mann Griesbach, last spring, in a careful paper (Zeitschr. wiss. zool., 38), reviewed the whole subject, studying by sections and injections, and concluded that the molluscan vascular system was not closed, that the blood wandered in the lacunar tissues of the body-cavity, that large lacunar spaces communicated directly with the exterior through aquiferous pores in the foot, and that these pores were for the reception of water to be carried out through the Bojanus organ. He figures sections of Anodonta where the surface- epithelium of the foot bends up into the opening of the pores (there are three in Anodonta), and fades out as the pore opens into the lacunar body-cavity. During last October two quite independent papers appeared simultaneously upon the other side. Dr. Cattie, in Zool. anzeiyer, vi., No. 151, p. 562, claims to have cut a complete series of about twenty-five hundred consecutive transverse sections through the foot of Anodonta. In no one of these was there any break in the epithelium. He has studied twenty-three species, and in no one finds the least trace of aquifer- ous pore. Dr. Th. Barrois, in a private imprint from Lille, dated Oct. 30, 1883, arrives at the same results. He discusses the work of Carriére and himself, and finds that they have studied most of the forms where the presence of aquiferous pores has been claimed, and in every case find pores absent, or in such position that it seems they are either connected with the func- tional byssogenous organ, or, where such is absent, in the aduct, with the remnant of the same. Barrois sums up his views thus: no pores exist for the intro- duction of water into the circulation; the only pores of the foot are those connected with the byssus organ, which never communicates with the interior of the foot. but this must be effected by osmosis, or in some man- ner not now to be discussed. H. L. Osporn. THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE AND BAIT H. Walks in the regions of science and faith: a series of essays. By Harvey Goopwin, D.D., Lord Bishop of Carlisle. London, Murray, 1883. 3810p. 8°. Natural law in the spiritual world. By Henry Drummond, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. New York, James Pott. (Apparently sheets of the English edition.) 414 p. 12°. Tue ‘science’ of these regions is of course physical science ; the ‘ faith’ is the theistic and more specifically the Christian faith. These ‘walks’ are taken along the borders of the two. Normally, the course of this journal of science lies quite away from this borderland, which, indeed, has not always been an agreeable road for a scientific man to travel. Of late, how- SCIENCE. The blood may have water introduced into it, 131 ever, a better understanding has made it pleasanter than it was for the peaceably dis- posed naturalist. And the Bishop of Carlisle, a trained mathematician as well as a divine, whose thoughtful essays are essentially irenical, is an instructive companion in an excursion ‘¢through that land which belongs exclusively neither to science nor to faith, but appertains more or less to both.’’ A book ‘‘ which opens with an essay on the connection between me- chanics and geometry, which closes with a funeral sermon preached in Westminster Ab- bey,’’ and the larger part of which had already appeared in widely read periodicals, — some of the articles being in fact, though not in name, of the nature of critical reviews, — hard- ly need be, and could not well be, reviewed in our journal; yet we are free to give a brief account of it, enough to indicate its lines of thought. The first essay, on the connection between mechanics and geometry, is a modified re- print of a paper which was published almost forty years ago. The point made is, that these two sciences are essentially identical, being developments in different subject-matters of the selfsame ideas. The moral is, ‘‘ that all demonstrations tend to merge in intuition, and that human knowledge, as it becomes more clear and more thorough, converges toward that absolute intuition which is the attribute of the Divine Mind.’’ This idea is further worked out in the second essay (entitled ‘ The unity of nature, a speculation,’ which ap- peared in the Nineteenth century in 1879), in which it is argued, that as the schoolboy be- gins by painfully proving the simpler theorems in geometry, and ends by perceiving that they are really self-evident, and that as all the prop- ositions of Euclid appeared intuitively true to Sir Isaac Newton, ‘‘it is quite conceivable, by merely extending in imagination the powers of which we have actual experience, that all geometrical truth in any department might exhibit itself without intermediate steps of demonstration to a mind of sufficient acute- ness, when the appropriate definitions had been given. To a mind like that of Newton, I should imagine that the principles of mechanics would present themselves almost in the same self-evident light as those of ge- ometry.’’ And ‘‘ that possibly, as the truths of geometry help us to realize those of me- chanics, we may use the truths of mechanics to help us to realize some of the truths of the more subtle sciences, say, even that of bi- ology.’? And the speculation, fortified and illustrated by mathematical analogies, goes on 132 to the conception, that ‘‘ there may be a princi- ple or law from which the existing order of physical life, with all its apparent anomalies [and its manifold diversities], flows as a necessary result,’’ the knowledge of which, ‘Sif attainable, would exhibit to us the order of living nature as one consistent system, free from exceptions and anomalies.”’ All this, and indeed all the volume, proceeds on lines quite accordant with those of the purely scientific evolutionist. Moreover, in thus regarding intuition as a kind of acquisi- tion or development, the theologian joins hands with the agnostic evolutionist, although they are moving in opposite directions. But the latter doubts, to use the words of one of them, ‘¢ whether the law-governed mind of man is not itself the highest form of mind.’’ The former, accepting ‘‘ the admission which must be made by all parties of the co-existence of fundamental unity with almost unlimited diver- sity,’’ and of inexplicable anomalies, endeav- ors to show, through mathematical analogies, that the existence of man may involve ‘* the possibility of snakes, as truly and as really as the existence of elliptic motion involves that of parabolical,’’ and ‘‘that a mind higher than human might see in the definition of man the possible existence of useless organs, both in man and in other creatures.’’ At the close of the essay, descending from pure speculation of what may be, to more scientific considera- tions, his idea may be gathered from the following condensed abstract : — ‘‘ Let it be granted that all living beings have been developed according to some law, not necessarily known, or even capable of description in words, but still a real law of development; does this give us all the elements necessary for the solution of the life problem? If we say yes, do we not run into the mis- take of a beginner who fancies that he can solve a problem of motion round a centre when he has been told what is the law of force? Is it not necessary to know the conditions of projection, the initial cireum- stances of motion or development? And may not this portion of the data be quite as important as the knowledge of the law of force? Itseems to me that they who are most anxious to establish the principle of evolution should be the most ready to perceive the necessity of taking into account the consideration of initial circumstances. . . . A quantity of protoplasm with an assumed power of development will not ac- count for existing forms of life, without the addi- tional hypothesis of some causative power to determine the initial circumstances. Given an original germ, and given some power which shall direct the particu- lar original cause of the development of that germ, and the whole subsequent development is conceiva- ble: but the germ and the law of development left to themselves may be as insufficient as the particle and the law of attraction. ... We have seen that the parabola, the ellipse, and the hyperbola are all possi- ble curves for a particle moving round a centre of SCIENCE. ' + % force. Only one of these curves — namely the ellipse, and only the ellipse under the condition of small eccentricity or approximate circularity — can suffice for the orbit of a planet which shall be the home of the highest form of life, namely, that of man... . The original conditions of motion, the initial cireum- stances as a mathematician would call them, must have been delicately adjusted in order to select, out of all possible forms of orbit, that one circular or nearly circular form which is compatible with the existence upon the earth’s surface of beings like our- selves. May we not infer from this a similar neces- sity of original delicate adjustment in the process of the evolution of a highly organized creature from a protoplasmic germ ? ”’ The third essay, entitled ‘God and nature,’ is mainly the development and application of a point made in a university sermon, which the author thought had been overlooked (but per- haps it really passed unnoticed because it is so obviously true), namely, that ‘‘ all physical science, properly so called, is compelled by its very nature to take no account of the being of God: as soon as it does this, it trenches upon theology, and ceases to be physical science.’’ And so, coining a discriminating word to ex- press this, he would say that science was atheous, and therefore could not be atheistic. Intrenched in this position, he sharply criticises, as unscientific, Haeckel’s denial of the exist- ence of purpose in nature, and comes down upon Professor Seeley for his rash statement (in ‘ Natural religion’) that ‘ science opposes to God, nature.’ In the fourth essay, ‘ The philosophy of cray- fishes,’ the text is supplied by Mr. Huxley’s well-known lecture upon these little crustaceans, which lecture, the bishop insists, ‘leads the mind of the reader, and, as it would seem, in- tentionally, beyond the region of natural his- tory into the domain of philosophy, and even of divinity.’’ In that domain the bishop is a match for the naturalist: at least, he is able to verify an old prediction of Huxley’s, that the evolu- tionist need not expect ever to drive the teleolo- gist out of the field. Indeed, it cannot be easy to dislodge a teleologist who is so far-sighted as to ‘*‘ have great doubt whether we can properly speak of final ends at all, unless we embrace in our conception the whole cosmos.’’ To Huxley’s favorite line of remark that there is no great good in ‘*‘ demonstrating the proposi- tion that a thing is fitted to do that which it does,’’ and that it is ‘‘ merely putting the cart before the horse to speak of the mind of a crayfish as a factor in the work done by the organism, when it is merely a dim symbol of a part of such work in the doing,’’ the bishop replies, that the importance of demonstrating a proposition depends upon the point of view [Vou. III, No. 52. : a FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] from which the proposition is regarded ; that the assumption made, ‘‘ that the preservation of the individual and the continuance of the species are the final causes of the organization of an animal,’’ is quite on a par with the old-fash- ioned teleology which is nowadays justly repro- bated ; that, at any rate, the pleasure which the crayfish apparently takes in watching for and capturing his prey is something quite dis- tinct from ‘ work done by an organism ;’ and that, ‘‘ if pleasure of some kind be denied to the crayfish, contrary to all appearances, I do not know at what point in the scale of animal life pleasure is to be admitted as a factor. If to speak of mind as a factor in work done be an absurdity in the case of a crayfish, is it not an absurdity in the case of a dog, or even in the case of a man?’’ And he proceeds to vindi- cate the delight of existence as one of the ends for which animals exist. This idea, and the vindication of the mind of brutes, have a prominent place in the next following essay, on ‘ Man’s place in nature.’ ‘Law, physical and moral,’ is the topic in the sixth essay, in which a passage from Hooker’s ‘ Ecclesiastical polity ’ is set over against one from the Duke of Argyll’s ‘ Reign of law.’ We need not continue our analysis, which is already longer than was intended : indeed, there is less occasion to continue ; for the remaining articles, being popular addresses reproduced, are less thorough, however sensible. Even the last essay, on ‘ Evolution and evolution,’ and the appreciative funeral sermon for Charles Darwin preached in Westminster Abbey on the Sunday following his burial there, need not de- tain us. The noteworthy thing, to which this vol- ume adds its testimony, is this: that thought- ful churchmen are following the example of thoughtful men of science. ‘They are accept- ing the scientific principle of evolution as a working-hypothesis, — trying it, as naturalists and physicists have done, in their several lines of research and thought, and with somewhat similar results. The new science is accepted with complacency, if not with welcome, by the discerning. The questionable philosophy, in which it has too often been dressed, is exam- ined and exposed. Tue second book named above appears to have excited considerable attention in England. Like the volume we have just noticed, it is an excursion into the borderland of science and faith, but with a difference. The divine is the more scientific, the layman and naturalist (for SCIENCE. 133 such we take him to be), the more homiletical of the two. The one picks his way along the ground with firm but cautious and carefully chosen steps: the other soars into the air. The one discriminates between science and faith, and in his book guards rather than enters upon the field of morals: the other seeks to identify the two, and in a novel way. He has discoy- ered that natural laws, meaning the principles of physics and biology, extend to the spiritual world, and help us to understand it. He does not mean that there are analogies between the two, which may be profitable for instruction, but identities; that ‘in the spiritual world,’ to use his own figure, ‘the same wheels re- volve, but without the iron.’ And the laws to which he refers are the principle of continuity, of conformity to type, action of environment as causing variation, the adage omne vivum ex vivo, possibly even gravitation, if there be any thing for it to act upon; and, if there is nothing for these laws to act upon, ‘‘it is not the law that fails, but opportunity.’? We cannot look upon this as any great improve- ment upon Swedenborg’s ‘ law of correspond- ences ;’ and, as the helpfulness of the book is entirely upon the religious side, we need not further notice a volume which attracted us by its title, but which we find to be morally edify- ing rather than scientifically satisfying. BACTERIA, AND THE GERM-THEORY OF DISEASE. On the relations of micro-organisms to disease. The ‘Cartwright lectures, 1883. By WixiraM T. BEL- FIELD, M.D. Chicago, Keener, 1883. 131 p., illustr. 24°. Bacteria, and the germ-theory of disease. Eight lec- tures by Dr. H. Grapue. Chicago, Keener, 1883. 44219p. 8°. Dr. BeErierp’s little book is cheaply gotten up, and, beyond the possession of a few poor woodcuts, seems to be his original lectures, four in number, delivered before the Alumni associa- tion of the College of physicians and surgeons in New York in February, 1883. Even the phraseology of the lecture-room is apparently preserved throughout, and is sometimes decid- edly more forcible than polite. Nevertheless, these four lectures, making in all about one hundred and thirty pages, give an admirable summary of the germ-theory of disease as it stood a yearago. Beginners or casual readers, perhaps, will not find the book diffuse enough ; but pathologists and biologists will prize it for its lucidity, crispness, and keen discrimina- tions. 134 After a careful perusal of these lectures, one finds himself impressed with the author’s ability to go behind the returns, to draw the line between good and bad work, to catch or to predict the drift of things; and this is the peculiar merit of the book. Indignant at the attitude of some American physicians, Dr. Belfield treats their shallow objections with deserved contempt, sometimes even with harsh- ness; but he preserves throughout the critical insight which might be expected of a follower of Tyndall and of Koch, and holds very fast indeed to that which is good. To biologists it is of great interest to ob- serve that pathologists are passing beyond the ‘germ’ theory, and are looking towards the unexplored country of unorganized ferments, ptomaines, etc., for the sources of disease, precisely as they themselves have gone thither to search for the causes of fermentation, of cellular digestion, and for many of the more intricate phenomena of physiology. The future of cellular biology seems to lie in these obscure ferments and ptomaines, affording a golden opportunity for the physiological chemist. Dr. Belfield states his subject summarily as follows (Pp. ol): — ‘¢ Bacteria then, which, by virtue of their ubiquity, are in constant and frequently recurring contact with the animal body, are, like other minute bodies, organized and unorganized, frequently introduced into the body through solutions of continuity of the integuments, or through intact skin and mucous membranes, particularly by way of the lungs. ‘The burning question in pathology to-day is, in what degree are the various species of bacteria, present in human tissues during certain morbid conditions, to be regarded as the cause of the morbid processes with which they are respectively associated?”’ If we look for his answer, we find farther on that investigations carried on with rigid exactitude justify us in accepting provisionally the causal relation in some degree, but not so far as to exclude other like causes. Illness may be caused by the not living prod- ucts of putrefactions, as well as by the living organisms which abound in and probably pro- duce putrefactions. But in the latter case the disease may be farther extended to fresh, healthy individuals by infection: in the former it cannot be. This points, in the one case, to a self-perpetuating cause; in the other, to one of limited powers. Moreover, good evidence exists that the boiled products of putrefaction which may produce illness owe their septic action to substances of obscure composition (ptomaines?) manufactured by the bacteria of putrefaction. This line of thought leads to the important conclusion (p. 42), — SCIENCE. “‘Hence we are logically driven, by all this work, to the belief that septicaemia implies the introduction into the animal either of living bacteria, or of a sub- stance which has acquired noxious properties through previous vital activity of these organisms. ‘‘More recent experiments have demonstrated, how- ever, that the etiology of . . . septicaemia is by no means restricted to putrid infection. [For it was no- ticed by Schmidt that] the introduction or production in the blood of fibrin-ferment in considerable quan- tity produces effects identical with those of putrid infection — septicaemia.”’ It has since been asserted that pepsin and trypsin produce similar effects. Ifso, we may find eventually a cause behind the bacteria, — a fibrin-ferment-liberating cause (p. 44) : — ‘‘Tt would appear, athough not for all cases demon- strated, that the . . . features common to the various forms of septicaemia are attributable to the rapid lib- eration of fibrin-ferment in the blood; and that any agent — organized or unorganized, putrid or fresh — capable of effecting such liberation may induce the disease.”’ So with the cause of suppuration. Belfield looks even beyond the germ-theory, beyond the bacteria involved, and with the eye of a biolo- gist perceives that (p. 51) ‘‘Suppuration must be regarded, then, as indicat- ing the presence of an element foreign to the living animal cells; which may be induced directly [as by the introduction of a powerful irritant, e.g., Croton- oil], or indirectly as an incident in the life of various fungi [e.g., bacteria]. . . . Practically, we may regard acute suppuration as proof of the access of external irritant matter, organized or unorganized.”’ Antiseptic surgery is then easily defined. It is not a hissing spray, nor (p. 60) ‘‘Simply a question as to the relative anti-bacterial properties of this, that, and the other so-called anti- septic agents. It is an attempt to prevent the en- trance into, as well as the formation within, a wound of all substances, organized and unorganized, which can interfere with cell-nutrition.”’ Enough has been said to show the spirit of these lectures. They take a broad but thought- ful and critical view of the various questions involved, treating the scoffers who speak with- out knowledge as they richly deserve, and taking a rather conservative view of the work done in the direction of protective vaccination ; displaying everywhere the thorough training of a German laboratory, and closing with a moral which all scientific men and all believers in rational medicine will do well to read, mark, and inwardly digest (p. 114): — ‘“‘ And when we consider the problems already half solved, the questions to whose solution the way ap- pears open through the same methods already suc- cessfully applied to anthrax and tuberculosis, we may ~ hope for results to which present knowledge shall seem — [Von. IIL, No. 52. ‘ 4 b 4 FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] amere introduction. But these results can be secured only by earnest, skilful, continuous experimental in- vestigation, which is practically impossible without pecuniary support. In France and Germany such support is liberally supplied by the government; in the United States, where human life is certainly as valuable as there; where live-stock interests are al- ready greater than in these countries combined, and must multiply many fold in the immediate future; where a single infectious disease of cattle has caused the loss of $20,000,000 in one year, and a single disease of hogs the destruction of $30,000,000 in the same time; where infectious diseases are so prevalent among live stock that the fear of infection has closed European markets against American meat and cattle — the government of this great commonwealth, which advances enormous sums for local river and harbor improvements; which sends expensive commissions over the world to observe the transit of Venus or of the moon, or to find an open polar sea; and engages in other undertakings of purely scientific interest, has not yet made one judicious, systematic, liberally sup- ported inquiry into the possibility of acquiring pro- tection against pleuro-pneumonia, hog-cholera, and other devourers of the national wealth. A glance at the imperial German health bureau and its work during the last four years, and a mental comparison of the pecuniary resources of Germany with those of the United States, inspire the hope that we shall not SCIENCE. 135 always lag so far behind in matters which appeal to the tenderest spot of the American anatomy — the pocket.”’ Dr. Gradle’s book is made up of eight lec- tures delivered in Chicago, and is published on a more ambitious scale than are those of Dr. Belfield. For the beginner, or for one who is neither a pathologist, biologist, nor physiolo- gist, this book is the more suitable. Its style is diffuse — not always, however, with a gain in perspicuity ; and its index, its references to authorities, and its evident intention to give to all sides a fair showing, are features to be specially commended. In these lectures we have, in fact, rather the report of the evidence than the judge’s charge to the jury. We miss that critical and even judicial flavor which is so pleasant a fea- ture of Dr. Belfield’s book ; and on that account we must consider the latter more suitable for the connoisseur; the former (Dr. Gradle’s), for the beginner or the casual reader. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Yellowstone national park. — During the season of 1883 Mr. Arnold Hague began work in the Yellow- stone national park, preliminary to a series of careful and systematic observations which are to be prose- cuted in this field through a number of years. The geysers are to be made the subject of minute study; and the volcanic rocks, so abundant at numerous points in the park, will be examined in detail, not only as regards their geologic relations, but also in regard to their structure and composition. The field inves- tigations in the park during the past season were confined mainly to the preliminary examinations necessary to determine what geologic and physical problems have to be solved, and to ascertain what thermal changes had taken place since the observa- tions of 1878 recorded by Dr. Peale. Mr. Hague’s party was constituted as follows: Mr. Arnold Hague, geologist in charge; Messrs. Joseph P. Iddings, W. H. Weed, George M. Wright, and C. D. Davis, assist- ant geologists; Dr. William Hallock, physicist; Mr. W. H. Jackson, photographer, with an assistant; Mr. Roland Holt, volunteer assistant; and cook, packers, etc. Geologic work. — Mr. Hague took the field the latter part of July, outfitting at Bozeman, Montana. Work was begun in the park at Mammoth hot-springs early in August. From this point, slow marches were made to the upper geyser basin of Fire Hole River, to allow of a geologic reconnaissance of the route fol- lowed. At the latter locality a permanent camp was established until the last of August. In the mean time a hurried trip was taken to the Shoshone geyser |. basin and the Heart-lake basin, for the purpose of comparing them with the geyser basins of the Fire Hole River, and to note what changes have occurred during the past five years. While on this trip, Mount Sheridan was ascended. Mr. Hague thinks that this mountain, from which a fine view of the surround- ing country was obtained, is a volcanic crater, which has been so greatly modified by glacial action that its true origin has been obscured. Camp was moved from the geyser basin to the Great Falls of the Yellowstone, Sept. 1, and kept there until the 19th. While at this point, the structure of the Mount Washburn was examined, and a trip made to the head waters of the Gardiner and Gibbon Rivers. The region of the Grand Cafion was also investigated, and the bottom reached at four different places. The Grand Cafion is an admirable place to study the decomposition of rhyolitic flows, the weathering of which has produced the brilliant coloring for which the cafion is so justly celebrated. A trip was also made from this camp to Steamboat Point, on Yellow- stone Lake, from which point the ascent of Mount Chittenden was made. Mr. Hague considers this mountain one of the best points of observation within the limits of the park, and, after a trail has been built to it, thinks it will become one of the ob- jective points of tourists who visit the lake. It sur- passes Mount Washburn; as it gives a closer and more detailed view of the lake, and presents a magnificent panorama of the high mountain range on the east side of the park. The prospect is perhaps not so ex- 136 tensive as that seen from the summit of Mount Sheridan, but it is superior to it from the fact that the objects one wishes to see are nearer at hand. On the eastern slopes of the mountain is a remarkably fine glacial cafion. From the Yellowstone Falls, camp was moved once ‘ more to the geyser basins, whence a trip was made to the western limits of the park, vid the Madison plateau, returning through the Madison cafion, which exposes a fine section of the rhyolitic rocks that form the plateau. The latter part of September camp was again estab- lished at the Mammoth hot-springs. The weather throughout the month had, with the exception of a few days in the latter part, been exceptionally fine for field-work; but October was ushered in witha severe snow-storm. Notwithstanding the inclemen- cy of the weather, Messrs. Iddings and Wright under- took a reconnaissance of the region north of Mount Holmes, on the west side of the park, with a view to obtaining more accurate information as to the granitic area that lies just east of the rhyolitic flows that form the plateau of the park. The results, however, were meagre, on account of the severity of the storms and the depth of the snow. At the same time Mr. Hague, accompanied by Mr. Weed, crossed the park in the opposite direction, to the head waters of Soda Butte Creek, with two ob- jects in view, — 1°, to make a rapid geological recon- naissance across the northern part of the park to obtain definite personal knowledge of the Yellow- stone Range; and, 2°, to visit the Clarke’s Fork mines in order to learn their position in relation to the park boundaries, and to ascertain the extent to which mining operations have been pushed, and also to form an opinion as to the future prospects of the district as a mining-centre. The trip was a valuable one for general geologic purposes, and as suggesting plans for future operations, but for detailed work was not perfectly satisfactory, as the country was covered with snow, and snow-storms were of daily occurrence. Although work was continued for some time longer in the vicinity of the Mammoth hot-springs, the weather remained so stormy that it was decided to pack the collections and leave the field; which was done the latter part of October, when the members of the party returned to the east. Physical researches. — The geysers of the park suggest a number of physical questions which can be solved only after a complete and careful investiga- tion, opportunities for which are nowhere presented with greater facilities than within the limits of the Yellowstone national park. The study of these ques- tions was assigned to Dr. William Hallock, who steadily carried forward his observations in the Fire Hole geyser basins during August and September, and, since his return from the field, has been conduct- ing a Series of experiments in the laboratory at New Haven. When the results of these studies and ex- periments shall be made public, it will be seen that they are of the utmost scientific value. Photographic work. — Mr. William H. Jack- SCIENCE. [Vox. IIL, No. 52. son, so well known from his photographic work in the park, while connected with Dr. Hayden’s survey of the territories, accompanied Mr. Hague’s party, and had a most successful season. His series of instan- taneous views of the geysers in action will prove of great interest. He obtained a large view (sixteen by twenty- two inches) of the lower falls of the Yellowstone, from a point at the bottom of the Grand Cafion just below where the water reaches the cafion, after its descent of more than three hundred feet. He also secured a fine large panoramic view from the summit of Mount Washburn. A number of views of Yellowstone Lake were taken, that are particularly good. Topographic work.—In order that the detailed geologic structure of the park may be correctly de- lineated, it was decided to begin topographic work for a detailed map, especially as the survey of the western and north-western portions of the park had never been completed. This work was intrusted to Mr. J. H. Renshawe, who undertook plane-table work on a scale of two inches to the mile. He outfitted his party at Bozeman, Montana, and began work in August in the West Gallatin Range, — a beautiful and interesting group of mountains, seldom or never visited by tourists, lying in the north-west corner of the park, between Gardiner’s River and the West Gallatin River. The outlying spurs are cut and worn into most peculiar forms by glacial action. The sur- vey of this area, comprising about four hundred square miles, occupied nearly a month, on account of the rugged character of the country and the detail with which the work was carried on. In the more level portions of the park it progressed more rapidly. Three hundred square miles of the plateau region lying more to the southward were surveyed during the latter part of the month. In September the work was extended still farther to the southward, until the heavy snows early in October compelled the post- ponement of further work to another season. The entire area surveyed in detail during the season is outlined as follows: on the north and west the limits are the boundaries of the park in those directions; on the east it is bounded approximately by the Nor- ris wagon-road and Gardiner’s River; and on the south by the lower geyser basin and the Fire Hole River. Besides the detailed work thus defined, mean- ders were run, and preliminary work extended, over al] the usually travelled routes. Upon the return of the party to Bozeman in Octo- ber, a remeasurement, with compensated bars, was made of the base-line at that place, laid out in 1877 by the ‘Geographical surveys west of the 100th me- ridian.’ In this work Mr. Renshawe was rendered efficient service by Messrs. Chase and Garrett of the U.S. navy. The former is now at work on the com- putation and adjustment of these measurements. Potsdam fauna at Saratoga, N.Y. —Mr. C. D. Walcott is closing up his work on the paleontology of the Eureka district, and preparing to take up the Potsdam fauna of the United States. From the past — season’s field-work, it was discovered that a massive FEBRUARY 1, 1884.] limestone, containing a typical Potsdam fauna, over- lies the Potsdam sandstone of the New-York geolo- gists in Saratoga county, N.Y. This limestone rests above the sandstone of Keesville, Whitehall, and Corrinth, and is shown to be the true representative of the Potsdam sandstone of Wisconsin, as it con- tains Lingula accuminata, Platyceras minutissima, Metoptoma cornutiforme, Crepicephalus sp.?., Lon- chocephalus calciferous, Dicellocephalus Harti, and Ptychaspis speciosus, — species all closely allied to those from Wisconsin. This limestone was referred to the calciferous formation originally; the great Stromatopora-like bodies of Hoyt’s quarry, four miles west of Saratoga, occurring in it. The contained fauna was partially described by Mr. Walcott in the thirty-second annual report of the New-York state museum of natural history, and referred to the calciferous formation. The U. 8. naval observatory. Chronometers. — This department of the observa- tory is in charge of Lieut. E. K. Moore, assisted by Lieuts. E.C. Pendleton and U. R. Harris. There are at present in the chronometer-room 233 chronometers, of which 22 are ready for issue; 21 are on trial; 71 require repairs, and will be repaired as wanted for issue; and 119 are condemned to be used only as ‘hacks.’ A temperature-room has been constructed for the more perfect testing of chronometers, and the observatory is now prepared to test them at any tem- perature to which they will be subjected in their practical uses. A proposition was made to the chro- nometer-makers, each to place four chronometers at the observatory for a competitive trial, beginning Jan. 1, 1884, the bureau of navigation to purchase the four passing the best trials. This has been ac- cepted by William Bond & Son, Boston, T.S. & J. D. Negus, John Bliss & Co., and D. Eggert’s Sons, of New York. By this method of purchasing, the best American made chronometers will be obtained. Transmission of time-signals. —This work is in charge of the officers having the care of the chro- nometers. The time continues to be sent over the wires of the Western union telegraph company, and time-balls to be dropped at New York and Washing- ton, as stated in last report. This work is all done automatically by direct connection with the observa- tory clock. The fire-alarm bells continue to be struck, and the time to be given to the horological establish- ments of the city at six A.M., twelve M., and six P.M. Nautical instruments. —This work is in charge of Lieut. W. E. Sewell. 121 sextants and octants have been received at the observatory for examination. 46 of this number have been found in good order. There are remaining on hand at the observatory 77 instruments, 10 of which may be made serviceable by repairs: the remainder have serious defects, which will render most of them worthless. The principal of these defects are bent arcs or bent pivots. An- other very common defect is want of parallelism in the glasses. Few of the makers seem to have exer- cised much care in this respect. The sextants and octants made by Stackpole & Brother of New York are SCIENCE. 137 superior to all others. The shades of 5 artificial ho- rizons have been tested for parallelism of the glasses: and 3 were found defective, changing the direction of the rays from 1’ to 27.5. Two standard thermom- eters, made for the observatory by J. & H. J. Green of New York, have been tested for their freezing and boiling points, and their tubes calibrated. At no point was the error found to be greater than a fifteenth of a degree. Tables of corrections for 45 clinical thermom- eters have been made for the marine hospital service. The library. — The library now contains nearly twelve thousand volumes. The accessions for the year aggregate sixteen hundred and two volumes, besides a large number of pamphlets. The annual volume of astronomical and meteorological observa- tions for 1879 has been recently received from the public printer, and the copies are now being sent out. The demand for the volumes is very great, there be- ing six hundred addresses on the regular list. The manuscript, consisting of eight hundred and seventy- five pages, for a complete catalogue of the books and pamphlets in the library, July 1, 1883, alphabetically arranged by authors and subjects, is now ready for printing. Publications. — The printing of the volume for 1880 is nearly finished, while the manuscript for the volume for 1881 is nearly ready for the printer. The printing of the annual volume is falling behind from year to year; and, with the apparently necessary ex- penditure of the printing-fund at the disposal of the navy department, this seems inevitable. The depart- ment fund is ususally exhausted by the last of April, and then two months’ time is lost. Ii there were a fund at the sole disposal of the observatory, this difficulty could be overcome. The superintendent therefore urges that Congress be asked to appro- priate seven thousand dollars annually for printing the observatory volumes, until the back work can be brought up as near as practicable to date. U. 8. astronomical expedition to Chile. — Professor William Harkness, assisted by Mr. Emil Wiessner, has made progress in reducing the zone observations made in Chile during the years 1850, 1851, 1852, by the ex- pedition under the late Capt. J. M. Gilliss, U.S.N. The total number of stars is about seventeen thou- sand. On June 30, 1883, the appropriation from which Mr. Wiessner was paid became exhausted, and the work ceased. About a thousand dollars are needed to finish the preparation of the star catalogue from these zones, and it is hoped that Congress will grant that sum at the next session. Increased estimates have been submitted for the coming year. The reasons for such increase are ex- plained in each case in the letter accompanying the estimates. Experience suggests that the efficiency of the observatory should be increased by the appoint- ment of a board of visitors, to consist of a limited number of distinguished astronomers, whose duty it would be annually to examine into the working of the observatory, and report to the secretary of the navy. They should have power to advise with the superin- tendent as to the character of the work to be done at the observatory. 138 NOTES AND NEWS. THE death of Professor Ercolani on Nov. 16, 1883, at Bologna, inflicts a severe loss upon Italy; for he was distinguished both as a savant and a patriot. Count Giovanne Battista Ercolani was born in Bologna in 1819, and descended from an ancient patrician fam- ily. He was a favorite pupil of Antonio Alessandri, and early devoted himself to comparative anatomy and pathology. During the revolutionary movement, which swept over Europe in 1849, he was an ardent defender of Italian liberty, with the result of becom- ing an exile. He sought refuge in the near city of Turin, and there was appointed professor, afterwards director, of the veterinary school connected. with the university. He remained in Turin until 1863, when he returned to Bologna to accept a similar position in the old university of that city. By his energy and influence, new buildings were erected, the school re- organized and greatly enlarged, and a valuable path- ological museum established. For several years he held the position of rector of the university, and for a considerable period was permanent secretary of the Academy of science of the Institute of Bologna. Like Virchow, he was also a patriot. His reputation was not alone that of a teacher and savant; but his early career as a defender of popular rights made him a favorite with the citizens, and he was three times elected and served in the national parliament at Rome. His numerous publications have contained the re- sults of investigations made for the most part with the microscope, and have secured a wide reputation to hisname. Most of his contributions first appeared in the memoirs of the Accademia di Bologna. His works show ability both as an observer and a draughts- man, and a tendency to touch upon general prob- lems; but his arguments are not always clear, nor his observations sufficiently complete to establish his general theorems. He was an enthusiastic, careful, and industrious investigator, of whom Italy was justly proud. His most extensive series of researches was upon the histology of the placenta, which led him to the conclusion that the lining membrane of the uterus degenerates, the placental membrane being a new formation, the lining being reformed afterwards from the uterine glands. This is not in accord with the views generally held at present. His single law of embryonic nutrition in vertebrates can hardly be con- sidered novel, and is vague rather than profound. But the details recorded in these researches are of great value and interest. These memoirs, together with some additions supplied by the author, were translated into English, and published at Boston in 1880, under the direction of an enthusiastic admirer, Dr. H. O. Marcy. His studies covered a wide range, — zodlogy, histol- ogy, and pathology were all included; but his most valuable work lay in the field of microscopical anatomy. His career has been justly admired, and his memory will long be cherished by his country- men. SCIENCE. "Sp hae [Von. IIL, No. 52. — The Government printing-office has just issued the third volume of the report of the tenth census. This relates to agriculture, and contains, besides the extended statistical tables concerning that industry, and discussion of them by the late superintendent, Gen. Walker, monographs upon cereal production, by William H. Brewer; flour-milling, by Knight Neftel; tobacco-culture, by J. B. Killebrew; manu- facture and movement of tobacco, by J. R. Dodge; and meat-production, by Clarence Gordon. Of the 1,182 pages embraced in this volume, 328 are devoted to the general statistical tables. ‘These are exhaustive, and are very judiciously arranged for reference and use. A general summary, by states, of the principal statistics in 1880, 1870, 1860, and 1850, forms the first table. It treats of the number of farms; the area in farms, classifying the land as ‘ tilled,’ ‘permanent meadows, pastures,’ etc., ‘ wood- land,’ and ‘other unimproved’ land; the value of farms, farming implements, and machinery; of live- stock, fences, fertilizers, and of all farm products; the number of the different classes of live-stock; the dairy products; cereal and fibre crops; sugar and molasses; hay, poultry, and eggs; apiarian products ; rice, tobacco, Irish and sweet potatoes; orchard, market-garden, and forest products; wool, hops, broom corn, and pulse. Following this is a tabular discussion of the number and area of farms, and their form of tenure, by states and by counties. After this are placed county tables relating to the principal agricultural products. These tables are pre- ceded by Gen. Walker’s discussion (comprising 33 pages), in which are pointed out the limitations and qualifications of the statistics, and our progress in the different branches of the industry. It treats, in the author’s well-known terse, incisive: manner, upon the number and size of farms, their area and tenure, their value and that of farm products in total, and the principal agricultural productions sev- erally. The monograph by Professor Brewer upon the cereal crops is, like all work by this well-known authority, complete and exhaustive. He discusses the cereal product of this country as compared with that of other countries, especially with that of Eu- rope; showing, that, with a surplus production in the United States of 650,000,000 bushels during the census year, there was a deficit in Europe of 380,000,- 000. The deficit in Great Britain was 280,000,000; in France, 170,000,000; and in Germany, 115,000,000 bushels. Following this discussion, the author nat- urally treats of the exports of cereals, noting their rapid increase in recent years. Their geographic and climatic distribution is next discussed, and is followed by a brief sketch of the principal classes of soils with relation to their applicability to cereal culture. Taking up the cereals severally, Professor Brewer discusses the product of each, its geographical and climatic distribution, its history, varieties, meth- ods of culture, chemical composition, diseases, in- jurious weeds, and insects. The report closes with a brief history of American agriculture, and a dis- cussion of the relations of this to other industries, and FEBRUARY 1, 1884.]. \ of cereal culture to other branches of agriculture. The report is illustrated with sixteen double-paged colored charts of the United States; showing the pro- portional extent of cereal culture, and the relative yield of cereal crops per acre, and per head of popu- lation. The report upon flour-milling processes is one of a series upon power and machinery, which subject was under the general direction of Prof. W. P. Trow- bridge of Columbia college, New York. It treats some- what at length of the various milling processes and ma- chinery, and is freely illustrated with outline plates. Professor Killebrew’s report upon the culture of tobacco occupies not less than 286 pages. Besides the tables of production, and a few pages descriptive of the principal types of tobacco, the report consists of descriptions of soils, climate, methods of culture, curing, and marketing of tobacco. Each state is treated separately and very fully, which necessarily produces a great deal of repetition, and thereby un- necessarily extends the report. The concluding chapter consists of a treatise upon the chemistry of American tobaccos, by Gideon E. Moore, Ph.D. The manufacture of tobacco is treated by Mr. J. R. Dodge, now and formerly the statistician of the department of agriculture. Commencing with a history of tobacco-production in this country, he traces it up to the present time, sketching the origin and the present habitat of the different varieties. Proceeding then to the subject proper of the report, the author submits the statistics, and discusses them exhaustively. He next takes up the subjects of taxation and the revenue from this product, exports and imports, the commercial movement and prices, with which the report closes. The report upon cattle, sheep, and swine, by Mr. Clarence Gordon, is supplementary to the statistics upon live-stock. This report relates to live-stock upon ranches as distinguished from that upon farms. The distinction is not an easy one to draw in all cases, the line between ranch and farm being by no means a plain one; and one cannot help questioning the utility of attempting to separate them. ‘The report opens with a short chapter upon pasture and forage plants by Professor Brewer. The report proper fol- lows, each state and territory being treated separately. The matter relating to each consists of an historical sketch, a description of the pasturage areas, and the management of the ranch business, both in cattle and sheep raising and in cattle-driving. The esti- mates of pasture-land are in most cases undoubtedly very much too great; as, for instance, that four-fifths (50,000,000 acres) of the area of Wyoming is avail- able as pasture-land. The report closes with a sum- mary of the exports of meat and live-stock, and tables of the numbers of live-stock on farms and ranches. In its outward appearance, this volume, as well as those which have preceded it, is not by any means above criticism. The only part of the mechanical execution of these volumes which deserves commen- dation is the colored plates, which were presumably printed by the lithographers. It is greatly to be re- gretted that so important and valuable a series of SCIENCE. 139 volumes should not be dressed in a garb in better keeping with their intrinsic merits. — Dr. R. W. Shufeldt has asked authority of the surgeon-general of the army to compile an illustrated catalogue of the collection of comparative anatomy in the army medical museum, of which he has lately been placed in charge. Such a work as is intended, would be contained in a volume conformable in size with other illustrated catalogues of this institution that refer to the sections of surgery and medicine. There are contained in the section in question upwards of three thousand specimens. These are chiefly osteological in character; and the classes of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish, are pretty well represented. The general plan of this catalogue is to make it a complete work of reference to the collection. Each of the genera of all the vertebrate classes are to be awarded an illustration, and the text will present a concise account of the anatomy cf the form treated. In every instance where it will be possible, the sub- ject, be it an osteological one or a wet preparation of the soft parts, is to be chosen from the museum col- lection; so that any person using this catalogue will have the actual type before him, and the one that was selected to illustrate the text. Special attention is to be paid to the anatomy of such vertebrates as elucidate the principal questions in human physiology and anatomy, and good figures and illustrations of such forms will invariably be presented. Again: the vertebrates of our own country will be the sub- jects chosen in each case, as far as possible. By this means the student and anatomist may pursue his studies away from the museum after he has investi- gated all that is to be found there in his special line of research, and that, too, upon similar subjects. In short, it is evident that such a work will constitute a more or less exhaustive contribution to the literature of vertebrate anatomy, and be of special value to all scientific and professional men. The army medical museum contains within itself unusual facilities for the prosecution of such a work at comparatively little expense; since it has its own corps of workers, includ- ing photographer, artist, and others. — Mr. Joseph Wharton of Philadelphia writes to the Public ledger of that city (Jan. 22) that he has found volcanic glassy dust in fresh, clean snow of recent fall. The snow, melted under cover in the porcelain vessel it was gathered in, showed at first no sediment; but after a time, and aided by a gentle rotatory movement which brought all to the deepest point, aslight deposit appeared. By pouring off most of the water, and evaporating the remainder, a little dry dust was obtained, which, even to the naked eye, showed, in the sunlight, tiny vitreous reflections. The dust weighed by estimate a hundredth of a grain, and showed under the microscope the char- acteristics of volcanic glass. It was partly irregular, flat, and blobby fragments, and partly filaments more or less contorted, which were sometimes attached in little wisps, and were mostly sprinkled with minute glass particles. Under a knife-edge, the filaments broke easily and cleanly. The irregular . 140 fragments were of various sizes and shapes, mostly transparent, but, even when examined by strong transmitted light, showed no trace of crystalline structure. Their diameter was about that of single filaments of silk. No crystalline particle of pyroxine, or black crumb of augite, such as observers have found elsewhere in similar dust, was present; nor did a strong magnet stir any particles of magnetic oxide of iron, though they also have been found in other voleanic dust. It may fairly be assumed that those heavier minerals, if at first mingled with the volcanic glass, had been already deposited during the iong voyage through more than ten thousand miles of space and more than four months of time, while the tenuity of the intrinsically lighter glass threads (the Pele’s hair of Mauna Loa) enabled them to float farther from the point of eruption. — The maps recently published by the Northern transcontinental survey, the discontinuance of which we regret, include the Crazy Mountains and Judith Basin in Montana, and the Yakima and Colville regions in Washington Territory, —a total area of about twenty thousand square miles, on a scale of two miles to an inch, with contours every two hun- dred feet. One has only to look at the best previous compilations of these districts to see the need and superiority of the new work. With this excellent basis, Prof. E. W. Hilgard of the University of Cali- fornia, in charge of studies of soils, has prepared three maps, four miles to an inch, printed in colors, of the Yakima and Colville districts, showing the characteristics and possibilities of the surface in much detail. Mr. T. S. Brandegee, working under the direction of Prof. C. S. Sargent of Harvard univer- sity, in charge of forestry, has also completed a map of the Yakima district, showing the distribution of the valuable trees in much detail: a regretably large area is marked as burnt. These maps form but a small share of the material now collected: the greater part is not yet prepared for publication. In Mr. Pumpelly’s first annual re- port, mention is made of the discovery, by Mr. George H. Eldridge, of valuable coal close to the line of the Northern Pacific railroad, near Bozeman, Montana; and of explorations of the coal-fields west of the Cascade Range by Mr. Bailey Willis. Studies of climate and rivers were undertaken by Prof. E. 8. Holden of the Washburn observatory, — studies of the utmost importance in the interior region, where cultivation, unless on the lowest bottom-lands, is impossible without irrigation in the drier summer months. Much material has been brought together by Mr. W. M. Canby concerning the distribution and relative abundance of the various forage-plants on which the stock-raising interests depend. It is sin- cerely to be hoped that the results of these practical studies may be brought to light, together with the scientific information gathered during the two seasons during which the survey has been in operation. — Nature reports that the French Société des élec- triciens has completed its organization, and has been divided into six sections, — Theoretical electricity, SCIENCE. M. Marie Davy, president; Dynamo-electrical ma- chinery, transmission of force to a distance, distribu- tion of energy, M. Tresca, president; Electric lighting, M. du Moncel, president; Telegraphy and telephony, M. Blavier, president; Electro-chemistry and elec- trotherapy, M. Jamin, president. — At the last general meeting of the Société de géographie, M. de Lesseps announced his conclu- sions on the subject of the Suez Canal. A project had been submitted to the English government; and, if a favorable response be not received, the canal company will proceed to carry out its own plans. He claimed that no one else had a right to make a canal by the side of the present one, and that this occupies the only feasable route. To the west the topography presents obstacles. To the east, a new canal would destroy the system of irrigation upon which the wealth of the country depends. All that is needed is to enlarge the present canal. When this was pro- jected, the most eminent engineers of all countries decided on a canal with forty-four metres width at its maximum depth; but, owing to great expense and opposition encountered, the company contented themselves with a width in this part of twenty-two metres, which completely satisfied the needs of the commercial world of that day. Twenty-five years ago the increase of steam-navigation was not dreamed of. In 1830, of five hundred vessels composing the expe- dition to Algeria in the port of Toulon, there was not one steamer. In 1882 seven millions of steam tonnage passed through the canal, and only one sail- ing-vessel of seventy-five tons. The principal question to be determined at present, is, whether the enlarged canal shall consist of two waterways with an em- bankment between them, or whether the breadth of the present waterway should be extended to forty- four metres at the bottom and a hundred and twenty at the surface of the water. This would be decided by the engineers consulted, though the speaker was in favor of the latter plan, as swift vessels could then pass slow ones. The embankments of the canal are a relic of the days when vessels were towed. He saw no reason why the enlarged canal should have any embankments purposely constructed. The dredgings, which will be much less considerable than in the original work, can be dumped by the side of the canal, and thence spread out without maintaining a bank of any kind. This, at least, was M. de Lesseps’s opinion. — Prof. F. H. Snow, of the University of Kansas, reports that the chief characteristics of the weather of 1883, from observations taken at Lawrence, were the low mean temperature of all its months except April, November, and December; the unusually long period of immunity from severe frost; the large and well distributed rainfall; the slight preponderance of north- erly over southerly winds; the high average wind ve- locity; the very high mean barometer, surpassing that — of any previous year of our sixteen years’ record; and the remarkably brilliant and long-continued orange and crimson sunrise and sunset glow of the last five weeks of the year. [Vou. IIL, No. 52. ee. Neer. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM.. Tue modern revolution in biology has made it plainer than ever before, that a certain elas- ticity of scope, a power of adaptation, should belong to scientific foundations. ‘These are usually the outgrowth of enthusiasm, which, at a white heat, is not always so tempered with wisdom as to foresee that the special end then to be met may not forever be of para- mount importance. It must be some such ex- planation as this. which is to be given of the state of affairs recently described by Dr. Har- rison Allen of the University of Pennsylvania, as existing in Philadelphia. In the American of Jan. 26, Dr. Allen asserts that the existing foundations of Philadelphia are unequal to the present emergencies of biological science, and urges with much force that ‘‘ an institution for the advancement of biological research, which will be open to both sexes, is imperatively de- manded’’ in that city. With the widening of the field of biological science, it has come to pass that what we need most at the present time is a new order of things. Academies and museums we must always have; and fortunately, in these re- spects, we already equal our transatlantic brethren. But that these alone do not cover all of the ground, is evident from the follow- ing remarks of Dr. Allen, concerning the Academy of natural sciences in Philadelphia : ‘¢ The institution is committed to the task of accumulating a reference-library and a muse- um, of publishing proceedings and occasional memoirs, and affording a reading-room to any and all who are in the remotest degree inter- ested in natural history, and, to this end, to give rudimental instruction at stated intervals to miscellaneous gatherings.’’ All this is well, except that it ‘is committed’ to this line of No. 53. — 1884. work; and even this would be highly satisfac- tory, if it were not ‘ committed’ to this alone, as appears to be the case: for the author con- tinues, ‘‘ The representative members of the academy have acknowledged that the higher education is not within the scope of its work, and have uniformly opposed any attempts at so changing the policy of the society as to admit of any responsibility being unreservedly assumed by its scientific men.’’ That this view should be entertained by the members of organizations instituted long ago, and now endowed with a host of venerable traditions, is, of course, natural; but it is perfectly plain that these alone are no longer sufficient. Dr. Allen would supply the deficiency which he laments by another foundation, — a biologi- eal institute, free from restrictions, liberally endowed, and headed by some one of high re- pute, qualified especially to inspire and to direct research. We see no reason why a plan like that proposed should not be an immediate and pronounced success, especially in Philadel- phia, where science has long been at home, and which is so fortunate as to possess in Professor Leidy an enthusiastic leader and investiga- tor eminently qualified to be the head and front of the new enterprise. We should re- joice to see some such enterprise begun in Philadelphia, particularly if it might enable advanced workers to take immediate advan- tage of that rich field for zodlogical research in our country which is the admiration and envy of European zodlogists. To this end the en- dowment should be ample, — we believe, con- siderably larger than the one hundred thousand dollars suggested by Dr. Allen. It should be, at the least, sufficient to enable advanced work- ers to proceed to points of timely and special interest; as, for instance, to the Great Lakes, or to the shores of the Gulf, — not to establish laboratories, but to pursue certain lines of re- search which imperatively require the presence wy 142 of the investigator in the field. It is certain that such an enterprise would arouse enthusi- asm at home, and command respect abroad. Mr. B. J. Lossine has recently published a paper on the proposed celebration, eight years hence, of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. We refer to it now, not to discuss this project, but to call atten- tion to an historical question of such inter- est that it is worth a thorough investigation. Among mistakes which might almost be classed as popular superstitions must be placed the wide-spread notion that the rotundity of the earth was nearly unknown until comparatively recent times. Mr. Lossing goes so far as to say that the scholars in the time of Columbus ridiculed the idea of the earth being globular, and in this he only echoes the popular belief on the subject. Now, the fact is, that the form of the earth has been as well known as it is now from the earliest historic times, and has never been denied by a scientific writer on scientific grounds. ‘Through twenty cen- turies of discussion among rival systems and theories, this one has stood undisputed as the fundamental fact of astronomy. Nor has it ever been the subject of religious controversy, as the Copernican theory was. Under these circumstances, it 1s a question of interest, whether a state of things of which the astron- omers never heard existed in Spain four cen- turies ago; whether, in fact, there are books or documents of any kind showing that men as scholars believed the We suggest the who then ranked earth’s surface to be flat. subject to historical investigators. It must, of course, be understood that we are now speaking of professed scholars, in a position to be consulted by the authorities, and not of the ignorant masses. It is quite likely that Queen Isabella’s chambermaid may have ridiculed the idea of the earth being round, and that her spiritual confessor may have looked upon astronomical theories gener- ally as the work of men very dangerous to orthodox religion. But if the knowledge of - SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 53. an epoch is that of the majority, where shall — we stop? It might be found, that, at the present day, the majority of the human race believes the earth to be flat. We leave our readers to picture in their minds an encyclo- — pedia of the thirtieth century, in which it will be stated, that although the astronomers of the nineteenth century knew of the motion of the earth, yet their more numerous and influential contemporaries, the theologians, as represent- ed by one of their leaders named Brother Jas- per, believed it to be at rest. Tue acquittal of General Cesnola of the charge of libel, in the case so long before the courts, is probably satisfactory to the trustees of the Metropolitan museum of art, but is far from satisfactory from a scientific stand-point. So far as the trial related to libel, it made no difference to science which side won; but it does make a difference when it appears, that, by - legal twists and turns, the vital spot was not touched. As the result stands before the scien- tific world to-day, the curator, while acquitted of the charge of libel in his hot reply to a former business agent, is still, directly or indirectly, responsible for the manipulations of ancient sculptures in the museum under his charge. One good result may follow from the Cesnola trial. In future, fragmentary objects in mu- seums will probably either be left as found, or else so joined, that, while holding their relative positions, they will still show that they are frag- ments. The so-called restorations are too often the conceptions of the officers in charge; and, while Cesnola has followed a plan often sanc- tioned by supposed requirements of art, it is one which will never be permitted by science. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, *,* Correspondents are requested to beas brief as possible. The writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. Tropical cyclones. In Mr. Davis’s paper on whirlwinds, cyclones, etc., in Science, vol. ii. pp. 758-761, I notice the use of the term ‘equatorial cyclone,’ which should be dis- continued, as I have already had occasion to state before.! There being no deflection of the winds from the normal to the isobars on the equator, there can be no cyclone there; and it is, I think, generally ad- 1 Nature, vol. xix. p. 517. FEBRUARY 8, 1884.] mitted by meteorologists, that in the latitudes 0°-6° the deflection is also too small to admit of cyclones; and really I know of none. And even outside India, and the seas around it, there are scarcely cyclones in latitudes lower than 10°. Thus, what Mr. Davis calls ‘equatorial’ should be ealled ‘tropical’ cyclones. If anybody wishes to mention * equatorial cyclones,’ Jet him first prove their existence. So long as this is not done, meteorologists having a mind for exact scientific terms will hold to my opinion. A. WOEIKOF. St. Petersburg, Jan. 7, 1884. I shall be well pleased if so distinguished a meteor- ologist as Dr. Woeikof finds no other points needing correction in my papers on storms than this one. That I fully agree, as to the facts,with him and with Dr. Taylor, who first, so far as I know, states this matter in connection with its cause,! is shown in my seventh paper (this volume, p. 40); but, while my use of the objectionable term was accidental rather than deliberate, there is, perhaps, little to choose between ‘equatorial’ and ‘tropical,’ both of which occur in this connection in my papers: for, if the first apply in strictness only to points in latitude 0°, the second is equally limited in its exact meaning to points in latitude 234°; and if ‘tropical’ has come to mean ‘within or between the tropics,’ so ‘equa- torial’ may mean ‘near the equator.’ Tropenzone of the Germans is not to be translated ‘ tropical zone,’ but ‘torrid zone;’ and in English, ‘ tropical’ should not be applied in an exact nomenclature to the equa- torial low pressures of the doldrums, as in Buchan’s writings, but rather to the high pressures of the horse-latitudes, as Ferrel uses it; and ‘tropics,’ when properly rendered into German, would be wende- kreisen, or it might be paraphrased into die polar- grenzen der passate. Inasmuch, then, as the truly tropical belts of the ocean are best characterized by regions of high pressure, free from cyclonic condi- tions, except where storms from lower latitudes cross them near their western shores; and as the inter- tropical rains of the doldrums are not called ‘ tropical,’ but * equatorial,’ even when off of the equator, and by Dr. Woeikof himself, — it can hardly be considered a serious error to speak of the cyclones, which begin in the doldrums, as equatorial also. Cambridge, Jan. 30, 1884. W. M. Davis. Osteology of the cormorant. Mr. Jeffries’ answer in Science (iii. 59), to my let- ter in a former number of this paper (ii. 822), caused me genuine surprise. , His suggestion that the occip- ital style of the cormorant ‘is the ossified tendon of some of the extensor muscles of the neck,’ made in a former communication (ii. 739), is here, apparently, announced as his conviction, and Selenka is intro- duced to sustain the statement. Now, Iam informed by Mr. Jeffries, that, ‘‘in view of such eminent au- thority, it would seem that something more than simple denial is required to upset a statement ac- cepted by anatomists for many years;’’ and a few lines farther on, I am said to acknowledge my mis- take, because I ignored the point. Permit me to say, that nothing of the kind has been accepted by anat- omists for many years. I met this statement by a simple denial, in order to save space in the columns 1 On tropical hurricanes (Brit. assoc. report, 1852, pt. 2, 31). Herschel used this in his Meteorology, but failed to do justice to Taylor’s explanation of how a deflective force arises from the earth’s rotation, and omits mention of the effect of the conserva- tion of areas, which Taylor recognizes as of essential importance. SCIENCE. 143 of Science; but, if Mr. Jeffries must be informed as to what the occipital style of the cormorant is, I would inform him that this bone is not an ossifica- tion in any tendon of the extensors of the neck, be- cause it is situated, as we know, in the median plane of the skeleton, at a mid-point on the occipital ridge. The tendons of the extensors in a bird’s neck, which are inserted at the occiput, are in pairs, their inser- tion being bilateral; and their tendons are never in- serted in the median plane: consequently this style cannot be an ossification of any of them. On the contrary, it is an ossification of the fascia between the extensors of the neck and what may be compared to the ligamentum nuchae. As Mr. Jeffries seems to be anxious about the posi- tion in which I drew this occipital style, I would call his attention to the fact that it is shown as occupy- ing its proper site, only tipped up somewhat, as it was on my dried skull. Such license is perfectly permissible in anatomical delineation, and is seen in the illustrations throughout the literature of anat- omy. It often shows the parts to better advantage: and, in structures as well known as this style is, no explanation is necessary. Acquainted, as I am, with the anatomy of this ‘nuchal style’ and its anatomical relations, I must again acknowledge that I am still ignorant of the physiology, or really the function, of this style, or why it should occur in a cormorant and not in other birds nearly related. As to Mr. Jeffries’ concern at my not being, to his mind, thoroughly informed upon the homologies of the patella in birds, I would invite his attention to a paper of mine written some time before my ‘ Osteol- ogy of the cormorant’ appeared. ‘To show that I have always agreed with the eminent authorities he alludes to for my benefit, in the co-existence of a pa- tella and an elongated cneiial process of the tibia in most divers, I refer to my article entitled ‘ The num- ber of bones at present known in the pectoral and pelvie limbs of birds,’ in which I say, ‘‘I know of but two free bones that occur about the knee-joint. The first of these is the patella; and this may co-exist with the cnemial ridge of tibia, as in Colymbus (Owen). The other is a free sesamoid found in some birds in a notch at the head of the fibula (Speotyto)”’ (Amer. nat., November, 1882, 894). I repeat, that ‘I find myself misquoted’ by Mr. Jeffries, in his re- marks upon my paper, ‘more than once;’ that is to say, he has failed to include statements falsely at- tributed to my article in the customary quotation- marks. I donot say, (1) that I figure this style ‘ in situ,’ nor (2) positively atlirm that it has never been figured before (ii. 739), but do say, ‘*‘I do not be- lieve we have a figure showing the site of this bone- let’ (ii. 640). Selenka’s and Eyton’s figures had slipped my mind for the moment, as their works had not been available for a year or more. Furthermore (3), I do not refer to Professor Owen to have him authorize any thing in regard to Podiceps, but only to the patella of the loon, as any one accustomed to anatomical reading can see by referring to my ar- ticle on the ‘ Osteology of the cormorant ’ (ii. 640). R. W. SHUFELDT. Upperglow of the skies in relation to halos and coronas. These striking and beautiful atmospheric phenom- ena, which have manifested themselves over the entire globe, have attracted much attention, and been mi- nutely described by correspondents in various coun- tries. But there is one feature, which, although incidentally noticed by some writers, has attracted but little attention. I allude to the fact, that, wherever 144 the phenomena have been sufficiently pronounced, the sun is during the day encircled by a more or less distinct colored halo or corona. At this place the assumed supra-cirrus volcanic dust seems not to have been sufficiently dense to have developed the colored rings; and there was observed nothing more than a whitish glare extending over the sky from 20° to 25° from the centre of the sun. But the Rev. S. E. Bishop writes me from Honolulu, that this chromatic circle around the sun has been constantly observed in all of the Hawaiian Islands for several months. It has likewise been observed in England as a fre- quent accompaniment of a conspicuous manifestation of the upperglows of sunset and sunrise. It is an interesting question, whether this more or less distinct colored zone encircling the sun is a true ice-crystal halo, or a diffraction corona. Its want of sharp definition, and the absence of the regular suc- cession of prismatic tints due to refractive disper- sion, would seem to point to diffraction as the true cause of the chromatic phenomena. On the other hand, the large size of the colored circle, having a radius of from 20° to 30°, would seem to connect it with the well-known ice-crystal halo of about 22° radius. While I am disposed to regard this chromatic fea- ture of the phenomena as mainly due to the diffrac- tive action on light of the impalpable dust-particles suspended in the lofty supra-cirri regions of the at- mosphere, yet it is by no means improbable that ice may be associated with the phenomena: for it ap- pears from the experiments of M. Coulier, and more particularly from those of Mr. John Aitken, com- municated to the Royal society of Edinburgh, Dec. 20, 1880 (Nature, vol. xxiii. pp. 195-197; also vol. Xxiii. p. 384), that the presence of dust-particles in the air is essential to the formation of fogs and clouds; that, when aqueous vapor condenses in the atmos- phere, it always does so on some solid nucleus; and that the dust-particles in the air form these nuclei. Now, it is evident that the presence of these attenu- ated dust-particles in the supra-cirri regions of the at- mosphere would produce condensation of the rarefied aqueous vapor at these lofty altitudes. But inas- much as this region must, even within the tropics, be far above the plane of perpetual congelation, the condensed vapor must necessarily assume the form of aggregations of ice around these nuclei: hence the diffractive coronas may be associated with imperfect- ly developed ice-crystal halos. JOHN LECONTE. Berkeley, Cal., Jan. 25, 1884. Inheritance of physical injuries. Well-authenticated instances of the inheritance of a physical injury are so rare, that I wish to put upon record one which has recently fallen under my ob- servation. A gentleman, when a boy about seven years of age, had the second toe of the right foot de- formed by wearing a tight boot. The first and third toes were crowded together, forcing the second one under and backwards, and causing a curvature of the second joint, which, in time, became permanent. The joint, being somewhat elevated above those of the other toes, received the pressure of the shoe, and always after was more or less troublesome in conse- quence. The gentleman was twice married. By his first wife he had six children, the second of which was a daughter; the rest, sons. The daughter inher- ited the crooked toe; but the feet of all the sons were normal. The deformity appeared, however, in the son of one of these, — the brother next younger than the sister, — affecting the same foot and toe as on the grandfather. By his second wife the gentleman had SCIENCE. (Von. ILL, No. 58. only one child, a son, who also inherited the pecul- iarity; but in this instance it was the second toe of the left foot, instead of the right, that was affected. Knowing that much doubt still exists whether the results of a slight physical injury, like the one I have described, are ever transmitted, I have taken pains to examine carefully all the evidence under my obser- vation; and I feel assured of its correctness. All four having the deformed toes are now living, and all agree upon the facts. The gentleman is positive that his feet were normal until he was about seven years old, and says he remembers very distinctly wearing the boots which caused the deformity. An exami- nation of the foot does not show any congenital peculiarity which might have been transmitted. The toe, when restored to its correct position, appeared normal in every way. No peculiarity of this kind has ever appeared in any other of the gentleman’s relatives. I can see no way, then, of avoiding the conclusion that the injury, or rather its results, have been transmitted to two generations. The case presents some features which render it especially interesting. The peculiarity’s appearance in the children of both wives seems to eliminate al- together the element of the mother’s influence in producing it. The recurrence of the variation in the grandchild, the father being normal, indicates how powerful was the tendency to perpetuate this slight deviation from nature’s standard. In the other cases which I have studied personally, if a variation did not appear in a child, that child’s children were free from it also. I should be glad to know if any one of your readers has observed this tendency toward re- verting to the ancestral type under similar cireum- stances. Irvine P. BISHOP. Perry, N.Y., Jan. 28, 1884. Pumice from Krakatoa. Capt. A. W. Newell, of the bark Amy Turner of Boston, has brought in some pumice which was washed aboard his vessel, Sept. 17, 1883, in latitude 7° 25’ south, longitude 103° 21’ east, about a hundred and sixty-five miles south-west from Krakatoa, Sun- da Straits. It covered the sea in windrows, and was observed as fine ashes as far distant as thirteen hun- dred and fifty miles from its source. A piece about seven inches by five, which came to my notice, is of a reddish-gray color, and very much inflated: it carries porphyritic crystals of plagioclase felspar, in many cases surrounded by dark-brown glass, forming small black spots in the gray mass, which might at first sight be mistaken for augite or hypersthene. There is, besides, dark-green augite and brown hypersthene, which is strongly pleochroic, and resembles closely that found in the lavas from the volcanoes of northern California and the Cascade Range (Notes on the volcanoes of northern Califor- nia, Oregon, and Washington Territory, Amer. journ. sc., September, 1883). The percentage of silica for this pumice was found to be 62.53, and is almost identical with that of the hypersthene-bearing pumice. from Mount Shasta, which is 62. It is undoubtedly the pumice of a hypersthene andesite, and is especially interesting because of its similarity to rocks found on the west- ern coast of North America. The observations of Rénard on the ashes that fell in Batavia soon after the eruption of Krakatoa (Nature, Dec. 6, 1883) show the same component minerals, and have doubt- less been made on similar material. a Jos. P. IDDINGS. U.S. geological survey, New York, Jan. 30, 1884. FesBRuARY 8, 1884. ] THE EVOLUTION OF THE CEPHALO- PODA.1—II. Tue individual coiled shell of every existing Nautilus may be said to pass through the stages of the protoconch, when it is always nearly or quite straight; then through the first of the conch, when it becomes slightly curved; then through a more completely curved period, in which the first whorl of the spiral is completed. After this it continues the spiral, the whorls on the outside touching the exterior of the inner ones, and spreading so rapidly by growth as to begin to envelop them, and, in extreme cases, to completely cover them up. The natural inference from these facts would be, that there was a similar succession of forms in past times, —the straight in the most remote, the arcuate and the gyroceran in succeeding periods, and the nautilian only in compara- tively modern times. This would be a per- fectly clear and legitimate mental conception. The structural relations of the adult shells appeared also to demand the same solution, as shown by the researches of Quenstedt, Bronn, and Barrande, and later of Gaudry. Bar- rande’s researches also demonstrated that this idea could not be maintained, and that there were no such serial relations in time. but that the whole series of forms were present in the earliest period, and occurred side by side in each paleozoic formation. This great author’s conclusions have had a curious effect upon paleontologists. It has been hastily assumed by some, that the mental conception was more perfect than could be realized in nature; by others, that the imperfection of the recorded succession was an obvious refutation of the doctrine of evolution, and all pursuit of a solution unworthy of serious attention. Statistically, the logical picture coincides with the observed succession in time. The straight cones predominate in the Silurian and earlier periods; while the loosely coiled are much less numerous, and the close coiled and involute, though present, are extremely rare. The loosely coiled and close coiled gain in numbezs in the carboniferous, and the involute are more numerous than in the Silurian; while, in the later times of the Jura, all disappear ex- cept the close coiled and the involute, there being a decided predominance of involute shells. Thus we are able, by reversing the record and travelling back to the Silurian, again to see, that antecedent to that period, in the protozoic, there must have been a time when the straight cones or their immediate an- ' Conciuded from No. 52, SCIENCE. 145 cestors predominated, to the exclusion of the coiled and perhaps even of the arcuate types or varieties. The involute shells of the earliest geological times were therefore probably evolved from the straight cones in regular succession ; and we may perhaps hope to eventually get the evi- dence of this succession in the formations. The exact counterpart of our logical picture. as Barrande’ has truly stated, does not, how- ever, exist in the known geological records of later periods. Judged by the common classi- fication, by the prevalent ideas about the affin- ities of adult structures, and by the modes of occurrence of fossils in the geological forma- tions, the forms seem to be without law or order in their succession. But let us imagine, during the paleozoic, a different condition of affairs from what is now the general rule. Let us suppose such a thing possible as the quick evolution of forms and structure, and that in these ancient periods, near their points of origin, animals found the earth comparatively unoccupied, and were not only able, but in fact forced, to migrate in every direction into different habitats, and to make perpetual efforts to readjust their inher- ited structures to the new requirements de- manded by these comparatively unoccupied fields. Food and opportunity would have acted, in such localities, as stimulants to new efforts for the attainment of more perfect adap- tation and for changes of structure useful to that end. We can neither imagine the effort to change of habitat and habits, without its cause, the primary physical stimulant, nor the change of structure, except as a result of the direct effort to meet the physical requirements with corresponding or suitable structures. Let us also compare the changes taking place during the whole of paleozoic time with those known to have occurred in certain iso- lated cases in more recent times; such, for example, as that of Steinheim, where a single species, finding itself in an unoccupied field, proceeded with unexampled rapidity to fill its requirements by the evolution of new series and many species, all differing from each other, but all referable, by intermediate varieties, to the original form, —%in this example, really a single species, the well-known Planorbis aequi- umbilicatus. 1 We regret that space does not permit some account of th author’s wonderful book, the Systéme silurien de la Bohéme. While opposed to almost every theoretical conclusion and the general arrangement of the facts made by him, we have the strongest feelings of respect and admiration for his powers of ob- servation, the technique of his work and publications, and the surpassing unselfishness of his life, spent in the pursuit of what he deems to be vital truths (see Science, Nos. 48, 44) 146 If we admit such possibilities, and then find similar phenomena in the paleozoic epoch, we shall no longer need our first picture, but can construct a far more natural one. The Nautiloidea will not then present them- selves as a simple chain of being, but as they really were, eral distinct stocks, or grand series, and each of these grand series divisible into many smaller lines of genetically connect- ed forms. In the Cambrian, or perhaps ear- lier, some of these do not have close-coiled forms at all; some of them have: but all, ex- cept the most primitive series, which are com- posed wholly of straight or arcuate forms, have some close-coiled species. These we can often trace directly with the greatest exactness, both by their development and by the gradations of the adult forms, to corresponding species among the straight Orthoceratites. The series we have described above, from Orthoceras to Goniatites, compares closely with any single genetic series of the Nautiloi- dea, and shows that this ordinal type arose very suddenly in the protozoic, and evolved true nautilian shells in the Cambrian or earlier. The Ammonoidea evolved from the nau- tilian forms of the Cambrian into series, which are structurally much more distinct from each other in the paleozoic than any groups of the same value (i.e. genera) in the succeeding formations, and thus, in different but equally plain characters, teach us that they also had a quicker evolution within that period itself than in the later formations. Either this was the case, or else the Ammonoidea must have been created in full possession of an organiza- tion only attained by similar parallel series of congeneric, close-coiled nautiloids, after pass- ing through all the intermediate transforma- tions above described. Here is a curious fact: though taxonomically equal, we cannot com- pare the order of the Ammonoidea with the whole of the Nautiloidea, but only with a more or less perfect single series of that order. ‘This phenomenon fully accords with the true picture of the genetic relations. The remarkably sud- den appearance and fully developed structures of these earlier ammonoids finely illustrates the fan-like character of the evolution of forms from chronological centres of distribution, and the quickness with which they must have spread and filled up the unoccupied habitats. After the paleozoic, no absolutely new struc- tural modifications are produced ; though the complication of the structures is carried so much farther that we are at first apt to im- agine that there are several new types of struc- ture in the trias and Jura. We can carry out SCIENCE. ~ this assertion, even into some minute structural characters. Thus the mesozoic ammonoids have, in all forms, a curious little short collar, which arises from the septa, and surrounds the siphon. It seems to be useful simply to close the joint, and perhajs make the connec- tions of this tube more perfect, and exists in no nautiloid at present known. It was supposed from its development, ete., to be confined to the ~ Ammonoidea of periods later than the paleo- zoic, but has recently been noted by Beyrich in a Goniatites of the carboniferous. We have found in a similar way every distinctive struc- tural peculiarity of the mesozoic Ammonites appearing in some form among the Goniatites of the carboniferous. The contemplation of the wonderful phe- nomena presented by these series has finally led the author, not without reluctance, to the conclusion that the phenomena of evolution in the paleozoic were distinct from those of later periods, having taken place with a rapidity paralleled only in later times in unoccupied fields, like Steinheim.! The hypothesis of Wagner, that an unoccu- pied field is essential for the evolution of new forms, gains immensely in importance, if, as we suppose, it is practical to apply it to the ex- planation of the phenomena we have observed. Every naturalist must see at once, by his own special studies, that this is the only reasonable explanation of the frequent rapid development of types in new formations, as well as the sud- den appearance of so many of the different types of invertebrates in the paleozoic. New- berry’s theory of cycles of sedimentation shows that the sudden appearance of types is inex- plicable, except upon the supposition that they retired with the sea between each period of de- posit, and again returned after long intervals of absence, or perhaps made their appearance for the first time in a given fauna. With this explanation and that of Wagner the facts we have observed fully coincide, and, we think, amply explain the phenomena, both of sudden appearance in the first deposits of formations, and subsequent quick development in the necessarily unoccupied habitats. The researches of Barrande, Alexander Agassiz, Bigsby, Gaudry, and many others, show us that this must have been especially true of the paleozoic or of the protozoic, if this sup- posed period is admitted, as compa with subsequent periods. We find, bee that, in order to make our 1 Another statement of these facts in the form of a law of evolution is given in the author’s ‘Genera of fossil cephalopods’ (Proc. Bost. soc. nat. hist., xxii. 1884). . (VoL. IIL, No. 53. ee == FEBRUARY 8, 1884. | logical and generalized picture of exact corre- spondence between all the changes in the life of a nautilian close-coiled shell and the life of its own group accord with the facts, we must be careful to limit it to groups quickly evolved, and these exclusively paleozoic. In 1843 Auguste Quenstedt began re- searches which ought long ago to have led to this solution. He demonstrated by repeated examples, that among diseased types the most extensive changes of form and structure might take place in a single species, and within the narrowest limits of time and surface-distribu- tion. Quenstedt was thus the first to show that in diseased forms the shell had the in- herent habit of reversing the process of growth and evolution, and of becoming more and more uncoiled by successive retrograde steps. Von Buch and Quenstedt, master and disciple, and the author independently of either of these predecessors, in three successive researches, have arrived at the identical conclusion, that these uncoiled shells are truly distorted, or, as we may more accurately express it, pathologi- cal forms. They are not, however, rare or exceptional, as one might at first suppose, but occur in numbers and in every grade, — from those that differ but little from the normal forms, to those that differ greatly ; from those that are exceedingly confined in distribution, to those which lived through greater lengths of time. But in all cases they exhibit degra- dation, and are expiring types. The author has repeatedly traced series of them, and stud- ied their young, partly in Quenstedt’s own col- lection. In all cases they show us that great changes of form and structure may take place suddenly; and this lesson could have been learned from Quenstedt’s work and example as well forty years since as now: and in all species the young are close-coiled, even in some which are arcuate in the later larval, adolescent, and adult stages. Baculites, the extreme form, is straight, and the young still unknown. When we attempt to resolve these pathologi- cal uncoiled series and forms, which show by their close-coiled young that they were de- scended from close-coiled shells, we find our- selves without comparisons or standards in the early life of the individual. The laws of gera- tology —that the old age of the individual shows degradation in the same direction as, and with similar changes to, those which take place in successive species or groups of any affiliated pathological series of uncoiled and de- graded forms —here come into use, and serve to explain the phenomena. This correspond- SCIENCE. 147 ence is shown in the uncoiling of the whorls, loss of size, the succession in which the orna- ments and parts are resorbed or lost, the ap- proximations of the septa, and position of the siphon. It is quite true, as first stated by Quenstedt and also by D’Orbigny, that every shell, when outgrown, shows its approaching death in the close approximation of the last sutures, the smoothness of the shell, the de- crease in size, etc.; but, in order to realize that these transformations mean the same thing as those which take place in any series of truly pathological forms, we have to return to the types in which unfavorable surroundings have produced distortions or effects akin to what physicians would term pathological. ‘This fre- quently happens in small series of Nautiloidea ; and, if we confine ourselves to these, we can make very accurate comparisons: or, on the other hand, in the case of the Ammonoidea, we may trace the death of an entire order, and show that it takes place in accordance with the laws of geratology. Such series, among the Nautiloidea, are abundant in the earlier formations ; but they have not the gen- eral significance of the similar forms among the Ammonoidea, and can be neglected in this article. There are no known cases of degraded series of uncoiled forms among the ammonoids of the earlier or paleozoic periods: they may have occurred, but they must have been ex- cessively rare. In the trias and early Jura, pathological uncoiled forms are rare among am- monoids, but in the middle and upper Jura they increase largely ; and finally, in the upper cre- taceous they outnumber the normal involute shells, and the whole order ceases to exist. Neumayer has shown, that a similar degrada- tion occurs in all of the normal ammonoids of the cretaceous, and that their sutures are less complicated than those of their immediate an- cestors in the Jura. This proves conclusively, that the degradation was general, and affected all forms of Ammonoidea at this time ; since the uncoiled forms are not confined to special local- ities, asin the Jura, but are found in all faunas so far as known. The facts show that some general physical cause acted simultaneously, or nearly so, over the whole of the known area of the world during the cretaceous period, and produced precisely similar effects upon the whole type as had here and there been notice- able only within limited localities and upon single species or small numbers of species dur- ing the previous periods. This general cause, whatever it may have been, acted on the type so as to cause the successive generations of the larger part of the shells to become distorted 148 smaller and more cylindrical in their whorls, smoother, and to lose their complicated foliated sutures. In extreme cases they became again perfectly straight cones, like the orthoceratitic radicals. So much alike are they, that it is quite common for those who are not students of this group to mistake the degraded Baculites for the radical Orthoceras. ‘This decrease in size, increasing smoothness, and uncoiling, is precisely parallel with the similar transforma- tions taking place during old age in the normal involute shells of the Jura, which, when old enough, also depart from the spiral, or tend to straighten out, and always lose their orna- ments, decrease in size, and so on.! The universal action of the surroundings, as we now know them, is certainly not exclusively favorable to the continuance of life, and may be wholly more or less unfavorable. It cer- tainly perpetually excites the animal to new and more powerful exertions, and, like per- petual friction, wears out its structures by the efforts which it obliges it to make for the sup- port of the structures in doing work. At first this leads to development, the supply being greater than the demand ; but sooner or later, and with unvarying certainty, the demand ex- ceeds the powers of supply, and old age sets in, either prematurely, or at the termination of the usual developmental periods. ‘The remark- able and at present unique example of the Ammonoidea places us in a position where we can see the same process taking place in the whole of a large group, with attendant phenom- ena similar in every respect to those which we have observed in individual shells of the same order. In numbers of species and genera, and in the complication of the internal structures and the production of the external ornaments on the shells, the order reaches what appears to be the highest stage of development in the Jura; then retrogression begins, and, steadily gaining, finally affects all forms of the type, and it becomes extinct. Smaller series of the Ammonoidea and Nautiloidea go through the same process in their respective time-limits, and in the same way, but can be compared with the individual much more accurately and closely. It is evident, then, that the compari- son of the life of an individual with that of its immediate series or group reaches a high degree of exactitude, and that the observed phenomena of the life of an individual should 1 We are aware of the existence of evidence that Ammonites of the normal form, the types of which we have seen, have been described from the lower tertiaries: but there are still doubts about the reputed age of the formations; and, in any case, they only tend to confirm the general trend of the facts. SCIENCE. enable us to explain, in some measure, the © equivalent phenomena of the life of the group; and we are unavoidably led to entertain the ex- pectation that it does explain it. ‘This expec- tation was actually formulated as a probable law for the whole animal kingdom by Haeckel in the same year (1866) as the author first published on the Tetrabranchiata. We are therefore able to quote this leader in science in support of our weaker knowledge; and also a pupil of his, Wurtemburger, who has an- nounced the same results attained by researches on the Ammonites of the Jura, but, naturally perhaps, omitted to recognize any one but his honored master. The evidence is very strong, that there is a limit to the progressive complications which may take place in any type, beyond which it can only proceed by reversing the process, and retrograding. At the same time, however, the evidence is equally strong, that there are such things as types which remain comparatively simple, or do not progress to the same degree as others of their own group. Among Nauti- loidea and Ammonoidea these are the radical or generator types. We have no case yet of a highly complicated, specialized type, with a long line of descendants traceable to it as the radical, except the retrogressive: but all our examples of radicals are taken from lower, simpler forms; and these radical types are longer-lived, more persistent, and less change- able in time, than their descendants. We find the radicals of the Nautiloidea liv- ing throughout the paleozoic, and perpetually evolving new types in all directions ; then this process ceases, and the primary radicals them- selves die out. But they leave shells, which are in that stage of progression which I have called the nautilian. ‘These, the more direct descend- ants of the radicals, become secondary radi- cals, and generate series having more involute shells. These, in turn, as secondary radicals, exhibit very decidedly a greater chronological distribution than their descendant inyvolute forms, persisting, even to the present day, in Nautilus umbilicatus. The same story may be told of the Ammonoidea, but substituting at once the close-coiled shell (the secondary radicals) for the primary radicals of the Nau- tiloidea, even as far back as the Cambrian. These secondary radicals, greatly modified but still carrying in their simpler organizations and mode of coiling the possibilities of a number — of new series, existed by the side of the ex- — piring degraded forms of the cretaceous. Ee This is the essential element of difference — between the life of the whole order and that of © Fespruary 8, 1884.] the individual. We can accurately compare the rise and fall of the individual and its whole eyele of transformations with that of any of the single series or branches of the same stock which become highly specialized and then de- generated ; but, when we attempt to go farther, we meet with similar difficulties to those en- countered in tracing the progress of types and orders. The radical and persistent types are still present, and teach us, that, as long as they exist sufficiently unchanged, new types are a possibility. We have traced many of these in the two orders, and have found that they change and become more complicated, and that probably a purely persistent or entirely unpro- gressive type does not exist among the fossil Cephalopoda. The most celebrated example of unchanging persistency has been, and is now supposed to be, the modern Nautilus. We think, however, that when our observations are fully published, it will become evident that the similarities of this shell to some of the Cambrian coiled forms — which have caused Barrande and others to suppose that it might be transferred to the Cambrian fauna without creating confusion — belong to the category known to the naturalist as representation ; that is, similarities of form, and even of structure, in the adults, but with young having entirely distinct earlier stages of development, and belonging to distinct genetic series. Still, com- parative unprogression or persistency is com- mon in all radicals; and they force us to recognize the fact, that the orders could have produced new series, perhaps even in the cre- taceous, if it had not been for the direct un- favorable action of the physical changes which then took place, so far as we now know, over the whole earth. Thus, in making our comparisons between the life of the individual and the life of the group, we cannot say that the causes which produced old age and those which in time pro- duced retrogressive types were identical: we can only say, that they produced similar effects in changing the structures of the individual and of the progressive types, and were there- fore unfavorable to the farther development and complication of these types. In their ef- fects they were certainly similar; but in them- selves they might have been, and probably were, quite different, agreeing only in belong- ing to that class of causes which we distin- guish as pathological, or those whose nature can be generally summed up as essentially unfavorable to the progress, and even to the existence, of the organization. In order to understand the meaning of these SCIENCE. 149 evidently degraded structures, we must turn back to our first remarks upon the order. The apertures and forms of the retrogressive shells all show that they were exceptional, that they had neither well-developed arms for crawling nor powerful pipes for swimming; that, in other words, they could not have carried their spires in any of the ordinary ways. Their habitats, therefore, must have been more or less sedentary ; and like the sedentary Gastro- poda, as compared with the locomotive forms, they presented degeneration of the form and structure of their higher and more complicated ancestors. ‘Their habitats did not require the progressive grades of structure, and they dis- pensed with or lost them; and in many cases this took place very rapidly. This retrogres- sion was in itself unfavorable to a prolonged existence ; and the geratologous nature of the changes tells the same story, so that we can attribute their extinction to the unfavorable nature of their new habitats, and also call them pathological types without fear of misrepresent- ing their true relations to other forms. We have necessarily avoided even allusions to some of the most important confirmatory facts; but we hope our effort will at least show that the theory advanced is a reasonable one, and that the fossil Cephalopoda are worthy of the attention of even the most enthusiastic of the young disciples of the modern school of embryology. The theories of this school will have to stand tests of which they have now not even a faint idea, and it is to be hoped they will not long neglect the precaution of know- ing also the past history of the types they often so incautiously and confidently handle. ALpHEus Hyatt. THE MOTION OF WAVES OF COLD IN EE WOUNT TED 3S TA TES. Tue chief signal-officer of the army desiring to learn the progress of waves of cold across the United States, an investigation has been undertaken in order to determine the appear- ance of such waves, their approximate velocity, and general line of advance. It would seem, at first sight, as though the problem might be solved by drawing isotherms (i.e., lines through points at the same temperature) on consecutive days, from simultaneous observations over the whole country. If, then, there were a progres- sive motion, the study of these lines would show it. It has been found, however, that a cold wave does not travel in a well-defined closed curve ; and, more than that, the gradual increase of temperature, as the curves approach 150 SCIENCE, the south, masks and often obliterates the mo- tion we seek to find. Again: such waves are frequently divided, then united, thus by the loss of their identity making it impossible to trace them for along period. One of the simplest methods of procedure in an investigation of this nature would be the projection of the ob- servations of temperature in curves, one for each station, and then studying the fluctuations from station to station. This was done by Professor Elias Loomis, in his ninth paper, in which he investigated the motion of waves of high and low pressure. An investigation of this kind, a short time since, gave 19.8 days for the mean interval of time of sixteen waves, moving from St. Michael’s, Alaska, to Turuchansk, Siberia, along the sixty-fifth parallel, or an approximate mean velocity of 15.8 miles per hour. Such a determination, however, cannot be regarded as entirely satisfactory, because it simply takes into account a series of stations lying in an east and west direction. In order to extend the investigation to a large number of stations, we may take daily ‘departures’ from the monthly mean, and, pro- jecting these upon charts, determine the char- acter of the fluctuations over a large area. In practice, however, this method fails, for the reason that the fluctuations diminish toward southerly latitudes, thus masking the progres- sive motion. The following method has been adopted for obviating the latter difficulty. We may con- sider, that if a cold wave advance in any di- rection, without disturbance from dense clouds or mountain ridges, it will carry minimum tem- peratures to successive stations in its path; the intervals of time between the passage of such a minimum over any one station taken as a starting-point, and others in the line of prog- ress, gradually increasing. By determining, then, the time of passage of a minimum across each station in a country, and charting these times, we can ascertain both the line of advance and the velocity of the wave. In order to obtain the time of passage of a minimum temperature over a station, where a series of observations has been made each day, it is essential first to eliminate the effect of diurnal range. This may be done by ob- taining the residuals for each observation of a month, taken at any hour; then, determining the approximate time of passage, we can, by examining the successive residuals near that time, obtain the time sought. An effort has been made to apply the above principles to the observations of the U. S. signal-service, taken & (Vou. IIL, No. 5 3, five times each day during November, 1881, at forty-two selected stations. In this month there were four prominent cold waves ; and the following table gives the interval of time which elapsed between the passage of each of these over Fort Dunvegan, North-west territory, and each of the forty-two stations. ‘These figures are inserted exactly as determined from the observations. It was found, however, that many of the apparent discrepancies in a pro- gressive law of motion were due to the appear- ance of clouds at the time of an observation, thus throwing the minimum forward or back four and even eight hours. Blanks indicate that the minimum could not be determined satisfactorily. ao Coid waves, I., 1., 1I1., and IV., of November, 4 I8s1. Hours between Fort Dunvegan and stations in U.S. . Station. . 1 II. } IM..| IV. |Meam: J ass ; Ape nas Michi esis mmemie eres 32 52 64 49 , BismanckesD) aks emcee 24. 12 16 48 25 Bostons Massey: amin cneeneee 64 52 60 OF 62 Brownsville, Tex.. cee 48 64 32 64 by4 Butialo.eNe yes ea) fa. Cone 36 56 48 76 54 suveliaewora,s Wing o 6 a © °c 64 = - 72 68 @ape Miaiyey Nise ue) e-em RAES 72 64 72 64 Charlotte-wNE© jee 56 48 52 72 57 Chattanooga, Tenn. 3: 32 48 40 56 44 Cheyenne, Wyo. .... . - = 2, 28 | -20 Cincinnati OF) ae een Oe 28 52 56 42 . Concho, Lex 9.) 7. oe is = rs, 48 | 40 : Davenport, Lon. ian ene, 24 3 48 32 ; Deadwood, Dak. = jes) alee 0 8 40 16 4 Dodge City, Kan. . Ben) ae 8 12 32 21 { Eastport, Me. | 72 | 56 | (64 7 serena manag ; Paso lex) fas ence PSO 72 56 64 68 \ Fort Assinaboine, Mont. . ./| 24 Os 24 10 Fort Buford, Mont. . . . .| 20 Om —a16 40 11 Fort Elliott, Tex. . 32 | 16] 327 \NAgiaieee Fort Gibson, Ind. Ter. . 32 24. 28 56 35 7 Galveston, Tex. ie 48 48 52 55 Huron; Dak... < -cunae eS Sa iieas 32 16 Key West, Hla.. 2° 5 a se lp Loe - - 76 70 Kitty, Hawk, INC], seman eg oO 56 56 76 61 Marquette, Mich... .. .j] 40 | 48 40 52 45 Memphis; enniy =) jaune: 382 | 24 48 52 39 Montgomery, Ala. . . . -j 06 - 56 76 63 Moorhead, Minn... .. © | es 24eieage 0 48 24 INew, Orleans, lias. enn eee 48 52 72 yi North! Platte, Nebr 9 see - 8 16 32 19 New, York,JN ay.) oA) coe emer: 48 72 56 80. 64 Omaha, Nebs- (45) fe - 8 24. 40 24 IEatitisio io; ee is) a ene 52 56 48 48 51 Ram taikvaiss),) Hild ee aene 48 - 84 72 68 StiLouis Mol) sae eee 32 24 32 52 35 Ste ann) Muaiainiye ccs eames 24 24 36 40 31 Sti. Vincent; Minny a9). sien 24 16 UE 28 23 Savana (Gals) wee 52 72 56 72 63 Shreveport, Jua: 2) =e emer - - 32 52 42 Toledo. O).,/. <3.) eu eee 28 30 52 76 | 46 Washington, D.C. . . | 56 48 72 72 62 Projecting the mean interval for the four — waves upon a chart (see accompanying plate). — ty tVincdn THE RATE OF MOTION IS GIVEN IN HOURS FROM FT. DUNVEGAN, B.C. SCIENCE. PUBLISHED BY OADER OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR. W.B.HAZEN, Brig, and B vt, Maj, Genl, U.S. Army’ Chief Signal Officer, \Obsenvations forthe Signal Service 7 Sv aretaken at 7 AMS PM&HEY Wavhin § tom tine # MOTION OF WAVES OFCOLD, NOVEMBER, 1881. ®epruary 8, 1884.] 152 and taking Fort Assinaboine as a starting-point, we obtain the following lines of advance : — SCIENCE. ie [Vor. IIl., No. 5 The boat, in this case, is connected to the balloon by suspension-cords running obliquely; on descent. Hours FROM Fort ASSINABOINE. 10. 20. 40, 50. St. Vincent, Minn. Huron, Dak. North Platte, Neb. Cheyenne, Wyo. Duluth, Minn. St. Paul, Minn. Leavenworth, Kan. Fort Sill, Tex. Santa Fé, New Mex. | Marquette, Mich. Milwaukee, Wis. Chicago, Ill. Memphis, Tenn. Denison, Tex. Concho, Tex. | Erie, Peun. Pittsburg, Penn. Knoxville, Tenn. Vicksburg, Miss. Brackettville, Tex. Rochester, N.Y. Washington, D.C. Charlotte, N.C. Augusta, Ga. Mobile, Ala. This shows that in November, 1881, the cold waves were about two days in travelling from Fort Assinaboine to Washington. It would be an interesting comparison if a like investiga- tion were undertaken for waves of heat, also, during other months of the year. A similar method may be applied to the advance of waves of high and low pressure, with the great advantage that clouds would not interfere with the determination of the time of passage. This subject has attracted much attention from time to time, and recently it has been taken up by Mr. A. N. Pearson of India (Nature, Aug. 9, 1883). The chief signal-officer has kindly permitted this publication in advance of a more extended investigation. H. A. Hazen. TISSANDIER’S ELECTRIC BALLOON.1— I. In describing recently the new hydrogen-gas appa- ratus which we had constructed in our workrooms at Paris-Auteuil, we mentioned that the governable electric balloon, which has been in preparation since the electrical exposition, was ready for trial. This took place the 8th of last October. The arrangement of the controllable electric balloon consists of three distinct pieces of apparatus, —the air-balloon, properly so called; the gas apparatus to inflate it; and the electric motor to supply freedom of motion by means of a screw. The construction of an elongated aerial ship pre- sented serious difficulties. We were aided by two ex- periments, — that of Mr. Henri Giffard in 1852, and that of Mr. Dupuy de Léme in 1872. In the model which we tried at the time of the electrical exposi- tion, we arranged for the suspension of the little boat a low rod, running longitudina similar to that of the air steamship of Mr. Giffard. We afterward con- cluded that it would be better to place the screw be- hind a large parallelopiped-shaped boat, high enough to protect the propeller against the danger of a shock 1 Translated from La Nature. and the deformations of the arrangement are escaped by means of a flexible shaft fixed at either side of the balloon. The balloon was constructed by my brother, in the rooms of Mr. H. Lachambre, to whom was intrusted the making of the new air-ship. A model 15 cubic metres in capacity was first made; and, after studying the action of this in a captive state, the construction of the large balloon (fig. 1) was begun. Its shape was like that of Mr. Giffard’s and Mr. De Léme’s balloons: it was 28 metres long, and 9.2 me- tres in diameter through the middle. On its lower surface, there is a cone with an automatic valve: it is made of a thin cloth, rendered impermeable by a new varnish prepared by Mr. Arnoul of Saint-Ouen- VAnmone. The capacity of the balloon is 1,060 cu- bic metres. The netting over the balloon is formed of ribbons woven with longitudinal spindles, which keep them in their proper geometric positions. The ribbons thus easily adapt themselves to the inflated material, and do not form projections, as do the meshes of a net. The netting is connected on the sides of the balloon with two flexible shafts, which perfectly conform to its shape, passing along the centre of each side. The shafts are made of thin walnut laths fitted with bamboo: they are connected by silk belts. At the lower end of the netting are intersecting rods, at the ends of which are twenty suspension-ropes con- nected in groups of five to the four upper corners of the car. This latter is in the form of a cage made of bundles of bamboo rods, strengthened by cords and threads of copper covered with gutta-percha. ‘The lower part is made of walnut cross-pieces, which sup- port the willow basket. The suspension-ropes en- tirely cover the boat: they are woven into the basket, being previously sheathed in caoutchouc, which, in case of accident, protects them from the acid liquid contained in the boat to feed the batteries. ‘The sus- pension-ropes are connected horizontally by rigging about two metres above the boat. The guide and anchor ropes are attached to this rigging, which also serves to equally distribute the traction during the descent. The rudder, a broad surface of unvarnished silk supported by bamboo, is also arranged behind. The weights of the different parts are as follows: — FEBRUARY 8, 1884. ] . SCIENCE. 153 == = —> ————S————————— ——s— S35 en = a Ee Trt | X\ ye Ae af oO ie a My (\\ , a i as i Pei Bacal { i | =n a a FL vt WU age =e NOOTIVE ONIATT SQUITANVSSTL—'T “OM Thee CT con a a i citi ae il Ge i i ul a ‘ssst ‘8 “LOO aasn Sv iting mine AN Ui a lig ; wm), i NN —————— ——————==—— —————— = = = —— _ ——— = SS ——$——— ———— ——— lf) ] Ali vili| | Li Wii ‘ACM \ NY) Hy} WT Hh a \ if ei ——<— ———————— = = = —— en Ail Hill v i | | } i | Ht i ti WI Hi | LU a yj eth i | PAA il CAAA ‘| f i i Pay! 154 Kiograms. Balloon, with thevalves\ 2). 040). eens, BluT0 Cover, with rudder and suspension-ropes. . 70 Hilexableiside:sihvaktsy.. Un en c's v1 Un eeh ee ea Oe Cary Pee) fea eed s bee ee ies Cac mee mt et LOO Motor, screw, and batteries, with liquid for Ps SOW 5 6 6 ay Nena GA Dae PANY Stopping-machinery (anchor and guide rope), 50 Weight of material Bod ts -— 704 Two passengers, with instruments . .. .. . 150 IS ANASUM EC Ia roe st coed Icio ps Wen deed ce fen pat OOO Total weight . 1,240 Allowing 10 kilograms, the lifting-force was 1,250 kilograms. The capacity of the balloon being 1,060 metres, the gas had a lifting-force of 1,180 grams per cubic metre, —a result not hitherto obtained in the production of large quantities of hydrogen. By the end of September the gas apparatus was ready for trial; the balloon was stretched out on the ground under a long tent, in order that it might be immediately inflated; the boat and the motor were stowed under a cart-house; and my brother and I were only awaiting good weather to make the trial. On the 6th of October there was a rise of barometer; on the 7th the weather was fine, with light wind; and we decided to make the experiment the follow- ing day, Oct. 8, 1883. The inflation of the balloon began at eight o’clock in the morning, and continued, without pause, till half-past two in the afternoon. ‘This operation was expedited by means of the equatorial ropes hanging at the right and left of the balloon, and to which were attached the ballast-bags. (The ropes are shown in fig. 2, which also presents the spindle- shaped balloon as seen from one end.) ‘The inflation completed, we proceeded to arrange the boat and the ebonite tanks, each of which contains thirty litres of the acid solution of bichromate of potassium. At twenty minutes past three, having heaped in the bal- last and obtained equilibrium, we were slowly raised into the air, a light east-south-east wind blowing. On the ground there was almost no wind; but, as fre- quently happens, it increased with the altitude; and we found, when the balloon had risen five hundred metres, that it attained a velocity of three metres a second. My brother was especially engaged in regulating the ballast, in order to keep a constant low altitude. The balloon was kept very regularly at a height of four or five hundred metres. It remained perfectly inflated; and the superfluous gas escaped by opening, under its pressure, the automatic valve, the action of which was very uniform. Several minutes after the departure, I tried the bichromate of potassium batteries, composed of four troughs with six compartments, making twenty- four elements in circuit. A mercury commutator enabled us to use at pleasure six, twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four elements, and thus to obtain four dif- ferent speeds of the screw, varying from sixty to a hundred and eighty revolutions per minute. With twelve elements, we found that the speed of the bal- loon was insufficient; but above the Bois de Boulogne, when our motor was working with great speed, with SCIENCE. or [Vor. III, No. | twenty-four elements a very different effect was pro- duced. The movement of the balloon became sud-— denly appreciable, and we felt a fresh breeze produced by our horizontal motion. With the balloon head to — the wind, pointing toward the belfry of the church © of the Auteuil, near our starting-point, we remained Fi4. 2. motionless, as we proved by noting conspicuous points beneath our car. Unfortunately it did not long maintain this position; but, after acting well for several instants, it suddenly began gyratory motions © which the rudder was powerless to completely control. In spite of the rotations which in later trials we were able to prevent, we tried the same experiment for more than twenty minutes, during which we could — perceive that we were over the Bois de Boulogne. — When we tried to change our position by cutting the — wind perpendicularly to its direction, the rudder — became inflated like a sail, and the rotations were — produced with much greater violence. From this we FEBRUARY 8, 1884.] assume that the position which an air-ship ought to occupy should be such that its major axis may make with the line of the wind an angle of several degrees. After the experiments we have just described, we stopped the motor, and the balloon passed over Mont- Valérien. Once, when it had taken the direction of the wind, we began again to turn the screw, proceed- ing this time with the current. The speed of the bal- loon was increased, and by means of the rudder we were now easily able to turn to the right or left from the line of the wind. We proved this by taking, as before, some point on the surface; and several spec- tators also verified it. At thirty-five minutes past four we made the de- scent in a large plain near Croissy-sur-Seine. The operation of landing was conducted by my brother with great success. We left the balloon inflated over night, and the next day it had not lost the least gas. Painters and photographers were enabled to obtain views of our air-ship, which was surrounded by a numerous and sympathetic assembly which the novel sight had attracted from all sides. We had intended to make a new ascent on this day: but, on account of the cold of the night, the bichromate of potassium in our ebonite tanks had crystallized; and the battery, which was by no means exhausted, was on this account, however, incapable of action. We drew the balloon to the shore of the Seine, near the bridge of Croissy; and there, to our great regret, we were obliged to discharge the gas, and to lose in a few instants what had required so much care in its preparation. Without describing in greater detail our return, we have concluded from this first trial that, 1°, electricity furnishes a balloon with the most convenient power, the management of which in the car is remarkably Casy; 2°, in our own case, when our screw, 2.8 metres in diameter, made a hundred and eighty revolutions per minute, we were able to keep head to a wind moving three metres per second, and, when proceeding with the current, to deviate from the line of the wind with great ease; 3°, the mode of sus- pension of a car from an elongated balloon by means of bands running obliquely, and supported by flexi- ble side-shafts, insures perfect stability to the whole. We ought to say that our ascent of Oct. 8 should be considered only as a preliminary trial, which will be repeated with the alterations which our experience commends. In addition, we would mention that there was in the car a considerable excess of ballast, and that eventually it will be possible for us to use a much more powerful motor. Aerial navigation will not be made practicable through a single attempt: it will require many trials and efforts and great perse- verance under every ordeal. (To be continued.) ZHE DISCOVERY OF THE GERM OF SWINE-PLAGUE. Iy a communication read before the Paris academy of sciences, Nov. 26, 1883, by M. Pasteur, the follow- ing paragraph occurs: — SCIENCE. 155 ‘As soon as [ received his [Thuillier’s| first letters from the commune of Peux, in the department of Vienne, it was certain that he had perceived in the blood and humors of the dead hogs a new microbion which it seemed should be the author of the disease. This microbion had escaped the observation of Dr. Klein of London, in the course of a long and remarkable ac- count of autopsies and experiments published three years before in the report of the English sanitary office. Dr. Klein stated that a microbion was the cause of the affection; but he committed an error, for the microbion that he described has no connection with the cause of vowget. Thuillier by his observation had over- come the principal difficulty to a knowledge of this disease of the hog. Historic truth, however, obliges me to declare, that in 1882, and also in the month of March, the microbion of vouget was signalled at Chicago, in America, by Professor Detmers, in a paper which does great honor to its author. ‘Thuillier could not have been acquainted with this paper, and I myself only learned of its existence very recently. The observation of the microbion of rouget of the hog by Thuillier dates from the 15th of March, 1882.” 1 It is so very seldom that investigations on this side of the water receive any notice whatever abroad, and particularly in France, that it seems a pity even to call attention to the very great injustice done to American work in the above statement, since any recognition at all is so much better than being quietly ignored. There is, however, so much of general in- terest in regard to the gradual development of our knowledge of the germ of this disease, so much of interest in the success and failures of those who have worked upon it, that, aside from our desire to see his- tory correctly written, there is sufficient incentive for tracing the progress of this study, which commenced when the first real light was breaking upon the germ- theory of disease. Dr. Klein deserves more credit for his share in the discovery of the micrococcus of swine-plague than M. Pasteur seems inclined to grant. In 1876 he published one of the first, if not the very first, relia- ble microscopic studies of this disease. ‘The care and skill shown in this investigation are more appar- ent to-day than when the details were first published; and, although he subsequently made the unfortunate mistake of attributing the cause of the disease to a bacillus, this fact should not be allowed to weigh against his former and really valuable researches.? In his account of the microscopic appearances of the intestine, the following sentence occurs: — ‘‘Hrom and even before the first signs of necrosis of the mu- cosa, viz., when the epithelium begins to break down and be shed from the surface, there are found masses of micrococci, which in some ulcers occupy a great portion of the débris.”5 A little farther on he says, — ‘There is one more point which I believe deserves careful at- tention. In the ulceration of the tongue just mentioned, and at a time when the superficial scab has not become removed, I have seen masses of micrococci situate chiefly in the tissue of the papillae, but at some places reaching as far deep as the inflam- 1 La vaccination du rouget des porcs a Vaide du virus mortel atténué de cette maladie. PASTEUR et THUILLIER. Comptes rendus, Xevii. p. 1164. ? Report on the so-called enteric or typhoid-fever of the pig, by Dr. Kien. In Reports of the medical officer of the privy council and local government board. New series, No. VIII. teport to the Lords of the council on scientific investigations, etc., 1876, pp. 91-101. 3 Joe. cit., p. 98. 156 mation extends. That they are micrococci was proved by their forming lumps of uniform granules; these lumps stain deep pur- ple-blue in haematoxylin, and are thus very conspicuous, and besides resist the action of caustic potash, with which all the rest of the tissue disappears. These heaps of micrococci in locality correspond to the papillae, and are on the surface of the scab, but underneath the covering epithelium, some parts of this having changed into a dry, hard, discolored mass, others con- taining larger or smaller vesicles filled with fluid.” 1 In the examination of the respiratory organs we are given even stronger evidence for connecting these organisms with the cause of the disease. In the mucous membrane of the anterior surface of the epiglottis, which was only slightly inflamed in its sub- mucous tissue, he found — “Lymphatic vessels filled with micrococci. . .. In the infil- trated, firm, more or less disintegrating parts [of the lung] I find great masses of micrococci filling up capillaries and veins, and also contained in lymphatics around arteries.2 . . . The pleurais much swollen, and contains great numbers, continuous layers, of lumps of micrococci. The free surface of the membrane is in many parts covered with them. The exudation fluid is also charged with them as has been mentioned above.’ ® We have here the record of the unbiassed savant seeking after the truth, and describing what he sees without any attempt to draw conclusions or build up theories. It was before Koch’s brilliant investiga- tions, identifying the Bacillus anthracis as the active principle in charbon virus, had seen the light. There was still the greatest doubt as to whether the contagia were essentially animal cells, vegetable organisms, or chemical poisons. It would have been premature to have presented the micrococci at that time as the cause of the disease, though it is evident from these obser- vations that they existed in the tissues of the body before the death of the animal. We have conse- quently two questions to consider in an inquiry of this kind; viz., (1) Who is entitled to priority for discovering and demonstrating the presence of micro- cocci in the tissues and liquids of diseased animals? and (2) Who was first in proving the connection be- tween the micrococci and the essential constituent of the virus ? It seems very evident that Dr. Klein discovered the micrococci as early as 1876, but it is equally evident that his investigations were not sufficient to show that this parasite was the cause of the disease. The fact that from later observations, of an entirely differ- ent nature, le attributed the cause to another organ- ism, surely can at this day detract nothing from the merits of the paper from which I have just quoted; and it must consequently be acknowledged as a matter of historical truth, the data of which are fully recorded, that Klein discovered the micrococci of swine-plague long before they were seen by Pasteur and Thuillier. We can now pass to a brief consideration of the investigations which were intended to connect certain organisms found in the tissues or liquids of diseased and dead animals with the cause of the disease. In 1878 a second and very elaborate report was made by Dr. Klein,* in which he gives experiments 1 Loc. cit., p. 99. 2 Tbid., p. 100. 3 Tbid., p. 101. * Report on infectious pneumo-enteritis of the pig (so-called pig-typhoid), by Dr. E. Klein, F.R.S. Report of the medical officer of the local government board. London, 1877 and 1878, pp. 169-290. SCIENCE. Wyaeere =? 7) ee ? [Vou. IIL, No. 53 that are supposed to demonstrate the pathogenic na- ture of a specific bacillus found in certain liquids of diseased hogs, and cultivated for several generations in the aqueous humor from rabbits’ eyes. Coming so soon after the publication of Koch’s remarkable studies of the life-history of the anthrax bacillus, and agreeing so closely with them in all important re-— | spects, it is scarcely to be doubted that the earlier conclusions had more or less influence in shaping the later ones. While it might be interesting to the specialist to enter into details in regard to the defec- tive methods of cultivation used, the unsatisfactory results of the microscopic examination of the tissues -and fresh liquids for the bacilli, and the still more unsatisfactory results of the inoculation experiments with the cultivated organisms, our space will not per- mit this at present. In behalf of a most indefatigable worker, however, I would call attention to the fact that this mistake of Klein’s was not so extraordinary as it may appear to many to-day, because the methods of cultivating and studying disease-germs have to a large extent been perfected since that time. In the same year a number of persons were ap- pointed by the U. S. commissioner of agriculture to investigate the disease known in this country as hog-cholera. The greater part of these served but two months; but Dr. Detmers, having reported the discovery of the disease-germ, was allowed to con- tinue his investigations. In his first report, Dr. Det- mers stated that the disease was caused by a bacillus, which he named Bacillus suis, because the same, so far as he was able to learn, was peculiar to and char- acteristic of swine-plague.! He saw micrococci, but regarded them as bacillus germs: indeed, he states that he constantly observed one of these under the microscope while it ‘‘ budded, and grew to double its length, in exactly two hours.”’ ? 5 This report of Dr. Detmers; coming so soon after Klein’s, and attributing the virulence to a bacillus of substantially the same characters as that described by Klein, while the latter’s micrococci were made to do duty as bacillus germs, —a relation which had been previously ascribed to them by the medical officer in his ‘ preliminary note,’ though it was not suggested by the English investigator himself, —did much to confirm the bacillus theory, and to convince scien- tific men that the parasite of another contagious fever had actually been isolated, and its connection with the disease demonstrated. In January, 1880, M. Mégnin published the results of a microscopic examination of the blood in this disease, in which he described and figured a micrococ- cus.? This organism existed in single granules, and also in clusters and chains, and agreed so closely with one subsequently studied by me that I reproduced the drawings of it in connection with my report written the following December.? 1 Department of agriculture. Special report, No. 12, 1879, © p. 42. 2 Loe. cit., p. 53. 3 Recueil de médecine vétérinaire, 1880, pp. 36, 37. 4 Department of agriculture. 81, plate IX. Special report, No. 34, pp. 80, FEBRUARY 8, 1884.] In his second report,! Dr. Detmers does not seem to have materially modified the views referred to above, though he had been studying the disease dur- ing the whole of another year. In discussing ac- cepted classifications in his supplemental report, he says, — ** All, however, seem to agree, that those Schizomycetes classed by them under the name of ‘ Bacillus’ do not form clusters or colonies (rasen, zoogloea-masses, gliacoccus, orcocoglia), and do not undergo metamorphoses from globular to rod-shaped Schizomycetes, two things decidedly characteristic of the micro- scopic parasites of the Schizomycetes family as found in swine- plague; consequently the name adopted, Bacillus, was not well chosen and is not suitable.’ 2 As I have shown elsewhere,? the two points re- ferred to would not exclude an organism from the genus Bacillus. The best-known bacilli certainly develop from resting spores of an oval form, as seen under the microscope: some of these spores approach very closely to the globular; and, if they should be per- fect spheres, the classification would not be affected in the least. The other point—that an organism, multiplying as a micrococcus, after a time develops into a rod-shaped body —is an idea, that, although it is persistently pressed in some quarters, has never been accepted by the best authorities, and is no more true of the organism in question than of other forms of micrococci, as I have assured myself by long series of cultivations. The fact of greatest impor- tance to the present inquiry is, that up to this time Dr. Detmers considered the organism of swine-plague to be rod-shaped in its developed form. This sup- plemental report, in which the first doubts are ex- pressed in regard to the organism being a real bacillus, was dated six weeks after the appearance oi Mégnin’s paper, and was not distributed for seven or eight months subsequent to this. It is to be re- membered, also, that in none of the above investiga- tions were any sufficient precautions taken to exclude atmospheric germs from the liquids examined, and no pure cultivations were made. It was therefore a matter of considerable doubt whether the organisms described were really in the blood as it circulated in the living animal, or whether they were intro- duced post mortem. The third report of Dr. Detmers bears the date of Dec. 4, 1880.4 In this it was stated that the ‘‘ swine- plague Schizophytae present themselves in different shape and form.” The simplest form is that of a micrococcus. The second form is bispherical: the Spherical cell has grown and become contracted, or na in the middle, forming two united gran- ules. “These bispherical Schizophytae are always more or less nu- merous, are either at rest or moving, and usually provided at one end with a flagellum or post-flagellum, which, however, is so exceedingly fine that I have never seen it except with the she homogeneous immersion objective of Tolles, and an ampli- fication of over 1,500 diameters, and then only while the Schizo- phytae was moving.” 1 Department of agriculture. Special report, No. 22, pp. 13-67. 2 Loc. cit , p. 60. * Special report, No. 34, p. 68. 4 Special report, No. 34, pp. 153-195. > Loe: cit., p. 187. SCIENCE. , 157 C He then goes on to describe the formation of a chain of bispherical elements, and mentions the existence of zoogloea masses as well. He had not yet given up the rod or bacillus form: for he states that in the blood and pleural exudation, when a day or two old, and sometimes while yet fresh, rod- shaped bacteria can be observed; and it appears probable that the same constitute another form of the swine-plague Schizophytae.+ The same volume contained a report of mine in which are detailed certain experiments and observa- tions on the schizophytes peculiar to this disease. In this report was given a description of the first successful attempts, as I believe, to demonstrate what -micro-organisms, if any, existed in the blood and other liquids of living hogs sick with swine-plague. To keep the liquids to be examined free from all sus- picion of contamination, vacuum tubes were pre- pared by drawing to a point the two ends of a small piece of glass tubing about a fifth of an inch in diameter. A drop or two of water was then as- pirated into this tube, boiled to secure a vacuum, and the ends immediately sealed. ‘The tube was now heated to redness to destroy any bacteria spores that might still be in it, and it was ready for filling with the virulent liquid. In use, a very sick hog was killed, a vein laid bare, sometimes before the animal was quite dead, the vacuum tube was passed through the flame of an alcohol lamp, the finely drawn-out end forced into the vein and broken across its walls, when it would immediately fill, and was sealed in the lamp as soon as withdrawn.” It is plain that such tubes could be preserved indefinitely for exam- ination without any suspicion of atmospheric con- tamination. The only change that could occur would be due to a continued multiplication, —a kind of cultivation of the organisms which had existed in the blood of the living animal. Three separate outbreaks of swine-plague at widely separated points were investigated; and in every one, I found, by the method of study just referred to, that the virulent liquids contained micrococci, sin- gle, and in chains and clusters, but never rod forms, except in those cases where the tubes did not fill well, or where they were imperfectly sealed. And ‘blood from the most perfect of these tubes, which contained no visible organisms but micrococci, pro- duced unmistakable and severe cases of swine-plague in inoculated animals.2 These were the first experi- ments in which the virulent material, preserved free from suspicion of atmospheric contamination, was shown to contain but a single species of schizophytes; and they were consequently the first which indicated any connection between the micrococci and the essen- tial cause of this disease. In his fourth report, Dr. Detmers states positively that some of the swine-plague organisms develop a lasting spore, and are changed into a helobacterium.* But there is no account of any measures adopted to decide which of the forms observed in the impure liquids examined had existed in the body of the 1 Loe. cit., p.188. % Tbid.,p.22. % Lbid., pp. 23, 24. 4 Department of agriculture. Annual report, 1881 and 1882. 158 living animal; nor was there any substantial reason given for considering the helobacterium as belonging to the same species as the micrococci, or, if they happened to be different, which, if either, was able to cause the disease. The same volume contains my report bearing the date of Jan. 27, 1882. In this are details of success- ful inoculation experiments with the sixth pure cul- tivation of micrococci which had been obtained and cultivated with every precaution known to science at the present day.! It was the first real evidence of the pathogenic action of these organisms. It was equally satisfactory with the experiments of MM. Pasteur and Thuillier; and the inoculations were made Jan. 17, 1881, or fourteen months before the discovery of this same organism by these gentlemen. The communication of Dr. Detmers, referred to by M. Pasteur, appeared in the American naturalist for March and April, 1882, and was a résumé of his studies for the department of agriculture. In this article he still thinks there is just cause to suppose that the organism of swine-plague has a helobac- terium, or rod form, and a resting spore. ‘There are, however, no new observations or experiments referred to, there is no additional proof that the micro- cocci seen by him were not the result of atmospheric contamination, — nothing to show that a pure culti- vation of these would produce the disease. On the other hand, the organism which he describes pos- sesses a flagellum, and a moving stage or period, neither of which have I been able to observe with the true germ of this disease, nor with the closely allied micrococcus which causes fowl-cholera. It is a matter of record, therefore, that the organ- ism which constitutes the cause of swine-plague was first discovered by Klein in 1876, but that he failed to connect it in any way with the virus of the dis- ease, and afterwards concluded that it depended upon a very different schizophyte. It is also a matter of record that I was the first to demonstrate by satis- factory methods that this micrococcus exists in the blood during the life of the animal, that it can be cultivated in flasks, and that the sixth successive cul- tivation, made in considerable quantities of liquid, and which contained no other form than micrococ- cus, still produced the disease. Neither Pasteur and Thuillier, nor any other investigators that Iam aware of, have ‘added one particle of evidence, except by way of confirmation, to that previously advanced by me. M. Pasteur is usually very particular in giving credit, but he does not seem to be keeping up with the progress of American science. D. E. SALMON. MIGRATION OF BIRDS IN ENGLAND. THE general report of the committee of the British association, of which this is in fact an abstract, com- prises the observations taken at lighthouses and light- vessels, and a few special land- seh on the east 1 Loc. cit., pp. 267-269. 2 Report of the committee of the British association for the advancement of science, appointed for the purpose of obtaining observations on the migration of birds at lighthouses and light- ships, and of reporting on the same. (From Nature.) SCIENCE. and west coasts of England and Scotland, the coasts of Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Orkney, and Shetland Isles, the Hebrides, Faroes, Iceland, and Heligoland, and one Baltic station (Stevns Eye q on Stevns Klint, Zealand), for which the committee ~ is indebted to Professor Liutken of Copenhagen. Altogether, a hundred and ninety-six stations have been supplied with schedules and printed instruc- tions for registering observations, and returns have been received from about a hundred and twenty- three, —a result which is very satisfactory, show- ing, as it does, the general interest taken in the work, and the ready co-operation given by the light- keepers in assisting the committee. As in preceding years, the line of autumn migra- tion has been a broad stream from east to west, or from points south of east to north of west, and cover- ing the whole of the east coast. In 1880, to judge from the returned schedules, a large proportion of the immigrants came in at the more southern stations; in 1881 they covered the whole of the east coast in — tolerably equal proportions; but in 1882 the stations north of the Humber showed a marked preponderance of arrivals. Altogether, a vast migration took place this year upon our east coast; the heaviest waves breaking upon the mouth of the Humber, Flam- borough Head, the Farne Islands, Isle of May at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, and again, after miss- ing a long extent of the Scotch coast, at the Pent- land Skerries. The Bell Rock also came in for a share, although apparently a much smaller one than the Isle of May. The easterly winds prevailed all along our east coasts, generally strong to gales; and the succession of south-easterly and easterly gales in October, between the 8th and 23d, occurring as they did at the usual time of the principal migration, brought vast numbers of land-birds to our shores. From the Faroes in the north, to the extreme south of England, this is found to have been the case. Although migration —that is, direct migration — on our east coast is shown to have extended over a long period, commencing in July, and continuing, with but slight intermissions, throughout the autumn and into the next year to the end of January, yet the main body of migrants appears to haye reached the east coast in October, and of these a large proportion during the first fortnight in the month. From the 6th to the Sth inclusive, and again from the 12th to the 15th, there was, night and day, an enormous rush, ~ under circumstances of wind and weather, which, observations have shown, are most unfavorable to a good passage.- During these periods, birds arrived in an exhausted condition; and we have reasons for con- cluding, from the many reported as alighting on fish- — ing-smacks and vessels in the North Sea, that the © loss of life must have been very considerable. Large — flights, also, are recorded as having appeared round the lanterns of lighthouses and lightvessels during the night migration. From the 6th to the 9th inclu-— sive, strong east winds blew over the North Sea, with fog and drizzling rain; and from the night of the 12th to “7th very similar wean prevailed. Mr. W. Little- wood, of the Galloper lightship, forty miles south-east r i ¥ FEBRUARY 8, 1884. ] of Orfordness, reports, that, on the night of Oct. 6, larks, starlings, tree-sparrows, titmice, common wrens, red-breasts, chaffinches, and plovers were picked up on the deck, and that it is calculated that from five hundred to six hundred struck the rigging and fell overboard: a large proportion of these were larks. _ Thousands of birds were flying round the lantern from 11.30 p.m. to 4.45 a.M., their white breasts, as they dashed to and fro in the circle of light, having the appearance of a heavy snow-storm. This was repeated on the Sth and 12th; and on the night of the 13th a hundred and sixty were picked up on deck, including larks, starlings, thrushes, and two red- breasts. It was thought that a thousand struck, and went overboard into the sea. It is only on dark, rainy nights, with snow or fog, that such casualties occur: when the nights are light, or any stars visible, the birds give the lanterns a wide berth. Undoubtedly the principal feature of the autumn migration has been the extraordinary abundance of the gold-crested wren. The flights appear to have covered not only the east coast of England, but to have extended southward to the Channel Islands, and northward to the Faroes (see report, East coast of Scotland). On the east coast of England they are recorded at no less than twenty-one stations from the Farne Islands to the Hanois lighthouse, Guernsey, and on the east coast of Scotland at the chief stations from the Isle of May to Sunburgh Head; at which latter station they have rarely been seen in previous years. Mr. Garrioch, writing from Lerwick, says, ““In the evening of Oct. 9 my attention was called to a large flock of birds crossing the harbor from the Island of Bressay; and, on coming to a spot on the shore where a number had taken refuge from the storm, I found the flock to consist of gold-crests and afew fire-crests amongst them. The gold-crests spread over the entire island, and were observed in consider- able numbers till the middle of November.’’ The earliest notice on the east coast is Aug. 6; the latest, Nov. 5, or ninety-two days. They arrived somewhat sparingly in August and September, and in enormous numbers in October, more especially on the nights of Oct. 7 and 12, at the latter date with the woodcock. This flight appears to have extended across England to the Irish coast; foron the night of the 12th a dozen struck the lantern of the Tuscar Rock lighthouse, and on the night of the 13th they were continually Striking all night. During the autumn, enormous numbers crossed Heligoland, more especially in Octo- ber. On the night from the 28th to the 29th, Mr. Gatke remarks, ‘‘ We have had a perfect storm of _gold-crests, perching on the ledges of the window- panes of the lighthouse, preening their feathers in the glare of the lamps. On the 29th all the island swarmed with them, filling the gardens and over all the cliff, — hundreds of thousands. By 9 A.M. most of them had passed on again.’’ Not less remarkable was the great three-days’ flight of the common jay, past and across Heligoland, on Oct. 6, 7, and 8. Thousands on thousands, without interruption, passed on overhead, north and south of the island too, — multitudes like a continual stream, all going east ~~ SCIENCE. 159 ’ to west in a strong south-easterly gale. It would have been interesting if we had been able to corre- late this migration of jays with any visible arrival on our English coast, but in none of the returns is any mention made of jays. Subsequently we have re- ceived numerous notices of extraordinary numbers seen during the winter in our English woodlands. This seems especially to have been the case south of a line drawn from Flamborough Head to Portland Bill in Dorset. Additions and unusual numbers were also observed at Arden on Loch Lomond side. The returns show very clearly that the spring lines of migration followed by birds are the same as those in the autumn, but of course in the reverse direction, —from west and north-west to east and south-east. Another point worth noting is the occurrence of many species in spring at the same stations frequented by the species in autumn: thus double records occur at the Mull of Galloway, Bell Rock, Isle of May, as well as at some English 3:1 As this is the fourth report issued by the commit- tee, we may, perhaps, with the mass of facts at our disposal, be expected to draw deductions which, if they do not explain, may serve at least to throw some light on the causes influencing the migration of birds. We might reasonably reply that the work undertaken by us was not to theorize, or attempt explanations, but simply to collect facts, and tabulate them. This we have endeavored to do in the shortest and sim- plest manner consistent with accuracy of detail. There is, however, one circumstance which can scarcely fail to present itself to those who have gone carefully into the reports issued by the committee; namely, the marvellous persistency with which, year by year, birds follow the same lines, or great high- ways of migration, when approaching or leaving our shores. The constancy of these periodical phenomena is suggestive of some settled law or principle govern- ing the movement. It is clearly evident, from the facts already at our disposal, that there are two distinct migrations going forward at the same time, — one the ordinary flow in the spring, and ebb in the autumn, across the whole of Europe. Zor uM” light per elec- No trical horse-power. It seems evident that this difference of twenty-five per cent in favor of the Edison lamp is largely due to the form of the incan- descent filament as compared with that of the Maxim lamp. The latter shows great inequal- ity in illumination in different directions, the light measured from the flat side being about three and one-half times as great as that ob- SCIENCE. 185 tained when the lamp is edgewise. The effect of this increased radiating surface is shown in the last column of the above table, from which it appears, that in the comparison of the Maxim, ‘ flat,’ with the Edison in all posi- tions, the former shows a higher actual effi- ciency than the latter. If this large radiating surface could be made to distribute its effect around the circumference, the lamp would, in the opinion of many, be greatly improved. It is fair to say, however, that the unequal dis- tribution of light is claimed, by at least some of the representatives of this lamp, to be an important advantage. It was not so considered by the jury. The form of the carbon filament in the Edi- son lamp is such that a much greater uniformity of illumination results. While the Maxim form has the advantage of concentrating the radiat- ing surface, the arrangement of the carbon to accomplish this greatly diminishes its effective- ness in the ‘edgewise’ position. Inthe Edison there is but a single loop ; and, furthermore, this is generally curved, so that it does not lie in one plane. As a result, one side of the loop never exactly hides the other, and there is but little loss from that source. It will be seen in the above figure that the illuminating-power of the lamp edgewise actually exceeded that in any other direction. This difference was too constant and too great to be attributed to error in experiment. It is attributable, no doubt, to the fact, that in this position the lu- minous lines lie nearly in the axis of the pear- shaped glass containing them, as viewed from the photometer-box; there being, therefore, less scattering of the light in transmission, and possibly some gain on account of reflection. Of course, if a lamp were used in which one of the branches of the loop exactly or nearly covered the other in this position, a different ratio of illumination might follow. Throughout the entire series of tests the jury was fortunate in having the assistance of Mr. A. L. Rohrer, a student in physics in the Ohio state university. In the distribution of work, Mr. Eddy and Mr. Laidlaw made the observations, and kept the records of the dynamometer work; Mr. Laidlaw also taking and reducing the indicator- cards. Mr. French made the readings of the position of the photometer-box, and set the same. Mr. Mendenhall generally read one of the galvanometers, and Mr. Rohrer the other ; the latter generally keeping the notes of the electrical work, although this was done on several occasions by Mr. French and by Mr. Laidlaw. 186 The results of these tests seem to point to one conclusion of very considerable interest. It happened that the competition in both the arc and incandescent systems was between low electromotive force and great strength of cur- rent, on the one hand, and high electromotive force, with weaker current, on the other. In one arc system the electromotive force was almost exactly double, and the current almost exactly half, that of the other. In the incan- descent systems, the contrast, although not so great, was very marked. Im these trials the advantage was decidedly on the side of high electromotive force. NOTES ON THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION OF MOUNT ST. AUGUSTIN, ALASKA, OCT. 6, 1883.1 On the western side of the entrance to Cook’s Inlet (forty-five miles wide) lies Cape Doug- las ; and to the northward of the cape the shore recedes over twenty miles, forming the Bay of Kamishak. In the northern part of this bay lies the Island of Chernaboura (‘ black-brown’), otherwise called Augustin Island. It is eight or nine miles in diameter, and near its north- eastern part rises to a peak called by Cook, Mount St. Augustin. As laid down by Teben- koff, the island is nearly round. The northern shores are high, rocky, and forbidding, and are bordered by vast numbers of rocks and hidden dangers. ‘The southern shore is comparatively low. Mount St. Augustin was discovered and named by Capt. Cook, May 26, 1778; and he describes it as having ‘a conical figure, and of very considerable height.’ In 1794 Puget de- scribes it as ‘* A very remarkable mountain, rising with a uni- form ascent from the shores to its lofty summit, which is nearly perpendicular to the centre of the island, inclining somewhat to its eastern side. . . . Towards the seaside it is very low, from whence it rises, though regular, with a rather steep ascent, and forms a lofty, uniform, and conical mountain, presenting nearly the same appearance from every point of view, and clothed with snow and ice, through which neither tree nor shrub were seen to protrude; so that, if it did produce any, they must either have been very small, or the snow must have been sufficiently deep to have con- cealed them.”’ At that time there were native hunters, under the direction of two Russians, hunting or liv- ing in the vicinity of the north-eastern point of the island. Vancouver placed the peak of this mountain 1 Communicated by Prof. J. E. Hilgard, superintendent U. 8. coast and geodetic survey. SCIENCE. in latitude 59° 22’: OR OP en, | [Vor. IIL., No. 54. Tebenkoff places it in lati- — tude 59° 24’. The peak of St. Augustin is distant forty- nine miles nearly due west (true) from the set- tlement on the southern point of Port Graham, or, as it is sometimes called, English Harbor. This harbor is situated on the eastern side of Cook’s Inlet, near Cape Elizabeth. In connection with the fall of pumice-dust at Iliuliuk on Oct. 16, 1883, it may be of in- terest to observe, that the peak of Augustin is over seven hundred miles to the north-eastward of Bogosloff Island, off Unalashka (see map). About eight o’clock on the morning of Oct. 6, 1883, the weather being beautifully clear, the wind light from the south-westward (com- pass), and the tide at dead low water, the settlers and fishing-parties at English Harbor heard a heavy report to windward (Augustin bearing south-west by west three-fourths west by compass). So clear was the atmosphere that the opposite or north-western coast of the inlet was in clear view at a distance of more than sixty miles. When the heavy explosion was heard, vast and dense volumes of smoke were seen rolling out of the summit of St. Augustin, and mov- ing to the north-eastward (or up the inlet) under the influence of the lower stratum of wind ; and, at the same time (according to the statements of a hunting-party of natives in Kamishak Bay), a column of white vapor arose from the sea near the island, slowly ascending, and gradually blending with the clouds. The — sea was also greatly agitated and boiling, mak- ~ ing it impossible for boats to land upon or to leave the island. ¢ | Oe ee ek Ae From English Harbor (Port Graham) it was noticed that the columns of smoke, as they grad- ually rose, spread over the visible heavens, and obscured the sky, doubtless under the influence of a higher current (probably north or north- east). Fine pumice-dust soon began to fall, but gently, some of it being very fine, and some very soft, without grit. At about twenty-five minutes past eight a.M., or twenty-five minutes after the great eruption, a great ‘ earthquake wave,’ estimated as from twenty-five to thirty feet high, came upon Port Graham like a wall of water. It carried off — all the fishing-boats from the point, and deluged ~ the houses. This was followed, at intervals of about five minutes, by two other large waves, estimated at eighteen and fifteen feet; and during the day several large and irregular waves came into the harbor. The first wave took all the boats into the harbor, the reced- ing wave swept them back again to the inlet, i 187 SCIENCE FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] Sapy Likturn e i nt|Hope 4 | | RI a tn 7 osrence NOS ( \ Kolo Job. 59) ie \ Redo au a ae Nunival |T. | ‘vy : A ie c= *b gemidi 108: 2/4: i * a d hiv rf t Hagmeisler te 9} St.Paul T, 2 St. George I. Port ate 3 K y a- Sannakh L. Makushin Volcano, O™~ Bogoslofr aT Liuttute 5 Unalashka T. U.S. COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY As | JE Hilgard, Supt. Lae | ALASKA AND ADJOINING REGION ———————————— eet 188 and they were finally stranded. Fortunately it was low water, or all of the people at the settlement must inevitably have been lost. The tides rise and fall about fourteen feet. These earthquake waves were felt at Kadiak, and are doubtless recorded on the register of the coast-survey tide-gauge at that place. Also the pumice-ashes fell to the depth of four or five inches, and a specimen of the deposit was given to the tidal observer at St. Paul. It will be interesting to compare these ashes with those collected at Iliuliuk on the 16th of October, and which, from a confusion of dates, were supposed to have come from the new Bogosloff volcanicisland. Iam of the opinion that they came from St. Augustin. The condition of the Island of Augustin or MOUNT ST. AUGUSTIN AFTER THE ERUPTION, Chernaboura, according to the latest accounts, . is this : — At night, from a distance of fifty or sixty mniles, flames can be seen issuing from the sum- mit of the volcano; and in the day-time vast volumes of smoke roll from it. Upon nearer approach from English Harbor, it was found that the mountain had been split in two from peak to base by a great rupture extending across it from east to west, and that the north- ern slope of the mountain had sunk away to the level of the northern cliff. This is corrobo- rated by the statement of the hunting-party in Kamishak Bay. Smoke issued from the peak at a very short distance to the southward of the rupture. The party of natives on Kamishak did not approach the islet, though they gave clear and i Capt. Cullie’s account. SCIENCE. ' distinct accounts of its eruption and subse- AS SEEN BY CAPT. CULLIE, Nov. 10, 1883. -[Vou. IIL, No. 54. — quent appearance; but Capt. C. T. Sands, who was at English Harbor, gave the Alaska company a full description; and Capt. Cullie of the Kodiak states, that, if there were plenty of water in the line of rupture, it would be pos- sible for a vessel to sail through (see figure). At the time of Capt. Sands’s observations the low ground of the island was visible, and seemed to be a vast crater, from which smoke and flames were issuing. But beyond all these phenomena, apart from the volcanic eruption and the rupture of the island, we have the report of Capt. Cullie of the schooner Kodiak (from whom we also ob- tain a statement in regard to the rupture), who approached the island from English Harbor on | ad, THE ORIGINAL OUTLINE. the 10th of November, and found that a new island, about a mile and a half long and seven- ty-five feet high, had been upheaved in the ten- fathom passage between Augustin and the main- land to the westward. ‘This passage is from six to eight miles wide, and was sailed through by Puget in Vancouver’s voyages of discovery. This new island (also reported by the hunt- ing-party in Kamishak) would appear to have arisen during the late volcanic activity. It lies to the north-westward of Chernaboura Island (Augustin), and was distinctly seen from the Kodiak, as that vessel lay ten miles to the, north- eastward, and had clear weather. To show the violence of the volcanic con- vulsions at this time, two extinct volcanoes on — the Alaska peninsula, which are reported to be about west (true) from the active voleano Ili- amna (twelve thousand feet high), had burst — . ; ? ; 1 ¥ ii 4 FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] into activity; and during the day volumes of smoke were distinctly seen, and columns of flame at night. gustin and the peak are covered with deep snow. On the 10th of November, however, when Capt. Cullie approached the island, while there was a depth of four feet of snow at Port Graham (English Harbor), Mount St. Augus- tin was bare and black. During this same season, a party of seven or eight Aleuts had established themselves on Chernaboura (Augustin) Island to hunt the otter during the winter. Two of the women refused to remain on account of the violent noises inside Mount St. Augustin; and they were taken to St. Paul, Kadiak. Since the eruption no one of this party has been seen, nor any signs of their bidarkas, although a rescuing party of natives had gone along the coast to learn of their whereabouts. It is feared, therefore, that they have been de- stroyed. In confirmation of this report of the native women, Capt. Sands says that he and others noticed that St. Augustin was emitting smoke as far back as August; but no other signs were observed before the heavy report of Oct. 6. GEORGE DAVIDSON, Assistant U.S. coust and geodetic survey. THE COD-HATCHING EXPERIMENTS AT GLOUCESTER BY THE FISH COM- MISSION. In the winter of 1878 and 1879 the Fish- commission at that time having a station at Gloucester, Mass., made very extensive exper- iments upon the hatching of certain salt-water fish, but more especially of the cod (Gadus morrhua). For years the cod has been al- most entirely confined to the deeper waters on the coast, having been driven there by many causes, sewerage being the most probable and potent; and it has been since the discovery of America that these fish, at that time extremely abundant everywhere along the shore, even to such an extent that they could be caught in great numbers from any point of rocks, have become reduced in numbers to their present comparative scarceness, and at the same time driven from their former haunts to the deeper waters. Taking into account this remarkable decrease in numbers, and change of habitat, Professor Baird conceived the idea that the former abundance of cod could in part be restored by means of artificial propagation, which had proved so successful with the fresh- water species of fish. Many difficulties stood SCIENCE. Usually, at that season, Au- . 189 in the way, — difficulties which had never been encountered in any previous experiments. The principal trouble which was experienced resulted from the floating of the eggs, and it was only after many trials and numerous failures that an apparatus was invented which in part prevented the eggs from clogging the screen placed over the overflow-pipe. The location for the primary experiments was fixed at Gloucester, on account of the great industry of catching and preparing these fish, which is centred there. Vessels and boats arrive every day during the winter months, bringing in fresh cod, many of them contain- ing spawn. By the request of the commis- sioner, such fish were kept alive until they could be put into the live-box at the hatchery. It was also possible, and this was the most im- portant reason for the choice, to carry on im- portant investigations into the natural history of the deep-sea food-fishes, and to gather valu- able statistics concerning the fisheries ; it be- ing impossible to get such information in any other place. Many obstacles arose, owing to the location. A temperature of 30° F. is fatal to cod; and, as the surface-water in the harbor is lable to reach this point at any time during two or three months of the winter, it was necessary that the car containing the live fish from which spawn was to be taken should be constantly watched, and sunk to the bottom during every cold snap. The filthiness of the water caused by decaying waste portions of fish thrown into the docks — these being common receptacles for all dirt and refuse formed by the dressing-process — was such, that, even after the most careful filter- ing, the water was in a decidedly impure con- dition. The north-east storms so prevalent on the Massachusetts coast, especially during winter, kept the water in a roiled condition for a greater part of the time; so that when it reached the aquaria, although a great part of the mud had been filtered out, still the mudi- ness was apparent. Such a condition could not be other than an unhealthy one for young fish whose parents had been accustomed to the clear, cool, outer waters. When there were no storms, the great rise and fall of tide, about eleven feet, sufficed to keep the finer mud in constant circulation. But, notwith- standing these numerous obstacles, over one million and a half young cod were successfully hatched, and placed in the clearer waters of the outer harbor at Gloucester. On account of the impurity of the water even there, and the adverse conditions under which they were hatched, it was scarcely expected that any 190 practical increase in the number of cod would be noticed as the result of these experiments. However, the results obtained proved conclu- sively, that if carried on under favorable cir- cumstances, and with the experience gained at Gloucester, hatching deep-sea fish could be successfully engaged in, and made a gréat success. It was with this belief that an ap- propriation was obtained from Congress for building the extensive hatching houses and basins which are in progress of erection at Wood’s Holl, Mass. Here the harbor is very pure, there being no city emptying its refuse into the immediate waters. The bottom is com- posed of clean sand; while the water is pure and not too cold, receiving an offshoot of the Gulf Stream, instead of the Labrador current, as is the case at Gloucester. Here the tides, although forming swift currents by the pouring of immense quantities of water through narrow outlets, rise but two feet, which is a decided advantage. Within forty miles of the hatchery, fish can be caught in sufficient abundance to supply the wants of the commission ; and it is to be expected that results of great importance will be obtained by hatching and placing young food-fish in the water at various points along the New-England coast. For at least a year, reports have been prev- alent to the effect that small cod belonging to the deep-sea species have been, and are at pres- ent, very abundant in the harbor at Gloucester. In order to find out definitely, Professor Baird asked me to inquire, and collect specimens if possible, while I was at Gloucester, in October. I ascertained, that, since the winter of 1882, ‘silver-gray cod’ (G. morrhua) have been caught in abundance, and of just the size that the artificially hatched fish would naturally be at this time. Not only are cod obtained in the outer harbor by the fishermen, but even in the impure waters of the extreme inner harbor, where they are frequently caught by boys fish- ing for flounders. A specimen taken in this manner was found by Capt. Collins in the taxi- dermist’s store, and forwarded to Professor Baird. It proved to be the true deep-sea cod. One fisherman, while obtaining bait for his lobster-pots, during the early spring of 1883, frequently caught as many as a hundred pounds of these fish in a single catch. This same fisherman informed me that at least three or four generations were plainly distinguished, the smaller being much more abundant. From only one other point along the coast was I able to find this species of cod reported in the shal- low water. A school was encountered by a Gloucester vessel close in by Mount Desert, SCIENCE. Venere Mh ue and fourteen barrels obtained. They all meas- — ured within an inch or two of fourteen inches, —-just the size of those reported from Glouces- ter, and exactly as long as the specimen ob- tained from that locality. I obtained two specimens from the Mount Desert school, which are at present in the National museum. Here > we find, in a limited area, great numbers of a fish now inhabiting only the deeper waters ; this fish for many years having been a total stranger to the locality in which it is at present so abundant, and not found, so far as is known after many inquiries, in other similar places, with but a single exception. The oldest and most observing fishermen never remember a similar instance; and all come to the conclu- sion, that they are the result of the hatching operations in 1879, those from Mount Desert being but a small portion of the larger school migrating from their given home. Certainly other than natural causes must be looked for to explain this sudden increase in a small, un- favorable locality : so, as a very convenient and satisfactory explanation is found, with evidence to back it, we will say with the fishermen, ‘These must be Fish-commission cod.’ They will of course migrate in time; for it is hardly to be expected that they will return to their first home after once finding purer water out- 4 side. ¢ Undoubted good must come of the future i operations, for millions and millions of eggs % which would otherwise be spoiled will be hatched ; the young reared, and placed in the water to live and reproduce; and thus the 4 waters will become restocked with a speciesof fish which is growing scarcer every year with | frightful rapidity. These unexpected results of the experiments prove beyond a doubt that even deep-sea fish can be kept under control by the same means that the stock of river-fish is regulated. While at Gloucester, Piokasan Farlow, by request of Professor Baird, investigated the nature of the so-called ‘ reddening ’ of salted cod, which caused such ravages during the warm months, with the idea of furnishing a remedy. This peculiar ‘ reddening’ was found to be caused by an alga (Clathrocystis roseo-persicina) which was abundant on the marshes near Gloucester. In many of the fish-houses the alga was present in large quan- — tities on the walls, on the flakes, and evenin ~ the vessels, probably having been introduced — there by the fishermen on their clothes, or — from the mud on their boots. Furthermore, it — existed to a considerable extent in the Cadiz salt, which was used in preference to Trepani i _— y “a FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] salt on account of the cheapness of the former. Trepani was, on the contrary, found to contain very little. Dr. Farlow advocated that the walls and all the wood-work be scraped, and washed in hot water to kill the plant, and that painted wood be used in preference to the rough natu- ral walls in order to afford as little room as possible for the Clathrocystis to lodge itself. He further advised that Trepani salt be used instead of Cadiz. A number of fish-dealers have adopted his suggestion in regard to the salt, and they all inform me that for two sum- mers not a single fish has been lost by ‘ red- dening.’ The wood-work contained the plant ; and in warm weather old butts turned red on the outside, while the new ones, in which no pickle made from Cadiz salt had been kept, remained perfectly intact. The fish saved by this means more than paid for the difference in price between the two salts. Trepani salt seems to prevent the rapid growth of the plant, while Cadiz rather favors it. Here, as in many other cases, we see that a little scientific thought will accomplish that which would never be brought about without it. Rateo S. Tarr. MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES.} THE state of its public museums, laboratories, and other scientific institutions, gives a very reliable meas- ure of the appreciation and culture of science by a nation. We are often inclined to consider America as a country where money-making suppresses all other interests, where learning, art, poetry, —in one word, all the finer manifestations of the human mind, — — can enjoy even a poor existence only in a few places, and find in general very unfavorable ground. One, however, who has had an opportunity of carefully observing American literature during recent years, could certainly not help seeing its intellectual activi- ty; most of all, perhaps, in the case of the sciences, they being intimately connected with practical life, and among these especially those of geology and pale- ontology. Most of the states created geological sur- veys for the investigation of the country, and the publication of maps and other results: the general - government extended these investigations to the ter- ritories. The elegant publications of these geographi- cal and geological institutions, distributed with the greatest liberality, form already a library which con- fains information of the greatest value concerning the vast country of the United States. We have often enough heard that they were found- ing public museums in America, and that, together with their indigenous treasures, they were desirous of obtaining the material of the old world for com- + By Prof. K. A. Zirtex of the University of Munich. Trans- lated from the supplement to the Allgemeine zeitung of Dec. 16. SCIENCE. 191 parison, if, as now and then happened, a valuable private collection had to make its way across the ocean. It would form a long ‘list of the missing,’ should we enumerate all the valuable scientific ob- jects, which, during the last thirty years, have gone to America from Germany alone. ‘The contributions of England and France towards the enrichment of the transatlantic museums are, of course, not less. But, in spite of all this, the American museums are hardly known among us. While among the eminent learned men of America there are only a very few who have not travelled in Europe at least once, the new world is usually not studied with the same care by the learned men of the mother-countries. The Ameri- cans, however, have begun to make their treasures in natural science accessible to the public, as well as to the specialist, in a way which in many respects de- serves admiration aad imitation. The following observations on some of the most prominent museums of natural history, made during a short stay in North America, will undoubtedly prove to be incomplete, one-sided, and perhaps in many respects even inaccurate. Their main object is merely to call the attention to those institutions more carefully than has hitherto been done. Up to the middle of this century, Pitiladelphia was at the head of scientific investigation in America; and even to-day, when the principal city of Pennsy]- vania has almost lost its leading position, a visit at the fine museum of natural history will show every- where the traces of a celebrated past, and of a com- paratively old civilization. Among all the larger museums of North America, the museum of Phila- delphia shows the strongest European influence in its whole organization, and in the arrangement of the collections. The handsome building belonging to the Academy of natural sciences is in the centre of the city, near one of those beautiful squares fuil of trees which are the pride of Philadelphia. The first floor contains a rich library, the meeting-rooms of the academy, rooms for officials and for special investigators. The collections are in the upper part of the building, in one large hall surrounded by wide galleries. Stuffed mammals, skeletons, and several large fossil vertebrates occupy the centre of the vast room. Among them a fossil gigantic saurian, with its strong hind-legs and short fore-legs, is conspicuous by its enormous size. The bones which were found at the ‘Hopkins’ farm in New Jersey, and which furnished the material for the restored skeleton of the Hadrosaurus, have been well prepared, and are now kept in show-cases near by, together with the rem- nants of another gigantic fossil lacertian (Laelaps), and together with the nearly complete skeleton of an Elasmosaurus, found in the chalk of Kansas, which has much resemblance to Plesiosaurus. The resto- ration of the Hadrosaurus was made before the time of Marsh’s great discoveries, and before the twenty- four skeletons of Iguanodons had been found near Bernissart in Belgium. We must therefore not too severely criticise a few errors made by the restorer in the restoration of the missing parts. By the pur- chase of the collection of birds from the famous 192 ornithologist, Gould, Philadelphia got a first-class ornithological museum. For craniologists, Dr. Mor- ton’s collection of about twelve hundred skulls is of interest. The collection of recent shells is said to be second in completeness only to that of the British museum, and is rich in originals used in the publica- tions of a large number of active scientific men in Philadelphia. Through Professor Joseph Leidy, the director of the museum, Philadelphia was the first place to pro- cure the remains of fossil mammals from the terri- tories of Wyoming, Dakota, and Nebraska. By this excellent savant, attention was called to those inex- haustible treasure-houses in the far west from which, since that time, a whole world of marvellous fossil animals has been unearthed. The interest of the specialist will be attracted by Professor Gabb’s col- lections made in California and Nevada, and by the petrifactions from the tertiary formation in Georgia and Alabama. The museum is also rich in Euro- pean objects. The interior arrangement is simple but practical. Sometimes the show-cases are rather crowded, and stand so near together that the light is not every- where sufficient, in spite of the high windows on all sides of the hall. Already in this comparatively new building there is, as in nearly all European museums, a lack of space. Naturalists will not leave Philadelphia without hav- ing seen Prof. E. D. Cope’s celebrated collection of fossil vertebrates. During my stay in Philadelphia, this indefatigable investigator was in New Mexico in order to continue the exhumations with which he now has been occupied for many years at a heavy ex- pense, and with much personal hardship. Very soon his elegant house in Pine Street became too small for the collected treasures, the house next to it had to be bought, and now it is filled from top to bottom with fossil bones. And again no space was left: the larger specimens, therefore, had to be placed in the cellars of a public building. Mr. Wortman, a former pupil and assistant of Professor Cope, was my amia- ble and well-informed guide through this improvised museum, where almost al] the rooms are filled nearly up to the ceiling with cases, shelves, drawers, trunks, and boxes, where one finds piled on the floor, or along the walls, enormous skulls of mastodons and Dinocerata, or bones of gigantic saurians, and where the visitor's eyes are delighted with several complete skeletons of mammals still remaining in their stony matrix. Besides a number of forms already known by way of pictures or descriptions, one may see here the remnants of several hundred fossil vertebrates of which we in Europe know hardly more than the names. Comparing the fossil mammals of the Paris basin with those found in North America in strata of the same period, we, discover a striking difference between the two faunas. The regions of geographical distribution for verte- brates were just as sharply limited during the tertiary period as nowadays. This is the reason why we find a nearly inexhaustible abundance of new orders and species in the so-called Bad Lands of western Amer- SCIENCE. (Vou. IIIL., No. 54. ica. Professor Cope is one of the most eminent au- thorities of our time in comparative anatomy and paleontology: he has bought the fine osteological col- lection of Hyrtl at Vienna, and is now busy in editing an extensive work, in which he intends to give de- scriptions, as well as pictures, of the numerous fossil mammals discovered by him. While Philadelphia has the oldest museum of North America, Washington is arranging the newest one. In the elegant, beautifully situated capital of the country, with its wide and clean but hardly animated streets, with its vast parks and magnificent edifices, the visitor will be surprised to find unfinished, not only the Washington monument, but also various other edifices. But if once all the enterprises which are now going on are finished, Washington will be one of the most beautiful cities of the world. Not far from the simple home of the President there is a park of about fifty acres, in which we find most imposing public buildings, among them the green- houses of the botanical garden, the Smithsonian in- stitution, and the National museum. The latter is e in a palace of red sandstone. The interior of the i tasteful building, in Normano-Gothic style,! contains in the centre a dome-like hall two hundred feet long, where various collections in a somewhat strange mixture are accommodated. Large glass cases with stuffed animals are put together with Indian curi- osities, models, and relief-maps, together with sam- ples of building-materials and ores. Part of the hall and a wing of the building are given to the geo- logical survey. In the other wing we find the excellently arranged prehistoric and ethnographical collection, under the direction of our countryman Karl Rau. The great variety of the tools and weap- ons made of stone, still used among some Indian tribes, which are exhibited here, is hardly less re- markable than the ability with which these savages work the brittle material. In this respect the Amer- ican autochthones have undoubtedly attained a higher civilization than the inhabitants of Europe during the stone period. For the present, the National mu- seum, as a whole, can be considered merely as the. beginning of a museum of almost universal charac- ter; but, with the enormous means which are at the disposal of the central government, it needs only a few influential and energetic men to develop great things out of this promising germ. A glance at the growth of the American museum of natural history in New York shows what energy, and readiness to sacrifice, may accomplish within a few years. In January, 1869, a few scientific friends met, and decided to found in New York, the metrop- olis of North America, a museum of natural his- tory, which was to correspond with the means and the importance of this city, and to give its inhabit- ants an opportunity for recreation and instruction. — Within a few weeks forty-four thousand dollars were subscribed. Out of this money the collection of birds — made by Prince Maximilian of Wied was bought. — Many other objects were given; and very soon the 1 The writer has here confused the Smithsonian and museum buildings. ie th 2 settling Ieee Seca ae e i Beate >: ——a——r rel a FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] halls of. an armory, assigned by the city to the muse- um, proved to be too small. “Thereupon the trustees thought of having a home of its own for their collec- tions ; and to that end the city government not only gave Manhattan Square, an estate of eighteen acres and a quarter, in the immediate vicinity of Central Park, but also decreed the necessary means for the projected building. In June, 1874, the corner-stone was laid, in the presence of President Grant, the governor of the state, the mayor of the city, and a number of promi- nent persons from Boston and New Haven. Asearly as December, 1877, the large fire-proof building, con- sisting of nothing but stone and iron, was finished so far that it was possible to transfer the collections, and to make them accessible to the public. To-day the museum is already filled to such an extent, that the trustees ask for three hundred thousand dollars more, in order to put up an additional building of the same size. In regard to the excellent adaptation of the building to its purposes, and also in regard to the practical interior arrangement, the New-York muse- um deserves to be called a model institution. The exterior of the red-brick building is without any or- namentation. The entrance at the narrow side leads to the basement: the large staircase is opposite. Each floor contains, besides one single large hall of a hundred and seventy by sixty feet, only a few small laboratories near the stairs. Wide and high windows on both sides furnish plenty of light. Between them the walls have openings like loopholes, through which the interior of the cases, which are in a rectangu- lar position against the side-walls, get the necessary light. The wide, well-ventilated halls, provided with heating-apparatus and gas, make a grand impression. On all the floors the main cases are arranged in the same way, and are of the same size; so that it would be easy to move the contents of one hall into an- other. The rooms, as well as the cases, are well pro- tected against dust. The cases are made of iron; their doors, of a single pane of glass. The tasteful and appropriate furnishings correspond with the con- tents. In the basement there is a rather small col- lection of mammals. We donot see here those shabby skins, half-destroyed by moths, nor those ill-shaped, four-legged straw bags which disfigure somany mu- seums of older date. Every thing is new and clean; and some groups — as, for example, the family of orang-outangs, or the Ornithorhynchus, with its sur- roundings — may well be called pictures borrowed from nature. The collection of birds on the first floor deserves similar praise. The laymen will be pleased with the birds of paradise, the macaws, the parrots, and the humming-birds, which display here the beau- ty of their feathers. The hall of the first floor is thirty feet high, with a wide gallery, forming, so to speak, a floor for itself, with its own windows. Here we find a rich ethnographic and prehistoric collec- tion. American objects predominate; but there is no want of foreign material for comparison, and es- pecially one interested in the European stone period could find here very many valuable things. The next floor contains the geologico-paleontological and the SCIENCE. 193 mineralogical collection. The nucleus of this divis- ion is a collection bought for sixty-eight thousand dollars, from Prof. J. Hall in Albany, the Nestor of American geologists. The typical objects, as given in Hall’s voluminous work on the state of New York, are arranged here in a way that affords an excellent view of the whole; and I do not think that the enor- mous mass of paleozoic petrifactions of America is better exhibited in any other museum. On the high- est floor there is a library, a hall for public lectures, laboratories, and a number of rooms for various spe- cialists and their private collections. A freight- elevator runs from the cellar to the highest floor in an American museum, as a matter of course. If we consider what has been done in New York within less than fifteen years, we have, indeed, to admire the energy of the superintendent, Prof. A. S. Bickmore. He not only knew how to get some of the richest and most influential citizens interested in his work, but also formed, with the means at his disposal, an institution unrivalled in many respects. The American museum of natural history is open to the public daily; and, on an average, about fifteen thou- sand persons a week make use of this privilege. The city of New York pays to the museum annually fifteen thousand dollars. All the expenses above that are paid by subscription. Should the plan, as exhib- ited in the basement, be carried out, the museum wolud have twelve buildings of the size of the present, which, together with six connecting wings, would cover the whole of Manhattan Square. An enormous cupola would form the centre of the whole. Then New York would decidedly have the largest museum of natural history in the world. The museum of the state of New York, at Albany, is on a smaller scale. This institution has been founded by the celebrated geologist, J. Hall. During fifty years of investigation he has unearthed the geological and paleontological treasures of his state; and, besides a private collection, he has created a public museum, where the products of the state of New York are exhibited in a fine arrangement. In Germany we have only one local collection, the ‘“Wiurttembergisches landes museum,’ at Stuttgart, which is ahead of the museum of the state of New York in regard to arrangement and completeness. For study and investigations, the capital of the state of New York, with its unpleasant political life, is not a very favorable place. The university towns of New Haven and Cambridge are far better homes for intellectual culture in North America. There is no better introduction into society than a diploma from Yale or Harvard. These universities are partly imitations of English colleges, partly of German institutions; and for decades there have been first- class learned men among their teachers. The scien- tific life of America is under the influence of these universities and these independent corporations are so popular that they receive considerable legacies nearly every year. The numerous handsome build- ings of Yale college at New Haven show the wealth of this institution. Among the simple dormitories and buildings for lecture-rooms, the museum of 194 natural history attracts the attention by its height and a fine Gothic front. It owes its existence to a gift of Peabody, the well-known philanthropist. The first story is occupied by a collection of minerals most excellently arranged, by the private laboratories of Professors Dana and Brush, and by lecture-rooms and common laboratories. The middle floor contains the geological and paleontological collection. The highest floor contains collections for zodlogy and prehistoric ethnography. The centre of interest at New Haven is a collection of fossil vertebrates founded by Prof. O. C. Marsh. Not only the whole first story, but also cellar and attic, are filled with fossil bones. Long rows of piled- up boxes contain the paleontological treasures. Only a very strict order makes it possible to find every thing in these crowded rooms, where a number of assistants are busy in preparing and combining the objects which so often arrive in fragments. Ina small additional building a German modeller forms casts of the finest specimens, and afterwards these casts are sent with the greatest liberality to American and foreign museums. ‘Toalarge extent, the Peabody museum owes its fine condition to the self-sacrificing activity of Professor Marsh. What at the beginning of this century Cuvier did in Europe for the knowledge of antediluvian ver- tebrates, has been done in America by Professor Marsh, and his not less active rival Professor Cope in Philadelphia. The great variety of fossil verte- brates in America corresponds with the vastness of the country. Whole cartloads of bones have been dug out in the Bad Lands of the far west: they were carried on the backs of mules hundreds of miles, be- fore they reached the railroads which brought them eastward. For months Professor Marsh and _ his assistants were camping in the reservations of the Indians, protected by an escort of cavalry. With the great chiefs of the Sioux, ‘Red Cloud,’ ‘Red Dog,’ he used to smoke the pipe of peace: against others he had to defend himself, revolver in hand. Pro- fessor Marsh’s collection of fossil remains of verte- brates, brought together within about fifteen years, is not less complete, and not inferior in value to the collection of the British museum in London. It is infinitely more than all the material ever seen and studied by Cuvier during his whole life. During my visit at New Haven there were about twenty-five gigantic skulls of Dinocerata in the professor’s lab- oratories. Several lithographers were occupied in making plates for the publications in which the fossil mammals and reptiles of America will be described. In an adjoining room a whole series of teeth, and bones of the foot, illustrate the development of the horse species. Though the Indians made the ac- quaintance of the horse only through the Spanish ‘conquistadores,’ there is no country where remains of antediluvian horses are so often found as in America. A series of fossil species shows the changes which the ancestors of the horse underwent, before the present type of the solidungulate was attained. Europe, also, has some of the intermediate forms, but not somany. The American predecessors form a SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. nearly uninterrupted series. mass of antediluvian mammals I can mention here only the oldest forms from Jura and tertiary strata, which have been discovered lately in America. Up to that time we knew only several lower jaws found in England, and a few teeth from the keuper of Wurttemberg. Professor Marsh has brought from Wyoming rem- nants of at least three hundred specimens, and not only lower jaws, but also skulls, and other parts of the skeleton. They belong, without exception, to little marsupial-like species, usually of the size of a rat or squirrel. In contrast with these dwarfish forms, the reptiles of the Jura and chalk formations excel usually by their gigantic size; and it is just the largest and the clumsiest of them that show a re- markable combination of reptilian and avian pecul- iarities. New Haven has the largest collection of such dinosaurians. There you may see a complete skeleton of the curious Brontosaurus, — an animal with a small head, a long neck, long tail, high hind- legs, and short fore-legs. The upper part of the femur of the gigantic Atlan- tosaurus is about twice as long as the corresponding bone of an elephant. The curious Stegosaurus, thirty feet long, was covered with an armor of enormous bone plates, and armed with thick spines. The cavity of its brain was of a minimum capacity; but, in compensation therefor, the spinal marrow in the os sacrum is swollen into a second brain-like enlarge- ment. Another little saurian (Coelurus) has ring- shaped vertebrae which are entireiy hollow. Hadro- saurus has shining teeth, jagged on the sides like shark’s teeth, in several rows above each other, and side by side, so that they come into use only one after - another. Besides these dinosaurians, some snake- like saurians of the sea, with short swimming-feet (Mosasauridae), attract our attention. A slab three metres high contains a complete well-preserved skel- eton of such an animal, On the whole, Professor Marsh may have parts of about sixteen hundred specimens. America has also flying saurians; though the skele- tons are not often so completely preserved as those in the lithographic slate of Bavaria, but they are of considerably larger size. The skull of a Pteranodon, for instance, is three feet long. While this flying saurian differs from its European relatives by tooth- less jaws, there are in the chalk strata of America a number of birds with well-developed teeth. Profes- sor Marsh has given a description of these curious creatures in a very elegantly executed monograph. A visit at the Peabody museum, under Professor Marsh’s guidance, arouses very mixed feelings in a European colleague. Together with sincere admira- tion, he necessarily has the disheartening conviction, that, whereas the time of great discoveries has begun © in America, it is overin Europe. The character of greatness and magnitude which we find in many conditions of American existence is also prominent here. nishes, uninterruptedly, new and unexpected objects From the enormous ~ Compared with the paucity of the discoveries — in our own country, the virgin soil of America fur- FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] It is beyond question that the future development of geology and paleontology will be essentially influ- enced by America; but it seems to me, that, for zodl- ogy also, a model institution for the future, in many respects, has been created in the celebrated Agassiz museum in Cambridge, near Boston, which probably will not be without influence on the development of museums of natural history in Europe. On an ex- tensive plot near Harvard university there has been erected a five-story brick building with numerous windows, but with no ornamentation, and with an almost barrack-like appearance. The simple stair- case corresponds with the modest exterior and with the whole interior arrangement. The genial founder of the ‘Museum of comparative zoology,’ as he called it, did not intend to have a brilliant exhibition, but a place for serious labor and study. And the great enterprise called into existence in 1860 by Louis Agassiz has now been nearly completed, ac- cording to the ideas of the father, by the energy and the organizing talent of theson. Over three hundred thousand dollars were subscribed in a short time, when Louis Agassiz, twenty-four years ago, came to America, and announced a plan for the erection of his museum. Nobody knew better than he how to arouse the enthusiasm of others for ideal purposes by the power of words; and we may well say that he originated that new movement in the descriptive natural sciences which continues up to the present day. A whole school of young zoologists grew up at Cambridge. Collections of all kinds were bought in the old and in the new world, expeditions were sent to far-away countries, and the depths of the sea were investigated. The ingenious investigator, who was always full of new ideas, had neither time nor pa- tience for the sifting and arrangement of the extreme- ly rich material: his son and successor undertook this task. As an administrator, Alexander Agassiz may be equalled only by a few; as a naturalist, he belongs, as his father did, to the first names of America. A large fortune, acquired in the copper-mines of Calu- met and Hecla, near Lake Superior, makes it also pos- sible for him to promote the interests of the museum financially. To him it must be attributed, that the museum has been entirely withdrawn from the influ- ence of an often-changing government, and has been transferred to Harvard university. In the well-lighted basement of the museum there are eight rooms assigned to the collections in alcohol, which consist not only of lower animals and fishes, but also of numerous mammals, birds, and reptiles in metal boxes filled with alcohol. A seawater aqua- rium, a room for the preservation of living animals, and various other storerooms, occupy the rest of the basement. On the first floor, there are the paleontological and geological collections, together with the necessary laboratories and lecture-rooms. ‘The parts of the col- lection devoted to scientific investigations are sepa- rated from the collections for the show-cases proper; and in those, only a comparatively small selection of objects is exhibied. The second floor contains the rooms of the curator, a rich library, laboratories for SCIENCE. 195 anatomical and physiological investigations, and other workrooms for more advanced students and specialists. Besides the rooms already mentioned, there is on each floor a so-called synoptic room, through which every visitor of the museum has first to pass. A small but well-selected collection gives here a general view of the most important repre- sentatives from all classes of the animal kingdom. Large inscriptions on the walls and on the cases make it easier to find one’s way. All the specimens are accurately labelled. Dissected preparations explain the anatomical structure of crabs, insects, echini, starfishes, etc. The synoptic room for zodlogy may well be called a model of a collection for purposes of instruction. A similar collection for geology and paleontology is in preparation. While the two lower floors are chiefly devoted to purposes of instruction, the specialist will find in the three upper stories abundant material for his inves- tigations. The third floor contains a zodélogical col- lection accessible to the public. In five halls all the more important species and varieties are exhibited in systematic order, and not crowded together. For the vertebrates the stuffed skins, as well as the skeletons. are given. — . The zodgeographical collection is a specialty of the Cambridge museum. In two well-lighted halls one finds the whole fauna of America. The typical specimens of the animal kingdom of Africa, of India, of Europe and Siberia, and of Australia, are repre- sented in their respective rooms. y yj =e Lys HI —' C UPS i PS | Wf ifs [i W == = == : oy = SS y : A\ aes : = : f 2 — — FIG. 4.—BASKET OF TISSANDIER’S FLYING-BALLOON. 198 four kilograms. The screw consists of two helicoidal pallets covered with varnished silk, the deformation of which is guarded against by the action of coils of steel wire. This screw is 2.85 metres in diameter: it is attached to the machine by a transfer and by gearing, and makes a hundred and eighty revolutions per minute, while the bobbin makes eighteen hun- dred. The electric battery, which may be called the gen- erator of the screw balloon, has the same surface of zine and carbon as our trial batteries, the measure- ment of which has already been given elsewhere (La Nature, May 20, 1882), the same number of cells, the same volume of liquid. We are able to consider- ably reduce its capacity by using four ebonite troughs with six compartments, instead of twenty-four sepa- rate receivers. Besides, we use slightly higher vessels, which also gives greater breadth. Fig. 3 presents one of the four batteries used in the electric balloon as it was tried in the laboratory. It consists, as may be seen, of one large trough with six divisions; each compartment forming an element of the pile, enclosed and mounted on copper legs, having eleven thin car- - bons and ten zincs arranged alternately. The zines are held in place from above by flexible pincers, and may easily be renewed after each experiment: they are .15 of a centimetre thick, sufficient to work the battery for three hours. They must be perfect- ly amalgamated. Each com- partment is provided at its low- er part with a slender ebonite tube, which communicates to a lateral conduit connected by a caoutchouc tube with a large and very light ebonite vessel containing the acid solution of bichromate of potassium. If the pail is raised by means of a string passing into the blocks above the level of the battery, the latter is filled by the chief communicating vessel, the liquid acts on the zines, and the current passes: if the pail is lowered, so that it occupies the position seen in fig. 3, the liquid enters by the caout- chouc tube, the battery becomes empty, and ceases to act. By this system it is apparent that the piles com- municate with each other solely by the narrow con- duits. The resistance of the liquid is great enough for this communication to have no effect on the cur- rent, although the elements are in series. In the car there are four batteries like that shown in the figure, of twenty-four elements, in series, and fed by four pails of ebonite, each containing thirty litres of the bichro- mate of potassium solution. The batteries are stowed away in the car (which is 1.9 metres long and 1.45 metres broad) so as to occupy the least possible room. Two ebonite troughs of twelve elements are placed cross-wise about .35 of a metre from the bottom of the ear, and there are two more .15 of a metre higher. The ebonite reservoirs at the two back corners of the car feed the upper piles; and the other two reservoirs, nearer the battery, feed the lower piles (fig 4). A od 5 we SCIENCE. ie. 1. —Skull of Diplodocus longus Marsh, side view. vacant space is left between the four pails for the operator, who controls every thing, having at hand the cords to-raise the pails, the hooks to hold the cords at the desired height, the commutator with the cup of mercury to start the current, and the cords the rudder. The bichromate of potassium used to work the bat- tery is concentrated and very acid: it is turned into the pails at a temperature of about 40°, which per- mits of a considerable increase in the quantity of dissolved salt. The commutator is so arranged that a current of six, twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four ele- ments may pass; and thus the screw has four veloci- ties. The four pails are covered with a sheet of caout- chouc, pierced with one small hole, which allows the © air to pass when the liquid is flowing, and is bound around the pail by a copper thread sheathed in gutta- percha. This manner of closing is very secure; and, in case of a shock, not a drop of the liquid can escape. The pails, when empty, weigh only three kilograms each: they are strengthened by basket-work, which also serves as a support. Cords passing into the pul- leys raise them above the piles in order to fill them, and lower them to empty them. The bottom of the car holds a caoutchoue cistern to receive the liquid in case of accident. The pile with the liquid weighs about a hundred and eighty kilograms. A little willow basket —easily seen in our illustration —is placed under the motor. It contains an oil-can for the motor, a little bottle of mercury to supply the cups of the commutator sunk into a block of box- wood, and also the tools necessary to discharge the pile in case of accident. All this occupies the back of the car. In the front, space is reserved for the ballast-bags and for the implements used in the descent. Our. illustration was made with great exactness: it presents all the details of the arrangement of the car, and shows the attachment of the motor. The FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] Siemens machine, and the spring which it works, are arranged on a walnut cross-piece. In addition, it is held by stretched ropes, which may be tightened at pleasure by tension, and which connect the four extremities of the framework with the upper and lower cross-pieces of the car. When rotating with great velocity, the vibrations are avoided by this method of attachment. The use of such a machine in the car of a balloon is comparatively simple. When SCIENCE. 199 sixth the natural size, and showing clearly the char- acteristic features. It has two pairs of ante-orbital openings, the small front pair not having been seen before in dinosaurs. The brain inclines backward, and has a very large pituitary body, enclosed in a every thing has been pre- pared on the ground, there is nothing to do but to plunge a little copper fork into the mercury-cup of the commu- tator, and the screw begins to turn. From fear of fire, and from the change of position, which affects the altitude of the balloon when once poised in the air, the operator must have no manual work to do: electricity alone supplies all the fundamental conditions of the aerostatic mo- tor-force. After the winter, when favorable weather comes, the first electric balloon will again take its flight. GASTON TISSANDIER. A NEW AND STRANGE DINOSAUR. PROFESSOR MARSH continues his studies of the Jurassic dinosaurs of America by giving, in the last number of the American journal of science, an ac- count of a new fam- ily of Sauropoda founded upon the genus Diplodocus, which he places be- tween the Atlanto- sauridae and _ the Morosauridae. The chevrons of the caudal vertebrae, which have both an- terior and posterior branches, have sug- gested the name Di- plodocus; and the ischia of the pelvic girdle are interme- diate in form and po- sition between the families heretofore recognized, the shaft being straight, and not twisted nor api- cally expanded. But the best preserved portion is the skull, of which we reproduce Professor Marsh’s excellent fig- ures. It was of moderate size, the figures being one- ¥ie. 2. — The same skull, front view. MM GY) Fie. 3. —Skull and brain cast of the same, seen from above. a, aperture in maxillary; 5, ante-orbital opening; c, nasal opening; c’, cerebral hemispheres; d, orbit; ¢, lower tem- poral fossa; 7, frontal bone; 7”, fontanelle; m, maxillary bone; m’, medulla; n, nasal opening; oc, occipital condyle; o/, olfactory lobes; op, optic lobe; p, parietal bone; p/, pre-frontal bone; pm, pre-maxillary bone; g, quadrate bone; gj, quadrato-jugal bone. capacious fossa below the main brain-case, —a very different condition from that holding in the other families of Sauropoda. The size of the skull indi- cates an animal probably forty or fifty feet long: the weak dentition shows that it was herbivorous, and its food was probably such succulent vegetation as an aquatic life would enable it to procure. In looking at these figures, and noting their strange resemblance to a horse’s skull, one finds it hard at first to recall the fact that the nearest living allies of Diplodocus are the crocodiles. THE FALSE PROPHET OF THE SUDAN. THE religious movement in the Sudan has a spe- cial interest for ethnologists on account of its paral- lelism with the events by which the faith of Islam was originally propagated. A recent letter from Khartum informs us that Mohamed Ahmed, the Mahdi, was born at Dongola in the year 1260 of the hegira. His parents, Abdellahi and Amina, were poor, and had two older sons. From the age of seven he was taught in a Mussulman school to read, write, and commit to memory the Koran. At the age of twelve he knew the latter perfectly. In the same year his father died; but his brothers con- tinued his education while he pursued studies of the Mussulman law, foreseeing eminence in store for him. After the death of his mother, having com- pleted his studies, he repaired to the Isle of Aba on the White Nile, to be near his brothers, who were boat-builders. For nearly fifteen years he inhabited the isle, venerated as a holy man by all who knew him, before making claim to the title of Mahdi or Mussulman Messiah. He then wrote to all sheiks and grand dervishes of the region, that the prophet 200 Mohamed had appeared to him in a dream, and informed him, as from Allah, that he was the long- promised Mahdi; that the Turkish supremacy was at ~ an end, the reign of the Mahdi begun; requesting their assistance, and further predicting wars and insurrections for the Sudan. For himself, at the proper time, he proposed to go to Mecca to receive recognition from the grand sheriff. These predic- tions were circulated at Khartum a year before they came to the knowledge of the local authorities. Finally Ratif Pasha, governor-general, decided to send a deputation, headed by the famous Abu Suud, to confer with the new prophet. The latter was found in a large hut surrounded by his dervishes, but declined to go to Khartum or to perform mira- cles, the time for which, he said, was not come. Abu informed him that he would be forcibly taken to the governor if he did not come willingly; but, discover- ing several men with drawn swords in his rear, he retreated precipitately to his despatch-boat and to Khartum. He was sent back with two hundred soldiers, commanded by an adjutant-major, to bring the Mahdi forcibly. These soldiers landed at night in mud up to their middles, lost all courage, and, arriving at the hut, were confronted by a mob of whirling dervishes. One of these was shot by the commander as a signal for attack, when the remain- der, with thousands of Arabs who had remained in ambush, threw themselves upon the little troop, and exterminated them. The boat was next attacked, and was obliged to retreat to Cava. On the 20th of August, 1881, a large force was collected at Cava to crush the insurrection before it gathered strength. Meanwhile the Mahdi and his people left the Isle of Aba under the very eyes of troops who dared not oppose him, and made his way toward the mountains of Gadir. Here, in November, 1881, he was attacked by Rashid Bey and the king of the Shiluk tribe with five hundred soldiers, who were destroyed, almost to a man,in a few moments as it were. Rauf Pasha being superseded, Giegler Pasha, a European civil officer temporarily in charge, declared that he could preserve order with the troops at his command, and declined re-enforcements. In order to carry out this boast, he concentrated the garrisons of Kordofan, Kashoda, Sennaar, and Khartum, and despatched them from the latter place against the Mahdi, under command of Yusuf Pasha. ‘They comprised about seven thousand men, mostly untrained conscripts, with six cannon. Three days after their arrival at Gadir they were attacked by fifty thousand insurgents, commanded by the brothers of the Mahdi; and only about a hundred and twenty-four private soldiers escaped from the general massacre. The troops of the Mahdi suffered severely, and both his brothers were killed. Mean- while the other provinces, from which the garrisons had been withdrawn, began to rise against the au- thorities. Sennaar revolted: the few soldiers there were slain, with all the Europeans, and their goods looted. El Kerim Bey came to the rescue of the government with three thousand Arabs. He was killed, his men slain or dispersed, his villages were SCIENCE. burned, and all the inhabitants put to the sword, without regard to age or sex. At this juncture Abdelkader Pasha was named to the governorship; and the Mahdi marched on El Obeid, capital of Kordofan, putting the inhabitants of the villages on his way to the edge of the sword. A Catholic mission, consisting of two priests, two sisters, and two lay brothers, were taken prisoners by the Mahdi, and tortured for three days, in a vain attempt to force them to renounce their religion. In September the Mahdi attacked El Obeid with a hundred and ninety-two thousand insurgents. As- sisted by a trench, the defenders held their ground for two hours, after which the Mahdi retired, leav- ing twelve thousand of his men on the battle-field. He proceeded to invest the town, and in four months and a half reduced it by famine, on Jan. 17, 1883. All the Europeans were obliged to embrace Islamism to escape death. Their goods were confiscated. The mission was demolished; the missionaries, male and female, put to the torture. The archives were burned ; the merchants of the town, and all the principal func- tionaries, sold into the interior as slaves. The fe- males suffered rapine. Before this, thirty-seven hundred soldiers, com- manded by Ali Bey, had been sent to succor E]} Obeid. They were attacked by thirty thousand in- surgents under Mama, the grand-vizier of the Mahdi. A thousand escaped to Bara, where they capitulated to the rebels two weeks before El Obeid. But the career of victory was not wholly unchecked. Kar- kodi on the Blue Nile, the headquarters of the trade in gum and lentils, was captured by the rebels, and partly burned, Fourhundred soldiers and merchants were massacred. However, in thirty-five days, the rebels were driven out by the Egyptian troops, and order re-established. A revolt on the White Nile at two large villages, ten hours from Khartum, was crushed, with heavy loss to the rebels, and the death of their leader and his three sons. Up to this time the insurrection had cost more than a hundred thousand lives in the Sudan. At the time this letter was written, Hicks Pasha and his army were just arrived, and were expected to restore order. Their rout and massacre occurred later. At this date the Egyptian government, under pressure from England, is about to abandon the Sudan to the hordes of the Mahdi; and the unfortunates who are holding a few outposts in the faith of rescue will be left to their fate. The story reads like a page from the middle ages; and it seems hardly credible that such events can characterize any part of the nineteenth cen- tury. Unless the strong arm of Abyssinia intervenes against the forces of the false prophet, it is quite pos- sible that even for Egypt proper the end is not yet. THE GEOGRAPHISCHES JAHRBUCH. _ Vol. ix., 1882. 16+ 719 p. 12°. Geographisches jahrbuch. Perthes, 1883. Tus jahrbuch, an outgrowth of Petermann’s ~ Geographische mittheilungen, was first pub-— aed in = Poe Gotha, 4 [Von ILL, No. 54, FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] lished in 1866, under the editorship of E. Behm. On the death of Petermann, in 1878, Behm took charge of the Mittheilungen, and H. Wagner succeeded him in the prepara- tion of the Jahrbuch, of which the ninth bien- nial volume has recently been issued. It is about double the size of the first number, and, as now conducted, covers a broad field in geog- raphy and allied departments of study, as the following abstract of the contents will show. Indeed, the range of topics reported upon by the thirteen specialists who aid Wagner in its preparation is now so extensive that the seven hundred pages of the present volume are no longer sufficient to contain abstracts of all of the three thousand papers quoted. The more directly geographical part of the volume contains chapters on the exploration of Africa (42 pages), Asia (35), the polar regions (27), and the oceans (25), by Zoppritz and Lullies of Konigsberg, Wichmann of Gotha, and v. Boguslawski of Berlin. From the last of these, we may note the following maps, as embodying the present state of our knowledge concerning the form of the sea-floor. An atlas of thirty-six maps, showing the physical rela- tions of the Atlantic Ocean, was published in 1882 by the German ‘ Seewarte’ at Hamburg. Its first plate shows the depth by eight contour lines at two hundred, a thousand, two thousand, etc., to seven thousand metres, the old fathom measure being discarded. The northernmost Atlantic and adjoining Arctic Ocean are repre- sented in the maps by Mohn, published in sup- plement No. 63 to Petermann’s Mittheilungen (1880). The Indian Ocean and the several seas between Asia and Australia are shown in two maps by Krummel in Kettler’s Zeitschrift Sir wissenschaftliche geographie for 1881 and 1882. The latter is especially valuable in illus- trating the distribution of temperatures in the sea. A very considerable share of the work is al- lowed to questions not simply geographical. Geological investigation is reviewed by v. Fritsch of Halle in seventy-one pages; but only three of these are allowed to the United States, showing a decided inequality of treat- ment. Studies on the distribution of plants (83 pp.) and animals (71 pp.) are summarized by Grube of Dresden and Schmarda of Vienna ; and Gerland of Strassburg reports on ethnology (95 pp.) with satisfactory detail. Geographic meteorology (71 pp.) is safely intrusted to Hann of Vienna. Among the many important memoirs referred to, we may mention Supan’s, on the distribution of annual variations of temperature; those by Teisserence de Bort SCIENCE. 201 and Wild, on the relation between isobars and thermic isabnormals; Spindler’s paper on the strength and inclination of the wind in storms ; and several others on meteorological cycles. Concerning the latter, Hann says, in effect, that the hope that such cycles might afford a founda- tion for long-range prognostics has proved de- lusive, and the problem is at present of purely scientific, not practical, interest. Whipple’s inquiry into the periodicity of rainfall is quoted as proving the absence of any short cycles of between five and thirteen years’ duration, so that it can be definitely said that predictions of wet or dry years on the basis of previous observations are quite worthless. So, also, Hoffmeyer’s study of the North Atlantic tem- pests serves to show the inaccuracy, to say the least, of the New- York herald’ s cable-warnings to western Europe. Forty-four pages are de- voted to questions of regional climate. Dr. Zoppritz of Kénigsberg is allowed forty- two pages for the progress of terrestrial phys- ics (geophysik). In commenting on Professor George Darwin’s work on the effect of the tides upon the moon’s distance, and on Mr. Ball’s entertaining lecture, ‘A glimpse through the corridors of time,’ on the same subject, the reviewer accepts Professor Newberry’s conclusion that the moon must have already attained its actual distance from us when our oldest Cambrian and Silurian strata were de- posited. This seems an unnecessary adher- ence to doctrines of uniformity: for, in the spread of our paleozoic strata, there is evi- dence of much stronger submarine transporta- tion than we now find; and even in Jurassic times there is a surprising area of cross- bedded sandstones in the region of the Colo- rado plateau. We agree more fully with the author, in his opinion that Mr. O. Fisher has, in his ‘ Physics of the earth’s crust,’ rather overvalued the strength of his conclusions, and again in objecting to the theory of the permanence of continents. Under glaciers, the discussion by Forel, of their periodic varia- tions in Switzerland as dependent on preced- ing and not contemporaneous climatic irregu- larities, is regarded as of especial importance. Forel was preceded in this idea by Giissfeldt.* Geodesy and cartography are also discussed ; and a list is given of geographic societies, which now number seventy-nine, and of geo- graphic journals, which have recently increased rapidly to the number of one hundred and nineteen. Among the societies, the Royal geographical society of London leads the list 1 Ueber die eisverhiltnisse der hochgebirge. Verh. ges. erdk. Berlin, vi., 1879, 86. 202 with a membership of 3,373, and an income of about nine thousand pounds sterling. There remain still two chapters to which we hope later to call attention in special notices, — one by Egli of Zurich on the present condition of geographic onomatology, or the study of names ; the other, by the editor, on the devel- opment of the study and method of teaching of geography, a matter discussed with much seriousness in Germany, though receiving small attention here. In concluding the present notice, it may be said, that while the Gleographisches jahrbuch, like other works of its class, by no means serves the purpose of final reference, it is of the greatest value as an aid in all geographic studies; and the special feature of arrange- ment according to place makes it a most val- uable supplement to other bibliographic works in which the classification is according to subjects. MASCART’S ELECTRICITY AND MAG- NETISM. Legons sur l’clectricité et le magnétisme. Par E. Mas- CART et J. JOUBERT. vol.i. Paris, 1882. 8°. A treatise on electricity and magnetism. By the same; translated by E. ATKINSON. vol. i. London, De la Rue, 1883. 662 pp. 89°. One feels, in reading Maxwell’s treatise on electricity and magnetism, that the author had a grip upon the subject which has only been approximately attained by other writers. Al- though the style is obscure, and the arrange- ment often merits the word ‘ atrocious,’ — for equations are taken for granted which are afterwards proved, and other equations are referred to in general without particular speci- fication ; so that the student who comes to the book with mediocre preparation, and is deter- mined to master it, cannot fail to have a feel- ing allied to bitterness with the author who has led him over such a corduroy road to a promised land, — nevertheless, the grip is there, and one always feels it; and each para- graph is full of suggestion. The treatise of Mascart and Joubert is Max- well’s treatise very much simplified. It has the Gallic flow, but it has not the Scottish grip. It is Cummings’s admirable little ele- mentary treatise on electricity, treated by the calculus, and amplified with some of the harder portions of Maxwell. It has the appearance of a collection of excellent professorial notes on Maxwell’s book. The volume now printed contains the me- chanical theory of electricity; and a second SCIENCE. | volume on the phenomena and electrical ap- paratus is promised. ‘The portion on thermo- electricity is more extended than the chapter on the same subject in Maxwell’s treatise ; although, curiously enough, Tait’s ingenious method of measuring thermo-electric relations is not given. Much space is devoted to the propagation of what are termed, for con- venience, ‘ electrical waves ;’ and the action of the telephone is theoretically considered. In the treatment of electro-dynamics the prin- ciple of symmetry is often employed in a clear manner. that the authors are patriotic, and the special investigations of Frenchmen are often alluded to. We miss, however, full notices of contem- poraneous investigations by Germans and by Americans. Perhaps these will appear in the following volume. The chapters on magnetism are very suggestive, and in them the various theories are presented in a clear manner. Thomson’s papers on magnetism are given at considerable length, mainly as they are con- tained in his ‘ Papers on electro-statics and electro-magnetism.’ ‘The view that diamag- netism is merely the difference between the mag- netic character of the medium in which the small diamagnetic substance is suspended, and the magnetic character of the substance itself, is popularized by presenting the analogy between this phenomenon of magnetism and the action of bodies floating in fluids of different specific gravities. This hypothesis makes the ether of space a magnetic medium, with a greater coeflicient of magnetization than that of any known diamagnetic substance. The analytic processes of the authors are, in general, simple. Laplace’s and Legendre’s coefficients are used only in .a limited way in the subject of mag- netism. Perhaps this may be regarded as an advantage in the treatment. What is needed at present is an extended treatise on the ap- plication of spherical harmonics to practical problems in electricity and magnetism, and to problems of attracting forces in general, in order to show the availability of this method of analysis. The authors treat the subject of electro- magnetic induction in a clear way. The re- tarding effect of induction on the swing of a galvanometer needle is clearly set forth, and the work of electrical motors receives some attention. More will probably be given in the next volume. Hall’s phenomenon is treated in a far-off manner. The authors state that ‘¢ Hall’s phenomenon would seem to be in con- tradiction with the opinion generally adopted, that in electro-magnetic phenomena the action [Vou. IIL, No. 54. It is noticeable throughout the work 20 os re Ae fies ee eA FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] is exerted on the supports of the currents, and not on the currents themselves. But, however we may explain the experiment, it follows that a magnetic field in the stationary state develops an electromotive force which tends to move electricity in the direction of the electro-mag- netie action; that is, to the left of an observer placed in the current, and who is looking in the direction of the magnetic force.’’ Perhaps one cannot do more than make the above state- ment in the present state of our knowledge ; but the fact that the phenomenon in question is different in different metals shows the in- fluence of the supports. In general, we like the arrangements of the topics treated better than that of Maxwell; and we hope that this book marks the revival of a period of graceful and lucid treatises on mathematical physics which we have a right to expect from French- men. The English translation of this work by Dr. Atkinson is well executed, and is revised by the authors, who have added certain portions to it which are not contained in the French treatise. We have noticed here and there faults in punctuation which add to the difficulty of comprehending certain relations. LARISON’S TENTING-SCHOOL. The tenting-school: a description of the tours taken and the field-work done by the class in geography, in the Academy of science and art at Ringos, N.J., during the year 1882. By C. W. Lart- son, M.D., principal of the academy, etc. Rin- gos, N.J., Larison, 1883. 292 p. 12°. Tuis is an amazingly queer little book, — so full, indeed, of oddities, that one is at a loss where to begin an account of them. In the first place, the author is evidently one of our orthoe- pomaniacs. Nearly all the vowels, and many of the consonants, are decorated with diacritical points. The result is, that the pages have a singularly bristling and formidable aspect. But we advise the reader to discipline his eye to this painful amelioration of the written speech, for a reward awaits him. Behind this printed ‘ chevaux-de-frise’ there is a lot of things worth reading. The first effort of the author is to tell just how he managed for the conveyance and camping ofa party of students, boys and girls. Every little detail for the construction and equipment of a wagon and camp for eighteen persons is carefully set forth. The most trifling articles are figured in rude woodcuts. All this, though in its way useful, would be tedious but for the naive though often cumbrous language in which it is given, SCIENCE. 203 and the strangely complicated ways of meeting simple needs. When, for instance, he comes to the making of the camp-fire, which the un- tutored campaigner accomplishes as best he may, our author tells his very ingenious way. The plan is so altogether good, that we give it in full, unhappily omitting the diacritical accents, which are beyond the resources of an ordinary press. ‘*To kindle fire, we use a kind of strong iron cup, fastened to an iron handle about three feet long. This cup is very wide at the top and will hold about a quart. In this cup, we place a handful or more of resin, a gill or more of kerosene, and about a table- spoonful of a mixture, consisting of one part of ether and four parts of alcohol. At first thought, this may seem to be avery incompatible mixture; but, of its practical value, we have much evidence. ‘To start a fire in wet wood, during a rainy day, under ordinary circumstances, is not easy; but with the arrangement, and the fuel above named, it is readily effected. ‘* To ignite resin, in the open air, with an ordinary match, is almost impossible. To ignite kerosene in the open air with a match, is not easy; and to fire alco- hol in an open pan, with a match, is not done at every trial. Each of these substances require (sic) to be heated up to a certain point, —the kindling point, before they will ignite. To raise the temperature of either of these to the kindling point, requires more heat than is developed by the burning of a match; but, ether is so volatile, that when poured out, its vapor instantly rises. This vapor fires at so low a tempera- ture, that when a burning match is brought in con- tact with it, it ignites with explosive violence, and continues to burn with vigor until consumed. While burning, the heat generated, evaporates the alcohol, raises the temperature of the alcoholic vapor to the burning point, and ignites it. By the burning of the alcohol, the kerosene vapor is raised to the kindling point, and is ignited. The burning of the kerosene soon develops heat enough to liquify (sic) the resin, evaporates it and ignites it. At this juncture, a part of the kerosene and resin begins to be converted into a gas that makes a hotter blaze than that made by burning either kerosene or resin alone; besides, at- tending this fire is much less smoke than is made by the burning of resin alone. ‘““The cup of burning kerosene and resin, when placed under a heap of wood that is not too wet, soon raises the fuel to the kindling point, ignites it and gives to the fire such impetuosity that it makes water boil quickly, and butter to fry and sputter furiously. ‘* With the cup alone, charged:as above directed, I have boiled a two gallon tea kettle of water in eight minutes. But, this could not have been done in a windy day. ‘*Tt would be criminal to make the above state- ment, respecting the iron cup and the fuel to be used with it, without informing the tiro that it is very dangerous. Should any one attempt to use it, he cannot be too careful. The act of touching it off with a match, unless circumspectly done, may prove very disastrous. The results of using this mixture without sufficient cireumspection we have seen. Suf- fice it to say, they were terrible.”’ Unhappily, our author does not give a pic- ture showing the effects of these occasional catastrophes on the camp of innocents; but 204 at least he might have told us how to apply the circumspection. Like many another victualler of youth, he has very dark views about the hungry camper, or, as he sadly calls him, the ‘stomach-man.’ He thus exhorts him by picturing the perfect primal man : — “‘Tn reference to this subject, this fact should be kept in view. The type man, the formative man, was symmetrical. Neither his intellectual, nor his sensual, faculties predominated. Temperate in all things, he appreciated and enjoyed the beautiful, the euphonic, the fragrant, the relishful and the eupathic. He suffered, — but to him his task was not onerous; he enjoyed, — but his fruition did not engender ecstasy. Virtuous,—he met what was before him with fortitude. Brave,—he triumphed in every struggle for right. From birth till death, all was satisfactory, all was enjoyable.”’ The most of the book is filled with accounts of short excursions in New Jersey. They are commonplace enough in their matter, and are only interesting from the indescribably queer tone that pervades them. ‘There are many sin- gular criticisms on the manners and customs of the folk at the summer resorts on the Jersey coast: they are vulgar enough, but the pervad- ing queerness of the text makes them interest- ing. This essentially worthless little book meets a growing interest in the free life that the camp alone can give the summerer. Our country with its abundant wildernesses, with the toler- ance of its country folk for what would in other lands be called trespasses, lends itself to this charming method of travel. It is much to be desired that some master of the fine art of de- cent living in rough conditions should give us a manual for the guidance of beginners in its mysteries. ETHNOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. Zur naturwissenschafilichen behandlungsweise der psychologie durch und fiir die vilkerkunde. Von A. BastTIAn. Berlin, 1888. 2384p. 8°. THE idea pervading all of the more recent publications of Adolf Bastian is to establish a science of psychology of nations upon the data of modern ethnography. ‘The all-pervad- ing influence of nature forms and shapes peo- ples, nationalities, and their customs and habits ; and therefore ethnology must become a natural science, — the physical science of the mind as manifested in the development of each nation in particular, and all the nations taken as a whole. The withdrawing of ethnology from metaphysical influences, under which it has labored since it was made a scientific study, is SCIENCE. [Vou. ILL, No. 54. possible only when a sufficiently large material has been collected among the nations of the globe and the records of history to establish on it incontrovertibly general principles, which will be found to rest on natural science, and not on philosophic speculation. Some parts of the vast field of ethnology are still obscure as to their real significance, because the material to judge from is too scattering and scanty. Bastian’s most recent work contains a series of seven articles, mainly on Polynesian subjects, which uphold and illustrate his ideas concerning ethnology, as stated above, with a full array of the most erudite comparisons. The author’s extensive travels have furnished him with a stock of ethnographic facts which none has equalled in our century, and which he readily compares on almost every page with notices derived from the classic writers. Concerning the progress traceable on the social develop- ment of man, the writer shows, that, considered as an individual, the single man is of very small account in the primitive horde. The first stage is the tribe, based on consanguinity with ex- ogamic marriage. ‘This stage passes into that of civitas, or citizenship, whenever the country becomes agricultural. Social connection is no longer determined by family ties, but by the extent of the district, country, or commonwealth to which the individual belongs. When tribal organization becomes loose, then blood-revenge, and similar primeval customs, also disappear. The concise style of Bastian is not always what we should desire: at times it becomes rambling, a heavy phraseology obscures its lucidity, ana the pressure of thoughts cannot find words enough to give vent to their rapid flow. Such defects as these are more prejudicial to the literary success of Bastian’s numerous pub- lications than the typographic errors which the proof-reader has allowed to disfigure their texts, especially the classic quotations. STOKES’S SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. Mathematical and physical papers. By GrorGE GABRIEL Stokes, M.A., D.C. L., LIA Ds F. R.S., professor of mathematics in the Uni- versity of Cambridge. Reprinted from the original journals and transactions, with addi- tional notes by the author. Vol. ii. Cambridge, University press, 1883. 3866p. 8°. VoL. i. (828 pages) appeared in 1880, and contains the papers, arranged in chronological order, which were published by the author be- tween April, 1842, and December, 1847. The earliest date in vol. ii. is March, 1848, and ean FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] the latest, March, 1850. Vol. ili. is stated by the publishers to be i in press. Of the papers reprinted in these first two volumes, only two of the more important are of a purely mathematical character, and these treat of the properties and methods of compu- tation of infinite periodic series such as arise in many physical problems, which series were first sy ns employed and Ssplnied by Fourier in 1822. Fourier’s treatise ' is to-day the best introduction to a knowledge of this kind of analysis, besides being one of the most brilliant expositions, in any branch of science, in existence. With the exception of a single paper of 42 pages, upon a differential equation relating to the breaking of railway bridges under loads moving at high speeds, the remaining papers all come under the head of fluid motion in one way or another, and include extensive discussions of the fundamental dynamical equa- tions of motion of perfect fluids, of viscous fluids, and of elastic solids. ‘These discussions treat, among other subjects, the theory of oscil- latory waves, the equilibrium of the earth in a fluid state, the variation of the force of gravity on its surface, and the undulatory theory of light. The work of Professor Stokes in hydrody- namics is of special importance in correcting and rediscussing the results obtained by La- grange and Poisson, and in paving the way for the more modern developments of Helmholtz and Thomson in vortex motion, and of Max- well in electricity and magnetism. 1 Analytical theory of heat. lated, with notes, by Alexander Freeman. By JosEPH FOURIER. Trans- Cambridge, 1878. SCIENCE. 205 But the papers of Stokes which are prob- ably of most interest to the mathematical phys- icist of to-day are those upon the undulatory theory of light, in which he has added essen- tially to our knowledge of the constitution of the luminiferous ether by showing how the phenomena of aberration may remain unaf- fected by the fixity or motion of the ether, as also by his investigation of the theory of dif- fraction, by which he has sought to decide whether the vibratory motion of a plane polar- ized ray lies in the plane of polarization or at right angles to it. By these investigations, and by others, among which may be noticed that of the col- ored rings of Newton, he has explained diffi- culties in Fresnel’s undulatory theory, and essentially improved it. The treatise of Verdet,! which is the most complete and important exposition of the un- dulatory theory yet written, gives a complete bibliography of this subject, extending to many hundred titles, from which the reader can correctly estimate the labors of Professor Stokes in this field. The lifelong labors of Professor Stokes have given an immense impulse to mathe- matico-physical research in England ; and the republication of these papers by the syndics of the Cambridge university press is a grace- ful and well-deserved tribute to the Nestor of the greatest mathematical school in the world. 1 Legons d’optique physique par E. Verdet. Paris, tome. i., 1869; tome ii., 1872. The following translation and revision to date is in process of publication: Vorlesungen uber die wellen- theorie des lichtes, von E. Verdet. MHerausg. von Dr. Karl Exner, Braunschweig. Bd.i. 1881. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Geologic work in the South Atlantic district. — Owing to the as yet incomplete state of the topo- graphic work in the southern Appalachians, the sys- tematic geologic survey of that section has not yet been commenced. However, several geologic recon- naissances have been made, and considerable collec- tions of paleontologic material have been sent into the main office of the survey. During the season of 1883 Prof. H. R. Geiger examined the geologic struc- ture of a considerable portion of Virginia and West Virginia. During the latter part of July he was in the eastern part of Virginia, but in August trans- ferred his field of work to Greenbrier county, W. Va., where he studied the formations that are exposed between the Greenbrier River and the Lewis Tun- nel, just east of Alleghany station, W. Va. A collection of Devonian fossils was made. In Sep- tember his work was carried into Alleghany county, Va., where a careful examination was made of the rocks so well shown there. The thickness, dip, etce., of the beds were obtained, and an excellent series of typical specimens secured. In October the field was extended northward to Rockingham county, but bad weather impeded the operations. Through Novem- ber a special study was made of the foldings in the limestones that lie between the Blue Ridge and North Mountain, and a careful comparative examination made of the limestones of Rockingham and Rock- bridge counties, Va. Professor Ira Sayles was assigned to the north- eastern part of Tennessee, and adjacent portions of Virginia and Kentucky. The early part of July was spent by him in the examination of the caves near 206 Clinch River in Virginia. He next examined the coal- beds on Big Yellow Creek in Bell county, Ky., and the Dyestone iron-ore beds a few miles farther down Poor valley. The following month the work on Clinch River was continued in Hancock. county, Tenn., especially with the object of ascertaining and more accurately defining the extent and direction of the faulting so well displayed in that section. ‘The upper coal-measures were also examined, and a running field-chart of the county made. In the latter part of the month, Professor Sayles discovered some very interesting cave-deposits in a quarry in Hawkins county, Tenn. The formations of this county were carefully studied during September and October, and large collections of fossils obtained. The latter part of October found Professor Sayles at Knoxville, in accordance with his orders, to examine the vicinity of Knoxville and Centreville for Potsdam fossils to supplement Mr. Walcott’s paleontologic work. He was engaged in this region through November and December. Topographic work in eastern Tennessee. — With a view to facilitate future geologic work, the division for the topographic survey of the southern Appala- chian region was organized upon a considerably en- larged scale for the season of 1883. As already noted in Science, five topographic and two triangulation parties were put in this field. Topographic party No. 3, in charge of Mr. Frank M. Pearson, was assigned to the valley of East Ten- nessee. The territory covered by his party includes about five thousand square miles, lying between par- allels 36° and 36° 35’, and between meridians 82° 15’ and 84° 30’. This area is the northern half of the valley of East Tennessee; extending from the sum- mit of the Cumberland Mountains and Cumberland plateau, on the north and west, to the summit of the Smoky Mountains, or state line between North Caro- lina and Tennessee, on the south and east. The top- ographical character of this region is such that the methods of work employed in the west had to be some- what modified. It was necessary to carry on a con- siderable part of the work by means of compass meander-lines; and the rapidity of this class of work, and of the triangulation, was seriously interfered with on account of the dense timber which prevails everywhere, and by the atmospheric conditions, which are rarely favorable for clear views of any great ex- tent. The prominent topographical features are pe- culiar. Almost the entire main valley is occupied by parallel ridges, that have their origin in south-west- ern Virginia, and run in a south-westerly direction through Tennessee, and into Alabama and Georgia. In this, of course, the drainage system is simple, the larger streams, with few exceptions, being confined by the ridges which enclose their head waters. The Bays Mountain, consisting of a great number of these parallel ridges, or mountains, as they are wrongly called, constitutes the divide between the Holston River on the west, and the Nolachucky and French Broad Rivers on the east. In the vicinity of this mountain, and on either side, the drainage is almost entirely underground, the water flowing SCIENCE. through and in the limestone strata that underlie this region. This renders the tracing of the streams a difficult matter. The minor drainage collects in numerous sink-holes, which occur on the broad di- vides from which the streams flow in underground channels, and come to the surface again in unex- pected places, and frequently at considerable dis- tance from the point of disappearance. A striking example of this kind of drainage is seen in Mossy Creek, which is also interesting from the luxuriant growth of confervoids and moss with which its bed is covered. This stream rises on the north slope of Bays Mountain, and, after a course of three miles, disappears, and is not seen as a surface-stream for a distance of seven miles, when it re-appears, and flows for three miles to its junction with the Holston River. Five miles from the source of the stream there is a so-called sink-hole, which is six hundred feet in length and of unknown depth. A ninety-foot pole does not touch the bottom. This is really a surface appearance of the stream. A saw-mill was ‘ located on the creek a short distance above the first point of disappearance; and the people of the coun- } try have frequently noticed that slabs and saw-dust 5 from the mill would rise to the surface in this sink- i hole, then disappear, and come to the surface again in Mossy Creek, three miles above its mouth, where it rises for the last time. Mr. Pearson says that the topographical unity of the ridges and valleys is not recognized by the inhabit- ants of the country, and hence some confusion has arisen. ‘To the same ridge or valley, often only fifteen or twenty miles in length, as many as five different names are frequently applied; the universal custom being to re-name a ridge or valley whenever it is cut in two or crossed by a stream. This confusion of names also arises partly from the fact that no thorough or connected survey of the region has ever been made, although it is one of the earliest settled portions of the United States. The natural water-power facilities of the Appala- chian region have recently been the subject of much notice, and in this respect the valley of East Ten- ; nessee is unexcelled. There are in it many streams of considerable length, affording abundant water- h power, that are not indicated on even the best ex- isting maps of the region. Other additions and ’ corrections of considerable importance have been determined by the work of Mr. Pearson. 5 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. 4 Museum of comparative zodlogy. 3 Arrangement of exhibilion-rooms. — The exhibition- rooms are comparatively small, each one devoted toa special subject, but so combined, that, when taken together, they illustrate the animal kingdom as a — whole, in its general relations and in its geographical. and paleontological range and distribution. They are intended not only to meet the wants of the pub- © lic at large, and of beginners. as well as of more — advanced university students, but also to promote — research by giving assistance to specialists and origi- — nal investigators. Meanwhile the work of the es FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] seum proper should be in charge of assistants whose uties are so arranged as to leave a good part of their time free for original research; the museum as a whole forming an important branch of the natural- history department of the university, with which its assistants and professors are intimately connected. An enumeration of the contents and uses to which the space is devoted will give a better idea of the aims of the museum than a lengthy description. Exhibition-rooms. Synoptic room: synopsis of the animal kingdom, living and fossil. Five systematic rooms for the systematic collec- tions of mammalia, birds, fishes, mollusca, radiates, and protozoa; and their galleries for reptiles, insects, and crustacea. Seven faunal rooms and galleries: North American, South American, African (including Madagascar), Indian, Australian, Europeo-Siberian,! Atlantic,} Pacific. Four rooms for the paleontological collections. Two rooms for the paleozoic, one for the mesozoic, and one for the tertiary, as follows: Silurian and De- vonian,! carboniferous and Jura,! cretaceous,! ter- tiary.} The work-rooms for the assistants of the museum, and the storage-rooms, which are also intended as work-rooms of their special subjects, are distributed as follows, in addition to a large receiving-room and a general workshop: — The alcoholic collections stored in the basement occupy four rooms devoted to fishes, two rooms for fishes and reptiles, one room for birds and mammals, one room for mollusca, one room for crustacea, one room for the other invertebrates. The entomological department is to occupy event- ually four gallery-rooms of the first story. The work rooms and storage-rooms of the fifth story are filled by collections occupying five rooms devoted to birds and mammals, three for skins and eggs and two for skeletons, one for crustacea, one 1 Not yet open to the public. SCIENCE. 207 for mollusca, one for fish and reptile skeletons, one for the collection of dry invertebrates (corals, echin- oderms, sponges, etc.), two for fossil vertebrates (exclusive of fishes). The remaining paleontological collections are crowded into four work and storage rooms. ‘There are two work-rooms for the geological and lithological department. Four rooms are devoted to the library of the museum, and one room for the office of the curator. There are also a large general lecture- room, three laboratories for students in biology, three laboratories for students in geology and paleon- tology, with two smaller private rooms for the in- structors. With the biological laboratories will be connected also a large room for an aquarium for both fresh-water and marine animals, and another room for a vivarium, both of which are in the basement of the building. This will give, in all, seventeen rooms devoted to the exhibition of collections for the public; ten work and storage rooms in the basement, for the alcoholic collections; thirteen work and storage rooms for the dry zoological collections; eight similar rooms for the paleontological and geological collections; and thirteen rooms devoted to the laboratories, lecture- rooms, and library connected with the instruction given at the museum; the arrangement being such, that, whenever any departments (as, for instance, the geological and geographical, or the anatomical, or any other) outgrow their present quarters, room can be made for them by extensions of the building, for a long time to come, without interfering with the plans which have been carried out thus far. In adopting a small unit for the size of the rooms (30x 40 feet), all attempts at exhibition-rooms, impos- ing from their size, were deliberately abandoned. It is aimed only to place before the public such por- tions of the collections as shall become instructive; and in the storage and work rooms the appliances for storage aim at economy of space, and are in- tended, while they do not neglect the careful preser- vation of the collections, to give to the assistants and students the freest and quickest possible access to them. RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCTETIES. Cambridge entomological club, Feb. &. — Mr. G. Dimmock called attention to some curious habits of the common European earwig, For- ficula auricularia, a specimen of which he had kept in confinement several months. These insects are omnivorous, but apparently prefer insects as food, eating their own species greedily. Although to all appearances blind, except to the presence or absence of light, the specimen above mentioned captured fleas (Pulex irritans) with ease in an enclosure about five centimetres in diameter. No notice was taken of a flea put in the enclosure until the flea actually touched the earwig, when the latter would rush after the flea, | palpitating with the antennae rapidly, and thus keep- ing on his track. If the flea escaped from beneath the antennae of the earwig, the latter would find him again in a moment, and the amusing chase would be renewed, to end in the sure seizure of the flea in the mouth-parts of the earwig. The earwig was a glut- ton, and would often eat a large number of fleas or other insects in succession, at the end of his repast his abdomen being much distended. Mr. 8. H. Seud- der exhibited a specimen and drawings of an arachnid from the coal-measures of Arkansas. ‘Two years ago Karsch figured a similar form from the coal of Prus- sian Silesia, under the generic name Anthracomartus, and Kusta has just described another from carbo- 208 niferous beds in Bohemia. This adds another to the many instances in which a new generic type of car- boniferous arthropods had no sooner been announced as found on one continent than it was discovered on the other. The Arkansas species was obtained by Prof. F. S. Harvey of Fayetteville, and had not been in Mr. Scudder’s hands a month before a second American species was found by Mr. R. D. Lacoe in the well-known beds of Mazon Creek, Iil. Biological society of Washington. Feb. 8. —Mr. W. T. Hornaday read a paper on the guacharo bird of Trinidad, describing the habits of the Steatomis caripensis as observed by him in one of the caves where it breeds. Mr. G. Brown Goode read a paper on the aims and limitations of modern fish-culture. Modern fish-culture he defined to be fish-culture carried on upon an immense scale, under the direction of men trained to scientific research, as distinguished from the old and insignificant method of fish-culture carried on by private enterprise. Its aims were shown to be, 1, to arrive at a complete understanding of the life-histories of useful aquatic animals, and the conditions under which they live; and, 2, to apply this knowledge so thoroughly that all fishes shall be brought as completely under control as are now the shad, the salmon, the carp, and the whitefish. The limitations of fish-culture were shown to be the same as those of scientific stock-rearing or agriculture. Dr. T. H. Bean made a communica- tion upon an augmented development in the fins of a species of Siphostoma, exhibiting a specimen with a supernumerary anal fin. In the discussion of this paper, Mr. John A. Ryder remarked that this de- formity was an attempt toward reversion to the con- dition of some remote ancestral type in which there was a continuous fin around the posterior portion of the body. —— Mr. C. D. Walcott exhibited a speci- men of trilobite, Asaphus sp., in which twenty-six pairs of legs, and the mouth-parts also, were plainly to be seen; also a specimen of Maine granite con- taining fossil corals, probably of the Devonian age. Philosophical society of Washington. Jan, 19. — Mr. Israel C. Russell made a communi- cation on the existing glaciers of the high Sierra in California. After showing the extent of the ancient glaciers of the region, and their relation to the topog- raphy, he described in detail the phenomena of the Mount Dana, Mount Lyell, and Parker Creek glaci- ers, closing his remarks with a reference to the lit- erature of the subject. The Mount Dana glacier lies at the foot of a cliff on the north face of that peak, with an elevation of 11,500 feet above the sea. It is at the head of a deep cafion draining into Lee- Vining Creek, one of the tributaries of Mono Lake. It is approximately 2,500 feet long, and of somewhat greater breadth. Notwithstanding its small size, the distinction between the snow-ice of the névé and the solid greenish-blue ice of the glacier proper is clearly marked. Its planes of growth are indicated by a banded structure,—compact ice alternating with thin sheets of porous white ice and with dirt-bands. SCIENCE. ~ ancient work was performed with blunt-pointed tools, ous instances of elevations and depressions that are ™ PR te i i, ua It is abundantly provided with crevasses, and has a — terminal moraine visibly growing. The stones of — the moraine show marks of attrition, and the lakelet fed by the outflowing stream is milky from suspended detritus. The Mount Lyell glacier is somewhat larger, and exhibits substantially the same characters. A portion of its surface is characterized by ‘ ice-pyra- mids.’ These occur only near the foot of the glacier, where the surface is rapidly melting, and depend upon the power of superficial pebbles to rescue the ice immediately beneath them from the porosity else- where produced by insolation. The Parker Creek glacier, likewise at the head of a tributary of Mono Lake, resembles the others in its general features, and displays in addition a considerable number of ‘ glacier-tables,’ — blocks of rock perched on stand- ards of ice. A number of other glaciers were seen at a distance of a few miles, but were not visited. The various phenomena were illustrated by photo- graphs. Mr. Gilbert Thompson described certain glaciers on Mount Shasta believed to be new to: science, Their discovery increases the number of known glaciers on the flanks of Shasta to seven. Mr. W. H. Holmes described the glaciers. of the Wind River Mountains, and the glaciers of Mount Moran in the Teton Range. ‘The former are from one-fourth of a mile to one mile in length. . The latter are three in number, and lie at an altitude of 12,000 feet. Mr. Mark Kerr mentioned the occurrence of a glacier in the Salmon Mountains, a division of the Coast Range. Prof. W. C. Kerr described the mica-mines of North Carolina, explaining their geological relations, and setting forth the economic and mineralogic ; results of their exploitation. He described more . particularly a series of prehistoric excavations, which _ are large and numerous, and were evidently made for the purpose of obtaining the same mineral. One of these measures 150 by 75 feet, and, despite a partial filling with débris, retains a depth of 35 feet. The doubtless of stone; and facts connected with the arboreal vegetation show that it had been discontin- ued as much as five hundred years ago. Scientific club, Manhattan, Kan. Jan. 18. — Mr. Shartel presented some notes regard- ing the Suez and Panama canals and the Augsburg tunnel. Mr. Marlatt described a worm which he observed last year. Professor Kellerman made some interesting remarks respecting the occurrence of chlorophyll in animals. Superintendent Graham gave a description of some carvings on a rock in a cave in Greenwood county. ‘These carvings were — observed by Mr. Mason, and drawings which he made ~ of them were exhibited. Mrs. Kellerman gave an interesting description of the Termites, or ‘white ants.’ She described their manners and customs, grades of society, architecture, political economy, and many other points. Mr. Lund read a paper on the — undulations of the earth’s surface. He cited numer-— 4/7 x ne \ a aA Tr... a oe FEBRUARY 15, 1884.] taking place at the present time, as well as some of the more remarkable ones of past ages. Cuvier club, Cincinnati, Jan. 5. — In their annual report, the trustees stated that the club expended during the year $238.60 in the prosecution of the game-laws. The extension of the open season for quail through November was sug- gested as not likely to do injury; and attention was called to the continued pollution of waters, and the consequent destruction of fish. The necessity was urged of protecting the National park from the specu- lator, and such tracts as the Adirondacks from the wood-chopper. Academy of natural sciences of Philadelphia. Dec. 11, 1883. —In an account of the formicaries of the carpenter ant, the Rev. H. C. McCook related observations proving that the females of Camponotus pennsylvanicus, when fertilized, go solitary, and, after dispossessing themselves of their wings, begin the work of founding a new family. This work they carry on until enough workers are reared to attend to the active duties of the formicary; as, tending and feeding the young, enlarging the domicile, etc. After that, the queens generally limit their duty to the laying of eggs, and are continually guarded and re- stricted in their movements by a circle of attendant workers, or ‘court.’ The facts are further illustrated and enlarged by a series of observations made by Mr. Edward Potts, in accordance with the speaker’s sug- gestions and directions. They establish or confirm the following points: 1. The manner of depositing the eggs, which, as well as the larvae, are cared for: by the queen until workers are matured; 2. The stages in the development of the egg and larvae are par- tially noted; 3. The time required for the change from larval to pupal state is about thirty days; 4. About the same period is spent in the pupal state, the entire period of transformation being about sixty days; 5. The work of rearing the first broods begins the latter part of June, or early in July; 6. About twenty-four hours are spent by larvae in spinning the cocoon; 7. The ant-queen probably assists the callow antling to emerge from its case; 8. Not only the larvae, but occasionally the antlings, are fed by the queen; 9. The young workers, shortly after emer- ging, begin the duty of nurses, caring for the eggs, and tending the larvae. Jan. 1.— Professor Joseph Leidy exhibited speci- mens of tin ore from the Black Hills, Dakota. They consisted of a mass of granite containing cassiterite, a fragment of quartz with the same, and a mass of pure Cassiterite of about one-pound weight. He had also seen several pounds of large grains obtained from gold-washings. From among these he had picked out several characteristic crystals, NOTES AND NEWS. THe death, last Friday, of Professor Arnold Guyot of Princeton, removes one more of those distinguished men of broad scientific culture, who, nurtured in | SCIENCE. 209 Europe, have given the best fruits of their lives to America. His influence on the young men under his teaching was second only to that of his devoted friend and countryman, Agassiz. We shall speak more at length of his life and characteristics in a future number. —It will be a source of pleasure to those who are aware of the reliable and conscientious character of Dr. Joseph Leidy’s contributions to science, to learn that he has been awarded by the Geological society of London the ‘ Lyell medal,’ with its accom- panying purse of twenty-five pounds, in recognition of hisimportant services to paleontology. In a letter received from Warington W. Smith, foreign secretary of the Geological society, dated Jan. 25, Dr. Leidy is advised of the award, and requested to depute some fellow of the society to receive the same at the anniversary meeting to be held on the 15th inst., for transmission to Philadelphia. — The fourth volume of the census reports has been issued from the press. This is upon the ‘agencies of transportation,’ and includes the statistics of rail- roads, steam-navigation, canals, telegraphs, and tele- phones. Naturally the first of these subjects takes up the bulk of the volume, monopolizing 651 pages out of a total of 869. The statistics and discussion of this subject, as well as of telegraphs and tele- phones, have been prepared by Mr. A. E. Shuman, whose thorough acquaintance with the subjects, and whose painstaking care, are amply illustrated by the reports in question. The total railroad mileage in operation on June 1, 1880, is given as 87,781 74%. This was under the management of 631 corporations. The total cost of construction was $4,112,367,176, and of equipment, $418,045,458. The assets of the whole system amounted to $5,586,419,788, and the liabilities, $5,- 425,722,560. The paid-in capital stock aggregated $2,613,606,264, over 80% of which earned a profit at an average rate of 6;37,%. ‘The total number of stockholders (estimated, in part) was not far from 300,000, giving an average of $8,700 of stock to each. The aggregate freight mileage was 582,548,846,695, and the passenger mileage, 5,740,112,502. To illus- trate the amount of railroad travel, it may be said that this represents an average travel of 114 miles for each man, woman, and child in the country. The above figures, when contrasted with those represent- ing the condition of the railroad interest in this country at the close of 1882, show an immense growth during the two years anda half. At the latter date there were in operation not fewer than 117,717 miles, an increase of 29,835 miles, while the capital had in- creased in approximately the same proportion. At that date the total railroad mileage of the globe is given (Spofford’s Almanac) as 264,826, of which this country owned over 44%. The total of all Europe was less than that of the United States, being but 105,895. The statistical tables of the report upon railroads contain, 1°, a general financial exhibit of the several roads; 2°, a general balance-sheet; 3°, traftic operations; 4°, passenger and freight mileage; and, wer 210 5°, equipment and employees. A second portion of the report relates to the physical characteristics of the roads, with statistics regarding the history of con- struction, grades, curves, roadway, and tracks. This is followed by an analysis of the funded debts of rail- road corporations, and by a statement regarding the amount and kind of fuel used. The report concludes with a condensed statement of the agreements exist- ing between different railroad companies, and be- tween these companies on the one hand, and express and sleeping car companies on the other. The report by Mr. T. C. Purdy, upon steam-navi- gation, opens with a history of that subject, in which the progress of development of the species, the high- est type of which is our ocean-going steamship, is briefly sketched. The tables show the number, ton- nage, value, capital invested, service, and traffic of our steam-craft. The report upon canals, by the same author, opens with a history of canal construc- tion in this country. Many persons at the present day will doubtless be surprised to learn the extent to which this class of internal improvements was pushed during the period between 1825 and 1840. The total length of canals constructed in this country was 4,468;'5 miles, costing $214,041,802. Of this, 1,953; miles have been abandoned, and a large part of the remainder is not paying expenses. The sta- tistics connected with this report give financial state- ments, date of construction, dimensions of canals, and the number and dimensions of locks. The report upon telegraphs opens with a brief dis- cussion of the statistics. The tables contain a general financial exhibit, a statement of volume of business, number of employees, and description of lines. The report upon telephones is of a very similar character. In regard to this, it should be borne in mind that the telephone was in its infancy during the year to which the statistics refer, and that its use has increased enormously during the years which have elapsed since. Following this report is a paper upon the postal-telegraph service in foreign countries, which cannot fail to prove of great interest at this time, - When the question of a government telegraph is being actively agitated in this country. This report has been compiled by Mr. Robert B. Lines, mainly from information received from the heads of the de- partments of postal telegraph of foreign countries through our representatives. It details the history of the postal telegraph in each country where it ex- ists, sketches the methods of business management, and compares the administration by the government with that by private hands, both as to cheapness and efficiency. The following countries support telegraphs which, either wholly or in part, supplant private undertakings: Great Britain, Germany, France, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Switzerland, Bel- gium, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Por- tugal, Roumania, Turkey, Brazil, Japan, Canada, and New Zealand,—in short, nearly every civilized country. In most cases the telegraph has been the property of the state since its introduction, but in a _ few cases the property has been purchased from pri- vate owners. This was the case with Great Britain, SCIENCE. who. bought out the telegraph companies in 1870. The price paid for the property was based upon the net earnings in the year ending June 380, 1868, by capitalizing that amount at five per cent. The trans- fer from private to public hands has been found to be advantageous; as not only have the rates been largely reduced, but this department has been more than self-supporting, having earned in twelve years (from 1870 to 1881 inclusive) the sum of £1,996,996. This, however, need not be a matter of surprise; as the uniform rate for twenty words is one shilling (twenty-five cents), and threepence for each addi- tional five words or part of five words. As compared with the rtaes of private corporations in this country, these rates are but little lower for equal distances, while, if we consider the greater density of popula- tion and the vastly greater volume of business done in England, it would seem that these rates are rela- tively quite as high. In most of the continental countries rates are less; and, in all cases where the statistics are given, the expenses of the department have been greater than the receipts. The volume has a very full general index. — Wedenskii states (Centralbl. med. wiss., 1883, 465) that he has been able to demonstrate the pres- ence of the negative variation of the natural nerve current in a stimulated nerve by means of the tele- phone in a way similar to that described by Bern- stein and Schonlein for the muscle. The quality of the ‘nerve-tone’ obtained does not differ from that of the telephonic muscle-tone. When, by tying a string around it, the physiological continuity of the nerve was destroyed, the peculiar nerve-tone caused by in- terruptions of the negative variation current disap- peared, while that caused by unipolar action, and of a purely physical origin, could still be heard. The latter tone, however, could be distinguished from the true physiological nerve-tone both by means of its peculiar quality and by the fact that it required a greater strength of stimulus for its production than the former. Chemical and mechanical stimulation were also tried, and in each case a definite noise was heard. When the nerve was stimulated by means of a constant current, a peculiar noise was heard, in ac- cordance with the law of contraction, either at the opening or the closing of the current. ; — E. and F. N. Spon announce A pocket-book of electrical tables, for the use of electricians and engi- neers, by John Munro and A. Jamieson; Absolute electrical and magnetic measurements, reprinted from Nature, by A. Gray; Handbook of sanitary informa- tion for householders, by Roger S. Tracy. — The deaths are announced of Mr. Hugh Powell, — the first English optician to construct objectives on the — water-immersion principle, and one of the founders ~ of the Royal microscopical society, of whom only five now remain; and of the venerable Professor Sven Nilsson of Lund, known for his zodlogical work and ~ his investigations on the prehistoric inhabitants of Scandinavia. [Vou. IIL, No. 54. FEBRUARY 15, 1884. ] —A correspondent of Nature, who has evidently had a good opportunity to study the results of the Krakatoa eruption, and has made soundings in the neighborhood, writes, that instead of the sixteen new voleanoes which were at first reported, and the total destruction of Krakatoa, there is still a considerable portion of the island, and that the greater part of the destruction seems to have come from the wave pro- duced by the eruption and the fall of the masses of material which were thrown from the northern por- tion of the island. Krakatoa at its northern end now rises in a steep wall eight hundred metres high; and, Krakatoa before the Eruptioa. 1883. 7*300,000 Depta: Meter. Verlaten—. Islan t ia \ ia } ‘Lang Island V% 50 | Dept Jess 10 Meter, where was once land, soundings of three hundred and sixty metres have been made without finding bottom. A large portion of this material appears to have been deposited a few miles to the north, as shown in the map, by the new islands of Steers and Calmejar, and the shoals to the north of Lang Island, which seems to have been about on the line between the upheaval and downfall, and has not been changed materially in size. All the islands are covered with ashes; the destruction of life having been nearly complete, even in Sebuku, the first patches of green showing themselves on the small islands farther north. — Professor Richard Owen has ceased to be a com-. moner, having been knighted by the Queen. A ban- quet was given him by his colleagues on the 21st of January, as a sort of farewell celebration on the event SCIENCE. 211 of his resigning the superintendency of the natural- history section of the British museum, Although about eighty years of age, he is still vigorous, and reads papers before the learned societies at nearly every meeting. The establishment of a natural- history museum was long an object for which he toiled. Over twenty years ago he published an ad- dress ‘on a national museum of natural history,’ in which he stated his view relative to the need for, and the proper organization of, such an institution. ‘The new museum is in a large degree the result of his labor. Krakatoa after the Hruption. i883. 7/300,000 Depth: Meter Sele

NYS LAIST 9 @ Ins eg iS fF I g = ‘i Zs = Gs | oe > Ry \ %, AS A W a) z9 » | EN Re cs} | ~ 70 | ‘= Oo ee S “G, 3 S Ss qq | | | | | | | | | | 61|- We | S Wh ee on "Miles? Canon ny < | » HILL Si 4,000 Z | PART 1 OF THE MAP OF THE ROUTE OF THE Military Reconnaissance S XX OF 1883, gyise Lieut. F.SCHWATKA, Comdg., Lé - Prejevalsky Bty@ Wee elahko From Chilcoot Inlet, Alaska, to ere HS BO GUAT G . "Als Wi: NES, Ft.Selkirk, B. C. i (| Cys hy Ue WE = SW WD Fr SURVEYED AND COMPILED * Uy )} Sy Per S © Ve, ax er Portage Ne SS a fie C. A. HOMAN, Topct, Asst., U.S.A. r Lijigre Lindeman = GEOGRAPHICAL MILES 612 8 4 0 8 16 L a STATUTE MILES 1612 8 4 0 8 16 0 Chilcoot LY: z Yeon Mj Ssj 137° 136° _ "135° aie ise 222 all these three Indian tribes in my passage through their country. Reaching Chilcat on the 2d of June, I found, as I had surmised from reports, that miners had pioneered the way some distance down the river in search of gold; but no one seemed to be much the wiser regarding the route, except that, as near as could be gleaned, they confirmed to a great extent the old Indian stories. My suggestion of a raft as my means of conveyance was ridiculed by whites and natives; and they could hardly conceal their contempt when the programme was known to be the passage, that summer, of the whole length of the river. Two or three hundred miles of tortuous lakes and a number of rapids. aggregating eight or ten miles in length, which the Indians never essayed, and around which the miners dragged their whip-sawed boats, were reported to exist, and supposed by all to be sufficient to wreck the raft theory of trans- SCIENCE. placed at my disposal by Mr. Spuhn, manager of the North-west trading company. At Chilcoot mission, four or five canoes were added to the already long chain, and the course resumed. Leaving Chilcoot Inlet, we entered another, that the Indians call the Dayay, an exact image of the fiord-like inlets characteristic of this part of the Alaskan coast; that is, having more the appearance of a large river than a salt-water estuary, its sides being immense precipitous mountains, covered three-fourths of the way to the top with a dense growth of spruce, fir, and pine, the latter holding to the lower levels, and capped with blue and white glacier ice that feeds innumerable and picturesque waterfalls coursing down the mountain sides. The mouth of the Dayay was reached that evening, our load of three or four tons lightered to the shore, the canoes and the bundles assorted and given to the different Indian packers, numbering over sixty. The packs varied from thirty-six to a DAYAY VALLEY, LOOKING UP THE NOURSE RIVER VALLEY. A glimpse of Baird Glacier covered with fog is given. The mountains holding the glacier being twice as high as the one shown on the left, their crests, if they had been visible, would not have shown in the photograph from which this illustration is made, being above the line where it is cut off. The lower edge of the fog-bank is just below the upper edge of the glacier. It is only at night that the fog-banks lift, when it is too late to take photographs. portation ; and, by the time I started, I felt very anxious myself regarding my plan. We left on the 7th of June from Chileat, with thirteen canoes, towed by a steam-launch kindly hundred and thirty-seven pounds in weight, the — adults generally carrying a hundred pounds, — and the boys according to their age and strength. Here was found a small camp of [Vou. III., No. 55. le £ , 4 - 5 4 FEBRUARY 22, 1884. ] Tahk-heesh Indians who were hunting black bear, said to be very numerous in this vicinity. During the evening we could hear many hoot- ing-grouse (Bonasa Sabinii) in the spruce woods of the hillsides, this part of the day seeming to be their favorite time for this Pulling 1G Cange SS prach iY a => currel if Ne 1 pe SCIENCE. 223 ie) ) and Dayay, like most streams fed by glaciers, have their waters noticeably white and chalky. Not a‘ bite,’ nor a‘ rise,’ could be had in either with bait or flies, although the Indians catch trout in them in their fish-wears. At the head of the Nourse River the Indians Push ing Shore E = SS Tracking Current X Indvairs METHODS OF TRACKING -A CANOE UP A RAPID. strain. I could but notice the very peculiar expressions of surprise given by the Chilcat Indians. Whenever one sets up a‘ Ya-a-a!’ at any thing that attracts his notice, especially the ludicrous mishap of a companion, every one in hearing, from two to two hundred, joins instantly ; and a prolonged. shout goes up that would astonish one not used to it. This may be repeated a number of times in a minute; and the suddenness with which it commences and stops is astonishing, and strongly reminds one of a gang of coyotes howling, or the bay- ing of Indian dogs, from which I think they have borrowed it. The head of canoe navigation on the Dayay is ten miles from the mouth of the river, al- though fully fifteen are travelled by the canoe- men in ascending its tortuous course. They ‘track’ against the current in two ways, two persons being necessary for each method for a single canoe. The diagrams above will show these methods without further explanations. The current of the Dayay is very swift, and it often takes two days’ ‘ tracking’ over the navigable part. Every few hundred yards or so the river has to be crossed, and oftentimes a hundred yards is lost in this undertaking. From the head of canoe navigation on the Dayay to the point where the Indian packers left the party is twenty-six miles, or the true length of the portage. Two miles and a half beyond the head of canoe navigation the Cut- lah-cook-ah of the Chilcats comes in from the west. ‘This is really larger in volume and width than the Dayay, the two averaging re- spectively fifty and forty yards in width by es- timation. I shortened its lengthy name, and called it after Professor Nourse of the U.S. naval observatory. Large glaciers feed its sources by numerous waterfalls, and its caiion- like bed is very picturesque. Both the Nourse say there is a very large lake. Its westward- bounding mountains are capped with an im- mense glacier, that could be traced along their summits for probably ten or twelve miles, and was then lost in the lowering clouds that these icy crowns form from the moisture-loaded at- mosphere of the warm Pacific.’ These light fogs are frequent in the warm days, when the difference of temperatures at the upper and lower levels is more marked, clearing up at night as they approach each other. The march of the 10th of June was a very rough, fatiguing one of about ten miles, con- suming from 7.30 a.m. till 7.15 e.m. It brought us to the foot of the mountain pass on the other side of which we should find the sources of the Yukon. I noticed that day that all my Indians, in crossing logs over streams, always turned the toes of both feet in the same direction (to the right), although they kept the body square to the front, or nearly so, and each foot passed the other at every step, as in natural walking. The advantage to be gained was not obvious to the author ; as the novice, in attempt- POSITION OF THE FEET IN WALKING A LOG, AS PRACTISED BY THE ALASKAN INDIANS. ing it, feels much more unsafe than in ordi- nary walking. Every evening was spent by the Indians in their gambling games, their orgies 1 This glacier (see ilhustration, p. 222) was named after Prof. S. F. Baird of Washington, D.C. 224 often continuing until midnight or past. This, added to their rapidly improvised birchbark hats with pictures upon them that would pro- hibit their being sent through the mails, does not speak well for missionary efforts among them. On the 11th we crossed the pass (Perrier Pass), ascending to forty-one hundred feet SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 55. hill, on a level, or even with a slight descent, always stepped in each other’s tracks, so that my large party made a trail that looked as if only five or six had passed over; but, when going down a steep descent, each one made his own trail, and they scattered out over many yards. I could not but be impressed with the idea that this was worth considering in estimat- A VIEW IN THE DAYAY VALLEY. A finger of the Saussure Glacier is seen peeping round the mountain, the rest being covered with fog. above the sea-level, being among the clouds formed by the glaciers in the upper third of the ascent. It was the usual severe alpine climb- ing; the agility and endurance of the Indian packers, with their immense loads, almost sur- passing belief. The entire distance of six or seven miles was on the deep snow, the depth of which could only be inferred. Once through the Perrier Pass, the descent is rapid for a few hundred feet to a lake of about a hundred acres in extent, which was yet frozen over and the ice covered with snow. It very much resembled some old extinct crater, and I doubt not but that it was active in ancient times. Here there was no timber, nor even brush, to be seen ; and the gullies of the granite hills, and the valleys deeply covered with snow, gave the whole scene a decidedly arctic appearance. My Indians, in following a trail on snow, whether it were up ing their numbers under such circumstances. From the little crater-like lake at the very head of the Yukon, the trail leads northward through a valley that converges to a gorge; and while on the snow in this we could hear the water gcurgling under the snow bridge on which we were evidently walking. Farther on, where these snow arches were too wide, they had tumbled in, showing in many places deep per- pendicular snow-banks, oftent wenty to twenty- five feet in height. Passing by a few small lakes on our left, some yet containing floating ice, we caught sight of the main lake late in the afternoon, and in a few hours were upon its banks. It is a beautiful sheet of water, ten or eleven miles in length,’ and looked not un- like a limited area of one of the broad inland 1 Named in honor of Dr. Lindeman of the Bremen geographi- cal society. ‘ FEBRUARY 22, 18S84.] passages traversed by the steamers plying to Alaskan ports farther south. Fish were absent in these glacier-fed streams and lakes, but we managed to kill a few dusky grouse (Tetrao obscurus) and green-winged teal (Nettion caro- linensis) to vary the usual government ration ; but all were tough beyond measure, it being their breeding-season. Over Lake Lindeman were seen sea-gulls and the graceful little arctic tern that I recognized as an old and garrulous companion. Of large game, a small black bear cub was the only thing seen; although moun- tain goats were abundant a short distance back in the hills, one having been seen by us in the Perrier Pass. The next day we commenced building our raft on Lake Lindeman ; although the logs were very small, consisting of dwarfed spruce and contorted pine. Fifteen by thirty feet was considered large enough until we commenced to load it, when we were forced, during a heavy gale on the 15th, to send it ahead with but half a load and three men, the remainder SCIENCE. reached, where birchbark canoes commence. The remainder of the party took a whole day in struggling overland through the tangled brush and marshes of the gullies, and climbing the steep, smooth granite banks that separate them from the ridges covered with a labyrinth of fallen timber. At its northern end Lake Lindeman is drained by a small river fifty to sixty yards in width, full of rapids and cascades, and about a mile in length, where it empties into a large lake that I named after Mr. James Gordon Bennett, a well-known patron of Amer- ican geographical research. The raft was shot through the connecting river, June 16, and the dimensions enlarged to fifteen by forty; although, counting all pro- jections, it really came nearer sixteen by forty-two. Around this series of rapids the Indians portage their effects on their backs ; and I named it Payer Portage, after Lieut. Payer of the Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872-74. By the 17th of June, at midnight LAKE LINDEMAN. The view is taken from the upper (southern) end of Payer Portage, looking (south) toward Kotusk Mountains. Perrier Pass is on the extreme right wrapped in fog. There are higher ice-capped mountains in the distance, not shown here. of the material being stowed in two dilapidated wooden canoes, — fair samples of the very few that exist from here until old Fort Selkirk is it was light enough to read print like that of Science, and continued so through the month, except on very cloudy nights. Har- 226 lequin ducks were noticed on the southern end of Lake Bennett, and black and brown bear and caribou tracks in the valley of a small stream emptying into the lake near by. ; t i FEBRUARY 22, 18S4.] instantly the whole body became spherical, rays were shot out, and the transformed monad was in no point, except that of size, to be distinguished from its Acti- nophrys-like relative. The whole development, from the time when the monad began its free life, occupied two hours and some seconds. Prof. H. C. Lewis called attention to a mass of cast-iron from the Emaus iron-works, near Allen- town. The iron contained crystals of graphite, which, again, held portions of cast-iron in their interior. The composition of cast-iron, which permits the formation of graphitic carbon, was considered, and compared with that of steel. Although the mass of iron must have been at one time in a molten state, it yet con- tained pieces of unaltered anthracite coal, which un- doubtedly remained unconsumed in consequence of the entire absence of the oxygen necessary for its com- bustion. The presence of such unconsumed pieces of coal in a mass of molten iron might be held as illustrating the way in which carbon may exist in meteorites, or chalcopyrite in trap rocks. Dr. Benjamin Sharp, referring to his recent com- munication on the visual organs of Solen ensis, stated that he had since determined the presence of similar organs in the mantles of the clam, the oyster, and the sand-clam. Their presence was made evident by the retraction of the mantles when shadows are passed over them. ‘The structure of the peculiar cells, sup- posed to be primitive eyes, was the same as that of the cells before described in the siphon of Solen, in- cluding the presence of the transparent portion at the end of each. Chicago academy of sciences. Jan. 14. — The committee, consisting of Dr. II. A. Johnson and B. W. Thomas, appointed to investigate the bowlder-clays underlying the city, made its -re- port upon a disk-shaped organism found both in the clays, and also in the filtrate from the water-supply, of Chicago. They were yellow, apparently flat or con- cavo-convex, and varied in size from ;; to 74, of an inch. Similar organisms have been found by several naturalists in the Devonian rocks of North and South America; and they were described by Dr. Dawson under the name of ‘Sporangites,’ and considered by him as macrospores of some acrogenous plant. Pro- fessor Orton of Ohio believes there are several spe- cies of varying sizes. We have, however, say the committee, none so large as discovered by Professor Orton. Our largest forms are not more than > of an inch in diameter, and our smallest about 34, of an inch. We have two, and possibly more, varieties. One has a well-marked ledge or zone around it, and extending, perhaps, an eighth of the way across it. Within this are the spines noted below. Others have no such markings, and do not, as a rule, have spines; and while some are a very light yellow, and almost transparent, others are of a dark reddish brown, and almost opaque. Whether these differences are sufti- cient to justify a separation of them into different Species seems to be at present doubtful. So far, no forms have been met with by either of us, having any thing like a stem or point of attachment. Nor have ‘ SCIENCE. 237 we found any of: the spherical or oval sacs which were contained in the collections of Mr. Derby, in Brazil. There are found here, however, what we believe have not been found elsewhere; namely, on many of the disks, well-marked spines. These are, as a rule, clustered together, occupying a central portion, the diameter of which is three-fourths of the entire breadth of the disk, but in some instances the spines cover the entire surface. Along with these disks are, in quite large quantities, broken pieces of what seem to have been leaves, perhaps pinnate in form. Be- sides these, dark globular masses, which seem to be possibly spores or microspores, are frequently seen on the disks, and also scattered among them. These are — at least, in some cases —also contained within the substance of the disk. They are regular in form, and vary in size from j}$9 to z0c9 Of an inch in di- ameter. They are evidently organized; for in some cases there is seen a reticulum, or net-work, within the dark substance of the body. With these micro- spores, if such they are, are also masses of dark mat- ter that, at least in some cases, are made up either of these globular forms alone, or of these and other or- ganic material, such as the stems described by both Professor Dawson and Professor Orton. The clay beneath the city of Chicago and in the vicinity is full of bowlders of various sizes, from that of a walnut up to several cubic yards; and on many of these bowlders are well-defined ice-markings. Some of the smaller bowlders are shale which has never been ground down, and in these unchanged pieces we also frequently find large numbers of disks. These masses of shale, so far as we can ascertain, are identical with the shales of the upper Devonian formation. It will be seen that the disks are evidently not the product of their present location. They have been in some far-off age embedded in the shales; and subsequently these shales have been ground to clay, and, with other material constituting the bowlder-clays, have been re- deposited beneath the lake and the adjacent shores. They are now undergoing another dispersion ; for they are washed from their present position in the Chicago clays, and are mixed with the sands and alluvium, to be carried by the currents and winds to some new resting-place. Consequently our water-supply is now full of these products of probably some millions of years ago. They were perhaps water-cresses, and might have been of excellent flavor when fresh. They were fragant with gums or spices, as we know from their present composition. They are not now probably injurious to health, but they are especially valuable as a reminder, that in some widely different time, and amid very different surroundings, an abun- dant marine vegetation was being produced which has been preserved to our own day. Vassar brothers’ institute, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Jan. 2. —C. B. Warring, Ph.D., exhibited the gyro- scope, and gave the explanation of its action the fol- lowing form. Dr. Warring, in giving his explanation of these phenomena, said it was important to clearly grasp these two principles: 1. A body set in motion will con 238 tinue in motion until something stops it; 2. A body moving in any direction is not retarded by a force exerted at right angles to its direction. We will suppose the ring to be laid aside, since it serves only for holding the disk, and that the disk or wheel is cut away until only a narrow strip is left, like two arms extending in opposite directions from the axle: its form will then resemble a T-square, which will now be used to illustrate the actions of the gyroscope. Hold*the'stem of the square in the left hand, close to the end, and make the cross-piece vertical; hold the left hand still, and let the cross-piece move up or down: evidently it will describe part of a circle. If it is held so that the cross is just in front of a plumb- line, so that both can be viewed at once, it will be seen that the upper end of the cross moves away from the plumb to the right, while the lower moves away from it also, but to the left. If, while the left hand remained stationary, the cross had been allowed to drop freely, the top and bottom would evidently ac- quire a certain horizontal motion, one to the right, the other to the left. If, now, the T-square be quick- ly turned over, so that the top and bottom change places, this will not interfere with motion previously acquired: the bottom (which has now become the top) will continue to move to the left, while that which was the top will move to the right; and, as the motion continues (as in case of a pendulum), the ends of the cross are pushed back to where they were, and the instrument rises to its first position. This explains why the gyroscope, in apparent de- fiance of the law of gravity, remains, when supported only at one end, in a horizontal position. To understand why the instrument rotates around the central point, in a direction always the opposite of that of the top of the disk, the T-square is again brought into service. Hold it as before, and let it fall a few inches: as in the first experiment, the top, when the 'T goes down, gets a motion towards the right; but, before the instrument can be reversed, it must go half way, and point horizontally, instead of up and down. Evidently the motion which sends the upper end to the right will push the instrument (if the top was revolved towards the south) towards the north: hence the horizontal motion. The horizontal motion is slow in proportion as that of the disk is rapid, because of the movement of the arms of the T. If the T turns slowly, it has more time to give motion to the ends of the arms, and consequently they push it around faster. If the T turns very quickly, it falls a very short distance (has so little time): hence the ends of the arms get very little motion, and, of course, can impart but little. A quick motion of the disk, therefore, makes a slow horizontal movement, and a slow motion of the disk makes a quick horizontal movement. A careful consideration of the above will make it easy to see why the gyroscope ceases to maintain itself if the lateral (or horizontal) motion is stopped; for, in order to maintain itself, the motion imparted to the ends of the T-square, when vertical, must be expended in lifting: if spent in any other way, nothing is left SCIENCE. ne ’ [Vou. III, No. 5 oh to overcome gravity. Now if, as the square falls, and — the T has become horizontal, some obstacle prevent its moving still farther to the right, its motion in this — direction would cease; and, of course, when it arrived _ at the lowest point, nothing would be left to lift the instrument. Another paradox is, that the instrument must fall somewhat, in order to produce any of its peculiar phe- nomena; but this, too, is easily explained. Every thing depends upon the two extremities of the T get- ting a motion, one to the right and the otherto the ~ left, when the T is vertical. If the T does not fall, or if it is not lifted up (for either movement will do equally well), there will be no such motion: only, if the first sends the instrument north, the other will send it south. This directly or impliedly explains all the phe- nomena of the gyroscope. | NOTES AND NEWS. THE death of Guyot has been soon followed by that of another of the notable scientific men, who, — educated in Europe, took up their lot with us, and — became, so to say, wholly our own. Dr. George Engel- — mann of St. Louis—our oldest botanist (excepting the venerable Lesquereux), as well as an eminent phy- sician, for a time a fellow-student with Agassiz in Germany — died on the 11th inst., at the age of sev- — enty-five. A biographical notice may be expected in an ensuing number. —The Journal of agricultural science proposed from the North Carolina agricultural station recently, and to which we referred Dec. 28, has met with uni- versal approval and most unexpected support. Nearly one hundred shares of stock have been taken upon the plan proposed; and the Houghton farm: proposes to assume all of the mechanical work of a ~ monthly journal, and guarantee this part of its ex- — pense for one year. Without any special effort to secure them, about three hundred subscribers are 4 reported. In response to a cordial invitation of the commis- sioner of agriculture, a meeting will be held to organ- ize this enterprise, at the Department of agriculture at Washington, at ten A.M., Wednesday, Feb. 27. All the friends of the scheme are urged to be present at this meeting, and participate in the inauguration of — the journal. It is hoped that each agricultural col- — lege, experiment-station, etc., will send a representa~ — tive. — Commodore Samuel R. Franklin, U.S.N., has — been detached from duty on the naval examining board, and ordered as superintendent of the naval observatory, to succeed Rear-Admiral R. W. Shufeldt, who was placed upon the retired list on Feb. 21. — — At a concert given by the Choral club of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin on the evening of Feb. 8, two songs by Sir William Herschel were sung, — the first, a glee, ‘Go, gentle breezes;’ the second, a catch, FEBRUARY 22, 1884.] “They say there is an echo here.’ The manuscript eopies of this music were loaned by the college library. — The American ornithologists’ union, with the enthusiasm of new institutions, has taken up the English sparrow question in an energetic and scien- tific way. A committee of the association has issued a circular asking answers to a series of twenty-eight questions. The value of the replies, especially to the later questions, will vary exceedingly; and we should judge it exceedingly difficult to assign them their proper relative value. Nevertheless, the general conclusion the committee will reach as to whether the bird is, on the whole, injurious or beneficial to agriculture, will not be likely to be disputed. The committee has divided the field among its members, Mr. Montague Chamberlain of St. John taking the British provinces; Mr. N. C. Brown of Portland, the three northern New-England states; Mr. H. A. Pur- die, the other New-England states; Mr. E. P. Bick- nell of New York, New York and the Western states ; and the chairman, Dr. J. B. Holder of New York, the Southern and Middle states. The committee in- tends to construct a map of the present geographical distribution of the sparrow; and any volunteer infor- mation by those not reached by the circular will be gladly received by the chairman, who may be ad- dressed at the American museum of natural history, New York. The authorities in Bermuda already offer bounties for the destruction of the sparrow, although heavy penalties are laid on the destruction of other birds on that lonely island. — The sixth Saturday lecture of the Washington course was delivered on Feb. 9, in the lecture-room of the ‘National museum, by Capt. C. E. Dutton, U.S. A., on ‘The Hawaiian Islands and people.’ Capt. Dutton visited the islands two years ago, in the interest of the Geological survey, to study the volcanic phenomena there for purposes of comparison with the region of extinct volcanoes in the western part of our own continent. His lecture was devoted in large part to a discussion of the geology of the Hawaiian group. An audience of about eight hundred was present. Mr. H. C. Burchard, director of the Mint, occupied the chair; and at the close a vote of thanks was moved by Major J. W. Powell. — The Fish-commission steamer Albatross, now eruising in the Caribbean in behalf of the Hydro- graphic office, arrived at St. Thomas, Jan. 17, after a seven-days’ voyage from Norfolk, and, after coaling, started on the 24th for Curacoa, where she was due on the 14th of February. While at St. Thomas, the naturalists of the ship made considerable collections of birds and shallow-water invertebrates. — Mr. F. W. True, curator of mammals in the National museum, is now at the British museum, studying the types of cetaceans, and especially of the Delphinidae, with the view of settling some impor- tant questions in the nomenclature and relations of the North-American forms. It is probable that his studies will demonstrate the identity of many of our Atlantic species, described as distinct by Agas- SCIENCE. 239 siz, Cope, and others, with long-known European forms. — At the November meeting of the Society of bib- lical archaeology, London, Mr. Budge of the British museum read a paper on the fourth tablet of the series of cuneiform texts relating to creation. Mr. Rassam has recently found a large Babylonian frag- ment of this fourth tablet. The language of the tablet is vigorous, and, like that of many of the cune- iform hymns, approaches in dignity the majestic roll of the Hebrew psalms. The deepest interest in con- nection with the tablet is the apparent acquaintance ‘with rhyme and rhythm. Mr. Budge does not give enough of the original to aid us in testing this sub- ject, but what he does give is favorable to the supposi- tion. A peculiar kind of alliteration in the Babylonian cuneiform writing is already familiar. The fragment of a hymn on pp. 15 and 16 of Mr. T. G. Pinches’ ‘Texts in the Babylonian wedge-writing’ is divided into stanzas of five lines each, and the same sylla- ble begins each line of the stanza. There are five lines beginning with ar, five with ba, five with su, ete. — The London papers are now discussing the de- sirability of opening the various museums of that city in the evening, for the benefit of that large class who have no command of their time during the day. The Globe is filled with letters on the subject. This dis- cussion is called forth by the rumor that a bill will be presented in Parliament at the next term, for the opening of several of the more important art-galleries, museums, etc., after business-hours. South Kensing- ton museum, and the Museum of practical geology, are now open from ten A.M. to ten P.M. on Saturdays, Mondays, and Tuesdays. There is no doubt but that these evening sessions are very useful, especially to that great and intelligent class of persons who do not belong to the group of ‘workingmen’ as that word is generally understood, but who, nevertheless, earn their living by work during the day, and have only the evening in which to gain information and widen their mental horizon. Many of our own cities would be greatly benefited if the museums and art-gallery could be opened in the evening. : —It has been the feeling for some time past in Germany, that that country should have a meteoro- logical society. The want of this has been met by the publications of the Austrian society; but now that meteorology is making such rapid strides, and so many are becoming interested in it, there is much reason for the recent move made by the German meteorologists. On Noy. 18, 1883, the following well-known con- tributors to our knowledge of this science met at Hamburg to ground a ‘Deutsche meteorologische gesellschaft:’ Assman, van Bebber, vo. nBezold, Bor- gen, Bornstein, von Danckelman, Dinklage, Eber- mayer, Hellmann, Honsell, Karsten, Klein, Koch, Koppen, Krebs, Mittrich, Neumayer, von Schroder, Schreiber, Sprung, Thilenius, Zoppritz. Many others sent letters expressing their intention to give aid to the project. The first general meeting of the society tc betel ae % 240 will take place in September, 1884, at Magdeburg. Dr. Neumayer is president. The aim of the society is to pay attention to the science of meteorology, as well as its relations to prac- tical life. As a means of accomplishing this, 1°, meetings of the society and its branches will be es- tablished ; 2°, a journal of meteorology will be issued; 38°, meteorological investigations will be aided, partly directly, and partly through its branches; 4°, lectures and other measures will be introduced for the distri- bution of meteorological knowledge in wider circles. The members are to be honorary, foundation, ordi- nary, and corresponding. ‘The yearly assessment for ordinary members is ten marks ($2.50). From private letters we are informed that the first number of the journal will be issued in a couple of months. It might seem at first as though this new journal would interfere with the work of that ex- cellent journal, the Oesterreichische Zeitschrift fiir meteorologie ; but we believe that the editors of the journals will enter into such relations with each other that the two journals shall be supplementary the one to the other. It may be expected that this new journal will occupy as important a place as the Austrian, and therefore it ought to find its way into the hands of all those who wish to keep informed of the progress of this science. The Deutsche seewarte at Hamburg will naturally be the chief seat of work in connection with the issue of this journal. The treasurer of the society is Mr. Ernst Bopp, Konig- strasse, No. 6 ", Hamburg. — The M. P. club, a club of mathematicians and physicists living in Boston and vicinity, which meets once a month for the discussion of vexed questions in their departments, has issued the following list of subjects for discussion : — 1. Given a solid body in which the moments of in- ertia about four axes passing through one point are equal, does it follow that the moments of inertia about all axes, through the same point, are the same? 2. Are there any general methods for determining the form of a function when certain special values are known, or when certain conditions are given? For example: (a) To find F(a, y, 2), given F(z, z, z) =0,and F(z,y,z) =1. One solution is F(x, oe z)= cy eae what others are there ? )p= r(% 4 as) : ue du dp oe ie t= 8 gal: Sven a. >» — 9, also given, du U that, when me and dy ae interchanged, then p and ¢ are interchanged, to find F and F. 3. “Is it, there- fore, an essential condition of equilibrium that p(Xdx + Ydy + Zdz) should be a perfect differential of some function?’? (W. H. Besant’s ‘Hydromechanics,’ p. 13.) ‘‘In this case of com- pressibility, wdy — vdz is not the differential of any function; so that the function F does not exist, although, of course, stream lines exist’? (Minchin’s ‘Kinematics,’ p. 152). Such passages as these sug- gest the inquiry, ‘‘ How are we to interpret physically the fact that a given differential is not an exact differ- SCIENCE. ential ?’’ (see Clausius’ ‘ Mechanische wiirmetheorie,’ 4. The graphical treatment of algebraic prob- p- 4.) lems (see Vose’s little book on the subject, published — by Van Nostrand). 5. Graphical statics. 6. Anhar- monic ratios; suggestions of new nomenclature. 7. Koenig’s researches on beats and beat tones. 8. Euclid’s doctrine of proportion. 9. Multiple algebra. 10. The comparison of Grassmann’s theory of exten- sion and Hamilton’s quaternions. 11. Imaginaries in quaternions. 12. Weierstrasse’s investigations in analytics and geometry. 13. The precise nature of the ancient problem of the quadrature of the circle. 14. The twelfth axiom of Euclid. 15. The bearing of the modern conception of non-Euclidean space on our theory of the foundation and certainty of geo- metric truth. 16. The true relation of hyper-space analytics to questions of actual existence. 17. Rie- mann’s surfaces. 18. The meaning of an infinitely distant point on a straight line. 19. = does not equala —a. 20. Cayley’s exposition of the logical structure of plane geometry (‘ Encycl. Brit.,’ 9th ed.). 21. The synthetical (as opposed to analytical) char- acter of all judgment and proof that is strictly mathematical. 22. The development of algebra from first principles as the science of pure time. 238. The calculus of logic. 24. The writings of Francois Viéte. 25. Comparative merits of the method of limits and method of infinitesimals in elementary methods. 26. The same in the exposition of the higher calculus (with especial reference to Johnson and Rice’s new ‘Method of rates’). 27. Is gravitation a truth em- pirical, or a priori ? and the limits of Newton’s law of rate in gravity. 28. The principle of least resistance. 29. What exactly is meant by the correlation of forces, and what is its bearing on the conservation of energy ? 30. The dissipation of energy. Its mean- ing and bearing on the stability of the universe. 31. Recent researches upon the atomic theory and upon the resolvability of the elements. 32. What consti- tutes the chief resistance in the case of a bec y moving through the water? 33. What is the form of least resistance for a row-boat? What for a-sail-boat? What for a steamer? 34, Cause of capillary ascen- sions and depressions. 35. The means whereby water is able to penetrate capillary tubes against a superior pressure of a gas (see Daubrée’s ‘ Etudes synthétiques de géologie expérimental,’ Paris, 1879). 36. Micro- scopic action. 387. The diathermancy of ice from the point of view of James Croll’s theory of glacial motion. 38. Direction of electric currents in diamag- netic bodies, e.g., bismuth. 39. Underground tele- phone circuits. 40. Elasticity and permanent set. 41. Diffraction gratings, plane and curved. 42. A short discussion (not too technical) on some of the instruments of research, such as the bolometer and the inductive balance. 43. Recent researches on the distance of the sun. 44. The origin of meteorites: are they volcanic ejections? 45. The aurora borealis, zodiacal light, ete. pressed, is it possible to get a compression curve concave downwards (abscissae representing volumes, ~ and ordinates pressures), and, if so, when ? 46. If steam be enclosed in as cylinder open on the outside to the air, and com- — me NG. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. SOMETHING was said in these columns re- cently about the shortcomings of geography- teaching in the lower schools. ‘The same complaints hold in regard to elementary sci- ence teaching in general. The wave of enthusi- asm for teaching science in primary and middle schools, which swept the country a few years ago, has not brought us as much nearer the millennium as was at first fondly anticipated ; but it has left many of us wiser, if not sadder. There was at first a general but strange mis- . conception of what ought to be taught, and how the teaching was to be done. } a . \' = tN MY Foe gi em ES AW om Z WNW eo AE? X Wy, Neg SOE. Bip) ‘ lk (ae LLL, Soph ; AD Yi \ EZ WS MS S SK Mt Y SH K\ PUK WG vi) i SRS iN 1 SQ FN ni Ie A aes UH Ke Yer, fy y WSs EZ}! i Wa sf ZY GFP io Fig. 1.— Outline of the under side of the dorsal shell of Asaphus megistos, with the fragment. of the Ohio trilobite, showing the legs, resting in it. H, hypostoma; D, doublure or infolded margin of the dorsal shell; D’, same of the thoracic segments ; D"7, same of pygidium; @, portion of posterior pair of cephalic appendages; A, abdominal appendages; 2B, branchial filaments. The latter are enlarged to show their position. ee Te - a / , p' : MarcH 7, 1884. ] and Ceéraurus, there was always some doubt about the number of appendages that were to be assigned to the pygidium. That they were jointed and not foliaceous appendages, I had no doubt, and so stated it in the text,’ and also in the restoration, of which fig. 2 is a copy. Fie. 2.— Under side of Calymene senaria as figured in Bull. mus. comp. zool., vol. viii. pl. vi., 1881. H,hypostoma; J/, mouth; A, abdominal appendages. The leg beneath the thorax of the Ohio trilobite shows seven joints in two instances: the character of the terminal joint is un- known. . The discovery of this unique specimen fully establishes the correctness of the restoration made by the writer of the ambulatory appen- dages of Calymene, as shown in fig. 2. The few traces of the branchial filaments do not differ from those described as occurring in the genera Calymene, Ceraurus, and Acidaspis. From the evidence given, there appears to be no necessity for a change in the classifica- tion of the trilobites given on pp. 209, 210 (ibid.) : — Class, Poecilopoda; sub-class, Palaeadae ; order, Trilobita. Trilobita: ex., Asaphus, Calymene, etc. 1. Eyes sessile, compound. 2. Ocelli un- known. 3. Cephalic limbs serving as mouth- 1 Bull. mus. comp. 206l., vol, viii. p. 204, 1861. SCIENCE. 281 organs. 4. Thoracic segments bearing jointed legs and attached branchiae. 5. All segments bearing appendages. 6. Thoracic segments unanchylosed. 7. Abdominal segments an- chylosed, and bearing jointed appendages. 8. Hypostoma large (metastoma unknown). ‘To section 7 we now add ‘ (similar to those of the thorax).’ The attempt to locate the branchial appara- tus of the trilobite beneath the pygidium is not surprising when a comparison with Limulus and Serolis is made with those trilobites hay- ing a large pygidium; but in such genera as Conocephalites, Arionellus, and others having a pygidium very small, as compared with the re- maining parts of the animal, the necessity for a different branchial system is at once apparent. The director of the Geological survey of Canada having given permission to have the original specimen of Asaphus platycephalus, described by Mr. Billings as showing ambula- tory. legs, sent to me, Prof. J. F. Whiteaves kindly forwarded it; and the specimen was placed by the side of the Ohio trilobite for comparison. A glance showed that Mr. Bil- lings’s interpretation was the correct one, and that, as far as the thoracic legs are considered, the Canadian trilobite has a pair for each seg- ment. Of the abdominal legs nothing is seen. The only addition to our knowledge of the structure of the trilobite, furnished by the Ohio specimen, is the verification of the hypothesis that the legs were jointed beneath the pygidium, as shown in the sections of Ceraurus and Calymene, and expressed in fig. 2. Fie. 3. — Cross-section of fig. 2. s, dorsal shell; 7, alimentary canal; B, spiral branchiae; e, epipodite; Z,leg. Taken from same plate as fig. 2. In some instances the branchial fila- ments or ribbons are straight and not spirally coiled. That the trilobites and crustaceans were differentiated before the existence of the oldest Cambrian fauna we now know, is my present belief, the two classes coming down on two distinct lines of descent. In a paper now in the course of preparation, the entire subject will be reviewed, and illustrations given of the different orders of the class Poecilopoda. Cuartes D. WaAtLcort. 282 THE NEW BOGOSLOFF VOLCANO IN BERING SEA.} On Tebenkoff’s chart of Unalashka Island, and the adjacent passes from Unimak to Umnak Islands, there is placed in latitude 53° 51’ north, and longitude 167° 40’ west, an islet about half a mile in extent, with rocky, bold shores, and somewhat flattened top. It has deep water close around it, and no outlying dangers except to the north-north-west, where a small ‘ pinnacle rock,’ or ‘sail rock,’ lies a few hundred yards distant. The rocky islet is known as ‘ Bogosloff.’ In his account of his voyages,? Cook says, that on the 29th of October, 1778, he discovered ‘an elevated rock which appeared like a tower ;’ and he judged of its steepness below the sur- face of the sea by the circumstance that the sea (which was running very high) broke no- where but against its sides. I have plotted Cook’s position with regard to this discovery, made when he was only four leagues to the south-westward of the islet, and was steering a north-easterly course. From his language, I cannot decide whether he passed on its northern or southern side. | His footnote says, that, though this mass had no place on the Russian map produced by Ismy- loff,? it was indicated on the chart of Krenitzen and Levasheff. Cook placed it about seven- teen miles north of the northern shore of the island of Umnak. His longitudes are all too great by more than a degree, but the relation of the islet to the adjacent islands fixes its position. This reference to Cook’s position is some- what important; because, on an admiralty chart of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean (1859), and on a U.S. chart corrected to 1868 (Exploring expedition under Commander John Rodgers, U.S.N.), this islet is called the ‘ Bo- gosloff volcano ;’ and the statement is made that it rose in 1796,—eighteen years after Cook had described it. Tebenkoff, in 1848 (perhaps following Sari- cheff in 1829), calls it ‘St. John the theo- logian Island,’ or, rather, ‘ rock,’ and gives it a circumference of two miles. According to Saricheff, its height is about four hundred feet ; but the navigators of the Russian-American company made it six hundred and twenty feet. Tebenkoff says Pillar Rock lies four hundred yards north-north-west of Bogosloff Island. 1 Communicated by Prof. J. E. Hilgard, superintendent U.S. coast and geodetic survey. See also Science, No. 51. 2 Vol. ii. p. 526. ‘Third admiralty edition. 3 Ismyloff was the principal trader at Unalashka, and had produced charts of several of the islands, etc., with which he was personally familiar, and showed them to Cook. SCIENCE. On the admiralty chart and on some of the Russian charts (including those of Saricheff), and even on the chart published by the U.S. [Vou IIL, No. 57. hydrographic office in 1855, a dangerous reef is laid down between Bogosloff and the north- — ern end of Umnak. The U.S. chart, corrected to 1868, repeats this danger; and it is even laid down on the U.S. circumpolar chart of | 1882. 'Tebenkoff says this ‘dangerous reef’ does not exist: Veniaminoff says the natives deny the existence of the reef, but report great current or tide rips, which are dangerous to their bidarkas. In 1867 I had the same infor- mation from the Russian priest, Shayesnikeff, —a man of more than ordinary knowledge and capacity, and well acquainted with the islands, which he visited regularly in the course of his ministrations : also the Alaska commercial com- pany’s navigators have passed between Umnak and Bogosloff islands. Neither the Bogosloff, the reef, nor the northern part of Umnak, is on Kotzebue’s chart of 1817. The height of this volcanic island varies according to the authority from which the esti- mate has been obtained, as already indicated. Tebenkoff gives estimates, from two authori- ties, of four hundred and six hundred feet. On my chart I have a note stating the height to be eight hundred and forty-four feet, but I had forgotten to state the authority for that estimate. I suppose that I obtained it from one of the Russian navigators, in 1867. The captains employed by the Alaska commercial company, however, estimate the height at from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty feet. Of this islet I collate the following facts, without examining many authorities : — 1778. — Cook saw it, Oct. 29, in clear weath- er. He says it is on the charts of Krenitzen and Levasheff. 1796. — Veniaminoff, calling it ‘St. John the theologian,’ states that it arose out of the sea on May 7 of this year ; and that, at the time, there were, according to Krusenstern and Langsdorff, earthquakes and eruptions. 1800. — It was smoking (Kotzebue). 1802. —It was smoking (Langsdorff). (At that time the volcano Makushin was throwing out volumes of smoke and fire.) 1804. — It was smoking from one. crater (Kotzebue). 1806. — The burning lava was flowing down the north side (Langsdorff) . 1814. — The crater threw out stones (Bara- | noff). 1815. —It was diminishing in height (Bara- noff). Marcu 7, 1884. ] 1816-17.— It had no activity (Eschscholtz). 1820. — It was smoking (Dr. Stein). 1823. — It was not smoking (Veniaminoff). 1832.— There was no smoke (Tebenkoff, Liitke). Although frequently seen in later years by the navigators of the Russian-American and Alaska commercial companies, and by the whalers, no one has noticed it as exhibiting any signs of activity. In an other part of Veniaminoff’s work, in giving more particulars of earthquakes and voleanoes, he writes, — “The new island, Bogosloff, in latitude 53° 58’ north,! and longitude 168° 5’ west, rose from the sea in the early part of May, 1796. Before the island appeared above the sea, there had been witnessed, for a long time in that spot, a column of smoke. On the Sth of May, after a strong subterranean noise, with the wind fresh from the north-west, the new small, black islet became visible through the fog; and from the summit great flames shot forth. At the same time there was a great earthquake in the mountains on the north-west part of Umnak Island, accompanied by a great noise like the cannonading of heavy guns; and the next day the flames and the earthquake con- tinued. The flames and smoke were seen for a long time. Many masses of pumice-stone were ejected on the first appearance of the island.”’ At that time it was, perhaps, only one-quarter the size of its present dimensions; and it in- creased in size, growing higher, and breaking down at the same time on all sides. Finally, about 1823, it seemed to become unchangeable. Until it ceased to increase in size, it was hot, as well as the sea-water around it; while smoke and steam arose from it continuously. It is noticeable, also, in this connection, that Krenitzen and Levasheff, who made the voyage of discovery in 1768 and 1769 to endeavor to discover the track of Bering’s voyage, have marked Bogosloff on their chart as situated forty miles west by south of Makushin volcano, and surrounded by sunken rocks. Their mark is a view (see sketch), and clearly indicates the peculiar shape of the islet at that time. Their course led them ten miles to the northward of it. So much for the older authorities. Along the whole chain of the Aleutian Is- lands, from abreast of the Kamtchatka penin- sula to the head of the peninsula of Alaska, there is a line of the greatest volcanic activity exhibited by about fifty volcanoes, of which many are living, and of which some are at times in a state of violent eruption. Some of them have an extreme elevation of about twelve thousand feet on the Alaska peninsula ; while the Aleutian volcanoes range from three thousand to nine thousand feet. | 1 This latitude agrees with Cook’s. SCIENCE. 283 Of these living volcanoes, one is that of Makushin, on the north-western part of the large island of Unalashka, and directly over- looking Captain’s Harbor, on the north side of that island; and another is the islet of Bogosloff, now under discussion, situated twenty-five miles to the westward of the north- western point of Unalashka. ‘This islet has acquired unusual importance, because there has arisen alongside of it, from the depths of the ocean, a volcanic island over one thousand feet high. This fact also suggests inquiries into the condition of the island seen by Cook as ‘an elevated rock which appeared like a tower,’ and its condition in May, 1796, when it seems to have exhibited unusual signs of activity. Also it appeared, as before men- tioned, to have increased in size, and continued so to do as late as 1823. It is possible that Cook saw the rock when in a state of inaction, as he made it out at a distance of four leagues, when working to the eastward under the north- ern shore of Unalashka; and the weather must have been clear. I conjecture that he sailed between it and Unalashka to save getting too far to leeward; and he must have had it in sight for several hours. BOGOSLOFF ISLAND, DISTANT TEN MILES, AS SEEN BY KRENITZEN AND LEVASHEFF, 1768-69. As late as September and October, 1883 (to come down to our own times), the island was seen by two captains in the service of the Alaska commercial company, — Hague and Anderson, — both of whom called upon me, described the character of this new formation, and enabled me to make a rough sketch of the islet as it appeared to them (see view). They both passed close to it, approaching from opposite sides, and thus were enabled to judge of its size, height, and general appearance. Capt. Anderson, in the schooner Matthew Turner, saw the island at daybreak (five a.m.) on the 27th of September, 1883, and passed it at half-past eight a.m. within three cables’ lengths ; heaving the lead as fast as practicable, with twenty fathoms of line, and finding no bottom, although the water was discolored and of ared color. The vessel first approached it on the eastern side, stood up to the north- westward, tacked ship, and passed to the west- “sopieqnonn BN # Se 99nIe3g — NOIOWY DNINIOLAV INV ‘ VWUSVIV abe -pexseyeun <7 Oe AINMIT, JJO|SO30g | ‘qdng ‘presi at LUAMOS DILUACOWD ANV LSVOO'S ‘11 3D OQUPIIOA Sy 1984009 19.4 “Treg ig je \ -PasystaUse lL & our, = Me . ee Lag SCIENCE. els Marcu 7, 1884.] ward. The islet was surrounded by white smoke, like steam. The same evening, after nightfall, being then about twenty-five miles to windward of it, they saw the fire on the island. On the 27th of October, 1883, just one month after Anderson’s visit, Capt. Hague, of the Dora, saw the island at seven a.M., approaching it from the south-westward (just as Cook had done one hundred and five years _ before). He first passed through a streak of ¥ red water into a green streak beyond it (the SCIENCE. 285 Both captains agree in saying that the island is larger than the old one, and is about half a mile north-north-west of it; that it rises very steeply, with a rough, ogee curve; and that the outline on the eastern side is broken on the shoulder and at the base by masses of rocks (see view, below). On the western side there is a level space just above water, and thirty or forty feet in extent, where a landing could be effected. The top was hidden by clouds; but white smoke or steam could be seen issuing —————— ———SS —— 7 ao | $ELZBA LEED : ») cae r i iii : sl Zs 7 Wf Vd), y y sy & y 4 iY ) Yj Ly, a A Yi, Ys Ys) yy) —— ee 2 eS SBS = oh ’ =F. RIVALRY As: == = = eae . ay es . AR taS NG Q Wd SPE ds, ¥ 2) ie YX ie ah Walia Water Atak x ) t f vei 4 j f q \) aN 1 i AY THE NEW VOLCANIC ISLAND OF BOGOSLOFFJAS SEEN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1883. water under both conditions having the appear- ance of being very deep), but, fearing shoals, tacked ship to avoid a nearer approach. He came no nearer than about one mile, and had the island in sight about three hours. At that time there was black smoke issuing from it, as if tar were burning. The weather was cloudy, and no observations could be had for position ; but its proximity to the old Bogosloff fixes it with equal precision. from near the cloud-line, which was estimated to be from eight hundred to twelve hundred feet above the sea. The sides are very steep; and, apparently, it has arisen from the depths without developing outlying dangers, because, with a heavy swell running, no breakers were seen. Around the base are great steam-jets, somewhat like those near the summit. At night it looks as if the whole islet were in active eruption, and covered with fire (this 286 may arise from the ignition of gases escaping from innumerable apertures in the flanks of the islet). Tebenkoff, in his description, tabulates this islet as in latitude 53° 52’ north, and longitude 167° 39’ west. I have no doubt that during the present year (1884) we shall obtain its exact geographical position, its physical conditions, and reliable measures of its size and height. On the 20th of October, 1883, — seven days before Hague saw the island, —a shower of ashes took place, small quantities of which were collected at Iliuliuk, and a portion pre- sented to the California academy of sciences. There seems some doubt, however, as to the point whence the ashes came; as the account from Iliuliuk places the date of their fall at Oct. 16, wind being fresh from west-south-west, with rain and sleet. It may be that this pumice-dust came from the eruption of Mount St. Augustin (see map of Alaska) on Oct. 6, under the influence of an upper current of air from the north-eastward ; that mountain lying over seven hundred miles distant in that direc- tion from Unalashka. It is noticeable, that during the eruption from Bogosloff, or at least about that time, the two voleanoes on Akontan Island (about as far to the east-north-east of Makushin vol- cano as Bogosloff is to the west by north) ceased to smoke, and showed no signs of ac- tivity. These two volcanoes, only three miles apart, are 3,332 and 3,888 feet high respec- tively. Nothing was heard from Makushin: probably its summit was in the clouds, and might have been active. As regards the distance to which the ashes from such eruptions are sometimes carried, it may be mentioned, that at the time of the eruption of volcano Iliamna, in March, 1867, the pumice-ashes fell on St. Paul, Kadiak Island, one hundred and sixty-five miles dis- tant. From the natives of Lliuliuk it was quite recently learned that they had seen smoke issu- ing from the new Bogosloff — or, rather, from the position of the Bogosloff— some time in 1882: the exact date could not be obtained. GEORGE Davipson, Assistant U.S. coast and geodetic survey. THE DANISH EXPEDITION TO EAST GREENLAND. THE report of Lieut. Holm has appeared in the Dagblad of Copenhagen. He left Nanortalik on the 28d of July last, with a party of thirty-nine SCIENCE. ~~, ey ee people, nine kayaks, and four umiaks, and reached Bs Fredericksthal, the last European station, the same — evening. Here they were assisted and entertained by missionary Broadbeck until the end of July, while the party was detained by the presence of floe- ice in the vicinity of Cape Farewell. From the 31st of July until Sept. 11 the party was not much incom- moded by ice, only losing three days while detained in Lindenow Fiord. The charts of East Greenland as far as latitude 61°, where the work terminated, will be notably changed, especially by the discovery of extensive fiords, until now unknown. Their shores are generally bare and vertical, or nearly so. In many places snow lies all summer. The sea-ice reaches to the bases of the cliffs, or even several miles into the fiords. Except at the extreme south, vegetation is even less abun- dant than in West Greenland, and is sometimes wholly absent. The southernmost of these fiords, some thirty-eight miles long, reaches within ten miles of the head of the Tasermint Fiord, which opens on the western coast. Both are full of ice. South of the sixty-first degree of latitude, and even a few miles northward from it, nothing could be seen of the inland ice characteristic of West Greenland. In that vicinity, from a mountain peak three thousand feet in height on Iluilek Island, they were able to see that the interior of the country for a great distance was composed of grand mountains, often rising over seven thousand feet above the sea. In the fiords explored in 1883, there were found no remains of buildings erected by the Northmen, except those in Lindenow Fiord, the most southern of all, already described by Broadbeck. A great number of Eskimo ruins were noted in the different fiords. Sixty of these uncivilized natives were met going to trade with the people of West Greenland. They were much less like the typical Eskimo than those of the western coast. The men are almost always tall and slender, with long beards, and at a distance resemble Europeans. Some of them were even handsome, and the women were much prettier than those of West Greenland. In summer they lead a nomadic life, going from one fishing or hunting place to another. In winter several families unite to build huts covered with turf and stones, like those of West Greenland. They spend this season hunting seal and bears. When the natives of Holm’s party arrived at about latitude 61°, they refused to continue farther, fearing that the umiaks might be frozen in, as the ice began to knit together every night. On the most northern point attained, a hut was erected, and a depot made for the use of the expedition during the coming summer. Provisions and several boats were left here, and Holm returned with his party to Nanortalik. Here winter quarters were prepared, and a magnetic and meteorological observatory established. Magnetic observations are to be taken hourly from eight A.M. to midnight; on term days, every five minutes; and - from four A.M. to four P.M., every minute. Arrange- ments have been made for simultaneous observa- — tions at the commercial stations of Denmark, in West ~ Greenland. [Vou. III., No. 57. 7" Marcu 7, 1884.] After the winter quarters had been prepared, it was the intention of Holm to examine the fiord of Fred- ericksthal, and the region between it and Tasermint, which has not yet been explored with care. It was his intention to start for the eastern coast about the end of April, or early in May, 1884; and during the winter of 1884-85 some members of the party were to remain there. | HUMIDITY AND CHRONOMETER RATES. MaAJor-GeEn. J. F. TENNANT, of her Majesty’s mint, Calcutta, communicated to the Royal astronom- ical society in November last a paper on humidity asa cause of variation in the rate of chronome- ters. He had borrowed from the government-stores about the end of March, 1882, a chronometer, by Fletcher of London, which had been some time in India, but had not been cleaned since its arrival, and was said to havea goodrate. From a gaining- rate of 68.5, which it preserved fairly well for about two months, it suddenly fell to a gaining-rate of 2s.0; this being the commencement of a succession of rather abnormal fluctuations of rate which Major Tennant carefully observed and recorded for about eighteen months. These rates were first compared with a plot of the published daily mean temperatures of the meteorological observatory, with results not quite satisfactory; for, though it would seem at first sight that the rate depends on temperature, further examination showed that it can do so to a moderate extent only, and confirmed the belief, which Major Tennant had from general impressions, that rate does not depend on temperature. The extraordinary dif- ferences of rate at times of nearly equal temperature leave no doubt that there is a periodic change of rate; and the cause of this, Major Tennant believes to be humidity. His first suspicion of this was raised by the sudden fall in rate of this chronometer, in 1883, being coincident with the first heavy rains producing great damp; and by the fact, also, that the same thing occurred the year previous, and that the whole period of low gaining-rate was that of the rains, while the lowest was the warm time at the end of the rains, when the soil is generally loaded with moisture. The same phenomenon recurred. It is, however, much more difficult to compare the supposed cause and effect without special arrangements; and, in any case, it is doubtful whether air-humidity could be more than a rough guide. If the oil in the arbors of the balance be hygro- scopic, it is easy to see that it may become more fluid in damp weather, the arc of oscillation will in- crease, the balance-vibration take longer, and the chronometer lose; but the momentary humidity of the air will not correspond to the rate, as the tem- perature does more or less. Major Tennant, remark- ing the undoubted connection in this particular case, suggests special experimenting in the following di- rections: — 1°. Are chronometer-oils, or any of them, hygro- scopic ? SCIENCE. 287 2°, Can they become so by exposure to a tropical climate ? In this latter case he conceives that the climatic influence cannot be imitated in Europe. The effect of the heat, and probably the light, are very destruc- tive of some materials. Vulcanized india-rubber, for example, does not bear exposure in India, though it seems to answer in Europe, even in heat and damp. Lastly, in estimating the effect of humidity on a given chronometer, it will probably be best to use one of the old hair or grass hygroscopes for the hu- midity, placing it in the case, enclosed with the chro- nometer. DAvip P. Topp. THE GREAT COMET OF 1882. THIS comet is one of the most interesting that has appeared for a number of years, owing to its very hear approach to the sun-surface, and the resemblance of its orbit to the two great comets of 1843 and 1880. It was a brilliant object in the morning sky in Sep- tember, 1882. Calculations of the orbit have been made recently by Dr. Morrison, Professor Frisby, and Dr. Kreutz. The periods obtained are as follows: Dr. Morrison, 712.1 years; Professor Frisby, 795.9; Dr. Kreutz, 843.1. These periods are, however, somewhat uncertain, owing to the peculiar nature of the nucleus of this comet. Instead of being a single bright body, there appeared to be a row of small nuclei, so that it was a mere matter of judgment with the observer what part of the comet he should observe. The ob- servations were naturally made upon the middle of the row of points, and it is not possible to say with certainty that this corresponded to the centre of gravity of the comet. It is worthy of note, that bright comets are recorded in the year 370 B. C. and in A.D. 1132, both of which could be reconciled with the great comet of 1882 by supposing the period of 751 years. THE WORK OF THE CAMBRIDGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM. THE trustees of the museum of American archae- ology and ethnology, founded by George Peabody, held their annual meeting on the 18th of February, the anniversary of the birth of the founder. The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, president of the board, presided; and Professor Asa Gray, Dr. Henry Wheat- land, Mr. John C. Phillips, Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, and Mr. F. W. Putnam (the curator of the museum) were present. The Hon. Stephen Salisbury of Worces- ter was prevented by temporary illness from attend- ing, and the Hon. Theodore Lyman was unable to leave his duties in Congress. The report of the treasurer, Mr. Phillips, showed that the $150,000 given by Mr. Peabody is well in- vested. Of the income of $8,334, only $5,186.50 was expended on account of the museum: $3,110 be- longed to the building-fund, and the remaining $37.50 was expended on insurance. Mr. Winthrop 288 called attention to the wide-spread operations of the museum, which had so far exceeded the early expec- tations of the trustees as to have entirely outgrown its foundation. The original fund, although a mu- nificent gift at the time, is now inadequate, owing to the unforeseen growth of the science. He hoped that in any account which might be given of,this meeting, it would be clearly stated that this trust is in no way connected with the Archaeological insti- tute of America, with which it has, no doubt, been confounded in some minds. Mr. Putnam, the curator, presented his report of the operations of the year, in which he dwelt at length on the explorations which had been carried on by means of the subscriptions of several patrons of science. With about $1,600, the balance of the special subscription-fund of 1882-83, and less than $1,000 spared from the income, work has been con- tinued in Nicaragua and Ohio, and, in a very limited manner, in Tennessee and North Carolina. The work in Nicaragua has been conducted for the past five years by Dr. Flint, who has made very im- portant collections from the ancient shell-heaps and burial-places. During the past year, on Deadman’s Island, in a trench lined with stones, he found a burial-jar containing decayed human bones, with old Venetian beads, and two gold ornaments like those found in the graves at Chiriqui. This shows that gold ornaments of this type were used by the natives of Nicaragua after the Spanish conquest had fur- nished them with glass beads. . As they are exception- al among Nicaraguan antiquities, and are identical with those from farther south, it is probable that their original source is Chiriqui. Dr. Flint has copied successfully many pictographs and cave- inscriptions, some of which are of great antiquity. But the most interesting discovery is what Dr. Flint believes to be human footprints in clay under sever- al layers of lava-rock, on the borders of Lake Mana- gua. Under date of Dec. 24, 1883, Dr. Flint writes that he has cut out several of these footprints, which, with fossil leaves from the same stratum, are now on their way to the museum. The work in the Little Miami valley has been continued with remarkable success, and has resulted in discoveries of far greater importance than could have been anticipated from previous exploration of the mounds. A year ago attention was called to some early results of this exploration; but now, just as the means for continuing explorations are want- ing, the discovery has been made, that, important as these mounds have proved to be, as much of interest is to be found beneath them. At the bottom of the largest mound, under a layer of burnt clay enclosed by a stone wall, trenching has brought to light a se- ries of pits six to seven feet deep. These pits are connected with tunnels of clay afoot in diameter and seven to eight feet long, ending in upright tubes five inches in diameter and two feet long. Fine ashes were found on the bottom of the tunnels or flues, and on the sides a glossy substance, as if the product of condensation and crystallization of vapors. The pits were partly filled with ashes containing minute SCIENCE. Py wd ee pieces of burnt bone, and the sides and bottom bore marks of fire. Two pits had dome-like covers of clay, in one of which were two small holes. A tube of clay opened into one pit opposite the flue. Al- though these facts seem to point out the manner of burning the dead in use among the people-who built this group of tumuli, it would be premature to make such an assertion. This work has been under the direct supervision of the curator and Dr. Metz. It is unquestionably the most thorough and important ex- ploration of a particular group of earth-works yet made in Ohio. Many mounds varying in structure, and evidently made at widely different times, have also been carefully opened; and several Indian burial- places and village sites have been examined. When this work in the Little Miami valley is completed, it will bring us nearer the solution of the problem, who built the mounds? Guessing will still go on, but thorough exploration by careful hands alone can give to science the answer it demands. The work is far more extensive than most persons imagine. The land has been hired by the museum, with exclu- sive right of excavation. It will be necessary to dig over a large area, including the whole altar-group, to trace in a systematic manner the underground works. A number of laborers will be required for months tocome. Funds are therefore needed at once, that the work may be continued without interruption. In closing his report, the curator urged the neces- sity of some immediate action for the preservation of the interesting monuments of aboriginal art, scat- tered over our western states. Probably nearly all which are in such condition as to be worth saving could be purchased at fair prices. Their owners, as arule, would be glad to see the ancient works pre- served, but do not feel able individually to sacrifice so large an amount of farming-land for the purpose. Special mention was made of the Hopeton works, with its twelve-feet embankments and large square and cir- cle; the Cedar-Bank works, which are still well pre- served, in the Scioto valley; the Great Serpent, 1,415 feet long, the only work of the kind in the coun- try; the Stone Fort, enclosing fifty acres, known as Fort Hill, in the Brush-creek valley; Fort Ancient, with its four miles of wall, the largest of the many ancient fortifications in the United States, on the . Little Miami River; Cahokia Mound in Illinois, the great pyramid of the Mississippi valley, and the lar- gest tumulus in the country, nearly one hundred feet high, and covering an area of over eleven acres; and the singular group of low effigy-mounds in Wisconsin. Some of these mounds are more than a thousand feet long. Many other ancient works are equally worthy of preservation; but those mentioned had been re- cently inspected by the curator. With every year that passes, some mound or great embankment is levelled for economic purposes, or for the easier culti- vation of the land; or the old walls of the hill-forts, which have stood for untold centuries, are thrown down. Forty years ago many of the works were per- fect which are now nearly obliterated. Our children will not be able to trace their sités, unless destruction is immediately checked. [Vox. IIL, No. 57. | 4 | Marcu 7, 1884.] VORTEX RINGS. A treatise on the motion of vortex rings. An essay to which the Adams prize was adjudged in 1882, in the University of Cambridge. By J. J. THomson, Trinity college, Cambridge. London, 1883. 19 +124p. 8°. Tuose cases of fluid motion in which no rota- tional motion is present, are, as is well known, readily amenable to analysis. Helmholtz * first called attention to the nature of the analysis by which rotational motion must be treated. This memoir was followed by Sir William Thom- son’s suggestive paper on vortex atoms,” and finally by his important mathematical memoir on vortex motion.? The very great mathemati- cal difficulties of the theory have operated to prevent almost entirely farther progress in the investigation of this otherwise alluring subject. To the best of our remembrance this essay is the first systematic attempt, since 1869, to enlarge our knowledge of the theory of vortex rings. How great the difficulties to be van- quished are, may be imagined from the ap- pearance of the pages of the essay before us, which bristle with periodic series and compli- cated expansions. The scope of the essay may perhaps be best apprehended fromits opening paragraphs, which we quote : — ““The theory that the properties of matter may be explained by supposing matter to be collections of vortex lines in a perfect fiuid filling the universe has made the subject of vortex motion at present the most interesting and important branch of hydrody- namics. This theory, which was first started by Sir William Thomson as a consequence of the results obtained by Helmholtz in his epoch-making paper, Ueber integrale der hydrodynamischen gleichnungen welche den wirbelbewegungen entsprechen, has a priori yery strong recommendations in its favor; for the vortex ring obviously possesses many of the qualities essential to a molecule that has to be the basis of a dynamical theory of gases. It is indestructible and indivisible; the strength of the vortex ring, and the yolume of liquid composing it, remain forever un- altered; and if any vortex ring be knotted, or if two yortex rings be linked together in any way, they will retain forever the same kind of be-knottedness or linking. These properties seem to furnish us with good materials for explaining the permanent proper- ties of the molecule. Again: the vortex ring, when free from the influence of other vortices, moves rapidly forward in a straight line. It can possess, in virtue of its motion of translation, kinetic energy; it can also vibrate about its circular form, and in this Way possess internal energy: and thus it affords us promising materials for explaining the phenomena of heat and radiation. * This theory cannot be said to explain what matter is, since it postulates the existence of a fiuid possess- ing inertia; but it proposes to explain, by means of the 1 Crelle’s journ., 1858, and translated by Tait, Phil. mag., 1867 2 Phil. mag., 1867. ° Edin. trans., 1869. SCIENCE. 289 laws of hydrodynamics, all the properties of bodies as consequences of the motion of this fluid. It is thus, evidently, of a very much more fundamental character than any theory hitherto started: it does not, for example, like the ordinary kinetic theory of gases, assume that the atoms attract each other with a force which varies as that power of the distance which is most convenient; nor can it hope to explain any property of bodies by giving the same property to the atom. Since this theory is the only one that attempts to give any account of the mechanism of the intermolecular-forces, it enables us to form much the clearest mental representation of what goes on when one atom influences another. Though the theory is not sufficiently developed for us to say whether or not it succeeds in explaining all the prop- erties of bodies, yet, since it gives to vortex motion the greater part of the interest it possesses, I shall not scruple to examine the consequences, according to this theory, of any results I may obtain. ‘““The present essay is divided into four parts: the first part, which is a necessary preliminary to the others, treats of some general propositions in vortex motion, and considers at some length the theory of the single vortex ring; the second part treats of the mutual action of two vortex rings which never ap- proach closer than a large multiple of the diameter of either; it also treats of the effect of a solid body immersed in the fluid on a vortex ring passing near it; the third part treats of knotted and linked vortices; and the fourth part contains a sketch of a vortex theory of chemical combination, and the application of the results obtained in the preceding parts to the vortex-ring theory of gases. ‘It will be seen that the work is almost entirely kinematical: we start with the fact that the vortex ring always consists of the same particles of fluid (the proof of which, however, requires dynamical considerations), and we find that the rest of the work is kinematical. This is further evidence that the vortex theory of matter is of a much more fun- damental character than the ordinary solid particle theory; since the mutual action of two vortex rings can be found by kinematical principles, whilst the ‘clash of atoms’ in the ordinary theory introduces to forces which themselves demand a theory to explain them.”’ The great difficulty which inheres in the vor- tex theory of chemical combination is to suffi- ciently account for what takes place at the instant of chemical union by showing that vortex atoms can, without supposing other forces than those due to their motion, have any such attractions as are known to exist, and especially to account for the enormous quantities of heat liberated in many cases of chemical decomposition. The author, however, postpones all extended application of the vortex theory of atoms to the dynamical theory of gases for consideration in a future paper, but, among other important conclusions, states that the phenomena attend- ing the diffusion of gases through a porous diaphragm which separates portions of gas at different temperatures will probably furnish a crucial experimental test between the vortex atom theory and the ordinary kinetic theory. 290 THE SILK INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. Silk-manufacture in the United States. Compiled by Witiiam C. Wyckorr, special agent of the tenth census. Unper the above title, Mr. W. C. Wyckoff has published a volume containing his report as special agent of the census of 1880, the tenth annual report of the Silk association of America, and a directory of silk-manufacturers. The first of these reports is reprinted on ac- count of the very small edition of the bulletin issued by the census office, and deserves more notice than it has received, on account of its admirable historical account of the numerous attempts at silk-culture in this country, and of the rise of silk-manufacture. The interest in silk-culture has steadily grown of late years, while the interest in silk-manufacture was scarcely more marked during the early strug- gles to establish the industry than at this pres- ent time of tariff-reform agitation. In the work before us, the first introduction of silk-culture into America is traced back to the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Mulberry- trees were planted near the city of Mexico by order of Cortes shortly after 1522 ; and in 1531 a quarter of an ounce of eggs was sent on pub- lic account from Spain to Francisco de Santa Cruz, a citizen of Mexico. The eggs were reared by Auditor Diego Delgadillo with the best of success, and two ounces were returned by him to Francisco. He was accused, however, of selling the remainder of the eggs, which were the property of the crown, to others for sixty dollars an ounce, was tried and convicted. This carries the beginning of silk-culture in America nearly a century back of previous rec- ords. The industry flourished for a while in Mexico, supplying the demands of the people, and even giving rise to a certain amount of ex- port to Peru; but, by the end of the sixteenth century, few traces of its existence were left. Early in the seventeenth century James I. of England, jealous of the growing prosperity of silk-culture in France, resolved upon its in- troduction into England and the American colonies. In 1619, after one disastrous at- tempt had been made ten years previous, eggs were received in Virginia from the Royal gar- dens at Oatland ; and the settlers were enjoined, by promises of aid for diligence, and threats of punishment for negligence, to undertake the culture of the worms. Meanwhile the cultiva- tion of tobacco was discouraged in every pos- sible way. Nevertheless, the success of the silk-industry was but slight. Some silk was ‘ SCIENCE. [Vor. IIL, No. 5%. grown, as it was quoted among the market- prices of commodities grown in Virginia at that time ; but, in spite of all encouragement, the industry did not flourish. Calculations were made whereby it was shown that the labor of slaves employed in growing silk would produce about twice as much value as in planting sugar and tobacco; and one writer even advised the sending of all the paupers and small criminals of the old country to the colonies to engage in the culture. In South Carolina but little more was done ; and in the twenty-five years of greatest production — between 1731 and 1755 — only 251 pounds were exported. Georgia did somewhat better. In 1735 a plot of ground near Savannah was planted with mulberries and vines at the pub- ~ lic expense. In 1744 a filature was built and bounties were offered, and from 1750 to 1772 considerable amounts of silk were exported. Then came the war of the revolution, and men- tion of silk-culture for a time ceases. Mr. Wyckoff then traces the early attempts to introduce the culture into New England. In each case the culture is traced from its rise in any particular colony to its extinction, and the various causes for failure are discussed. Some new facts are added to this portion of the work; but in the main it substantially coincides with other accounts, notably with Dr. Brockett’s ‘Silk-industry in America’ (1876), — a not surprising fact, since both au- thors relied upon the same library. Neverthe- less, this portion of the work, covering the most interesting periods in the history of the indus- try in America, is thoroughly concise, and full of valuable suggestions. The growth of the industry is followed, and shown to have been steady after the revolution, with no en- couragement in the way of premiums or boun- ties. Connecticut became the chief seat of production, and the silk was consumed mainly in the manufacture of sewing-silk. This part of the history — during the close of the last and the beginning of the present century — shows pretty plainly, that, without interference or discriminating legislation, silk-culture and silk-manufacture would develop co-ordinately. During the third and fourth decades of the present century the general interest in the sub- ject increased; and the encouragement given by the various states and by Congress, until the Morus multicaulis furore undid them all in 1839, transcended any similar efforts since made. In 1826 we find that three-fourths of the families in Mansfield were engaged in rais- ing silk, and made annually, per family, from five to fifty pounds, or even a hundred pounds, Makcs# 7, 1884.] of ‘raw silk.’ The largest amount of raw silk produced in this country in any one year is given as thirty thousand pounds, in 1841. There is a tendency, on Mr. Wyckoff’s part, to intensify the dark side of silk-culture, and to depreciate the quantity and quality of silk pro- duced, — a tendency that is natural, and doubt- less unconscious, in an agent of an association of manufacturers. In most cases he makes the amount of silk raised much smaller than given by common report: but he does so in some instances by assuming that the term ‘raw silk,’ or ‘ raw-silk balls,’ in older works and reports, meant cocoons, or that there was ‘ neglect in discriminating between cocoons and raw silk ; ’ also by calculating that from ten to fourteen pounds of cocoons are necessary to make a pound of reeled silk. He by no means makes it clear that the term ‘ raw-silk balls’ really meant cocoons ; as it might apply to the twisted hanks of reeled silk, and the term ‘ cocoons’ was in use at that time. It is also certainly not justifiable to assume that the cocoons were necessarily fresh, as they are not thus handled and mar- keted. This he does, however, in his estimates (p. 24). Four pounds of choked cocoons to a pound of reeled silk is a liberal estimate, and would give us in 1766, when twenty thou- sand pounds of cocoons were produced, five thousand pounds of ‘raw silk;’ while the maximum amount Mr. Wyckoff allows in any one year prior to 1772 is ‘rarely exceeding a thousand pounds.’ While sometimes mislead- ing, therefore, this tendency to look on the dark side of silk-production has resulted in de- monstrating some exaggeration and mis-state- ment on the part of earlier writers; and the establishment of the truth or falsity of such statements, which have again and again been put forth, is one of the most meritorious fea- tures of the work. The most striking case in point is where (p. 25) the oft-quoted statement as to the export of ten thousand pounds of raw silk in 1759 is pretty conclusively shown to have been based upon such confusion of terms and mis-statements as above indicated. The summing-up of the present condition (1880) of silk-culture in the United States is worthy of quotation : — “An inquiry was attempted by the writer to as- certain the amount of raw silk raised in the United States during the census year ending June 30, 1880. It was soon determined that the expense of making such an investigation thoroughly would be more than the result could be worth. The only instances of the use of native silk in manufacture were at Williams- burg, Kan., and at Salt Lake City, Utah. The latter experiment proved financially a failure, the raw silk costing much more than the Asiatic product. It may SCIENCE. 291 however be stated in a general way, without preten- sion to accuracy, that the amount of reeled silk pro- duced in Utah territory during the year was less than a thousand pounds; the amount in Kansas was less than five hundred pounds, and the product in no other state was more than half as much. Missouri and North Carolina probably came next in amount of cocoons raised, and after those states Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the quantities produced there and in scattered localities throughout the country being inconsiderable.’’ With the exception of the penchant already alluded to, in favor of the manufacturing as against the productive part of the silk-industry, the author has done his work so well that it will remain as the best monograph on the sub- ject we possess. It is, in fact, a model report, the material for which has been gathered with care and comprehensiveness, and put together in such compact and concise form that it will serve as a cyclopaedia for all future reference, and render it extremely difficult for future writers to add any thing of consequence. We notice but one clerical error of any im- portance. ‘Julius Stanislaus,’ in the list of authors (p. 39), should be ‘ Stanislas Julien.’ He was a member of the French institute, and professor of Chinese literature in the College of France. No one can read this report without feeling that the silk-manufacture of the country has been built up to its present importance by our protective policy ; and at first blush this would seem to be a very strong argument in favor of that policy. But it has at the same time had the effect to throttle and destroy the production and concomitant reeling of silk. The one in- dustry is protected at the expense of the other. ‘ Raw silk,’ as applied in the trade, is a mis- nomer: it should apply to the simple fibre upon the cocoon, whereas it really applies to the reeled silk, which is as much a manufac- tured article as any woven or sewing goods, having gone through an elaborate process by means of special skill and complicated machin- ery. On its successful establishment the silk- producing industry may be said to depend. Nothing is more clearly demonstrated by Mr. W yckoff’s report than that the chief cause of failure in this last, next to no reeling at all, has been the bad reeling of domestic silk. There was never any difficulty in rearing the worms, or in getting silk of the best quality ; and, when good reeling could be had, ‘ native silk was found to be of superior quality and strength ’ (p. 35). Why, therefore, it will be asked, should one kind of manufacture be protected from foreign competition, and not the other? If protection is beneficial to the people in the 292 one case, why not in the other? With a native food-plant (Maclura aurantiaca) now known to be available over most of our domain, with a rapidly-increasing population, with in- creasing means of communication, and with the settlement of sections of the country that by climate are pre-eminently adapted to silk- culture, the present period has advantages for this culture possessed at no other period, and the question is pertinent. We do not propose to introduce a homily on free trade; but we think that the chief answer that can be given to the question is, that our silk-manufactures are established, and give employment to a large number of operatives, while silk-culture as an industry amounts to so little that there is nothing to protect. The same could have been said of silk-manufacture while it was struggling for establishment, and means little more than that we must keep up a discriminating policy, simply because we have begun it ; and the more powerful and wealthy the manufacturing inter- est becomes, the more certain will it be kept up. This is the secret, in a nutshell, of the failure of silk-culture at the present time ; and the pros- pect for what might otherwise become a valu- able productive industry is certainly gloomy. SCRIBNER’S WHERE DID LIFE BEGIN? Where did life begin? a brief inquiry as to the proba- ble place of beginning and the natural courses of migration therefrom of the flora and fauna of the earth. By G. Hiirton Scripner. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883. 6+64 p. 12°. Tuts little monograph is a full summary and straightforward statement of the principal grounds of the theory of the arctic origin of the plants and animals of the northern hemi- sphere. These grounds, in more condensed statement, are as follows: on any planet, or- ganic life would first appear in the region first suited for its reception. On a planet cooling from an incandescent state, the polar regions would first acquire a habitable temperature, both because their deficiency of solar heat would accelerate cooling, — that deficiency be- ing increased by polar flattening, which ren- ders the sun’s rays more oblique, and increases the radiating surface of the polar sides, — and because, underneath the polar sides, there is less matter to be cooled than underneath the equator. On our earth the polar regions are now too cold for life, and hence they have passed through the life-sustaining stage; and this was while more equatorial regions remained too hot. As the life-sustaining isothermals moved equatorially, animals and plants mi- SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 57. grated correspondingly. The progress of cli- matic change was not more favorable to this faunal and floral migration than were the south- ward bottom flow of water in the general oceanic circulation, and the general meridional trend of the continental and oceanic configuration, or the prevailing surface-movement in the atmos- pheric circulation. All these conditions oppose transmeridional migrations. Confirmatory of these deductions are numerous facts of observa- tion, —such as similarity of the fauna and flora at all parts of the same parallel of latitude ; the remains of tropical and subtropical animals and plants in arctic regions; the degenerate condition of certain arctic species, as whales, seals, and others; and the fundamental affini- ties of different tribes of plants and animals_ which testify to a common origin. Undoubtedly some of these considerations are entirely valid, and confer upon the theory a claim to sober consideration, not to mention the authority of names previously subscribed to it. What a hesitating believer would like to know further, is, whether the inferior polar radius of the earth would really accelerate or retard polar cooling, and whether the circula- tions of the sea and atmosphere have been such as to promote the migrations of plants and animals from high polar to equatorial latitudes. The deductions based on progress of planetary cooling are plausible: but the queries arise, whether circulations did not exist in the fluid planet before incrustation as well as in the fluids existing after incrustation ; and whether such circulation must not have maintained polar and equatorial surface temperatures so nearly equal as to permit nearly simultaneous incrusta- tion in all latitudes; and then, whether, after general incrustation, the crustal arrest of radia- tion must not have speedily diminished sub- crustal influence to such an extent that climate depended chiefly on solar radiation, since less than half a mile of crust would fail to conduct sufficient heat to affect surface temperature more than a small fraction of a degree. Then, on the side of inductive data, we have to con- sider whether the secular southward progress of identical climatic conditions would not be in- compatible with that continuity of sedimentary conditions, which, especially in North America, has been traced from the thirty-fifth to the sixty-fifth degree of latitude; and whether a similar progress of identical faunal conditions would not introduce a progressive change in the correlation of life to the age of the strata, leaving the same types in older strata north- ward, and newer strata southward, while obser- vation testifies that the same Hamilton types, 0 ~~ A Marcu 7, 1884. ] for instance, stretch from Missouri to Arctic America, and are enclosed in sediments of simi- lar character throughout these limits. Aside from defects of particular arguments, and aside from any weight attributable to this essay, the question is one which will undoubt- SCIENCE. 293 edly provoke competent and deliberate discus- sion. Mr. Scribner’s monograph is well writ- ten, with some local diffuseness, and an occa- sional sentence of intolerable length, but, on the whole, a timely, suggestive, and pleasant little volume. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey, Rocky Mountain division. — Upon the organization of the survey, the area of the United States was di- vided into eight districts, in order that the progress of the work might be systematically facilitated. Of the four western districts, the ‘ Rocky Mountain dis- trict ’ includes the state of Colorado and the territories of New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana. Geologic work. — Colorado has been the prin- cipal field of geologic activity in the district; and the work has been carried on under the supervision of Mr. S. F. Emmons, who is the geologist in charge, with headquarters at Denver. The mining-geology of the state has been made the subject of special study, and the investigations have been confined - mainly to questions of direct economic importance. Prior to 1883 the work done was principally in the Leadville and Ten-mile regions. Last season an ex- amination of the Silver Cliff mining-district was un- dertaken. The geologic work was begun by Mr. Whitman Cross about the Ist of July, and was car- ried on through the summer, and completed in September. The topographic work had been previ- ously completed. The preparation of the geologic map was intrusted to Messrs. Cross and Chapman, assistant geologists. Messrs. Jacob and Eakins were detailed to report on the mines and ore-deposits, under the personal supervision of Mr. Emmons, Mr. S. S. Sackett was engaged in gathering statistics as to the reduction of the ores of the district, and secured material for a chapter on the mills and reduc- - tion-works of the district. The report on this mining-district will be of espe- cial value, as the Silver Cliff is a mining-camp of abortive processes, a true history of which may well serve as a warning, by pointing out the errors, which there led to the failures in mining and in the reduc- tion of the ores, From the Silver Cliff district a short trip was made to the Sangre de Christo range, which lies on the opposite side of the valley. This was made with a view to determine the geologic relations of the Silver Cliff ore-deposits to the rocks of the range. Some field-work was also done by Mr. Cross on the mesozoic rocks exposed in the vicinity of Golden and of Mor- rison. In the Denver coal-basin progress was some- what retarded by the absence of Mr. Karl, who has charge of the topographic survey of the region. Although temporarily suspended during the summer, work in this basin can be carried forward during the winter months, when the snow causes the abandon- ment of the field in the mountainous sections of the state. The map of the basin is toinclude some thirty square miles, on a scale of one mile to one inch. In- formation on the subject of the artesian wells in this basin is being secured, and will be embodied in the report. Voluminous rock-collections were made dur- ing the season, especially in the Silver Cliff district; and a special trip was made to Buffalo Peaks for the collection of typical specimens of hypersthene-an- desite. Besides the field-work, considerable office-work was accomplished. The notes on the Ten-mile district were worked up, and a geological map and sections of the area were made. Manuscript for the following monographs by the ‘Rocky Mountian division’ are in advanced stages of preparation: viz., 1°, Geology and mining industry of Leadville, by S. F. Emmons (an abstract of this paper appeared in the second annual report of the survey); 2°, Geology and mining industry of Ten mile district; 3°, Geology and min- ing industry of the Silver Creek district; 4°, The basaltic mesas near Golden, and their relation to the contiguous tertiary and cretaceous beds. Dur- ing the season the bulletin on hypersthene-andesite, by Mr. Whitman Cross of this division, was published. Laboratory work. — The laboratory at Denver is in charge of Mr. W. F. Hillebrand, chemist, who has been busy with the chemical and lithological ex- amination of the rocks collected in the district, and on the ores from the various mining-districts. Some of the details of his work have already been given in Science. Mr. Whitman Cross has carried on the microscopical examination of the numerous thin rock- sections made of the rocks collected in the district. Topographic work.— Mr. Anton Karl has been carrying on the topographic surveys in the dis- trict, and during the season of 1883 was in the Elk Mountains, mapping the Gunnison mining-region. His triangulation was based on Snow Mass and West Elk Mountains, two points located by the Hayden survey. These were occupied, and a system of tri- angulation was extended from them over the whole area surveyed. The principal mines in the Ruby basin, lying between Mount Owen and Irwin Peak, were all located, as well as Anthracite Mountain and the property of the Denver and South Park coal company. Topographical data were obtained for ¢ tay 294. mapping the Ruby and Irwin regions preliminary to future geologic work. The country lying between Beckwith, Marcellina, and Anthracite Mountains was also worked up, and each of those points occupied, and the valley of Ohio Creek surveyed. In the early part of September, work was begun in Poverty and Washington gulches and in Baxter basin, and the East River valley, between Schofield, Gothic, and Crested Buttes. Fair results were obtained, although RECENT PROCEEDINGS Chemical society, Washington. Feb, 28. —Mr. W. H. Seaman exhibited and de- scribed a new form of burette, and also a graduated pipette, modelled after the ordinary medicine-drop- per. —— Prof. F. W. Clarke exhibited a copy of Lothar Meyer’s curve of atomic volumes, drawn to large scale, with the most recent data. With it, upon the same sheet, was compared a similar curve of melting-point. Biological society, Washington. Feb. 23.— Dr. Elliott Coues read a paper on the present state of North-American ornithology. In discussing the precontemporaneous history of the subject, he defined the following epochs: 1, The ar- chaic (prior to 1700); 2, The pre-Linnean (1700-50) ; 3, The post-Linnean (1750-1800); 4, The Wilsonian (1800-25) ;5, The Audubonian (1825-50); and, 6, The Bairdian (1850+). A number of periods were also de- fined as follows: 1. The Lawsonian (1700-30); 2. The Catesbian (1730-48); 3. The Edwardsian (1748-58); 4, The Linnean (1758-66); 5. The Fosterian (1766- 85); 6. The Pennantian (1785-90); 7. The Bartrami- an (1790-99); 8. The Vieillotian (1800-1808); 9. The Wilsonian (1808-24); 10. The Bonapartian (1824-31) ; 11. The Richardsonio-Swainsonian (1831-32); 12. The Nuttallian (1832-34); 18. The Audubonian (1834-53); 14. The Cassinian (1853-58) ; 15. The Bairdian. The establishment of the American ornithologists’ union, he thought, would probably mark the establishment of a new epoch, — one in which the existing intricacies of ornithological nomenclature will be replaced by a consistent system founded upon a rational code: the present is simply a period of transition. Dr. Coues laid before the society the plate proofs of the forth- coming new edition of his Key to North-American ornithology. Mr. C. D. Walcott exhibited a second time the rocks fron Maine, containing fossil corals. He stated, that having received a number of additional speci- mens of the granite-like rock containing fossils, Stromatopora, corals, plates of crinoid stems, etc., from Litchfield, Me., he found that he had been in- correct in calling the rock a granite, as it was. of sedimentary origin, —a clastic rock, so changed in the specimens examined that it might be called a con- glomerate gneiss. Prof. Lester F. Ward exhibited a specimen of the SCIENCE. severe snow-storms impeded progress. About the middle of the month Mr. Karl was directed to co- operate with special agent J. A. Bently, of the In- terior department, to ascertain the accuracy of the Land-office survey of the Maxwell grant in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. He was occu- pied on this work the remainder of the season, and in the latter part of November presented to the court a map prepared by him in support of his evidence. OF SCIENTIFIC SOCTETIES. ‘diamond willow,’ —a variety of Salix cordata oc- curring in the upper Missouri region, distinguished by a great exaggeration of the scars left by the early growths of limbs which form series of large diamond- shaped caviti-s along the stems. He also exhibited some canes carved by the people of that region, which show the so-called diamonds in a striking manner. Professor Seaman advanced the theory that these scars are caused by the influence of some fungus or of some insect which lays its eggs in the buds. Linnaean society, New York. Feb. 8. —The publication of vol. ii. of the Trans- actions was ordered. Dr. C. Hart Merriam read a biography of the muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), giv- ing its life-history as noted by him in the Adirondack region of north-eastern New York. The paper was followed by a general discussion as to its differing habits in a less boreal locality. —— A translation from the Spanish of Rafael Montes de Oca by L. S. Foster, and the subsequent discussion, developed many in- teresting facts concerning the Trochilidae. —— Mr. William Dutcher remarked upon the scarcity of the snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca) this winter on Long Island, and upon the presence in considerable num- bers of the thick-billed guillemot (Lomvia arra), as well as the razor-billed auk (Utamania torda); while not a single sea-dove (Alle nigricans) had come under his observation. His Long Island records for the Ipswich sparrow (Passerculus princeps) give the cap- ture of thirty-three specimens since their arrival, Dec. 16, after a severe snow-storm. Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, Jan. 22.— Mr. F. W. Putnam made a communi- cation on a group of mounds occurring on the Miami River, which in many respects he considered the most important in the country. The methods of in- vestigation, and the objects found in the mounds re- ferred to, were described in detail, and illustrated by means of specimens and photographs. While no doubt exists as to the construction of mounds by some of our existing Indians, those he described had abso- lutely nothing in common with the more modern | structures, except in so far as they indicated the Mongoloid type. worm Manayunkia speciosa (the forms related to [Vor. IIL, No. 57. As the essentially fresh-water character of the — MARCH 7, 1884.] which are all marine) had not heretofore been un- questionably established, Mr. Edward Potts believed that it would be of interest to record that he had in his possession specimens from the Schuylkill River above the dam, and therefore from absolutely fresh water. The currents produced by the cilia on the tentacles were claimed to be excurrent, and not in- current, as might have been expected, the feeding processes in some cases being performed by the ten- tacles themselves. Jan. 29. —Prof. J. Leidy directed attention to a collection of fossil bones which had been submitted to his examination by the Smithsonian institution. They were obtained at the mine of the American salt company, near New Iberia, La. They chiefly consist of remains of Mastodon americanus, of Equus major, of an Equus not distinguishable from the domestic horse, and of Mylodon Harlani. Of the Mastodon, the collection contained well-preserved molar teeth, and characteristic fragments of bones. Of the Equus major, there are vertebrae, fragments of long bones, and a number of teeth. Of Mylodon, there are several molar teeth, vertebrae, and other bones, mostly fragments. Among these are two ma- ture and well-preserved tibiae, the best specimens yet discovered of the species. They are identical in form and size with those of M. robustus, indicating M. Harla- ni to have been a species of the same size as the former. Prof. J. Leidy stated that he had recently received for examination, from Mr. B. W. Thomas of Chicago, several glass slides with mounted specimens of sand. These were obtained by washing clay from the bowl- der drift of Meeker county, Minn. In the specimens Professor Leidy recognized some well-preserved and characteristic foraminifera, of which two forms ap- peared identical with Sextularia globulosa and Ro- talia globulosa, now living in the Atlantic Ocean. The fossils Mr. Thomas supposes to be derived from a soft yellow rock, cretaceous shale and lignite form- ing part of the drift. He also reports the finding of fragments of marine diatoms in the clay. Professor Heilprin suggested that the foraminifera referred to had probably been washed from underlying Silurian rocks. Feb. 5. — A communication was read from Miss S. G. Foulke, describing a new species of rotifer under the name Apsilus bipera. The specimens were found in Fairmount Park; and, in common with all members of the genus, they possess, instead of rotatory organs, a membranous cup or net, which is used for the capture of food. The specific distinction of the form now described consists chiefly in the structure of the net, the presence of a true stomach in addition to the usual crop, and the presence of cilia inside the net. It was proposed to unite the forms Apsilus lentiformis Meczinchoff, Dictyophora vorax Leidy, Cupelopagus lucinedax Forbes, and the Species now described, under one genus, Apsilus, in consequence of their strong points of resemblance. These are, briefly, the presence of two eye-spots, of a membranous crop instead of rotatory organs, of a mastax exactly alike in all, and the absence of a tail or foot-stalk. SCIENCE. 295 Prof. H. Carvill Lewis announced the discovery of fossils in the triassic red shale from the neighborhood of Phoenixville, and gave a preliminary notice of them. They occurred in soft red rock at the south- ern entrance to the new tunnel, in strata dipping 10° * N. 80° W., which would place the bed considerably below the strata of the old tunnel, perhaps a thou- sand feet, unless faults intervened. The specimens consist of some five distinct species of lamellibranch shells, a ganoid fish, some plants, and a doubtful fragment of a saurian bone. Among the shells are two species of Unio, somewhat resembling U. cal- ceolus and U. lanceolatus of Lea. These are, of course, of fresh-water origin, and are found in single and double valves, and open. Three species of marine shells also occur in the collection ; and the apparent commingling of fresh-water and marine species was referred to as an interesting fact. The shells, which in most instances lay parallel with the bedding, were frequently distorted: by the movement of the shale. The Unios were regarded as probably the most ancient yet discovered, some specimens found in New Mexico being of later age. The coal- plants represented are fresh-water species, but refer- ence was made to a triassic marine fucoid described by the speaker some years ago. The fish belongs to the lepidoganoids, and resembles the Catopteris gra- cilis of Redfield. Engineers’ club, Philadelphia. Jan. 19.— Mr. Wilfred Lewis read a paper upon the resilience of steel, reviewing some of the means employed for the storage of energy, and showing the place occupied by steel among them. Among the means now employed, compressed air, hot water, and the storage battery were cited from an English writer as being about equal in value, and as giving out about 6,500 foot-pounds of work per pound of material used. Steel springs, according to the same writer, were said to yield about 18 foot-pounds per pound. In this connection, the project of using steel springs as a motor for street-cars was referred to as the most hopeless of all possible means of locomotion. To test the accuracy of this statement in regard to steel, several experiments were made by the writer upon tempered specimens, both for tension and flexure. Contrary to expectation, the highest results were shown by the flexure of a small spiral clock-spring weighing 2,040 grains, which gave out, when wound up, about 45 foot-pounds of energy; or, in other words, 154 foot-pounds per pound. The transverse strength of this steel, within the elastic limit, was found to be about 300,000 pounds per square inch, and its modulus of elasticity about 30,000,000. Such ex- traordinary strength, with such a low modulus, was so far beyond conjecture, that it seemed to give a new hope for the success of the project referred to; but, after making the necessary allowances for weight of car and efficiency of driving mechanism, it was found that not more than about 20 foot-pounds per pound of car would be available for locomotion. It was therefore improbable that such a car could ascend a hill over twenty feet high. It was also a matter of 296 doubt, whether larger springs could be made to show results which would even approach these figures; and on this account the experiments about to be tried might be looked for with some interest. —— Mr. H. C. Liiders exhibited specimen of rolled and annealed phosphor-bronze of maximum ductility, and consequently of minimum tensile strength, and submitted the following data of the test thereof: length, 2”; diameter, 0.57”; subjected to a strain of 13,620 pounds, equivalent to 53,400 pounds per square inch; elongation, 70.5%; reduced area at point where fracture would occur, 0.3”; elastic limit, about 18,000 pounds per square inch. MHard-rolled rods, tested without turning off the surface, have shown a tenacity exceeding 90,000 pounds per square inch. — Mr. Howard Murphy presented for Mr. Louis C. Madeira, jun., the Record of American and foreign shipping, containing an interesting set of drawings for the details of construction of iron ships. Mr. Percival Roberts, jun., gave some account of the results of experiments, now being conducted by Mr. James Christie at Pencoyd, upon the relative elas- ticity of iron and steel structural shapes. NOTES AND NEWS. WE noticed a fortnight ago the presentation of the Lyell medal of the Geological society of London to Professor Leidy; and we now learn that the council of the society at the same time awarded to Mr. Leo Lesquereux the sum of twenty pounds sterling from their Barlow Jameson fund, in recognition of the value of his services to geological science. ‘The great extent and value of Mr. Lesquereux’s contributions to our knowledge of the fossil flora of North America are well known, and will be still better appreciated when his volume on the tertiary plants, now com- pleted, but not yet distributed, shall be issued. — Any contributions that American biologists may feel disposed to make toward the Hermann Miller foundation, referred to in our last issue, can be sent direct to the treasurer of the committee, Wilhelm Thurmann, Lippstadt, Germany, or they will be re- ceipted for and forwarded by Professor William Trelease, Madison, Wis. — The death (March 2) is announced of Isaac Tod- hunter, whose name has been a terror to the average college-student of the present generation. He was born at Rye in 1820, and was senior wrangler in 1848. A large portion of his energy was devoted to the pro- duction of the invaluable mathematical text-books and treatises which are so well known. — Capt. Bernard, in the course of a journey into the far interior of Algeria, twenty kilometres north ‘of the Bou Saada River, found a singular flat-topped butte whose elongated rocky summit rises sixty-five feet vertically from the talus which crowns its sloping base. This place, called by the Algerians ‘ El Gueliaa,’ forms arocky table one hundred and seventy-five feet wide by six hundred feet long, reached by a stairway cut on the northern side. On this plateau has been erected a structure, still in a remarkable state of SCIENCE. ‘ [Vor. IIL, No. 57. preservation, and, from the nature of its materials, apparently of Roman origin. On the east is a large rectangular stone building, containing eight or ten apartments opening upon an inner court. North of this building a vaulted cistern is dug in the rock: sixty feet to the west are two others, side by side, one vaulted over, and the second open to the sky. It is very difficult to say how these cisterns were filled, as there are no springs, or traces of wells, in the vicin- ity. It was evidently a post established for some special purpose. At Mesaad oasis a hillock thirty or thirty-five feet high bears the broken remains of a Roman gate. The Arabs have tunnelled or ditched the hillock for brick-clay; showing, that beneath the Roman remains now so long abandoned, and over the beds of chalk, salty earth, and clay, which form the mound, there are abundant remains of an earlier occupation, apparently for a considerable period, by a race whose stone weapons and tools, fragments of stone and ivory, and other rejectamenta, are their only memorial. | — The expedition charged by Russia with the task of exploring the ancient bed of the Oxus has con- cluded its work. The former path of the stream has | been subjected to careful levelling from Khiva to the . Caspian; proving that it is possible to turn the river into its old course only at the expense of a canal two hundred kilometres long, which is equivalent to a | permanently adverse decision on its practicability. | — —Signor F. P. Moreno, director of the anthropo- logical museum of Buenos Ayres, was authorized in 1882 to undertake a journey into the interior of Bo- livia for purposes of anthropological study. He now reports having visited the provinces of Cordoba, San Luis, and Mendoza as far as the slope of the Andes. During a year’s travel he has studied the modern, as well as the traces of the former, inhabitants, and has exhumed in many places bones, weapons, inscrip- tions, and relics of burials, and has made plans and photographs of the remains of ancient villages. He believes he has obtained full material for a study of life in these regions before the Spanish conquest. He visited the whole extent of the so-called road of the Incas to the Uspallata Pass, when compelled to return by the advent of winter, and has pretty thor- oughly explored the range of the same name. — The material accumulated by the Krause broth- ers in Alaska, 1881-82, is being rapidly worked up. In the Botanisches centralblatt (Cassel, 1883, Nos. 41-43) Karl Miller publishes an account of the mosses of the Chukchi peninsula. He finds twenty-eight new out of seventy-five species collected, certainly a rather unusually large proportion. One of these, a cleistocarpous form allied to Voitia, is erected into a new genus by the name of Krauseella. Dr. Hartlaub, in Cabanis’s journal, enumerates the birds obtained at the head of Lynn Canal, near the — mouth of the Chilkat River, 8. E. Alaska. Lagopus — leucurus, Certhia familiaris, Dendroica Townsend1, Sialia arctica, Chrysomitris pinus, Sphyropicus ruber, and Tinnunculus sparverius are noted as new to the region, though several of them may be only occa- ~ mentation. Marcu 7, 1884.] sional stragglers. The last mentioned has been ob- served on the Aleutian Islands. In a late number of the Deutsche geographische bldtter, Dr. Arthur Krause gives an interesting ac- count of the houses of the T’linkit Indians, their methods of building, tools used, and modes of orna- Iron was found at a very early date in the possession of the natives, but was without doubt procured by them from .the Russian and Hudson Bay traders by a long but rapidly executed series of trans- fers from one band or tribe to another. In one year measles penetrated from British Columbia to Fort Yukon and beyond, and trade would take little longer. ‘ Dr. Arzruni has reported on the minerals of the expedition in a paper read before the Gesellschaft fir vaterlandische kulturin Breslau. The rocks from widely separated portions of the territory indicated analogous geological structure, being chiefly of the oldest crystalline formations,—rocks belonging to the granite series, crystalline schists, and late ter- -tiary voleanic ejections. Remarkable garnets were obtained from Fort Wrangell, and various gold ores from near Sitka. — The Natural science association of Portland, Ore., has secured new quarters, and hopes soon to establish yearly courses of lectures. The annual address was given Feb. 6, by Prof. L. F. Henderson. — Dr. D. G. Brinton, the well-known archeologist, has been elected professor of ethnology and arche- ology by the council of the Academy of natural sciences of Philadelphia, and is making arrangements for the delivery of a course of lectures on his spe- cialty in connection with the department of instruc- tion of the academy during the coming spring. — Four scientific conventions are to be held in Washington in May, —that of the American medical association, the American surgical association, the American climatological association, and the Ameri- ean fish cultural association. — The success of the borings for artesian wells at Denver, Col., seems to have encouraged the people of Montana to experiment in the same direction. ‘ ? a ‘ ‘ oT ¢ ‘ ’ wa - ee ' > i r i ; i J SEG Denes : A) s ‘ * A , 4 J ’ ' — 4 - ; ‘ a € : : e 4 ‘ 2 , ' © ‘ "1 4 * 7 ‘ een ‘ 7 An : = b] Paty = \ ot Pe f 7 : — ' 7 q re < = 2 / i ‘ } - t 4 ; : i “- = ’ : / + : if = ‘ \ » a t ’ o \ _ — oe eS ee Oe CP ee my ‘ / > a Y = x p 1s = 6 a a. | x , la « | | ae ) ; A @ eae mere. ' < 4 a q a i > ‘ ¢ = te 5 4? a, . 4 , ‘ q ictpe a" ‘ih ar ‘ a : o 3} ae P m4 ‘ a a, ——- en nw ast ers nied 3 fs SPige it ——s - > ee nae = armies + -- = : be — late eT ee ee a Oe a ee 3 = ay ef * « . z ‘ > * t / ‘ = . . . ’ ‘ ia ‘ ag J ") as iy ive ‘ a nl a) a id GRANITE FALLS, A SCENE IN THE INNER GORGE OF KAIBAB DISTRICT, GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADG mei. Nee. FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Ir one wishes to study man, it may be desir- able to seek large cities, where men abound in great numbers and in almost infinite variety ; but, if nature is to be questioned and cross- examined, it is wise to betake one’s self to the fields, the woods, and the mountains, over which the artificial has not yet gained control. In the study of various problems in terrestrial physics, it is of the utmost importance to place the observing-stations so that they may fairly represent general conditions, and not be influenced by merely local disturbances; and it has long been customary to give such con- siderations proper weight in the selection of points at which various physical constants are to be determined. An article in the present issue, on the exposure of thermometers, fur- nishes evidence that it is quite possible for large cities to be fortunate in the possession of a climate which is largely artificial; that a meteorology which is based on observations taken under such artificial or peculiar con- ditions is likely, now and then, to go astray ; and that in physics, as in politics, it is some- times safe to await ‘ returns from the coun- try.’ If the earth be represented by a globe six- teen inches in diameter, the largest city in the world will hardly be visible to the naked eye; and yet in most large cities there will be found to exist a set of meteorological con- ditions differing considerably from those of the surrounding country. It is not likely that difference exists alone in temperature, or that itis not noticeable, and worthy of serious at- tention, in other elements which go to make up ‘the weather ;’ and it would appear desirable for working-meteorologists to agree upon some systematic plan of investigation which might No. 58. —1884. result in the determination of the proper loca- tion and exposure of their instruments, that they may more truthfully exhibit the average condition of the area which they represent. Tue close connection and interaction of re- ligion, statescraft, and science in the modern world is illustrated in an interesting way in a recent number of the Proceedings of the Royal society of London. ‘The British government, desiring to introduce cheese-making as an In- dian industry, was met by the difficulty that the religious beliefs of a large portion of the population of India placed an absolute veto on the use by them of cheese, in the manufacture of which rennet obtained from the stomach of an animal had been employed. ‘The leaves of a species of Pinguicula are used by the Laps to coagulate reindeer-milk; and the govern- ment circulated in India a request for informa- tion as to any Indian plant which was known to have a similar property. Surgeon-Major Aitchison called attention to Withania coagu- lans, a Himalayan and northern India plant, the seeds of which were said to coagulate milk. A quantity of this material was sent from Kew to Mr. Sheridan Lea of Cambridge for exami- nation. He was able to extract from it a fer- ment identical with the rennet ferment of the gastric mucous membrane of animals, and capable of preservation in solution as a com- mercial article in a similar way. The ferment exists in the seeds in considerable quantity, and is readily and cheaply extracted from them. Or the ‘ change in the unit of time’ contro- versy, to which we alluded in a late issue, there seems as yet no likelihood of abatement. Originally begun by Mr. Stone, lately her Maj- esty’s astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, it was at once participated in by Sir George Airy, the late astronomer royal, by Professor Newcomb, and later by a number of continen- tal astronomers. When the Royal astronomi- 300 cal society met last autumn, Mr. Christie, the present astronomer royal, declared the subject ‘¢ pretty well thrashed out, and quite unsuitable for discussion at their meetings.’’ Since that time, both sides have had important accessions ; no less a person than Col. Tennant, of her Majesty’s mint, Calcutta, taking essentially the same view with Mr. Stone, and Professors Cay- ley and Adams coming forward with the clear- est of proof that no such deviations as those indicated by Mr. Stone exist. At first blush, it will seem very improbable that an astronomer of Mr. Stone’s well-earned reputation for acuteness should get muddled in a matter of fundamental astronomy involving only simple algebra ; but when he finds himself unable to clarify, after a half-dozen astrono- mers more able than himself have been en- deavoring for six months to convince him of his fallacy, it can scarcely be called rash het- erodoxy to suggest that an error on the part of his opponents may be at least among the pos- sibilities. Although he is now aware that it may appear useless to continue researches of which the fundamental principle is disputed by astronomers of note, his latest utterance is, ‘‘ I have not seen at present any evidence which weakens in the slightest degree my confidence in the accuracy of my results.’’ It is very difficult for the non-mathematical to recognize the possibility of a mathematical dispute, even when the terms involved are of slight impor- tance; but no sort of excuse can appear for a difference regarding a supposed discrepancy of this magnitude, involving the early disruption of fundamental tables of the celestial motions. Unless, then, this matter admits of speedy and permanent decision, the one way or the other, with the entire agreement of all parties to the controversy, astronomy would appear to run the serious risk of forfeiting her claim to a place among the exact sciences. Ont of the indications of the activity in chemical matters in Germany may be found in the great prosperity of the Berlin chemical society. This organization dates only from SCIENCE. [Vou. ILL. No. 58 the year 1868, when it was started under the auspices of the Berlin chemists, headed by the genial Hofmann. In that year the volume containing the articles communicated to the society numbered only about two hundred and eighty pages. In a short time the society became a national instead of a local affair, fully deserving the name, ‘ Deutsche chemische geselischaft,’ given to it at the outset. Accord- ing to the last annual report, the number of members is now nearly three thousand ; an in- crease of about two hundred having been made during the past year. The last annual volume published by the society numbers over three thousand pages. Of the members, eight hun- dred and forty-eight are foreigners ; the largest number (one hundred and eighty-four) of these being English, while there are one hun- dred and forty-five Americans ; and one hun- dred and forty-four Swiss, on the list. It will be seen that more than two-thirds, or about two thousand, of the members, are Germans. It would lead too far to discuss fully the causes of the activity thus indicated. One of the most potent direct causes is, no doubt, the close bond of connection that has been estab- lished in Germany between pure chemistry: and its industrial applications. While there is, perhaps, no country in which the maxim ‘ Science for the sake of science’ is more fre-. quently heard or more firmly believed in than in Germany, it is equally true that in this same country the most successful applications of the truths established by the votaries of pure chemistry have been made. Industries are there springing up every year, founded directly upon the most recent discoveries made in the university laboratories. Large numbers of thoroughly trained chemists are employed in the new factories. The value of science in carrying on industrial operations is fully rec- ognized. It is certainly instructive to note that this state of things has been brought about by devotion to pure science. talked of ‘ practical man’ who wants‘ none of your theories ’ is not a common phenomenon in Germany. The much _ MARcH 14, 1884. | Tue notice in another column, of the pam- phlet by Mr. Frank B. Scott, calls attention to a class of publications which belong to the idiosyncrasies of scientific writings. The law of variation among men involves the occasion- al occurrence of an extreme departure in any _ given direction from the normal average ; and it is quite in accordance therewith that there should be from time to time a writer who seri- ously propounds startling views on a scientific subject about which he is ignorant. Such a person is one who is both very inexperienced and thoroughly unpractical, yet perhaps really intelligent. Something arrests his attention. He begins thinking about it, and finds a series of superficial or casual resemblances, which leads to a grand general conception. Startled and delighted, he eagerly hunts up some text- book : it contains no hint of the grand concep- tion. ‘The thought isthen new. With feverish excitement, a few facts are patched together out of a fragmentary and too often inaccurate knowl- edge, and the idea is confirmed. ‘The theory is then given to the world, condemned by the critics, laughed over as a choice bit by a few, and then forgotten according to its deserts. Fortunate is the author if he gains in experi- ence what he does not secure in fame. ATTENTION has recently been called to the bill for the establishment of ‘ national ex- periment-stations,’ now pending before Con- gress, by a circular sent out by President S. A. Knapp of the Iowa agricultural college, who is the chairman of a committee appointed in January, 1883, by the U.S. department of agriculture, to have the matter in charge. The most interesting portion of the circular is, of course, the text of the bill. This provides for the establishment, at every agricultural college which possesses an improved farm, of a ‘national experiment-station.’ These sta- tions are to be under the general control of the regents or trustees of the colleges where they are located; and the general character of the work to be done at each station is to be determined by the U.S. commissioner of agri- culture, the president of the college, and the SCIENCE 301 director or superintendent of the station. The sum of fifteen thousand dollars is to be appro- priated to each such station, but only so much of this sum is to be paid over to the station as will cover expenditures actually incurred. The objects aimed at in this bill appear to be twofold, — first, to promote the advance of a scientific knowledge of agriculture; and, second, to unify to a certain extent the work of investigation now carried on at scattered and independent centres. ‘To the first of these objects it would seem that no one could take exception. If it be admitted to be within the province of the national government to aid at all the advancement of science, it would cer- tainly seem that a branch of applied science which touches the every-day interests of fully half our people, and which deals with a call- ing which is one of the chief sources of our national wealth, might reasonably claim a portion of that bounty which is so freely ex- tended to other sciences, especially since the experience of Europe, and of several states in this country, has abundantly demonstrated the great utility of such stations. Certainly such an expenditure of the public money is at least as legitimate as river and harbor appro- priations or arrears of pensions acts. As regards the second object of the bill, while it may be desirable, it is not so certain that it can be readily attained. It may be lamentable, but it certainly is a fact, that scien- tific men do not work well in harness, and are apt to entertain extreme ideas of the value of personal independence in their work. Much would depend upon the character of the com- missioner of agriculture. No man fit for the position of director of an experiment-station would be likely to consent to conduct that station according to a plan laid out in Wash- ington. On the other hand, if the commis- sioner were a man whose personal character and scientific attainments commanded respect, he would have an opportunity which, if judi- ciously used, could not fail to bring honor to him, and profit to the interests of agriculture. 302 Should the bill pass, it is not impossible that one of its benefits might be, that it would render more difficult the appointment to the responsible post of commissioner of agricul- ture of individuals such as some who have in the past held without filling that position. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to beas briefas possible. The writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good fuith. Red sunsets and precipitation. THE readers of the scientific journals have, no doubt, observed that the prevailing explanation for the red sunsets and colored sky during the past few months is that of chromatic diffusion of light by voleanic-ash particles. There are some apparent incongruities as pointed out by Mr. Proctor and others; but we be- lieve that the established physical laws will permit a satisfactory solution of the phenomena, assuming volcanic matter as the cause. The object of this letter is to notice what seems to the writer a probable connection between the con- spicuous sunset colors and the excessive cloudiness and precipitation during the last month or six weeks. With regard to precipitation we must recognize Pro- fessor Aitken’s discovery; viz., that clouds and all forms of precipitation occur by virtue of the solid par- ticles of inatter suspended in the atmosphere, serving as nuclei upon which the aqueous vapor is condensed. The supply of this solid matter in the aggregate is nearly uniform; but, if an excess occur from any cause, we should expect a larger precipitation for the same hygroscopic state of the atmosphere. ‘This con- clusion, we believe, has been verified during the past two months, in meteorological observations. It might be argued that the cloudiness and rain have not been evenly distributed, as would be expected if caused by the settling of the ash-particles; but in what has been said, no regard is taken of the various causes for an unequal distribution of the matter, and the common conditions of storms. We should expect weather-records to show the greater precipitation in regions where the sky colors have been most conspic- uous. The writer, however, has no data for verify- ing this. The above is advanced rather as a suggestion than as an exposition, in the hope that it may stimulate a more exhaustive study of this connection, if such there is. W. H. HOWARD. Does Unio spin a byssus? Attached to the female of a Unio which I collected, last August, from the middle fork of the Holston River, at Marion, Va., were stones, some of them more than an inch in diameter. So strongly were these attached that not only could they be lifted from the water by the attachment, but it took considerable force to separate them from the Unio. I had often seen Unio shells covered with gravel and mud firmly cemented by the Confervae that commonly grow up- on the anterior portion of the valves exposed above the water; but these shells under consideration were unusually free from such growths. At the time, I removed the pebbles without giving attention to the phenomenon; but, recurring to it afterwards, I found, on examination, what appeared to be the bases SCIENCE. , OW Ae 7ry [Vou. IIL; Nos 5S. _ of byssi, situated at about the middle of the anterior fourth of each valve. Again: these were only found on females, all of which were gravid, having the eggs well developed. Is it a provision to prevent the strong current of this river from sweeping them into unsuitable spawning- ° grounds while depositing their eggs? Are these byssi (?) seasonal, or permanent? If byssi, how are they spun? E. P. LARKIN. Retrograde metamorphosis of a strawberry- flower. Mr. J. H. Foster of Orange county, Fla., sends amon- strous form of a strawberry-blossom, which is shown in the accompanying engraving. During the winter there were several hard frosts which blasted many of the strawberry-flowers in Florida. This inju- rious weather may have been the cause of the strange malformation. The engraving shows the flower-stalk, a, raised from its re- clining position. The calyx-lobes are at b, b, b, and within these is a circle of stamens. In place of the fleshy receptacle, so. much relished by all when ripe, there is a small strawberry -plant, c, with its short stem, and a root, d, spring- ing from near its base. This root, doubtless, penetrated the soil soon after it started out from the stem, and became a source of nourishment for the young plant. The base of the stem has many undeveloped pistils scattered over its surface, which plainly show that the plant is a trans- formed receptacle. The young leaves, when un- folded, are of the normal form, consisting of three wedge-shaped, coarsely serrated leaflets. Flowers, and in fact all organs of plants, have been known to undergo strange changes of form. All gradations may be found, from one set of floral organs to another. This is seen between petals and stamens in almost every white water-lily, and between stamens and pistils in willow, apple, poppy, and other blossoms. Stamens are changed into, or become, petals in the familiar process of the ‘doubling’ of flowers. This tendency to retrograde is carried still farther when both the stamens and pistils become green, leafy ex- pansions, and thus reveal their true nature. In many cases the floral axis is prolonged beyond one or more circles of floral organs, and the stem again assumes the ordinary leaf-bearing form. Such a metamor- phosis sometimes takes place in an apple or pear blossom; and as a result, there may be a fully devel- oped fruit, with a leafy branch extending beyond the blossom end (basin). : The metamorphosis which has taken place in the strawberry-flower shown in the engraving is in the line of our expectation: the strawberry-plant propa- gates itself readily and rapidly by slender branches sent off from the base of the parent-plant. Each one of these runners strikes root at its apex, and soon develops a tuft of leaves and an independent plant. In the case discovered by Mr. Foster, this strong tendency to increase by runners is carried out by a flower-stem with a frost-injured blossom lying upon the moist earth. Byron D. HALSTED. Marcu 14, 1884.] The reproduction of Clathrulina elegans. In Science, iii. 55, is published a réswmé of Miss S. G. Foulke’s remarks before the Philadelphia academy of natural sciences in reference to the reproductive methods of Clathrulina elegans; her statements being app trently confined chiefly to a process by quadruple suvdivision of the body into uniflagellate organisms as observed by herself, with allusion to three addi- tional processes as observed by others. In August, 188i, the writer repeatedly witnessed two forms of reproduction with this rhizopod, in some respects quite different from what was observed or mentioned by Miss Foulke. The body of Clathrulina in no instance withdrew its rays before subdivision, but underwent transverse binary fission; each part, even after complete separa- tion, retaining its pseudopodal rays fully extended. Soon after dividing, however, one part became per- fectly smooth, having possessed up to this point a conspicuous pulsating vacuole, which now curiously contracted, and did not re-appear. The remaining half of the original body underwent no change ex- cept that caused by the protrusion of rays from the freshly divided surface. The recently separated portion then slowly passed out of the capsule, forming, just before its escape, two vibratile flagella of unequal length. Its movements began immediately, being only moderately active, and continuing for less than two minutes, when it sud- denly lifted itself upon the flagella-bearing end, and instantaneously collapsed into a shapeless mass stud- ded with short blunt pseudopodia, which almost as quickly became filiform; and the zooid was an Actino- phrys-like creature, with two flagella trembling at its front. The latter were soon lost among the rays, and the animal at once began to form the pedicle by a slow extrusion of the body-sarcode. The whole pro- cess consumed about three hours. From the same gathering I was also fortunate enough to learn how Clathrulina produces the colo- nies occasionally met with. The process, up to the escape of the biflagellate zooid, even with the strange conduct of the contractile vesicle, was as just de- scribed. The longer of the flagella, however, termi- nated in a conspicuous bulb-like enlargement, which remained within, but was not attached to, the parent- shell. The vibrations of the short lash gave the zooid a rapid rotatory and oscillating movement, the anchor- ing bulb slipping freely from side to side of the open- ing in the lattice. Motion continued for perhaps five minutes. The obovate body then became rounded, the smooth surface roughened by irregular protrusions extending into filiform rays, until another flagellate Actinophrys-like creature appeared, loosely anchored to a Clathrulina lattice. It remained motionless on the extremity of the apparently rigid bulb-bearing lash, which I supposed would become the pedicle; but in a few moments an unusually thick pseudo- podium was extruded, and attached by an expanded base to the capsule. On this the Actinophrys, with all its rays extended, was slowly lifted to the required distance above the parent; while the anchoring fla- Sellum became more and more attenuated, the bulb less and less noticeable, until both finally disap- peared. It seems, then, that Clathrulina elegans has six re- productive methods, — “‘ by self-division, by the in- stantaneous throwing-off of a small mass of sarcode, by the formation and liberation of minute germs,”’ by the quadruple subdivision of the body into uniflagel- late organisms, by the separation from the body of a free-swimming Heteromita-like zooid for the dis- SCIENCE. 303 semination of the species, and by a similar body-fission whose resulting biflagellate organism is anchored to the parent-capsule for the formation of a colony. Dr. ALFRED C. STOKES. Trenton, N. J. Formation of anchor-ice. On the 17th of January, this year, I had occasion to cross the River St. Lawrence in one of the small Indian ferryboats which ply between the Indian village of Caughnawaga, on the south shore, and Lachine, on the Island of Montreal. The current of the river at this point flows at the rate of four or five miles an hour, I think, and never freezes over. The day was quite stormy, the thermometer indi- cated about 12° or 15° F.; and the river was pretty thickly covered with cakes and masses of porous or very snowy ice. But the most peculiar phenomenon was the sudden and almost incessant rising of dark, muddy ice from the bottom of the river. The for- mation of this ice so far below the surface of the water is supposed to take place in very cold weather, when large masses of snow, descending the river, become saturated with water, and are carried by the current to the bottom, where they stick to the rocks and stones, clinging more firmly and becoming more compact as long as cold weather continues. At least, this is the theory that the Indians advanced. The ice may be seen six or eight feet under water, and often accumulates until it forms miniature islands. When it rises, it often lifts considerable quantities of small stones and gravel to the surface. Another peculiar circumstance is, that this rising of the ice from the bed of the river always occurs a day or two before the approach of mild weather; and the Indians regard this phenomenon as an in- fallible presage of milder weather within forty-eight hours. The cause is most likely atmospheric, but I record the observation with the hope that it may be a hint to some one willing to make a further study of the subject. Jie Gawd Chateauguay Basin, P. Q., Canada. Manayunkia speciosa. In this worm, described and figured by Leidy (Proc. acad. nat. sc. Philad., 1883), the tentacular crown, or branchial organ, is the feature of special interest. i According to Leidy, the tentacles present in an adult are eighteen in number, besides two larger and longer tentacles situated dorsally, midway between the two lophophores. These larger tentacles are con- spicuous by their bright green color, and are, in fact, external continuations of the blood-vessels extending lengthwise throughout the body. In shape these ten- tacles taper from base to apex, are convex on the outside, but concave on that side facing the centre of the tentacular crown; so that a transverse section would present the shape of a crescent. The two lon- gitudinal edges thus formed are fringed with cilia. When closely watched, the green tentacles are seen to pulsate with a rhythmical motion, contracting and expanding laterally. The pulsation takes place in each tentacle alternately. At the moment of con- traction the tentacle turns slightly on its axis out- wards, and towards the end of the lophophore on that side, at the same time giving a backward jerk, return- ing to its former position at the moment of expan- sion. By force of the contraction the green blood filling the tentacles is forced downwards, out of the tentacle, and flows along the blood-vessel on that 304 side of the body. On the expanding of the tentacle the blood instantly returns, and suffuses it; and thus the process goes on. The contraction and expansion occur at regular intervals, together occupying the space of twoseconds. It isin this way that the blood is purified and the circulation controlled. ‘The above observations were made with a seven-eighths inch objective, the subject being placed in a zoodphyte- trough. To ascertain how long the cilia upon the tentacles would continue their motion after separation from the worm, both lophophores of an adult were cut off above their own junction. At first the tentacles remained closed: but soon they expanded, the cilia displaying active motion; and presently the two sepa- rated lopophores began to move about in the zoo- phyte-trough. This motion was produced by the action of the tentacles, which bent in all directions, their tips touching the glass, and was not a result of ciliary currents. In a few minutes one lophophore had crawled in this man- ner quite across the trough, while the other remained floating in the water near its first posi- tion. Sometimes the motion was produced by ciliary currents, the ten- tacles remaining motion- less; but this was quite distinct from the crawling above noted. During this time the decapitated worm had sunk to the bottom, and, though twisting and turn- ing a good deal, did not attempt to protrude the SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 58. to a remarkable storm-cloud that lay along the east- ern horizon. As the sun grew low in the west, this cloud assumed most extraordinary proportions and colors; so much so, that it attracted almost universal attention. A strange, fan-like sheet of yellowish cloud, with broken but decided margin, rose above the centre of the storm like a great halo. It did not seem to stand in a vertical position, but projected above, toward the west, giving the effect of a huge funnel, viewed from below, on the exterior sur- face of which the descending sun cast shadows, and brought out a sort of radiate ribbed struc- ture. Beneath this was a great cluster of swelling cumu- lus ‘ thunder-heads,’ whose bases were hidden by the horizon. ‘Three of these, higher than the others, rose vertically froin the centre of the mass; their magnifi- cent fleece-like heads entering and apparently pene- trating the yellow halo. These, especially the middle and largest one, glowed brilliantly in the strong sun- mutilated support of the lophophores. Its body was so much contracted that the segments were not above one-third their usual size. At the end of five hours the worm was apparently dead; numbers of infusoria had collected to prey upon it; and the surface of its body presented a roughened appearance, as though covered with tubercles. The lophophores were still in motion. At the end of the eighth hour the lophophores had ceased to move, and were paler and more transparent; but the ciliary action, though feeble and uncertain, still continued. The body of the worm was then covered with a thick fungoid growth, consisting of transparent, rod-like filaments, three-sixteenths of an inch in length, some of the filaments having a beaded appearance. : All motion of the cilia upon the tentacles had now ceased, and these latter were also the prey of in- fusoria. The above experiment showed that the independ- ent motion of the cilia continued about twice as long as the mutilated worm gave evidence of vitality. Several individuals of Manayunkia were observed to be preyed upon while still alive by large monads, embedded in one or more segments, which were some- times excavated to a considerable degree. SARA GWENDOLEN FOULKE. Appearance of the cyclone cloud at Rochester, Minn., 1883. On Tuesday, Aug. 21, I left Minneapolis at three o’clock in the afternoon for Albert Lea, Io. Late in the afternoon my attention was attracted ieee light, and cast long blue shadows down the inclined under-surface of the halo. Encircling this brilliant mass were a number of enormous ‘ thunder-heads’ of a most murky and for- bidding appearance, that stood upright, like so many pillars of dense smoke. These upright clouds inclined a little to the east or south-east, indicating a move- ment in that direction. There was a remarkable stability about the whole mass of clouds, and at sunset the effect was grand in the extreme: The sky about was clear, with the ex- ception of isolated masses of cumulus-cloud. I made a small pencil-sketch of the cloud-forms, with notes of color, and, since my return to Washing- ton, have made a drawing i in color. I estimated that the cloud was from forty to fifty miles east of the railway, and, on studying the map carefully, became convinced that this was the cloud attending the great cyclone at Rochester. My atten- tion was not called 1o the cloud until after five o’clock, at which time it was directly east of me, at Wilton. As the course of the cyclone was a little to the north of east, the movement was directly from me when the sketch was made. The peculiar form of the halo, whether fan or fun- nel shaped, was doubtless, in a measure, the result of the movements of the storm-currents. W. H. HoLMEs. Geological survey, Washington. Marcu 14, 1884. | Stones placed in pine-trees by birds. About seventy-five miles south of the United States boundary, near this place, at an elevation of six thou- sand feet, is a stretch of table-lands covered with large pines (Pinus Jeffreysi?), broken by many ridges of giant granite bowlders, decomposing sufficiently to add materially to the soil. Broad, grassy meadows furnish food for cattle and deer. My father and myself, inriding through this forest in July, 1883, noticed several pines with the bark bored into at varying distances from the base of the tree to the branches; and in about one-third of the holes were the acorns of the here common Quercus Emoryi, very tightly fitted, the holes containing the acorns apparently newly made. The remaining holes were weather-beaten ; and in them were equally tightly fitted bits of the granite gravel, of size corresponding with the acorns in the otherholes. In the Cuyama- ca Mountains, of this county, a gentleman observed Colaptes auratus visit pines that contained similarly disposed acorns. The woodpecker tapped the acorns, breaking one now and then; the broken shells show- ing plain traces of having contained a worm, while the other acorns contained sound kernels. But what ob- ject could the birds have in substituting stones as shown above? Possibly they served as hiding-places for many insects which would otherwise have secured places inaccessible to the birds. Cs) kh: ORCUTT. San Diego, Cal., Feb. 16. How a spider sometimes lifts heavy objects to its nest. Last summer, while at Lynchburg, Va., [observed a spider— probably an Epeira— spinning a thread down from the upper section of a large fountain on the lawn of the Arlington hotel. He wassome eight feet from the surface. I watched him descend to the water, where he captured a beetle that had unfor- tunately fallen into the large basin. The beetle must have been an inch long. Our Epeira made a turn of his line around his captive, and ascended all the way to his nest; immediately descending, he threw another loop around his prey, and again ascended to his nest, continuing this process for full ten min- utes: to my surprise, while the spider was at his web, apparently overhauling and tightening the several threads that he had spun to and from the beetle, it left the water, and, evidently by elastic contraction of the threads, ascended full an inch from the surface. The spider spun down another lasso, and threw it round his victim, then retired and was busy with his lines, when the beetle again moved upwards. These operations were repeated, until, at the end of forty-five minutes, he had snugly secured his prey in his nest, at a distance of at least eight feet from the water, by this curious and interesting method. Cambridge, March 3. E. P. LARKIN. The use of the method of limits in mathemati- cal teaching. I notice in a recent number of Science a proposal to discuss the different methods of teaching the ele- ments of the infinitesimal calculus, and, in connec- tion with this, an allusion to Professors Rice and Johnson’s ‘ New method of rates.’ I trust it is not out of place to suggest that the method in question seems to me very like the method given in Maclaurin’s ‘ Fluxions,’ which the author attributes, at least partially, to Newton; and that the present very general use of the method of limits is probably a case of ‘the survival of the fittest:’ forI have found in my experience as a teacher that those SCIENCE. 305 who are either too young or too slow to acquire at once the deeper conceptions of mathematics are often capable of doing very good work when the demon- strations are adapted to their comprehension. The method of limits seems to me that which must be used with a class, if it is desired to give a sure foundation to as many as possible; the method of rates or fluxions requires rather more preparation of mind; and the infinitesimal method is best adapted to those who have mathematical genius. The average engineer or architect is a person whose natural bent is towards construction and the use of tools. Such a person will, in all probability, require the infinitesimal calculus as a tool rather than as a recreation or a profession, and should therefore be trained by a slow and certain process—like the method of limits—in order that his real abilities may not be disguised by any slowness of comprehen- sion in a matter which he can by patience acquire. The weakness of mathematics as a general study in our institutions lies in the rapidity with which the successive steps are passed over; so that the slower pupils are left behind, and become discouraged. Old country schools do more solid work in average cases. TRUMAN HENRY SAFFORD. Williams college, March 1. THE INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.! THe annual report of operations for 1883 has just been received. It shows a steady ad- vance towards the completion of the interna- tional standards. All the principal instruments and apparatus have now been procured, and are in position. The comparateur géodésique, for which a contract was made with the Société Génevoise in 1882, was to have been delivered by August of last year. Various events con- spired to delay its complete delivery; but at the close of the report the entire apparatus was on its way, and was to be set up in the early part of January. All necessary masonry work was done in the spring of 1883. Changes have been made in the method of heating the room of the Brunner comparator. Hitherto it has been done by regulating the temperature of water held between the double zinc walls in which the room is enclosed. It has been found, however, that, in addition to the difficulty and expense of maintaining a con- stant temperature of the water day and night, trouble was experienced from frequent leaks in the zine walls, necessitating repairs, and stopping the observations: consequently the maintenance of temperature by the use of hot water has been discontinued ; and for it has been substituted hot air, which so far has proved satisfactory, and which, it is hoped, will solve the problem of heating. 1 Comité international des poids et mesures. Septiéme rap- port aux gouvernements signataires de la convention du métre sur l’exercice de 1883. Paris, 1884. 54p. 4°. See also Science, No. 16 306 Observations made in the upper vault, five metres under ground, show that the daily vari- ation of temperature is insensible, and that the annual range is only a few degrees. As it is apparently water-tight, it will serve as a safe place of deposit for the standards. In the lower vault, ten metres under ground, the tem- perature is steady at 11° C. throughout the year. At present there is trouble from moisture. Steps are taking to overcome this difficulty ; and, when they are complete, the chamber will be ready for the reception of the proto- types. The examination of the universal compara- tor has been completed, and all values deter- mined save the final errors of division of the two-metre scale. Certain auxiliary scales need- ed for this work were ordered, and have just been received. Modifications are being made on the Brun- ner comparator to admit of comparisons of metres under water. The report for 1882 showed that the balance for vacuum-weighings had been received ; but certain defects of construction were found to exist, and it was returned to the makers to have them remedied. It was again received last autumn, and now appears to maintain a vacu- um in a satisfactory manner. Its examination, and the determination of its instrumental con- stants, will be immediately begun. The manufacture of the standard metres and kilograms by Johnson, Matthey, & Co., is progressing. Analyses of the alloy show it to fill all requisite conditions. Up to the present time the progress has necessarily been slow, as the important questions of alloy, refinement, and mechanical execution, had to be provided for. These matters have now been satisfacto- rily settled, and the delivery of the bars and ingots may be expected soon to begin. In the report of the operations during 1882 was given an account of the copies of the metre des archives and of the kilogramme des archives, which, on April 26, were confided to the care of the director of the bureau. Although rigorously compared, and the relation to the standards of the archives accurately deter- mined, these were not adopted as international prototypes, but were deposited as witness-cop- ies of these standards. The kilogram, Kj, elaborately compared with the kilogramme des archives in 1882 and 18838, was found to be identical in value thereto ; and on Oct. 3, 1883, it was formally adopted as the international prototype of the kilogram. During the year, changes have taken place in the personnel of the international committee SCIENCE. ‘Peet eee ed, and the bureau. The Turkish member of the original committee having taken no part in its deliberations since its organization, and repeat- ed attempts to ascertain his future intentions in the matter having failed, his place has for- mally been declared vacant. ‘The vacancy as yet has not been filled. The resignation of Mr. Marek as a member of the international bureau took effect from March 1, 1883. Dr. Max Thiesen of Berlin was chosen as his suc- cessor, and is charged with matters relating to weighing. The second volume of the Travaux et mé- moires has appeared, and contains a number of important papers relating to comparisons and to determination of coefficients of expansion. The third volume is in press, and in great de- cree printed. It is expected to appear in a few months. The material for the fourth vol- ume is in large degree prepared. Although the comparison of the internation- al standards has not yet begun, a number of national standards have been compared, and important physical investigations made. Comparisons of much interest to Americans are those between the British platinum kilo- gram and a platinum-iridium and two brass avoirdupois pounds and the prototype kilo- gram, as through them our own weights are brought into more direct relation with the international standards. Also a steel metre belonging to the U.S. lake survey has been compared for length and coefficient of expan- sion. Experiments with the Fizeau expansion ap- paratus have given a new and elaborate re- determination of the change, with temperature, of the index of refraction of atmospheric air; © and the coefficients of expansion of many minerals have been determined. An elaborate redetermination of the wave-length of the so- dium-ray is in progress. Correspondence is in progress with Mexico with a view to the adoption, by that govern- ment, of the articles of the metric convention. H.-W .. : Brame A QUESTION OF EXPOSURE. Tue extraordinary depressions in tempera- ture, which occurred in the month of January in many parts of the country, have attracted an unusual amount of attention to questions of thermometry. observed that the areas of excessive cold were smaller than might have been anticipated, great differences often existing where there were no In some instances it has been — [Vou. III., No. 58 - gil Marcu 14, 1884.] geographical or topographical reasons for them. A comparison of reliable observations, made during this period, furnishes evidence of the great importance of considering the situation and exposure of thermometers. In the state of Ohio, there were three dis- tinct periods of great depression during the month ; and at two of these the minimum tem- peratures were unprecedented in the history of the state. The important fact, however, to which it seems desirable to call attention, is that the records of the U.S. signal-service ob- servers contain no account of these extraordi- nary cold-waves; and we should be ignorant of their existence, if obliged to depend for in- formation upon these records alone. This fact ean be attributed, in some degree, to the small number of regular signal-service stations in the state, but in a far greater degree, in the opinion of the writer, to the situation and exposure of the thermometers of that service. The Ohio meteorological bureau has more than twenty observing-stations, pretty well distributed over the state. The observers are generally persons of more than ordinary intel- ligence, and many of them have had long ex- perience in meteorological observations. The instruments which they use are of the best pat- tern, being similar, in fact, to those in use by the U.S. service; and all have been compared with the standards at Washington, thrbugh the kindness of the chief signal-officer, and their elrors are in most cases very small. The U.S. signal-service has four regular sta- tions in Ohio, situated at Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. fe R ee le =a a Send: af peso: oe 5 | Wharton | Eastern middle .| 3.713 3.080 | 86.404 585 6.218 100 1.620 | 96.56 3.44 28.07 5 | Mammoth . Eastern middle .j 4.119 3.084 | 86.379 496 5.922 100 1.617 96.55 3.45 27.99 2 | Primrose Western middle .| 3.541 3.716 | 81.590 499 10.654 100 1.654 95.64 4.36 21.93 5 | Mammoth. . Western middle . | 3.163 3.717 | 81.143 -899 11.078 100 1.657 |) 95.62 4.38 21.83 2 | Primrose? (Ff) ./| Southern. .| 38.008 4.125 | 87.982 506 4.379 100 1.584 95.52 4.48 21.32 2 | Buck-Mountain .| Western middle .| 3.042 3.949 | 82.662 462 9.885 100 1.667 95.44 4.56 20.93 1 | Seven-foot . Western middle .| 3.410 3.978 | 80.868 O12 11.232 100 1.651 95.31 4.69 20.32 7 | Mammoth . .| Southern . 3.087 4.275 | 83.813 641 8.184 160 1.631 95.15 4.85 19.62 3 | Mammoth. . .| Northern. 3.421 4.381 | 83.268 127 8.203 100 1.575 95.00 5.00 19.00 These analyses are arranged in the order of the percentage of fixed carbon in the fuel constituents. A comparison of these results with those already referred to, as given by Taylor for the Panther-Creek basin, shows wide differences. The two Primrose and seven Mammoth speci- mens reported in the table for the Southern field came from the Panther-Creek basin; the more attention among our constructors than that of the strength of materials. About two years ago Messrs. Fairbanks & Co. conceived the idea of locating in New York a bureau so arranged that engineers and all interested could be afforded an opportunity ay mia ea ET e ‘ ni ~ i a AR AP ow ' = f so, Ss = SR S| Ege = | = LI pod J — — -hS ES - == See —— fl | — 5 SSeS = SS Sow = EA | — to =—==—= => —{ —— = = SS SSS —-4 aS = 4 = ilals —<——$——= 1 —¥ = Y = Ta r= ——— se =P eS ef i= = Gy Z ; GEsoeseieey —— a ES ee 4 = 2 rae! All Yi | to be once correct, all subsequent records should be correct mechanically. One of the greatest obstacles to making accurate tests has been the feasibility of making the axis of stress objection is not a serious one, as it introduces but a slight error in the results. In experi- ments on cast-iron, cast-steel, or materials of a brittle character, the slightest cross-strain 316 vitiates the results, introducing stresses into the test-piece which produce an effect not to be calculated upon. By referring to fig. 2, a device for enabling the machine to automatically centre the test- piece may be understood. The top and the bot- tom crossheads have in their centres a large spherical concavity. This concavity contains a segment of a sphere in which the wedges for griping the test-piece are placed. The spherical segment is made of steel turned and polished, and the concavity is lined with the best anti-friction metal. Any eccentric stress swings the segments in their sockets, and causes the axis of stress in the machine to coincide with the axis of the test-piece. The spherical segments weigh about two hundred pounds. They are, however, carefully supported on India-rubber springs, so as to eliminate as far as possible the weight of the segment from the friction in its socket. But supposing, under the most unfavorable circumstances, the whole weight of the segment does come on the joint, the coefficient of friction is not over two per cent: consequently a maximum cross-strain of four pounds on the test-piece will cause the seg- ment to swing, and to adjust itself to the axis of stress through the piece. As this weight of four pounds is less than half the least reading of the poise, it may be assumed to produce no sensible effect on the piece to be examined. The most of the testing-machines now in use require a careful preparation of the test- piece previous to an examination. If, for ex- ample, it is wished to ascertain the strength of an I-beam or of a channel, it is necessary to send the shape to the machine-shop, and plane a piece of one or two inches in area. ‘This re- quires much time and expense. ‘The specimen is then sent to the testing-machine and broken ; and what is obtained? Simply the result of a piece cut from the shape, which may or may not give a fair knowledge of the actual strength of the member in question. What is wanted at the present time is not the strength of a carefully prepared test-piece, broken under spe- cial circumstances, but of the actual bar just as it comes from the rolls in the mill itself. The spherical segments in the crossheads of the Fairbanks testing-machine have four sides in- clined at an angle of about twelve degrees to the axis of the machine. Two of these sides are curved, and two are straight. By using a number of wedges with backs correspondingly curved or straight, any piece, of whatsoever section, may be completely surrounded by the wedges, and griped on all sides; so that a channel, an angle, and I-beam, a T or a star, SCIENCE. [Vou. III, No. 58. or, indeed, any of the shapes now rolled in the mills, may be placed in the machine and broken in full size. Much time and labor have been spent to accomplish the power of autographically: re- cording, at each instant of time during the ex- periment, the amount of stress, and the effect produced thereby on the specimen. To the best of the author’s knowledge, Professor Thurston of the Stevens institute was the first to originate the idea of making a testing-ma- chine in such a manner as to record graphically. In 1876, at the Centennial exhibition, Professor Thurston exhibited a machine designed to make tests in torsion and to record the action thereof. As a matter of history, it may be stated, that, while engaged in examining mate- rial for the East River bridge in 1877, the au- thor designed and built the first testing-machine to autographically record results of the experi- ments in other stresses than that of torsion. While this machine, being the first of its kind, was necessarily crude and imperfect, it gave for some years very satisfactory results, and is still in use by the Bridge company. While the present machine is essentially different from the one just mentioned, the principles employed are the same as those devised for the East River bridge. Referring to fig. 2, it will be seen that the battery G is attached to the top of the adjust- ing-screws hh. These screws are carefully insulated from the rest of the machine. As soon as the test-piece is placed in the top cross- head, it becomes thereby connected with the battery. On the lower end of the specimen may be seen a small clamp, carrying an electro- magnet. One end of the wire of this magnet is in connection with the specimen, while the other end of the wire is joined to a little bind- ing-screw on top, to which the other pole of the battery is attached; so that the current actuating this magnet flows through the test- piece under examination. It will also be seen that the magnetic clutch, m, for holding the driving-belt on the tight pulley, is also included in this part of the battery-circuit. When the rupture of the test-piece occurs, the current is broken, the magnetic clutch is released, the belt slides by means of the counterpoise weight to the loose pulley, and the testing-machine stops. On the top of the specimen nearest to the upper crosshead is attached a second clamp, carrying a small sheave or pulley. Around this pulley, parallel to the specimen, and at- tached to the armature of the lower clamp magnet, passes a flexible steel tape, y, that, after passing alongside the specimen, runs Marcu 14, 1884.] down to a pencil or stylographic pen that is carried on a sliding-track placed over a metal cylinder carrying a sheet of cross-section paper. It is obvious, that, as fast as the specimen elongates under the action of the stress, the pencil is drawn along the ways of the cylinder parallel to its axis. Figs. 3 and 4 show the beam and register- ing-cylinder. In fig. 3 it will be seen that the beam consists of a single bar, sustained on a stand at one end, and enclosed in a guard at the other, while on this beam there rests a semicircular brass box forming a poise. Along the top of the beam, there is cut an exceedingly fine rack ; and the motion of the poise is ob- SCIENCE. 317 the motion of the poise with the motion of the cylinder exactly, so that, in a given travel of the poise along the beam, the cylinder may move a corresponding quantity. Of course, the ratio between the two movements is simply a matter of proportioning so as to accommo- date the ordinary cross-section sheet to the circumference of the cylinder; but an exact and constant ratio is a very important point. Inside of the poise are two large wheels, about eight inches in diameter. The wheel placed in front is graduated with a series of numbers. The pinion carrying the poise along the beam is an inch in circumference, and consequently a single revolution of the pinion carries the poise Fig. 3. tained by a pinion placed inside of the box and ‘gearing into thisrack. At the end of the beam may be seen the mercury-cups for making an electrical connection as the beam rises and falls. The operation of this piece of apparatus is substantially as follows. The clock-work motor contained in the poise, for driving it to and fro on the beam, is connected with the mercury-cups by means of some brass strips placed in the rear of the beam. These strips are connected with two electro-magnets on the inside of the poise: consequently, when the beam either rises or falls, one or the other of the magnets is excited, the corresponding train of clock-work is thrown into action, and the poise rolls to and fro until a balance is re- established. This motion of the poise to and fro on the beam is exceedingly simple, the knotty part of the problem being to correlate one inch along the beam. ‘The front wheel is secured directly to the pinion-shaft, so that there can be no back-lash between the two; and, being eight inches in diameter, one revo- lution of the pinion causes this dial-wheel to travel twenty-five inches of circumference. A motion of one inch along the beam corresponds to a weight of four thousand pounds. The dial- wheel being eight inches in diameter, and sub- divided into four hundred parts, each of these parts corresponds to ten thousand pounds. The rear wheel of the poise is constructed in pre- cisely the same manner as the front wheel, excepting that the marks on the dial are re- placed by little strips of India-rubber, so that the wheel presents a series of teeth alternately made of India-rubber and of brass. On this wheel, there presses a brass commutator-strip, so arranged as to include the cylinder in its 318 electric circuit. As soon as the poise com- mences to move along the beam, this wheel, with its insulated spaces, commences to turn under its commutator-strip ; and with every passage of a tooth under the strip a current passes into the cylinder. Inside of the cylinder are two toothed wheels, mounted on the central shaft, and capable of being ratcheted round by means of a little lever arm and pawl, operated by a magnet placed directly under each of the wheels. SCIENCE. [Vou IIL, No. 68 locked up in a way to be absolutely exterior to any control on the part of the operator. An old proverb has said that ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating.’ In fig. 5 may be seen a half-dozen curves corresponding to as many test-pieces. The vertical scale gives the stresses, while the horizontal scale gives the normal stretches, of the pieces under exami- nation. ‘The two steel curves bear to each other a strong resemblance. Each commences . al i Att Fig. 4. One of these wheels is intended to drive the cylinder in one direction, and the other in a con- trary. One electro-magnet is connected with the mercury on the bottom of the beam, and the other in the mercury-cup on the top. As a consequence, as soon as the beam makes con- nection with either cup, the poise commences to travel: the corresponding electro-magnet acts, and rotates the cylinder in one way or the other. The cylinder might be placed in New York, and the registering-cylinder in Cincin- nati, and the two work absolutely in harmony with each other: so, should it ever be deemed expedient, the cylinder may be enclosed or with a line slightly inclined to the axis of stress at a constant tangent. As soon as the elastic limit is reached, a sudden point of inflection occurs. Very soon, however, there is a second point of inflection, and the curve takes on a parabolic form. The steel curves, as well as that given by the specimen of Ulster iron, may be taken to be typical forms obtained from the material which is nearly homogeneous. The lines are quite true, and without any spe- cial irregularities, until the maximum stress is reached, shortly before the specimen breaks. The stress then commences to decrease, owing to the rapid reduction of area of the piece; Z Marcu 14, 1884.] SCIENCE. 319 f TT | I Ea a fa! i j & ~ = a 5 BEG ig | T — | | ‘Bl GSaEes aeeee Ulm te as Oe eae jt { al | 4it ttt HESEEEEE GBEEEEBE id i iP See ] pyr page g. g | T { it | | {jf : ii } JUDE ! - ! {BORER EEoRE im Ey a | ae | — | | i t | , | i ] Lt (= Tif it a (= eit 4 i | al (aa) a | et t ai tt | j 1 | | tints ah. j pag yaflsie de = = i ine 1 i | i aE t Li i TH [aaa c a | 4 4 7 tH 3 rhitti i i i ¢ ‘ if 1+ iy (2 T L -HL ii. i a } 4 {| | | i | ; | ee aa | mI ae { E Fl} CI H +H & 1, — ; + ees i D | } tl i pafaget im | ! + 4 zi i 1 it} i + n phate | He | : + t it bi Te i | +4 (fa | at f E | ) Tt ! Tt | 1 1 = Ew: i T] | ! 1 { tT I I = i | ae TI jit i Seneeeee aimial { I re Fash 1 =a ; I 1 i! imi i i ! = ! (rpm ki) { 21 i 1 i 4 z a HE, -+4-} a 2! rH z a a i a ! “252- “EEE BREE CeRer EEE SEEEEPEREEEE FIG. 5.— AUTOGRAPHIC RECORD ON FAIRBANKS TESTING-MACHINE. Vertical scale, 10,000 Ibs. to the inch; horizontal scale, normal stretch. a) 320 and with the reduction of the stress, the curve drops, until very shortly the specimen is rup- tured, and the apparatus comes to a standstill. The other three curves are those given by a piece of boiler-plate and of a specimen of muck-bar, and are very good examples of the ‘value of the autographic method. As is well known, both boiler-plate and muck-bar are decidedly non-homogeneous; and as a result we have curves here that are exceedingly irregular, especially after passing the elastic limit. While they bear a general resemblance to the previous ones, they are full of points of inflection, turning and twisting about, and giving one an idea that the specimen consisted of a bundle of threads or fibres which gradually parted under the action of the stress, giving any thing but a constant and uniform action. In conclusion, a word as to the practical ac- curacy of the lever testing-machine may not be out of place. The machine under considera- tion has been subjected to severe use for nearly two years, during which time its sensitiveness, even when loaded, has not risen so high as the least reading on the poise. From this, and from long practice in similar scale-work, it may be safely stated that the testing-machine, with proper care, may have an exceedingly long life. The attainment of absolute accuracy in any department of investigation, would, if it were possible, be an extremely desirable result ; yet even our best experiments are simply close ap- proximations to the truth, and it will be granted that it is desirable to make all of our improve- ments commensurate towards an absolute stand- ard of accuracy. It is of no importance to carry the weighing-power of the testing-ma- chine beyond the possibility of the measure- ment of the bar. Forexample: supposing the tests most frequently made are those of bars -having about a square inch of cross-section. In a piece of iron an error of a thousandth of a square inch of cross-section corresponds to a possible inaccuracy, in the stress produced on the bar, of fifty pounds ; while the correspond- ing quantity in a steel bar corresponds to about seventy to ninety pounds. There are very few lathes in the country in which it is possible to turn a bar so exactly that it shall be per- fectly round, and that there shall be no varia- tion from one end to the other of more than a thousandth of a square inch. There are few men that are capable of manipulating any lathe to produce such a result; and there are still fewer gauges that are capable of measuring even a perfect bar so as to exclude the possi- bility of an error as great as a thousandth of a square inch. Now, if it be impossible to SCIENCE. (Vox. IIL, No. 58. measure our bars to within an error of fifty to a hundred pounds in the testing-machine, is it of any importance to refine the machine beyond this reading? In the lever system of testing-machines it is perfectly possible to obtain a machine which will uniformly and constantly give readings which shall not have a greater variation than from five to twenty pounds ; and, if our bars can only be measured to fifty or a hundred pounds, would it not be wiser to spend money in refining the gauges rather than in refining the machine? Again: when the consideration of the tests on the full-sized members occurs, or bars direct from the rolls, - carrying with them the scale, and other imper- fections from the mill, the possibility of meas- uring to a thousandth of a square inch becomes absurd, and two or three hundredths is the nearest approximation that can be made. In making a test of an ordinary I-bar, of, say, five or six inches of cross-section, it is certain that the bar has any thing but an absolutely uniform section from end to end ; and how long, may it be asked, would it take to measure that bar from end to end, so that the least cross- section could be obtained for the record? And again: in actual experience it has been fre- quently found, that, having obtained what is supposed to be the least cross-section, the test- piece may break in a totally different place. It will be conceded that practical engineers care very little for test-records beyond the hun- dredth’s place of figures ; and what the country wants at the present time, is not so much test- ing-machines constructed with a theoretical refinement of accuracy, as a large number of practical machines, so that one may be located in every iron-works in the country, and means to carry on the experiments and to obtain from these machines a practical knowledge of what America’s constructive materials really are. A. V. ABBOTT. NEW METHOD OF MOUNTING REFLEC- TORS Ir is well known to all who have given at- tention to this subject, that the optical perform- ance of great reflecting-telescopes has not been proportional to their size, and that the mechanical difficulties of keeping a large re- flector in proper figure in different positions have been apparently insurmountable. A plan of supporting a large mirror, devised by Mr. Henry, has been adopted in Paris, which it is hoped may obviate this difficulty. It consists, in principle, in supporting the mirror upon a 1 Extracted from a report to the secretary of the navy on improvements in astronomical instruments. - ‘ Marcu 14, 1884.] second surface, ground to fit it with accuracy when the mirror is in proper shape. If the mirror rested directly in contact with this second surface, no advantage would be gained, since the backing itself would bend as readily as the mirror. Therefore between the two is inserted a thin stratum of some elastic substance. Mr. Henry has found a fine sheet of flannel to give the best results. The effect of the sheet is to diminish the flexure of the mirror by a fraction depending on its stiffness and on the elasticity of the flannel. Theoretically it may be considered imperfect, because, in order to act, some stiffness is required in the mirror itself. A perfectly flexible mirror would bend just as much with the flannel as without it. But the flexure of the mirror can, it appears to me, be reduced to quite a small fraction of its amount. Moreover, I see no insuperable objection to the superposition of two systems of the kind; the mirror resting upon a stiff disk, which is itself supported upon a second one. This plan has been entirely successful in the cases in which it has been applied. Mir- rors up to twelve inches in length show not the slightest flexure when moved into all practical positions. Unfortunately it has not yet been tried with reflectors of a larger size. Simon NEWComs. AFTER-IMAGES. THAT one cannot well contribute to a subject un- less he knows something of its literature is illustrated afresh in a painstaking article by Mr. Sydney Hodges, in the October number of the Nineteenth century, on ‘ After-images.’? Mr. Hodges has discovered for himself the fact that the after-images of bright objects are in general colored, and that they change color as they gradually fade away in the dark field of vision when the eyes have been covered. He has very carefully observed the phenomena in his own case; and he comes to the conclusion, that, in all cases of such after-images, ‘‘the color of the image is pro- duced, not by the tint of the object we look at, but by the amount of light thrown on the retina, either by the greater or less intensity of light in the object itself, or by the amount of time during which one looks at it.” This remarkable result is, however, reached by experiments that cannot prove it: for in all of them the conditions are too complex; namely, in all the important cases, our experimenter observed the bright object for a comparatively long time before covering the eyes. The common theory of these phenomena, however, assumes, that, after such a continued observation, the causes of the colors in the after-image are decidedly complex; and their complexity may be such as to render a complete explanation of the phenomena wholly impossible. Therefore the only simple way to begin observing SCIENCE. 321 the phenomena is to get instantaneously produced after-images, and to observe the order of colors in them as they disappear: for the common theory is substantially, that the separate nervous elements, whatever they are, that respond to the different wave- lengths, or that produce, when excited, the three primary color-sensations, recover from the after- effects of excitement with different degrees of rapid- ity, and again, if continuously excited, yield to exhaustion with various degrees of speed; so that the color of the after-image at each instant, since it must depend on the mixture of the different after- effects in the different elements, must vary as these elements return, each at its own rate, to the condi- tion of rest, and must so depend, not only on the rates of recovery of each element, but also upon the degree of exhaustion that each element has under- gone during the time of stimulus. Hence the sim- plest case would be the one where the degree of previous excitement was as nearly as possible equal for the different elements, —a case which would be realized best through momentary stimulus. But if the stimulus is continued ten or twenty seconds, then the after-image will be further affected by the rates at which the different elements have tended to get exhausted; and if these rates are themselves quite different, as is likely, then the after-image will be determined in its successive colors, not only by the different rates of subsidence of excitement in the elements, but by the different degrees of previous exhaustion: and all this may possibly so complicate things as to make the phenomena of the after-image seem wholly out of relation to the color of the origi- nal object. And thus any such uniformity as our author notices will be of little worth, unless we know just the conditions of time and illumination, and unless we observe the results with very many persons; and even then the facts may turn out to be too com- plex for us to explain, so that no light will be thrown by them on the theory of after-images. All this Mr. Hodges could have found stated or implied in many places. The phenomena have been much observed and discussed. Helmholtz gives the older literature in § 23 of his Physiological optics, and himself declares that it is impossible, by reason of the complexity of the phenomena of fatigue, to give a complete explanation of these phases. Wundt, in the Physiologische psychologie, while not agree- ing as to the theory with Helmholtz, still holds to an explanation somewhat analogous; and he consid- ers, that, to avoid confusion, one must clearly sepa- rate the cases of instantaneous stimulation from the more complex ones, in which, as he implies, fatigue and other causes may affect the phenomena (Op. cit., bd. i., p. 488, of 2d ed.). But of such separation our author is ignorant, and confuses all the phenom- ena in one mass together; so that observations that might easily have been made really valuable for the theory cannot well be used in their present shape at all, and can only raise in the casual reader’s mind a false hope that a law has been found, when, in fact, as it is stated, the supposed law of our author is false, and is at once contradicted by the observation, — B22 added by himself in a footnote, that the “solar spectrum does produce the complementary colors in the after-image.’’ For if the so confidently pro- claimed law did not turn out true for saturated col- ors, the simplest of all perceptions of color, why did not our author suspect*that he was on dangerous ground? As for the rest of his article, it is really no contribution to science, but contains an effort to re- fute the doctrine of fatigue in favor of some quite unintelligible explanation of after-pictures, and to edify the reader by general reflections. We are far from being fully persuaded of the truth of the common theory, and have nothing ourselves to add to the discussion of the subject, save the present note of warning to solitary observers of men- tal phenomena. Let us all observe, by all means, and independently; but let us know what other peo- ple have said, or at least what the greatest men have said. Mr. Hodges is actually capable of believing and saying, at the outset of his article, such words as these: ‘‘I should add, that brief references to after- images with closed eyes may be found in Helmholtz’s great work on Physiological optics, in Dr. Foster’s Text-book of physiology, and in a few other works; but the fact that neither of them contains any de- tailed experiments (?) such as I am about to describe, induces me to hope,’ etc. And this Mr. Hodges could write, presumably with Helmholtz’s book, § 23 and all, before him. What he is about to describe we have indicated. He looked at a window, and then covered his eyes; afterwards he tried the sun, colored cards, ete.; then he asked two or three people to try similar experiments; and then he wrote his article. And now who shall say that every intelli- gent man understands how to use even the best- known and best-arranged books? And why should the pages of the Nineteenth century be thus occu- pied ? JOSIAH ROYCE. LAKES OF THE GREAT BASIN. As the geological observations given in a recent paper by Prof. E. D. Cope! relate to a region some- what familiar to me, I venture to offer the following comments. Under the heading of ‘Preliminary observations’ it is stated that the geologists of the Fortieth-parallel survey have shown that Lake Bonneville existed during tertiary time. It must be known to every one, however, who has read vol. i. of the reports of the survey mentioned, that this lake is there classed as quaternary: it has been so regarded by all geolo- gists who have made any considerable study of the surface geology of Utah. Lake Lahontan is sup- posed, with good reason, to have been contempora- neous with Lake Bonneville, and therefore also of quaternary age. Recent observations tend to prove that the last great rise of these lakes was later than the greatest extension of the Sierra-Nevada glaciers, 1 On the fishes of the recent and pliocene lakes of the western part of the Great Basin, and of the Idaho pliocene lake (Proc. acad. nat. sc. Philad., June, 1883). SCIENCE. [Vo. III., No. 58. and perhaps synchronous with the Champlain epoch of the Atlantic coast. Lake Bonneville was not named by the geologists of the Fortieth-parallel survey, as stated by Professor Cope, but was first so designated by Mr. Gilbert. The list of lakes given as now existing in the Lahontan basin should also include Honey Lake, California, as the valley in which it occurs formed a bay of the old lake with over three hundred feet of water. A map, showing the outline of Lake Lahon- tan as recently determined, will appear in the third annual report of the U.S. geological survey. The prediction ‘‘ that it will be shown that a third lake existed in Oregon, north of the supposed north- ern boundary of Lake Lahontan,’’ has proved correct _ only in part. A geological reconnoissance conducted by myself in this region in the spring of 1882 has shown that the Great Basin, north of the hydrographic rim of Lake Lahontan, was divided during quater- nary time into not less than ten independent hydro- graphic areas, each of which held a lake of small size, as compared with Bonneville and Lahontan. The statement that ‘“‘the lakes of the Great Basin in Nevada and Oregon diminish in alkalinity as we approach the Sierra Nevada Mountains,”’ meets with a notable exception in Moro Lake, California, which lies at the immediate base of the highest portion of the mountains, but is yet, according to an analysis of its water made for me by Dr. F. W. Taylor, far more alkaline than any of the lakes of the Lahontan basin, excepting the soda-ponds at Ragtown, Nev. Professor Cope also says, that ‘‘ the lakes most re- mote from the mountains are not inhabited by fish, their only animal population being crustacea and the larvae of insects.’’ That this conclusion is too broad is illustrated by the life of Humboldt Lake, which is inhabited by both fish and mollusks, and also that of Ruby and Franklin lakes, situated still farther east- ward, which abound in molluscan life. That the freshness of lakes, and consequently their inhabita- bility by fishes and mollusks, do not depend on their relation to mountains, or even on the existence of an outlet, can be shown by numerous examples in the Great Basin. The only explanation of the apparent anomaly of an enclosed lake of comparative freshness (with less than one per cent of saline matter in solu- tion) in the nearly desiccated basin of a far larger lake, which never overflowed, has been suggested by Mr. Gilbert.2. His hypothesis is, that such lakes owe their freshness to complete desiccation and the burial of the precipitated salts beneath plaza deposits. When water re-occupies such a basin, the imprisoned salts may not be redissolved. It is evident that this process might take place in any part of an arid region like the Great Basin, whether it be near or remote from mountain ranges. The locality mentioned on p. 137 as having fur- nished fossil remains is included within the still dis- tinct beach-lines of an ancient lake which once filled the Christmas Lake and Silver Lake valleys. The shells collected at this locality by myself have been 1 Wheeler survey, vol. iii. pp. 88, 89. ; 2 Second ann. rep. of U.S. geol. surv., p. 177. Marcu 14, 1884.] examined by Mr. R. Ellsworth Call, who reports the following species: Aphaerium dentalum Haldeman, Pisidium ultramontanum Prime, Helisoma trivolvis Say, Granulus vermicularis Gould, Limnophysa bulimoides Lea, Carnifex Newberryi Lea, Valvata virens Tryon. The mingling of the blackened and mineralized bones of horses, camels, elephants, edentates, etc., with the shells enumerated above, presents a puzzling association of extinct tertiary(?) mammals with quan- tities of shells of living species, which we had hoped Professor Cope’s studies would elucidate. The presence of ‘ worked flints,’ mingled with the fossil bones, is a matter of but little significance; as the bones occur on the surface, and might have had arrow-heads, etc., scattered among them at a very recent date. There is no evidence that the fossil animals, and the people who chipped the flints, were contemporaneous. The valley of the Warner Lakes is referred to as a ‘fractured anticlinal.’ Again, the same expression is used in describing Silver Lake. We believe, how- ever, that geologists familiar with the progress of ex- ploration in the Far West during the past ten years would class these basins as monoclinal valleys, of the Great Basin type. The Warner valley has a profound fault along both the eastern and western borders, and is enclosed to a great extent by lofty fault-scarps. The Abert Lake basin also owes its formation to displacements. The lake occurs at the base of agreat fault-scarp, forming a cliff two thousand feet high, and covers the depressed edge of a thrown block. In the passage relating to Abert Lake (p. 138), the reader is left in doubt as to whether the lake, or the Chewaucan River, abounds introut. Later, however, three species of fish are credited to Abert Lake. My own experience has been, that trout are abundant in the river, and absent from the lake; although they perhaps could exist in the latter in the immediate vicinity of the mouth of the Chewaucan River (frontiersmen who are familiar with the lake say that it is uninhabited by fish). During my own exami- nation I found its waters swarming with ‘brine shrimps’ and the larvae of insects, but never saw a trace of piscine life. Its waters are strongly alkaline, and utterly unfit for culinary purposes. In its phys- ical properties the water of Abert Lake resembles the brines of Sumner Lake (Oregon), Moro Lake (California), and the soda-ponds (near Ragtown, Nev.), all of which are too strongly alkaline to be inhabited by fishes. It is not evident on what au- thority Professor Cope ascribes a fish fauna to this lake, as on p. 138 it is stated distinctly that he did not get a near view of it. From a study of the geographical distribution of the fishes in the lakes of the Great Basin, Professor Cope has found that the larger fishes inhabiting the lakes in northern Nevada and south-eastern Oregon are different from those of the lakes of the Bonne- ville basin. This is an interesting determination; as ! See ‘ Basin Range structure,’ Geol. of the Uintah Moun- tains, Powell, p. 16. SCIENCE. 323 the former basins were mostly without outlets dur- ing the quaternary, while the latter became tributary to the Columbia. The effect of alkalinity on the growth of fishes has been noted by Professor Cope to some extent, and is evidently a study that might lead to interesting geo- logical conclusions. The comparison of the faunas of Pyramid and Tahoe lakes would perhaps show the effect of salinity and alkalinity on the species of fishes which probably inhabit both lakes. Pyramid Lake, it will be remembered, is supplied almost wholly by the Truckee River, the outlet of Lake Tahoe. Before concluding that ‘all the species of Pyramid Lake are peculiar to it, excepting Catostomus tahoen- sis,” it would be desirable to compare its fishes with those of Walker Lake. As these two lakes are quite similar in chemical composition, and both occur in the Lahontan basin, it seems probable that their abun- dant faunas would be found nearly identical. One species of trout, at least, seems to the writer, from superficial examination, to be common to the two. The second part of Professor Cope’s paper is de- voted to the description of the fossil fauna of ‘ Idaho Lake.’ This lake existed in eastern Oregon and west- ern and southern Idaho during pliocene time. No body of water represents it at present; and the fish- remains found in its sediments differ from those of the Oregon basin, both recent and fossil. The extent of this ancient lake is not known. Its sediments are named the ‘ Idaho formation,’ but no typical exposure is described or in any way indicated. Even the lo- cality at which the fossil bones were collected is, for some unstated reason, withheld. This method is to be regretted; as Professor Cope does not stand alone in making geological divisions on purely paleonto- logical grounds, without attempting to describe or locate the formations named. If this practice is per- sisted in, it can only lead to confusion. Of the twenty-two species of fossil fishes described, eight are new. Besides these, the sediments of the Idaho Lake have furnished three species of crawfish which were reported by Professor Cope some years since. The mollusks, it appears, have already been described by F. B. Meek. Both the vertebrate and invertebrate fossils of the formation determine it to be lacustrine and fresh. Although we have ventured to take exception to a number of statements in the paper under review, yet we welcome it as adding materially to our knowledge in a field that had previously been but little studied. ISRAEL C. RUSSELL. Washington, D.C. THE DEFINITION OF MEAN SOLAR TIME. THE proper definition of mean solar time appears to me a very simple matter, and to have nothing arbitrary about it. The mean sun is merely an imaginary body which is supposed to move uniformly 1 Paper by Prof. J. C. Adams of Cambridge, at the December meeting of the Royal astronomical society. From The observa- tory, February. 324 in the equator at such a rate that the difference be- tween its right ascension at any time, and that of the true sun, consists entirely of periodicterms. This dif- ference is called the equation of time, which, there- fore, by its very nature, cannot contain any term increasing indefinitely with the time. Mean noon at any place is determined by the transit of this imagi- nary body over the meridian of the place, just as apparent noon is determined by the transit of the true sun. Thus mean time is defined with reference to a natural phenomenon; viz., the transit of the real sun over a given meridian: and we cannot have one length of a mean solar day according to Bessel, and another length according to LeVerrier, any more than we can have different lengths of the apparent solar day. A mean solar day, according to Mr. Stone’s theory, is something totally different from that above defined. It has no reference to the average length of the ap- parent solar day, but is purely artificial or conven- tional in character. Practically, Mr. Stone’s mean solar day is the time during which the mean longi- tude of the sun increases by some definite amount. Bessel gives one determination of this amount, and LeVerrier a different one: hence Mr. Stone is obliged to employ two mean solar days, which are of different lengths, according as Bessel’s or LeVerrier’s mean motion of the sun is used. On this principle, every fresh investigator of the sun’s motion would require a mean solar day peculiar to himself. We are tempted to ask, What was the meaning of the mean solar day before Bessel’s time ? The origin of Mr. Stone’s misapprehension on this point seems to be the following. In the ordinary practice of an observatory it is usual and convenient to deduce the mean solar time from the sidereal time supposed to be known, instead of finding it by direct observation of the sun. In order that this conversion of sidereal into mean solar time, however, may be correctly performed, it is necessary to employ the correct mean longitude of the sun at the given in- stant. Any error in the assumed mean longitude will produce an equivalent error in the mean time deduced; and, if the sun’s mean motion be incorrectly assumed, the error of time thus produced will gradu- ally accumulate. Thus the error of mean solar time as deduced from sidereal time by means of Bessel’s formula, which amounted in the year 1864 to a little more than half a second, has increased to a little more than six- tenths of a second at the present time. The increase of the error of mean solar time in nineteen years is in reality rather less than eight-hundredths of a second, whereas Mr. Stone’s theory makes it amount to twenty-seven seconds! In fact, the error, accord- ing to Mr. Stone’s theory, is about three hundred and sixty-five times as great as it should be. The reason is, that mean time is measured, not by the sun’s mean motion in longitude, as Mr. Stone’s theory supposes, but by its mean motion in hour-angle, which is about three hundred and sixty-five times as great; so that the error in time produced by a small error in the AY re SCIENCE. eee [Vou. III., No. 58. i mean motion in longitude is only about $5 of that which would be produced if the error in time bore the same proportion to the time that the error in the mean motion in longitude bears to this mean motion itself. If n denote the sun’s mean motion in longitude in a mean solar day, then the ratio of the length of a . mean solar to that of a sidereal day is 560° = 1 = 3602. And if n + dn denote a slightly different deter- mination of the mean motion in longitude, this ratio will be altered to 360° +- n + dan: 3602; Hence the measure of the sidereal interval corre-- sponding to any given number of mean solar days will be altered in the ratio of 360° +. n + dn’: 360° Fae dn or iL se 360° + n 5 1; that is, since 360° is nearly equal to 3865 n, the sidereal measure of the interval will be altered nearly in the ratio of instead of in the ratio of Lat aa He n as it should be by Mr. Stone’s theory. In conclusion, we will test Mr. Stone’s theory of mean solar time by supposing an extreme case. Let us imagine that the sun had no motion in longitude, but, like a fixed star, retained a constant position in the heavens. On this supposition, mean solar time would be just as intelligible as it is at present, and it is evident that the mean solar day and the sidereal day would become identical with each other; but what would become of mean solar time according to Mr. Stone’s idea of it ? MORPHOLOGY OF THE PELVIS AND LEG. Miss ALICE JOHNSON, at the suggestion of the late F. M. Balfour, has investigated the development of the pelvic girdle and hind-limb of the chick (Quart. journ. micr. sc., xxiii. 899). On the fourth day of incubation the limb is merely a local exaggeration of the Wolffian ridge, consisting, like it, of a mass of rounded mesoblastic cells crowded together. The first trace of the skeletal parts appears on the fifth day; the mesoblastic tissue of the axis of the limb becoming more condensed, and, by the seventh day, converted into recognizable cartilage. Ossification begins very late. The entire skeletal anlage of the girdle and limb is at first continuous, making a T, of which the stem represents the limb, and the cross the girdle running dorsoventrally. The pelvic anlage soon expands, above the centrally placed acetabular region, into a broad plate, the ileum; below, and in front, into the narrow pubis. A little later the pec- ¢ tineal process grows out in front from the upper part Marca 14, 1884.| of the pubis, and the ischium appears behind as a downward expansion below the acetabulum. The further change consists chiefly in the expansion of the ileum, and in the growth of the pubis and is- chium; which last two become inclined backward, and acquire a considerable posterior prolongation. During these changes the pelvis passes through a stage which is permanent in Apteryx. The division of the primitive anlage into the skeletal parts is pro- duced by the known histological changes at the joints. The author thinks that Hofmann’s ‘ epipubis’ (Neder. arch. zool., iii.) is the true pubis, and his ‘ pubis’ in reptiles a process of the ischium. She also corrects some errors of Bunge. These observations throw much light on the homol- ogies of the pubis, of which the pectineal process is a branch, so that the pubis is biramous. A compari- son of the bird with mammals (in which the pectineal process is often reduced, and sometimes absent) and dinosaurs at once determines the homologies of the pubis in these forms. In reptiles the pubis has also two branches, — the main body of the pubis; and the > Young Chick pe Chick, 20 days processus lateralis; pp, pectineal process. posterior ramus lateralis, which may be wanting, however, as is the case with crocodiles. After dis- cussion of the subject, the writer concludes, we think rightly, that the so-called pubis of reptiles is homolo- gous with the pectineal process, and the lateral ramus homologous with the pubis of higher forms. The homologies are given in the following table, and differ, it will be seen, very widely from those cur- rent :— Reptiles. | Dinosaurs. |Embryo bird.| Birds. Mammals. 1. Pubis. | Pubis Anterior Pectineal | Pectineal (Marsh).| branch of process. process. pubis. 2. Processus; Postpubis | Posterior Pubis. Pubis. (Marsh).| branch. “-<1aagal Miss Johnson also investigated the development of the limb. Her observations agree in almost every SCIENCE. & EXPLANATION. —i/, ileum; ac, acetabulum; is, ischium; pd, pubis; pi, Lugeare rees 325 detail with Baur’s (Morphol. jahrb., viii.): we there- fore note merely the presence of five metacarpals, and the failure to find a separate origin for the intermedium; but, in opposition to Morse, she is in- clined to concur with Baur in describing the ascend- ing process of the astragalus as an outgrowth from the tibiale. Morse’s conclusion may be due to his having studied different birds (aquatic species). It is a pleasure to praise this excellent paper. C. S. Minor. RECENT WORK ON BRACHIOPODS. THE important though rather fragmentary obser- vations of Kovalevski on the development of the brachiopods have long remained sealed in their ori- ginal Russian from western naturalists, who have only had access to more or less incomplete synopses of the original. MM. Oehlert and Deniker have prepared for the latest volume of the Archives de zoologie ez- périmentale a careful analysis of the paper in ques- tion, illustrated by rough but sufficiently clear figures reproduced from the original. The result is a paper of some twenty pages, which may be obtained separately, and will have a value for all biologists, whatever their position as to the author’s theories. In a note on Terebratula (Centronella) Guerangeri, M. Oehlert signalizes the exist- ence of two or three forms of this genus in the Devonian of Europe. He discusses the relations of Centronella, Leptocoelia, and . Renssellaeria, and concludes that they prob- ably represent an arrested development, which would, if carried out, bring them into relations with Waldheimia, and that they should be referred to the same sub-family. The absence of punctation in the test is referred to metamorphism, as in C. Gue- rangeri all stages were discovered, from im- punctate to completely punctate. The same author, in the Bulletin de la société géologique de France, discusses the Devonian Chonetes of western France, where four species are found in the grauwacke and calcaire beds, but are absent in the grits. One of the species, C. tenuicostata, is new, and all are figured; while the characteristics of the genus are thoroughly re- viewed. In the same publication the author describes two new species of Acroculia from the lower Devonian of Mayenne, reviews the genus, and shows that the prior name of Platyceras Conrad, being doubly pre- occupied in insects, must give way to Acroculia. Lingula Norwoodi, from the Cincinnati limestone, is redescribed and figured by U. P. James in the Cin- cinnati journal of natural history. Glottidia pyramidata Stimpson has been found by Hemphill in South Florida, considerably extending its range, and leading to the suspicion that G. antil- larum Reeve, described from the West Indies, may be identical with it. Wis oH. DD Agaes 326 THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING-ENGINEERS. Tue winter meeting was held at Cincinnati, Feb. 19-22, and was not so numerously attended as usual by reason of the flood in the Ohio, which had so in- terfered with railroad travel during the preceding week as to keep many at home who had expected to be present. At the first session, on the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 19, the institute was cordially welcomed to Cin- cinnati by representatives of the city authorities, of the citizens, of the university, of the Ohio mechanics’ institute, and of other organizations. Mr. Robert W. Hunt of Troy, N.Y., president of the institute, returned thanks in behalf of his fellow- members. The remainder of the evening was occu- pied by Mr. Arthur V. Abbott of New-York City, who delivered a lecture on physical tests of metals, in which he gave a lucid description of the Fairbanks automatic testing-machine at New York. Diagrams of the various parts of the machine were thrown upon the screen, including representations of the novel contrivances employed for the automatic regis- tration of stresses and strains, as well as some of the autographic sheets, which showed how the ultimate tensile strength of short bars differs from that of longer ones of the same material and same cross-sec- tion. The machine has a capacity of two hundred thousand pounds for either kind of stress, — tension, compression, torsion, etc. (see p. 312). The session of Feb. 20 was opened with a paper by Mr. Magnus Troilius of the Midvale steel-works, Philadelphia, describing and advocating the bromide process for determining the sulphur in steel; and this was followed by a supplementary paper, by the same author, giving tables for facilitating the heat-calcu- lations of furnace-gases containing CO,, CO, CH,, ia and N. The next paper, by Mr. George C. Stone of Newark, N.J., was on further determinations of manganese in spiegel, being a continuation of a paper presented at the Troy meeting, in which the results of many analyses of spiegel by different chemists were tabu- lated, and the comparative value of the chemical processes employed was discussed. The next paper read was by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt of Montreal, on the apatite deposits of Canada, their distribution, richness, and value, the amount at pres- ent annually exported, the economic conditions for mining it, ete. : Mr. Nelson W. Perry of Cincinnati exhibited spe- cimens of a new mineral discovered by him near Ramos, San Luis Potosi, Mex., for which he pro- posed the name ramosite. Its hardness is nine in the scale, being next to the diamond; its color, black; its specific gravity, 3.83. Mr. Perry also exhibited erystals of topaz found in Mexico, some of which were as much as an inch in diameter, occurring in the unusual matrix, trachyte. After a paper by Mr. Frank Firmstone of Easton, Penn., on incrustations in pig-iron, a report was made by Dr. Thomas Egleston of the Columbia school of © SCIENCE. materials of construction. [Vou. III., No. 58. mines, New York, on the bill now pending before Con- gress to re-establish a commission for testing the strength and other properties of iron, steel, and other He earnestly disclaimed any intention of interfering in any manner with the use of the Emory testing-machine at Watertown (built by the last commission), or of having it re- moved to any other locality, and urged that all legiti- mate influence be brought to bear to have the bill passed. In an elaborate paper by Mr. S. Stoltz of Pitts- burg, Penn., on coal-washing, elevating and convey- ing machinery, the plant employed by him in handling soft coal was explained in detail by the aid of numer- ous diagrams. ; Professor Lord, of the Ohio state university, Colum- bus, gave the results of analyses of certain Ohio clays. A paper by Mr. Joseph H. Harris of Philadelphia, on the benefit fund of the Lehigh coal and naviga- tion company, gave a résumé of this and various other forms of life and accident insurance for the benefit of miners, and compared the usefulness of the different plans which have been adopted in Pennsylvania; it being a matter of extreme difficulty and delicacy to arrange a plan which works well, in face of the strained relations often existing between the miners and their employers. The session of Feb. 21 was opened with a lec- ture by Dr. A. A. Springer of Cincinnati, on torsion, illustrated by diagrams. He was followed by Prof. William L. Dudley of Cincinnati, who explained somewhat minutely the new process of electroplating with iridium, and exhibited specimens of articles so plated. A paper by Mr. Pedro G. Salom of Thurlow, Penn., giving the results of the analyses and tests of steel used in the U.S. cruisers now building at Chester, Penn., was, by reason of the important and remarka- ble results obtained, made the special order for the next meeting of the institute. The officers elected at this meeting were: — President, James C. Bayless, New-York City; vice-presidents, Eckley B. Coxe (Dufton, Penn.), Thomas Egleston (New York), Edwin C. Pechlur (Cleveland); managers, Edward S. Cook (Pottstown, Penn.), Frank Firmstone (Easton, Penn.), C. W. Maynard (New York); treasurer, T. D. Rand, Phila- delphia; secretary, Rossiter W. Raymond, New York; scrutineers, S. T. Williams, J. T. Lewis. The annual report of the secretary showed a total membership of 1,841, which was largely increased al this meeting. The meeting was a success, not only in a pro- fessional and scientific way, but socially as well. The institute invited its Cincinnati friends to dinner at the Grand Hotel on Wednesday evening; Mr. and Mrs. T. B. Aldrich entertained the institute, at their residence on Mount Auburn, on Thursday evening; the Southern railway provided an excursion to the high bridge over the Kentucky River, with special train of Pullman cars, and lunch, on Friday; and the institute was invited to attend the opera festival to hear Nilsson on Friday evening. Marcu 14, 1884.] GEOLOGY OF THE GRAND CANON. Tertiary history of the Grand Cajiion district. By CLARENCE E. Dutton. (Monographs U.S. geo- logical survey, ii.) Washington, Government printing-office, 1882. 264p., 42 pl. 4°. Atlas, aa sh. £°. Turis work is the second in numerical order, though the first in date of publication, of the monographs of the U. S. geological survey. It is not a geological report in the generally accepted sense of the term, but deals strictly with the physical problems displayed by the Grand Canon district, and, as its title indi- cates, principally with that part of its history embraced in the tertiary period, of which the distinguishing feature in this region is denuda- tion on a stupendous scale. The first geological exploration of the Grand Caiion of the Colorado is due to Major Powell ; and for several years his name was closely asso- ciated with the progress of discovery in this field. Finding himself, however, unable to continue the work, it was delegated to Capt. Dutton, who had already become familiar with some parts of the district ; and the present mon- ograph is the best possible evidence that Major Powell has found no unworthy successor in his investigations. Capt. Dutton writes as one in love with his subject; and it would indeed be surprising if any geologist who has had the privilege of studying this region were otherwise than en- thusiastic in regard to it. A large part of the western territory is such that the geologist who runs may read; that even from the windows of the railway more facts may be gleaned in a day’s journey than could be certainly arrived at by months of study in a wooded country, or one mantled by the northern drift. In ad- dition to these advantages, common to vast tracts, the Grand Canon presents the most striking river-section in America, and perhaps inthe world. In such a field a more complete knowledge of the problem is possible, and a closer and more logical method in its treatment admissible, than elsewhere, — circumstances fully taken advantage of in the present report. The high plateaus of southern Utah descend to the south in a succession of gigantic ter- races, composed in succession of the eocene, cretaceous, triassic, and Permian formations, till the summit of the carboniferous is eventu- ally reached. This forms a wide platform, with some approach to regularity of surface, but drops at length in an escarpment of great cliffs to the desert and sierra regions of the farther south and west. The terrace country has a SCIENCE. 327 width of from thirty to forty miles, with a length of about one hundred, and forms, as it were, a giant stairway, leading down from the high plateaus, with an elevation of over ten thousand feet, to the carboniferous platform, five thousand feet or more lower. ‘The whole rock series has a preponderant northward dip of an extremely regular character, which seldom exceeds two degrees, and is generally less than one degree, inamount. The carboniferous sur- face presents a corresponding light slope from south to north ; and the strata are traversed by a series of faults and congenetic monoclinal flex- ures, running in north and south courses, but showing a convexity toward the west. ‘These define the several minor plateaus which diver- sify the surface ; but the region, as a whole, is characterized by the proximate horizontality and undisturbed condition of its rocks, and is in marked contrast to the turmoil of flexed beds found in the adjacent sierra country. Across the carboniferous platform, in a gen- eral south-westward course, the great canon has been cut, — a vast chasm, with atotal length of about two hundred miles, a depth of from five thousand to six thousand feet, and a width of from five to twelve miles. The history of the canon district, from the later paleozoic to the present day, is naturally divided into two widely contrasted periods ; the first extending from early carboniferous time into the eocene, having been one of steady, conformable deposition, bed succeeding bed, till a thickness of about fourteen thousand feet was accumulated. To this succeeded a period of continuous erosion, during which an average thickness of ten thousand feet of the strata was removed from a large part of the surface. Though rather heterogeneous in character as compared among themselves, the beds of the Grand Cafion region in general closely resem- ble those representing the same horizons in other parts of the west. The archaean and other basal rocks, not throwing any light in the physical problem proposed in the monograph, are merely mentioned. The carboniferous, broadly viewed, may be characterized as chiefly limestone; and the conditions of a somewhat deep sea at the time of its formation are im- plied. The Permian and triassic are mainly represented by sandstones, which frequently display cross-bedding, and denote that the water at the time of their deposition was con- tinuously shallow. In the cretaceous, argilla- ceous and marly rocks become more abundant ; and the occurrence of coals and carbonaceous layers throughout, shows that portions of the region became land-surfaces from time to time. LE t ‘\ C7 bye boa AW AIAN Woh, are ai ih td AA Ne ui pt ee Marcu 14, 1884.] This period closed amid important disturbances ; as, in neighboring districts, the succeeding beds are occasionally found to rest directly on the Jura-trias, or basset edges of the cretaceous. As a result of these movements, a great eocene lake was formed, which appears to have been not far above the sea-level, and to have out- flowed southward. ‘The change from salt to fresh water conditions is quite sudden. During the eocene period this lake gradually shrank back, and finally disappeared to the north, near the base of the Uinta Mountains, where alone the later eocene deposits are found. The author finds a little difficulty in explain- ing the great horizontal similarity in character of the materials laid down during the later periods in a wide expanse of water so persist- ently shallow. It is suggested, however, that the very shallowness of the sea or lake may, by insuring a constant sectional area, have re- sulted in maintaining the velocity, and conse- quent transporting-power, of any currents which existed. The continuance of shallow-water conditions also proves that the profound sub- sidence required by the volume of the sedi- ments was not acquired suddenly, but that the two increased pari passw. With the eocene the immensely prolonged period of subsidence came to an end, and ele- vation — shown to have been somewhat spas- modic — and consequent erosion began. It is found by reducing the faults and flexures of the region, and taking into consideration the thickness of the beds, that at this time the earboniferous must have lain over considera- ble areas, at a depth of from ten thousand to twelve thousand feet below the level of the sea ; and it is interesting to remark in passing, that no great degree of alteration appears to have resulted from this deep burial in the earth’s crust. The present altitudes of the plateaus mark the difference between the amount of the succeeding uplift and that of denudation; and it is shown that the total movement in eleva- tion has been in different places from twelve thousand to eighteen thousand feet. The ‘ great erosion,’ as Capt. Dutton names the second period of ‘the history, began at the time of the drainage of the eocene lake, of which there is good reason to believe the Colorado still marks the position of the deep- est portion. The immutable permanence in position of the channels of the Colorado and its main tributaries, and the fact that they have been able thus to maintain their original courses in opposition to the superimposed north- ward dip of the beds, is one of the most strik- ing facts brought out in the study of this SCIENCE. 329 district, being, in fact, that which has been most influential in impressing it with its peculiar features. In the latter part of the eocene, and in the miocene, great progress was doubtless made inthe removal of the mesozoic strata. The process of elevation continued, and rapid corrasion by numerous streams made steady progress ; the Colorado, at this time, probably flowing in a canon walled by these mesozoic formations, the escarpments of which have now retreated to the terrace district, fifty miles or more to the northward. Through all this lapse of time we are, however, without any very precise data as to the progress of the erosion ; and it is not till a date approximately referred to the close of the miocene that any measure of the waste accomplished can be arrived at. The elevation of the district was then for a time arrested; and the streams reached what the author, following Major Powell, calls a ‘ base level of erosion,’ in which, with the pro- duction of a uniform light gradient, the wear of their channels clased, and denudation acted only in reducing the probably rough and irregular features of the neighboring country to an approximate level. ‘The Permian strata apparently at this time constituted the actual surface. About the time at which the Colorado began to cut into the carboniferous rocks, a climatic change occurred, which resulted in producing very arid conditions, and dried up the smaller streams to their sources. ‘This, from what is elsewhere known of the western tertiary, is presumed, with great probability, to be syn- chronous with the close of the miocene and beginning of the pliocene. Nearly contem- poraneous with these events was an uplift of two thousand to three thousand feet, and the outpouring of the earlier basalts, which, form- ing protective cappings, have preserved por- tions of the Permian surface above alluded to. The great faults, also, about this epoch first betray their existence ; though it is by no means certain that all were then formed, and the evi- dence is clear that their throw subsequently continued to increase gradually. Corrasion, or the wear by the rivers of these beds, now again became active, but only in the case of the larger streams, which, by reason of their origin in high, well-watered uplands beyond the cahon district, had been enabled to survive. A base level was soon again reached: and the Colorado remained during the greater part of the pliocene at the level of what Capt. Dutton calls the esplanade, or wide upper valley of the present canon; which valley continued to increase laterally, but not in depth, till the N Marcu 14, 1884.] final paroxysm of upheaval set in, producing a further rise of from three thousand to four thousand feet. The faults, which are strictly correlated with the varying uplifts of the several minor plateaus, again increased their displace- ment; and at the same time, or shortly after- ward, the volcanic forces resumed their activity, producing cones of eruption which still display their characteristic form. These, and the lavas erupted from them, afford evidence, that, though the canon had at the time a considerable depth, the greater part of its excavation still remained to be affected by that last great effort of corrasive action which has only lately come to an end. It is believed that the elevation of the plateau region has now ceased, and that the rivers have again nearly reached a base level of erosion. Some, at least, of the faults cut the older ba- salts; but no evidence has been found, where the newer lavas cross them, of any renewed movement. The glacial period passed over this region without leaving any traces of ice- action, manifesting its occurrence merely as a pluyial episode, very brief in comparison with the stages of the great erosion, but of which some effects may nevertheless be traced. Such is a very brief and necessarily imperfect outline of the train of reasoning in which the author follows out:the exceptional processes which have acted in the Grand Canon district, and eventuated in producing its present remark- able features. Very few of the conclusions arrived at are open to any question; and, though it has been for so short a time known to science, it may be considered as one of the most fully thought out of geological problems. Among the collateral facts illustrated in this region are several, which, from their appar- ently anomalous character, are of special in- terest to the student of dynamical geology. Such is the want of coincidence between the great faults and points of volcanic eruption, the bending-down of the strata along the dropped sides of the faults, the connection of the latter with the peculiar monoclinal flexures, the not uncommon reversal in direction of throw in the opposite ends of a single fault, and the remarkable observation that the gen- eral light dip of the strata is increased notably at the bases of the terraces. The last-named circumstance the author is disposed to connect, though doubtfully, with the theory of plastic equilibrium in the earth’s crust, —a theory which we believe few geologists will be ready to follow so far. A notice'of this monograph would be incom- plete without special reference to the accom- SCIENCE. 33 1 panying atlas, containing geological maps and panoramic views of the district. The latter, together with a number of illustrations in the volume itself, are from the pencil of Mr. W. H. Holmes, and convey a better idea of the proportions and intricacy of the physical fea- tures than could be accomplished by any word- painting, however elaborate. If the character of the critic must be main- tained in reviewing this work, which in its main features demands our praise alone, it may be suggested that the ‘ effusive’ style adopted in some of the chapters is scarcely in keeping with the incomparable dignity of the subject, and is not likely to appeal to the specialists for whom this class of publication is intended. THE BACILLUS OF BERIBERI. Etiologia e genesis do beriberi. Pelo Dr. J. B. DE LacerpDA. Rio de Janeiro, Faro & Lino, 1884- Gégoruillustr. 8°. Tuis pamphlet gives the results of a medico- biological study, carried on in the physiologi- cal laboratory of the National museum of Rio de Janeiro, on a very obscure disease, which, introduced many years ago in Brazil from India, carries off annually a large number of victims, particularly in the northern provinces of the empire. Employing the method of Pasteur, and in- troducing blood of beriberi patients in meat- solution, Dr. Lacerda obtained in numerous experiments a microphyte similar in form to the bacillus of carbuncle. This organism, which reproduces itself by segmentation and by spores, was also found in the fresh urine and blood of beriberi patients, the spores being at times extremely abundant in the blogd. On making subcutaneous injections of the liquid in which the organisms were cultivated, in rab- bits and guinea-pigs, these animals were found to succumb in periods of from five to twenty days, some of them presenting a true paralysis of the posterior members; others, a notable weakening of these members, with difficulty of locomotion, and loss of cutaneous sensibility. Death in many cases was caused by asphyxia, the paralysis having extended to the anterior members. The cultivated blood of these ani- mals reproduced the same microphytes that had been obtained from the blood of beriberi pa- tients. The microscopic examination of the spinal medulla and of the muscles revealed the presence of the microphyte and of its spores, their abundance in the Ne CaHe being especial- ly remarkable. a A n2 From these facts the author draws the logi- cal conclusion, that beriberi is a parasitic dis- ease, and that the parasites attack particularly the blood, muscles, and medulla. In seeking the origin of the parasite, it was found that similar organisms were found at times in rice- grains. The characteristics of the grains of rice attacked by the parasite are given; and the hypothesis is advanced, that rice is often the vehicle of the microphyte by which it enters the human system, which appears to be in ac- cord with the fact that rice is a principal article of food in the regions subject to the disease. Contaminated grains of rice, subjected to the same cultivation as the blood of beriberi pa- tients, produced organisms entirely identical in appearance. Injections of the liquid of the rice-culture in guinea-pigs produced death in thirteen, seventeen, and twenty days, with para- lytic phenomena, and death by asphyxia; and the microscopic examination of the spinal me- dulla and muscles showed the presence of the same organisms found in animals inoculated with the blood-culture of beriberi. The author proposes to continue his investigation of the suspected relation between a rice diet and beri- beri. BIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF AN ARTIST: Morphology. Estimates of intelligence. Vital chem- istry. By Frank B. Scort, artist. Buffalo, Bigelow pr., 1883. 16p. 8°. Tue author says in his preface, ‘‘ If we fail in proving the truth of what we advance, our labor will not be lost: we may lead the way to further discoveries. Columbus was mistaken in his seeking another way to India, but his mistake led to the discovery of a new conti- nent.’’ In science great continents of knowl- edge never have been discovered by ignorant adventurers: we therefore do not believe that Mr. Scott will achieve the important success he dreams of, although he is mistaken in per- haps half his statements. We are acquainted with no other publication, purporting to be scientific, which contains so many amusing errors and entertaining hypotheses in so few pages. We need only give the following ex- tracts in our justification. ‘‘ Without oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, we have no knowledge of life. . There are other ele- ments subordinate to these. There is also some other element not subordinate. . . . Per- haps this fifth element was the quint-essence of the ancients. Huxley, in his ‘ Biology,’ calls it electricity.”” Will the author kindly refer us to authority on the quintessence of life of SCIENCE. ies a ee [Vor. IIL, No. 58. the ancients ; also to the page of Huxley? He further states that the blood at one moment is red with oxygen; the next, black with carbon. We have no doubt that sufficient carbon might blacken the blood, but we are surprised to learn that the mixture occurs regularly during life. The whole pamphlet resembles these samples. THE ILLINOIS GEOLOGICAL REPORT. Geological survey of Illinois. A. H. WortTHEN, director. Vol. vii., Geology and paleontology. Springfield, State, 1883. 4+43873 p., 31 pl. 8°. Tue first two volumes of this series of re- ports appeared in 1866; and the others have followed at intervals since then, the seventh having appeared during the past year. ‘The leading feature of these reports is paleontology, in connection with which the names of some of the ablest American paleontologists appear. In his preface to the present volume, Mr. Worthen says, that to complete the paleontol- ogy of the state upon the plan originally con- templated will require two volumes more, with from forty to fifty plates of illustrations each, but that this cannot be done until au- thorized by special legislative act. It is not improbable, therefore, that the present volume _will be the last of the series. Mr. Worthen’s chapter, of fifty-one pages, on economic geology, treats mainly of local sections in different parts of the state, princi- pally of coal-measure strata. He announces the discovery of ‘ coal-oil’ in the town of Litch- field, a dense lubricating-oil, mingled with salt water, which he thinks comes from the base of the coal-measure conglomerate, or one of the upper Chester sandstones. Four borings have reached the oil at a . depth of nearly seven hundred feet, each boring yielding about two barrels of crude oil per day. He also reports the discovery of brine in Perry county. Six borings have been made, each flowing sixteen gallons a minute, from which an aggregate of thirty-five hundred barrels of salt is made annually. The work on the fossil fishes by Orestes St. John and Mr. Worthen is a very important one, embracing two hundred and eight pages and twenty-six plates. It treats of those char- acteristic carboniferous families, the Coch- liodontidae and Psammodontidae, and also of Ichthyodorulites. The important works on similar fossil fishes, which were published in previous volumes, are well known; and yet the material now published is unexpectedly comprehensive as regards the variety of forms Marcu 14, 1884.] embraced in the two families just named. The authors describe and figure fifty-six new species of the Cochliodontidae, together with eight species previously published. They em- brace, in all, fourteen genera, six of which are new; namely, Vaticinodus, Stenopterodus, Chitonodus, Deltodopsis, Orthopleurodus, and Taenodus. The last is-a hitherto unpublished name, proposed by de Koninck. Of the Psam- modontidae, thirteen species (eleven new) are described and figured; eleven of them being referred to Psammodus, and two to Copodus. Eleven genera are recognized among the Ich- thyodorulites, one of which, Kunemacanthus, they propose as new. Of these genera, they describe and figure twenty-two species, only two of which have before been published. The specific and generic descriptions are full and clear, and Mr. St. John has made good use of his large experience in their discussion. Pages 269-322 and four plates are devoted to descriptions and figures of fifty-five species of crinoids, together with a few carboniferous shells. Descriptions of all these except one of the shells were published by Mr. Worthen, without illustrations, in 1882, in Bulletin No. 1 of the Illinois state museum of natural history. On pp. 323-326 he describes eight species of carboniferous mollusca without illustrations. Pages 327-338 and one plate are occupied by Worthen and 8. A. Miller’s descriptions and illustrations of nine forms of echinoderms. Their material for this study was imperfect, and yet they have proposed five new genera ; namely, Compsaster, Cholaster, Tremaster, Hybochinus, and Echinodiscus. The latter they refer to the Agelacrinidae, together with Archaeocidaris. Pages 341-357 are occupied by Mr. Charles A. Wachsmuth. He figures and redescribes, in this volume, two echinoderms which he had SCIENCE. previously described in the bulletin of the Llli- nois state museum of natural history. Follow- ing this, he gives an important discussion of certain blastoids, with a description of a new genus, namely, Heteroschisma. The text of the volume closes with descrip- tions of three new species of blastoids by Prof. W. H. Barris. They are, however, without illustrations, except one woodcut. Professor Barris refers one of these species to Pentremi- tes Say, and the other two to Elaeacrinus Roemer. He rejects the generic name Nu- cleocrinus Conrad, because of the erroneous description which Conrad gave of it. Nu- cleocrinus is, without doubt, identical with Elaeacrinus ; but unfortunately Conrad’s type specimen, which is still extant, shows plainly that he mistook its base for its summit. Diag- noses are seldom perfect, and it is difficult to determine how much of error we ought to overlook in the retention of imperfectly de- fined genera. The letterpress and binding of this book are creditable ; but the illustrations are not up to that standard of excellence which was at- tained in the previous volumes, and which the present state of art demands. Still, they serve well for the identification of the objects which they are intended to illustrate. The make-up of the book has one inexcusable deficiency, which was, no doubt, due to an oversight, since the other volumes are free from this de- fect. We refer to the absence of any table of contents, or any reference in the index to the different authors, or the titles of their subjects. This does not detract from the merit of the work, however, which is, as a whole, very great : and the people of Illinois may well be proud of what has been accomplished by their geo- logical survey, even if it should now be sus- pended. INTELLIGHNCH FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Work in the District of Columbia. —It is intended to map about three hundred square miles of the region about Washington, including the District of Columbia and adjacent country on the north, east, and west, extending to a distance of about ten miles from the district boundaries in those directions. This map will be used for the delineation of the geological features of the district and adjacent coun- try, the investigation of which has been carried on for some time by Mr. W. H. McGee. The topographic work done so far consists mainly of the compilation and transferrence of material furnished by the Coast and geodetic survey in the form of original unpub- lished sheets upon a scale of 1-15,000, with contours twenty feet apart vertically, and covering the greater part of the area required for the immediate use of the geologist. Mr. S. H. Bodfish has been assigned to the topographic work, and will utilize all work previously done in the area above indicated by the coast-survey and the commissioners of the district. Springs of Florida. — Prof. L. C. Johnson, while working in Florida during January, gave some at- tention to the springs and wells in the vicinity of 334 Jacksonville. He says that within five miles of Jack- sonville is a remarkable spring, known as the Mon- erief spring, the waters of which seem to be identical with those of the excavation at the city water-works and of many of the springs of this portion of the state. They differ from those of the southern and western portions in being more decidedly chalybeate. In temperature they are decidedly similar. All those near Jacksonville have temperatures of 72° F., and are said to be almost invariable, summer and winter. The extreme range is two degrees; that is, from 72° to 74°. The deep wells, the shallow ones, and also several lake-like springs, all register 72° F. Some are in superficial strata, reaching a depth of only fifteen or twenty feet; others are from thirty to forty feet deep in clay and rock; and some artesian wells penetrate to two hundred feet. Chemical division. — During January and February Prof. F. W. Clarke and Dr. T. H. Chatard have been busy in the analyses of mineral waters. Among them, Professor Clarke has examined water from the Helena hot-springs of Helena, Montana Territory, which is an alkaline saline water, and water from the warm springs of Livingston, Montana, which is a calcic sulphur-water. Both are thermal, and these are probably the first analyses ever made of them. Dr. Thomas Chatard has also finished some analyses of Damourite from the well-known topaz locality at Stoneham, Me. At New Haven, Messrs. Barus and Hallock, during January, were engaged in experiments to determine the exact boiling-point of zinc. The north wind of California. — Mr. Gilbert Thomp- son, while engaged in topographical researches in the Cascade-range section of California, has been inci- dentally collecting information concerning what is generally observed as the ‘ north wind of California,’ as it was first observed in that state, and supposed to SCIENCE. [Vou. TI., Noo aay be local. The name, however, should not be so re- stricted, as it should be extended to the Pacific slope of the United States and possibly of North America. The characteristics of this wind have been more par- ticularly described by Dr. J. H. C. Bonté, of the University of California, than by any one else. To describe them briefly, they are included under the head of excessive drying-qualities. These are marked both in summer and in winter. In the former, vege- tation sometimes appears as though it were burnt, and the effect upon both animals and men is striking. Men who have recently arrived in the country, and are robust, are not so sensitive to the wind as resi- dents; and it has therefore been said that the imagi- nation has a great deal to do with it, but this is a mistake. It matters not whether the wind is hot or cold, it produces a feeling of great depression and nervous irritability, lassitude, and restlessness. Some call it the ‘poison wind,’ and others the ‘ crazy wind.’ The effects produced are similar to those of the ‘Puna wind’ of Peru, and the ‘Hammattan’ of Africa. It blows at no regular interval, nor for any known definite periods. There is some local - authority, however, for the opinion that some multi- ple of three has been observed by some of its recur- rences. ‘The wind is really vicious only once in eight or ten years; and it undoubtedly has a powerful and favorable effect in drying up the wet soil, and neutralizing the effects of the rank vegetation, in the Sacramento valley after the rainy seasons. Mr. Thompson has, so far, traced its course and width to latitude 42°; and such information as he possesses to date seems to indicate that the wind moves down along the east base of the Cascade range, and thence through the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys of California. There are numerous theories as to its origin, and the reasons why it produces such marked and peculiar effects. RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia. Feb. 12.— Dr. N. Roe Bradner exhibited an in- scribed stone found inside a skull taken from one of the ancient mounds at Newark, O., in 1865. An exploration of the region had been undertaken in consequence of the finding of stones bearing mark- ings somewhat resembling Hebrew letters, in the hope of finding other specimens of a like character. The exploration was supposed to have been entirely unproductive of such objects, until Dr. Bradner had found the engraved stone now exhibited in a skull which had been given to him. The specimen is of a dark reddish material, of a rounded wedge shape, and bears on its surface a number of characters, the significance of which had not been determined, but | which resemble the markings on the specimens before discovered. —— Rev. H.C. McCook described the nests of a new species of spider recently received from Mr. W. G. Wright of San Bernardino, Cal., for which he proposed the name Segestria canites. The cocoons hang in strings from the limbs of trees extending over apathway. They are placed one above the other to the number of eight, and are united by a netting of white silk, covered with the leaves of the neighboring plants. They are kept in place over the path by lines which extend to either side, sometimes to a distance of five feet. Along one side of the suspended nests is a tube, which is inhabited by the mature spiders. As the weaving of nests over pathways leads to their being frequently torn away by passing animals, it had been suggested that the case was an illustration of a weakening of the instinct of preservation. It may, however, be rather a means adopted for the distribu- tion of the species; the spiderlings being doubtless car- ried to remote points by the animals which tear away the nests. Mr. Edward-Potts reported that he had examined the fore-bay at Fairmount water-works, from Marcu 14, 1884.] which the water had been temporarily withdrawn, with a view to discover the winter condition of the fresh- water sponges and other inhabitants of that locality. Where the surface could be reached, it was found to be eovered with a mud-colored incrustation of consider- able thickness, which proved to be composed almost wholly of the statoblasts and spicules of the sponge Meyenia Leidyi. Some few fragments of Meyenia fluviatilis and Spongilla fragilis were seen, but the first named was clearly the prevailing species. A disused sluice-way was covered with a dry incrusta- tion of the same material. While considering the effect of the presence of so large a sponge-growth at the inlet to the supply-pumps, Mr. Potts stated that Meyenia Leidyi was conspicuous among the known North-American sponges by its great relative density, and the small proportion of its sarcode or flesh. Its decay, therefore, at the termination of its period of summer growth, would be a slighter cause of pollution to the water-supply than that of any other species. He was, moreover, inclined to believe that decay was not the normal or necessary result of the close of each season’s growth. The fragile branches of some - species inhabiting exposed situations may, of course, be broken off and destroyed while the sarcode still covers them; but in the sessile portions, and in all when sufficiently protected, the cells of the sarcode at the period of full maturity, forsaking their places along the line of the skeleton framework, gather together by simultaneous amoeboid movement into dense groups, where they are soon covered by a tough chitinous coat, which, in turn, generally becomes sur- rounded by a crust of minute granular cells, and armor-plated by a series of protective spicules. These groups are now recognized as the statoblasts, gem- mules, or winter eggs of the sponge. They are eggs only in appearance, being in reality the resting-spores or protected germs which conserve the life of the individual through the cold of winter. This life- history indicates rather a condensation than a decay of substance as winter approaches, and leaves little or no reason to regard such organisms as a source of water-pollution. Feb. 19. — Mr. Thomas Meehan exhibited twigs of the plant used by the Piutes and other western tribes of Indians for making baskets. They proved, on ex- amination, to belong to Apocynum cannabinum, the species used by the eastern Indians for a like pur- pose. —— Mr. Meehan called attention to sections of trees from Schuylkill county, Penn., illustrating remarkably slow growth. A black oak, Quercus tinc- toria, in a little over two inches from the centre, had an average’ of thirty-six circles to an inch; one of hemlock spruce, fifty-one circles to an inch; and one of the common chestnut, twenty-four circles to an inch. Though only four inches in diameter, the oak stem was seventy-six years old; the hemlock, four inches in diameter, was one hundred and four years old; and the chestnut had grown only four and a half inches in diameter in sixty years. He believed two hundred years to be the full average duration of most of the trees of the eastern United States. —— The same speaker, referring to the supposed parasitic SCIENCE. | 335 nature of the snow-plant Sarcodes sanguinea, of the Rocky Mountains, stated that he had carefully ex- amined a specimen growing at an elevation in the Yosemite Valley, and found it to be existing independ- ently, no connection being traceable with either living or dead roots. No trace of vegetation was found in the soil which was carefully washed away, but a huge mass of coralline fleshy matter, out of which the in- florescence arose. The origin of this fleshy mass was yet an unsolved mystery. From analogy with the behavior of other plants, he was inclined to believe that there was some parasitic attachment in the early life of the plant, and that it stored up in this coralline mass enough nutrition in one season to support the inflorescence, after which the connection was severed. — Mr. Meehan also exhibited the dried leaves and fruit of Halesia diptera, H. tetraptera, and of a remarkable departure raised from the last-named species some years ago. This appeared in a bed of seedlings, all raised from seed gathered from one tree growing in a garden in Germantown. It attracted attention, when one year old, by the leaves bearing a resemblance to those of an apple-tree. The original tree had leaves narrowly lanceolate and acuminate, rather thin, pale green on the upper surface, and with no particularly prominent veins. The plant in ques- tion had broadly ovate leaves, scarcely pointed, very dark green, rugose on the upper surface, and strongly veined and hirsute below. The flowers, when they appeared, were open cup-shaped, instead of being drawn into a narrow tube at the base, as in the par- ent plant; and the pistil was wholly enclosed, and not exserted. For several years the plant was sterile; and many good botanists, whose attention was called to it, regarded the plant as a hybrid, and the sterility as a proof thereof. It was of no avail to point out that there was no other species from which the parent could have obtained pollen within many miles, nor to show that hybrids were not necessarily sterile. This season, however, the plant produced fruit. It is very small, not much over a quarter of an inch in diameter, and the four equal wings are comparatively large and of a strongly coriaceous character. The fruit which had been cut open was found to have perfect seeds. If the plant, with these leaves, flowers, and fruit, had been found in a state of nature, the botanists would surely have considered it the repre- sentative of a distinct species, if not of a new genus. While the suggestion of hybridity might be reason- ably excluded, change of surroundings could not be advanced as the cause of the variation, for the environ- ment was precisely the same for the sport, the seedlings which grew without change, and the parent stock. —— Professor Angelo Heilprin stated that among a small number of carboniferous fossils obtained from the border of Wise county. Tex., and submitted to him for examination by Mr. G. Howard Parker, a form occurs which can unhesitatingly be referred to the genus Ammonites. Only a fragment of a single individual is to be found; and this, unfortunately, has lost the shell, so that no external ornamentation, if any such existed, can now be discerned. This is the first Ammonites that has been detected in any Amer- 336 ican formation below the mesozoic series. The asso- ciation with it of characteristic paleozoic forms of life, such as Zaphrentis, Phillipsia, Bellerophon, Con- ularia, Chonetes, and Productus, leaves no doubt as to its position ; and hence we must conclude that here, as well as in India, where Waagen first announced the occurrence of true carboniferous ammonitic forms, the distribution of this highly characteristic group of organisms was not so rigidly defined by the mesozoic line as geologists had been led to conclude. That pre-mesozoic Ammonites will be discovered else- where besides in India and Texas, there is no reason to doubt; indeed, no assumption could be more illo- gical than the contrary: and therefore the present discovery is in no way specially surprising, and only interesting rather than important. Special interest, however, attaches to this form; as through it, and the individuals or fragments that have been found in the Tejon (tertiary) rocks of California, we have estab- lished in this country the extreme range of the group which it represents. The name Ammonites Parkeri was proposed for the species. Philosophical society, Washington. Feb. 2.— Prof. C. V. Riley presented a review of recent progress in economic entomology; describing especially the development of insecticide methods. and apparatus, and closing his remarks with a plea for applied science. Dr. Swan M. Burnett dis- cussed the question, why the eyes of animals shine in the dark, giving a short digest of the subject, and describing experiments of his own. He concluded that the phenomenon was caused by reflection from the retina of the eye. It is seen best when the observer is on the line connecting the shining eye with a source of light, and ceases when his station departs from that line by a certain amount. The limiting angle (measured at the reflecting eye) is rel- atively great in the case of eyes which are hyper- metropic. Professor William Harkness pointed out that the limiting angle is likewise affected by the magnitude of the bright image on the retina, —— Mr. A. B. Johnson spoke on eccentricities of ocean- currents as illustrated by the voyages of lost buoys. At various times buoys have been torn from their moorings in the waters of the United States, and car- ried to sea; and eleven of these have been afterward found at distant points, and identified by means of letters cast in their constituent plates. One was found on the west coast of Ireland; asecond, at Pen- deen Cove, England; two others, just east of Tene- riffe; a fifth, near Turk’s Island; and a sixth and seventh, near Bermuda. The remainder were found in the open Atlantic, in the following positions: latitude 42° 22’, iongitude 26° 38’; latitude 29° 46’, longitude 717° 38’; latitude 30° 30’, longitude 28° 40’; latitude 24° 11’, longitude 32° 43’. Admiral Jenkins cited another instance of a U. 8. buoy stranding on the coast of Ireland. In the discussion which ensued, the opinion was expressed by Dr. William H. Dall and others, that the buoys found near Teneriffe had madea northward détour, and that those picked up SCIENCE. [Vou. TIT, No. 58. near Bermuda and Turk’s Island might have con- tinued on the same course, and afterwards turned west, completing the circuit of the Sargossa Sea; but it was thought more probable that the latter had followed the southward coastwise current inside the Gulf Stream. Feb. 16. — Prof. F. W. Clarke spoke on the periodic law of chemical elements, giving the history of the discovery of the law and of its verification by the subsequent discovery of elements indicated by it, and even specifically predicted. He exhibited an enlarged copy of Meyer’s atomic-volume curve drawn with the latest values for atomic weights and specific gravities, and presented a similar curve illustrating the connection between atomic weight and melting- point. Each curve presents a series of maxima and minima, the maxima of one corresponding to the minima of the other. The regularities of these curves indicate that the elements originated by some method of evolution, and that a feature of transmu- tation of one element into another is not impossible. Mr. Henry A. Hazen read a paper on the sun- glows, which has since been printed in the March number of the American journal of science. The first appearance of the phenomenon was at Mauritius, Aug. 28, 1883; and it was next seen at Maranham, Brazil, Aug. 30. It then appeared at irregular inter- vals on either side of the equator, until Nov. 26 and 27, when it seemed to burst out over the whole world. After describing the nature of the phenomena, and Stating the principal theories which had been ad- vanced to account for them, he proceeded to advocate the vapor theory as follows: a. The glows are pre- cisely like the ordinary sunset phenomena, which are known to be caused by the presence of aqueous vapor; b. The abundance of the material so uniformly dis- tributed accords with the universality of the glows; c. The fact that faint stars and clusters could be easily seen indicates that nothing more opaque than water-vapor or frost-particles could be in suspension; d. Frost-particles might be repelled to a great height above the earth, and might be kept there by some form of electrical action; e. The fact of the spec- troscope giving no indication of an abundance of moisture does not militate against this theory, because it has been shown that ice-crystals or frost-particles do not affect the spectrum in arainband spectroscope. To the volcanic-ash theory he opposed the following objections: 1°. On this theory there must have been sufficient material ejected from Krakatoa, on Aug. 26 and 27, to cover more than a hundred and thirty- five million square miles of the earth’s surface; 2°. There must have been currents of early equal force, moving in opposite directions from the volcano; 3°. The upper currents must have had a sufficient velocity to carry the ashes twelve thousand miles in a hundred and fifty hours (about eighty miles per hour) toward the west, while meteorology indicates no such velocities, and in general shows the upper current to be always toward the east; 4°. The ashes must have been mechanically distributed over the whole earth by air-currents; 5°. The phenomenon has been markedly intermittent; 6°. Volcanic ashes MARCH 14, 1884.] are more or less opaque, while the phenomena attend- ant upon the glows indicate no such opacity. The cosmic-dust theory incurs many of the same objec- tions, besides being inherently improbable. In the ensuing discussion Prof. E. B. Elliott argued that the phenomena were electrical; and Prof. H. M. Paul sustained the volcanic-ash theory, pointing out that Mr. Hazen’s conclusion as to the simultaneousness of the first appearance of the phenomenon at remote points depended on a special interpretation of imper- fections of the record, depending on cloudiness, and claiming the equal privilege of interpreting them in another way. Ottawa field-naturalists’ club, Canada. Feb. 28. — Dr. George M. Dawson read a paper on the occurrence of phosphate deposits. After show- ing that phosphatic materials were essential to the life both of plants and animals, he pointed out that the natural cycle of the rotation of these substances was interrupted by the action of man, and that large quantities of matter which should return to the soil were withdrawn from it and taken elsewhere. The cropping of the soil impoverishes it, and prevents it from yielding as abundantly as formerly, unless the loss is compensated by the application of phosphatic fertilizers. The grain exported from the port of Montreal in a single year has been estimated to con- tain 2,574 tons of phosphoric acid, which implies the total exhaustion, in as far as phosphates are con- cerned, of 75,000 acres of good land, to renew which would necessitate the application of some 6,000 tons of apatite. It is easily seen that there must always be, under the present condition of affairs, an exten- sive demand for phosphatic materials; and it becomes necessary to inquire where specially concentrated natural sources of supply may be found. The occur- rence of such deposits was traced from the guano, which accumulates in exceptionally dry climates, on islands frequented by immense numbers Of sea-birds, and such recent deposits as the ‘mussel muds’ of Prince Edward Island, through the so-called copro- lite beds of England, Carolina, and elsewhere, to the more concentrated and metamorphosed deposits found in the older rocks of Canada and Norway. The main facts in regard to the mode of occurrence of apatite deposits in the Laurentian rocks of Canada were explained, and the great economic importance of such accumulations was considered. Mr. Fraser Torrance who, as a mining-engineer, has had large experience with the deposits found in the vicinity of Ottawa, gave a very interesting description of the character of some of the deposits, and of the difficul- ties met with in working them, owing to the irregu- lar manner of the deposition of the mineral; which caunot be considered as occurring either in veins or in beds, but as passing from one to the other without any regularity of transition. The methods in which the present surface-workings are conducted are such as to throw most serious difficulties in the way of any future mining of the lower deposits. The imperfect manner in which apatite has hitherto been manufac- tured in Canada was described; and it was stated SCIENCE. 587 that it was highly probable that much of the mineral which was mined in Canada and exported to Great Britain returned, either in the raw or manufactured condition, to the United States. —— Mr. F. D. Adams reported the detection by him, in minerals received from Arnprior, of a specimen of rock identical with that in which apatite occurs in Norway, and which had previously been known only from Norway and Finland. Boston society of natural history. March 5.— Prof. A. Hyatt read a paper on the larval theory of the origin of cellular tissue. He reviewed the history of investigation among sponges; concluding, that, though true metazoa, they possessed characteristics which showed them to be derived from protozoa. The parallel between the development of the cell and egg in the tissue is strictly parallel with the evolution of nucleated from unnucleated forms in protozoa. Recent investigations have re- moved all objections to the homology of the egg or any cell with the adult of the nucleated protozoon; and the principal mode of reproduction by division is the same in all these forms. The egg builds up tissue by division after being fertilized by the male or sperma- tozoon, just as the protozoon builds up colonies after fertilization. Spontaneous division of a cell which undergoes encystment takes place, and the sperma- tozoa which result from this are true larval monads. These resemble the monads derived from division of the encysted bodies of protozoa in their forms and in their activity. They differ in being able to fertilize the female or ovum at once, instead of being obliged to grow up to maturity before arriving at this stage. Thus all cells may be regarded as larval protozoa, and eggs and spermatocysts as encysted larval forms, the spermatozoa being equivalent also to larval forms which have inherited the tendencies of the mature forms in the protozoa at the earliest stages. Thus the origin of the tissues in the metazoa is in exact accord with the law of concentration and accelera- tion in heredity. The cells are larval, which, in accordance with this law, have inherited the char- acteristics and tendencies of their adult ancestors in their earliest stages. The three layers can be accounted for as larval characteristics inherited from colonies of Infusoria flagellata, which had two forms (protective and feeding zoons), and then three (pro- tective, feeding, and supporting), these correspond- ing to ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm. Dr. M. E. Wadsworth read a paper on the structure of the_earth’s interior, which he held to be a molten or semi-fluid mass, which will gradually cool and solidify. NOTES AND NEWS. THE ‘National academy of sciences will hold its next annual session at the National museum, Wash- ington, commencing April 15, at eleven A.M. An election of five new members will be held. This will not make good the vacancies of the past year; for, of the ninety-eight members on the roll a year ago, six have since died, — Professors Alexander and Guyot bed 3098 of Princeton, Gens. Humphreys and Warren of the Corps of engineers, Dr. LeConte of Philadelphia, and Professor Lawrence Smith of Louisville. Dr. Engel- mann, whose death we recently announced, was an honorary member, and, like all the others excepting Gen. Warren and Professor Smith, a foundation mem- ber. Only eighteen of the fifty foundation members of 1863 now remain. We shall soon print memoirs and portraits of Dr. Engelmann and Gen. Hum- phreys. — Another effect of the great eruption of Mount Krakatoa has been recently noticed. by a series of barometric waves which seem to have spread almost over the entire world. Professor Fors- ter of Berlin says, The great eruption in the Straits of Sunda, which happened on the morning of Aug. 27, gave rise to an atmospheric wave which showed itself for five or six days in the records of the self- registering barometers in all parts of the world. In the barometric markings which are registered by the Commission of weights and measures in Berlin, in order to have a permanent record of the minuter variations, these effects of the volcanic eruption ap- pear with striking clearness. The first atmospheric wave from this source ap- peared in Berlin about ten hours after the catastrophe. Supposing it to have taken the shortest course from its origin to Berlin, this time would indicate a speed of somewhat more than a thousand kilometres per hour, agreeing very closely with the velocity of sound. This result is in complete accord with barometric records in other parts of the world. About sixteen hours afterward a second and entirely similar baro- metric wave appeared, which, however, is to be con- sidered as the arrival of the same wave by the longer circuit over America and Europe. In fact, if we take the difference of the two courses, — the one from the Straits of Sunda to Berlin over the East Indies, and the other over America, —we shall find that to the above velocity of propagation corresponds the delay of sixteen hours in the arrival of the wave by the American route. It thus appears that the entire wave completed the circuit of the earth in a time which must have amounted to thirty-six hours, In fact, thirty-six hours later there did appear in Berlin, in a direction from the East Indies, another percepti- ble wave corresponding closely to the first one, but somewhat diminished in strength. The correspond- ing return from America took place in a period of some thirty-four or thirty-five hours. This is brought into agreement with the other period by the consid- eration that the atmosphere in general has a motion from west to east. A third wave was recognized after an interval of thirty-seven hours from this time. The diminishing strength of the waves prevented the returns of the single waves from being accurately followed, but small variations of an unusual kind are seen in the record until the 4th of September. We can therefore be satisfied that the atmospheric waves caused by the volcanic eruption were powerful enough to make the entire circuit of the earth three or four times, and that in the beginning the variations of pressure amounted to one five-hundredth of the entire SCIENCE. It was followed — [Vou. IIL, No. 58. atmospheric pressure. We are thus obliged to recog- nize the operation of force through which the heated gases and masses of volcanic dust might be carried into very high regions of the atmosphere. Mr. Baillaud of Toulouse has communicated to the French Academy of science similar observations of the phenomena, from which he concludes the velocity to have been 349 metres per second. ‘This, also, is very nearly the velocity of sound. From the intervals between the waves, he finds that the waves made the circuit of the earth at the average rate of 324 metres per second. The most important conclusion to be drawn from these extraordinary observations is, that a mass of air or gas of which no one had before formed a concep- tion must have been ejected by the volcano. — The entomologists of Washington and Baltimore have decided to form an entomological society. A preliminary meeting was held at the house of Dr. C. V. Riley on the evening of Feb. 29, at which Rev. J. G. Morris of Baltimore presided, and Mr. B. P. Mann acted as secretary. A committee was appointed to draw up the necessary regulations, and to call a future meeting for organization. — . SCIENCE. 348 Giinther (1870, ‘Catalogue of fishes,’ viii. p. 68). It is probable that by one or the other of these authori- ties you have been misled. ‘ Muraenopsis’ was given to the batrachian by Fitzinger {1843, ‘Systema rep- tilium,’ p. 34) as a substitute for Amphiuma Garden, 1821. Subsequent writers have limited the genus Muraenopsis to the species with three toes, retain- ing in Amphiuma that with two. Examination of a considerable number of specimens shows that about one of every five individuals of tridactyla, from the same locality, has less than the normal number of three toes to each foot. For this reason it seems as if the species is not sufficiently distinct from the two-toed, Amphiuma means, to be entitled to rank in a different genus. In this view the genus Muraenopsis should be suppressed, and the name placed as a synonyme for Amphiuma. S. GARMAN. Mus. comp. zo6l. [The writer of the review above mentioned must confess to a blunder. Not having a copy of Le Sueur’s paper at hand, he trusted to the quotations made by Kaup and Ginther. The former writer, as above stated, expressly adopts the genus Muraenopsis from Le Sueur. | STUDY AT HOME. In discussing the value of a new plan for making men wiser and better, the thing to do is not to compare it with other plans in suc- cessful operation, with which it does not pro- pose to interfere, but simply with the state of things in which it is absent. No one pretends that personal instruction is not of value, or that the urgent stimulus and vivid directness of a living teacher and a viva voce explanation can ever be replaced by the slow medium of letters. When an organized effort was made to introduce home study on a large scale, it was on account of the patent fact that there are many young people, and many people no longer young, who are not in a condition to go to school, and to whom, nevertheless, the systematic study of some subject in which they take an interest would be a benefit and a de- light. The difference between a sporadic effort to do a little solid reading by one’s self,.con- stantly interrupted by flagging interest and by difficulties too hard to overcome, and a regular correspondence with some one who is able and willing to lend encouragement and aid, is very great. If the enthusiasm for this sort of work should become so wide-spread as to keep large numbers of students from giving themselves a regular course of instruction in school and col- lege, it would be time to consider the evils of the plan; but of this there is little danger at present. Ten years ago some reports of an English organization, called the ‘ Society for the encour- agement of home study,’ fell into the hands of a group of missionaries in Boston; and they were immediately inspired with a desire to work out the idea suggested by the title. An exchange of letters with the English secretary was of very little assistance in the development of the American plan. The English society offered no correspondence, but simply sketched out courses of reading, and plans for botanical and art work, to be carried on without assist- ance for a year, after which the students were expected to go to London for a competitive ex- amination with prizes. Inthe autumn of 1873, the ‘Society to encourage studies at home ’ was established by a committee of ten persons, six of whom carried on the correspondence with the forty-five students who offered them- selves for instruction in the course of the year. Only two points of method were settled at the beginning; namely, that there should be a regular correspondence, and that there should not be competitive examinations. Later the plan was developed of making the students take notes from memory, at the beginning of each day’s work, of the reading of the day before, and send to the appointed teacher at the end of each month a few sample pages of their daily notes, and a full abstract, written from mem- ory, of their month’s work. ‘There are also frequent examinations; and by this means the students are divided, at the end of the year, into a first, second, and third rank. ‘The plan of giving certificates, based upon the results of an annual examination, was abandoned after two years’ trial. The annual fee charged is merely a nominal one, —two dollars at first, and afterwards three, — but it has been suffi- cient from the beginning to cover all the ex- penses of paper, postage, the printing of the necessary circulars, the salaries of the assist- ants to the secretary and the librarian, and for the last two years the rent of the rooms on Park Street, Boston, where the society has its headquarters. The work of the teachers is, of course, a labor of love. In numbers the society had a very rapid growth for the first four years of its existence, and since then it has remained nearly stationary. In 1880 over eleven hundred students entered, of whom seventy-one per cent persevered throughout the year, and twenty-six per cent were excused for sufficient reasons. The number of teachers is about two hundred. History, science, and art, French, German, and English literature, are the subjects taught ; and the proportion of stu- dents in each subject remains almost constant year after year. More remarkable still, the © subjects divide themselves into three groups of two subjects each, which keep nearly abreast MARCH 21, 1884.] of each other. An average of the last four years shows, that, out of every hundred stu- dents who have persevered, thirty-four have taken English literature and thirty-three his- tory, twelve have taken science and eleven art, five have taken German and four French. His- tory is taught by topics, and there are circulars giving minute directions for critical study in the literatures of the different languages. The Shakspeare paper is particularly suggestive and valuable. Much thorough scientific work is done, if it is of an elementary character. Ge- ology and mineralogy are taught by sending specimens and requiring observation and de- scription, as in the class-room. Excellent work has been done in blowpipe analysis, and several students who live in fossiliferous regions have made discoveries in their own neighbor- hood. Botany has always been well taught: most of the teachers have been pupils of Gray, Goodale, and Farlow. Biological subjects have not been popular; possibly owing to the lingering survival of a lady-like repugnance to frogs, mussels, and moulds. Physics and chemistry have not been attempted. That the scientific department is thoroughly well con- ducted is assured by the fact that it is under the charge of the head of the woman’s chemi- cal laboratory of the Massachusetts institute of technology. The society has a lending-library, which began with the purchase of twenty-nine books in 1874, and which has now about a thousand volumes, many of them valuable works in il- lustration of archeology and art. Out of the eight thousand issues which have been made to the most distant states and _ territories, through floods and railroad accidents, only twelve volumes have been lost in the mails, and five through the carelessness of students. A small pamphlet enforcing obedience to the rules of health has been prepared by the secre- tary, and is sent to every one who joins the society. The pupils are widely distributed, both socially and geographically. Massachu- setts and New York have always furnished the largest number, but not so many as the remain- ‘ing Middle States together. The extreme south and the remotest west, as well as the Canadian provinces, are well represented. Many industries and all grades of society, above absolute penury and ignorance, furnish students. ‘There are girls in cities with large allowances, and married women far from any post-office, who do their own household work. A telegraph-operator, a compositor, a matron of a public institution, a railroad paymaster (acting also as treasurer, and going up and down SCIENCE. 349 her road in that capacity), a colored teacher at the south, another colored woman well married at the north, have taken advantage of the society’s courses. Six deaf-mutes have been among the pupils; and one, after studying several years, has become an associate teacher, and takes charge of four of her companions in misfortune. Mothers study for the sake of teaching their children; and even grand- mothers, not to be left too much alone, join the rest of the family group. In age, half the pupils are between twenty and thirty, and one- fourth between thirty and fifty. Many con- tinue their studies for several years. Last year there were more old students than new. One has been eight years in the society, has taken a full course in many subjects, has read a small library of important works, and has taken, after the first two years, the first rank in every thing. ‘‘ Now and then an enthusi- astic student tells us that she hopes to con- tinue with us all her life;’’ and one writes, ** The very thought of leaving makes me home- sick.’’ ‘Those who have only known the active life of cities can have no idea how great a boon to a country girl is a correspondence with an intelligent and sympathetic woman. The students’ letters are full of appreciation and oratitude. One says, ‘‘ I only regret that I did not know of the society at the beginning of its existence ;’’ and another speaks of hay- ing derived ‘‘ pleasure and incalculable benefit from the systematic course of study pre- scribed.’’ After buying a science text-book, a student writes, ‘‘ It has cost me my summer hat, but I do not regret it in the least;’’ and another, ‘‘ I pin my lesson copied the night before, to the kitchen wall, and the drudgery of dish-washing is removed.’’ With such eager material to work upon, it will be strange if the society does not find some mute, in- glorious Herschel, or some village Somerville, upon whom it will act as an inspiration to great things. If Du Bois Reymond was able to become a great physiologist at a time when rubber tubing was not an article of commerce, a girl who has learned to use the blowpipe by teaching at a distance must blame herself, and not her circumstances, if she does not do good work as a mineralogist. A society for home study for young men has had an existence for three years, and has come to anend. Longfellow, Howells, and Holmes, John Hay, Justin Winsor, and Charles Dudley Warner, are among the names on its committee, and the reports for the first two years were very enthusiastic. They state that the stu- dents are twice as many as in the young women’s r 300 society for the corresponding years, that the average time given to study is ten hours a week instead of eight, that there has-been no difficulty in finding a large number of cultivated gen- tlemen who were willing to give their time and attention to the work, and that the wonderful suc- cess of the earlier society may be taken as an indication of what may be done for young men by the same means. The secretary says, ‘* This year’s work has convinced us that we have every promise of the society’s becom- ing a successful and useful insti- tution, and that it is meeting a great need in a practical way.’’ A year later it is decided to give up the organization ; and no more specific reason for this course is given than that the committee is satisfied, on the whole, that the good done is not enough to make worth while the labor required of officers and correspondents. THE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. Tue recently opened biological laboratory of the Johns Hopkins university is eighty-four by fifty-two feet in external measurement, and Fie. 1.— 20, vestibule; 21,main hall; 22, work-room for practical instruction of less advanced students ; : D4, 30, ventilating- shafts; 25, storeroom of materials and reagents for general practical class- work ; 26, chief assistant’s room; 27, storeroom for dia- grams and lecture-apparatus; 28, lecture-room ; 29, elevator ; 32, cloak-room. SCIENCE. river bluestone. While free from any attempt at mere architectural display, the building is Fig. 2.—33, 34, hall and corridor; 35, museum; 36, advanced nomial 37, preparation-room for museum ; phy; 44, advanced botany; 45, lecture- room; 46, "elevator; 47, 39, Ventilating- shafts ; 51, lavatory. 40, assistant’s room; 41, library; 42, 43, photogra- handsome, as will be seen on examination of fig. 5, which represents its north and west ele- vations. b r ANS S BS wy ERAGON Ua ores RAO Ee ys N A BLAZE WHICH HAD BEEN COVERED BY MANY YEARS’ GROWTH. the squash was not displaced, and the cut sur- faces immediately came together again; (2) as determined by a ‘ fault’ in a crack of the epi- dermis, the squash rotated in position as the cut was made, thus accomplishing a displace- SCIENCE. 306 ment of nearly one-fourth of an inch on the surface of the stem; (3) the healing was com- plete in the interior, but the line of section was plainly visible under the microscope ; (4) there was a displacement of the vascular bundles corresponding with the surface displacement ; (5) the epidermis dried and shrank away be- fore union could be completed, and there was thus left a V-shaped groove which extended completely round the stem, and demonstrated the completeness of the section in the first in- stance. In the Redpath museum of McGill college there is a most interesting case of an old blaze on a beech-tree, which, in the course of a few years, came to be completely covered by the new growth. The specimen came originally from Belle Riviere, county of Two Moun- tains, and was discovered when cut- ting up the tree for firewood. It was exhibited before the Montreal natu- ral history society, at its meeting in April, 1882; but no special descrip- tion of it was published. It is there- fore thought desirable to figure and describe it here (see preceding page). The figure, as blazed, is shown in the accom- panying drawing; and its general character shows that it was probably made by one of the early Catholic missionaries, who little dreamed that it would be so effectually preserved. An examination of the stump showed by actual count at least one hundred and sixty rings of annual growth external to the blaze; and the size of the original tree is still clearly defined, showing that it was four inches and a half in diameter. Two impressions are to be observed, — one. representing the original marking; and the other, a cast from it, made by the overgrowing wood; both being very clearly defined. We have to note the following : — 1. That the figure was cut with a knife, as shown by occasional incised lines ; though the outer cast, being in black, at first leads one to the belief that a hot iron was employed. Upon closer examination, however, it seems more probable that the black or carbonized portion was the result of slight decay, the de- cayed portion being subsequently covered up, and thus producing the appearance described. 2. That the destruction of the bark and cambium was strictly confined to the lines of the figure, the intermediate portions still re- taining their vitality and power of growth. 3. As now seen, the figures of the original 1 Canadian nat., new ser., vol. x. no. 4, p. 238. [Vou. ILL, No blaze are defined by a stronger localization of coloring-matter in the wood, along the entire outlines, as shown in the drawing. 4. This offers:a very good illustration of the tendency of active vegetable tissues to heal over abraded surfaces, and repair injury, the degree of reparation depending upon (a) the special vigor of the plant, and (0) upon the ex- tent of the surface injured. In 1879 I discovered a very interesting case of adhesion in a cucumber growing in the plant-house. My attention was not called to it until in an advanced stage of development, FLOWER GROWING UPON A CUCUMBER. as represented in the drawing, which is of full size. Asis here seen, the monstrosity literally consisted of a flower growing upon a well-de- veloped cucumber. As shown in the figure, the abortive flower was borne on a conspicuous peduncle, which became merged at its base with the base of the cucumber. ‘The entire relation of parts would seem to indicate that there must have been two axillary flowers which became united in the early formation of the buds ; one of them subsequently developing normally, while the growth of the other was largely ar- rested. D. P. PENHALLOW. McGill university, Montreal. THE NATAL OBSERVATORY. Mr. EpMuUND NEISON, the government astronomer at Natal, submitted to the colonial secretary, in June last, his report on the Natal observatory, whose establishment has been mainly due to the active exertion of Mr. Escombe. It was decided to found the observatory in time to obtain observations of the then approaching transit of Venus of 1882; and, on being applied to, Mr. Gill, the astronomer royal at the Cape, furnished an estimate of the cost of a suitable establishment. A generous sum was secured at first by private subscription; and in June, 1882, the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds was voted by the corporation of Durban toward the: expense of founding the observatory, and the next month this was supplemented by a special vote of MARCH 21, 1884. | five hundred pounds by the legislative council. In all, a sum of about nineteen hundred pounds was contributed. Under the superintendence of Mr. Robert Pett, of the Cape observatory, the new establishment was constructed, and the instruments erected. On the 1st of December, Mr. Neison took possession of the observatory as astronomer to the Natal government, and subsequently the observatory was taken over by the government of the colony. It lies on the south- west corner of the land originally granted for the use of the botanic gardens, and is a substantially built, rectangular red-brick building with cement facings, and carries a light wooden upper structure, forming equatorial and transit rooms. At present, there being no protection from the direct rays of the sun, the substantial walls of the observatory become so hot in the day, that it will be difficult to obtain proper observations until the building is completed by the erection of a veranda to shield the walls, and prevent their becoming so intensely heated. Having,become thus raised in temperature during the day, the walls, owing to their massiveness, require the greater por- tion of the night in which to cool ; and during this time they give rise to convection-currents of heated air, which render it difficult to secure satisfactory observations with any of the instruments. At the time of Mr. Neison’s report, the principal in- struments of the observatory were: a fine eight-inch equatorial (by Grubb), the gift of Harry Escombe, Esq. ; a high-class three-inch transit instrument, purchased by the government; an excellent sidereal clock, originally constructed for the Royal obser- vatory, Greenwich, and at present lent by the Tran- sit of Venus commission to the astronomer; and two chronometers, the one a sidereal, and the other a mean time. Mr. Neison describes these instruments, and reports their satisfactory performance. The ob- servatory is at present without the usual equipment of meteorological instruments, but they will be ob- tained from England in the course of the spring. Mr. Neison remarks upon the necessity of having proper steps taken for transferring in a regular man- ner to the Natal government the observatory and its site. It is built on ground originally assigned for a botanic garden, with the understanding that a suffi- cient space should be set aside for the purpose as might be deemed sufficient by the astronomer, though no written agreement to that effect was thought necessary. Owing to the nature of the ground, — a hillside covered with brush, —it is imperative that the astronomer (for the time in charge) should have every authority and complete control over the ground to the north and north-east of the observatory, which must be his chief observing-region ; for otherwise he may be seriously hampered in carrying on his scien- tific work. The trees and other vegetation upon the surface of the ground have a far greater influence upon astronomical observations than in merely cut- ting off the view of a small portion of the heavens; this influence extending over the atmosphere for a considerable distance above them, owing to their liability to establish air-currents and tremors which SCIENCE. 39T are fatal to accurate observations. Experience has shown it to be not unfrequently necessary to clear the ground of particular kinds or groups of trees and shrubs, which establish such currents from being out of harmony in temperature and radiation-constants with the surrounding surface. Pines, laurels, and rhododendrons have had, on this account, to be removed from the environs of more than one obser- vatory. Even the watering of the ground will give rise to most injurious convection-currents at times. When the moisture is general, as after a rain or heavy dew, it is of far less consequence; but when it is partial, as in watering plants, each plant sets up its own convection-current, and thus causes objects to appear most unsteady when seen through the air above, and so ruins accurate observation. Taking all things into consideration, Mr. Neison regards it as certainly most unwise to cramp the observatory and its future by confining the site set apart for its use to a smaller area than three hundred by seventy yards, both measured horizontally. A mere partial control or divided authority over this area, or any portion of it, would be unwise; for it would be sure to lead to complications and conflict of authority — if not in the immediate future, for a certainty at no long-distant date. The Natal observatory has taken vigorous measures for the distribution of time-signals throughout the colony. At one o’clock every day a signal is sent to the central telegraph-office at Durban, from which it is distributed all over the colony, firing a time-gun and dropping a time-ball at Maritzburg, and also one at the Point, Durban. It is proposed to extend this system by the addition of a time-gun in the centre of Durban; to establish time-balls at Newcastle and Stanger; and, in connection with the Natal harbor board, to establish a system for properly regulating and rating ships’ chronometers, similar to that al- ready in existence at Liverpool and elsewhere. In observing the transit of Venus the astronomers were moderately successful, no observations being undertaken outside of the usual optical ones. Copies of all the observations have been duly transmitted, through her Majesty’s astronomer at the Cape, to the Transit of Venus committee at Burlington house, London. With regard to tidal reductions, it has been ar- ranged with the Natal harbor board that the tidal observations which are being made at Natal shall be reduced in the colony under the superintendence of the observatory, and proper tidal-tables constructed. With reference to the future work of the obser- vatory, it is proposed to take advantage of every opportunity for carrying out a series of observations of the moon, with a view of obtaining data for per- fecting the tables of the motion of our satellite. The duty of making standard meridian observations of the moon is fully carried out at the Royal obser- vatory, Greenwich, and partially at the Radcliffe observatory, Oxford, and at the U. S. naval obser- vatory, Washington ; but, for obtaining the full information necessary for properly discussing these observations so as to make them available for per- a” 308 fecting the theory of the motion of the moon, it is necessary that a considerable number of auxiliary observations should be made. These, it is proposed, should be made at the Natal observatory with the greater facility, as all the lengthy mathematical analysis necessary for their reduction has already been executed by Mr. Neison himself. The princi- pal subjects already taken up at the observatory are the following : — 1°. The determination of the exact amount of the parallactic inequality in the motion of the moon by means of observations of the position of a crater near the centre of the lunar surface. 2°. The determination of the exact diameter of the moon by observations of pairs of points near the limb. 3°. The effect of irradiation and its variations upon the apparent semi-diameter of the moon. 4°. The systematic variation in the apparent place of the moon produced by the irregularities on its limb. o°. The real libration of the moon by a method independent of the errors caused by abnormal varia- tions in the apparent semi-diameter of the moon. The first investigation is in continuation of the one already commenced at the Arkley observatory, England, and will be carried out with the additional co-operation of the observatory of Strasburg, Ger- many. Arrangements are being made to obtain the co-operation of the Cape and other observatories in the investigation of other of the above subjects. ECONOMY OF FUEL IN IRON-MANU- FACTURE. As the price of iron falls, every item in the cost of its production is more and more carefully scrutinized, — the quality of the ore, the cost of transportation, the labor used at the various steps in the process, the ac- cessories and mechanical appliances, the rapidity of working, the quantity of fuel to the ton of pig-iron produced, and the cost of the fuel. Of all these, the cost and quantity of fuel used are, perhaps, receiving the largest share of attention from the iron-men just at present. One coal-saving device is the Gjers soaking-pit. Formerly the huge ingots of steel from the Bessemer converter were allowed to cool, and were again heated before rolling them into steel rails. The efforts to roll them while still hot failed, owing to the fact that the core might still remain fluid while the outside shell of the ingot was cooling even below the rolling- heat. The Gjers soaking-pit is a hole in the ground, walled with bricks, in which the ingot of steel is placed until it has uniformly cooled to the rolling-heat, thus saving the reheating-furnace. Itis claimed that the Gjers soaking-pit saves sixty-seven tons of coal to a hundred tons of rails, Again: at the South Chi- cago works the pig-iron is run directly from the blast- furnace into the Bessemer converter; while the usual practice in most works has been, and still is, to allow the pig-iron to cool, and to melt it again in a special furnace for the Bessemer converter. SCIENCE. oe [Vou. IIL, No. The above processes save in the quantity of fuel;. while, on the other hand, a large saving in the cost of fuel is looked for in the improved methods of. coking and in the recovery of the valuable by-prod- ucts. It seems quite generally admitted, that a good system of coking, which will save the tar-oils and the ammonia, will pay all the coking-expenses. The great national economy will be better under- stood from figures. In the year 1880, in the United States, 2,752,000 tons of coke were produced from 4,360,000 tons of coal by the old-fashioned beehive oven. Two years ago the figures for Great Britain were 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 tons of coke from nearly 13,000,000 tons of coal by beehive ovens. This quan- tity of coke could have been produced by the Simon- Carvés system of coke-ovens from 10,000,000 tons of coal; effecting a saving of 3,000,000 tons, and also a saving of the coal-tar and ammonia by-products. The beehive oven, which takes its name from its form, is a low, square chamber with dome-shaped top; has. an opening for escape of gases at the top, and a door in the side through which to admit the air, to charge the coal, and to discharge the coke. The burning is regulated by opening and closing the side-door, and all the gases go to waste at the top. The Simon-Carves system of ovens consists of a row of chambers side by side, with combustion-flues in the parting-walls and under the floors. The waste- gases are burnt in these flues, and liberate heat enough to distil the gases of the coal. These gases, before entering the combustion-flues, are passed through condensing-apparatus, where the tar and am- monia by-products are saved. The two ovens, there- fore, work upon totally different principles. The beehive cokes by slow combustion, sacrificing a por- tion of the coal by the door, as well as the by-prod- ucts: the Carves simply distils. The beehive saves 60% to 65 % of the coalas coke: the Carvés saves 75%. The beehive oven produces a very fine coke, in long, columnar, hard, silvery, porous masses: the Carves gives a dark, dense, heavy coke. And it is here that the iron-master hesitates; for he likes the silvery, porous beehive coke for making iron, and does not yet accept the dense, heavy coke of the Carves oven. Jameson has invented an oven which is known by his name, and which is essentially a beehive oven, with a suction-pipe entering at the bottom instead of the roof-outlet for gases. The products of combus- tion are drawn by an artificial draught through the pipe; and, after being carried through apparatus for the condensation of the by-products, this gas is avail- able for any purpose. The actual yield from a ton of coal has been estimated to be: sulphate of ammonia, 10 pounds; oils, 8 gallons; gas, 12,000 cubic feet; coke, 67% to 69%. The tar from this oven is lighter than water (specific gravity, .960), and consists mostly of. oils, boiling between 250° and 300° C., of little value as burning-oils, and of. secondary value as lubricants. Paraffine is present, and both toluine and xyline in small quantities, but no benzine. A portion of the oils breaks up into phenols, which, so far as investigated, © give colors of little stability. Neither naphthaline nor anthracine is present, both valuable as sources - J MARCH 21, 1884.] of coal-tar colors; and, while this tar presents an at- tractive field for research, it is not of great value at present. On the other hand, the tar from the Simé6n- Carves has a specific gravity of 1.20, is black and thick, rich in naphthaline and anthracine, contains benzine, toluine, xyline, and carbolic acid, and is free from paraffines. A good deal of benzol is sup- posed to be carried off and burned. Now, Mellor has recently patented a process for extracting benzol from gas by passing it up through an earthenware tower filled with broken glass moistened with nitric acid. Davis has also a process for refrigerating gases. Either of these processes, added to the present plant of the Simon-Carveés, would save valuable products for coal-tar colors. It is generally the fate of new improvements, that some unforeseen difficulty stands in the way of immediate adoption. In this case the dilemma seems to be, that the iron-men say, give us beehive or Jameson coke and Simon-Carvés by-products, and we will embrace the improvement at once. But, while the Jameson coke is good, the by-products are not as yet of much value; and, while the Carves by-products are valuable, the coke is not yet satisfac- tory. Improvements often are adopted partially, or in some modified form. So it appears to be in this case. The furnaces at Gartscherrie, near Glasgow, Scot- land, have for years been smelting with raw coal, allow- ing it to coke itself at the top of the furnace, thus losing all the by-products, and some of the coal itself. They have recently tried closing in the top of two of these furnaces, and conducting the furnace-gases through condensing-apparatus on the way to the boil- ers, hot-blast stoves, etc. They have been so much pleased with the result of the experiment, that they propose to apply the same improvement to the other eight furnaces. This arrangement will probably yield a much heavier oil than the Jameson oven, but perhaps not so heavy as the Simon-Carves; and, as the coke is made within the furnace itself, it is hard to say just what its quality may be. Report says that modified plans are being tried in still another way, and that the highly bituminous coals of Colorado are treated by a process of cok- ing; and the derived gas is injected into the blast- furnace, and thus re-enforces the heat of the coke, which is mixed with the ore, as usual, and has thereby effected a reduction of 75% in the cost of the smelting. R. H. RICHARDS. THE FLORA OF LABRADOR. THE list of the plants of Labrador published in the Proceedings of the U.S. national museum, vol. vi. pp. 126-137, is interesting as showing some facts of geographical distribution. Though the list makes uo pretensions to being complete, still it may be considered that it represents the flora in a sufficient- ly complete form to allow inferences to be drawn from it. SCIENCE. 399 There are enumerated, altogether, a hundred and sixty-one species and varieties. Of these, two, Ranun- culus acris and Capsella bursa-pastoris, have been introduced from Europe. Of the hundred and fifty- nine left, a hundred, or nearly sixty-three per cent, are natives of Europe as well as of Labrador. Out of these hundred species, there are some having a more northern distribution than Labrador, and a few extend even to the Arctic circle. Many of them are marsh or swamp plants, or else live along the sea- coast. The flora, as a whole, is most decidedly north- ern in its character. Of the fifty-nine species not known to Europe, it is found that thirty-eight have a range to the north- ward of the 49th parallel, and that only about four (viz., Fragaria Virginiana, Kalmia latifolia, K. an- gustifolia, and Alnus serrulata) can be considered as southern forms. Of these, the first is ‘rather rare,’ the two Kalmias are found in ‘ravines and near ponds in the interior,’ while the last is found ‘in ravines’ and along the seacoast. The northern as- pect of the flora is further illustrated by the following facts: — The Ericaceae, an order most abundant in cold climates, has seventeen species; Rosaceae has eigh- teen species, ten of them belonging to the northern genera Potentilla and Rubus; Caryophyllaceae has eleven species and varieties; while the Labiatae has not a single one, the Borraginaceae has only one, Scropulariaceae but two, and Compositae is sparsely represented by four. This last seems an especially striking fact, and is in accordance with what we might expect. We know that the order is largely a tropical one, and that proba- bly the heat of the summer months in Labrador is not sufficient, and not long enough continued, to en- able the plants to flower and fruit. Of the Legumi- nosae, there are only five species, four of them being European also; and this order may be regarded as being in the same category as the Compositae. In a former article (Indigenous plants common to Europe and the United States, Journ. Cine. soc. nat. hist., iv. p. 51), I have endeavored to show that we must look to the north as the place of origin of many of our plants; and when we find that sixty-three per cent of Labrador plants are also European, and twenty- three per cent have a high northern range, some ex- tending to Alaska and Greenland, we see further reason for the assertion. That many of these plants were at one time distributed all around the Arctic circle, there can be no doubt; and that they have been driven from their first homes by the excessive cold, and found suitable abiding-places at the south; must also be considered as an established fact. The agent in this pushing-southward of northern forms may be regarded as the glacial period, when the pres- ence of the immense mass of ice on the continent caused the flora to continue to retire farther and farther south as the cold became more and more intense: when it mitigated, many of the plants re- turned north, and established themselves as near as they could to their original homes. Jos. F. JAMES. me 360 THE HALL PHENOMENON IN LIQUIDS. PROFESSOR ANTONIO RoITr publishes (Atti ace. lincei, xii. 397) under the above title the results of some experiments he has made. In preparing him- self for his work, he repeated some of the ordinary experiments upon this phenomenon in metals: and the results, which contain nothing new, are shown in several diagrams. He devised one new experi- ment, however, which shows, as he thinks, that the effect he is investigating is not due to a direct ac- tion of the magnetic field upon the electric current per se. As the opinion thus reached by Professor Roiti must have been held two or three years by all who have given special attention to the matter, it is hardly worth while to inquire whether his new ex- periment is conclusive in itself. In experimenting with liquids, Professor Roiti was unsuccessful in his main object, no effect similar to the well-known action in metals being detected. It did appear, however, that the magnet, acting upon a solution of sulphate of zine of given strength, was able to produce a change in the electric conduc- tivity of the solution, the sign of which depended upon the direction of the magnetic force, the current in the liquid, and the degree of concentration of the solution. Thus, in a solution less concentrated than that which possesses the maximum electric conduc- tivity, the effect was in a certain direction; while the opposite effect was produced, under the same condi- tions of current and magnetic force, in a solution having a concentration greater than that correspond- ing to this maximum. In a saturated solution no similar effect was observed. Professor Roiti attributes this behavior of the non- saturated solutions to a want of homogeneity in the liquids, which become stirred up by the ponderomo- tive electromagnetic action. He makes several ex- periments tending to support this opinion. In a solution of ferric ‘chloride (cloruro ferrico), of spe- cific gravity 1.34, effects were obtained similar to those found with the dilute solution of sulphate of zinc. In a thin layer of mercury no similar effect was detected. The examination of liquids with the view of de- tecting a ‘rotational effect’ similar to that observed in metals was probably first suggested in print by Kttingshausen.! The difficulties of the investigation were obviously great, however; and Professor Roiti appears to be the only experimenter who has yet un- dertaken it. His account of his experiments is open to criticism in this respect: that it does not give sufficient data in regard to intensity of magnetic field, etc., to enable the reader to determine how severely the liquids were tested for the presence of the effect which gives the title to his article. Moreover, he seems to have made a point of placing his side-connections unsymmetrically, so as to have, independently of the magnet’s action, a considerable ‘derived’ current, — an arrangement which enabled him to discover the effect described above, but which, 1 Anz. akad. wissensch. Wien, March, 1880. SCIENCE. [Vot. IIL., No. 59. on that very account, should be studiously avoided in seeking for the phenomenon he was trying to detect. Professor Roiti’s ultimate object in beginning this investigation was to determine whether the trans- verse or ‘rotational’ effect would in liquids corre- spond to the magnetic rotation of the plane of polarization of light. Of course, no conclusion what- ever upon this point can be drawn from the account given of his work and its results. And, even if his experiments had been entirely successful in revealing the effect looked for, it would be necessary to exer- cise caution in applying results so obtained to the case of the rotation of light. In the liquids, as here examined, the particles have time to fully adjust — themselves, in position and motion, to the require- ments of the magnetic force and the electric current to which they are subjected; while in the phenome- non of light, assumed to be electromagnetic in char- acter, the mere inertia of the particles of the liquid must play an important part in the action of forces, which are reversed a countless number of times every second. ‘In the Comptes rendus of Sept. 17, 1888, Professor Righi states that he has found the Hall effect in bis- muth to be of the same sense as in gold, but about five thousand times greater than in the latter metal. He obtains a very marked action in bismuth by use of an ordinary bar-magnet, and believes that he can produce a perceptible effect by the action of the earth’s magnetism. JANET’S THEORY OF MORALS. The theory of morals. By PauL JANET. ‘Trans- lated from the latest French edition [by Mary CHAPMAN]. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883. 10+ 490 p. 8°. Ir books on ethics are to be noticed at all in a scientific journal, they might be, as a rule, safely classified under the head of fossils. No literature deals with a subject which would seem to be more living; yet no literature is, on the whole, more desiccated and dead. Human conduct, with all its infinite variety of stand- ards and impulses, with all its marvellous in- terworking of passions and emotions, with all its pressing and personal problems, conflicts, and obligations — what subject would seem to stimulate students to greater vividness, pic- turesqueness, or incisiveness of treatment? Every man is in his own way an ethical phi- losopher. No one can escape thinking about the right principles of his conduct. Books on this subject address the largest possible audi- ence on the one unavoidable subject of reflec- tion. And yet there seems to be some subtile ‘influence which dries up even literary instincts when they approach this theme and which There makes even brilliant writers wearisome. MARCH 21, 1884.] is hardly any living English writer more abounding in vitality and wit than Mr. Leslie Stephen ; but even he, when he enters this en- chanted region, seems benumbed and drowsy, and is positively hard to read. ‘There is said to be no American teacher who has imparted more moral force to his students than the ven- erable president of Williams college ; but, the moment he arranges his instruction in a book, it is as if he gathered his living flowers from useful and from noxious plants, and laid away these virtues and vices, all pressed and juice- less, in successive drawers. The last work of Janet, which he frankly describes as his Magna moralia, is certainly as little open to these criticisms as any book of its kind. It attracted much attention on its first appearance in 1874, and was for some years used as a text-book in Harvard college. It is now translated, and very well translated, for the use of President Porter’s classes in Yale college. adviser would call it, and is full of learning. Its strength lies where the German master- pieces are weakest, —in force and variety of illustration. It is hardly extravagant to say that so clear and picturesque a treatise, in the hands of an alert teacher, might save the study of ethics from its almost inevitable fate of being very dull. The stand-point of the author may be very briefly described. He is a conspicuous instance of the many minds who desire to be eclectics, but whose hearts will not permit them. He sees that the problem of ethics, like that of all present philosophy, is a problem of reconcili- ation. He sets himself to comprehend in his system the whole range of contributions to ethics made by modern utilitarianism, but he is none the less at heart a Kantian. The moral law of Kant appears to him too formal, too abstract, too empty, and he is repeatedly offering corrections and supplements; yet if Fichte is a disciple of Kant, so, in spite of frequent controversy with the master, is Janet. His first thrust is at the least-guarded part of the experiential method, —its incapacity to distinguish between quantity and quality in conduct. Here he discloses with ease the con- tribution which Mr. Mill has made to the view of conduct which he believed himself to be opposing ; and we pass from the recognition of this distinction of quality in acts to the principle which alone can give quality to them. This principle he defines as their intrinsic ex- cellence ; and this excellence, in its turn, is to be judged by the contribution of acts to the un- folding of the best in man, —of his real person- SCIENCE It has lucidity, as our last literary - 361 ality, his reasonable will. ‘Thus we find before us the moral dynamic of a completed life, the conception of an end in which happiness and excellence shall coincide, —in short, a moral ideal. This discussion occupies the first of three divisions in the treatise. The two re- maining books unfold this fundamental con- ception in its relation to outward standards of duty and to inward laws of life. They proceed with great clearness and almost with vivacity of treatment, and invite us in somewhat frag- mentary fashion to a great variety of problems, both of metaphysics and casuistry, which we cannot here consider. Returning to the main contribution of the book to the theory of morals, the present re- viewer has no controversy to undertake with its evident purpose. The ideal aim which it presents is not stated with the frankness of Grote, or with the fulness of Green; yet it is as plain with Janet as with Grote, that man is essentially ‘an ideal-making animal,’’ and as certain, though not so plain, with Janet as with Green, that the development of the moral ideal is a personal and inward, and not a social, evolution.” What we shall here with some diffidence suggest, however, is the highly technical character of all these treatises, and. indeed, of the whole range of ethical literature. We repeat the impression with which we began this notice. Here is a subject which deals more directly than any other with the real and daily relations of life; yet, as we have just now tried to describe the purport of a remark- ably lucid book, we have found ourselves forced into the language of specialists, and away from the methods of practical affairs. It is quite possible for a man to be a highly trained moral philosopher, and yet be a powerless adviser concerning a specific moral problem, so far removed has been the science of right conduct from the subject with which it is supposed to deal. Now, we maintain that a science of life should frankly take its start from the data and the problems of life, and should proceed in- ductively to analyze and classify these data, and to discover what may be their law. The literature of moral conduct may be at present divided into two distinct classes, — the books which deal with theory, and the vast and rapidly growing literature which deals with the practical conduct of social life. This latter department is largely the growth of the last few years. It may be called ethical sociology. It describes the duties one owes to himself and to society, — the duties, or, in the case of Pro- 1 Grote on moral ideals, p. 46, ff. 2 'T. H. Green, Prolegomena to ethics, 1883, pp. 189, 201. SCIENCE. 362 fessor Sumner’s little book, the absence of duties, between social classes ; the problems of charity, temperance, and all the varied aspects. of moral reform. Now, between these practi- cal applications of ethics and the books on ethical theory there lies an unbridged chasm. The maxim of Kant gets ample illustration: ‘‘ Tdeas without content are empty; observa- tion without ideas is blind.’?* When sociolo- gists approach any theory of morals, they exhibit an almost ludicrous ignorance, as when Professor Sumner interprets sympathy in the spirit of unconscious Hobbism. When, on the other hand, a student of the metaphysics of morals approaches a problem of practical conduct, he is apt to find his law unmeaning. Here, then, it would seem, is an opportunity for what may be fairly called inductive ethics. It is not the method which commonly claims this name, and which simply means the exclu- sion of any evolution of personality; it is the construction of a theory of ethics from an examination of the facts of social life, the data of philanthropy, the testimony of ideal aims, the characteristics of moral personalities. This would be a method of ethics which would be constantly close to life, and which would gather up the real issues of conduct into their higher significance and tendency. Francis G. PEABODY. BA CTRE TA. Bacteria. By Dr. ANTOINE MAGNIN and GEORGE M. STERNBERG, M.D., F.R.M.S. New York, Wood, 1883. 19+11+4494 p., 12 pl., illustr. 8°. Tuts portly and handsome volume will be read with interest by all who have followed the painstaking and thorough work of Dr. Stern- berg during the last three or four years. To him belongs the credit not only of having trans- lated and published, in 1880, Magnin’s useful book on the bacteria, but of having applied himself with tireless devotion and very consid- erable success to the actual work of laborious researches, often made under discouraging cir- cumstances, and with little genuine sympathy from his fellow-countrymen. Dr. Sternberg is at the head of the American school of working bacteriologists, if, indeed, he is not its only member; so that any work coming from his practised hand should meet with a hearty wel- come. The present volume, which might well be called a handbook of bacteriology, is made up partly of Magnin’s older treatise referred to above, and partly of new material supplied I Kritik der reinen vernunft, s. 81, ed. Hartenstein. - investigator. by Dr. Sternberg. Magnin’s account of the morphology and the physiology of the bacte- ria, covering one hundred and fifty-two pages, is preserved intact. The rest of the older book is omitted; and in its place we have four ‘ parts’ written by Dr. Sternberg, and dis- cussing respectively, ‘Technology,’ ‘Germi- cides and antiseptics,’ ‘Bacteria in infectious diseases,’ and ‘ Bacteria in surgical lesions.’ These, taken together, make up more than one- half the book. Of Magnin’s work it is not needful to speak. His book is familiar. We may turn, then, to the parts prepared expressly by the American author. Under ‘Technology’ we have a suc- cinct but clear account of the various methods of collection, of cultivation, of staining and of photographing the bacteria, and of the at- tenuation of virus. Of most of them the author speaks from experience ; and this chapter will be of the utmost value to the student and the Of course, in a subject like this, intricate and refined to the last degree, actual personal guidance is essential, or, at least, highly desirable; and we believe that Dr. Sternberg has given enough of the technology to help, but not enough to harm, the student. Under the head of ‘ Photography’ (p. 194) the author says, — ; “Tt is but fair to say that satisfactory results can only be obtained by the expenditure of a considerable amount of time and money, as the work must be done with high powers, and the technical difficulties to be overcome are by no means inconsiderable. The illus- trations in the present volume may be taken as fair samples of what may be accomplished, and it will be found easier to criticise these than to improve upon them.”’ ' The plates are, indeed, of an unusually high order; the heliotypes of human (yellow-fever) blood being something remarkable, and not likely to be improved upon at present. Under the head of ‘ Germicides and antisep- tics’ we observe at the outset (p. 210) the fol- lowing conspicuous finger-post : — ‘Tf it were proven that the infectious character of every kind of infective material depended upon the presence of a specific living germ, as has been shown to be true in the case of certain kinds of infective material, germicide and disinfectant would be synony- mous terms. Although this has not been proved, it is a significant fact that all of the disinfectants of established value have been shown by laboratory experiments to be potent germicides.”’ Numerous original experiments are here re- corded ; and the author agrees with the other authorities in giving little germicide value to most common disinfectants, and in. pointing out the extraordinary efficacy of mercuric bi- chloride. MARCH 21, 1884.] Besides a dozen or so of pages devoted to the rdle of the ‘ Bacteria in surgical lesions,’ and having chiefly a medical interest, the rest of the book is devoted to a long and careful treatment of the ‘ Bacteria in infectious dis- eases,’ and to the literature of bacteriology. These and the part on ‘ Technology’ include the cream of the work. At the start the author incidentally draws a subtle distinction, which may or may not be generally acceptable (p. 236), — “The practical results of etiological studies, so far as the prevention and cure of disease are concerned, are likely to be much greater than those which have been gained by the pathologists; ’’? — adding directly in a tone of liberal conserva- tism, which no one can help admiring, especially as it comes from one who is in the advancing column, — ‘‘and if the time ever comes, as now seems not improbable, when we can say with confidence, infec- tious diseases are parasitic diseases, medicine will have established itself upon a scientific foundation. But this generalization, which some physicians think is justified even now by the experimental evidence which has been so rapidly accumulating during the past decade, would, in the opinion of the writer, be premature in the present state of science. And for the present it seems wiser to encourage additional researches, rather than to attempt to generalize from the data at hand. . . . Those who have had the most experience in this difficult field of investigation are commonly the most critical and exacting with refer- ence to the alleged discoveries of others.”’ Dr. Sternberg sees clearly enough that one of the most interesting theoretical questions in this whole subject which remains still unsolved is, how does inoculation or vaccination protect ? or, in his own words, what is ‘‘ the rationale of the immunity produced by protective inocu- lations? . . . Recovery, after inoculation with attenuated virus, is more easy to understand than is the subsequent protection”’ (p. 241). Lecturers upon the subject often pass lightly over this point, and, by a comparison with a fermentation in a barrel of cider for example, say, ‘‘ And just as a barrel of apple-juice can ferment but once under the same germ, so a man usually has the small-pox but once ;’’ the idea being implied, that, as the alcoholic fer- ment has eaten up its food in the barrel, so the hypothetical small-pox plant has taken out all the available food-material from man, its living prey. Pasteur maintains a position like this ; while Sternberg denies that it is a satisfactory explanation, and brings forward a lengthy argu- ment in opposition, some of the points of which do not seem to us well taken. It is, however, the sufficient and fatal objection to the line of thought outlined above, that, while the barrel SCIENCE. 363 of apple-juice is a not-living medium, the liv- ing organism is undergoing constant repair, is even growing (in the technical sense) till death comes, and is therefore no fixed quantity, either in composition or condition. Dr. Sternberg would solve the problem by considering the acquired protection to be a ‘ tolerance,’ a ‘ re- sistance’ of the protoplasm to the new condi- tion; e.g. (pp. 248-249), ‘* during a non-fatal attack of one of the specific diseases, the cellular elements implicated, which do not succumb to the destructive influence of the poison, acquire a tolerance to this poison.’’ This would explain a temporary immunity, —would prevent a patient from ‘giving’ the disease to himself over and over again, — but would not explain a lifelong immunity, since new, and perhaps non-tolerating, non-resisting cells are being constantly produced from the old ones. The cells which actually suffered are therefore supposed by Dr. Sternberg to ‘‘ac- quire a tolerance to this poison, which is trans- missible to their progeny and which is the reason of the exemption of the individual from future attacks of the same disease.”’ This hypothesis is certainly clear, and it is only befogged by the author’s illustration (7?) drawn from budding and grafting. In view of the fact that bacteria are now believed to do their work largely by producing a genuine not-living poison which affects the living cells, the following is of interest : — ‘* The tolerance to narcotics — opium and tobacco —and to corrosive poisons — arsenic, which results from a gradual increase of dose, may be cited as an example of acquired tolerance by living protoplasm to poisons which at the outset would have been fatal in much smaller doses. ‘The immunity which an individual enjoys from any particular disease must be looked upon as a power of resistance possessed by the cellular elements of those tissues of his body which would yield to the influence of the poison in the case of an unprotected person.”’ The reader must recollect, however, Hux- ley’s discussion of ‘ aquosity ’ and ‘ horologi- ty,’ and remember that in such sentences as the following we are doing little more than for- mulating our ignorance : — ‘* The resistance of living matter . . . isaproperty depending upon vitality.’’ The question is often raised, Where do the pathogenic bacteria come from? Dr. Stern- berg says in this connection, — ‘‘TIf we suppose that under certain circumstances the conditions relating to environment approach those which would be found within the body of a living animal, we can easily understand how a micro- organism which has adapted itself to these conditions 364 may become a pathogenic organism when by any chance it is introduced into the circulation of such an animal. The culture fluid — blood —and tem- perature being favorable, it is only a question of superiority by vital resistance on the one hand, or by reproductive activity on the other. ‘‘That harmless species of bacteria may develop pathogenic properties in the manner indicated seems extremely probable; and we should @ priori expect that such a result would occur more frequently in the tropics, where the elevated temperature and abun- dance of organic pabulum furnish the favorable con- ditions required. In this way we may, perhaps, explain the origin of epidemics of pestilential dis- eases, such as yellow-fever and cholera. If these diseases do not at the present day originate in the manner indicated, they, at all events, have their permanent abiding-place in tropical countries.”’ Much space is properly devoted to the status of science regarding the individual diseases, and the treatment of them by the author is highly satisfactory. ‘The volume closes with an admirable literature of the subject, for which all students will thank him. But in another edition he should add information as to where the papers of E. C. Hansen can be found. It would be better, also, to give the titles of Ger- man papers throughout in the German; and it surely is as needful to mention Schwann and Kiitzing as Cagniard de Latour, while the failure to record the translation of Schiitzenberger’s work is a serious omission. Aside from these and other insignificant and pardonable errors, the bibliography is very satisfactory. The al- phabetical arrangement which has been wisely adopted has one slight disadvantage: we miss the striking evidence of the growth of the sub- ject, which a chronological arrangement such as was employed in the translation of Magnin’s book in 1880, and which was in this respect impressive, gave. On the whole, this book is the most prac- tical, the most complete, and the most useful which we possess upon the subject. It is both a storehouse of principles and a hand- book for the laboratory. If a physician or a student, a biologist or a pathologist, can have but one book, this one, because of its lucidity of style, its cool, cautious tone, its breadth and yet its comprehensiveness, and particularly because of its excellent illustrations, is em- phatically the one to get. It is deeply to be regretted that Dr. Sternberg cannot be kept busily at work under every favorable condition at the expense of a country to whose service his life has been devoted, and that he is, on the contrary, obliged to write sentences so melancholy as these : — ‘* All this is admitted, and the experiment is in- troduced mainly to call attention to a method, which, carefully applied, should enable us to solve the ques- SCIENCE. tion as to the pathogenic réle of this micrococcus. The writer had mapped out for himself a series of experiments in this direction, and many others relat- ing to etiological questions; but circumstances have not been favorable for the prosecution of experimen- tal work, and he finds himself, somewhat reluctantly, engaged in a review of the field, when it would be far more to his taste to interrogate nature by the ex- perimental method, and thus to aid directly in the solution of these interesting problems”’ (p. 447). SCIENTIFIC LINGUISTICS. Internationale zeitschrift fiir allgemeine sprachwis- senschaft. Herausgegeben von F. 'TECHMER. Hefti. Leipzig, Barth, 1884. 16+256 p.,7pl., illustrs §3c- TuHIs new journal appears with an excellent though only partial list of contributors, repre- senting various nations and languages. The articles may be in German, English, French, Italian, Latin, and, under exceptional circum- stances, even in some other language ; and the international character it is meant to have is perhaps the best justification for its existence. The editor, Dr. Techmer, privatdocent at Leip- zig, has previously published a work on pho- netics ; and the most noteworthy article in this number is one by him on the same subject. Most, if not all, of the other articles might well enough have been published in already exist- ing journals. They are all in German, except » two in English (together occupying some twenty-two pages out of over two hundred and fifty) and one of about four pages in French. The writers are Pott (Einleitung in die all- gemeine sprachwissenschaft), Techmer, G. Mallery (Sign-language, largely a reprint), Friedrich Muller, Max Muller (a short article in German on a Vedic name which he supposes to be identical with our word ‘ zephyr,’ and to have been originally a name for the setting sun, zephyr meaning the west wind as coming from sunset), L. Adam (De la catégorie du genre), Sayce (The person-endings of the Indo-Euro- pean verb), and Brugmann. Techmer has two articles, —one devoted to the analysis and synthesis of audible speech ; the other, to the transcription of sounds; both accompanied by illustrative figures and tables. The former is intended to give briefly what is known on the subject, and to add new contri- butions. The treatment of vowels is what is likely to interest phoneticians most in this latest work on the subject, especially its posi- tion with regard to the English school. It must occasion surprise, not that the English system is rejected, but that the arguments against it are so brief and insufficient; hardly any thing but Bell’s work being considered, while v Marcu 21, 1884.| others, who have considerably modified Bell’s system, are practically ignored. Sweet ought to have received careful attention ; and Sievers surely deserved more than a curt footnote saying that the first edition of his book on phonetics had treated better than the second a certain class of vowels. The vowels meant have not yet been fully observed, but the Russian jery is one of them. Observations made sev- eral years ago in Leipzig, and renewed very recently in Boston by the writer of this notice, on the sound in question as pronounced by native Russians, are decidedly opposed to the theory accepted by Techmer; and Techmer’s own hardly seem to favor it. ‘That theory as- sumes that the sound is produced by w-position of the tongue, and 7-position of the lips, while the English system makes it a vowel formed with the tongue in the ‘mixed’ position. In the present state of vowel-analysis, a correct ac- count of this sound is of great importance, and vowels of the same class form one of the most marked features of the English scheme. Now, Techmer himself says he has only been able to observe a special form (spielart) of this class of vowels ; namely, the Russian sound: and this he marks as formed with partially passive lips, like English vowels, and (sometimes only ?) SCIENCE. 365 with an approach toward mitilere zungenartiku- lation. ‘This comes very near the English de- scription ofthe sound. The whole of Techmer’s article is less clear and less interesting than Sievers’s work, and makes the impression of resting more on theory than on unprejudiced observation of actual speech. To put, for ex- ample, a in the centre of the vowel-scheme must seem to many phoneticians a fundamen- tal error. Still, the article contains much that is valuable, and is not to be neglected. The second article, that on the graphic rep- resentation of speech-sounds, is open to objec- tion for the same reasons. The account of English e in err, and wu in but, certainly needed justification. They are represented as some- what incomplete varieties of a sound to be classed with German 6 and w,—a statement which can only be accepted by one who agrees with Techmer as to the place of a, if, indeed, by any one. Also the English and American ry sound ought to have been carefully dis- tinguished from the rolled or trilled r’s, as Sievers has done. , If the journal lives, it will certainly contain much valuable matter. It is only to be feared that its rivalry will injure others already estab- lished, such as Kuhn’s Zeitschrift. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey, Division of the Pacific.— This division includes those parts of California, Oregon, and Washington Territory the drainage of which flows to the Pacific Ocean. An exception is the Lewis Fork of the Columbia River, which rises within the limits of the Great Basin. The work undertaken in this division is divided into two classes; viz., the investigation of the mining- industries, and the study of the volcanic rocks. As preliminary to the latter, topographic work has been carried on for two seasons in northern California. Some of the details of this work, in the vicinity of Mount Shasta, have already been published. Examination of quicksilver deposits.— Mr. George F. Becker and his assistants have been engaged in an examination of the quicksilver depos- its of California. During the season of 1883 Mr. Becker’s personal attention has been devoted to in- vestigations in the vicinity of Sulphur Bank. In August a trip was made to the North Fork of Cache Creek and to Lower Lake, the only localities in that section where fossiliferous strata occur. The latter part of August and early part of September were spent in this section in order to complete the map of the Clear-Lake region of California, Returning to Sulphur Bank, soundings of the lake were taken, and the final examinations of the mines made, after which the party returned to San Francisco to pre- pare for the winter’s office-work. In the New Idria district, topographic work in connection with Mr. Becker’s work was carried on throughout the whole season by Mr. Hoffmann. The survey was made with the utmost care, and in great detail. Contour lines, eighty feet apart vertically, were run; and intermediate forty-foot contours were interpolated by means of slope-measurements in the steeper parts, and by running curves in the more level portions. The entire area surveyed includes twelve square miles, and the field-work for the map was completed early in 1884. Geologic work.—Mr. Turner, under the direc- tion of Mr. Becker, undertook an examination of the region in the vicinity of Knoxville, after a trip from Clear Lake to the latter point, during which, notes on the general geology of the line of travel were taken. His work was interfered with by sickness, which obliged him to enter the hospital at San Francisco for treatment. Later in the season, however, he returned to the field, and throughout January, 1884, was busy mapping the formations in the region about Knox- ville, od 366 Laboratory work.—Dr. Mellville, in the lab- oratory at San Francisco, has been busy with analyses of the minerals, rocks, and waters collected at Sul- phur Bank, and with other analytic work in con- nection with the examinations of the quicksilver deposits. He and Mr. Becker have been investigat- ing some of the chemical relations of quicksilver. Study of the volcanic rocks. —Capt.C. E. Dutton has been placed in charge of the investigation and study of the volcanic rocks in this division, with Mr. J. 8S. Diller as assistant. Capt. Dutton, during most of the past season, was busy in the preparation of his memoir on the Hawaiian volcanoes, which will be completed in time for publication in the fourth annual report of the director. Owing to the as yet incomplete state of the topographic work (which is progressing satisfactorily under the charge of Mr. Gilbert Thompson) in northern California, the field geologic work has been confined mainly to prelimi- nary reconnoissance work, which has been carried on by Mr. J.S. Diller. Mr. Diller and his assistants took the field at Red Bluff, Cal., early in July, and imme- diately began workin that vicinity. The plain east of Red Bluff is a voleanic conglomerate of andesitic basal- tic fragments of tufa. ‘This formation is apparently of great extent, and reaches to the eastward for twenty- five miles. Latein July the party left Red Bluff, after having made a trip of six days’ duration to Lassen’s Peak, and proceeded vid Redding to Yreka. From this point the ascent of Mount Shasta was made, after which they went to Linkville, Ore., taking the val- ley of the Klamath River to cross the main plat- form of the Cascade Range. Mr. Diller spent some time in the region of Mount Scott and Crater Lake, the geological features of which he found especially interesting. A brief but careful examination was made of the valley which the Klamath River cuts RECENT PROCEEDINGS Appalachian mountain-club, Boston. March 12. — The following resolution was adopted by the club: holding in high esteem the geographical labors of the late Professor Arnold Guyot, be it re- solved, that the Appalachian mountain club is im- pressed with the loss it is now called to sustain in the death of an honored and illustrious member, and that the club receives with gratitude that rich store of knowledge his researches have disclosed to those who seek the truths of nature among the Appalachian Mountains, A paper on mountain adventures by Mr. Alessandro di Placido, including a winter ascent of Fujiyama, Japan, and one by Dr. S. Kneeland on a visit to the crater of Vesuvius at night, in April, 1882, were read. —— Mr. C. H. Ames described the mountains around the Ktaadn iron-works in Maine. This group consists of thirty-one peaks, ranging in_ height from fifteen hundred to four thousand feet, the highest being’ White Cap. Mr. Ames exhibited a SCIENCE. across the Cascade Range, in order to ascertain the geologic structure of that mountain platform. Inter- esting studies were also made of the faults and dislo- cations on the eastern side of the range, near Klamath Lake. The work thus detailed kept the party busy during August; and during September the reconnois- sance along the eastern side of the range was contin- ued. Union Peak, Mount Thielson, Crescent and Summit lakes, and Diamond Peak were all visited. From the latter Mr. Diller proceeded to the group of volcanic cones known as the Three Sisters, where both Mr. Diller and his assistant, Mr. Hayden, met with the accident already noted, which obliged them to suspend work temporarily. Later on, however, the work was continued to the northward. An ac- count of the return trip to Red Bluff, vid the western side of the Cascade Range, has been already given in Science. The entire trip occupied a hundred and eleven days, and the distance travelled was twenty- five hundred miles. The work done will be of great service in the determination of many of the prob- lems connected with the range, and will form an excel- lent basis for future field-work. Mr. Diller is of the opinion that a special study of Lassen’s Peak, if made before the detailed examination of the Cascade Range is begun, will be of great service. He says, no other ancient voleano in the United States is known that has erupted such a variety of lavas, or placed them in so favorable a position for study of their succession, as has Lassen’s Peak. The solfataric phenomena at ‘Bumpass’ Hill,’ and other places in the vicinity of Lassen, are much more extensive than at any other point in the Cascade Range. The region is also readily accessible. To the northward and southward, there are good exposures of the rocks which form the foun- dation of the Cascade Range, whereas north of Mount Shasta the exposures of these rocks are limited. OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. beaver-skin, moose-antlers, and a reindeer-head. Mr. W. M. Davis, representing the U. S. geological sur- vey, explained the proposition which the survey has made to this state for the production of a map, and the following resolution was passed: resolved, that the Appalachian mountain club, in view of the great in- sufficiency of the existing maps of Massachusetts, recognizes, in the proposal recently made to the legis- lature by the U.S. geological survey, an opportunity to obtain a topographical map of the state which should not be lost, unless the legislature is prepared to in- augurate a more thorough and expensive plan. Linnaean society, New York. March 7. — The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: president, E. P. Bicknell; vice- president, Dr. A. K. Fisher; recording secretary, L. S. Foster; corresponding secretary and treasurer, N. T. Lawrence. Mr. E. P. Bicknell read the con- [Vor. IIL, No. 59 j MARCH 21, 1884.] tinuation of his paper, ‘A study of the singing of our birds,’ the first instalment of which has appeared in The auk. The portion of the paper read consisted of a consideration of the arrival, departure, and song periods, with their duration and lapse, of thirty-eight birds. His observations were made at Riverdale, N.Y.——A paper was presented by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, giving a life-history of the woodchuck as he had found it in the Adirondack region; recording its change of abode from the meadows to the edges of the woods as the hibernating-time approached, its weak attempts at tree-climbing, its almost total abstinence from water, the rare exercise of its swim- ming-powers, its occasional evidence of carnivorous -propensities; and closing with an extract from the laws of New Hampshire that offer a bounty of ten cents for each woodchuck destroyed in that state. Dr. E. A. Means stated that about two per cent of the Adirondack woodchucks were melanistic. —— Notes concerning: a few early spring birds were given by Mr. N. T. Lawrence; and Mr. William Dutcher spoke of the recent capture of a fine female Archibuteo lagopus Sancti-Johannis in black plu- mage on Long Island. —— Mr. E. P. Bicknell men- tioned the blooming of those early spring flowers, the skunk-cabbage and the golden saxifrage, at pres- ent at Riverdale, N.Y. Cincinnati society of natural history. March 4.— Mr. Charles Dury read a paper on North-American hares, with notes on the peculiarities and distribution of all the known species and varieties. He said that in Kansas and Colorado the common prairie hare, Lepus campestris, is commonly though erroneously called the jackass-rabbit. The true jack- rabbit, L. callotis, has a more southern range. A skin of a specimen shot by Mr. Dury in New Mexico was exhibited. He had measured tracks of this hare which were twelve feet apart. ‘The flesh of L. callo- tis Mr. Dury found to be very coarse and unpalatable. Not so, however, that of the little sage hare, L. Nuttalli, which was very good, providing the animal be drawn immediately after being killed. If the intestines are allowed to remain for even half an hour, their contents give the flesh a sagy flavor. — Prof. Joseph F. James read an abstract of notes on some plants of the vicinity of Cincinnati. He ex- hibited a series of specimens of Cardamine (Dentaria) laciniata and C. (Dentaria) multifida, which showed that the two species could not be separated, and should be included under one specific name. Mr. Davis L. James read a notice of Mr. Thomas W. Spurlock, a botanist of local reputation, —a sort of Tam Edwards, who followed botanical pursuits from a pure love of them, and who, by his liberal distribu- tion of rare specimens, and by his simple and child- like love for flowers and plants, had laid collectors under many obligations, and made his memory dear to them. Engineers’ club, Philadelphia. March 1. — Mr. William Ludlow described tests of the erushing-strength of ice which were made by him in order to learn approximately the strength required SCIENCE. 307 for an ice harbor of iron screw-piles, in mid-channel, at the head of Delaware Bay. Eighteen pieces were tried with government testing-machines at Frankford, Philadelphia, and at Fort Tompkins, Staten Island. The specimens were carefully prepared six-inch and twelve-inch cubes, and roughly cut slabs about three inches thick, of different qualities and from different localities. For pure Kennebec ice the lowest strength obtained was three hundred and twenty-seven pounds, and the highest a thousand pounds, per square inch. For inferior qualities the strengths varied from two hundred and thirty-five to nine hundred and seventeen pounds. The higher results were obtained generally when the air temperature in the testing-room was from 29° to 36° F., as against 55° to 68° F. for the lower results. The pieces generally compressed half an inch to an inch before crushing. The secretary exhibited for Mr. C. A. Ashburner a set of blue prints of some yet unpublished details of the Chicago cable railways. —— The secretary presented a note, by Prof. W.S. Chaplin, upon a prevalent error in data given for determining the true meridian, by observing the instant at which Polaris and Alioth come into the same vertical, and then following Polaris for a certain time, at the expiration of which it.is said to be on the meridian. He gives as the true time the follow- ing: latitude 40°, 25 m. 36s.; latitude 50°, 25m. 24s. ; latitude 60°, 25 m. 5 s.; latitude 70°, 24 m. 29 s. Mr. C. J. Quetil exhibited models of the wire truss recently described by him. —— Professor Mansfield Merriman presented a statement of the progress of the triangulation carried on in Pennsylvania by the U.S. coast and geodetic survey. Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, Feb. 28.— Dr. Joseph Leidy directed attention to some parasitic worms, which included specimens of supposed leeches from the mouth of the Florida alli- gator. Herodotus states that the crocodile of the Nile had the inside of his mouth almost beset with leeches. The truth of this assertion has been confirmed by modern zodlogists, the species being the Bdella nilo- tica. The Florida specimens are, however, not leeches, but pertain to a species of Distoma or fluke, appar- ently not previously described, for which the name Distoma oricola was proposed. Of several Filariae, or thread-worms. exhibited, two, a female and a male, belong to the species Filaria horrida. The former is twenty-eight, and the latter eleven, inches long. They were obtained from the thorax of the American os- trich. Other specimens were found in the abdomen of the marsh-owl. Two species of thread-worm have been previously observed in the bodies of owls, to neither of which the specimens under examination appear tobelong. ‘They so closely accord, however, with the descriptions of another species, Filaria la- biata, infesting the black stork of Europe and northern Africa, that, notwithstanding the remote relationship in the host, the speaker believed them to belong to that species. Dr. N. A. Randolph spoke of the changes which occur in milk during boiling. Although but little difference can be detected by the unaided senses between raw and boiled milk, it was well 7 bias SCIENCE. ” 368 known, that, during the process of boiling, certain gases are given off; and the behavior of the fluid afterwards, under certain reagents, is different from that in its original state. If rennet be added to boiled milk at the temperature of the body, no change occurs for some hours; while, if added to raw milk, coagula- tion takes place rapidly. If diluted acid be added to boiled milk, it produces immediate coagulation; but, if mixed with the raw fluid, coagulation takes place much less rapidly. If alkali be added to the former, cream arises with rapidity and completeness, while no marked change occurs when it is added to the latter. Observations made, of forty-six specimens of gastric contents obtained from six men fed on milk, established the fact that unboiled milk had slightly the advantage as a nutrient, being somewhat more digestible than when boiled. Peptone was found to be present at all stages of digestion. His obser- vations on the effect of rennet confirmed those of Schreiner, published some time ago in Munich. A communication was read from Miss 8S. G. Foulke on the structure and habits of Manayunkia speciosa, the fresh-water worm recently described by Professor Leidy. Miss Foulke has had an opportunity of study- ing mature specimens, and has consequently been able to make important additions to Dr. Leidy’s account of the species, which was based on young specimens. NOTES AND NEWS. A GENERAL meeting of the American forestry congress will be held at Washington, D.C., on May 7. Time and place have been chosen contrary to prece- dent, in order to find an opportunity of calling attention to the society’s active work, and impress- ing upon Congress, then assembled, the needs and requirements of forestry in this country. It is there- fore desirable that such meeting should be well at- tended; and no individual efforts should be spared by the members and friends of this association to make the same particularly interesting and effective. The following subjects have been selected as leading topies of discussion, referees having been appointed to prepare papers in regard to them: Value of Ameri- can timber-lands; Management of timber-lands and timber in Canada, and legislation thereon; Value and management of government timber-lands; Best method of planting trees on unoccupied government lands; Influence of forests on climate and health; Insects injurious to trees, causes and dangers of their excessive multiplication, and how to meet them in their wholesale ravages; Growing forests from seed by farmers; Preservation of forests on head waters of streams; Planting of trees by railroad companies; Irrigation in connection with tree-planting; Experi- ment-stations and forest-schools; How can we best promote the interest in, and knowledge of, forestry among all classes of this country ? — The yearly meeting of the Russian geograph- ical society was, as usual, largely taken up by the report of the secretary about the yearly work. Nothing of special interest, not yet known, was in- cluded. In the yearly award of the medals which followed, the greatest gift of the society, the Con- stantine medal, was given to N. A. Sewertzow, the celebrated zodlogist and explorer of central Asia, for his lifelong work. The great gold medals of the sec- tions of ethnography and statistics were not awarded this time. The Lutke medal was given to H. A. Wild for meteorological works. Four gold medals and a considerable number of silver and bronze ones were also awarded. At the February meeting of the society a com- munication was received from Bukharow, Russian consul at Hammerfest, Norway, about his extensive travels in the Lapland peninsula in the fall of 1883. The fourth number of the society’s Izviestiya has been issued. It contains, besides matter mentioned here, Konshin’s account of the Kara-Kum sands in central Asia, and Vasenew’s travels into western Mongolia. — At a meeting of railroad engineers in Moscow in December, 1883, the establishment of meteorological stations at the railroad-stations, and of weather-tele- grams sent by the railway-wires to Moscow, so as to be able to get information about the state of the weather, and predictions of events of interest to railroads (as snow-storms, heavy rains, and sudden thaws), was proposed. A meeting of the railroad boards, held soon after, agreed to this proposal; and so it is to be hoped Russia may soon have a system of observations by properly paid and controlled men, instead of relying entirely, as now, on unpaid and voluntary observers. — A call has been issued for a meeting of inventors and persons interested in the perpetuation of the present system of U.S. patent-laws, to be held at Music Hall, Cincinnati, March 25, 26, and 27. The call is signed by gentlemen from twenty states, and delegates are expected from thirty-two states. Ar- rangements are being perfected for a probable attend- ance of three thousand. The first object of this meeting is to effect a per- manent organization for the purpose of protecting the rights of inventors and patentees. Over two hun- dred and fifty thousand patents have been issued by the United States, from which it is clear that very large interests are at stake in any changes of the pat- ent-laws such as are now pending before Congress. Twenty-eight bills have been introduced in the pres- ent Congress, which interfere more or less directly with patents or their owners, and diminish in one way or another the protection afforded to inventors. One bill provides that no damages can be recovered for infringements prior to written notice served on the infringed by the patentee, thus rewarding the secret manufacture of patented articles. Another bill is to prevent the recovery of damages in cases where the amount involved is less than twenty dollars; and an- other bill fixes this amount at fifty dollars. —On the 11th of February died John Hutton Bal-- four, for many years professor of botany in the Uni- versity of Edinburgh, director of the Royal botanic garden, and Queen’s botanist for Scotland. He was born in that city on the 15th of September, 1808, and fina MARcH# 21, 1884.] had therefore attained a good old age. About four years ago, in failing health, he resigned his official positions, but afterwards recovered his vigor, so that he might have been expected to see his university fairly entered upon its fourth century. The end of this excellent man came suddenly, — we believe, in the same week in which his son, Isaac Bayley Bal- four, was elected professor of botany at Oxford. The elder Balfour was eminent only as a teacher of bot- any, in which he had great success, and in the devel- opment and administration of the admirable garden and arboretum of the Scottish capital. — A *‘general geologic map of the area explored and mapped by Dr. F. V. Hayden, and the surveys under his charge, 1869 to 1880,’’ forms No. 11. of the series accompanying the twelfth and final report of the geological survey of the territories. This map was not mentioned in our notice of the report (Science, No. 51), as it was omitted in the earlier distributed volumes; but it is of especial value in presenting a general review, that is nowhere given in the reports, of what has been accomplished by Dr. Hayden’s parties. It includes all of Colorado and Wyoming, the greater part of Montana, and half of Dakota and Nebraska. It has unfortunately no topo- sraphic shading; and there is no distinction made in the coloring of those parts that have been examined with satisfactory detail, and others where informa- tion is derived from reconnoissance, or even from hearsay. Still, the more notable features of the re- gion are well shown, —the broad monotony of the plains, the inconstant variety of the irregular moun- tain uplifts, the long-continued paleozoic and meso- zoic conformity, and the absence or insignificant _representation of the Devonian in the Rocky Moun- tains proper, and the unconformable overlap of the tertiary. Of more local peculiarity, there may be mentioned the isolated uplift of the Black Hills, here well shown in its relation to the ranges farther west; the abrupt change from a north and south to an east and west trend in the Laramie range; the appearance of narrow and parallel Great Basin ranges at the western margin of Wyoming; and the crescentic form of the Big Horn range. Concerning this last and the more northern part of the map, further exploration may require considerable changes. — Mr. Paul Bert read to the Paris academy, at a recent meeting, the latest results of his researches into the effects of anaesthetics. He believes that the use of chloroform in surgical cases, where the patient suffers from weakness of the heart, may be made comparatively, if not entirely, safe. Mr. Bert is of opinion that the quantity of an anaesthetic is less important to observe than the tension of the vapor inhaled, and the proportion of air with which it is mixed. He has constructed an apparatus with which he administers a proportion of eight grams of chloro- form to a hundred litres of air. Experiments which he has made with this have shown, that not only is a saving of chloroform effected, but the danger is considerably lessened. The pulse of the patient inhaling the mixture is calm, and the temperature of the body is not sensibly lowered; while in only four SCIENCE. 369 cases out of twenty-two was the slightest appearance of nausea produced. To this proposition of Bert’s, Gosselin objected that the use of a cumbersome piece of apparatus, in place of the convenient sponge or handkerchief, ought to be considered; and that by Bert’s method a uni- form amount of chloroform must needs be adminis- tered to all patients, regardless of their susceptibility to its effects. Bert rejoined, that with the sponge there was great danger of exceeding the safe tension of the vapor. His experiments with dogs showed, that, with six grams of chloroform to a hundred litres of air, a dog could be rendered insensible; with ten grams, the insensibility comes on in a few minutes, and can be allowed to continue for an hour and a half with safety; while, with twenty-four grams, the dog was dead in forty-five minutes. — The petroleum industry of Baku still continues to attract attention. Messrs. Hobel, whose work there has been of such importance to the development of the trade, have published a pamphlet on the capabili- ties of the province, and the commerce of the Black Sea; while a book is announced in the literary jour-' nals, dealing with the working of petroleum since classical times. The title is ‘Petrolia;’ and it is by Mr. Charles Marvin, of Khiva fame. —The Centraiblatt fir textil industrie recently published an article on the increase in manufactur- ing industry in Livonia, Esthonia, Courland, and the Polish provinces of Russia. The first three proy- inces contain 1,329 factories, the annual production of which now represents a total value of more than £12,000,000, this sum being nearly double the amount for 1873. In Courland the main industry is the dis- tillation of spirits, which in 1882 attained a value of nearly £1,000,000. The development of Polish indus- try took place, for the most part, during the years 1877-80. In the year 1881 Poland contained 19,000 factories, which produced wares of the total value of about £30,000,000. The greatest progress has been in the textile industries. One factor in the industrial activity of Poland has been the steady demand for yarn from factories in the interior of Russia. The cotton industry is the most important: in 1881 it employed about 20,000 work-people, its out-turn rep- resenting a value of £5,000,000. Next comes the woollen industry, with 15,000 work-people, and a yearly production of £3,500,000in value. In the linen branch 10,000 work-people are engaged, and the production represents about £1,000,000 per annum. The raw material is, for the most part, obtained from the inte- rior of Russia, only a small quantity being imported. Moscow, Charkoff, and St. Petersburg are the prin- cipal markets. — The Engineer states that the world’s average product of sulphur is about 280,000 tons, of an average value of 109.20 lire per ton = 30,793,000 lire, or over £1,200,000 sterling. Of this total, Sicily produces 242,000 tons. There is an export duty of 11 lire per ton on sulphur, and the average export is 216,000 tons. The Sicilian sulphur is mostly exported raw, a 370 as it comes from the kilns. It is of seven qualities, the values varying from 101 to 115 lire per ton. Except in the better-worked ‘solfare,’ the separation of the sulphur from the earths in which it is contained is still conducted in Sicily by means of kilns (cal- curoni), which do not require any additional fuel, but ~which entail the consumption and loss of about one- third of the sulphur itself. About 18,000 hands are employed in the Sicilian ‘solfare,’ of whom about 14,000 work in the interior of the mines, including those employed in the transport of the ore to the surface. The sulphur in many mines is still carried to the surface on the backs of boys called ‘ carusi,’ of whom there are about 3,500. —Prof. F. H. Snow writes to the Topeka daily capital as follows: — The climate of eastern Kansas is not the climate of western Kansas. Any discussion of this subject will be entirely inadequate which fails to recognize the fact that Kansas is meteorologically divided into two distinct regions, separated from each other by an intermediate area, whose climate exhibits a gradual transition between the eastern and the western sec- tions. The inclusion of two such widely differing regions in one civil commonwealth has its disadvan- tages as well as its advantages. The striking adap- tability of western Kansas to sustain the immense cattle interests of that section adds an important element of prosperity to the state; but the fact that thousands of new-comers, from ignorance of the climate, have attempted to introduce ordinary agri- cultural operations upon the so-called ‘ plains,’ and have disastrously failed in the attempt, has placed an undeserved stigma upon the good name of Kansas in many far distant communities, and has undoubt- edly somewhat retarded immigration during the past few years. It is time for the general recognition of the fact, that, except in the exceedingly limited area where irrigation is possible, the western third of Kansas is beyond the limit of successful agricul- ture. Yet this portion of Kansas, upon the basis of one individual to each ten acres, has the capacity to continuously sustain an aggregate of nearly two million head of cattle. The last biennal report of the State board of agriculture represents the total number of cattle in the entire state as less than one and a half millions, which is considerably below the number which might be supported by the western third of the state alone. The average direction of the winds in eastern Kansas is from the south-west. ‘The average velocity of the wind at Lawrence is a little more than fifteen and a half miles an hour. This is sufficiently high to assist materially the proper ventilation of our houses and our clothing, but does not justify the common expression in other parts of the country, that the Kansan lives in a continual gale. For the sake of comparison, it may be mentioned that the average hourly velocity of the wind in Philadelphia is eleven, at Toronto nine miles, and at Liverpool thirteen miles. The greatest velocity recorded at Lawrence was at the rate of eighty miles per hour, from 3.35 to 3.45 A.m., April 18, 1880. SCIENCE. The average as [Von. IIL, No. 59. annual distance travelled by the wind at Lawrence is a little more than a hundred and thirty-eight thou- sand miles. March and April are the two windiest months, the velocity rising to nearly twenty miles an hour. July and August are the two calmest months, the rate subsiding to less than twelve miles an hour. — The Canadian naturalist, which was discontinued last June, has re-appeared as the Canadian record of natural history and geology, published by the natural history society of Montreal. The former journal was published for the society by Messrs. Dawson Brothers. We regret the unnecessary change of title, when the scope of the journal is precisely the same as before, and it remains the organ of the same society. — The belief of the Hawaiians, that the Achatinel- lae emit musical sounds, is an old one; and these pretty little mollusks were sometimes called ‘ singing- snails.’ The Rev. H. G. Barnacle, M.A., of the Transit of Venus expedition in 1874, heard the music, which he compares to the sound of many aeo- lian harps. Hitherto the native story has not found credence among conchologists; but this gentleman succeeded in determining that the sound was due to the friction of the shells upon the bark of the trees, over which they are dragged by their inhabitants. As most of the species are arboreal, and they exist in millions, it is conceivable that the sound, should be distinctly audible; yet that it should bein any way musical is singular. — Miss Fannie M. Hele has recently observed the effect of food on a lemon-colored variety of Helix aspersa. A diet of lettuce reduced them to a dirty- brown yellow; and the more lettuce given to them, the darker and dingier the color of the shell became. A reversed specimen was bred from, in the hope of secur- ing additional specimens of this rare variety; but to no purpose: the eggs, when hatched, produced only normal individuals. — During the past year, four new additions were made to the group of small planets between Mars and Jupiter, making the number two hundred and thirty-five in all. No. 232, named Russia, was discov- ered the 31st of January, 1883, by Palisa, at Vienna: its magnitude is the twelfth, and the elements of its orbit exhibit no peculiarities. No. 233, not yet named, was discovered by Borelly, at Marseilles: its - magnitude is the eleventh, and the elements of its orbit are as yet undetermined. No. 234, named Bar- bara, was discovered the 12th of August, 1883, by Peters, at Clinton: its magnitude is the ninth, and the elements of its orbit exhibit no peculiarities. No. 235, named Carolina, was discovered the 21st of November, 1883, by Palisa, at Vienna: its magni- tude is the twelfth, and the elements of its orbit are as yet undetermined. The twelve small planets im- mediately preceding the above have received names as follows : — 220, Stephania. 221, Eos. 222, Lucia. 223, Rosa. 224, Oceana. 225, Henrietta. 229, Adelinda. 226, Weringia. 230, Athamantis. 227, Philosophia. 231, Vindobona, 228, Agathe. Sir Neer. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Tue University of Edinburgh is making arrangements to celebrate, on the seventeenth day of April next, the three hundredth anni- versary of its foundation, by an academic assembly, to which the chief institutions of learning throughout the world are_ invited. Several American colleges are to be repre- sented. With reference to this tercentenary, Sir Alexander Grant, the principal, has just published two stout octavo volumes, in which ‘The story of the University of Edinburgh’ is elaborately told. ‘The volumes are rich in illustrations of all the concurrent influences which have given renown to the youngest and strongest of the Scotch institutions. The rise of each important department of instruction is told, and the lives of all the more distinguished professors are briefly given. Among the natural sciences, medicine has been the one most encouraged in Edinburgh, although it must be remembered that much of the medical reputation of the city is due to the peculiar arrangements by which medical men not connected with the university give in- struction, and prepare young men for medical graduation. ‘ Extra-mural’ instruction is the term employed. Nevertheless, the roll of uni- versity professors includes the name of Charles Bell, of whom the story is told, that, when he visited the class-room of Roux in Paris, Roux dismissed the class, saying, ‘ Sufficient, gentle- men: you have seen Charles Bell.’ Another university professor was Sir James Y. Simp- son, whose bold introduction of chloroform as an anaesthetic is world-renowned. Scotchman was presented at the court of Denmark, the king said, ‘ You come from Edin- burgh? Ah! Sir Simpson was of Edinburgh.’ Simpson himself said he was more interested No. 60. —1884. When a- in having delivered a woman without pain than in having been made physician to the queen. At an earlier date the fame of Wil- liam Cullen was wide-spread. Among the teachers of non-medical sciences, the names of Black, John Playfair, Robert Jameson, David Brewster, Edward Forbes, James D. Forbes, and Wyville Thomson are those which come first to mind; while in mental and moral science the Scotch philosophers, Dugald Stew- art, Thomas Brown, and Sir William Hamil- ton, are not likely to be forgotten. It sounds strange enough in these days to read that Thomas Carlyle thought himself ill-used be- cause he could not get the appointment of practical astronomy and astronomer royal in 1834. Instead came Thomas Henderson, who won renown as ‘ the first discoverer of our dis- tance from a fixed star.’ We do not name any of the living professors, and we pass: without mention many famous men who are’ gone; but what we have said suggests the doctrine, which cannot too often be repeated in this country, that the standing of a university depends upon illustrious teachers. The world of scholars, no longer united under the sovereignty of the pope, but loyal to the higher sovereignty of truth, will with one accord extend its congratulations to the great’ modern foundation of Scotch learning, and will rejoice that in its three-hundredth year it’ has reached its greatest numerical expansion, ’ with increasing devotion to all that is noble in science and education. Tur reports of the U. S. signal-office show that there were at Cincinnati, during last Feb- ruary, four clear days, three fair days, one cloudy, and twenty-one on which rain or snow’ fell; and that the total precipitation was 8.87 ° inches. The following figures give the precip- ” itation in inches during February of each year ; sincemmow: 167h, 2:27; 1872; 1:67; 1873; + 3: 16h tas Oo. 90; 1875, -1.83;°1876, 2.92: 7 372 1677, (67% 1878, 2:33: 1879, 2:22 -- Team 4.50; 1881, 4.95; 1882, 7.04; 1883, 8.22; 1884, 8.87. We hazard nothing in asserting, that it does not lie within human ability to arrest such mighty storms as occurred in 1883 and 1884: and it may fairly be questioned whether the ingenuity of man can devise means to prevent the wide-spread and destructive floods which must follow such a volume of water as then fell; whether any extension of forests, or system of catch-basins or reservoirs, could possibly retain or mitigate to any considerable extent such general and overwhelming floods. A system of artificial lakes might indeed be at such times a serious element of danger ; for, if one of them should break its restraining banks, its accumulated waters would be likely to carry away others, and then the waters, suddenly let loose, would do damage of which we have had a few frightful examples on a small scale. Tue demands of progressive agriculture for a more substantial scientific basis are just now beginning to find definite expression in the Do- minion of Canada. From the known attitude of certain members of the government, from the recent examination of experts before a spe- cial House committee at Ottawa, and from the general expressions of those who have a direct interest in the question, it is apparent that a ‘keen sense of the utility of experiment-sta- tions is now developing a movement, which, it is to be hoped, will secure for the Dominion one or more much-needed stations, founded upon the European idea of their utility from a scien- tific stand-point, and from that of the practical application of acquired results. THIs season promises to be offe of unusual activity in the observation and study of torna- does. In response to an invitation from the signal-service, a considerable number of tor- nado reporters is secured; and the first fruit of their labors has just appeared with most praise- worthy promptness in the form of a set of four preliminary charts illustrating the recent nu- anerous and destructive tornadoes in the south- ern states on Feb. 19. Further investigation is SCIENCE. needed before a final account of these terrible storms is prepared; but it is shown by these charts, that over fifty tracks of tornado-action have been reported for Feb. 19, between seven in the morning and midnight, all occurring within a cyclonic area, and from three to seven ~ hundred miles south-south-east of the centre of low pressure. As the broad cyclone moved for- ward, its centre passing from Illinois to Lake Huron, the tornado district on its southern edge had a similar advance across the south- ern states. The cyclone was peculiar in show- ing a long, trough-like barometric depression, and in presenting notably strong contrasts of temperature between its south-eastern and north-western sides. ‘The tornadoes were all developed within the district occupied by warm southerly winds, somewhat in advance of the cold north-westerly winds; but they moved, without exception, in a north-easterly direc- tion. Their destructive action was’ most se- vere in eastern Alabama, northern Georgia, and centrally across the Carolinas. Rough estimates place the value of property destroyed at between three and four million dollars; the loss of life, at about one thousand ; the wound- ed, at more than double that number; while the homeless and destitute people are report- ed to count from fifteen to twenty thousand, many of whom are in a starving condition. About ten thousand buildings are said to be destroyed, and domestic animals were killed in great numbers. It hardly need be urged, that the possibility of giving some warning of immediate danger before such storms warrants the fullest and most careful investigation of all their attendant conditions. In preparation for this work, the ‘ tornado circulars,’ issued by the signal-service to pro- mote the accumulation of record and statistics of these destructive storms, have now reached the number of twenty. The most considerable of the later ones is No. 16, which contains, in all, two hundred and three questions or direc- tions designed to aid in the precise description of tornadoes and the conditions of their forma- tion: these are arranged under several head-— Makcu 28, 1884.] ings, addressed to observers on the immediate track, or more than ten miles from it; and, if carefully read, they will serve as good train- ing for those who desire to take part in the investigation of these most disastrous upset- tings of the atmosphere. Circular 18 relates to observations to be made ‘ concerning the presence of electricity in tornadoes,’ and asks thirty-two questions to this end. It is to be hoped that all persons living in the tornado districts of the country, and desiring to take part in the work as volunteer observers, will apply to the chief signal-ofticer for circulars of instructions. It is worth mentioning, that the single water- spout recorded in the supplement to the pilot- chart of the North Atlantic for March occurred on Feb. 19, eighty miles east of Charleston, where it struck the schooner Three sisters, *‘ carrying away main gaff, mainsail and fore- sail, and flattening in the after-hatches.’’ This is evidently connected with the group of tor- nadoes above described. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. Law connecting physical constants. It may be of interest to some of your readers to know how the two formulae published in the adver- tising columns of Science, No. 54, can be derived from the magnetic theory of molecular cohesion. The work necessary to separate completely the par- ticles of a body occupying the unit-of volume can easily be calculated if we know the original attrac- tion between every two particles, and its rate of change during expansion. For small magnetized spheres, this work is equal to the resultant attraction across the unit of surface. The latter, moreover, is necessarily equal to the pressure which the particles keep up by their incessant motion; which, again, is shown, by a well-known dynamical theorem, to be equal to the continued product of the coefficients of expansion and of resilience and the absolute tem- perature. This product is therefore finally the mechanical equivalent of the internal latent heat of the unit of volume of a liquid. The theory does not apply to such liquids as water, in which, at low temperatures, a molecular re-arrange- ment is evidently going on; but in general, the higher the temperature, the more closely is the law fulfilled. The grouping of the atoms, and their vibration within the molecule, recently treated by Professor Eddy of Cincinnati, produce in the most unfavorable cases a variation of about thirty per cent from the theory: nevertheless, the general agreement is too great to attribute to chance, and becomes almost perfect when the causes alluded to are considered. The average value of the latent heat for ordinary liquids may be SCIENCE. 373 shown to be about 1.2 times greater than for simple substances. The molecules of all liquids appear to be very close together, notwithstanding the common prejudice that they are far apart; and, taking into account the com- parative shortness of their free path, the coefficients alluded to may be obtained approximately by pro- cesses of ordinary differentiation, while their rate of change as the temperature increases can be deter- mined as accurately as by actual observation. The latent heat is found to vary inversely, the co- efficient of expansion almost directly, as the free path of the molecule; and their continued product with the molecular weight is therefore nearly, but not quite, constant. The average value is about eight and a half; and any slight variations from this average are accounted for by the complete formula. With these hints, and remembering that the induc- tive attraction between two small magnets varies as the seventh power of the distance inversely, while their normal attraction is inversely as the fourth, any mathematician familiar with the principles of physics may verify the laws already enunciated, and deduce others of equal importance in the same way. The difference, for instance, between the specific heats in the state of liquid and vapor, is evidently the derivative of any true expression for the latent heat; and the critical temperature is found by supposing the latent heat equal to zero. ‘The relations between all these quantities are represented with a remarkable degree of approximation. The magnetic theory of cohesion promises to be, in molecular physics, what the law of universal gravita- tion has proved to be in astronomy. While carrying on the development as rapidly as possible myself, I would urge others, independently, to do the same, in the belief that this theory affords a most magnificent field, both for work and for discovery. HAROLD WHITING. Cambridge, March 17. Relics in Ventura county, Cal. Rincon Creek, fourteen miles west of San Buena- ventura, is the dividing-line between Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Where this creek flows into the ocean, at least a hundred acres are covered with shells, bones, fish-scales, and other kitchen débris of the Indians, who have lived here from time imme- morial. ‘The creek, which is fed by mountain springs, afforded good water; the ocean yielded fish and mol- lusks; while the foot-hills and mountains furnished wild game. A large variety of mollusks are still found at this point, and the shell-heaps indicate their great abundance in past time. Edible clams espe- cially abounded; as Pachydesma crassatelloides, Tapes staminea, T. diversa, also Mytilus californianus. Rincon Point was doubtless long a favorite resort for the early race that inhabited this coast. In one spot I found hufnan bones, a few years since, which were in a semi-fossil state. They had been buried on the brow of a high bluff overlooking the sea, and were about four feet below the surface. One skull, that of an aged person, was perforated at the apex. The perforation seems to have been made by a sharp instrument, and some time before death, but for what purpose it is difficult to say. In another spot on the mesa, and three hundred yards from the ocean, oc- curred a burial-place in which the skeletons were re- duced to an impalpable dust. In this dry soil and climate it must have required centuries for them to decay. In this place I found many ‘ sinkers’ from three to twelve inches long, carved from sandstone, limestone, ete. They were from three-fourths of an 3:74 - inch to-an inch and a half in diameter in the middle, gradually sloping toward each end. ‘There were also tubes of serpentine six or eight inches long, large chert knives, spear-points, and other things, all buried about four feet deep. Between this spot and the ocean was another burial-place, where, on the side of a declivity, many skeletons were found but eighteen inches to two feet below the surface, mingled with broken sandstone mortars and pestles, spear-points, arrow-heads, etc. On the east side of the creek, between a high pre- cipitous bluff and the ocean, is a three-cornered tract containing about ten acres, which is the site of an old rancheria or village. In the midst of this old town site I found a burial-place that indicated a somewhat more recent race than the first two mentioned. Here I exhumed a hundred or more skeletons, and at least a ton of relics: consisting of mortars and pestles of sandstone, ollas and tortilla stones of crystallized tale, pipes and bowls of serpentine, spear-points and arrow- heads of chert; also beads and ‘charms,’ and innu- merable shell ornaments. Last month I again visited this place, and exhumed a few more relics. In a spot about four by eight feet, and in the shape of a parallelogram, I found fifteen skeletons. With one of these were three tubes about three inches in length. In shape they were similar to the ‘sinkers’ already described, but with raised beads in the middle and at each end. These and some round beads were manufactured from serpen- tine. Beside the specimens mentioned, were many small shell disks made from Olivella biplicata. An arrow-head was found with another skeleton. About three feet from the excavation described, I found three more skeletons, one of which was that of a child; and with it occurred two stone tubes similar to those above mentioned, also three round beads about one inch in diameter. The beads and tubes were of serpentine, containing seams of chrysolite, and were finely polished. With another skeleton, were -five arrow-heads finely chipped from chert. One was a beautiful specimen with serrated edges, and a por- tion of the asphaltum with which it was fastened into the arrow still remained. With another, oc- curred several ornaments manufactured from Luca- pina crenulata, and also an arrow-head. In a spot occupying less than fifteen feet in diameter I ex- humed forty skeletons, piled one upon another. They were buried face downward, and could be counted only by the skulls. STEPHEN BOWERS. San Buenaventura, Cal. The spirifers of the upper Devonian. In the prefatory letter of the Report of progress, G. 7, of the Second geological survey of Pennsylvania, certain statements are made respecting the association and order of some of the fossil species of the Devo- nian rocks of New York, calling for comment. It is stated on p. xx., in regard to Spirifera dis- juncta, S. mesocostalis, and S. mesostrialis, that, ‘‘outside of Pennsylvania, these three species have been found, (1) never in any but Chemung rocks; (2) confined each to its own-horizon; and (3) always in a fixed order from above downwards ;”’ and, on p. Xxi., that ‘‘ Professor Hall has never seen any two of the three species co-existing in the same stratum; . . that he cannot comprehend how S. dj. and S. ms. should be found together’ (as they are reported to occur on p. 65 of the report). Again (p. xxii.) it is stated that ‘‘ Orthis tulliensis, in bed 41, § 13, p. 70, has certainly never before been seen in the Chemung 2U0’ above the Genesee (i.e., SCIENCE, a = [Vou. IIL, No. 6 300’ above the Tully limestone), nor in company of S. mesocostalis.”’ * The report of species in such ‘uncanonical’ posi- tions in the strata is made a reason for concluding (p. xxvi.) that ‘‘ the startling fossil species of this report will therefore be regarded by the palaeonto- logical reader as only provisionally verified.”’ While the statements cited may express the general rule as to the occurrence of species in New-York state, there are specimens in Cornell university mu- seum which do not bear out the statements. In the first place, the two species S. mesostrialis and S. mesocostalis are found associated in the same stratum at Ithaca, N.Y., both in the mesostrialis zone and in the mesocostalis zone. Several instances can be shown where they occur on the same slab. From a higher horizon in New-York state, and from several localities, either of these species may be found associated with 8. disjuncta; and I have obtained each of the three species from the original Chemung locality at Chemung Narrows. In the museum collection, is a small slab from that locality, containing beautiful representatives of S. disjuncta and S. mesostrialis ; the latter preserving ‘the fine radiate striae, with delicate concentric cross-lines’ all over the surface of the shell, and with ~ ‘the broad median fold without a depression,’ which are described as distinctive characters of the species (Pal. N.Y., vol. 4, p. 243). | The other specimen, only a couple of inches dis- tant, has the characteristic plications on the median fold, and, with a surface equally well preserved, shows not the least trace of radiate or concentric striae, unmistakably indicating S. disjuncta. From the same locality, though not on this indi- vidual slab, are specimens of both varieties of the so-called S. mesocostalis,— the large, coarse form with angular plications and reduplicated fold, and the more finely plicated form with prolonged hinge- line, which is more characteristic of a lower horizon. These higher representatives of S. mesocostalis are, however, generally distinguished from the earlier representatives by a well-developed median septum in the ventral valve, —a character of which only a trace is seen in specimens from the Ithaca beds, reminding us of the genus Spiriferina. The punctate shell-structure of that genus has not, however, been detected in any specimens thus far examined. In regard to Orthis tulliensis, it may be said that the common Orthis, occurring at the base of the Ithaca fauna, within a few hundred feet of the Gen- esee shale (less than 500), at its first appearance re- sembles O. tulliensis in form and general characters ; though for distinction it may be appropriate to call it a variety of O. impressa, since a little higher, and in the same fauna, the typical O. impressa appears in abundance. Still, there are specimens in the collection from the lowest zone which it would be difficult for any one to distinguish, by macroscopic or microscopic characters, from O. tulliensis, occurring, as they do, in a calcareous stratum. I have no single slab containing this form with S. mesocostalis, but the latter is found both above and below the stratum containing the Orthis. | The record of an O. tulliensis at 200 feet above the Genesee shale in Pennsylvania seems, therefore, indicative of a careful identification of the species upon morphologic characters alone, without preju- dice as to its supposed horizon or range. . In regard to the identification of these upper De- vonian faunas of Columbia county, Penn., it may be said, that in the association of species, and the Marca 28, 1884.] relative order of the sub-faunas, the record agrees, in general, with that of the series exposed along the same meridian, farther north, in New-York state. The principal difference which strikes one familiar with the New-York section is the appearance: of S. disjuncta and O. Tioga lower down in the faunas in the southern sections. But although heretofore S. disjuncta has been met with in America only in the middle and upper parts of the upper Devonian, in Devonshire we find _ it reported from the middle Devonian, with corals and trilobites in abundance; and in northern Europe it begins at least as early as the base of the upper Devonian. While it is beyond doubt that even in New-York state the three spirifers mentioned appear mingled -at various zones in the upper Devonian, we do not question the fact that the periods of abundance for each species are in separate zones, and assume a reg- ular sequence relative to each other. ; HENRY S. WILLIAMS. Cornell university. ’ The use of the method of limits in mathemati- cal teaching. Rice and Johnson’s ‘ Method of rates’ is especially to be commended for the scholarly manner in which they developed the subject; but there is the same difficulty in the fundamental conception as in the in- finitesimal method. One may assume to understand an expression with which he is familiar until closely questioned. A student learns to repeat with ease, ‘Velocity is rate of motion,’ and thinks he un- derstands it; but I have had many such ask, ‘In a mathematically perfect engine, does the piston stop at the end of the stroke?’ ‘ Does it remain at rest at any time?’ ‘ Howcan it reverse its motion, if it does not stop?’ ‘ How canit cease going in one direction, and move in the opposite direction, without stopping between the two motions?’ These are critical ques- tions, lying at the very foundation of all change of motion. Does change in the rate of motion take place at an instant, or during an instant ? The method of limits leads the mind towards a result the conclusions of which it is impossible to escape: hence, as a system of philosophy, it retains its strong hold. DE VoLson Woop. Hoboken, March 16. Ropes of ice. On Saturday, March 8, while traversing several counties of southern Ohio by railroad, I observed an illustration of the viscosity of ice, that seems deserv- ing of mention. ; For a number of hours, rain had been falling, much of it freezing as it fell; but through the day the tem- perature rose slightly, remaining, however, close to the freezing-point. All exposed objects were coated with ice. In particular, telegraph-wires and the strands of wire fences were heavily loaded. In the afternoon the ice broke loose from the wires at in- numerable points, hanging from them in depending curves, the fixed points of which were sometimes as much as six or eight feet apart, and the lowest points of the curves from two to twelve inches below the wires. Occasionally the curves would break, and the ends of the ice rope, two or three feet in length, would project downwards from the wires at an angle of forty-five degrees or more. The best examples were passed without opportunity SCIENCE. 375 to make examination, but all of the facts were illus- trated at the stations where the train stopped. E. O. Tllusive memory. I merely intended, in my letter of March 7, to pre- sent two of the most prevalent theories which have been advanced for these illusions. The ‘race mem- ory’ theory, kindly brought out by W. B. T., should perhaps have been mentioned, as well as the theory of Lewes and Ribot, that these deceptions arise from the retrojection or false location of a present mental image as a recollection. The inheritance of the actual cerebral impressions of a former generation rests upon no scientific basis. We do inherit the brain structure, and, in so far as brain functions are dependent upon structure, we may be said to inherit certain functional disposition and powers; but this structure, and the impressions made upon it by sense- perception, are essentially different facts. The correspondence invited should be addressed to Princeton, NV.J., instead of Princeton, N.Y., as as wrongly given in Science, No. 57. HENRY F. OSBORN. Princeton, N.J., March 21. Ripple-marks. Professor Wooster’s note in No. 457, on ripple- marked limestones in Kansas, recalls an observation of my own in Utah. In the south part of that terri- tory the Jurassic formation includes a sectile lime- stone fifteen to twenty-five feet in thickness, contain- ing remains of Camptonectes and Pentacrinus. Some of the surfaces of the layers exhibit coarse ripple- marks, the wave-lengths ranging from six inches to one foot. The associated fossils cannot be regarded in this case as indicative of quiet conditions, for in neighboring districts the same forms are found in argillaceous sandstones. In the sandstones the shells and crinoid segments exhibit wear from rolling, but in the limestone their angles are unimpaired. While, however, there is no evidence in the limestone of violence, there is evidence of motion. The crinoids have not been found entire, and all their segments are usually detached. Moreover, the structure of some of the limestone layers is odlitic. I conceive that the association of ripple-marks with shallow water, while usual, is not invariable. The most important condition for the formation of ripple- marks is motion; and any thing competent to produce motion at the bottom of deep water may form them. Wind-waves on the Atlantic are said to have brought sand to the surface from a depth of five hundred feet, and they must be supposed to produce at a still greater depth the gentler agitation necessary for the forma- tion of ripple-marks. The association of the Kansas ripple-marks with fine argillaceous rocks is perhaps unprecedented, but there seems no theoretic reason to regard it with won- der. Fine sediment does not usually come to rest in spots where the water is subject to agitation, but ex- ceptionally it does; and the centre of every shallow pond with a muddy bottom affords an illustration. Some years ago I observed ripple-marks on a surface of fine river-sill at the bottom of a pool which had communication with a rushing river. The pulsation of the torrent communicated agitation to the pool, but no current; and I inferred that the pulsatory agi- tation caused the rippling. ‘The pool shared to some extent the muddiness of the river, and the silt on its bottom was evidently a forming deposit. Not far away the bank of the same river exhibited in section 376 a deposit which seemed identical with that forming in the pool, the ripple-marks being represented by undulations of the laminae. A remarkable feature of the section was the coincidence of the ripples through a vertical space of about eighteen inches. All the laminae were inflected in the same way, so that the corresponding parts of the undulations fell in the same verticals, as illustrated in fig. 1. It occurred to me, that there might be in this fea- ture something analogous to the assumption of stable L WY, LD ELL ty). Y WY) Mey D LYS, Wy YY iy re. By Yj, Wifi) Dr LES Be ee er Se Fie. 1. figures by free particles on the surface of a vibrating plate, and that the development of this idea might lead to a better theory of the origin of ripple-marks. The common theory, which makes the ripple-mark the homologue of the sand-dune, implies a forward movement of the ripple in the direction of the water- current, and is manifestly inapplicable to the phe- nomenon just described. I am disposed to doubt its applicability even to ripple-marks produced by cur- rents; for there is a certain class of these, intimately related to small obstructions, which are certainly as stationary and constant as the water-waves on the rapid of a stream. The analogy of ripple-marks to vibrations in elastic SCIENCE. 14" = Cre [Vox. III., No. 60. ets fully drawn from hand specimens, Figs. 2 and 3 are the prevalent forms. In fig. 3 the crest is acute, and the broadly curved trough is midway between the crests. In fig. 2 the crest and trough are moderately acute, and the trough is nearer to one crest than to the other. In fig. 4 the crest is broadly curved, and the trough is less so. In fig. 5 each ripple has a sub- sidiary crest upon one slope. The resemblance of this last to certain phonographie curves suggests itself atonce. In other specimens two systems of rip- ples co-exist, intersecting at various angles ; and the fact that this relation was observed repeatedly, leads me to think that the two sets were syn- chronously formed. If synchro- nously formed, there is something in their production analogous to the co-existence of independent and di- i , aimee Gio verse vibrations in elastic bodies. = ED I do not venture to assert that the correspondences here pointed out are more than superficial analogies, but they suggest a line of investiga- Y 57 : I, #1 ~~ tion which should be fruitful. Such ase investigation I had intended to = undertake, and the accompanying figures were engraved in pursu- ance of this intention; but, having found myself for some years unable to pursue the subject, I despair of commanding the necessary time and facilities, and avail myself of this opportunity to communicate my observations to the scientific public, in the hope that they may assist in the elucidation of the subject by another. G. K. GILBERT. The ‘Batrachichthys.’ The publication of the Archivos do museu nacional of Brazil began in Rio de Janeiro in 1876. In the sec- ond issue, that for the second and third trimesters of 1876, the director of the section of zodlogy and com- parative anatomy in the museum published a descrip- Fig. 2.— Natural size. co ——r in |! I LM Fie. 3.— Two-thirds natural size. | | a ied = ] Fie. 5.— Natural size. bodies is further illustrated by variations in the forms of the ripples, and by the combination of sets of ripples. The other figures show in profile four forms of ripple observed on upper surfaces of triassic sandstone in south-western Utah. They were care- tion of what he denominated ‘an extremely curious — little animal called Batrachichthys’ The author evidently believed he had found a ‘ missing link,’ and, as it were, he laid his prize at the feet of Darwin, Haeckel, and Martius with the greatest solemnity. . vie WG ‘ey me); 4 per oe 8 , i 97° 96° 95° 94° 93° 92° 91° 90° 89° 88° 87° 86° 85° BaP 83° 82° 81° 80° 79° 78° 77° 76° 75° 74° 73° 72° 7I° 70° 69° CA e aS a | TTT TTA CTTTAUSEPAASOTUTITUETOOLLELSELESUEDU THEA G]e © Q UMILUCULLIEEEDES LE ARQULLSUONAGLDOOEEDORYOQOULOTCTAUODULLSETCLUE/OU GUUS LRLEA CSHLERPUAT STEARATE N © js GREENLAND anp NORTH AMERICA. ARCTIC SEA. THE CHANNELS NORTH Or BAFFIN Bay. BETWEEN Compiled from the observations of the latest American and British Arctic Expeditions iby the US.Hydrographic Office, Navy Department, Commander J.R.Bartlett USN, Hydro grapher, The Caches are shown thus ® —— » —— Reproduced for. SCIENCE by permission of the Navy Department. \ \S IS \ (2cess Marie Bay | Sn / e | - Croxich 14 ba Neptune's highest Coos yt P Aig. 13% 1992 af “KockyerI. Aye = @ ¥roteus sure ay ye July 231863 4 1 S. BOicked Hat L “WarshallB- ~ Bancrott ss Advance (D'Kane) 1853 -4 -6. D . 2 ~ Sept 14% Boe Wolstenhol, : Pate ; ss rare P olsternholme Ls uy y))) @ fo} « Ge \ 80° come Ir TTT TET LT ° ° ‘ 79° 78 Gus. Herrle del. zits ee Hegent B- ue I i ol Ve 16° Sy pe “b jy A ee thor L 68° 67° 66° 65° 64° 63° 62° 61°} 60° 59° 58° S7° S6° 55°. 54° 53° 52° 5° 50° 49° 46° 45° 44° 43° . i NN AUNT ANAANTLAATRAL ANTALYA A cay Se A ee a ae saa po ce ee a a | | MO SAN a3 coast 1S" uned AAWUTUVENTRURANRTEN i r = = ELAN RTETLAUVAEUAUHATENETAVERLLA a = T ~ = AVVAUANUUULULRSTLATASTOALAMANAVURADSUTTTDALLASDARIEWAT ut See gears [ae as | AWAASAYHUIN If 64° OF ANAMUUSSRRETUTLUAACRSUL ALS 60° 59° ue Long.W. from Greenwich 69° Sarwallick\P*S N CZ Jron. Mourdéai SS C Dudley Digges pert be ir ee rer Snow P: Py Ny gk? Parke ; t J 2 Bus bran. T. / r / eS / / : - \ yf \ / | \ aN By Ae ER TANG eats / a \ SY 7 | \ a v ae viely bse-1875 ug. SN a = 7 5 o = = a g = = 7 7 1; — a hme eee — | $l ————"— Toor u TTT = 66° 65° S ° Tike 76 75° 74° 73° Ue 68 67 : Supplement to SCIENCE March 28'° 1884, ee —— ee i P . 1] a ayy Se . ee Smeets er Sf soe Y aE PRP c = ery i . > ae sel te eee Lee eon lige OSE TES 8 peters = — a — Z. eg MARCH 28, 1884. ] Although the name of Prof. C. F, Hartt appears as that of one of the editors of the archivos at the time (he resigned shortly after the publication of this article), it is due his memory to say that he objected to the publication of the article referred to, and did all in his power to prevent it, well aware that it would bring ridicule upon the editors and upon the national Brazilian museum, of which he was a director. Notwithstanding Professor Hartt’s prot- estations, the description appeared, accompanied by a plate, from which the accompanying figure is copied. Mr. S. W. Garman afterwards called attention to the absurdity of making a new genus of this animal, which he shows to be an undeveloped form of a spe- cies of Pseudis (American naturalist, October, 1877). More recently this ‘ extremely curious little animal’ has come to the surface again, this time in the French academy. Especial attention was called, in that body, to the first volumes of the Brazilian archivos; and this description of ‘a curious batrachian’ was spoken of as ‘a valuable essay’ and ‘ particularly iy il deserving attention’ 1884, p. 428). Agreeing with Professor Hartt in regard to its being nothing more than an unusual tadpole, I was anxious to obtain specimens of the animal in the various stages of its development, and thus make an ocular demonstration of the correctness of our opin- ions. My work upon the Imperial geological survey, and later other duties, made it necessary ’ for me to travel in almost every part of Brazil, and in some parts of the Argentine Republic and Paraguay; but nowhere could I find or hear of any such animal as that de- scribed in the archivos. Along the Paraguay River, which I traversed from its mouth to its source, I made especial effort to find it; for the specimen figured was said to have come from Paraguay. At length, during a trip made in 1882-83 to the interior of the province of Pernambuco in Brazil, I was so fortunate as to obtain a number of good living specimens; and it goes without saying, that they showed the Batra- chichthys to be a mere tadpole. They were taken in an artificial pond near the village of Bonito, toward the end of January, 1883; being found in all stages of development from the tadpole to the full-grown frog, although the very young tadpole could not be had on account of the lateness of the season. About Bonito these tadpoles are called cacotes. They are not uncommon in ditches and ponds, and sometimes occur in such numbers as to seriously in- terfere with fishing with the net. The full-grown frogs are called sapos verdes (green frogs). They are said to live in the weeds and rushes about the margins (Pop. se. -monthly, January, Lt KK SCIENCE. 377 of the ponds; and, when disturbed, they jump into the water. In regard to these popular names, it should be remarked, however, that they are too general to lead one to suppose that they are applied to this species of frog alone throughout Brazil. The specimens collected by me are now deposited with Professor Wilder at Cornell university. JoHN C, BRANNER. Geological survey of Pennsylvania, Scranton, Penn. Gia GREELY SEARCH. THE report of the board called to consider the plans of the relief expedition has been printed, and its principal features have been made public through the daily press. Two ves- sels have been purchased which there is every reason to believe are well suited for the work ; eae eo a. =e tee eee and through the graceful courtesy and gener- osity of the British government, the Alert, well known as the advance ship of the Nares ex- pedition of 1875-76, has been put at the dis- position of the United States, without money and without price. A more timely and felici- tous service could hardly be rendered ; and the sentiment of the country in regard to it is well expressed in the communication of the 21st ultimo to congress from the president and sec- retary of state. The position of affairs is about as follows: the Greely party were landed in August, 1881, at Discovery Harbor, with rations equivalent to supplies for three years on the basis used in the U.S. army; with beans, sugar, coffee, canned goods, and antiscorbutics, not embraced in the regular official ration, to the extent, as alleged, of about one year’s additional pro- visions. Beside this, Lieut. Greely reported that about three months’ supplies of fresh musk-ox meat had been killed before the de- parture of the returning vessel. It must be remembered, however, that the demand of hu- man nature for food in these regions is greater than in more temperate climates ; and the extra 318 supplies above mentioned would probably be consumed, together with the regular ration, instead of serving to extend it over a longer period. ‘There is every reason for believing that the supply of fresh meat or game at the station is extremely precarious, accessible only during a few summer months, and perhaps practically absent in certain years. There is therefore reason to suppose that the supplies of the expedition will be entirely exhausted by the beginning of next winter. On the failure to reach the party in 1882, it may be supposed that every care would be taken by its commander to economize supplies for the retreat last fall. This could not be carried very far; because the stamina of the men, already weakened by two years of arctic exposure, would not bear any great reduction oftheration. Itis probable that Greely would have learned by the second summer, that delay- ing until September might prove fatal to his plan of retreat. He probably started south, if at all, in July or August, 1883. Weassume that the party were living and in reasonably good health at that time. The distance from Discovery Bay to Cape Sabine (see map) is about two hundred and fifty miles. ‘The shore is bold and precipitous ; the northern half compact, and almost without inlets or bays; and the usual ice-foot along the rocky walls of Kennedy Channel is, on this side, liable to be much broken by the grinding of floes against it. In this stretch of coast there are three caches of provisions. ‘The first, at Carl Ritter Bay, seventy-five miles south from Lady Franklin Bay, contains two hundred and twenty-five rations, deposited by Greely him- self in 1881, and sufficient to sustain his party for nine days. Sixty-two miles farther south, at Cape Collinson, are ten days’ provisions, left by Nares in 1875. Fifty miles farther south, at Cape Hawkes, is a cache of unknown extent, but which Greely thought, in 1881, would subsist his party fortwo months. These, however, were partly in bad condition in 1881, and probably still worse in 1883. Of the dogs taken by Greely, only eleven survived until the date of his last report, a number hardly more than sufficient to haul their own food from Lady Franklin Bay to Cape Sabine. It may be assumed that any attempt of the Greely party to retreat by means of sledges alone, would be unsuccessful and disastrous. If attempted, it probably would result in a return to their old quarters later in the season, as their only safety for the winter. Sledging over the hummocks of Kennedy Chan- nel and Kane Basin is terrible work, and not SCIENCE. * eo [Vor. IIL, No, 60. to be compared with that done on open field- ice, like that of the sea north of Robeson Channel, or that crossed by Anjou, Wrangell, and De Long. The practicability of a successful retreat to Cape Sabine, we believe, depended entirely” upon whether the party were able to use their boats, and avail themselves occasionally of their sledges to make portages over ice isth- muses in their way. ‘They were furnished with boats prepared especially for the purpose, be- sides a steam-launch, for which an abundant supply of coal might be procured from the coal strata near the station. It is improbable, unless continuous water communication happened to favor them, that the party could transport their effects and rec- ords, together with a year’s provisions for all hands. They could hardly take, in the four boats, more than eight tons besides themselves, and probably not more than six tons if any coal was carried in the launch. fe aa Lia #2, trailing- j 1 : : 1, te 1 ' So ee the width of the narrow segments of each other; this corresponding to a synchronism of about 0.001 of a second, or about 0.002 of a revolution. Trenton natural history society. March 11. —W.S. Lee remarked on New Jersey as a paradise for the botanist, particularly commending the region about Trenton as one rich in rarities of plant-life. A certain hillside sloping to the south presents many spring flowers two weeks earlier than similar locations in even the same state; and several rare species grow there, among others Corydalis aurea and C.flavula. Other rare New-Jersey species men- tioned as found near Trenton were Fedia olitoria, Ellisia nyctelea, Onopordon acanthium, Potentilla, ™ ry bal 396 argentea, Viola striata, and Cornus canadensis. —— Dr. T. S. Stevens exhibited a little garter-snake (Eutaenia sirtalis) preserved by nature in an interest- ingmanner. It had been taken from beneath a wheat- stack in its present condition, the body thrown in graceful coils and curves, the head erect, the whole appearing like a snake on the alert, yet dead, perfect- ly dry and mummy-like, and presenting only the slightest changes externally. According to Dr. Ste- vens, it has remained in this condition, without any special attention, for ten years. Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia. March 4.— Professor Joseph Leidy stated that he had recently been supplied with specimens of a wheel- less rotifer, attributed to Apsilus, which had been found abundantly last autumn, in a pond at Fairmount Park, attached to Anacharis, and in the Schuylkill River, near by, attached to Potamogeton. They were recognized as Dictyophora, first described in 1857; and as aresult of the last examination, Professor Leidy was led to the opinion, that this form, the Apsilus lentiformis of Mecznichow, the Capelopagus lucine- dax of Forbes, and the Apsilus bipera recently de- scribed by Miss Foulke, are all the same species. In the recent specimens, he had recognized the lateral antennae ending in exceedingly delicate and motion- less cilia, as indicated by Mecznichow, and which pre- viously, from the wrinkled condition of the specimens detached from hard objects, had escaped his atten- tion. In all the forms described, the prehensile cup, in the same manner, is projected from, and with- drawn within, the mouth of a compressed oval or nearly spherical carapace, dotted with minute tuber- cles. This cup, substituting the usual rotary organs of rotifers, communicates with a capacious, variably sacculated, and dilatable stomach, followed by the ordinary gizzard with its mastax, and then a second sacculated stomach. ‘The size of the European forms is fully thrice that of the one now described. Miss S. G. Foulke described a species of ciliated infusorian of the genus Trachelius, found in the form of a white speck in water from the Schuylkill River. Rev. Dr. H. C. McCook, referring to the spinning-work of spiders, stated that the orb-weavers have, as a rule, but one egg-nest; but this, in the different species, varies widely in form, size, position, ete. There are, however, four species which make several cocoons in connection with their webs. The labyrinth spider, Epeira labyrinthica, weaves a web of right lines crossing at all angles above the orb-web. In the midst of these right lines the spider lives, almost always under a dried leaf. Under the leaf is a little white silk tent or belt-shaped nest connected with the web by a trap-line. Hanging above the tent are nearly always five cocoons, braced above and below by a strong silken line. They consist of a lower cup portion, covered by a sort of lid, and each contains about twenty eggs. The tailed spider, Cyrtophora caudata, generally makes five nests, containing in the aggregate a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five eggs. These are strung along the median line of the orb-web. They are at.first composed of a yellowish, SCIENCE. slightly viscid plush, and are afterwards covered with fragments of captured insects. This may be an in-. stance of protective mimicry, as the cocoons so Ccov- ered closely resemble the spider itself; or it may be due to the maternal impulse to protect the reposito- ries of the young as far as possible. Epeira basilica, which forms a beautiful dome-like web placed over a silken sheet, suspends its cocoons vertically in the centre of the snare. They consist of a dusky gray silken sac, within which is a hard ball like a cherry- stone. This ball is quite black, but proves, when placed under a microscope and illuminated, to be woven of a fine-textured yellow silk. It is filled with finely chopped silk, in which the young spiders are hatched. Uloborus riparia makes a horizontal web, the cocoons being strung horizontally from the cen- tre. They are double cones, covered with little pro- tective points. Mathematical section, philosophical society, Washington. Jan. 80.—Mr. G. K. Gilbert made a communica- tion on the Knight’s tour, on other fields than those of sixty-four squares. He showed that a complete tour was impossible if the number of squares was odd; that a tour having bilateral symmetry (latter half of the moves symmetrical with former half, with respect to a line through the centre of the field) was impossible if the number of squares was divisible by four, and hence altogether impossible on square fields ; that a tour having quadri-radial symmetry (divisible into four parts, which exactly repeat themselves when the board is turned through aright angle about the centre of figure) was impossible if the number of squares was divisible by eight; that the only sym- metry possible on the ordinary chess-board was there- fore bi-radial (of two parts that coincide when the ~ board is turned through two right angles). Upon a field of thirty-six squares, twenty tours with bi-radial symmetry are possible: of these, five have also quadri- radial symmetry. NOTES AND NEWS. THE following communication, kindly placed in our hands by the committee on invitations and receptions of the Philadelphia meeting of the American associa- tion, will interest the members of the association : — BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 22 ALBEMARLE STREET, LONDON, W., Feb. 27, 1884. DEAR sir, — The resolution of the American as- sociation, inviting members of our association to Visit . Philadelphia and take part in its meeting, was read to our general committee by Principal Dawson, and was received with enthusiasm. No definite resolu- tion in reply was, however, proposed; because it was felt that the visit to Canada was only then assuming __ definiteness as to its outlines, and it was impossible ~ to say what arrangements might be made in that country. But the members of the association were fully sensible of the courtesy and kindness of their American brethren; and the enclosed resolution, — which was passed. by the council at their last meeting, - MARCH 28, 1884.] and which I should have forwarded to the secretary of the American association as soon as the minutes had been confirmed, will, I hope, be regarded as a reply from our association. The kind invitation repeated in your letter shall be embodied in a circular which we are about to issue to our members. I fear that at present it will be im- possible for me to give you any idea of what number of our members will be able to avail themselves of the hospitality offered by your committee at Phila- delphia, because at present only the bare outlines of the proposed proceedings at Montreal and in Canada are before them. When the immediate pressure of the issue of this circular is over, I will do my best to find out. Very truly yours, T. G. BONNEY, secretary. Dr. P. FRAZER, secretary. The resolution mentioned reads, — **It was resolved to receive the standing committee and fellows of the American association on the foot- ing of honorary members at the Montreal meeting, and the secretary was instructed to give intimation of this resolution, as far as possible, to the persons eoncerned.”’ Another letter just received from Professor Bonney encloses two circulars, —one containing a reprint of the resolution above referred to, and an invitation to the person to whom it is sent to attend the meeting in Montreal; stating, that, on its presentation to the secretary on or after Aug. 25, a ticket of honorary membership will be received in exchange: the other circular is an admirable condensation of such infor- mation as the British member is likely toneed. Thus, the first two pages are devoted to the steamer-lines and the fares thereon; three pages are concerned with the railways; and it may be mentioned in this con- nection, that the Canadian government has promised to convey all British association members, associates, and their family parties, free of charge. The Canada Pacific and the Canada Atlantic offer them free ex- cursions, the former granting free passes up to the date of their special free excursion to the Rocky Mountains (for a hundred and fifty only). The re- maining pages give general information as to ‘ tick- ets,’ ‘local committees,’ ‘ general instructions,’ ‘ hotel rates,’ ‘telegraphs,’ and ‘cash.’ ‘The last page is a very convenient schedule, giving the various rail- ways, the points between which they run, the dis- tance in miles, and the rates in English and United States money. The passage which most interests the members of the American association is as follows: ** A letter has been received from the representatives of the local committee at Philadelphia, cordially in- viting the members of the British association to attend this meeting and take part in its scientific proceedings, and offering to do the utmost in their power to make their visit at once pleasant and profit- able.”’ — From Nature we learn that the officers of the British association at the Montreal meeting will be as follows: president, Lord Rayleigh; vice-presidents, SCIENCE. 397 the governor-general of Canada, Sir John Alexander Macdonald, Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt, Sir Charles Tupper, Sir Narcisse Dorion, Dr. Chauveau, Principal J. W. Dawson, Professor Ed- ward Frankland, W. H. Hingston, Thomas Sterry Hunt; general treasurer, Prof. A. W. Williamson; general secretaries, Capt. Douglas Galton, A. G. Vernon Harcourt; secretary, Prof. T. G. Bonney; local secretaries, L. E. Dawson, R. A. Ramsay, S. Rivard, S. C. Stevenson, Thomas White; local treasurer, F. Wolferstan Thomas. The sections are the following: — A, Mathematical and physical science: president, Sir William Thomson; vice- presidents, Prof. J. B. Cherriman, J. W. L. Glaisher; secretaries, Charles H. Carpmael, Prof. A. John- son, Prof. O. J. Lodge, D. MacAlister (recorder). B, Chemical science: president, Prof. H. E. Roscoe; vice-presidents, Professor Dewar, Prof. B. J. Har- rington; secretaries, Prof. P. Phillips Bedson (re- corder), H. B. Dixon, T. McFarlane, Prof. W. W. Pike. C, Geology: president, W. T. Blanford; vice- presidents, Professor Rupert Jones, A. R. C. Selwyn; secretaries, F. Adams, G. M. Dawson, W. Topley (re- corder), W. Whitaker. D, Biology: president, Prof. H. N. Moseley; vice-presidents, Dr. W. B. Carpen- ter, Prof. R. G. Lawson; secretaries, Prof. W. Osler, Howard Saunders (recorder), A. Sedgwick, Prof. R. Ramsay Wright. EB, Geography: vice-presidents, Col. Rhodes, P. L. Sclater; secretaries, R. Bell, Rev. Abbé Laflamme, E. G. Ravenstein, E. C. Rye (re- corder). F, Economic science and statistics: presi- dent, Sir R. Temple; vice-presidents, J. B. Martin, Prof. J. Clark Murray; secretaries, Prof. H. S. Fox- well, J. S. McLennan, Constantine Molloy (recorder), Prof. J. Watson. G, Mechanical science: president, Sir F. J. Bramwell; vice-presidents, Prof. H. T. Bovey, P. G. B. Westmacott; secretaries, A. T. Atchison, J. Kennedy, lL. Lesage, H. T. Wood (re- corder). H, Anthropology: president, Prof. E. B. Tylor; vice-presidents, Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins, Pro- fessor Daniel Wilson; secretaries, G. W. Bloxam (re- corder), Rev. J. Campbell, Walter Hurst, J. M. P. Lemoine. It. is expected that the public lectures will be by Mr. Crookes, Dr. Dallinger, and Professor Ball. We are glad to see that Section A is following the good example set by Professor Lankester in biology last year. A circular signed by Sir William Thomson has been issued by the committee of Section A, inviting the co-operation of mathematicians and physicists, and requesting those willing to read papers and take part in the discussions to send their names to the secretaries of Section A, British association, Albe- marle Street, London. The following subjects have been selected for special discussion by the commit- tee: on Friday, Aug. 29, The seat of the electromo- tive forces in the voltaic cell; on Monday, Sept. 1, The connection of sun-spots with terrestrial phe nomena. — At the meeting of the Royal astronomical so- ciety, Nov. 9, Prof. S. P. Langley of Allegheny, Penn., Dr. J. A. C. Oudemans of Utrecht, Neth- erlands, Prof. P. Tacchini of Rome, and Dr. E. Weiss 398 of Vienna, were elected foreign associates of the society. — The committee of the Franklin institute, having in charge the organization of the electrical exhibi- tion to be held in Philadelphia, has secured a site for the building on the large vacant lot bounded by Thirty-second and Thirty-third Streets, Lancaster Avenue, and Foster Street, which, by the liberal action of the Pennsylvania railroad company, has been leased to the institute for the purpose of the exhibi- tion for a nominal consideration. The meeting of the American association for the advancement of science, which will be held this year in Philadelphia, and the expected presence of many representatives of the British association, which will meet this year in Montreal, will attract a numerous and influential scientific gathering in Philadelphia during the time of holding of the exhibition; and, in be SCIENCE. will join the towers. The building will have second- story apartments at its ends, with stairways leading up in the towers from the ground floor. The towers themselves will be three stories high. Two long and narrow hall-ways will afford communication between these apartments. The remainder of the ground will be enclosed by a large triangular building one story in height, and joined to the main hall. The circular of information, with blank forms of application for space, may be obtained by addressing a request therefor to the secretary of the Franklin institute. —It is proposed to establish a monthly American meteorolugical journal. It will begin with from twen- ty-four to thirty-two octavo pages, and will be en- larged as rapidly as is justified by the support given it. The first number will,probably, appear about the 1st of May. It will be published in Detroit by Dr. W. H. Burr. The edit- ing will be in the hands of Prof. M. W. Harrington of Ann Arbor, and he ear- nestly requests contribu- SAOSSCUPEWEST, PHILA | order that so exceptional an opportunity to promote the interests of science shall not be lost, Congress has been requested to authorize the holding of a national conference of electricians, to convene in Philadelphia at that time. Should Congress make the proper pro- visions for holding such a conference, the results promise to be of much value. The accompanying figure is a view of the exhibition building, which is now in process of erection, and which, by the terms of the contract, will be finished by the 15th of June. The main building will be rectangular, having a length of two hundred and eighty-three feet, and a breadth of a hundred and sixty feet. A tower sixty feet high will be situated at each of the four cor- ners of this building. One central arch of a hundred feet span, and two hundred feet in length, will cover the greater portion of the space occupied by this building; while two smaller ones, having a span of thirty feet, and running parallel to it on either side, « tions from meteorologists. The publication price is placed at three dollars. All communications of a busi- ness character are to be ad- dressed to W. Co., 100 Griswold Street, Detroit, Mich.; all others, to Prof. M. W. Harrington, Ann Arbor, Mich. — The funeral of the late Dr. J. F. Julius Schmidt, director of the observatory at Athens, was of a public character, and the king _and queen of Greece were present at the observatory during the delivery of the oration. — The German geographical ‘congress will be held in Munich from the 17th to the 19th of April. The H. Burr & principal subjects of discussion will be, the present situation of polar research, the latest proposals for the alteration of the meridian, the glacial period, and the making of school wall-maps. Several well-known travellers and investigators have already promised to speak. — An international ornithological congress will be a held for the first time in Vienna on April 7; and an — exhibition of birds, and all that concerns their capture, transport, housing, and feeding, will be open April 4to14. The subjects for discussion at the congress will be, (1) a proposal for an international bird-pro- tection act; (2) the origin of the domestic fowl, and the best means of improving the species; and (3) the. foundation of stations for ornithological observa- tions all over the inhabitable world. Communica- tions should be addressed to Dr. Gustav von Tages 3 Marokkanergasse, Vienna. SCIENCE. FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Two bills are before Congress for the better administration of the naval observatory. One places the control of the observatory in the hands of a board, under the secretary of the navy, consisting of the superintendent, the senior line officer attached to the observatory, and the four senior professors of mathematics actually engaged in astronomical work at the observatory: the other is intended to give the positions of assistant astronomers that at- traction in the way of promise of promotion necessary to induce young men to enter on the work, looking upon it as a permanency, and not as a make-shift till something better may turn up. It appears that in the past twenty- two years, from the corps of three assistant astronomers, there have been eleven resigna- tions and only four promotions, and of the latter only one in the last nineteen years. It would seem that these bills are both in the direction of placing the working of the obser- vatory on a more permanent footing, and of making it less subject to interruption from changes in the corps of observers, as well as a step towards giving the direction of the scien- tific work of the institution into the hands of those capable of making it tell better than in the past. A RECENT Statistical inquiry into the work- ing of the system of German universities dur- ing the last half-century, is a model of pains- taking research and accuracy. ‘The author is Dr. I. Conrad of Halle, well known as a professor of political science; and the vol- ume before us is the fifteenth paper in a series of studies produced, under his direc- tion, by the seminary at Halle, of which he is the director. We might almost as well en- deavor to cull interesting facts from a volume No. 61.—1884. of the census as to draw from these pages, crowded with statistical tables, and illustrated by numerous diagrams, examples of the im- portant and curious lessons brought out by this study. One fact, however, is so patent, and is such an index of the social condition of Germany, that it is worth mentioning. Dur- ing the last thirty years the attendance on the seven universities of old Prussia has enormous- ly increased, and especially since 1874, when there was a brief temporary retrograde. All the faculties, except that of Roman-catholic theology, show this increase ; but that of phi- losophy has gained far the most, as might indeed be surmised from the growth of modern departments of scientific instruction. In all the universities of Germany, similar progress may be seen. In the decade prior to 1850 (the period of 1848) there was a diminution in the aggregate attendance; in the next two decades there was a slight increase: but since 1870 the number of students has rapidly augmented. Philosophy has: gained most, law next, medicine next, and then protestant theology. Catholic theology alone has less fol- lowers in these institutions than it had twenty years ago. A summary carefully prepared, of these two hundred and fifty pages, would make an excellent contribution to an American journal of education. A kindred study of the attendance upon American colleges, such as Dr. Barnard of Columbia college initiated a few years ago, would make an admirable basis for the inquiries now in progress as to possible improvements in our institutions of learning. Is there not some agency in this country by which this investigation may be promoted ? THERE has not yet appeared any good and . trustworthy illustration of a tornado at work, in spite of the comparatively common occur- rence of these storms within sight of many observers. This is natural enough, to be sure ; for in addition to the difficulty of the subject, 400 as may be inferred from the generally poor representation of clouds in woodcuts and other illustrations, there must be quite enough be- sides sketching to occupy one’s mind while a tornado is sweeping past. But now that Mr. Finley has shown that a tornado will almost certainly be harmless when seen in the south- east, is it too much to hope that some well- trained, artistic, and self-possessed observer may secure drawings of the swinging funnel- cloud in its several phases, from which finished and characteristic illustrations can be made at leisure afterwards? A house or tree of known height, and at known distance, would give a unit of angular measure from which the alti- tude and diameter of the funnel could be de- termined after the distance to the ordinarily well-marked track is discovered. We should be indeed very glad, if the coming summer were to pass by without visits from tornadoes ; but if they come, as is most likely, let as much be found out about them as possible. Water- spouts are in the same need of good portrait- ure, and an observant voyager in equatorial seas can do good service by bringing home accurate pictures of them. Is there not here a good opportunity for the numerous amateur photographers to turn their experimentation to good purpose? A series of instantaneous photographs would be especially interesting ? A NEw motor is said to have been brought out in New-York City, that hot-bed of schemes for making money out of the unwary. Itis a new form of bisulphide-of-carbon engine, this time, which is to revolutionize the world, and the stock of which is offered for sale, to the fortunate who are admitted to the ‘ ground- floor,’ at prices enormously below its real value, giving an opportunity to those favored ones to make the ‘ millions’ that are undoubt- edly in it. We are told of a triple thermic motor which is operated by the odorous fluid, and which is expected by the enthusiastic be- lievers in the wonderful invention to give ‘¢ three times as much power from a steam- boiler used to evaporate the vapor as could be obtained from the same boiler by means of a SCIENCE. steam-engine.’’ Itis said that large sums haye — been paid for the stock of the new company — operating this machine by the ignorant capi- talist, who, sharp as he is when ‘ working his points ’ in Wall Street, — not having even the intelligence of the man who acted as his own lawyer, and seldom thinking of consulting an engineer of known integrity and good profes- sional standing, in a matter which demands at least the rudiments of an ordinary scientific training, — is often gulled with startling ease by the venders of ‘ Keeley motors,’ and pro- moters of similar schemes. Tue hydrographic office of our navy depart- ment has lately issued the first numbers of a set of monthly meteorological charts of the North Atlantic, containing the results of many thousand observations on the winds and other atmospheric phenomena in form for giving practical information to the navigator. These are not to be confounded with the monthly pilot- charts begun in December last, of which men- tion has already been made in our columns, but are vastly more thorough. Indeed, the two series have about the relation to each other that weather has to climate. One is designed chiefly to spread information concerning recent changes in lights, buoys, etc., and to gather and record temporary conditions of the ocean : the other aims to give in detail the average and consequently permanent elements of maritime meteorology for every five degrees square of the ocean and for every month. The charts now published are for March, April, and May: the rest of the set will probably follow in the course of the year. Every one interested in the growth of our mercantile marine, as well as in the im- provement of our navy, must rejoice to see this — action of the hydrographic office toward the maintenance of the wide reputation for mete- _ orological work on the ocean, well earned in — Lieut. Maury’s time; and we trust that the — series of charts now begun for the North — Atlantic may be followed by others of equal — detail for the other oceans, towards which a — great amount of available material has been — accumulated. . Aprit 4, 1884. ] LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. The great comet of September, 1882. A MORE recent determination of the orbit of this comet than those mentioned in No. 57 of Science has been made, and the results may be of interest. To avoid (as far as may be) the errors which arise from the fact that different observers have observed various portions of the nucleus, it was thought best to take a series of observations made at a single observatory. A fine series of over one hundred observations made at Cordoba, and extending from Oct. 17, 1882, to June 1, 1883, was chosen. Up to Feb. 12, the same portion of the nucleus was observed: this portion afterwards became invisible, and then the estimated centre of the elongated nebulous mass was taken. By comparing these observations with an ephemeris computed from a former orbit, three normal places were found, the four observations made in May and June being neglected. The dates of these normal places were Nov. 16.0, Jan. 3.0, and March 25.0. It is to be regretted that these observations did not begin in September, so that the first normal place might have been nearer the time of perihelion. Below is the derived system of elements, which is referred to the mean equinox of 1883.0, Greenwich M.T. _ 5. 4) 2) eg Sept. 17.2637 Cee . 5. OOS | 2! 61659" _ =, MS 345 45 55.01 Meese. ce Sl e|CUK 4A OB1L54 Meee se. ee SO) OSC BS 222 - 0 9.99996 10 2 ee 7.8821773 loga. 1.9289 Period . 782.4 years. Perihelion distance Semi-major axis Semi-minor axis _ . .. 707,500 miles. - 7,878,000,000 105,600,000 These elements satisfy the second normal place very closely, the residuals being — AA cos B = + 0.02”; AB = +0.02”. If the period be assumed as 751 years, on the as- sumption that the comet appeared in 370 B.C. and 1132 A.D., and the foregoing perihelion distance be accepted, the logarithm of the eccentricity must be 9.9999599, which is 0.0000011 less than the value given above. It is the intention of the writer to combine all the reliable observations which have been made, in the hope of obtaining a fair orbit for this perplexing object. H. A. Howe. University of Denver, March 11. Atmospheric wave from Krakatoa. Granting, as stated in Science, iii. 338, that an atmospheric wave passing over the entire world was caused by the great eruption in the Straits of Sunda, would not its greatest effect be observable at the opposite extremity of the diameter of the earth, or near the northern extremity of South America? The wave would doubtless pass away from its origin in all conceivable directions, its front forming the arc of a small circle, constantly enlarging until it became a great circle, after which it would contract, conver- ging as to a focus on the opposite side of the earth, producing a magnified effect; after which it would return as from a second origin. Hoboken, March i6. SCIENCE, 401 Electric time-signals. The devices, recently described in Science, by which a clock is made to close an electric circuit at regular intervals, prompt me to describe a very simple one which I have found entirely satisfactory. It is ap- plied to a tower-clock as follows: to the arbor carry- ing the minute-hand, at the end A, opposite the dial, is screwed a slender brass arm about five inches in length, extending down to two light metallic springs, BC. The brass arm at the proper moment comes 1n contact with B, and moves it forward till it touches 4A the platinum point on C. The electric circuit is then closed, as B and Care soldered to two brass blocks, D E, to which the wires of the circuit are attached. These blocks are screwed fast to a piece of wood, F, which is in turn secured to the clock-frame by set screws. It will be observed that the current does not pass through the works of the clock. ‘The appliance can be made to close the circuit at any portion of the hour by simply loosening the movable hand at A, and fastening it so that it shall bring the two springs together at the required minute. This arrangement has not failed once in a year and a half on a circuit including nine bells. H. S. ‘CARHARTT. Evanston, Ill., March 17. Is material contact possible? Dr. John Robison, the eminent Scottish physicist, discussing ‘ Newton’s rings’ (about 1795), concluded that to produce the central ‘ black spot’ between two glasses required a pressure of about a thousand pounds to a square inch; the separation at this place being still about of an inch. Dr. Thomas Young (about 1805) found that the phenomenon does not depend on the presence of air. By the general consensus of physicists this has been accepted as a striking evidence that molecular resistance to absolute contact is insuperable. Sir William Thomson, in a Friday evening lecture at the Royal institution of Great Britain, delivered Feb. 2, 1883, said, however, very emphatically, ‘“‘I do not believe that foramoment. The seeming repul- sion comes from shreds or particles of dust between- them” (Proc. Roy. inst., Feb. 2, 1883, x. 189; Nature, June 28, 1883). As a question of fact, this is one of very great im- portance; and it surely deserves a critical and decisive determination by some of our well-equipped physi- cists. . The investigation, though a very delicate and refined one, is quite within the resources of modern experimentation. The physical problem is, can the ‘black spot’ between perfectly clean plates be pro- duced without sensible pressure ? W.., By =2. High tides in geological history. In the review of the Geographisches jahrbuch for 1882, published in Science, No. 54, the notice of the contribution of Dr. Zoppritz on the progress of terres- trial physics contains the following words : — ‘In commenting on Professor George Darwin’s work on the effect of the tides upon the moon’s distance, and on Mr. Ball’s entertaining lecture, ‘ A glimpse through the corridors of time,’ on the same subject, the reviewer accepts Professor Newberry’s conclusion, that the moon must have already attained its actual distance from us when our oldest Cambrian and Silurian strata were deposited. This seems an unnecessary adherence to doc- trines of uniformity: for, in the spread of our paleozoic strata, there is evidence of much stronger submarine transportation than we now find; and even in Jurassic times there is a surprising area of cross-bedded sandstones in the region of the Colorado plateau.” Those who have followed the discussion in Nature, of the theory of ancient high tides proposed by Pro- fessor Ball as a lesson to geologists, will perhaps re- member that I declined to receive the lesson, and denied the existence of the imagined high tides, be- cause the geological record not only contains no traces of such tides, but, on the contrary, supplies abun- dant evidence that no such violent action accompanied the formation of the sedimentary rocks. In making this statement I was not constrained by any devotion to uniformitarianism, as the reviewer intimates, but based my conclusions upon an unbroken series of facts. ‘These facts prove that the accumulation of the paleozoic rocks took place in conditions essentially like those which prevail at present, and show conclu- sively that the statement, ‘‘ that in the spread of our paleozoic strata there is,evidence of much stronger submarine transportation than we now find,” is un- warranted. As that statement and those I have made are in direct conflict, and the question involved is an all-important one in the reading of geological history, I take the liberty of reviewing briefly the evidence on which my conclusions were based. In the Cambrian age were laid down, along the east- ern margins of our continent, the Acadian shales of New Brunswick, the Olenellus shales of Vermont, the shales and limestones of Troy, and the shales (now siliceous slates) of Braintree, Mass.,—all the products of quiet deposition. In the Mississippi val- ley the Cambrian strata are buried, and inaccessible to us. In the Lake Superior region the copper series was probably deposited in the Cambrian age, although demonstration of this has not been obtained. There volcanic disturbances and eruptions produced great activity in the agents which form mechanical sedi- ments, — conglomerates, sandstones, and shales; but this violence was all local, as we find no traces of it outside that area. In the far west the Cambrian rocks are well exposed in many places, and constitute twelve thousand feet of shales, with one stratum of limestone in the section of the Colorado Cafion, seven thousand feet in Nevada, and twelve thousand feet in the Wasatch, of sandstones, shales, and limestones, according as deposited under inshore, offshore, or open-sea conditions, but nowhere showing marks of more violent action than may be observed to-day. In the lower Silurian rocks we have the record of a great continental subsidence, or elevation of the ocean-level; the advance of the sea upon the land; and the spread of a sheet of sea-beach material — the Potsdam sandstone — as far as the invasion extended. But the Potsdam beach was precisely like the beaches of to-day, — ripple-marked, sun-cracked, bored by an- nelids, strewed with seaweeds, and abounding in the entire or broken shells of beach-inhabiting brachio- pods. Above this we have the organic deposits made SCIENCE. + va ¥ by the Silurian sea when it stood over the submerged 1 territory, —a thousand feet or more of limestones. Then the Hudson River and Utica shales were laid down in the shallower waters of the retreating sea. Here we have a complete history of the physical conditions which prevailed during the formation of the lower Silurian rocks, but nowhere find any traces of the high tides of Professor Ball’s interesting but imaginative lecture. A similar round of deposits composed the upper Silurian, the Devonian, and the carboniferous sys- tems. Each group of rocks tells its own story so clearly that a child may comprehend it; and that story is not only without any high-tide episode, but is clearly and positively contradictory to the high-tide theory. ; Your reviewer cites no facts to sustain his state- ment, and therearenone. The cross-bedded mesozoic sandstones of the Colorado plateau have, of course, no bearing upon it, and they afford no support to the high-tide theory: they simply show that peculiar conditions prevailed in the triassic age over a limited area on the east side of the Wasatch, where a shallow sea was moved with strong currents, tidal or other- wise. On the west side of the land which separated this ancient Bay of Fundy from the Pacific, the tri- assic and Jurassic strata show no such violent action ; and the same may be said of other parts of the world. The records of the cretaceous age, which are the most complete and completely exposed to view of any, are the most conclusive in their demonstration of the ab- sence of violent and abnormal action in the processes of nature. I may also call the attention of your reviewer to the fact that Prof. G. H. Darwin, whose study of the physical structure and history of the system of Mars was the inspiration of Professor Ball’s lecture, de- clines to subscribe to his conclusions, and concedes that there is no evidence of abnormally high tides since the beginning of the paleozoic ages. J.S. NEWBERRY. The flora of Labrador. A contributor to No. 59 tells us that ‘‘I have en- deavored to show that we must look to the north for the place of origin of many of our plants,”’ and that he *‘ can see further reason for the assertion’’ in an analysis which he makes of a very incomplete list of the flora of Labrador. He further teaches us, — ‘‘That many of these plants were at one time distributed all around the Arctic circle, there can be no doubt; and that they have been driven from their first homes by the excessive cold, and found suitable abiding-places at the south, must also be con- sidered as an established fact.” Now, Mr. Editor, is not all this so well established and so familiar as to render superfiuous the endeavor to show it in the form of a contribution to Science ?. Whatever may be said upon the question ‘where did life begin ?’ considered deductively, there is no longer any doubt as to where the vegetable life around us came from; nor does your contributor throw any new light upon the matter, in the column which he fills. BoTANICUS. How do the winds blow within the storm-disk? The following method of showing graphically and concisely the result of many observations on storm- winds may, on account of its simplicity, prove of value to students of meteorology. Synchronous observa- tions of winds charted on weather-maps for any single — epoch are generally too few and often too discordant to give a precise picture of the spiral course followed by the whirling air; and it is difficult to combine by [Von IIL., No. ‘et 1 ; , APRIL 4, 1884.] eye-memory the observations plotted on several sepa- But this combination can be made easily rate charts. SCIENCE. 403 the circle of three hundred mile radius, where the longest arrows represent hurricane violence, or twelve of the Beaufort scale; and, second, that these winds have, with notably few ex- Pi . ~ ceptions, a distinct departure from a cir- Pa| ~.600 MILES cular path to an incurving spiral. Very a \ ye “kROM CenTRe evidently, therefore, the centre of this ~ ve Z S storm would not bear ‘ about eight points’ a / a aan to the left of the wind’s course, as the Sega poy Lee 3 \\ older mariner’s guides put it, but gener- / LY as ally about six, or in some cases even as ‘eS ae \3o00 \ ¥ little as four, points to the left, as has j \ \ | / ro, cs \ been shown in many other examples. / ; “ Me i“ sen \ Fig. 2 shows the result of similar treat- H \ i. we \ i ment of several days’ records of storm- fF ess / 1 winds in our northern states, as mapped i { \ in the Signal-service daily bulletins for } ae \\ | i October, 1877. Observations north of } WA \ co me \A | } the centre are unfortunately rare, aS we \ | eae ! J have not as yet sufficient stations in the as a 7 | British possessions. Although the three . \\ ae ! hundred arrows show numerous discord- \ \} eM 7 ! ant directions, the general motion indi- \ as S Sr } ] Je cated by them is again clearly an incurv- \ ta 1 U ing spiral. \ = ? A This method of concentrating obser- \ ‘\ y vations on a single diagram may prove ‘\ / = 7 of service in several directions of storm- zee \ \. f study, being applicable to the determi- ee ~~“ oo nation of the general form of isobars, ae ag and areas of cloud and rain, as well as mS is to the investigation of the inclination TSS and' velocity of the wind in different ‘quadrants of the storm, or at stations of | different situation as to distance from and accurately by tak- ing off the records of ye =U, successive dates on a Z t pre Goo single sheet of tracing- Wwe ° z paper. A cross on the = Bang ec Se ‘XN paper marks the storm- | y PANE \ f centre, always to be */ Se \ S x placed on the middle of | / A 4 ee 4 the area of low pressure; / - 2 \ ae: 1 and a north line, laid sre aa NI ae) . WA parallel to the meridi- Ly : ° : NG \ ans, serves aS a means recy! in| \ iN © Nos of orientation. Alarge {| _. /, v SS N Vatce es number of observations \ SF Sse Mut if. eee ~ — may thus be transferred \ Kl lam oe a S to a single figure, and every one of themfalls ~ in its proper position (4 with respect to the cen- tre of the storm. The synchronous charts of the North At- lantic for August, 1873, prepared by Capt. Toyn- bee of the British me- iy * teorological office, yield Ho) iN ° a hundred and fifty-sev- re x en wind-records within six hundred miles of the centre of a cyclone that passed from the West . Indies along our coast in the ten days from the 18th to the 27th of that month. These are all brought into the accom- panying diagram (fig. 1), which shows very clearly, first, that the stronger winds are nearly all inside | | ule x |r] ia. iN Te / Se a WN A eh aah [sy me Ne Sly, ha ) SN eA 4 \ 14 Se ae ~~ > NS nl ee — TGs) 2% the coast-line, or elevation above sea-level. Cambridge, Mass. W. M. DAVIS. SCIENCE. 404 Undulations in clay deposits. A ditch about two feet deep, and running nearly east and west, on the grounds of this college, presents a profile as if the clay (which is of unknown depth) had been shaped into undulations, with crests from eight to fifteen feet apart, and then covered uncon- formably by the sandy soil, which over the crests is about two or three inches deep, and in the troughs about two feet at most. The ‘strike’ of the crests is nearly north and south. This peculiar formation has been observed over a large area of country in this vi- cinity. A surface peculiarity is the occurrence, at in- tervals of one or two hundred yards on the prairies, of low mounds a foot or two high, usually covered with dewberry briers. West of this place, in Milam and Williamson counties, the nearly level prairies are mammillary, with slight elevations eight or ten feet apart, presenting the appearance of old tobacco or potato hills on a gigantic scale. These appearances, visible from the cars, excite the curiosity of all who observe them; and a plausible theory of their cause might not only gratify this, but lead to some very important discoveries in dynamical geology. For these reasons I desire to present this problem to your geological readers; and, if it has already been solved, my apology for ignorance of the solution must be that I am not a geologist. foe sD) Agricultural and mechanical college of Texas, College Station. ‘A singular optical phenomenon.’ Having made the phenomena of binocular vision a special study for many years, I was greatly interested in the letter of ‘F. J. 8.’ in Science, No. 57. Bugee confess I do not quite understand it. I can but think that the phenomenon he describes is only an example of ‘phantom image,’ produced by binocular combination of similar figures of a regular patterned field — in this case, the squares of the coarse screen. But in that case the image ought not to be inverted nor enlarged. As to the inversion: if, as I suppose, your correspondent imagines it inverted only because it moves with the head, he is probably mistaken. There is no optical law by which an inverted image could be formed under the conditions described. ‘The movement of the image is simple parallactic motion. The point of sight being the centre of parallactic rotation, if the image be nearer than the object, the motion will be in the same direction as that of the head of the observer; but, if the image be farther off than the object (a far more difficult case), the motion of the image will be opposite that of the head. There still remains, however, the enlargement of the image. Thisis incomprehensible tome. It ought to be diminished in exact proportion to its nearer distance. Neither can I at all understand what is said about the phenomenon as seen by a near-sighted person. I should be glad if your correspondent would repeat and describe more accurately the phenomenon; for there are no phenomena more illusive, and requir- ing more practice to understand, than those of bi- nocular vision. If I am right as to the nature of the image, it ought not to be seen with one eye only. The subject of phantom images is fully explained in my little volume on ‘ Sight,’ pp. 107-119. JOSEPH LECONTE. Berkeley, Cal., March 18, 1884. The possible origin of some osar. The writer does not profess to have an extensive acquaintance with these problematic structures; but, (Vor. IIL, a few examples having been discovered in his re- — searches in Dakota, the subject of their origin was been thrust upon him. From several considerations, which need not be given here, it seems extremely improbable that the quaternary glaciers in that region bore, either on their surface or in their depths, any considerable amount of débris, at least nothing coarser than dust upon their surface, and perhaps gravel in their lower por- tions. How, then, can steep meandering ridges nearly continuous for miles, ten to thirty feet in height, run- ning nearly at right angles with a great moraine, and much more stony than the surrounding surface and the general mass of the till, be explained ? The following hypothesis is offered for criticism. Given a sub-glacial stream, or a super-glacial one, which, near the edge of the ice-sheet, has cut an ice- cafion through to the ground moraine: the presence of the ice-cliffs on either side would tend to force a plas- tic body like the till toward the stream, and cause it to rise underneath the stream, like the ‘ creeps’ fre- quently occurring in coal-mines or deep cafions. Now, if the streams have only a velocity sufficient to wash out and carry off the finer material, the bowlders and gravel will be left in excess, and in ridges along the line of the stream. Of course, stratified beds of sand and gravel would form a considerable portion of hills produced in this way, just as in the case of those formed according to the usually accepted theories. Similar breaks and lateral repetitions of the ridges might result according to either of the theories. It seems, moreover, not improbable that some of the re-entrant spurs of terminal moraines may have begun in this way; the cafion developing into a notch, and giving rise to lateral flowage of the ice, as well as in- creeping of the till. J. E. Topp. Tabor, Io. = Osteology of the cormorant. In late numbers of Science, several communications have appeared from Dr. Shufeldt (ii. 640, 8225 iii. 148) and Mr. Jeffries (ii. 789; iii. 59) on the ‘ oste-, ology of the cormorant,’ and especially on so-called ‘occipital style;’ and complaint is made by Mr. Jef- fries (iii. 59) that Dr. Shufeldt ‘does not mention the nature of the bone’ in question. Neither gentleman seems to have been thoroughly acquainted with the literature of the subject; and inasmuch as both are members of a committee of the American ornitholo- gists’ union, appointed to investigate the anatomy and physiology of the birds, they may be thankful for a reference to a special paper on the anatomy and functions of the bone in dispute. It is to a memoir by William Yarrell that I refer. Yarrell designated the ‘ occipital style’ of Shufeldt as the ° xiphoid bone,’: and in 1828 communicated to The zoological journal an article (iv. 234-237, art. xxviii.) ‘on the use of. the xiphoid bone and its muscles in the corvorant (Pelecanus carbo Linn.),’ which is accompanied by two figures on plate vii. (figs. 5 and 6) illustrating the skull, with the xiphoid bone, and the muscles in © relation with it and the lower jaw. The development of the peculiar bone is correlated with the weakness of the lower jaw; but for further information those interested must refer to The zoological journal, where. they will likewise find references to the views of other authors. . Lest Science or myself should be charged with — making or overlooking a typographical error, I beg to add that ‘corvorant’ is the substitute for cormo-- rant, adopted by Yarrell, probably from a false or confused idea as to the etymology and history of the word. THEO. GILL. - i APRIL 4, 1884.] GEORGE ENGELMANN. GEORGE ENGELMANN was born in Frankfort- on-the-Main on the 2d of February, 1809. He died in St. Louis just after the completion of his seventy-fifth year, on the 4th of Februa- ry, 1884, very unexpectedly, and after an ill- ness which had kept him from his scientific work but a few days.* . Dr. Engel- ie mann received fee his medical f& education and early scientific training at Berlin, Heidel- berg, and Frankfort. Agassiz, Alex- ander Braun, and Charles Schimper were among his col- lege-associates and lifelong friends. His determination to eStablish himself in the United States rust have been made early ; for he left Ger- many almost at once after graduation, reaching New York in 1832. His first visit was to Phila- delphia, at- tracted there by the scien- tific reputation of that city, where he was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Nuttall and other scientific men. His inclinations, however, still turned westward; and young Engelmann soon left the seaboard, to seek a home in the almost unexplored regions be- yond the Mississippi. He went first to St. Lonis, then scarcely more than a frontier trad- % z = 5 a Fa a Q: zi FOR ¥ 3 ae i Gj CULE DS RANI A ALO FLOISIINE i q FZ 1 ‘The announcement which appeared in a previous number of this journal, that Dr. Engelmann died on the 11th of February, was erroneous: he died on the 4th of February. SCIENCE. 405 ing-post, influenced, no doubt, in this step by the fact that there was already a little colony of Germans located there. But Dr. Engelmann did not at once establish himself in St. Louis. With the deliberation and care which character- ized all the actions and studies of his life, he determined to see something of the western country before finally selecting a home. For this purpose he undertook a long and soli- tary journey on horse-back through south- western Mis- sourl, Arkan- sas, and west- ern Louisiana. This journey was probably made in 1833, and occupied six months. It nearly cost Dr. Engelmann his life; for the young travel- ler took a dan- gerous fever among the Ar- kansas swamps, into which his botanical zeal, no doubt, often led him. For- tunately he fell into the hands of a negro fam- ily, who nursed him faithfully through his long illness, which cut short further explo- ration, and hurried him back to St. Louis. Here Dr. Engelmann finally established him- self as a physicianin 1835. Hehad previously, however, gone to Germany, and on his return had brought back with him, to his new home, the faithful and devoted companion who shared his labors, his trials and triumphs, for more than forty years. From 1835 until his death Dr. Engelmann continued to live in St. Louis, and to devote to scientific investigations every moment which could be spared from a large J ‘ VAG iDiigee AES Ee eZ=EgaeAz= Ce, A ON Ay i R y < Fle aw IK 2 6 fe: As fa! ons a pie: fa Lea “A x A aun FILE ITO IOS SPT TAO IO UO SS OTS TT Or eS) NT eq Fn eed eer 406 and absorbing professional practice. He was able, however, to make, at long intervals, sev- eral visits to Europe (the last as recently as last year) largely for the purpose of botanical study ; although his opportunities for extended botanical explorations in his adopted land only came to him late. Twice in the last ten years of his life Dr. Engelmann was able to see Colo- rado; in 1876, he visited the southern Alle- ghany Mountains; and in 1880 made a long journey through the forests of the Pacific states, where he saw for the first time, in a state of nature, plants he had studied and described more than thirty years before. Dr. Engelmann’s associates in this long and ardu- ous journey will never forget his courage and industry, his enthusiasm and zeal, his abound- ing good nature, and his kindness and con- sideration of them and every one with whom he came in contact. Engelmann’s first botanical publication ap- peared as long ago as 1832, when, on the eve of his departure for the United States, he print- ed in Latin a dissertatio inauguralis, ‘ De An- tholysi prodromus,’ illustrated by drawings made-by the author. ‘This paper is still some- times referred to, and was certainly a remark- able production, in view of the youth of the writer, and the existing knowledge of vegetable morphology. No other botanical paper ap- peared from Dr. Engelmann’s pen until 1842, when. he published in the American journal of science his monograph of North-American Cuscutineae. He had, however, some time before, in association with Capt. C. Neyfeld, undertaken the editorship of Das westland, a journal printed in Heidelberg, and intended to make known to German emigrants the advan- tages of the Mississippi valley. This publica- tion did not outlive the first volume, which bears upon the titlepage the date of 1837, and which contains three articles by Engelmann, generally descriptive of the natural features of the west- ern country, with some account of his southern journey of 1833. If these early years in St. Louis were not prolific in botanical publication, their botanical occupations were not the less important and valuable. He made, at the time, large collections of western plants, then hardly, if at all, represented in European herbaria, distributing them freely among his German cor- respondents. At this time, too, he made the acquaintance of the authors of the ‘Flora of North America,’ to whom Engelmann first became known through the discoveries, by the younger of the two botanical partners in this. undertaking, of some of his specimens in the Berlin herbarium. This rather roundabout SCIENCE. [Vou. ILL, No. 61. introduction led to a warm friendship and close ~ and sympathetic scientific association, which has largely shaped the botanical studies over a great continent, and which death only has in- terrupted. . The appearance of the monograph on Cus- cutineae, which was soon republished in the Botanische zeitung and the London. journal of botany, established Engelmann’s reputation as a systematic botanist, and procured for him the correspondence of Hooker and other foreign botanists. Several new species are described in this paper, and the genus Lepidanche ‘pro- posed for a Cuscuta-like plant of the western prairies. Cuscuta always interested Dr. En- gelmann; and in 1859 he published in the Transactions of the St. Louis academy an elab- orate revision of the whole genus, for Panes he had long been collecting material. In 1842 he published in the American jour a of science a list of plants collected by Charles A. Geyer in Illinois and Missouri, in which several species are first described ; and in 1845, in the Journal of the Boston society cf natural history, in collaboration with Asa Gray, an enumeration of plants collected in western Texas by his countryman, Ferdinand Lind- heimer, a naturalist attached to the German colony of New Braunfels. - In 1848 was published his sketch of the botany of Dr. A. Wislizenus’ expedition. Dr. Wislizenus, a German physician and a resident of St. Louis, had been attached to Col. Doni- phan’s expedition, but was taken prisoner by the Mexicans, and carried to Chihuahua, where, as well as in the valley of the Rio Grande, he had made important botanical collections. These were afterwards placed in Dr. Engel- mann’s hands for elaboration. ‘The study of these collections exerted a powerful influence upon his subsequent botanical studies. They first drew his attention to Cactaceae and Pinus, which continued to occupy his thoughts for the remainder of his life, and of which his knowl- edge was unequalled. As early as 1856, Dr. Engelmann published in the Proceedings of the American academy a synopsis of the Cactaceae of the territory of the United States. Two years later appeared his ‘ Cactaceae of the boundary,’ in the second volume of the United States and Mexican boundary survey report. This paper, superbly illustrated by drawings made (under Dr. Engelmann’s direction) by Roethe, is, perhaps, his best-known botanical work. Dr. Engelmann has studied and de- scribed all the collections of Cactaceae which have from time to time been made in the Mexican boundary region, and, had he lived, APRIL 4, 1884. ] would have elaborated the whole order in ac- cordance with his latest views of the subject. He even proposed so late as last year to pass a considerable time in northern Mexico for the purpose of studying these plants in their native country before finally giving to the world the final results of his long investiga- tions. That he did not live long enough to elaborate the mass of material he had so in- dustriously collected for this work is an irrep- arable loss to botanical science ; for no other hand, in this generation at least, will be able to take up this family where he has left it. Other difficult genera have long been studied by Dr. Engelmann. His predilections, indeed, have always been for the most difficult and perplexing plants; and he willingly devoted himself to such genera only as less patient investigators hesitated to take up. Thus he mastered the North-American Euphorbiaceae, elaborating all recent collections of the fam- ily, without, however, undertaking a complete revision of the order as represented in this country. He published an elaborate and exhaustive paper upon the North-American spe- cies of Juncus, and, later, one on the North- American Isoetes. His published notes upon the North-American species of Quercus, for years one of his most engrossing subjects, and upon North-American Abies, Juniperus, of the section Sabina, and upon the genus Pinus, contain the most valuable and trustworthy information which has appeared upon these plants. In 1873 Dr. Engelmann published, under the title of ‘ Notes on the genus Yucca,’ his elaborate revision of the genus here first comprehensively treated. Two years later his notes on Agave appeared, in which are enu- merated and described the species detected within the limits of the United States, as well as a few foreign species previously imperfectly known. Dr. Engelmann studied for many years the genus Vitis; and our knowledge of the North-American species is due in a large measure to his investigations. His last bo- tanical publication, a sketch of the true grape- vines of the United States, although written some months earlier, and previous to his last European journey, was issued late in 1883. Dr. Engelmann’s botanical writings were not voluminous. All his work, however, is characterized by the most careful and con- scientious preparation, great good judgment, classical methods of treatment, and remarka- ble thoroughness. His investigations were slow and laborious, often lasting for years in the case of a single plant. No botanist was ever less anxious to publish prematurely the results SCIENCE. 407 of his observations, or was less satisfied with the extent of his own knowledge. Such admi- rable, and in these days unusual, caution has made Dr. Engelmann’s botanical writings mas- terpieces in their way, worthy to stand with the best productions of their nature which have yet appeared. ‘This very caution and desire to wait for completeness, however, which have made Dr. Engelmann’s published papers what they are, havé cost the world a vast store of valuable information collected by him during long years of careful investigation, but never quite ready, in his critical judgment, for publi- cation. Dr. Engelmann, in addition to his profes- sional and botanical labors, was a most zealous meteorological observer, and at the time of his death was probably one of the oldest meteor- ologists in the United States. He published many important papers upon this and various physical and topographical subjects, but the length to which this notice is already extended precludes more than the mere mention of this fact. His meteorological and other miscellane- ous papers, as well as his important botanical papers since 1859, have been published in the Transactions of the St. Louis academy of sci- ence, which he was largely instrumental in establishing, and which he long served as pres- ident. Dr. Engelmann was a member of the Amer- ~ ican academy of arts and sciences, a corporate member of the National academy of sciences, a foreign member of the Linnaean society of London, and an active or corresponding mem- ber of many other learned bodies. His career was eminently successful. He lived to see the correctness of his judgment in selecting St. Louis as his adopted home confirmed, the fron- tier trading-post grown into a great city, and himself at the head of his profession there, and then his place occupied and worthily filled by his only son. He long enjoyed the friend- ship, the respect, and the correspondence of many of the most distinguished botanists of the age, everywhere the recognized authority in those departments of his favorite science which had most interested him. George Engelmann, it is fair to assume, will long live in his botanical writings. The thor- oughness of his work leaves little to subsequent workers in his chosen fields to gather, and secures its permanent usefulness and value. When, however, his written words are forgot- ten, the western plains of his adopted land will still be bright with the yellow rays of Hngel- mannia ; and the splendid spruce, the fairest of them all, which bears the name of Engelmann, 408 will still, it is to be hoped, cover with noble forests the highest and most inaccessible slopes of the Rocky Mountains, recalling to men, as long as the study of trees occupies their thoughts, the memory of a pure, upright, and laborious life. THE MAXIMA AND MINIMA TIDE- PREDICTING MACHINE.! Tuts machine has been invented by Mr. Ferrel, and constructed by Fauth & Co. of Washington, for the use of the Coast and geo- detic survey. Its object is to determine me- chanically the times and heights of high and low waters for the numerous tide-stations around our coast, for which tide-tables are annually published. The numerical data for these have been heretofore obtained by computation ; but, on account of the great complexity of the tidal theory and formulae, this involves a great amount of labor to obtain even approximate , results, and more accurate ones have to be dispensed with, unless they can be obtained in some way mechanically, with much greater facility than by computation. The first tide-predictor was invented by Sir William Thomson, about eight years ago. This was constructed so as to take into account about ten only of the principal tide-components ; all, however, which are of much practical im- portance. ‘This machine has not been used in the regular prediction of tides, and is said to be now on exhibition at the South Kensington museum. Subsequently Mr. Roberts, of the Nautical almanac, London, had another constructed upon somewhat the same plan, but larger, tak- ing into account twice as many of the compo- nents, and having some improvements on the plan introduced. A description of this ma- chine was given in The engineer of Oct. 19, 1879. It is now being successfully used in the prediction of the tides of India. Both of these machines have been constructed so as to be run by clock-work, and to give the results in the form of a tide-curve for one year ona roll of paper, from which the times and heights of high and low waters are afterwards read off and recorded. In the maxima and minima predictor, only the maxima and minima of the heights of the tide above mean low water or any other as- sumed plane of reference, and the times of their occurrence, are indicated; as these alone are 1 This article, written by Mr. WILLIAM FERREL, is published by permission of the superintendent of the Coast and geodetic 8urveye SCIENCE. >. eye n [Vox IIL, No. 61. required for the tide-tables annually published. __ For this purpose a transformation of the tidal harmonic function was necessary, so that it would give heights and times of the maxima and minima; and, as any such transformation usually renders the resulting expression much more complex than the original one, the whole theory and construction of this machine is much more complex than in the case in which the machine is required to give the height of the tide at regular stated intervals of time, or a graphic representation of the whole function. In this machine both the clock-work and roll of paper are dispensed with, and the machine is run by means of a small crank at the side, with the left hand; and the times and heights of high and low waters are read off from the face of the instrument, and recorded as you go, with the right hand, upon blank forms ready for the printer. The great advantage which is claimed for this form of the machine is that it gives only what is required, and this in such a way that the results can be recorded at once, and the trouble of handling long rolls of paper, and estimating the times of maxima and mini- ma, and reading off the corresponding height of the tide, is saved. Although the machine is more complex, this makes no difference in the . facility with which the results are obtained. The crank is turned until an index on the cen- tral dial of the face, called the lunar index, pointing between eight and nine on the accom- - panying perspective representation of the face of the instrument, comes in conjunction with the upper end of an oscillating needle, the upper end pointing between twelve and one, as rep- resented, when the time of high water is pointed out by another index on the same dial, called the solar index, pointing, as represented, to the figure twelve, at noon and midnight, and the height is indicated by an index on a vertical scale on the left side of the face of the instru- ment. You then turn until the lunar index comes in conjunction with the lower end of the needle, when the solar index pointsout the time of low water, and the index at the side, its — height. Turning until the lunar index comes in conjunction again with the upper end of the — needle, you read off, as before, the times and heights of the next high water ; and so on from high to low and from low to high water through the year, recording the results as you go. Where, however, there are large diurnal com- ponents, it is necessary to run through twice, — first for the times, and then, after a little change in the setting, for the heights. ‘The machine, — therefore, is especially convenient for most of the tides having a large range upon our At- © SCIENCE. 409 4 APRIL 4, 1884. | TRSAIRSATESAALT ay URNS ED Esa YT OE eT T bit elt ON ONNaeeeeeedeeeneeemeeehaneneees \ Fes ee ——— = lantic coast, since the diurnal components in these are very small. It would be impossible, in this short sketch, to give any idea of the theory and construc- tion of the machine. These, however, will be contained in an appendix to the report of the superintendent of the U.S. coast and geodetic survey for 1883. The efficiency of the machine is in general very satisfactory. The results given by it have been compared both with computation and observation. In a comparison with one ae 410 month’s computation of the tides of Boston harbor, the differences in the heights rarely ex- ceeded more than 0.1 of a foot, and in the times more than three or four minutes. These dif- ferences arose from a slight yielding of some parts of the machine from a lack of sufficient rigidity. This, however, could be mostly remedied at small expense, if thought neces- sary, by making some parts of it a little more rigid. In a comparison of the results given by the machine for three months, of the tides of San Diego, Cal., having very large diurnal com- ponents, with the times and heights from ob- servation, the average of the differences, taken without regard to signs, was 0.29 of a foot, and in the times about ten minutes. But these differences are due mostly to meteorological causes, changes in the winds and in the baro- metric pressure, which cause fluctuations in the mean level of the sea, and are due only in a small measure to imperfections of the ma- chine. ‘These are most conspicuous in cases where the tide-wave becomes very flat from the high or low water of any day being brought very nearly to mean sea-level from the effect of large diurnal components, or where the whole range of the tide is very small; but in such cases the times of maxima and minima are very indefinite, and the error is more in appearance than in reality. The machine is now being used in the pre- diction of the tides for the tide-tables of the year 1885, and is in all cases first applied for each station to some year for which there are observations for comparison, and, with the exception of the slight defect referred to, is giving entire satisfaction. The capacity of the machine for doing work is at least that of thir- ty to forty computers, if these were to take into account every thing which the machine does. In fact, little more time is required than that which is taken up in recording the results. NOTES ON THE LAVA-FLOW OF 1880-81 FROM MAUNA LOA. THe Hawaiian Islands are entirely of vol- canic origin. The various islands appear very distinctly to be of different ages, the volcanic agencies still being continually active in the most south-easterly one, while in those to the north-west they have been extinct for a long period of time. Hawaii, the largest island, situated at the extreme south-west of the group, has an area of about 4,200 square miles, being about twice the size of the state of Delaware, and not quite SCIENCE. [Vor. IIL, No. 61. so large as Connecticut. nent elevations, each of which marks what is or has been a centre of activity. The Kohala Mountains, with an elevation of about five thousand feet, form the northern end of the island: though thickly covered with well pre- served crater-cones, their activity ceased before the earliest traditions of the natives. Mauna Kea, the highest peak of the group, with an al- titude of 13,825 feet, has also long been ex- tinct. This lies to the south-east of the Kohala Mountains, on the eastern coast. Nearly op- posite, on the western coast, is Mauna Huala- lai, a little more than 8,000 feet in height. ‘The last recorded eruption from this took place in the year 1801. When visited in the spring of 1882 by J. T. Perryman and J. S. Emerson of the Hawaiian government survey, steam was found to be issuing from several of the fissures on the summit. South of the preceding three elevations is Mauna Loa, on whose summit, 13,610 feet above the sea, is the active crater of Moku- weoweo. ‘The slopes of Mauna Loa are very gentle, and, when seen from a distance, the whole mountain appears like a gentle swell of land. On its eastern slope, at an elevation of about 4,000 feet, is the famous active crater of Kilauea. This is commonly regarded as a portion of the mountain of Mauna Loa; but it is in reality a separate mountain, though situ- ated so near the other that the lavas from each have flowed together till the outline of this mountain has nearly been merged in that of the other. As seen from the upper portions of Mauna Loa, the individuality of Kilauea is clearly apparent. During the last hundred years many flows of lava have taken place from both these moun- tains ; all bursting forth from the sides approx- imately near the summit, but none coming from the crater itself. These have been well de- scribed by Rev. Mr. Coan of Hilo, Hawaii, by W. T. Brigham of Boston, and others. On the 6th of November, 1880, the latest of these flows burst from the north-eastern side of Mauna Loa, at an altitude of about 10,000 feet. From this point it gradually passed down the slope of the mountain, at first toward the north-east; then, making a sharp bend, it flowed for some distance toward the south-east, and then, once more making a sharp bend, took a course directly toward Hilo, a small but pretty village on the eastern coast. The first portion of its course was over a coun- try composed entirely of naked lava above the limits of vegetation. It then entered the belt of forest which skirts the mountain with a It has four promi- ‘= Aprit 4, 1884.] width of seven to ten miles. Through this it slowly ate its way, making a clear, clean path, and finally appeared on the lower side within five miles of Hilo. When within less than two miles of the village, it divided into two branches, one still continuing directly toward the village, and the other taking a course toward the Waiakea sugar-mill, which is about one mile south of Hilo. Finally, in the middle of August, 1881, the flow suddenly ceased, when the Hilo branch was just one mile from the town-house, and the Wailakea branch thirty-six hundred feet from the mill. It had then been flowing a little more than nine months, and had passed over a distance of about forty-five miles. I arrived in Hilo on the 8th of September, 1881, and immediately visited the flow. ‘This was about three weeks after its cessation, but I found it still very warm. Standing on Halai, a small crater-cone near its lower extremity, nearly its whole length could be traced by the steam arising from it after a shower. I found its surface to be seamed with cracks and fis- SCIENCE 411 sures in all directions. Some of these were mere cracks, while others were six and eight inches, perhaps more, in width. ‘This made walking over it rather difficult. There are two common forms of lava known there, — the pa- hoehoe (satin) and the a-a. The former, which is far the more abundant, has much the appear- ance of folded satin, and usually spreads out in broad, level fields. Sometimes it swells up through some hole in the surface, and forms large dome-like masses. The above view gives avery fair idea of this variety of lava. Thea-a, which forms only a very small portion of this flow, is very rough and jagged, and is almost impassable, being totally so to horses. An adequate description of this peculiar formation is impossible. It must be seen to be appre ciated. I have as yet seen no adequate ex- planation why lava sometimes takes this form. Analyses show the chemical constitution of the two varieties to be about the same. It seems to occur, without any particular reason, at yarious points on the flow, in areas varying from a few rods to an acre or so. In its pas- 412 SCIENCE. Vor. IL, No. 61. A CATARACT OF RED-HOT LAVA FALLING INTO A POOL OF WATER. APRIL 4, 1884.] sage through the forest, the flow encountered trees of all sizes, to a yard or more in diameter. Flowing around these, it solidified sufficiently to retain a complete mould of the trunks before they burned off. By means of these upright moulds or wells it is comparatively easy to measure the depth of the lava at any point throughout this portion of its length. This I found to average about twenty feet, though varying very much in particular instances, ac- cording to the nature of the surface over which it flowed. As their trunks burned off, the trees fell upon the surface of the still plastic lava with sufficient force to impress upon it a mould of a portion of their outline. In both the vertical and horizontal moulds a peculiar impression was made upon the sur- face of the lava in contact with the tree. It took on a honeycomb structure, presenting a series of indented squares. ‘The cause of this peculiar form I have been unable to determine. The indentations are certainly not the impres- sion of the bark of the trees, and they are altogether too regular to be the result of the expansion of gases. The general structure of the flow, through- out its entire length, is that of a long, central tunnel with numerous lateral branches. Flow- ing lava cools very rapidly, — indeed, so quick- ly, that I have often passed over the surface of that which I had seen flowing fifteen minutes before. Being a good non-conductor, the heat of the inner portions is long retained after the surface is once solidified. In this way a long central tube is formed, from the lower end of which the lava continually flows, while it con- tinually extends the length of the tube. The pressure along the tube is constantly becom- ing too great for its sides to bear, and lateral off-shoots are formed, increasing the width of the flow. These lateral tunnels usually fill up, and finally become solid. The central tunnel, however, remains hollow throughout a large portion of its length, and may often be traversed for long distances after the flow has become cool. On my first visit to the flow, the top of this central tunnel had fallen through in many places, and I was able to look into it for some distance; but in every case I found the heat still too intense to allow me to descend into it. At later visits this became possible. The roof is commonly rough, a broken surface of lava, but in many cases is smooth and shiny, and covered with numerous stalactitic forms, seldom more than an eighth of an inch in diam- eter, but often having a length of five and six inches. SCIENCE. 415 The stalagmite form was very rare, and only in one case did I find any of large size. In this instance the lava had flowed over a small precipice in a sheet in such a manner as to leave an opening between the sheet and the face of the precipice. Directly at the foot of the precjpice were two peculiar stalagmitic forms made of drippings of lava about a quarter of an inch thick and three and four inches long. The larger of these was about a foot in height; the smaller, not more than half that size. These had evidently been formed by the lava covering a small spring, the steam generated from which had kept the lava above in a semi-plastic condition for some time. These specimens attracted much atten- tion, as nothing of the kind had before been found. They may now be seen in the museum of the Boston society of natural history. Owing to this peculiar property of lava to form tubes for itself in which to flow, it has the power to flow over small elevations, thus presenting the phenomenon of a liquid flowing up hill. It has the power to continue this till the pressure becomes too great for the strength of the sides of the tube. The opposite view is from a photograph taken on the spot during the flowing of the lava. It shows the lava in the act of flowing over a pre- cipice about fifteen feet in height. Each of the small streams seen trickling down the face of the rock is red-hot lava. This illustrates the fact that lava flows at the steepest angles, which is sometimes questioned. In this view the lava is flowing into a small pool of water, the re- sultant steam from which is seen arising like the mist of a cataract. This depression was afterward so entirely covered by the lava, that at my visit the spot could not be distinguished. It would be interesting, if possible, to give an approximate estimate of the amount of lava which was forced above the surface during this eruption ; but with the present data it is impos- sible. No survey of the flow has been made, and it is exceedingly difficult to estimate its dimensions by the eye. As a very rough esti- mate, I should place it at something more than five hundred million cubic yards. | Gro. H. Barron. THE STATE OF EXPLORATION IN AFRICA. THE exploration of the dark continent continues with unabated vigor, in spite of the occurrences in the Sudan which nevertheless, in the form of disturbing rumors, must, even at a considerable distance, exer- cise an evil influence upon the native population. 414 Humblot, the French naturalist, has been commis- sioned by his government to investigate the botany and zoology of the river-basins of the Kongo, Ogowé, and Gaboon. The Portuguese officers, Capello and Ivens, have been authorized to take up their studies in the same region, and to prepare a chart of the northern part of the province of Angola, belonging to the basin of the Kongo. Lieut. Wissmann is about to return to Central Africa, where Dr. Pogge still re- mains, and to continue for several years systematic explorations in the Kongo region. A large subscrip- tion for the support of the work has been raised in Berlin from scientific and especially from commercial sources, and the results for science and trade will doubtless prove important. His compatriot, Flegel, after exploring the sources of the Benowé, has been directed to proceed in a south-easterly direction, to- ward the Kongo. For this purpose the German gov- ernment has reserved a considerable sum of money. He was at last reports about three hundred kilometres from the mouth of the Niger, at Abutchi, near Oniga. The Kongo question continues to form the subject in Europe of a host of pamphlets representing the views of the different parties contending for the control of trade on that great water-way. Most of them seem to carefully avoid touching the real and_ practical questions now at issue, and devote much space to considerations of a sentimental nature, growing out of matters a century or two old. The day for such reminiscences to have weight in practical politics would seem to have passed. The French continue the work of establishing better means of communication in upper Senegal, for which the Chambers have recently voted five million francs. Kayes, at the head of navigation on the Senegal River, is now quite a well-constructed, active little town, where two years ago there was little more than a desert. Above this point, only flat boats are available as far as Bafulabé. From this point between one and two hundred kilometres of road, suitable for light two-wheeled vehicles, have been constructed, and fortified posts established at intervals, which are sup- plied by parties of armed natives, employing in the work more than three thousand pack or draught ani- mals. The part of the railway already constructed is of great use in forwarding material for its extension. Small tramways or horse-railroads have been found of great use in the work of constructing the main line, and ten thousand kilometres of a patented form of tramway have been ordered for this purpose. The object of this at first sight extraordinary project of running a railway into a savage country, beside the protection of the rich colony of Senegal from the devastating incursions of the interior tribes, also in- cludes tapping the Niger at its head waters, and.se- curing the immense traffic of that great river without forcing a way through the pestilential swamps of its miasmatic delta. This is a commercial prize worth a round sum to secure, and in which French courage and enterprise will find an abundant recompense. From South Africa, Coillard writes that he has reached his old station at Leribé in Basuto-land. Since his previous visit, war has desolated that fine SCIENCE. [Vou IIL, No. 61. country, and degenerated into guerilla warfare, by | which the traveller suffered greatly on his journey. Later he proposes to strike out into the interior. — From equatorial Africa it is reported that Revoil, leaving important collections to be forwarded to Paris from Mogadoxo, had pushed on to Guélidi. Nothing has been heard from Giraud, who is following a route not in use by caravans; but news is shortly hoped for by way of Kakoma. Capt. Bloyet and his brave wife have arrived at Zanzibar, where he will prepare a re- port of his last expedition for the French committee of the International African association, and then continue his triangulation in the Usagara region, south-west from Zanzibar. Madam Bloyet has ac- companied her husband everywhere, and rendered valuable service, both in his collecting and exploring work. The labors of the missionaries in this region appear to be producing some effect in doing away with the barbarous human sacrifices due to the be- lief in sorcery, formerly universal. These sorcerers are truly the plague of Africa. The return of Dr. Fischer terminates one of the most important of recent journeys in Central Africa; and the publication of the results will be awaited with the highest interest. Joseph Thompson, who followed nearly the same route, was last heard from at Wandarobo, having suffered great hardships and many losses from wars waged by the cannibal and ferocious Massai tribe. Fischer attempted to pass through the Massai coun- try, yet untrodden by the whites, and to reach the reported Lake Baringo. When only six days’ march from the object of his journey, he was forced by over- whelming numbers to retrace his footsteps, and pass around Lake Naivasha, where a large hot-spring was | found by the Natron Lake near the Doego-ngai vol- cano, and thence, vid Angaruka, to Mont Macru. Among other things, two hundred and sixty species of birds were collected. Dr. Stecker has returned in good health from his explorations in the Galla country, south of Abyssinia, having mapped a large extent of country very care- fully and thoroughly. The usual tribute of noble lives has been demanded by the pestilential climate of Africa. Ernest Marno recently succumbed to fever in the upper Sudan, after having rendered, during fourteen years, distinguished services in the exploration of Central Africa. The unfortunate Dr. Matteucci arrived in London with Massari, from their recent journey across Central ~ Africa, undermined by fever, wrote to his mother that he was about to join her, and in a few hours was no more. Schweinfurth sends an account of the assassination of Sacconi in the Somali country, during © his attempt to reach the Wabbi River. He was cut to pieces by five Somalis, under circumstances almost identical with those attending the murder of Made- moiselle Adeline Tinne by the Tuaregs of Fezzan. His servant, who had been charged in such an event — to secure the record of the journey, attempted to do — so under cover of night, but was surprised, and bare- ly escaped with his life. The record was torn and ~ deliberately burned by a fakir of the tribe. Aprit. 4, 1884.] The unfortunate end of the Marquis Antinori is known. His successor, Count P. Antonelli, more happy, has returned to Rome, and has recently given an account of his investigation of Shoa, in south- eastern Abyssinia, to the Italian geographical society. This society is publishing the results of the Italian ex- pedition. An interesting account of the fresh-water fishes of Shoa has already appeared. Soleillet, the French explorer of Shoa, appears from his reports to be living en grand seigneur, under the protection of his Shoan Majesty, King Menelik II., having been ap- pointed to a feudal office somewhat between a baron and a justice of the peace. Bremond’s report of his scientific and commercial expedition from the French colony of Obock to Shoa has recently been printed in L’ Exploration. This region, though but a few years since untrodden by civilized men, offers rich rewards to traders; and the privileges of trade have lately been the object of lively competition between the com- mercial explorers of several nations. W.H. DALL. GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILWAY, MOUNT DESERT ISLAND. THE Green Mountain railway on Mount Desert Island, Me., is intended for pleasure-travel. It was operated for the first time during the last summer season. Itis ina great measure a copy of the rail- way up Mount Washington, New Hampshire, built some thirteen years ago. These two lines, and the Mount Righi railway in Switzerland, are the only ones employing the central cog-rail as a means of surmounting steep gradients. The trip for tourists from Bar Harbor to the summit of Green Mountain is made, first, by wagons or stages, two miles and a half to Eagle Lake; thence by steamer on the lake two miles; and finally by rail sixty-three hundred feet, in which latter distance the ascent is twelve hundred and seventy feet to the summit, fifteen hundred and thirty-five feet above the sea. While the grade averages about a foot rise in four feet and a half distance, in some places it is as steep as one in three. _ Surveys were made, and the work of clearing and grading was begun, in the winter of 1882-83. In April a large force of men was employed, and the road was completed by July 1. The track is not raised on trestle-work, as is the case at Mount Washington : much of it, especially on the heaviest grades, is con- structed on the solid ledge. Where the longitudinal timbers, or stringers, rest directly upon the rock, iron bolts one and a quarter inches in diameter, six feet apart, are driven through them into holes drilled in the ledge. Where it is necessary to raise the string- ers above the surface in order to make a regular inclination, bed-ties are used every six feet, secured against slipping by two or three one and a quarter inch iron bolts firmly fixed in the rear of each tie. All longitudinal timbers required to bring the line to grade are fastened to the bed-ties with iron bolts of the same size. The timbers and ties in contact with the rock were carefully hewed, and fitted to place. SCIENCE. 415 The spruce timber needed for this portion of the work was obtained from a forest-growth on the mountain itself. The sleepers or ties, six inches square and six feet long, are laid upon the stringers at a distance of two feet from centre to centre, and two seven-eighth inch iron bolts are driven into the stringers, imme- diately in the rear of each tie, in grooves in the tie, which serve to prevent lateral motion. Upon the ties lie ‘T’-rails, joined by fish-plates and bolts, and spiked in the usual way. The rack or cog-rail in the middle of the track is made of two angle-irons which have between them cogs of one and a quarter inch iron accurately rolled to uniform size. This cog-rail is secured to the ties by two lag-screws, five inches and a half long, in every tie, and additional ones at each joint. The rack was manufactured by the Atlantic iron-works, East Boston. The engine weighs ten tons, and embodies all the improvements suggested by the operation of the White Mountain road. Its entire mechanism is double, — four cylinders, two cog-wheels, and two driving-shafts. Intermediate gearing between the crank-axles and cog-wheels reduces the speed, and inereases the tractive force. The cog-wheel axles carry ratchet-wheels with pawls; and either one of these ratchet-wheels, in case of accident to the en- gine, will hold the train on any grade. In addition, two band-brakes on the smaller shafts may be in- stantly applied by the engineer. The ascent is made by steam-power; and the engine, when backing down the mountain, is still kept in forward gear, that is, with valves set to go ahead, so that it is constantly pumping air into its boiler; and this air, allowed gradually to escape, exerts an upward tractive force, thus easing the descent. The floor of the passenger or observation car is adjusted so as to be level on the average grade, and the sides are open to admit of an unobstructed view. The car is always pushed ahead of the engine, and is provided with double hand-brakes, two cog-wheels, ratchet, and pawl, which will easily control the car in descending. CHARLES E. GREENE. ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS IN PETER- MANN’S MITTHEILUNGEN FOR 1883. In order to keep pace with the growth of knowl- edge respecting the natural history of man, one must not neglect the geographical journals. ‘The files of Petermann’s mittheilungen for the past year will be found quite rich, especially in ethnographic informa- tion. The following summary will guide to the most important contributions. Upon the subject of the variation of climate in the region of the southern Mediterranean and northern Sahara, Professor Fischer of Kiel holds, that, in this locality, a diminution of precipitation has taken place, the influence of which on health, population, and the means of living, is easily conjectured (pp. 1-4). The subject of marshes, inséabilis terra nec navi- gabilis aqua, begetter of pestilence, precursor of fertile 416 fields, and preserver of antiquities, is discussed briefly, in its relation to history and human weal, by inspect- or T. Schacht of Oldenburg (pp. 5-12). The researches of M. Baber in Szetschuen and Yun- nan, south-west China, brought him into communi- cation with the Lolos, — an interesting tribe, who present but few points of agreement with the Mon- golian type (pp. 26-28). Dr. Hagen, on a journey inland from the east coast of Deli, in Sumatra, observed carefully the Battas of the coast, the Orang-Lussun of the foot-hills, and the Orang-Karo, Orang-Timor, and Orang-Tobah, in the vicinity of Tobah Lake. The writer dwells at some length upon their anthropometry and their social and technical characteristics (pp. 44-53, 102-104, 142- 149, 167-177). Mr. Fr. v. Schenck has added a little to our infor- mation upon the people of Colombia, South America, by references to the Antioquefios and Medellinos (pp. 85-93, 213-220). A minute description of the inhabitants of the Jagnau valley, which lies near the 40th parallel, on the borders of Turkestan, is given by Bonvalot. These people are considered by Professor Fred. Mul- ler to speak a very old Iranian language (pp. 93- 102). The archeology of Julianehaab, the most southern district of Greenland, first studied by Steenstrup in, 1876, has more recently received the attention of Holm, who locates over a hundred ruins of Scandina- vian dwellings, and who has examined many graves (pp. 137, 188). Gerhard Rohlfs rates the number of Jews in Africa at 450,000: to wit, Algiers, 34,000; Egypt, 8,000; Tu- nis, 60,000; Tripoli, 100,000; Morocco, 200,000; the rest scattered over the continent (p. 211). The names and localities of the African tribes liv- ing on the upper Niger, in Adamaua and the neigh- boring regions, is given by R. Flegels (p. 246). The accompanying chart is an excellent help in fixing definitely the location of each tribe. Dr Emin Bey, governor of the equatorial provinces of Egypt in 1880, made a journey from Lado to Ma- kraka, and in the following year prosecuted his re- searches through the Mudirié Rohl. Emin Bey’s travels were mainly in the country visited by Pethe- rick in 1862, by Schweinfurth in 1869-71, by Wil- helm Junkers in 1877 and 1878, and by Fekin and Wilson in 1879. This communication is illustrated by an excellent map, and contains much that is worth preserving about the tribes along the route (pp. 260- 268, 8238-340, 415-428). Dr. Junkers has a paper on his travels, in the journal, and describes especially the A-Madi (p. 286) and the A-Baranbo (p. 289) stock. Frequent references to Emin Bey and Junkers will be found in the bibliographic lists of the Mitthei- lungen. The Rumuni, in Istria, are called by the Germans, Wallachs; by the Slavs, Wlaks; by themselves, Ru- muni, or Rumeri. Dr. Karl Lechner devotes a few pages to a description of them (pp. 294-299). Dr. Polakowsky makes the statement that Mr. Gabb’s ‘Tribes and languages of Costa Rica’ has SCIENCE. been published this year, with learned comments by . L. Fernandez, as a special supplement of the Costa-— Rican official gazette. The author also describes at length a visit of the Catholic bishop Thiel to the Chi- rippo, and other tribes of this Central-American state (pp. 300-304). An excellent example of the application of raphe: methods to anthropology is the nationality chart of Bohemia, designed by E. Hochreiter. Among the facts brought out and illustrated is the title which the Bohemians have won for being wanderers. While there are 490,565 Bohemians in Austro-Hun- gary outside of Bohemia, there are only 80,236 persons in that country who are not natives (pp. 321- 323). St. v. Rogozinski, visiting Liberia in March, 1883, gives a very flattering account of the state of affairs | in that colony. Leaving Cape Palmas, he visited the coast of Assini, formerly a French colonial posses- sion, but deserted in 1871. ‘ Of all the stocks of the west coast,’ says Rogozinski, ‘that I have seen, the Assinese are the inost comely.’ The court and vil- lage of King Amatifu made a very good impression upon the traveller; and he was able to acquaint him- self with many of the customs of the people, espe- cially those connected with the burial of the dead, the taking of meals, fetich doctors, and dancing. The journal of Rogozinski concludes with a brief recital of a visit to Elmina, in Ashanti, and the an- nouncement of his arrival in Fernando Po (pp. 366- 373). : Two papers descriptive of the upper streams of the Yang-tse-Kiang and the Taw-la Mountains, by N. Prjevalski, make incidental allusions to ethnologic subjects. The Jegrai and the Golyks (Kolo of Huc), of Tangut stock, find mention on p. 351; and the Tibetans are described at greater length on p. 379. Notes on the customs of Kafiristan are to be found in the communication relating to that country, by Hughes and Munschi-Synd-Schah, especially on pp. 408, 409. Supplement No. 71 is devoted entirely to the Cos- sacks. It is compiled from the work of Chorosch- chin and from other sources, by F. v. Stein. We have in this essay an excellent monograph upon the Cos- sacks, commencing with a brief résumé of their his- tory, so far as it is known, and enlarging upon their present dispersion, characteristics, their works and industries, and chiefly their social and military organi- zation. Tien the last point, carefully prepared sta- tistics have been compiled. Supplement No. 72 is a report of Juan Maria Schuver’s journey to the upper Nile region, including his observations and discoveries upon the watershed between the Blue and the White Nile, and on the bor- der-line between Egypt and Abyssinia. This number is replete with descriptions of the people in the dis- | tricts considered. Supplement No. 73 is a methodical investigation — concerning the cinnamon-producing regions, by Dr. Carl Schumann. this study is its bearing upon the history of com- merce. . [Vou. IIL, No. 61. One of the many useful results of APRIL 4, 1884. ] SPENCER’S PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNKNOWABLE. An examination of the philosophy of the unknowable, as expounded by Herbert Spencer. By WILLIAM W. Lacy. Philadelphia, Benjamin F. Lacy, 1883. 4+4+235p. 8°. . Tuts is a work that will interest the student of our American civilizatioh more than the student of philosophy. A man of extraordi- nary keenness and vigor of thought, plainly a born speculator, but utterly ignorant con- cerning some of the most elementary matters of physical science, devotes more than two hundred pages of close and ingenious argu- ment to the task of refuting Mr. Spencer’s well-known doctrine of the unknowable. The dead horse is flogged with a persistence that astonishes the reader, who has so often, ere this, seen the hopeless task tried without suc- cess. For the unknowable is once for all beyond the reach of harm, in the unapproachable re- gions of the unmeaning; and nothing that we ean do or say has any sort of effect on its blessed repose. One might as well hunt snarks as to refute this portion of the Spencerian phi- losophy. If any refutations had or could have any value for the purpose, we could find enough of them in Mr. Spencer’s own writings to con- tent anybody. Quite recently, for example, at the close of an essay on the future of reli- gion, Mr. Spencer has assured us that the ‘scientific man’ is possessed of an ‘‘ analysis of knowledge, which, while forcing him to ag- nosticism, yet continually prompts him to im- agine some solution of the great enigma which he knows cannot be solved;’’ and that this same man, ‘‘ though suspecting that ‘ explana- tion’ is a word without meaning when applied to this ultimate reality, yet feels compelled to think there must be an explanation.’’ So that, to turn Mr. Spencer’s confession into Saxon, his knowledge makes him feel pretty sure that he is talking nonsense about the unknowable, and yet forces him to keep on talking this non- sense. And this state of soul it is which the doctrine of the unknowable expresses; and the said doctrine is for Mr. Spencer not only very deeply religious, but also the last word of philosophy. Of course, when a man can put all this into print, over his own name, he has really done as much as any living crea- ture can do in the way of refuting his own doctrine of the unknowable; and we can only thank him for his trouble. But surely we are absolved from writing books about this aspect of Mr. Spencer’s views, at all events, however much his other views may be worth study or acceptance or refutation. Such passages being SCIENCE. 417 no new thing in Mr. Spencer’s books, we therefore look with very languid interest on lengthy refutations like the present one, for we are convinced that some doctrines can well take care of themselves. Moreover, in its form, this refutation belongs to the past age of con- troversy, the age that culminated in Mill’s ‘Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s phi- losophy,’ —a time of far narrower range in philosophic study than our own, — a time whose problems were fewer and Jess fruitful, — a time, in short, when to read one or two books, and to show great ingenuity in close logical fighting, might have made any one a match in certain questions for eVen a great scholar and thinker like Mill. Such discussions we no longer de- sire. We read more in philosophy, we go to school to more teachers, we think of more problems; or else we have to be content to rank as mere amateurs in philosophy. Our author, like many other students of Spencer in this country, must, for all that we here see, be classed among the amateurs. Philosophy seems to mean to him a very few problems and lines of thought. If it were not so, how could he be content with such a form and range as this for his book? —a mere disputation, close, generally logical in form (save in the portions that touch upon physical science), abstract, dry, ingenious, laborious, but in outcome almost utterly fruitless. Yet we said that the book ought to interest the student of our American civilization ; and so it ought. Here is a man of no small native power, of no small application: he goes to the trouble, and doubtless to the expense, of printing this elaborate disputation of a purely theoretical question; he appeals, and can expect to appeal, only to a few, viz., to the special students of philosophy ; he appeals to them with all the quiet assurance of a man who knows what he is about. There is a self- confidence in his manner, but there is no merely pretentious display of knowledge in his book. His style is Spencerian, — Spencerian with a bit more of vigor, and without a bit less of accuracy in form. The work is that of a mature thinker who has considered long and well. Now, however, this man has occasion to talk of the first law of motion. This law puzzles him. If a boy, he tells us, sets a ball going by hitting it with a bat, he himself is quite able to see why the ball is pushed by the bat so long as the bat is in contact with it, but thereafter he is perplexed. Why does the ball keep on moving? ‘* Motion, in the absence of propulsion, is inconceivable ;’’ that is, when the ball ceases to be pushed, it ought ‘ oo 418 to stop. But since, in fact, it keeps on, there must be a cause for this mysterious behavior. The cause the author thus describes: ‘‘ Little as is known of the action of air and the ethe- real substance, . . . and novel as is the thought of them as continuers of motion, no violence is done to the current understanding of their na- ture by imagining them as in the act of urging forward an object enveloped in them. ‘The ob- ject cannot be made to move without causing much that is before it to move in the same direction, and much also to be dissipated lat- erally. Thus by opening a path is resistance lessened. . . . Now consider what must simul- taneously take place in the rear. A space must be vacated by the object, and as quickly filled up by an in-rushing from all directions ex- cept that of the object. To the confluence of forces so formed, there is no outlet except in the direction of the object: consequently this direction they take, impelling the object for- ward’’ (pp. 59, 60). Thus it is that the ball moves: the air pushesit. It follows, of course, that no body would follow the first law of motion in a vacuum, and that air not only resists a body’s motion, but also helps it to move; and so, in company with the various ‘less stable substances’ that exist in space, and of which, as we learn, ‘there must be many besides heat and light,’ the air or some other gas forms the necessary condition for the continuance of any motion. Much more talk of a similar sort follows, about inertia and gravity and like traditional conceptions, for which our author has new explanations, quite as clear and satisfactory as the foregoing. Now, such passages illustrate the truth that the possibility of Keeley-motor investors also illustrates, a truth painful but indubitable ; viz., that high intelligence, coupled with con- siderable learning, does as yet, in our enlight- ened land, neither prevent a man from having the wildest notions about the simplest matters of elementary physical science, nor enable him prudently to conceal his ignorance. There are shrewd and educated men to be found, who will invest money in impossible motors; and there are ingenious and not unlearned men to be found, who, like our author, will talk in such confused and ignorant fashion about the simplest matters of science, which ought to have been made clear to them in their school- boy days: yet about other matters they do speak like men of sense. Their defect is not lack of mental power, but simply gross igno- rance. Such speech at this time of day is dis- heartening. But possibly students of science, and more especially teachers of science, may SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. do well to consider occasionally, in view of such ingenious rubbish as this, what a work they have yet to do, before the public mind is so well trained in elementary conceptions that nonsense like the foregoing shall be not merely nonsense, but impossible to men of our au-— thor’s intelligence. Good.elementary instruc- tion in physical science is certainly very much needed ; and here is an illustration of the need, —an extraordinary mind, condemned to seem- ingly hopeless error, on important questions of the most elementary sort, all for the lack of a few hours of sensible teaching in boyhood or since. Meanwhile let the case serve as a warning to those who imagine that our Ameri- can public is to receive useful instruction in elementary physical science from the now pop- ular works of the great teacher of the evolu- tion-philosophy. Here is a very good student indeed, diligent, logical, and ingenious. What philosopher could hope for a better? He has carefully studied Mr. Spencer’s works, and this is what he has got out of them. If, he tells us, an object were pushed into an abso- lute vacuum with any velocity whatever, we are obliged by the necessities of our thought to suppose that this object ‘‘ would therefore be stopped by the withdrawal of external in- fluence.’’ Such, Mr. Spencer may notice, is the effect of a use of the ‘universal postu- late’ by a very devout student, who seems to accept so much of the Spencerian system without reserve. The effect of further doses of the ‘universal postulate *® upon our popu- lar thought in America can only be. conjec- tured. Deliver us from it, merciful powers ! It is only just to add, that Mr. Lacy, while rejecting the doctrine of the unknowable, is not opposed to the philosophic foundation of the positive Spencerian doctrines viewed generally, and finds his objections ‘‘ not incompatible with estimation of the ‘Synthetic philosophy’ as perhaps the noblest speculative product of a single mind.’’ We cannot do better than to leave the product and the worshipper in this happy attitude towards each other. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA. Geological survey of Alabama. Report for the years 1881 and 1882, embracing an account of the agricul- tural features of the state. By EUGENE ALLEN SmitH, Ph.D., state geologist. W. D. Brown & Co., pr., 1883. 615 p. 8°. Tue law organizing the geological survey of Alabama requires from the state geologist, among other things, a report upon the agricul- tural resources of the state; and the’ present : 61. Montgomery, > - duced by cultivation. APRIL 4, 1884.] volume has been prepared in obedience to this requirement : itis, in part, based on work under- taken by Dr. Smith in 1880, in the prepara- tion of reports on cotton-culture in Alabama and Florida for the tenth census of the United States. The maps and woodcuts engraved for the census-office, and the statistics collect- ed by the enumerators, were placed at his disposal for this report; while the geological material collected by the state survey during previous years was freely contributed to the census.report on Alabama. Subsequently ad- ditional work has been done by the state sur- - yey for this report; and the resulting volume is most creditable, both to the ability of Dr. Smith, and the wisdom of the state in institut- ing such a survey. Part i. of the report is introductory in its character, and consists of a general discussion of the composition, mode of formation, and properties of soils, and of the changes pro- This discussion, extend- ing over one hundred and fifty-three pages, is admirable of its kind. It does not attempt to present any original observations ; but it is a very full and judicious résumé of the present state of knowledge on these topics, and shows a much greater familiarity with them than is usually expected from the geologist. Part ii., which constitutes the report proper, is an account of the main agricultural features of the state of Alabama. Following the tab- ulated results of the census enumeration, — viz., table i., area, population, tilled lands, and cotton-production ; and table il., acreage and production of leading crops, —we find section i. devoted to an outline of the physical geography and geology of the state, and an enumeration of its agricultural subdivisions; section il. giving a detailed description of these agricul- tural subdivisions ; section ili., agricultural de- scriptions of the counties of Alabama; and section iv., cultural and economic details of cotton-production. For the purposes of agricultural description, Dr. Smith divides the state into three divisions, —a middle, a northern, and a southern. Of these, the middle division is the oldest geologi- cally, and consists of the south-western ter- mination of the Appalachian chain; and the northern is the next in order, consisting of the southern termination of the great Cumberland tableland and of the highlands of Tennessee, together with the Warrior coal-basin. With the exception of bottom and alluvial lands, the soils of this division are sedentary soils, resting upon the rocks from which they were formed; and both the agricultural and topo- SCIENCE. 419 graphical features of the country are largely determined by its geological structure. In the southern division, on the contrary, these features are largely independent of geo- logical structure, and ‘‘ almost exclusively the result of erosion as determined by differences in the material of a single formation, — the stratified drift or Orange sand, which, except in parts of the prairie belt, covers the under- lying beds over this whole division.’’ The soils of each of these regions are very fully described, the description being in many cases accompanied by chemical analyses and determinations of the more important physi- cal properties. In the middle and northern divisions the classification is chiefly geological, while in the southern it is based mainly on the character of the prevailing forest-growth. A valuable addition to this portion of the report is a list of trees and lesser plants characteristic of the several regions of the state, prepared by Dr. Charles Mohr of Mobile. The report is illustrated by three geological sections, an agricultural map of the state, and maps showing the distribution of temperature and rainfall for the year, and also for the winter and summer seasons. LATE ELECTRICAL BOOKS. Absolute measurements in electricity and magnetism. By ANDREW Gray. London, Macmillan, 1884. 16+207 p., illustr. 24°. Notes on electricity and magnetism. By J. B. Mur- pock. New York, Macmillan, 1884. 8+189p., illustr. 16°. Mr. Gray’s book on absolute measurements is the outcome of a series of articles from his pen, upon the measurement of currents and potentials, published in Nature in 1882 and 1883: it is, in fact, a reprint of these articles, with some alterations and considerable and important additions ; and it must be regarded as a most useful contribution to what may be called the available literature upon this subject. The presentation of the systems of compu- tation, based on the so-called absolute units, is clear and accurate, and will enable the stu- dent to obtain a firmer grasp upon the methods now all but universally used than can easily be secured from other sources. The work opens with a description and dis- cussion of methods of determining the hori- zontal component of the earth’s magnetism, upon which so many electrical measurements are made to depend. Mr Gray is a warm advocate of the use of small masses in this operation, suggesting the use of magnets of 420 steel wire one millimetre in diameter instead of those found in the common form of mag- netometer ; and in the deflection experiment he uses the light mirror magnets which are found in Thomson’s reflecting-galvanometer. In simplicity and convenience, his plan certainly possesses many advantages, as well as in free- dom from certain errors which are likely to exist in the use of the more massive forms. It also has the merit of cheapness, enabling any one, at little expense, to determine this important element with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Neither method, however, is free from disadvantages, to which the author directs further attention in a note. This discussion is followed by a considera- tion of the methods of calculating the constants of a coil, and the construction of a standard galvanometer, the latter being described with such attention to details as to leave little to be desired. the use of the standard galvanometer in the graduation of other forms, selecting for this purpose Sir William Thomson’s potential and current galvanometers. ‘The construction of these instruments is described, and the process of graduation which is actually adopted in practice. While it is doubtless true that in- struments for the measure of current and elec- tromotive force which satisfy all the demands of the practical electrician have not yet been devised, Sir William Thomson’s unquestion- ably rank high among those at present in use. The most serious error which is likely to re- sult from their employment arises out of the change in the strength of field produced by the permanent magnets, which is pretty certain to occur. Mr. Gray suggests several methods of testing the field of the magnets which fur- nish valuable checks in their use. Two or three simple tests which are not re- ferred to will readily suggest themselves to any one making use of the instruments. The discussion of resistance-measurements, although not exhaustive, covers most of the ground; and especial attention is given to methods of measuring very low resistances, now a matter of greater importance than for- merly. A chapter is devoted to the measure- ment of the energy in electric circuits, which includes a valuable discussion of the theory of alternating-machines and methods especially | adapted to them. One of the most interesting features of the book is a description of several simple and ingenious methods of measuring intense mag- netic fields, suggested by Sir William Thom- son; and also the use of earth-inductors in SCIENCE. The author then proceeds to explain » [Von. II., No. 61. absolute measurements, as originally applied by Professor Rowland. , The closing chapter is devoted to a very satisfactory discussion of dimensional equa- tions. A list of errata accompanies the volume, and several errors not included therein are to be found ; but none are of great importance, or likely to mislead the reader; and altogether the book will be welcomed by every student of electricity. Mr. Murdock’s notes are intended to be supplementary to the Elementary lessons in electricity and magnetism by Silvanus P. Thompson, and consist, in the main, of am- plifications of some of the propositions in that work, with demonstrations in which a knowl- ledge of the elements of the calculus is assumed. Occasional extensions and additions are also made, which add much to the value of the book. It is likely to be of considerable use to the student of Professor Thompson’s elementary lessons, and it may also be used alone with little difficulty. Errors are here and there met with, the most notable of which are to be found in the definitions of units, originating either in gross carelessness, or in a confusion of ideas in the mind of the author. The distinction between work and rate of work, or activity as it is happily named by Sir William Thomson, is not regarded in the definitions. A coulomb ig defined as an ampere per second. A watt, which is activity, is defined as 10" ergs, which iswork. The watt and joule are declared iden- tical; although the first is activity, and the second is energy. The joule is defined as a quantity of heat: the suggestion of Sir W. Siemens was, that it should be a unit of work, equal to 10’ ergs. Thanks to the efforts of the British associa- tion and the international electrical congress, the nomenclature of electrical measurement is well-nigh perfect ; and it is both important and easy for the student to acquire in the begin- ning clear and accurate conceptions of the nature and relations of the units involved. Is there not, however, a tendency at the present time to overdo the matter of creating and nam- ing units? Too many will complicate rather than simplify processes of computation. The use of ‘ joule’ does not seem to be altogether free from criticism, on account of the fact that — the same name, or at least the initial J, has — long been in use as the symbol for the mechan- — ical equivalent of heat. pear to be any good reason for making a unit of the current which will evolve one cubic centimetre of mixed gases per minute, and There does not ap- . a "quently have a petroleum-like odor. APRIL 4, 1884.] ealling it a ‘ jacobi,’ as all derived units should be related to the fundamental units of length, mass, and time, through simple, decimal ratios. There is danger, in fact, of the simple ele- SCIENCE. 421 gance of the absolute system being destroyed by excessive ornamentation; and it is well enough to make haste slowly in adding to what has already been done. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey, Paleontology. — Prof. H. 8. Williams, from his pre- liminary study of the specimens he collected during last season in Genesee and Wyoming counties, N.Y., from the Genesee slate and Portage formations, reaches some interesting conclusions. He is con- vinced that the black shales which appear in the lower Portage of this region, and continue to appear as thin zones up to a point just below the Portage sandstones, represent merely an interrupted continu- ation of the deposits called the Genesee slates. After the typical Genesee slate was deposited to some con- siderable thickness, the Portage fauna made its ap- pearance in the soft, blue, argillaceous shales. A hundred feet higher another black shale appears of several feet thickness, and then olive shales come in; and for several hundred feet this alternation con- tinues, the black shales becoming thinner with each repetition, and containing an increasing amount of im- purity, siliceous and argillaceous, so that in the upper part there are only dark-gray bands or streaks of the olive shales, with fine paper-like layers of black. The earlier Portage black slates bear the same fauna as the Genesee, but the specimens are fewer. Although these black slates are interstratified with the olive shales, they do not contain the Portage fauna. It is confined to the olive layers, and, higher up, to the blu- ish argillaceous shales. Near the top of the Portage series the sandstones come in. They are of a light- gray color, and are generally calcareous. They fre- With them the Chemung fauna is associated. The lowest observed appearance of that fauna was in Java township, Wyoming county, in the first of the gray sands lying just above the last-observed black zone, which was bituminous. Professor Williams also says that some interesting features have been revealed by the study of a large series of specimens of Spirifera mesocostalis Hall. In the representatives of the species from the upper Devonian, there is a well-developed median septum in the ventral valve, asin the genus Spiriferina; but the punctate character of the shell of that genus has not been observed in any of the specimens. The lower forms, at its first appearance in the Ithaca group, very rarely show any trace of the septum. As far as Pro- fessor Williams’s examination has gone, he finds that the median septum is more fully developed and more generally present, the higher up the specimens are found. In harmony with this observation is the ref- erence, by Mr. Whitfield, of a similar specimen from Wisconsin (Geol. Wisconsin, iv. 332) to Spiriferina under the name of Spiriferina (?) ziczac. STATE INSTITUTIONS. New-York state survey. Rainfall of western New York. — To ascertain how much water is likely in different seasons to flow off of the surrounding watershed into Oak-Orchard Swamp, it was necessary to study with great care the rainfall of the western part of the state for the past fifty years. A careful analysis was therefore made of observations taken at Rochester university since 1880, _ and by the U.S. signal-service at Buffalo and Roches- ter since 1870. The result of this discussion of the Rochester rainfall is quite remarkable. It is shown, that from 1830 to 1880, during the very period when the woods were being cut off from the western part of the state, the rainfall steadily increased from a mean annual precipitation of 27.7 inches to 38 inches. The average was 34 inches. From 1868 to 1881 in- clusive, there was the greatest average rainfall known for a similar period in that locality: it was 388.73 inches. The greatest recorded monthly, daily, and spring rainfalls occurred between 1870 and 1880. This decennial period is therefore a safe one from which to estimate maximum amounts of water likely to be discharged from watersheds in the western parts of the state; but 4owns whose future water- supply is estimated from the amounts received into lakes or streams since 1868 may find themselves very short of water, if the mean annual precipitation should decrease to that of the period from 1830 to 1840. Long periods of small average rainfall will doubtless recur in the region near Lake Ontario. The city of Rochester should be prepared for a time when, for ten years, the average yield of water from its present source of supply, the basin of Hemlock Lake, may amount to only three-quarters of the average flow from 1868 to 1881. Quantity of water evaporated from various water- sheds. — While the mean rainfall of this region has increased during the past fifty years, the summer flow of the streams has greatly diminished. This is due partly to the loss of retaining-power in the ground, owing to the removal of the soft forest mould, which in former times readily absorbed the rain and melt- ing snows, and so prevented these invaluable waters from rushing off and wasting themselves in destruc- tive floods, and partly to the enormous increase in evaporation. The proportion of rainfall, which, owing to evaporation, is lost for use in springs, lakes, and streams, is known to but few. In the special U iets 422 report will be found a collection of observations on evaporation in this country and Europe. They show that large rivers receive in the main channels seldom more than one quarter of the average amount that falls on their watersheds. The remaining three quarters is evaporated. On small watersheds the proportion of loss from evaporation is small. The average flow into Croton Lake is about fifty per cent of the average rainfall on the gathering-ground, the area of which is 339 square miles. © The amount of water flowing from Cochituate Lake watershed, of 18.75 square miles, is, on the aver- age, forty-five per cent of that which falls; but the proportion varies greatly from year to year. In 1866 only twenty-five per cent of the rainfall flowed into the lake; while in 1857, with almost the same rainfall, seventy-four per cent of the precipitation entered the lake. The difference in the amount evaporated in 1866 over that of 1857 was equivalent to a depth of thirty inches of water over the whole gathering- ground. Experiments made in Denmark and Eng- land show that the mean annual evaporation from soil and grass land is from twenty-six to thirty inches, or from fifty-six to sixty-seven per cent of the rain- fall. The tables of rainfall and flow of the Sudbury River and Cochituate Lake show, also, that the sum- mer evaporation amounts to eighty per cent of the rainfall on these basins; and that in March and April all the rainfall may flow off, together with a large amount of water from melting snow accumulated during the winter. The Sudbury River tables show that on this watershed the loss of water by evapora- tion between May and December is from three to four times the quantity lost in spring floods. Effect of woods on the flow of streams. — The facts given prove that evaporation from the ground is the most effective cause controlling the summer and autumn flow in our streams: therefore whatever tends to retard evaporation will increase the summer flow of springs and streams. The great promoters of evaporation are heat, dryness of atmosphere, and wind. Woods, especially when the trees are large, act in three ways to prevent evaporation from the ground: they keep the surface cool, the atmosphere moist, and the lower stratum of air so still that the powerful drying-action of the winds is felt compara- tively little. The amount of water which will be lost from any watershed by the removal of the woods must depend on the steepness of its slopes, the char- acter and depth of soil, and the nature of the under- lying rocks. The greater part of the basin of the west branch of the Croton River is wooded. Its area is about twenty square miles. It yielded for four years an average flow of sixty-three per cent of the rainfall. The mean precipitation was 50 inches. The yearly evap- oration was as follows: 15 inches, 11 inches, 23.6 inches, 15 inches. The Sudbury River basin in Mas- sachusetts, containing seventy-eight square miles, is wooded over only from one-sixth to one-eighth of its area. From 1875 to 1879 inclusive, the mean annual rainfall was 47.7 inches, and the amounts of water SCIENCE. [Vou. III, No. 61: lost, principally by evaporation, were 25 inches, 26 inches, 19 inches, 27 inches, 23 inches. ‘The Cochit- uate basin is only partially wooded. Its average rainfall, 50 inches, is about the same as the West Croton and the Sudbury. The average yearly loss from the watershed is 27 inches, while in certain cases the evaporation alone must have exceeded 35 inches. The West Croton appears to yield in its flow some eighteen per cent more of the rainfall than the other watersheds mentioned; but the dissimilarity in their topography and geology makes it impossible to say how large a part the woods ‘play in the differences of flow. Yet the result bears out the ordinary rule deduced from observations taken in Europe, that the average flowin streams draining wooded and swampy basins will be from sixty to eighty per cent of the — mean rainfall, while those draining watersheds of undulating pasture and woodland generally receive into the main channel only from fifty to seventy per cent of the mean rainfall. Should the rule prove applicable in this country, the average increase of evaporation by the removal of woods from a-district may amount to ten per cent of the annual rainfall. This loss will occur mainly in summer and autumn, so that the flow during this season will be diminished in far greater ratio. With almost equal rainfalls (22.5 and 20 inches), more than two and a half times as much water (8.3 inches) flows from the wooded basin of the West Cro- ton as is discharged from the comparatively unwooded watershed of the Sudbury River (2.9 inches) between June land Noy. 1. During the remainder of the year the discharge from these two watersheds is almost the same. These results, being deduced from only four years of observation, would be modified by fur- ther measurement. The great difference in the flow from these two basins, since it is shown to occur between June and October, is undoubtedly due to a difference in the amount of water evaporated; and this is only partly accounted for by differences of to- pography and soil. The woods are surely playing an important part in maintaining the summer flow of the West Croton. Cutting them off might easily reduce the summer and autuinn flow twenty-five per cent. While it must be understood that the facts are too limited to base any final results upon them, yet they indicate the probability that the summer and autumn flow of streams may be reduced in vol- ume twenty-five per cent by cutting off the woods from their watersheds. If the summer and autumn flows in the upper Hudson, the Mohawk, and the Black Rivers, were lessened twenty-five per cent from their present average volume, the navigation of the Hudson and the canal would be doubtful; and cer- tainly the loss in hydraulic power for manufacturing- purposes would be very great. While the people of New-York City are wisely taking an active interest in the protection of the northern forest, they should not forget that the preservation of the woods on the Croton watershed is of great importance in maintaining the summer water-supply of New — York. isa AprRit 4, 1884. ] SCIENCE. 423 RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, March 11.— Professor Thomas Meehan made acom- munication upon a root said to be that of Conium maculatum, which was so virulently poisonous as to have quickly caused the death of a number of chil- dren who had eaten of it. In consequence of the rarity of Conium in the neighborhood, he was inclined to believe the species to be Cicutum maculatum, a common local plant, the root of which resembles that of Conium, but is not so dense. He proposed plant- ing the roots with a view to making a further report on the subject when the leaves are sufficiently de- veloped to place the specific characters beyond ques- tion. —— Mr. Edward Potts stated that the stems of Urnatella gracilis on the dry sponge-crusts recently collected had germinated after being placed in a life- case, showing that life persists in the stems during the winter, and makes itself manifest in the spring. He had found it somewhat difficult to work out the com- plete life-history of the polyp, in consequence of its being the prey of several associated forms of life. —— In a paper on the rufous or thatching ant of Dakota and Colorado, the Rev. Dr. H. C. McCook recorded the finding of the hills made by the species on the entire rolling prairie lying between the Cheyenne and the James Rivers. Specimens of the insect had also been sent to him from Iowa Gulch, near Leadville, taken from an elevation of 11,300 feet above the level of the sea. In its power to resist the vigor of the winter at high elevations, the American form resem- bles the Formica rufa of Switzerland, which is found as far up the Alps as the line of vegetation, farther progress being apparently limited by the lack of vege- table growth rather than by the cold. They may therefore be reckoned, both on this continent and in Europe, as among the most hardy of the ant-fauna, and best adapted to contend with severities of cold. Their hills in Dakota are, for the most part, conical elevations somewhat flattened at the top. Some present the peculiarity of a square base, giving the hill the appearance of a pyramid with a rounded top. Their height ranges from eight inches to a foot and ahalf. The largest mound observed was found near the summit of the Ute Pass. It was a conical heap, four feet long, and about one foot high, and looked like a small hay-stack, in consequence of its being covered or thatched, in common with all the others about Leadville and in Dakota, with bits of wood and broken sprigs of pine. As the colony increases its numbers, and the necessities of internal domestic economy require the enlargement of the formicaries, the excavated soil is brought up and laid on the thatching. In course of timea new roof of chips and clipped grass is overlaid; and thus, in the ordinary growth of a mound, there would be an alternation of earth and vegetable substance. The marriage-flight of the species takes place in the spring, with the first appearance of vegetation; and the swarms are a source of annoyance to the workers in the fields, al- though they do not get angry and rush at parties, attacking them, as beesdo. The annoyance produced by such swarms is more than compensated for by a curious insectivorous habit of the ants, of which the settlers avail themselves to rid their clothing of lice. Garments so infected, left in the vicinity of the for- micaries, are quickly and perfectly cleaned of both parasites and eggs, —a fact which was formerly well known to the Indians of the plains and to old pio- neers and campers. Natural science association, Staten Island. March 8. — Mr. Seehusen read a paper upon gems, giving a description and history of the principal stones used as gems, with specimens to illustrate the notes. —— Mr. Leng read a paper upon the Coccinel- lidae of Staten Island, of which he recorded eleven species. —— Mr. Hollick remarked, that numerous specimens of the common seal (Phoca concolor) had visited the shores of Staten Island during the past month. If not disturbed, they would, no doubt, again return to the locality, and remain permanently with us, as do the sea-lions on the ‘seal rocks’ of San Francisco harbor, where they are protected by law. The speaker also remarked, that a single speci- men of the great northern diver (Colymbus torqua- tus) had been noted in the bay, not far from the Staten Island shore. Biological society, Washington, March 8.—Dr. J .H. Kidder, U.S.N., exhibited spe- cimens of Bacillus tuberculosus, and summarized the existing state of knowledge and opinions concerning its relation to tuberculosis. Dr. D. E. Salmon called attention to the claims of Toussaint as the discoverer of Micrococcus in tuberculosis, and remarked that the relation of Koch’s B. tuberculosus to the disease is not yet certainly ascertained to be more essential than that of Micrococcus. —— Dr. D. E. Salmon exhibited specimens of infectious tuberculosis from cattle, in which he had been able to discover no traces of bacillus. —~ Mr. C. W. Smiley read a paper on what fish-culture has first to accomplish. Fish-cul- ture, he remarked, cannot be expected to perform what is impossible; namely, to fill the waters of a continent to overflowing with an inexhaustible sup- ply of fish: on the contrary, it will have to put forth the utmost effort to prevent the entire annihilation of the fish-supply through the uncontrollable activity of the fishermen. ——Col. Marshall McDonald read a paper on the influence of temperature upon the movements of fishin rivers, in which the fluctuations ~- of the catch of shad in the Potomac in 1881-83 were explained by reference to the varying temperature of the waters of ocean, bay, and river, at the time of their anadromous movements. March 22.— Col. Marshall McDonald exhibited a chart showing the natural and restricted river-distri- bution of the shad. Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, U.S.A., offered some remarks on the patella, describing the position of this bone, which he considered to be a true sesamoid in various forms of mammals and 424 birds. —— Mr. Romyn Hitchcock exhibited a series of specimens of Orbitolites, and made some remarks upon the results of the work of Dr. William B Car-’ penter as finally set forth in vol. vii. of the report of H. M.S. Challenger. Prof. C. V. Riley pre- sented some personal reminiscences of the late Dr. George Engelmann, which were supplemented by remarks from Dr. George Vasey and Professor Lester F. Ward. Mr. Richard Rathbun exhibited a large mass of coral (Oculina, sp.) recently obtained from Key West, growing on the end of a crowbar, which, when further studied, would probably yield some clew to the rate of growth of the species. Mr. M. G. Ellzey spoke on the prepotency of the male parent, giving the results of twenty-five years’ experience in breeding horses, dogs, and other kinds of live-stock. The male parent he believes to be prepotent in the transmission of hereditary traits, except where some extraordinary circumstance intervened. In the case of hybrids between the horse and the ass, a cross is always marked by prepotency of the ass; and in all crosses of two species the male is always prepotent. Mr. Dall called attention to the danger of drawing conclusions from observations upon the external characters of the products of the union of two species. Dr. Leonard Stejneger exhibited two magnifi- cently mounted specimens of the great Kamtchatkan sea-eagle, Thalassaetus leucopterus ; also a specimen of the bald eagle, Haliaetus leucocephalus, and a specimen in immature plumage of another species, probably undescribed, and probably in the adult state entirely white. The rivers of Kamtchatka abound greatly in salmon, and eagles are in consequence particularily numerous. Mathematical section, Philosophical society, Washington. Feb. 20. — Mr. H. Farquhar showed the application of two kinds of empirical formulae to observations of the diminution of amplitude of a freely oscillating pendulum at different atmospheric pressures. When the amplitude and the time were connected by the equation of a hyperbola with four constants (the term involving the amplitude square being omitted), the observations could always be perfectly satisfied. The chief advantage of this form, however, was the ease with which the constants could be calculated from the observations by least squares. A formula more convenient in practical application gave for the time a constant, divided by the nth power of the amplitude; where n was a fraction proportional to the square root of the atmospheric pressure, and equal to about one-third for a pressure of thirty inches. The initial time, or time of an infinite am- plitude, was a third constant to be determined; and it should be determined separately for all intervals within which the correction for amplitude is desired. Great nicety in the calculation of n was not neces- sary: the nearest tenth, or reciprocal, of a whole number, would suffice. The accuracy of this for- mula was shown by tables to be quite as close as the observations called for. When n became zero, the nth power was replaced by the logarithm of the amplitude, and the initial time was that of am- SCLENCE. 1 [Von. IIL, No. 61; plitude unity. The use of an empirical formula, of higher practical convenience than those usually adopted, —resulting from application of the theory that the diminution results from two resistances, pro- portional respectively to the velocity (or amplitude) and to its square,—was defended on the ground that this theory is itself empirical, and is well known. to fail altogether for very high velocities. The pro- posed formula supposed in effect one resistance pro- portional to the 1+ n power of the velocity of the pendulum. ; NOTES AND NEWS. From Nature we learn that Sir Joseph Hooker has been nominated one of the vice-presidents for the Montreal meeting of the British association. Instead of Mr. Crookes, Prof. W. G. Adams will give one of the public lectures. For the Aberdeen meeting in 1885, Sir Lyon Playfair will be proposed as president, A well-attended meeting of the organizing committee . of the chemical section has been held under the q presidency of Professor Roscoe. Promises of papers were received from several well-known chemists, and a small executive committee was formed to draw up a list of papers, and to communicate with Canadian and American chemists. Section G has been par- ticularly active. The committee has prepared a list of subjects for papers which it is thought would be interesting to English visitors if treated by engineers and mechanicians in Canada: a good supply of papers is expected, both from this country and America. Sir J. H. Lefroy has accepted the presidency of the geographical section. We regret to learn that Pro- fessor Williamson, the general treasurer, will be un- able to be present; and the council have decided to ‘engage the services of Mr. Hamy Brown as ‘ finan- cial officer,’ while Professor Burdon Sanderson has virtually consented to act as deputy for the treasurer at Montreal. \ — The last number of the Harvard university bul- letin contains further instalments of Mr. Winsor’s bibliography of Ptolemy’s geography and the Kohl collection of early maps; the former containing some © very interesting comments on the knowledge of America about the middle of the sixteenth century, the latter relating exclusively to maps of the new world issued in the first half of the same century. Mr. Bliss’s classed index to the maps in Petermann’s nittheilungen will be completed in the next issue, and we may expect its separate publication in afew weeks. It will prove a great convenience. A — At the request of the navy department, the fish- commission steamer Albatross, Capt. Tanner com- manding, was fitted out during the winter fof the purpose of carrying on a series of deep-sea sound- ings and dredgings in the Caribbean Sea, a region very little known in respect to its depths. The vessel left Washington Jan. 1, and reached St. Thomas on the 17th, and, after coaling, proceeded. — on her voyage, making the following ports: Curagoa, Trinidad, the Island of Oruba, Alta Vela, Jacmel, Gonaives, Santiago de Cuba, Navaza, and Kings- \ APRIL 4, 1884.] ton (Jamaica), where she arrived March 1. She left Kingston March 11, and arrived at Aspinwall, vid Savanilla, March 25. On her return from Aspin- wall she will proceed vid Cape San Antonio to Key West, expecting to arrive at the Washington navy- yard about the middle of May. The expedition has been a great success in all respects; numerous satis- factory series of soundings and temperatures having been taken, and large numbers of marine animals obtained. In the collections incidentally obtained during the stop of the steamer at-*Trinidad were two specimens of the guacharo-bird, Steatornis caripen- sis, which is such a rarity in museums, and two of the great fishing-bat. — The botanical collection of the late Charles F. Parker of the Philadelphia academy of sciences has been purchased for the Princeton herbarium. It is remarkably good as to the New Jersey flora. — The report of the U.S. solar-eclipse expedition has just been ordered to be printed by Congress. Among its contents are, meteorology of Caroline Is- land, by Mr. Winslow Upton; botany of Caroline Island, collections by Dr. W. S. Dixon, U.S.N., and identifications by Prof. W. Trelease; notes on the zoology of Caroline Island, by Dr. W. S. Dixon, U.S.N.; memorandum on the butterflies, ete., of Caroline Island, collections by Dr. J. Palisa, identi- fications by Messrs. Herman Strecker and Arthur G. Butler; chemical constituents of the sea-water of the lagoon of Caroline Island, determined by Messrs. Stillwell and Gladding; observations of twenty-three new double stars, by Prof. E. 8. Holden and Prof. C. S. Hastings; plans for work on the day of the eclipse, by Prof. E. S. Holden; reports on the eclipse; report in regard to the photographic observations of the eclipse, by Mr. H. A. Lawrance. — Twenty-three years ago Mr. W. Nelson was in the habit of collecting fresh-water shells in a small pond near the Black Hills, Leeds. At that time only four forms were to be found there, —Sphaerium la- custre, Pisidium pusillum, Planorbis nautileus, and Limnaea peregra. After thirteen years an additional species, Planorbis corneus, made its appearance. These were the only species found there until the spring of 1883, when, to the surprise of the collector, six species previously unknown there made their appearance successively. This remarkable increase, which is well attested, took place without any ap- parent change in external conditions at the locality mentioned. — After solving most of the knotty problems of molecular physics, the Rev. Dr. J. G. Macvicar de- parted this life, Feb. 12, from Moffat, Eng., aged eighty-three. He is reputed to have had some in- fluence with Smithson in persuading him to establish the Smithsonian institution, and seems to have been much respected among his parishioners. — An instance of the practical application of science to every-day life is well shown in the building of the capitol building of Dakota, at Bismarck, by the aid of electric light. This building, costing a quarter of a million of dollars, consists of three stories, base- ‘SCIENCE. 425 ment, and sub-basement, measuring a hundred and fifty-five feet by ninety-two feet, and contains over four million bricks, with trimmings of Joliet stone, and has been erected in the midst of winter. The corner-stone was laid Sept. 5, 1885; and on the 10th of January, 1884, a few days more than four months later, a photograph shows the building to lack only the projection of one side and the upper part of the tower. This result was accomplished by the employ- ment of electric light, which half the time replaced the sun, enabling double gangs of men to work day and night. The frozen sand was thawed by a red-hot cyl- inder; and the mortar, made with boiling water and hot lime, had its moisture absorbed by the dry bricks before it had time to freeze. Although taller, the building is an almost exact duplicate of the new capitol of Minnesota. — The Journal of the Society of arts states that the coal-measures of New South Wales embrace an area of about 23,950 square miles. Theseams worked vary from three feet to twenty-five feet in thickness, are nearly horizontal, and are in some localities con- siderably above sea-level. There are at the present time forty-one collieries at work, employing in the agsregate, above and below ground, 4,125 miners and others. In addition to the foregoing, there are two mines at which very valuable seams of petroleum- oil, cannel-coal, or kerosene shale are being worked. The number of men employed at these mines above and below ground is two hundred and thirty-one. Since 1865, when the working of these seams com- menced, the output has been 241,284 tons, valued at £581,046. There are three principal coal-mining districts,— the Hunter River and Neweastle coal-field, situated to the north of Sydney; the Southern or Illa- warra coal-field; and the Western or Lithgow coal- field, upon the Great western railway line, about ninety-five miles west from the metropolis. Coal is also being worked near Berrima, between Illawarra and Lithgow; and some seams are known to occur in the country lying between Lithgow and the Hun- ter River. Sydney, therefore, occupies an almost central position with regard to the coal-mining dis- tricts; and beyond these, coal has been discovered in different parts of the colony. — Director Wild of St. Petersburg, as president of the International polar commission, has sent out invitations for the congress of arctic travellers in Vienna on April 22. The members of the expedi- tions sent out in August, 1882, by all the great states north of the equator, to make simultaneous observa- tions of meteorological and magnetic phenomena, are expected to attend. — Dr. George A. Groff has published a fifth revised edition of his ‘ Book of plant-descriptions, or Record of plant-analyses,’ through the Science and health publishing company. It consists principally of a number of blanks to be used in the analysis of flower- ing plants, and for this purpose may be useful to teachers of small classes who do not wish to goto the expense of having blanks printed. There is also a list of terms used in descriptive botany, not, however, 426 accompanied by definitions. There is also a list of subjects suitable for theses, — rather an extraordinary array, on the whole, and requiring in a number of cases amuch more elaborate equipment than that rec- ommended on aprevious page. The tabular view of the vegetable kingdom would better have been omitted altogether, as it is antiquated and faulty in several re- spects : desmids and diatoms are protophytes, and what coccoliths may be we are unable to say. — Under the auspices of the Paris geographical society, a course of lectures is being given on the fol- lowing subjects: Mr. Faye, The connection of astrono- my and geography at the principal periods of history; Mr. de Lapparent, Reliefs of the globe; Mr. E. Fuchs, | Distribution of minerals; Mr. Mascart, director of the weather-bureau, Climate; Mr. Velain, Glaciers, and their action on the reliefs of the globe; Mr. Bureau, Geographical distribution of plants; Mr. Ed. Perrier, The depths of the sea, and their inhabitants; Mr. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, Geographical distribu- tion of animals. The first was given Feb. 11, and the last is put down for March 31. The course will be continued next year. —From observations of the weather of the past seventeen winters, taken at Lawrence, Kan., by Prof. F. H. Snow, it appears, that, during this period, five winters have had a lower mean temperature and a larger number of zero days than the winter just closed, six winters have had a larger number of winter days, but only one has had a lower minimum tem- perature. The rainfall (including melted snow) of the past winter has been three-fourths the average amount; the fall of snow has been slightly above the average depth; the cloudiness has been more than two per cent above the mean; the wind has exceeded its average by more than five thousand miles; there has been a single thunder-shower (the average num- ber); there has been one more fog than usual; and the barometer has exceeded its average height. —Dr.C. V. Riley, of the Agricultural department of Washington, states that the rust which is often seen on oranges, and which decreases their market value by about a dollar a crate, is produced by a mite. He finds that this mite is very susceptible to sulphur and kerosene and milk, which, if judiciously applied early in the season, will preserve the brightness of the fruit. —Mr. Francis Speir, whose address is South Orange, N.J., has sent out a circular, asking for re- plies to eleven sets of psychological questions, whose aim is ‘‘ to cover the field of conscious mental activi- ty in its relations with a possible unconscious cerebral activity.’’ He desires to collect facts of personal ex- perience from those who answer the circular, and to use these facts for the purposes of a classification and co-ordination of the phenomena. The questions seem to us of very unequal value and definiteness. When Mr. Speir asks, ‘‘ What is the greatest number of distinct ideas you can consciously have before your mind at one time ?’’ he asks a ques- tion that seems to us hopelessly vague. Wundt has tried to give such a question a definite meaning, and SCIENCE. “Cree. en to investigate it systematically. seem to us somewhat ambiguous. For the ordinary observer of subjective states, the question may mean almost any thing or nothing; for what ideas shall he call distinct ? and what is onetime? Still, Mr. Speir may get some intelligible answers to this inquiry; but, as we venture to say, they will not all really refer to the same question. The question, ‘‘Can you wake precisely at a given hour determined upon before go- ing to sleep ?’’ is an example of a definite and fair question. But to ask of people in general, ‘* Have you ever dreamed a dream precisely like one your parents or ancestors have dreamed ?”’ seems to us to invite mere idle gossip. The answers, if negative, interest nobody: if they are affirmative, they might interest a collector of folk-lore; for, in telling his dream-experiences, who is very accurate at the best ? In remembering and repeating them over and over, who is free from the manifold errors of memory? But in comparing one’s own dreams with the tradi- tions of the dreams of one’s grandmother, who will be able to give answers that can be called scientific ? The more confident the reply, the less useful, in such a case, the supposed fact. ‘There is a whole folk-lore of family traditions, as yet little known to science, because it is the private amusement of the fireside. Let us leave it all, for the present, to the poets, to the story-tellers, and to our aged female relatives. There are psychical facts nearer to observation, and less subject to whimsical, incalculable sources of error. We suggest these criticisms because this work of collecting facts by means of psychological circulars is yet in its infancy, and its very life is threatened by any injudicious use of it. Mr. Speir’s questions are, in the most of these cases, very fair; but the few in- judicious ones endanger the success of his work. Plainly, in asking questions about subjective states, we are in perpetual danger of bad observations as the basis for the answers that we get. What are our safeguards? Plainly, as Mr. Galton’s success has shown us, the necessary safeguards are, to ask only perfectly definite questions, to ask questions in whose answer our subject has no disturbing personal inter- est, and to be careful not to ask questions that popu- lar tradition has already answered by some poetical or Otherwise interesting myth. Best of all are the questions whose answer our subject will never before have thought of at all, so that he will have no theory of hisown. Unless we take some such care as this, our latest effort at the collection of psychological facts will degenerate into the most tedious of disas- trous wanderings. We await with interest Mr. Speir’s paper on the results of his inquiry, for most of his circular is promising enough. — The following singular advertisement appears in the Deutsch-Kroner zeitung of Dec. 11: ‘*‘ Magpies shot between Dec. 24 and Jan. 6 are used for a remedy against epilepsy. The undersigned, with whom this medicine is prepared, will be greatly obliged to every one who will send him at that time as many magpies as possible, provided that they have been shot, and not killed by poison or caught in traps. — Castle Titz, Dec. 5, 1883. Signed: Theodor, Count Stolberg.’’ [VOL IIL; No. 61. Even his results — mooie. Nae. FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. A coMMITTEE of the Massachusetts legis- lature is considering the introduction of an act authorizing the preparation of a topographical map of the state. The U.S. geological survey commenced its work in the state last year by placing a surveying-party in one of the western counties, with the intention of constructing a map of the state, to be printed on the scale of about half an inch to the mile. The director of the survey has now proposed to the com- mittee to double the printed scale, as well as the original plot, making the latter about two inches to the mile, provided the state treasury will bear one-half of the expense, or a sum estimated at five dollars per square mile, —a final total expense to the state (800 square miles along the coast being already, charted by the coast-survey) of less than $40,000. This recalls the movement in the state ten years ago, when the American academy memo- rialized the legislature for a general survey of the commonwealth, — a project which received the cordial support of scientific, industrial, and educational bodies throughout the state, and which was lost by the casting vote of the speaker of the house. That plan contem- plated, on the topographical side, an original map, on the scale of 1: 25,000, or about two inches and a half to the mile, to be finally printed on some lesser scale. The cost of the field-work was estimated at $25 per square mile, or $175,000. - But the plan proposed so much more than the topographical map, that the estimated expense of the entire survey was brought to $385,000; and it was doubtless the magnitude of the total cost which finally defeated the measure. Half a century ago, a trigonometrical survey No. 62. —1884. was ordered and executed, and a small map prepared. The triangulation was admirably performed by Borden; but the map was a mere patchwork of town-surveyor’s work, and, at best, showed only the superficial area, and no topography whatever. Yet it has been a boon to the state, and no one has ever complained of the expense. This survey cost $70,000 when the total valuation of the state was $200,000,000. The present valuation exceeds $2,000,000,000 ; and a present expenditure of $700,000 would therefore be the equivalent of what was granted to the first survey. An appropriation of $40,000 to obtain what, under any other circumstances, would cost at least $80,000, would be a mere pittance beside this ; and it would seem that the reception of the last movement, involving so large an outlay, should encourage the committee of education to believe that the legislature would respond freely to the offer of the director of the govern- ment survey. aren is AE fe The difference between a scale of 1 : 25,000, asked for ten years ago, and that of about 1: 31,680, now proposed, is not great enough to materially affect the delineation of the general topography, and of the distribution of such natural features as are most needed for industrial and scientific purposes. It is not all that could be desired ; and provision should be made in any matured plan to enable the commissioners to enlarge the scale in any dis- trict which would be ready to pay the additional cost required, as well as to secure for the state a transcript of all original plots. What. the state will eventually need will be a far more detailed map. But it is questionable under what auspices such a work should be done, and it is morally certain that it will not be done for a long time tocome. And in any case, failure to co-operate now with the U.S. geological survey would be to lose the services of a re- liable and experienced corps in a plan offering 428 specially economical advantages. It would, in short, be wasteful of the public purse. Tue recent glacial studies in the western states, mentioned in our notes, serve to call attention to more than their technical result. Important as this is, we believe a greater value lies in their standing as an example of non- professional work. ae 671 2 8 Agency Knob . Omen 6 .4 Wilson in ie ee 5 4 % gil ti ORR eee 6 .0 2.3 South River. Gara D3} Summit Gace BG Sneffels Ay AY Bi Banded Bh vet 235 It will be seen that the discrepancies in latitude are quite constant, ranging from 5”.0 SCIENCE. 447 to 6”.7, the Hayden latitudes being in every case the greater ; and that the discrepancies in longitude are almost equally constant, ranging, with the exception of one case, from 17.6 to 3”.6, the Hayden longitudes being in every case the smaller. The comparatively large discrepancy in the longitude of Agency Knob is explainable by the fact, that, from most points of view, this station presents an ill- defined summit. The constancy of these dis- crepancies points to the fact, that they are in the main due to station-error, as is unques- tionably the case. The Hayden work was based on Denver as determined astronomically by the U. S. coast and geodetic survey, while the Wheeler work depends upon Colorado Springs as determined by the Wheeler survey. The relative station-error of these two places has not been determined directly, but cannot fail to be considerable, owing to the difference in their surroundings. Assuming that the difference in station- error between Denver and Colorado Springs is, roughly speaking, equal to the average difference between the Hayden and Wheeler work (leaving out Agency Knob), —i.e., 57.9 in latitude, and 2”.7 in longitude, —and cor- recting one of the two above sets of results therefor, the discrepancies between them be- come as follows : — DISCREPANCIES. STATIONS. Latitude. Longitude. ~“ “ WwiohaHnnwowia ~ N WOOHOO Rb Blanca Pagosamiewssin so Rio Grande Pyramid Uncompahgre . Ourayeaen Agency Knob . Wilson 3 Leon . , South River Summit . . Sneffels . . Banded . ooocoqocoqoocoocoeco ceococowocoocr The mean of these differences in latitude is but 0”.55, and in longitude, with the excep- tion of Agency Knob, but 0”.41. The area surveyed in duplicate north of the Union Pacific railroad in north-eastern Utah and south-eastern Idaho does not show quite so close accordance in results. The Hayden work here depends upon the astronomical determi- nation of Salt Lake City by the U.S. coast and geodetic survey, and is checked upon the determination of Ogden by Wheeler’s survey, upon which the Wheeler work rests. This check shows little or no difference in station- error between the two astronomical stations. The following are the positions of five points 448 occupied in common by the two surveys, as given by Hayden and Wheeler, the determina- tions of the former preceding : — ——— SSS . *1 ee endieaeaae. Loneitndes of the Wheeler work was very similar to that % Uae a, ei . of the Hayden survey, except that the adjust- ; ments were made by least squares. 42° 57’ 10.6 | 112° 10’ 97.4 Putnam, Idaho . 7 42 88 8 .0| 112 10 10 20 Henry GANNETT. Ds) y 5 3 Preuss (Meade), Idaho . .} e a rf 5 aa iz i _ (| 42 27-53 .7 | 111.38. 41 Soda (Shennan), Tahoe « «+ -/) 42 27 52.0} 1138110 THR DEEP-SEA DREDGING APPARA- Lyle 43 5 86 .2| 111 18 56 27 | Caribou (Pisgah), Idaho | 43 ; 34 (0 | 111 18 58 i TUS OF THE TALISMAN.} \ ee ae eat Hoy | 40 2t 44 9 | 111 57 Saleen Poland Merth Ogden), Utah’ -)) at 21 45 10°} 119 67 Some Tne first French deep-sea exploring expedition was The following are the differences between the two sets of results : — | DIFFERENCES. STATIONS. | 1 eee. = SCIENCE. lines, was done by one party in six field-sea- sons, each of four months’ duration. As a rule, all the work upon a station was com- pleted in a few hours. The general character made in 1880 by the Travailleur, in the Bay of Biscay. The following year the Travailleur was again put at the disposal of the commission over which Mr. Milne- Edwards presided; and the party traversed the Bay of Biscay, visited ‘the coast of Portugal, passed the Strait of Gibraltar, and explored a large part of the ee: mieede. i TLonettace Mediterranean. - In 1882. the- same vessel: undertook = =a a third expedition into the Atlantic Ocean, and pro- Putnam . : , 2/7.6 ; 07.6 ceeded as far as the Canary Islands. But the Tra- as i eee a ee vailleur, being a despatch-boat for harbor use, did not Caribou . MN Om omen | yal ve possess the requirements for making long voyages; Willard . 3 | Opal Ot The average differences are respectively 1.6 and 0”.5. It is to be regretted that the distances be- tween these points, as determined by the Wheeler survey, are not availa- ble, in order that a more direct comparison might be made. It should be understood that the object of each of these sys- tems of triangulation was sim- ply and solely to furnish ade- quate control for topographic work, to be published on a scale of four miles to an inch, or |. ae about sspooo: A greater de- See gree of accuracy than was re- quired for this purpose was not contemplated. In all cases natural points were used as sig- nals until the stations were occupied, when rude cairns of Nes Acores < Fayal® & and accordingly the Talisman, a cruiser, was equipped for a new dredging expedition, and left the port of Rochefort on the 1st of June, 1888, with Mr. Milne- Edwards and the commission appointed by the min- ister of public instruction on board. The Talisman explored the coasts of Portugal and Morocco, visited the Canaries and Cape MOS: traversed the Sargasso QJ’ BL. qual. Pico i AITLANT\|I PUE 13 Madera) &, Hoge Tdnzarotie. Tener 72, lles io < Canaries [Vou. IIL, No. 62. stone, six to eight feet in height, were erected, and used there- after as signals. The Hayden work was carried on with an 4550 4615 st Intanu, a ff, a SVineent x ‘ ae Iles du Cap Vert -X C Port) Li: gf eight-inch theodolite, reading ee 10”; and the work was ad- justed by a graphic method, with foresights only. The area triangulated by this survey aggregated nearly a hundred and twenty thousand square miles; which work, besides. the measurement and expansion of four base- Fie. 1.— Course of the Talisman. Sea, and, after remaining some time at the Azores, returned and explored the Bay of Biscay (fig. 1). On the bridge of the Talisman there had been 1 Condensed from an account in La Nature. By H. Finaon. — APRIL 11, 1884.] SCIENCE. arranged a sounding-machine, worked by engines, and the electric-light apparatus. From the foremast % | | npgane ie a foe My Ay iS -2-- O11 2, Se JOS ISIIIISSSPSTTIFIAISIISIE SLI LE ISO OLE LETTER ES Ia AL 7 Upper deck. Lower deck. “ ¢ is edaas-- 2 8-200.-..... AY Gunwale. Oe Pe ccee ema cae --2 & | mn ' SS GaSe BOSC OG jy Vil) epee Fie. 2,— Plan of the sounding-apparatus. a beam or crane projects beyond the vessel to carry the dredges or trawls. was devised by Mr. Thibaudier, and auto- matically registers the number} of metres of cable run out, and stops when the sound- ing-cup reaches the bottom. Fig. 3 repre- sents a part of this apparatus, and fig. 2 the plan of another part, in order the bet- ter to show its action. It is composed of a reel (P, fig. 2) on which were rolled ten thou- sand metres of~ steel wire one millimetre in diameter. From the reel the wire passes round a wheel, B, ex- actly one metre in cir- cumference: from there it runs down to a wooden slide, A, moving along the sheers, mounts to a fixed block, K, and reaches the sounding- cup S after having The sounding-apparatus used Bs os i———" wheels, showing the number of turns made. 449 One registers the units, the other the hundreds (fig. 4). The latter is graduated to meas- ure ten thousand metres. Each turn of the wheel B corresponds 1o one metre, the number indi- cated by the register represent- ing the depth. On the axis of the reel there is a brake. Igy No. : no question of the presence of true, iene glacial drift south of the river. It is to be noticed that another invasion of Kentucky is marked on the map here given, farther down the valley, at Madison; and that the retreat of the glaciated area towards Indianapolis seems to mark the division between two lobe-like extensions of the drift, which are now found to be frequently characteristic of the old ice-front, The report attempts little of novelty in its subject-matter, being confined closely to questions of distribution; but the contin- ual repetition of the familiar evidences of glaciation, —scratched rocks, heavy till, large granite bowlders, kames, and kettle-holes, — limited by a line of great MAP OF SOUTHERN INDIANA AND OHIO, SHOWING GLACIAL BOUNDARY. irregularity, both horizontally and vertically, presents precisely the definite commonplace proof that is wanted in connection with the many scattered obser- vations heretofore made. vie: — The trustees of the Peabody academy of science at Salem have decided to make a fireproof additional building, seventy by fifty feet, and two stories high. The additions to the ethnological collections, espe- cially from Japan and Corea, have been very consider- able during the past year. — A recent calculation of the population and area of Australia states that there are only three human beings to every four square miles. — The London society of arts has received a dona- tion of twelve hundred pounds from one of its mem- bers, Mr. William Westgarth, to be expended on prizes for the best essays on dwellings for the poor, and the reconstruction of central London. The essays should include the following points: 1. The reconstruction of the central part of London with regard to the plan of the streets; soil; 3. Re-arrangement of the levels, and provision of subterranean ways for the accommodation of electric wires, pipes for water-supply, coma, ate and asa provision for warehousing. The prizes for these essays will ba: one of nee: sacad dred pounds, 2. Removal of the old.and_ poisoned and one of two hundred and fifty i APRIL 11, 1884.] pounds. Three prizes, of one hundred and fifty pounds each, are to be given, either separately or to the writer of the larger essay, for the best treatment of the engineering, the architectural, and the sanitary considerations involved in the scheme. Mr. West- garth’s views as regards the prizes, and his hopes as to the value of the essays, may be fairly understood from a paper read by him at the Society of arts on Feb. 6, which embodied his own ideas on the ques- tion. The prize will be adjudged on Dee. 31, 1884. — The researches of Dr. Angus Smith, one of the English inspectors under the Rivers pollution preven- tion act, have led him to the discovery that in all natural waters sugar ferments, and hydrogen gas is given off. The proportion of hydrogen given off varies with the organic impurity of the water, from the mountain stream to the worst sewage, so that the proportion of hydrogen evolved appears likely to prove a quantitative test of the activity or virulence of the microbes present in the water. Dr. Angus Smith’s researches will probably be embodied in his next report. The importance of his discovery will be plain to every one familiar with recent micro-bio- logical research, and suggests a test of the miasmatic condition of particular soils, and, of course, localities. —A new French work by Dr. Bordier of the Paris School of anthropology, called ‘ Géographie médicale,’ gives an account of the geographical distri- bution of diseases, including a mass of information bearing on the relations between particular maladies, and climate, topography, and even race. — We learn from the Observatory (March), that, in consequence of M. Houzeau’s resignation of the di- rectorship of the Royal observatory at Brussels, a committee, consisting of MM. Liagre, Mailly, and Stas, has been appointed to preside over that insti- tution, and the following appointments have been made: M. Niesten has been appointed chief of the department of mathematical astronomy; M. C. Fievez is temporarily intrusted with the direction of the physical department, and, with M. Lagrange, has been promoted from the rank of assistant to that of astronomer; and M. Vincent has been promoted to the rank of meteorologist. Vol. iv. of the new series of annals has just been published, and contains, in addition to the meridian observations for 1879-81, drawings of the moon, observations of Jupiter’s satel- lites, physical observations of Jupiter and of comets (6) and (c) 1881, and a study of the solar spectrum. — The hydraulic method of mining has lately been used to remove some bluffs at the opening of the Dutch Gap canal. There had been trouble from cav- ing in, obstructing the entrance. At the suggestion of Mr. C. P. E. Burgwyn, a powerful stream of water was directed against the banks, while a strong enough current was running to carry off the material as it fell, with a result highly satisfactory, as reported. — It is said that a recent cold blizzard in southern Oregon killed thousands of robins and blue-jays, which usually winter in this latitude with safety. The birds have had no such experience since 1862. SCIENCE. 465 — The bulletins of the Paris society of anthropology are always especially full on the subject of anatomy in its bearings on the natural history of man. Part ili. of vol. xvi. contains some very interesting papers of this description. M. C. Ikow, in discussing the color of the skin, eyes, and hair, says that a sufficient number of individuals in most ethnic groups will dis- play a regular gamut of shades. Our knowledge of pigment itself is very imperfect. We do not know whether there is one pigment or whether there are several. It would be very useful to anthropology to know the chemistry of these pigments, the conditions of their occurrence, the influence of external and inter- nal circumstances in modifying them. Domestication in animals produces great variability. It is therefore allowable to suppose that the endless variety in the environment of man occasioned by his occupying nearly all the earth, the endless variety of functional activities occasioned by the great range of food, etc., act similarly to domestication in animals. It may not be the sun immediately that turns the negro’s skin black, and the Russian’s hair white; but, mediately, the myriad physical movements consequent upon the sun’s action act together to bring about the changes under discussion. Heredity must not be overlooked among the conservative powers. Mr. Ikow considers that there are fundamental eye-colors, just as there are fundamental race-forms. In opposition to Bro- ca’s brown, green, blue, and gray fundamental shades, he maintains that gray and blue eyes have no pigment whatever, their color being due to the structure of the iris. He further claims that Broca’s colors correspond to no natural groups of humanity. The classifications of colors in the eyes, hair, and skin, are given in tabu- lar form. The most elaborate paper in the number is by Dr. Réné Collignon (pp. 463-526), upon the anthropomet- ric elements of the principal races in France. It is well known that an effort is now making to replace the slow and unsatisfactory measurement of skele- tons, of whose racial identity there must always be some doubt, with the much more convenient examina- tion of the living. The Paris school of anthropology has two sets of observations, called the full and the abridged scheme; and the latter of these has been taken on a hundred Celts, a hundred Cymrians, fifty Lorrains, and thirty Mediterraneans (Catalans). These two hundred and eighty individuals are com- pared in every way which Collignon’s genius could devise to give a scientific result. The variations im- putable to height are the following: when the height increases, it is due to the augmentation of the length of the legs; all other parts diminish proportionally. So that the people are not far from wrong when they say of a tall man, ‘He is all legs.” The only part of the body (except the special measures of the head and face) sensibly affected in its proportions by race is the trunk: it is long in the Catalans, short in the Celts, medium in the Cymri. — The council of the Academy of natural sciences of Philadelphia announces that Prof. H. Carvill Lewis will deliver a course of twenty lectures upon the geology and mineralogy of eastern Pennsylvania, 466 SCIENCE. beginning April 15. Every alternate lecture will -be given in the open air, at different localities of geo- logical interest in the neighborhood of the city. These field-lectures will take place on Saturdays, the excursions occupying the greater part of the day. The final field-lecture (June 21) will treat of,coal and the methods of surface and underground mining, as illustrated in the neighborhood of Hazelton, Penn. Visits will be made to the mines of,Mr. Coxe, at Drifton, and to the Hollywood colliery, near Hazel- ton, where the end of a coal-basin has been com- pletely uncovered. —It is hoped that the next annual meeting of the National educational association of the United States, to be held in the capitol building, Madison, Wis., July 15-18, will be the largest educational meet- ing ever held in this country. — An extended course of instruction in mineralogy will be given by Prof. H. Carvill Lewis, at the Acad- emy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, during the coming autumn and winter. — The two remaining lectures of the course of free lectures under the auspices ot the New-York academy of sciences, are, April 21, Recent discoveries in the prehistoric mounds of Ohio, by Prof. F. W. Putnam of Cambridge, Mass.; and, May 19, The glacial epoch in North America, by Prof. H. Carvill Lewis of Philadelphia. — Dr. L. Waldo has just completed the erection of a normal clock at the Yale college observatory, to be used as a mean-time standard in the horological work of that institution. The movement and pendulum are parts of the gravity escapement clock built by Richard Bond (No. 367), and which had a phenomenal record under Mr. Hartnup at Liverpool, and later under Prof. W. A. Rogers of Cambridge. The case from Dr. Waldo’s designs is built of cast-iron, with planed back and front, to which are clamped the plate- glass doors. The entire case rests upon two brick piers, which rise to the height of the movement, and insure stability to the pendulum suspension. Ther- mometers, a barometer, and a cup of calcic chloride, are placed within the case, which can be exhausted to any barometric pressure desired by an air-pump attached to its side. The escapement, and arc of vi- bration,can be observed and adjusted with the greatest accuracy. ‘The clock is erected in the clock-room of the observatory, which was specially built to secure uniformity of temperature. — During the week from June 28 to July 5, inclu- sive, itis proposed to institute a summer school of geology at the Delaware Water-Gap, Monroe county, Penn. Those desiring to join this class should make application to Prof. H. Carvill Lewis, Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia. —In the neighborhood of the Puerto de Toledo, Madrid, the manufacture of artificial whalebone has been started. It is made from the horns of black cattle and buffaloes. It is said that the factory is provided with all modern improvements, and that its products are already competing successfully with similar articles which are imported from abroad. y [Vou. IIL, No. 62, — — The Engineer of Feb. 1 gives a’very easy. practi- cal suggestion for preventing the boiler-explosions which occur so frequently in the early morning, while the boilers are being fired up, after standing with fire in all night, and the water on the simmer. It is sug- gested that a little air and cold water should be forced into the boiler before vigorous fires are made, so as to impart some air to the water, and lessen its super- heated condition. — The new Sydney paper, The Australian graphic, is illustrated by typographic etchings on glass plates made by the process of Mr. H. S. Crocker. The writ- ing or drawing is executed with a resist crayon, made of a waxy material; and it need scarcely be said that hydrofluoric acid is used as the etching-fluid. It has been noticed that the tendency to undercutting is re- markably small, so that no precautions are required but an occasional stopping-out of the finer parts. . The glass plates are cemented down on metal blocks for use in the printing-machine; but it is not stated how the clearing-out of large whites, and the turning of the blocks, are effected. It is satd that the inventor originally intended to print from electrotypes taken from the glass; but this is found unnecessary in prac- tice, as no inconvenience is caused by the use of the glass itself in the printing-press. —M. Poincaré has been investigating the physio- logical action of petroleum-vapors, and gives his re- sults in the Journal de pharmacie et de chemie, vii. 290. He found that an atmosphere charged with petroleum- vapors, such as is respired by workmen engaged in the petroleum industry, proved fatal to guinea-pigs after periods of exposure of from one to two years. Dogs and rabbits, under similar treatment, manifested languor, and loss of appetite. The work-people them- selves complain only of an irritation of the mem- brane of the nose, and headache. It is nevertheless evident, that precautions should be observed, to pre- vent, as much as possible, the respiration of these vapors by the human subject. — The fourth part of the transactions of the Ottawa field-naturalists’ club shows marks of unusual ac- tivity on the part of so small a society (one hundred and thirty members), printing reports of no less than six different branches. The scientific papers are very fitly concerned mostly with local natural history. — Sixty-nine species of butterflies are credited to Maine, and briefly described by Prof. C. H. Fernald in a paper of 106 pages, appended to the annual report of the State college of agriculture and the mechanic arts, at Orono, Me., for 1883. — The catalogue of stars prepared from observa- tions at the Glasgow observatory, extending over the years 1860 to 1881, has just been published by Pro- fessor Robert Grant, the Royal society having con- tributed largely toward the expense of printing from the government-grant fund. ‘ — Mr. W. Mathieu Williams, in his usual science notes for the Gentleman’s magazine, mentions an in- genious application of oxalic acid by saturating blot- ting-paper with it. The blotting-paper will then not — APRIL 11, 1884.] only absorb the excess of ink from a blot, but will re- move the blot altogether; provided, always, the ink be of the old-fashioned kind, unmixed with indigo or ani- line color. Such blotting-paper may, however, deal with signatures as well as blots: this is one reason for using the inks that are not entirely dependent upon the iron salt. Oxalicacid, however, is not very dangerous as a means of fraud, seeing that a trace of the writing, or the blot, remains; and this may be brought out again into full legibility by adding ferrocyanide of po- tassium or gallic acid. —In his lecture given in London on house-drain- age, Capt. Galton drew attention to the formation of nitre in the organic remains in the subsoil of old cities and villages. The wells of Delhi were at one time completely contaminated thereby; and there are many factories of saltpetre in India whose supplies are derived from this source. During the English blockade of European ports, Napoleon I. procured his nitre for gunpowder from the subsoil of Paris. The Engineer remarks that the conversion of ances- tors into explosive material is more objectionable than Shakspeare’s ultimate fate of Caesar, —to ‘stop a hole to keep the wind away.’ — The Worshipful company of grocers, one of the old London guilds, has endowed a prize of a thou- sand pounds, to be offered once in every four years, and to be awarded for the discovery of any proof with regard to a subject in connection with sanitary ser- vice named by the company. The first essays for this discovery prize which is to be open to universal com- petition, British and foreign, are to be sent in by Dec. 31, 1886, the following problem being the test: ‘‘the discovery of a method by which the vaccinum conta- gium may be cultivated apart from the animal body, in some medium or media not otherwise zymotic; the method to be such that the contagium may be, by means of it, multiplied to an indefinite extent in successive generations, and the product after any number of such generations shall (so far as can with- in the time be tested) prove itself of identical potency with standard vaccine lymph.’’ — The memorial tablet to Elihu Root, lately pro- fessor of mathematics and physics in Amherst col- lege, and which was destroyed in the burning of the Walker Hall two years ago, has recently been restored to its former location in the philosophical lecture- room of that building. The inscription reads as follows: — “IN MEMORY OF i ere Ur O08, PROFESSOR IN THIS COLLEGE FOR FOUR YEARS. Born Died Sept. 14, 1845. Dec. 3, 1880. ‘ SPEREMUS.’ A.D. 1883, restored from the fire of March, 1882.” This memorial was originally erected in June, 1881, by the graduating class of that year. — The Seconde société de Teyler, of Harlem, has offered again its gold-medal for a satisfactory essay “to furnish a critical study of all that has been said for and against spontaneous. generation, especially SCIENCE. 467 during the last twenty-five years.’”’ The competing essays should be sent to the society before the Ist of April, 1886. — By a happy accident, just as a plan for a topo- graphical survey of Massachusetts is being considered, the discovery has been made of some original un- published documents, relating to the former geodetic survey, by Borden. One is a letter of forty pages, addressed to the Hon. Theophilus Parsons, then chair- man of the joint committee of the legislature, in which Mr. Borden reviews the whole matter of the state survey, describing in a very simple manner the methods used and the results obtained, aud conclud- ing with a detailed statement of the expense of the work from 1830 to 1841: the other is a paper addressed to the American academy of arts and sciences, dated August, 1850, in which is described in great detail, accompanied by carefully-drawn plates, the base- measuring apparatus, devised, constructed, and used by Borden in measuring the base-line in the Con- necticut valley. The work done with this apparatus was of the most accurate character, the difference between two measurements of a line over seven miles long being less than a quarter of aninch. This paper was never sent to the academy; but, after various wanderings, both have reached the hands of Professor Vose of the Massachusetts institute of tech- nology, who has presented them to the academy. It is to be hoped that the academy will print them in full at an early day. — Messrs. Henry Edwards and S. Lowell Elliot announce that they will publish from time to time independent monographs of North-American Lepi- doptera, with colored illustrations, prepared by different American entomologists. Ten are already announced by Dr. A. S. Packard, Messrs. Roland Thaxter, Eugene M. Aaron, R. M. Stretch, W. H. Edwards, B. Neumogen, and the futherers of the enterprise. They are to be published at only a slight advance upon the actual cost. —In view of the communication by Dr. Bradner to the Academy of natural sciences at Philadelphia, reported on p. 334 of Science, a correspondent from Newark, O., warns us that any inscribed stones said to originate from that locality may be looked upon as certainly spurious. Years ago certain parties in that place made a business of manufacturing and burying inscribed stones and other objects in the autumn, and exhuming them the following spring in the presence of innocent witnesses. Some of the parties to these frauds afterwards confessed to them ; and no such objects, excepting such as were spurious, have ever been known from that region. — Mr. Winfred A. Stearns proposes, if a sufficient number of subscriptions can be procured, to publish at Amherst, Mass., under the auspices of the Massa- chusetts agricultural college, a scientific journal, to be devoted exclusively to the interests of natural history in the state of Massachusetts, and to be called the Bulletin of the natural history of the state of Mas- sachusetts. 468 — Among recent deaths, we notice those of Dr. J. W. Gintl, professor emeritus of physics and mathe- matics, at Graz, Dec. 22, 1883, in his eightieth year; Ch. H. Merrifield, Jan.1, at Hove; Professor Hermann Schlegel, director of the museum of Leyden; Prof. H. C. Berghaus, the well-known geographer, in his eighty-seventh year, at Stettin, Feb. 17; Quintino Sella, president of the Accademia dei lincei, at Biela, March 14; and Dr. E, Behm, the geographer. —M. Adams, says the Athenaeum, has successfully established an optical telegraph between the islands of Mauritius and Reunion, a distance of two hundred and forty-five kilometres. Observers in Mauritius can read the signals without difficulty, and the ar- rangements for announcing cyclones are in process of completion. — Russia has two polar stations on Weyprecht’s plan, — one at Sagastyr (the mouth of the Lena), and the other at Little Karmakuly, Moller Bay (the west coast of Novaia Zemlia). According to the latest news, which is, as may be understood, slow to reach St. Petersburg, the Lena station was in good condi- tion, and is to be continued until July, 1884. Thus the stations which are most interesting and most difficult to reach (the Lena and Lady Franklin Bay) will have the longest course of observations. The Novaia Zemlia station has finished its observations; and the members, consisting of Lieut. Andrejew, Mid- shipman Wolodkowsky, Drs. Grinewetzky, Kriwos- keya, and seamen, have returned. Lieut. Andrejew, in a lecture before the Geo- graphical society, gave the following facts in regard to the station. The latitude of the station was de- termined by observation of the sun and stars; the longitude, by double chronometer comparison between Karmakuly and Archangel. The observations com- prised hourly reading of the magnetic and meteor- ological instruments, with more frequent reading of the former on stated days and during magnetic dis- turbances. The results have not yet been calculated. Scurvy was prevented by exercise and the use of good fresh food, and the health of all was good. The death of one seaman happened under somewhat strange circumstances: he disappeared, and after long search was found undressed, in the snow, with his legs frozen. They were amputated, but he died soon after. — We have already referred to the observations of Lessar in regard to the character of the valley or depression which had been regarded as an ancient channel of the Oxus, south of Khiva. From Bala Ichemi he turned to the eastward, to Kavakli, on the Amu Daria, and, according to letters just received, found no trace of any ancient river-bed. Gen. Steb- nitzki and other explorers of this region do not accept as yet the opinion of Lessar in this particular. — A very interesting addition to the mollusca of the United States is made by Stearns, who describes, in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia academy, Pyrgula nevadensis, from specimens obtained «by Xenos Clarke and R. E. Call, at Pyramid and Walker’s lakes, Nevada. The species is found living in the SCIENCE. [Vox. IIL, No. 62. depths of the lakes, and fossil on the shores; but the specimens collected all appear to have been destitute of the soft parts, for which reason the generic rela- tions cannot be said to be definitely settled, though probably correctly surmised. A fossil shell had pre- viously been described from the post-pliocene of Illi- nois, by Wolf; but its affinities may be said to be very imperfectly determined. The identity of Tryonia clathrata Stm. with Amnicola protea of Gould, which Mr. Stearns seems to consider as undoubted, is de- serving of further investigation at least; as in many thousands of the latter we have never seen a speci- men of Tryonia, or any approximation to one, judged by the standard of Stimpson’s original speci- mens and figures. — Professor Boyd Dawkins reports the discovery of a skull of the musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus) in the for- est-bed of Trimingham, near Cromer, —a formation which is believed to be certainly preglacial. The discovery is considered to add to the evidence that the glacial epoch does not represent a condition of environment separating two distinct faunas. — The agricultural and mechanical college of Texas has issued a bulletin in which it calls attention to the need of a more careful study of the agricultural necessities of the state, and offers the advantages of the college for analyses of soils and fertilizers, and experiments on methods of feeding, on the grasses suitable to Texas, etc. A special request is made for samples of wool. —It is stated that Senhor Antonio Lopez Mendes is about to undertake an important study of the Am- azon basin, including the main river and its affluents to their westernmost extension. — Vols. v. and vi. of the census reports, com- prising the report upon cotton-production by Prof. E. W. Hilgard, have just issued from the government printing-office. These volumes contain respectively 924 and 848 pages, and are amply illustrated with maps showing density of cotton-production and classes of soils. The great degree of attention given to this branch of agriculture by the census is amply walranted by the importance of this industry, the product of which, during the census year, was valued at nearly $800,000,000. A happier selection than Professor Hilgard for carrying on this investigation probably could not have been made. His long study of the geology and soils of the lower Mississippi states, with the agricultural methods practised there, enabled him to bring to this work a vast store of knowledge which was directly applicable to the sub- ject. The report is in two parts. The first contains a chapter on the general subject of cotton-culture in the United States; an extended table of measure- ments of cotton fibre from all sections of the cotton- belt; a chapter on the uses of cotton-seed and cotton- seed oil, and one upon soil investigations. The body of this part is taken up with the detailed report upon cotton-culture in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, and Indian Territory. Part ii. consists of similar APRIL 11, 1884.] reports upon Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Caro- lina, North Carolina, and Virginia. An appendix to part ii. contains notes upon California, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, considered in relation to their possibilities as cotton-producing states or ter- ritories. Of these detailed reports, Professor Hil- gard, besides planning and supervising all, wrote those upon Louisiana and Mississippi, and the notes upon California, etc. To Prof. R. H. Loughridge were assigned those upon Georgia, Missouri, Arkan- sas, Texas, and Indian Territory; to Prof. James M. Safford, Kentucky and Tennessee; to Dr. E. A. Smith, Alabama and Florida; while Prof. W. C. Kerr eontributed the reports upon North Carolina and Virginia, and Major Harry Hammond that upon South Carolina. — All these state reports, with the exception of that relating to South Carolina, are upon the same plan. Each opens with tables of the leading agricultural statistics of the state. Then there follows a descrip- tion of the topography, climate, and soils, with nu- merous analyses of the latter, —a subject to which Professor Hilgard is disposed to attach great impor- tance. This is followed by agricultural descriptions of the several counties, and by cultural and economic details, which are derived from answers to schedule questions. The report upon each state is followed by an index, evidently with the intention of making a separate issue of each report; and the entire report is closed with a very complete general index. —Mr. Isao lijina, a Japanese student under Professor Leuckart, has recently submitted a disser- tation to the University of Leipzig for obtaining the degree of Ph.D. The judgment passed by the ex- amining committee was, ‘‘ Dissertatio, egregia — Examinatio, summa cum laude.’ Mr. Iijima has won his degree within two years from the time of his arrival in Germany. Students usually require from two to three or more years to accomplish the same end. — The Johns Hopkins university circular for March prints an unusual number of scientific notes, abstracts of papers read before the various associations to which the active life of the university has given birth. It notes, also, the formation of a new archeological society, and of the purchase of a considerable minera- logical collection, which has been placed in charge of the associate in mineralogy, Dr. G. H. Williams. Extracts are given from Dr. Hartwell’s address on physical culture at the opening of the new gymnasium last December, and of a lecture on the influence of athletic games on Greek art, by Dr. Waldstein of Cambridge, Eng. Plans are printed of the new chemical laboratory, and announcements are made of aseries of fifteen lectures on classical archeology, now just closing, by Dr. Waldstein, Professor Gilder- sleeve, Dr. Emerson. and Messrs. Clarke and Still- man. A similar related series of sixteen historical lectures on chemistry is in progress, participated in by ten persone. — A new species of trap-door spider, a species of SCIENCE. ‘and Mr. B. H. Van Vleck during August. 469 Cteniza, has been discovered at San José, Cal. The common though little-known species of southern California is known as C. californica; and its trap- door nest is usually placed in museums beside the tarantula (Mygale Hentzii), and erroneously labelled as the tarantula’snest. This popular error, by which dealers in curiosities generally profit, is stranger, since the tarantula is usually too large to enter the nest of Cteniza, and itself makes no nest, occupying crevices in the ground or under stones, spinning a small web. — The Boston society of natural history announces that the seaside laboratory, at Annisquam, Mass., will be open to students during the coming summer from June 20 to Sept. 1. The purpose of the labo- ratory is to afford opportunities for the study of the development, anatomy, and habits of commor types of marine animals, under suitable direction and advice. ‘There will be no attempt to give lectures nor any stated courses of instruction. Those who have had some experience in a laboratory, who have attended practical lessons, or who have taught in the schools, are sufficiently qualified to make use of this opportunity. The work will be under the immediate care of Mr. J. S. Kingsley during June and July, Applica- tions should be addressed to Professor Alpheus Hyatt, Boston society of natural history. —Koban is the name of an ancient necropolis in the Caucasus, explored by Chantre in 1882, and said by him to be the most interesting in that region. In 1869 a flood took away a part of the hill of Koban; and the owner, one Kanoukoff, an Ossete, discovered along the portion of the hill left, bones and objects of metal. Finding that they were not gold, he sold them to the museum of Tiflis. For several years this site has been dug by local archeologists; and in 1882 Chantre commenced a systematic exploration. Ko- ban is a little Ossete village, three thousand metres above sea-level, on Tagaour Mountain, thirty-five kilometres distant from Vladikawkaz. The necropo- lis occupies two hectares. ‘Transverse ditches from one to three metres deep disclosed twenty-two sepul- tures. Simple inhumation without incineration had been the mode of burial. The coffins were of plank or stone, and were not oriented. The bodies lay dou- bled up, and on the right side. More than three thou- sand objects have been recovered, mostly of bronze: of these, Chantre secured sixteen hundred and ninety-seven. The list includes articles of the toilet, arms, and utensils. ‘The origin and the antiquity of these objects are alike unknown, a diversity existing between the contents of this and other cemeteries in the same region. Ethnological comparisons and clas- sical allusions lead to the supposition that the ancient Ossetes came from the Caspian Sea. These people live now in the centre of the Caucasus, in the defiles, more or less rugged, of Mount Kasbeck. There re- main only a hundred thousand of them. -Those of the north present some resemblances to the Kabar- dians and Tchitehens, who surround them. Those of ee i lea 470 the south borrow from their neighbors, the Georgians, some of their usages. — Terramares is an Italian archeological term, adopted into the French scheme of Mortillet and Chantre with an appropriate symbol. Castione, the most noteworthy of the Italian terramares, is a hil- lock on a plain in the province of Parma, three metres higher than the surrounding area. Its former inhab- itants, aiming to avoid places subject to inundation, halted upon this low plateau of bluish clay, not yet covered with the deposit of alluvium. The space oc- cupied by the village, or settlement, was somewhat rectangular, containing about nine thousand square metres, and was enclosed by a ditch, or basin, oriented, its axis deviating thirty degrees from north to south, The first palafitte constructed over this broad ditch was floored with puncheons covered with calcareous sand, whereon were built huts of wood or straw. Through holes in the floors were thrown ashes, cin- ders, refuse of all kinds. Of course, when this process had filled up the space beneath, the people had to burn their rude huts, draw up the piles, and commence over again. From the relics found in the terramares, it is possible to derive some notion of the time of their construction, which seems to have had its beginning in the age of stone, and extended through the age of bronze. If it reached the age of iron, it was when the last layer was forming. Pigorini regards unfa- vorably the opinion that the basins surrounding the terramares were systematically fed by streams of water. — Whoever studied the Tunis department of our centennial exhibition, saw a large, thick plank, whose under surface was thickly set with teeth of chipped flint. This was the tribulum (a Latin word, meaning a threshing-sledge, whence the word ‘ tribulation’). We are not surprised to see this old threshing-sledge in use in northern Africa. Indeed, it is one of the delightful cases of survival that so often spring upon us. Mr. Léon Didelot has written a chapter on this implement (Bull. soc. anthrop. Lyon, ii. T) in which he not only describes one minutely, but quotes the writings of numerous early writers on the subject. — The Royal society of New South Wales offers its medal and a money-prize for the best communication (provided it be of sufficient merit) containing the re- sults of original research or observation upon each of the following subjects. 1°. To be sent in not later than Sept. 30, 1884: Origin and mode of occurrence of gold-bearing veins and of the associated minerals, the society’s medal and twenty-five pounds; Influence of the Australian climate in producing modifications of diseases, the society’s medal and twenty-five pounds; The infusoria peculiar to Australia, the society’s medal and twenty-five pounds; The water-supply in the interior of New South Wales, the society’s medal and twenty-five pounds. 2°. To be sent in not later than May 1, 1885: Anatomy and life-history of Echid- na and Platypus, the society’s medal and twenty-five pounds; Anatomy and life-history of Mollusca pecul- iar to Australia, the society’s medal and twenty-five pounds; The chemical composition of the products SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 62. from the so-called kerosene shale of New South Wales, the society’s medal and twenty-five pounds. 3°. To be sent in not later than May 1, 1886: The chemistry of the Australian gums and resins, the society’s medal and twenty-five pounds. The competition is in no way confined to members of the society, nor to resi- dents in Australia. The communication, to be suc- cessful, must be either wholly or in part the result of original observation or research on the part of the contributor. No award will be made for a mere com- pilation, however meritorious in its way. —M. Grunes has published in La métallurgie the result of a year’s researches on the oxidizability of iron and steel under the influence of moist air, fresh, sea, and acidulated water. The numerous results are in the highest degree instructive. We can only state that iron is dissolved rapidly by sea-water, cast-iron losing about half as much as steel, and that spiegel- eisen is the most powerfully acted on by sea-water. — A circular has been issued by a committee of the Mechanical science section of the American associa- tion, urging all engineers and others interested to make the meeting of the section at Philadelphia a notable one. — The programme of observations of the small planets Victoria and Sappho in 1882, for determina- tion of the solar parallax, drawn up by Dr. David Gill, her Majesty’s astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, appears to have met with general favor at the hands of astronomers in different parts of the world. The latest contribution of observations is a series published in No. 2574 of the IGS Ihe pa ® ® iy f\ : x ii 0 AM 11 VI SX i VI IX PM Hie. 2. duced, being foreign plants that have become estab- lished or naturalized, leaving 1,402 that are aborigines. Up to the present time, only about half as many in- troduced weeds are known in Minnesota as in New England; the difference being due to the later settle- ment of the former section. Mr. John B. Leiberg contributed a paper on plant-life in Montana and Dakota. It was stated that many species found were met with in the south-west only at high elevations. Their growth was of a luxuriance not seen in Minne- sota. Only one kind of cherry was found west of the Missouri River along the line of the Northern Pacific, this being the little sandy cherry. Golden-rod was abundant. But one kind of pennyroyal was met. Fully one-half the grass found west of the Missouri was of one kind. Only two species of ferns, and but few mosses, were seen. The great number of fossil trees between Bismarck and Llendive was a fact of particular interest. From the stumps, some of them ten feet in diameter, the trees originally must have been of immense size. ' ring about three or four in the afternoon, on land, and about four or five over the water; the minimum being rather uniformly maintained from ten in the even- ing, on through the night. The ratio of increase is much greater at the former (5.6:9.6) than at the latter station (11.5 : 13.5), as might be expected, both from the greater diurnal changes of temperature on land, and from the fact that at the time of maxi- mum velocity on land the lake-breeze prevails. Direc- tions are given only for the city station: they exhibit the phenomena of land and sea breezes in good form. The average of four months, here copied in fig. 1 with slight change, shows the south-west land-breeze from four in the morning till eleven; then there is an abrupt reversal to the north-east lake-breeze, which persists from noon till ten at night, followed by a gradual right-handed veering as the land-breeze is established again. The veering is found with greatest regularity in the July averages. Fig. 2 illustrates the immediate reversal from west-north- west to east-south-east at noon, followed by the 496 gradual hauling-around to west-north-west again in the succeeding twenty-four hours. The arrows are here drawn proportional to the velocities (maximum, 9.9 miles an hour; minimum, 5.6), as they should better have been in the original. The veering in the other months is much less regular. The little pam- phlet affords excellent material for use in teaching, as well as for use in improving weather-predictions. No. xi., by Lieut. F. K. Ward, of the same series of notes, treats of the elements of the heliograph, for use in military signalling, with the advantage of silently calling the attention of those to whom the signals are addressed without being visible to the enemy. No. xii., the latest of the series, by Sergeant J. K. Finley, is on the special character- istics of tornadoes, giving a concise description of their peculiarities. _We should have been glad to see in it a statement of what the signal-service is attempt- ing, in the way of tornado studies, by means of its special reporters. —R. Baron, writing to Nature from Antanana- rivo, Madagascar, of a curious habit of insects, says, ‘One morning, while sitting by the side of one of these streams, I noticed a papilio, which is an insect measuring about four inches from tip to tip of its wings, resting ona wet bank; and, wishing to procure it as a specimen, I approached it as gently as possible, the creature being apparently so absorbed in what it was about as to be totally unconscious of my prox- imity to it. Noticing strange and unaccountable movements, —sundry jerks and probings with its proboscis, —I quietly sat down near it to watch it more closely. I observed that every second or two a drop of pure liquid was squirted (not exuded merely) from the tip of its abdomen. I picked up a leaf that was lying near, and inserted the edge of it between the insect’s body and the ground, so as to catch the liquid. Unfortunately, I had no watch with me at the time, nor means of measuring liquids; but I reckoned that about thirty drops were emitted per minute. I held the leaf for about five minutes, — as nearly so as I could reckon, — and at the end of that time there was caught in it about a saltspoonful of what seemed to be pure water, without either taste or color. After watching the butterfly for a time, I seized it by the wings between my thumb and fingers with the greatest ease, so utterly lost did it appear to be to what was going on nearit. In another spot I saw as many as sixteen of these large butterflies within the space of a square foot, all engaged in the same strange action.”’ — According to the London Academy, an ancient human skull has been found at Podhaba, near Prague. It was unearthed in a bed of chalk where the tusk of a mammoth had been dug out a few days previously, which gives an indication of its age. The character- istics of this skull are the extremely low forehead and the excessive development of the ridges, in both of which points it resembles the famous Neanderthal skull, though its facial angle is yet lower. — The Entomological society of Washington has organized with the following officers: president, Dr. C. V. Riley; first vice-president, Dr. J. G. Morris; SCIENCE. i, (Vou. III, No. 63. second vice-president, George Marx; recording sec- retary, E. A. Schwarz; corresponding secretary, L. O. Howard; treasurer, Benjamin P. Mann; execu- tive committee, the officers and Dr. W. S. Barnard, P. R. Uhler, and Dr. A. J.Shafhirt. The first regular monthly meeting of the society was held April 3, in the council-chamber of the U.S. national museum. The active membership list of the society numbers over twenty names. Regular meetings are held on the first Thursday evening of each month. — The pilot chart of the hydrographic office for April embodies several neat improvements on the preceding numbers. The printed supplement is replaced by a greater detail of conventional figures, with dates, printed in red on the chart; so that there is no longer necessity of looking elsewhere for needed information. The rig and attitude of wrecks are graphically represented, the name and date of obser- vation being placed beside them. Wrecks observed more than once are plotted in all their positions with dates, and connected by a dotted line. Thus, from Jan. 7 to March 12, the schooner Maggie M. Rivers had drifted from off Cape Hatteras about five hundred miles east-south-east, obliquely across the ordinary course of the Gulf Stream. An intermediate posi- tion was noted on Feb. 6. One water-spout is recorded for March 3, two hundred miles east of Norfolk. It would be worth while to give the hour of such tran- sient phenomena. Bergs and field-ice were very plen- tiful south-east of Newfoundland. Hereafter the charts will be sent to press the first of every month. The news of the previous month will be given as far as received, and any thing coming in later will ap- pear on the next issue. —It is rather late, but perhaps not quite too late, to call attention to the exceedingly important article by S. P. Langley, on the determination of wave- lengths in the invisible prismatic spectrum, in the March number of the American journal of science, simultaneously published, also, in the Philosophical magazine and some of the continental journals. It gives the first, and so far the only, reasonably accurate wave-length determinations in the lower in- visible portion of the spectrum. The results were obtained by a very ingenious and unexceptionable combination of grating and prism, and their correct- ness is beyond dispute within the limits of accuracy assigned. They show conclusively that the corre- sponding wave-lengths published by previous (and — some contemporaneous) investigators are, at best, — only roughly approximate, because founded on extra- polation from formulae which break down in the region of longer wave-lengths. The formulae of Red- tenbacher, Cauchy, and Briot, were all investigated, and all fail; Briot’s turning out the least inaccurate. Professor Langley’s work makes it evident that the theory of dispersion needs revision and perhaps reconstruction. Some of the results given in this article have been published before, within a year or two, in a fragmen- tary way, in the Comptes rendus, and in papers read before the National academy and elsewhere ; but we APRIL 18, 1884.] have now, for the first time, a connected statement of the whole investigation, which lays a foundation for future extended work in the same direction. A casual reader would hardly be likely to appre- ciate the immense amount of labor involved in the research, both in observation and computation: but all acquainted with this sort of work will know that it must have been exceedingly laborious, tedious, and delicate ; and specialists will await with great inter- est the publication of the unabridged memoir, in the Transactions of the National academy of sciences, with all the original records and details of the obser- vations. —Ina paper published in Van Nostrand’s maga- zine, Professor Thurston introduces a report, by Messrs. Brooks and Steward, on tests of an Otto gas- engine made at the Stevens institute of technology in the spring of 1883. The machine was furnished by the builders, and was subjected to a careful test, determining the method of distribution of heat, in useful effect and in wastes. Earlier determinations, under the direction of Professor Thurston, had been made, with results, in one case, given in illustration, as follows: — Useful (dynamometric) work 5 . 14.27 WOSSIRE CURTULT) EA ee 2 Friction ofengine . . . erie Weaetriey «1, e4sL0 Heat ‘ exhausted’ from engine 23.55 Heat wasted by water-jacket . 46.90 Loss by radiation, etc. . 10.76 Total heat supplied . 100.00 The consumption of fuel a evor twenty-one to twenty-four and a half cubic feet per horse-power and per hour. The friction of mechanism was four or five per cent of the total energy of the fuel, or about thirty per cent of the useful power. The water-j acket carried off from forty-five to fifty-five per cent of the heat of combustion. The engine delivered seven to nine horse-power. The trials of 1883, at the Stevens institute of tech- nology, were made with an engine rated at ten-horse power. The air and gas were both measured by meter, — probably the first time that this had been attempted. It wasfound that the real proportions of air and gas were not determinable, except by meter- ing both, as here done. The fact was proven that combustion continues, even after expansion has pro- gressed to a very considerable extent, —a fact that had been before suspected, but probably never before proven. The distribution of heat was as follows: — ‘Indicated ’ work 17.00 In exhaust. 15.50 In water-jacket . 52.00 Lost by radiation, etc. 15.50 Total heat . a end ex td eee . 100.00 In the ‘ indicated ’ sae are included useful work, and friction of engine, the latter amounting to about 0.20 of the former. The cost of operation of the gas-engine is given at 8.75 cents per horse-power and per hour, — consider- ably more than the steam or the hot-air engine, when working continuously; but the comparison is more favorable to the gas-engine for discontinuous work. SCIENCE. 497 The expense of the gas-engine will also be greatly re- duced by the introduction of special ‘ heating-gas,’ which can be supplied at one-half the cost of illumi- nating-gas. The report affords an unusually full collection of valuable data for use in the construction of the theory of the gas-engine. It is remarkably well worked up, giving the equations of the expansion-lines; compo- sition and specific heats of the gases; pressures, vol- umes, and temperatures at the various portions of the cycle; and all items of cost. — At the meeting of the Linnaean society of Lon- don, on March 6, Professor Cobbold gave a verbal account of a communication from Dr. P. Manson of Hong Kong, in which the author furnishes fresh evi- dence as to the réle of the mosquito considered as the intermediary host of Filaria sanguinis-hominis. Dr. Manson has verified his previous observations in the most complete manner, and he now recognizes and describes six well-marked stages of the Filariae whilst they are dwelling within the body of the insect. In the discussion following, Dr. T. R. Lewis con- firmed Manson’s statements in many particulars. —M. Tisserand, assisted by MM. Bijourdan, Cal- landreau, and Radau, issued on Feb. 15 the first num- ber of anew astronomical monthly, entitled ‘ Bulletin astronomique,’ to be published under the auspices of the Paris observatory. — Nature announces that at the final meeting, March 21, of the general committee of the Interna- tional fisheries exhibition, the balance of the funds was disposed of. The surplus amounts to over £15,- 000; and of this, £10,000 were allotted to alleviate the distress of widows and orphans of sea-fishermen, while £3,000 were voted as an endowment to a society which is to be called ‘ The royal fisheries society,’ whose functions will be somewhat similar to those of the Royal agricultural society. The remaining £2,000 are kept in reserve. — For the purpose of a scientific inquiry into the amount and fluctuation of the rainfall in different parts of the world, A. R. Binnie, Town Hall, Brad- ford, Yorkshire, Eng., wishes to collect long and con- tinuous records of rainfall extending from as early a date as possible. 1°. The records should state the annual falls only, as taken year by year without a break, for periods of at least fifteen years; but the longest possible period is most desired. 2°. The name of the place of observation, with, if possible, the lati- tude and longitude, and its elevation above the sea- level, should be given. 38°. The total annual fall should be expressed in millimetres, English inches, or local or obsolete measures; but if in either of the latter, their equivalent in millimetres or English inches should be given. 4°. The name of the ob- server, or authority, or publication from which the record is obtained, should be given. 5°. The records should be from observations made at a single station, and should not be compiled from the records of two stations; but the greatest number of different records taken at different stations is desirable, to avoid local errors or peculiarities. 498 — The gunpowder-mills owned by Messrs. W. H. Wakefield & Co., near Kendal, Eng., are now lighted by the electric lights they being the first works of the kind where this ‘mode of illumination has been adopted. ‘The works are very extensive, at least two miles in length. The dynamo is placed about the centre of the works. Very long mains were neces- sary, aS each dangerous building is about two hun- dred yards from its neighbor. Over head, bare wires were found to be the best for conveying the current. These were carried on insulators on posts and trees along the route, four to eight lamps being necessary toeach. The lamps used are the new pattern, twelve- candle power Swan lamps. The dynamo runs almost continuously day and night in the winter, the average work per day being at least twenty hours. In the dangerous powder-making sheds the lights are en- closed in specially designed copper reflectors, enam- elled white inside, with tight-fitting plate-glass fronts. Each lamp is under separate control, and each circuit can be controlled by a switch in the machine-room. Every lamp and every circuit is also protected by a safety-plug, which melts in case of danger through excess of current; thus breaking the current, and re- moving all possible danger. — The rainfall in San Diego, Cal., and also through- out southern California, is greater for the present season of 1885-84 than has ever been previously recorded. A total of 18.46 inches has fallen at San Diego, and as high as 60 inches have been reported from the back country. The rainfall for 1879-80 was 14.89 inches; 1880-81, 9.30 inches; 1881-82, 9.47 inches; and for 1882-83, ony 4.91 imcnes — The Indians in Oregon are much disturbed by the constant settling of whites on lands which they have occupied, and which have enabled them to gain a living by horse-raising. They recently asked for a hearing for their grievances from the commander of the fort at Walla Walla, which was granted. They were told, however, that their only remedy was in taking the land as individuals, and not as members of atribe. But as they have scruples about dealing in mother-earth, from which they all come, and to which they return, the prospect is at present that they will be finally driven from all land outside their reser- vation. — Professor Ormond Stone, now of the University of Virginia, resigned the position of astronomer of the Cincinnati observatory in June, 1882; and upon his advice, his former assistant, Mr. Wilson, now astronomer pro tempore, has devoted himself chiefly, since that time, to the reduction of the miscellaneous observations which remained unpublished. No. 7 of the publications of the observatory, a pamphlet of 79 pages, contains those observations which pertain to comets, and is divided about equally between observations of cometary positions and physical ob- servations. Previously to 1880 this observatory paid no attention to these bodies, the equatorial (Merz and Mahler, 11} inches aperture) being princi- pally engaged with double-star observations. The former publications of this observatory (Nos. 1-6) SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. relate entirely to discoveries and micrometri¢al meas- urements of double stars. itty The observations of position were waa after the usual manner, mostly. with the filar, but sometimes with the ring-micrometer, and need no further men- tion here. The assumed co-ordinates of a hundred and fifty-four comparison-stars are given also, ‘The physical observations, generally made just before or after the observations of position, consisted of sketches, measures, and notes on the appearance of the comets. Sketehes of the heads of comets were made with the large equatorial, using a power of about a hundred diameters. The tail-sketches were made with the unassisted eye, and sometimes an opera-glass. All the stars visible in the vicinity of the comet were plotted upon the pencil-sketches as accurately as possible with the eye. The stars were afterward identified in Heis’s Atlas Coelestis, and plotted to a scale three times that of the engravings. The position of the nucleus was then plotted, and the tail drawn in the same proportion, relatively to the stars, as on the original sketch. In the process of photo-engraving, the compiled sketches were re- duced to one-third, so that the engravings are about the same size as the original sketches. The theory and methods of discussion of tail-obser- vations of comets, elaborated by Dr. Bredichin, direct- or of the observatory of Moscow, have been followed | by Mr. Wilson; and he summarizes that theory from Copernicus and the Annales de VUobservatoire de Moscou. The discussions of the notes on the several comets form a very interesting contribution to cometary astronomy. The plates accompanying the work con- tain about thirty drawings of comet (b) 1881, twelve of comet (a) 1882, and twenty of comet (e) 1882, commonly known as the great comet of that year; and they appear to have been reproduced in a manner worthy of the accuracy of the originals. —In the French journal, La ramie, M. Pailleux calls attention to a Japanese plant named Kusu (Pueraria Thunbergeana), the roots of which contain starch, while the leaves and shoots are used as food. Its fibrous portions are adapted for use in the manu- facture of cordage. It is a lofty and hardy plant, attaining within a year to the height of between twelve and twenty-five feet. It yields fruit, and grows upon the most unfruitful dry ground, where nothing else would thrive, provided there is a suf- ficiency of warmth. It requires no care, and can be propagated by seeds or by planting. — The Chinese are beginning to adopt western chemical scienee, and a factory has recently been erected for the manufacture of sulphuric acid on a large scale. Two well-known chemical text-books — Malguttis’ Elementary chemistry, and the Chemical — analysis of Fresenius—have also been translated into Chinese, with the help of a great number of — new characters, and adopted in the imperial colleges. _ His exeellency Tong Kin Sing, the first minister, has taken the work under his immediate patronage, and written the preface for the first of these books, ek) Neer. FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Tue National academy of sciences, which met at Washington last week, labors under a serious disadvantage in being able to meet but twice a year; more frequent meetings of a society whose membership extends over the entire country being impossible under present conditions. Notwithstanding this disadvan- tage, it is of the highest importance that the leading scientific workers of the country should form an organized body; and the academy seems to fulfil the objects of such an organiza- tion as well as any that could be devised. It is hampered by no rules that do not admit of being amended whenever it is found necessary so to do, and there is no limit upon the mem- bership except what the academy may itself see fit to impose. The infrequency of its meetings does not prevent it from being always ready for action on any subject referred to it by congress, or any department of the gov- ernment. The president of the academy can at any time appoint a committee of experts to investigate and report upon the questions submitted, and he has authority to accept the report of such a committee. At first sight, this system might seem to place too much power in the hands of the president and any committee he chooses to name; but, practi- eally, the danger of this power being abused is no greater than in ali human affairs. Imn- portant reports are submitted to the academy for approval whenever practicable; but even then the academy can seldom or never do better than accept the opinion of the experts who have investigated the subject. The va- ried applications of science are now so highly specialized, that conclusions depend more upon a minute examination of details, such as only a committee can enter upon, than upon gen- eral opinions. t No. 64. — 1884. ° The most important functions of the acad- emy are those which grow out of its relations to the government. The liberal spirit which animates both congress and the executive departments in their dealings with scientific affairs is very apt to lead them into the sup- port of scientific enterprises without any suffi- cient consideration of the conditions of success and of efficient and economical administration ; and a careful consideration of each proposed undertaking by a committee of experts is what is wanted to insure the adoption of the best methods. Indeed, it is worthy of considera- tion, whether congress would not do well to adopt the principle that it would make no appropriation for a new scientific object unless the plan of operations were first submitted to and approved by the academy. OLEOMARGARINE, suine, and all forms of im- itated and adulterated butter, receive heroic treatment by the legislature of New York. A bill has passed the senate by a vote of twenty- five to four, and the assembly by ninety-nine to one, which absolutely prohibits the manufac- ture or sale of bogus butter within the state. Penalties in fines of from fifty to a hundred dollars are imposed for violations of the act; and a dairy commissioner, appointed by the governor, with a salary of three thousand dol- lars, is to be allowed twenty thousand dollars with which to enforce the statute. At this writing, the bill only awaits the signature of Goy. Cleveland to become a law, and go into effect the first day of June. This action resulted from an order of the senate, to its committee on public health, to in- quire into the adulteration of food and dairy products. Various agricultural organizations had previously pressed the matter upon the legislature; the State dairymen’s association sending an active committee to Albany to look after it, and furnishing counsei for the senate 500 SCIENCE. committee. The latter, with Senator Low of Orange county as chairman, made a vigorous campaign, gave public hearings at Albany and New York, aroused popular interest, and sub- mitted an elaborate report. The investigation was extremely one-sided throughout, and the facts were absurdly exaggerated and distorted ; as, for example, when it was seriously argued that the factory manipulation of butterine gen- erated loathsome diseases among employees, and that the extending use of imitation-butter caused an increase in the death-rate of New- York City. The main points brought out by the inquiry were these: that previous laws of restriction and regulation were ignored because no proper provision was made to execute them ; that while the imitations and adulterations of butter were generally known where handled in the whole- sale trade, and changed hands without decep- tion, although often unmarked, these articles were almost uniformly fraudulently retailed as real butter; that farmers and merchants, in- cluding exporters, believed the production and sales of genuine dairy-products to be suffering from the frauds ; that the later modes of manu- facture were less cleanly and healthful than when oleomargarine was first made ; that nitric acid and other objectionable substances were carelessly used in the newer processes; and that honest dairymen were being induced, un- der pressure of competition, to buy oleo-oil and ‘ neutral lard’ (deodorized low-grade fats) to extend the quantity of home-made dairy- products. Missouri is the only state which has, previ- ous to New York, adopted the policy of pro- hibition as a cure for dairy frauds. The result will be watched with interest. Although un- der active management, supported by popular prejudice, this extreme legislation has been se- cured almost unopposed, there are those who doubt its wisdom, both as regards cheap food, and the true dairy interests of the great dairy state. The matter is also being agitated in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. ATTENTION was called in one of our previous numbers to the difficulty experienced by the signal-service in securing young men, well trained in meteorology, for scientific work in the central office at Washington, on account of the lack of adequate instruction on this subject in our universities. Signal-service note, no. ix., prepared by Mr. Frank Waldo, after a year’s residence in Germany, on the study of meteorology in the higher schools of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, shows how much more attention is there devoted to this growing subject, although in many universities or tech- nical schools it is taught only in an elementary way, or not at all. Such names as Hann, Oberbeck, Simony, Sohncke, Supan, Thiesen, Zoppritz, appear on the list here given; all of these professors giving original lectures. The chief reason for this latter point is, we may suppose, because no text-book has appeared which fully represents the present attitude of the new meteorology. In the absence of any serious modern treatise, articles in- scientific journals form the main source of the newer material not original with the instructor. Workers in this country may therefore con- gratulate themselves on the opportunity for technical publication and discussion now offered in the American meteorological journal lately announced. New Jersey is in a fair way to-be the first state in the Union provided with a good topo- graphical map. Abouta year ago we described the two sheets of the northern part of the state then issued. The considerable progress achieved since then is now detailed in our notes, together with the plans for the future. Professor Cook, director of the geological survey of New Jersey, states, in his recent annual report, that the topographical sheets already published have been very generally approved, and are now in demand for the lay- ii ing-out of water-supply and drainage works, — The work is one that — roads and railroads. New Jersey may well be proud of, and that other states must envy. [Vou. IIL, No. 64 POPES Wm - H+ APRIL 25, 1884.] LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Fy Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writers name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. ‘A singular optical phenomenon.’ THE ‘singular optical phenomenon’ described by ‘F. J. S.’ on p. 275 of the current volume of Science is a case of the familiar watering effect produced by superposed loose and regular fabrics, or by distant palings and lattice-works superposed by projection. We may find it convenient, in the following discus- sion, to refer to these by the general term of ‘ pro- jection phenomena,’ although the phrase does not seem to me to have much to recommend it except convenience. I ought to say that this discussion is prompted by the letter by Professor LeConte in the last number of Science ; for, if so skilled an experimenter could overlook the real explanation, it may safely be con- cluded that most readers have done so. Moreover, the phenomenon is one of a large and interesting class, of which I have never met any explanation, although, as we shall see, very simple considerations ae lead us far towards a complete explanation of all. For the sake of simplicity, we will begin by the consideration of two gratings of regular “horizontal elements: the one nearer the “observer, which we will call the first grating, is to be of alternating opaque and transparent strips; and the more distant one, or second grating, of white and black bands. We will also suppose, at first, that the eye is placed in a line passing through the middle of a dark band and an opaque strip, and that the aperture of the pupil is negligibly small. We may also conveniently assume that the angular widths of the elements of both gratings are so small that they are not separately evident to the eye, not only because such cases offer the most striking phenomena, but also because in them the meaning of the term ‘apparent DEBS which we shall use, is self-evident. We will call the distances from the eye to ane screens respectively d, and d,; the breadths of the opaque and black intervals, 6; and 02; and, finally, the element of each erating (that is, the distance from the centre of one dark strip to the centre of the next), Z, and EE). If B is the brightness of the white portion of the second grating, it is evident that the average bright- ness of the field, if the first grating were removed, would be Es ae De £2 ‘Tf, on the other hand, the first screen remained in place, and the black strips of the second should be replaced by white of brightness B, the field would appear of a brightness (peas Ly, As a first special case, let us suppose By Hz, B then, remembering the position of the eye, it is clear that each opaque bar would be centrally pro- jected upon a dark strip of the second grating; and the brightness would be uniform, and equal to the less of the two expressions above. For a second case, suppose SCIENCE. d01 n being any whole number: then every nth black strip would be centrally covered by a bar of the first grating. If a is equal to or less than “2 the i “2 e 5, —h, brightness would be uniform, and equal to B =e ; but, if this limit of equality were surpassed, the average brightness would be nEy —(n—1) bg —b,2 ‘dy B NE, Z and there would be regularly placed minima, unless nie were insensible to the eye. ZZ E, Ey The case of n—* = —~ is equally easy. the angle -—— In all that follows, we will, in order to avoid too extensive discussion, regard n as equal to unity: by this limitation we sacrifice no interesting cases. Suppose, now, the eye moved continuously up or down, parallel to the gratings. After a certain small displacement, depending upon the relation of a to - 1 2 the brightness of the field would continuously dimin- ish until it reached a minimum equal to i, ¢ unless the numerator should be negative, when the minimum would be absolute. It would remain at this minimum for a certain time, depending upon the constants of the system, and then increase by ex- actly the same law as that of decrease, until after a displacement of the eye equal to Ds - when it would recur to the same condition as at first. As a final and more general case, let us suppose that where dis a small quantity, positive or negative. If we again suppose that the eye is so placed that a line drawn from it perpendicularly to the two gratings will pass centrally through dark bars in each, then a line drawn from the eye through the mth bar of the first grating will pass through a dark strip of the second, if = is a whole number. Let m be the 2 smallest number which meets this condition: then a line drawn through any bar between the Ist and mth would meet some one of the conditions discussed in the last paragraph, as produced by a movement of the eye. Thus we see that the field would present horizontal maxima and minima of brightness, the angular position (@) of the maxima being given by the equation mE, = tang) .N —= where WN is any whole number, positive or negative. The apparent distance apart of the maxima would be m Ey ] If the eye be moved so as to shift the apparent position of the central bar to the adjacent black strip on the second grating, the middle of the field would have undergone all the changes of phase which cor- respond to a change of tang @ from zero to m=, J hence such a motion of the eye would appear to give 602 rise to a shifting of the whole series of maxima by this angle. The direction of apparent motion would be either with that of the eye, or opposite, according as 0 is positive or negative. The displacement of the pupil necessary to bring about this change would be Pippa cual de roa dy If the relative motion of the periodic phenomenon and the first screen be regarded as a parallactic dis- placement, then we must suppose their relative dis- tances from the eye inversely proportional to their apparent motions; 1.e., as nH 4 mE 4, Ey : d, dy ram dy ae E; or, since 2) nearly, as m to - de 1 2 2 1 It was this apparent parallax which led ‘F. J.S.’ to suppose the phenomenon which he describes an image of the distant screen between himself and the first window. If our gratings be complicated by the addition of equally spaced vertical bars, we shall see also, in gen- eral, a series of vertical bands giving maxima and minima along a horizontal direction. ‘These will be separated by intervals m EF’, Cin and the ratio of their apparent angular motion to that of the first screen when the eye is moved equals d. i Ow : 2 1 where the letters marked with / are defined by anal- ogy. “ON very interesting conclusion follows from the consideration that mand m/ are wholly independent; the one depending on 0, and the other on 06’. Thus, we may have the horizontal bands moving in the same direction as the eye, and the vertical bands moving in the opposite direction, or vice versa: hence, if the displacement of the eye is neither horizontal nor vertical, the network which forms the projection phenomenon may seem to move in any direction, the only condition being that the horizontal and vertical components of the velocity are propor- tional, respectively, to m/ and m; or, in other words, to the apparent width of the bands, divided by the corresponding element of the first grating. In the case of gratings which are not plane, super- posed by projection, as is the condition generally with doubled laces, veils, mosquito-bars, ete., —in short, in almost all cases of every-day observation, — both 6 and 0’, as well as the direction of the elements of the gratings, are functions of the distances from the central point of the field; but, as these are con- tinuous functions, we can state several of the most important properties of the projection phenomena: viz., — 1°, The bands will be continuous and curved. 2°. If the eye be moved, the phenomenon will shift with an apparent velocity in any direction proportional to the width of the bands measured in that direction. 3°. The motion of a single band will, in general, be a motion of translation, combined with a motion of rotation. But the instantaneous centre of rotation cannot lie in a band; for in that case, according to the previous conclusion, that point being at rest, the © _ band would there have no width, consequently could not exist. 4°. If a band forms a closed curve, a - motion of the eye will necessarily produce a continu- ous change in the apparent magnitude of the ring; SCIENCE. for a mere motion of translation would correspond to a momentary rotation about at least two points in _ the curve, which, according to the last principle, is impossible. The properties described under the second and fourth heads above are those which more especially cause the projection phenomena to resemble those of watered silk; for the latter follow much the same law. We will now consider the effect of the size of the pupil of the observing eye, which has hitherto been considered as a point. It is obvious that the image on the retina must be the sum of the projection images as seen from each point of the pupil: hence, if the pupil is not much greater than the space through which the point of view must be shifted in order to produce a complete change of phase (i.e., than EF, a ), the phenomenon must be like that dz — dy for an indefinitely small pupil, except that the dis- continuity is less pronounced. This explains why, in fine networks, such as veils and mosquito-bars, the distance d, — d, between the fabrics must be small in order to produce the projection phenomena. In the case described by‘F. J. S.,’ Hz = 4 inch, d; = 10 feet, and d, = 40 feet: consequently the expression indicating the limit which the diameter of the pupil must not greatly surpass is ¢ inch. The effect of maladjustment of the eye would be to diminish still further the discontinuity of the phenomenon; but this would be carried so far as to destroy the periodicity, and thus obliterate the phe- nomenon, — not when an angular interval of — 2 at the distance d, becomes indistinguishable, as ‘F. J. 8.’ seems to have expected, but only when an mE, angular interval of d 1 at the distance d, becomes indistinguishable. The cases where n differs from unity offer no diffi- culties, but they are much less interesting. They exclude the case which has given rise to this discus- sion; for there £, equals 4 inch, the other dimensions having been already quoted. In what precedes, however, I have tacitly assumed that ae is always the reciprocal of a whole number. 2 This may not be true. tween L and 1 N aN ot at then, if N is large, the solution above is accurate within the range of observation. If, on the contrary, the value of N is moderate, successive maxima will differ by a quantity which is itself periodic. It will be observed that the second grating may be perfectly replaced by an image by reflection of the first. Frequent examples of this arrangement are seen in screens before closed windows or mirrors. Suppose the value to lie be- , where W is a whole number: The general analytical solution of the whole class” of phenomena produced by parallel rectangular grat- ings with indefinitely small pupil is easy; but the solution is so extremely general, that its reduction to special interesting cases requires even more writing than we have found necessary here. The only point worth dwelling upon here is, that the apparent variations in brightness, though periodic, are always discontinuous; but that every departure from the assumed geometrical conditions, such as are effected by diffraction, dimension of the pupil, and imperfect — accommodation, tends to decrease the discontinuity. C. S. HASTINGS. Baltimore, April 11. : [Vou. IL, No.'64, APRIL 25, 1884.] Rhythmic variation. It is a general axiom in ‘breeding’ and in allied biological discussions, that ‘like produces like;’ and yet in nature, or under art, we have no instance we can use where like has produced an identical likeness. It rather seems that the practical expression should be the converse one, that ‘variation produces varia- tion;’ for in nature we find variation the general fact, no animal and no plant producing offspring pre- cisely similar to itself. Indeed, as the attribute of life is motion and but momentary equilibrium be- tween internal and external forces, we may consider variation as an empirical law of nature, and as in- fluenced by the law of rhythm, as outlined by Herbert Spencer, who says that rhythm results wherever there is a conflict of forces not in equilibrium. This law of rhythm seems sufficient to explain, in part or in whole, some of the variations observed in species, and for which neither natural nor sexual selection can account. Given organisms under similar environment, and remote from selective op- portunity, we must believe that variations must occur; and these variations must naturally become grouped about types under the action of heredity and some other general laws, giving through rhythmic action the appearance of progressive development. Probably this law of rhythmic movement may ex- plain the interesting variations which have origi- nated species in certain protoplasmic organisms, as so well described by Professor Asa Gray (Amer. journ. sc., April, 1884, 327), who says, — ** No exercise of ‘ natural selection’ could produce the succes- sive changes presented in the evolutionary history of the typical Orbitolites, from Cornospira to Spiroloculina, from Spiroloculina to Peneroplis, from Peneroplis to Orbiculina, from Orbiculina to the ‘simple’ forms of Orbitolites, and from the ‘simple’ to the “ complex’ forms of the last-namedtype. And as all these earlier forms still flourish under conditions which (so far as can be as- certained) are precisely the same, there is no ground to believe that any one of them is better fitted to survive than another. They all imbibe their nourishment in the same mode, and no one type has more power of going in search of it than another. That they are all dependent on essentially the same conditions of temperature and depth of water, is shown by their occurrence in the same marine areas. That they all equally serve as food to larger marine animals, can scarcely be doubted; and itis hardly conceivable that any of their devourers would discriminate (for example) between the disks of a large O. marginalis, or middle- sized O. duplex, and a small O. complanata, which even the trained eye of the naturalist cannot distinguish without the assistance of a magnifying-glass.” E. LEWIS STURTEVANT. Geneva, N.Y., April 12. Rare Vermont birds. In a list of birds given under this heading in No. 55 of Science, appeared the American avocet (Recur- virostra americana Gm.) and orange-crowned warbler (Helminthophaga celata Say, Bd.). It appears, these were admitted on mistaken evidence, and are not to be considered as Vermont birds. FRANCIS H. HERRICK. THE APRIL SESSION OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. Tue number of papers presented at the ses- sion of the National academy of sciences in Washington last week was less than usual, and, judging from the discussions, none were of commanding interest and importance. An unusual number of prominent members were absent from the meeting ; and it also happened SCIENCE. 903 that the social re-unions which have usually accompanied the annual session were, from various accidental circumstances, omitted. It has long been a custom, if not an unwritten law, of the academy, to decline all social at- tentions which do not come either from mem- bers or officers of the academy, or from heads of government departments interested in its work. An interesting feature of the meeting was a communication received from Mrs. J. Law- rence Smith, widow of the late lamented chemist of Louisville, proposing to give the sum of eight thousand dollars, which she had received from Harvard college by the sale of Professor Smith’s collection of meteorites, to establish a memorial fund for the promotion of meteoric research. The academy will then have four considerable funds for the promotion of science, — the Bache, Draper, Watson, and Smith funds. The following were some of the more inter- esting of the physical papers : — It has long been a well-known result of theoretical mechanics, that the rotation of the earth causes a slight tendency in any south- ward-flowing river of the northern hemisphere to press towards its right bank; and various phenomena have been attributed to this, among others a supposed tendency of drift- wood to accumulate on the right rather than on the left bank. It is, however, readily shown that this tendency could not produce this effect; and the general conclusion has been, that the only effect would be an imper- ceptible difference of level of the two sides of the river. The object of the first paper read — that of Mr. Gilbert, on the deflection of river- courses in consequence of terrestrial rotation — was to point out an indirect result of the forces in question, which had hitherto been over- looked, and which might produce observable results. He showed that the effect of terres- trial rotation is to increase the centrifugal force on those curves which deflect the river from the right towards the left, and to dimin- ish the force in the opposite direction; the difference in the case of the Mississippi River. being about one-tenth part of the whole. In his paper on the origin of crystalline rocks, Dr. Sterry Hunt conceived that rocks, like gneiss and other felspathic, hornblendic, and quartzose aggregates, resulted from the action of water on the superficial and last con- gealed part of the earth’s crust, through up- ward lixiviation. The separation of zeolites and quartz from basic rocks is a survival of this process of deposition from mineral springs, o0+ whose action divided the primitive rock into a lower basic and an upper acidic portion. The author distinguishes this by the name of the crinitic hypothesis. In continuation of the series of researches - which he has been making upon solar and ter- restrial radiation, Professor Langley presented a short paper on the character of the heat radi- ated from the soil. It is a commonly accepted opinion, that the atmosphere is less trans- parent to the invisible heat-rays of the sun than to the visible light-rays, and that the heat stored in the atmosphere is due to this cause. His researches had, however, shown, that, so far as solar radiation is concerned, this view was ill founded, since the solar rays of longest wave-length pass as freely through the atmos- phere as the visible red rays. But, when the radiation from a metallic surface heated to the temperature of boiling water was measured, rays were found of a wave-length far exceed- ing any that had been measured in the solar spectrum. As it could not be considered prob- able that such rays were really wanting in the heat emitted by the sun, he reached the conclu- sion that they were absorbed by the atmosphere, which should therefore be regarded as opaque to such rays. ‘This being the case, all or nearly all the heat radiated by the soil would be inter- cepted by the atmosphere; and thus we have the heat-storing effect to which the tempera- ture of our globe is to be attributed. Inci- dentally Professor Langley expressed his entire dissent from the conclusion of Herschel and Ross respecting the heat radiated by the moon. The latter had attempted to differentiate the heat reflected by the moon from that radiated, and to determine the latter, and thus reach a conclusion respecting the temperature of the lunar surface. The conclusion of Professor Langley’s researches was, that the heat radi- ated by the moon could no more penetrate our atmosphere, so as to be absorbed on the earth’s surface, than it could penetrate the armor of a ship of war, and that its supposed measure must therefore be illusory. He also expressed the opinion, that the temperature of the moon -under the influence of the full radiation of the sun, instead of being several hundred degrees Fahrenheit, as Herschel had supposed, was more likely very far below the lowest known on our globe. Dr. Hilgard made a communication on the depth of the western part of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico with respect to the Gulf Stream. His remarks were illustrated by a model in relief, showing the configuration of the whole country east of the Mississippi River, and SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 64. of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of — Mexico. The very slow rate at which the depth of the ocean diminished until the Gulf Stream was reached, and the rapidity with which it then shelved off, were very strikingly shown by the model. Dr. Hilgard also gave an account of the progress of the work of the coast-survey in connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico by precise levellings. The work has been in charge of a single assist- ant, and has been carried 1,784 kilometres from New York, past St. Louis. The datum-point at St. Louis has been determined to be 126.91 metres above mean sea-level at Sandy Hook, with a probable error of 48 millimetres. By three sets of levellings, which have been made by different parties in the Mississippi valley, from St. Louis to the Gulf, and which are, in part, of unknown value, it would appear that the mean sea-level of the Gulf at New Orleans was one metre higher than that of the Atlantic Ocean at Sandy Hook, —a difference deemed probably greater than fact. Mr. H. M. Paul of the naval observatory read a short paper on the Krakatoa atmospheric waves. He had made a copy of the curves of atmospheric pressure on the days in question, as registered at the signal-office in Washington, and reached conclusions similar to those of Gen. Strachey and others. He also showed that waves of the same kind had been recorded at other times on the register. Several of the papers presented on the bio- logical side were the direct result of the ex- plorations of the U.S. fish-commission steamer Albatross. One of more than usual general interest was that of Prof. A. E. Verrill, who gave an account of some of the zodlogical results of the deep-sea dredgings between Cape Hatteras and Nova Scotia, using the model exhibited by Dr. Hilgard to illustrate his re- marks. ‘The number of additions to our fauna was surprising, including many new family and generic types in fishes, crustaceans, mollusks, echinoderms, and other of the lower inverte- brates, and many whose nearest allies were inhabitants of distant seas. The dredgings were from two thousand to three thousand fathoms. Dr. Gill and Mr. Ryder’s paper on the Lyomeri exposed the characters of an extraor- dinary type of deep-sea teleost fishes, having, among other characteristics, no branchiostegal and pharyngeal, and only rudimentary branchial arches ; an imperfectly ossified cranium; only two cephalic arches, —a maxillary and a sus- pensorial; no palatopterygoid and an imper- fect scapular arch. The remarkable deviations a APRIL 25, 1884. ] from the ordinary fish-type can be explained on teleological grounds. ‘The enormous de- velopment of the jaws throws the branchial apparatus out of place, and entails its eventual degradation. The peculiar construction of the mouth, and opposability of the jaws, appear to be correlated with selection for food, which seems to consist principally of globigerinae and copepods, which are doubtless restrained from escape, with the water ejected from the mouth, by the structures functioning as pockets and whalebone. Another paper, largely based on the work of the Albatross, was that of Dr. Gill on the ichthyological peculiarities of the Bassalian realm, as he has proposed to call the deep- sea region. His views, which are at direct variance from those of Dr. Gunther, based on the study of the Challenger material, will be given in some detail in an early number of Science. In his paper on mastodons, read by Dr. Gill, Prof. E. D. Cope claimed that ten species were known from North America, of which no less than eight flourished during the Puerco period. Dr. J. S. Billings, through Major Powell, suggested a new method of studying crania by means of composite photography, and exhib- ited some very interesting prints taken in il- lustration, on each of which seven adults of the same race and sex were shown from in front, in profile, and from beneath. Sioux, Eskimo, and Hawaiian-Islanders were the races chosen ; and the method seemed capable of wide appli- cation with good results. President E. M. Gallaudet read a paper on the ‘combined system’ of teaching the deaf, which he illustrated by one of his pupils, who could answer questions put to him with con- siderable distinctness. The speaker was not, however, of opinion that the use of the manual system could be entirely dispensed with, and characterized as a fallacy the views supposed to be held by another school, — that because some deaf had been taught to speak by lip instruction, therefore all could be so taught. The system which Dr. Gallaudet prefers, he would probably consider an eclectic one, apply- ing to each case the method best adapted to it. The following gentlemen were elected mem- bers of the academy: Profs. EK. 8. Dana and Sydney I. Smith of Yale college, Gen. C. B. Comstock of the corps of engineers, Dr. W. K. Brooks of Johns Hopkins university, and Capt. C. E. Dutton of the U. S. geological survey. The autumn session of the academy will be held in October, at Newport, R.I. SCIENCE. 505 AN ARCTIC VESSEL AND HER EQUIP- MENT. A Goon portion of the science of navigation is devoted to the subject of safety. In navi- gation in the ice, that object is increased ten- fold in importance, and overshadows all others. In the history of the different arctic voyages, whether for popular reading or for scientific report, this question of safety has generally been considered only so far as that particular voyage had any thing interesting or useful to suggest as a result of its own adventures. While it is not hoped in this article to add any thing to our previous stock of knowledge. still it is possible, that by bringing together a statement of various dangers and difficulties to be met, and the methods which have been employed to overcome them, its publication will aid in an understanding of this often talked of arctic voyaging. The subject of ice-navigation embraces the construction of ships for this peculiar employ- ment, or the altering for it of those that have seen less severe service; their management under the various combinations of ice-packs, ice-floes, icebergs, tides, storms, currents, and every obstacle of the frigid zone; their care and preservation in the ice during the arctic winter ; and their liberation from this ice when the summer will allow them to begin again their experience as they prosecute their journey on or homewards. I will not dwell upon such indubitable facts as the quality of the ship’s material, which it is evident must be of the very best, be it wood or iron, or the almost equally apparent fact of the superiority of a vessel specially constructed for this purpose, by the hands of proper per- sons who have had experience in arctic navi- gation as well as naval construction, over the reconstructed merchantman or even stronger built man-of-war. The superiority of iron ships over those of wood no longer holds in the Arctic. The rapid conductive power of the former makes it almost impossible to keep an equable temperature without a thick inside coating of some non-conductor, besides the more rapid formation of frosts from condensed moistures along the outer sides of the bunks, causing serious diseases, and greatly aiding the propagation of that most terrible of all arctic scourges, the scurvy. ‘The superior strength and endurance of iron over wood, in the usual accidents of the temperate and trop- ical seas, seem to be lost when the test comes in the shape of severe pressure from the ice; the elasticity of the wood allowing it to return to its original shape after an almost indefinite 506 number of nippings which are not sufficient to directly crush the vessel, while the same num- ber of equal pressures on its iron companion become slowly accumulative, until it finally succumbs. A wooden vessel, however, may be very properly plated with iron over the hull for some feet under water, to protect it from the grinding action of the ‘ ice-tongues,’ which are formed by the unequal melting of the edges of large ice-cakes, which, projecting their huge submerged points often for a distance of twenty or thirty feet, become dangerous to a vessel compelled to thread narrow and tortuous chan- SEectlore through Coal Bunkers before Botlers ee Shoning new Beam, Triass, Bilge Stakes ete. - ne ~ YY YU, YY Uy Mi: G{WYvyruouey fe ZL YJ). t OK F. Ys M™M ij ia YMMV. S S ~~ N\ Stes “~ - ~ - See ns as ox os SCIENCE. =Yy S . a! :s & ea ae ' [Vou. TIE aoe in such a tremendous pressure, she could be saved in no other way. Therefore, when a ‘nip’ is inevitable in a narrow ‘lead’ con- stantly closing down on a vessel, this fact should be strongly borne in mind in selecting that point where the least damage will probably be done when the final collision comes. It would appear, therefore, that iron ships are infe- rior to their weaker but more elastic wooden compeers; and this is ably demonstrated by facts in the sad fate of the River Tay in 1868, in Baffin’s Bay, and of the Swedish exploring- ship Sophia, in the north of Spitzbergen. In both instances these vessels sank under cir- Section through Fire Room in front of Boilers, Showing Arrangements, LiL Coal Burekers, ete, Y Z A hi ‘ CLMLLIN, LL N YY, Pe ~ - ee = : —— -- LD. Ly gyn |Z Fic. 1.—Cross-section of Jeannette. nels and ‘ leads’ in an open field of pack-ice, where the first intimation of their presence is a low, dull, groaning sound, and a swinging of the ship, probably a half-dozen points, de- spite the helmsman, or probably a perfect arrest as the helpless ship comes up broadside against the cake of ice, and with all sails thrown aback. ‘Ice-tongues’ which gradually shoal from a greater depth than that drawn by the vessel are not so dangerous as those not so deep, the latter acting like a ram ina collision. In case of a ‘nip’ or a pressure from ice on both sides, these same ice-tongues are to be earnestly prayed for, as their shoaling sides often aid a vessel in being lifted out of the water, when, cumstances where good wooden vessels would probably have survived. I believe the limited experience with iron rigging in the arctic regions has been against it, except on short summer cruises with no in- tention of wintering. However, it is not a subject of much importance, unless the sails be alone depended on. Coppering is of little or no use, and I have not been able to find any comments upon it by those who have used it. In such cases. it was probably a part of the sheathing before the vessels were intended for arctic duty, as on the Erebus and Terror. The fact that most vessels are sheathed with two or three inches ets s Ate a Rae 64, APRIL* 25, 185+4.] of planking in their vulnerable parts for ice- navigation, makes the ordinary metal sheathing of but little importance. This wooden sheath- ing varies considerably in arctic vessels as to the parts of the ships that are plated, the thickness and amount, and kinds of hard or soft wood planking. Having decided to build a wooden vessel, the shape of the hull is not a matter of in- difference. The full, round ship, or, nautically speaking, a ship with full lines, is much more liable to be crushed by ice-pressure than one built with sharp lines; as fully illustrated in Koldeway’s German expedition, when the Ger- mania, built upon the latter principle, stood the ice-nip without very serious consequences during a heavy storm, while her companion the Hansa was crushed and sunk, -she being modelled upon the former plan; and this, de- spite the fact that the Germania was the larger vessel, and therefore more liable to destruc- tion than her lighter escort. This was also said to be the fault with the Jeannette, whose cross-section is shown in fig. 1, taken from Mrs. De Long’s ‘The voyage of the Jean- nette.’ Nothing less than an ‘ ice-tongue,’ whose submerged edge would be below the point braced by the inclined beam at its foot, would have been of much use to save her in a ‘nip’ by the method of lifting already noticed. These ‘ ice-tongues’ are very much less fre- quent than most people might suppose from the constant use of the expression in this arti- cle. ‘They are really very rare; at least, of such shape and size as those indicated. The edges of an ice-cake or an ice-floe may be of any shape consistent with unequal melting of its parts, and the ‘tongue’ is only one of the rare varieties. If very acute, it may be too weak to wedge up a boat, and may break off, as I saw in one instance, which, luckily, was not caused by a‘ nip,’ or the ship would have been immediately crushed. It is upon the relative position of these inequalities of the ice-edge fore and aft of a ship, that depends whether or not she will inevitably be crushed when two cakes or floes come together at her posi- tion during a heavy ice-pressure: therefore, the larger the ice-cakes in a pack, the better is her chance of escape. The ease with which a ship can be lifted is, of course, a direct function of her size and weight. The size for an arctic exploring-ves- sel may vary, depending upon the service to which she may be put, and the time she is to be employed in polar seas; still, the general principle that a vessel should be as small as SCIENCE. 507 possible, compatible with the object in view, is a good one. The smaller and lighter the boat, the more easily is she raised by the squeezing floes ; and the cases where this lifting of a vessel from the glacial vice, in one or two instances completely from her element, has been the salvation of her, are sufficiently numerous to be taken into account. Again: a small ship is more readily handled in the tortuous channels through which she is often compelled to thread her way while working in floes just sufficiently open to allow pro- gress. While arctic authorities agree upon the em- ployment of small ships, the exact size in tons is seldom stated; but, in the few cases men- tioned, about four hundred tons may be taken as the maximum limit. The superiority that a large vessel has over a smaller one in its greater momentum, when called upon to ‘ ram’ the ice, so as to force a passage, is compen- sated by the fact, which experience has fully settled, that the large ship will succumb sooner to these severe and repeated shocks that she is thus compelled to bear. It should be added, that it is only when the floes are small, and the ice comparatively loose, that any ship, whatever may be her size, can ‘ram’ it with any fair prospect of effecting a passage. A steamer intended for ‘ramming’ the ice is always strengthened at the bows by ‘dead- a Fig. 2.—‘ Deadwood * backing for bows. wood,’ or a solid wood backing (Fig. 2) not unlike that given to trial-targets for ordnance practice in solidity and strength. The depth of this may reach as much as twenty feet, although I have only heard of and never seen such depth. It may be cut off abruptly perpen- dicular to the keel (a), or given a parabolic flare (6), which, for the same amount of wood, is evidently the stronger for the various strains that the bow of an ice-vessel may be called upon to bear. With a vessel thus provided, sometimes a triangular indentation of a thin floe may be ‘rammed,’ and the ice split by the wedge, the vessel burying herself in the crack; and then, when there is a large crew, their running in a body from port to starboard, and reverse, by rocking the vessel, has been known to increase the new ‘lead,’ and allow the vessel to baek 508 out for further operations. When the wind is blowing vigorously, there are some disadvan- tages in ‘ramming,’ besides the condition of the pack caused by it. SAT ee [VoL. IIL, No. 64. these bits of advice not strictly essential for steamers, if they be properly harbored under the lee of the ice. With a sailing-vessel, this recourse becomes much more dangerous. ‘The fastening to an iceberg is not altogether unat- tended with danger, and should only be resorted to when other means of safety areremote. ‘The Polaris was justified, in such an instance, in seizing on to Providence Berg, although I have seen some contrary opinions expressed. A sailing-vessel should only do this when it be- comes necessary to avoid drifting into a more perilous position. Another advantage of steam over sail power alone is in the case of a calm with a strong tidal or other current setting towards an ice-pack or stranded iceberg, in waters so deep that anchors areof noavail; the salvation of the latter from possible severe injuries depending upon the relative power of the current, and the strength exerted by her small boats to tow her off, while the easy escape of the former is obvious. Also, in the early and late navigation of these waters, the sails are liable to become completely clogged with ice and sleet, rendering them, in extreme cases, impossible of manipulation. This state of affairs nearly proved fatal to the Griper (Capt. Lyon, R.N.) in September, 1824, in North Hudson’s Bay, while attempting to battle with a terrible two-days’ storm ; the sleet form- ing over a foot thick on her decks, and propor- tionally over other parts of the vessel. I should not have entered into so long a discussion on the seemingly palpable superiority of steam-power over that of sails, were it not for the fact that such a great proportion of the arctic expeditions are of a private nature, wherein the means of the liberal donor or donors cannot reach the increased expense of steam- machinery, fuel, and its accompanying charges ; and those serving are willing to accept the sit- uation rather than compromise the expedition altogether. There are also a few, as I have already hinted, who are opposed to steam-power from the great room it sacrifices, and its liability to incur greater risks than it can escape from if at all unfortunate. There is also a medium class, who, acknowledging the waste of room as the only detriment to be found in steam, be- lieve that this power should be represented by machinery of the cheapest class, which can be abandoned and its room made useful at any time that it fails to subserve some good purpose. It may be laid down as a good rule, that all sailing-vessels should have some ‘ square’ rig to subserve active movements in theice. Sailer or steamer, the pipes for pumping should be much more capacious than usual, and there - APRIL 25, 1884. ] should be a system of them reaching to every part of the vessel ; for the pumps may be needed the most when the vessel is careened on her beam, or at some unusual angle fore and aft. If possible, a tender should accompany the exploring-vessel proper, especially if she be a steamer, whose stores of coal and other articles are to be transferred when the ice becomes dangerous for such a craft, presumably not strengthened to combat with that element. FREDERICK SCHWATKA. ON THE FUNDAMENTAL THEORY OF DYNAMIC GEOLOGY. Many lines of inductive research lead to the conclusion that the interior of the earth is ina fluid condition, and that the solid shell is com- paratively very thin, but variable in its thick- ness from district to district, and in the same district from time to time geologically. A crust twenty-five miles in thickness at a maxi- mum, and very much thinner at a minimum, best explains geologic phenomena. If we consider this crust to be made up of units defined at the upper surface by districts of some magnitude, it seems necessary to regard it as existing ina state of floating equilibrium; so that, if some portion of the rocky material is taken from any such district, it rises, and the district on which it is deposited subsides. In case material is transferred for a very short distance, appre- ciable displacement may not result, the local structural rigidity being sufficient to withstand, or largely withstand, the stress. But if the short transferrence is across the line of a fault, from the upraised to the thrown side, the facts seem to show that the upheaved side continues to rise by reason of unloading, and the thrown side to subside by reason of increased load. The rigidity of the crust of the earth arising from the molecular cohesion of the solid state is greatly modified by mechanical structure. The crust is composed of geologic formations of diverse origin, diversely arranged. The for- mations are broken into great blocks by great fault and flexure planes, in many cases doubt- less extending quite through the crust. It is also fractured in multitudinous ways, and the crevices filled with vein matter. Again: each block or segment of a faulted formation is di- vided into small fragments by stratum planes, joints, schist planes, and slaty cleavage. The rigidity of each minute fragment is due to the molecular cohesion of solidity. but the general rigidity of the crust is dependent on mechani- SCIENCE. 11 cal structure. ‘The fragments of which the crust of the earth is composed are exceedingly minute when compared with geologic forma- tions, and they appear relatively as but grains of sand when compared with the whole crust of the earth. This fragmental character of the crust is exhibited at the surface, and to the greatest depths to which observation has extended ; and, so far as it depends upon the great faults, it must extend quite through the crust. There may be and probably is a zone beneath, so nearly fluid by reason of temperature and pressure, that fractures are less easily gener- ated and more easily repaired, but the rigidity of the crust is not increased thereby. The solidity of the crust of the earth is lim- ited by temperature and pressure under condi- tions of chemical constitution and hydration, and is further limited by the conditions of its mechanical structure. If vertical stress be applied to a point on the surface of the earth, the strain is propa- gated laterally by the condition of rigidity, but not indefinitely, as this rigidity speedily van- ishes in the presence of the enormous forces involved in the weight of the crust itself, and in the great bodies of matter that are unloaded and loaded at the surface. ‘The distance to which the strain extends is greatly lessened by the fact that the crust is not a continuous solid by cohesion, but preserves continuous rigidity in a very imperfect way by mechanical struc- ture alone. If the crust of the earth were practically ho- mogeneous in the specific gravity of its mate- rials, its static equilibrium would not permit the existence of any great elevations at the surface; but to the conclusion of a general equilibrium, geologists and geodesists are alike converging ; and, if true, it necessitates the fur- ther conclusion that the crust, and perhaps to some extent the underlying fluid matter, is of varying density from region to region. This conclusion follows from a consideration of the inequalities of altitude existing in the earth’s surface : and, since they are ever changing from district to district, —as one subsides and an- other rises, — contraction and expansion must occur. The necessity for the hypothesis of contraction and expansion is not obviated by the hypothesis of a fluid interior, nor is the latter rendered unnecessary by the former. There is a constant lateral transferrence of material at the surface by rains, rivers, and marine currents; there is a constant verti- cal transferrence of material by displacement ; there is a constant transferrence of material 512 from beneath to the surface by extravasation ; and geologists postulate a constant transfer- rence of material beneath by subterranean flow, thus completing the cycle of transferrences. But transferrence of material laterally and vertically does not serve completely to explain all the history of geologic movement. Another hypothesis is yet necessary ; and this exists in the postulate of ever-changing density, arising from the following sources: first, changes in density due to chemical action, especially as exhibited in hydration ; second, changes in den- sity due to solidification from the melted state, and to liquefaction from the solid state ; third, changes in density due to pressure and to re- lief from pressure. A consideration of many geologic facts has suggested to the writer that it may be possible, that, when the rigidity of the solid state is overcome by pressure, the rate of condensation due to added pressure is in- creased at that critical point; or, stated in another way, that the passage of rocks from the fluid state induced by pressure, to the solid state by relief from pressure, is marked by a sudden expansion. Should experiments here- after give warrant to this conjecture, the chain of conditions necessary to the explanation of dynamic geology would seem to be complete. Early in the history of geologic research, a contraction of the earth, due to the loss of heat, was postulated to explain the deforma- tions of the crust. ‘This loss of heat occurs in two ways, — by conduction, and by convection from the interior to the surface. The convec- tion is accomplished by the heating of subfer- ranean waters, and their escape as hot water and steam from the multitudinous hot-springs and geysers of the world, by the steam dis- charged in large quantities from volcanoes, and by the lavas which come to the surface to be cooled. By this method of convection, cool- ing progresses at a high rate; for the lavas even of quaternary times are of vast extent, and the lavas of all geologic history are corre- spondingly vast in amount. How cooling by convection is quantitatively related to cooling by conduction cannot be stated with our pres- ent knowledge ; but, when all of this cooling is considered, the rate of condensation is insuf- ficient to explain the known displacement — it is necessary to resort to other agencies. For the fundamental theory of geologic dy- namics we have as conditions, first, a fluid interior of great specific gravity, in part due to compression ; second, a solid crust of irregular thickness, not continuous by molecular cohe- sion, but composed of small fragments mechani- cally arranged, and permeated by water from SCIENCE. above; and, third, an aqueous fluid and an atmospheric gas in motion over the crust. The agencies of change may be considered as primary and secondary. ‘The primary agen- cies are, first, general secular cooling by con- duction and convection; second, the heat of the sun setting in motion the air and water at the surface ; third, the astronomic agencies that produce stresses. ‘The secondary agen- cies are, first, local heating and local cooling ; second, local loading and unloading, having an augmented effect at the critical point of solidity ; third, chemical reactions arising from changes of temperature, pressure, and hydra- tion ; fourth, the expansion of water into steam by internal and local heating. The changes wrought are, first, general secular contraction; second, transferrence of material horizontally at the surface by aqueous agencies, and in the interior of the earth by flow, and vertically by subsidence and up- heaval, and from within to the surface by ex- travasation ; third, change in the chemical and lithical constitution of rocks, as seen in various forms of metamorphism ; fourth, local lateral compression of formations, exhibited in plica- tion and implication, and local stretching, exhibited in certain parts of flexures. Conjointly and severally, the conditions, agencies, and changes thus enumerated seem to furnish a fundamental geologic theory, in harmony with and explanatory of the multi- farious facts discovered in geologic research. Geologists widely accept the several parts of the theory save one; namely, that which as- sumes that the solid state is a critical condi- tion of volume. The general theory enunciated is modified by a multiplicity of minor condi- tions, agencies, and changes, to expound which a voluminous treatise on geology would be necessary. The correlation and interdependence. dis- covered to exist between volcanism, seismism, displacement, surface degradation, sedimenta- tion, and metamorphism, furnish important evi- dence in favor of the general theory. So far as research has progressed, regions of great and frequent displacement are found to be regions of great degradation and sedimenta- tion, of great extravasation and seismism, and — of great metamorphism ; while regions of small displacement are regions of small degradation and sedimentation, of small extravasation and seismism, and, so far as known, of small meta- morphism. ‘The evidences of correlation are exhibited in many and diverse ways. The agencies of change enumerated in the above theory are interdependent, so that the xi [Vou. III, No. 64. _ ’ | f } APRIL 25, 1884.] increase or diminution of one results in the in- crease or diminution ofall. Ifthe agencies of the first order —i.e., secular cooling, heating of the sun, and astronomic stresses — be neg- lected, the other agencies are interdependent in such a manner that there is a tendency secu- larly to establish an equilibrium; and doubt- less such an equilibrium would be established in a period not of great length considered geologically. But the agencies of the first order continuously destroy the static equilib- rium, and, conjoined with the-others, they pro- duce the sequence of changes discovered in geologic history. The rate of internal cooling is manifestly diminishing, and physicists incline to the opin- ion that the heating due to the sun is diminish- ing. From this stand- point, then, the rate of change in geologic history is secularly dimin- ishing. On the other hand, the secondary agencies of change increase in efficiency by reason of increased heterogeneity in the struc- ture of the crust. From the irregularities of the upper surface, and those probably existing at the lower, as suggested by many facts, the crust is heterogeneous i in thickness, and doubt- less is becoming more so. It also becomes more and more heterogeneous in constitution by the progressing differentiation of its parts, exhibited in the diversification of geologic for- mations, density, temperature, conductivity, hy- dration, and chemical and lithical constitution. This internal heterogeneity renders the crust more sensitive to external agencies of change, so that a smaller amount of primary change serves to unlock a given amount of secondary change. At the present stage of geologic research the facts are not sufficient to establish the quan- titative relation between the diminished rate of change from the primary agencies and the increased rate of change from the secondary agencies. It is therefore impossible to predi- cate any variation in the rate of change from the close of archaean time to the present. J. W. PoweELt. EVOLUTION OF THE DECAPOD ZOEA. PRINCIPLES applicable to adults are often equally applicable to larvae. In the discussion of natural se- lection most writers have confined themselves to adult animals and their reaction upon environment. There is no reason, however, why the principle should not be extended to include larval forms; and, indeed, toa slight extent this has already beendone. Weismann’s ‘Theory of descent’ proceeds upon this line, and in- dicates some of the important results which may arise from such research. Crustacean larvae offer particu- SCIENCE. 513 larly good opportunity for work in this direction- They are abundant, are easily obtained, and readily studied. ‘They present great varieties of form, which are frequently not in any degree related to the adult characteristics. Indeed, crustacean larvae seem al- most like a distinct group of animals, and may be studied as such, with the extra advantage that they are highly variable, and undergo rapid metamorpho- sis. Some of the possibilities of such research may be seen by a short consideration of the different forms of decapod zoea. To make the subject clear, it will be necessary to give a brief description of three types of decapod larvae, confining ourselves, however, only to such points as particularly concern us here. ‘The first is the type, which is undoubtedly the oldest, known as the protozoea. It is acomparatively rare form, being found in a few macruran species (Peneus, Lucifer, Euphausia). Fig. 1 represents such a larva. As far as concerns us, the peculiarities are these: the long body consists of a large cephalothorax, a more or less complete thorax, and an abdomen. The important point is, that all of the regions of the body are repre- sented. When viewed from above, the part of the body composed of thorax and abdomen is seen to be very slender and weak, and to extend for a long dis- tance backwards. A second important point is the method of locomotion: unlike all other forms, the antennae, instead of being sensory organs, are used in locomotion. They are large, and covered with swim- ming-hairs, which convert them into paddles; and, by moving them to and fro, the protozoea slowly propels itself by a series of jerks through the water. The telson is a third important feature: it is small, being in our figure no broader than the abdomen; it is usually forked, and carries a number of long spines (typically seven, though the number varies); it is not a swimming-organ, —a point of particular interest. One other feature must be mentioned, —the usual though not universal absence of protective spines. A second type is that of the ordinary macruran zoea; e.g., the larva of the common shrimp. Sucha zoea is represented in fig. 2. Here we find a number of changes. First we see that only two'regions of the body are present, the cephalothorax and the abdomen, the thorax being unrepresented. The cephalothorax is not very different from that of the protozoea. The abdomen is, however, very different: it is distinctly divided into segments, all of which are well developed ; it is tolerably thick, and is a much more powerful structure than the corresponding part of the proto- zoea. ‘The muscular and usually the nervous system is well developed. In short, the abdomen is much more perfect than that of fig. 1. The locomotion of this zoea is entirely different from that of the proto- zoea. It does not use its antennae for moving, but propels itself vigorously with powerful strokes of its abdomen, after the manner of the lobster: at least, this is its motion when trying to escape danger; and that is all that concerns us. In correlation with this changed locomotion, the antennae have altered their form, and are now true sense-organs. On the other hand, the telson has become broadened into a flat » ati > — : O14 7 SCIENCE. swimming-organ. It is much broader than the rest of the abdomen, and is used as a paddle to augment the effects of the powerful strokes of the abdomen. XZ S z FARSI) LIT ARSE ZL ©. OTS We POS Ss SS \ AR St N Fig. 1.— Protozoea of Lucifer (after Brooks). Fic. 2.— Zoea of Gebixi. Fia.3.— Zoea of Panopeus. Fre. 4.—Telson of Panopeus zoea. It still retains a number of spines, but they are usu- ally quite small. A third type is the zoea of the ordinary crab. Fig. [Vou. Ill., No. 64. — 3 is such a zoea. Here we see a number of striking peculiarities. As in the shrimp zoea, we find no middle body; i.e., the thorax is absent. The abdo- men is quite small, and always occupies a character- istic position. Instead of being stretched out behind the body, as in the shrimp zoea, it is bent under the cephalothorax, as in the figure. Still another mode of locomotion is herefound. It is true that occasion- ally it uses its tail; but its ordinary locomotion is neither with antennae nor abdomen, but by means of its first two pairs of maxillipeds. These are very long, and carry large numbers of swimming-hairs, and serve as oars, with which the zoea paddles itself along. Its motion, while swifter than that of the protozoea, is not so vigorous as that of the shrimp. The tail has be- come modified into a form halfway between the tails of the other two larvae described. It is somewhat broadened, and probably has a slight motor function; but its chief use is protection (fig. 4). The most noticeable feature is the very remarkable cephalotho- rax. This is of enormous comparative size, entirely covering the body when the abdomen is flexed. It is further armed with a number (usually four) of long spines, which project in different directions, and are strong and sharp. No one can be in doubt as to the use of this arrangement. The large cephalothorax, with its resisting spines, serves as a protective case for the more delicate organs within; and, further, when the abdomen is flexed, the spines of the peculiar tel- son are placed in such a position as to give additional protection, being then directed forwards. Now, is there any connection between these three forms, and is it possible to discover any explanation for their peculiarities? In the first place, comparative embryology shows good reasons for believing that the first type, protozoea, is the oldest, and that the others are derived from this form. The evidence cannot be here deduced, but may be found by referring to Claus, Brooks, or Balfour. Assuming, then, this to be the case, the question resolves itself into the simpler one, what caused the protozoea to undergo changes which converted it into the remarkable zoea form ? A simple experiment, easily performed by any one at the seashore, suggests ananswer. ‘The experiment is simply to endeavor to catch a specimen of each of these types of larvae with a moderately small dipping- tube. It will be noticed that all of the larvae seem to have a dread of the suction which is produced by the tube; and all will swim away from it, unless it be too strong. It will be further seen that it is next to im- possible to catch the shrimp zoea. He darts away with the vigorous strokes of his tail, and, unless the fisherman is very quick, he is gone. Some of the crab zoeas Will be easily caught; but they will be seen, upon examination, to have doubled themselves up into as compact a mass as possible, with all their spines pro- jecting, and consequently in position to offer the greatest defence against enemies. Other crab zoeas will be found not so easily caught. If the zoea fished for be of the species figured, or, still better, be the larva of Porcellana, and the dipping-tube be small, — it will be found impossible to catch it. The long — spines project so far in different directions, that the — APRIL 25, 1884.] larva cannot enter the tube. Finally the protozoea will be easily caught: it swims slowly, and cannot escape the tube; nor does it present projecting spines which prevent its entrance into a small orifice. This simple experiment teaches us four things: 1°. The dread of suction exhibited by all forms indicates that their chief enemies are small animals, largely, perhaps, fishes which swallow them in their widely- opened mouth; 2°. The behavior of the macruran zoea shows evidently, that, in its struggle for existence, it relies for its protection upon its power of flight, and this gives us immediately a hint as to the mean- ing of the broad tail; 3°. The crab zoeas rely for their protection, not upon flight, but upon the efficacy of their defensive armor, either as an actual defence, whose resistance baffles the jaws of the fish, or as an apparatus which prevents their entering the mouth of a small enemy (this consideration immediately explains the use of the excessively long spines in Panopeus and Porcellana, which seem to be such encumbrances to the freedom of the larva); 4°. The protozoea seems to possess none of these means for protection; and, indeed, in every respect the proto- zoea seems ill protected. Its slow, hesitating motion, its long weak abdomen, its long antennae with their numerous swimming-hairs, —all render it easily en- tangled by rubbish, and easily caught by any enemy. Taking all of these points into consideration, we get suggestions as to a possible explanation of the remarkable differences between the crab and the shrimp zoea, — differences which seem difficult to understand, since the Brachyura and Macrura are evidently so nearly related. All decapod larvae are freely swimming animals, gaining their own living by an active search for food: they are therefore sub- jected to a struggle for existence precisely similar to that of adult animals. The principle of natural selection will be as potent to select and modify them as it is in selecting and modifying adults. If, there- fore, we assume the protozoea as an original form, we must expect to find it in many cases highly modi- fied, and must expect in most larvae to find, not a protozoea, but a greatly different form, and one better adapted for the struggle for existence. Nor must we be surprised if the embryologist comes to the conclu- sion that the modified larval stages do not represent stages of ancestral history. That the protozoea larva is not well adapted for a struggle with numerous enemies is evident to any one who observes how easily it is captured. Assuming that this is the early larval form, we should not ex- pect, from what we know of the workings of nature, that such an evidently weak form would be preserved, except in isolated cases. To adapt such a larva to a more effective struggle, there are three inethods: the larvae may be largely increased in numbers, which would, of course, increase the chance of the species for survival; or they may develop powers of flight, which will enable them to escape their enemies; or the larvae may develop some sort of defensive armor, which will enable them passively to resist all ordinary attacks. Abundant examples of each of these methods may be found in almost any group of the animal king- SCIENCE. O15 dom, but probably no better instances than the larvae in question; and this is all the more interesting, since it shows that some of the principles affecting adults also in a similar way have their influence on larvae. With these points in mind, itis possible to explain all of the important differences between the protozoea and the two zoea types. What explanation can we find for the shortened body? Two explanations for this can be found, both of which probably had their influence. The posses- sion of such a long, weak, almost functionless hind- body as is found in the protozoea is certainly caleu- lated to render its possessor a more easy prey to enemies than it would be were the body more com- pact. The shortening may therefore be simply a pro- tective measure. Or a second principle has probably had even more influence. There is good reason for believing that the amount of energy of a developing animal is limited, and, if expended in one direction, cannot be employed in a second. If, for example, a child over-develops its brain, its body is sure to suffer. Now, this principle has had a similar effect in our larvae. In the protozoea the energy of develop- ment is evenly distributed to all parts of the body. The result is, that we find here a larva with almost all of the body present, but in a low state of develop- ment: the larva is consequently comparatively weak. If, however, the development of a part of the body should be postponed, the parts which did develop could reach a greater state of perfection, since the whole energy of development could be directly turned toward their perfection. In all existing zoeas the development of the thorax has been thus postponed. The zoeas are found, therefore, to be much more vigorous than the protozoeas, their muscular and nervous system is better developed, and they are in all respects more fitted for an active struggle for existence; and this applies equally well to the ma- cruran or the crab zoea, and will assist in accounting for the absence of a thorax in the two forms, —a point which seemed a great difficulty to Balfour. In other respects the crab and the shrimp zoea have taken two different lines. The macruran type has become modified for its struggle by acquiring great powers of flight: we find its body, therefore, long and slim; but, unlike the protozoea, it is very powerful, has well-developed muscles, and a broad, paddle-like tail, which, with the assistance of the powerful abdomen, forms an effective organ of flight. Every thing which might impede its motion has disappeared. The an- tennae are small, and the other appendages are such as to present no hinderances. The whole body has become adapted to its swift motion. On the other hand, the crab zoea has taken a differ- ent line, and has developed, instead of a power of flight, a defensive armor. Its cephalothorax has en- larged, has become strong, and has developed a num- ber of defensive spines, whose use has already been noticed. Its tail, not particularly needed for swim- ming, has not developed into a broad plate, but has become an augmentation of the defensive armor by the form and position of its spines. Some species have carried this line of development still farther, ae : re te, ms " g wee) LF ia! 516 and are provided with enormously long spines, many times the length of the body, which effectually pre- vent their being swallowed by small animals. The development of the spinous protection would seem to be correlated with the absence of a swimming-tail. Some species (Pinnotheres, Tatuira) which do not possess any of these spines show a tendency toward a modification of the telson, which has in these cases become quite broad and flat. We may assume, then, that at one time the deca- pods, or the stem from which they arose, universally possessed a larval stage somewhat similar to the form known as a protozoea. As the struggle for existence became more and more severe among the Crustacea, modifications arose which took two directions. The adults became changed; and there arose in this way the different types which we know as Anomura, Brachyura, and Macrura. But at the same time natural selection had its influence upon the free larvae quite independent of its influence upon the adult. The larvae, therefore, also became slowly modified for their own protection; and from the protozoea arose the zoea types, with their infinite variety. It is quite evident that these changes may take place in the larvae without materially affecting the adult, for the cir- cumstances bringing them about influence the larvae alone. Still it is probable that habits and form of the adult may have some influence upon the general shape of the larvae. The larva must eventually transform itself into the adult; and the more nearly it approaches the adult form, the less radical will be the change. We can therefore understand why the zoea of the walking animal, such as the crab, would develop protective apparatus, while the zoea of the rapidly-swimming Macrura would acquire organs of flight. We have therefore an explanation of the two facts, that the larvae of the greater groups exhibit a certain unity, while within a given genus the differ- ent species may widely vary. H. W. Conn. THE EXPLOSIONS ON THE UNDER- GROUND RAILWAYS OF LONDON. THE explosion of Feb. 25, at the Victoria station, London, lends interest to the official report of Col. Majendie, on the results of an investigation of the cir- cumstances attending the explosion near the Praed Street station, on the 30th of October last, and the one between Charing Cross and Westminster stations. The first explosion occurred in a tunnel about a hun- dred and thirty-eight feet distant from the station, as the 7.52 P.M. train was passing. The damage in the tunnel consisted of a vertical crater in the wall about twelve by thirteen inches, and four to six inches deep. Immediately below this crater, and extending about fifteen inches along the wall, was a horizontal crater about six inches deep, partly in the ballast, and partly in the brick footing of the tunnel. The flinty ballast in this crater was considerably splintered, and the brick footing pulverized. A two-inch iron gas-pipe ran along the wall at a height of ten inches. A length of this, measuring fourteen feet, was blown away, one SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 64, end being much torn and twisted, and the whole piece bent into the form of abow. At a distance of fifteen inches from the wall, and parallel with it, was an iron switch-rod, consisting of an inch and a quarter gas- pipe, supported on iron rollers at the level of the rails, from which it was distant two feet nine inches, the rollers being fixed on a wooden plank laid on the ballast. This board had about four feet of its length blown to splinters, and a large piece thrown upon the rail, and some of the wheels of the train passed over it. A length of the switch-rod measuring about two feet, and corresponding exactly with the portion of the gas-pipe which sustained the maximum injury, was blown out, the central part of this detached portion being split up and torn. This piece of switch- rod also bore marks of the wheels upon it. A. tele- graph cable, running along the wall at the height of eight feet and a half, was cut by the explosion. ‘The walls of the tunnel were scored somewhat by the sharp débris blown against them, and the end of a sleeper opposite the crater, but partially protected by the ballast in which it was embedded, had a num- ber of pieces of splintered stone driven deeply into it. The raiis were entirely uninjured. The injury to the passing train was confined prin- cipally to the last two carriages of the six composing the train. In these the greater part of the glass was broken into small fragments. Panels and partitions were shattered, the roofs and floors disturbed, the foot-boards broken, and the carriages seemed to be completely wrecked, yet no part of the framing or running-gear was injured. The gas throughout the train was extinguished, yet the apparatus was found to be uninjured. It is interesting to note, that the injury to the train was not confined to the side upon which the explosion took place, but extended also to the opposite side; and in the case of one carriage the damage was most marked on that side. Sixty-two persons were injured by cuts and contusions from the pieces of glass and débris, and, in one or two cases, by fracture of the drum of the ear and by severe shocks. Five of the injured were confined in the hospital for a considerable time. The breaking of the glass and putting out of the gas occurred on the surface, at the openings of the tunnel, for a distance of three hun- dred and fifty feet. The second explosion, which occurred almost si- multaneously with the first, took place at a point two hundred and forty-one yards from Charing Cross, and four hundred and eighty-eight yards from Westmin- ster. As it occurred opposite a bay, the only damage done was the breaking of glass, and the extinction of the gas in both stations; the injuring of the telegraph and telephone wires for about sixty yards; the for- mation of a crater in the ballast, measuring about three by four inches, and one inch deep; and the ‘pitting’ of the walls of the tunnel, on the side of the explosion for some little distance to the right and © left of the crater, and on the opposite side for a some- ~ what greater distance. The rails were entirely un- — injured; but the ends of two sleepers, close to the © point where the explosion occurred, sustained some injury. } _ APRIL 25, 1884.] Three hypotheses were suggested as to the na- ture of the explosive; viz., coal-gas, gunpowder, and dynamite. The fact that all the gas apparatus was found intact disposed of the first. The absence of all residue, and the extremely local and brusque action of the explosive, testified unmistakably to the use of an agent possessing greater detonative energy than gunpowder, while these properties are characteristic of dynamite. The finding of a piece of Bickford safety-fuze and fragments of copper, presumably from a detonator, strengthened this belief. Accepting this theory, experiments were made by Col. Majendie, together with Professor Abel and Dr. Dupré, to de- termine the amount of dynamite necessary to pro- duce the observed effects, the switch-rod and gas-pipe from the Praed Street tunnel being used in similar positions to the charge which they bore there; and it was found that two pounds of ordinary dynamite would be sufficient, if properly detonated. The cir- cumstances surrounding the explosions, however, in- dicated that a larger amount — probably five pounds — had been used, but that a portion had burned with- out explosion. The means used for inducing the explosion was probably a suitable fuze of such a length as would burn for the desired time. This was then attached to a detonating-cap, and the latter inserted in a zine case containing the dynamite. The assassin then boarded a passing train, and, lighting the fuze, threw the contrivance from the window, the fuze being timed to explode the cartridge under the train following. In the case of the Praed Street train the explosion was premature, and exploded under the _ train in which the assassin was. In the second case the explosion occurred at the time designed, but the train fer which it was intended was late. In one minute more the train would have reached the spot, and the result would have been more serious. UNIFICATION OF TIME. A PART of the minutes of the session of the In- ternational geodetic association held in Rome last October, embracing the resolutions and discussions concerning an international prime meridian and sys- tem of expressing time, has been published. The resolutions have already appeared, but the discussions are now made public. Delegates were present from Bavaria, Belgium, France, Italy, Holland, Norway, Austria, Prussia, Roumania, Russia, Switzerland, Spain, United States, and Great Britain, and the alma- nacs were represented by Foerster, Loewy, and Puja- zon. The French delegates alone seemed to be somewhat opposed to the project; and their arguments, singu- larly enough, were not altogether unlike those that are so commonly urged against the adoption of the metrical system of weights and measures in this country. Mr. Faye admitted the ‘practical and undeniable need of a universal system of time;’ but he would regret to see the suppression of all the nautical alma- SCIENCE. O17 nacs except that of England as a result of adopting the meridian of Greenwich, because ‘these publica- tions fed the sacred fire of astronomy.’ ‘‘Still,’’ said he, ‘‘the French government may be found more ac- cessible to the proposal, if it be brought to the con- viction that the reform would be advantageous from the point of view of general civilization;’’ which we may interpret as meaning, ‘“‘if England will adopt the metric system in return.’’ Professor Foerster thought it a strange phenomenon tosee scientific men more narrowly nationalistic upon scientific questions than the nations and governments themselves. He considered it wicked to multiply repetitions of sub- stantially the same calculations of ephemerides in the different countries merely to ‘feed the sacred flame of astronomy;’ or, in other words, to find support for computers. Col. Perrier urged that the adoption of a distant meridian would be found extremely inconvenient in topographical maps; but Dr. Hirsch replied, that the meridian of Greenwich would hardly be more unfa- vorable than that of Paris for the eastern parts of France; and Helmholtz pointed out, that Germany, which had during a long period used the meridian of Ferro, had experienced no inconvenience from its being so distant. Mr. Yvon Villarceau held, that any reform of the system of reckoning longitudes and time should be accompanied by a decimal division of the circle and of the day. But the idea of sweeping away the divis- ion of the day into twenty-four hours met with no favor; though the conference consented to a resolu- tion expressing the ‘incontestible advantages of a decimal division,’ not of the circle, but of the ‘ quad- rant of the circle, in extensive calculations.’ Mr. Loewy, the director of the Connaissance des temps, was more decidedly hostile to the change than any other delegate. He thought its advantages slight, its inconveniences considerable; and he could not con- sent to changing the usage of centuries in the arrange- ment of an ephemeris, without the most conclusive reasons. Professor Foerster in reply, holding the Connaissance des temps for 1884 in his hand, showed the great simplifications which would result from the change, and added, that Loewy himself had, in his direction of that ephemeris, been one of the most radical of innovators, and had certainly modified the arrangement far more than the proposed reform would do. Notwithstanding the objections of the French mem- bers, some of whom voted against single resolutions, when the question was put, whether the body of resolutions should be adopted as a whole, it was car- ried unanimously, Loewy alone not voting. A very gratifying degree of accord may therefore be said to have been reached. Mr. Christie, the astronomer royal, declared his personal sympathy with the reso- lution expressing the hope that Great Britain might enter into the metre treaty, while explaining that he was not authorized by his government to encourage that hope. After the adoption of the resolutions, Gen. Cutts, the delegate of the coast survey and of the American government, which, it will be remem- 518 SCIENCE. bered, has invited a diplomatic conference to be held in Washington upon this subject next year, addressed the meeting as follows: — “ Now that the important questions submitted to our dcliber- ations have received, as I hope, their final solution, and that an agreement due to the merit of the cause has been reached, I ought, before the convention separates, to declare that the gov- ernment and the learned societies of the United States are in- spired in this matter, as almost all my eminent colleagues are aware, first, with the necessity of the change, and secondly, and more especially, with the desire of favoring the interests of science as well as those of commerce by land and sea. <‘ On the one hand, the civil day, as it now exists, has been pre- served; on the other, for scientific and commercial reasons of high importance, a prime meridian and a zero of time, applicable to allnations, have beenintroduced. These decisions open a new era, which will be more and more appreciated, as the progress of nations, of international relations, and of science, — which knows no latitude nor longitude, — shall bring to light, in their assured development, all the advantages of the new system. ‘“* About ten days ago the great railway-companies of the United States and Canada, operating 161,000 kilometres of lines, adopted the Greenwich meridian as the origin of time. I consequently think that I may express the hope that all the governments repre- sented at the seventh conference of the Geodetic association will accept, on the recommendation of this conference, the invitation of the United States to send delegates to the international con- gress which is to be held next year at Washington, with the effect of resolving the question of the unification of longitudes and of time, and probably of proclaiming the great reform as an accomplished fact.”’ The mode of reckoning tine proposed by the Geo- detic association is substantially to use Greenwich mean solar time with the astronomical day. This is, perhaps, not absolutely inconsistent with the con- tinuance of the system now in use in this country, of using Greenwich minutes and seconds with the most convenient hour,—a plan substantially the same as that first propounded by Professor Benjamin Peirce at the very beginning of the agitation for a new system. The geodetic congress assures us, that while there is nothing impractical in Greenwich time, pure and simple, the adoption of the time of the nearest whole hour from Greenwich is absolutely out of the question, because it would force people to get up and go to bed at unseemly or inconvenient hours. Indeed, their language would seem to imply that apparent as distinguished from mean time is im- peratively required. ‘‘ We do not, of course, wish,” they say, ‘‘ to suppress local time in common life, for that is necessarily and absolutely ruled by the appar- ent course of the sun: we do not dream of forcing the population of certain countries to rise at noon, nor of forcing others to dine at midnight.”’ For people ac- customed to regulate their actions by the striking of the church-clock, the change of time is certainly something more than a mere turning-round of the dial of the time-piece; and the European populations do go by the striking of bells much more than ours, no doubt. Nevertheless, the coming congress must be impressed by the eagerness with which our new system has been almost universally adopted, and even forced by the people upon the authorities. It is, per- haps, not surprising that it has been the scientific men, the theoretical men, who have been the last to judge the change to be practicable. [Von. IIL, No. 64: THE ORGANISMS OF THE AIR. Les organismes vivants de l’atmosphere. Par M. P. MiGvuEL,chef du service micrographique a l’obser- vatoire de Montsouris. Paris, Gauthier- Villars, 1883. 8+ 310 p. 8°. So much that has been written on the sub- ject of the bacteria is merely a recapitulation of what has already been done, or a presenta- tion of results based upon insufficient observa- tions, that it is a pleasure to find a work filled with careful investigations carried out on an extensive scale. The book before us contains no new or startling discoveries, but rather gives an al- most mathematicai proof of certain generally received ideas on the distribution of the microbia, and serves conclusively to refute certain errors whieh have been widely ac- cepted. The facts have been obtained by a daily analysis of the air taken in the Pare de Mont- souris, near Paris. For the sake of compari- son, air has also been taken from the centre of the city, the hospitals, and sewers. After a brief historical sketch of the subject, comes a description of the organic and inor- ganic particles which have been deposited from the air, and which can be distinguished by aid of the microscope. Among the most interest- ing of the inorganic constituents are minute fragments of meteoric iron, which can be col- lected by passing a magnet over the dust, and of which Mr. Tissandier has made a special study. From the organic world are found vessels and bits of plants, as well as the cast-off shells of infusoria and their eggs, as proved by cultivation. In order to study the particles suspended in the air itself, they must first be collected by aspirating a given quantity over a thin glass covered with glycerine, and then carefully ex- amining the deposit. ‘The cells thus obtained can be roughly divided, for purposes of classi- fication, into four classes : — 1. Grains of starch. 2. Inert pollen of phanerogams, and the zoospores of unknown algae and cryptogams. 3. Spores of cryptogams and zoospores capable of producing a perfectly determinate alga, lichen, or other fungus. 4. Entire vegetables, usually unicellular plants, among which are to be noticed the green algae, the conidia, the yeasts, the débris of confervoids, diatoms, ete. a The starch comes mostly from the manu- factures, but also from natural sources. The pollen is never found germinating in the APRIL 25, 1884.] air, however humid this may be. It is most abundant in spring and summer, and almost disappears during the autumn and winter. During the summer it exists to the number of from five thousand to ten thousand in every cubic metre of the atmosphere. The spores of the cryptogams and algae appear during the damp months of April and May, and reach their greatest numbers in the latter part of June. ‘They persist during the summer, and fall off during the autumn, to become as rare in winter as the pollen. The number varies from seven thousand in a cubic metre in December, to thirty-five thousand in summer. Fluctuations are found dependent upon damp or dry weather, the action of which, however, differs with the time of year. During ‘a cold and wet period in winter, the spores sink to their minimum, while during the dry time the air is greatly enriched, but chiefly by old spores. In the summer, on the contrary, during damp days, the fructifications of the cryptogams are everywhere distributed in abun- dance. ‘“The average of the spores collected by the aero- scope is about fourteen thousand per cubic metre. These figures are not excessive, and it is to be hoped that they will settle the contradictory opinions in this regard which have been expressed during the past twenty years. They will go to confirm in their ideas the partisans of the germ-theory, and will show to the few defenders of spontaneous generation how useless it is to invoke the doctrine of heterogenesis to explain the appearance of the mucidines in the liquids and on the substances fitted to maintain their hife.’’ From an etiological and hygienic point of view, it does not seem that such diverse spores, introduced into the economy at the rate of thirty thousand a day, or one hundred million a year, are absolutely innocuous. The develop- ment of soor in the mouths of infants and in the respiratory tract of the dying show that the fungi also belong to parasites ready to invade the human organism when there is presented a point of feeble resistance. The analysis of the air taken from the sew- ers showed about the same amount of orga- nized material, with the exception of the almost entire absence of starch. The remainder of the book is devoted to a study of the bacteria present in the air. This is the part which will naturally be of the great- est interest, from the relations which these minute organisms bear to disease and to the _ processes of putrefaction and fermentation. Chapter iii. is devoted to a statement of the experiments of Pasteur and others, proving conclusively the existence of germs in the air, SCIENCE. a19 which alone are responsible for changes in the liquids into which they fall, and thus setting at rest the question of ‘ spontaneous generation.’ The classification of the bacteria receives a valuable contribution as the result of long and carefully conducted experiments. The author is convinced of the immutability of the species, but shows that they are capable of great varia- tions under different conditions, and that with- out great watchfulness ‘ species’ can be easily multiplied. The genera which are usually recognized, and which he accepts, are Micro- coecus, Bacterium, Bacillus, Vibrio, and spi- ral Microbia. Even these genera cannot always be distinguished apart with certainty by their form alone. The characters which serve to differentiate them are briefly ‘as follows: Mi- crococci and Bacteria never produce spores, Bacilli do; Micrococci are immovable, Bac- teria are movable; Vibrios and Spirilla have an undulated or twisted form. The methods of obtaining the spores from the air, and the sterilization and preparation of the liquids proper for their development, are the subject of the next chapter. This, as all other parts of the work, shows the results of infinite care and patience. National preju- dice is, perhaps, the reason why the solidified meat-extracts and blood-serum have not been employed for the cultivation of the spores. But it is perhaps fortunate for the progress of science that such prejudices exist, as each method is developed to its greatest extent, and the exact value of the one can be controlled by the other. The liquid nutritive material has certainly received a most thorough trial in the hands of Mr. Miguel, and the results obtained by its use are not to be thrown lightly to one side. ‘There are infinite sources of error when experimenting with the ‘infinitely small ;’ and the precautions which have been found neces- sary from these extended observations should caution those observers who have only limited means at their command against hasty gener- alization. One of the most important safe- guards is the proper ‘ firing’ of the flasks which are to receive the culture. Experience has shown that they should be heated during four hours at 200° C.; and then, after having been charged with the ‘ bouillon,’ they should stand for two months at 35° C. in a constant tempera- ture apparatus. At the end of that time those which have retained their limpidity are regard- ed as sterile, and ready to be sown. In order to obtain the number of spores dis- tributed in the atmosphere, equal amounts of air are drawn over these sterilized solutions, and are then allowed to germinate at a constant ‘ 520 temperature of 35° C. If five or six groups of experiments are made in the same day and place, the results are almost identical, pro- vided that the force and direction of the wind are constant, and, above all, if the air has not been purified by rain or snow. From this, the equal distribution of spores is proved, and not that they are in so-called ‘ clouds,’ as has been maintained by Tyndall. Signs of germination may appear within twenty-four hours; but it is usually from the second to fourth day that the greatest number of flasks are altered. From this time there is arapid decrease until the thirtieth day, after which any alteration rarely takes place. The growth is manifest to the unaided eye in three different ways :— 1°. The liquid preserves its clearness, but a more or less voluminous deposit occurs at the lower part. 2°. The liquid is uniformly clouded at first, and then a veil arises, or a deposit is formed. 3°. The liquid remains transparent, but little isolated white clouds of silky mycelium appear, which can invade the entire fluid. These are usually fungous growths, but there are sever- al filamentous microbia which can give rise to the same appearance. In the flasks which are altered by these aerian spores, there rarely is perceived that nauseating cadaveric odor of intense putrefaction, pro- duced by inoculating a drop of water from a sewer or even from the Seine. The bacteria of the air are only feeble and superficial pu- trefactors, and rarely cause a profound decom- position of the liquids into which they are introduced. It is necessary to banish from the mind the idea that we live literally besieged by organisms always ready to sow putrefaction on the mucous tract of our economies. The inhabitants of the country, more privileged in this respect than the dwellers in the city, hardly introduce into their lungs, in the course of a day, one germ of putrid fermentation. The degree of alterability of the nutritive liquid should always be taken into account in experiments ; and numerous investigations were made on this point. From these it appeared that an infusion of hay was the least suscepti- ble of alteration, while neutral beef-bouillon, with the addition of one per cent of salt, was the most so. Normal urine held a middle place. These had been sterilized by boiling for two hours at 110° C. Contrary to general expec- tation, egg-albumen, diluted with water and sterilized by filtration through plaster, was found to be almost as resistant as the infusion of hay. SCIENCE. [Vox. IIL, No. 64. In order to cultivate the bacteria ina state of purity, a drop of one cultivation is transferred to another sterilized flask on the point of a ‘fired’? platinum needle. ‘The danger of in- fection from the air, during the time the flasks are opened to permit the transfer, is very much less than is generally supposed. By computa- tion, the chances are only as 1 to 1,500. The results of the daily examination of the air at Montsouris during three years showed that bacteria and their spores were more abun- dant during hot weather than cool, and were inversely proportional to the degree of moist- ure. The direction of the wind was also of consequence, that which had traversed Paris being richer than that coming from over the country. . In respect to the seasons, the greatest num- ber of germs were found during the autumn, then followed summer and spring, and lastly came winter, as the following table shows : — Autumn, 121 spores per cubic metre of air. ~! . 66 66 66 ‘ 6 ‘ Ulan, Oe 66 (73 66 ” 66 : SIVAN B 66 ce 66 (a5 66 66 Winter, 53 OrameanofSi ‘ 6c ‘ 66 PONG The germs which thus find their way into the air are either carried there when dry, or are taken up with fine particles of water by the wind: they never pass off with the insensible evaporation of a fluid. A series of ingenious experiments with the condensations from putre- fying liquids and substances proved the truth of this assertion. The comparative analysis of the air taken from the streets near the centre of Paris showed that it was nine or ten times richer in schizo- phytes than that from the Montsouris Park. In regard to the relation of the bacteria in the air, and the occurrence of epidemics of disease, the fact was observed, that, at the time when there was a comparative increase of deaths from zymotic disease, there was an un- usually large number of germs in the air. As it is impossible at present to distinguish harm- less from pathogenic microbia, and as the inocu- lation of cultures from atmospheric spores gave nearly negative results, the author wisely does not lay great stress upon this coincidence. The interiors of houses were next made the subject of investigation. It was found, that, in a room which was perfectly still and undis- turbed, there were 27 microbia to the cubic metre, against 97 in the air outside. The num- ber in the same space in the author’s labora- tory was found to be 215 in 1880, 348 in 1881, and 550 in 1882. In an ordinary bed-chamber APRIL 25, 188+4.] in Paris, regarded as sufficiently clean, there was found, in the spring of 1882, 3,830, and, in the winter of 1882, 6,500; giving a mean of 0,260 to the cubic metre. A comparison with the air of a room used for a study in the observ- atory at Montsouris showed, for the spring of 1882, 270, and, for the winter of 1882, 380; giving a mean of 325 to the cubic metre. From this it at once appears that the air of the house in Paris was sixteen times as impure as that at Montsouris. The decrease in the number of germs from winter to spring is the reverse of what is observed out of doors, and is to be attributed to the more thorough ventilation during the warm months. The same relation was found in the air from hospitals, except that the numbers were very much higher ; varying from 4,500 in summer, to 24,000 in winter, per cubic metre. The micro- cocci were found to be most abundant here; every hundred germs furnishing, on an average, ninety-one against five bacteria and four bacilli. The inoculation of these, however, was with- out result. The air and water from the sewers gave in- teresting results. A cubic metre of the former furnished from 800 to 900 microbes, while a litre of water taken at the point where it was discharged gave 80,000,000. In this relation it was found that a litre of water condensed from the atmosphere held about 900, a litre of rain-water 64,000, a litre of the Seine at Bercy 4,800,000, while, after the river had traversed Paris, a litre was found to contain 12,800,000. From this it can be understood how easily stagnant water of a sewer can putrefy, and how essential it is that there should always be a current flowing to prevent this. In the air of sewers it is the bacteria proper which abound, but they were without effect when inoculated in animals. In the ordinary dust of houses it was esti- mated, after careful weighing and cultivation, that each gram contains about 750,000 spores. A sufficient number of analyses of the soil have not been made as yet, but those made give an average of from 800,000 to 1,000,000 for each gram of earth. In the deeper layers the bacilli preponderate over all other forms, while on the surface the micrococci are most abundant. Antiseptic substances are last considered ; and these are regarded as acting in two ways, _—first by destroying the bacteria already in activity, and, secondly, by preventing the ger- mination of spores. Of such substances, oxygenated water (H,O:) was found to be the most powerful, then solu- tion of corrosive sublimate and nitrate of silver. SCIENCE. 521 After these come a long list of less efficacious ones. ‘The only compounds which were capa- ble of destroying germs in their dry state by means of the vapor given off were bromine, chlorine, hydrochloric and hyponitric acids. Such is a brief summary of the principal points touched upon in this book. It is not quite so clearly and concisely written as might be wished; but it is a valuable contribution to science, and must serve as a model for any one who undertakes work in this direction. [4 — ‘or \ wi - ies bated Mee iO. a ore Ae Ni ih x r 542 SCIENCE. The skull was broken in the exhumation, but is nearly perfect; and, when found, a large flint chip was found resting against the top of the head, as shown in fig. 1, and two others resting like epaulets against the shoulders. The length of the skull, from the back of the v : [Vou. IIL, No. Although much has been written about these rep- tiles since Buckland described Megalosaurus, in 1824, but little has been made out in: regard to the struc- ture of the skull, and many portions of the skeleton still remained to be determined. Of the carnivorous dinosaurs from the American Skull of Ceratosaurus nasicornis Marsh; top view. a, nasal opening; b, horn-core; c, antorbital opening; c’ cerebral hemispheres; d, orbit; e, lower temporal fossa; 7, frontal bone; f, supra-tem- poral fossa; j, jugal bone; m, maxillary bone; mm’, medulla; n, nasal bone; oc, occipital condyle; ol, olfactory lobes; pf, pre-frontal bone; pm, pre-maxillary bone; g, quadrate bone; q/, quadrato- jugal bone. head to the forehead, was eighteen centimetres, and from the back of the head to the project- ing eyebrows, nineteen centimetres and a half: the breadth was fourteen centimetres. One femur was saved from loss, and measured for- ty-nine centimetres in length. NEW JURASSIC DINOSAURS. In the American journal of science for April, Professor Marsh has given the principal characters of the Theropoda, a carnivorous order of dinosaurs, illustrated by numerous figures, several of which are here repeated. Jurassic, there are apparently four distinct families, one of which is represented by Ceratosaurus, a new form here described. ‘The nearly perfect skeleton of Ceratosaurus presents several characters not hitherto seen in the Dinosauria. One of them is a large horn on the skull; another is a new type of vertebra; and a third is seen in the pelvis, which has the bones all co-ossified, as in all known birds except Archaeopte- ryx. Another feature, not before known in carnivo- rous dinosaurs, is the presence of osseous dermal plates, extending from the skull over the vertebrae. This skeleton is over seventeen feet in length. The skull of Ceratosaurus is very large in propor- tion to the rest of theskeleton. The posterior region is elevated, and moderately expanded transversely. ' partially overlying the orbits, which they May 2, 1884.]° SCIENCE. 543 The facial portion is elongate, tapering gradually forms found with them. Some facts seem to indi- to the muzzle. Seen from above, the skull in out- cate that they were viviparous. The pubes were Pelvis of Ceratosaurus nasicornis Marsh; side view, seen from the left. a, acetabulum; 7@/,ilium; zs, ischium; p, pubis. One-twelfth natural size. Skull of Ceratosaurus nasicornis Marsh ; front view. line is like that of a crocodile; seen from the side, long, and firmly united for the greater part of their it appears lacertilian in type, the general struc- length, terminating below in a large, massive, foot- ture being light and open. The nasal bones support a large, compressed, elevated horn-core on the median line. It evident- ly supported a high trenchant horn, which must have formed a powerful weapon for offence and defence. The maxillary bones are large and massive, as are also the lower jaws. They are each provided with nu- merous teeth, which are large, powerful, and trenchant, indicating clearly the fero- cious character of the animal when alive. There are, moreover, large protuberances doubtless served to protect. The brain was of medium size, but comparatively much larger than in the herbivorous dino- saurs: it was quite elongate, and situated obliquely in the skull. The foramen mag- num is small. The cerebellum was of moderate size. The optic lobes were well developed, and proportionally larger than the hemispheres. The olfactory lobes were large and expanded. The pituitary body appears to have been large. The cervical vertebrae differ in type from those of any other known reptiles, being deeply concave behind, but flattened in front, leaving only a narrow margin for ¢”% articulation. Pelvis of Allosaurus fragilis Marsh; side view, seen from the left. a, acetabu- The bones of the pelvis, except the sa- lum; é/, ilium; és, ischium; p, pubis. crum, are all thoroughly co-ossified. The pelvis is extremely narrow, being in striking contrast like body, which probably served to support the ani- to the width in this region in the herbivorous mal when sitting down. O44 Restorations of the fore and hind legs of Allosaurus are given. ity in size. A new classification of the order Thero- poda is also proposed, including the European as well as the American forms. THE ASTRONOMICAL LABORS OF MR. COMMON. In his address before the Royal astronomical soci- ety in February last, on the presentation of the gold medal to Mr. Common for his photographs of celes- tial bodies, the president of the society, Mr. Stone, remarked that the council, in making the award, had been less influenced by originality in the methods adopted than by the great practical success which has attended his efforts in this field of astronomical research. It will be of interest to note a few points, relating to the labors of Mr. Common, which have contributed more or less directly to the importance of his results. He began celestial photography about ten years ago, with a small refractor of five and a half inches aperture. In 1877 he supplied himself with an eigh- teen-inch mirror by Calver, the mounting for which was designed by himself, and executed under his direct personal superintendence. In a paper pre- sented to the Royal astronomical society in 1879, he laid down certain assumedly proper conditions to be fulfilled in the mounting of large reflectors, according to which he was proceeding with the construction of an exceedingly powerful telescope, and among which were the following: — 1°. No tube properly so-called. 2°. No mass of metal either below or at the side of the line join- ing the large and small mirrors. 3°. An equatorial mounting capable of direction to any part of the visi- ble heavens, and of continued observation past the meridian without reversal. 4°. An efficient means of supporting the mirror without flexure. 5°. Driv- ing-clock, circles to find or identify an object, and motions taken to eye-end. 6°. A collimator for the ready adjustment of the mirrors. 7°. Such a con- struction of mounting as to give the greatest amount of steadiness with the least amount of friction. 8°. An efficient means of resilvering the mirrors and of protecting them from dew. 9°. A safe, steady, and easily adjusted platform for the observer, allowing about two hours continuous observation without the necessity of any motion except that from the observ- er’s place, and of easy access. In designing a mounting to satisfy these conditions, Mr. Common made such departures from the old form of mounting and platform, that an account of it was deemed worthy of a place in the Memoirs of the Royal astronomical society, where may be found (vol. xlvi. p. 173) a description of his instrument, together | with fully detailed drawings suited not only for his, but also for a much larger telescope. In the actual construction of the thirty-six inch reflector, the cost was kept down as much as possible without sacri- ficing any essential points, all elaborate mechanical SCIENCE. They are remarkable for the great dispar- (Vor. TIL, No. 65. arrangements coming under the head of mere luxu-_ ries being avoided. Both the telescope and its house were so contrived as to be completely under the management of one person. The difficulties which Mr. Common surmounted in the construction of his telescope were of the most discouraging nature, —in fact, unique. Just as the © great speculum —a lump of glass of about thirty-eight inches diameter, and seven inches thickness — was ready to receive its final figure in the hands of the optician, it burst into a thousand pieces with a terrific explosion. Within a few hours time, Mr. Common had telegraphed to the glass-makers in Paris for two more disks of like dimensions, the extra one to be brought into service in case of another explosion. The second disk, however, was successfully ground, polished, and mounted ready for work, about the middle of 1879, and it is with this instrument that Mr. Common has carried on his unequalled researches. In some respects it is proper to call it the most power- ful telescope in existence, although the great refrac- tor of thirty inches aperture, now being mounted near St. Petersburg, may be expected to surpass it. A description of Mr. Common’s novel plan for sil- vering large mirrors may be found in vol. xlii. of the Monthly notices of the Royal astronomical society, at p. 79. Of the mounting of Mr. Common’s reflector, Mr. Stone remarks, that it shows in every direction great engineering-skill, guided by the experience, gained in the use of the smaller instruments, of the actual re- quirements for successful astronomical work. The method of relieving the friction of the polar or main axis of the instrument deserves especial attention, and is fully dealt with in his memoir. Mr. Common alluded, in this publication, to the fact that this principle is equally applicable to other astronomical instruments of large dimensions; and at the meeting of the Royal astronomical society, March, 1884, he presented plans for a large transit circle in which mercury-troughs are used to sustain the weight of the tube when in certain positions. By these means he believes that flexure may be practically elimi- nated. Early in 1880 Mr. Common attempted to photo- graph the great nebula of Orion; the result being a failure, as the stars appeared on the plate as lines, and the nebula had impressed itself only as a faint stain. But such failures only suggested the neces- sity of improved clock-driving, and the use of more sensitive plates. In June, 1881, Mr. Common obtained a successful photograph of comet (b) of that year; and, in March of the year following, a photograph of the nebula of Orion, which excited the admiration of all the astronomers who had an opportunity of inspect- ing it. He continued, however, to push the refine- ments of his photographic and instrumental equip- ment to a farther limit, and obtained on the 30th of. January, 1883, a photograph of the nebula, with an exposure of thirty-seven minutes, a carbon enlarge- ment from the negative of which was presented to the Royal astronomical society in the March follow- ng. This photograph showed a marked advance on May 2, 1884.] all his previous ones, and gave evidence of a time approaching when the shapes of nebulae, and the rela- tive brightness of the different parts, will be recorded photographically in a better manner than by the most eareful hand-drawings. The behavior of the very faint stars in the nebula also led to results of the greatest interest. These stars appear on his nega- tives taken with exposures of from thirty-seven to sixty minutes; and, as the time of exposure can be easily extended to hours, Mr. Common thinks it quite possible to get stars invisible to the eye in the same telescope used for photography. Mr. Common has already experimented with the longer exposures, and more details are brought out with every increase of the time; and it appears that the extreme limit of useful exposure has not even been reached at an hour and thirty minutes. Mr. Common has also obtained beautiful photo- graphs of other nebulae and of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, and has also applied himself successfully to obtaining photographic star-maps to stars of the eleventh magnitude. In connection with all this variety of valuable astronomical work, it should be noted that Mr. Com- mon belongs properly to the ranks of amateur as- tronomers; and this fact was dwelt upon at some length by Mr. Stone, at the conclusion of his address, as follows: — **The lesson taught is not a new one. The records of our society are rich in the labors of our amateur astronomers. The amateur who can provide himself with sufficient instrumental means for original research need fear no professional rivalry. Untrammelled by the necessity of continuing observations whose value largely depends on their continuity, having the power of taking up any subject he pleases, without fear or responsibility of charges of wasted time and wasted means, he possesses ad- vantages which are priceless in the tentative and experimental stages of any work. “It is in work of this class that the most striking advantages in our science must be expected ; and such work will most cer- tainly repay, by the gratification of personal success, the efforts of those who devote themselves to original work in our science; and the field of research presented is absolutely boundless.” INSECTS AND FERMENTATION. THANKS to a long lirre of investigators and experi- menters, beginning with Sprengel, and including among its recent leaders Darwin and Hermann Miller, we know that very intricate relations exist between flowering plants and insects which result to the advantage of both; many insects obtaining their food exclusively, or in large part, from the nectar and pollen of flowers, which are strengthened by intercrossing as a result of their visits. Within the last few years the activity of insects has also been shown to have a close connection with the dis- tribution of other and lower organisms. The fetid slime of phalloids has long been known to be attrac- tive to many flies and scavenger-beetles; and, as Mr. Gerard suggests in the case of the common stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus), the dissemination of these fungi is largely traceable to such insects. Rathay has likewise shown that a partnership of a SCIENCE. 545 somewhat similar nature probably exists between some of the rust fungi (Roestelia, Aecidium), and insects which feed upon the sweet secretion that accompanies their spermatia. In these cases the arrangement appears to be mutually beneficial. In the last it may also favor the spread of diseases of the higher plants, and so lead to important indirect results. Zymotic diseases of man and the domes- ticated animals are also known to be carried by the same active agents, which, however, appear to be rather accidental than specially provided for; while, in the asserted intervention of mosquitoes in the parasitism of Filaria, they are decidedly losers by their part in the transaction. Boutroux has recently shown! that insects also play a very important, if indirect, rdle in the life-his- tory of yeasts. It has been generally asserted that the agents of spontaneous fruit-fermentations, like those employed in the manufacture of wine and cider, are found on the surface of the ripe fruit, whence they readily reach the expressed juice. Boutroux was led to investigate their occurrence not only on ripe fruits, but on those which were immature, as well as in the saccharine secretions of flowers and on the bodies of the insects which visit both classes of objects. He prepared tubes of sterilized cherry- juice, or other fermentable liquid, from which germs were excluded by means of cotton. After these had shown their freedom from yeast by remaining un- changed for a fortnight, at a temperature favorable for fermentation, a fruit, flower, or insect was intro- duced into each, precautions being taken to prevent the introduction of germs from other sources. Re- peated transfers were made from these first propa- gation cultures, where several species were usually found, until these were isolated, when their form and physiological characters were studied. Contrary to the prevalent opinion, it was found that ripe fruits, as long as they are intact, bear com- paratively few yeast-germs, these being much more frequent on green fruit, as well as in the nectar of flowers and on the bodies of the insects which are common about flowers. From what appears to have been a careful series of experiments, Boutroux ad- vances the opinion that these spontaneous yeasts are regular inhabitants of nectar, being carried from flower to flower by insects in their visits for this beverage. After the fading of the flower, especially where some of its organs persist on the ripening fruit, they remain, the number of germs suffering constant diminution from rain and other causes. When the fruit has ripened, a few of these germs may still be present; while others are brought from later flowers, or from injured and fermenting fruit, by insects which feed upon the juices of the latter. The hibernation of these species is thought to occur on the remains of fallen fruit, as well as in the ground, whence a new supply is obtained the next spring. It is in- teresting to note that the species which have been obtained in these cultures are not identical with the wine and cider ferments, although some of them re- semble these'closely; and it is suggested, that, while 1 Ann. des sci. naturelles, Bot., 6 sév., v., xvii., p. 144. 546 these species are undoubtedly derived from the sur- face of the ripe fruit, their germs are extremely rare, though capable of rapid multiplication when once introduced into the must. W. TRELEASE, THE VARIATION OF TEMPERATURE IN GERMANY. Dr. HELLMANN has, by this paper, added another to the already large list of climatological contribu- tions which have appeared in the German language. Such papers can and ought to serve as models for the uses to which the data secured in our own country should be put; and although we may have no partic- ular interest in the climatical relations which exist in a certain part of Europe, yet each paper of the nature of the present should be carefully examined as to method, if not for results. In 1874 there was given in this same publication an article on the climatology of Germany; and this con- tained the mean temperature for the twenty-five years from 1848 to 1872 of the stations connected with the Prussian meteorological institute. Hellmann has made a new discussion of these temperatures, and has included in this the ten years extending from 1872 to 1882. He has chosen to put the observations into five-day periods; and, using these means in his discussion, he proceeds, by means of combining cer- tain stations, to show what deductions he can draw from the material at his disposal. The twenty-five stations he divides into seven districts, which have recognizably different meteorological conditions; and these stations are quite evenly distributed. Of the twenty-five, only ten were complete in their meteor- ological data; but the lacking observations have been filled in, and the error of this reduction will not exceed 0.2° C. Hellmann then proceeds to give the missing dates for the various stations. The observa- tions were made at six, two, and ten, with one excep- tion; and he deplores the fact that the lack of good hourly observations does not allow the reduction of these to a true daily mean. The temperatures for the various places are plotted, and curves drawn, on the same page, so that they can be easily compared with each other; and the curves are, in general, simi- lar. The author brings out the fact that ‘‘ unperiodic weather characteristics are not of a local nature, but occur at the same time over large areas.’’ He also shows that the yearly extremes increase as we pro- ceed inland. With three exceptions, the coldest weather occurred in the five days between Jan. 11 and Jan. 15, but the warmest weather does not occur in all at the same time: this varies from July 17 to July 27. Hellmann goes into a detailed discussion of this difference and the reason. He remarks that Wargentin, in 1760, was the first to use the mean temperature for five-day periods in showing the year- ly rate. The temperature-curves of Breslau for nine- ty-two years and for thirty-five years are compared. 1 Ueber den jahrlichen gang der temperatur in Norddeutsch- land. By Dr. G.HELLMANN. From the Zeitschrift der Kénig- lich preussischen statistischen bureau’s, jahrgang 1883. SCIENCE. [Vox. IIL, No. 65. _ An interesting table is given in which the probability — is computed that each succeeding five days will be colder from January to August, and warmer from August to January. The periodic return of colder weather is carefully examined and commented on in detail. mn At the end of five pages of text we find six pages of tables, containing the five-day means for each of the stations from 1848 to 1882; then comes the graphi- cal representation of this as already mentioned, and next a number of curves showing the relations of the air-pressure, temperature, rain, and probability of succeeding cold at Breslau from 1848 to 1882, and then curves showing the temperature for May and June for Breslau for each year of this same period. F. W. LOUIS PASTEUR. M. Pasteur. Histoire d’un savant, par un ignorant. Paris, Hetzel, 1883. 1443892 p. 16°. Ir is the fashion at present to tell the unfin- ished histories of living men. Noteworthy lit- erary characters have been of late studied, weighed, almost vivisected ; and now science pauses to listen to the life-history of one of her living masters. Let us be thankful, however, that we are not yet asked to take the measure of our friend before his death. On the con- trary, we are only invited to draw our chairs about the fireside, while a mutual friend dis- courses to us, half aloud, and half in confidence, about the man and the scholar, Louis Pasteur. The book whose title stands above has caused much comment on the continent and in Eng- land ; so much, indeed, that an English trans- lation is already announced, for which, rumor has it, we are indebted to Professor Tyndall, always a warm admirer of Pasteur. Some of the Parisian correspondents of journals pub- lished elsewhere have apparently been much impressed by the book, and have written elabo- rate reviews of it. The author of this little history modestly professes to be ‘ un ignorant,’ whose only merit is that he appreciates the master. On laying down the book, we cannot believe that he really deserves his chosen title, for he has cer- tainly mastered the master himself. However, we shall not quarrel with him, especially since he is now known to be the son-in-law of Pas- teur, but shall rather thank him for the labor of love and enthusiasm which he has done so well. As has been hinted above, the author has given a familiar account of the life and labors of Pasteur. The book is not a ‘critical examination :’ it is, rather, a fascinating story. Of course, from the rigid scientific stand-point, it is one-sided and partial. Objectors and ob- par _ his boy Louis should be- May 2, 1884.] jections are seldom adequately recognized and met. Liebig gets fuller treatment than most ; while Schiitzenberger, Koch, and Berthelot are either passed with a light touch or altogether ignored. Much of the story gives the impres- sion of a comparatively quiet and always tri- umphant life, flowing smoothly on, —a stream of brilliant scientific conquest, unrippled by blunders, and unchallenged, by the incredulous. But the initiated know that the course of true science, like that of true love, never runs smooth, though both are probably all the more interesting on that ac- count. Louis Pasteur was born in Déle, Dec. 27, 1822. His father, who had been an honorable soldier, had settled down as a tanner, but he appears to have had an earnest desire that come ascholar. ‘‘ Ah!”’ said the father over and over again to the young boy, ‘‘if you could only become a professor some day, and a pro- fessor in the college of Arbois, I should be the happiest man in the world.’’ Little did the father think that his son would be professor — not at the humble Arbois, but in the Ecole normale de Paris. In 1842 young Pasteur was examined for entrance to the Ecole normale. He was ad- mitted, but stood fourteenth; whereupon he voluntarily spent a year in more careful prepa- ration, and then, in 1843, entered the Ecole, now standing fourth among the candidates. Chemistry had already become a passion with him; and under Dumas at the Sorbonne, and Balard at the Ecole, he had ample oppor- tunity for following his bent: ‘‘M. Dumas, with his serene gravity, . . . never letting the least inaccuracy slip into his words or his ex- periments; M. Balard, with boyish vivacity, . . . not always giving his words time to fol- low his thoughts.’’ Under Delafosse, Pasteur now became ab- sorbed in molecular physics, and finally met with an anomaly pointed out by Mitscherlich ; viz., that while the tartrates and paratartrates of sodium and ammonium are in nearly all re- spects alike, they yet act differently upon polar- SCIENCE. D47 ized light. This anomaly fastened itself in the fresh mind of Pasteur, and eventually led him to his views on dissymmetry, which are here given at great length. While still absorbed in molecular physics, Pasteur was appointed assistant professor at Strasbourg, where he carried on the same studies. ‘* To interrupt these required noth- ing less than his marriage with Mlle. Marie Laurent, the daughter of the rector of the academy. Indeed, it is said, that, on the Z yi: c / | \ A ———— \ \ : Hit i VN THE WARM ROOM FOR THE CULTURE OF MICROBES. morning of the wedding-day, some one had to go to the laboratory to remind M. Pasteur that it was the day on which he was to be married.’’ The author assures us, however, that he has proved to be so good a husband, that Madame Pasteur listens to the story now with an indul- gent smile. In 1854 Pasteur was appointed dean of the faculty of sciences at Lille: He was then thirty-two years of age, and almost wildly en- thusiastic over molecular physics. But as a matter of policy, for the sake of drawing the attention of the neighborhood to the new fac- ulty, he resolved to lecture, for at least a part of every session, upon fermentation, because the making of alcohol was a prominent indus- try thereabouts. From this time on, Pasteur’s history is more familiar. Fermentations, spontaneous genera- tion, wine, vinegar, the silk-worm disease, splenic-fever, chicken-cholera, hydrophobia, and vaccination have been successively studied by him, and many of them much elucidated. Seti . bf 048 In the present volume their history is given in very interesting detail, which, however, time does not permit us to consider. By no means all of his views are accepted or acceptable ; but in the distinguished professor — now of the SCIENCE. ey © OES Wee se wee [Vou. IIL., No. and the dead are removed to the rooms above _ for dissection and examination. Some of the animals are also brought up from time to time for vivisection. But in Pasteur’s laboratory ‘every vivisected dog is a chloroformed dog.’ He states very emphati- cally, however, that, though he ‘‘ would never have the courage to kill a bird for sport, in the cause of science he has no scruples.’”’ Distributed about the LNT | | ll SUNT ] Ie ee, laboratory and _ offices are panniers and boxes, some of great size, wrapped in straw, and containing the carcasses of animals (sent from all parts of France, and, indeed, of the world) which have died of va- rious diseases. In fact, there seems to be a regular delivery at the KENNELS FOR MAD DOGS. Ecole normale, and Membre de 1’Institut — we have a very brilliant example of a man of science who has finally attained great and de- served fame. If its coming was slow, it was sure; and scientific men have often had to wait for ‘le grand public.’ The last chapter of the book describes the biological laboratory of the Ecole normale. Under Pasteur’s control, its funds have been made ample by the liberality both of the goy- ernment and of the municipal council of Paris. The garden of the old Collége Rollin has been placed at his disposal; and here Pasteur has provided stables for horses having the glanders, sheep-pens for sheep attacked by splenic-fever, and kennels for dogs mad with rabies. In the cellars beneath his laboratory in the Rue d’Ulm dwells a shifting population, a sort of unhappy family of animals undergoing experi- ment. The author dryly remarks, that the mad dogs are not particularly re-assuring to the spectator, as they furiously bite the iron bars of their cages. While some, however, are furious, and given to lugubrious barking, others are still unconscious of the fatal germ that is developing within them. WHere are families of fowls, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and little white mice, all destined for inoculation experiments. Every morning a tour of inspection is made, laboratory, not only of these Christmas-like hampers, but of small tin boxes and carefully packed phials, containing such precious gifts, by foreign savants, as yellow-fever secretions from Brazil, or possibly cholera-germs from CAGE FOR A MAD DOG. India. Perhaps the most curious sight is the large number of glass tubes distributed every- _ where through the laboratory. In the solutions — contained in the tubes, swarm millions and mil- — a 4 May 2, 1884.] lions of microbes in various stages of ‘ attenua- tion ;* and a prick from a pin-point dipped in any one of them might confer a horrible disease or future immunity from it. Yet in the midst of such dread possibilities the devoted experi- mentalist moves unharmed. The closing paragraph runs as follows: *¢ At this very moment experiments [upon the prevention of hydrophobia] are under full headway. Biting dogs and bitten dogs fill the laboratory. Without reckoning the hundreds ’ of dogs which within three years have died mad in the laboratory, there is not a case dis- covered in Paris of which Pasteur is not noti- fied. ‘A poodle and a bull-dog | bouledoque | in the height of an attack; come!’ was a telegram sent to him recently.’’ Pasteur went, and took our author with him. ‘The two dogs were rabid ‘ aw dernier point,’ and it was only after some time and no small trouble that they were bound securely to a table. M. Pasteur then bent over the frothing head of the bull- dog, and sucked into a pipette a few drops of saliva. Our author remarks, in conclusion, that Pasteur never appeared to him so great as in the cellar where this took place, and while this ‘ téte-a-téte formidable’ was being enacted. > PLANTE’S RESEARCHES. Recherches sur l’électricité, de 1859 & 1879. Par GasTon Pianteé. Paris, La lumiere électrique, 1883. 5+322p. 8°. Tue great interest taken in electric accumu- lators since Faure brought out his secondary battery, in 1881, has doubtless led to this re- print of Planté’s researches from the text of the first edition, published in 1879, and two supplementary papers issued a few months later. These researches, extending over a period of twenty years, are characterized by a neatness and originality that make them very attractive. ‘The writer considered himself spe- cially fortunate in receiving a cordial invitation from M. Planté, in 1881, to witness many of the most interesting experiments described in this book. A review of them recalls vividly the pleasure experienced in Planté’s labora- tory, near the celebrated ‘ Place de la Bastille.’ A dipléme @honneur was most worthily con- ferred on M. Planté at the Paris exposition of electricity, in recognition of his labors as the inventor of the secondary battery ; for, while polarization currents had been observed by other physicists previous to the beginning of his work in 1859, no one had pursued the in- vestigation with sufficient patience to make the SCIENCE. D493 principle of any special value. It is entirely safe to say now, however, — in view, too, of alk that inventors have done within the past three years, — that no one can make a special study of secondary batteries, or succeed in making efficient ones, without going to these researches of Planté for the most essential part of his in- formation. As a purely experimental series, they must take rank with the best in the do- main of physics. It is to be regretted that M. Planté has not revised those portions of his researches relat- ing to the chemical reactions taking place dur- ing the charging of the cell and its discharge. His explanation of the formation of the perox- ide of lead on one plate, and of spongy lead on the other, has the merit of simplicity at least ; but, in the light of Gladstone and Tribe’s?! in- vestigations, it must be considered as entirely too simple to accord with the facts. No mention is made, in these researches, of the formation of lead sulphate ; and yet its presence is fully established, and the part it plays in local action is clearly demonstrated. The slow conversion of the peroxide into sulphate on the negative plate, with the circuit open, explains the grad- ual fall of electromotive force; while the re- sidual charge appears to be fully aceounted for by the two related facts of the formation of a small amount of peroxide on the positive plate during the discharge, producing electrical equi- librium before the peroxide on the negative plate is exhausted, and the subsequent conver- sion of this peroxide into sulphate, thus re- establishing a difference of potential. The formation of highly resistant sulphate from peroxide on the negative plate, and from metal- lic lead on the positive, accounts for Planté’s observation that a cell long disused acquires great internal resistance, and charges again with difficulty. It seems highly probable, how- ever, that the skill acquired by Planté in ‘ form- ing’ his cells enables him to so modify the physical character of the surfaces of the lead plates that the sulphate plays a less important part in the final chemical action in his cell than it does in the experiments of less skilled phy- sicists. Thus Professor Barker says of one of his Planté cells, ‘‘ Not a trace of sulphate has been formed in it apparently, though it has been in use for six months.”’ ? It would be pleasant to express as high an opinion of M. Planté’s explanations of elec- trical phenomena in nature as of his researches : but this is impossible; for while he gives a possible explanation of ball-lightning, and other 1 Nature, xxv. 221, 461; xxvi. 251, 602. 2 Proc. Amer. AS8soc., XXXi. 217. Det ie jul VP eer we oe oe lee! - 500 forms of electric discharge from the clouds, it is none the less unsatisfactory to be told that atmospheric electricity arises from the earth’s possessing a constant positive charge. Again: the theory that the sun is only one of a chape- let de grains brillants originally fused by a powerful current like the globules formed by a melting wire, and that ‘‘ the incandescence of the solar globe, prolonged during a long series of ages, is itself only a spark of short duration in the infinity of time and space ”’ (p. 250), is not worthy to stand in connection with the account of his many remarkable in- vestigations. These furnish no basis for such a speculation, and scarcely more for the theory that ‘‘ whirlwinds and cyclones are the power- ful electro-dynamic effects produced by the combined forces of atmospheric electricity and terrestrial magnetism ’’ (p. 229). In conclusion, M. Planté says, respecting the nature of electricity, that it ‘‘ may be considered as a motion of ponderable matter, — motion of transport of a very small mass of matter, animated by a very great velocity if an elec- trical discharge is considered, and a very rapid vibratory motion of the molecules of matter if its transmission to a distance under the dy- namic form, or its manifestation under the static form, at the surface of bodies, is consid- ered ’’ (p. 314). Without adopting this view, we may say that many of Planté’s experiments strongly support it. THE CHILIAN LANGUAGES. Chilidigu sive tractatus linguae chilensis. Opera BER- NARDI HAVESTADT. Editionem novam immu- tatam curavit Dr. JuLius PLATZMANN. 2 vols. Lipsiae, Teubner, 18838. 952 p. 12°. Turs is the general title of Platzmann’s neat facsimile reprint of an important publication of the eighteenth century which had become quite scarce. Havestadt was a Jesuit, born in the environs of Cologne, on the Rhine, and a man of considerable learning, — a fact which appears not only from the fluent and elegant Latin style in which his manuals are composed, but also from the few leaves which he devotes to an autobiographic notice. The travels per- formed by him (1751-52) in his Chilian diocese on the western slope and in the higher valleys of the Andes are described in vivid colors by him- self, and illustrated by a quaint map, which fully deserves the attention of ethnographers. The missionary’s work was originally published (in 1777) with several sub-titles, which are faithfully reproduced in the reprint with all the saints’ images, heraldry, etc., and embrace the SCIENCE. ‘ ; ‘ ‘ - [Vou. 1IL, ile ied following parts: Chilian grammar; three vo- — cabularies ; catechism, with Latin translation, and hymns in Chilian, to which music-notes are added ; and a diary. The phonetic system of Chilidigu (dugu, ‘language ’) is described with laudable accu- racy by the padre, who marks forty different sounds as constituting its alphabet. ‘The lan- guage evinces some tendency towards nasali- zation of the consonantic elements, but is of an easy and harmonious pronunciation, and | shows some general resemblance to Quichhua * and Aimara phonetics. A peculiarity not very often found in American languages is the dual, which here pervades the verb and pronoun as well as the noun. According to the custom of his epoch, Havestadt arranged the forms dis- covered in this southern language wholly after the pattern of the Latin grammar. He found six cases in the noun; but his paradigms con- clusively show that his nominative is identical with his accusative and vocative, his dative the same form as his ablative. Whether these — cases are formed by postpositions, or by real case-affixes, remains to be examined. The verb inflects with remarkable regularity, forms five tenses and an intricate array of verbals (noninal forms of the verb, gerunds, etc.), has an interrogative, affirmative, negative, and pas- sive form, together with an extensive system of transitions. A large number of suffixes serves to form derivatives, verbal as well as nominal, from verbal and nominal bases. In his rich collection of conversational phrases, the author has given a powerful and safe guide for the study of this sonorous tongue, which he extols in such a manner as to make it ‘* surpass in excellence and graphic power all other lan- guages of the world.’’ The vocabularies given by Havestadt are more copious than that of Febres and the other authors who have written upon the Chilidigu. The dialect of Chilidigu, treated by Havestadt, is that of the Molu-che tribe. THE IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE. The journal of the Iron and steel institute. Vols. 1. and ii. London, Spon, 1883. 10+484, 405p. 8°. Tue proceedings of the Iron and steel insti- tute cannot fail to be of interest to the gen- eral scientific public, and especially so to the workers and manufacturers of iron and steel, since the society numbers among its active members such men as Sir Henry Bessemer, Mr. Sidney G. Thomas, and Mr. I. Lowthian Bell. The late C. W. Siemens was one of the prominent members and contributors. ‘The — - ‘ May 2, 1884.] papers read and discussed at the meetings held during the last fourteen years cover not only the practical, but the theoretical ground of the iron-manufacture. As its name indicates, this society confines itself to the consideration of iron and steel, and allied subjects. In the volumes before us we have sixteen papers, which, with the dis- cussions, occupy 389 pages. There are 43 plates of illustrations. The remainder of the ‘volumes, 400 pages in all, consists of notes on “the progress of the iron and steel industries of the United Kingdom and of foreign countries. ‘These notes are arranged for the different coun- tries under the following heads: ores and fuel, blast-furnace practice, “manufacture of steel, manufacture of iron, mechanical and phy sical properties of iron and steel, chemical prop- erties of iron and steel, statistics. These notes contain also summaries of important papers in foreign publications. The most valuable papers in these volumes, those on the temperature best for the greatest production of iron at least expense of coke, and on coke and gaseous fuel, have been no- e already in Science, Nos. 33, 50, and 09. ~ Vol. i. opens with a discussion on Mr. G. J. Snelus’s paper on the physical and chemical characters of iron and steel. In view of the great increase of attention paid to this subject, the points of the discussion are worth a mo- ment’s notice. One of the more important points to be settled is the relation of the chem- ical composition and the physical treatment, hammering, heating, compression, etc., to the toughness : and dur erp of steel used for rails and machinery. The first researches on the subject seem to have been those of Messrs. J. T. Smith and SCIENCE. 51 Price Williams (Proc. inst. civ. eng., 1875-76). The conclusion arrived at, that soft rails low in carbon resisted wear better than harder rails high in carbon, was contrary to the gen- eral opinion of metallurgists and engineers, which had been, that steel would wear better, the harder it was. C. B. Dudley’s investiga- tions in 1878 and 1880 (Trans. Amer. inst. min. eng., vols: vil. and ix.) led him to advo- cate the use of soft steel for rails. The late Professor Gruner agreed with this view. But many engineers remained unconvinced ; since, they argued, the rails tested might have had other causes of weakness than an unsuitable ‘amount of carbon. In the course of the discussion of Mr. Snelus’s paper, M. Cazes, chief of the permanent way of the Chemin de fer du midi de France, gave some interesting tables, showing that the hard rails used on that road lasted much longer than those on the Cologne-Minden railroad, which have a composition more nearly approaching Dr. Dudley’s proposed formula. There is as yet no commonly accepted measure of the work done by arail. It is usually measured either by the tonnage borne or by the number of trains which have passed over it ; but in nearly all estimates the speed of the train, which is an important element in the measure, has been left out of the consideration. In view of all these discordant results, the physical side of the question is coming into prominence. It is said that a sudden cooling or a powerful compression favors the passage of the carbon into ‘hardening carbon ;’ and upon this chemical effect. of a phy sical cause, M. L. Clemandot’s new process of tempering steel by compression is based. It is evident that many more experiments are needed before any satisfactory theory can be adopted. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey, Microscopic rock-investigation. — In addition to the microscopic examination of thin rock-sections being made in the various divisions of the survey, espe- cially in the Rocky-Mountain division at Denver, and by Mr. R. D. Irving and his assistants in the ale Superior region, arrangements have been perfected to carry on similar work at Washington, under the direction of Mr. J. S. Diller, who has recently been engaged in arranging the machinery and appliances for this work. The work of cutting and grinding rock-specimens has been carried on by Mr. Newman, under the immediate supervision of Mr. Diller. It is also intended, in this connection, to make the pho- tographie division available; and preparatory meas- ures, with this object in view, are being taken by Mr. Hillers, the photographer of the survey. Rocks of Lassen’s Peak. — Last July Mr. Diller, be- fore undertaking the reconnoissance of the Cascade Range, made a six-days’ trip from Red Bluff, Cali- fornia, to Lassen’s Peak (or Butte), and collected a number of interesting rocks; and of these Mr. Newman made thin sections, the microscopic study of which occupied Mr. Diller’s time during January. They included basalts, hypersthene andesites, hornblende andesites, dacites, and basaltic and andesitic tufas. 502 Lassen’s Peak is composed of dacite. This rock Richthofen considered to be typical nevadite, but Mr. Diller’s investigations confirm Mr. Iddings’s view that it is dacite. Gray dacite is abundant about the south- ern base of the mountain, in smooth cliffs and ledges, and has a remarkably gneissic appearance. Red da- cite forms the summit of the peak, and a large por- tion of the northern rim. Basalt has, perhaps, the widest distribution of all the rocks found in the vicinity of Lassen’s Peak, and itis, as arule, the most recent of the flows. An-older basalt has been found in the stratified tufa, which forms great belts along the western base of the moun- tain. Between Red Bluff and Mill-Creek valley, south of Lassen’s Peak, a distance of forty-five miles, wherever the surface is not occupied by tufaceous deposits, the rocks are basaltic. Lassen’s Peak is an ancient voleano, and has poured out a great variety of lavas which are arranged in a most favorable posi- tion for a study of their succession. Rocks of Mount Shasta and vicinity. — During a part of February, Mr. Diller was busy with the mi- croscopic study of the metamorphic and eruptive rocks collected by him last season, along the Sacra- SCIENCE. ‘on Mount Shasta. [Vor. IIL, No. mento River north of the mouth of Pit Rivers and The metamorphi¢ rocks referred — to consist mainly of augitic gneisses; and the erup- _ tive rocks of the same region are, in part, gabbros. Some of the latter present peculiarities that cannot be positively determined until some chemical examina- tions have been made. The specimens have there- fore been submitted to Professor Clarke for chemical analysis. Mr. Diller has examined some thirty thin sections of rocks from Mount Shasta, and finds that they are divisible into three groups; viz., hornblende ande- site, hypersthene andesite, and basalt. The rocks of Shasta are quite similar to those of Lassen’s Peak, with the exception that the basalts of the former are much richer in olivine, and contain less globulitic base. Crater Mountain (or Shastina), on the north-west spur of Mount Shasta, is composed of hornblende andesite; and through this, on the western slope, there has burst a large stream of hypersthene ande- site which stretches far to the westward, towards Sissen’s ranch, in Strawberry valley, on the Sacra- mento. RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Engineers’ club, Philadelphia. April 19. —Mr.8S. N. Stewart described a cushioned pier and rolling trunnion drawbridge. With a work- ing model, he showed that a six-pound draw could be turned by a pennyweight pressure or a breath, and claimed, that, with a leverage six times as great as that of the model, twenty pounds pressure would turn a hundred-ton draw. Mr. William P. Osler presented, for Mr. J. Godolphin Osborne, an account of the Pocahontas mine disaster. He showed how probable it was that gas would have been detected by the engineers had it existed, and explained the method of damming and flooding the mine with 17,- 500,000 gallons of water to extinguish it; the latter being accomplished in sixteen days, one day being lost in repair of adam. ‘The cause of the explosion is, as yet, unknown. Mr. E. 8S. Hutchinson sup- plemented the above by an account of his recent visit to the mine, confirming, as far as he had observed, Mr. Osborne’s opinion of damage to the mine. Timbers were displaced, cars demolished, etc.; but there was no fall of roof, except in the fan-entry, where much slate had fallen, but where a week’s work would repair damage. He attributed the safety of the roof to the fact that from 12” to 18” of coal had been left as an elastic support to the treacherous slate above. He considered the presence of five or six inches of fine, dry coal-dust on the floor a phenomenon of special interest, and, while withholding a positive opinion in view of pending investigations by a com- mittee of the American society of mining-engineers, he referred to a number of authorities to show the important bearing dust-explosions have upon safety in mines, like this, apparently entirely free from fire- damp. Mr. J. Foster Crowell announced that the new bridge of the Pennsylvania Schuylkill valley rail- road, over the Schuylkill River at Manayunk, had just been completed, and noted, as a remarkable illus- tration of the vast strides made in American bridge- construction during the past few years, that so large and important structure as this is, being one-third of a mile in length and ninety feet high, can be reared and come into use without exciting special interest, or even deserving particular mention from an engineer- ing point of view. —— The secretary read, from Mr. J. H. Murphy, a discussion of the switch formulae by Mr. John Marston. —— Mr. A. R. Roberts described a contrivance he had designed, by which a three- throw point switch can be operated from a single stand. Linnaean society, New York. April 18. — Mr. E. P. Bicknell read the third in- stalment of his paper, ‘ A study of the singing of our birds,’ treating the Passeres to Astragalinus tristis in the same vein as the already published portions of this elaborate treatise. —— Mr. R. F. Pearsall called the attention of the society to the similarity of some of the notes of Parus atricapillus to those of Contopus virens, which accounted for the erroneous winter rec- ords of unseen individuals of the latter species. —— Mr. E. P. Bicknell related his spring observations for 1884 at Riverdale, N.Y., upon the first appearance of birds, flowers, etc. —— A communication from Judge Bicknell of New Albany, Ind., stated thatthe English sparrow flew from that city to the ripening grain-fields, and hence the reduction, by one-half, of the promised crop. Only a very slight indulgence in. b a Tow ere SD May 2, 1884.] insectivorous diet by this bird was noted by this vigorous writer. Dr. C. S. Allen mentioned the exhibition of a carnivorous propensity in the com- mon barnyard duck, which he had seen catch P. domesticus, hurry with the struggling bird to the duck-pond, drown and immediately devour the vic- tim, usually swallowing it whole. —— Dr. Allen placed on record the finding, June 15, 1881, upon the Island of Grand Menan, by himself and the late Dr. Edward Southworth, of the nest with four eggs of Empidonax flaviventris, the yellow-bellied fly- eatcher, built in the moss upon the north side of an inclination, partly covered over by moss, grass, and twigs. It was lined with the fine tops of grasses, cow’s hair, and fine rootlets, and located in a soft, swampy spot, where there were few large trees. The male bird was not seen; but the female was almost caught by the hand, so closely did she sit. Boston society of natural history. April 16.—In a paper on the relation of the ‘ Ke- weenawan series’ to the ‘eastern sandstone’ in the vicinity of Torch Lake, Michigan, it was pointed out by M. E. Wadsworth that the Keweenawan series was first established by observations made at Doug- lass Houghton Falls, near Torch Lake. These ob- servations were supposed to show that the eastern sandstone lay horizontally up to the falls, and con- tained the débris of the supposed old seashore cliff over which the stream now fell. In 1880, Wads- worth showed that the eastern sandstone, instead of being horizontal, gradually dipped, as the falls were approached, to the north-west, the dip increasing from five degrees up to twenty-five degrees at the falls. He then pointed out that this sandstone contained old basaltic lava-flows intercalated with it, which explained the origin of the basaltic débris previously found here, and showed that the Keweenawan series and eastern sandstone were the same formation. In the third annual report of the director of the U.S. geological survey, the correctness of these observa- tions have been admitted, with the statement that at some distance below the falls the rocks were found to be covered, and that Wadsworth bridged in his imagination the gap between the sandstones dipping five degrees and those above having a steeper dip. The lower ones are said to be the true eastern sand- stone, and those nearer the falls to belong to the Keweenawan series, while they were separated by a hypothetical seashore cliff inserted in the covered space. To this Wadsworth replied, that, by digging in the stream and on the banks of the ravine, he had actually traced (not imagined) the relations of these rocks, going from those dipping five degrees up to those dipping twenty-five degrees, and that they were seen to form a continuous superimposed series, no such cliff as imagined existing between them. Wadsworth had also shown, in 1880, that the eastern Sandstone was exposed on the Hungarian River up to its junction with the Keweenawan series. On this stream the sandstone had a varying dip from ten to twenty degrees to the north-west; and, although sometimes dipping in all directions, the prevailing one SCIENCE. 593 was north-west. At the junction, the sandstone was baked and indurated by the first basaltic lava-flow of the Keweenawan series, which in its turn had been de- nuded, and its débris built into a conglomerate, form- ing the fifth fall of the river. In the above-mentioned report, doubt was thrown on these observations by the statement that the observed sandstone was a loose piece, or, if not, the basaltic rock surely was, and that the prevailing dip of the sandstone was to the south- east. Wadsworth replied, that the dips given in the report appeared to have been taken from the frost- dislocated rock on the sides of the stream, while his were taken in the bed of the stream, when the water was exceptionally low. He further stated that the sandstone at the junction was continuous with that seen below; that it extended across the stream and into the banks on both sides; while the baking and induration of it showed that it must have been over- flowed by some heated rock. Again: the basaltic rock extended across the stream into both banks, and was found to underlie the conglomerate, and that he dug the débris of the former out of the overlying base of the latter. All this, he said, showed conclusively that these rocks were in situ, and proved that here the eastern sandstone and Keweenawan series were one and the same; also that this series could not be maintained, as first established. He further pointed out that the claim advanced by many geologists, that the eastern sandstone did not contain the débris of the porphyry conglomerates of the Keweenawan se- ries, was entirely opposed to the views of the same observers, that the eastern sandstone was younger than that series, and made out of its débris. Appalachian mountain club, Boston. April 9.— A paper by Prof. W. W. Bailey, on the west Humboldt Mountains, Nevada, gave some ex- periences of the author while attached to the U.S. geological survey. He explored Wright’s cafion, and noticed the extraordinary effect of diurnal evapora- tion, the streams entirely disappearing during the heat of the day. The flora of the Buena Vista and Coyote cafions, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, was found to be very distinct from that of the western side of the range. Rev. Luther Farn- ham gave accounts of three visits to the White Mountains, in 1837, 1862, and 1883. —— Mr. R. B. Lawrence gave accounts of the explorations of the southern Alps of New Zealand by Messrs. Green, Haast, and Van Lendenfeld. Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia. March 22.— Prof. Edward D. Cope presented the results of his study of material illustrating the various forms of mastodon. He believed he could distin- guish nine species from American formations, while those of other countries would probably bring the number up to eighteen or twenty. There are proba- bly two genera. The oldest American mastodon comes from the upper half of the miocene, an asser- tion that one had been found lower down being un- doubtedly incorrect. The division of the genera into two groups, founded upon dental characters, was sug- 554 gested, — one, represented by the Mastodon ohioticus, being characterized, by the absence of inferior incis- ors; and the other, to which might be referred the genus Tetracaulodon, having these teeth, March 27.— Dr. Joseph Leidy called attention to a specimen of a lizard, apparently Eumeces chalcides, which is remarkable for the small size of its linibs, They are, indeed, so small as to be almost invisible, thus giving the creature the appearance of a little snake; yet each limb has five well-developed toes. The specimen was from Petchaburi, Siam, where the natives regard it as a snake, and, as is common in such cases, consider it venomous. April 1.—Dr. Joseph Leidy called attention to a mass composed of the tubes of Serpula dianthus from Barnegat Bay. The accumulation of the material is so great as to almost form a reef extending out from the bay. The locality is a famous one for sheep’s-head- fishing, the fishes probably finding their food-supply in the worms. It was suggested that other marine animals may congregate there for the same reason, so that the locality is probably one specially worthy of the attention of zoological students. —— Referring to some observations of Kerner respecting the thaw- ing-out of chambers in ice by living plants in the Alps of Europe, Mr. T. Meehan confirmed them by some observations made during the last winter on Eranthis hyemalis. At the end of January the plant was in flower after a few warm days, when a driving snow-storm prostrated the little stems, and covered them nearly a foot deep, in which condition they re- mained till early in March. After they had been three weeks in this condition, the snow was carefully removed, when it was found that the stems had be- come perfectly erect, a little chamber in the snow having been thawed out about each flower-stem. There was, however, no other evidence of growth. The few buds which were unopened when the snow came, were still unopened when the snow thawed away, after five weeks imprisonment; and the idea conveyed was, that plants would retain life without growth for an indefinite time, when under a low tem- perature, such as a covering of ice or snow afforded. April 15.—Dr. Charles S. Dolley of Johns Hop- kins university spoke of a form of so-called paren- chymatous or interstitial digestion described by Korotneff as occurring in Salpa and Anchinia. It had been asserted that a large amoeboid cell existing in the intestines of these animals takes up the nutri- tive particles and passes them on into the tissues, and that in other related forms a plasmodium performs the same function. Dr. Dolley had observed the ap- pearance in the intestines of Salpa, which had been described by the Russian author, but he would sug- gest an entirely different interpretation thereof. In Salpa we find a large branchial sac, representing the true pharynx, at the posterior portion of which is the stomach. The endostyle, or thickened bottom of a fold or groove of the branchial sac, throws out a supply of mucus, which covers the surface like a curtain, and in which nutritive particles finding their way into the animal are embedded. The food is car- ried back by cilia, and the mucous sheet is wound up SCIENCE. [Vou IIL, No. 65 into a thread, which can, be traced into the oesopha- gus, and from there to the stomach. In Dr. Dolley’s opinion, this mucous exudation is the amoeboid cell described by other observers, it having been found laden with nutriment in some three thousand sections of Salpa. When food is not present, the appear- ance indicated cannot be observed. —— Dr. N. A, Randolph described a test for the presence of small quantities of peptone in solution. If the acid nitrate of mercury (Millon’s reagent) be added to a cold aqueous solution of potassium iodide, a red precipitate of mercuric iodide always appears. When, however, either peptone or the biliary salts are present in note- worthy amount, the precipitate of nascent mercuric iodide assumes the yellow phase. In order to render the test sensitive to the presence of minute quanti- ties of the substances in question, he had found it necessary to limit the amount of potassium iodide employed. ‘Thus, to each five cubic centimetres of suspected fluid, which must be cold and either neu- tral or faintly acid, are added two drops of a satu- rated solution of potassium iodide, the two liquids being well mixed. Four or five drops of Millon’s re- agent are now added, and the contents of the vessel well stirred or shaken. Under these circumstances, the presence of peptone in amounts of less than one part in five thousand is readily shown. By the ex- ercise of great care in the performance of the test, he had been able to demonstrate the presence of peptone in a solution containing but one part of that body in seventeen thousand parts of water. interfering with this reaction are, alkalinity of the fluid examined; heat, which has the same influence upon the nascent mercuric iodide as have peptone and the biliary salts; and the presence of certain compounds, as potassium ferro-cyanide, which pre- vent the production of the mercuric iodide. The re- action described presents certain advantages from the fact that it is uninfluenced by the bodies usually found in the various organic fluids, although useless as an isolated test, inasmuch as it responds to two entirely different compounds, peptone and the biliary salts. —— Mr. Meehan referred to his former commu- nications on the subject of the relation of heat to the sexes of flowers. He exhibited catkins and flowers of the European hazel (Corylus avellana) just ma- tured, and which, for the first time in several years past, had perfected themselves contemporaneously. The past winter had been distinguished by a uniform low temperature the entire season. In other years a few warm days in winter would advance the male flowers so that they would mature weeks before the female flowers opened: hence the females were gen- erally unfertilized, and there were few or no nuts, Under this law, it was evident, amentaceous plants could not abound to any great extent in countries — or in localities favorable to bringing forward the male flowers before there was steady warmth enough to — He thought this was likely to be the reason why so many coniferous trees under advance the female. culture in the vicinity of Philadelphia bore scarcely any fertile seed in their cones, —a fact which had often been remarked in connection especially with rs 7 The conditions - - May 2, 1884.]- the Norway spruce. The male flowers would ma- ture before the female had advanced far enough to be receptive of the pollen. ——-Mr. Meehan also stated that in his garden at Germantown, there were few trees that did not exude sap from wounds made in winter or early spring; but among them all, few bled, as it was termed by horticulturists, more pro- fusely than Cladastris tinctoria. The icicles formed from this exuding sap afforded a good opportunity to test the saccharine character of the liquid. During congelation by frost, all foreign substances were re- jected, and, in the formation of the icicle, the sugar was pushed forward to the extreme point. The end of an icicle of a sugar-maple was its only sweet part, and this was very sweet from the:accumulation of the saccharine matter. The end of the icicle from the Cladastris was also sweet, though less so than in any other sugar-bearing tree he had observed. Philosophical society, Washington. March 1.—Gen. R. D. Mussey read a paper on the application of physical methods to intellectual science, discussing the extent to which those methods which have been successfully employed in the inves- tigation of the phenomena of nature are applicable to the sciences whose subject-matter is mental opera- tions. —— Mr. I. C. Russell followed with a commu- nication on deposits of volcanic dust in the Great Basin. The sediments of the great quaternary lake of western Nevada, named Lahontan by Mr. Clarence King, include as minor members certain strata of white, unconsolidated, dust-like material closely re- sembling diatomaceous earth. Microscopic exami- nation shows them to consist of minute shards of glass, and indicates their volcanic origin. Similar strata occur in the deposits of the quaternary lake which occupied the Mono basin, adjacent to the La- hontan; but these are coarser, and include fragments with pumiceous structure. Fragments of pumice are likewise found on the surface of the land in the vicinity of Mono Lake, and the distribution of these indicates their origin in a chain of rhyolitic cones extending southward from Mono Lake. The sub- aerial deposits belong to eruptions which, though prehistoric, must be quite recent. The sub-aqueous deposits were derived from quaternary eruptions. Those of the Mono basin can be referred, without hesitation, to the Mono craters; and those of the Lahontan basin are provisionally referred to the same source. Up to the present time, no other rhyolitic volcanoes of quaternary age have been discovered in the vicinity. Dr. T. Antisell remarked that the source of the volcanic dust should not be sought in existing volcanoes on the land: he regarded pumice as the product of submarine eruption exclusively. — Mr. L. F. Ward read a paper on some physical and economic features of the upper Missouri system, describing the ancient and modern flood-plains of the Missouri and the Yellowstone where they issue from the mountains, and discussing the method of their formation. These are susceptible of irrigation; but diversion of river-water for that purpose, and its dis- SCIENCE. DOD tribution over the land, involve difficult problems in political economy. The matter is a proper subject for governmental control. Discussion followed, in the course of which Prof. C. V. Riley remarked that the final solution of the grasshopper problem lies in the cultivation of the northern plains. March 15.— Mr. G. K. Gilbert spoke on the diver- sion of water-courses by the rotation of the earth, maintaining, that, under certain indicated conditions, the deflecting force generally admitted to result from terrestrial rotation should result in observable modi- fications of valley configuration. —— Mr. G. E. Curtis read a paper on the relations between northers and magnetic disturbances at Havana, discussing the co- incidences which had been pointed out, and demon- strating their accidental nature. NOTES AND NEWS. By invitation of the authorities of the Johns Hopkins university, Sir William Thomson will de- liver, in October next, a course of eighteen lectures on molecular dynamics, before the physical section of the Johns Hopkins university, beginning on Wednes- day, Oct. 1. These lectures are intended only for students who are interested in advanced work. Pro- fessors and students of physics are invited to attend; and arrangements will be made by which they may easily obtain temporary lodgings, provided an early intimation is received of their intention to come. A registration fee of five dollars will be required. — The Montreal local executive committee of the British association for the advancement of science is prepared to enroll ladies and gentlemen, residents on the continent of America, as members of the association, on the following conditions: 1°. Life members for a single payment of fifty dollars; 2°. Annual members for a payment of ten dollars the first year, and five dollars each consecutive year there- after; 3°. Associate members for a payment of five dollars. Associates are not eligible to hold office in, nor to serve on any committees of, the association; nor do they receive the annual reports. All other privileges of membership for the year are open to them. No person who is not a member is admitted to any of the meetings of the association. The privilege of reduced fares by the railway and steamboat lines is limited to the life, annual, and associate members. Applications for admission to membership may be addressed to Mr. J. D. Crawford, post-office box 147, Montreal, — Bliss’s classified index to the maps in Peter- mann’s Geographische mittheilungen, from 1855 to 1881, has just been issued by Harvard college library in advance of its completion, in the Bulletin of the university. It occupies fifty-five small quarto pages, and will be found exceedingly helpful to those using that treasury of excellent charts. The principal di- vision is, of course, geographical; but many titles are conveniently repeated under the miscellaneous head, ey 906 including mainly meteorological, seismological, geo- logical, botanical, and zoological maps. A reference- list to persons, expeditions, and surveys, is also ap- pended. — The third series of charts published by the signal- service, to illustrate the studies of tornadoes under- taken this year, represents the storms of March 25, Twenty tornado-tracks are mapped, scattered over the states south and east of Indiana. Their times are all in the afternoon or evening, and their courses, as usual, bear about east-north-east. The results of these disasters are at present counted thus: number of persons killed, 77; wounded, 298; valuation of property destroyed, $950,000. ‘The contrast of the small, local tornado-whirls and the great sweep of the cyclonic circulation is clearly marked; and the at- titude of the tornadoes, relative to the cyclone centre 600 MILES and the warm and cold winds, is seen to be about the same as was shown on the earlier charts for Feb. 19 and March 11. The accompanying diagram is de- signed to show this relation in a general way, being based on an average of the three sets of charts. The nearly north-and-south elongation of the barometric depression is a departure from the more easterly trend of the major axis of the isobaric curves given in Loomis’s averages; and this peculiar form is doubt- less to be held in chief part accountable for the sig- nificantly abrupt change from the cold north-westerly winds of the western half of the cyclonic area to the warm southerly winds of the eastern half. The con- trast of temperature thus produced is exhibited in the oblique trend and close approach of the isothermal lines, which are drawn for ten-degree differences. SCIENCE. < ' y [Vor. IIL, No. 65 But most striking is the limitation of the tornadoes to that part of the warm southerly winds which is immediately overflowed by the cold winds, and the advance of the tornadoes, not with the surface-cur- rents, but parallel to the spiral course of the cold blast overhead, through which the warm lower air ascends. ‘The limitation of tornadoes to certain parts of cyclones, as thus shown, is a most hopeful sign, that, with longer and more detailed study, the smaller storms may, a few years hence, be predicted with as much accuracy as the larger ones are now. | — Prof. George F. Wright has contributed a good article on ‘the Niagara gorge as a chronometer’ to the April number of the Bibliotheca sacra. 'Thecon- clusion is reached that the entire gorge from Queens- town to the Falls is the result of post-glacial cutting, and that the most probable rate of recession of the falls is about three feet a year; thus placing the end of the glacial period here about twelve thousand years ago. ‘This agrees very well with the date determined by Prof. N. H. Winchell from the Falls of St. Anthony. ‘The inconvenience to naturalists of hay- ing such an article as this stowed away in a theological magazine may be counterbalanced by the satisfaction they should feel on learning that it could be accepted there at all. — Arrangements have been completed for holding at the university library, Berkeley, Cal., during the last week of May, a loan exhibition of books illustra- tive of the history and progress of printing. — The government of Newfoundland has voted to establish a geological museum at St. Johns. Mr. James P. Howley, the geological surveyor, is now giving his whole time to it, and, before the year is over, the museum will be open to the public and to students. The collections made by Alexander Murray and James P. Howley are especially rich in orthoceratites, trilobites, and fossils of the primordial fauna. me? —A cable message received at Harvard college observatory announces the discovery of an asteroid (No. 236) by Palisa, at Vienna. Its position was, April 26, 40.42 Greenwich mean time ; right ascen- sion, 13h., Om., 43.5s.; declination south, 3° 21/ 41”; daily motion in right ascension, 44s.; in denomina- tion, N. 6°. Itis of the twelfth magnitude. — The Engineer of March 29 gives a new method of preparing wood-blocks for paving, practised by Mr. Mallet of Moissac. He boils them in a solution of sulphate of copper, sulphate of zinc, and chloride of — sodium, mixed with heavy mineral oil, linseed-oil, and tallow, and afterwards compresses them to about one-tenth of their original volume, —In our last number, p. 5038, Dr. Sturtevant’s quotation from the American journal of science, — which he attributes to Professor Asa Gray, is from a reprint of a portion of Dr. Carpenter’s article in the © Philosophical transactions. As Professor Gray’s name does not appear in any connection, even in j the introduction, and as the whole extract from Dr. — mistake | Carpenter is within quotation-marks, the seems unaccountable. - a - po Neee. FRIDAY, MAY 9, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Tue German government has most com- mendably recognized the interest of the public in the reports made by the leader of the com- mission which has been studying the cholera in Egypt and India. The letters already so promptly published are, of course, merely notes of progress sent to the base of supplies ; and no detailed and complete report can be expected at present. So far as the results have been made known, the work of the commission is fullof promise. For the cholera, which, by the way, is only one of the subjects under investi- gation, a bacterium, apparently peculiar to the disease, has been found; and its cultivation has shown characteristics sufficiently marked to render its recognitioneasy. This comma- shaped bacillus has not, thus far, been found in connection with any other disease of the intes- tinal tract, although numerous examinations relative to this point have been made; and in cholera patients, it was only seen in association with the intestinal disturbance, but here inva- riably. It has, however, been met with in some sources of water-supply in India, in which the local infection may have originated. It should not be forgotten that this work of Koch is no mere lucky guess. Bacteria were found by him in material sent to Berlin from India; but it was then impossible to decide how far putrefactive changes had produced them. The commission has now been able to exam- ine a goodly number of fresh cases (fifty-two dead, and forty sick, from cholera), and thus to render the pathogenetic character of the bacil- lus exceedingly probable; and yet not a little remains to be done to complete the demonstra- tion. Unfortunately, no inoculation experi- ments have thus far succeeded, owing to the remarkable insusceptibility of our household No. 66. — 1884. animals to cholera; and experiments on our own species are not permissible. It is also desirable to have more certainty as to the life- history of these bacilli, which may reach the victim as spores. ‘The fact that they are chiefly found in the lower part of the small intestine suggests such a development, unless it be due to a temporary disablement of the bacillus as it passes the Scylla of gastric digestion, and the Charybdis of the bile inflow ; the former being known to be dangerous, while the latter is inferentially so. Should Koch’s conclusions prove to be correct (and, of course, corrobora- tion by other and independent observers is de- sirable, and ought to be comparatively easy), then protection against cholera would seem to be a pretty simple task, even though its de- struction at the fountain-head be impracticable. The germs do not appear to be very tenacious of life, so that un efficient prophylaxis can be readily exercised; and here a sound digestion becomes of primary importance for the individ- ual. ‘The season of intestinal disturbances is upon us, so that the work of the German com- mission can readily be supplemented in one direction in any of our hospitals. TWELVE years ago the thorough-going policy of the British admiralty in fitting out the Chal- lenger expedition inspired us all with a hope that a new kind of governmental policy, in support of biological investigation, was being inaugurated. American as well as English naturalists have therefore been greatly disap- pointed, that, since the return of the Chal- lenger, the British government has done practically nothing to forward marine research. The economists of the Manchester school are still in the ascendant; and the study of aquatic life is evidently to be left, like the hospitals, the asylums, the life-saving service, fish-cul- ture, and the prediction of the weather, to pri- vate enterprise, either individually exerted or in combination in societies. vel —- CUP > ia a ; Mi a ad . c eal § 9908 It was felt by many English men of science that a portion of the surplus of the late fish- eries exhibition might appropriately be applied to the scientific investigation of the English seas, since this course would undoubtedly be very beneficial to the fishery interests of the nation. The very handsome sum remaining at the disposal of the directors has gone, how- ever, almost entirely to build homes for the families of fishermen lost at sea. In deference to the vote of the British association for the advancement of science, in support of the plea of Professor Ray Lankester, a small sum is assigned to a‘ Royal fisheries society,’ yet to be organized, in whose future it is difficult to imagine any great benefit to result, either to science or to the fisheries. Public opinion in Great Britain seems to demand the organization of a series of inves- tigations similar to those which have for a number of years been carried on by our own fish-commission. At a meeting of fishermen in Peterhead, in January, a petition was for- warded for government aid for a scientific research into the habits of fish; and the repre- sentative fishery capitalists of Ireland are equally urgent. The meeting at the Royal society’s rooms, a few weeks ago, for the or- ganization of a ‘Society for the biological investigation of the British coasts,’ was evidently a part of the same movement. The endowment of fifty thousand dollars, which it is proposed to secure by private subscription, will doubtless be readily forthcoming ; and we may safely predict for the new society the career of success which it deserves to have. Although not a direct outcome of the fisheries exhibition, it may fairly be considered one of its results. Tue presentation of a petition, by a large number of Canadian naturalists, to the post- master-general, requesting the government to ‘¢ take into consideration the matter of a natu- ralists’ exchange post for Canada, and for the other countries within the postal union,’’ is a step which should meet the approval of natu- SCIENCE. ralists in this country, by whom some organ- ized attempt ought soon to be made to procure _ a modification of the existing regulations. As far as inland postage on specimens of natural history is concerned, no serious complaint can be urged against the postage charged, or the limit of weight allowed. ‘The provision, how- ever, that no written matter can be sent with the specimens, except at letter-rates, is a serious obstacle in many instances; for it frequently happens, that, as in case of marine plants mounted on paper, it is necessary to mark the locality and date on the paper at the time the specimen is collected. Without such written data, the specimens lose half their value. The rulings of the post-office department in Wash- ington, with regard to written labels or notes giving the scientific name, locality, and date of collection, have been contradictory, and, as a matter of fact, naturalists are unable, except in an underhanded way, to send any but printed labels at the cheap rates; and, as every one knows, in by far the majority of exchanges labels must be written rather than printed. At the last meeting of the American association, a committee was appointed to consider the best way of presenting to the post-office de- partment the claims of naturalists. It is said that the committee intend to report some plan of operation at the next meeting-in Phila- delphia. With regard to foreign exchanges, of course no action can be taken without the action of the delegates of the postal union; and the Canadian naturalists desire to have the sub- ject brought before the convention to be held in Lisbon next October. If we correctly un- derstand the petition of the Canadian natural- ists, they are now able to send packages not over eight ounces in weight, at sample merchan- dise rates, to countries in the postal union. If this is the case, they are much better off than we are in this country; for our post- office department has distinctly declared that no specimens of plants sent as botanical ex- changes can be forwarded, except at letter-— rates, no matter whether there is any writing [Vou. IIL, No. 66. ‘ : May 9, 1884.] on the specimens or not. This is not the arbi- trary ruling of any local office, but the written decision from headquarters in Washington. Such being the case, exchange of specimens with foreign countries is practically prohib- ited; and this seems all the more absurd, we may even say contemptible, when it is known that Christmas cards, and several other arti- cles not classed in any way as samples, are allowed to be sent at sample-rates; further- more, that from several foreign countries, packages of specimens are allowed to be sent to the United States at the cheap rate. Under the circumstances, it may, perhaps, be asked whether our Canadian friends are not going too far in asking that specimens not exceeding in weight four pounds, nor exceeding twenty-four inches in length by twelve inches in width or depth, be sent at the rate of one cent for four ounces. To be sure, such an arrangement seems to be eminently proper; and all natural- ists should unite in bringing the measure be- fore the Lisbon convention. In any event, the present embargo on scientific exchanges, whether caused by the illiberal interpretation of the rules of the postal union by our post- office, or by any ambiguity in the rules them- selves, should be removed. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. x*x Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. Inertia. As Mr. E. H. Hall (Science, vol. iii., No. 63, p. 482) referred to Maxwell, Thomson, and Tait, as the au- thorities in regard to the use of the word ‘inertia,’ it seems to me it would have been well for him to ex- plain what Maxwell meant when, in reviewing Thom- son and Tait’s Natural philosophy, he said, — ** Again, at p. 222, the capacity of the student is called upon to accept the following statement : — *** Matter has an innate power of resisting external influences, so that every body, as far as it can, remains at rest, or moves uni- formly in a straight line.’ ** Ts it a fact that ‘ matter’ has any power, cither innate or ac- quired, of resisting external influences? Does not every force which acts on a body always produce exactly that change in the motion of the body by which its value, as a force, is reckoned ? Is a cup of tea to be accused of having an innate power of resist- ing the sweetening influences of sugar, because it persistently refuses to turn sweet unless the sugar is actually put into it?” (Nature, vol. xx. p. 214). Did Maxwell mean by these questions to deny the statement of Thomson and Tait ? S. T. MORELAND. Lexington, Va., April 21. SCIENCE. _--_ 559 The method of measuring the inertia of a body, proposed by Mr. Ilall in No. 63 of Science, p. 483, is identical with a mode of measuring the mass of a body. Does he consider inertia as identical with mass? Ifnot, wherein is thedistinction? Whatever be the language describing it, or the ideas concerning it, Newton says it ‘‘ differs nothing from the inac- tivity of the mass, but in our manner of conceiving il”? Here inertia and mass are, by implication at least, not identical. Ww. April 23. The recent article by Mr. Hall on ‘inertia’ is es- pecially to be deprecated, because it may lead many to regard the ideas relating to it as in some sense indefinite. The source of the whole difficulty is that the word has been used in two perfectly legitimate senses, — one qualitative, and the other quantita- tive. In the qualitative sense, it simply implies the truth of Newton’s first law of motion: in the quanti- tative sense, it is mass, and nothing else. This double use of the word has been fully recognized for a gen- eration by all accurate scientific thinkers; and, on account of this ambiguity, all careful writers and teachers have practically long since abandoned it. Above all, it ought to appear in no text-book, just because it has a double sense. This statement as to the usage of careful teachers is directly opposed to that of Mr. Hall, who mentions Thomson and Tait, and quotes Maxwell in support of the position which he occupies. As no teacher is clearer in his presentation of elementary ideas, nor more precise in his choice of words for conveying them, than Maxwell, either my statement or Mr. Hall’s quotation demands revision. That the latter alternative is the proper one, I shall prove by quoting the whole of the passage of which Mr. Hall quotes only a portion of one sentence: — “In a rude age, before the invention of means for overcoming friction, the weight of bodies formed the chief obstacle to setting them in motion. It was only after some progress had been made in the art of throwing missiles, and in the use of wheel-carriages and floating vessels, that men’s minds became practically im- pressed with the idea of mass as distinguished from weight. Accordingly, while almost all the metaphysicians who discussed the qualities of matter assigned a prominent place to weight among the primary qualities, few or none of them perceived that the sole unalterable property of matter is its mass. At the revival of science, this property was expressed by the phrase, ‘the inertia of matter;’ but while the men of science under- stood by this term the tendency of the body to persevere in its state of motion (or rest), and considered it a measurable quan- tity, those philosophers who were unacquainted with science understood inertia in its literal sense as a quality, —mere want of activity, or laziness. ‘* Even to this day, those who are not practically familiar with the free motion of large masses, though they all admit the truth of dynamical principles, yet feel little repugnance in accepting the theory known as Boscovich’s,—that substances are com- posed of a system of points, which are mere centres of force, attracting or repelling each other. It is probable that many qualities of bodies might be explained on this supposition; but no arrangement of centres of force, however complicated, could account for the fact that a body requires a certain force to pro- duce in it a certain change of motion, which fact we express by saying that the body has a certain measurable mass. No part of this mass can be due to the existence of the supposed centres of force. _ “TI therefore recommend to the student that he should impress his mind with the idea of mass by a few experiments, such as setting in motion a grindstone, or a well-balanced wheel, and then endeavoring to stop it; twirling a long pole, ete., till he comes to associate a set of acts and sensations with scientific doctrines of dynamics, and he will never afterwards be in any danger of loose ideas on these subjects. He should also read Faraday’s essay on ‘mental inertia,’ which will impress him with the proper metaphorical use of the phrase to express, not laziness, but habitude” (Maxwell’s Theory of heat, pp. 85, 86). It will be observed that Maxwell, instead of callins a certain property of matter inertia, and defining it ee 560 quantitatively in accordance with Mr. Hall’s state- ment, is very careful to avoid using the term, putting it between quotation-marks in the only place where it enters. In short, in so far as a somewhat careful inspection of the book from which the above quota- tion is made, of his admirable tract on Matter and motion, and of his treatise on Magnetism and elec- tricity, warrants me, I make the assertion that Max- well never uses the word ‘inertia’ in a quantitative sense. J am confident that the word does not enter into the elementary book on mechanics in any sense. In connection with the last paragraph from Max- well, I quote a sentence from Mr. Hall’s article (the italics are mine): ‘‘ Maxwell suggests certain simple experiments which the student may perform in order to become thoroughly acquainted with that property of matter which he calls inertia.’’ Mr. Hall asserts, also, that Thomson and Tait use ‘inertia’ in the same sense which he recommends. As Maxwell’s employment of the term is so different from what we should suppose from the article in question, I had the curiosity to look into the usage of the other authors named. I find the following passage, which forms § 216 of Thomson and Tait’s Natural philosophy, vol. i., part i., new edition: — ‘* Matter has an innate power of resisting external influences, so that every body, so far as it can, re- mains at rest, or moves uniformly in a straight line.’’ ‘“This, the inerlia of matter, is proportional to the quantity of matter in the body; and it follows that some cause is requisite to disturb a body’s uniformity of motion, or to change its direction from the natural rectilinear path.”’ This confused definition offers a marked contrast to the clear and extended definition of mass contained in sections which precede it. It is confused, because it admits of a wholly logical but erroneous conclu- sion. According to the definition, if we double the quantity of matter in a body, we double the inertia of the matter present, and thus quadruple the inertia of the body. This is absurd. What is meant, but not written, is, that the inertia of a body is propor- tional to the quantity of matter in the body. Let us consider this amended form, and write Zand M for inertia and quantity of matter (or mass) respectively: then the assertion is, that HSN LAG. where YX is a function of any thing or every thing except mass. Now, experience shows us that J, how- ever defined, does not depend upon time, position, temperature, electrification, or, in short, upon any change in physical condition. We must conclude, then, that A = C, a constant, and EOE The numerical value of the constant will, in any case, depend upon the system of units selected for measuring J and M: therefore we may so select the system, that C becomes equal to unity, whence oe _ Here we see a case where an unnecessary, and, as it seems from a casual inspection of the following portions of the work, unused term is introduced as a survival from the period of ‘the revival of science.’ Of course, the passage does no harm to those who are competent to read the work which contains it: nevertheless, Maxwell would not have used it. It is worth noting, that Mr. Hall, in the last para- graph of his article, finally gives a definition of mass as a quantitative definition of inertia. Of course, this is the only quantitative notion which can be attached to it. ; SCIENCE. [Vor. II., No. 66. A passage in the article under discussion reads, ‘‘ Text-books too frequently say, in such a connection, that ‘masses of matter receive motion gradually, and surrender it gradually,’ or that ‘it requires time to im- part motion to a body as a whole,’ — statements from which the student is in danger of getting the idea, if indeed he gets any idea, that the timeis required in order to draw things taut within the body, and get its particles to acting upon each other, somewhat as it takes time and a succession of jerks to take up the slack of a freight-train while it is being sta:ted.”’ Unlike its writer, I should recommend the sentences within quotation-marks to the special attention of the student, and emphasize the fact that time is required to transmit motion from one part of a body to an- other by the statement, that, in physics, this time is known as the measure of the velocity of propagation of a wave of disturbance. Finally, if I used the_ illustration of the freight-train (not a bad one in its way), I should be careful to explain to the student that the jerks are due only to the fact that the train is not mechanically homogeneous. Obviously, the discussion of the term ‘inertia’ is not of the slightest scientific importance at this stage of scientific development; but it.is of enormous ped- agogical importance that loose ideas should not be taught. I have been prompted to the above remarks by appeals from some, who, supposing they had definite notions of elementary mechanics, had been led into confusion by Mr. Hall’s statements. C. S. HASTINGS. Baltimore, April 24. In Science, No. 63, Mr. E. H. Hall makes an at- tempt to clear away the mistiness which he seems to have discovered in the use of the word ‘ inertia.’ No word in the English language deserves more sym- pathy than this. It has been knocked about so con- stantly that it must long ago have given up all idea of being able to ‘ persevere in a state of rest.’ Lately there have been many indications of an intention to put it on the retired list in the near future, and for the present to assign it to such duties as it may be capable of performing without injury to itself or others. But Mr. Hall inconsiderately orders it to the front, and insists on endowing it with a real vitality, which, in the opinion of the writer, renders it capable of doing a good deal of harm. Much of the confusion in the use of the word ‘ iner- tia’ has originated in the various interpretations of Newton’s first law. It is indeed curious to see how many different versions of this celebrated statement - may be found in a half-hour’s search. Thomson and Tait, the restorers of Newton, say, ‘Every body continues in a state of rest,’ etc. To this form of statement it is difficult to object in any way. It is a simple statement of a fact, the denial of which ‘‘is in contradiction to the only systems of doctrine about space and time which the human mind has been able to form”? (Clerk Maxwell). This ver- sion of the first law is identical with that of Tait in his Recent advances. But another translator uses the word ‘ perseveres ” instead of ‘continues,’ — the rendering so wisely cho- sen by Thomson and Tait; for ‘to persevere’ means, by common consent, something more than ‘to con- tinue.’ Webster says, ‘To persevere is to continue, in spite of discouragements,’ etc. In an excellent and modern treatise on physics, the law is written, ‘Every body tends to persevere,’ etc., in which, evi- — dently, ‘persevere’ is used in the generic sense of ‘continue,’ but in the ordinary sense, to ‘tend to - May 9, 1884.] persevere,’ is not wholly satisfactory. In one edition of the Principia which lies before me, I find the statement that ‘every body. . . endeavors to perse- vere in its present state,’ etc. Here, certainly, we begin to see some trace of Mr. Hall’s ‘ inertia;’ and I should not be surprised to meet with the state- ment, in full harmony with his views, that ‘every body tries to endeavor to persevere,’ etc. The beginner in physics is certainly liable to be confused in his endeavor to grasp this idea, — the idea of the mysterious resistance which Mr. Hall illustrates in his string-pulling; but his confusion will be vastly increased when he comes to grapple with the proposition, that ‘* we must distinguish very carefully between inertia itself, a property of matter, and the resistance which matter can exert in virtue of that property.’’ comparing it, as Mr. Hall does, with that property in virtue of which a man can exert force, and the force which he may be actually exerting at any time; and particularly when he is told that the resistance which he has considered is not the body’s inertia, but is merely the inanifestation of that property! The unquestionable tendency of all this is to cause the student to attribute to the word ‘inertia’ some occult meaning. Most teachers of physics have en- countered this condition of things, and have found some trouble in ridding their pupils of it. Now, a brief analysis of Mr. Hall’s own statements will unveil the mystery. If he had tied his string to the ghost of a fifty-pound ball, the resistance offered would have been nothing; at least, we may so affirm, in the present state of our knowledge in regard to ghosts. But the string was tied to a mass, and when he pulled it, he learned, that, in order to do work, work must be done. In short, the word ‘inertia,’ when properly used, is synonymous with ‘ mass;’ and it is so used by nearly if not quite all the first au- thorities. There is, therefore, nothing mysterious about it, and, I may add, scarcely any reason for its use at all. Mr. Hall mentions Maxwell, and Thomson and Tait, as apparently sustaining him in his view of the mat- ter, quoting to a limited extent from the first. Thomson and Tait, in their Natural philosophy, although not affirming that matter ‘endeavors to persevere,’ etc., do say that ‘‘ matter has an innate power of resisting external influences, so that every body, as far as it can, remains at rest, or moves uni- formly in a straight line.’’ And this innate power is called ‘the inertia of matter.’ It is declared to be proportional to the quantity of matter in the body, and is afterward used as synonymous with mass. This assertion of the existence of an ‘ innate power’ bears the stamp of high authority, and one ought to question it with fear and trembling. But there is no evidence, that I have been able to find, that its authors believed init themselves; that is, in the sensein which many people undoubtedly understand it. I have al- ways regarded it as an unfortunate expression, which was likely to leave an impression which was never intended. Professor Rankine, who was not careless in the use of terms, uses ‘inertia’ as meaning ‘ mass.’ Maxwell is universally admitted to have been a man of rare insight into the nature of things; and, as he is quoted by Mr. Hall, it may be interesting to see, as far as may be, what his position was on the point in question. His earliest public expression of opinion, as tar as I know, was in his paper, ‘ On the properties of matter,’ prepared at the age of seventeen years for Sir William Hamilton. This concludes as follows: ‘and the impossibility of a body changing its state of SCIENCE. 561 motion or rest without external force is called inertia.”’ The next, as far as I know, is found in the Theory of heat, quoted by Mr. Hall. But in beginning the quotation where he does, Mr. Hall, unintentionally no doubt, does Maxwell an injustice. The sentence preceding that quoted is a most important and neces- sary part of the whole statement [quoted in full by C. S. Hastings, above]. It will be observed that this gives a perfectly defi- nite meaning to the phrase ‘ measurable quantity,’ and one quite different from that which might be inferred from Mr. Hall’s fragmentary quotation. Later came that remarkable ‘ little book on a great subject,’ the Matter and motion; and it is a curious fact, and worthy of note, that the word ‘inertia’ does not occur in this book, not even in its compound form of ‘moment of inertia.’ It can hardly be be- lieved that this omission was any other than inten- tional.- His opinion of the ‘innate power’ may be. learned from his review of Thomson and Tait’s Natural philosophy [same quotation as given in first letter, above]. T. C. MENDENHALL. In his article (Science, April 18), Dr. Hall writes as follows: ‘‘EHlementary text-books usually speak of inertia as a mere inability, —the inability of a body to set itself in motion, or to stop itself when in mo- tion. Thisis an old use of the term, but certainly not the best use.”’ Right here, I am constrained to believe, is Dr. Hall’s fundamental error or misconception. He mis- takes inertia for mass, and, strangely enough, labor- ing under this illusion, makes Maxwell use the word ‘inertia’ where in the text will be found the word ‘mass.’ For example: Dr. Hall goes on to say that ‘* Maxwell suggests certain simple experiments which the student may perform in order to become ac- quainted with that property of matter which he calls inertia.’? Now, by reference to the article referred to, the reader will find Maxwell’s words to be exactly as follows: ‘‘I therefore recommend to the student, that he should impress his mind with the idea of mass by a few experiments, such as setting in motion a grind- stone, or a well-balanced wheel, and thén endeavor- ing to stop it,’’ ete. Dr. Hall says, ‘‘ We are driven to the conclusion that matter possesses a property in virtue of which it offers resistance to an agency which is setting it in motion.’? If Maxwell regarded inertia as an entity, ‘a measurable quantity,’ is it not remarkable that he did not even once, so far as I am able to find, use it in his incomparable work on Matter and motion? If, as Dr. Hall is forced to conclude, ‘‘ matter pos- sesses a property in virtue of which it offers resist- ance,’ why doesit not resist ? Has a mass of matter, free to move, ever been known to ‘stand still’ ? Certainly not: the whole science of dynamics will be overturned when such an instance occurs. The illus- tration given by Dr. Hall verifies our position. The fact that his heavy weight ‘is left slightly swinging,’ shows that a large mass will not resist the slightest force. Of course, the velocity generated will depend on the time of application. The whole thing is con- tained in the equation, v —" small, ¢ must be large to make v considerable. Thus, in the case cited, there is an attempt to make v con- siderable in a short time (¢): therefore # must be large; and it is easily made larger than the string can bear, when, of course, it breaks. In his second illustration, in which ‘a weak thread’ If m is large, and f Mf BE 562 is ‘pulled gently and steadily,’ is the reason that the fifty-pound weight acquires a greater velocity, because the weight resists less (if so, then resistance is less than itself), or because the time of application is greater ? In elementary works on physics, the word ‘ inertia’ should be seldom used, lest the pupil acquire the im- pression that inertia is an entity. Most exact writers, foremost among whom is J. Clerk Maxwell, carefully avoid the use of the word. But if Dr. Hall’s quasi- definition, given in the last paragraph of the article under discussion, is to be accepted, then must the word necessarily become one of constant use. Itisa pity that Maxwell has not given us a definition of ‘an inertia unit.’ We shall be pleased to have Dr. Hall supply the desideratum. A. P. GAGE. In my article on ‘Inertia’ I was mainly concerned for the distinct recognition of a physical fact. My in- terest in the word ‘inertia’ wassecondary. Professor Mendenhall and Mr. Gage appear to deny the reality of the ‘resistance’ of which I spoke in defining iner- tia. I said, ‘‘ Matter possesses a property in virtue of which it offers resistance to an agency which is setting it in motion.’? Professor Mendenhall at- tempts to avoid the idea of a resistance in explaining the fact that force is required to set a body in motion, by speaking of the work done. ‘The attempt seems to me entirely unsuccessful, unless he has some unusual definition of the word ‘work.’ According to Maxwell (Theory of heat, 4th ed., p. 87), ‘ work is done when resistance is overcome;’ and, though he does not say that work is done only when resist- ance is overcome, no reader of Maxwell will deny that he meant that. This, by the way, is the only reply I need make to my critics’ use of Maxwell’s tea-and-sugar illustration; for certainly Maxwell con- sidered setting a mass in motion to be doing work. With this I leave the question of physical fact, and come to that of the word or words used to denote that property which I have called ‘ inertia.’ In using the word ‘inertia’ as I did, I knew per- fectly well that I assigned to it a meaning sometimes given to the word ‘mass.’ I knew that Maxwell, in the very passage of which I quoted a part, and of which Dr. Hastings has quoted the whole, used ‘mass’ as I have used ‘inertia.’ It was my belief, however, and it still is, that Maxwell, in that famous chapter, used ‘mass’ in two senses. He does use it as I have used ‘inertia,’ and in that case defines it as a ‘property of matter’ (the italics are mine). Elsewhere in the same chapter he says, ‘‘ What is really invariable is the quantity of matter in the body, or what is called in scientific language the mass of the body,”’ etc. (the italics are mine). As to Maxwell’s use of the word ‘inertia,’ I was in error. I certainly spoke as if he gave undoubted sanction to the word in the sense in which I have used it. This I had no right to do, for he merely states what others have meant by this word. Any one, by reading the passage which Dr. Hastings has quoted from Maxwell, will see all the excuse I have to offer for my blunder. Dr. Hastings admits that Thomson and Tait use the word ‘inertia’ to denote that property of matter for which I have used the same name; but he says that their statement is confused. This criticism is just; but it is irrelevant, unless Dr. Hastings means to imply that Thomson and Tait wrote ‘inertia’ where, in a clearer moment, they would have written ‘mass.’ Moreover, his commendation of their defi- nition of the latter word might lead one to infer SCIENCE. that Thomson and Tait use ‘mass’ as Maxwell does in the passage he has quoted. What, then, is their definition of ‘mass’? Itreadsthus: ‘* The quantity of - matter in a body, or, as we now call it, the mass of a body,”’ ete. (art. 208). And now what is the practice of my critics in the use of the words ‘inertia’ and ‘mass’? In the preface of Mr. Gage’s Elements of physics, we read, “Dr, C. S. Hastings of Johns Hopkins university has read the larger portion in manuscript, and the re- mainder in proof-sheets.’’ On p. 8 of this book I find, ‘‘ By the mass of a body we understand the quantity of matter in it,’ and on p. 20, ** The term mass is equivalent to the expression quantity of mat- ter.’ Of course, the word ‘mass’ occurs in many other passages of the book; but I have discovered no case in which it appears to denote any thing but quantity of matter. 7 As to the use of ‘inertia’ in the same book, on p. 90 I find, ‘‘ This inability is called inertia. Evidently the term ought never to be employed to denote a hindrance to motion or rest.’’ But when we come to the subject of centrifugal force, p. 101, we read, “* Centrifugal force has, in reality, no existence: the results that are commonly attributed to it are due entirely to the tendency of moving bodies to move in straight lines in consequence of their inertia.” Now, one of these results is the maintenance of the solar system. Why do not the planets, obeying the law of gravitation, fall into the sun? According to the teachings of this book, we must answer, ‘* Simply because of their ‘ utter inability’ to put themselves in motion, or to stop themselves, although this in- ability must never be understood as a ‘ hindrance to motion or rest.’’’ [Vor. IL, No. 66. comfortable ; and Orel, the unhappy occupant of it, was often compelled to rush on deck, when the ice-pressures alarmed us, experien-: cing, in passing from his berth to the deck, a difference of temperature amounting to 189° F.’’ (Payer). The story of the Jeannette and the Terror also shows the miseries of un- banked vessels. In vessels properly ‘ banked,’ however, no such variations of temperature need be encountered, even in the severest weather. The illustration (fig. 1) showing the Germania wintering in the ice is given to show an improperly ‘ banked’ vessel, although well housed. Sketches (if they be accurate) of by - far the greater majority of exploring-ships wintering in the ice show the same (and gen- erally greater) lack of proper arrangements for keeping out the cold. A good contrasting picture is the one given (fig. 2) of the whalers win- managed to es- cape unscathed, tering at Marble it was only by a miraculous com- bination of favor- able events. The disaster to the Jeannette and her unfortunate crew shows better what Island, in North Hudson’s Bay ; they being experi- enced icemen, and aided by Eskimo in the snow-con- struction. The sketch was taken may usually be expected. It is tis, fact,» torwa oreat extent, that by Mr. Klutschak of... my papigs while in the bay during the winter has led so many of 1878 =7oeae arctic expeditions visited these ships to follow that con- tinuity of shore- land whieh Sis swept by south- ward-trending currents, in preference to all others. Many arctic sailors of experience have even strongly contended that it is a matter to be at once considered, when a ship is thus probably circumstanced, if she should not be immediately abandoned before the northing gained would seriously compromise all hopes of escape. Ina winter’s drift it is impossible to properly ‘ bank’ a vessel, as the incasing with snow-walls is generally termed, and it is consequently a severe labor to keep an equable temperature in the unprotected ship. In the case of the unfortunate Tegetthoff, ‘‘ while in the berth close by the stove there was a tem- perature ranging between 100° F. and 131° F., in the other there was one which would have sufficed for the north pole itself. In the former a hippopotamus would have felt himself quite that winter for a Fie. 1.— THE GERMANIA WINTERING IN THE ICE. short while, and lived in one the next winter for no inconsiderable time; and, although the temperature outside was about the usual mean of arctic wintering-harbors. that inside was comfortable in all parts of the ships. To con- trast with Payer’s statement above, I would say, that, while the cabin showed about 80° or 85° F., the captain’s room, separated from it by a door with lattice shutter, would seldom be over five or ten degrees lower; while in the ‘houses ’ built over the ships it was generally a little below freezing, and very comfortable for persons who spent a proper time out of doors for exercise. This ‘banking’ is most con- veniently done by Eskimo, when their services can be secured, as their superior ingenuity in snow-construction enables them to enclose the vessel in even several concentric snow-houses, thus securing the most equable temperature with May 9, 1884.] the least amount of material, which is quite a consideration when this monstrous mass has to be removed in the spring. The drifting winter-beset ship has one ad- vantage worth noting. If drifting towards warmer waters, as is generally the case in fol- lowing the usual routes, she is almost certain of a safe and speedy release in the early spring months; and the constant state of alarm ex- perienced by all ships’ crews while in these involuntary journeys from ice-pressures, and threatenings of a general destruction of the ice-fields, has almost its compensation in the necessarily banished ennui and lonesomeness SCIENCE. D67T in by the crew by short rambles and hunts is lost. A vessel safely anchored in a good harbor is, of course, in the most favored condition of all. She may unbend her sails, lower her yards and topmasts, presenting a minimum of surface to the heavy arctic gales of that season of the year, while she is awaiting her freezing in, and which is especially necessary when the char- acter of the bottom of the harbor is such that there is danger of dragging the anchors. Once frozen in securely, the anchor can be raised, the rudder cut out and unshipped, and all these, with masts, and yards, and spare stores, and Fie. 2.— WHALERS AT MARBLE [SLAND. of the long polar night, with its accompanying evils of idleness and disease. Forced activity to overcome lonesomeness soon wearies, loses its effect, and becomes really a punishment, while that prompted by danger never loses its stimulating effect. A vessel wintering in the ice, unable to secure a harbor, but not subject to drift, may be liable to much danger when the fields break up in the following summer; and this danger will generally be greater the farther she is from land, owing to her earlier liberation, probably long before the navigable season commences. In a vessel far from land much of the benefit derived from the voluntary exercise indulged provisions, may be placed on the shore con- veniently by, and then room be made for the winter’s entertainments, exercises, and studies. The very first thing a ship should do, after selecting her winter harbor, is to get ample provisions ashore, to be prepared for the loss of the ship by wreck or fire. This is always done by the whalers. A vessel is then ‘ housed in,’ which is done by building a shed over the deck with lumber brought for that purpose. This house is generally about seven feet high, the lumber covered with canvas, this with a layer of moss or turf six inches to a foot thick, cut in the early fall before it has frozen, and dried as much as possible, and this layer of 068 turf again covered with from three to four feet of snow, which should be continuous with the snow-walls or snow-heaps placed along the sides of the ship. I give (fig. 3) my idea of a ship fixed for winter, shown in cross-section. The ‘house’ is of inclined boards, covered Dy & Winter. K1G. 3.— SECTION OF WINTERING SHIP: with canvas, and again covered with dry turf. Inside it is lined with cheap canvas holding six or eight inches of ‘ mineral wool,’ or other light cheap non-conductor ; and this passes over just above the heads of the occupants. ‘The snow- huts are shown by their cross-section of block- work. the inner air-space, a, being hermetically sealed, as far as it is possible with snow to do so. The second air- SCIENCE. Iee-block for , window. from the cabin-fioor, and the companion-way will purify the lighter gases at the ceiling. Such a stovepipe as shown will obviate the great collection of frozen moisture around it, the descending cold air preventing the escap- ing warmth from melting contiguous snow and ice. The clock-work should be susceptible of regulation according to will, and run for at least twelve hours. At its exit from the outer dome of snow, the larger pipe should stop short of the smaller or inner, and be protected by a shown in fig. 6. Light is secured by large thick blocks of ice placed in the sides of this ‘house’ at convenient in- tervals. If an ‘igloo’ dome _ be thrown over the vessel according to the proposed plan, the slabs of ice in it should directly face the double glass windows in the house proper. If turf or canvas is not em- ployed in the usual methods, the temperature of the house must be kept below freezing, or the continual melting of the snow, forming pools of ice on the ship’s deck, will be disagreeable in the extreme. A housing solely of canvas, as has often been employed, prohibits the use of a thick layer of non-conducting snow or turf, and, space, c, should be left open on warm days, that is, above —10° F. to — 20°. The house should run the whole length of the vessel, but be divid- ed into two rooms for officers and men, and with only one door lead- ing out, and that from the men’s room. The stove in the cabin should have its draught flush with the level of the floor, and its stove- pipe within another of three or four inches more radius, and a propeller-blade ventilator run by clock-work in the latter to ‘ suck’ air into the cabin. ‘This will be the main source of venti- lation, warming the air as it enters, and also protecting the ship from possible fire from the chimney. The draught will remove all foul air Kie. 4. — TEGETTHOFF WINTERING. except during a wind, it is but little better than no protection at all. The housing should extend the whole length of the ship if possible ; but if cut short at the middle portion, a not unusual method to save lumber, the exposed deck should be treated to a covering of snow and turf similar to that placed on the-house. Where moss or turf is not to be had, fine sand [Vox. IIL, Nowmena roof springing out from it, as — t ' I x ® N May 9, 1884. ] is not a bad substitute, but is much heavier, and can only be used on horizontal or slightly inclined surfaces. The importance of securing a winter harbor near where Eskimo can visit the ships is not Fig. 5. to be over-estimated. Besides their aid in snow-construction, the clothing procured from them is far superior to any that can be manu- factured in civilization for withstanding the severe temperatures of those re- gions ; their companionship does much to alleviate the lonesomeness of the win- ter’s solitude, for they are generally a most cheerful, merry - hearted, and _ con- tented race; their services in procuring game from both land and water, to keep the crew in a healthy state, and especially to combat the scurvy, is appar- ent; while, in case of disaster, their humble abodes are always open to the shipwrecked sailor until there can be convenient times for SoH Fie. 6. SCIENCE. 569 by, which must be opened every morning and evening, and a snow: house (igloo) thrown over it (if natives are at hand to do the work) to protect it from drifting snow, our ship is ready to pass her arctic winter unmolested, until the coming summer opens a renewal of her labors. Should the circumstances warrant a start early in the season, it will probably be neces- sary to cut a very long channel through from six to ten feet of ice, of sufficient dimensions to float the ship to the outer open water. The methods of cutting these channels vary. I show the one I have seen adopted, given in plan (fig. 7). The channel BBB B is always brought up alongside the ship, as shown; since, should she draw more water than the thickness of the ice, and the channel be brought up immediately behind her, the outgoing tide or a strong wind might break her loose, and sweep her out before it was intended she should move. The scarf-lines cc, cc, cc, formed in sawing, are sufficiently intelligible to be under- stood without an explanation; the ice-blocks, A, A, A, being allowed to float out along with the ebbing tide, a single person directing each one as fast as sawed off with a pike pole, to prevent its horizontal rotation, and con- sequent binding in the channel. Where the channel is long, and wind favorable, rough impromptu sails have been rigged on each ice- block to carry it out. If cutting very thin ice, as when cutting into harbor in the fall, these slabs can be shoved under the edge of the ice- channel. If the vessel delays her starting until after the solar rays have made considerable im- pression on the ice of the harbor, it will save much labor to remove the snow along the con- templated scarf-lines of the channel, and place there a covering of black seaweed, sand, dirt, or ashes, which will have cut deeply into the ice by the time the sawing is necessary. These layers, of course, should be very thin: other- retreat to reach more civilized succor, — a re- treat in which the white men may be greatly aided by the native method of transportation. A firehole being dug through the ice near wise they will protect the ice, instead of acting as ready conductors of the sun’s heat. I no- ticed in the ice of Victoria Channel, off King William’s Land, as late as the middle of July, 510 that a dark-colored kelp-stalk over twenty feet long had cut five feet into the solid ice a crevice not over an inch or two wider than the stalk, so that it was impossible to get it out. The difficulty of sawing increases in a rapid ratio with the thickness of the floe; and, when its depth becomes so great as to allow a play of but a foot or two with the ice-saws, it be- comes essentially impossible. Ice-saws, if very thick, impose severe labor on those operating them, by their great weight: if thin, they will warp and cramp in the thick ice, also creating severe labor. As all these contingencies can- not be foreseen, it is desirable to have a con- siderable assortment of these utensils, varying in length and weight. I think a description, however short, of ice-saws, is hardly needed, but will briefly speak of the ways I have seen them used. A ‘one-man saw,’ like the same named article in timber-sawing, can be used in ice up to four feet. Another foot, or even to work effectually in from three to four, requires two men, as shown in fig. 8; and it is evident, that, as the labor increases, the force at the bar can be increased, if the saw is only strong enough. As the floe gets thicker, the saw must be larger and have greater play, to work effectively ; and this soon gets beyond the power of men and the reach in their arms, and a tackling is rigged, as shown in fig. 9, which can, I think, be understood with- out explanation. If the weight of the saw is not sufficient to pull it down, with the push- ing assistance of the two men, its submerged end must be loaded with an anchor or anvil. A small funnel-shaped harbor, with but few projections along its converging sides, may sometimes be relieved of all its ice at one time by a small amount of sawing along these ser- rated edges, and a happy combination of tide. wind, and good management. ‘This is espe- cially the case where the rise and fall of the tide exceeds the thickness of the ice, the consequent vertical oscillation of the ice keeping it broken up in hummocky masses along the shore-line. The use of blasting-apparatus has, so far, been of but little use; still I think a series of small charges, fired electrically, giving rather a pushing than a splintering concussive effect. might be used advantageously in removing quite large masses of obstructing ice favor- ably situated. he more efficacious in harbors not fed by fresh- Kie. 8. SCIENCE. Blasting, I believe, would also - ” [Vor. IIL, No. 66. water streams, as here the ice is more brittle, less tenacious and’ elastic, and consequently harder to remove by the percussive power of explosives. | A sailing-vessel can wait almost until she is liberated by the forces of nature, as this will probably be the earliest date that she can use her peculiar motive power effectively. Even a good harbor may have its disadvan- tages for a ship, if she has entered it during an exceptionally open season; and, unless this recurs within the time for which she is pro- visioned, she must be abandoned to save the lives of the crew. McClure’s Investigator in the Bay of Mercy, in 1854, is an example of such necessary abandonment. The use of balloons to make slight ascents, — they being made fast to the ship, — to en- able the ice-master to obtain a more compre- hensive view of the state of the ice, has never yet been experimented with, though by many recommended, and consequently can be neither rejected nor accepted as an auxiliary in this sort of cruising. Certain it is, however, that nothing is more deceitful at times than ice- ‘packs or ice-drifts at a distance; the most invulnerable-looking, upon a closer examina- tion, proving to be the most disjointed, and the reverse. No arctic ship, of course, will be without her ‘ crow’s-nest’ of the whalers, —an elevated ‘ lookout’ on the foremast, with good protection from inclement weather, for her ice- master. The advantage in having two ships over one is apparent. It proved the salvation of Parry on his third journey, and other instances are not wanting. ‘The benefit of two crews to cut in or out of harbor, and in other work where it is the same for one as a dozen vessels, is not to be overlooked. a May 9, 1884. | In general, near the magnetic pole, the ship’s compass is more or less worthless, its sluggish oscillations being easily overcome by the most insignificant local attraction, which it is almost impossible to avoid on shipboard. The farther removed from this great centre of magnetic force, necessarily the more reliance can be placed on the needle. ‘The simple plan of rudely determining the points of the compass by a watch or chronometer regulated to mean time, conjoined with the motion of the sun in azimuth, will be sufficient in a land where the ‘sun is shining throughout the day, and espe- cially when the navigation depends rather on the bearings of the ‘leads’ and ice-barriers than any determinate direction. The fact that a vessel should follow a con- ‘tinuity of land, if possible, lessens the im- portance of the compass while capes and head- lands can be kept in view. hier See - blink’ is a well- known yellow glare that seems to hang over pack-ice. Any channels of natural sky seen through the glare indi- cate open water under them ; and this is of use in approach- ing ice. Im fact, the ‘ice-blink’ is more marked when at a distance from a pack in open water than when in one pack viewing another at the same distance. Having explained ice-sawing, and hinted at a ‘dock,’ I will briefly describe an artificial one, and take as a typical example the case of the Alert, docked in the ice, Aug. 12, 1875, in Smith Sound. A plan of the dock is given ‘in fig. 10. It was cut in about four hours, and could have been done, says the com- mander, in half the time, with a better organ- ization and more experienced ice-cutting crew. It is a necessary operation to prevent being crushed between two bodies of ice, when the time will allow it, and also when a natural dock, formed of irregular blocks or floes, is liable to be obliterated by the increasing SCIENCE. d71 pressure eroding the fragile edges of the blocks. In this latter case a dock cut into the solid side of the largest block or floe would probably be a safe haven. The use of steam has rendered docks much less necessary than formerly, as the time occupied in cutting one will allow almost any steamer to escape any average danger. Although, from this rather long list of prob- able aretic accidents to which a ship is exposed, escape would seem rare, yet, after all, it is wonderful to notice the small number of craft actually lost in this dangerous species of navi- gation, in proportion to the whole number en- gaged. Only those that are lost under tragic circumstances being brought before the public, they are generally supposed to be the greater majority of those thus employed. FRED’ K SCHWATKA, Lieut. U. S. army. BESTOWAL OF THE GRAND HONOR- ARY WALKER PRIZE ON PROFESSOR JAMES HALL. SoME years ago Dr. William J. Walker gave to the Boston society of natural history a prize-fund, from which, in accordance with the terms of the gift, an- nual awards are made to successful competitors who have written essays on assigned questions. But, be- sides these annual awards, a grand honorary prize was provided for, to be given every five years, and ~ which the society was to grant, on recommendation of aspecial committee, ‘for such investigation or dis- covery aS may seem to deserve it, provided such in- vestigation or discovery shall have been made known or published in the United States at least one year previous to the time of award.” The society, in previous years, has awarded this honorary prize, amounting to five hundred or a thou- sand dollars, at the option of the society, to Mr. Alexander Agassiz and to Professor Joseph Leidy. This year the committee, after due consideration of the subject, has unanimously concluded to recom- mend for this prize, Professor James all of Albany; and the award of the highest sum was accordingly made by the society, at its meeting of May 7. As the founder would appear to have contemplated some particular or integral ‘investigation or discov- ery,’ ‘we need not,” says the committee, “* take into account Professor Hall’s numerous works or publi- cations upon North-American geology and paleon- tology for the last forty years and more (comprised in about twenty-six volumes or parts of volumes, and in over two hundred articles or papers, reports, etc.), except as they relate to a special line of investigation, which Professor Hall early made his own, in which he has long been eminent, and which he may be said to have essentially completed, although a consider- able portion of the results, which have been from O72 time to time ‘made known’ to the scientific world, are not yet published in extenso, with the illustrations prepared for the purpose. ‘It is, then, specifically for Professor Hall’s inves- tigations in North-American paleontology, notably the paleontology of the state of New York and the regions adjacent, and of the earlier geological forma- tions, that the committee suggests this award. In this field Professor Hall holds a position like that which has been so long occupied in Europe by Mr. Barrande. If his actual publications are as yet less extensive than those which have made the name of Barrande __illustri- ous, this has not been from the lack of material, still | less from lack of | industry and scien- tific acumen on Professor Hall’s part, but because he has not enjoyed the advantages of independent for- tune and munifi- cent patronage. Giving due credit to the state of New York for what it has done to further the publication of researches in _ its service, it still ap- pears that his pro- longed labors have been carried on un- der many discour- agements and with insufficient means. It is understood, however, that de- ficiencies in this respect are about to be remedied; and it is hoped that this veteran paleontologist may have the satisfac- tion of superin- tending the full ; a publication and proper illustration of his completed investigations. “In recognition of the great value of the scientific work to which Professor Hall’s life has been so untir- ingly and successfully devoted, in encouragement of his closing labors, and in testimony of the society’s high appreciation of these services to science, your committee would recommend that the maximum of the prize be awarded upon this oceasion.”’ ' From a crayon drawing, after a photograph taken for Sei- ence, April 17, 1884, by T. W. Smillie, photographer of the U. 8. national museum. SCIENCE. PORTRAIT OF PROFESSOR JAMES WALL OF ALBANY.! THE CANTILEVER-BRIDGE NIAGARA FALLS. THE new bridge across the Niagara River, built to connect the Canada southern railway with the New- York central and Hudson-River railroad, and opened for traffic in the early part of the present year, has been widely noticed in the newspapers, and referred to as a marked advance in engineering. Quite a general interest in regard to it has therefore been aroused by the apparent novelty of the design, and the rapidity of construction. As!the railway sus- pension-bridge is below, in some three hun- dred feet of, the cantilever - bridge, the contrast be- tween them is forced upon every observer. While the cost of the two bridges, aside from the approaches, was probably very nearly the same, the suspension- bridge required three years for its construction, and will carry one train and such load as may come upon the lower roadway ; the cantilever-bridge was erected in seven months and a half from the be- ginning of the work, and is de- signed to carry a freight - train on each of its two tracks at the same time, each headed by two seventy-six ton engines, crossing without. 4 slackening speed. The ability to ac- commodate a great- er traffic, and the rapidity of construction, may justly be ascribed to the advances made in American types of iron bridges. One of the first questions asked concerns the mean- ing of the term ‘cantilever.’ It signifies, as an archi- tectural term, ‘a bracket, or projecting member, to Aq support a load, such as a cornice or balcony.’ The illustration accompanying this article gives a very good view of the structure as a whole; and the action of the cantilevers, as well as the several members, can be understood from the following diagram. | elle sh \ [Vor. III, No. 66. and with- . and - a - May 9, 1884.] The shore abutments are at A and F, nine hundred and ten feet apart. The piers B and E, having a width on top of twenty-five feet, support two trusses, A B C D E F 195’ | 175’ 120/ 175/ 195/ A Cand D F, the lengths of whose arms are marked below them: on their outer ends rests the independ- ent truss C D, one hundred and twenty feet in length. The parts B Cand D Eare the cantilevers, carrying the truss C D, and projecting from the piers B and E as a bracket from the face of the wall. The ends A and Fare prevented from rising, under any load between B and E which may not be balanced by the excess of weight in A B and E F, by anchor- ing bolts at A and F, extending to iron beams placed beneath the shore abutments. These abutments SCIENCE 073 June 26. The masonry on the American side was finished Aug. 20, and on the Canadian side Sept. 3. The two towers or steel piers, each of which has four legs, sixty feet by thirty feet apart at the base, twenty-eight feet by twenty-five feet apart at the top, one hundred and thirty-two feet high from the top of the masonry to the bottom of the truss, and thor- oughly braced in all directions, were begun Aug. 29, and completed Sept. 18. A Scaffolding or false-works for the support of the portions A B and EF F having been put up, these shore-arms were built upon it in the usual manner of bridge-erection, and were finished in time to begin construction of the river-arms on Nov. 1. ‘This portion of the bridge was built out, piece by piece, triangle by triangle, from the piers, with no other outside support than a travelling framework above and projecting forward from the bridge itself: this THE CANTILEVER-BRIDGE OVER THE NIAGARA RIVER. weigh one thousand tons each: the maximum lifting- force to which either one will be subjected is three hundred-and forty tons. The expansion and con- traction from changes of temperature are provided for ‘between B and £ by joints at C and D which allow longitudinal motion, and at A and F by pendulum links which permit a similar movement. A detailed statement of the rate of progress in construction and erection will show quite clearly the advance made in late years in the art of bridge- building, and the ease with which structures of the American type, jointed at intersections and con- nected by pins, can be put together. The contract for the bridge was signed on April 11, 1883; and a clause was included by which the builders would forfeit five liundred dollars per day for all time re- quired to finish the structure after Dec. 1. Ground was broken for the foundations of the towers, April 15. Laying of the concrete foundation, eight feet thick, began on June 6; and of the masonry piers, thirty-eight feet high and twelve feet square on top, traveller carried a suspended platform to insure the safety of the workmen. The sections from the two shores were built out and joined Nov. 21, without serious accident or delay. The track was down, ready for a train, in seven months and a half from the beginning of the work, and with eight days to spare on the contract time. The bridge has two trusses, twenty-eight feet apart, fifty-six feet deep over the towers, twenty-one feet deep at the shore-ends, and twenty-six feet deep at the mid-span. Ample wind-bracing is provided. The material used in the towers and heavy compres- sion members is open-hearth steel: most of the other members are of wrought-iron. One admirable point in the design of the engineer, Mr. C. C. Schneider. and in the way in which it was executed by the builders, the Central bridge-works of Buffalo, N.Y., was the fact that no piece, while the bridge was in process of erection, was subjected to a strain greater than, or different from, what it must undergo in the completed structure. At the formal test and open- O74 / ing, Dec. 20, the bridge was traversed by two trains, advancing side by side from one end, and composed of twenty locomotives, and enough cars loaded with gravel to together cover both tracks completely. The independent span C D was occupied entirely by en- gines when the bridge was fully loaded. The deflec- tion of the point C under the test was between six and seven inches, being an aggregate arising from the yielding of A B, the compression of the tower, and the deflection of B C itself. On the removal of this load, of double the amount which will probably ever be imposed upon the structure, the bridge com- pletely recovered itself. The application of the cantilever in bridge-build- ing may be seen in several other instances in this country. Sometimes it has been used to diminish the opening to be spanned by a single truss, and more frequently it has been introduced to facilitate the erection of a bridge in places where temporary supports in mid-channel could be obtained only with great difficulty and expense. A wagon-bridge at Fort Snelling, Minn., furnishes an example of the former class; but the cantilevers are reduced to simple triangular brackets, projecting some thirty or thirty- five feet beyond the faces of two adjacent piers, and reducing the span to two hundred feet. The Cin- cinnati southern railway bridge, over the Kentucky River, has three spans of three hundred and seventy- five feet each. As the gorge which this structure €rosses is two hundred and seventy-five feet deep, and ordinary false-works were out of the question, the spans were built out from each cliff as projecting trusses, anchored back to the rock. By the aid of one temporary timber tower on each side, and the iron piers, the bridge was thus joined in the middle. The lower chord connections were then severed at three hundred feet from each bank, leaving the mid- dle span with a cantilever of seventy-five feet project- ing from each of its ends. Here the introduction of hinges obviated the changes of strain which would otherwise be caused by the effect on the tall iron piers of changes of temperature. The Minnehaha bridge, across the Mississippi River, between St. Paul and Minneapolis, has three spans, and was erected like the Niagara bridge, —the two shore-arms on false- works, and the middle span as two cantilevers, which are connected by a hinged joint in mid-river, without any independent span. A design for the Frazer-River bridge on the Cana- dian Pacific railway, by Mr. Schneider, although not yet erected, antedates the Niagara bridge, and is like it, only on asmaller scale. The design for the Black- well’s Island bridge, across the East River, New York, which was awarded the first prize in 1876, introduced cantilevers and an independent span. A similar type of bridge is in progress at St. John, N.B.; one is proposed for the new Harlem-River bridge, New York; and the great bridge for crossing the Frith of Forth, now under construction, is a bold design of this type, having two openings of seventeen hun- dred feet each. Others might be mentioned if space permitted. CuHas. E. GREENE. SCIENCE. Bi AS is Veh [Vou. III., No. 66. THE CHOLERA BACILLUS.1 THE question, which, in my last report of Jan. 7, was left unanswered, — whether the bacilli found in the intestines affected with cholera are parasites due to cholera alone, — may be looked upon as answered. It was at first exceedingly difficult, on account of the varying conditions under which the pathological changes took place in intestines affected by cholera, and on account of the great number of bacteria constantly present in them, to find out the bacillus proper to the disease. In most cases death occurred, not at the height of the cholera process, but dur- ing the period of reaction immediately following, in which such important changes take place in the condition of the intestines and their contents, that it is impossible, from such cases alone, to gain a clear conception of the cholera process. Only when one has had an opportunity to dissect a number of un- complicated cases, and to compare with them the conditions exhibited in persons when first attacked, is it possible to gain a correct insight into the patho- logical conditions of cholera. On this account it was always kept in view, to use the greatest caution in accepting any theory as to the connection of the bacterial condition and the cholera, or as. to causal connection of the bacteria with cholera, till the full proof might be obtained. In the last report, I could already state that the peculiarities of the cholera bacteria were so well determined that they could safely be distinguished from others. Of these characteristics, the following are the most striking: the bacilli are not perfectly straight, like other bacilli, but slightly curved, like a comma. The bending may go so far that they take the form of a half-circle. In the pure cultivation from these bent rods often arise s-formed figures, and more or less long, slightly wavy lines, of which the first are made up of two, and the last of a large number, of the cholera bacilli, which, by continued increase, have remained connected. They possess powers of locomotion, which can best be seen, and in most marked degree, in a drop of cultivation- liquid suspended on a cover-glass: in such a prepara- tion, one sees the bacilli moving with the greatest velocity in all directions through the field. Especially characteristic is their action when culti- vated in gelatine, in which they form colorless colo- nies, which at first are closed, and appear as if they consisted of very brilliant little glass particles. Gradually these colonies liquefy the gelatine, and spread out to a considerable extent. In gelatine cul- tivation they are, therefore, through this remarkable appearance, very surely distinguished from other bacteria colonies, and can easily be isolated from them. Moreover, they can pretty surely be dis- tinguished by cultivation in hollow slides, as they always go to the edge of the drop, and in that posi- tion can be recognized by their peculiar movements, 1 Sixth report of Dr. Kocu of the German cholera commis- — sion, dated Calcutta, Feb. 2, 1884. Translated from the Berliner klinische wochenschrift for March 31. An abstract of the seventh =a report will be found in the Notes and news. May 9, 1884.] and, after application of aniline solution, by their comma form. As yet, twenty-two cholera bodies and seventeen cholera patients have been subjects of investigation. All these cases were studied for the presence of the specific bacteria, as well with gelatine cultivation as also in microscopical preparations, for the most part through cultivation in hollow slides; and, without ex- ception, the comma-shaped bacilli were found. This result, together with that obtained in Egypt, justifies the statement that this kind of bacterium is always to be found in the cholera intestine. For corroboration, moreover, investigations were earried on in the same way on twenty-eight other bodies (of which eleven had died from dysentery) ; the evacuations of one case each of simple diarrhoea, dysentery, and of a convalescent from cholera; then from several well people, as well as on animals dead from ulcer in the intestine, and pneumonia; finally, also with putrid masses of impure water (various samples from city sewage, water from very impure swamps, swamp scum, and impure river-water): but in not a single instance did it happen, either in stom- ach or bowels of the bodies of man or beast, in evacu- ations, or in fluids rich in bacteria, that the cholera bacteria was found. As by arsenic-poisoning a sick- ness very similar to cholera can be induced, an ani- mal was killed by arsenic, and, after death, the di- gestive organs examined for the comma bacillus; but with a negative result. From these results the further conclusion may be drawn, that the comma bacillus is peculiar to cholera. As to the connection of this bacillus with cholera, it was carefully stated in the last report, that there may be two views: 1°, that the condition of the organs of a person sick with cholera is such that this peculiar bacillus prospers; 2°, that the bacillus is the cause of the cholera, and that only when it makes its way into the bowels of man can the sickness take place. The first supposition is not allowable from the following grounds: it would be necessary to grant, that, when a man is taken sick with the cholera, this bacillus was already present in his organs, as shown by its universal presence in the considerable cases investigated in Egypt and India, two widely separated lands. This could not be the case, however; since, as has already been pointed out, the comma-shaped bacillus is never found, except in a case of cholera. Even in cases of bowel affection, such as dysen- tery and bowel catarrh, to which cholera very often supervenes, they fail. It is also to be considered, that, if this bacterium were always present in man, it would surely have been observed on some occasion ; which has not been the case. As the increase of this bacterium cannot be brought about in the bowels by cholera, the second supposi- tion, that it is the cause of cholera, only remains. That this is, in fact, the case, is shown unquestion- ably by other facts, and especially by its behavior during the progress of the disease. Its presence is re- stricted to the organ in which the disease is, — the SCIENCE. d719 bowels. In vomit, they have, as yet, only been noticed in two cases; and in both, the appearance and alka- line reaction of the vomited fluids showed that the contents of the bowels, and with these the bacteria, had got into the stomach. In the bowels their history is as follows: in the first evacuations of the patient after the attack, as long as they have any form, very few cholera bacilli are present; the watery, odorless evacuations which follow, on the contrary, contain the bacilli in great numbers; while, at the same time, all other forms disappear almost entirely, so that, at this stage, the cholera bacilli are cultivated practically alone in the bowels. So soon as the cholera attack lessens, and the evacuations are again fecal, the com- ma bacteria disappear gradually, and are, after the convalescence, no longer to be found. The same is found to hold in cholera subjects. In the stomach no cholera bacilli were found. The bowels varied, according as death had occurred during the cholera attack or after it. In the freshest cases, the bowels showed a clear, red color; the inner lining of the intes- tines was still free from submucous extravasation ; and the contents consisted of a colorless, odorless liquid: the cholera bacilli were present in enormous masses, and nearly pure. Their distribution corresponded ex- actly with the degree and spread of the inflammation of the lining-membrane, the bacilli being generally not so thick in the upper intestine, but increasing toward the lower end of the smaller intestine. When, however, death has taken place later, the in- testines show signs of an important reaction. The lining is dark red in the lower part of the smaller in- testine, impregnated with extravasations of blood, and often dead on the outermost layers. The contents of the bowels are, in such cases, more or less blood- colored, and, in consequence of the re-appearance of the bacteria of decomposition, putrid and fetid. The cholera bacteria at this stage begin to disappear, but continue still to be present for some time in the solitary glands and in their vicinity, — a circumstance which first called attention to the presence of this peculiar bacterium in the bowels of the Egyptian cholera sub- jects. They entirely fail in such cases, only when the patient has lived through the cholera, and dies from the after-weakness. The cholera bacteria act exactly as other patho- logical bacteria. They occur only in their peculiar disease; their first appearance is when the illness begins; they increase in number with the severity of the attack, and gradually disappear as the illness wanes. They are found where the trouble exists; and their number, at the height of the disease, is so ereat, that their injurious effect on the lining of the intestines is explained. It might well be wished that it were possible, with these bacteria, to engender in animals a disease akin to cholera, that their causal relation to the sickness might be made the more clear. ‘This has, as yet, not been done: whether it will ever be done may well be questioned, as animals do not appear to be subject to cholera infection. If any kind of animal could take the cholera, then such a case would have been ob- served in Bengal, where, during the whole year, and 2716. over the whole country, cholera infection is spread. But all reported cases have, as yet, failed of corrobora- tion. Nevertheless, the evidence of the facts pro- duc2zd cannot be weakened by the failure of the experiments on animals. With other infectious dis- eases, the same observation has been made; for ex- ample, in the case of typhoid fever and leprosy, — two diseases for which specific bacteria are known, without, as yet, its being possible to communicate them to animals; and yet the manner of the occur- rence of the bacteria in these diseases is such, that, without doubt, they must be looked upon as the cause of the disease. The same holds true for the cholera bacteria. Moreover, the further study of the cholera bacteria has made known many of their peculiarities, which all agree with that which is known of cholera etiology, as well as further evi- dence of the correctness of the assumption of the bacteria as the cause of the disease. In this connection it is well to state the often observed fact, that in the linen of cholera patients the bacteria increase in a most remarkable manner, when the clothes have been soiled with the evacua- tions, and then, for twenty-four hours, have been kept in a moist condition. This explains the known fact, that the people having to do with such affected linen are often attacked. On account of this, further experiments were instituted; and cholera evacuations, or the contents of the intestines of the dead, were spread on cotton, on paper, and especially on the damp surface of the ground. After twenty-four hours, the thin sheet of slime invariably changed into a thick mass of cholera bacilli. Another peculiarity of the cholera bacteria is, that they die, upon drying, much more quickly than most others. Commonly all life is extinct after three hours’ drying. It has also been noticed that their development only takes place well in substances having an alka- line reaction. A very small amount of free acid, which would have little or no effect on other bacteria, puts a marked check on their growth. In a healthy stomach they are destroyed, which is shown by the fact that neither in the stomach nor the intestines of animals which had been constantly fed on cholera bacilli, and then killed, were any found. This last peculiarity, together with the impossibility of their withstanding drying, gives an explanation of the every-day observation, that infection so seldom occurs from constant intercourse with cholera pa- tients. Evidently, that the bacilli may be in condi- tion to pass the stomach, and bring about the cholera in the intestines, peculiar conditions must be present. Perhaps, when the digestion is imperfect, the bacilli might be able to pass the stomach; and the fact ob- served in all cholera epidemics and in India, that those suffering from indigestion are especially sub- ject to cholera, may bear out this view. Perhaps a peculiar condition, analogous to the period of inac- tion of other bacteria, would enable them to pass the stomach uninjured. It is, on the whole, not probable that this change in the production of inactive spores exists: then such SCIENCE. |Vou. ILL, No. 66. spores, by observation, are known to remain months, — or even years, capable of life, while the cholera poi- son remains active not longer than from three to four weeks. Neverthelass, it is conceivable that some other form of inactivity exists, in which the bacilli can retain their life in a dry state some weeks, and in which they withstand the destroying influence of the stomach. The conversion into such a condition would cor- respond with that which Pettenkofer has designated as ripening of the ‘cholera-infection material.’ As yet, such an inactivity of cholera bacilli has not been discovered. THE EXPLORING VOYAGE (OF CHALLENGER. (first notice.) Tue Challenger was a British man-of-war, a corvette of twenty-three hundred tons, equipped at the public expense with every appliance for the scientific study of the sea and of marine life, and carrying a faculty of six civilian spe- cialists chosen by the Royal society, in addi- tion to a staff of naval officers selected with reference to their scientific attainments. This floating laboratory was sent out in 1872 upon a voyage of discovery around the world, and, during an absence of three years and a half, visited every accessible sea and ocean, traversing a distance of nearly sixty-nine thou- sand miles. Three hundred and sixty-two observing-stations were established at sea, and over five hundred deep-sea soundings made, —a wonderful record of industry, when it is remembered how many weeks were neces- sarily spent at coaling-stations, and when we take into account the fact that the present methods of rapid work by means of thin-wire dredge-ropes had not then come into use, and that a dredge-haul from a depth of two thou- sand to twenty-five hundred fathoms, which the Blake or the Albatross now easily completes in four or five hours, took an entire day of the Challenger’s time. The collections, when finally assembled at Sheerness, after the return of the ship, were contained in 2,270 jars, 1,749 bottles, 1,860 glass tubes, and 176 tin cases of alcoholics, with 22 casks of specimens in brine, and 180 tin cases of dried specimens, besides large quantities of material already sent home from Bermuda, Halifax, Capetown, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Japan. The Challenger long ago resumed her bar- baric function as an engine of war. in South Kensington. Their share in the work Her trawls and dredges, battered and torn, hangupon the stair-rails in the Museum of naval architecture — May 9, 1884.] is done, but the collections are only now begin- ning to yield up the treasures of fact which they contain. ‘The first of the final reports ap- peared in 1880; and now ten massive quarto volumes, crowded with sumptuous lithographed plates, have been printed, eight of these in the natural history series, two in the ‘ narrative,’ which includes also the results of the physical observations. ‘The completion of the entire se- ries is promised for 1887, but it can safely be predicted that the last of the row of twenty volumes will not be placed upon our book- shelves before 1890. Preliminary reports have appeared to the number of at least three hun- dred: and, since it has been decided that the t SCIENCE. dT the subsequent important explorations by Nor- way, Sweden, and Germany, and the expedi- tions of the Italian Washington and Violante, the French Travailleur and Talisman, the Dutch Willem Barents, and the American Blake, Fish Hawk, and Albatross, would not all have been carried on by grants from public treasuries. What the several governments might have done in fitting out ships, it is impossible for us to know. No one can question, however, that naturalists in all countries have been inspired and stimulated in a most salutary way by the action of the British government in publishing every half-year one of these sumptuously printed Challenger volumes, — each a collec- THE CHALLENGER. biological section of the British association is to devote its attention at the Montreal meet- ing almost exclusively to pelagic life, we may expect a large addition to the Challenger bib- liography during the present year. The Challenger expedition was planned and executed solely in the interest of pure science, no utilitarian aims having ever been considered in its organization: it was the direct outgrowth of the previous expeditions of the Lightning and the Porcupine, inspired and conducted by Carpenter, Gwyn Jeffreys, and Wyville Thom- son. The action of the British admiralty had, in consequence, a particularly salutary effect upon the policy of other nations ; for it is highly probable, that, had there been no Challenger, tion of monographs from the hands of master- workmen in natural history, not English only, but American, Scandinavian, Dutch, French, and Italian. | The history of the expedition, and the gen- eral nature of its discoveries, were long ago published to the world through Sir Wyville Thomson’s ‘ The Atlantic,’ ? Professor Mose- ley’s ‘ Notes,’ ?.a work which should stand al- ways on the same shelf with Darwin’s ‘Voyage of a naturalist,’ Lord George Campbell’s * Log letters from the Challenger’ (London, 1876), 1 The voyage of the Challenger, — the Atlantic; a prelimi- nary account of the exploring voyage of H.M.S. Challenger. 1878. 2vols. 8°. 2 Notes by a naturalist on the Challenger. London, 1879. 620 p. 8°. 578 Engineer Spry’s illustrated journal in folio, with its hundreds of graphic sketches of scenery and incident,’ and Mr. J. J. Wild’s suggestive little books, ‘ Thalassa’ and ‘ At anchor.’ The first-mentioned work, being semi-offi- cial in character, has been made the subject of much criticism, on account of the loose and inaccurate way in which many of the dis- coveries are announced. Itis, in fact, a reprint of a series of letters to Good words, a family magazine, which were written by the director during the latter part of the voyage to satisfy a \\ fi i \\ TTI SCIENCE. also been severely criticised for his policy in withholding the collections from the British museum, establishing the office of the expedi- tion in Edinburgh, and refusing to ask the direct co-operation of the authorities of the British museum in working up his results. It is quite probable, to be sure, that a certain amount of additional support might have been gained by pursuing a different policy, but it is difficult to imagine whence it would have come. The British museum, like our own National museum, is the legal and proper place of de- posit for government collections which have Me es Ini ANIMA a Wanda i NATURAL HISTORY WORKROOM ON BOARD THE CHALLENGER. public curiosity as to what had been done dur- ing its beginning. While it is undoubtedly open to criticism, it is probably as scholarly a piece of work as most landsmen would have been able to accomplish in the midst of the de- pressing influences of ship-life; and it is so much more satisfactory than any other official attempts at narratives which have yet appeared in connection with similar expeditions, that one cannot help regretting that the Pacific was not written up by the same hand and in the same manner. Sir Wyville Thomson has 1 The cruise of her Majesty’s ship Challenger. London, 1876. been worked up and reported upon, and the Challenger collections are gradually being sent there. The director of the expedition was, however, better fitted, both through experience and interest, to administer upon the collections brought together by his staff, than the officers of the natural history section of the British museum, no matter how much they may have excelled him as masters of special branches of work. Then, too, these men were already so overburdened with official routine that they could not have given the prominence to the E Challenger work which it for the time de- [Vou. III., No. 66. { ll May 9, 1884.] served. The policy laid down by Professor Thomson, when called upon by the admiralty to propose a plan for the disposal of the Chal- lenger collections, was in principle exactly con- sistent with that for many years pursued by our government geological survey, fish-commis- sion, and bureau of ethnology, in relation to the national museum, though the heads of these organizations generally find it more convenient to use the organization of the museum to facili- tate the administration of their own work. A much more serious complaint has been based upon the policy of the director in claim- ing a right to control the results of the studies of his assistants during the voyage, and to announce their discoveries in his official capa- city, without giving credit to the observers. It is, of course, impossible to say to what extent this policy was putin practice; but it is certain that the efficiency of the staff was to some extent impaired by it, and that some of the men felt called upon to protect themselves by writing their journals in languages unknown to the director. ‘The subject has, of course, had no public discussion in England, and is referred to in this review simply on account of the general principle involved, which has already affected the efficiency of many institutions and expedi- tions in the United States. For the benefit both of science and of the workers in science, it is exceedingly important that there should be established some exact understanding of what constitutes literary or scientific property, and how much control over the results of the labors of his pupils or assistants a teacher or director justly may exert. Whatever may have been the obstacles to the success of the expedition, its final results cannot fail to be satisfactory to every one who examines them. ‘The highest praise is due to the late Sir Wyville Thomson, by whom it was organized and so successfully carried on. The liberal spirit with which he invoked the co- operation of foreign specialists was one of the many noteworthy features of his administration. Since his death, in March, 1882, the adminis- tration has been admirably carried on by Mr. John Murray, who was Professor Thomson’s first assistant in natural history from the very start. As has been already stated, eight volumes of zodlogical reports have already appeared. These contain the zodlogical monographs up to No. xxiv., thirty more still remaining to be published, together with two botanical reports, several concluding parts of papers already begun, and Mr. Murray’s final summary of results. In discussing the publications of the dt SCIENCE. a719 expedition, the monographs will be taken up in systematic sequence. ‘Their present order is arbitrary and temporary, it being understood that this will be abandoned in the final arrange- ment and combinations of the volumes of the report. The mammal collections were assigned to Professor William Turner of the University of Edinburgh, whose paper upon the human crania is announced to be nearly ready, but whose final report on the marine mammalia will, it is feared, be long delayed. An instal- ment of the latter is, however, already in type, in the form of a report upon the bones of Cetacea (vol. i., 43 p., 3 pl.). This paper is a curious illustration of how many important facts may be derived from the study of a col- lection of objects of the most heterogeneous and miscellaneous character, such as the series of whale-bones gathered by such an expedition must necessarily be. ‘The descriptions of the skeletons of Mesoplodon Layardi, and other whales obtained at the shore-stations, are valu- able to the cetologist ; but the greatest interest is in the account of the hundreds of separate bones dredged from the abyssal depths. At one station in the middle of the South Pacific, at 2,335 fathoms, there were obtained about ninety tympanic bullae, as well as numerous other ear-bones, the remains of nearly as many individual whales, most of them ziphioids. From the evidence of such fragments, Professor Turner concludes that the genus Mesoplodon is particularly abundant in the South Pacific, and Ziphius in the South Atlantic, though but few of these animals have been observed in those regions. Strange as it may seem, there were found no bones of the sperm-whale, so abun- dant in all the waters traversed by the ship. In the localities where bones were found, — none of which, it may be noted, were north of the equator, —the deposit at the bottom was ared clay, containing, besides the ear-bones, many hundreds of sharks’ teeth, belonging to the genera Carcharodus, Oxyrhina, and Lamna, and apparently to extinct species. The question naturally arises, whether the as- sociated cetacean remains belong to recent or extinct species. The occurrence of the teeth of tertiary sharks, lying so loosely upon the bottom that they may be scraped up by the dredge, indicates to the writer of this review that tertiary sharks have probably existed in these waters within comparatively recent times, and that the ear-bones, which cannot be re- ferred to living species already known, in all likelihood belong to living species of whales not yet discovered. That interesting gener- eerat es 980 alized type of selachian from Japan recently announced by Garman under the name Chlamy- doselachus is but one of the many signs that our knowledge of pelagic and abyssal life is still very incomplete. Prof. D. J. Cunningham of the Royal col- lege of surgeons, Ireland, contributes an essay upon the anatomy of certain marsupials and - upon the mammalian pes (vol. v., 192 p., 18 pl.). The first part of this paper is descrip- tive, and devoted to Thylacine, Cuscus, and Phascogale; but its preparation led to a general investigation of the foot of mammals, involving the dissection of forty-five species distributed through all the orders. Professor Cunningham’s conclusions as to the relations of the intrinsic muscles and nerves of the pes in different genera are of great interest, but, being merely incidental to the work of the Challenger, must be passed by with simple mention. Vol. il. is chiefly devoted to the report on birds, which is the eighth in the zodlogical series. This is a compound paper in thir- teen parts, prepared by the standard British authorities, Sclater, Salvin, Saunders, Forbes, Tweeddale, and Garrod; one paper being also supplied by Salvadori of Turin, and one by Finsch of Bremen. The report on the anatomy of the petrels (Tubinares), by the late W. A. Forbes (vol. iv., 64 p., 7 pl.), is important as throwing much new light on the classification of these remarkable birds. It is based upon collections from the stores of the zodlogical society and the U.S. national museum as well as of the Challenger. The affinities of the petrels are shown to be with the Steganopoda and the storks and herons, rather than with the gulls. The most extensive anatomical monograph is that of the penguins, by Professor Morrison Watson of Owens college, Manches- ter, of which the first part has been printed (vol. vii., 244 p., 19 pl.). The publication of the second part will complete the ornithological work of the expedition. This essay is full of interest to the general reader as well as to the ornithotomist; since, although structural minutiae are fully discussed, each detail is brightened by some allusion to function, origin, or habit. The conclusions of Professor Watson, concerning the affinities of the Spheniscidae to each other and to other birds, are worthy of much fuller discussion. Many and appreciative alJlusions are made to Dr. Elliott Coues’ monograph of the Spheniscidae, which is frequently quoted. Professor W. Kitchen Parker’s report on the development of the green turtle (vol. i., 58 p., SCIENCE. 13 pl.) is an exceedingly weighty contribution to morphology, and concludes with a page of most suggestive generalizations upon the phy- logeny of the Chelonia and Reptilia. This investigation was based upon aseries of embryos obtained at Ascension Island, in compliance with Professor Parker’s particular request, and is one of the most important of the side issues of the expedition. Dr. Albert Gunther’s report on the shore fishes (vol. i., 82 p., 32 pl.) contains the iden- tifications of fourteen hundred specimens, rep- resenting five hundred and twenty species, of which ninety-four were new. It consists of a series of faunal and regional lists, some of which, particularly those for remote oceanic islands, cover fields hitherto unexplored by ichthyologists ; such as St. Paul’s Rocks, As- cension, Kerguelen Island, and Juan Fernan- dez, and also Magellan Straits and the Arafura Sea. The systematic arrangement is all that can be desired: it is to be regretted, however, that the author has been satisfied to publish such brief and cursory diagnoses, and that he gives no tables of proportional measurements, thus causing serious embarrassment to students who have no access to his types. The report upon deep-sea fishes by the same author, at one time announced for vol. lii., is now so far down upon the official list of ‘ memoirs to fol- low in subsequent years,’ that it is not likely to come to view for a long time. ‘This is all the more to be regretted, since the fishes of the abyssal region are more peculiar, and more generally instructive, than perhaps the members of any other group. Much unstudied material in Italy, France, Austria, and America, is being held until these collections, now eight years in the author’s hands, can be made known to the public. The preliminary descriptions pub- lished in 1878 are so meagre as to be nearly useless to any one except their author ; and the type specimens themselves will, of course, be inaccessible for comparison until the final re- port is in type. Dr. Giinther’s: success in re-organizing the natural history section of the British museum has been very great, yet it seems unfortunate that administrative work should so entirely monopolize the time of so eminent an ichthyologist. RAIN IN BELGIUM. La pluie en Belgique. Par A. LANCASTER. elles, Hayez, 1884. [Extract from the Annuaire de l’Observatoire royal de Bruxelles.] 113 p. 16°. — Tue completion of a fifty-years series of un- — interrupted observations of rainfall at Brussels — Brux-. so al May 9, 1884.] is taken by Lancaster as a fitting occasion for the preparation of a neat compendium of rain- records for all Belgium. The longer series, besides Brussels, are forty-three years at Ghent, thirty-five at Liége, twenty-three for Ostende, and twenty for Les Waleffes. ‘The entire list, prepared for the end of 1882, con- tains one hundred and twenty-seven stations, with an average record of four and a half years ; but of these, thirty-eight are for only one year, and sixty are for two years or less. At present the observatory receives the re- sults attained at over two hundred stations. The chief general conclusions, which, unfortu- nately, are not shown either by map or dia- gram, are as follows: along the littoral low- lands an annual fall of about 650 millimetres, Tising to a maximum in the highlands of the Ardennes (altitude about 400 metres) of from 900 to 1,100 millimetres. For 1882, rain and altitude of station are thus related : — Below 10 m. 825 mm. | 200 to 400 m. . 1,220 mm. Wtol00 “. Sims 400 to 700 ‘* 4. lpi) 9 100 to.200 **. eIEOZ0) <° | According to seasons, the ratios are, winter, 100; spring, 95; summer, 129; autumn, 119. Along the coast the maximum is in autumn: in the interior, itis in summer. Heavy rains occur chiefly in the summer. In Brussels, since 1853, there have been sixty-nine records of 25 to 50 millimetres of rain in a day, thirty- four of these being in June, July, and August. A general increase in the annual rainfall is suspected since 1865, the evidence being as follows : — Ghent 1338-64, 753 mm. | Ghent 1865-82, 981 mm. Brussels . 1833-64, 700 ** Brussels . 1865-82, 778 ‘ Liége . 1847-64, 743 * Liége . 1865-82, 796 ** The sun-spot cycle does not find strong con- firmation from the records at Brussels. Minimum. Maximum. Difference. 1833 . 646 mm.| 1837 - 714 mm. 68 mm. me... .736 “ | 1848 . 750 * 4 « ives » =. O10 *8 1860 . 6 Gb), OG Psy 1867 7 Oo 2 © 1870 . stone oe 55) 1378 SIS) 1882 4 Soe oe Go The little volume is chiefly valuable as bring- ing the older records up to time, and preparing for future work with the greatly increased number of stations of the past few years. SCIENCE. 581 A NEW ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL. Bulletin astronomique, publié sous les auspices de l’ Observatoire de Paris. Par M. F. Tiss—ERAND. Tome i., No. i., Janvier. Paris, Gauthier- Vil- lars, 1884. G64p. 8°. Tue great number of new observatories in France now beginning active work has ren- dered a publication of this character a neces- sary adjunct of the labors of the astronomers of that country; and it will embrace two dis- tinct parts, the first of which will contain the late observations made at the French observa- tories, ephemerides of planets and comets, and memoirs and notices relating to various topics in theoretical and practical astronomy. ‘The second part is to be devoted to notices of current astronomical news, and a résumé of the chief periodical publications and of memoirs. This latter feature is a most fortunate one, and will make the Bulletin a desideratum in all observa- tories and scientific libraries. The special peri- odicals embraced in the revue of the January Bulletin are the Monthly notices of the Royal astronomical society, The observatory, the Si- dereal messenger, the American journal of science, Copernicus, and the , as ‘ 610 Professor Maspero verified the sites of over a hun- dred more similar catacombs, all absolutely intact. The necropolis of Ekhmeem, at a rough estimate, cannot contain fewer than five or six thousand embalmed dead. Of these, perhaps not more than twenty per cent will turn out to be of archeological or historical value; but the harvest of papyri, jewels, and other funeral treasures, cannot fail to be of un- precedented extent. Ekhmeem is the ancient Khem- nis, —- the Panopolis of the Greeks. Its architectural remains are insignificant. — The Alert, the store-ship of the Greely relief expedition, and the last of the vessels to sail, left New York, May 10. The Bear sailed from New York on the 24th of April, and reached St. John’s, May 2; while the Thetis, the flag-ship of the fleet, and sup- posed to be the stanchest of the three, sailed from New York on that day, and reached St. John’s on the 9th. Every thing that could be suggested in the way of equipment has been done for the party, and it is to be hoped that the pluck and discipline of the personnel will atone for their lack of experience. — The subject of the thesis for the annual Walker prize of the Boston society of natural history, this year, was ‘ The life-history of any animal or plant.’ Two essays only were offered in competition, and the first prize only was awarded: this was gained by Mr. Albert H. Tuttle, of the Harvard medical school, Boston, for a study of the embryology of Lunatia heros, with numerous illustrations. Prof. A. E. Verrill has in press a very important paper entitled Second catalogue of Mollusca recently added to the fauna of the New-England coast and adjacent parts of the Atlantic, consisting mainly of deep-sea species, with notes on others previously reported. ‘These are chiefly derived from the dredg- ings of the fish-commission, are well illustrated, and worked up in the full and careful manner character- istic of the author. It appears in the Transactions of the Connecticut academy of sciences, and is illus- trated by Emerton. — The annual report of the zoological gardens of Cincinnati states that over eight hundred animals are on exhibition, and that a hundred and twenty- seven were bred in the gardens last year, including a grizzly bear. The most noteworthy addition during the year was that of a young hippopotamus, which promises to become the main feature of the collection. Nearly twenty-eight thousand dollars were received from visitors’ fees. — The additions to the American museum of natu- ral history in New York seem not to have been so numerous or important last year as in previous years. The museum has, however, received its first bequest (five thousand dollars, from Mr. W. E. Dodge), and makes it the occasion to establish a permanent en- dowment-fund. The absence of such a fund, and the absolute dependence of this fine museum upon annual subscriptions and grants, have been very weak points in its organization, and have seriously SCIENCE. - {Vou. IIL, No. disturbed its scientific friends. They will not be satisfied until it is permanently endowed. — The New-York anthropological society was or- ganized Dec. 28, 1883, the aim of which is to prose- cute researches in the sciences of anthropology and psychology. —JIn the third Bulletin of the Natural history society of New Brunswick, just issued, Mr. G. F. Matthew describes in detail the discovery and examination, by a small summer party belonging to the society, of a village of the stone age, at Bocabec, on Passamaquod- dy Bay. Indications of the former site of over thirty huts were recognized, each of circular form, bordered by a raised edge of gravel, and surrounded by the shells of akitchen-midden. A plan of the village, and a section of one of the more typical hut-bottoms, is given, together with descriptions of the various arti- cles—including implements of stone, bone, and ivory, as well as pottery —found in and around them; and various conclusions are drawn as to their antiquity, and the habits, food, and ethnic relations of their for- mer possessors. The Bulletin also contains a report of the botanical committee, giving a list of over eigh- ty species first found in the province during the last year, and of which one (Ornithopus scorpioides L.) is probably new to America; and a list, the first au- thentic one yet published, of New-Brunswick mam- mals, by M. Chamberlain. It includes forty-three terrestrial, and five marine species. It is noticed, that, while the panther and wolf have nearly or quite disappeared, the Virginia deer (Cariacus virginianus), though still not common, is increasing. — The New-Brunswick legislature, at its last session, appropriated two hundred dollars towards the assistance of the Natural history society of the province. This is the first recognition of the claims of the society upon the public for support, and will be of much service in helping to defray the cost of publication of their bulletins. — Mr. G. F. Matthew, whose elaborate article on the Paradoxides of the St. John group is contained in the recently published Transactions of the Royal society of Canada, has in preparation, and will pre- sent at the next meeting of the society (May 20), a similar article on the Conocoryphidae of the same group. — The California academy of sciences has com- menced the issue of a new publication, called Bulle- tin, apparently to replace the former Proceedings. The papers in this first number are classified under zoblogy, botanic section, microscopic section, astron- omy, and mineralogy, and are mostly very brief and descriptive in character. — The Calcutta Englishman announces another important result in the investigation of the causes of cholera. Dr.Vincent Richards, civil surgeon of Goa- lundo, has succeeded in doing what the German com- mission have hitherto failed to accomplish: he has produced the disease artificially. The subjects of his — experiment were pigs; and, atter many trials, he com- municated to one of them what appears to have been Pew Ls “0d ee Bis te kee oe May 16, 1884.] genuine cholera, the animal having died within three hours after the cholera-poison had been admin- istered. —M. Pasteur and his collaborateurs have announced to the French academy that they can render all dogs absolutely proof against the effects of rabies by in- oculation, however the virus may be administered. — Under the heading ‘ Expeditions to the Kongo region,’ the Frank/fiirter zeitung states, that, accord- ing to information obtained from a well-informed source, Dr. Passavant of Basle, and Dr. Pauli of Brunswick, arrived, at the end of February, at Madeira, where they met Dr. Chavanne of Vienna. The three travellers were to proceed almost imme- diately to Africa. Passavant and Pauli, wbo are travelling at their own expense, proposed to pen- etrate the interior from the Cameroon delta on the coast of Guinea. Dr. Chavanne, who was to be joined at Madeira by Dr. Lintgraf of Detmold, is, it is stated, directly employed by the king of the Belgians. He has been commissioned to trace the route for a narrow-gauge railway to connect the coast with Leo- poldville and Stanley Pool. He intended to proceed directly from Madeira to Banana, and take as the point of departure for his expedition, ‘‘ the mouth of a small river situated about 5° south latitude.’? Hav- ing completed the survey for the railway, he is to proceed in a north and north-east direction, to explore the course of the River Uelle; the object of this ex- ploration being the establishment of a connection be- tween the Kongo andthe Nile. The country situated to the south of the Kongo is to be explored at the same time by Lieut. Wissmann, also on account of the king of the Belgians. Dr. Chavanne was to be joined at Banana by a hundred Zanzibaris; and seven hun- dred additional Zanzibaris. were awaiting there the arrival of a steamer to be sent from Europe, in order to transport it, under the command of Belgian and English engineers, above the falls of the Upper Kon- go, to be utilized in Dr. Chavanne’s exploration. — The Athenaeum of March 29 states that Cou- dreau, J. Roche, and C. Demont have arrived at Para. ‘They will devote two years to the exploration of the Amazon basin; paying particular attention to anthropology and natural history, without neglecting purely geographical and commercial questions. They travel under the auspices of the French ministry and marine. —Dr. Nathorst, of the late Swedish expedition to Greenland, has just issued his report on the geology of Waigatt Strait, near Disco Island, and on the at- tempt of the Sofia to reach Cape York in 1883. — The fourth volume of the Meddelser om Gronland has appeared, with important contributions to the knowledge of that region. Hammer contributes a study of Jacobshavn Fiord, made during the winter of 1879-80. Another chapter, on the glaciers of North Greenland, is the work of Steenstrup, who also re- ports on the deposits of nickeliferous iron ore, and on the geognosy and geography of a part of North Greenland. The book also contains researches on the composition of the native iron of Greenland, by SCIENCE. 611 Lorenzen, and astronomical positions determined in North Greenland, by Steenstrup and Hammer. It is well illustrated, and contains a résumé, in French, of its contents, by Professor Johnstrup. The two suc- ceeding volumes are in press, and will contain a study of the miocene and cretaceous fossils of North Greenland, with an account of the explorations made on the east coast of that country by Messrs. Vandel, Normann, and Holm. — The royal society of Canada will hold its next annual session at Ottawa, May 20 and following days. — The work of the Austrian geological institute has been carried on, the past year, by Stache and Tel- ler, with the temporary co-operation of Berwerth and Baron Camerlander, in the central chain of the Tyrol and the easternmost portion of the frontier of Carnithia; by Mojsisovics, Bittner, and Vacek in the north-western part of Styria and in the revision of the calcareous Alps of Salzburg; by Paul and Uhlig in the Carpathians of Galicia; and by Tietze and Hilber in the other portions of Galicia. Von Hauer and Mojsisovics also examined the thermal springs in Baden (south of Vienna), whose temporary inter- mittence had caused grave apprehensions; and Moj- sisovics visited Bosnia, Istria, and Trifail, in Styria, with reference to coal-deposits. Stur studied the coal- formation of Taworzny in Galicia, where the mines had been much damaged by the irruption of water. Paul examined several petroleum districts in Galicia and North Hungary, and searched for coal and salt deposits in the neighborhood of Tuzla in Bosnia, where a boring, executed under his direction, met, at a depth of ninety metres, water saline enough to be used for industrial purposes. Bohm investigated the glacial phenomena in the valley of the Enns. Frauscher studied the eocene faunas of the northern Alps of Upper Austria; Geyer, the todtegebirge of Upper Styria; and Tausch, the cretaceous deposits of Ajka. The library now contains about twenty-nine thousand volumes. — The commission for the geological survey of Bo- hemia reports, that, during the past year, Krejci and Feistmantel studied the still imperfectly known west- ern Silurian deposits, which are interrupted by great faults, pafallel to the strike of the whole system, and causing a great number and diversity of synclinal and anticlinal foldings; Fritsch surveyed the Teplitz strata, near Podiebrad and Chrudim, and Kafka the Chlomek strata in Glatz; Laube continued his inves- tigations in the metalliferous region of Kaaden and Komotau; the passage of the railway through this region proved that the anthracite zone of the Saxon Erzgebirge continues along the borders of the por- phyritic region, at a distance of about five kilometres from the Saxon frontier. As is usually the case in the metalliferous regions of Bohemia, no traces of glacial action could be discovered. —Mr. J. F. Whiteaves, paleontologist to the Do- minion geological survey, has just issued art. iii. of vol. i., Mesozoic fossils, of the paleontological series of the survey, on the fossils of the coal-bearing beds ( 9 fur Uy die re blz. . SCIENCE. of the Queen Charlotte Islands, collected by Dr. George M. Dawson in 1878. The formation, by these data, is shown to be cretaceous rather than Jurassic, and is unconformably overlaid by tertiary strata, showing evidence of great disturbance, and supposed to be the representatives of the chief period of mountain-making for the region. The fossils are nearly all molluscan. — The Marquis de Gregorio has recently published a number of paleontological notices in the Naturalista sictliano, which chiefly relate to tertiary forms, es- pecially members of the family Pectinidae, of which, and of the Ostreidae, he has made a special study. He has also proposed, should four hundred subscribers offer themselves, to bring out an international geo- logical and paleontological journal, the articles to be in the languages of the respective authors, and to be copiously illustrated. A bibliography, in French, of geological literature, would form a prominent and useful feature of the proposed journal. — At the meeting of the Royal astronomical society in March, Dr. Gill, director of the observatory at the Cape of Good Hope, gave the following account of his arrangement with Dr. Elkin, which resulted in the measurements of stellar parallax already described in Science: ‘‘When I was in Strasbourg in 1879, be- fore going to the Cape, I met a young student, Dr. Elkin, a pupil of Professor Winnecke. He was then engaged in writing his dissertation on the parallax of @ Centauri, and he requested me to send him observations, which might have been made at the Cape, of that star. Atthe same time, I told him that I had acquired by purchase Lord Lindsay’s heliom- eter, and intended to have it mounted equatorially at the Cape, to carry on the work of investigation of stellar parallax. This seemed to fire his enthusiasm, and he expressed a great desire to go with me and share my work. I said I could offer him no position, and he replied that he did not want one. So I said, ‘If you will be my guest, and come and live with me and share my work, you will be most welcome.’ He said he should be happy to do so, and he came to me so soon as he had taken his degree. So we have undertaken a certain amount of work together, and I should like to give a short account of it.’’ In the account which follows, he refers to the par- allaxes of a Centauri and Canopus. The result was about 0.75” for @ Centauri, which shows it to be the nearest known fixed star to our system, though farther than was formerly supposed. The most curious re- sult, however, is that for Canopus, or a Argus, which is, next to Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, and might therefore be supposed among the nearer ones ; but the resulting parallax is only 0.03%, a quantity too small to be relied upon. It would there- fore seem that this star is probably ten times the distance of Sirius. In the same connection, Dr. Gill presented to the society an unpublished investigation by Struve, at Pulkova, which gave a parallax of 0.5” for Aldebaran, a star which no one seems to have before attacked for parallax purposes. — Professor Pickering, whose work in stellar pho- . tometry is so widely known, during his last summer’s visit to European observatories was very fortunate in discovering valuable unpublished manuscripts of a large part of the photometric work of Sir William Herschel. First in importance were two unpublished catalogues, which, with the four published in the Philosophical transactions of the Royal society, com- plete the determination of the brightness of all the stars of Flamsteed’s catalogue at a time when no other estimates of their magnitudes are known to exist (about a hundred years ago). Professor Pick- ering’s reduction of these catalogues by comparison with a uniform photometric scale (the logarithm of whose light-ratio is 0.4) has shown that Herschel’s estimates of magnitudes were much more accurate than has been generally supposed, thus rendering the discovery of the two additional catalogues all the more valuable. Of much importance, too, was the discovery of the journal of the original comparisons, whose results are contained in all six of these catalogues, thus giv- ing the date of each comparison. At the suggestion of Mr. Chandler, whose forthcoming bibliography of variable stars will be of great value, the observations of the variable stars contained in this journal have been examined with the idea of correcting or check- ing the periods of some of the well-known variables by these older observations; and the results are given in a paper recently presented to the American acad- emy of arts and sciences by Professor Pickering. The periods of many of the later discovered variables are so irregular, or so little is known of them, that Herschel’s observations of these cannot be utilized till these periods are better determined from further observation or discussion; and thus, much of the value of these old observations is still to be deter- mined in the future; but it is well to know that they are now accessible. In the case of two or three of the variables, however, they are sufficient to give corrections to the periods which are of some value, and would be still more so if Herschel had only (Vou. IIL, No. 67. ~ given the hour, as well as the night, of observation. - As it is, the times can only be fixed between the limits of twilight and rising or setting of the star, unless, as the writer would suggest, the order and number of the observations in any one night might fix the limits of time a little more closely in some cases. —It may not be generally known in the United States, that the publication of the Journal de zoologie and of the Revue et magazin de zoologie has ceased ; that of the former in consequence of the death of Professor Gervais, of the latter for other reasons. As the Bulletin of the Société zoologique de France covers the scope of these journals, and as the Société is very desirous of entering into relations of exchange with the American institutions, it is suggested by the secretary of the Smithsonian institution, that the transfer in question of the address should be made. The institution, as heretofore, will take much pleas- ure in transmitting parcels addressed to the Société zoologique, or to any other of the learned bodies of France. a SCIENCE. FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Tue popular excitement as to food adultera- tions, and the difficulties met in dealing with this evil, lead to some queer results. ‘The city of New York, with its vast population demand- ing supplies of cheap food, takes an extraor- dinary position as regards the two common articles of butter and milk. Instead of cour- ageously undertaking the proper restriction and regulation of substitutes, and the preven- tion of fraud, the city authorities, through the board of health, now supported by the state legislature, propose to expel from the city markets all imitations of butter, and all skimmed milk. Oleomargarine and butterine have never competed with fine grades of but- ter. But, made in a healthy and clean man- ner, the substitutes have formed a legitimate, cheap, and palatable substitute for low grades of pure butter. Sold for what they are, a cer- tain class prefer the imitations to poor butter, although genuine; but prohibition is to pre- vent this, and force up the prices of low-grade butter. Worse yet, is the exclusion of skim- milk from the city. One of the most whole- some and really valuable food-products, which, sold as skim-milk at a low price, would find a market almost unlimited, and prove a great blessing to the poor, is prohibited, and emptied in the gutter whenever found. The science of government must sadly need development, so long as it is thought necessary to thus cut off supplies of cheap and wholesome food from the poor of our great cities. Every one remembers as one of the famil- iar, or perhaps better unfamiliar, sights of his school-days, a cabinet, —a closet with glass doors, containing a piece of quartz, a shell, a leg of a chair, and dust. Some one stirred by a love of nature, awakened for a moment by an essay at his teachers’ convention, had No. 68. —1884. been misled into placing the glass-doored case in one corner of the schoolroom, and the quartz and shell behind the glass. So it had stood for a week or month admired, then for six months neglected, and finally for years despised, during which last period the chair- leg had been added to the contents. It would seem that this ghost of a cabinet haunts the English schools as much as ours. Ghosts love half-neglected, half-forgotten cor- ners, and are quickly banished by plenty of new paint, and a proper use of the broom. To put an end to the haunting school-cabinet, a remedy is suggested by Rev. Henry H. Higgins, who proposes that a loan-museum shall be formed for the supply of schools with a few specimens at a time in the departments which the scholars may be studying. As a loan-museum will have, like a_ circulating- library, a limit to the time a specimen may be retained, there will be no chance for the stagnation which now takes place. It is also hoped that the museum would be able to supply a much better class of specimens than the schools could afford. Mr. Higgins differs from many advocates of object-lessons in thinking that it is better to place before scholars first, not the common things of their neighborhood which may have beauty, but a beauty overlooked because too near, but ‘‘ would take the large and beautiful exotic shell, Pinna, with its byssus of glossy silk, and the fashionable-colored gloves made of this material, and, after operating with these, would require the class to bring a large cluster of common sea-mussels, and would make the children find the silk-byssus.’? His idea ap- pears to be, that the advantage of a child’s being interested in a novel sight is not to be thrown away by disappointing him with a toad, and then showing him that he does not know all about toads. 614 Ar the April meeting of the Royal astro- nomical society, Mr. Tupman announced that Dr. Arthur Auwers of Berlin had communi- cated to the society a paper on the chain of meridian distances, measured around the earth, between 1831 and 1836, in H. M.S. Beagle. Capt. Fitzroy was in command of the Beagle at that time, when she set out from Bahia, and went round the world, returning to that point. In working out the results, his selection of the chronometers upon which he based his deter- minations was somewhat arbitrary ; and he found that the successive differences of longi- tude round the world, when added together, differed from twenty-four hours by thirty-four seconds. Capt. Fitzroy did not attempt to improve upon this; and the work has been left in that state until now, when Dr. Auwers has taken it up, and discussed anew all the chro- nometer-work on board the Beagle, using as the primary meridians those which have been correctly determined since, and correcting in this manner all the longitudes which resulted from the discussion of Capt. Fitzroy. Dr. Auwers’s paper will be published in the Monthly notices of the society; and, as Fitz- roy’s longitudes have been to a great extent relied upon by the Hydrographic office in the construction of maritime charts, many of which are in use at the present day, the work of Dr. Auwers will be of great value in giving more accurate determinations of the longitude of distant islands than were before available. WHEN one passes through some sleepy New- England village, and has pointed out to him a building as the academy at which his grand- father or great-uncle once learned his Latin grammar, he wonders how his uncle, now sell- ing stocks on Wall Street, or pleading before the full bench in Washington, or hoeing corn in Kansas, and this quiet building, should have come together, and why they parted, — an academy, a square building, with hip-roof, a belfry in the centre, and coated with paint of that sobered tone derived of a mortgage. There are no little uncles running about the building now ; the chief life, or it might be said SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 68. the soul, of the structure, existing in the records of the school (the newest quite yellow), the deed of the land, and an expired insurance- policy on the building, — a crumpled bundle of papers in the desk of the village doctor and only resident graduate, an enthusiast on the school, puffed with pride at his own success as a wiseacre. Such is the dead or dying academy, of which each town can produce its sample. A few, a half-dozen, still flourish, thanks to a rather more liberal endowment, or the fortunate cir- cumstance of a long run of successful masters. Just at present there are some stirring the old bones to find those that may show sufficient signs of life to warrant an attempt at resus- citation, —a revival of interest possibly due as much as any thing to the restlessness of human nature, not contented with the high- school system developed as far as may be for the present. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. The faults of south-western Virginia. WHILE engaged in making a series of cross-sections in the above region in 1880, I had very frequent op- portunity to study the structure of the faults; and, as a result, I reached certain conclusions, which may be of interest. A conspicuous feature, which is of general, if not universal, occurrence along the line of faults, wher- ever exposed, is an angular fold, as in fig. ‘1. An excellent section, showing its manner of occur- rence, is found at the mouth of Russel Creek, a tribu- tary of Clinch River. It is given in fig. 2, where, at a, coal-measures occur nearly horizontal and undis- turbed; at b the millstone grit is standing vertically, forming an obstruction to the creek, and giving rise to perhaps the loftiest and most picturesque fall in the region; xy is the fault-plane (seen in the vicinity), to the left of which the Knox limestone (c) shows a dip closely conforming to that of the fault-plane. Other examples might be given, but the above will sufficiently illustrate the general character. At first I regarded them as a result of the faulting, produced by friction along the fault-plane; but further observation led me to the opinion that they preceded, and determined the location of, the faults. I was first led to this opinion by finding a fold, much like fig. 1, finely exposed in the line of a small fault at one — end, where the displacement had diminished it little or nothing. Other reasons for so thinking are, 1°, that, although — of such general occurrence in connection with the — faults as to suggest a very important relation between — the two, they are not dependent on the faults, since alo) ele 4 a i 4 re May 23, 1884.] they occur abundantly out of the vicinity of faults; 2°, that the fault-plane, wherever exposed, shows such a dip (about 45°) as it would naturally have if deter- mined by one of the angles of the fold; 3°, that the angles of the flexure form a line of least resistance, along which displacement would certainly occur, did any force tend to produce it; 4°, that numerous in- dications in this region point to great superficial tension. Lie Ze I think all of the above reasons will sufficiently explain themselves except the last, in illustration of which I give a very interesting section occurring in the region known as New Garden, in Russel county. In the plan, fig. 3, x y is the line of Clinch-Mountain fault, from which a short fault, ¢ d, goes off at right angles, on one side of which, F, the coal-measures are nearly horizontal and undisturbed. On the other side the strata are pressed into a fold, as shown in the section, fig. 4, where x y is the fault-plane; E, the subcarboniferous limestone; b, the Knox limestone; and a, the coal-measures forming the crest of a lofty mountain. There are no signs of igneous action along any of the faults, unless the evidences of ancient thermal springs along the line of Walkers Mountain fault be so regarded. These indications are, 1°, the band of gypsum, which for many miles skirts the fault on its south-east or upthrow side, at a distance of about a half or three-fourths of a mile from the fault- line (it is the same as that’mentioned by Mr. Bien in Science, April 18, but does not, as he seems to surmise, enter Burk’s Garden, which is some distance away on the opposite side of the fault); 2°, the Salt- ville basin, the bottom of which ‘is, by estimate, not less than two hundred feet below the bed of Holston River, the excavation of which in the limestone must be accounted for by other agencies than ordinary river-erosion; besides, its structure is such as to render it improbable that it ever formed a portion of a river- valley. In conclusion, if there were, as assumed, an increase of tension by lateral pressure toward the surface, SCIENCE. 615 disturbances of strata would begin near the surface, resulting in sharp folds of the character described, which, in turn, would determine the locality of the faults, the tendency of which would be to extend progressively downward. G. H. SQUIER. Trempealeau, Wis., May 10. Assumptions of museum-keepers. In Mr. Goode’s interesting summary of ‘ The ex- ploring voyage of the Challenger,’ I notice a para- graph that merits attention. Recalling the fact that the deep-sea fishes have been in Dr. Gunther’s hands ‘now eight years,’ and lamenting the delay in pub- lishing the results, he very justly says, that ‘‘ the pre- liminary descriptions published in 1878 are so meagre as to be nearly useless to any one except their author,” and immediately adds, that ‘‘ the type specimens them- selves will, of course, be inaccessible for comparison until the final report is in type’’ (Science, iii. p. 580). Had it not been for private information with which I had been favored, I might have supposed that the concluding paragraph was an example of what has been called ‘heterophemy,’ and that my excellent friend had intended to say that the type specimens themselves will, of course, be accessible for compari- son. It was, however, with the greatest astonishment that I learned, some months ago, that access had been denied to the collection in question by Dr. Gunther, and that, for instance, an eminent and accomplished European ichthyologist, on a visit to England, had been refused the right of examination. I say advisably right rather than privilege ; for I had always believed that the British museum was a public institution, sup- ported by liberal grants from the nation, and created to facilitate and promote scientific investigation, and not intended for personal aggrandizement, or to up- hold any officer in petty spite. On what possible ground can Dr. Giinther withhold the opportunity for examination of any specimens in his keepership to any competent naturalist? It may be conceded, causdé argumenti, that he has a right to name any specimens, and, at any rate, the matter is of too small moment to question at present; but I do not know on what principle he can withhold a sight of any specimen for a day even. A naturalist has, doubtless, a right to keep his own collection, bought with his own money, secluded, and to deny the privilege of examining a specimen to any one, although I have more than once heard such a procedure designated by the forcible and expressive, even if inelegant, word, ‘hoggish;’ but such action is worse than illiberal, and becomes crim- inal, in the case of a public officer. It is criminal because it is a breach of trust; for the custodian is a keeper, employed and paid by the government to care for the collections amassed for the people. De- nial of the opportunity to examine such collections, under proper restrictions, may also, as intimated by Mr. Goode, result in the direct retardation or sup- pression of scientific activity. If Mr. Goode and my private information are correct in fact, the policy of the british museum, as interpreted by at least one of its officers, is petty, selfish, hindering to science, and subversive of public trust, or the officer exercis- ing such powers is criminal in monstrous usurpation of delegated authority. In any event, a protest is called for; and I, for one, do make protest against such and all similar restrictions. While constant clamor is made, in the nominal interest of ‘science,’ for appropriations to advance scientific investigation, we may at least demand that the trustees for handling such appropriations shall not become barnacles to prevent its healthy progress. THEO. GIMLt. Washington, May 10. 616 Hibernating mammals. An article on hibernating mammals, by Dr. C. C. Abbott, in Science, No. 65, contains several state- ments the correctness of which I am inclined to challenge. For example: Dr. Abbott says, ‘‘ Of the thirty or more mammals found here [central New Jersey], thirteen species are supposed to be hibernat- ing animals. These are four species of bats, two of moles, three squirrels, one ground squirrel, one mar- mot, one jumping-mouse, and one Hesperomys.”’ If it is true that the red squirrel, ‘two moles,’ and ‘one Hesperomys’ hibernate in the latitude of central New Jersey, the fact is sufficiently interest- ing and important to merit a detailed account of the evidence upon which an announcement seemingly so extraordinary and improbable is based. Further on, the doctor states that the common star- nosed moles ‘*‘ form commodious nests, placing a good deal of fine grass in them. Here, indifferent to fresh- ets, they remain all winter, and, as they can lay up no food, sleep, I suppose, through the entire season. The fact that these moles are unaffected by being submerged during the spring freshets is an interesting fact.’’ Here, it will be observed, the author not only asserts that the star-nosed moles ‘remain all win- ter’ in their nests; but, without adducing a single fact in proof, he even goes so far as to assume that they are ‘submerged during the spring freshets,’ and goes on to say, ‘‘I think that the animals must have been thoroughly soaked for from forty-eight to — seventy-two hours, the ordinary duration of the high water.’’ Now, itis a very easy matter for these semi- aquatic animals to betake themselves to higher ground when driven from their usual haunts by freshets; and this is exactly what usually takes place, as I have ascertained by personal observation. In the Adirondack region, where snow covers the ground for five or six months of the year, the star- nosed mole does not hibernate. At the approach of winter, it sinks its galleries below the depth to which frost penetrates, and still finds an abundance of earth- worms, which at all seasons constitute a large share of its food. When the snow has attained the depth of a metre or a metre and a half, as it commonly does here during January and February, the frost gradu- ally leaves the ground, and both moles and earth- worms again approach the surface. The moles sometimes burrow up through the snow; and I have captured them while running about on a stiff crust, through which they were unable to bore in time to make good their escape. The red squirrel is well known to be the hardiest of his family. Disdaining to hibernate, he remains active throughout the continuance of excessive cold. When fierce storms sweep over the land, he retires to his nest, to re-appear with the first lull in the wind, be the temperature never so low. I have frequently observed him when the thermometer ranged from 30° to 40° below zero, Centigrade, but could never see that he was troubled by the cold. While running on the snow, he often plunges down out of sight, tunnels a little distance, and, re-appearing, shakes the snow from his head and body, whisks his tail, and skips © along as lightly, and with as much apparent pleasure, as if returning from a bath in some rippling brook during the heat of a summer’s afternoon. Dr. Abbott, after commenting upon the fact that the jumping-mouse (Zapus Hudsonius) lays up no store of provision for winter, while the white-footed mouse (Hesperomys leucopus) invariably hoards, says, ““However this may be, the fact remains that both these rodents are quite sensitive to cold, and hiber- SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 68. nate as soon as winter sets in; yet how very differ- ently is this faculty exercised!”’ eh The white-footed mouse is the last animal of which I should say, ‘sensitive to cold.’ Like the red squirrel, it is one of the hardiest of rodents, and in our northern forests it remains active throughout the long and severe winters. It is not known to hiber- nate; and, except during very stormy weather, its footprints can always be seen, dotting the snow in various directions. If animals that are active in winter throughout the north-eastern part of the United States and much of British North America should be found hibernating in a mild climate like that of central New Jersey, the fact would be of unusual interest; but, since its acceptance must upset the well-known laws that govern the physiological process of hibernation, it becomes expedient to sift well the evidence upon which such statements rest. OC. HART MERRIAM. Experiments with reflections. The accompanying figures, though not perfectly accurate copies of photographs I have made, are at least truthful representations of reflections obtained from, 1°, rectilinear striations upon a polished plane; 2°, circular striations upon a disk; 38°, circular stri- ations upon a sphere. Fie. 1. In fig. 1 the direct rays from a luminous point, a, touching the rectilinear striations at b, return to the eye a brilliant reflection of the luminous point; the divergent rays at c, d, e, f, returning the same with decreasing brilliancy as the remoter striations are reached. Thus a band of light is reflected perpen- dicular to the striations, of uniform transverse diam- eter, and with an intenser luminosity at the central point. If the striations are upon a finely polished surface, the outline of the luminous point is pre- served in the reflection quite sharply, whether circu- lar or otherwise. If the striations are circular and concentric from circumference of a disk, —the centre of the disk, the light, and the eye oc- cupying the same plane, and the face of the disk perpendicular to it, — the reflection is two equal séc- tors, with their luminous apices united at the centre of the disk, as in fig. 2. The diameters of the in- tercepted arcs depend upon the angle formed by the incident and_ reflective rays. Variations of the light, disk, or eye, in posi- tion, produce every degree of difference between the two sectors. : If the striations are upon a polished sphere, and May 23, 1884.] are parallel with its equator, the axial extremities become well-defined poles. Place the equator of the sphere, the light, and the eye, in the same plane, and the axis of the sphere vertical to it. Make the reflective angle as acute as possible. The reflection is a central luminous point Fig. 3. Fie. 4. at the equator in a vertical band terminating acutely toward either pole, fig. 3. If the reflective angle is about 90°, the reflection is crescentic, fig. 4. When the sphere is placed remote from the light and the eye, with its axis inclined toward the light, the re- se is a luminous point at its proximal pole, g. 5. If the sphere is brought’ nearer the light, thus increasing the reflective angle, a short curved tail de- Fig 6. Hse. 5. velops, fig. 6. This increases in length as the sphere is approached to the light, until, at close proximity, a, in fig. 7, results. Removal of the reflecting surface at any latitude on the sphere interrupts the reflection, as atc, fig. 7. The interposition of a comparatively small opaque body before the light, when the inclined sphere is in very close proximity to the light, divides the reflection, — a, b, fig. 7. Multiple sources of light multiply the reflections, which describe different curves, all radiating from, though not always reach- Ing, the pole. The greater the sphere in relation to the source of light, the more perfectly the form of the luminous point is reflected. If circular, it appears as a disk or brilliant nucleus. The extension of the reflection toward the equator constitutes a diverging train or tail. Fig. 7. Fie. 8. Changes in the positions of the three factors pro- duce a limitless variety of figures, which are sugges- tive of various cometic forms: for instance, fig. 8, two opposite spherical sectors, the analogue of figs. 1 SCIENCE. 617 and 2, The resemblance of the reflections to cometic ap- pearances is increased if the striated reflecting sphere, with the inclined axis maintained, is made to describe about a light approximately the form of a comet’s orbit; then all the changes exhibited by a comet, from the first nebulous point to the fully-developed tail, are illustrated upon its surface, including the changes in the position of the tail in relation to the light, which occur during the small curve of a comet’s orbit. The reflections describe all the radii between a and }, fig.9. Itis surprising to what extent cometic behavior may be illustrated upon the polished spheres: position, elongation, abbreviation, disappearance, an- nular images, irregular images, are all quite possible. Fig. 9. If an hypothesis may be ventured, it is briefly this: if a sphere of meteoric dust of a diameter exceeding the greatest length of the comet’s train, having an axial rotation and inclination, does actually traverse the comet’s orbit, such a rotation would convert its superficial inequalities, varying densities, and possi- bly its individual atoms, in effect, into continuous striae, parallel with its equator; and such inclination would place it in position to reflect the images which comets display. Discussion of the hypothesis is re- served. Gro. O. WILLIAMS, M.D. Greene, N.Y. THE BIOLOGICAL INSTITUTE AT ; PHILADELPHIA. Not a few of the readers of Science are looking upon the new departure in biology in Philadelphia with high hopes that it may become one of our most valued possessions. They regard it as a new and therefore great opportunity. But they will be sadly disap- pointed if its officers give themselves up largely to merely routine teaching, or are satisfied in taking a position towards biological science in any large degree conservative. ‘The United States is a poor field, or is rapidly becoming so, for the perpetuation of ancient methods in one of the youngest and most vigorously grow- ing of the sciences. And if any one cares to profit by experience, let him reflect upon those steps, which, within ten years, have led up to one of our most valued institutions, — the Johns Hopkins university, — or to the al- most incredible success of the Naples station. Broadly speaking, their conditions of prosper- ity have been two, — on the one hand, money ; ’--on the other, methods. . is always absolutely indispensable; and this, ~—618 A firm financial basis we understand, the new department is to have in abundance. ‘The second requisite is equal- ly imperative. ‘The university just now men- tioned had abundant means; so had others before it: but it invoked new methods. ‘True, these seemed to some, at the outset, revolution- ary; but who can deny that they have been a success? It was because of this great im- portance of absolute freedom that some felt it to be safer for the new establishment in Philadelphia to steer clear of affiliations, how- ever exalted ; and it was for this reason alone. The advantages accruing to both the Universi- ty of Pennsylvania and the biological institute (or department), by union, are too obvious to need discussion; and both are to be con- gratulated, provided only that that liberty be granted which will insure the employment of the best methods. As to the exact line of work to be done, or the methods to be set going, we may safely trust to the discretion of the new faculty. Evidently, museum-work in the older sense, and elementary teaching by the older methods, may be neglected. And it will very likely be found true that great opportunities are embraced in the hunt for new methods of work, — in technique, —and especially in field-work at the sources of supply. The American mind is quick,.in- ventive, ingenious. Must it always go abroad to get new ‘points’? Let it, rather, come to prove its ingenuity by original biological meth- ods at home; then, with application of these at the sources of supply, —at the laboratory table, by the shores of the sea, by the river or the gulf, — we may solve those home problems which are most pressing. Itis not too much to say that the eyes of the biologists of Europe are upon us and upon our material. More- over, if, as is certain, the field is white for the harvest, need the reapers be few? or those few, Europeans? And let us by no means forget our greatest opportunity. In the variety of our environ- ments, and in the area of our country, we have conditions highly favorable for the study of ‘those final broader physiological problems which must eventually be the key to life-science as a whole. We wish the new biological department every possible success. THE ENEMIES AND PARASITES OF THE OYSTER, PAST AND PRESENT. Amone the worst enemies of the oyster of our Atlantic coast are the star-fishes; and SCIENCE. [Vou. III, No. 68. great numbers of them are usually found upon all oyster-beds, where they are committing depredations upon the mollusks. Itis‘anin- | teresting fact, however, that the remains of star-fishes are rarely found in connection with fossil oysters of any age, not even with ter- tiary oysters. The oyster family culminated in the cretaceous period, as regards generic differentiation. ‘The abundance of individuals was also as great then as it has ever been since ; and it is often the case that the remains of oysters are found in great profusion in both cretaceous@and tertiary strata. The creta- ceous strata of Texas have furnished a great abundance of the Ostreidae of every generic and subgeneric form known upon this conti- nent; and yet, among all the many collec- tions of fossils from those rocks which I have examined, I have never seen a fragment of a star-fish, although echinoids in considerable variety are not uncommon. Star-fishes very closely related to those now living upon our coast have been reported by Forbes from Jurassic strata, and I have recog- nized a similar form from the Neocomian of Brazil; but we have no evidence that star- fishes of any kind were ever a serious enemy to the oyster before the present epoch. The ancient star-fishes, no doubt, had the same propensities that their modern representatives have ; but they seem not to have obtained that preponderance then which they have since ac- quired. Burrowing sponges similar to, if not identi- cal with, the living Cliona, are of very ancient origin. The fossil shells of the ostreid genera Exogyra and Gryphaea, as well as those of Os- trea proper, are as commonly and completely ‘riddled’ by burrowing sponges as are any shells of the living oyster. Indeed, it is rare to find even a small collection of fossil oyster-shells free from such burrows. Other fossil shells besides those of the Ostreidae are found to have been thus infested, the burrows being in all respects the same as those which infest the oysters. Not only did Cliona exist abundantly with the Ostreidae of mesozoic time, but I have obtained evidence that it also existed in pale- ozoic time in essentially the same character that it has to-day. Several years ago I ob- tained from the Devonian strata of lowa some shells of the brachiopod genus Strophomena, which contain numerous Cliona-like burrows. These I submitted to Prof. A. E. Verrill, who informed me that in his opinion they are the ‘borings of a species of Cliona. C. A. WHITE. May 23, 1884.] A MOUND OF THE KANAWHA VALLEY. A mouND recently opened by Col. P. W. Norris, one of the assistants of the Bureau of ethnology, presents some facts of more than ordinary interest. It is situated on the farm of Col. B. H. Smith, near Charleston, W. Va., is conical in form, about a hundred and seventy-five feet in diameter at the base, and thirty-five feet high. It appears, in fact, to be double; that is to say, it consists of two mounds, one built.on the other, the lower or original one being twenty feet, and the upper fifteen feet, high. The exploration was made by sinking a shaft twelve feet square at the top, and narrowing gradually to six feet square at the bottom, down through the centre of the structure, to, and a short distance below, the original surface of the ground. After removing aslight cover- ing of earth, an irregular mass of large, rough, flat sandstones, evidently brought from the bluffs half a mile distant, was encountered. Some of these sandstones were a good load for two ordinary men. The removal of a wagon-load or so of these stones brought to light a stone vault seven feet long and four feet deep, in the bottom of which was found a large and much-decayed human skeleton, but wanting the head, which the most careful examination failed to discover. -A sin- gle rough spear-head was the only accompany- ing article found in this vault. At the depth of six feet, in earth similar to that around the base of the mound, was found a second, also much-decayed, skeleton, an adult of ordinary size. At nine feet a third skeleton was ‘encoun- tered, in a mass of loose, dry earth, surrounded by the remains of a bark coffin. This was in a much better state of preservation than the other two. The skull, which was preserved, is of the compressed or ‘ flat-head ’ type. For some three or four feet below this, the earth was found to be mixed with ashes. At this depth, in his downward progress, Col. Norris began to encounter the remains of what further excavation showed to have been a tim- ber vault, about twelve feet square and seven or eight feet high. From the condition in which the remains of the cover were found, he concludes that this must have been roof-shaped, and, having become decayed, was crushed in by the weight of the addition made to the mound. Some of the walnut timbers of this vault were as much as twelve inches in diameter. In this vault were found five skeletons, — one lying prostrate on the floor at the depth of nineteen feet from the top of the mound, and SCIENCE. 619 four others, which, from the positions in which they were found, were supposed to have been placed standing in the four corners. The first of these was discovered at the depth of four- teen feet, amid a commingled mass of earth and decaying bark and timbers, nearly erect, leaning against the wall, and surrounded by the remains of a bark coffin. All the bones, except those of the left fore-arm, were too far decayed to be saved: these were preserved by two very heavy copper bracelets which yet surrounded them. The skeleton found lying in the middle of the floor of the vault was of unusually large size, ‘* measuring seven feet six inches in length, and nineteen inches between the shoulder-sock- ets.’’ It had also been enclosed in a wrapping or coffin of bark, remains of which were still distinetly visible. It lay upon the back, head east, legs together, and arms by the sides. There were siz heavy bracelets on each wrist ; four others were found under the head, which, together with a spear-point of black flint, were incased in a mass of mortar-like substance which had evidently been wrapped in some tex- tile fabric. On the breast was a copper gorget. In each hand were three spear-heads of black flint, and others about the head, knees, and feet. Near the right hand were two hematite celts ; and on the shoulder, three large and thick plates of mica. About the shoulders, waist, and thighs were numerous minute perforated shells and shell beads. STEATITE PIPE FOUND NEAR CHARLESTON, W. VA. The gorget is precisely of the pattern repre- sented in fig. 12, p. 100, Fifteenth report of the Peabody museum. The bracelets are very heavy, and, like the gorget, have the appear- ance of having been hammered out of native copper. While filling up the shaft, Col. Norris dis- covered, in the dirt which had been removed from it, a steatite pipe, represented in the ac- companying figure. It is worthy of note, that this pipe is precisely of the form of some found recently in the mounds of western North Caro- lina, and agrees exactly with the description, given by Adair, of pipes made by the Chero- kees. Cyrus THomas. 620. THE ICHTHYOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES OF THE BASSALIAN FAUNA. Tue author recalled the fact that he had recently proposed the name ‘ Bassalian realm ’ for the collective deep-sea faunas. At indefi- nite distances below the surface, deepest in the tropics, we find strange forms of animal life, which differ not only specifically and generi- cally from those of the superincumbent water, as well as from those of the cold extremes of the globe, but often represent quite distinct families. Those forms which live at moderate depths (existing, as they do, in cold water) are SCIENCE. [Vou. III.,. No. 68. mary of our knowledge of the fishes of the deep sea has been given by Dr. Gunther, in his ‘Introduction to the study of fishes’ (pp. 296-311). According to Dr. Gunther, ‘* before the voyage of H. M.S. Challenger, scarcely thirty deep-sea fishes were known. ‘This num- ber is now much increased by the discovery of many new species and genera; but, singularly, no new types of families were discovered : nothing but what might have been expected from our previous knowledge of this group of fishes ’’ (p. 304). Dr. Gunther evidently for- got that he had himself proposed to distin- guish a peculiar family (Bathythrissidae) for EURYPHARYNX PELECANOIDES. related to, or even belong to, the polar faunas ; but, as we go still deeper, we find various other assemblages of animals. Those of the lowest horizons are often wonderfully modified ; and the deep-sea explorations of recent years have brought to light many very peculiar forms. Not the least remarkable of the several animal types, and in some respects the most remark- able, are the fishes. The only extended sum- 1 Abstract of a paper by Dr. THEODORE GILL, read to the National academy of sciences, April 17, 1884. [The investigations carried on in connection with the French exploring-vessel Le Travailleur appear to confirm, as well as supplement, the results heretofore attained. Some of the new species have already been illustrated, and we here introduce figures of representatives of three of the most characteristic of the deep-sea types. These are Eurypharynx pelecanoides (the type of the family Eurypharyngidae and order Lyomeri), Macru- rus australis (a form of the widely distributed and rich family Macruridae), and Melanocetus Johnsoni (a representative of the deep-sea pediculate family of Ceratiidae). Additional figures will be found in another article in this number. — ED. | a deep-sea fish obtained by the Challenger ; and his generalization otherwise will not bear the test of confronting with the facts known even to him, much less those now known. In fact, the deep-sea fauna is surprisingly rich in peculiar forms of fishes; and no less: than twenty-eight families are either confined en- tirely to the deep sea, or represented elsewhere by mere stragglers. Three new family types were obtained during the past year. Further, two orders, the Lyomeri and the Carencheli, are only known from deep-sea representatives. The families that have been already distin- guished for the deep-loving fishes are twenty- eight in number.” Several of these have been 2 Saccopharyngidae, Eurypharyngidae, Synaphobranchidae, Simenchelyidae, Nemichthyidae, Derichthyidae, N. otacanthidae, Tpnopidae, Chauliodontidae, Stomiatidae, Paralepididae, Alepi- a May 23, 1884. ] SCIENCE. 621] greatly increased of late. Probably other families require to be differentiated for certain that (Introduction, p. 804), ‘‘ as far as the ob- servations go at present, no distinct bathymet- Linh ih TM —— _—<——Sss= ARS Wass 2 MACRURUS AUSTRALIS. peculiar forms; and, of course, numerous fam- ilies, known from littoral fishes, have deep-sea representatives. It is obvious, then, that we rical regions which would be characterized by peculiar forms can be defined,’’ and that, *¢if the vertical range of deep-sea fishes is actually have, in such an aggre- gate, a combination of forms very different from any of the super- ficial faunas we have heretofore considered. We will be justified, therefore, in recogniz- ing for them a special realm, which has been called ‘Bassalia’ or the ‘ Bassalian realm.’ But caution is timely that it seems to be rather a heterogeneous one, and may hereaf- ter require restriction. The data now available are insufficient, how- ever, for differentiating what are, doubtless, the several constitu- ents or regions of this realm. Dr. Gunther has even expressed the opinion, saurididae, Alepocephalidae, Bathylagidae, Halosauridae, Bathythrissidae, Regalecidae, Trachy pteridae, Lophotidae, Chiasmodontidae, Stephanoberycidae, Berycidae, Grammicolepi- didae, Polymixiidae, Lycodidae, Brotulidae, Macruridae, and Ceratiidae, MELANOCETUS JOHNSONI. as it appears from the Challenger lists, then there is no more dis- tinct vertical than hori- zontal distribution of deep-sea fishes’? (op. cit., p. 305). There are reasons for beliey- ing that these generali- zations are at least ex- aggerated ; but it may be well to await the col- lection of more mate- rial, and the collation of more extensive data, before reversing them. Four factors must de- termine the bathymet- rical distribution of fishes: (1) tempera- ture, (2) the decrease and final absence of light, (3) the concomi- tant paucity or absence of vegetation, and (4) the pressure of the water. The relative importance of these sey- eral factors still remains to be studied, and their results discriminated. The absence of vegetable life confines the animal life to car- 622 nivorous forms; and many of the fishes are pre-eminent for formidable armature, and some for extraordinary modifications for obtaining food. SMITH SOUND, AND ITS EXPLORA- TION. A MORE opportune moment could not have been selected by Dr. Bessels for publishing? a condensa- tion of the literature relating to Smith Sound. Add- ed to the interest which arctic narrative has always possessed, is the concern felt for Lieut. Greely and his party, and the hopes and fears awakened by the de- parture of the expedition for his relief. Many per- sons will therefore be glad to learn something of the region, which, with all its terrors and hardships, has been sufficiently attractive to again and again induce men to risk life and limb in the attempt to penetrate its mysteries. For that class of readers, Dr. Bessels’ paper was, possibly, originally designed. But in re- lating the history of the more recent expeditions, especially those carried on under the auspices of the signal-office, the author has been so severe in his criticisms and reflections, that his production, while possessing the faults, has likewise the interest, of a polemic. Paragraphs like the following will certainly not fail in attracting attention for want of severity. ‘““This plan, termed the Howgate plan, was devoid of all sound originality. The valuable parts of it are based on the work of Hayes and Weyprecht; the rest, emanating from the brain of Lieut. Henry W. Howgate, bears testimony that the originator of the ‘Howgate plan’ was not familiar with even the rudiments of arctic exploration” (p. 414). ‘* Lady Franklin Bay should have been the last place cho- sen aS a permanent or temporary station”’ (p. 416). ‘“‘That this plan [Howgate or Signal-service plan] would lead to disaster was pointed out by myself and others at an early date; but the judgment of the chief signal-officer in arctic matters was considered supreme, and upon him rests the responsibility of its failure. Several names comunected with the signal- office will not easily be forgotten in arctic history ’”’ (p. 418). ‘The Proteus is now at the bottom of the sea; and all the arguments I could offer would not be able to raise her, or to relieve the ice-bound party in Lady Franklin Bay. The person responsible for the disaster is the chief signal-officer’’ (p. 435). ‘‘ The preceding paragraph embodies the substance of his (Garlington’s) instructions, as given and signed by W. B. Hazen, Brig. and Bvt. Maj. Gen’), chief sig- nal-officer, U. S. A.” (p. 481). ‘“It clearly shows that those who wrote Garlington’s orders were ut- terly ignorant of the nature and character of the country to be traversed”’ (p. 436). Other quotations might be made, which would show that the signal-service is not alone censured. The explorations of Sir John Ross and Hayes, and the conduct of Buddington, are all criticised more or less severely. Ross and Hayes are dead, and can 1 Proceedings of the U. S. naval institute, vol. x., no. 3. SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 68. make no reply; Buddington, according to Bessels, is not proficient in the art of writing, and we can expect nothing from him. But Gen. Hazen has a pen, which he has at times used with considerable effect; and it is possible that he may see fit to raise the low temperature of the present controversy to a height not at all in accordance with the normal of arctic literature. But, on the whole, the strictures upon the signal- service expeditions appear to be just and proper. The folly of intrusting the organization and details of an arctic exploring-party to a board composed of persons without special experience, has been forcibly brought to notice by the failure of both relief expe- ditions; and possibly it will be made more prominent when we know more of Lieut. Greely’s situation and experiences. That such a board should advise many unwise things, and propose schemes and plans more or less impracticable, was in the nature of things. But that success should be expected from nautical expeditions to the polar seas, which were commanded by persons not only without arctic expe- rience, but ignorant of the art of navigation and the management of ships, seems incredible. Certainly Greely’s party, as well as those undertaking his relief, should have had the benefit of the best arctic and nautical experience, assistance, and advice. That they did not have it is evidently the fault of the originators of the Lady Franklin Bay plan, and the devisers of the details of its execution. But, while careful to point out the errors in origi- nation and execution of the signal-service expedi- tions, Dr. Bessels appears to entirely overlook the fact that the Polaris expedition, of which he was a member, was so constituted as to invite, if not in- sure, failure. Hall, its commander, though of great arctic experience, was entirely ignorant of ships, their management, navigation, and capabilities. He was also entirely an uncultivated man, and little fitted to observe or study phenomena in their scien- tific aspects. His sole qualification for the direction of a polar expedition was his enthusiasm and interest in arctic exploration. To supply his deficiencies, the Polaris party was peculiarly organized. The care and management of the ship were in the hands of Buddington. The scientific corps was under the di- rection of Dr. Bessels. Hall was to supply the steam necessary to run this rather complicated machinery. Naturally, from such an organization, continual con- troversy was to be expected; and controversy, under the circumstances, would necessarily seriously affect the success of the undertaking. But the instructions issued by'the Navy department provided, that, in case of Hall’s death, the control of future operations should be shared by Buddington and Bessels; the former being supreme as far as the vessel was con- cerned, the latter equally supreme in the direction of matters on shore. the possibilities were, that either scientific observa- tions would be sacrificed to the supposed interests of — the vessel, or that the real interests and safety of the - vessel would be sacrificed to a supposed necessity for Such a provision could but — tend to a failure in all respects. During Hall’s life May 23, 1884.] » making additional scientific observations. The most likely course to be pursued would be the subordina- tion of both science and safety to Hall’s dominant motive, —the desire to reach ahigh latitude. In the event of his death, the foregoing possibilities would become probabilities, if not actual certainties. It should never be forgotten, when attempting to de- termine the relative values of the organizations of the several polar expeditions, that the success of the Polaris was entirely due to unprecedented good for- tune, and not at all to good management, or extraor- dinary judgment in encountering and overcoming obstacles. Had serious difficulties occurred at the outset, for instance such as the English expedition had to contend with, it is probable that geographical knowledge would not have been advanced to any important extent. The principal defect to be noticed in Dr. Bessels’ paper is a want of appreciation of the laws of literary and historical perspective. Quite unconsciously, per- haps, he exaggerates the importance of events with which he was personally associated. As an instance, the narrative of the Polaris’ voyage is detailed at ex- traordinary length, occupying some thirty pages of the paper; while the history of the late English ex- pedition, by far the most important of all, occupies but fourteen pages. In fact, an ice-hummock seen by the Polaris appears to be of more consequence than an iceberg seen from any one vessel; and an oath of Buddington’s more worthy of chronicle than the most animated descriptions of Kane, Hayes, or Nares. This is a very serious fault in an historical writer, and cannot be too severely reprehended. Generally speak- ing, it tends to render the style of the publication un- dignified, and the substance trivial. But it is only fair to remember that Dr. Bessels is writing of cir- cumstances of an exceptional nature; that he is re- lating much that is new, and which to most persons is rather secret than general history; that he was in- timately and prominently connected with the events of which he writes; and that the facts have not, here- tofore, been presented from his particular point of view. The faults of the paper are therefore excus- able, while the merits would counterbalance them even were they not. The history of two hundred and sixty years of arctic exploration, so far as it re- lates to Smith Sound, has been condensed into a vol- ume of a hundred and fifteen pages, accessible to any one. The voyages of the various discoverers, begin- ning with Baffin and Bylot, and ending with Garling- tou, have been analyzed with a care that indicates the expenditure of considerable labor. The result wil! be a better appreciation of the work of the older navigators, which Dr. Bessels shows to have been more accurate than was to be expected, and strong- ly contrasting with that of some of their succes- sors, notably Dr. Hayes. Indeed, considering the light thrown on the geography of this region by the observations of the Polaris, Nares, and Proteus ex- peditions, it is very difficult to understand how Dr. Hayes could have asserted the existence of the open polar sea. But Dr. Bessels has shown how it was possible for the mistake to be made. In his opinion, SCIENCE. §23 and he brings strong evidence to support it, Hayes never reached a latitude above 80°. If this be true, then we can understand why Hayes, looking, as he must have done, across Kane’s basin, should have im- agined that he saw an open sea. No other plausible explanation can be given; for, had he been north of Cape Collinson with an atmosphere sufficiently clear for observations, he could not have failed to see the opposite coast of Greenland, only thirty miles distant. In discussing the scientific results, Dr. Bessels might have gone more into detail without fear of incurring displeasure, for the scientific results are the most valuable products of the various arctic ex- peditions. He is of the opinion that the general set of the currents is to the southward, and that there are no data supporting the theory of an extension of the Gulf Stream to these high latitudes. He calls atten- tion to the fact that the ice met by the Polaris was of a different character from that encountered by the English expedition, and points out the causes which would prevent the latter formation from being contin- uous. He says, ‘‘ There is no reason to assume that the ice-cover of the sea in close vicinity to the north pole should be more dense and impenetrable than its lower latitudes.’? He is also of the opinion that land in some shape exists to the northward of Mark- ham’s highest position, basing his opinion upon the soundings and character of the ice in that latitude. This latter assumption may or may not be true; but it will not, in all probability, be removed from the domain of hypothesis for some time to come. Finally, Dr. Bessels does not consider Greely’s situation as dangerous, and is of the opinion that the party remained at Lady Franklin Bay during the past winter, and will be found in the vicinity of Littleton Island about the end of June. He adds some advice regarding the conduct of the relief ex- pedition, which appears judicious; and, considering the experience of the author, it should have great weight. The impression left after reading the paper, while not exactly prejudicial to arctic expeditions, is cer- tainly opposed to them as some have been heretofore constituted. Their value really lies in the opportunity they afford scientific observers to study phenomena out of the usual range. Unfortunately this end has always been subordinated to a desire to reach the north pole, or an effort to rescue those who had gone forth on that rather barren quest. Without doubt, had not most arctic expeditions been animated by those dominant motives, the results would have been of far more consequence. Certainly future ex- peditions should be guarded against the operation of similar influences. THE DEEP-SEA FISHES COLLECTED BY ME TALISMAN.* In the cruises made by the Travailleur, the explor- ing-instruments left much to desire, and the taking of fish was so rare, that, as Mr. Milne-Edwards said 1 Translated from an article by H. FrtHouin Za Nature. Kicg. 1.— NEOSTOMA BATHYPHILUM. in his report, the capture of one of these creatures ‘was considered really an event.’ During the cruise of the Talisman, thanks to that new invention, the trawl, they were taken more frequently. Almost all the dredgings resulted in the capture of some fish, and sometimes the number brought up was surpris- ing. For instance: on the 29th of July, in latitude 16° 52’, longitude 27° 30’, in one drag of the trawl, 1,031 fishes were taken, at a depth of 450 metres. The most interesting surface fishes taken were a large shark, and a fish of small size peculiar to the Sargasso Sea, Antennarius marmoratus bl. Sch. Sharks (Carcharias glaucus) were found especially between Senegal and the Cape Verde Islands. They followed our ship in schools, and we often saw them accompanied by their ‘ pilots,’ — fishes known among the ancients as Pompilius, and, by naturalists of the present time, as Naucrates ductor. It seems that Naucrates acts as a guide for the sharks, and that the latter, in recognition of its services, never pursue it. It is certain that the Naucrates which we saw lived in perfect harmony with the sharks. They swam around them, and sometimes leaned against them, within the pectoral fin. These fishes, which much resemble mackerel, are bluish gray, darkening toward the back; broad vertical stripes of a beautiful blue encircle their bodies; the pectoral fins are white, the ventral ones black, while the tail is of a blue shade. We found this species of shark in the Sargasso Sea. In the midst of the floating vegetation of the Sar- gasso Sea, the second species peculiar to the surface- water, noticed at the beginning of this article, Antennarius marmoratus, is one of the strangest ani- mals we observed. Its back is furnished with long appendages; and its fins, elongated and broadened at the ends, and digitated, form a sort of feet by means of which it circulates among the seaweed which shelters it. It builds a nest, joining, by means of strong mucous threads, balls of the seaweed on which it deposits its eggs. These balls float, tossed about by the waves; and, when the young are born, they probably find a safe home within. This fish, like all the animals of the Sargasso Sea, crustaceans and. mollusks, is of the same color as the Algae: it has, as it were, assumed their livery. The color of the body, spotted with brown and yellow and white, harmonizes perfectly with the surroundings; and it is only by careful scrutiny that it is discovered. It is evident that this similarity in color is to allow the animals easily to conceal themselves, and thus escape their enemies. But, as Mr. Milne Edwards observes, if this livery is a protection to the ani- mals possessing it, it becomes in certain cases a dan- ger for them; for, owing to it, the carnivorous species which have assumed it can very easily approach their prey without fear of being seen. The fishes from the deep sea taken on board of the Talisman include a considerable number of genera and species. An examination of them discloses a series of general facts of great interest. The first question which is suggested to one who studies them is this: are there genera and species of fishes charac- teristic of bottoms of certain depths? that is, are different faunas found at one, two, three, four, and five thousand metres? This question may be an- swered in the affirmative, for the dredgings show that the distribution of certain forms is limited. Many examinations were necessary to reach this con- _ clusion, on account of the strange circumstance that certain species are found at a depth of from 600 to MAY 23, 1884.] almost 3,000 metres. Thus a fish showing the same organic structure is capable of living under pressures varying from a half-ton to one and two tons, and even more. It may be asked how it is that there are forms characteristic of certain depths; for, with zones of distribution of so great extent, it would seem that abyssal faunas should remain the same. The expla- nation of this singular fact is, that fishes which are found at a depth of from 600 to 3,600 metres do not dwell continuously in the same locality: they are travellers, rising and descending in turns into the abysses of the sea; and, when they make these jour- neys, they go slowly, so that they can endure the slow expansion and contraction. I will notice a few spe- cies which have made known to us these wonderful voyages. We found Alepocephalus rostratus between 868 and 8,650 metres, Scopelus maderensis between 1,090 and 3,655 metres, Lepioderma macrops between 1,153 and 3,655 metres, Macrurus affinis between 590 and 2,220 metres; the depth of distribution for these four species varying by 2,782, 2,561, 2,502, and 2,000 metres. JI could mention other cases, but those cited will suffice to show that the organization of fishes of certain depths is such that it is capable of sustaining enormous weights without suffering. The structures of the fishes just mentioned have nothing special which attracts attention, and distinguishes them from fishes living near the surface. Their teeth are well SCIENCE. 625 developed, this peculiarity showing that they are car- nivorous (fig. 1). All fishes which live continuously at a depth greater than 600 metres are carnivorous. This results from the fact, that, with the absence of light, vegetation quickly disappears at the bottom, and consequently all the species which do not rise to within 150 metres of the surface, the point where the last Algae are found, are obliged to hunt for food. Fig. 2 shows a cut of one of these fishes, Macrurus globiceps, whose depth of distribution is between 1,400 and 3,000 metres. If the fishes which transiently visit great depths do not show peculiarities in form, this is not the case with those which continuously inhabit deep waters. This ought not to surprise us, for the structure of these animals must suffer important modifications before being adapted to these peculiar conditions of life. Various influences act upon these fishes. Light and vegetation are wanting. Beyond a certain depth the temperature of the surrounding water tends to become equalized, and the water in which they live is always calm. The modifications due to these cir- cumstances affect the structure of the tissues, the size of the eyes, the development of the sense of touch, and the color. Moreover, these fishes possess organs which ordinary fishes do not possess. Their function is to emit phosphorescent light, and thus to supply the light which is lacking. Fig. 2. — MACRURUS GLOBICEPS. 626 The changes undergone by the tissues are seen in the structure of the skin, muscles, and bones. The skin is thin, and destitute of bright colors, the shades varying from grayish to velvet black (fig. 3). The scales, often much reduced in size, are weakly at- tached, and the friction which they experience dur- ing the ascent of the trawl removes almost all of them. The muscles have little resistance, and, being without flavor, the fish are not edible. ‘The bones are friable, and spongy inside. In fishes living continuously at a depth to which a little light penetrates, the eyes are quite large in SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 68 ofafisherman. This fact has been verified, long since, in the case of surface fishes which hunt at night. Thus Bennett describes a species of shark remarka- ble for a bright green phosphorescence, which is emitted from the whole lower portion of its body. This learned zodlogist one day brought one of these fishes into a dark room, which was immediately illu- minated by its body. The light is increased neither by motion nor by rubbing. After the shark’s death, the light from the stomach first disappeared. The jaws and the fins were the last to retain the phospho- rescence. The various sharks found only at a depth Kic. 3.— EUSTOMIAS OBSCURUS. order to present a larger sensitive surface. This fact recalls what we notice in crepuscular birds, whose visual organs are also much developed. Among fishes at a great depth, this increase of the size of the eye is not observed. These organs are of normal size, and possess nothing peculiar, either in their position or structure. Their function in absolute darkness seems at first almost incomprehensible. When, how- ever, one recognizes the fact that these animals pos- sess phosphorescent plates, or, rather, that they are covered by a luminous mucous coating capable of lighting a considerable space, the explanation is found. This phosphorescence serves partly to guide them, and partly to attract prey. It serves, in the latter case, the same purpose as a torch in the hand of two thousand metres, of which several specimens were taken by the Talisman off the coast of Portu- gal, must, like the fish of which Bennett spoke, use the light which they emit to attract the fishes on which they feed. What is the origin of this mucous coating, which is thus able to shed so bright light ? It must be due to the existence of glandular organs, scattered along the sides and the tail, near the eyes on the head, and sometimes more sparsely on the back. But, besides these glandular follicles, certain fishes have apparatus of a quite different kind, which emits light. These organs consist of a sort of bicon- vex transparent lens, closing externally a chamber filled with transparent liquid. This chamber is fur- nished with a membrane of black color, formed of May 23, 1884.] little hexagonal cells, much resembling the retina: it is connected with the nerves. These phospho- rescent plates are placed either below the eyes, or on the sides of the body. In the Talisman exhibition- rooms, Malacosteus niger (fig. 4) may be seen, caught 1,500 and 2,000 metres below the surface, with enor- mous plates below the eyes, and Stomias, found at the same depth, with side-plates. Several zodlogists have considered the last-mentioned organs as second- ary eyes, in consequence of the retina-like membrane which covers them, and on account of its connection with the nerves. This view is difficult to admit, when the normal development of the eyes is taken into account; and it seems much more reasonable to Suppose that they serve simply to produce light, which, owing to the lens in front, may be brought to a focus at a certain point. SCIENCE. 627 The tentacle, which is in continual motion, serves as bait to attract fishes on which it springs. Other very peculiar transformations of the rays of the fins into organs of touch may be seen in various fishes taken on board the Talisman. Bathypterois is especially worthy of mention. Among the most singular tactile organs we noticed in these fishes, that of Eustomias obscu- rus, immediately below the mouth, is to be mentioned. This new genus is shown in fig. 3. One of the most remarkable peculiarities of fishes living in very deep water is the great development of the mouth and the stomach. In Melanocetus and Chiasmodus, the capa- city of the latter organ is such that it can contain prey whose size is double that of the body of the fish. As to the proportions assumed by the mouth, the greatest development is shown by Eurypharynx pele- canoides (see figure, p. 620). Fig. 4. —MALACOSTEUS NIGER. Fishes at a great depth seem to move very little. They evidently live buried in the ooze, for one in- variably notices bits of lime on their bodies. Often several fin-rays, instead of performing their usual duty, become organs of touch. One of the most re- markable examples of this is shown by a fish caught on the coast of Africa, the Melanocetus Johnsoni (see figure, p. 621). In this animal, which was known only by a single specimen found dead on the surface near Madeira, the first ray of the dorsal fin was devel- oped, and formed a forward projecting true organ of touch, serving the same purpose as that of the goose- fish. In the latter fish there also exists a tentacle at the extremity of the first ray of the dorsal fin. The goose-fish lives in the sand, or ooze, where, by means of its fins, it makes a cavity in which it entombs it- self, thrusting out only the upper part of its body. One of the most interesting questions concerning the distribution of fish relates to the maximum depth at which these animals are met. On the Talisman, the fish caught at the greatest depth was Bythites crassus: it was brought up from a depth of 4,255 metres. The Challenger obtained a fish, Bathyophis ferox, at 5,019 metres. [Mr. T. H. Bean, curator of fishes in the U.S. national museum, has furnished the following notes on the fishes obtained at the greatest depth by the Albatross, in a letter addressed to Professor Baird, and kindly placed by him at oursdisposal.— Ep. | The greatest depth explored by the Albatross was 2,949 fathoms (5,394 metres), which was found Oct. 2, 1883, in north latitude 37° 12’ 20’, and west lon- gitude 69° 39’. Five species of fishes, representing ag 528 SCIENCE. as many distinct families, were obtained in this haul. They are the following: Cyclothone lusca Goode and Bean, Scopelus Milleri Gmel., ? Aleposomus Copei Gill, an undescribed alepocephalid with scaleless body and head, Mancalias uranoscopus Murray, and Plectropomus crassiceps Goode and Bean MS. The species obtained at the greatest depth by the Challenger was Gonostoma microdon Giinther, which was obtained by the trawl from 2,900 fathoms (5,304 metres), in north latitude 35° 22’, and east longitude 169° 53’. There may be reason to doubt, with Dr. Ginther, the pertinence of Gonostoma microdon to this ex- treme depth; and the same may be said of our very closely related Cyclothone lusca (a species which is at least congeneric with G. microdon), especially as we have it from depths varying between 552 and 5,394 metres; and it is abundant and widely distrib- uted in the lesser depths. Scopelus Milleri, also, has been obtained in 556 metres. As for ? Alepo- somus and Mancalias (and perhaps, also, Plectropo- mus), there can be no doubt that they are true deep-sea fishes; and we may expect to find them frequently at the great depth of 5,400 metres. Mancalias urano- scopus Murray was taken at a depth of 4,390 metres by the Challenger, in the Atlantic, between Canary and Cape Verde Islands. The Albatross specimen of this species is the type of Dr. Gill’s supposed new blind ceratiid genus, Typhlopsaras. JOURNEY OF LESSAR TO SERAKS. THE military railway from Michel Bay, on the Caspian, to Kisil Arvat, was finished in September, 1882. It was afterward decided to make a prelimi- nary survey, having in view the extension of this road to Seraks. The expedition comprised twenty Cos- sacks, ten sappers, two surveyors, two interpreters, and a guide, who set out from Askabad, a newly estab- lished station. In October they reached Annan, after crossing a flat country broken here and there by sandy hills some two thousand feet in height. Annan contains an immense mosque in a half-ruined condition, but with its principal facade intact, and of remarkable elegance. It is the finest of the few monuments of art in the Tekke country. The people live mostly in khibitkas: the site of the town is sur- rounded with ruined fortifications. Thence the route passed between the dunes twenty versts, to Gwiwars, which has three series of dilapidated fortifications inhabited by a few Kirgis and Tekkes. Several ecar- avans of Tekkes were met with on their way from Merv to Akhala. Having taken refuge in the Merv oasis during the war, they were now expelled by the Mervii, who feared famine from the presence of too many people. The distance from Gwiwars to Baba Durmaz was found to be thirty-six versts, over an undulating country. Water is conveyed to Durmaz by a canal, and, though a little salt, is used by men and beasts without inconvenience. The chiefs of Khorassan, enraged by the conquest of Akhala, and discontented at the reign of order established by Russia on the steppes, are in general unfriendly. The population, however, are well satisfied, and ea- joy a peace which they have never known. They are no longer raided by the Mervli, and many men for-. merly enslaved at Khiva or Akhala have returned to their villages in freedom due to the Russian conquest. From Durmaz to Liutfabad the forests have been cut away, and the soil is riddled so by the burrows of por- cupines, that men and horses stumble at every step. Here and there are hillocks surmounted by ruins of towers or ramparts. Very lately each village or farm of this country possessed a round tower, with a single entrance closed by an enormous stone, to which the inhabitants retired at a moment’s notice of the ap- proach of one of the robber-bands who infested the region. The robbers did not attack the tower, but stole or destroyed every thing outside of it. At pres- ent a watch is rarely kept, and the towers are falling into decay. Liutfabad has a bazaar, reputed the best in all that country, where, however, the only goods were sugar, dry raisins, rice, nuts, bad tea, and hen- na. The inhabitants held the kindest relations with the Russian explorers. Thence to Kaakha the coun- try for thirty versts is fertile, well watered, with a numerous population; but the streams are destitute of bridges. Woods were observed toward the moun- tains north of the route. Near Kaakha the uniformity of the plain is broken by villages, fortifications, and numerous tumuli gen- erally on the banks of streams. These last were said by Vambéry to be erected by the Tekkes over the graves of their chiefs; but the people deny this, and there is little doubt that they are prehistoric. They are circular or elliptical, and reach fifteen or twenty metres in height. Along the route the people worked in the fields with horses or camels, and did not avoid the Russians, but met them on friendly terms. The approach of the party constantly started up pheasants, partridges, and other game from the fields. The Tekke cuisine, observed by the explorers, did not comprise the revolting dishes reported by Vambéry, but included pilau, game, camel’s milk, melons, and pastry. The people eat with their fingers, but have wooden spoons. On all the steppes many termite-hills were visible, hemispherical, a foot and a half high, and two teet in diameter. These insects are amber-colored, and half an inch long: they form a covered way to any object which they desire to consume, especially wood orcloth. Though destruc- tive to wooden buildings along the line, they have not injured the sleepers of the railway, which is ascribed to the jarring motion produced by the pas- sage of trains, which is supposed to destroy their mud-tunnels, outside of which they will not work. Seraks is arather large fortress occupied by a battal- ion of Persian infantry. The outer line of works is extended to include farms and vineyards. ‘The en- virons are habitually pillaged by Tekke robbers, who inspire such fear that the garrison never ventures on a sortie, and dares not attempt to succor a caravan attacked within a mile or two of the ramparts; and ~ at night the patrol always carry torches. The fortress is armed with six old useless cannon. The River [Von. IIL; No. 68. en May 23, 1884.] Tejent passes near Seraks, but is generally dry: its bed is about half a mile wide. The water from the melting snows and heavy rains is retained in large reservoirs closed by sluices, and distributed by canals for irrigation. Wells reach water at a depth of twenty feet. The levelling carried on by the party has demon- strated, that, in leaving the Caspian Sea, there is not a general rise of the surface. At the wells of Aydine, several points are notably lower than the surface of the Caspian; and the whole region between the latter and the wells is a dried up arm of the sea. The aspect of the observations leads one to believe that they will show, when worked up, that there aremany - points in the sandy deserts between the Tekke oasis and Khiva which are lower than the Caspian; and it is already certain that the alleged former junction of the Tejent and Murial Rivers with the Oxus was an impossibility, and that, though nearer to each other, they emptied directly into the Caspian. Further work will be necessary to show the exact origin of the depressions met with in different parts of the steppes, and which have been taken for beds of ancient water- courses. The expedition terminated its work at Seraks, and returned to Askabad by a different route. PALMS. SOME interesting details respecting these princes of the vegetable kingdom, as Linnaeus called them, are to be found in Sir Joseph Hooker’s last report on the progress and condition of the Royal gardens at Kew. The extent to which they have recently been brought into cultivation is noteworthy. Miller, in his Gardener’s dictionary, edition of 1731, knew of seven species; but only two were generally known in conservatories, — the dwarf fan-palm of the south of Europe, and the date. Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis, in the second edition (1813), enumerates only 24 species. The Loddiges, great cultivators of palms, who possessed in their day much the largest collection known, enumerate 210 species in their nursery catalogue of the year 1825. In the Herren- hausen conservatories, Hannover, Wendland had as- sembled 287 species in 1835, and 445 in 1882. This is the largest collection in the world; but the noblest must be that of the Botanical gardens of Buitenzorg, Java, which, in 1860, boasted of 273 species, ‘all standing naked in the open air.’ It is only when the literature of the order is brought together systematically,that we appreciate the extent and the variety of palms. In the new Genera plantarum, Sir Joseph Hooker characterizes 132 gen- era of true palms, and indicates about 1,100 species. Our readers may like to know what palms are in- digenous to the United States, and what names they now bear. Without counting one or two tropical species which grow in southern Florida, and which are outlying Cuban and Bahaman species, we have two true palmettos, Sabal palmetto, and S. Adansoni; the blue palmetto, Rhapidophyllum hystrix of Wend- SCIENCE. 629 land; the saw palmetto, Serenoa serrulata of Hooker. This is the old Sabal serrulata, upon which Hooker has recently founded anew genus, dedicating it to our associate, Sereno Watson (Palmam qui meruit ferat), there being already a Watsonia in honor of an earlier botanist of this name. Finally we have, just be- yond our national borders, namely, on the islands off Lower California, a palm of a peculiar genus, insti- tuted by Mr. Sereno Watson, the Erythea edulis; and in southern California the elegant Washingtonia bi- lifera, with which Wendland has complimented our country by naming this palm in honor of its first pres- ident. The only other president so distinguished is Jefferson. Jeffersonia diphylla is one of our choicest spring flowers. THE DEARBORN OBSERVATORY. THE report of Prof. G. W. Hough, the director of the Dearborn observatory, to the board of directors of the Chicago astronomical society, exhibits an en- couraging state of activity in that establishment. The eighteen-inch equatorial and the Repsold meridi- an circle have been kept in excellent order and in constant use; though it does not appear, from the re- port, that this latter instrument has been employed in any service where a smaller and less adequately equipped instrument would not equally have sufficed. The objects specially studied with the great telescope were the great comet of 1882, difficult double stars, and the planet Jupiter, in addition to which a few miscellaneous observations were made. The comet- observations are of interest as throwing some light on the question of the breaking-up of this body into three separate and distinct fragments, and the testi- mony of so powerful a glass is of high importance. Professor Hough’s observations, from Oct. 5, 1882, to March 6, 1883, are all consistent with regard to the apparent separation of these three centres of conden- sation; but they were all the time connected by matter of less density, so that no complete separation took place between the parts of the head. Sixty-six new double stars were discovered during the year, most of which are difficult objects, and can be measured only when the seeing is good. Professor Hough estimates that not more than one observing night in three is suitable for such observations. In the search for D’ Arrest’s comet, six new nebulae were detected, three of which were found by Mr. Burn- ham. The companion to Sirius was measured on a goodly number of nights by both these observers. Professor Hough expects this object to be, in afew years, entirely beyond the reach of all telescopes ex- cept the largest ones, as the distance between the components (now nine seconds of arc) is diminishing about three-tenths of a second annually. The great red spot on the planet Jupiter, first noticed in 1878, and which has been, until the past year, of a reddish-brick color, has gradually grown paler, until, at the present time, it is barely visible. Professor Hough ventures the opinion that it cannot be seen much longer in any telescope. Its stability has been remarkable, not having changed very ma_ 630 SCIENCE. terially in length, breadth, outline, or latitude, during four years’ time. A slow retrograde drift in longi- tude has, however, taken place quite uniformly. The summary of mean results of Professor Hough’s mi- crometric measures of the spot is as follows: — 1879. 1880. 1881. 1882. Menetha) 20. «2 Ue 12.25” 11.55” 11.30’ 11.837 ISreadtiiern otis 5% 3.46 3.04 3.66 3.68 WaATitNGew smelt) =) -0\) = 0:90 | = 4.14 — 7.40 Seow While the spot has remained thus nearly stationary in latitude, the south edge of the great equatorial belt has gradually drifted south during the late opposition, until it is nearly co-incident with the middle of the spot. But, what is remarkable, the two do not blend together, but are entirely distinct and separate, seem- ing thus to indicate that they are composed of matter having repellent properties, similar to two clouds charged with the same kind of electricity. In the years 1664, 1665, 1666, a great spot, with a diameter of some eight thousand miles, or about one- tenth that of Jupiter, was observed by Hook and Cas- sini, and situate in latitude 6” south of the planet’s equator. The spot re-appeared:and vanished eight times between 1665 and 1708, was invisible from this latter year until 1713, and the longest period of its continuous visibility was three years, and of its disap- pearing, five. Professor Hough suggests the possible identity of that great spot with the present one, taking much the same ground with Russell of Sydney, — that itis a portion of the solid body of the planet, or Jupiter firmus, so to say, and is ofttimes rendered invisible by a covering of clouds. Professor Hough does well to call attention to the incorrect statement, so univer- sally made in the astronomical text-books, that new belts are formed on the disk of the planet in the course of a few hours’ time. The appearance of the disk changes from hour to hour, owing to the rapid axial rotation of the planet; and, as we pass from the equa- tor to the poles, the apparent transit of an object across the disk becomes slower and slower. Observ- ers, even at the present time, not always realizing that they are looking at a globe, and not at a plane surface, make statements regarding rapid changes in size or shape of objects on the planet’s disk that are not legitimate deductions from the actual observations. Regarding other configurations of the disk of Jupi- ter, Professor Hough notes the drifting south of the great equatorial belt nearly two seconds of are during the late opposition. Small oval white spots were observed to be quite numerous. They were diffi- cult to observe, and their identification is somewhat uncertain; but they appear to have a general retro- grade drift at the rate of seventy miles per hour. Great numbers of minute white spots and markings near the equatorial regions were also observed, the discussion of which is reserved; but it is a curious fact that these spots should drift for years with the enormous velocity of two hundred and sixty miles per hour, if they are nothing more than clouds in the planets’ atmosphere. The series of micrometric [Vou. IIL, No. 68. measurements on all these belts and spots appears to have been sufficiently elaborate, and the results de- rivable from a complete discussion of them will surely possess much of interest. Four sketches accompany the report, which show the salient features of the disk merely, no attempt having been made to repre- sent the minute detail of the equatorial markings. About the average success is reported in the contact- observations of the transit of Venus, of December, 1882. Mr. Burnham assisted in taking a number of dry-plate photographs of the planet on the sun, which present very sharp outlines of the disks of the sun and Venus. ‘The method of insuring a minimum ex- posure, ordinarily in use by photographers, was em- ployed; the equivalent exposure for any part of the sun’s disk being as short as one sixteen-hundredth part of asecond. Professor Hough regards these ex- periments as showing conclusively that astronomical photography will be most successful when the time of exposure becomes a minimum. DAVID P. Topp. A NEW MOTOR. THE pneumatic tramway engine company of New York has recently issued a prospectus, in which it presents the claims of compressed air as a motor for short lines, with statements of the results of experi- ments witha motor built for them by the Baldwin locomotive-works. The engine was used, experi- mentally, on the Second-Avenue elevated railroad in New-York City, with what would seem to have been very satisfactory results. The locomotive has four driving-wheels, two work- ing cylinders of twelve inches and a half diameter - and eighteen inches stroke of piston, with running- gear like that of the standard steam-locomotive of small power. In place of the boiler there are four air-reservoirs, each three feet in diameter, of Otis steel, half an inch thick, having a tenacity of seventy-five thousand pounds per square inch of section, and made up with the spiral seam intro- duced by Root. These reservoirs are tested to eight hundred pounds per square inch, and are filled with air at six hundred pounds. A small steam- boiler inside the cab is used as an air-heater, and raises the temperature of the air leaving the reser- voirs, and on its way to the cylinders, to about 240° F. A reducing-valve causes the pressure to fall, at the cylinders, to a hundred pounds per square inch, the working-pressure for the engine. The cylinders are lubricated in part by the water taken up in the heater, where the air bubbles up through the confined liquid, and in part by oil, introduced for that purpose. The main valve is worked in full gear, and expansion is obtained by the use of an indepe a ‘cut-off valve’ on its back. The ‘braking system’ is as novel as it is ingenious and effective. method of Le Chatellier; and they thus become pumps, taking in air, which is forced into the main — reservoirs to replace that expended in propulsion. — | | The engines are reversed, as in the © May 23, 1884.] The system is made still more effective by taking this air, not from the exhaust-pipe, but from the air-brake cylinders beneath the cars, and thus operating the continuous brakes on each car as well as the same work is done by the common Westinghouse system. The experimental engine has drawn trains of three and four loaded cars from Harlem to the Battery, New-York City, a distance of nine miles, in two minutes and a half less than schedule time, — forty minutes, — making all stops, and on three-fourths of a single charge of air. The engine will handle well, alone, with a pressure of twenty-five pounds. It is impracticable to cover long distances without refilling the reservoirs, and it is not proposed to attempt doing so. The reservoirs are to be filled at every ten-miles run, or every forty or fifty minutes; and filling-stations are to be provided at proper inter- vals along the line of the road. The reservoirs are so well made, that the engine stands all night, under a pressure of one hundred pounds, without appreci- able loss of pressure. The obvious and unquestionable advantages of this method of transportation are: safety from the dan- gers of explosion, which, aside from simple pressure, are unavoidable with steam and water; perfect clean- liness, not only on the engine, but along the line and on the train, in consequence of the avoidance of dust and smoke, and sparks from the engine; free- dom from gas from the locomotive; less noise than with the steam-engine; freedom from the annoyances from dripping hot water, soiling the clothing, and half scalding the unfortunate pedestrian beneath; permanence of the reservoirs, which cannot be burned out, as can the steam-boiler, and which cannot be injured by the corrosion, due to leakage of water and steam, which is so sefious a cause of injury to the steam-boiler. The engineer appreciates the latter points particularly, as well as the comfort of having no fire or fireman to look after and to distract his attention from his duties at the throttle, and ahead of the train. He is even saved the responsibility and taxation of ‘looking out for the water’ in the boiler, which is no small matter on the steam-locomotive. Comparing the commercial sides for the two motors, the air-locomotive will undoubtedly be found to cost much less for repairs, to lose vastly less time in the shops, and to demand very much less of the time of the engineer and of the master mechanic, when off the road. Whether the cost of running will be so small as to permit the adoption of the system on our elevated railroads, and other railroads to which it may be as well adapted, cannot, as a matter of course, be certainly known until the experiment shall have been tried under all the best conditions for its oper- ation. This is, in fact, the question to be deter- mined. The experiment on the New-York lines is evidently very encouraging; and it is to be hoped that the very favorable estimates offered by its pro- - moters may be confirmed by long trial, and the successful introduction of the motor. So far as we are aware, the compressed-air locomotive has hitherto been used only where, as in the longer lines of tun- nels, there existed peculiar reasons for its introduc- SCIENCE. 631 tion. The experiment is a perfectly legitimate one, and the new company are entitled to every favor that can be properly accorded those who attempt in any way the amelioration of the annoyances and the dangers of railway travel. R. H. THURSTON. DANTEEL’S PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICS. A text-book of the principles of physics. By A. DANIELL. London, Macmillan, 1884. 20+ Giaap. O°: Many of those who have been engaged in teaching physics to undergraduates during the last ten years have felt the want of a text-book more in accord with the present condition of the science than the majority of those accessible to the English-reading student. It is doubtless a fact, and a curious one, that those most gen- erally in use in this country are, or perhaps it is better to say were, originally translations from the French ; and this in spite of the gen- erally admitted leadership of English-speaking people in this department of science. Although, perhaps, the best attainable up to the present time, these English translations of French text-books have certainly fallen short of perfect adaptability to the work, and more and more so as the years passed by. It is true that an attempt has been made by the editors and publishers to keep pace with the rapid erowth of the science, but this attempt has met with but doubtful success. Any system or design or scheme which may have existed in some of these books in the be- ginning has been pretty effectually destroyed by the numerous additions which have been made from time to time, in the placing of many of which the convenience of the printer seems to have been oftener consulted than any thing else. Although one may find a brief account of the very latest discovery or invention up to the time of going to press, he is likely to find it in a most unexpected place; and, although here and there will be found detailed fragments of modern theory, they are often so purely frag- mentary as to be quite unintelligible to the student. In fact, the book comes to resemble a conglomerate in its structure; and the stu- dent, in attempting to ‘go through it,’ meets with sudden and remarkable changes in hard- ness and density. The fact is, the change which has been going on in the science of physics during the last fifteen or twenty years does not consist alone in the series of brilliant discoveries and inventions which have brought it glory and renown: along with these there 632 have been almost equally important revolutions in its methods and principles. It is less a col- lection of facts and experiments than it once was. Indeed, the accumulation of these within the past decade has been so rapid, and the col- lection is now so vast, as to preclude the idea of even an attempt to enumerate them in a text- book. Fortunately the accumulation of facts has been accompanied by classification and orderly arrangement. Theory and _ practice have been close companions, each occasionally taking the lead. Not many years ago it was possible, in a text-book of moderate dimensions, to state nearly all of the principal facts relat- ing to certain departments of physics, which are to-day represented by special treatises, numbered by the hundred. ‘The text-book for the undergraduate can no longer attempt to deal with these matters in detail. It must con- fine itself to a consideration of the established principles of the science, with such, and only such, experimental illustrations as are necessary to enable the student to comprehend these prin- ciples. Experiments must be typical rather than special in form, and of such a character that the phenomenon to be exhibited is the prominent feature, rather than the particular piece of apparatus with which it is shown. In the preparation of this book, its author has taken a new departure, and largely in the direction indicated. In glancing through its pages, one is equally surprised, both by the presence of many things which he has not be- fore seen in text-books of a similar grade, and by the absence of many other things to the sight of which he has long been accustomed. Of the latter, the most noticeable, at first, are the fine pictures, the absence of which is a conspicu- ous feature of the book: indeed, the charac- ter of the work is revealed more promptly through this feature than any other. Cuts and drawings are introduced whenever, in the opin- ion of the author, they are necessary to eluci- date the text; but they are generally of the simplest character, and such as can readily be reproduced upon the blackboard, or added to, if thought desirable, by one possessing little skill. In describing an experiment, only the absolute essentials are shown; the details of construction, and special forms of apparatus, being left to the imagination of the student, or the descriptive powers of the teacher. Per- haps the economy exercised in this direction has been a little too rigorous; but the plan possesses great advantages, both direct and indirect. One is spared the elaborate descrip- tions of apparatus which occupy so many pages of other text-books. It must be admitted that SCIENCE. able references to eventful periods of discovery [Vor. IIL, No. 68. — this is, on the whole, a considerable gain. It is often difficult to understand a complicated instrument from a description and a cut; and often the more accurate the latter, the greater the difficulty, as much attention will be given to the really non-essential parts. Students have a perverse way of being interested in the architecture of an instrument, and often re- ceive a more lasting impression from its ‘ ele- vation ’ than from its ‘ground plan.’ It is not an uncommon experience to find that a man will study an instrument from cut and descrip- tion in the text-book, and fail to recognize the same thing under a somewhat different form, when it is placed on the table before him. It would be interesting to know how many under- graduate students who have studied electricity are able to distinguish the soul of a galvanom- eter from its body so completely as to be able to recognize it in all of the numerous forms in which it materializes. Again: in many instances the instrument so carefully figured and described in the text-book has become obsolete, which can hardly be said of the principle involved. . The omission of this illustrative and descrip- tive part of the text-book is to be commended because it leaves room, — it leaves room for the introduction of much matter, which is certainly more than the equivalent of that which is omitted. Considerable gain in space accrues from an- other noticeable feature of the book, in which it differs materially from those more generally in use. It is not a book of reference. ‘The reader will not fail to observe the entire absence of tables, and will look in vain for collections of physical constants, or of numerical data, or of the various and varying results of different experiments in quantitative investigations. The history and personal aspect of scientific discovery will be missed by many, and this omission was evidently reluctantly decided upon by the author. Strip some of our well-known text-books of all these, and they will shrink very consider- ably in their dimensions. ‘There may be dif- ference of opinion concerning the desirableness of these omissions. Our author has unques- tionably assumed, that, wherever his book is used, there will be a good collection of physical apparatus, which may be accessible to the stu- — dent for examination when desirable; and an enthusiastic and competent instructor, who knows the history of his subject, and can arouse — the interest and enthusiasm of his class by suit- — May 23, 1884.] and to the personal characters of discoverers. His text-book provides the pupil with the meat of the subject: the side-dishes, dessert, etc., must be furnished by the teacher. The book is an octavo volume of about six hundred pages, — not larger than several well- known treatises in general use. Only an ele- mentary mathematical training is assumed ; so elementary, in fact, that the author has thought it desirable to define the well-known constant az, which he does in a note. Let no one be deceived by this, however: the student will discover, as he progresses, that he must know his elementary mathematics well, and that he must possess facility and readiness in the use of symbols. In the introduction, some of the fundamen- tal principles on which the science is based are discussed. One or two terms concerning which there has been more or less dispute are handled a little delicately in the beginning. An instance of this is the use of the word ‘force.’ The author is a little shy about de- fining it at first. His confidence grows, how- ever, as the work progresses; and he once or twice hints at, but never quite reaches, the neat statement of Clerk Maxwell, that force is ‘ one of the aspects of a stress.’ A chapter is devoted to the processes of measuring space, time, and mass, in which the rather discouraging statement is made, that ‘ood linear measurement, in whatever way effected, ought to present an error less than one- millionth of the whole.’’ There is a well-written chapter on work and energy, including a brief discussion of the indicator diagram. This is followed by the subject of kinematics, cover- ing more than a hundred pages. The treatment of this subject is somewhat novel for a book of this class, including, as it does, a tolerably complete discussion of simple harmonic motions, their composition and reso- lution ; astatement of Fourier’s theorem ; a dis- cussion of waves and wave-motions ; the prop- agation of waves, their reflection, refraction, interference, and diffraction; the vibrations of chords, membranes, etc. In the statement of Ptolemy’s law for reflection, and Fermat’s for refraction, often known as the principles of least distance and least time, the author has failed to note the very important exceptions to both, or to give the limitations to which they are subject. — There follows the subject of kinetics, in which some general propositions in reference to forces are derived from those already established in the study of motion. Moment of inertia, radius of gyration, and energy of a rotating body, are SCIENCE. 633 more thoroughly treated than is customary in such a treatise. There is a very satisfactory chapter on at- traction and potential. Potential of a point in space, equipotential surfaces, lines and tubes of force, etc., are discussed in a manner so clear and intelligible as to enable the student to be somewhat master of the situation when he comes to the practical application of these conceptions. The chapter on gravitation and the pendulum is satisfactory ; but, in the last proposition, the author has made the not uncom- mon mistake of failing to correctly state the conditions of the reversible pendulum. It isa little curious that it is not oftener observed that a symmetrical bar will oscillate about any two points equally distant from the centre of grav- ity in the same time. Students are likely to be considerably puzzled when they attempt to determine in this way the length of a single pendulum, and discover, that, the shorter the pendulum, the longer the period of vibra- tion. In many text-books the study of matter and its properties forms the subject of the opening chapter ; with some propriety, perhaps, as mat- ter is assumed to be the solid foundation upon which the science of physics rests. In this volume, however, it is not discussed until nearly two hundred pages have been passed over. One of the peculiar features of the treatment of the subject by our author is the admission of the ether as a form of matter; and the reasons for so doing are ably presented. Its properties as matter are explained as far as known or sur- mised, and the vortex atom is not forgotten. The chapter includes a discussion of the molec- ular constitution of matter, a brief considera- tion of surface-tension and superficial viscosity, with their application to capillary phenomena, and a brief study of viscosity of solids, liquids, and gases. The middle of the book is passed before the study of heat is begun. Heat is considered as including two totally distinct forms of en- ergy; and the treatment of what is known as radiant heat is deferred until a later period. Under the head of heat proper will be found some discussion of the principles of thermo- dynamics, including a treatment of Carnot’s cycle. It occupies forty pages, and might have been improved by a more complete pres- entation of the subject of conduction. Sound is considered through fifty pages, in which musical intervals and scales, the vibration of strings, and the propagation through solids, liquids, and gases, receive rather more atten- tion than is usual. Wi ae 634 Under the general head of ‘ ether-waves,’ the unity of the so-called heat, light, and actinic rays is explained. The theory of exchanges, and Stokes’s law, are considered. ment of color is extremely satisfactory. The origin and propagation of ether-waves, reflec- tion, refraction, and polarization, together with the postulates of Fresnel, Neumann, and MacCullagh, occupy considerable space. All of this precedes what is generally known as geometrical optics, which is not elaborately discussed. In double refraction the Huyghe- nian construction is given, and the study of optical instruments is remarkable for its brevity. Electricity and magnetism are provisionally defined as properties or conditions of matter, the matter referred to being that extraordinary form known as the ether. Just enough in the way of experiment is given to enable the student to understand the development of the principles of the subject, which are estab- lished under the assumption that he has mastered the chapter on attraction, potential, etc., already referred to. Some of the notable features of this part of the work are more than ordinarily intelligible discussions of thermo- electricity, Peltier’s and Thomson’s ‘ effects,’ the presentation of Maxwell’s theory, with his electromagnetic theory of light, and brief mention of Rowland’s, Kerr’s, and Hall’s ex- periments. There is also a comparison of units in the electrostatic and electromagnetic systems, and a discussion of the meaning and value of the constant v. The arrangement of topics in electricity and magnetism may be criticised, in that it would seem desirable to have introduced the subject of magnetism and magnetic potential at an earlier stage, thus making possible an earlier exposition of the origin of the electromagnetic units of measure. In connection with the matter of units, it is worth while to remark, that throughout the work the author has felt constrained, possibly out of respect for an unwholesome English prejudice, to make frequent use of the foot, inch, pound, ounce, grain, etc. Itis, perhaps, hardly fair to expect an English author to adhere strictly to the use of the metric system ; but in the present instance the confusion of the units is a blemish all the more noticeable by reason of the otherwise simple and elegant methods of treatment. Clumsiness of state- ment and solution is frequently the unavoid- able result. No evidence of this is needed ; but it may not be amiss to quote from so con- servative a source as Thomson and Tait (Nat. SCIENCE. The treat- — phil., art. 408), who, although selecting the .foot as being ‘for British measurement gen- erally the most convenient,’ remark, that ‘* the British measurements of area and volume are infinitely inconvenient, and wasteful of brain- energy and of plodding labor. ‘Their contrast with the simple, uniform metrical system of France, Germany, and Italy, is but little creditable to English intelligence.’’ Not the least remarkable feature of the book is, that its author is a lecturer in a medical school, and it ‘‘ was primarily designed as a contribution to medical education.’’ : Altogether the book must be regarded as one oreatly in advance of those of a similar grade generally in use. It is not intended as a substitute for a laboratory and laboratory practice, for no book can be this; but it is admirably adapted for a preparation to a laboratory course, in that it furnishes the student with such ‘‘a store of general prin- ciples, that, when he comes to enter a physical laboratory, he may then find around him, in the concrete form, a collection of pieces of apparatus the construction and the action of which he is able, by the application of prin- ciples already familiar to him, pros and | intelligently to comprehend.’’ The belief ‘that such a text-book will be gladly welcomed by many teachers of physics in this country may justify the somewhat ex- tended reference to its character and contents, given above. PROPAGATION OF TUBERCULGE The influence of heredity and contagion on the prop- agation of tuberculosis, and the prevention of inju- rious effects from consumption of the flesh and milk of tuberculous animals. By A. LypTIn, Carlsruhe, veterinary adviser to the Baden goy- ernment; G. Fiemine, LL.D., F.R.C.V.S., principal veterinary surgeon to the British army; and VAN HERTSEN, veterinary surgeon, and chief inspector of the Brussels abattoir. New York, Jenkins, [1684]. t/a p. ye Turs volume is a translation, by one of the committee upon its preparation, of a report prepared for discussion at the International veterinary congress, held at Brussels in Sep- tember, 1883. The question of the etiology of tuberculosis is one of the most important of modern medicine, and occupies the atten- | tion of a large part of the profession to-day. Its importance is not confined to the human ~ race, in so far as it attacks mankind; but, be- — May 23, 1884.] ing so wide-spread among domestic animals, it necessarily affects humanity in this direction also. The report before us is a valuable summary of the condition of scientific knowledge at the present day, upon this question, in its relation- ship to domestic animals, and, through them, to mankind. It begins with an account of the nomenclature of the disease from the earliest times to the present, discusses the best means of diagnosis, the course and the anatomical appearance of the disease. In regard to the latter point, the conclusion already generally accepted by medical men is reached, that the ‘criterium’ of the disease must be sought in the irritant which causes it, and that this irri- tant is found in the bacillus of Koch. In con- nection with this portion.of the report, there is a very good discussion of the predisposing causes of the disease (pp. 35-49), followed by a consideration of the animals (other than cat- tle) that are known to be subject to attack by it. The conclusion is reached, after all this, that ‘‘ tuberculosis is, of all maladies affecting the domesticated animals, that which is the most wide-spread, and which, of all others, most deserves the qualification of ‘ pan- zooty.’ ”’ The second chapter of the book is devoted to a consideration of the question, ‘‘ What is the influence of heredity on the propagation of tuberculosis?’’ (pp. 55-68.) After the con- sideration and quotation of many cases and authors, a number of conclusions are reached, of which the last seems to contain the essence, — ‘‘ that tuberculous parents may transmit to their progeny a predisposition to tuberculo- sis.”’ The second question, ‘‘ What is the influence of contagion on the propagation of tuberculo- sis?’’ receives very thorough consideration. A large number of authors— from Ruhling in 1774, to Villemin and Koch in our own day — are cited to prove the contagious nature of the disease. A summary of the reasons for the opinion that animal and human tuberculosis are one and the same is given (pp. 85-98) ; and this portion of the work is concluded by a short résumé of Koch’s labors on this dis- ease. The discussion of the third question, ‘‘ What are the preventive measures which should be had recourse to, in order to arrest the injuri- ous effects which may result from the use of the flesh and milk of tuberculous cattle? ’’ is opened with a review of the ancient laws against the use of diseased meat, together With some account of the various attempts SCIENCE. 635 made in more recent times to regulate this traffic. The two plans for the regulation of the sale of diseased meats are thus summarized: ‘‘a, All preventive measures may be reduced to the simple advice to cook the flesh well before eating it; and, 0, Flesh of tuberculous animals should be confiscated, either in every case, or in certain circumstances.’’ ‘The first method of procedure is unsafe; because, in the first place, it would probably not be thoroughly done, and, in the second place, a reeommenda- tion alone would not influence in the least those who are in the habit of eating raw or almost raw meat (a common practice in Central and North Germany). The objections to, and the difficulties in the way of, the adoption of the second method, that of regulation, are men- tioned, and discussed in an exhaustive man- ner; the effect of laws of partial or complete confiscation of affected animals is shown; the action of ‘ warranty ’ laws upon the morals of the butcher and owner, and the general effect of any attempt at regulation upon the cupidity of owners and of all concerned, are well illus- trated. A number of recommendations to the con- gress are made for adoption, too long for quotation, but seemingly based upon a firm ground-work of knowledge and experience. The report was brought on for discussion at so late a period in the session that not much was done in this direction. The sense of the meeting, however, seemed to be, that some law should be framed, restricting at least the sale of the meat of animals affected with tubercu- losis. The report, as a whole, contributes nothing, from an experimental point of view, to our knowledge of this disease, but, as before stat- ed, is a very complete résumé of the question as it stands to-day in its hygienic and pecun- iary relations. It will be of interest and im- portance to all veterinarians, as a summary of the knowledge thus far obtained, and as an index to the original sources from which this knowledge may be drawn. ‘To scientific men actually engaged in the working-out of the problem of the etiology of tuberculosis, it can be of interest only as presenting the case from the veterinarian’s stand-point. The book is well gotten up, and clearly print- ed, but few errors having escaped the eye of the proof-reader. For ourselves, we should prefer cyst to kyst. The addition of an index would have made the book more serviceable to the general reader, and for purposes of refer- ence. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 68 INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. U.S. geological survey. Mineral statistics of the United States. — Mr. Albert Williams, jun., is arranging for the issue of a second ‘volume on the mining industries and mineral re- sources of the United States, and is now engaged in the preliminary work necessary to facilitate its preparation. This report will cover statistically the calendar years of 1883 and 1884; preserving, how- ever, the record for former years, already published in his first report. The general form and scope of the work will be similar to that previously followed. Repetition of text matter will be avoided, and the chief aim will be to treat in greater detail such topics as could not well be enlarged upon in the first report without extending it beyond the proper limits. The second volume, while complete in itself from a Statistical point of view, will complement the first in the matter of description of localities, metallur- gical processes, etc. A change which will add to the interest of the work will be the introduction of a series of graphic statistical charts, showing at a glance the progress in the several industries. [>> = Fee ee the sand from Unalashka, is one collected about a dozen miles north-east of Mount Shasta, in northern California. ‘This sand is considerably coarser than that from Unalashka, and is com- posed chiefly of crystal fragments of felspar, augite, hypersthene, hornblende, and magne- tite, with particles of microlitic groundmass, and considerable pumiceous glass. The min- eralogical composition of the sand is the same as that of the hornblende andesite which issued from the prominent and well-preserved crater named, by Capt. Dutton, Shastina, upon the north-western flank of Mount Shasta. There can be no doubt that the sand was ejected from Shastina, for all the other craters of that region have erupted different material. Mount Shasta itself has effused hypersthene andesite, and the smaller craters to the eastward have furnished basalt. According to Mr. Chatard’s — analyses, the sand contains 60.92 % of silica, while the Shastina lava, to which it belongs, contains 64.10 % of silica. As far as definite observations | upon this subject have been made, it appears to be true, — May 30, 1884.] in general, that volcanic sand is composed chiefly of crystalline fragments, and contains a lower percentage of silica than the lava to which it belongs. With volcanic dust, how- ever, the case is very different. That which fell in Scandinavia, March 29 and 30, 1875, after having been carried by the wind from the great eruption in Iceland a distance of at least seven hundred and fifty miles, was composed almost exclusively of irregular, angular parti- cles of volcanic glass. Through the kindness of Professor Rosenbusch, in Heidelberg, I have obtained various samples of volcanic dusts for comparison. In the accompanying figures, series 1 represents the acute, angular, curved- sided fragments which are common in the Norwegian dust. In an excellent article by Murray and Renard, which appeared in Nature, April 17, 1884, p. 585, the forms of vitreous particles of Krakatoa dust are represented. It is undoubtedly true that the shapes. repre- sented are those which prevail in volcantfc dust, but they appear to be less characteristic than the curious outlines of fragments from the same dust given in series 2. In the succeeding series (3) are outlined the less common frag- ments in rhyolitic dust, collected by Mr. I. C. Russell along the Truckee River, in western Nevada. That these acute, angular, curved- sided forms are the most characteristic ones of volcanic glass particles, is impressed by a study of old tufas, in which the glass, origi- nally mixed with other clastic material, is completely replaced by quartz. An interest- ing tufa of this kind occurs at Breakheart Hill, Saugus, north of Boston. Where vitreous frag- ments of the most common shapes are re- placed by another material, the pseudomorph does not always suggest the original constitu- ent ; but when we find such forms as are rep- resented in series 4, from the Breakheart-Hill tufa, there can be but little question as to the original presence of volcanic glass. Krakatoa dust which fell at Batavia has been analyzed by Mr. Renard, and found to contain 65.04 % of silica, while the pumiceous form of the same lava, according to Mr. Id- dings, contains only 62 % of silica. It is well known that volcanic dust is composed chiefly and essentially of minute particles of natural glass; and, so far as definite observations have been made, they warrant the general as- sertion, that with occasional exceptions, which can be readily explained, volcanic dust con- tains a higher percentage of silica than the lava to which it belongs. Volcanic sand and dust must be regarded as differing, not merely in the size of their SCIENCE. 653 particles, but also in their physical and chem- ical constitution ; sand being composed, in the main, of crystalline fragments, and containing less silica than its corresponding lava, while volcanic dust is made up chiefly of glassy particles, which have a higher percentage of silica than the magma from which they were derived. Between these two extremes there are, of course, all possible intermediate terms ; but, nevertheless, it is evident, that, as a result of the operation of natural causes, there is a decided tendency, in connection with violent eruptions, to separate the magma into a basic and an acidic portion. ‘The degree of sepa- ration ultimately attained depends upon the final influence of the atmosphere upon their dis- tribution. Under favorable conditions, the dust may be spread many hundreds of miles from its source, while the sand is scattered within a comparatively small radius; but, under less violent and favorable conditions, both may be precipitated near the crater from which they issued. The inception of this divisional process is to be found in the condition of the magma be- fore its eruption. It is well known that crys- tals are frequently, and sometimes abundantly, developed in a magma ; so that, before its extru- sion, the magma may be regarded as made up of a crystalline, solid portion, and an amor- phous, more or less fluent portion. These. are generally thoroughly intermingled, but oc- casionally they are arranged, as in obsidians, in alternating bands; and they differ from each other in several important particulars, besides those already mentioned. The earliest products of crystallization are basic minerals, such as the ores of iron, hornblende, and mica ; and, as the process continues, the amorphous portion of the magma becomes more and more siliceous. On this account, the crystalline portion of the magma does not contain as high a percentage of silica as that which is amorphous. Capt. Dutton, in his researches upon the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands, made the interesting observation, that, at the moment a magma solidifies, a large quantity of vapor of water is given off. In the process of crystallization, the gases absorbed in the magma are rejected from the crystallizing sub- stances, and accumulate, under enormous ten- sion, in that portion which is amorphous. In this manner, the non-crystalline portion of the magma becomes stored with explosive compounds, under such stress, that, when the pressure is relieved, they may blow it to fine siliceous glass-dust ; while the crystalline, solid, basic portion of the magma, pulverized rather 654 by external than internal forces, is reduced to sand. | It is doubtless true that a part of the vol- canic sand and dust results from the tritura- tion of solid material in the process of violent eruption; but, at the same time, it is generally believed that by far the largest portion of the latter is produced directly by the distention and explosion of multitudinous vesicles in the amorphous, viscous portion of the magma, and is the extreme product of the same operation which produces pumice. Mr. I. C. Russell has recently. described some interesting volcanic dust from the Great Basin of Nevada. It has been traced two hundred miles from its source, the Mono craters, and has about the same chemical composition as the glassy lava of that place. This can be readily understood when we consider, that, at the time of its erup- tion, the magma contained few, if any, well-de- veloped crystals. The difference in chemical composition between volcanic sand or dust, and the lava to which it belongs, appears to be di- rectly proportional to the amount of crystalli- zation which has taken place in the magma before its effusion. The composition of the Unalashka sand is such as to indicate that be- fore its eruption there were many crystals secreted in the magma, so that there would be a proportionally small amount of siliceous dust produced. While it is evident that the constitution of volcanic sand is very variable from place to place, yet it is such in this case as to clearly indicate that it came from a cra- ter erupting hornblende andesite, and that its basic character may be explained by suppos- ing that the siliceous portion of the magma was carried away in the form of dust. The unaltered condition of the minerals and ground- mass indicates that the sand has not been exposed to atmospheric influences for any considerable length of time, and favors the opinion of Mr. Applegate, that the sand came from the new crater, near the Island of Bogos- loff, about sixty miles to the westward. The precipitation of volcanic dust has been reported from several places in the United States, but it is all of very questionable de- termination. Mr. G. P. Merrill, of the U.S. national museum, has recently investigated that which fell at Rome, N.Y., and proved it to be an ordinary dust, composed chiefly of minute fragments of quartz and iron-stained products of decomposition. All of the re- ported dusts, of which I have been able to obtain samples, have been found to be like that which is most common about dusty cities and plains. A little experience will readily SCIENCE. enable one to distinguish the Pélé’s-hair and glass globules, in the dust of blast-furnaces and other iron-works, from the glass particles in volcanic dust. ; The origin and distribution of the uncommon forms of dust are beginning to receive the at- tention they deserve; and it is a matter of gratulation, that the signal-service of this coun- try has already taken steps towards systematic observations upon this subject at several ele- vated stations, such as Mount Washington and Pike’s Peak, as well as in Alaska. U.S. geological survey. | Jo.) ieee METEOROLOGICAL CHARTS OF THE NORTH ATILANAEG: ONE cannot fail, in studying the progress of mari- time meteorology, to be impressed with the value placed on the Maury charts, as evinced by the fre- quency, with which they have been copied, or have | served as the basis for more extended work in foreign countries. But it is also to benoticed, that in recent years the tendency has been towards more originality and independence in the work of the several nations that take part in this branch of physical investiga- tion; and, further, that while Maury’s principle of exhibiting as far as possible the separate observa- tions on which averages are based is retained, his plan of dividing charts according to topics has been re- placed by the much more practical division according to time. The masterof a vessel, beginning a voyage in May, does not care to find on his chart informa- tion about the winds of all the year, but prefers in- formation of all kinds about May, and especially about the winds, calms, gales, squalls, and fogs of that month. Having considered, in a previous article, the de- velopment of maritime meteorology as shown in the wind-charts of the North Atlantic, published by various foreign governments since Maury’s time, it is with satisfaction that we can now turn to a work on the Atlantic, executed in our own country, in which the advance from the earlier styles of charting is as well marked as in any of the examples given above. On the charts whose title is given in the note,! we find the atmospheric conditions over a large area shown with greater detail, and based on a larger series of observations, than in any other charts yet published. The number of observations is extraor- dinary. The chart for March alone has wind-obser- vations for 211,057 hours. That part of the chart which corresponds to the six of Toynbee’s ten-degree squares north of the equator has 63,846 hours: the 1 Meteorological charts of the North Atlantic Ocean for the months of March, April, and May. Published June, 1883, at the hydrographic office, Washington, D.C. J.C. P. Dekraft, com- modore, U.S.N., hydrographer to the bureau of navigation. Prepared under the supervision of Lieut. Joon H. Moors, U.8.N. Charts for June and July were published in March and April, 1884. T.R. Bartlett, commander, U.S.N., hydrographer. —_—_— May 30, 1884.] same area in Toynbee’s monograph has for March only 6,823 wind-observations. One of the five-degree squares (No. 676, latitude 0° to 5°, longitude 20° to 25°) into which the ocean is divided on our charts has 10,329 hours of record : this is practically equiva- lent to a continuous hourly record in this square for nearly fourteen Marches. If the other months main- tain the same number of North Atlantic observations, liters 1 the year’s average would be based on about 2,500,000 hours of record. On the other hand, many coast squares, and most of those off Newfoundland and Labrador, have insufficient observations. The wind- observations in this vast quantity of material come - from the Maury records and from more recent logs in about equal number, but the data on the side of the squares rest on the recent logs alone. Chief attention is given to classifying the wind in direction and force, as this is the factor of greatest use to the practical seaman. The percentage of the number of observation-hours during which the wind is recorded as having blown from every two points of the compass is shown by the fractional radius drawn inward from the appropriate part of the circle within the square. The average force for every wind-direc- tion, in units of the U.S. navy (= Beaufort) wind- scale, is measured by the number of divisions, out- side the circle. (fig. 1), connected by a cross-line. The percentage of calms and variable winds is shown on the radial percentage scale by a ring and a cross at the centre of the circle. North-west and north- east gales (G) are shown in percentages on the top of the square; south-west and south-east, at the bottom. Moderate squalls (MS) and heavy squalls (HS) are placed on the lower half of the left and right sides of the square, rain (R) and fog (F) being above them. All these are given in percentages of their total hours,! and consequently, when taken together, give to the navigator a very close measure of the kind of weather he may expect for any part of the North Atlantic south of 50° latitude. The figures in the 1 The legend on the charts states that these side data rest on a smaller number of hours than is recorded for the general wind- observations. SCIENCE. 655 corners of the squares record the average stand and the average daily variation of the barometer (B), air- thermometer (A), wet-bulb thermometer (W B), and sea-thermometer (S W), thus completing the list of the more important and practically useful climatic elements. The most serious omission is the number of observations on which these side data depend. The mechanical execution of the work is excellent. The charts, twenty-seven by thirty-four inches, are clearly and sharply engraved. The figures are, per- haps, rather fine, being smaller than in the accom- panying cut, which does not fairly represent the clearness of the original, but they are not so fine as some in Toynbee’s work; and some of the lines are too delicate for rapid reading, but they are perfectly distinct on a closer examination. Some ease of counting might be gained by emphasizing the fifty- per-cent divisions, as here marked. . In comparing the graphic method of these new charts with the numerical and verbal form of record in the volume for the North Pacific,! issued by the hydrographic office a few years ago, it is difficult to make a choice, except as a matter of preference. The results shown are about the same in both. On the Pacific charts, from which a five-degree square is given in fig. 2, the number of observations, and average force of the wind for every two points, are given in the outer circle: the percentage that these observations make, of the total of winds, calms, and variables, is in the inner circle. The other data explain themselves. In the centre there is a verbal description of the characteristic local weather, for which there is no space in the Atlantic charts. But the frequency of gales from the four quadrants is not shown; and (No. 142), No. of 4ours of Hire. 2. in making a comparison of winds from square to square, or even within a single square, the numbers have first to be read, and then compared; which is certainly more difficult than when the wind percent- ages and strengths are expressed in lines, whose 1 Meteorological charts of the North Pacific Ocean from the equator to latitude 45° north, and from the American coast to the 180th meridian. Washington, 1878. (Prepared under the direc- tion of Lieut. T. A. Lyons.) 656 ¢ relative length is quickly seized by the eye. When the subdivisions go down to one-degree squares, then tabulation is necessary to save space, if a variety of data is to be shown; but, on five-degree squares, we believe the general preference would be for graphic representation, unless, what would be still better, both methods were combined, somewhat as in Toyn- bee’s charts; but this would increase the size of the sheets. After all, the choice between the two methods must be made, not so much by the reviewer, as by the practical seaman, for whom the charts are especially constructed. Currents are not attempted on these charts: it is the intention of the hydrographic office to give them 29.925 ae 4 SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 69. ference of reading of one or two hundredths of an inch between the two. The broken and dotted lines are sea-water isotherms, with satisfactory coincidence. The arrows show the average winds: the only notable divergences are in the region of variables and calms. On attempting to draw out the isobars for the whole of our March chart, smooth curves can be traced up to latitude 30° or 35° by admitting corrections of two or three hundredths of aninch. Farther north, where observations are fewer, and barometric variations are known to be greater, corrections of five-hundredths or more are sometimes needed. This is probably due to the great difficulty of finding closely checked barom- eter records, especially in the older logs. Although Hig. 3. Special study as soon as possible, with particular attention to the temporary and local winds at the time of every observation. It may thus be possible to explain the rather discordant results shown on many current-charts. Before this, however, it is the desire of the office to complete the meteorological charts for the other oceans, on the plan now so well carried out for the North Atlantic. All who are in- terested in the success of this long piece of work will join in the wish that every aid and opportunity may be given to its progress. The accompanying figure (fig. 3) is inserted for comparison of these new charts with those of Toyn- bee’s squares that they cover, for the month of March. The full lines are isobars, the fainter ones being Toynbee’s. Their agreement in general atti- tude is good, but there appears to be a persistent dif- all defective records have been thrown out whenever detected, it is evident that some still remain; as, for example, in square 786, on the March sheet. We may therefore infer that the next improvement in the study of oceanic meteorology will come rather through in- creased accuracy than through increased number of observations. Another style of work undertaken by the hydro- graphic office is seen in the monthly Pilot charts of the North Atlantic, begun last December, of which mention has already been made in the columns of Science. These are designed to answer a double purpose, — first, to give a general representation of the prevailing winds for every month, based on the materials from which the more detailed meteoro- logical charts above described are constructed; and, second, to serve as a ready means of publishing the @ MAY, 1884, PILOT CHART OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN. ca 7s 70° 3s ee ae an NOTICES ISSUED DURING THE MONTH OF AFAUL, 1004, Saree ot na i tof wrk A ed eh eta | (AD earings er bree uh cnt f gh from sarees 12k ees Sr ates Borie ze en ror Tae. Fvamey=Turbal-—A wom Lod wish bas loos skh : sraaaare f (Taam peaiind ee “son OW | La tera bn, pi "sy of aan Cand pases Dera wicrer toes we a om enn W rs (ha Ee esha Ga gh ag hd AY Can ‘WEATHER. (MAY. ‘Moderate to fresh breezes prevail North may be met ax far south ax latitode 40°, be- and 65° west longue, the i ‘| prenaled daring the Gulf Stream vessels hare experienced mazy ‘hort bat tag ) strong galét from the northest. | vrerd occasloml fogs near the coast owing to the of the Gulf Btream and the presence of H ! ‘The amount of bergs and field fon was excemive, end ex re Mee (en yended farther east and west than tml x, evenoe W32) “eo bt \ gs =) Soavenir, =i ‘again April 2, k miles to the eastward between the dates, Everything printed in nsp relates to the past month; BLUE refers to the current month for which the chart'is isuned, For instance, nED ice was reported doriog April; _auve limit? Sipe ea mae ; of ice in predicted for May. Similarly, ‘ EXPLANATION, Bc : : | EMR Ds tic Toutes akown in nuve arezor May" RO Fathom Car . ly. Uses of MataateVarlln for 1 Information received daring APRIL. ‘Prepared by order of the Bureau of Navigation = “3 re s Commander JPbartlet.USM, es ze Hydrographer, : DE A oe eA re . SCIENCE, May 30, 1884. TV ¢ i ‘ PN 7 a ‘ ‘ vee / p ses nyplaty eee gin ag * dace a' a / 2 ‘ vitae fbn sie my es Wh RO gO CRS - Deter SE hal es Lid A Lee weet are ee gee yee, : we 4 4 ¥ May 30, 1884.] information concerning wrecks, ice, ete., gained during the preceding month. Through the kindness of Commander Bartlett, we are enabled to present a copy of the chart for May, reduced to two-fifths of the original, from a special printin black. As stated in the legend, every thing concerning the current month (in this case, May) is printed in blue in the regular issue; thus the direction and force of the winds are given, with the probable limits of the trades and of floating ice. On the May chart, the sailing- route to the equator, and the safe route to England, are added., On the other hand, information received concerning floating wrecks, ice, and notable storms or fogs, is printed in red. Only the geographic out- line, the currents, and the permanent wording, ap- pear in black on the original charts. The first four numbers, December to March, were accompanied by a few pages of letter-press, giving information con- cerning wrecks, storms, etc.; but it has later been found possible to present sufficient detail on the chart itself. Although the publication of these charts was duly authorized, no special appropriation was made for the collection of the information that they are designed to show. The co-operation of sea- faring men, and those interested in the weather of the ocean, is therefore solicited. The distribution of the charts from the branches of the hydrographic office lately established in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston, as well as from the central office in Washington, will, doubtless, prove a strong incentive to a more complete reporting of the desired observation. Having thus considered what has been already accomplished for the North Atlantic, we may give a few lines to studies now in progress in different parts of the world. Germany, England, and Holland have entered into a kind of co-operative agreement by which each party is to take charge of a relatively small part of certain oceans, and examine all the observations, furnished from all the parties, with the utmost detail; this plan being the outcome of several meteorological congresses. So far as I can learn, the German government, through Dr. Neumayer of the Deutsche seewarte at Hamburg, is at work on the North Atlantic between latitudes 20° and 50°, from shore to shore, the results to be tabulated in one- degree squares. About one-eighth of this work has been published.! The British meteorological council, of which Gen. R. Strachey is chairman, and Mr. R. H. Scott, secretary, has about completed a series of sea-surface temperature charts of the three great oceans for the cardinal months, February, May, August, and November, ang have on hand a similar set of barometrical charts. A more original under- taking is the preparation of daily synoptic charts of the North Atlantic, in charge of Capt. H. Toynbee, for the thirteen months beginning Aug. 1, 1882, and ending Aug. 31, 1883; this being the period covered 1 Deutsche seewarte, Resultate meteorologische beobachtung- en ton deutschen und holldndischen schiffen fiir eingradfelder des nordatlantischen Oceans. (Quadraten 146 und 147.) Ham- burg, 1380, 1881. These include the area between 40° and 50° north latitude, and 10° to 30° west longitude. SCIENCE. 657 by the international circumpolar observations. It is estimated that there will be at least four hundred observations for each day; and from these it may at last be discovered what becomes of our Atlantic gales. The Indian meteorological service, in charge of Mr. H. F. Blanford, is studying the Indian Ocean north of the equator, lapping to the eastward over the area taken by the Dutch. The Dutch government, repre- sented by Dr. Buys-Ballot of the Meteorological insti- tute at Utrecht, has undertaken the investigation of the China seas (0°-30° north latitude, 100°-150° east longitude), but the results have not yet appeared. The former work of this office on the surface tem- peratures of the Atlantic, although of much impor- tance, has, perforce, been omitted in this review; nor has there been space to consider various essays on ocean surface temperatures by Petermann, Corne- lissen, and Koldeway, which might well be compared with the results on our hydrographic charts. The winds furnish material enough for examination in one essay. It is surely fitting that our government should bear its share in these invaluable studies, and we trust the work now approaching completion for the North Atlantic may be speedily followed by similar studies of the rich material in our possession from the other oceans. W. M. Davis. INVERTEBRATES OF THE TALISMAN EXPEDITION. IN a communication to the French academy, Dr. Paul Fischer observes, that, during the voyage, attention was directed especially to determining whether the deep-sea fauna of the tropical seas is peculiar to the geographical region, or derived by emigration from arctic seas. By dredging in a north and south direction in the eastern Atlantic, and com- paring the results from different latitudes with those obtained by others in northern. seas, it was hoped to arrive at a satisfactory solution of the problem. The line upon which work was done extended from the mouth of the Charente, over thirty degrees of latitude, to Senegal. It is known that the superficial and abyssal faunae of the seas of tropical Africa differ greatly. The genera are not the same: their respective assemblages have no parallel relations. If the remains of these two contemporaneous faunae were fossilized, it might be supposed that they belonged to two different epochs, or represented the population of two uncom- municating seas. The abyssal fauna of the coasts of the Sahara, Senegal, and islands of Cape de Verde, contains a number of mollusks common to the arctic seas which have an immensely wide distribution. Such are Troschelia berniciensis, Chrysodomus island- icus, Scaphander puncto-striatus, Lima excavata, Malletia obtusa, Limopsis minuta, Syndosmya longi- callis, Neaera arctica, N. cuspidata, Pecten vitreus, and P. septemradiatus. These range from Ice- land and Finmark, or northern European seas, in comparatively shallow water, southward to various 658 points on the line, terminating at Senegal. A blind Fusus was dredged in over twenty-five hundred fathoms. These instances are sufficient to show the extension of arctic forms into tropical regions, but with these are found a great number of mollusks yet unknown in the North Atlantic. The abyssal fauna of the African coasts is therefore not composed soiely of arctic immigrants. Lovén has shown that the arctic species range at greater depths as they advance southward, —a fact confirmed by other naturalists, and by the researches of the Talisman party. It is probable, therefore, that the idea now generally en- tertained by malacologists is correct, that the range of SCIENCE. [Vou. III, No. 69, able forms first signalized by the U. S. fish-commission from deep water in the North Atlantic, among which may be mentioned Pholadomya arata, Mytilimeria flexuosa, etc. W. H. DALL. THE RELATION OF THE MOUND-BUILD- ERS TO THE HISTORIC INDIANS: In Kosmos, vol. xiv., parts ii. and iii., will be found two papers, by Dr. Emil Schmidt, on the relation of the mound-builders to the modern Indians. The reputation of the author as a student of American DEEP-SEA MOLLUSKS LIVING AT A DEPTH OF FROM 1,500 To 2,500 METRES. (Taken from La Nature.) Calliostoma, Modiola, Fusus, Dentalium, Turbo, and Terebratula are represented. these animals is determined by temperature rather than by the intensity of light or other factors. The investigations of the Talisman have considerably en- larged the number of Atlantic stations for mollusks reputed peculiar to the Mediterranean. Among these are Cassidaria tyrrhena, Umbrella mediterranea, Xe- nophora mediterranea, Carinaria mediterranea, Pyra- midella minuscula, Pecten pes-felis, Spondylus Gus- soni, and a number of others. Dr. Fischer concludes that the Mediterranean has very few peculiar species, and appears to have been populated in great part by colonists from the Atlantic, after the geological period in which communication with the Indian Ocean was cut off. Lastly, the expedition obtained some of the remark- aboriginal history will give to these papers great weight in Germany. It is important, therefore, in the interests of true science, to know what they con- tain, to indorse them where they are in harmony with the latest investigations, and to correct any mistakes into which the author may have fallen. After paying a just compliment to the Peabody mu- seum, the Smithsonian institution, and the Bureau of ethnology, and expressing his regret that the laity are still disposed to behold something wonderful and mystical in every thing that the mounds reveal, Dr. Schmidt passes in review the history of mound ex- ploration for the last century. Capt. Hearne, in 1791, expressed the opinion that the earth-works could not have been the production of hunting Indians, May 30, 1884.] but of a sedentary people, under fixed laws and or- ganized society. Bishop Madison, in 1803, applied first to the works the titles ‘sacred enclosures,’ ‘temple-mounds,’ ‘ sac- rificial mounds,’ etc. Few of the successors of this writer — Atwater, Squier, Baldwin, etc. — have done any thing to lift the veil of mystery which encom- passes the subject. Prehistoric America stands opposed, in their view, to the historic Indians: a cataclysm cut off the mound-builders, and the mod- ern aborigines are a new revelation on our soil. In anatomy and culture they stood apart. They formed dense settlements in the Mississippi valley, organized despotic governments, worshipped the sun in holy places or on temple-mounds, and offered human sacrifices on theiraltars. They practised agriculture, handicrafts, and art extensively, amused themselves in well-ordered plazas, and buried their dead in mounds. Their time reached thousands of years back; their origin is unknown; they were driven from their homes by savages many centuries before Columbus. If any thing remains of their influ- ence, it is to be sought in Mexico and Central Amer- - jea. However unscientific much of the investigation has been, we have still material for the classification and comparative study of the mounds and earth-works. That the ‘ works’ were designed for defence alone, Dr. Schmidt thinks there is no doubt; but they certainly tell us very little concerning the social organization of those who dwelt within them. The author, speaking of the animal mounds, says they are usually of no specialized form, the particu- lar animal typified in any case being unknown. There is nothing improbable in the suggestion that they are connected with the totemic system of all American aborigines. The truncated mounds, cor- related by the older archeologists with the Mexican teocallis, were undoubtedly the sites of dwellings, ac- quiring their great dimensions in many instances by years of accretion. The altar-mounds prove merely that here corpses were burnt, and with their ashes were deposited the things of greatest value to the dead. Surely there is nothing unique in this, since barbarous nations have done the same thing in all places and times. Let us, therefore, draw the pen through all the fables that have been written upon the civil and religious institutions of the mound-builders. Of the sepul- chral mounds, Dr. Schmidt tells us that their variety and structure can be observed in the old world as well as in the new; and as for the fortification and signal mounds, they are generally only mounds of sepulture. The geographical distribution of the various types points, not to one race, but to a variety of ethnic groups. With respect to the art of the mound-builders, weaving, pottery, agriculture, metal-working, com- merce, and war, there occurs nothing to differentiate them from the modern Indians. The attempts to connect them with Greeks, Etruscans, Phoenicians, SCIENCE. 659 or Hittites, through the ‘inscribed tablets,’ are not worthy of serious criticism. When we turn to the remains of the people themselves, the varied utter- ances of those who have studied the matter are a sufficient commentary upon their results. Indeed, the crania are so distorted that no conclusions can be reached; nor are the discussions upon the an- tiquity of the mounds of any greater value. Dr. Schmidt’s second paper is devoted to an ex- amination of authorities to show, that, in each respect wherein the mound-builders have been deemed a unique people, modern or historic Indians have been found to equal or excel them. The author discusses systematically, for this purpose, agriculture, fortifica- tions, buildings on the upper terraces, house-build- ing, effigy-mounds, platform-mounds, deposits with the dead, cremation, stone-working, pottery, metal- working, ornamentation, textile fabrics, etc. So much for the possibilities of the case. That the mound-builders were the immediate ancestors of any of our historic tribes must rest on language and tradition. In the Iroquois and Algonquin traditions, the author finds the necessary information concern- ing the commencement of that disaster which swept away the mound-builders, and, in the traditions of the Cherokees and Muskoki, the narrative of their extinction. We know their name, Allegéwi; in part, their language; we know their conflicts, and their last century of defeat and decline. The linguistic argument is based on the discussion of Indian migra- tions as evidenced by language, by Horatio Hale. With the author’s arguments, from traditional and linguistic grounds, for the identification of the mound- builders with the Allegéwi, many will have little sympathy. It is to the first part of the essay that especial attention is directed. On general prin- ciples, the continuities of human historic evolution are everywhere becoming even more apparent than those of the natural world. It is difficult to believe, therefore, that the erectors of the earth-remains of the Mississippi valley were a discrete people. The arguments of Dr. Schmidt are strengthened by the recent explorations and researches of Professor Cyrus Thomas in the mounds; of Mr. W. L. Holmes in the shell-carvings and textile work of their build- ers; and of Mr. H. W. Henshaw, the ornithologist, in the identification of the animals of the mound- pipes, ete. ‘‘Itis certain,’’ says Mr. Henshaw, “‘ that, of the carvings from the mounds which can be iden- tified, there are no representations of birds or animals not indigenous to the Mississippi valley. A large majority of the carvings are not exact likenesses either of animals or men. The state of art-culture has been greatly over-estimated.’’ Itis of the utmost importance to bear in mind, however, the fact, well authenticated, that the arts, complexity of social structure, and knowledge, of our modern Indians, have been greatly underrated. The vrobabilities of consanguinity between them andthe mound-builders will be enhanced as well by placing the culture of the former on its true basis, as by an unjust depre- ciation of the works of the latter. O. T. MASON. > 660 ' ENCKE’S COMET, AND THE RESISTING MEDIUM. IT is well known to those interested in the subject, that one of the very few cases in which the celestial motions are not perfectly represented by the law of gravitation is afforded by Encke’s comet. Half a century has now elapsed since Encke announced that the comet, at each return, reached its perihelion two or three hours sooner than was expected. ‘This les- sening of the period was continually repeated at every return, thus showing the action of some con- tinuous cause. He proposed the hypothesis of a resisting medium, or atmosphere, surrounding the sun, as affording the most plausible explanation of the fact. Encke having died in 1865, the subject was next taken up at the Pulkowa observatory by von Asten. The latter died in 1878; and, after some delay, the work was continued by Dr. O. Backlund, a young Swedish astronomer of brilliant reputation. His second memoir on the subject has just been pub- lished, and includes a minute discussion of the obser- vations from 1871 to 1881, as well as a revision of some of Asten’s work. The most important result which he reaches is, that the acceleration is still going on, but is only half as great as that found by Encke. One of the anomalous results reached by von Asten was, that during the two revolutions from 1865 to 1871 there was no acceleration. The revision of his work by Backlund shows, however, that this result was due to an error in some of the formulae which he used, and that, when this error is corrected, the effect is found to be continuous. No new light has been thrown on the cause of this result. Astronomers have not generally considered the acceleration as a well-established fact; because the accurate computation of the perturbations pro- duced by the planets, especially by Jupiter, is so in- tricate as to be very liable to small errors. The fact that Backlund has found an acceleration only half as great as that of Encke, shows that the method of the latter may be subject to doubt. At the same time, the amount of mathematical research which has been applied, and the constancy of the results found by all three investigators, now seem to leave little doubt of the fact. One reason for doubt has been that no other comet exhibited this retardation. This has been especially shown to be true of Faye’s comet. But the difference in the two results may be fully ex- plained by supposing that the atmosphere which re- sisted Encke’s comet does not extend far beyond the orbit of Mercury, the fact being that Faye’s comet does not even come within the earth’s distance from the sun. There is no other comet on which the hypothesis can be tested. The possibility that there is an exceedingly rare atmosphere around the sun is well worthy the atten- tion of astronomers and physicists. The zodiacal light, the motion of the perihelion of Mercury, and the acceleration of Encke’s comet, all point in this direction. The strongest evidence is afforded by the zodiacal light, because this shows that matter of. some sort exists within the region referred to. But SCIENCE. on [Vox. IIL, No. 69. ~~ = hitherto no means have been found to decide whether this matter is in a gaseous form, or in that of minute particles. In the latter case, the total mass would be too small to produce any effect upon the motion of either a planet or a comet. In the former case, how- ever, we cannot assign any such limit. Researches into this subject under favorable conditions are greatly to be desired, especially observations upon the zodiacal light at some elevated point near the equator. As science becomes more extended, it is to be hoped that stations for observations will be selected with less regard to local considerations, and with more regard to the conditions of scientific success. THOUAR AND CREVAUX. THE final report of Thouar, on his search for survivors of the Crevaux party, has been made pub- lic, and terminates the record of that gallant but unfortunately fruitless expedition to which reference has several times been made in these columns. By fruitless it is not intended to convey the idea that valuable results for geography and ethnology have not been attained by Thouar, but merely that the forlorn hope of rescuing alive any of Crevaux’s party was disappointed. After traversing with great haste the high plateau of Bolivia between La Paz and Oruro, experiencing a temperature of zero, Sucre, Tarija, and Caiza were successively reached. Conferences were had with all who seemed likely to afford information or advice; and letters written in French, Spanish, and the native dialect, were sent out among adjacent tribes. But even at this time there were no survivors. All that he could rescue was a broken barometer; a letter of Crevaux; a sketch-map of the Pilcomayo, prepared by Crevaux, and annotated by Billet; and a piece of one of the boats. On the 11th of September, 1883, he reached the spot where the massacre took place, where a photograph was taken, and two wooden crosses erected in memory of the victims. The dead were cut in pieces by the Tobas, and each chief carried to his camp one of these ghastly trophies. The attack was prompted solely by a desire for vengeance. When Thouar inquired why they had killed Crevaux, who was so kindly disposed toward them, they invariably replied, ‘‘ We killed your brother because those of your color have killed ours.”? The dead were dismembered on the very spot where, a few days before, several Tobas had been shot by some inhabitants of Caiza. Thouar hardly finds it in his heart to blame the Tobas, who had been wantonly assailed, and who know no dis- tinction between white men. ‘‘ The Toba,’’ he says, “‘is strong, muscular, above the middle height. He has a dignified and impressive carriage. His color is that of old mahogany; his face is framed in long hair, black and straight ; his forehead is narrow ; the eyes slightly oblique; his cheeks prominent; his nose thick, broad, flattened at the tip; his mo large. He occupies himself exclusively in fishi and hunting. His face, breast, and arms are e May 30, 1884.] gantly tattooed with charcoal made from cornstalks. In his ears are large cylinders of wood. He is rather idle, and does not cultivate the ground. His hands are so soft, that, if required to use an axe, he will blister them. The female Toba is strong, and of an agreeable aspect. Both are clothed in ponchos, with a breech-clout and sheepskin for warmth. ‘They are much given to drinking a fermented liquor made from native grain, which is, however, denied to the women; and in each encampment there is always one Toba who does not drink, and whose business it is to preserve order and make up quarrels. They have several games with balls, etc., which they play for prizes, such as a sheep or horse. The women are very jealous of one another, and fight bitterly among themselves on the slightest occasion. Armed with sharp fish-bones, the combats, which the males regard with indifference, often end fatally. They believe in a good and in an evil spirit, and in ghosts of the dead.”’ Thouar had two hundred men put at his disposi- tion by the Bolivian government, and with these undertook to traverse the Grand Chaco, and follow the course of the Pilecomayo. More than once he was obliged to give battle to hostile natives of various tribes, and, but for his Remington guns, might have been routed. The party was also annoyed by numer- ous jaguars, which prowled about the camp, and fre- quently stampeded the horses. The river is reported at that season to be fifty metres wide, but flowing between banks eighteen hundred metres apart, and twelve or fifteen metres high. The trees were like acacias, of delicate foliage, growing twenty or thirty feet high. On either side stretch immense plains covered with rich pasturage. Numerous large lakes were observed. On the 10th of November, pale, hungry, worn with fatigue, their clothing in rags, the party reached the Rio Paraguay and civilization. The gallant explorer has been crowned by the acad- emy, and has received the gold medal of the Société de géographie. It is probable that he will be enrolled in the Legion of honor, as a distinction fairly won. Wo. D. COUES’S BIOGEN. Biogen: a speculation on the origin and nature of life. By Exuiotr Covers. 2d ed. Boston, Estes & Lauriat, 1884. 66p. 12°. Tus little book contains a lecture on some- thing to which the author gives the name that stands first on his titlepage. But the princi- pal doctrine of the book, apart from the new thoughts to be suggested in its support by the author, needs no new name ; being, as Professor Coues himself insists, nothing but the ancient doctrine that there is an immaterial basis for mental life, and that physical life itself is main- tained by a peculiar ‘force.’ The author has previously privately printed his lecture, which was delivered to the Philosophical society at Washington; but the present edition is the SCIENCE. 661 first one actually published. In it the author adds a preface and an appendix. ‘The discus- sion has plainly grown on his hands; and he expects to follow up this publication with other essays, since he now feels himself ‘‘ in position to express himself more fully, freely, and ex- plicitly on the subject ’’ than he could do at first. Not all of our author’s readers will find it easy to take him very seriously, and for the benefit of such he has given in his preface a very entertaining collection of amusing things that have been said to him about the lecture since its delivery. Yet, if the little book will be diverting enough to many people, it is not to be regarded as merely a diversion: for Pro- fessor Coues has certainly enriched the ancient controversy with several new words, and with several misuses of old words; and the serious critic must accordingly look carefully to see whether this is all, and whether, in fact, phi- losophy has come out from under our author’s pugnacious treatment with any addition save a swollen vocabulary. It is in the appendix that Professor Coues undertakes to define the terms that are to be used in discussions about the nature of the soul of man. His definitions are of this sort: ‘* A man’s ‘mind,’’’ he begins, ‘‘ is not a thing in the ordinary sense of the word ‘ thing:’ itis a relation between two things. These two things are his soul and his body.”’ But what, then, we ask, is the soul? ‘* The soul,’’ we learn, is a thing, ‘‘ an actual entity, a living being of knowable and recognizable qualities, attributes, and potencies.’’ ‘* It con- sists of a kind of semi-material substance.’’ This substance is ‘‘ animalized astral fluid; that is to say, some quantity of the universal ether, modified by vital force.’’ To this ‘ soul- stuff’ the name ‘ biogen’ is applied. It corre- sponds closely to the recently famous ‘ fourth state of matter.’ It is the ‘od’ of Professor Reichenbach. It exists in all animals and plants while they live. This stuff helps the spirit to act upon matter. As for spirit, it is the immaterial element in the world. Soul and spirit are, therefore, not the same thing. Soul is ‘ semi-material:’ spirit is not material at all. Spirit cannot act directly on matter: soul is the body of the spirit, and helps it to act on grosser matter. This semi-material soul persists after death, and is then all of a man that remains, besides his immortal spirit. Under earthly conditions, the gross material body is added, and interaction between this body and the spirit is made possible by the presence of the semi-material soul. The soui- Af 662 substance, or biogen, is the vital principle of the living man. Thus far, then, our author. We are in no wise concerned, as yet, to test the truth of all this. We desire, for the first, only to examine the good sense of it. Our author suggests several interesting thoughts by his very original definitions. Mind is only a relation between soul and body, but not a thing. ‘ Mind,’ also, ‘is what the spirit thinks in con- sequence of its connection with matter.’ ‘ Rea- son is the mistress of the mind.’ ‘Its exercise is judgment, or the critical faculty.’ Hence, it seems, Professor Coues would define a judg- ment as ‘‘ the exercise of the mistress of a rela- tion that the spirit thinks, in consequence of its (the spirit’s) connection with matter.’’ This definition obviously expresses a very distinct advance in the clearness of philosophic thought, and ought to be useful in future logic text- books. ‘The materials for it are found on one page together. However, it is somewhat unfair to judge Professor Coues by any one page of his book, since he says various things on vari- ous pages; such as, that ‘‘mind [viz.. the aforesaid ‘relation’ | is what the spirit retains when it becomes disembodied’’ (p. 61), and that ‘‘ mind, as the expression of a relation between the soul and the body, necessarily dis- appears when that relation is discontinued ”’ (p. 13). It follows from all this, that Pro- fessor Coues has been led to enrich philosophic language by a definition of mind of which he himself can make nothing, and of which we, of course, cannot hope to make much more. But of mind, enough. Let us think of this soul-stuff. It is ‘semi-material.” This may mean either of two things: it may mean that soul is made, half of it out of matter, and half of it out of something else; or that the soul is a sort of a something that is neither matter nor the opposite of matter, but halfway between the two. Which is our author’s mean- ing? If we go from the appendix to the lec- ture, we find (p. 55) a definition of biogen, or soul-stuff, as ‘‘ spirit in combination with the minimum of matter necessary to its manifesta- tion.’’ This would seem to answer our ques- tion. Biogen, or soul-stuff, is semi-material because it is spirit plus a minimum of matter. The same view is borne out by expressions in the appendix itself. But other expressions give countenance to the other view. The soul-stuff is the ‘ body of the spirit.’ Its substance is the ‘medium of communication between spirit and matter.’ It is tenuous, elastic, and proba- bly not atomic in structure. It flows about, it is sometimes projected from the living body during sleep, etc. In all these cases the semi SCIENCE. ig ey ee ee ee Pe) in semi-material seems to refer, not to the com- position of biogen as being matter plus spirit, but to its nature as being halfway between matter and spirit. Soul-stuff is thus expressly opposed both to spirit and to gross matter, being a sort of a something in between the two. One infers, from this confusion and self- contradiction, that Professor Coues has written his essay on biogen without ever knowing what he really means by the word, although it is all his own. The relation of this biogen to ‘ vital force’ is also a question which a careful reader anxiously considers. Biogen is not a force at all (p. 64), but a Tune (the capitals are our author’s). When acted upon by spirit, how- ever, it is the ‘ vital principle ;’ and the ‘ vital principle,’ as we learn from p. 63, is ‘‘ simply the force by which the spirit acts upon matter through the medium of the soul.’’ Hence, to sum it all up again, the soul-stuff, which is not a force, but a thing, becomes, nevertheless, when acted upon by the spirit, a force; viz., that force by which the spirit acts upon matter through the medium of this soul-stuff itself. This we must leave to the reader’s ingenuity to unravel. We confess ourselves baffled. Clear ideas about biogen the reader must therefore not expect. Professor Coues does not go to his philosophic studies for such cheap commodities, and nobody need demand such things from him in this field. He has simply [Vou. III., No. 69. amused himself a little by telling us about the | well-known traditional views of many people, using a hopelessly muddled terminology of his own invention to express no more of the tradi- tional view itself than many well-instructed children in religious schools can tell us. And they would understand their language quite as clearly as Professor Coues seems to under- stand his own. No apology, to be sure, would be needed, if Professor Coues had simply come forward to maintain in a plain manner so an- cient and respectable a faith as that in the ex- istence of immaterial forces and agents: but there is, ‘at the same time, no reason why he should confuse our minds with new meanings, that are yet no meanings, given to words that we have long since learned to use somehow ;_ and there is no need of new words, unless the inventor can give us some clear idea of what they are to mean. Therefore the value of our author’s contribution to the discussion becomes forthwith obvious. The lecture itself is devoted to proving the : dogmas thus defined. But it is enough to say of the whole argument therein set forth, that our author seems entirely to forget one very May 30, 1884.] simple question which nowadays the plain man puts whenever he hears of such a discussion as this. The objection to ‘ vital force’ and ‘ im- material agents’ in the plain man’s mind is, that they are like the ‘dormitive virtue’ of opium. They are just w and y, used where all hypotheses of a more definite nature just now fail to do the required work; and they simply say that some conditions not now better known must be present to cause certain phe- nomena, such as those of life, or such as the phenomena of the human mind. They differ from x and y only in being less frank expres- sions of ignorance. They masquerade (so thinks our plain man) in the long-clothes of Latin or Greek terms; but they are none the _ better for that, and we are none the wiser. Now, Professor Coues altogether neglects, in his discussion, to set the plain man’s mind at rest about this matter, so far as this objection would apply to his biogen. Apart from the wildest assumptions concerning the ‘ ether’ or the ‘ astral fluid,’ Professor Coues has nothing to say in favor of biogen, save that nobody can make living matter, and that nobody can explain the origin of our minds. Hence, he reasons, the soul is immortal, and biogen is a fact. All this is of course tedious. We have long since abandoned such methods. Materi- alism, as a philosophic theory, is indeed un- tenable enough, and no intelligent student of philosophy in our day is apt to become an old- fashioned dogmatic materialist; but heaven knows, that, if such arguments as this of our author were our only refuge from materialism, we should all forthwith be either materialists or word-mongers. Such thinkers as Professor Coues lets him- self be joined with in this lecture, have no genuine conception of what a philosophic prob- lem is. ‘To them materialism is a doctrine to be combated by talking about the mysterious character of life, and the possibility of ‘ semi- material’ substances. ‘They do not see, that if the spiritual character of the world, and the supremacy of reason in it, are to be proved at all, they must be so proved as to make reason actually manifest in all parts of the world. If an atom or a brick-bat, however incomplete an expression of reason it may be, is not as truly an embodiment of the rational and spiritual reality that lies at the foundation of things as is the best-organized structure on the planet, then there is no truth at all in a spiritual theory of the world. ‘Therefore let nobody fancy that he proves or disproves the world to be rational or spiritual by proving or disproving that there SCIENCE. 663 are one or two subtle fluids in it more or less than had been noticed before. If life result from an altogether unique natural ‘ force,’ so be it. Prove and make plain the meaning of the fact, and we shall be as content with it as with any other natural truth. But that proof would not make life one atom more or less spiritually significant than it now is. The moral and the rational order of the universe would be in no wise more or less manifest ; the fallacy of philosophic materialism would be no more or less evident; and, if we could make shiploads of Shakspeares in our laboratories to-day, the spiritual nature of things would be no less certain. Discussions that dwell with rapture on possible, vaguely defined, mysteri- ous, ‘ semi-material ’ fluids and potencies, help us no nearer to the explanation or to the proof of the rational truth of things, and do help us to think less rationally ourselves. There are, in fact, two forms of idealism prevalent amongst us. One we might call the mendicant form of idealism ; since it is always begging the world of experience to show us something fantastic, romantic, intangible, un- utterable, so that we may live in awe as at a juggler’s show. To this view God is himself a sort of showman, who likes to hear our out- bursts of wonder when he does odd things. Such idealists are never so sure of the spiritual truth of things as when somebody has just finished a ghost-story. Or, if they abandon this fashion of idealism, they devote themselves to inventing halfway substances, too fine to be seen or touched, too subtle to be reached by physical experiments of any sort, far less the objects of experience than is the universal ether an object of experience, and unlike the ether in having no definable properties. These they glory in. ‘These are the earnest to them that our world is not commonplace nor gross, but the offspring of reason, the dwelling-place of God’s power. To such idealism Professor Coues seems willing to join himself. His idealism, it would seem, would be in some danger if we found how to produce live germs in our laboratories. He hints at mysterious stories of a super- natural character as indicating something about the nature of biogen. He seems to depend on the phenomena that are not yet explained, as the sole foundation for a spiritual theory of the world; and he seems, meanwhile, to suppose himself a kind of Elijah among those worshippers of Baal, the materialists. Only believers in the fantastic and indefinable can be idealists ; and he is one of the few faithful. But there is another form of idealism in the 664 world, and that idealism is indifferent to all this love of merely fantastic and romantic mys- tery. It regards the world as through and through rational, and for that very reason it does not suppose phenomena to be more divine, merely because of the accident that we cannot explain them by any general rules of experi- ence. It insists, that if we could produce new life of any order, high or low, as easily as we . ean strike a light, life would be no more and no less a manifestation of the divine reason than it now is. And this idealism needs no subtle ‘ astral fluids’ to convince it that there are spiritual realities. The true nature of a cow is not more manifest in skimmed and watered milk than it is in the rich new milk; and this trust in ‘ subtle media’ is merely a demand that we shall believe only the skimmed milk of nature to be a genuine expression of the di- vine life. If all the matter in nature were for our senses composed of indivisible particles as big as paving-stones, and if every heap of these paving-stones, however and whenever made, behaved just like a rational being, and wrote philosophic lectures, the spiritual nature of reality would be just as manifest as it now is, and philosophic materialism would be just as absurd.. Hence Professor Coues does what this second form of idealism regards as something worse than wasted labor. He not only talks confusedly about his unintelligible biogen, but he helps to disseminate the impression that a belief in a spiritual truth in the world depends upon a faith in the existence of some fluid so thin that you cannot say any thing definite about it. All this is rank paganism ; for it is analogous to the views of those peoples whose gods are conceived after the fashion of smoke. JostaH Royce. REPORT OF THE OBSERVATORY AT HERENY, HUNGARY. Publikationen des astrophysikalischen observatoriums zu Herenyin Ungarn. Herausgegeben von EuGEN von GotuarpD. Hefti. Herény, 1884. 104 p., 6 pl. 4°. Tue astro-physical observatory of Herény has recently issued its first volume of publica- tions, prefaced by the director, von Gothard, with a graceful tribute to his friend, the well- known Dr. von Konkoly. The observatory is situated on the estate of Herény, near Steinamanger, in the western part of Hungary. The main building was finished in 1881, and is of two stories, with a SCIENCE. [Vou. ILL, No. 69. tower for the equatorial at one corner: a smaller building receives the transit instru- ment. ‘The rooms are all admirably planned and arranged to promote the comfort and efficiency of the observers. In the upper story we find an office, a room for the direct- or, and a large, well-appointed physical labo- ratory. On the ground-floor there are, be- sides two smaller rooms, a chemical laboratory fitted with many conveniences, and a work- shop. The workshop, a feature in which most of our observatories are deficient, is supplied with tools intended not only for making minor repairs, but for constructing many valuable pieces of apparatus; and what is even more valuable, as it is unusual, the director and his assistants appear to be skilful mechanics. The principal instrument of the observatory is a Newtonian reflector by Browning, of ten and one-fourth inches aperture, which is pro- vided with a very complete outfit of photo- graphic and spectroscopic accessories. | Ae ; ‘e Sa 2a 4 o Q Year.) are a af |e) |) mie ie oe Ho) 4 fe) o 7 ex Z, A, ° Es, Hed oie 1870 | ~ 184 50 150 41 99 - |11 mos. 1871 | 211 60 154 44 104. = 1872 | 234 60 132 34 94 2 1873 | 214 54 151 38 92 = 1874 | 190 18 175 17 35 = 1875 | 189 14 176 13 27 = 1876 | 195 9 il 8 17 & AST) LOL 7 174 6 13 2.6 | Began 1878 | 185 2 180 2 4 2.2 | June, 1879 | 204 9 161 7 16 2.0 | agitr 1880 | 216 13 150 9 22 14.3 1881 | 191 23 174 21 44 26.7 1882 | 201 55 164 44 99 28.3 1883 | 215 24 150 17 41 27.4 the use of santonin, from a child of three years. The specimens, consisting of a dozen fragments, appear to be portions of three worms, which probably reached a length of from twelve to fifteen inches. Unfortu- nately the head is lost. The joints, or proglottides, are several times broader than long. The eggs occu- py a simple uterus, defined by the walls of the joints, and not divided into pouches diverging laterally from the main stem, as in most Taeniae. .A singular fea- ture of the worm is the interruption of the series of ripe joints, here and there, by one or more completely sterile ones. The generative apertures open in the usual way on the lateral margin of one side. The ma- ture eggs are spherical, measure 0.072 of a millimetre diameter, and contain fully developed, six-hooked embryos. While differing greatly from the ordi- nary tape-worms infesting man, they approximate nearly the description of Taenia flavopunctata, and probably pertain to this species. This has been but once previously observed, and was described in 1858 by Dr. Weinland, from specimens in the muse- um of the Medical improvement society of Boston. These also were discharged by a child. It is probable that the worm is more common than would be sup- posed from the instances of its observation, and has perhaps escaped notice from its small size, and from the general ignorance of the distinction, not only of this, but of the ordinary species of tape-worms. —— Prof. J. T. Rothrock referred to the structure of the common violet, and remarked that he had observed that in the flower, the so-called path-finders, or lines of the petals leading to the ovaries, are much more conspicuous on the lower and side petals than on the ~ others, thus rendering them of most use to insects, — which are supposed to be guided by them to the ova- — ries. | qi May 30, 1884.] May 13. — Professor Joseph Leidy exhibited speci- mens of a curious parasite (Pentastomum proboscide- um), found in the lung ofa large rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus) from Florida. They are cylindrical, incurved, annulated, largest at the head, tapering behind, becoming again larger, and rounded at the end, and terminating ventrally in a short, conical point. They vary from nine lines to thirty-one lines in length, and from one and a half to three lines in width at the head. Although these curious creatures, in their mature stage, are cylindrical, worm-like, limb- less bodies, they are allied, by their structure and embryonic peculiarities, to the Arachnida, or spiders. — Mr. Edward Potts announced the discovery in Harvey’s Lake, near Wilkesbarre, of vast colonies of a species of the beautiful polyp, Cristatella. He had not been able to determine whether or not it belongs to one of the three described species of the genus. They may prove to be distinct, although it is not improbable that all the species may hereafter be con- sidered as one. The specimens were collected from the smooth, inclined surface of logs, and from the branches and twigs of submerged trees. Colonies had since been formed on the sides of a collecting- jar, each statoblast having developed into from three to eight polyps. The colonies are not circular, but have a persistent appendage which contains none of the polypiferous cells. Supposing the form to be new, he proposed for it the name Cristatella lacustris. Colorado scientific society. May 5.— Messrs. W. F. Hillebrand and Richard Pearce made a preliminary communication in regard to an interesting group of minerals recently found in Utah, some of them being new to the United States. The minerals found are, enargite and the secondary hydrous arseniates, olivenite, and conichalcite (Dana’s System of min., p. 565), with two amorphous sub- stances corresponding, apparently, to pitticite and chenevixite. The olivenite occurs in small, distinct crystals; the conichalcite, in form similar to that from the only locality previously known, in Spain, while its chemical composition is also very near to that of the original mineral, a small amount of copper being replaced by zine. Jarosite, turgite, and one or two as yet undetermined species, occur sparingly with the above. Mr. Pearce also exhibited pseudo-malachite associated with hubnerite from near Phillipsburg, in Montana. Society of arts of the Massachusetts institute of technology. April 24.— Prof. Charles R. Cross gave a lecture on ‘ The determination, history, and present stand- ards of musical pitch.’ After referring to the use of the sonometer for determining the relative num- ber of vibrations of any two notes, Professor Cross gave a description of the methods of determining the absolute number of vibrations of any fork, giv- ing an account of Konig’s researches (Amer. journ. otology, October, 1880), and explaining the use of Scheibler’s tonometer. The only good standard was stated to be the tuning-fork, which varies its rate less than gcon per degree (Centigrade) of change in tem- perature; while the organ-pipe and the oboe, some- SCIENCE. 667 times used as standards, vary much more with changes of temperature. The history of pitch was discussed, and tables given showing the change in the standards from time to time. The principal change had been a gradual rise of the standard. Some measurements made by Professor Cross in 1880 had given results, of which the following is an abstract: — Number of | vibrations, oe o | Ritchie, copy of Chickering’s standard . : | 269 Mason & Hamlin, French pitch : 259.1 Hook & Hastings, old flat organ-pitch Sere 264.6 Organ in Church of Immaculate Conception, Boston 266.7 Chickering’s standard fork Vek eRe 268.5 Smith American organ company . 267.2 New-England organ company . ioe A. Hepner pianose 3.7% sf ds fe Bs 6 Hook & Hastings’ standard . . .«. . »- + + = >» 270 Weber pianos . . . . + +» « « . Thomas’s pitch, 1879 271.1 Music-Hall organ . 9 271.2 Steinway’s pitch... . 272.2 273.9 Highest New-York pitch . The standard used by the Boston symphony orches- tra in 1882-83 was an A-fork of 448 double vibrations; that used in 1883-84 was a French A of 435 vibrations. The standard French pitch of the New-England con- servatory of music is a middle ©, a true sixth below the normal A, hence of 261 vibrations. Owing to the difference between the true and tempered sixths, the C-fork used with the orchestra which has A for its standard does not agree with this. Chickering and Miller have had C standard forks made which are a tempered sixth below the French A, making 258.7 vibrations, and which could therefore be used with the orchestra which has A for a standard. Thomas’s present pitch is an A a little sharper than the French A. Comparing the highest New-York piteh given above with the standard in Handel’s time, when the C-fork had 249.6 vibrations, the difficulty of singing some old music is readily understood. Mr. A. P. Browne explained the Deerfoot safety milk- can, by which the introduction of any adulterating substance into the can is rendered impossible, while the thorough mixing of the milk and cream is insured every time any milk is drawn out. NOTES AND NEWS. SEVERAL members of the New-York legislature, from the western part of the state, a year ago called the attention of their state board of health to the necessity of draining certain large, swampy, and mias- matic lands that lie in a shallow trough on the back of the hard Niagara limestone between Rochester and Niagara. In response to their memorial, Mr. Gardi- ner, director of the state survey, was requested by the board of health to make an accurate topograph- ical map of the district, and to report upon a plan by which it could be drained; and accordingly sur- 668 veys were actively carried on last summer, with a result now presented in Mr. Gardiner’s ‘ Report on the drainage of the Tonawanda and Oak-Orchard Swamps,’ in the fourth annual report of the board of health, just issued. The two swamps are connected, but only the latter or eastward one was thoroughly examined. It is long and narrow, with irregular margins, covering an area of twenty-three thousand acres. Although nearly level, it has a sufficient slope for drainage from the sides towards the middle, and from east to west following the creek, which leaves it at the western end; but, on account of the resist- ance of the hard limestone over which the outlet flows, it has failed, as yet, to cut a passage deep enough to dry the ground, or wide enough to discharge the spring rains and melting snow. The report contains valuable discussions of the rainfall of western New York, of the ratio between rainfall and stream-dis- charge (taken largely from the invaluable reports on the Cochituate and Sudbury water-supplies for Bos- ton), and of the proper size and slope for discharge- channels: it is accompanied by maps and sections. If legislators in other states, contemplating the ad- -visability of establishing a survey of their domains, would examine p. 3 of this report, they would find the encouraging statement that it is ‘‘ necessary to secure, as a basis for any adequate plans and propo- sitions for successful drainage, an accurate topo- graphical map.’’ — The organization of the Yale college observatory is now proceeding quietly. The control of the obser- vatory will come directly under the corporation, the old board of managers being abolished. The bureaus of horology and thermometry, on account of their outside relations, will be placed on.a business basis. — The American institute of electrical engineers, recently organized in New York, consists of mem- bers, honorary members, and associates. Members and honorary members are professional electricians and electrical engineers. Associates include per- sons practically engaged in electrical enterprises, and all suitable persons desirous of being connected with the institute. All members and associates are equally entitled to the privileges of membership. At the meeting, May 13, officers were elected as follows: president, Norvin Green; vice-presidents, A. Graham Bell, Charles T. Cross, Thomas A. Edison, George A. Hamilton, Charles H. Haskins, Frank L. Pope; managers, Charles F. Brush, William H. Eck- ert, Stephen D. Field, Elisha Gray, Edwin J. Hous- ton, G. L. Hillings, Frank W. Jones, George B. Prescott, W. W. Smith, W. P. Trowbridge, Theodore N. Vail, Edward Weston; treasurer, Rowland R. Hazard; secretary, Nathaniel S. Keith. —— A letter was read from C. J. Kintner, of the patent office, deprecating the large surplus turned into the U. S. treasury each year by the office, especially in view of the press of new inventions, which, in the electrical department, are now four months behind. —— Reso- lutions were passed, pledging the influence of the in- stitute “‘to prevent any restriction of the rights and privileges of inventors, as they now exist under the laws, and that the institute of electrical engineers SCIENCE. ae eae” eA. eee [Vor. IIL, No. 69. earnestly desires the passage of Senator Platt’s bill, or its equivalent, in order that the work of the patent office may be put on a more efficient footing.’”? —— Mr. Isaac Trumbo of San Francisco made some re- marks on the state of electric lighting on the Pacific slope, and stated that he had been investigating various systems of lighting for use in the west. — The sixteenth and seventeenth. annual reports of the trustees of the Peabody museum have just been published in one volume. The curator, Prof. Fred. W. Putnam, gives the results of his important dis- coveries, made in 1882 and 1883, in certain mounds in Madisonville, in the Little Miami valley, Ohio, as well as of the explorations of others in Tennessee and Wisconsin, and of shell-heaps upon the coast of Maine. The Madisonville mounds have disclosed the interesting fact, that their builders made use to a limited extent of meteoric iron for the manufacture of ornaments, as is proved by the careful analysis given by Dr. Kinnicutt. Of even greater interest is the discovery of a series of pits, provided with flues, which appear to have been employed for the purposes of cremation, although Miss Fletcher has suggested the possibility that they were caches for storing valuables, which could be burned when liable to be captured by enemies. Mr. Putnam makes an almost passionate appeal to the patriotism of the American _ people for the preservation of the more important of the fast-disappearing relics of the remote past of their country. These reports are enriched by’ five most valuable papers by Miss Alice Fletcher, giving com- plete and heretofore unknown information in regard to the religious belief and the ceremonial observances of different Indian tribes. Mr. Carr has added an exhaustive examination of the social and political position of woman among the Iroquois, establishing incontestably the preponderating influence wielded by her. There is also a thoroughly scientific study by Miss Studley, with complete tables of measure- ments, of the osteology of human remains brought by Dr. Palmer from four caves in Coahuila, Mex. Lastly, Dr. Barrett has given interesting notes of his observations of numerous instances of dental disease occurring in ancient crania of the extensive collec- tions of the museum. We regret that we have not space to give such an account as they merit, of these reports, which equal, if they do not surpass, in im- portance, any of the valuable contributions which Mr. Putnam has made to our knowledge of American antiquities. — The summer course in botany, from July 7 to Aug. 16, at the botanic garden of Harvard university, Cambridge, Mass., will be given by Professor Tre- lease, of the University of Wisconsin. ‘This course of lectures is designed to present, in a familiar way, the more important principles of botany of flowering © plants. The elements of morphology, microscopic anatomy, and physiology of plants will be illustrated in the lecture-room by living specimens, by demon- strations and experiments. Laboratory work of two kinds will be provided, —1°, for beginners; 2°, a _course of laboratory practice for advanced students, -comprising demonstrations in microscopic anatomy May 30, 1884.] and development, special attention being given to the study of cryptogams. The fees for lectures and laboratory practice will be twenty-five dollars. Ap- plications for places in the laboratories should be made to Prof. G. L. Goodale, Cambridge, before July 6. — Old Providence Island, recently visited by the U.S. fish-commission steamer Albatross, was in old times the favorite resort of buccaneers; and the ruins of their fortifications, even some of their ancient cannon, are still to be seen. A glance at the beauti- ful little harbor of Catalina and its surroundings reveals the wisdom of its selection as a rendezvous by the lawless freebooters. The island is entirely surrounded by dangerous reefs, the entrance to the harbor being narrow, somewhat tortuous, and com- manded by their batteries on shore. Ample supplies of wood, water, fresh meats, fruit, and vegetables, could be procured from the inhabitants, with whom they made it a point to be on friendly terms. Its location near to, but outside, the great routes of com- merce, made it particularly valuable for their pur- poses. The island belongs to the United States of Colom- bia, and has a population of about eight hundred, the Indian blood predominating; but there is a large African element. The English language is univer- sally spoken, and the Protestant religion is the only one professed by the people. Schools are maintained, and it is the exception when a native is unable to read and write. The climate during the dry season, from November to May, is tempered by the trade-winds, which blow constantly, and is probably unexcelled by that of any island in the West Indies. There is no physician on the island, and the lack of proper medical attendance causes great suffering among the inhabitants. Dr. Herndon had a room fitted up on shore, and gave his whole time to the sick who came or were brought to him, the ship furnishing such medicines as could be spared. As soon as they anchored, an officer was sent on shore to call on the magistrate, and to inform him of the mission of the Albatross. He received the officer very cordially, and offered every assistance in his power. The naturalists commenced work at once, and succeeded in making a very creditable collection. A large variety of fish was procured for specimens, and an ample supply for officers and crew was caught with the seine. Fresh beef, poultry, sweet-potatoes, yams, and fruit were plentiful at fair prices. Tor- toise-shell and cocoanuts are articles of export. — The German foreign office means to send a com- missioner to the west coast of Africa, on whose re- port it will depend whether a German man-of-war shall be stationed in those waters, or not. Dr. Nach- tigall, the German consul in Tunis, has been in- trusted with this mission. He will be accompanied by Dr. Biichner, the explorer, and by a member of the German embassy in London. The gunboat Mowe has been sent there to supersede the corvette Sophie. —The German government has awarded 135,000 SCIENCE. 669 marks to Dr. Koch for his services on the Inter- national cholera commission. — The German iron and steel industry society is publishing an illustrated work on the uses of iron and steel in the building-trade, giving full directions for any workman to apply for himself. The expenses will amount to £1,750, and the members of the soci- ety call upon all interested in the iron-trade to con- tribute towards them. — From Nature we learn that the electrical con- gress of 1884 adjourned, after deciding on the stand- ard value of the ohm as satisfactorily as may be at present. It must, however, be considered as little short of disappointing, that no better standard of light could be suggested than that emitted from a square centimetre of platinum at the temperature of fusion; and in requesting that ‘‘the results of observations (of earth-currents) collected by the various admin- istrations be sent each year to the International bureau of telegraph administration at Berne,’’ the committee simply stated that they had nothing to report. M. Mascart grouped the results of ohm de- termination in the following useful table: — Column of Methods. Experimenters. mercury in centimetres. ( British Association . 104.83 1. BoE | Rayleigh-Schuster . 106.00 5 ial \ Rayleigh (1882) 106.27 (H. Weber . . 106.16 Kohlrausch . 105.81 2. Weber (1.} . } Wiedemann 106.19 Mascart . 106.33 (FE. Weber 105.02 : ! Rowland. . 105.79 8. Kirchhoff Glazebrook. 106.29 Mascart . 106.33 4 Roiti . 105.90 5 Fr. Weber. . 105.33 ( Lorenz (first) . 107.10 ) Rayleigh. . . 106.24 WS Cea aS Anau ies 106.13 | Lorenz (second) . 106.19 (Dorn . gic 105.46 } Fr. Webe 105.26 7. Weber (II.). . 4 Sunita 105.68 | Baille . 105.37 8. Heat . Joule . 106.22 From this it appears that the figures obtained by the different methods were — BRA es fe Meee 106.21 Weber’s (1.) 106.14 Kirchhoff’s . 105.93 Lorenz ; 106.19 Weber’s (II.) 105.47 SOWIE = 9 Se 106.22 the mean of which was 106.02; but 106 was taken as a round figure, sufficiently near the truth for all prac- tical and useful purposes: hence the congress de- cided that ‘‘ the legal ohm should be the resistance of a column of mercury of one square millimetre section, and of 106 cm. of length at the temperature of freezing.”’ —Among those granted prizes this year by the French academy were, in geometry, Emile Barbier; in mechanics, Marcel Desprez; for his experiments 670 on electric transmission of power, in astronomy, Bouquet de la Grye, de Bernardieres, Courcelle- Seneuil, Fleuriais, Hatt, Perrotin, Bassot, Bigour- dan, and Callandreau, for their observations of the transit of Venus in 1882; Stephan, the Vally prize; in physics, Henri Becquerel; in chemistry, Etard and L. Cailletet, for his researches on the liquefac- of gases; in geology, Fontannes for his work on the basin of the Rhone, and Péron for his account of the geology of Algeria; in botany, Joanues Chatin for his studies of trichina, and G. Bonnier, L. Man- gin, Klein, Ch. Maguier, Costantin; in physiology, Paul Regnard, and Balbiani; in aeronautics, Gaston Tissandier, Duroy de Bruignac, and V. ‘Tatin. — The following resolutions were passed at the Ornithological congress of Vienna: 1°. The chase, capture, and trade of birds of passage and their eggs should be forbidden during the second half of the winter and in the spring ; 2°. All wholesale capture of birds of passage, and trade in them, should be for- bidden, except during the hunting-season. Dr. Karl Russ of Berlin received the highest honor diploma of the congress, for his works on bird-keep- ing, canaries, parrots, and his journal called the Feathered world. — Parts xxvi. and xxvii. of Butschli’s ‘ Protozoa’ have just appeared, and nearly complete the Flagel- lata. Kent's unsatisfactory classification is set aside for a new and more scientific system. Nearly two hundred species are known, divided into a hundred and ten genera. Biitschli reduces the number of gen- era, which might otherwise soon exceed the species, and establishes the following sub-orders : Monadina, Englenoidina, Heteromastigoda, and Isomastigoda. Although the work was originally planned to be com- plete in fifteen parts, and twenty-seven have already appeared, the Infusoria, and the general chapter on the Protozoa, are still to come. — The Iilustrirte zeitung states that the reeommen- dations of the German cholera commission are being put in force at Hyderabad, especially with reference to the water-supply; the reform being hastened by the young Nizam having an attack of cholera. — The death of Dr. Paul Pogge, the celebrated Af- rican traveller, is a loss to the German-African explo- ration society. He started from Loanda with Lieut. Wissmann; from Nyangure, on the Kongo, he re- turned, sending his companion to Zanzibar; from Loanda he meant to start on fresh explorations, but died. — The last (fifth) report of the Archaeological in- stitute of America is principally occupied with an account of the explorations, carried on for the society last year by Mr. Bandelier, in New Mexico and Ari- zona. An excellent map illustrates his various routes; and, in an extended report, he gives the conclusions he has drawn mainly from his architectural studies, of the different ruins investigated. He finds a well- defined system of growth from the temporary Indian lodge, to the many-storied pueblo building, which clearly does not owe its origin to any external influ- SCIENCE. [Vou.. IIL, No. 69. ence. Mr. Bandelier is now in the mountains of northern Mexico, seeking for traces of any possible connection between the ancient Pueblos and the © Aztecs; and it is announced that the report of his important studies in Mexico, in 1881, at Cholula and at Mitla, is nearly ready for publication. Of the work in classical archeology, carried on by the institute, an account is given of the conclusion of the explorations at Assos, in Asia Minor, owing to the expiration of the three years’ firman granted for that purpose. The main efforts of the past year have been expended upon the Agora and the Necropolis. A fair division of the objects discovered was arranged with the agent of the Turkish government; and two fine bas-reliefs from the temple of Athena, the human- legged centaurs and the heraldic sphinxes, have been received by the Museum of fine arts in Boston. Mr. Clarke is now in London, preparing a complete report of the explorations. The total cost of this expedition, so important for the knowledge of classical antiquity, and so honorable to American scholarship, has been a little more than nineteen thousand dollars. Ap- pended is the third annual report of the committee on the American school of classical studies at Athens. — Ostrich-farming is a new business, unknown till the English colonies of South Africa realized such wonderful results. We have already given some sta- tistics of their enormous increase. The ostrich lays a minimum of forty, a maximum of sixty, eggs in a season, weighing about three pounds each, and which are laid in the sand, and left to hatch in the hot regions; but in cooler regions the male and female birds sit on the nest by turns, defending it with great courage. Forty days is the time for incubation. Since the importation of domestic ostriches into the United States, the South African farmers have become fearful of losing their great profits in case of a suc- cessful competition springing up. — The Academy announces the death of Sefior Don Eulogio Jimenez of the observatory at Madrid, one of the first mathematicians of Spain, and author of ‘La teoria de los numeros’ and many educational works on mathematics, both original and translated. —A coal-steamer, the Loch Garry, has left St. John’s with five hundred tons of coal for the Greely search party, and materials for a house; these supplies to be landed on Littleton Island. The Bear got away from St. John’s before any of the whaling-fleet, except the Norwhal, a slow vessel. The Thetis will convoy the coal-steamer as far as possible; and, in case of separation, they are to meet at Disco. _ — The French association for the advancement of science will hold its thirtieth meeting in the town of Blois, from Sept. 4 to 11. — The Franklin institute wishes to make a loan- collection of pieces of electrical apparatus of historic interest, one feature of the approaching electrical exhibition, and has issued a call to those having such pieces to send them to Philadelphia, where the proper care is guaranteed. Edwin J. Houston is the chair- man of the committee on the historical electrical apparatus. SCIENCE. FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Tue rapid strides made in all departments of science, and the fundamental revolutions in some of them, have increased the demand of the public and of publishers for books which shall expound, in clear and simple language, the latest discoveries. Yet publishers look at such books in some measure askance, unable, as a rule, to judge for themselves of their probably permanent or ephemeral value, and always with a very reasonable fear that they will speedily prove antiquated, and become a drug in the market. An apparent attempt to evade the little financial dilemma which the advance of knowledge presents to the vender of literary wares has recently been brought to our notice. Four books, sent us at one time for review, were first examined to see whether they were of sufficiently recent date to notice. They bore no date. A careful examination showed that one of them consisted of lectures delivered two or three years ago, but no clew to the age of the others could be found. It was tolerably evident that the very unusual omission was intentional. If intentional, it was, to say the least, a deliberate purpose to evade the purchaser’s natural and proper ques- tion, Does this book represent present knowl- edge? We leave to the ‘ Society for the pro- motion of Christian knowledge,’ whose imprint each of these books bore, to ask itself the ques- tion, Is such a practice defensible on the srounds of scientific, Christian, or even pagan morality ? Ir is a question to be considered, whether our smaller societies of natural history, to whose meetings we desire to call attention in the columns of Science, do not make a mis- take in having no plan of work towards the accomplishment of which they can make a No. 70.—1884. united effort, instead of pursuing observation and discussion almost at random. Larger societies in the cities, where publications, and even general collections, are attempted, must naturally cover a broad field: it is not to these that we refer, but to the smaller societies that spring up, too often for but a short life, in our country towns. ‘The desire for large member- ship, and the admission of members to full standing without any requirement of work ac- complished, seems to us another error. Five really industrious members make a very good nucleus for a local club. Others can be added later, on the assurance of some task of local observation actually performed, and of willing- ness to co-operate towards some attainable end; and beyond this there may, of course, be general meetings, as public and as fully at- tended as possible, but full membership should in all cases mean work done. Tue coast-survey has just published a ‘North-Atlantic track-chart,’ executed with the beautiful neatness characteristic of its work, ‘¢ to illustrate the point, that, in the conic pro- jection, the straight line upon the plane surface of the chart almost exactly represents the great circle contained between its termini, which on other projection will do.’’ A reduced facsimile of the chart will be found on the next page. If this be demonstrated to obtain with sufficient closeness for all latitudes and all courses, the conic projection, in which a part of the earth is represented on a conical surface, tangent or secant about the middle latitudes of the re- gion represented, should replace the common Mercator’s or cylindric projection of ordinary sailing-charts, in which great distortion is caused by throwing the geographic lines on a cylinder tangent to the earth’s equator. The advantage usually quoted for the latter projection is, that it enables the navigator to lay out a course having a constant bearing CHAR T TRACK NORTH ATUAN TI OC Tries mu ie ie i ( nat 1 : pei Hh a cu ne N| a a Te i i SCIENCE. _| | ae Ba || (J : SY Fes 4)? SHEE c r H J A Wubiished by the, U.S,Coust a 1 Scale Ad5a5n0 nic Prejection Nuutiedl Miles [Vou. IIL., No. 70. throughout his ocean-voyage: but this advan- tage is largely fictitious ; for, with better knowl- edge of winds and currents, it is now seldom found advisable for sailing-vessels to follow such a route; and steamers, that can afford to pay little attention to the weather, prefer the great circle, or shortest-line course, to the longer cne, so easily determined on the Mer- cator chart. The difficulty that stands in the way of the general adoption of great-circle sail- ing is the complexity of the calculation required in laying out the track to be followed. If this difficulty can be overcome by the use of the conic projection, then the owners of vessels desirous of quick passages can hardly fail to demand its introduction. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. x*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. A colt and its mother’s blanket. My attention was called recently to the peculiar actions of an orphan colt, which perhaps are worth recording. When the colt was two weeks old, its mother died. Previous to her death, she was covered with ablanket. When it was apparent she could not live, the blanket was thrown over the fence, and the mare removed, and the colt left in the enclosure. ‘The colt was very much exercised at first, ran up and down the yard neighing; but, when it came near the blan- ket on the fence, it stopped, smelled of it, and seemed pacified. It evidently considered the blanket its mother, and has continued to do so. If the blanket is removed from the fence, the colt becomes restless, runs about neighing, but is recon- ciled by the sight of the blanket again. If one throw the blanket over his back, the colt will follow the bearer all about. | It will graze about in the vicinity of the blanket, but will not go far away, and, when it wishes to rest, will go and lie down by it. F. L. HARVEY. Fayetteville, Ark., May 20. The invention of the vertical camera in pho- tography. In a footnote accompanying an article by Mr. Simon H. Gage, printed in this journal under date of April 11, 1884, on the application of photogra- phy to the production of natural-history figures, it was stated, that the only other persons employing a vertical camera in photography, known to the writer, were Dr. Theo. Deecke of the State lunatic-asylum at Utica, N.Y., and Dr. Dannadieu of Lyons, France. As a matter of fact, the vertical camera, now used ~ for photographing natural-history specimens, etc., is — the outcome of a suggestion made in December, 1869, by Professor Baird to Mr. T. W. Smillie, the photog- — rapher in the U.S. national museum, Washington, D.C., that the instrument be placed on an incline; — the former having observed the difficulty experier 7 in photographing with the horizontal camera suc objects as stone implements, fish, etc. This sug; JUNE 6, 18S84.] tion was acted upon; and in the following year (1870) Mr. Smillie invented the vertical camera, and with it introduced the use of a side-light, which produced the same effect as the skylight with the horizontal camera. Mr. Smillie also attached to the side of the apparatus an endless screw, whereby the distance could be readily regulated between the lens and the object to be photographed. In 1871, and again in 1875, a camera of this kind was constructed specially for photographing the marine animals taken by the U.S. fish-commission at Wood’s Holl, Mass. Its advantages were readily seen by Professor Agassiz, who asked and obtained Professor Baird’s permis- sion to construct for his own work a camera on a similar principle. Not less than six thousand nega- tives have been taken with the vertical camera by Mr. Smillie. _G. Brown GOODE. A tailed child. The Commercial of this city for the 17th and 18th inst. gave accounts of a tailed child recently born here. As such eases are of scientific interest, and are very rare, a party of four, including a prominent doctor and the writer, concluded to investigate the case. We found a female negro-child, eight weeks old, normally formed in all respects, except that slightly to the left of the median line, and about an inch above the lower end of the spinal column, is a fleshy pedunculated protuberance about two and one-half inches long. At the base it measures one and one- quarter inches in circumference. A quarter of an inch from the base it is somewhat larger, and from that it tapers gradually to a small blunt point. It closely resembles a pig’s tail in shape, but shows no signs of bone or cartilage. There seems to bea slight mole-like protuberance at the point of attachment. The appendage has grown in length about a quarter of an inch since the birth of the child. The mother, Lucy Clark, is a quadroon, seventeen years old, and the father, a negro of twenty, — both normally formed. In Darwin’s ‘ Descent of man,’ vol. i. p. 28, he speaks of a similar case, and refers to an article in Revue des cours scientifiques, 1867-68, p. 625. A more complete article is that by Dr. Max Bartels, in Archiv fiir anthropologie for 1880. He describes twenty-one cases of persons born with tails, most of them being fleshy protuberances like the one just described. H. W. EATON. Louisville, Ky., May 24. Hibernating mammals. In Science, No. 68, Dr. Merriam desires the evi- dence upon which my statements concerning the hibernation of certain mammals were based to be well sifted; and rightly, if it is true that my observations upset the well-known (?) laws that govern hiberna- tion. Now, these ‘laws’ may be in force in the Adirondack region, but they are not in Central New Jersey. I presume Dr. Merriam will admit that the squirrels and Hesperomys occasionally take a nap during the winter; that sleep is not wholly ignored by them. In my original communication (Science, No. 65), I stated very clearly that the Hesperomys slept much more during the winter months than at other times; that its hibernation consisted of such additional slumber, and nothing more. So far as the moles are concerned, I have never found evidence of activity in winter equal to that characteristic of the summer SCIENCE. 673 months; and specimens kept in captivity hibernated, in the strictest sense of that term, although food was kept within reach all of the time. Of course, star- nosed moles may get out of the reach of freshets; but I have never seen evidence of this, and have often dug down to their burrows immediately the freshet subsided, and found the animals where they were when the waters began to rise. Since the appearance of Dr. Merriam’s critical remarks, I have thought the matter over, and believe it probable that these moles may close the openings to their burrows so effectually as to shut out the water from the central nest. This, it must be borne in mind, is a supposition only. In conclusion, I would state that I am not given to ad- ducing facts in proof of general statements. Con- vinced of their essential correctness, I leave them with others to disprove or confirm by their independent observations. In the case of the ‘hibernation’ of certain mammals, a comparison of my original com- munication with the conclusions of my critic will show that there is no very marked difference in our impressions as to the habits of the animals named; and, whether ‘extraordinary or improbable,’ what I have said of the Hesperomys and star-nosed mole is not simply substantially correct, but absolutely so. Cuas. C. ABBOTT, M.D. May 25, THETROVAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. Tue third session of this society was held at Ottawa, commencing on the 20th of May, and ending on the 23d. Many members and delegates were present; among the latter, Dr. Persifor Frazer of Philadelphia, who represented the American association for the advancement of science, and Dr. C. Hart Merriam of New York, who represented the American ornithological union. An address of welcome was presented to the new governor-general of the Dominion, the Marquis of Landsdowne, inviting him to be- come the honorary president of the society, to which his Excellency returned a suitable reply. The president’s address was delivered by the Hon. P. J. O. Chauveau, in French, and the vice-president’s by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, in English. On the 22d of May the members and friends of the society were invited by the Ottawa field-naturalists’ club to participate in an excursion to the King’s Mountain, near Chelsea, in the Laurentian country to the north of the city, which proved eminently successful. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: president, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt ; vice-president, Dr. Daniel Wilson; treasurer, Dr. J. A. Grant (re-elected) ; honorable sec- retary, Mr. J. G. Bourinot (re-elected). The two scientific sections of the society are the third (mathematical, physical, and chemi- cal sciences) and the fourth (geological and 674 biological sciences) ; and our account covers only the more interesting or important papers in these two sections. A full list will be found in our Notes. In the physical section, Mr. F. N. Gisborne, the superintendent of the government telegraph- service, described a new system, devised by himself, to obviate the evil effects of electrical induction in underground and aerial conduct- ors. A number of diagrams were presented, illustrating the conditions obtaining in neigh- boring circuits ; and two or more circuits ar- ranged in the ordinary way, and the same arranged according to his method, were com- pared. The advantages of the latter arrange- ment were clearly set forth; and proofs of its efficiency were presented in a tabular statement of experiments made with a section of cable about three thousand feet in length, constructed under his direction, and laid underground be- tween two of the departmental buildings in Ottawa. The cable contains twenty indiffer- ently insulated conductors or wires, which are divided into pairs, two conductors being twisted together in each case. Each pair constitutes a metallic circuit, one conductor being used as a ‘return,’ instead of the earth-plates usually employed. The peculiarity of the invention consists in the twisting of these metallic cir- cuit conductors, as both wires are thus made to occupy an equidistant relationship with respect to any other conductor or pair of con- ductors in their vicinity. It was explained, that, by this device, a current introduced into a circuit is conducted down one wire, and up the other; and, the position of both wires being the same with respect to neighboring circuits, the inductive effect of the current passing down one wire is neutralized by the inductive effect of the same current passing up the return-wire. It was also theoretically demonstrated that the twisting of the wires of the metallic cir- cuits lessens the effect of induction of the current upon itself. When the wires of a me- tallic circuit are laid parallel throughout, the current induced from one wire into the other is in the same direction as the current itself passing in that wire; the effect of the current is‘ therefore prolonged, and retardation expe- rienced in a marked degree: whereas, when the wires are twisted closely (say, two turns to the inch), the wires occupy throughout their length a position approaching right angles with respect to each other; and the induced cur- rents are thereby materially lessened, and re- tardation rendered less appreciable. In the discussion which followed the reading SCIENCE. a ee ae ae 7 - of the paper, it transpired, that if a conductor were enclosed and insulated within another conductor (such, for instance, as a gutta-percha covered wire drawn through a metal tube), and both conductors were connected at either end with earth-plates, or other conductors, so as to form two independent closed circuits, the enclosed conductor might be employed to con- vey electrical currents, without any inductive effect being perceived, in a circuit extending parallel with, or in the neighborhood of, the outside conductor. The explanation of this condition is, that the outside conductor, which in this case cannot be used as a medium for communication, intercepts the induced currents on all sides of the inducing circuit, and in its closed cireuit absorbs them. As in such a system the outside conductors could not be utilized in the formation of circuits for purposes of communication, it is admitted, that, apart from the bulkiness necessarily at- tending it, the first cost of construction upon that plan renders the system comparatively impractical; whereas, in the system advanced by Mr. Gisborne, the construction is much cheaper, and all the conductors form an in- tegral part of the communicating circuits, so that space is economized to the fullest extent. A good deal of interest is being manifested in this invention which Mr. Gisborne has just now brought forward, although it has been a subject of investigation with him for some years past, the cable referred to in the paper having been ordered by the Dominion govern- ment during the summer of 1882. Mr. R. Steckel presented a paper on the form of the contracted liquid vein, affecting the pres- ent theory of the science of hydraulics, in which the author claims to propound a new theory of the efflux of liquids, and describes experiments by which he has sought to test it. Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, in his paper on the origin of crystalline rocks, maintained, in op- position to the plutonic and metamorphic hy- potheses of the origin of these rocks, a new one, designated the crenitic hypothesis (Greek, Kpyvy, ‘& Spring’), according to which they were formed, at an early period of the earth’s history, by the agency of circulating subter- ranean waters rising to the earth’s surface as springs. He supposes the previous existence of a chaotic layer, the last-congealed portion of a globe consolidating from the centre ; which layer, rendered porous, and permeated by waters, gave up to them the materials of quartz — and the felspars, after the manner of zeolites, — to be deposited at the surface. The action of © non-aluminous silicates, allied to pectolite or the — [Vou. III, No. 70 ; 4 JUNE 6, 1884.] magnesian salts in sea-water, was the source of serpentine, pyroxene, etc. ‘The gradual re- moval by solution from below, of vast quantities of material, and the resulting contraction of the primitive stratum, caused the universal corru- gations of the upper acidic or gneissic layer. From the undissolved basic residual portion have come such eruptive rocks as melaphyres - and basalts, while granitic and trachytie rocks are softened and displaced portions of the acidic or secondary layer. The author has developed at length this hypothesis, which, according to him, affords a satisfactory expla- nation of many hitherto unsolved problems in geology. In a paper on the density and the thermal expansion of aqueous solutions of sulphate of copper, Prof. J. G. MacGregor gave an account of extended observations made to determine the density of solutions of differ- ent degrees of concentration, and at different temperatures. As a general result of the ex- periments, it is shown, 1°, that the rate of vari- ation of density with temperature in all cases increases with the temperature and with the degree of concentration ; 2°, that at low tem- peratures (below about 25° C.) the rate of change of density with temperature is for all solutions greater than the same rate for water ; 3°, that the difference between these rates diminishes as the temperature increases; and, 4°, that for most solutions (probably for all) these rates are, at sufficiently high temperatures (30°-50°), the same as for water, i.e., the thermal expansion of solutions is the same as that of water at these temperatures. The experiments also substantiate a result formerly obtained by Professor Ewing and the author, that very weak solutions of this salt have a volume smaller than that of the amount of water which they contain. Prof. E. Haanel gave a continuation of his paper, presented to the society last year, on blowpipe re-actions on plaster-of-paris tablets, in which he described the effect of treating copper with hydrobromic acid, and iron with hydriodic acid, and showed how to distinguish between selenium and mercury. He described also the coatings per se, for the above tablets, for selenium, tiemannite, arsenic, silver, alloys of bismuth, lead, and antimony with silver, galena, orpiment, realgar, mercury, tellurium, earbon, cadmium, and gold. The same author gave a description of ap- paratus for distinguishing flame-coloring con- stituents when occurring together in an assay. The apparatus consists of a spectacle-frame, furnished for the left eye with plain colorless SCIENCE. 675 glass, and, for the right eye, with four glasses, —red, green, violet, and blue. These glasses revolve on an axis, and can be brought, either separately or in any combination, before the right eye of the operator. Prof. N. F. Dupuis showed how to develop by simple algebraical methods certain functions ordinarily developed by the aid of the calculus. Prof. E. J. Chapman described a series of analyses of magnetic and other iron ores from samples obtained by him personally from vari- ous parts of Ontario. The geological condi- tions of the deposits were also briefly given. In the geological and biological section, Dr. A. R. C. Selwyn gave an account of his observations, in 1883, on the geology of a part of the north shore of Lake Superior, in which he considered he was able to show that the creat masses of columnar trap which form the summit of Thunder Cape, Pie Island, and McKay’s Mountain, were not part of a ‘ crown- ing overflow,’ as they have been described to be, and newer than the Keweenawan series, but that they are contemporaneous with the black slaty shales of the Animikie group, which immediately and conformably underlie them. Professor George Lawson presented a re- vision of the Canadian Ranunculaceae. The author referred to his monograph of Ranuncu- laceae, published in 1870, to the extensive col- lections that had been subsequently made, and to works published upon the North-American flora, — all of which enabled a fuller and more accurate description of Canadian ranunculace- ous plants to be given now than was possible when the previous paper was prepared. The greater precision given to recent observation had also enabled the geographical range of these plants to be stated more fully. The striking diversity of modification in the form, number, and arrangement of the several parts of the flower and of the fruit, in the several gen- era, was pointed out. The number of Cana- dian species is seventy-eight, and of varieties eighteen. Dr. T. Sterry Hunt presented a second part of his essay on the Taconic question in geol- ogy, in which he endeavored to show in the first place, more fully than has yet been done, the relations of the Taconian or lower Taconic series of stratified rocks to the succeeding Cambrian, or upper Taconic, which some geol- ogists have confounded with the Taconian. In this connection is given a critical discussion of the studies of Perry, Marcou, and others, and the opinions of Dana, as regards the Cam- brian of the Appalachian region of North America. In the second place is considered VAY Ae parm, 676 the probable equivalence of the Taconian to the Itacolumite series of Brazil, and to similar rocks elsewhere in South America and the West-Indian Islands, as well as in Hindostan and southern Europe. All of these compara- tive studies, it is said, tend to establish the distinctness of the Taconian as a great and widely spread series of crystalline stratified rocks, occupying a horizon between the Cam- brian and the Montalban or younger gneiss series of Europe and North America. Some deposits of titaniferous iron ore in the counties of Haliburton and Hastings, Ontario, were discussed by Prof. E. J. Chapman. After referring to the occurrence of numerous depos- its of magnetic iron ore in certain zones or belts of country in the counties of Victoria, Haliburton, Peterborough, and Hastings, he described their conditions of occurrence as those of large, isolated masses or ‘ stocks,’ — forming, in some cases, sheathed stocks, or stockscheiders and skélars, of German and Swedish miners, — as in the great iron-ore zone of Arendal, in Norway. While these stock- masses of iron ore are, for the greater part, quite free from titanium, one of vast size in the township of Glamorgan, and another equally large mass in Tudor, are shown to contain a considerable amount of titanium. Detailed descriptions of these were given, with analyses of the ore. Prof. E. J. Chapman also read an essay on mimetism in inorganic nature. Mimetism, as recognized in organic nature, has been re- garded, on the one hand, as the direct result of a protecting Providence, and, on the other, as originating in minute approaches towards the imitated object ; these becoming intensified in successive generations until the imitation be- comes complete, or reaches its extreme limit. In this paper, the writer attempts to show that neither hypothesis may be absolutely correct, but that the peculiarity may be due to some occult law of ‘localism’ by which associated forms often become impressed with mutual re- semblances. In support of this view, he refers to several curious cases in which certain min- erals, normally and generally of very dissimilar aspect, become closely mimetic under certain local conditions ; as seen in examples of quartz and zircon, pyroxene and apatite, etc., in the phosphate deposits of the Ottawa region. A monograph of Canadian ferns was offered to the society by Dr. T. J. W. Burgess and Prof. J. Macoun. Professor Macoun stated, that twenty years ago the total number of ferns known to occur in Canada was forty-six, while at the present time it had increased to sixty- SCIENCE, [Vou. III., No. 70. three. In illustrating the range of the more interesting species, he particularly noticed the occurrence of Phegopteris calcarea in Anti- costi, where he had found it in 1882, and re- marked that the same plant had recently been collected by Drs. G. M. Dawson and R. Bell in the country around and to the east of the © Lake of the Woods. Prof. L. W. Bailey, in a paper on geological contacts and ancient erosion in the Province of New Brunswick, summarized the more impor- tant and well-established lines of physical con- tact between the geological formations of New Brunswick as bearing upon the relative age of the latter, and the disturbances to which © they have been subjected. Three well-marked breaks, separating groups of widely diverse character were recognized among pre-Cam- brian strata, —the supposed equivalents of Laurentian, Huronian, and possibly Montalban horizons ; a very marked one at the base of the Cambrian ; and others successively between later formations to the base of the trias. The evidence of such breaks was shown to be of various character, including discordance of dip and strike, overlap, igneous extravasations, and intermediate erosion; and the bearing of the facts determined on the physical and geo- logical history of north-eastern America was briefly discussed. The granites, which con- stitute so marked a feature in the geology of the Acadian provinces, were described as in- trusive, and as the cause of the extensive alteration exhibited by the formations which they have invaded. The erosion which ac- companied or followed upon the disturbances described was shown to have been enormous. Mr. G. F. Matthew continued his illustra- tions of the fauna of the St. John group by presenting a paper on the Conocoryphidae, with notes on the Paradoxidae. The species of Con- ocoryphe referred to and illustrated are C. Matthewi Hartt (with three varieties), C. ele- gans Hartt, C. Baileyi Hartt (with two varie- ties) ,and a new form which the author describes as C. Walcotti. Critical remarks are also made upon Paradoxides lamellatus Hartt and P. acadicus. In a description of a supposed new am- monite from the upper cretaceous rocks of Fort St. John, on the Peace River, Mr. J. F. Whit- eaves considered it to be an undescribed species of Prionocyclus, closely allied to the type of that genus (Ammonites Woolgari of Sowerby), but with much more closely coiled volutions. It occurs in flattened nodules, in shales which — are believed to be the equivalents of the Fort Benton group of the Upper Missouri section. JUNE 6, 1884.] THE MIDDLE YUKON. —I. Tue extent of the Alaska military reconnois- sance of 1883 was so great that I deemed it best to divide the account of it into conven- ient sections; and the three subdivisions, of which this is the second, have already been ex- plained as made wholly with reference to my own travels. It was therefore not intended as a geographical division of this great river, al- though it would not be altogether unavailable even for this purpose. The Middle Yukon, SCIENCE. 677 fishery or mineral, that may spring up along it. I have spoken, in my previous article, of the comparative sizes of the Pelly and the Lewis, showing the latter to be undoubtedly the Yukon proper; and the view (fig. 1) taken looking into the mouth of the Pelly from an island at the junction of the two, and that (fig. 2) looking back up the Yukon from the site of old Selkirk, show the evident preponderance of the latter, although, in the case of the Pelly, but one of its mouths, the lower and larger Fic. 1.— YUKON RIVER: VIEW LOOKING INTO THE MOUTH OF THE PELLY RIVER. with reference to my expedition, extends from the site of old Fort Selkirk to old Fort Yukon, —a part of the river which we know in an approximate manner by the rough maps of the Hudson-Bay traders, who formerly trafficked along these waters, some envoys of the West- erm union telegraph company, and a few oth- ers. This part of the river, therefore, had been explored; and. to my expedition fell the lot of being the first to give it a survey, which, though far from perfection, is the first worthy of the name, and, I believe, sufficient to answer all purposes until commerce is established on the river subservient to the industries, either 1 See Science, Nos. 55, 56. one around the island, can be seen distinctly. The perpendicular bluff of eruptive rock, dis- tinctly columnar in many places, and with its talus reaching from half to two-thirds the way to the top, shown in the first view, extends up the Pelly on the north bank as_far as it was visited, some two or three miles, and continues on down the Yukon on the same (north) bank for twelve or thirteen miles, when the en- croaching mountains obliterate it. In but one place that I saw was there a break, so that one could climb from the bottom, over the débris, to the level plateau that extended back- ward from its crest; although in many places this plateau could be gained by alpine climbing a) lal 678 ; up the crevices in the body of the rock. The plateau is not very wide before the foot of the high rolling hills is gained. In fig. 1 the con- stant barricades of driftwood, met everywhere on the many islands of these rivers, are shown, and are much below the average in amount ; the heads of the islands being often piled up with stacks ten to twenty feet high, forming more or less a protecting dam, in freshets, from the eroding power of the swift water. An Ayan (or Iyan) Indian grave some two or three months old, on the bank of the river SCIENCE. [Von. III, No. 70. From the grave itself there is erected a light pole tw enty to twenty-five feet high, and hae ing some colored cloth flaunting from its top ; although in this identical grave the cloth was white, or, rather, dirty white. Not far away, always close enough to show that it is some superstitious adjunct of the grave, is another pole of about equal height ; and to its top there is fastened a poorly carved figure of a fish, duck, goose, or bear, which, I think, desig- nates the sub-clan to which the departed be- longed. This pole may be, and often is, a fine Fie. 2.— VIEW LOOKING UP THE YUKON FROM THE MOUTH OF THE PELLY. near the site of old Fort Selkirk, was a typical one of the many we saw from here to Fort Yukon. The body is bent up, with the knees to the breast, so as to take as little space as possible, and enclosed in a very rough box of hewn boards two and three inches thick, cut out with their hand-axes, and then buried in the ground, the lid seldom being over a foot or a foot and a half below the surface. The grave- enclosure is made of roughly hewn boards, four corner-posts being prolonged, and rather neatly rounded into a design represented in fig. 3, and from which they seldom depart. Tt is lashed at the top by willow withes, and one or two stripings of red paint are just below this. young tree of proper height and convenient situation, stripped of its limbs and bark. The ‘totem’ at the top is sometimes made as a weather-vane, or probably it is easier to secure firmly by a pin driven vertically; and it be- comes a sepulchral anemoscope without their intending it for any such meteorological object. These poles may be striped with red paint, and the outside pole has one or several pieces of cloth hung from its length. The graves are always near the river-bank, and, when fresh and white, can be seen for many miles. There — is no tendency whatever to group them into graveyards, bey ond the fact that they are a little more numerous near their semi-permanent vil-— a f , JUNE 6, 1884.] lages than elsewhere, the ease of interment be- ing evidently the controlling cause of location. Leaving out the poles, there is a strong resem- blance, in a rough manner, to civilized graves ; and no doubt much of its form is due to the direct and indirect contacts with civilization, as my own Indians (Chilcats) told me that they formerly placed their dead on pole scaffoldings in the branches of trees, somewhat after the manner of the Sioux; and in one instance a very old and rotten scaffold in a tree was pointed out to me as havy- ing once_ subserved that purpose, al- though no sur- roundings con- firmed the sto- ry; but these could have easily been obliterated. We = suc- ceeded in getting a photograph (fig. 4) of a group of Ayan or Iyan_ Indi- ans, with \& their birch- \S bark canoes. It was very hard work to keep them still; SCIENCE. 679 ascending the river by keeping near the shore, and using one on each side of the canoe, poling against the bottom. So swift is this great river in these parts, that they use no other method in ascending it, except for very short distances. In descending, the current is the main motive power, especially for long journeys, and the and, as far as fineness of fea- tures is con- cerned, the pho- tograph was , 3 not perfect. — Their __ birch- bark canoes are the _ best on any part of the river in lightness, com- pactness, and neatness of build and de- sign. ‘The paddle, well shown in outline in the hands of one of the group, is of a cross-section shown in fig. 5, the ridge or rib, 7, being always held to the rear in using it. In addition to the paddle, there are two light poles for each canoeman, about as long as the paddle, and as heavy as its handle; and these are used in Fig. 3.— LOOKING ACROSS THE YUKON. ‘THE BLUFFS ARE OBSCURED BY THE HIGH SPRUCE-TREES ON THE ISLAND, THE HILLS BEYOND SHOWING ABOVE. paddle is only leisurely used to keep them in the swiftest part of the stream. When they desire, however, they can go at a gait that few canoemen in the world, savage or civilized, could equal. A couple of species of fish were caught near the site of Selkirk, —the grayling being the 680 same kind that was caught in such immense numbers near Miles’ Rapids, and observed in varying numbers from Perthes Point, on Lake Bove, to the mouth of White River, averaging a trifle over a pound in weight; and a trout- like salmon, caught sparingly from Lake Nares to White River, occasionally with a fly, but more often on the trout-lines put out over night. We got away from Selkirk, July 15, at 1.15 p.m., having waited for a meridian cul- mination of the sun for an observation for lati- SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 70. bulky raft was swung in as if it had been a canoe. From previous explorers on the river, I had been deluded into the idea that useful articles —as knives, saws, and files — were the best for trading-purposes, the purchase of native work, and payment of services; but I soon found this to be erroneous, for the constant burden of their solicitations was for tea and tobacco, small quantities of which they get by barter with intermediate riparian tribes. These desires I found to extend the whole Fia. 4.— AYAN INDIANS AND THEIR BIRCH-BARK CANOES. tude. Although we had understood from the Indians that had visited us, that their village was but a few miles below Selkirk, we had be- come so used to weak, straggling numbers of natives, that it was a great surprise when we rounded the lower end of an island, about 4 p.M., to see from a hundred and seventy-five to two hundred Indians on the south bank of, the river, ready to receive us; our coming having. been heralded, evidently, by advance couriers, and all of them apparently half frantic with excitement for fear that we would drift past without visiting them. A line was thrown ashore, and every man, woman, and child got hold of it, and the great a, Fie. 5. length of the river; and, as the former article is light, I would especially recommend it to those entering that country to pursue scientific research, for which there is such a grand field. Bea" Se eee lt =~ - we These Indians call themselves the A-yans, with an occasional leaning of the pronuncia- JUNE 6, 1884.] tion towards I-yan; and this village contained the majority of the tribe. The village was called Kah-tun’, also Tah-kon* or Tahk-ong (tahk seeming to be a root in the language of this country: vide Tahk-heesh, Tahk-heen-a, Tahk-o, etc.). It was of a semi-permanent character ; the huts madeof spruce brush, over which there was an occasional piece of cloth or canvas, or a caribou or moose skin. ‘These brush houses were squalid affairs, and espe- cially so com- pared with the bright, intelligent look of the ma- kers, and with some of their other handicraft, as their canoes and wearing ap- parel. One could hardly stand up in the houses: they were gener- ally double, fa- cing each other, with a narrow aisle between, each one contain- ing a single fam- ily, and about the area of a common government A remt. Wre.-6 gives a ground plan of a double brush house. The ‘WS aa Kah-tung con- |Z0weeaaah tained about Own" twenty of these houses, huddled near the _ river- bank, and altogether was the largest Indian vil- lage we saw on the whole length of the Yukon River. There was a most decided Hebrew or Jewish cast of countenance among many of the Ayans; greater, in fact, than I have ever seen among any savages, and so conspicuous as to make it a subject of constant remark. Their household implements were of the most primitive type,—such as spoons of the horn of the mountain sheep, very similar to those of the T’linkits, but in no wise so well carved ; and a few buckets, pans, and trays of birchbark, ingeniously constructed of one piece so as not to leak, and neatly sewed with long withes of trailing roots. Just after landing the raft, the crowd that = = —_ = \ SSS ic = 25 n sear A aS QA Pe “i WSS SN ——S— : of : SS Pai ss =) att S LE re eZ = —< c \ \ \ village of |& ns Lm SCIENCE. Fie. 7. —KoN-ITL, CHIEF OF THE AYANS. 681 lined the narrow beach commenced singing and dancing, —the men on the (their) left, and the women on the right. The song was low and monotonous, but not unmusical, — characteris- tic of savage music. ‘Their hands were placed on their hips, and they swayed laterally to the rude tune; while the medicine-men went through the most hideous gymnastics possible. A photograph was attempted of this group ; but the weather was so unfavorable, the amateur apparatus so in- complete, and the favorable oppor- tunity so hard to seize, that it was a complete failure. After tea and tobacco, which we could spare only in small quantities, fish-hooks seemed to be their favor- ite demand; and the very few arti- cles they had to spare, mostly spoons and birch cups and buck- ets, were eagerly exchanged. | Gs “SISREMICHAEL’s ISLAND MERMDIAN as 21 Boundary Butte or. (L Mt. Tatotlees« Tatotlingu Ri e O Bello, |. Wore ee a Bere Reliance Zz 2 e] zZ 2 o eo \\2achuk Or, PART 2 OF THE MAP OF THE ROUTE OF THE MILITARY RECONNAISSANCE of 1883, Licut. F. SCHWATKA, COMDG., FORT SELKIRK, B.C., TO FORT YUKON, ALASKA. SURVEYED AND COMPILED BY C. A. Homan, Topeu. ASST., U.S. A. GEOGRAPHICAL MILES 10 20 30 =40 STATUTE MILES 30 = 40 not more than one being able to hold it so as__ the moist ground freezes solid ; and the banks, to form an abatis along the bank. Fig. 11 therefore, have the tenacity of ice to support represents a similar sketch on this part of the them; and it is not until the water has eroded 708 as far as c (five or six times as far as in fig. 10) that the superincumbent weight becomes great enough to break off the projecting bank along ed; and cd S,as a solid, frozen mass, tum- bles in around the axis c, and, being too heavy for the water to sweep away, it remains until thawed out and washed away. I have roughly attempted to (&%,, *. show this in fig. 12. I think gpd any one will acknowledge that the raft #, carried by a current sweeping to- wards C, is not in a very desirable posi- y tion. It is gener- Yj ally bad enough on Ys any river with a sin- gle line of trees along its scarp, but on the Yukon it is as much worse as I have shown. In fig. 12 the maxi- mum is depicted just as the bank falls; and it requires but a few days for all the outer trees to be packed away by the swift current, and a less bristling aspect presented, the great mass acting somewhat as a barrier to again erode the bank for a long while. In many places along the river, this undermining had gone so far that the bank seemed full of caves; and, drifting close by, one could see and hear the dripping from the thawing surface, cS (fig. 11). In other places the half-polished surface of the ice could be seen in recent fractures as late as July, and even August. On the 18th, shortly after noon, we passed a number of Indians on the right bank with six- teen canoes. It was probably a trading or hunt- ing party, there being one for each canoe, and no women with them. About 8.30 p.m. we passed an Indian camp on the left bank, which, from the apparent good-looking quality of their tents as viewed from the river, we thought might be a mining- party. From them we learned that a deserted white man’s store was but a few miles farther on, but that the man had left a number of months be- fore, going down to salt water, as they ex- pressed it. Wecamped that night at the mouth of a conspicuous but small stream coming in from the east, that we afterwards learned was called Deer Creek by the traders, from the large number of caribou seen in its valley at certain times of their migrations. At this point the SCIENCE. eg ee eee | ee, [Vor. IIL, No. 71. Yukon River is extremely narrow for such a distance from its head, and considering its pre- ‘vious mean width, being between two hundred and two hundred and fifty yards. It must have great depth, for its increase in current does not seem adequate to carry its previous volume. Believing I was now near the British bound- ary, I reluctantly determined on giving a day (the 19th of July) to astronomical observa- tions, — reluctantly, because every day was of vital importance in reaching St. Michael’s, near the mouth of the river, in time to reach any outgoing vessels for the United States. That day, however, proved so tempestuous, and the prospects so uninviting, that, after get- ting a couple of poor ‘ sights’ for longitude, I ordered camp broken, and we got off at 11.10 A.M. A few minutes before one o’clock we passed the abandoned trading-station on the right bank of the river, which, we surmised from certain maps, and information received afterwards, was named Fort Reliance. It was a most dilapidated-looking frontier pile of Zy LI ZZA wae LEE bag og Fie. 12. shanties, consisting of one main house, the store above ground, and three or four cellar- like houses, the roofs of which were the only parts above the level of the ground. We afterwards learned that the trader, Mr. Mc- Question, had left, fearing some harm from the Indians. ; Nearly opposite Reliance was the Indian village of Noo-klak-o, numbering about a hundred and fifty souls. Our approach was announced by the firing of from fifty to seventy- five discharges of guns, to which we replied with a much less number. This method of sa- . luting is very common along the river, from here down, and is an old Russian custom that has found its way this far up the stream, much beyond where they ever traded. It is a cus- tom often mentioned in descriptions of travels farther down the river. The permanent num- ber of inhabitants, according to Mr. McQues- tion, was about seventy-five to eighty; and therefore there must have been a great number of visitors among them at the time of our passing. They seemed very much disap- pointed that we did not visit them, and the JUNE 13, 1884.] many that crowded around the raft spoke only of tea and tobacco. Their principal diet, I understand, is moose, caribou, and salmon. Their village is a semi-permanent but squalid- looking affair,—somewhat like those of the Ayans, but with a greater predominance of canvas. Starting at 8.10 a.m., next morning, from camp 33, at 11.30 we passed a good-sized river coming in from the west, which I named the Cone-Hill River, from the fact that there is a conspicuous conical hill in its valley, near the mouth. Just beyond the mouth of the Cone-Hill River we saw three or four bears, both black and brown, in an open or untimbered space on the steep hillsides of the western bank. We gave them a volley, with no effect except to send them scampering up the hill into the SCIENCE. 709 identify any of the smaller streams clearly from the descriptions and maps now in exist- ence, and aided by the imperfect information gained from the local native tribes. Between 2.30 P.M. and 3 p.m. we floated past a remark- able-looking rock, standing conspicuously in a flat, level bottom of the river, and very promi- nent in its isolation.1 It very much resem- bled Castle Rock on the Columbia, but is only about half its size. Dark, lowering clouds still obscured the tops of the river-hills. At half- past twelve we came upon an Indian village of a permanent character, of some six houses, on the western bank of the river, which is generally called Johnny’s village, the Indian name being Klat-ol-klin. It numbered from seventy-five Fie. 183.— INDIAN VILLAGE OF KLAT- OL-KLIN, OR JOHNNY’S VILLAGE. brush. I was told by a person in southern Alaska, undoubtedly conscientious in his statement, and having considerable expe- rience, that the brown and black bear of his district never occupied the same localities, and although these localities might be promiscu- ously mixed, like the spots on a checker-board, yet each species of them remained rigidly on his own color, so to speak; and this led him to believe that the weaker of the two, the black bear, had good reasons to be afraid of his more powerful kind. This day’s experience of the two kinds together, in one very small area, shows either an error of judgment of the observer mentioned, or a peculiarity of temper in the animals we saw. My authority spoke also of the manner in which the Indians per- persistently avoided the haunts of the brown bear, and this terror of that animal I found to exist as far as my travels extended. After leaving the Stewart River, which had been identified by a sort of reductio ad absurdum reasoning, I found it absolutely impossible to to a hundred souls; and on the gravel-beach in front of the row of houses were probably from one-fourth to one-third as many canoes of the birch-bark variety, but larger and clumsier in construction than those of the Ayans. A number of long leaning poles, braced on their down-hill ends by cross uprights, were also seen ; and these serve as scaffoldings for drying salmon, and to keep them from the many dogs while going through this process. While taking a photograph, two or three salmon fell from the poles ; and in a twinkling, I think fully sixty or seventy dogs were in a writhing mass over them, each one trying to get his share. These dogs were of a smaller breed, and notice- ably of a darker color, than the Eskimo dogs of the lower river. They subserve these Indians the same purpose. The body of the houses is of avery inferior quality of log construction, in which ventilation seems to be the predomi- nating idea (although even then not to a suf- ficient degree, as judged by one’s nose upon 1 Called the Roquette Rock, after M. Alex. de la Roquette of Paris, France. 710 entering), and the large door in front is roughly closed by a well-riddled moose or caribou skin, or occasionally a piece of canvas. The roof is of skins battened down by spruce poles. The row of houses is so close to the scarp of the bank, that the ‘ street’ in front is a narrow path, where two persons can hardly pass without stepping indoors or down the hill, and, when I visited the village, was so monopolized by scratching dogs that I could hardly force my way through. A fire is built on the dirt-floor in the centre of the habitation, and the smoke left to get out the best way it can. As the occupants are gener- ally sitting flat on the floor, they are in a stra- tum of air comparatively clear; for the smoke can find air-holes through the cracks of the house-walls, while that which is retained under the skins of the roof is utilized to smoke the salmon which are hung up in this space. It was at this village that to me the most wonderful and striking performance ever given by any natives we encountered on the whole trip was displayed, and in this I refer to their method of fishing for salmon. I have spoken of the extreme muddiness of the Yukon from the mouth of the White River; and this spot, of course, is no exception. I believe I do not exaggerate in the least when I say, that, if any ordinary pint tin cup was filled with it, nothing could be seen at the bottom until the sediment settled. The water is from eight to twelve feet deep on the banks in front of their houses, where they fish with their nets ; or at least that is nearly the length of the poles to which the nets are attached. The salmon that I saw them secure were caught about two hundred and fifty or three hundred yards out from the bank, directly in front of the houses. Standing in front of this row of cabins, some person, generally an old squaw, possibly on duty for that purpose, would an- nounce that a salmon was coming up the river, when some man, identifying its position, would run down to the beach, and pick up his canoe, paddle, and net, and start out into the river rapidly ; the net lying on the canoe’s deck in front of him, his movements being guided by his own sight and that of a half-dozen others on the beach and bank, all shouting to him at the same time. Evidently, in the canoe he could not judge well at a distance: for he seemed to rely on the advice from shore until the fish was near him, when, with one or two dexterous and powerful strokes with both hands, he shot the canoe to the position he wished ; regulating its finer movements by the paddle in his left hand, while with his right he plunged the net the whole length of its pole SCIENCE. a [Vou. III., No. 71. to the bottom of the river, from eight to twelve feet ; often leaning well over, and thrusting his arm deeply into the water, so as to adjust the mouth of the net (covering about two square feet) directly over the course of the salmon. Of seven attempts, at intervals covering three hours, two were successful, salmon being caught weighing about fifteen pounds. How these Indians at this great distance can see isolated running salmon on the bottom of an eight or ten feet deep river, and determine their position near enough to catch them in the narrow mouth of a small net, when under the eye a vessel holding that many inches of water from the river completely obscures an object at its bottom, is a marvellous problem that I will not attempt to unravel; it of course de- pends in some way on the motion of the fish. In vain they attempted to show members of the party the coming fish. I feel perfectly satis- fied that none of the white men saw the least traces that the natives tried to show. In their houses and on the scaffoldings were several hundred that had been caught in this way. The only respectable theory that I could evolve, was that the salmon came along near the top of the water, so as to show, or nearly show, the dorsal fin (for it borders on the marvel- lous that they could be seen at the bottom, or that any motion of theirs could be detected from the top when they were on the bottom, among the ripples of the swift muddy stream), and that when they neared the canoe, the sight of it, or more likely some slight noise, probably made on purpose, sent them to the bottom without any considerable lateral devia- tion, and that they were thus directed into the net; but my interpreter told me that this superficial swimming did not take place, but that the motion of the fish was com- municated clear to the top from the bottom. The nets used I have par- tially described al- ready. ‘'Themouth is held open by a light wooden frame of a reniform shape, as shown in fig. 14 ; and, as one will readily see, this is of great advantage in securing the handle firmly to the rim of the net’s mouth, and is undoubtedly the object aimed at. I might state here, that far- ther down the river (that is, in the ‘ lower ram- parts ’) the reniform rim becomes circular, of course increasing the chances of catching the JUNE 13, 1884.] fish; all the dimensions also become much larger. It may be interesting to state, that, when the fish is netted, a turn is given to the handle, thus effectually trapping it below the mouth ; and, when brought up alongside, a fish- club (fig. 15) is used to kill it immediately, for the struggles of so large a fish might easily up- set a fragile ca- noe. A number of Hudson-Bay taboggans were seen at the Indi- an village, and near the trading-station, on scaf- folds, and seem to be the principal sledges of the country. Their snow-shoes differed from those of the Chilcats only in immaterial designs. The next day, the 22d, while under way, we saw a dead king-salmon floating belly upwards, and on the lower river saw a few, but never saw the numbers spoken of by previous travel- lers. I now noticed, in many places in the flat river-bottoms (with high banks, however), that the ground, especially in open places, was covered with a springy moss or peat; and if the bank was at all gravelly, so as to give good drainage, and allow the water to scour out underneath, as usual in temperate climes, and not in immense frozen masses, as previously described, this sphagnum was so tough that it would not go with the banks, but remained attached to that of the crest, forming great blankets a foot thick, that overhung the shores, as I have tried to show in fig. 16. Some of these banks were from fifteen to eighteen feet high, and this moss would reach to the water. I suppose the reason that it was more noticeable in open Spaces was, that the trees and shrubs, and especially @ their roots, would, from un- §& der mining, P carry the moss with their heavy weight into the water as they fell. For the first time the soil seemed to be thick and black ; and grass, always good, was now really luxuriant for any climate. At camp 36 we found rosebuds large and sweet enough to eat. They were much larger than those at home, somewhat pear-shaped ; and the increase in size is entirely in the fleshy capsule, while even the seeds seem to be less ‘downy’ and dry than those of temperate climes. Dur- ing the night of the 22d—23d the river rose ten inches, all of which, I think, can be accounted for by the recent continued summer rains. Fig. 15. Fig. 16. SCIENCE. va | At 3.30 of the 23d we sighted Charlie’s village, as it is called; but the current was so swift that we could not get the raft in so as to camp alongside, but made a sand-bar half a mile belew. Charlie’s village was an exact counterpart of that of Johnny’s, even as to number of houses; and considering this, and the trouble to reach it, I did not attempt to photograph it. Attempting to reach it with the raft, so anxious were the Indians that we should be successful, that as many as could do so, put the bows of their canoes on the outer log of the raft, and paddled with such vehemence that it seemed as if life depended upon success. We found a Canadian voyager by the name of Jo Sadue among them, who, as a partner of one of the traders on the lower river, had drifted here in prospecting the stream for precious mineral. Jo, as he is known, speaks of the natives of both of these villages as Tadoosh, and says that they are the best- natured Indians from here to the mouth of the river. On the 24th the country seemed to flatten out, the hills having lower grades; but the mountains well to the westward still had patches of snow on their sides near the sum- mits. About half-past ten we saw a large buck moose swim from an island to the main- land just back of us, having probably, as a hunter would say, ‘ gotten our scent.’ About two in the afternoon the river widened out to a great extent, and was full of islands. Start- ing from camp 38, the river, as the map shows, becomes one vast network of islands, the whole country as level as the great plains ; and, as we entered it, our Chilcats seemed seri- ously to think that we were going out to sea; indeed, a person having no knowledge of the country might well think so. Here the mos- quitoes were a little worse than in the hilly country, and the gnats most decidedly so. As we started out into this flat country, the moun- tains to the left (or west) still continued in a range that was thrown back at an angle from the river’s course, and that ran out in a spur that was still continued by a series of peaks rising out of the flat land, and diminishing in size until they disappeared towards the north- north-west. I called them the Ratzel range, or peaks, after Professor Ratzel of Munich. The 27th of July we made old Fort Yukon (now abandoned asa trading-station), and connected our surveys with those of Capt. Raymond’s party in 1869, thus giving a survey the whole length of the river. FRED’K SCHWATKA, Lieut. U. S. army. 712 PROTECTION OF ALPINE PLANTS. Every one interested in alpine plants will be glad to hear that a society for their protec- tion has been formed at Geneva. Before this time, attempts have been made by the govern- ments of several Swiss cantons to protect plants, especially the edelweiss ; which, how- ever, is not a rare plant, and needs protection less than a host of its scarcer neighbors. Spain and Italy have already taken steps to- ward protecting their alpine floras; and the latter country hopes to obtain an edict from the government, which shall authorize the col- lection of rare plants, only by persons supplied with cards of permission. The new society was founded in January, 1883, under the title ‘ L’association pour la protection des plantes.’ Its formation at Geneva is particularly fitting; for, besides possessing the typical alpine flora, this place is the northern, and also the southern, limit of many plants. Being the great business and social centre, it is frequented by venders of the plants; so that any action there would strike at the principal source of drain: and, from its associations as the home of past and present eminent botanists, it is very suitable. _ The aim of the society will be to check the wholesale collection of plants (and it is thought that the best means to accomplish this is to call the attention of the public to the injury done by the collection of plants with roots) ; to develop a taste for the cultivation of alpines ; and to induce gardeners to raise them, and sell them at a moderate price. These plans, espe- cially the propagation in sale-gardens, have been approved by the Swiss and various other alpine clubs. their collection. The custom of selling plants in the markets has not long been in vogue, yet long enough to show, that, unless effectually checked, the most injurious results will follow. It causes righteous indignation to all lovers of alpine plants to see the wholesale way in which, twice a week, the peasants (mostly the women) bring into Geneva and other markets these beautiful gems of the mountains, each in its season, — the rare rather than the commoner ones, as they naturally command a higher price. In fact, as has been said, one can make a botanical excur- sion without going out of the city. The flow- ers not sold soon fade and droop in the hot BG) lal Be ui ut alll SCIENCE. Among the advocates of the plan of propagation is Alphonse de Candolle, who thinks that the action of the police and. legal interference would merely raise the price, of plants, and thus increase the incentive for. [Vou. III, No. 71. sun, and are thrown aside as worthless ; rarely do purchasers keep them longer than while they are in bloom: and thus are thousands of plants, roots and all, destroyed. In the second bulletin of the society, a botanist writes that the societies for exchange of botanical specimens also offer much danger to rare species. ‘The members, he says, are mostly amateurs, and obtain for their her- bariums foreign plants by giving specimens of the rare plants of their own country ; and this, in time, absorbs an immense quantity of speci- mens. He himself once communicated with one of these societies in order to obtain some rare plants. In return, an exorbitant list of the scarcest kinds was demanded, the quantity being frequently expressed as ‘ un char plein,’ ‘le plus possible,’ etc. Besides these sources of drain, collectors from horticultural houses in England and Germany carry away great numbers of plants ; professors and their pupils freely help themselves to rare species ; ‘ botan- ical guides’ aid in the devastation by directing collectors to rich localities ; and vast quantities are collected for pharmaceutical purposes, or are sold as botanical albums or as herbariums. Many localities, formerly rich in specimens, are now nearly or quite stripped of them; and it is time that these plants, perhaps the most universally attractive and admired in the world, should be protected from the disastrous war annually made upon them. The society has attempted to check this abuse by spreading a knowledge of the danger by means of correspondence and publications. It has been suggested to post placards in Swiss hotels, requesting visitors not to collect roots, and informing them where they can purchase the same plants cultivated, in much better con- dition for transportation and future cultivation. A most important result of the work of the society is, that a horticultural company has been formed for the cultivation and sale of such alpine plants as may be induced to grow in the valleys. Mr. Correvin, formerly direc- tor of the botanic garden of Geneva, and at present secretary of the Society for protection of plants, has been made superintendent of the establishment. It will raise plants from seed principally ; and they can be purchased in pots, ready for transportation. There is no cause to fear for the success of the enter- prise if the financial part proves prosperous, as the most attractive species of alpine Primulas, Campanulas, Dianthuses, gentians, edelweiss, orchids, etc., have been successfully grown in Switzerland, in England, and some of them even in this country. JUNE 13, 1884.| The new society now numbers some two hundred members, each of whom pays the small annual assessment of two francs. All persons are invited to join, and thus to assist this most worthy object, the expenses of which, especially in the way of publication, must be very considerable. THE DEEP-SEA CRUSTACEA DREDGED BY, THE TALISMAN. CRUSTACEA are distributed from the surface of the water to very great depths; and, at the exhi- bition of the Talisman collection, one“ may see SCIENCE. 713 Islands, and which much resemble the Portunus of our coasts. On the other hand, they are very like species of the same genus, obtained at the Antilles, in the German ocean, and in the Mediterranean. The Oxyrhynchi, other triangular crustaceans of the group of Brachyura, are found lower than the last. Lispognatus Thompsoni was found between six hun- dred and fifteen hundred metres, on the Morocco coasts; and Scyramathia Carpenteri, in the same re- gion, at twelve hundred metres. The former species had before been observed only in the German ocean; and the latter, north of Scotland and in the Medi- terranean. Crustaceans, intermediate in form between the brachyurans and macrurans, are found in abun- Fig. 1.—GALATHODES ANTONI, A BLIND CRUSTACEAN FROM A DEPTH OF 4,100 METRES. Neptunus Sayi and Nautilograpsus minutus of the Sargasso, whose color they have assumed, side by side with other forms, as Ethusa alba, which is only found between four and five thousand metres below the surface. The swimming crustaceans, forming the group of Brachyura, are extremely rare at great depths. Certain forms of these crabs, taken on the Talisman, are remarkable for their geographical dis- tribution, such as Bathynectes, found at four hun- dred and fifty and nine hundred and fifty metres, on the coasts of Morocco, and at the Cape Verde 1 Translated from the French of H. Fino, in Za Nature. (NATURAL SIZE.) dance in deep water. They seem to belong to genera between the two; and, in studying Crustacea, it is surprising to see types, which, taken separately, ap- pear absolutely distinct, brought into contact by these intermediate forms. Thus the genera Ethusa, Dorippe, Homola, and Dromia, are linked together by many forms, with blended characteristics, render- ing them difficult to classify. Several of the crusta- ceans are remarkable for their geographical distri- bution. Thus, on the coasts of Morocco, there was found a species of Dicranomia, noticed by Edwards in the Caribbean; and Homola of Cuvier, considered 714 before as peculiar to the Mediterranean, was found -extending from the coasts of Morocco to the Azores and the Canaries. But the most noticeable example of great geographical distribution is presented by Lithodes. These animals have hitherto been noticed only at the surface, in the waters of the poles. We found them at the tropics. But here, to meet the changed conditions of their surroundings, they have deserted their former depth for one of a thousand metres. This fact is important as bearing on the animal distribution of the oceans. It shows, first, that certain animal forms extend from northern seas SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 71. colony formed by beautiful Epizoanthi. ‘These Zoan- thi originally developed in a shell which has been gradually re-absorbed ; and it is the cavity correspond- ing to this which this peculiar species of hermit-crab. now occupies. Galatheans have been found abundant at all zones; and the color of the body, generally reddish, becomes white with those living at great depths. Certain species establish themselves as lodgers in the interior of those beautiful sponges, the Aphrocallistes, whose tissue resembles lace. Galathodes Antonii, a new species, a specimen of which was taken below four Fic. 2.— PTYCHOGASTER FORMOSUS, DREDGED FROM A DEPTH OF 950 METRES. (NATURAL SIZE.) to the tropics; and, next, that animals from the poles have only to seek deeper water in proportion as they approach the warmer regions, to reach a zone suited to their organization. The Paguri, commonly called hermit-crabs, have been found at five thousand metres. The bodies of these animals are protected only at the head and thorax; and, to shield their abdomens, they lodge in shells whose size corresponds to their own. But, as the shells of deep water are always very small, the abyssal Paguri obtain only very imperfect protection. One of these species, obtained on the Morocco coast and in the Sargasso, presents a very singular habitat. It lodges, not in a shell, but in a regular animal thousand metres, is here figured (fig. 1). Ptychogaster formosus (fig. 2) is interesting on account of the posi- tion of its abdomen, folded twice upon itself. The group of the Eryonides is represented by a. number of species and genera. Polycheles and Wil- lemoesia, whose tissues are so transparent that the stomach is visible through them, were taken at four and five thousand metres. The species of Penta- cheles, common between one and two thousand metres, present forms very similar to those described in the fossil state, under the name of Eryon. At the exhibition of the Talisman collection, there is placed beside Pentacheles crucifer a calcareous plate com- ing from the Jurassic deposits of Solenhofen in eS a " 7 * ih ‘ JUNE 13, 1884. | Bavaria, on which is the impression of an Eryon; and a comparison of these specimens impresses one with their great resemblance. The macrurans, a group to which the crayfish Fie. 3.— NEMATOCARCINUS GRACILIPES TAKEN IN THE TRAWL AT A DEPTH OF 850 METRES. ’ belong, are abundant at all depths. At the Cape Verde Islands, at five hundred metres, a thousand individuals of a new species of Pendale were ob- tained. Among the most remarkable forms, I will mention a beautiful red Aristes, whose antennae are SCIENCE. 715 five or six times as long as the body; Nematocar- cinus (fig. 3), whose claws are disproportionately long; Oplophorus; Notostomus, of a vivid red; Acan- tephyra; Pasiphae, sometimes brown, sometimes Al ti Me (NATURAL SIZE.) rose-colored, often covered with red spots; and Glyphus, one species of which, Glyphus marsupialis, has a very strange arrangement, the lateral plates of the first abdominal segment being developed in ‘the female to form a pouch for the eggs. I will eall 716 SCIENCE. attention, finally, among the schizopods, to Gnatau- phausia, of large size, and of a scarlet color. The lower crustaceans, Amphipoda and Isopoda, were found in large numbers; but a study of them is much less interesting than that of the forms of which we have just spoken. Thespecies of Nymphon is abundant at great depths; and a giant form, whose stomach extends to the end of its claws, Colossen- deis titan, was taken at four thousand metres. With crustaceans, as with fishes, it is very inter- esting to inquire whether the circumstances sur- rounding them cause modifications and adaptations in their organisms. The changes in the tissues are often noticeable in the structure of the carapace and muscles. I have already called attention to Penta- cheles, Polycheles, and Willemoesia, whose tissues are so transparent as to allow the viscera to be seen; and the flesh is tender, and lacking flavor. The exterior colors are either a bright red, a rose-white, or a pure white. The macruran Crustacea are spe- cially noticeable for their brilliant colors: and one cannot restrain a feeling of admiration for Aristes, of a carmine color; Notostomus, of a pure, deep red; and Pasiphae, spotted red and white. At very great depths, rose-white or pure white are the only tints observed. With the fishes, as we have seen, the visual organs are always well developed, at whatever depth these animals are taken. It is not so with the Crusta- cea, several species of quite different groups having experienced atrophy, and sometimes a complete dis- appearance of the eyes. It is, however, a very sin- gular fact, that some species in the same genus are blind, and others are not. Thus Ethusa granulata, living in the German ocean, between two hundred and thirteen hundred metres, is blind; while Ethusa alba, taken in the Atlantic, at five thousand metres, is not blind. The disappearance of the eyes seems to be gradual, and to be related to the depth at which the animal lives. The cornea first disappears, the ocular stalk remaining, and being movable. Then these parts become fixed, and, losing their charac- ters, are changed into spines. Thus, says Norman, ‘“Hthusa granulata, dredged between one hundred and ten and three hundred and seventy fathoms, has two remarkable ocular stalks, smooth and rounded at the extremity, where ordinarily the eyes are placed. With the specimens from the north, living at a depth of from five hundred and forty-two to seven hundred and five fathoms, the ocular stalks are no longer movable: they become fixed in the sockets, and their function is changed. Their dimen- sions are much enlarged; they approach their foun- dation; and, instead of being rounded, they end ina very firm rostrum. No longer serving as eyes, they serve as rostra.’”’ We have on exhibition one blind species, Galathodes Antonii (fig. 1), taken on the Talisman; and near this strange form, whose eyes are replaced by sharp spines, may be seen Penta- cheles, Polycheles, Willemoesia, and Cymonomus, whose eyes are more or less changed. Crustaceans of great depths emit phosphorescence. The light is shed, sometimes by the whole surface [Vou. ILI., No. 71. of the body, and sometimes, as with Aristes, in a special manner, by the eyes themselves. With some of them it seems as if there were, in certain parts of the body, organs arranged for the production of this light, —a fact which recalls what was said about fishes. Thus in Acantephyra pellucida, a new species, the claws are furnished with phosphorescent bands. The organs of touch are considerably developed, the most remarkable example of which is found in the long antennae of Aristes. With certain crustaceans, as in Benthesisymnus, the last pair of claws assume the character of antennae, and have the same func- tion, probably, as these organs. THE WOBURN ROTATION EXPERI- MENTS. For the past six years some very interesting field-experiments have been in progress at Woburn, Eng., under the conduct of Dr. Voelcker, chemist of the Royal agricultural society. A portion of these experiments are upon the continuous growth of wheat and barley on the same land, and closely resemble the celebrated Rothamsted experiments, differing from them in being made upon light land. Other of the experiments are rotation experiments, and are designed to test the comparative agricultural value of artificial fertilizers, and of barnyard-manure made from different feeding-stuffs. These experiments are to be continued for a series of years; but a brief de- scription of their plan, and a statement of the results obtained up to the present time, may not be without interest. The rotation is an ordinary four-course rotation; viz., roots, barley, grass, and wheat. Sixteen acres are under experiment; so that, in any given year, four acres are covered by each crop, while, in the course of four years, each plot of four acres bears succes- sively the crops above enumerated. The following table shows at one view the crops thus far carried by each plot: — Date. Plot 1. | Plot 2. | Plot 3. | Plot 4. US “Gdeoko, & oo Fo TMeAgE Roots - - STS) f5 = oe ee nee) Wheaton |pearley, Grass Roots 1379. oe eee yl OOts Grass Wheat | Barley USSON se | reer oanley, Wheat Roots Grass: SSI. ee ee ass Roots Barley Wheat © S82. seen eV Aneat Barley Grass Roots FBBB. sie) e cere yous | ROOtS Grass Wheat | Barley Each plot of four acres is subdivided into four one-acre sections, and these are fertilized in different ways. As each of the four plots is treated exactly alike in successive years, it will suffice to follow one plot through the four years, in order to understand how each section of it is fertilized. Plot No. 1 was in grass in 1877, the grass being a mixture of clover and rye-grass. Sheep were pastured on each of the four sections of this plot sufficient to consume the © grass. To the sheep on the first section were given _ 728 pounds of decorticated cottonseed-meal, and i JUNE 13, 1884. | those on the second section the same weight of corn- meal, while on the third and fourth sections the sheep had only the grass. The droppings of the animals were left on the land; and, as fattening animals re- tain practically none of the fertilizing ingredients of their food, these droppings were richer on the first and second sections by the amount of plant-food con- tained in the cottonseed-meal and corn-meal respec- tively. In the fall the land was sown to wheat; and in the spring, sections 8 and 4, on which no ground- feed was fed, were top-dressed with commercial fer- tilizers. Section 38 received fertilizers containing amounts of nitrogen and mineral ingredients equal to the nitrogen and ash of the 728 pounds of cotton- seed-meal fed on section 1; and section 4, in the same way, received nitrogen and ash equal to the amounts contained in the 728 pounds of corn-meal fed on sec- tion 2, Thus the four sections of this plot permitted a com- parison of the relative value for the wheat-crop, first, of stable-manure made from corn-meal and cotton- seed-meal respectively, and, second, between the value of stable-manure and a quantity of commer- cial fertilizers containing the same amounts of plant- food. Following the wheat, mangolds were grown in 1879, variously manured on the four sections. On section 1 they received stable-manure made from 1,728 pounds of straw as litter, 5,000 pounds of man- golds, 1,250 pounds of wheat-straw, and 1,000 pounds of cottonseed-meal; on section 2, stable-manure made from the same amounts of food and litter, except that 1,000 pounds of corn-meal were substituted for 1,000 pounds of cottonseed-meal. On plot 3 they received stable-manure made from the same quanti- ties of roots and coarse feed as were mentioned above, . but without either cottonseed- or maize-meal, and, in addition to this stable-manure, commercial fertilizers equivalent to all the ash, and two-thirds of the nitro- gen, of 1,000 pounds of cottonseed-meal. On plot 4 they received the same stable-manure as on plot 3, and, in addition, chemicals equivalent to the ash and nitrogen of 1,000 pounds of corn-meal. Here, again, we havea comparison of stable-manure from different fodders with equivalent amounts of concentrated fertilizers. ‘The stable-manure, in this case, was made by steers which were fed in so-called feeding-boxes, in which all the excrements and litter were retained, and compacted by the movements of the animal. The mangolds produced on each section were weighed, and then fed out to sheep on the land. Following the mangolds came, in 1880, barley. This received no manure but the droppings of the sheep to which the mangolds were fed, except that section 2 received the remaining third of the nitrogen of 1,000 pounds of cottonseed-meal in the form of a top-dress- ing of nitrate of soda. In 1881 the barley was followed by grass, to be fed off by sheep as described, thus beginning the rota- tion anew. It will be seen, that, in the course of the four years’ rotation, each plot furnishes three tests, with as many crops, of the manurial value of cottonseed-meal as SCIENCE. VES compared with maize-meal, and of each as compared with an equivalent amount of concentrated fertiliz- ers. Moreover, since each one of the four plots is treated alike, three such comparisons can be made each year in different plots. Thus, by continuing the experiments for a series of years, it will be pos- sible to eliminate from the results, to a certain extent, the errors which may arise from unequal quality of the soil on the different sections, and also to judge how the character of the season affects the action of the manures. The subject is a very interesting one, and one which has received comparatively little attention experimentally. We know, indeed, with sufficient accuracy, the relations between the composition of food and that of the manure made from it. We know that in the manure of working, and of mature fattening animals, is found practically all the plant- food which their fodder contained. We know, that, in the case of growing animals and of those giving milk, more or less of the elements of plant-food pass into the new growth, or into the milk, and are lost to the manure; and we know approximately what proportions of them are thus lost on the average. With the necessary data as to amount and kind of food consumed, it is a comparatively easy task to compute the amount of valuable matters contained in the manure produced; but as to what modifica- tion the agricultural value of these matters may have undergone, and how it compares with the various forms of artificial fertilizers, we are comparatively ignorant. For example: we know that practically all the phosphoric acid of the food of a fattening animal passes into the excreta; but how the ma- nurial value of this phosphoric acid compares with that of the soluble, the reverted, or the insoluble phosphoric acid of a superphosphate, with that of raw bone, or of native phosphates, can be, at best, only conjectured. The Woburn rotation experiments promise to con- tribute to the solution of some of these questions. It would be premature to seek to draw definite con- clusions from the results thus far obtained; for only a considerable length of time can enable us to esti- ~ mate the effect of continuous treatment, of the sort described, upon the yield of the several crops. At the same time, a brief statement of them may fur- nish some interesting suggestions. The following table contains the results, up to 1882, in pounds per acre, of the experiments on man- golds, barley, and wheat. Under the head of manur- ing are included only the amounts of cottonseed- or corn-meal fed to the sheep, or their equivalents in commercial fertilizers. It should be understood that this was not all the manure used, as will be evident on comparing the detailed description of a rotation given above. In interpreting these results, there are some things which should be borne in mind. In the first place, we find in the reports of the above experiments, in the Journal of the Royal agricultural society, very meagre details as to their conduct. It is to be sup- posed that all four of the sections in each plot were [Vou. IIL, No. Tt. 718 SCIENCE. \ Results of Woburn rotation experiments. MANGOLDS. 1877 — Plot No. 2. |} 1878 — Plot No. 4. | 1879 — Plot No. 1. || 1880 —Plot No. 3. || 1881— Plot No. 2. Sect. Manuring. i. hs La (—-—< Roots.| Tops./Total.||Roots.| Tops.|Total.|/Roots.| Tops. /Total.||Roots.| Tops.|Total.||Roots.| Tops.|Total. 1 | 1000 lbs. cottonseed-meal | 6,920) 4,650 | 11,510} 29,475) 6,025 | 35,500|| 10,033] 4,739 | 14,772||43,820| 8,345 |52,165|| 50,023| 8,024 |58,047 2 | 1000 lbs. maize-meal . . | 4,625] 3,925 | 8,550/| 26,350) 6,021 |32,371|| 9,998] 4,617 |14,610||34,231| 7,416 |41,647|| 48,667| 7,965 | 56,632 3 | Ash and 2 of nitrogen of cottonseed-meal . . | 16,188) 7,575 | 23,763|' 40,820) 8,125 |48,945||17,676| 6,433 |24,109||/55,050| 8,306 | 63,356) 54,718) 9,100 | 63,818 4 }Ash and nitrogen of maize-meal. . . . | 8,400/ 5,650 | 14,050) 28,537; 7,130 |35,667||12,847| 4,875 |17,722|/ 46,838) 7,420 | 54,258) 48,600) 8,356 | 56,956 | BARLEY, AFTER MANGOLDS FED ON THE LAND. | 1878 — Plot No. 2. 1879 — Plot No. 4. 1880 — Plot No. 1. 1881 — Plot No. 3. Sect.| Manuring. | Grain.|Straw.| Total. ||Grain.|Straw.| Total. || Grain. |Straw.| Total. ||Grain.|Straw.| Total. 1 | Nofertilizers . . .. . . ./]| 2,008 |} 3,182 | 5,140 || 1,781 | 2,966 | 4,747 || 1,947 | 2,782 | 4,729 || 2,256 | 3,067 | 5,323 2 |Nofertilizers .. 1,880 | 3,165 | 5,045 |) 1,912 | 3,180 | 5,092 || 1,717 | 2,698 | 4,415 || 2,186 | 2,952 | 5,088 3 | Nitrate of soda, containing 3 the nitrogen of 1000 lbs. cotton- seed-meal .... . | 2,291 | 3,825 | 6,116 || 2,085 | 3,132 | 5,217 || 1,897 | 2,989 | 4,886 || 2,267 | 3,158 | 5,425 4 |Nofertilizers . . . . . . «| 1,750 | 3,195 | 4,945 || 1,548 | 2,624 | 4,167 || 1,575 | 2,480 | 4,055 || 2,316 | 2,827 | 5,143 WHEAT, AFTER GRASS FED ON THE LAND. 1878 — Plot No. 1. Sect. | Manuring. | Grain. Straw. | Total. Le i28: ibs. cottonseed-meali.s .-3 s « «© % « + « sp en CoN. 2 0% 2,177 4,874 7,051 , 2 |7281lbs. maize-meal . Peto oe Aube 6 eo oe amr Cee 2,304 4,623 6,927 3 | Fertilizers containing ash and nitrogen of 728 lbs. " cottonseed-meal Pe ee eee 2,686 6,376 9,052 4 | Fertilizers containing ash and nitrogen of 728 lbs... malze-mealige sep cas 2) 6 2,118 5,479 7,597 1879 — Plot No. 3. 1880 — Plot No. 2. 1881 — Plot No. 4. Sect. Manuring. | Grain. | Straw. | Total. || Grain. | Straw. | Total. || Grain. | Straw. | Total. | 1 || 672 lbs. cottonseed-meal . ... =. . . « «| S084 5,793 7,677 1,033 3,676 4,709 2,997 4,700 7,697 2 | 728 lbs. maize-meal. . 1,931 | 5,991 | 7,922 || 1,201 | 4,100 | 5,301 || 3,077 | 4,717 | 1,794 3 | Fertilizers equivalent to 672 lbs. cottonseed- meal 2,034 7,168 9,202 999 4,218 5,217 3,114 5,369 8,483 4 | Fertilizers equivalent to 728 lbs. maize-meal. .| 2,022 6,377 8,399 1,116 3,976 5,092 2,943 5,149 8,092 cultivated, seeded, and otherwise treated, exactly alike; but no mention is made of the means adopted to secure accuracy in these respects. We are not told whether the composition of the fodders and fertilizers used was actually determined by analysis, or whether average composition was assumed for them. We have no comparison of the crops on the several sec- tions as to the proportion of water they contained when weighed. Above all, we have no proof of the uniform quality of the land, and no knowledge of its natural capacity, as neither unmanured plots nor duplicate manurings were employed. Under these circumstances, it is evident that no great weight can be given to small differences of yield, or to single results. On the other hand, a result which is repeated year after year, or which: is very striking in amount, may serve as the basis of at least tentative conclusions. Taking first the results on mangolds, we find, that, in every case, the manuring with cottonseed - meal was followed by a larger crop than was that with corn-meal; further, that in every case the fertilizers equivalent to the cottonseed-meal were followed by a larger crop than were those equivalent to the corn- meal ; finally, that in every case but one (1881 — Plots 2 and 4) the commercial fertilizers were followed by a heavier crop than was the corresponding stable- manure. Taking next the barley, and taking the figures as they stand, in three cases out of four the manuring with cottonseed-meal was followed by a larger yield, both of grain and of total crop, than was that with corn-meal. In three cases out of four the grain, and in every case the total crop, were greater after the fertilizers equivalent to the cottonseed-meal than after those JUNE 13, 1884.] equivalent to the corn-meal. In four cases out of eight the fertilizers were followed by a heavier crop than was the stable-manure. Many of the differ- ences, however, are comparatively small. In the wheat experiments the corn-meal manure proved superior to the cottonseed manure in every case as regards grain, and in three out of four cases as regards total yield. The fertilizers equivalent to the cottonseed-meal proved superior to those equiva- lent to the corn-meal in three cases out of four as re- gards grain, and in every case as regards total yield. The fertilizers surpassed the corresponding stable- manure in seven cases out of eight as regards total yield, while as regards grain the proportion is four to four. Some of these results are quite different from those which we should have expected. Cottonseed-meal of good quality contains more than two and a quarter times as much nitrogen, four and a half times as much phosphoric acid, and four times as much pot- ash, as corn-meal, and consequently the manure made from the former in these experiments must have been much the richer. The greater growth of the mangolds on the cottonseed sections accords with this fact, while the still greater effect of the commer- cial fertilizers corresponds with their greater solu- bility and consequent prompter action. With the barley and wheat, these results are far less marked. With the barley, they are mostly the same in kind. With the wheat, cottonseed-meal was excelled by corn- meal as a manure-producer, while otherwise the re- sults were in the main the same as with the other crops. A more careful examination, however, shows that the differences, both as to barley and wheat, are too small to be of very much significance. The greatest difference of yield of grain between the corn-meal and cottonseed sections was, in the case of barley, two hundred and thirty pounds per acre, equal to about five bushels, and, in the case of wheat, a hun- dred and sixty-eight pounds per acre, equal to less than three bushels. The differences in the total yield (grain and straw) are correspondingly small. It is certainly questionable, whether these differences are not less than the errors of experiment; and the only safe conclusion which we can draw is, that the yield was not greatly different in the two cases. The commercial fertilizers showed greater differ- ences; the richer manuring, containing the equivalent of the cottonseed-meal, generally proving decidedly superior, particularly as regards the total yield, the grain being not so much affected. As compared with the stable-manures, the fertilizers show but a slightly larger yield of wheat. The barley, it must be remembered, received no manure or fer- tilizers directly, except a light top-dressing of nitrate of soda on section 3, but only the droppings of the sheep fed on the mangolds of the preceding year. It is not the purpose of this article to theorize as to the reasons of the results obtained in these experi- ments, and such theorizing would be premature at present. One thing is shown very plainly by them, however; and that is, that, in all discussion of methods SCIENCE. THE AMERICAN FISH-CULTURAL 719 and systems of fertilizing the soil, two aspects of the question must be clearly distinguished. We may re- gard manures either as direct sources of food to the plant, or as means of enriching the soil, and accord- ingly distinguish between the immediate returns which they yield, and their value as an investment. In these experiments there can be no doubt that the cottonseed sections received more plant-food than the corn-meal sections in every case, and we have no reason to suppose that this plant-food would not all become available at some time; but the immediate returns were not always greater. In the compara- tively short time during which the experiments have been in progress, it has been the immediate value of the manures and fertilizers used which has manifested itself. Whether, after a number of years, the richer manur- ing will not show better results on the grain-plots, is a question which, a priori, would receive an affirma- tive answer; and the testimony of experiment on this point will be awaited with interest. H. P. ARMSBY. - AS- SOCIATION. THE annual meeting of this association was held in the lecture-room of the National museum at Wash- ington, on May 13, 14, and 15. ._President Benkard made an address of welcome, and briefly reviewed the work of the association for the past year. Many papers were read, and the attendance was good throughout. Mr. F. Mather gave an account of the hatching-work at Cold Spring Harbor, stating that the eggs of the tom-cod had been successfully hatched there this spring. Prof. H. J. Rice related his experiments with vari- ous substances used to destroy the Saprolegnia, the fungus which attacks fishes in aquaria. The most successful results were obtained by the use of a bath of common salt. Fishes which were badly infested with the fungus, after immersion in a moderately di- luted solution of salt and water for a minute or so, after a while had the adherent film of fungus loos- ened in large flakes. This method, if applied in time, would prove effectual, if one were afterwards careful not to introduce into the aquarium organic material which would decompose, and afford a nidus for the nourishment and multiplication of this pest from its spores. Mr. L. Stone read a paper on the artificial propaga- tion of salmon in the Columbia-River basin, taking the ground that it was probably now too late to be- gin propagating these fishes in some of the most de- pleted branches of the Columbia. Mr. C. G. Atkins gave some important data respect- ing the rate of growth, and facts regarding the habits of land-locked salmon. In reply to questions by Mr. G. B. Goode, the speaker thought that the land- locked salmon did not hybridize with the common salmon under natural conditions; nor did he think that there was evidence at present to prove that the 720 ‘land-locked salmon had descended from the sea- salmon, though the latter was probably the ancestor of the former. Dr. W. M. Hudson, of the Connecticut shell-fish- eries commission, gave an interesting account of the great work in progress in extending the area of the oyster-beds in the waters of Connecticut by sowing shells, together with a small proportion of live oysters, over the bottom, in waters not before productive. The statistics presented by the author showed that this industry had developed within a very short period to amazing proportions in his state, mainly through the enlightened administration of the commissioners, and the enactment of good protective laws by the state legislature. The speaker also gave a synopsis of the laws regulating the ownership of the beds, which he said were working admirably, and concluded by saying that the worst enemies of the oyster in his state were the star-fishes and human poachers, being ‘undecided in his own mind which of the two was the worse. Steps were being taken to have all the star-fishes which are dredged destroyed. Lieut. Francis Winslow, U.S.N., read a long paper on the present condition and future prospects of the oyster-industry, in which he showed that the beds of Virginia and Maryland were being depleted by exces- Sive dredging, and commended reparative measures, such as were in successful operation in the waters of Connecticut. His paper was illustrated by a large and important series of charts, upon which were mapped almost all of the oyster-beds of the eastern coast of the United States, showing the depth of water in which the beds lie, and, as far as possible, their present condition. Mr. G. Brown Goode presented a paper on the oyster-industry of the world, which is seated chiefly in the United States and France. Great Britain has still a few natural beds remaining, and a number of well-conducted establishments for oyster-culture. Canada, Holland, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, and Russia have also oyster-industries, which are comparatively insignifi- cant, and, in the case of the last two countries, hardly worthy of consideration in a statistical statement. Recent and accurate statistics are lacking, except in two or three instances. A brief review by countries, in the order of their importance, was presented. The oyster-industry of the United States was shown to employ 52,805 persons, and to yield 22,195,370 bushels, worth $30,438,852; and that of France, in 1881, em- ployed 29,481 persons, producing oysters valued at $3,464,565; the industry of Great Britain yielded a product valued at from two to four millions of pounds sterling; Holland was shown to have a considerable industry in the province of Zealand, and to have pro- duced native and cultivated oysters to the value of $200,000; Germany has an industry on the Schleswig coast valued at about $40,000; while the products of other European countries mentioned was too insig- nificant to deserve a place in this brief abstract. An estimate of the total product of the world was pre- sented as follows, the figures being given in the num- ber of individual oysters produced : — SCIENCE. Countries. No. of oysters. United States! . 5,550,000,000 Canada . 22,000,000 Total for North America . ; 5,572,000,000 France . i 680,400,000 Great Britain 1,600,000,000 Holland. 21,800,000 Italy . 20,000,000 Germany . 4,000,000 Belgium 2,500,000 Spain . 1,000,000 Portugal 800,000 Denmark . 200,000 Russia . 250,000 Norway 250,000 Total for Europe . 2,331,200,000 ~ The oyster-industry is rapidly passing from the hands of the fishermen into those of oyster-cultur- ists. The oyster, being sedentary except for a few days in the earliest stages of its existence, is easily exterminated in any given locality; since, although it may not be possible for the fishermen to rake up from the bottom every individual, wholesale methods of capture soon result in covering up, or otherwise destroying, the oyster banks or reefs, as the commu- nities of oysters are technically termed. The main difference between the oyster-industry of America and that of Europe lies in the fact, that in Europe the native beds have long since been practically de- stroyed, perhaps not more than six or seven per cent of the oysters of Europe passing from the native beds directly into the hands of the consumer. It is prob- able that sixty to seventy-five per cent are reared from the seed in artificial parks, the remainder hav- ing been laid down for a time to increase in size and flavor in shoal waters along the coasts. In the United States, on the other hand, from thirty to forty per cent are carried from the native beds directly to market. The oyster-fishery is everywhere carried on in the most reckless manner; and in all directions oyster-grounds are becoming deteriorated, and in some cases have been entirely destroyed. It remains to be seen whether the governments of the states will reg- ulate the oyster-fishery before it is too late, or will permit the destruction of these vast reservoirs of food. At present the oyster is one of the cheapest articles of diet in the United States; while in England, as has been well said, an oyster is usually worth as much as, or more than, a new-laid egg. It can hardly be ex- pected that the price of American oysters will always remain so low; but, taking into consideration the great wealth of the natural beds along the entire At- lantic coast, it seems certain that a moderate amount of protection will keep the price of seed-oysters far below European rates, and that the immense stretches of submerged land especially suited for oyster-plant- ing may be utilized, and made to produce an abundant harvest at much less cost than that which accompa- nies the complicated system of culture in France and Holland. » Mr. J. A. Ryder thought that purely artificial 1 On the basis of 250 oysters to the bushel. an [Vou. TI1., Nore JUNE 13, 1884.] methods, applied to the propagation of the oyster, were not as unpromising as some seemed to suppose. This much, at least, was certain, —that a simple method of confining the fry so as to prevent its escape from partially land-locked waters was practi- cable, and would doubtless be found to be a valuable aid in oyster-culture in the future. Mr. George S. Page read a paper on the success with which certain lakes in Maine had been stocked with black bass from fish taken from New York. A paper was then read by Col. M. McDonald on the natural causes influencing the movements of fishes; the author remarking, that in aquaculture, as in agri- culture, a number of conditions necessarily concur in determining production. Many of the conditions are capable of being modified by man’s agency. His in- fluence in determining increased production, either on the land or in the water, is measured by the in- crease in average production, which he may effect by modifying favorably the natural conditions which are under his control. The most important condition determining the fluctuations in the aggregate number of fish taken year by year is the temperature of the medium in which they live. In the case of the shad (Alosa sapi- dissima), the study of records of water-temperature would seem to indicate that it is ever moving, in its ordinary migrations, towards a temperature of 60°. Assuming this to be true, we should expect in an area like the Chesapeake, limited and bounded sea- ward by a wall of low temperature, always to find the shad in that portion of this area which approximated more nearly to 60°. To trace the shad in their mi- grations, it is only necessary to determine the shift- ing of this area of congenial temperature under the influence of the seasons. Our temperature records for 1881, 1882, and 1883, indicate, that, for the winter months, the area of maximum temperature is not in the rivers, nor in the bay, but on the ocean plateau outside, extending from the capes of the Chesapeake to the Delaware Breakwater. The presumption, therefore, is, that the schools of shad belonging both to the Chesapeake and the Delaware have their com- mon winter quarters on this plateau. When, under the influence of the advancing seasons, the waters of the Chesapeake and the Delaware bays become warmer than those of this plateau, the migration into continental waters begins. The proportion of the run that will be directed to the Delaware or to the Chesapeake will be determined at this early period. If the water at the northern end of this area warms up more rapidly than at the southern, then an undue proportion of the shad will be thrown into the Delaware. On the other hand, cold waters coming down the Delaware may effect the contrary movement, and throw the schools almost entirely into the Chesapeake; thus leading to a partial or total failure of the shad-fisheries of the Delaware for the season. When the schools of shad have entered the Chesa- peake, their distribution to the rivers will be deter- mined in the same way by temperature influences. If the season is backward, so as to keep down the SCIENCE, 721 temperature of the larger rivers which rise in the mountains, then the run of shad will be mainly into the shorter tributaries of the bay, which have their rise in the tide-water belt, and, of course, are warmer at this season than the main rivers. Again: warm rains at the beginning of the fishing-season, and the absence of snow in the mountains, will determine the main movement of the shad into the larger rivers of the basin; and if, when the schools enter the estuaries of these rivers, they encounter a temperature considerably higher than that in the bay itself, the movement up the river will be tumul- tuous, the schools of shad and herring all entering and ascending at once, producing a glut in the fisher- ies, such as we sometimes have recorded. We see, therefore, in the light of these facts, that we may have a successful fishing-season on the Dela- ware, accompanied by a total or partial failure in the Chesapeake area, and vice versa; and, considering the Chesapeake area alone, we may have a very suc- cessful fishery in the aggregate, yet accompanied by partial or total failures in particular streams, under the influence of temperature conditions. If statistics of the shad-fisheries are to furnish a measure of increase or decrease, they must include the aggregate catch of the Chesapeake and Delaware River, and, in- deed, of rivers much farther to the north. Statistics based upon a comparison of the catch in the same river, in different seasons, are of no value as serving to give a measure of the results of artificial propa- gation. That the aggregate production of the shad-fisheries of the Atlantic coast is on the increase, is shown by the fact, that, in the face of an ever-increasing de- mand, prices have not only been held at what they were in 1879, but have been sensibly reduced. Mr. J. A. Ryder made a communication upon some of the forces which limit or determine the survival of fish embryos, remarking that different species of fishes differed very widely in respect to the number of ova produced by a single female during one season. After a comparison of the habits of the different forms, and after some attention had been bestowed upon the contrivances intended for the protection of the eggs and young which are developed by the parent fishes of certain species, as well as the protective adaptations developed by different ova, the speaker had concluded that the number of survivals out of any given brood of eggs was dependent upon the amount of such natural protection afforded them; that. such a protective influence likewise tended to diminish the number of ova produced by a species during a single season just in proportion as such natural protective agencies were most effectual. This view the speaker thought was strongly supported by what is known of such species as commit their eggs to the mercy of the environment, as in the case of cod, with its two to nine millions of eggs left to float and hatch on the surface of the ocean; in which case a very small percentage of germs ever reach adult age, whereas every one of the six to twenty-five eggs of a viviparous or nest-building species grows at least large enough to begin the struggle for existence with 722 the environment, under circumstances a hundred- fold more favorable to their survival than the young of a totally unprotected form, or one only partially protected from immediate destruction by the buoy- ancy of its germs or ova. * The natural limitations of the supply and proper kinds of food were also alluded to, and some of the early imperfections of fish embryos pointed out, some having an imperforate oesophagus at the time of hatching, so that at this time they cannot take food. The relative strength of the embryos of different species at the time of leaving the egg was also shown to be dissimilar in the cases of those species which do not protect their broods; and it was suggested that such absence or presence of embryonic vigor might have an influence in diminishing or increasing the chances of survival. The point, however, which the speaker wished especially to insist upon, was, that, other things being equal, it was probably true that the number of sur- vivals out of a brood of eggs stood in nearly an inverse proportion to the number of germs actually produced, and that natural or adaptive protective agencies tended to diminish the fecundity of a species, just as a want of such protective endowments tended to increase fertility in order, apparently, to compensate for the wholesale destruction of such germs during their early and critical stages of devel- opment. Dr. Theodore Gill, commenting upon Mr. Ryder’s remarks, said that the facts just reported afforded a broad inductive basis for the doctrine, that, in propor- tion as the eggs of a species of fish were protected by the parents, just in that proportion were the chances of survival of the individual young increased, and the number of eggs correspondingly diminished. The speaker thought that it was not generally understood that many fishes were in the habit of caring more or less for their young, and that this ignorance was due to the fact that very few of the well-known fishes of Europe had such habits; and our popular writers, who draw so largely from European literature upon such subjects, failed to appreciate how frequently such was the case with our native forms. Citing the case of certain marine cat-fishes which hatch their young in the mouth, besides others which carry their ova upon processes on the abdomen, the speaker desired espe- cially to call attention to the fact that about two- thirds of the sharks and rays, or elasmobranchs, were viviparous; the young undergoing their embryonic development within the body of the parent. Mr. E. G. Blackford of New York read a paper entitled ‘Is legislation necessary for the protection of the ocean-fisheries?’ Judging from his own ex- perience and observation for many years past as a dealer, he would hesitate regarding the expediency of legislative interference with the ocean-fisheries ; which opinion he illustrated by statistics, and concluded by saying that probably the only fishery-products of which the supply had been perceptibly diminished by over-fishing, during the last fifteen years, were the striped bass, or rock-fish, and the lobster. Mr. Joseph Willcox gave an account of his obser- SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 71. vations upon the sponge fauna and fisheries of the shallow waters of the west coast of Florida, north of Tampa Bay. About thirty species of fibrous, cal- careous, and siliceous sponges were collected by him in this region; and he suggested, that, in view of the fact that fishing for the valuable fibrous or ceratose sponges of commerce was becoming less remunera- tive, steps ought to be taken to artificially propagate such forms as were of economical value. Prof. W. O. Atwater of Middletown, Conn., gave a very interesting résumé of his investigations upon the subject of the chemical composition and nutri- tive value of American food-fishes and invertebrates. These investigations were directed to the determina- tion of the percentages of proteids, carbohydrates, water, and refuse, contained in flesh-foods of different kinds: the results were carefully tabulated, and afford important data for the determination of the relative values of different fishes and mollusks as compared with other meats. Some of the results arrived at are quite remarkable: for example, a hundred pounds of oysters were found to contain very little more proteine than the same weight of milk, when the waste (that is, the shells) of the oysters was considered in the analysis. When the edible portion alone was ana- lyzed, the nutrient matters contained in the oyster were found nearly in the same quantity as in codfish from which the head and entrails had been removed. The actual cost of the proteine consumed as food, it was shown, varied between very wide limits: for ex- ample, if consumed in the form of salmon early in the season, at one dollar per pound, the cost of proteine to the consumer was at the rate of five dollars and seventy-two cents per pound. If consumed in the form of the alewife, at three cents per pound, the actual cost of the proteine per pound was only nine- teen cents. The nutritive value of different fishes was also found to vary considerably; that is to say, the percentage of proteine and carbohydrates is variable in quantity in different species. Thus, the percentage of available food-materials in the whole flounder is only five and three-tenths per cent, while in fat mackerel it is twenty-four and two-tenths per cent. The presence of only a small percentage of car- bohydrates in fish-food was noted, in which respect it contrasts strongly with fat pork and beef, which are rich in proteine and carbohydrates, and with farina- ceous foods, which are poor in proteine; indicating, that, as an adjunct to these, fish-foods have a high value in all dietaries. Mr. Richard Rathbun presented a paper on the decrease in the abundance of lobsters, briefly stating his conclusions regarding the supposed decrease-in their number, based upon materials gathered from many sources in the interest of the tenth census, and still unpublished. The lobster-fishery, as a separate and distinct in- dustry, was first started about the beginning of the present century, on the coasts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and only as late as 1840 on the coast of Maine, where it has since attained its greatest devel- opment. The vicinity of Provincetown, Cape Cod, JUNE 13, 1884.] was at one time, about twenty-five to fifty years ago, the principal source of supply for the larger markets of the country, and especially for New-York City; and the trade between these two places was of great importance. The Cape-Cod grounds are now, how- ever, so nearly depleted that the annual catch is of very slight value. Other important areas have shown indications of a similar decrease; and the market supplies have been increased from year to year only through a great extension seaward of the fishing- grounds, and the much greater number of traps used. A suggestive indication of the decrease in abundance of lobsters is furnished by the marked decrease in the average size of those now taken to supply the trade. The fact was noted that the lobster is not a truly migratory species, but simply moves into slightly deeper water on the approach of cold weather, to re- turn again to the same shallow areas as the spring advances. Continued over-fishing in any one region will therefore tend to reduce the stock of lobsters in that region, without the probability of its being rapidly replenished by migrations from a neighboring region; and the greater or less depletion of many areas may be explained in that way. The solution of the problem as to how the fishery may be protected in the interests of the fishermen and the trade must be reserved for future investiga- tions; but existing laws do not appear to give the desired benefits. On Tuesday evening the association met in the hall of the National museum, to listen to an address by Hon. Theodore Lyman of Massachusetts, who re- viewed the work of the U.S. fish-commission and of the state commissions in an able manner. Hon. Theodore Lyman was elected president of the society for the ensuing year; and during the return trip from the river-excursion on the steamer Fish- hawk, the name of the association was, after consid- erable discussion by the members present, changed to the ‘ American fisheries society.’ A conference of all of the state fish-commissioners present at the meeting, with the U.S. commissioner of fish and fisheries, Professor Baird, was held on the 15th. MEETING OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS AP PiPppseponRGH. THE meeting of the American society of mechan- ical engineers at Pittsburgh, May 20-24, was in many respects one of the most interesting that has been held. The attendance was as good as usual, say twenty-five per cent of the membership, and the quality of the papers above the average. The arrangements for the social comfort and enjoyment of the guests were not, however, so complete as at the last spring meeting. It was a mistake, that the announcement of a conversa- zione and social re-union was not carried out, and an opportunity given, early in the meeting, for the forma- tion and renewal of acquaintances. The excursions so generously provided were of great interest; but we venture the assertion that the mass of the visitors gained but little accurate information. By providing SCIENCE 723 for such an occasion an appropriate manual or guide, or possibly a larger reception committee, the advan- tage to the guests can easily be quadrupled. It might even be better, as was done at the last meeting, to devote the whole day to a well-planned visit to a sin- gle establishment. The society met in joint session with the Engineers’ society of western Pennsylvania, whose president, Mr. Miller, welcomed the visitors, and invited their presi- dent, Prof. John E. Sweet (formerly of Cornell uni- versity), to the chair. The evening of May 20 was devoted to the report of Messrs. Roberts, Phillips, Hunt, McDowell, and Jarboe, — a committee appoint- ed, at the January meeting of the local society, to in- vestigate the whole subject of natural gas. There are also a city, and an underwriters’ committee on the same subject. Though Pittsburgh is within reach of three or four prolific localities, and gas has been used for many years, it is but recently that any organized effort has been made to use it on a large scale. Already there are a hundred and fifty companies chartered in the state, representing over two million dollars; and gas is brought from eight to twenty-five miles for use in the city. Five-inch mains are being followed by eight-inch, new wells are being bored, and the time when Pitts- burgh shall become a smokeless city may not be far distant. Though the gas is used under a pressure of a few ounces, the pressures at the wells run from fifty to a hundred and twenty-five pounds: this is due to the friction in the mains, five pounds being allowed for each mile. If the flow be shut off the pressure runs up much higher, and great difficulty has been experienced in making tight joints; cast-iron is too po- rous, and ordinary pipe-threads do not fit well enough. A number of new coupling-devices were exhibited, in some of which a lead packing was used. No al- lowance for expansion need be made, as the gas main- tains an even temperature of about 45° F. When gas is allowed to burn freely at the mouth of a well, the cold produced by the expansion is such that ice has been projected through the flames. The gas is used in all kinds of furnaces for making steam, iron, glass, etc.; and electric-light carbons, and the finest lampblack for printing-inks, are made from it: but it is-used with suicidal wastefulness, which causes anxiety, aS many wells give out in less than five years. The report looks to its economic and safe control. For household use it might otherwise be dangerous; and such use has commenced, though no practicable method of deodorizing it has been found. Being composed largely (ninety-six per cent) of marsh- gas, its value as a heating-agent is high, and its den- sity is about half that of air. One pound (23.5 cubic feet) of gas has a theoretical evaporating-power of twenty-four pounds of water, twenty pounds having been actually evaporated. The best method of burn- ing it is not generally known: experiments with in- jector-burners show that they do not suck in sufficient air for complete combustion, and the best results have been from numerous jets in contact with the whole heating-surface of the boiler. The value of the gas, as compared by evaporation tests with coal at $1.40 woe »4 724 SCIENCE. per ton, is only eight cents per thousand feet (which suggests that even our ordinary gas companies make profits), but its use is immensely more convenient; no stacks are needed, and the furnace reduces to a simple non-conducting chamber. The gas has just been turned on to the city water-works; and on the afternoon of May 22 a well was reported on the prop- erty of Mr. Westinghouse, near Pittsburgh. On the first day’s excursion numerous furnaces were seen running with gas blown in through rough, one-eighth inch nozzles; and two or three lines of five-inch pipe lay on the surface of the railway embankment. Mr. J. W. Cloud, engineer of tests for the Penn- sylvania railroad, read a paper on helical springs. It was here claimed that round steel is better than square, flat, or other shaped; and an investigation, mathematical and experimental, was described, on the usual and mainly correct hypothesis that the strains are entirely torsional. Bars of oil-tempered and un- tempered steel, five feet long by three-fourths to one and five-sixteenths inches diameter, had been tested, and the constants of elasticity, etc., obtained; after which the springs had been coiled and again tested, and the results compared with theory. The proper arrangement of springs, when several are used to- gether, was discussed, and certain proportions shown to be necessary for springs arranged concentrically. Detail drawings of springs for classes V and X were shown. Experiment has proved the principles to be correct on which these have been designed. Alto- gether, the paper is valuable as the commencement of an investigation, which, pushed to completion, will render the designing of all kinds of helical springs an exact science. In the discussion it appeared that springs of peculiar shape found their way into the scrap pile; that the introduction of peculiar designs under freight-cars often resulted in an enormous per- centage of breakage; that orders to manufacturers are often arbitrary, and contrary to sound principles; that logs are loaded on cars by dropping them from a height of ten feet; and that springs are tested by pounding them together with a steam-hammer, after which they are expected to stand ordinary wear. The greatest scientific interest, however, attached to the paper of Prof. W. A. Rogers of Cambridge, on a practical solution of the perfect-screw problem. Professor Rogers prefaced the reading by remarking that he considered the American society of mechani- cal engineers the most appropriate body to receive his first public announcement of success, —a cour- tesy appreciated by the society. Mechanism of pre- cision was defined as perfect ‘‘ when it meets all the requirements of the purpose for which it is constructed;’’? and the two screws, which raise the cross-head of an iron-planer, were discussed in this respect. Precision-screws are tested, not only by direct measurement of the pitch, but by examining optically a surface ruled with many thousand lines to the inch by means of the screw. The first catches all accumulated errors, while the ‘ diffraction grating’ tests the regularity of the spacing for short distances. Scales graduated in Europe, and advertised as with- * out sensible error, are shown, under the comparator, [Vor. IIL, No. 71. to merit no such claim: indeed, if we except Pro- fessor Rowland’s, no screw has hitherto been made, capable of producing graduations sufficiently exact. Three half-metre screws were exhibited which could be mounted for microscopical examination: on one of them, over twelve hundred hours had been spent to make it, by usual methods, as perfect as possible; another, made by the new process, had required but twenty-two hours, and yet, while the microscope showed great irregularities in the former, none could be detected in this; the third was a similar screw before its final grinding. Professor Rogers produces a perfect screw by the following process: an ordi- nary, well-constructed lathe is used; and cuts of various depths are taken on a preliminary screw, for the purpose of tabulating the errors of the leading screw of the lathe as compared with a standard measuring-bar. This being done, a micrometer-screw is used to vary the relation between the leading screw and the cutting-tool. This screw is kept moy- ing automatically, or by hand, so as always to cor- respond with the tabulated values, which results in producing a screw nearly free from the errors of the leading screw. This screw is then ground with a nut cut in the same way; and, if not sufficiently perfect, it is then put in the place of the leading screw, and another screw cut from it by the same method, whereby any remaining errors are elimi- nated. A company has been formed for putting perfect screws on the market. In the animated discussion which followed, Presi- dent Sweet gave his experience in constructing the Cornell measuring-machine, and claimed that the nut should be made as long as the screw to avoid unequal wear of the latter. Among other opinions, it was claimed that scraping surfaces to a bearing is better than grinding; that tempered steel should be used, and other means devised for maintaining the screws perfect; and J. A. Brashear was referred to as having solved the problem of flat surfaces up to five inches diameter. Mr. W. E. Kent of New York presented rules for conducting boiler-tests, in which the precautions necessary for determining the actual heating-power of a fuel, or the efficiency of a steam-boiler, were set forth at length. A committee was appointed to re- port upon a uniform method of making such tests. Mr. W. B. LeVan resumed his advocacy of quick transit in a paper, ‘ New York to Chicago in seventeen hours,’ in which the time required for each of eight divisions was figured out, the average hourly mileage being fifty-five, whereas seventy to eighty miles is a common speed for short distances between Philadel- phia and New York. A change in locomotive valve- motions was also recommended. Mr. Charles E. Emery read ‘ Estimates for steam-users,’ in which he detailed the methods and formulae in use by his com- pany for arriving at the amount of steam furnished to various classes of customers. The New-York steam company has been selling steam at a fixed price since February, 1883. Mr. H. R. Towne, of the Yale & Towne company, explained their drawing-office system, by which all JUNE 13, 1884. ] the operations of planning, making, lettering, dimen- sioning, altering, blue-printing, indexing, and preserv- ing drawings, are reduced to a systematic procedure. The remaining papers, for which, however, but little time remained, were: ‘Cross-sectioning with the right-line pen,’ J. B. Webb; ‘Comparison of three modern types of indicators,’ G. H. Barrus; ‘A positive speed-indicator,’ O. Smith; ‘ The experimen- tal steel-works at Wyandotte,’ W. F. Durfee; ‘ Early history of the steel-works at Troy,’ R. W. Hunt; ‘Experiments on non-conducting coverings for steam- pipes,’ J. M. Ordway and C. J. H. Woodbury. Professor Webb’s paper referred to methods in use in his drawing-classes, with specimen of work. Mr. Barrus gave the weights of the parts of the in- dicators, but neglected their moments of inertia: he compared the general appearance of the diagrams, and the correctness of the parallel motions: the errors of the springs were given, and the action of the drum mechanism discussed by means of an apparatus for detecting changes of phase. Some of these ex- periments seem to be in the right direction, but no discussion of underlying mechanical principles was attempted. Mr. Smith’s machine is a counter for revolving shafts, with a clock which throws it in gear for one minute. The other papers will be read and discussed at the annual November meeting in New- York City. Thursday was devoted to an excursion, by rail, up the Alleghany River for the purpose of visiting vari- ous works and furnaces. Among these were the Spang steel and iron company’s works, the Isabella furnaces, the National soda-works, and the Plate- glass works, using natural gas asa fuel. A subscrip- tion dinner on Thursday evening, and a water excur- sion up the Monongahela on Friday, completed the programme of this meeting of the society. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THYROID AND THYMUS GLANDS AND THE TONGUE. UNDER the wide title of ‘Ueber die derivate der embryonalen schlundbogen und schlundspalten bei saugethieren’ (Arch. mikr. anat., xxii. 271), G. Born discusses the development of these organs as deter- mined by observations on pig embryos. These valu- able researches give us, for the first time, an under- standing of the morphology of the two glands of the above title, which have been a long-standing puzzle to comparative anatomists. The tongue arises from the anterior part of the ventral floor of the pharynx. The space between the ventral ends of the first and second visceral arches is at first depressed ; but later a longitudinal ridge grows up, separated on each side, by a groove, from the arches. The anterior portion of this ridge grows out, and becomes the free part of the tongue: the pos- terior part of the ridge projects between the third and fourth arches, and develops into the epiglottis. It will thus be evident that the tongue does not ex- tend back beyond the secondarch. After the embryo (pig) reaches a length of fifteen millimetres, the SCIENCE. 125 tongue grows rapidly forward. (Although it has long been known that the tongue arises froin the floor of the pharynx, the evident conclusion has not been sufficiently recognized, that the epithelial covering of the tongue is entodermal, and not ectodermal, and therefore not the same as the lining of the mouth, as a continuation of which the lingual epithelium is customarily described. ) The fate of the visceral clefts has been more fully elucidated than heretofore. The first becomes the outer and middle ear and the Eustachian tube, as is well known: the fate of the others has been obscure. According to Born, the second entirely disappears, becoming first a closed sac, and finally undergoing complete atrophy; the third likewise becomes a closed sac, which remains some time connected with the epi- dermis; from the inner end of the cleft arises a short caecum, extending ventrally inwards and forwards, which is the anlage of the thymus, and is retained and enlarged, while the rest of the cleft is atrophied; the fourth cleft also remains in part as a closed sac, which later joins in the formation of the thyroid gland. The thymus was first shown by Kolliker (Entwicke- lungsgeschichte, 2te aufl.) to be an epithelial organ, and probably derived from a gill-cleft. Born traces its origin from the third cleft, as a ventral evagina- tion near the inner opening. The caecum grows, at first, without altering its position or general appear- ance; but the rest of the cleft is reduced to a small canal, the outer part, indeed, to a solid cord of cells (embryo pigs of about sixteen millimetres). The whole, except the thymus portion, is atrophied, but the outer cords persist for atime. The thymus anlage spreads out into a canal, with walls of fine, many- layered epithelium. The lower end of the canal rests against the pericardium, where the aorta makes its exit. In embryos of two centimetres, the lumen of the canal has disappeared, and from the solid cord many branches have grown out, most abundantly at the heart end. The thyroid gland, as was first shown by W. Miiller (Jenaische zeitschr., vi. 428, 1871), has a double origin. Born shows that the principal division arises as a median invagination in the floor of the pharynx, on a line with the front edge of the second visceral cleft. Very early this invagination separates from the pha- ryngeal epithelium, expands laterally chiefly, changes to a network, and at the same time moves backward until it comes to lie behind the glottis. Until the em- bryo is two centimetres long, the thyroid mass lies near the origin of the third aortic arch (common carotid); but in older embryos the division of the carotids has moved back, away from the head and the thyroid gland. The secondary portion of the thyroid is derived from the paired remnants of the fourth clefts. The median portion of the thyroid early changes into a network of epithelial cords. The outer cells of the cords are cylindrical: the inner cells, in several layers, are not very distinct from one another. Around the cords, the mesoderm forms sheaths of spindle cells, while between them the blood-vessels appear. The lateral anlagen become 726 somewhat pear-shaped, the large end lying ventrally. The lumen is retained until the fusion with the me- dian part is accomplished by the union of the large end of the side components with the central division: the large end soon after assumes the characteristic net-like form of the thyroid gland; but the lateral portions can still be distinguished for some time by the lesser size of the meshes, and the greater size of the cords of the network into which they change. In the introduction to his article, Born refers to the previous writings of Stieda and Wolfler, and closes with a criticism of the same, and other publications based upon his own researches. ‘The most important point to be noticed is the correction of Wolfler’s mis- take in describing the second cleft as the first. (In this abstract, the author’s arrangement of the matter has not been followed, as it appeared little conducive to clearness). C. S. MINorT. RESEARCHES ON ASTRONOMICAL SPEC- TRUM-PHOTOGRAPHY. At the time of his death, in November, 1882, Dr. Henry Draper had, for a number of years, been large- ly occupied with very tedious and costly investiga- tions connected with the photography of the spectra of the heavenly bodies, his unusual adaptedness for the prosecution of which research conducted him to results of the highest importance. With true scien- tific spirit, Mrs. Draper has generously placed at the disposal of Professor Young and Professor Pickering all the data necessary for the proper publication of the work; and, in a monograph of about forty pages, the former gives an introduction to Dr. Draper’s researches, together with a description of the appara- tus with which they were made, extracts from the original note-books, and a list of the photographic plates in Mrs. Draper’s possession; while the latter, who took a number of these plates to the observatory of Harvard college in the spring of 1883, presents the results of his measurements, accompanied by a dis- cussion of the plates. Dr. Draper’s attention appears to have been first turned toward spectrum-photography in 1869 and 1870, although his photographic work in other fields previously to this time had been singularly successful. His first work in science, conducted while a medi- cal student in New York, and which related to the function of the spleen, was illustrated with micro- photographs of great excellence; and very soon after taking his degree, while on a visit at Parsonstown, Ireland, he became so thoroughly impressed with the photographic possibilities of the great reflecting-tele- scope of the Earl of Rosse, that, soon after his return home, he began the construction of a metallic spec- ulum of fifteen inches diameter, which was soon re- placed by a number of silver-on-glass mirrors of about the same size, the details of the construction and mounting of which formed the subject of one of the Smithsonian contributions to knowledge, published in 1864. Seven years later, he had completed with his own hands the entire construction and mounting of a twenty-eight inch silvered-glass mirror, with SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 71. which he obtained, in May, 1872, his first photographs of the spectrum of a Lyrae by merely inserting a quartz prism in the path of the rays, just inside the focus of the small mirror, and employing neither slit nor lenses. Three months afterward, the same method secured for him plates showing four lines in the spectrum of the same star. For two or three years following, Dr. Draper’s time was, for the most part, occupied with other lines of work, connected with investigations of the solar spectrum, and the superintendence of the photographic preparations for the transit of Venus of 1874. He returned to the subject of stellar spectra in 1876, obtaining a num- ber of photographs with a fine twelve-inch refractor by Alvan Clark & Sons. This instrument, now the lesser telescope of the Lick observatory, was re- placed in Dr. Draper’s establishment, in 1880, by an eleven-inch Clark refractor, which was provided with a correcting-lens fitted to be placed in front of the object-glass to adapt it to photographie work. This instrument was mounted on the same set of axes with the twenty-eight inch Cassegrain mirror, as were also a finder of five inches aperture, and one of two inches, — all of which are well shown in the picture of the telescopes in the Hastings observatory, vol. i. of Science, p. dl. Dr. Draper’s eminent successes in celestial photog- raphy were due in large degree to his own skill and discoveries in the manipulation of the sensitized plates. Until 1879, wet collodion plates were used in all his experiments; but after that time he em- ployed exclusively the dry plates made by Wratten & Wainwright, to the admirable performance of which, in the hands of Dr. Huggins, his attention was ealled by that distinguished astronomical physicist, on a visit of Dr. Draper to England in 1879. Professor Young directs attention to the fact that the investigations of stellar spectra were by no means carried on continuously, but only during Dr. Draper’s summer residence at his country-place, and in the in- tervals of other, to him, even more absorbingly in- teresting researches and urgent business occupations. The difficulties proved to be well-nigh insurmount- able; for at first the limitations imposed upon the time of exposure by the use of the wet process made it almost impossible to get impressions of sufficient strength, — a difficulty which vanished on the intro- duction of the modern dry-plate processes: and an- other difficulty, increasing with the length of the exposure, was that of securing a sufficiently accurate movement of the driving-clock. No less than seven such clocks were constructed before he succeeded in getting a perfect one. Its regulator was a pair of heavy conical pendulums, so hung that their revolu- tions were sensibly isochronous through quite a range of inclination. The gearing and driving-screw were constructed, for the most part, by Dr. Draper himself, with the utmost care and accuracy; and Professor | Young says, that, in its ultimate perfected condition, the driving-clock was as good as any in existence, be- ing able to keep a star upon the slit for an hourat a time, when near the meridian, and not disturbed by changes of refraction. JUNE 138, 1884.] And besides, the effect of changes of temperature upon the spectroscopic portion of his apparatus, and the difficulty of securing nights on which the atmos- phere would not cut off the actinic rays to an unusual degree, not to mention the fact that the observatory was more than two miles distant from his residence, — these and many other conditions hindered the prog- ress Of the work. Spectrographic operations are, as Professor Young well says, much more sensitive to atmospheric conditions than are visual observations. As regards the spectroscopic apparatus, a great many forms were employed, the first of which has already been mentioned. Later, direct-vision prisms were used in the same way, and spectroscopes made up of such prisms, some with a slit, some without, and some with a cylindrical lens to give necessary width to the spectrum. In the definitive arrange- ment of the apparatus, with which all the plates measured by Professor Pickering were made, a re- modelled form of Browning’s star-spectroscope formed the basis of the instrument; the telescope and colli- mator each having a focal length of six inches, and an aperture of 0.75 of an inch. The eye-piece and micrometer being removed, a block of hard wood was fitted on in such a way as to carry the photographic plate (a small piece of glass about an inch square); and a small positive eye-piece was mounted on the block, so that the yellow and red portions of the spec- trum, projected beyond the sensitive plate into the field of view, could be examined at pleasure. It was thus possible to be sure that the driving-clock was running properly, and that all the adjustments re- mained correct. The whole apparatus weighed less than five pounds, and could be screwed on the eye- end of whichever telescope it was desirable to use it with. The development of the plates was usually by ferrous oxalate, though the alkaline development and pyrogallic acid were both used on some occa- sions. The pictures were about half an inch long, and one-sixteenth of an inch in width, extending from a point between the Fraunhofer lines F and G to a point near M. Professor Pickering divides his work on these plates into three parts: first, the determination of the rel- ative positions of the lines in the various spectra in terms of any convenient unit of length; second, from the known spectra of the moon and Jupiter, a deter- mination of the relation of these measures to wave- lengths; third, a reduction of the measures of the stellar spectra to wave-lengths, and a discussion of the results. The stars whose spectra have been meas- ured are a Aquilae, a Lyrae, a Aurigae, a Bootis, and aScorpii. The spectrum of the first of these stars is remarkable for containing, in addition to the intense broad hydrogen-bands which characterize the spec- trum of a Lyrae and similar stars, a multitude of very fine lines, which are easily seen between G and H in several of the plates, but are too delicate to be satis- factorily measured. Dr. Draper considered these fine lines very important as showing that Altair should be regarded as a sort of intermediate link between a Lyrae and Sirius on the one side, and Capella and the sun on the other. SCIENCE. 127 On the plates of the spectra of a Aurigae and a Bootis, not only do the lines appear to ceincide in position with those of the sun, but their relative in- tensity seems to be nearly the same. Of the twelve lines seen in at least seven of the nine spectra of the moon and Jupiter, every one is contained in the spec- tra of both a Aurigae and @ Bootis. Of the fifteen lines which are so faint as to be contained in but one or two of the spectra of the moon or Jupiter, only four are contained in the spectrum of a Bootis, and but one in that of a Aurigae. There is therefore no room for doubt of the correctness of Professor Pick- ering’s conclusion that the evidence afforded by these photographs is very strong indication of the same- ness of their constitution with that of our sun. Professor Pickering’s method of deriving his results from these plates is worthy of note here, as indicat- ing the great degree of confidence to which they are entitled. To secure entire independence in the re- sults, the measures were completed before the reduc- tions were begun. ‘The lines in each plate were measured without comparison with any map, and no search was made for lines which appeared to be want- ing. When two similar spectra were photographed side by side, care was taken to cover one when meas- uring the other. Under these circumstances, the agreement in the measures of several plates is strong evidence of the identity of the spectra. Appended to this monograph are three of the pa- pers of Dr. Draper, reprinted from the American jour- nal of science: 1°, On photographing the spectra of the stars and planets (December, 1879); 2°, On pho- tographs of the spectrum of the nebula in Orion (May, 1882); and, 3°, Note on photographs of the spectrum of comet b 1881 (August, 1881). The first of these papers gives, in brief form, a very lucid statement of the conditions of the problem of celestial spec- trum-photography, as well as the obstacles which he had, up to that time, overcome in solving it. DAvip P. Topp. THE GEOLOGY OF THE ASTURIAS AND GALICIA. Recherches sur les terrains anciens des Asturies et de la Galice. Par CHARLES Barrots, docteur és- sciences. Lille, Six-Heremans, 1882. 630 p., 20 pl. 4°. Ir was the good fortune of one of the writers of this review to see this work in process of evolution in the workshop and study of its hospitable author in Lille; but much as he admired the indomitable energy and patience which were presiding at its birth, as well as the copious notes and experience which were being assimilated into this monograph, the re- sult is a surprise. How much more must it surprise those who are unacquainted with Dr. Barrois, to learn that he is but little past his thirtieth year; that this is but one of several important memoirs which he has begun and 728 completed alone; and that he has been able to do this while his chair in the faculty of science at Lille (Academy of Douai) was demanding the constant and fatiguing work of lectures and preparation, and his arduous labors in Brit- tany under the geological survey of France suffered no interruption! Without the experience which he gained, both in the field and in the art of publishing, by his important and now often quoted ‘‘ Recherches sur le terrain cretacé supérieur de |’ Angleterre et de l’Ivlande,’’ which won him his doctorate from the University of France, he would hardly have been so successful in this last book. Both works begin with historical notices and bibliog- raphies ; but in the latest the first four pages are devoted to a veritable history of the labors of his predecessors, rather than to a mere list of their books. At the end of this, however, there are nearly four pages of titles rained upon the reader, as if Dr. Barrois were anxious to terminate this part, and get at his subject. Accompanying this large and handsome quar- to is an atlas in the same form, which contains twenty plates reproduced in the best style of art at the present day. The first three of these are colored plates, representing ten thin sections of rocks under the microscope and in- polarized light. Each plate is conveniently covered by a thin tissue sheet containing the outlines of the constituent minerals, with the letters and figures necessary for indentifying them. Following these are fourteen plates of fossils, of which four are from the hand of the author ; nine were drawn by the lithographer, Mr. C. Rogghé; and one is a phototype from the Alteliers de reproductions artistiques in Paris. The last three plates are in order: one of vertical sections, one of section sketches, and one of pure sketches, on which latter in- teresting and important geological phenomena have been marked. Viewed as a whole, the artistic work is as perfect as any set of illustra- tions of scientific matter which the writer re- remembers to have seen. Where fault is so hard to find, he may be pardoned here for mentioning the only additions which it seems to him could have made the plates clearer; viz., a note of the amount of enlargement of the figures of plates ii. and iii., on the pages oppo- site those plates. Plate i. is thus provided. The first part of the subject of this review (161 p.) is devoted to lithology. esting and valuable, and will do much to in- crease the reputation of the author. It treats of the general and microscopic characters of the sedimentary rocks, including schists, phyllites, quartzites, limestones, and mimophyres; and SCIENCE. It is inter- 4?) eee * ~~. ea. ; . [Vou. IIL, No. 71. the crystalline massive rocks, comprising granite, quartz porphyry, diorite, diabase, and. recent quartz-bearing kersantite. The schists are of every age, from the Cambrian to the carboniferous; and he divides their mineral ingredients into two classes, — those which were clastic, and prior in origin to the consolidation of the rocks ; and those which were secondary, or crystallized out during the consolidation. The first class includes quartz, felspar, and white mica; the second, quartz, rutile, tour- maline, white mica, and chlorite. The term ‘mimophyre’ is given by Barrois to a series of felspathic, porphyritic, and schistose rocks, which he thinks were formed from volcanic ashes and detritus, —the same as most poro- ditic felsites are known to have been formed. The mimophyres are found associated with the sedimentary schists, quartzites, and phyllites, and belong to the Cambrian, Silurian, and Permian. Of the plates, it is sufficient to state that they were made by Jacquemin, who prepared those for Messrs. Fouqué and Lévy’s ‘ Miné- ralogie micrographie.’ The second part treats of the paleontology of the Cambrian and Silurian (chap. i.), and of the Devonian and carboniferous (chap. ii.), and occupies 217 pages of very interesting matter ; to which, however, it will be impossible here to make more than the briefest allusion. We learn from a prefatory note, that Dr. Barrois has succeeded in collecting three hundred and eighty-five species of fossils from the field of his labors in this part of Spain. Of these, thir- ty-nine are new species, which we owe to his research ; viz., three in the Cambrian and Silu- rian, twenty in the Devonian, and sixteen in the carboniferous. Thesyllable‘ Barr.,’ affixed to many others, is apt to lead the hasty reader to ascribe these also to him ; but the abbreviation is for Barrande, and not Barrois. The author’s note (p. 177) on the right of precedence of Professor Haldeman’s Scolithus over Ronault’s Tigillites is a model of impartial justice and scholarly treatment of the subject. Following the detailed description is a ré- sumé (pp. 359 to 385) containing considera- tions by Dr. Barrois on the genera and species just referred to, with special regard to their parallelisms ; and the chapter is concluded by speculations on the conditions under which the deposits have been formed. In the following chapter (ii.) the same method is applied to the fossils of the Devonian and carboniferous. The third part is devoted to the stratigraphy, ~ including, of course, the description of cross- sections. It is no fault of the author that this JUNE 18, 1884.] portion of the work is more difficult to follow, owing to the necessity of subdividing the cross- sections, like the previous parts of the book, in accordance with the limits of the great forma- tions. This difficulty is inherent in the case, and lies in deciding how to put the diverse phenomena before the mind in ‘ natural order’ (much-abused phrase). If we follow the geo- graphical divisions, there must be a continual interruption and resumption of the same geo- logical horizon; whereas, if the geological boundaries are alone regarded, the geographical continuity is broken. Of the two solutions, per- haps the second is the better. The first of these subdivisions (chap. i.) is the ‘ primitive ter- rane’ (used by de Castro to imply nearly what is meant by the archaean of Dana). It is very interesting in this connection (and not unex- pected), to find that the upper division of the ‘ primitive’ consists of the roches vertes which occupy this position in South Wales, the Ap- palachian belt, and in so many: other places. They are mingled with chlorite schists and talc schists overlying the mica schists of Villalba, which latter contain biotite, muscovite, orthose, plagioclase, and two kinds of quartz; with garnet, zircon, sphene, and oligiste as acces- sories. Gneiss has been observed by Dr. Barrois only in subordinate thin layers inter- calated among the mica schists. The same is true of the garnetiferous am- phibolites; but the difference between this Spanish stratigraphy, and that of those regions where similar rocks have been observed in America and in Europe, is, that the series in the former case are concordant. ‘The Laurentian would appear, from Dr. Barrois’ conclusions, to be wanting in the outcrops of Galicia, and the above-mentioned measures to represent a great development of the Huronian. The succession of Cambrian beds, both in the Asturias and in Galicia, he finds perfectly in accordance with Barrande’s views of this part of Europe. From a fossil of Archaeocyathus (Billings), character- istic of the Potsdam sandstone, found in the limestones of El] Pedroso, MacPherson forms a column in which he thinks that possibly the Laurentian is represented at the base by mica and tale schists, with intercalated limestones of various colors, and sometimes filled with acti- note (actinolite), and, more rarely, intercalated beds of felspathic grauwacke. On this rest argillaceous, splendent, siliceous talc schists, sometimes containing chiastolite; and on these, three benches of conglomerates, tuffs, and ar- gillaceous schists and limestones, which he re- fers to the Potsdam sandstones. Following this are details of the sections in SCIENCE. 129 the Devonian and carboniferous. ‘The sixth chapter treats of the phenomena which have modified the position of the paleozoic strata since these latter have been deposited. His conclusion is, that the Cantabrian Mountains owe their origin to two distinct lines of press- ure; the one acting along east and west, and the other along north and south, lines. The former occurred between the carboniferous and Permian ages; and the latter, between the eocene and miocene. The last subjects treated are the effects of denudation and the details of the actual surface- relief. The work has been built on strong and sure foundations, and will long be cited as an au- thority. It is full of new facts and suggested analogies, and is characterized by thoughtful- ness, industry, and modesty. LOCKWOOD’S ELECTRICITY. Electricity, magnetism, and electric telegraphy : a prac- tical guide and handbook of general information for electrical students, operators, and inspectors. By Tuomas D. Locxwoop. New York, Van Nos- trand, 1883. 377 p., illustr. 8°. As indicated in its preface, Mr. Lockwood’s unpretending book is not primarily intended for those having any considerable previous knowledge of the subject of electricity, but for the large number of persons who have not had the advantage of a scientific education, and yet find themselves in the employment of telegraph, telephone, or electric-light com- panies in various subordinate positions. To this class of persons the information contained in the work will doubtless be of great value ; and, indeed, we do not recall any one book, of moderate size and price, in which so many of the different applications of electricity are considered in an elementary manner. ‘l’o one familiar with the subject, the treatment of the more important topics must, of course, seem brief and occasionally superficial ; but, recol- lecting the design of the work, it can hardly fail to win commendation, even from those who most clearly recognize its deficiencies. The chapters on line-construction, office ar- rangements, and the adjustment and care of instruments, are excellent: and a very clear description of the principles of duplex and quadruplex telegraphy is given. ‘There is also a good account of Mr. Gray’s interesting harmonic multiple telegraph. Mr. Delany’s ingenious multiplex synchronous telegraph is not described, probably because it did not 730 become well.known until too late for insertion ; but we hope it may find a place in a future edition. The telephone has a chapter devoted to it. We wish that the theory of the instru- ment had been stated more at length, and are surprised to find not even a reference to the musical telephone of Reis. The preceding remarks apply especially to the latter and technical portion of the book. The earlier chapters, which treat of various theoretical matters, are less worthy of praise. The definitions of electrical units are in some cases far from clear. Some of the remarks on p. 96, regarding the unit of capacity, are quite misleading. There are also some apparent slips of the pen. Such, for example, is the statement on p. 119, that the resistance of a battery increases in direct proportion to the number of cells, which is evidently true only when the cells are connected entirely in series. To the same origin we may probably trace the erroneous statement on p. 94, regarding the use of the terms ‘ weber’ and ‘ weber per sec- ond.’ The chapter on electrical measurements seems rather to be compiled from text-books than derived from the writer’s knowledge of such experimentation, and hence fails to have the suggestiveness that is found in some portions ofthe book. The few pages devoted to electro- therapeutics are unworthy of the title, and do not deserve insertion in a separate chapter ; and more discrimination might well have been employed in the descriptions of the various electric lamps. The question-and-answer style is a disadvantage, which would be removed by the substitution of proper marginal titles. A NEW CLASSIFICATION OF THE MOLLUSCA. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 9th ed., vol. xvi., pp. 632-697. Article, Mollusca. By E. Ray Lan- KESTER. As arule, it is hardly in the ponderous tomes of an encyclopaedia that one looks for new, fresh, and breezy contributions to biology, or for epoch-making articles on biological topics. One rather expects the carefully weighed and sifted results of investigation which has already borne the test of publication and discussion, prepared for general comprehension by a divest- ment of all unnecessarily technical terms. In the present instance, whatever be the feelings of the layman who may refer to it, the scien- tific student of the Mollusca will be agreeably disappointed. It is rumored that the distin- guished author has in preparation a manual of the invertebrates, of which it may be assumed SCIENCE. [Vor. IIL, No. 71. this article is the forerunner. For this reason, even in our limited space, which forbids a really thorough discussion of so large a topic, it is desirable that the attention of specialists should be called to it. The school of which Professor Lankester is one of the leaders is marked by certain well- recognized features. ‘They have broken away from the fetters of all previous zodlogical clas- sification. Armed with the latest instruments and methods, they attack biological problems with ardor, and rarely fail to add materially to our knowledge, whatever be the subject treated. A new biology has arisen, and the gospel there- of is pedigree. By their ancestral trees shall ye know them, under whatever adult garb they may conceal themselves, — this is the new law of the new prophets. So great a truth is contained in it, so rich the harvest under its stimulation, and so unani- mously has it governed the generation first brought under its beneficial influence, that even yet to doubt its infallibility and ubiquity of application is to stigmatize one’s self as a biological Philistine. Nevertheless, it is becom- ing pretty generally admitted that the relations of pedigree fail, in many cases, to express ade- quately the relations of adult animals as we find them in nature; and that the genealogical stand-point, like any other single stand-point, taken by itself, is inadequate to the broadest and truest view. Professor Lankester’s work has the merits of his school in a very decided degree, while some of its faults are equally well marked. These we shall endeavor to point out, though limitation of space will compel us to do much less than justice to both. ‘¢ The Mollusca,’’ he tells us, ‘*‘ form one of the great phyla or sub-kingdoms of the animal pedigree or kingdom.’’ After a very slight sketch of the history of molluscan classification, the works of Woodward and Bronn are men- tioned with deserved approval, the latter being termed ‘+ the most exhaustive survey of exist- ing knowledge of a large division of the animal kingdom which has ever been produced ; am which would be true, if, for ‘ existing knowl- edge,’ we were to read, ‘ knowledge existing twenty years ago.’ Notwithstanding its great merits, the work of Bronn is now antiquated in many respects, as well as out of print, yet, so far, has found no worthy successor. If to the admirable and careful exposition of previ- ous systematic work, characteristic of Bronn’s monograph, Professor Lankester will join the biological results of the last twenty years, bring- ing both up to date, he will merit even higher JUNE 13, 1884.] praise than that he has bestowed upon the German naturalist. The plan of the work we are reviewing is excellent. In place of attempting a hard and fast definition of the molluscan phylum, he has described and figured an architypal mollusk in detail; and the reader, once familiarized with this type, can follow clearly the discussion of the subordinate branches. These are taken up seriatim, beginning with the more archaic forms. The phylum is divided by Lankester into two great branches,— the Glossophora and the Lipo- cephala. The first comprises three classes, — Gastropoda (in its widest sense) ; Scaphopoda, or the Dentalia ; and Cephalopoda, with which the author includes. not only the cuttles, etc., but the Pteropoda. The Lipocephala are equivalent to the Acephala of Cuvier, or the Lamellibranchiata of authors. So far, the position of the Pteropoda (though not absolutely new) with the Cephalopoda, rather than as a class by themselves or as a subclass of Gastropoda, is the chief difference from the generally accepted classifications, and one which will be much criticised, if not finally rejected ; since the little that is known of the embryology of the pteropods differs in impor- tant features from that of the cephalopods. The Gastropoda are first discussed in a general way, and, on the whole, in a most satis- factory manner. We could wish, that, in intro- ducing new Greek derivatives, some attention had been paid to euphony ; for surely that me- lodious language can afford better terms than gonad (‘ sexual organ’), osphradiwm (‘ sensory organ’), ctenidium (‘gill’), and others which grate upontheear. We note among details the erroneous statement that the radula is horny (it is really chitinous), and that the jaws are usu- ally calcified, and almost universally present. No single instance of a calcified jaw among recent Mollusca occurs to us, and there are large groups without a jaw. ‘The jaw is com- posed of a substance allied to chitine, more or less combined with really horny material, the former defying alike the strongest acids and alkalies to reduce it. The recognition of the radula as a feature of the highest systematic importance is very wel- come : it is only to be regretted that the author seems to have fallen into utter confusion in his endeavors to indicate formulae for the teeth, and to have followed, without much investi- gation, the crude notions of Dr. Macdonald, rather than the researches of Troschel, Lovén, Woodward, or Sars. It seems also to have escaped him, that the radula is occasionally (though rarely) absent.* SCIENCE. 731 The author divides the Gastropoda into two subclasses, Isopleura and Anisopleura, charac- terized by the relations of the organs, which, in the former and more archaic group, are bilater- ally symmetrical with a posterior anus: in the Anisopleura the visceral mass has been subjected to torsion, bringing the anus to the anterior right side, while the concomitant twisting of the remainder of the intestinal mass results in a masking of the original symmetry. In the process when originally brought about, if the termination of the intestine was sufficiently low, it became entangled in the pedal nervous loop, which, in following it, acquired a figure-of- eight form. If, on the other hand, the plane of intestinal torsion was above the pedal loop, the latter did not participate in the torsion, and in the succeeding generations retained its simple character. These relative features, observed by Spengel in a number of mollusks, are made, after him, the occasion of two super-ordinal groups, — Streptoneura and Euthyneura. We regard the establishment of the sub- classes above mentioned as a decided advance on previous systems, while it is doubtful if the super-orders will stand the test of future inves- tigation. The character adopted as a basis is purely mechanical, and, so far as yet shown, without serious significance. The isopleurous gastropods comprise the Chitons, Neomeniidae, and Chaetoderma, which are considered respectively as typifying orders. In our opinion, they should have been divided into two super-orders, — one the Polyplacoph- ora, exhibiting a metameric repetition of the primitive shell-sac, and possessing a developed and functional foot; the other the Chaetoder- mida, without (as adults) a primitive shell-sac or shell of any kind, and with the foot aborted, or rudimental. The statement(p. 641) that the cuticular spines of the latter group ‘ replace’ the shell, is not correct in a strictly scientific sense, and the expression were better not used; for these spines are absolutely identical with the spines of the girdle in Chiton, and have no re- lation to the true shell. The Anisopleura Streptoneura are divided into two orders, Zygo- and Azygo-branchia, accordingly as the suppression of the origi- nally left-side organs is or is not carried out. These characters we regard as unsatisfactory, and the division resulting as artificial; Halio- tis, Fissurella, etc., being combined with the true limpets, while their (to our notion) much nearer relatives, the Trochidae, Pleurotomari- idae, etc., are left in the other order. Recent observations on the limpets indicate that this arrangément cannot be maintained, though we i 4 Pad | _ TT “ee 7132 have not space for a full statement of the case. It should be said, that only examples of groups in classification as high as families ap- pear in the work. Of about two hundred and seventy-five families of mollusks recognized by malacologists of later date than Bronn, about seventy only are referred to; and the genera assigned to some of these are not at present considered to be properly so placed. This, however, is a mere incident, which greater research into the present state of the science, outside the ranks of professional embryologists, will make it easy to rectify. The Streptoneura comprise a large part of the ordinary marine gastropods bearing shells, but to them are added the heteropods. On the other hand, the Euthyneura comprise the nudi- branchs, pulmonates, and opisthobranchs, —a not unnatural assemblage, but which should hardly be kept out where Pyramidella, Ento- concha, and Phyllirhoe are let in. We do not find any indication of the place of Siphonaria or Gadinia. The Solenoconcha stand alone. That the Pteropoda should do so, rather than have been consolidated with the Cephalopoda, many will be disposed to believe, as Lankester admits that the development of the embryo ‘ presents no points of contact ’ between them. In the Lipocephala, unfortunately, we have nothing new; and the old and now defunct orders based on the number of adductor mus- cles are retained. The remarkable characters of the group of Metarrhiptae are not alluded to; and Tridacna, the type, is actually included in one family with Dimya, Isocardia, Cyrena, and Cyprina. In fact, the families of Lipocephala adopted are, in the light of modern investigations, too archaic for serious criticism. We have noticed, in passing, some errors, and some features wherein we differ from our au- thor in judgment on the facts presented. But we should do him grave injustice if we did not, before closing this review, give our testimony to the great value of his work. In this paper is brought together the best summary of the results of recent anatomical and embryological research on the Mollusca. It is fully (though rather rudely) illustrated with fresh and well-selected figures. Several of the diagrammatic series given are extremely clear, satisfactory, and instructive. The arti- cle is a mine of information as to anatomy and development, digested and put in rational sequence. It is, however, a sketch, in broad outlines, of the developmental history ‘of the SCIENCE. [Vor. IIL, No. 71. Mollusca, rather than a general treatise on the group. We hope that it, or an enlarged and improved treatise following on the same lines, may soon be accessible in better form for the student, whom it cannot fail to stimulate and instruct. W.. Hy; DAT: ABORIGINAL LITERATURE OF AMERICA. Aboriginal American authors and their productions, especially those in the native languages. By DaniEL G. Brinton. Philadelphia, Brinton, 1883. 63p. 8°. 2 The Giiegiience: a comedy ballet in the Nahuatl- Spanish dialect of Nicaragua. Edited by D. G. Brinton. Philadelphia, Brinton, 1883. 52+94 Dp: oo. Tue first of these papers is an essay which grew out of a communication which Dr. Brin- ton made, in 1883, to the Copenhagen session of the Congres des Américanistes. Itis a bit of literary history, which groups, according to form of expression, — whether narrative, di- dactic, oratorical, poetic, or dramatic, — the various productions of the aborigines of Amer- ica. It includes the writings in the native tongues of the Maya and Nahua races in the south. It embraces, also, the hot-bed litera- ture of those tongues which have received their power of expression, in type, from the contact with the whites; as in the case, for instance, of the Cherokees. Nor are the efforts forgotten, of the training of those of Indian blood who have given expression both in the Latin, which was the common scholarly medi- um of the time of the Spanish conquest, and in the vernaculars which were acquired from the schools of the Spanish, French, and Eng- lish settlers. This last phase extends the range pretty far beyond the scope of the linguistic interests attaching to the subject: but Dr. Brinton does not make it an essential part of his plan; and from his enumerations it clearly appears how much more receptive the nations which the Spaniards encountered were than the peoples of the north, brought to subjec- tion by the French and English. The review which Dr. Brinton makes of the literary activ- ity —if we may so call it—of all the Amer- ican peoples, from the Eskimo southward, though but cursory, is a reasonably complete one, and opens a subject of great interest. The second title is the third in a series of aboriginal American literature, which Dr. Brinton is giving opportunely to the students of the ethnological development of our in- digenous races. In the present instance the JUNE 13, 1884.] production is not purely Indian; for it is of comparatively recent origin, and represents the corruptions of both the Spanish and Aztec tongues, combined in a vulgar way. It is interesting, however, psychologically, and shows what humor and spirit can spring from the union of the races, which its jargon typifies. The text of the original is accompanied by a rendering into English ; and in an introduction and notes, Dr. Brinton takes occasion, fortu- nately, to make record of a large amount of his curious and apposite learning. M‘ALPINE’S ZOOLOGICAL ATLAS. Zoblogical atlas (including comparative anatomy), with practical directions and explanatory text for the use of students. By D. M‘Atpine. 2 vols. New York, The Century co., 1888. 16; 24pl. f°. Tuts is a handsomely bound and finished work in two parts, dealing respectively with the invertebrates and vertebrates. It is intended as a guide to the student in the dissection of representative forms.. The number of plates devoted to the different types is, however, hardly proportioned to their importance, much less to the commonness of their occurrence. Thus, four plates are assigned to Protozoa, and, of these, one and a half to the Monera. Perhaps so much space is given to these be- cause the author knows that most students will never have the opportunity of studying the liv- ing forms. Yet this is hardly a sufficient ex- cuse for crowding out altogether the Porifera and Coelenterata. Of these, nota single figure or diagram is given; although they are of uni- versal occurrence, and far more important ob- jects of study to the student than mere figures of Monera. The figures of Vermes are limited to those of the liver-fluke, tapeworm, and leech, all on one plate, while annelids are en- tirely neglected. At least one molluscoid, either a polyzoan or ascidian, might well have been added. In his selection of vertebrates, the author has been far more fortunate; and he is to be especially commended for giving the anatomy of the salamander in place of that of the com- mon, but unfortunately in many respects so abnormal, frog. The drawings, unfortunately, leave the stu- dent in entire ignorance of the relative size of the different objects. Different organs and organic systems of the same animal are often drawn on a very different scale, and the student left to imagine that they are all alike, life-size, except that in marked cases the word ‘ en- larged’ is added. The Protozoa are prodigious, SCIENCE. 133 but whether magnified five hundred or five thousand diameters we are not informed. All this might very easily have been obviated by the use of a few figures or a simple scale. Some mistakes in drawing or anatomy occur in each part. ‘Thus the stone-canal of the star- fish (plate v., diagram 1) is represented as connected directly with the top of one of the Polian vesicles. If any one will compare the other figures on this plate, especially Nos. 3 and 4, with the corresponding figures in Profes- sor Brooks’s ‘ Manual,’ he will see immediate- ly how the finer points of anatomy, especially of the haemal system, have been neglected. Fig. 3 is particularly unfortunate. So, too, in plate xili., figs. 4 and 5, the ner- vous system differs in the two drawings; and in fig. 5 the single parieto-splanchnic ganglion seems to be represented nearly midway be- tween the anterior and posterior adductor mus- cles, but without name, and its name given to two siphonal (?) ganglia represented on the posterior adductor. One or two similar in- stances occur in the part devoted to verte- brates. Both in figures and notes, the author supports the theory of the development of an ovary and ‘seminal capsule,’ and the produc- tion of ova, in Paramoecium. This is certainly a bold position, in the face of such observa- tions as those of Professor Butschli on the conjugation of several species of the same genus, and described and supported by Profes- sor Claus. But with few exceptions, and these, perhaps, more the fault of engraver than au- thor, the anatomy seems generally correct. The plates of the part on vertebrates are very fair and distinct; but in the figures of many of the smaller invertebrates the masses of color are far more noticeable than the correct- ness or clearness of the details. The internal anatomy of the crabs in plate viii. is so in- definite as to be of little assistance to a stu- dent. The figures in plate ix. are much clearer. All through both volumes, finer drawing and engraving, and a more judicious use of color, would have made avast improvement. The engraving, particularly, is not so good as the price of the work would warrant ; by no means so clear as in many text-books on zodlogy and comparative anatomy. The notes are usually good, though sometimes rather more literary than scientific. The description of the indi- vidual or species does not always emphasize the most important characteristics of the class which it illustrates, of the order or family to which it belongs. The book would be a great help to any one wishing to take up a practical course of dissec- Te Coes. en ty [Vou. IIL, No. 71. SCIENCE. tion without a teacher; but, for most students in such a situation, it is too expensive, while most of the teachers in advanced schools and colleges will prefer the finer plates of some of the foreign comparative anatomies, or the drawings to be found in the books of reference of the larger libraries. To teachers of zodlogy who have not such libraries at their command, or who, on account of ignorance of the lan- guage, are unable to use German text-books, the atlas would undoubtedly be a very great assistance. NEW METEOROLOGICAL JOURNALS. Meteorologische zeitschrift. Herausgegeben von der Deutschen meteorologischen gesellschaft. Redi- girt von Dr. W. Koppen. Heft i., January. Berlin, Asher, 1884. 8°. American meteorological journal. M. W. Harrineton. Vol.i., troit, Burr, 1884. 8°. MerrrEoroLoey has received an impulse, both in Germany and America, by the almost si- multaneous issue of a monthly meteorological journal in each of these countries. The two journals are intended, however, to cover differ- ent grounds, and so it will be necessary to state the position of each separately. The Meteorologische zeitschrift has for its editor one of the greatest of living meteorolo- gists, and it is intended to be a sort of co-laborer with the Austrian journal of meteorology. Much will be expected of this publication, and the first number leads us to believe that these expectations will be realized. In fact, but for the slight difference in appearance, one might think he was reading a number of its Austrian rival. We find such names as Neumayer, Zen- ker, Krankenhagen, Sprung, Van Bebber, and Koppen, appearing as contributors to this first number. Its first twenty-eight pages contain original communications, then come nine pages of correspondence and notices, then four pages concerning the founding of the society, followed by four pages of members of the German mete- orological society, three pages of bibliography and book-notices, and two pages of plates. Although this January number is issued in April, yet the editor hopes to send out the successive numbers in such rapid succession, that after September they will appear at the proper time. The American meteorological journal is edited by a professional astronomer, who has recognized the needs of American meteorolo- gists, and is self-denying enough to offer his services for their benefit. From no journal of Edited by Prof. no. 1, May. De- this kind can one derive any pecuniary benefit ; and it is the duty of meteorologists to help the editor, not only by communications, but also by subscriptions. The matter of this first number of the jour- nal is principally meteorological, and the topics treated are varied. ‘The principal article is one on barometric waves of short period, and is by a well-known astronomer. In the early stages this journal will need the support of all astronomers and physicists who take an inter- est in meteorology, because we have not enough working meteorologists in this country to sup- ply material enough to make the undertaking a success. Similar first steps taken in foreign countries have required this same aid. Heretofore American ‘contributions to our knowledge of meteorology have been scattered through various periodicals ; but now they can be published together, and where they will be brought soonest to the notice of those inter- ested. Although the editor will be forced to deal with the popular side of meteorology in order to make the journal readable to enough people to make the circulation large enough to pay the expenses, yet it is hoped that he will. aim to make its scope as purely professional as possible. There are so many journals devoted to meteorology now, that one can only read the most important articles in each; and quality is of greater importance than quantity. The con- tents of this American journal are divided as follows : editorial notes ; current notes ; original communications ; translations, etc., distributed over forty pages. THE STUDY OF HEREDITY. Life-history album, prepared by direction of the colle- giate investigation committee of the British medical association. Edited by Francis GALTON, F.R.S. London, Macmillan, 1884. 8+172 p., 8 pl. 4°, Record of family faculties; consisting of tabular forms and directions for entering data, with an explanatory preface. By Francis GALTON. Lon- don, Macmillan, 1884. 4+68p. 4°. We have become accustomed to look for care and thoroughness in Mr. Galton’s work, and it is pleasant to say that the two volumes before us fulfil our expectations. We can but assign to them an uncommon importance ; for it is indeed significant, that the novel duty of recording the biological history of ourselves, our parents, and our children, is thus made easy to us by Mr. Galton. It is mainly to his: influence that we must trace the conviction of. thoughtful and earnest minds: that it is really a duty to record the characteristics of every JUNE 13, 1884.] individual and family; for Mr. Galton, more than any one else, has brought home to us the fact of our close dependence upon our ances- tors for our traits of body, mind, and character. Mr. Galton’s two small volumes provide most admirably for the facts in individual cases. The thicker of the two, the life-history album, will undoubtedly be the most widely used. It provides for the systematic record of the prin- cipal facts which may serve to indicate the constitutional character and the course of development of an individual from birth to seventy-five years of age. Directions, admir- able in clearness and simplicity, are prefixed to the volume. The first of the blank tables that follow is for a brief genealogical record ; the second, for the description of the child at birth. The remainder of the record is divided into five yearly periods. For each period the headings and blanks are repeated, so that the same qualities may be traced through all their changes. The data to be entered are of four kinds: first, physical characteristics, the stature, complexion, acuteness of the senses, etc. ; second, other peculiarities, bodily endur- ance, recent trial of mental power, artistic capacity, resemblance to relatives; third, photographs in profile and full face; fourth, any other observations, including especially the full medical history. ‘There are also charts on which to record graphically the growth ; and these charts also give the curves of aver- age growth for males and females. At the end of the volume are a few pages for records of the wife (or husband) and children. An appendix gives tests for vision. Only those having experience can appreci- ate the study and thought which have been expended upon this remarkable album, — the product of a noble and wise philanthropy. Parents who earnestly desire their children’s welfare will gradually learn to recognize the necessity of profiting by Mr. Galton’s guidance in preserving a knowledge of their children’s lives, for the plan which he has formulated can hardly be improved at present. Such knowl- edge is valuable to the child, not only as indicat- ing its constitutional tendencies, but also often as giving warning of incipient disease, and as SCIENCE. 735 revealing the influence of change in residence, occupation, diet, or habits, upon health. More valuable still will the accurately kept album be when the child becomes a parent. ‘‘ For mental and physical characteristics, as well as liabilities to disease, are all transmitted more or less by parents to their children. ... The world is begin- ning to perceive that the life of each individual is in some real sense a prolongation of those of his ancestry. His character, his vigor, and his disease are principally theirs. . . . The life-histories of our relatives are, therefore, more instructive to us than those of strangers: they are especially able to fore- warn and encourage us, for they are prophetic of our own futures.”’ The thinner volume is designed especially to further the science of heredity by gathering histories of families. Itis arranged to contain brief records of the principal traits, bodily and psychic, of a person, and the person’s parents, oerand-parents, great-grand-parents, and chil- dren. ‘Those who are able to do so, can render a valuable service, not only to themselves, but also to knowledge, by filling out accurately a record of their family faculties, and transmit- ting a duplicate to Mr. Galton, who will use it as a confidential document for statistical pur- poses only. That he will draw most valuable deductions from such materials, those who know his earlier researches are convinced beforehand. The album of family faculties has the same gen- eral plan and excellences, and deserves the same general praise, as the life-album. Of the laws of heredity, but little is really known; but, when they are better and more generally understood, a great revolution must ensue in human society. Mr. Galton is laying the foundation of a thorough knowledge of heredity ; and, because imagination hastens to conceive the future changes that may result, we are inclined to designate Mr. Galton’s two recent publications as the most important books of the year. But in such matters, wisdom may be boldness in theory, but must be conservatism in practice: therefore let us diligently gather knowledge of heredity, and meanwhile postpone the anticipated revolution. To all persons we earnestly recommend the faithful use of the two volumes we have re- viewed. © INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. U. 8. geological survey. Fulgurite from Oregon. — During Mr. Diller’s re- connoissance of the Cascade Range in the summer of 1883, Mr. E. E. Hayden collected from the summit of Mount Thielson, one of the sharpest and most pre- cipitous peaks in the Cascade south of the Columbia, specimens of fulgurite, the product resulting from the Rett hil 736 SCIENCE. fusion of rock-masses by lightning. The greater por- tion of Mr. Diller’s time in April was devoted to the study of this rock, which was deemed worthy of spe- cial examination, not only on account of its rarity, but also from the fact that it presents the opportunity to study the products of an uncommon method of fus- ion. While the formation of fulgurite in sand is of frequent occurrence, it is only exceptionally produced in solid rock. ‘The most important locality where it has been heretofore discovered in solid rock is Little Ararat in Armenia reported by Abich. Upon the specimen collected by him, Wichmann has made a brief microscopical research. An endeavor is being made to obtain some of the fulgurite of Little Ararat for comparison with the Oregon specimens. Saussure mentions glazed hornblende schist as occurring on the summit of Mont Blanc; Humboldt reports fulgurite from one of the peaks in Mexico; Ramond saw it at several points in the Pyrenees and the Auvergne: but these occurrences have never been investigated. Mr. Diller prepared a number of delicate, thin sec- tions of the fulgurite from Mount Thielson; and its relation to the various constituents of the rock has been very clearly made out. A chemical analysis has been made by Prof. F. W. Clarke. The material fused by the lightning was cooled so quickly that it all remained amorphous, and formed a dark, porous glass. In order to test the conclusions reached in the microscopical analysis, an attempt was made to crystallize the fulgurite. A completely amor- [Vor. IIL, No. he phous fragment was heated without fusion in a Bun- sen lamp for six hours, and then found, in polarized light, to be made up of strongly doubly refracting fibres, with a marked tendency to spherulitic arrange- ment. A finely pulverized portion was fused, and as highly heated as possible in a blast-lamp for four hours and three-quarters, and then allowed to cool gradually. Under the microscope, it was found that much of the felspar, some pyroxene, and many undeterminable mi- crolites, crystallized out of the glass during the heat- ing. The various stages in the development of fel- spar crystals from more or less regular groups of microlites, through lathe-shaped bundles of fibres toa completely clear, transparent crystal, are easily traced. The microscopical as well as the chemical evidence, and that derived from the re-crystallization of the fulgurite, all indicate that the fusion was confined chiefly to the siliceous groundmass of the rock with which the fulgurite is associated. ‘The rhombic py- roxene was also fused to some extent, while the pla- gioclase felspar and olivine were not affected. The examination also indicates that the composition of the glass derived from the fusion of parts of a heter- ogeneous rock is a function of the fusibility and elec- tric resistance of its various constituents. The basaltic rock on which the fulgurite has been found is unique in the character of its pyroxene. The various mineral constituents of the rock are now being separated, for the purpose of a chemical analy- sis, by means of Thoulet’s solution. RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Brooklyn entomological society. May 31.— Mr. Roberts gave an account of the habits of the Elmidae, a large number of which were collected by him at the Clifton excursion. —— Mr. Schwensen called attention to the food-habits of some species of the Chrysomelidae, belonging or allied to Cryptocephalus. Many species are, in his experience, omnivorous; others, found only on certain groups of plants. Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, May 20. — Mr. Joseph Willcox stated, that, on the west coast of Florida, shell-mounds are very numer- ous, indicating the former favorite camping-grounds of Indians. The largest accumulation of shells is at Cedar Keys. A portion of the town is built on the mounds; and great quantities of the material, consist- ing almost entirely of oyster-shells, have been used in grading the streets. Human bones, stone imple- ments, and fragments of pottery, are frequently found among the shells. Although Professor Wyman, in his memoir on Florida shell-heaps, asserts that stone chips are not common, being only found separately or a few. together, and in no case indicating a place for the manufacture of arrow-heads or other implements, such a place of manufacture may be seen on John’s Island, at the mouth of the Cheeshowiska River. Several bushels of chips are here scattered about, all made of the chert rock, the only material in Florida suitable for the purpose. —— Professor Heilprin, re- ferring to the Foraminifera found in the rock-masses from Florida, stated, that, after a careful search, he had been able to add but one genus, Spheroidina, to those before enumerated. It was, he believed, the first time that any of the genera named at the meeting of April 22, except Orbitoides, had been discovered in America. He had also found another species of Nummulites, making, with N. Willcoxii, the second American form. The new species is twice the size of that named; and the septa are more numerous, and bent at a more acute angle. ‘Two additional forms of Orbitoides had been determined, the presence of one of which, O. ephippium, places beyond doubt the oligocene age of the deposits containing it. —— Mr. Thomas Meehan exhibited flowers of the remark- able Halesia, the striking variation in the leaves and seeds of which had formed the subject of a former communication. The flowers of the sport are cup- shaped instead of tubular; and the wide divergence ~ reached without any intervening modifications was — another illustration of the fact that the maxim of JUNE 138, 1884.] Ray, ‘ Natura non facit saltum,’ needed modification. He had noticed that such departures usually occur in different parts of the country at the same time. The common calla lily, for instance, had, in several cases during the present season, developed a spathe some four inches below the perfect flower: in other words, the usually naked flower-scape of the Richardia had borne a bract. Flowers with a pair of more or less imperfect spathes were not uncommon in'some seasons; the peculiarity of the cases now referred to being the interval of several inches on the stem, which justifies the application of the term ‘bract’ to the lower spathe. Numbers of such specimens had been brought to him from the neighborhood of Philadelphia, while others had been sent from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, hundreds of miles apart. In view of such circumstances, he believed that varieties might spring from widely separated centres by the operation of a general law entirely independent of environment. We know that distinct forms do spring through single in- dividuals from seed, and that, after struggling success- fully with all the vicissitudes of its surroundings, the new form may succeed in spreading, through the lapse of years or ages, over aconsiderable district of country. But the idea, that always and in all cases species have originated in this manner, presents occasionally diffi- culties which seem insurmountable. In the case of the similarity between the flora of Japan and that of the eastern portion of the United States, we have to assume the existence of a much closer connection be- tween the land over what is now the Pacific Ocean, in comparatively modern times, in order to get a satis- factory idea of the departure of the species from one central spot, and to demand a great number of years for some plants to travel from one central birthplace before the land subsided; carrying back species in geological time farther, perhaps, than geological facts would allow. But if we can see our way to a belief that plants may change in a wide district simultane- ously in one direction, and that these changes, once introduced, may be able to perpetuate themselves till a new birth-time should arrive, we have made a great advance towards simplifying the problem. —— Mr. Ed- ward Potts stated that a correspondent in Jamaica had failed to find there a single species of fresh-water sponge. It had been suggested that these organisms affect higher latitudes and elevated regions, — an opinion which the speaker was disposed to hold. In all the water-pipes examined by him, from the imme- diate vicinity of the basin, he had found abundant sponge-growth; and it had been asked if such growth might not be a cause of obstruction. In some sec- tions of filled-up pipes, taken at a greater distance from the supply, he had found no sponge; the block- ing substance being clay with iron impregnation. He had found, that, where masses of Mayenia Leidyi were strongly mixed in these pipes with iron, the skeleton spicules had undergone a curious change. In nearly all spicules, especially when young, a fine line can be traced down the middle; but, in the spe- cimens referred to, a clear channel occupying two- thirds of the entire space, with openings at the ends, could be observed. It was suggested that the change SCIENCE. 137 was due to the iron retarding the deposit of siliceous matter in the central channel of the spicules. In the birotulate spicules of the same masses the margins of the disk-like ends were eliminated, leaving them in the form of rays. Davenport academy of natural sciences, Iowa, May 30. — Mr. W. H. Pratt called attention to some interesting peculiarities in several of the flathead skulls from the Arkansas mounds, in one of which appears a large ‘ Inca bone,’ formed by the presence of a horizontal occipital suture in addition to those usually present; and in another the ear-openings are nearly closed by the bones growing into them. He also exhibited a number of ossicles — minute bones of the internal structure of the ear — which had been extracted in cleaning out the earth which filled the cavities. —— The honey-dew, which has been observed in such remarkable profusion this season, and the va- rious opinions regarding its origin, came up for discus- sion; and twigs from several trees were presented for examination. The observations of several mem- bers seemed strongly to support the theory that the substance is, partly at least, produced by the bark- louse, Pulvinaria innumerabilis, and perhaps kin-. dred species. This opinion was sustained by the fol- lowing facts: 1°. It is found that the honey-dew is not deposited on the leaves at the top of the trees, hence is not an exudation from the leaf. 2°. It is not found on the white maples which are not infested by the bark-louse, several instances of which have been noticed. 3°. It is observed to a less extent on the box-elder tree; and on examination it is found that that tree is also infested by the Pulvinaria, though not so badly as the maple. 4°. It is observed that the honey-bee, which collects the honey-dew with great avidity, very often, and especially when the substance is considerably dried and hardened upon the leaves, proceeds directly to the under side of the limb, where the insects are fixed, and, running along the branch, examines them carefully, appar- ently seeking its supply from that source. 5°. It is also observed that there is always more or less of it upon the insects, especially in the morning; and, upon close examination, all are found to contain a quan- tity of the same substance. In view of these facts, the opinion was expressed, that, although further and thorough investigation is necessary to establish the fact, this will be the final solution, —that the honey- dew is largely the product of the Pulvinaria, the sap being by it extracted from the tree, and elaborated by the insect organism into this sweet substance, as is a similar or perhaps identical substance by some of the Aphides, and honey by the honey-bee. Natural history society, Cornell university, Ithaca, N.Y. May 29.—Mr. C. S. Prosser read a paper on sil- ver in the Chemung and Catskill, the principal part of which was devoted toa consideration of the re- cently discovered silver-deposits near Oneonta, Otsego county, N.Y. Itis claimed that valuable deposits of gold and silver have been found in the Catskily 438 or Chemung near Oneonta, and that, according to assays, the rock will yield per ton from fifty to a hun- dred and ninety-five dollars of gold and silver. In this paper the result of a series of assays was given, and no one indicated more than three dollars of silver to the ton of ore. There is in some of the rocka ‘small amount of galena; and in this, from one to two ounces of silver in a ton of ore, but not any gold. Society of arts, Massachusetts institute of technology. -May 8. — Prof. Edward C. Pickering addressed the society on the proper method of measuring colors. After referring to the difficulty of measuring color and in obtaining a proper unit for measurement, the speaker referred to the ordinary phenomena of color, and the effect of various bodies on the rays of light; dwelling, among other things, upon the effect of a large index of refraction in increasing the brilliancy of a body. The explanation was suggested, that the increased brilliancy of the so-called straw diamonds, so lately the subject of comment, and which were said to have been made of glass and painted, might have been due to a deposit upon them of a very thin layer of silver. The speaker said that the subject of color had generally been studied subjectively, that is, by its effect on the eye, and not objectively, as a phe- nomenon in itself. The generally accepted theory of color was explained, by which it is supposed that the eye can distinguish three primary colors, — red, green, and a bluish violet; and the objections to the use of Chevreul’s color-circle as a means of measur- ing and distinguishing color were referred to. By the objective method of studying color, we may de- termine the intensity of each portion of the spectrum by a thermopile or bolometer, or by photography, or, again, by means of the instrument proposed by Vie- rordt, by which the lower half of the slit of a spectro- scope can be varied in width until any part of the corresponding spectrum shall be just equal in bright- ness to that coming from the upper half of the slit, through which is passed the light to be measured. The amount of opening of the lower half of the slit affords an invariable scale for the measurement of the relative intensity of two lights. Professor Pick- ering had experienced numerous difficulties in experi- menting with Vierordt’s instrument, especially when the lights differed greatly in intensity. The photo- spectroscope which he had finally perfected was ex- hibited and described. It consists of a spectroscope with two slits, in which the relative intensities of two spectra may be measured by polarized light. Special devices were employed to render the images to be compared well defined on their edges, and of uni- form brightness. The instrument allows of many practical applications in the measurement, by abso- lute standards, of paints, dyes, inks, glass, and the comparison of lights from various sources. Another application is to the measurement of the colors of stars, the chief difficulty being lack of light. In this measurement, Professor Pickering had modified the method of Professor Pritchard, who had compared the light of different stars by extinguishing them with a wedge of shade-glass, measuring by a scale SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 71. the point at which they ceased to be visible. Pro- fessor Pickering had measured the relative intensities of the different colors by spreading out the light of the star into a spectrum, and allowing the star to transit along the wedge, the time of disappearance of each color being noted. The exact color is deter- mined by a series of slits. All the spectra are brought into the same position by an auxiliary image brought into the field by means of a plate of plain glass cemented to the side of the principal prism. The results given by this instrument are very en- couraging, and promise to give a satisfactory meas- ure of the intensity of each part of the spectrum of the stars, Biological society, Washington. May 3.—Dr. R. W. Shufeldt remarked in the course of his description of a pair of ribs on the oc- cipital bone of the large-mouthed black bass, Microp- terus salmoides, that recently he had made anumber of dissections of this fish, and. in every instance had found a pair of ribs upon the occipital bone, just above and internal to the foramen of the vagus nerve (see Science, Nos. 65 and 69). They are without epi- pleural appendages, but otherwise like the abdomi- nal ribs. If this fact be new to science, it is a very interesting discovery, of great morphological sjgnifi- cance, and introduces an important factor in the theo- ry of the segmentation of the skull. It had not been noticed in any of. the prominent works upon compar- ative anatomy generally used as text-books, nor in a recent and very thorough article by Dr. Sagemeh! up- on the cranial osteology of Amia caloa (Morph. jahrb., 1883). Dr. Shufeldt had also discovered these ribs thoroughly developed in the tunny, Orcynus thynnus, and thought that they would doubtless be found in others of the Scombridae and Centrarchidae. Dr. T. Gill briefly reviewed the salient structural features of the various representatives of the order Squali, as well as the history of the classification of the group, and claimed that there were five principal types of structure manifested in the various forms, whose anatomy is more or less satisfactorily known: 1°, the Pternodonta, or Selachophichthyoidi, repre- sented by but one known species, lately described by Mr. Garman (Science, No. 52); 2°, the Opisthar- thri, of which the Notidanidae or Hexarchidae are the only known forms; 3°, the Proarthri, of which the Heterodontidae, represented by the well-known ‘Port Jackson shark,’ forms the only existing family; 4°, the Anarthri, to which belong all living sharks excepting those now specifically eliminated; and, 5°, the Rhinae, to which belong the family Squatinidae, including the so-called ‘angel-sharks.’ ‘The speak- er was inclined to consider several of these more than sub-ordinal, and rather as of ordinal value; but, until they had been better studied, he would reserve opinion on this question. ‘There was one type, represented by the extinct Cladodontidae, whose position was doubtful. For these he had formed the group Lypospordyli; but it was not evident whether it belongs with the true Squali, or whether it may’ not be related to the Holocephalus, the character of the branchial arches being dubious. ——- Mr. N. P. JUNE 13, 1884.] Seudder exhibited specimens of muskrat skeletons, showing the number of the lumbar vertebrae to be six, and not three, as stated by Professor Flower. He also showed that the malar bone formed part of the continuity of the zygomatic arch; correcting the state- ment of Dr. Coues, in his ‘Monograph of American Rodentia,’ p. 253, with regard to the jugal of the muskrat, which is there described ‘‘as a mere splint, not forming by itself any part of the continuity of the arch, for the squamosal and maxillary spurs are absolutely in contact. This is a strong point of Fi- ber.” Mr. Scudder remarked that muskrats were enabled to live from four to six minutes under water; owing, probably, to the enlargement of the abdominal vena cava, which extended over the abdominal aorta. He believed muskrats to be omnivorous, and said that the same individual could be taken repeatedly in the same trap. May 17.— Dr. J. M. Flint gave a brief account of the history of medicine among the Chinese accord- ing to their own authors, and then discussed their theories in regard to the nature and causes of disease, and the action of remedies. Their ignorance of anat- omy, and the consequent effects upon their theory and practice, wereshown. The materia medica of the Chinese was then considered in detail, and its peculi- arities, as well as its resemblances to our own present and past, as illustrated by the collection of Chinese drugs now in the possession of the National museum. Mr. Wiley Britton sent a paper on the buffalo gnat of Tennessee, in which he stated that its habi- tat was confined to the Mississippi valley, below the mouth of the Ohio River. The flies generally make their appearance about the first of April, and remain from two to four weeks. They destroy an- nually more or less live-stock, particularly mules and horses; which, however, could be protected by thorough greasing. The bite of this gnat is poison- ous, causing a swelling somewhat like a bee-sting. Dr. T. H. Bean, in a paper on the white-fishes of North America, said there were twelve species indigenous to North America, besides the Inconnu, which is not properly a white-fish, though related to it. He made afew general remarks concerning the wide distribution, great abundance, and importance of the white-fishes as food, and stated the range of each species, its maximum size and weight, and its variations through age and conditions of habitat. A brief key to the species, intended to facilitate their speedy identification, and based upon natural charac- ters only, was included in the paper. —— Dr. Thomas Taylor exhibited a new instrument, a micrometer, of his own invention, for measuring accurately and in- stantly to the zy, inch the thickness of any object. He also explained that pseudo-bacteria were produced by the heating of blood at a comparatively low tem- perature, and proposed to make experiments for the purpose of deciding whether a continuous fever of four or five days, with the blood at 104°, would pro- duce the same results as blood artificially heated to 110°. If so, it would account for mistakes that have been made by persons inexperienced in examin- ing the blood of fever patients, who report the pres- SCIENCE. 139 ence of bacteria when it was simply pseudo-bacteria, or broken blood-corpuscles, as shown by Beal and others. He further explained a method of throwing upon a screen the circulation of blood in a frog’s foot, the magnification depending upon the distance of the reflecting object, using the high powers of the microscope on the principle of double sight. NOTES AND NEWS. ALONG the eastern verge of the Bahamas, some- where in that skirmish-line of islands consisting of Cat, Watling’s, Samana, Mariguana, and Turk’s, Co- lumbus made his landfall. Each has had its advo- cates; and the late Gustavus V. Fox, in 1880, in a report of the coast-survey, maintained the claim of Samana, which at that time was the only one possi- ble, that had failed of an advocate. His arguments are now reviewed, and the whole question examined afresh, by Lieut. Murdoch of the navy, in a paper just printed in the proceedings of the U. S. naval in- stitute. Heclaims for Watling’s, which has had some strong supporters since it was first named by Mufioz in 1793. It is believed to be the landfall by Capt. Becher of the royal navy, who has printed the most considerable monograph on the subject; and such leading students of our earliest history as Major among the English, and Peschel among the Germans, have also been its advocates. The question is never likely, however, to be set at rest, unless contempora- ry documentary evidence, not now known, comes to light. We have nothing but Columbus’s own jour- nal to guide us, and a part of that only in abstract as Las Casas made it. No theory can satisfy all the conditions which it prescribes; and those which can be satisfied do not seem to pertain exclusively to any one point, as the variety of views clearly shows. Watling’s may be said to receive the support of the greatest number of authoritative critics; and nothing more conclusive can be held to have been attained. — In an article in the June Century, entitled ‘ What is a liberal education?’ (noticed in an earlier part of this number), President Eliot of Harvard thus speaks of the place of natural science in a liberal scheme of study: — The last subject for which I claim admission to the magic circle of the liberal arts is natural science. All the subjects which the sixteenth century decided were liberal, and all the subjects which I have here- tofore discussed, are studied in books; but natural science is to be studied, not in books, but in things. The student of languages, letters, philosophy, mathe- matics, history, or political economy, reads books, or listens to the words of his teacher. The student of natural science scrutinizes, touches, weighs, meas- ures, analyzes, dissects, and watches things: by these exercises his powers of observation and judgment are trained, and he acquires the precious habit of observing the appearances, transformations, and pro- cesses of nature; like the hunter and the artist, he has open eyes and an educated judgment in see- ing; he is at home in some large tract of nature’s 740 | SCIENCE. domain; finally, he acquires the scientific method of study in the field, where that method was origi- nally perfected. In our day the spirit in which a true scholar will study Indian arrow-heads, cuneiform in- scriptions, or reptile tracks in sandstone, is one and the same, although these objects belong respectively to three separate sciences, — archeology, philology, and paleontology. But what is this spirit? It is the patient, cautious, sincere, self-directing spirit of natural science. One of the best of living classical scholars, Professor Jebb of Glasgow, states this fact in the following forcible words: ‘‘ The diffusion of that which is specially named science has at the same time spread abroad the only spirit in which any kind of knowledge can be prosecuted to a result of last- ing intellectual value.”? Again: the arts built upon chemistry, physics, botany, zodlogy, and geology, are chief factors in the civilization of our time, and are growing in material and moral influence at a marvel- lous rate. Since the beginning of this century, they have wrought wonderful changes in the physical relation of man to the earth which he inhabits, in national demarcations, in industrial organization, in governmental functions, and in the modes of domes- tic life; and they will certainly do as much for the twentieth century as they have done for ours. They are not simply mechanical or material forces: they are also moral forces of great intensity. I maintain that the young science, which has already given to all sciences a new and better spirit and method, and to civilization new powers and resources of infinite range, deserves to be admitted with all possible honors to the circle of the liberal arts; and that a study fitted to train noble faculties, which are not trained by the studies now chiefly pursued in youth, ought to be admitted on terms of perfect equality to the academic curriculum. The wise men of the fifteenth century took the best intellectual and moral materials existing in their day, — namely, the classical literatures, metaphysics, mathematics, and systematic theology, —and made of them the substance of the education which they called liberal. When we take the best intellectual and moral materials of their day and of ours to make up the list of subjects worthy to rank as lib- eral, and to be studied for discipline, ought we to omit that natural science which in its outcome sup- plies some of the most important forces of modern civilization? We do omit it. I do not know a single preparatory school in this country in which natural science has an adequate place, or any approach to an adequate place, although some beginnings have lately been made. There is very little profit in studying nat- ural science in a book, as if it were grammar or his- tory; for nothing of the peculiar discipline which the proper study of science supplies can be obtained in that way, although some information on scientific sub- jects may be so acquired. In most colleges a little scientific information is offered to the student through lectures on the use of manuals, but no scientific train- ing. The science is rarely introduced as early as the sophomore year: generally it begins only with the junior year, by which time the mind of the student (Vor, IIl., No. 71. has become so set in the habits which the study of languages and mathematics engenders, that he finds great difficulty in grasping the scientific method. It seems to him absurd to perform experiments, or make dissections. Can he not read in a book, or see in a picture, what the results will be? The only way to prevent this disproportionate development of the young mind, on the side of linguistic and abstract reasoning, is to introduce into school courses of study a fair amount of training in sciences of observation. Over against four languages, the elements of mathe- matics, and the elements of history, there must be set some accurate study of things. Were other argu- ment needed, I should find it in the great addition to the enjoyment of life which results from an early acquaintance and constant intimacy with the wonders and beauties of external nature. For boy and man this intimacy is a source of ever fresh delight. — Some questions having been raised in relation to the distance travelled by the Lapps of Baron Norden- skidld’s party in their excursion into central Green- land, Mr. Oscar Dickson arranged for a series of races on skidor (‘snow-shoes’) at Quickjock in Lapland. The distance which they claimed to have travelled over the Greenland ice was two hundred and thirty kilometres, going and returning in fifty-seven hours. For this reason the courses were arranged so as to have a total length of two hundred and twenty-seven kilometres. The races took place on the 3d of April last, and were spread over six days. The following results were obtained : — The first prize, three hundred and fifty francs, was gained by Pavo Lars Tuorda, one of those who had visited Greenland with Nordenskiold, and who trav- elled over the above-mentioned distance in twenty-one hours twenty-two minutes, including all stoppages. The second prize was gained by Pehr Olof Landta, who came in half a minute later. The third and fourth prizes were awarded for the times of twenty- one hours thirty-three and a half minutes and twenty- one hours and fifty-six minutes respectively. Four others received a gratuity of thirty-five francs for having covered the distance in less than twenty-six hours. All arrived in good condition, unexhausted, and took part in the festivities which followed the races. Many of them had also travelled from seventy to a hundred kilometres before the race, to get to the point where the course began. It will be observed that the result completely confirms the claims of the Lapps on their journey in Greenland, as far as a par- allel performance can do so. — In an article in Nature of May 15, upon the re- cent earthquake in England, Mr. W. Topley gives a map of the affected district in which an attempt has — been made to mark the positions of all places at which the shock was felt, so far as can be learned from pub- lished accounts; but in Essex, Suffolk, and North Kent, only a few of such places could be marked. By marking the outcrops of the older rocks (carbonifer- ous and earlier), the possible connection of these with the travel of the earthquake-wave may be seen. This is made clearer by the section. The position of the | JUNE 13, 1884.] rs SCIENCE. 741 it ut a! v : 1 yt it ul a" . = SS, = 2 WA eS ELBE BC Ee LTS LUTE OS | k i % & You = = ES Pe EE a. ® S/O22 ] 24: SN=z Z=ZEE © ny | (fit : S % See JN SS = —————* =22BYZAeeEut=2=saeez | ide Wie ln lla = ef = SS. SOS Ss. SL SS = Hit rele site Pie feo Ge Oe ere = J. womienHamPrbnes = = SA LECESTER. SS wyrstaeacnii|lllll ee Wadmaure = i A’ dinfietone ot rau ipl ormen ss ——SS——s—— =7 = | pay 7 - r DTTP J! id iy tel Hil a? = a Ei crenata iat Taped ® | S= =. = mi Ail {fi ili w ili fot RAUNT SS =e TTA eT ik ey a 244 iu eGo ey ao en SSH = == {|e fest d lit! it | leit | 7a @. =— oa il ered fal i pe AANA AA Higaeseaetesinali eee aaa > = = — — | , aed Haye? i aS SS niece (AMI ena. pk : ee NC ie meena a Wooodemoe , SS == FE ENO : = Wy slilegeeee || if i} qu 1 we = = f= = = fe ! \ =f Ye = = = — — = 2s la {) ~~ (CARBGHIFEROUS = AND OLDER) PAL/Z0Z0IC ROCKS ere, PROVED BY BORING ()cewrrat APEA iS \K SWICH’, a e- eis ese are i salma UDBURY *,* s 2 MG - § qf Mile es. a A len AES igs tS ARVICH * P OLCHESTER. e441 ==" ul Sam sel = = A ond = = H b= = SAASTINGS ———— THICK DRIFT & CRAG EOCENE Map of the earthquake of April 22, 1884. N.B.— The places marked are those at which the shock was felt. In the east of England only the more important of such places are marked. BRISTOL Section from Bristol to Harwich, showing the probable range of the paleozoic rocks. 2. Permian to upper greensand; 3. Chalk. paleozoic rocks is known at Harwich and London. There is some uncertainty as to their position under Reading and Colchester ; but for the purpose intended, and regard being had to the depth at which the shock 1. Paleozoic rocks (carboniferous and older) ; must have originated (certainly far within the paleo- zoic rocks), the line drawn is sufficiently near the truth. We can see how the shock can have been propagated through the hard paleozoic rocks, and 742 been felt where these are bare or thinly covered with newer rocks; whereas, through the thick and softer secondary and tertiary rocks, the wave might travel a shorter distance. Possibly, also, this section may sug- gest an explanation of the double shock which was sometimes recorded: the first would be that travelling quickly through the hard paleozoic rocks; the second, that propagated more slowly through the softer over- lying newer rocks. — The Niger expedition, sent out by Dr. Emil Riebeck of Halle, is to devote itself especially to lin- guistic and ethnographical exploration; and the first report of its work has just appeared, under the title ‘Hin beitrag zur kenntniss der fulischen sprache in Africa, von Gottlob Adolf Krause,’’ — an octavo pamphlet of a hundred and eight pages, with a map of the region explored, published by Brockhaus, Leipzig. The name of the people whose language Mr. Krause has studied is variously spelled. They call themselves in the singular, Pul; inthe plural, Ful (the change of the initial consonant is in accordance with a euphonic law of the language); the French usually write the name Poul, and this form has been adopted by some English writers; but the Arabs and other neighbors more commonly employ the other: and it therefore seems better to call the people Fuls, and their language the Fulic. This people, spread over a large part of western and middle Sudan, with a ter- ritory about one-fourth as large as Europe, has been long recognized as one of the most interesting on the continent of Africa. They are clearly distinguish- able, in physical and mental characteristics, from the negroes south and west of them, and are perhaps allied in degree of culture, and in language, to the Cushite tribes who dwell in and near Abyssinia. There are found among them both the brown-red type and the black. ‘They are not massed in one com- munity, but are settled in groups, with various oc- cupations, — some peaceful and industrious, others warlike and predatory. Whence and when they came to their present abode is not known: their traditions are either not clear, or are evidently affected by their contact with the Arabs and other Mohammedans. But, from the few historical accounts which have been collected by European travellers, we learn that the Fuls have been a conquering people for centuries. The first reliable mention of them occurs in the thir- teenth century of our era, at which time they had already established a kingdom. At the present time two Ful kingdoms are in existence, — that of Sokoto, and that of Gando; and their conquering career still continues. They have long since embraced Islam, are zealous students of the Kuran, and have begun to create a national literature. One of the most in- teresting facts in the history of the North-African peoples is the readiness and intelligence with which they have accepted Islam; and there is no doubt that they have been greatly benefited by its literary and ethical culture. The Fulic language has no distinc- tion of genders (according to Gen. Faidherbe, it dis- tinguishes human beings from the lower animals in its noun-termination), and no declension of nouns; but, on the other hand, it has a very elaborate devel- ah ee a ee oe ee ee ee ee SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 71. opment of the verb. In this latter point, and in its pronominal forms, it seems to approach the Galla and other Cushic tongues, and even the Semitic. But these comparisons must be conducted very cau- tiously. The differences between the groups of languages in question are greater than their resem- blances; and, if Semiticand Hamitic (that is, Egyp- tian, Libyan, and Cushic) ever formed one family, it was so long ago that the demonstration of their unity must be next to impossible. Mr. Krause com- pares some of the forms of these groups, and reaches the conclusion that the Fulic is to be regarded as proto-Hamitic; that is, as representing the original linguistic type from which Egyptian, Libyan (Berber), and Cushic have sprung: but this conclusion is not justified by the facts. Mr. Krause has done his work of exploration well; and it is to be hoped that he will be able to continue his investigations, and clear up some points in the Fulic language and history which are still obscure. . — Nature, May 29, states, that last autumn the ex- pedition under Lieut. Holm for exploring the east coast of Greenland, and which is again to start north- wards this spring, met a party of about sixty East- Greenlanders — men, women, and children — south of the island of Aluk, on the east coast. They were on the way to the west coast to sell bear, fox, and seal skins. Every attempt was made by the Danish ex- plorer to induce some of them to return, and act as guides on his journey northwards; but the prospect of a visit to a Danish settlement proved too great. A considerable number of East-Greenlanders die on their way to the west coast. The East-Greenlanders are reported to differ much from the West-Greenland- ers in stature and appearance; the men being often tall, with black beards and European cast of face. This seems to be particularly the case with those liv- ing farnorth. Both Eastand West Greenlanders have small hands and feet. During the year 1883, four boats with heathen East-Greenlanders arrived at Julians- haab. Three of these came from the distant Ang- masalik; and in them there were also, for the first time, natives from Kelalualik, which is five days’ journey farther north. The latter stated, that in the winter they were in the habit, when journeying on sleighs, of meeting with people living much farther north. Kelalualik being situated, it is believed, be- tween latitude 67° and 68° north, it may be assumed that the whole line of coast from latitude 65° to 70° is to some degree populated. —A note from Mr. Jurgens of the Lena inter- national meteorological station says that the work there will terminate about the middle of June. The party will then proceed in boats to Yakutsk, where they hope to arrive in August. This letter, dated Nov. 18, says, that, during the summer of 1883, four hundred and fifty versts of routes in the Lena delta had been surveyed, and magnetic observations made at five different localities. The mean temperature of June, July, and August, was about 36° F. The Lena was closed by ice Sept. 19. During the sum- mer the sky was constantly cloudy, with light winds accompanied by fog. JUNE 138, 1884.] — The physical control of the character of sedi- ments described by Rutot (see Science, 1888, ii. 560) is now considered by another Belgian geologist, Van den Broek, as the basis for a new style of classifica- tion of certain geological deposits; namely, for those fragmental strata, accumulated around the margin of oceanic areas, in which the alternation from coarse to fine sediments shows a variation in the depth of the water in which the accumulations were made. The work is an extension of the idea so well pre- sented in Professor Newberry’s ‘Circles of deposi- tion’ some years ago. — A meeting was held in Boston recently, at the rooms of the American academy of arts and sciences, to consider the advisability of forming a New-Eng- land society for observation and study of meteor- ology. Prof. W. H. Niles of the Massachusetts institute of technology was elected chairman, and Mr. W. M. Davis of Harvard college, secretary. After an informal discussion of the method and aims of such a society, a committee, consisting of Profes- sor Winslow Upton of Brown university, Professor Arthur Searle of the Harvard college observatory, and Mr. Davis, was appointed to consider further plans for organization and work, and to report at a meeting to be called at an early date. — Cosmos les mondes gives the following descrip- tion of the Skrivanow pocket-battery. The element is constructed of sheet zinc and silver chloride wrapped in parchment paper, immersed in a solution of seventy-five parts of caustic potash, and a hun- dred of water. The whole is placed in a small trough of gutta-percha, which can be closed hermetically. The conductors and external contacts are of silver. Such an element, when complete, weighs about a hundred grams. Its electromotive force is 1.45 to 1.50 volt, and it yields for an hour a current of one ampere. — Mr. Richard Jones, who has for many years de- yoted his attention to the preservation of meat, has now adopted anew process. The principle consists in the injection of a fluid preparation of boracic acid into the blood of the animal immediately after it has been stunned, and before its heart has ceased to beat; the whole operation, including the removal of the blood and chemical fluid from the body of the ani- mal, only taking a few minutes. The quantity of boracic acid used is very small, and that little is al- most immediately drawn out again with the blood. The preservation of the flesh is said to be thoroughly effected: the quantity of the chemical left in the flesh must therefore be very small, and can scarcely be in- jurious to the human system; for, as Professor Barf has proved by experiment, living animals, either of the human or other species, do not seem to be injured in any way by the consumption of it. A demonstra- tion of the effects of the process was given in April at the Adelphi Hotel, when the joints cut from a sheep that had been hanging for more than seven weeks at the house of the Society of arts were cooked in various ways; and those present agreed that the meat was equal to ordinary butcher’s meat. SCIENCE. 743 — Mr. G. F. Kunz exhibited, at arecent meeting of the New-York academy of sciences, two ancient im- ages of the llama and vicuna from the interior of Peru. They weighed six ounces each, and were both of solid silver, with the exception of the bodies, which were filled with some earthy material. The llama had evidently been acted upon by substances in the soil, which left the silver in a remarkably pure state; and the workmanship on this figure, especially the hair reproduction, was very fine. The vicuna is not of so pure silver, and is in a very good state of preservation. Mr. Kunz explained that a famine in the interior of the country had caused the graves to be despoiled of many thousand ounces of ornaments, which were carried to the seacoast, and there sold for their weight in silver and gold. —Itis said that a wild-flowers protection act has been introduced in the British house of commons, by the provisions of which any one, for twenty years to come, found grubbing up a fern, primrose, violet, or in fact any of the indigenous blossoms, shall be subject to fine and imprisonment. ‘The inhabitants of Corn- wall and Devonshire, those lands of fern, have been: advertising largely their willingness to denude their own counties to supply the cities, —a process made easy by the parcel-post. — The success of the late international exposition at Amsterdam has tempted the Colonial society of the Netherlands to propose the establishment of a peri- odical in French and Dutch, under the name of the Revue coloniale et internationale, in which those inter- ested, of whatever nationality, can discuss with free- dom any questions relating to colonial affairs. It is proposed to divide the contents into three sections, relating respectively to commerce and industry, goy- ernment, and geography and ethnology. The sup- port of geographers, in general, is requested toward the carrying-out of this programme. - —Some English tourists, including Mr. Graham of the Alpine club, have engaged two guides from the Bernese Oberland, and proceeded to India with the intention of scaling some of the high peaks of the Himalayas, especially Kabru (238,000 feet) and Zubanu (21,000 feet). For the present they will not attempt Mount Everest. — We learn from Nature, May 29, that the French minister of education and the fine arts has proposed. to place at the disposal of Pasteur, for the prosecu- tion of his scientific experiments, a large domain situ- ated at Villeneuve-Etang, which belongs to the state. — Bove, after a short excursion on the Upper Parana, was to embark for the Falkland Islands and Tierra del Fuego. He expects to visit Italy this summer, and make preparations for an antarctic expedition projected for the year 1885. — Widdeman, a French chemist, has observed that an insulating-skin can be produced on metal wires by decomposing plumbates and alkaline fer- rates with the electric current. The method is as follows: prepare a bath of plumbate of potash by dissolving ten grams of litharge in a litre of water, to which two hundred grams of caustic soda has been RL 744 added, and boil it during half an hour. Let it rest, decant, and the bath is ready for use. The wire to be covered with the insulating-skin is connected to the positive pole of the battery, and a small strip of platinum to the negative pole. Both wire and plati- num are then plunged in the bath. Metallic lead in a very divided state is precipitated at the negative pole, and peroxide of lead on the wire. of peroxide takes all colors of the spectrum, and the insulation is highest when the wire takes a brownish- black tint. If this insulator is durable, it will prove of great service in electric lighting. — The Society of naturalists of the St. Petersburg university have decided on affording means to three zoologists for expeditions in 1884. One is to study the fauna of the White Sea; another, the embryology and development of the genus Accipenser in the Ural River. The botanical and geological excursions will be discussed later on. —QOn May 19 Pasteur read, at the Academy of sciences, his report on his four years’ experimental studies on hydrophobia, and the means, not of eradi- cating, but of weakening it. The correspondent of the London Daily news describes Pasteur as ‘‘a man of square-built figure, and having the rather coarse and solid air which one so often finds in aristocrats and peasants in the Franche Comté, his native prov- ince. The eyes are so accustomed to the microscope as to have lost in great measure their normal capacity of visional adaptation, and are devoid of expression.”’ Pasteur admits, in his report on hydrophobia, that the microbe causing it has not been discovered, though he is sure of its existence; and that it may become again rebellious after it has been transmitted to an organism more favorable to its growth. Thus the virus inoculated from an ass to a rabbit will not kill the latter, but if passed on to another rabbit, and then to dog or man, will be fatal. He observed that in some animals the virus lost, and in others gained, force. In the rabbit its power was most visible, whereas the ape was less terribly affected. It there- fore occurred to Pasteur, that, if virus were trans- mitted from one ape to another, it would grow weaker at each inoculation. He took some from a dog’s brain, and inoculated an ape, which died from its rabid virus. He inoculated a second, and then a third, which was hardly indisposed. Th» virus so modified was transmitted to a rabbit, in whose body it recovered some strength. It increased in morbid power in a second and third rabbit, and attained the maximum in the fourth. It would thus be seen that virulence was only kept in check by withholding from it good conditions for growth. It would be also seen that it never recovered, when well tamed, its pris- tine deadliness in asingle bound. Pasteur claimed to so completely tame the virus, that a dog would, in being rendered refractory to rabies by hypodermic in- oculation or trepanning, show no sign of illness. In the second part of his report, Pasteur explained how the maximum of virulence was certainly attained, by making several guinea-pigs the mediums between rabbits and dogs. He told the academy he had dis- covered a process by which he can operate with SCIENCE. This layer — [Vor. IIL, No. 71. ' diseased blood on healthy blood, and claims to be ~ able to check the progress of rabies in freshly-bitten dogs or other animals. He asks the academy and the minister of public instruction to appoint a com- mittee to study his proof experiments. — One of the attractions of the London exhibition of hygiene is a street of old London, containing houses of various periods previous to the great fire of 1666, with the domestic arrangements of their time. Modern villa residences, as they ought to be, and as they ought not, also add to the interest of both tenant and landlord in what promises to be as great an attraction as the ‘ fisheries’ was last year. A correspondent of the New-York Evening post writes that the street representing old London was originally intended to be a life-like and life-sized model of Old Chepe, but it was found that no actual record of the locality remained. It was therefore decided to construct a street of celebrated and well-known relics, most of which have only disappeared within the last century. The work has been carried out under the superintendence of Mr. George Birch of © the London and Middlesex archeological society. All the buildings belong to a period anterior to the great fire. One enters by Bishopsgate through a speci- men of the old London wall: the arch is surmounted with the city arms, and a statue of Bishop William, ~ the Norman. In the street we find the Rose inn, Fenchurch Street; the Cock tavern, Leadenhall; the Three squirrels, Fleet Street; Izaak Walton house, | No. 120 Chancery Lane; and old shops from St. Ethelburga’s Bishopsgate. 'The street is narrow, and the gables almost meet over one’s head. A residence of the wealthy of that period is that of the Duc de Sully, also a house where Oliver Cromwell lodged in Westminster. There are examples of guild-halls, such as the Hall of the brotherhood, from Little Britain. Next we come upon the Old fountain hos-’ telry from the Minories,—a quaint, tumble-down edifice of four stories, each projecting further over the other, and a lean-to gable roof. Whittington’s palace is a fine specimen of the period. A full de- scription of the show by the designers appears in the catalogue. There are specimens of all the Eliza- bethan types, as also of old Roman decoration in plas- ter and terra-cotta. ‘The houses are peopled by figures dressed in the period from missals, old decorations, drawings, etc. Old armor, etc., has been lent, and the whole worked up into a most life-like show. The object is to give an idea of the hygienic condition under which our ancestors lived. — The New-York Evening post states that the Spanish papers are full of the proposal to cut a canal from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea. The plan proposed is to deepen the River Gironde for some distance, and reach the open sea at Narbonne, in the department of Aude. The proposed work will be about two hundred and fifty miles long, and will save a distance of nearly two thousand miles be- tween Suez and London. Speaking of two great en- gineering proposals, one paper says that the channel tunnel will turn an island into a peninsula, while the new canal will turn a peninsula into an island. Se ULE NSE. FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Comments and criticisms, at this season, turn naturally toward the schools and colleges which are holding their annual assemblies, and bestowing their academic honors. A year ago, at Harvard, a vigorous speaker applied the match to materials which proved to be very explosive ; and since then we have ‘had a suc- cession of arguments, public and private, with appeals to the law and to the testimony, Euro- pean and American, respecting the value of different branches of knowledge, and the proper order of studies. Having read the various pamphlets and magazine articles which have appeared on this subject by Adams, Hofmann, White, Dyer, James, Fisher, Sumner, and Eliot, and many others; having watched the controversy, carried on in the newspapers, —jit seems to us that the discussion, though rather monotonous to those who have previous- ly thought it out, has been timely, vigorous, and useful. Probably the leaders of the battle have not in the least changed their opinions ; but we think that the educated public has a clearer notion of the meaning of a liberal edu- cation, and that sounder views upon the rela- tions of literature and science are likely to prevail, as a result of this discussion. As to ancient life and letters, it is obvious that more and more is to be done in this country for their study. Classical teachers, conscious of the deficiencies of former days, are endeav- oring to secure more enthusiasm and higher scholarship by the use of better text-books, better methods of instruction, and ampler means of illustration; and, with great advan- tage both to teachers and pupils, they are eliminating from the classical classrooms, by various regulations, those who can not, or will not, or do not, learn their Greek and Latin. The country will certainly gain by this. No. 72.— 1884. But the Greek question, as it is called, is only one phase of the movement: there is an increasing zest in the study of antiquity, —in whatever interprets the history of mankind. The work of Baird, Powell, Mallory, Brinton, Bandelier, and of many others, is illuminating the records of the savage life and of the early civilizations in this country. ‘The establish- ment of an Archeological institute of America, and the opening of an American school of classi- cal studies in Athens, are indications of activity in the field of classical inquiry. The lectures given in various cities lust winter — by Clarke on his exploration of Assos, by Waldstein on Greek archeology, and by Stillman on his studies in the Levant —are similar signs. Be- fore many months have passed, a distinguished archeologist from Rome, the explorer of the Forum, will be lecturing among us. Collec- tions of casts and photographs and coins are now to be found near all our classical colleges. The American journal of philology has reached its sixth volume, with marks of increasing value, and without drawing off material from the American oriental and the American philo- logical societies. Even Assyrian antiquities are receiving the most serious attention in this country from men trained in Germany, and acknowledged to be most competent for the interpretation of cuneiform inscriptions. All these facts are indications to our minds that the study of antiquity is in no danger at present of being undervalued by Americans. Certainly the lovers of Greek culture need not be alarmed ; for the flower of ancient literature and art will surely not be slighted by an intel- ligent community, once fully awakened to the study of the remote past. On the other hand, the claims of science are receiving more and more recognition. The great laboratories begun or completed within the year at Cambridge, New Haven, Baltimore. and Ithaca, are signs, which everybody can 746 understand, that the physical and natural sci- ences are more than ever to be encouraged. Original researches are in progress in private and in public laboratories to an extent un- known among us a few years ago. More ample means of publication, especially in sub- jects which require costly illustration, are loud- ly called for. Three or four such memoirs proceeding from American laboratories have been offered to the Royal society in London, and have been ordered to be printed in their Proceedings, because there was no place for them here. The national government, with a parsimonious hand, but still with increasing wisdom, is providing for such scientific publi- cations as are more or less pertinent to the public service. Schools of technology are in- creasing in number and in power. It is more and more openly asserted, that no one in these days is receiving a truly liberal education, unless he adds to mathematics and languages an acquaintance with at least one branch of scientific inquiry, derived in part from work in a laboratory, and from personal observation of the methods of research. Seaside laborato- ries at Newport, Wood’s Holl, Annisquam, and Beaufort, are giving facilities for the study of life at the seashore, as years ago opportunities were given in the interior to the student and collector of fossils. As we look at the situation, and recall such facts as we have stated, we believe that in American education the claims of literature and science are fairly adjusted. More ought to be done in both directions. The richest of our colleges are poor. Were the income of Harvard to be doubled, every dollar could be well employed at once. Were there to be a dozen Harvards and Yales, with plans as wise as those which have governed these old foun- dations, and with means as ample, the country would reap thebenefits . Ir the excellent recommendations made by the National academy of sciences five or six years ago had then been fully adopted by con- gress, we should probably have been spared SCIENCE. (Vou. IIL, No. 72. the present suggestion to a congressional com- mittee, that the work of the coast-survey should be divided; the hydrography and coast triangulation to be assigned to the hydrographic office of the navy department, and the geodetic work to the geological survey of the interior department. It was by the advice of the acad- emy that the present geological survey arose, practically by the consolidation of three pre- viously existing organizations. And in its memorandum, drawn up with great care and skill, the academy recommended that the coast- survey should be transferred to the interior department, ‘‘ retaining its original field of operations, and assuming also the entire men- suration of the public domain; and that, so modified and extended, it hereafter be known as the U.S. coast and interior survey.”’ The purpose of the academy was plain, — to bring together, under one department, the coast (and interior) survey, for the mensuration and mapping of the country; the geological sur- vey, for the study of its geological structure and natural resources; and the land-office, for the disposition and sale of public lands. The two latter would require their own maps, based upon geodetic points furnished by the first ; and the land-office could obtain from the geo- logical survey all the information it required as to the value and classification of lands. The entire survey of the public domain would thus fall, as is proper, under one department; and that co-ordination of work and mutual co-op- eration imperatively required would be obtain- able without difficulty, and with the least waste. In no event should the work of the coast- survey be divided: it forms an harmonious and congruous whole. Hydrography must be based on geodetic work. Submarine topography is important to an understanding of the structure of a continent. Nor is a geological survey deeply concerned in the niceties of refined ge- odetic measurements, nor in geodetic questions as such. For its purposes, work of a more rapid and superficial kind suffices ; and it were much to be feared, that, in its subordination to ee JUNE 20, 1884. | the geological survey, the excellence of the work of our coast-survey, now justly the high- est pride of our nation’s science, would de- teriorate. As it stands, it may fearlessly challenge comparison with similar work by any European nation in precision, elegance, and economy. Its work is for all time. A RECORD of the opening and closing of navi- gation at York Factory, Hudson’s Bay, extend- ing from 1828 to 1880, has been communicated by W. Woods of the Hudson’s-Bay company. The latest date of open water in spring is June 1; the earliest closing of navigation, Noy. 3. The earliest opening was May 4; the latest closing, Dec. 9. The season, then, extends over from five to seven months, with an average of six months open water. The time when navigation would be available is limited, however, by the time of open water in Hudson’s Straits, by which the bay is reached. This comprises only July, August, and September, and possibly part of October; but exact ad- vices are not yet attainable. The question of the navigability of the Hudson’s-Bay route to Europe is of vast importance for the settlers of Manitoba and the Saskatchewan; since, if it be available, they can, by a comparatively short railway-transit, reach tidewater with their crops, which otherwise cannot possibly com- pete with those of the north-western United States. It is understood that a trial is to be made of the route, and that a reconnoissance of Hudson’s Bay, of which there are no good charts, will shortly be attempted. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. x*x Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. The deep-sea fish, Malacosteus. In reading the translation of Mr. Filhol’s article on the deep-sea fishes collected by the Talisman (Science, May 235), I have been somewhat surprised by recog- nizing, in A. Tissandier’s figure of Malacosteus niger, an old acquaintance, the source of which may be ob- served in Bost. journ. nat. hist., vi. plate v. While upon this subject of Malacosteus, it may be interesting to note, that, in several specimens of M. niger now in the National museum, the slender band connecting the tongue with the mandibular symphy- sis, which has long been regarded as a tangled hyoid SCIENCE. 747 barbel, is really not free at either end, and may be only a muscle concerned in the movement of the lower jaw. Ihave not yet been able to find a true hyoid barbel. The pectoral contains three rays in- stead of five, as counted by Dr. Ayres; and the caudal is forked, and not convex. TARLETON H. BEAN, Curator department of fishes. U.S. national museum, May 28. [By an oversight on our part, we neglected to state that the illustrations of the two articles in No. 68 on deep-sea fishes were copied in part from La Nature, and in part from Science et nature. ‘Those on p. 621 came from the latter journal, the others from the former, but not all of them in connection with the article translated. — ED. | A bad habit of the fox-squirrel (Sciurus niger, var. ludovicianus). Madison people pride themselves not a little on the number and tameness of their fox-squirrels, which are found by scores in the shade-trees of the capitol park and the residence streets of the city. Protected by a special ordinance, they have multi- plied rapidly, and scarcely know what fear is, run- ning along before one, on the sidewalk or fence, and occasionally even stopping, and allowing themselves to be touched, in the hope of getting a nut. We con- sider them decidedly more ornamental and worthy of good treatment than the ubiquitous blue-jay or sparrow, and never tire of watching their pretty ways. But to-day I noticed several engaged in far less commendable business than hiding, or opening acorns. While passing under a row of elms, my attention was attracted by a number of short twigs lying on the sidewalk. About a hundred were counted under the first tree. They were of nearly uniform size, six or eight inches long, including the young growth of the season and a short piece of last year’s wood, with one or two bunches of the nearly ripe fruit. After a gale in the early fall, the ground under the white elms is sometimes covered with leafy branches of about the same size, which separate by a joint at the site of a former winter bud, like the so-called brittle branches of poplars and willows, which they also resemble in being a sort of natural cuttings, serving in part for propagation. In the present in- stance, however, the ends of the twigs did not show the smooth surface of those which fall naturally; and, as there was no indication of the work of a pruner, I turned my attention to the top of the tree, where it was directed by a twig falling just as I looked up. Following its course, I saw a squirrel, comfortably seated on one of the upper branches, busily at work on the fruit of a second twig, which was soon dropped for another. No less than five were broken off in a single minute; and, while I watched, the falling twigs averaged one a minute. They were dexter- ously snapped off just below the fruit-cluster, a bite or two often helping in the operation. The seed was removed from each of the small samaras by a single adroit cut on one side; and, long before the rifled branch had reached the ground, another was under- going the same fate. The dinner of this one squir- 1 Frank devotes a few pages of his Krankheiten der pflan- zen (pp. 384, 35) to this spontaneous pruning, which he considers a means of removing weakly twigs, after their vegetative period is ended. Its occurrence is mentioned as especially noticeable in Taxodium, Quercus, Populus, and Salix, but not by any means confined to these genera. 748 rel resulted in the pruning of over two hundred branches. A great many other trees showed equal evidence of the relish of squirrels for the seed, which they all obtained in the same wasteful manner; but this destruction can last only a short time, as the fruit falls very promptly when ripe. Wn. TRELEASE. Madison, Wis., May 24. The claims of political science. Is there any valid reason why political science should not take its natural place among the sciences? That it has no such place is evident from the fact that it is almost wholly excluded from all the scientific jour- nals that profess to be devoted to all the sciences. How many articles on political science have ever ap-- peared in the American journal of science, in Nature, in Science? Canany other science be named of which the same can be said? It seems to be assumed that all that is ever said about national affairs must neces- sarily be of a partisan character, and be said, not for the sake of truth, but to serve some political party or private interest. Yet any one who has any faith in humanity must admit that a large amount of disinter- ested political work is being done. Those who deny this for the present will generally admit it for the past, and the present is always becoming the past. But, even if this were not the case, it would still be true that scientific politics is theoretically possible. Most sciences are more or less practical; i.e., they furnish the principles which underlie the useful arts. From pure science to pure art there are always three somewhat distinct steps. The first is the discovery of scientific principles; the second is the invention of the methods of applying these principles; and the third is the actual application of the principles. The first two or the last two of these steps may sometimes be so inti- mately blended as to render it difficult to detect the line of de- marcation between them; but theoretically the three steps are SS===={ SCIENCE. q . [Vou IIl., No. 72. Why, then, does not politics form a legitimate sub- ject of scientific investigation ? Why might not its discussion in strictly scientific societies and journals be permitted and encouraged ? And would not this be one of the best checks that could be set to the mad surge of unreasoning partisanship that now fills the columns of the public press ? | It will probably be replied, that, the moment a sci- entific man should attempt to discuss current political issues, he would lose his scientific attitude and spirit. Were he to do so, he would certainly forfeit the re- spect and confidence of scientific men; but this would be contrary to our hypothesis that the discussion be scientific. LESTER F. WARD. + Some Indiana glaciology. In Science, No. 22, I gave some account of certain glacial scratches in Montgomery county which showed a trend approximately at right angles to the direction of the first, or at least a former glacier. Since that date I have made a more thorough study of the region with much better instruments, and the results are worth recording. In the short note referred to, it is stated that Sugar Creek, a large eastern tributary of the Wabash, has a general south-westerly course through the county, about parallel with that of the Wabash, twenty or thirty miles to the north. In the bed of this stream there are glacial scratches, indi- cating a movement parallel with its course, referred to the first or Lake Erie glacier, whose course across the state, up the Maumee and down the Wabash, has been plainly shown. In the north-eastern part of the county, near the junction of Sugar and Lye creeks, the former stream runs along a ledge of subcarbonifer- ous sandstone, which forms its northern bank. This SSS SSS always present. SSSR WS If, therefore, there is a politi- SOc | KYW y Se cal science, this must also be AN AS ee true of it. We will assume that pid dt EE RRESS = there is such a science; that the SV operations of a state constitute a “SS a department of natural phenom- Mc - F#ewBwe ena, which, like other natural ® SHIA AS phenomena, take place accord- QS Aa ing to uniform laws. The pure SS TN YK science, then, consists in the dis- \\\ \\ A covery of these laws. The in- termediate, or inventive, stage embraces the devising of meth- ods for controlling the phenom- ena so as to cause them to follow advantageous channels, just as water, wind, and elec- tricity are controlled. The third stage is simply the carrying-out of the methods thus devised. Political science is one of the cases in which, in its present state at least, the first and second steps are very much blended. They are both embraced in legislation, which includes both discovery and in- vention. Yet the pure investigator is not entirely wanting; and the ideal politician or statesman would correctly represent the first stage, or pure political science. ‘The executive branch of government fairly coincides with the third, or pure art, stage. The ju- diciary is properly legislative or inventive; but, in va it often performs executive or technologie func- ions. ledge is from three to five feet above average water- level, has no representation on the southern bank, and is exposed for perhaps a mile. Upon uncovering its surface, it is found to be planed as smooth as a floor, and deeply and closely grooved with glacial scratches, which trend directly across the stream and © the course of the old glacier. The sandstone is, for the most part, fine-grained; but in some places it con- tains numerous small geodes, which beautifully indi- cate the direction of flow, each having a struck side to the north, and a protected sandstone ridge to the south. On top of the platform there lies a typical moraine, whose trend, being about at right angles to the scratches, indicates a terminal moraine. A sec- tion showed the following results: stiff blue clay, with ™ JUNE 20, 1884. ] scratched pebbles and small bowlders, six to eleven feet; fine sand and gravel to the top of a terrace, five feet; height of moraine above terrace, forty feet. ‘The terrace platform spoken of is about eight hundred feet wide. (The accompanying sketch in- dicates these features, as seen from the creek.) At three stations along the ledge, a large area of the platform was uncovered for the purpose of measur- ing the angle of direction over as long lines of stria- tion as possible. Repeated observations, corrected for magnetic variation, gave the following result: at the eastern station the direction of the scratches was N. 27° 50’ W.; a little over half a mile west, they were N. 28°50’ W.; about an eighth of a mile farther west, N. 22°30’ W. These differences were very unexpected, and hence great care was taken to obtain them accu- rately. Such angles would indicate a focal point only a few miles to the north-west. In looking over the topography of northern Indiana, it is a remarkable fact, that a ridge of limestone extends across the state, running with the Wabash valley in its eastern section, but striking more westerly in the western part of the state, leaving the Wabash to the south. ‘ North of this east and west ridge is a region of marshes and deep sand-deposits, extending to the northern boundary: south of it are more drift-depos- its, but not so deep. It seems very probable that a former extension of Lake Michigan found its south- ern boundary in the neighborhood of this ridge. As the converging lines of our glacial platform seemed to find their centre in the neighborhood of this ridge, it seemed to suggest some relation between them. The first overwhelming flow was parallel with the ridge, and so we find the lower scratches in the Wa- bash and in Sugar Creek. But afterwards, in the re- treat of the great glacier, there seem to have been some local centres along this ridge, which sent out small fan-shaped glaciers with rapidly diverging lines. No other explanation seems to satisfy the angles ob- tained in this case. Virtually nothing has been done in this state in the way of collecting the facts of the drift; and there is every indication that our relation to the Great Lakes amd the peninsula of Michigan, besides the internal features already indicated, pre- sent some very interesting and important problems. The legislature of a great educational state cannot yet be induced to appropriate a dollar for any survey which does not deal with the location and thickness of coal-seams and limestone-beds. JOHN M. COULTER. Wabash college, Crawfordsville, Ind. Osteology of Micropterus salmoides. I was very sorry to find from reading Mr. McMur- rich’s letter in Science, No. 69, that its author had de- rived nothing but the most erroneous ideas from my description of a pair of free ribs at the base of the occiput of Micropterus (Science, No. 65). As Mr. MeMurrich remarks, it was unfortunate that he was not able to dissect a specimen of the black bass, for the very good reason — which applies more particularly to anatomy —that one should certainly examine, in any case, structures under considera- tion, before publishing about them, and advancing suggestions as to what they may possibly be. Even where an author specifies that he has not seen the thing whereof he writes, people are often misled. On the other hand, I was glad to see the interest these structures awakened, and will look forward with no little pleasure to Mr. McMurrich’s observations upon them, after he has had an opportunity to make a thorough examination. As an anatomical description is made far clearer SCIENCE. T49 when accompanied by a drawing of the parts dis- cussed, I determined, upon seeing Mr. McMurrich’s letter, to follow that rule in the present instance, in my reply to it. To this end, I selected from my pri- vate collection a very fine cranium of Micropterus, with a pair of well-developed ribs attached to it. From this specimen I made the drawing that illus- trates this letter. Left lateral view of cranium of Micropterus salmoides, showing a pair of ribs at the occiput (from nature, half size, linear). S eth, supra-ethmoid; 7, frontal; Sq, squamosal; Pa, pala- tine (not well in sight); Zp O, epiotic; SO, super-occipital ; Pt O, pterotic; Ocr, occipital ribs; vg, foramen for vagus; EO, ex-occipital; BO, basi-occipital; Op O, opisthotic; Pr O, pro-otic; tf, post-frontal; As, ali-sphenoid; As, basi- sphenoid; Pr S, para-sphenoid; Pr/, pre-frontal; Vo, vomer. From this it is very evident that these ribs are not ‘portions or rudiments of the supraclaviculae,’ but really have all the characteristics of the ribs upon the atlas and axis. I have never found epipleural ap- pendages attached to them, as I believe may occur on the first two ribs of the column. Dr. Sagemehl, in his valuable paper on the cranium of Amia (Mor- phologisches jahrbuch, ix.), is very explicit in what he says about the co-ossification of the three vertebrae with the basi-occipital of this ganoid; and if this author had been aware of such a state of affairs as I here figure, in any of the Teleostei, he certainly would have brought it forward in connection with the dis- cussion of that subject. They are two very signifi- cant facts, that these ribs in Micropterus articulate beyond the vagus foramen, and that they are appar- ently constant. I have since found similar structures in a specimen of Orecynus thynnus, and rather sus- pect it in the Scombridae, though the specimens at my command, illustrating this latter group, were so poorly prepared, I could not satisfy myself in regard to them. It will be of great interest and impor- tance to examine, in this particular, forms more or less nearly related to Micropterus, and the young of all, at various stages. Of their nature, I think it may be said without doubt, that they are a pair of true ribs, agreeing in all important particulars with the abdominal ribs, as seen in the pairs on the atlas and axis; that they belong to the same series, and artic- ulate with the occiput, to which they belong; and that they are a constant character. I should be rather surprised to find that these struc- tures had not been noticed before, occurring as they do in a form that has received so much attention, from an anatomical point of view, as Orecynus. Then, too, taking into consideration the morphological sig- nificance that attaches to them, one would look for at least a mention of such a condition in the text- books of Owen, Huxley, Gegenbaur, Parker, or others; but such I have failed to find, and the embryologists seem also to have overlooked them. Sir Richard Owen would certainly have had occasion to mention such a pair of ribs in his method of treating the oste- ology of the piscine skull. R. W. SHUFELDT. Washington, June 2. 150 SCIENCE. JEAN-BAPTISTE-ANDRE DUMAS. JEAN-BaptistE-ANDRE Dumas was born at Alais, in the south of France, July 14, 1800. He was educated at the college of his native place, and appears to have been destined by his parents for the naval service; but his par- ents abandoned their plan, and apprenticed him to an apothecary of the town. He. re- mained in this situation, however, but a short time. In1816 he travelled on foot to Geneva, where he found employment in the pharmacy of Le Royer. : At that time Geneva was the centre of much scientific activity ; and young Dumas had the opportunity of attending lectures on botany by de Candolle, on physics by Pictet, and on chemistry by Gaspard de la Rive. About this time, young Dumas had the good fortune to render an important service to Dr. Coindet, to whom it had occurred that burnt sponge, then generally used as a remedy for goitre, might owe its efficacy to the presence of a small amount of iodine. Dumas not only proved the presence of iodine in the sponge, but also indicated the best method of adminis- tering what proved to be almost a specific remedy. It was in connection with this investi- gation that Dumas’s name first appears in public, as the discovery produced a great sen- sation. Soon after, Dumas formed an intimacy with Dr. J. L. Prévost, then recently returned from pursuing his studies in Edinburgh and Dublin, and was induced to undertake a series of physi- ological investigations, which for a time with- drew him from his strictly chemical studies. Several valuable papers on physiological sub- jects were published by Prévost and Dumas, which attracted the notice of Alexander von Humboldt, who, on visiting Geneva in 1822, sought out Dumas, and awakened in him a de- sire to seek a wider field of activity. In con- sequence he removed to Paris in 1823, where the reputation he had so deservedly earned at Geneva won for him a cordial reception. In 1826 he married Mlle. Herminie Bron- gniart, the eldest daughter of Alexandre Bron- gniart, the illustrious geologist; and in after years his house became one of the chief resorts of the scientific society of Paris. In 1828-29 Dumas united with Théodore Olivier and Eugéne Péclet in founding the Ecole centrale des arts et manufactures. In 1832 Dumas succeeded Gay-Lussac as profes- sor at the Sorbonne ; in 1835 he succeeded The- nard at the Ecole polytechnique ; and in 1839 he succeeded Deyeux at the Ecole de médecine. 4 * [Vou. IIL, No. 72. Thus, before the age of forty, he filled succes- sively, and for some time simultaneously, all the important professorships of chemistry in Paris except that of the College of France, with which he was never permanently connected. Dumas early recognized the importance of laboratory instruction in chemistry, for which there were no facilities at Paris when he first came there, and in 1832 founded a laboratory for research at his own expense. The political and social upheaval of 1848 seemed at the time to endanger the stability in France of every thing which a cultivated and learned man holds most dear; and Dumas was not one to consider his own preferences, when he felt he could aid in averting the calam- ities which threatened his country. Imme- diately after the revolution of February, he accepted a seat in the legislative assembly. ° Shortly afterwards the president of the re- public called him to fill the office of minister of agriculture and commerce. During the secs ond empire he was elevated to the rank of senator, and shortly after his entrance into the senate he became vice-president of the high council of education. In order to reform the abuses into which many of the higher edu- cational institutions of Paris had fallen, he accepted a place in the municipal council of Paris, over which he subsequently presided from 1859 to 1870. In 1868 Dumas was appointed master of the mint of France ; but with the fall of the second empire, in 1870, his political career came to an abrupt termination. Some years previously he had resigned his professorships; and now, at the age of seventy, he found himself for the first time free to devote his leisure to the noble work of encouraging research, and thus promoting the advancement of science. He had reached an age when active investigation was almost an impossibility, but his command- ing position gave him the opportunity of exert- ing a most powerful influence ; and this he used with great effect. In early life he had been elected, in 1832, a member of the Academy — of sciences; in 1868 he had succeeded Flou- rens as its permanent secretary ; and in 1875 he was elected a member of the French academy as successor to Guizot, —a distinction rarely attained by a man of science. It was, how- ever, aS permanent secretary of the Academy of sciences that Dumas exerted, during the last years of his life, his greatest influence. When the writer last saw Dumas, in the winter of 1881-82, the great chemist had still all the vivacity of youth, and it was difficult to realize his age. He took a lively interest JUNE 20, 1884.] in all questions of chemical philosophy, which he discussed with great earnestness and warmth. There were the same fire and the same exuber- ance of fancy which had enchanted me in his lectures thirty years before. At an age when most men hold speculation in small esteem, I was much struck with his criticism of a con- temporary, who, he said, had no imagination, although he spoke with the highest praise of At that time Dumas his experimental skill. showed no signs of impaired strength; but during the fol- lowing year his health began to fail, and he died on the 11th of April, at Cannes, where he had sought a retreat from the severity of the winter cli- mate of Paris. Dumas was not only eminent as an investigator of nature, but even more eml- nent as a teacher and an adminis- trator. Without attempting to de- tail Dumas’s nu- merous contribu- tions to chemical knowledge, we will here only refer to three important inves- tigations, which Bprogneed a marked influence in the progress of chemical sci- ence. After his removal to Paris he took up the problem which the relations of the molecular volumes of aeriform substances present; and his paper on some points of the atomic theory had an important influence in developing our modern chemical philosophy. We are sur- prised that Dumas did not at once realize the consequences which the doctrine of equal molecular volumes involves in the interpreta- tion of the constitution of chemical compounds, and the clear distinction between ‘ the physi- cally smallest particles’ and ‘the chemically SCIENCE. jal smallest particles,’ or the molecules and the atoms, as we now call the physical and the chemical units. But more than a quarter of a century passed before the full harvest of this fruitful hypothesis could be reaped. ere But if this investigation of gas and vapor densities brought a great strain upon the dualistic system, the second of the three ‘great investigations of Dumas, to which we have referred, led to its complete overthrow. The most important of the experi- mental results were the substi- tution products obtained by the action of chlorine gas on. acetic acid; and the capital point made, was that chlorine could be substituted in acetic acid for a large part of the hydrogen with- out destroying the acid relations of the product; and the inference was, that the qualities of a compound = sub- stance depend, not simply on the nature of the ele- ments of which it consists, but also on the manner or type according to which these elements are combined. To the chem- ists of the pres- ent day these results and inferences seem so natural that it is difficult to understand the spirit with which they were received forty years ago. But it must be remembered that at that time the conceptions of chemists were wholly moulded in the dualistic system. It was thought that chemical action depended upon the antagonism between metals and metalloids, bases and acids, acid salts and basic salts, and that the qualities of the products resulted from the blending of such opposite virtues. That chlorine should unite with hydrogen was natural, for no two Mery oe To2 SCIENCE. substances could be more unlike; but that chlo- rine should supply the place of hydrogen in a chemical compound was a conception which the dualists scouted as absurd. By the second investigation, as by the first, although Dumas gave a most fruitful concep- tion to chemistry, he only took the first step in developing it. His conception of chemical types was very indefinite ; and Laurent wrote of it a few years later, ‘‘ Dumas’s theory is too general; by its poetic coloring, it lends itself to false interpretations; it is a programme of which we await the realization.’”’ The third great investigation of Dumas was his revision of the atomic weights of many of the chemical elements, and in none of his work did he show greater experimental skill. His determination of the atomic weight of oxygen by the synthesis of water, and of that of car- bon by the synthesis of carbonic dioxide, are models of quantitative experimental work. That exuberance of fancy to which we have referred made Dumas one of the most success- ful of teachers, and one of the most fascinat- ing of lecturers. It was the privilege of the writer to attend the larger part of two of his courses of lectures given in Paris in the winters of 1848 and 1851, and he remembers distinctly the impression produced. Besides the well- arranged material and the carefully prepared experiment, there was an elegance and pomp of circumstance which added greatly to the effect. The large theatre of the Sorbonne was filled to overflowing long before the hour. ‘The lecturer always entered at the exact moment, in full evening dress, and held to the end of a two-hours’ lecture the unflagging attention of his audience. ‘The manipulations were entirely left to the care of a number of assistants, who brought each experiment to a conclusion at the exact moment when the illustration was required. An elegance of diction, an ap- propriateness of illustration, and a beauty of exposition, which could not be excelled, were displayed throughout; and the enthusiasm of a French audience added to the animation of the scene. To the writer, the lectures of Dumas were brought in contrast to those of Faraday. Both were perfect of their kind, but very different. Faraday’s method was far more simple and natural, and he excelled Dumas in bringing home to young minds abstruse truths by the logic of well-arranged consecutive experiment. With Dumas there was no attempt to popularize science: he excelled in clearness and elegance of exposition. He exhausted the subject which he treated, and was able to throw a [Vou. IIL, Siena glow of interest around details which by most teachers would have been made dry and profit- less. . In the early part of his life, Dumas was a voluminous writer, and in 1828 published the ‘ Traité de chimie appliquée aux arts’ in eight large octavo volumes, with an atlas of plates in quarto. But, besides this extended treatise, two volumes of lectures are his only impor- tant literary works. He published numerous papers in scientific journals, which, as we have seen, produced a most marked effect on the growth of chemical science. But the number of his monographs is not large, compared with those of many of his contemporaries ; and his work is to be judged by its importance and influence rather than by the extent of the field which it covers. It was to be expected that a man working with such eminent success in so many spheres of activity, and at one of the chief centres of the world’s culture, should be loaded with marks of distinction of every kind. It would be idle to enumerate the orders of knighthood or the learned societies to which he belonged ; for, so far from their honoring him, he x ae them in accepting their membership. It is a pleasure, however, to remember that he lived to realize his highest ambitions, and to enjoy the fruits of his well-earned renown. France has added his name in the Pantheon ‘Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante.’ THE MONK-SEAL OF THE WEST IN- DIES, MONACHUS TROPICALIS GRAY. AN old English navigator and privateer, Wil- liam Dampier, while straining his eyes for Span- ish galleons in the Caribbean Sea during the season of 1675, was astonished at finding many seals sunning themselves on the Alacrane Islands: he was surprised, for he did not look for these animals in tropical waters, and hence he made voluminous notes of them.’ To this memorandum we are obliged to turn for all the knowledge that we have to-day of the rare form of which we offer the accompanying draw- ing. The specimen from which it was taken is now believed to be the only one in existence ; for the one which was in the British museum, collected in 1843 by Gosse and Hill, has been destroyed. The one which we figure is now in the new National museum at Washington: it was recently taken on the coast of Cuba, bought of some Cubans by Professor Felipé — 1 Dampier, Voyage round the world, ii. 2, 3d ed., 1705, p. 23. JUNE 20, 1884.] Poey of Havana, and by him presented to the Smithsonian institution. The color of the body of this tropical seal is an intense ebony black, with the hair remarka- bly short and stiff. The length of this creature is about four feet, with a circumference of the body near the fore-arms of three feet. Although Dampier seems to have been impressed by the large numbers of these seals in 1675, yet, as long ago as 1843, it was excessively rare, — as much so as it is to-day. This fact declares the industry and zeal of the old ‘oyle’ hunters, SCIENCE. 753 localities, it appears to have now well-nigh reached extinction, and is doubtless to be found at only a few of the least frequented inlets in various portions of the area above indicated.’’ Being still well known to many of the wreckers and turtle-hunters, it seems strange that it should have remained almost unknown to nat- uralists. Perhaps this figure and notice may serve to stimulate the attention of some one of the many fruit and sponge vessel owners now cruising in West-Indian waters, who, detecting who were busy in slaughtering the Monachus long after Dampier set the example. In the Jamaica almanack for 18438, Mr. Richard Hill published a memoir on a seal in- habiting the Pedro Kays, a reef of rocks lying off the south coast of Jamaica. This has been transcribed by Allen, and it seems to apply directly to the animal which we figure. Allen sums its distribution up as follows: ‘ It there- fore appears that the habitat of the West- Indian seal extends from the northern coast of Yucatan, northward to the southern point of Florida, eastward to the Bahamas and Jamaica, and southward along the Central-American coast to about latitude 12°. Although known to have been once abundant at some of these the presence of another specimen, may secure it, and forward the rare and valuable trophy to those who would appreciate and preserve it. Henry W. ELwiort. Smithsonian institution, May 21. THE TOEPLER-HOLTZ. MACHINE. Ture Toepler-Holtz induction electric ma- chine is too well known to need description ; but, as no explanation of its action is to be found in any book which has come under my observation, the following explanation may be of interest to teachers : — Consider the machine before you, the re- volving-plate in front. 704 Designate the right-hand paper sector by a, the brush connected with it by b, the comb connected with the discharging-rod by c, the comb in metallic connection with a similar comb diagonally opposite by d, and the corre- sponding parts on the left-hand side by a’, One, and d’. If the left-hand sector a’ be charged with negative electricity, it draws positive electricity from the comb d’ upon the revolving-plate, which is supposed to move in the direction of the hands of a watch. When the positive electricity on the plate reaches the brush 8, it draws negative electricity from the brush, and leaves the sector a charged with positive. This positive electricity on the sector, and the positive that is left on the plate, both draw Tm, Ch i a a Lal 4 ‘ | =! = i, ll Be UUs ee ll min a negative from the comb c, and leave the dis- charging-rod connected with it charged with positive electricity. The plate, now nearly neutral, passes under the diagonal comb d, and from it receives a charge of negative electricity, drawn out by the positive on the sector a, which at the same time repels positive electricity along the diago- nal, and out of d’ upon the revolving-plate. The plate, now charged with negative elec- tricity, passes under the brush 0’, draws posi- tive electricity from it, and thus increases the negative charge on the sector a’. The residue of negative electricity on the plate, and the negative on the sector, both draw positive from the comb c’, and leave the discharging-rod connected with it charged with negative elec- tricity. The plate, now nearly neutral, passes SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 72. to our starting-point d’, and the process is repeated. If the machine is operated in the dark, the brush b’, and the points on c’ and d’, will be tipped with the well-known positive brushes, while 6, c, and d will show only the negative slowing points. The relative lengths of the ~ brushes on c’ and d’ will depend on the position of the discharging-rods. Ifa is negative in the place of a’, the position of the brushes will, of course, be reversed. The nature of the electricity on any part of the machine may be tested by bringing the point of a lead- pencil near it, and noticing the form of the » discharge from the point. The great use of the knobs on the revolving- plate is to keep the paper sectors charged. Two knobs give better results than the usual six or eight; the reason appar- ently being, that the larger number of knobs keeps the sectors overcharged, and there is a continual loss (by brushes from the sectors) of electricity that would otherwise remain on the revolv- ing-plate, and help to increase the charge on the discharging-rods. Somewhat longer sparks are also ob- tained by connecting the sectors and discharging-rods on the same side by conductors ; but the machine, thus ar- ranged, reverses more readily, does not give sparks so rapidly when the dis- charging-knobs are near together, and is started by separating the knobs. In some forms of the machine used in Germany the fixed plate is in two parts, separated by a vertical air-space. This is an improvement, because it prevents the electricities of the two sectors from uniting across the surface of the plate. Machines of this sort sometimes have as many as sixty revolving-plates, all on one axis. Such machines give large quantities of electricity, but not very long sparks. The following experiments, not generally known, illustrate the power of the single plate machine. If a strip of vulcanite about two inches wide is moved to and fro in front of the positive pole, the length of the spark will be greatly increased, sometimes reaching five inches and a half on a machine whose revolv- ing-plate is only ten inches and a half in diameter. If a drop of stearine is placed on a thin sheet of glass, which is too large for the spark to pass around the edges, and the glass is held between the discharging-knobs of a good ten-and-a-half-inch machine, with the drop toward the positive knob, the spark will JUNE 20, 1884.] ‘pierce the glass when the knobs are about one inch apart. H. W. Eaton. GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY OF NORTHERN CANADA.) By northern Canada, the author meant the whole of the Dominion northward of the organized provinces and districts, as far as known. His information was derived from his own observations around Hudson’s Bay and in the North-west territories, and from the reports and maps of the scientific men who had accompanied the various arctic expeditions by land and sea. Specimens and interesting notes on the geology of Great Slave Lake had been received from Capt. H. P. Dawson, R.A., who had spent last year there, in charge of the Canadian station of the circumpolar com- mission. The distribution of the various for- mations, from the oldest to the newest, was illustrated by a large, geologically colored map of the whole Dominion. Referring to the Laurentian system, Professor Bell showed that it forms the surface-rock over an enor- mous circular area on the main continent, and that the central part of it is occupied by Hudson’s Bay, with a border of paleozoic rocks around it. Laurentian rocks are large- ly developed in Greenland, and along the At- lantic coast from Newfoundland to Georgia. Taken together, the general outline of the Laurentian areas of North America has a form corresponding with that of the whole conti- nent, which has been built around these ancient rocks. The Huronian strata which constitute the principal metalliferous series in Canada were closely associated with the Laurentian, and appeared to be always conformable with them. The largest and best-known areas were between Lake Huron and James’s Bay; but Dr. Bell had found four belts of them on the east coast of Hudson’s Bay, and others had been recognized in the primitive region to the west of it. Indeed, wherever the older crys- talline rocks had been explored in Canada, belts or basins having the character of the Hu- ronian series had been met with. Limestones, slates, and quartzites, interstratified with amyg- daloids, basalts, etc., corresponding with the Nipigon formation of Lakes Superior and Nip- igon, were largely developed on the Eastmain coast and adjacent islands of Hudson’s Bay, and apparently, also, on the Coppermine River, 1 Abstract of a paper on the geology and economic minerals of Hudson’s Bay and northern Canada, read to the Royal society of Canada, May 23, by Dr. Ropert BELL. SCIENCE. 7)9 and to the westward of it. Buta set of hard red siliceous conglomerates and sandstones were seen to come between the Huronian and the Nipigon series at Richmond Gulf on the Eastmain coast, which appeared to be uncon- formable to both. Mr. Cochrane and Dr. Bell had found similar rocks on Athabasca Lake; Capt. Dawson, on Great Slave Lake; and Sir John Richardson, to the north-east of Great Bear Lake. The conglomerates, slates, and gray argillaceous quartzites of Churchill, and the white fine-grained quartzite of Marble Island, were probably of this horizon. Siluri- an rocks were well known to be widely spread on some of the largest of the arctic islands, and along the most northern channels of the Polar Sea. They formed an irregular and interrupted border on the western sides of Hudson’s and James’s Bays. A large basin of Devonian strata containing gypsum and clay-ironstone extended south-westward from James’s Bay. West of the great Laurentian area, Devonian rocks could be traced here and there, all the way from Minnesota to the mouth of the Mackenzie River. ‘They were not, how- ever, so widely distributed as had been sup- posed by the older travellers who had passed rapidly through the country in the early part of the century, when the whole subject of American geology was in its infancy. The so-called bituminous shales of Sir John Rich- ardson and others, which are so prevalent along the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers, were found by Professor Bell to consist of soft cretaceous strata, which had been saturated and blackened by the petroleum rising out of the underlying Devonian rocks, which here, as in Ontario, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, are rich in this substance. The principal features and the geographical distribution of the carbonif- erous, liassic, cretaceous, and tertiary rocks of the northern regions were successively de- scribed. Among other points of interest in reference to the post-tertiary period, Dr. Bell mentioned that the remains of both the mas- todon and the mammoth had been found on Hudson’s Bay, and that elephants’ tusks were reported to occur on an island in its northern part. Isolated discoveries of elephantine re- mains had been made in the North-west terri- tories, and several on the Rat River, a tributary of the Yukon, near the borders of Alaska. In referring to the economic minerals, Pro- fessor Bell said that even the coarser ones, such as granite, limestone, cement-stone, slate, flagstone, gypsum, clays, marls, ochres, sand for glass-making, etc., would yet have their value in different parts of the great region 756 under consideration. Soapstone, mica, plum- bago, asbestos, chromic iron, phosphate of lime, salt, pyrites, etc., had been noted in dif- ferent localities. Among ornamental stones known to occur, might be mentioned the rare and beautiful mineral lazulite; also malachite, jade, agate, carnelian, chrysoprase, and oth- ers. Extensive beds of lignite were found in many places in the great tract of country oc- cupied by the cretaceous and tertiary rocks in the Athabasca-Mackenzie valley and on the coasts and islands of the Arctic Sea; also in tertiary strata at Cumberland Bay, and in Greenland on the opposite side of Davis Strait. On the Moose River were considerable beds of lignite of post-tertiary age. Anthracite of a very pure quality had been found on Long Island in Hudson’s Bay. Petroleum rising from the Devonian strata was found through a long stretch of country in the Athabasca- Mackenzie valley. Great quantities of asphalt, resulting from this petroleum, occurred along these rivers and on Great Slave Lake, as well as in various places in the interior. Of the metallic ores, those of iron were very abun- dant. Inexhaustible quantities of rich man- ganiferous ironstone exist on the Manitonink Islands, near the east coast of Hudson’s Bay. The bedded ore formed the surface over hun- dreds of square miles, and it was broken up by the frost into pieces of a convenient size for shipping. Valuable deposits of magnetic iron had been found on Athabasca and Knee Lakes, and a thick bed of fine clay-ironstone on the Mattagami River. Capt. Dawson, R.A., had found a vein of crystalline specular iron on Great Slave Lake. Copper ore had been discovered on Hudson’s Bay; and the native metal was known to occur in quantities on the Coppermine River, in rocks like those with which it is associated on Lake Superior. Galena was abundant in limestone from Little Whale River to Richmond Gulf, on the East- main coast. Zinc, molybdenum, and manga- nese had also been found on this coast, and antimony in the north. Gold and silver had likewise been detected in veins on the east coast ; and alluvial gold had been washed out of the gravel and sand of different streams in the mountainous region west of the lower part of the Mackenzie River. For various reasons, Dr. Bell regarded this region as a highly promising one for the precious metals. The belt of auriferous drift, which crosses the North Saskatchewan at Edmonton, and from which the gold-dust is there washed, may have been brought from this region by ancient gla- ciers from the valleys of the upper branches SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 72. ¢ of the Liard and Peace Rivers. A number of years ago, Dr. Bell had originated the theory that this gold might have been derived from Huronian rocks to the north-eastward of Ed- monton; but he now thought it quite as likely to have had its source in the direction of Cas- Siar. THE SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY OF THE RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES DURING THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.} No endeavor has as yet been made to properly estimate the scientific activity of our universities during the last quarter of a century; and this, I believe, mainly accounts for the sweeping condem- nations which make their appearance from time to time, to the effect that our universities are declining, and that the high tide of their scientific activity was long ago passed. Submitting to the judgment of the reader a first feeble attempt of this kind with re- spect to the development of natural science, includ- ing the principles of medicine, I wish expressly to state that the material at my command, while not embracing all accomplished by the universities in the direction of natural science, nevertheless includes every thing essential to point out and prove the most prominent features of the results attained. This, indeed, is the object of the present article. My re- view excludes the universities at Dorpat and Hel- singfors, as they, by their whole constitution, always distinguished themselves from their purely Russian brethren: it also fails to take into account the scien- tific activity of those members of our academy who are not connected with any Russian university. The material for this sketch has been brought together, not by myself, but by specialists in their respective branches of knowledge, —in physics, by Professor Petrusheéfsky; in chemistry, by Professor Menshut- kin; in botany, by Professors Beketoff, Borodin, and Gobi; in zodlogy, by Professor Bogdanoff; in geology, by Professor Inostrantseff; in anatomy and physi- ology, by myself. If we are to measure the scientific activity of an institution by the degree in which its members par- ticipate in the resolution of scientific questions, — and this seems to be the only correct standard, — then the activity of the Russian universities in natural science during the thirty years from 1830 to 1860 cannot be deemed great. Indeed, the number of university professors (with Russian names) engaged in scientific work was small; and these stood almost alone, as it were, hardly exerting any considerable influence over those around them. There were, of course, many causes for this scar- city and isolation of working-forces; but the prin- cipal one, undoubtedly, is to be sought in the general conditions of university life. These conditions logi- cally grew out of the view then accepted as to the object of university-work in regard to the intellectual 1 Translated and abridged from the Russian of I. StcHENOFF, in the Vestnik Evropy (European herald) for November, 1883. yi inf 3. 2 eee JUNE 20, 1884.] life of the country, —a view which, in our time, is no longer held. Even after the middle of this century, universities were looked upon in this country, merely as places for the dissemination of knowledge, where young people were instructed in the higher branches of science. To this end the entire activity of the universities was directed: indeed, the work of the university consisted simply in the delivery of lec- . tures by professors, who undertook to acquaint their hearers with the last results of science, while the students were merely passive recipients. The pro- fessors were not required to do real scientific work, which at the present time alone constitutes true learning: such work was left to a select few, and it seldom emerged from the seclusion of the cabinet into close contact with the audience. It is charac- teristic of those times that such occupations were called the crude preparatory work. I myself have heard a learned man of that epoch (since dead) seriously call himself a ‘laborer,’ in contradistine- tion to the orator-professors. The results obtained were such as might have been anticipated with this disposition of the public mind. Instruction by lectures was the chief aim: inde- pendent scientific work, although esteemed, was not obligatory, and was considered a matter to be left to personal predilection. There were, of course, exceptions to this rule. Thus, for instance, the faculty of natural science at the St. Petersburg university showed some signs of organic scientific life, even during this period. This, however, was a consequence of the continuous close relations between the university and the neighbor- ing academy, where science was practically cultivated, so to speak, by legal requirement. Some of the chairs of natural science in the university were occupied by academicians; others, by persons closely connected with the academy: for this reason we here find all the indications of a true scientific life. Besides the museums and the chemical laboratory, there were introduced into the university laboratories of some sort for other branches; some practical work in botany and zodlogy was required from the students; to a chosen few the physical laboratory of the acad- emy of science was open; and even the old chemist Solovyoff himself superintended the practical exer- cises of the students. Tsenkofsky’s teacher, Shi- khofsky, with the aid of a single microscope, had to instruct his pupils in making microscopic observa- tions; but he left behind him a pupil who has won a great reputation by his microscopic investigations. We see, then, that, during the generation preced- ing our own, the whole condition of university life was any thing but favorable to the development of naturalscience. Atthat time, even Germany, whence our learning has been derived, probably had not yet fully awakened to the idea, that, to properly fulfil their purpose of disseminating knowledge, univer- sities ought to be, not only institutions where science is rhetorically expounded, but also centres for devel- oping and advancing scientific work. The old and simple belief that teaching, as well as learning, can be made successful only through real work, did not SCIENCE. 197 secure a broad, practical recognition in Germany before the sixth decade of the present century, when rich laboratories for natural science came to be con- sidered indispensable attributes of a university. It is true that laboratories of some kind did exist in western Europe in former times; but their origin was due to local causes, accidental in character: they sprang up wherever a prominent worker in science had gathered pupils around him. The laboratories of our time have a much broader significance: as indis- pensable attributes of every university, they change the whole system of instruction; as institutions adapted to the practical working-out of scientific problems by many individual investigators, they superseded the closet of the student, and introduced to learners the very process of the building-up of science; as schools for practical instruction, labora- tories materially raise the level of education among the masses; as working-centres where science is ad- vanced, not by individual, but by united efforts, they materially increase the scientific productivity of the country. In Germany their importance is so fully recognized, that, even in universities of the second rank, hundreds of thousands of roubles are expended on the construction of laboratories in connection with the various chairs. Hence it will readily be perceived what an immense service was rendered Russian science by the reform of our universities in the seventh decade of our cen- tury, when laboratories were established in connec- tion with the faculties of medicine and of natural science, and provided with the necessary means, the staff of instructors being correspondingly increased. Another beneficent measure was the greater facility afforded private persons of leaving the country to study abroad, and the increased frequency with which the government sent young people abroad for the same purpose. Thislast measure, though long before in vogue by the universities for preparing their pro- fessors, at that time became even more necessary; for while, between 1848 and 1856, the ordering of students abroad had entirely ceased, by the new regu- lations the number of instructors was enlarged. I shall hardly err if I say that about one-half of the present professors in the faculties of medicine and of natural science have come from those young men who went abroad between 1856 and 1865. The increase in the number of workers in natural science during the period under discussion appears most clearly from the formation of societies of naturalists at the universities. In the preceding period there were but two such societies in existence in Russia, — the mineralogical society at St. Peters- burg, and the Moscow society of naturalists. At present there are, at the universities, seven societies of naturalists. Besides these, we have the Russian entomological society, and the societies at Yaroslavl, Ekaterinburg, Tashként, and Tiflis. General confirmation of this opinion, respecting the increase in the number of workers in natural science, is found in our periodical congresses of naturalists. After the first congress, societies of naturalists organ- ized at the universities; and the geological, zodlogi- 158 cal, and botanical sections of these societies began to send parties of investigators annually (usually for the summer) to all parts of Russia. Making the best of their limited means, they allowed a maximum of four hundred or five hundred roubles a person.! At the instance of the same societies, larger expe- ditions, subsidized by the government, were sent out into Turkestan (Fedchenko), into Khiva (Bogdanoff), into the Aralo-Caspian territory (Bogdanoff, Barbotte, Grimm, and Alenitsyn), to the Murman coast (Bog- danoff, with seven students), to the White Sea (Tsen- kofsky and Wagner), among the Altai (Nikolsky, Sokoloff, Polenoff, and Krasnoff). Russian names occur in the foreign literature of natural science, even during the preceding period, though they are very rare, and not often important. But about 1860, that is, when Russian students began to throng to foreign universities (chiefly German), a rapid increase is perceptible in the number of Rus- sian hames appearing as contributors to foreign journals; and this number is steadily maintained at a figure previously unheard of. Even if the produc- tions of these first years were often of an elementary character, they are nevertheless important as present- ing a striking proof of a fact hitherto unprecedented in Russia; viz., that, in the very beginning of the period under discussion, a considerable number of young Russians passed through a very thorough course of study. The importance of this fact is enhanced when we recollect that our young labora- tories drew their first supply of workers from those who, during this time, studied abroad. Everybody who has ever been at the head of a newly established laboratory, will, I think, agree that it requires years, even in the case of an experienced director, to prepare two or three students for inde- pendent research. Now, in our case, in the seventh decade of the present century, the difficulty was en- hanced by the fact that the management of labora- tories was still a novelty, and the students were ill prepared. It is therefore not to be wondered at, that individual scientific activity only clearly manifested itself in our laboratories long after their foundation. This scientific activity, however, now exists in almost all laboratories of our country; and it shows itself in this, — that the working-out of scientific problems is not restricted to the professors alone, who may, per- haps, be said to derive their learning from western Europe. The students of the local Russian labora- tories, also, now take part in this work. In former times it was impossible, with rare exceptions, for a Russian to become an independent scientific worker without going abroad to study: at present he can receive and complete his education at home. It may not be amiss to present, in illustration of this change, some particularly striking figures. Between 1830 and 1860, I do not recall a single special investigation in the branches of microscopic anatomy, physiology, and experimental pathology, 1 Each of these societies has a government subsidy of twenty- five hundred roubles (about fifteen hundred dollars), apart from the contributions of the members, the physico-chemical society alone receiving no subsidy. SCIENCE. [Vou. IIl., Now aay made by a university professor of pure Russian name, During the present period, i.e., in the course of the twenty years from 1863 to 1882 inclusive, more than six hundred and fifty investigations in these branches, by authors of pure Russian name, were published in foreign periodicals. From this number are excluded all Dorpat professors, and foreigners like Professor Gruber; also, probably, a number of Russians by birth and education, but bearing foreign names. . The most remarkable showing, however, is made by our chemists. During the fourteen years from 1869 to 1882 inclusive, the journal of the Russian physico-chemical society published six hundred and seventy investigations, not including those relating to applications of chemistry to pharmacy, technology, and medicine. Chemistry, having from the very outset of this period engaged the attention of such eminent workers as Zinin, Butleroff, Mendeléyeff, N. Beketoff, N. N. Sokoloff, and others, enjoyed a more rapid develop- ment than all other branches of natural science. For a long time it occupied among the sciences the first place; and this place it has succeeded in retaining. Just after the first congress of naturalists was held in 1867, the chemical (now physico-chemical) society was founded, with a journal for the publication of scientific researches; and this journal became the organ of Russian chemists. The investigations are thus first published in the Russian language; but the German, London, and Paris chemical societies regu- larly receive an account of them through special cor- responding members, and they are also reported to the Italian chemical gazette. How completely the work of Russian chemists is recognized in western Europe, will appear from the statement of an eminent English man of science: Frankland said, that in chemistry there are more independent investigations published in Russia than in England. Our chemists, how- ever, take the lead not by quantity alone: there are branches of chemistry in which they appear among the best specialists; and yet the principal represen- tatives of Russian chemistry are engaged in researches extending over the entire domain of chemical knowl- edge. The development of physics, from the very nature of things, could not keep pace with this rapid prog- ress, especially as there were hardly any well-trained scientific men at work in this branch at the beginning of our period. At present, physics numbers, among its independent leading workers, Petrushéfsky, Lenz, Stolétoff, Avenarius, Shvedoff, and others. — The scientific activity of our botanists proved ex- ceedingly fertile. At the beginning of our period, Tsenkofsky stands out eminent indeed, but alone: in the course of twenty-five years, his intellectual off- spring has become a family of seventy-five workers ; and of this number we may certainly assume that three-quarters grew up in the Russian school. Dur- ing the preceding period, Russian botanists were almost exclusively engaged in the study of local floras: at present, the study of botany has been spe- cialized into the branches of anatomy, physiology, development of plants, and botanical geography. In — JUNE 20, 1884.] anatomy, eighty-seven original researches appeared during this period; in physiology, a hundred and fifty-two. The number of special investigations in botanical geography during the last twenty years amounts to twenty, while the articles relating to local floras number about a hundred. During this period, zodlogy developed in two direc- tions: on the one hand, investigations of faunas, in- creasing considerably in quantity and quality, form a continuation of the preceding period; and, on the other hand, a new phase of zoological research is inaugurated by workers in the field of comparative anatomy, of animal histology, and of embryology. At the head of this last movement, fortunately, we find such exceedingly talented men and energetic workers as Kovaléfsky and Méchnikoff, who enjoy in Europe a reputation not less honorable than that of the principal representatives of our chemical school. This is the reason why the new movement not only soon extended over Russia generally, but gained a strong foothold; so that at present it has represen- tatives in every university, and unites the body of common workers into a Russian zodlogical school. A review of the development of mineralogy and geology in the universities during the last twenty-five years is embarrassed with two difficulties. In three of the six universities to which this article refers, the scientific workers of the previous epoch continue their activity into the present period. On the other hand, the mining-engineers, pari passu with the uni- versity-workers, begin to work zealously, and their common labors appear in the same publications. An over-nice discrimination of the work of the mining- engineers from the work done by the universities, will, however, be superfluous, when we reflect that the stimulation of scientific activity among the min- ing-engineers is primarily due to the same causes that infused new life into the universities themselves. These causes were the reforms in the mining-corps (now become a mining-institution) which were in the same direction as the new system of instruction in the natural science faculties. The increased activity among the mining-engineers, being a product of the same cause, merely fortifies by additional proof the leading idea of this article. From this point of view, the activity in mineralogy and geology will appear to have increased very considerably. Since 1869 the St. Petersburg mineralogical society has published thirteen volumes of ‘ Materials for the geology of Russia’ (in Russian). In the St. Petersburg society of naturalists alone, there were received two hundred and ten original communications from 1868 to 1882 inclusive; and, in the ‘ Index to Russian literature in mathematics and pure and applied science’ (in Rus- sian), we find enumerated two hundred and seventy- four works (pamphlets and books) on mineralogy and geology for the period 1873 to 1879. In addition, it should be mentioned that our present university geologists, by practical work, have transplanted to Russian soil the problem of prehistoric man, and the application of microscopy to the investigation of mineral species. Finally, as above mentioned, the sciences of micro- SCIENCE. 199 scopic anatomy and physiology began to be cultivated in Russia between 1860 and 1870. ‘The first to in- troduce them were the Dorpat professors, the late Yakubovich and Ovsiannikoff. They were followed by asuccession of Russian specialists who had studied abroad between 1855 and 1865. The following data will show to what extent these young sciences took root and thrived in Russia. When in Germany, be- tween 1870 and 1880, the composition of histological and physiological text-books was undertaken by col- laboration, our scientific men, being recognized as specialists, were asked to write certain parts of these works. Some of them complied with this request; as, for instance, Babikhin and the late Ivanoff. There are even names to which the honor belongs of having established new and important methods of research: to Khronshchéfsky, for instance, is due the method of transfusion. At the present day, there is hardly a branch of these two sciences that has not been more or less successfully attacked by Russian investigators ; and a large proportion of their work has been done at home. Such is a general outline of the results obtained by our universities in natural science, thanks to the reforms introduced in the seventh decade of our century. In reality they are even greater than here represented, since the data at my disposition do not include every thing actually accomplished. Is not this ample evidence that the naturalists of our univer- sities have commendably improved their opportunity, and honorably fulfilled the task imposed on them? Not to speak of the industrial and other material ad- vantages always following the development of natural science in a country, the mere fact that this develop- ment exists is of great importance from an intellec- tual point of view, especially for novices in civilization, like ourselves. The appearance of science always marks the cul- minating-point in intellectual development: it is always and everywhere the surest touchstone of the capacity of a race for the highest culture. When a race has successfully undergone this test, it at once takes its place among civilized nations. When re- cently we mourned Turgiéneff, it was justly pointed out as one of his merits, that his work had fostered the intellectual commerce of Russians with the west. Did not our naturalists do the same? It must, however, be confessed, that, in spite of all this, we are still novices in science, and our young plantations require assiduous care. The experience of twenty-five years has demonstrated that the con- ditions favorable to development are to be sought in the establishment of laboratories, and in the increase of the staff of instructors. These conditions of prog- ress, therefore, must be extended in the future, as is done in western Europe, or they must at least be maintained. RECENT LINGUISTIC RESEARCHES. ‘'TOPONOMASTICS,’ or the analysis of geographic names, is a branch of linguistics, which, on account of the large material and numerous publications accu- 760 mulating on the subject, should be considered a science by itself. Attempts to explain certain topographic ap- pellations are found in some of the earliest writings of antiquity. Linguists and historians of prominence have always paid peculiar attention to this field of research, for no object has been named by early man without causes. Professor Egli of Zurich, who pre- viously composed a voluminous book in furtherance of these studies (Nomina geographica, Leipzig, 1880), ° has just presented us with a bibliographic history of local onomatology.!. Egli mentions over four hun- dred authors who have written, either exclusively or incidentally, on this instructive branch of knowledge, and subdivides their writings into four periods. The first of these extends from the earliest centuries down to 1815; the second, from 1815 to 1840; the third, from 1840 to 1860; and the last one, from 1860 to 1870. In the researches made upon American Indian locality-names, no author is more prominent than J. H. Trumbull. In another article, Egli has discussed the co-operation of Swiss scientific men in furthering local onomatology (1884). An inquiry into the historic tribe of the Susque- hannocks and the origin of the name Susquehanna has been published by Abraham L. Guss in the His- torical register of Harrisburg, Penn. (and also issued separately), under the title ‘Early Indian history on the Susquehanna.’ The Virginia map of Capt. John Smith of 1606 is added to the treatise, and is of the highest importance for the early topography of these countries. The author, after a careful exami- nation of the passages which refer to the early settle- ments on Susquehanna River, takes the ground, that the tribe in question was of the Iroquois stock, but that the name of the river is Algonkin, and has to be rendered by ‘ brook-stream,’ or ‘ spring-water stream.’ A publication of no little interest, since it refers to an almost unknown language, is that of the Chipe- wayan-Tinné legend of the serpent-woman, by Emile F. S. Petitot. It is given in the original Chipewayan, with a French translation, by the Paris periodical Melusine (vol. ii. no. i., 1884, col. 19-21). The same interesting number also contains all the names of the rainbow of which the author could obtain any knowl- edge, together with explanations and myths referring to this phenomenon of nature. Mr. John Menaul, teacher at the Laguna Pueblo of New Mexico, which speaks a Kéra dialect, is busy printing a Laguna-English catechism on his mission- ary press. Mrs. A. E. W. Robertson has just pub- lished her translation of the two epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians into Creek, or Maskoki, through the American Bible society of New York (1883). Prior to this, she had translated almost the whole New Testament, with the help of instructed natives. Ten articles previously made public by the Ameri- canist, Count Hyacinth de Charencey, have been gathered by him ina reprint entitled ‘Mélanges de philologie et de paléographie américaines’ (Paris, Leroux, 1883. 195 p. 8°). They all refer to Mexican 1 J.J. Egli. Ein beitrag zur geschichte der geographischen namenlehre. Wien, H6lzel, 1883. 106 p. 8°. (Zeitschrift /. wissensch. geographie, vol. iv.) SCIENCE. [Vou. I Nowe and Central-American languages, or to the deci- pherment of the calculiform Maya characters, the signification of which is still a riddle. The more noteworthy of the purely linguistic articles are those on the Sonorian group (called by him, curiously enough, the Chichimec family); on the Chiapanec, Tzotzil, Tzendal, and Cakgi; on the phonetic laws observed in the Maya family, which is called by him Mam-Huaxtec family in this article, but afterwards Maya-Quiché. Count de Charencey is one of the most active living investigators of the Indian languages, and deserves great credit for the ingenious manner by which he is prompting his countrymen to pursue these studies. But the whole attention of Europe being now directed towards the new discoveries in Africa and in parts of Asia, it seems that the time -has not come yet for a general revival of American- istic studies in Europe. The study of jargons, or mixed languages, is a spe- cialty to which Professor Hugo Schuchardt, the Ro- manist, has been devoting himself for many years. His results are published from time to time in the Proceedings of the philosophic-historic section of the Vienna academy of sciences. Three of the latest are on the Malayo-Spanish jargon of the Philippine Islands, on the English of Melanesia, and on the Indo-Portuguese of Mangalore. Schuchardt’s series is published under the heading ‘ Kreolische studien,’ and contains a large number of native songs, and other instructive specimens of the jargons spoken of. Translations are not always added to these pieces, because the majority of linguists can do without them. A handy manual of Chinese grammar has recently been published in German by Georg von der Gabe- lentz, professor of oriental languages at Leipzig uni- versity.! It forms an extract, in succinct form, from the grammar published by the same sinologist two years before. The book isa safe guide through the intricacies of that monosyllabic language, in the ac- quisition of which, contrary to other languages, the judgment of the learner is put to greater activity than the memory. Twenty pages suffice to impart the elements of Chinese writing; and a short apercu of the literary history of the country is added to the volume. To the Chinese words and quotations is added throughout a transcription into Roman char- acters. A short scientific sketch of the Khasia language, spoken in the drainage-basin of the Brahmaputra River, eastern India, is given by A. de la Calle in the Revue de linguistique of Paris (1884, pp. 24-40). This article mainly consists of classified extracts from Abel Hovelacque’s study of the same language, published three years since in the same periodical. Both show that Khasia holds a middle position between the iso- lating and the agglutinative languages, and that the majority of its terms are restricted to one syllable only. The same number of this review concludes a bibli- ography of Basque folk-lore by Julien Vinson, its 1 Anfangsgriinde der chinesischen grammatik mit Ubungs- stiicken. Leipzig, Weigel, 1883. 8+150p. 8°. JUNE 20, 1884, ] editor. This periodical devotes special attention to the study of the Basque dialects, traditions, and lit- erature. The tribes of northern and north-western Australia, of which so little is known, have been sketched by Edward Palmer in the Journal of the anthropologi- cal institute, 1884, pp. 276-334. His article contains statements which evidently come from an experienced traveller. Nine tribes are described as to their physi- eal and social characteristics, cannibalism, food, cook- ing and hunting, weapons, manufactures, amuse- ments, superstitions, bora-ceremonies, funerals, etc. The chapter on gentes, or, as Palmer calls them, class-systems, brings together a large amount of new facts; and the seven vocabularies concluding the paper extend over more thana hundred and sixty terms. A. S. GATSCHET. MODERN RAIL-MAKING. THE making of steel rails consists of three distinct processes: the production of cast-iron from the ore; converting the cast-iron into steel in a Bessemer con- verter, and casting it into ingots; and rolling out the ingots into rails. According to the most recent prac- tice, these operations follow each other so closely as to seem almost one. Cast-iron is obtained from iron ore by reducing the ore in a blast-furnace with coke for fuel, and lime- stone as a flux to facilitate the reduction. The blast- furnace consists of an approximately cylindrical iron structure about seventy-five feet high, lined with bricks of refractory material, leaving an internal diameter of about twenty feet. A similarly lined bottom is securely fastened on, but can be removed forrepairs. The top is closed by a cone-shaped cover suspended inside of the top of the furnace, which is here reduced in diameter. This cone is held in place by a lever and counter-weight. Airis supplied under pressure by blowing-engines, which are simply large alr-compressing pumps, through openings, or tuyéres, near the bottom of the furnace. The hot gases of combustion escape through openings near the top of the furnace, and are conducted away by pipes and underground conduits,—part to heat the boilers, which supply steam to the blowing-engines; and part to ‘stoves,’ to heat the air-blast on its way from the engines to the furnace. These stoves consist of a number of up-and-down passages built in fire-brick. Gas from the furnace is burned in one of them until it is highly heated; then the gas is turned into a cool stove, and the air-blast forced through the hot one. The iron ore, as received from the mines, is stored in a large yard, each kind of ore occupying a specified place. The coke is stored in a large and high shed, into which it is unloaded from cars run in on over- head railroad-tracks. Supposing the blast-furnace to be in operation, the ore, limestone, and coke are loaded in hand-carts, as required; hoisted on an ele- vator to the charging-floor, which is on a level with the top of the furnace; and dumped upon the cone cover before mentioned. When the requisite number of loads of each kind of material is deposited on it, SCIENCE. | 761 the cone is lowered for an instant, and the charge slides over its edge into the furnace. ‘The ore is re- duced, forming iron, which sinks by its weight to the bottom of the furnace, and a glassy slag containing most of the impurities, which floats on the top of the iron. The molten iron is drawn off through an open- ing at the bottom of the furnace, and, flowing through a channel in the sand floor, runs into a cup-shaped ladle holding between five and ten tons. ‘This ladle is mounted on a narrow-gauge car on a track which leads to the converter. This completes the first stage of the process. If the iron drawn from the blast- furnace were run into channels on a sand floor, and allowed to cool, it would be the ordinary form of cast- iron known as pig-iron. The converter, which is the essential feature of the Bessemer process of making steel, consists of a cylin- drical iron casing, on which is placed a tapering por- tion, connecting it to a nozzle of smaller diameter. This nozzle is inclined at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the cylindrical part. The whole casing encloses a thick lining of highly refractory material. The bottom is double, the upper part being made of material like the lining, and pierced with numerous small holes, through which the air is forced in. The converter is supported on two hollow trunnions, through which the blast is supplied, and led by pipes to the double bottom. We will suppose that the con- verter has been heated, and is ready for a charge. The ladle of molten iron from the blast-furnace is drawn by a locomotive on an elevated track to a point a few feet above and in line with the converter. The latter is turned on its trunnions until the iron is readily poured into it from the ladle, through the nozzle or mouth. The blast of air is turned on ata pressure increasing to twenty-five pounds per square inch, and the converter turned upright. Rapid com- bustion takes place, the principal impurities in the iron are first attacked and burned out, the free or uncombined carbon burns next, then the combined carbon begins to leave the iron, and shortly a nearly pure iron is left in the converter. It is now turned as before, and the blast stopped: if continued, the iron itself would be oxidized. This portion of the process usually occupies about ten minutes, although some ores do not require over six, and twenty may be necessary with others. In the mean time, an iron rich in carbon and manganese, called spiegeleisen, has been melted in a cupola resembling the blast-furnace. A definite quantity, determined by experience and analysis, has been run into a car-ladle; and, as the converter is turned at the end of the ‘blow,’ this car is drawn out on the track before mentioned, and the spiegeleisen poured into the converter. This is to replace, to a certain extent, the carbon burned out during the blow; the quantity being exactly determined by the quality of steel required, according to the general principle that the more carbon added, the harder is the product. The converter is now turned down; and the molten steel, which may be as much as ten tons, is poured from the nozzle into a ladle. This ladle is mounted on a hydraulic crane which stands 7162 in the centre of a pit about five feet deep, called the ingot-pit. Around the circumference of this pit are arranged the cast-iron ingot-moulds, and the steel is drawn off from the ladle into them. A sample from each charge is tested by bending, punching, etc., and by analysis; so that an exact record is kept of each ten tons of steel. After a short interval, the ingot- moulds are lifted off: the ingots, which are approxi- mately four feet long and twelve inches square, are taken from the pit, and loaded on cars, to be taken to the rail-mill. Thus far the methods are almost iden- tical for all kinds of Bessemer-steel work. The ingots arrive in the rail-mill at a dull red-heat on the outside, while the interior is at a much higher temperature. ‘They are therefore placed in gas re- heating-furnaces until at a uniform temperature, at which they can be easily worked. Following the course of one ingot, it is taken on a truck from the reheating-furnace to the rolls between which it is to be passed, and to emerge a long, perfectly shaped rail. The rolls are of cast-iron, and are in two sets, —the roughing-rolls and finishing-rolls. The first set con- sists of three rolls placed in a vertical row, and turn- ing in a strong frame at each end. The ingot, or bloom as it is now called, is passed between the lower and middle rolls near one end, and is reduced in sec- tion, and lengthened. The platform on which it now rests is raised, and the bar is sent back between the middle and top rolls. The platform is lowered again; and, as it descends, a row of iron fingers, projecting up from beneath it, turns the bar, and moves it toward the middle of the rolls. Thus it is sent, through and up, back and down, moved from one end of the rolls to the other, being thereby reduced in section and correspondingly lengthened, until it finally leaves the roughing-rolls, having the approxi- mate shape of a very large rail. As this bar goes through the roughing-rolls for the last time, another bloom is put on, and goes through for the first time at the other end of the rolls. Without a pause, the bar is carried along on revolving-rollers in a direct line to the finishing-rolls. ‘These are two-high and re- versing; being rotated first in one direction, and then in the other. The shape of the spaces between them is such that the last passage of the bar gives it the form and size of section required in the finished rail. After being sent through these rolls the necessary number of times, the finished rail-bar passes on in a direct line, as before, until it reaches a circular saw, which is swung up against it, and the rough or scrap end sawed off. The saw is swung to one side, and the bar moved along until the cut end comes against a stop-plate, which is at a distance equal to the length of one rail from the saw; and a slight motion of the saw cuts off the length. ‘The stop-plate is swung to one side, and the rail is carried along to a large plat- form formed of rails laid at right angles to its direc- tion. The rail is seized between a curved bar and a row of iron fingers which rise from beneath the plat- form or ‘ hot-bed,’ and is bent. This is necessary in order that the rail shall be approximately straight when cold, as on account of the irregular shape of its section, if straight when hot, it would bend in SCIENCE. [Vou. III., No. 72. | cooling. After being bent, the rail is slid by the curved bar to either end of the hot-bed, where it is left to cool. When cool, any curves in its length are removed under a press; the rough edges left by the saw are removed with hammer, chisel, and file; the holes for the joints are drilled at both ends simul- taneously; and it is loaded on a car close at hand, ready for shipment. Each ingot makes four rails with two scrap-ends. The rail-bar, as it leaves the finishing-rolls, is thus about one hundred and twenty-two feet long. ‘The weight of rail is regulated by adjusting the distance between the finishing-rolls, and gauging the length of the ingot in the mould. A different form of cross- section, of course, necessitates a change of finishing- rolls. From the time the ore is melted in the blast- furnace, until the rail is left on the hot-bed to cool, the temperature of the metal does not fall below that of a red-heat. ARTHUR T. Woops. THE GEOLOGICAL RELATIVES OF KRA- KATOA AND ITS LATE ERUPTION. Topographische en geologische beschrijving van een gedeelte van Sumatra’s westkust. Door R. D. M. VERBEEK. Batavia, Landsdrukkery (Amsterdam, Stemler), 1883. 204674 p. 8°. Atlas of maps, and portfolio of plates. [Our figures, 1, 2, are from this work, with slight alteration. ] Kort verslag over de uitbarsting van Krakatau op 26, 27, en 28 Augustus. Door R. D. M. VERBEEK. Batavia, Landsdrukkerij, 1884. Ir happens well, that, just after the attention of the scientific world is called to the Dutch East Indies by the eruption of last August, there should be published an important work on the geology of a part of Sumatra, in which the re- lations and structure of the great Javanese and Sumatran chain of voleanoes are described with much thoroughness. We must congratu- late Mr. Verbeek on the opportune appearance of his volume and atlas on ‘ Sumatra’s west- kust,’ as well as on his prompt action in gathering material for a history of the outburst of Krakatoa, of both of which we can give but too brief a mention in this notice. Introductory to these reports, one should read over K. Martin’s review of the present knowledge of East-Indian geology,’ which con- tains in an appendix a list of forty-seven publi- cations on the subject; or the brief statements of the question by Verbeek himself that have been prepared for recent exhibitions ;* and, in 1 Die wichtigsten daten unserer geol. kenntniss vom neder- liindisch Ost-indischen Archipel. Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-, en volkenkunde van Neerlandsch-Indié, 1883. : 2 Descriptive catalogue of rocks, coal, and ores from the Dutch East-Indian Archipelago, prepared for the Melbourne international exhibition, 1880. (Batavia, Kolff.) Géologie des Indes néerlandaises, prepared for the international exhibition at Amsterdam, 1883. JUNE 20, 1884.] the same connection, one should consult Ver- beek’s earlier report on southern Sumatra, which contains descriptions of Krakatoa itself before the eruption.? . Fig. 1 is taken from a series of generalized profiles illustrating the geological history of Sumatra. .Archaean rocks are nowhere seen. 3 ee : ee " eri 13 a cS as Es sees 2 = Be oe ‘ aS $9 c i ae ee 5 iS ) EN Y S| ar: OO ee = 4 S SS Old slates. Old slates. S.W. Fie. 1. The oldest members of the series are non-fos- siliferous slates and limestones, in places hold- ing quartz veins that are sometimes aurifer- ous, and cut by eruptives of the granitic group : these are overiaid by limestones, well proved to be of carboniferous age, cut by diabasic eruptives. Mesozoic strata are absent, im- plying a general elevation to a broad land- surface, followed in eocene time by depression again, during which workable coals were formed. ‘There are other tertiary strata, such as the miocene beds of the small islands to the south-west, succeeded by broad quaternary deposits over the lowlands. ‘The early tertiary eruptives (basalt and hornblende andesite) are relatively scarce, and are but dwarfs among the gigantic cones that have been heaped up since the end of tertiary time. ‘These are chiefly augite andesite, mostly in the form of ashes and sand, holding larger blocks, but sometimes as dikes or lava-flows. They reach almost 3,000 metres altitude, flattening from a slope of 30° or 35° at the summit, to an almost level plain at the base, with a curve of descent that is shown to be closely logarithmic in its form. Krakatoa (here called Rakata) is one of these cones, standing on the most south-eastern transverse group of the great range of Suma- tran volcanoes, of which sixty-six are given in a list, and seven among them (not including Krakatoa) are marked active. A considerable share of attention is given to lithology ; and on the atlas sheets, the different classes of eruptive rocks are distinguished. ‘There are also spe- cial descriptions of the several craters formed 1 Topographische en geologische beschrijving van Zuid-Su- matra. Door R. D. M. VERBEEK (215 p., with geological map, profiles, etc.); Jaarboek van het mijnwezen in nederlandsch Oost-Indié, 1°, 1881. Our figures, 5, 6, 8, are from this work. SCIENCE. } 763 successively about the great volcanic centres, —as on the summit of Merapi (fig. 2, ideal section), where four concentric walls, almost unbroken, stand one within the other, a gi- gantic cone-in-cone structure,—and also of the formation of volcanic lakes, from the small ones in the well-preserved craters, to the large basins of Maniendjoe (100 O kilometres in area), the result of a central caving-in of a great volcano whose remains are seen in the surrounding Danan Gebergte, or Lake Mountains; and the still larger Singkarah (112 oO kilometres), formed by eccentric subsidence. The theory illustrated by von Hochstetter! is quoted to account for the mechanism of these changes. His figures are therefore here repro- Basalt. 2/ Granitic rocks. Old slates. N.E. duced, with slight alteration, as of additional Fig. 2. value from their acceptance by an observer practised in the study of volcanic phenomena on the largest scale. Fig. 3 shows the effect of continued eruption in melting the interior part of the cone previously formed: the vol- cano is here active. Fig. 4 shows the falling- ~ ote ee, in of the cone when the molten interior is blown out, or allowed to sink, and, in this 1 Ueber den inneren bau der vulkane. Neues jahrb., 1871, 469. 764 form, is applicable to the Oeloe-Danan vol- cano, shown in true proportions in fig. 5 (scale, 1: 20,000), or to Maniendjoe, and Fig. 5. probably to Krakatoa: the volcano in this stage is dormant for a longer or shorter period. A renewal of eruptive action would build a new cone within the circular walls remaining from Fie. 6. the old cone, like Vesuvius in Somma, or like the Vogelsang crater in the old Kaba cone, seen across the lower slope of the neighboring Tjoendoeng volcano in fig. 6: this has been three times repeated in Merapi, fig.2. Finally, fig. 7 represents the molten interior, neither thrown out nor drained away, but allowed to stand and cool slowly into a solid crystalline mass, revealed in part by subsequent erosion : such a volcano is definitely extinct. Long Is. Mr. Verbeek shows himself to be one of the not very numerous geological writers who ap- preciate the needs of their readers. His reports SCIENCE. Fig. [Vor. III, No. 72. open with brief abstracts of their results, from which these notes are in large part taken. On reading his abstracts, a general idea of the whole work is gained; then, by fol- lowing the well-prepared table of contents, any special topic is easily discovered for closer study. ‘The whole volume is very simply writ- ten, and well printed: it lacks only page-headings and index. The at- las sheets, on a scale of 1 :100,000, are prepared with satisfactory neat- ness; but their topography is not SO expressive as one might wish, nor are the profiles near enough a natural scale: but, apart from this, the work is most creditable to the Dutch colonial de- partment. . The preliminary report on the eruption of Krakatoa gives a brief account of the results of the author’s seventeen-days’ trip in the region of the disaster, combined with general records of other observers. Itis dated Buiten- zorg, Feb. 19, 1884. The knowledge of the island before the eruption is based on the English and Dutch surveys, whose outline- maps have of late been frequently reproduced, and on sketches by Buijsken in 1849, and the author in 1880 (fig. 8). The northern, low- est summit threw out pumice in 1680, and, after two centuries’ rest, began work again in May, 1883, continuing with irregular activity till Danan, the middle summit, joined it in the cn Rakata. Old lava. Vorlaten Ia. Danan. 8. — KRAKATOA FROM THE NORTH. eo great explosions of August. ‘The original area was 3340 kilometres, of which 23 sank; leay- ing water 200 to 3800 metres deep, except where a single rock rises 5 metres above the sea-surface. The remaining 100 kilometres — the background of fig. 8 — grew to 153 by ad- dition of ashes on the south and south-west. In the same way, Long Island increased from 2.9 to 3.2; and Verlaten (Deserted) Island, from 3.7 to 11.8 nm kilometres. All these accumulations were made of ashes and dust; for, although molten lava doubtless existed in the crater, there were no overflowing lava- streams. The greater share of the erupted material fell within 15 kilometres of the island, — JUNE 2), 1884.] where it attained depths of from 20 to 40 metres ; rising even to 60 or 80 metres on the flanks of Rakata (corrupted to Krakatau), the southern and highest part (822 metres) of the island. Fragments the size of a fist were thrown 40 kilometres from the volcano. Be- tween Krakatoa and Sebesi, to the north, the ashes and pumice filled the sea at two points, forming low islands (Steers and Calmeijer), which have already been much broken and degraded by the waves. ‘The sixteen little craters reported near where these islands stand have had no existence: they were only smoking heaps of ashes. The precise hours of the heaviest explosions were not determined directly, but were based on the self-registering pressure-gauge of the gasometer in Batavia, as there was no self- registering barometer there. Making seven minutes allowance for the time of air-wave passage from the volcano to the gauge, the most violent eruptive action occurred at 5.35, 6.50, 10.5 (maximum), 10.55 a.m., Aug. 27, Batavia time. It was these air-shocks that were felt by barometers all around the world. In the May eruption, sounds were heard 230 to 270 Inlometres ; but in August the noise of the ex- plosions was audible 3,300 kilometres from the island, or within a circle of 30° radius, equal- ling one-fifteenth of the earth’s surface. The sounds spread irregularly ; and it is suggested that the wind and the ashes in the air had much to do with the silence at points near which the eruption was distinctly heard. The eruption of Tomboro in 1815 was heard only half this distance; but the quantity of its ejected material (calculated from a correction of Junghuhn’s data) was eight to eleven fold that thrown from Krakatau, which Verbeek determines to be close to 18 cubic kilometres. Two-thirds of this fell within 15 kilometres of its origin, as will be shown on an ashes-map, to be published in the final report. ‘The ashes contain from sixty to seventy per cent of silica. Under the microscope, they show, 1°, glass in small, porous, irregular fragments; 2°, plagio- clase felspar, with inclusions of glass, apatite, augite, and magnetite ; 3°, pyroxene, probably rhombic as well as monoclinal, with inclusions of glass, apatite, and magnetite; 4°, mag- netite in grains and octahedrons; this is the oldest component, and decreases in quantity on receding from the island. ‘The great ten- o’ clock wave, which it is thought resulted from the falling-in of the northern part of the island, following the most violent explosion, rose to heights of 30 and 35 metres on some of the neighboring coasts, and destroyed more than SCIENCE. 765 thirty-five thousand people. Maps, tables, and drawings are in preparation for a more detailed report; and this, in connection with the report we may expect from the sun-set committee of the Royal society, will form a most entertaining addition to the already in- teresting literature of volcanoes. STOKES’S LECTURES ON LIGHT. Burnett lectures on light. First course, on the nature of light. By GrorcGr GABRIEL SToKEs. Lon- don, Macmillan, 1884. 9+133 p. 24°. Tuis little book consists of lectures delivered at Aberdeen in November, 1883. They have their origin in an interesting manner, which is, perhaps, possible only in Great Britain. Just a century ago John Burnett, a merchant of Aberdeen, bequeathed a fund to establish prizes for theological essays. These prizes, a first and second, were to be competed for once in forty years; and awards have been made on two occasions since the foundation. In 1881, however, a new direction to the foun- dation was given by order of the secretary of state for the home department, in which it was provided that a lecturer should be appointed at intervals of five years, to hold office for three years. The subjects to be treated are, 1°, his- tory ; 2°, archeology ; 3°, physical science ; 4°, natural science. Professor Stokes was chosen as the first lecturer. The lectures are unique, as far as our knowl- edge extends, in the effort to present the higher portions of optics without the employment of experimental demonstrations, diagrams, or mathematical language. Whether the knowledge assumed in the reader, which does not include any thing of the theory or phenomena of interference, dif- fraction, double refraction, or polarization, is sufficient to enable him to understand every thing contained in the lectures, is problemati- cal. But, at any rate, to those better equipped, the book gives a most concise and interesting review of the history of optics. A personal reminiscence of a conversation with Sir David Brewster (p. 15), the last great champion of the theory of emission, just after his return from Paris, where he had witnessed Foucault’s crucial experiment regarding the velocity of light in air and in water, is highly interesting ; for it shows us the singular motive which pre- vented even so acute a mind as Brewster’s from yielding to overwhelming evidence: ‘‘ he was staggered by the idea, in limine, of filling space with some substance merely in order 766 that ‘ that little twinkling star,’ as he expressed himself, should be able to send its light to us.”’ Noteworthy is Professor Stokes’s opinion (p. 83) of the astonishing conclusions of Young and Forbes as to the varying velocities of propagation of different wave-lengths in vacuum; for his doubts as to their validity seem founded only upon the fact that the con- clusions depend upon the judgment of the eye of a single observer. We shall await with interest the publication of the next year’s course, which is to be devoted to researches in which light has been used as a means of investigation. The third year’s course will ‘‘ be assigned to light considered in relation to its beneficial effects.’’ NOURSE’S AMERICAN EXPLORATION IN THE ICE-ZOUNES. American exploration in the ice-zones (etc.), prepared chiefly from official sources. By Prof. J. E. NourseE, U.S.N. Boston, Lothrop, 1884. 578 p., illustr., maps. 8°. Tue work of Professor Nourse does not pro- fess to be, and is not in any sense, a study of the results of arctic exploration performed by Americans, or of the relation of American ex- plorations to explorations made by the people of other nations. It is simply a collection of narratives of the different expeditions, — gotten up, like the stock compilations, by hack-writers, — which are published on various subjects from time to time. It is a book undeserving of high praise, either in its contents or its make-up. The only thing which redeems it from perfect mediocrity is the fact that it contains some data in relation to the North Pacific exploring expedition, under Rodgers, the report of which still remains unpublished, and a few facts from 3+ SCIENCE. - [Vou. III., No. 72. Hooper’s report of his voyage in the Corwin in 1881, the original of which has not been made public. The record is complete only for the naval and military expeditions. Those of the tele- graph explorers, 1865-68, are not even men- tioned, though much of their work was in really arctic regions; and the indirect results of their explorations have added one-seventh of its area to the present United States, and have contributed at least one hundred titles to geographical bibliography. The travels of Kennicott and others in the Hudson-Bay re- gion, of Nelson in northern Alaska, the work of the coast-survey in and north of Bering Strait in 1880, are left to other chroniclers. We presume this may be accounted for by the fact that the investigations referred to, and their value, are familiar only to students, spe- cialists, and geographers, and not easy of access to the mere compiler. From a literary point of view, the work is open to severe criticism. The thread of the narrative is frequently broken for the most trivial digressions, which are pursued at great length. The misprints are numerous, and gen- erally of that objectionable kind which con- fuses the sense, without being obyious to the ordinary reader. ‘Trifling matters are detailed at length, while more important ones are omit- ted. In spite of all this, the book will be attrac- tive to youthful readers who are not critics, and enjoy unfamiliar details, and to whom the really weightier matters are not important. It is fully illustrated by cuts drawn from Rink, Bessels, Hall, Hayes, and various government publica- tions, and is accompanied by the worst map of the cireumpolar regions which we have ever encountered. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. U. & geological survey. Paleontology. — Mr. C. D. Walcott has prepared the manuscript for a report on the St. John fauna of New Brunswick, contained in the Hartt collection. It is ready for publication as a bulletin of the survey, and only awaits the completion of the drawings illus- trating it to go to press. During April the collection of Devonian fossils from the Hamilton group of New York was trans- ferred to the U.S. national museum, and recorded. The collection was made about Moravia, N.Y., by Mr. Cooper Curtice, during a portion of the field sea- son of 1888. It also included a quantity of specimens collected by Mr. Curtice prior to his becoming a mem- ber of the geological survey. ‘The collection consisted of fifteen hundred and seventy-seven specimens, con- taining sixty-two genera and a hundred and eigh- teen species. Dr. C. A. White, during May, was occupied mainly with the examination of fossils forwarded from Cali- fornia by Mr. G. F. Becker, and in preparatory study for his proposed work in the mesozoic and cenozoic areas of California during the coming season. Dr. White started for California the 2d of June, and will probably take the field first in the Clear Lake region, and make a section towards the coast. JUNE 20, 1884.] Mr. J. B. Marcou has about completed the sorting and arranging of the type specimens in the National museum, and will soon take the field. He will devote his time to the study of the mesozoic and tertiary formations along the Atlantic coast, especially in _ New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and possibly in North Carolina, beginning in New Jersey. Prof. L. C. Johnson has assorted and labelled all of his collections made last season, so as to show the localities from which they were obtained, and the geological horizons which they represent. He has now left for Mississippi, where he will begin to col- lect in the cretaceous and in the older tertiary. Prof. William M. Fontaine is still engaged in the study, classification, and description of the fossil plants from the younger mesozoic strata, and in the preparation of drawings in illustration of his work. Prof. H. S. Williams reports progress in his work of elahorating the material collected by him, and in writing his report upon the comparative study of the Devonian faunas of western New York. U. &. signal-office, The progress of tornado investigation.1—In the study of tornadoes it has become necessary to under- take something more than a simple record of their occurrence, or an occasional investigation of those that are attended with unusual destruction to life and property. A practical knowledge of the nature of these destructive storms is a matter of the utmost importance to the inhabitants of certain sections of the country; and not least among the objects aimed at by the chief signal-officer, in directing the continu- ance of tornado investigation, is to allay any need- less anxiety or fear on the part of those people living in the regions most frequented by these storms. Methods of observation based on reports from sta- tions situated from one hundred to two hundred miles apart, as in the case of cyclones and hurri- canes, are inadequate to develop the mysteries of the funnel-shaped tornado-cloud. As a consequence, therefore, a new plan was de- vised, based on the result of special investigations in 1882 and 1883, by means of which it is now sought to study more intimately the origin, character, fre- quency, and geographical distribution of tornadoes. To inaugurate the details of the proposed system of work, it became necessary to establish a corps of ob- servers, whose duty should be to report the occur- rence of tornadoes, and make examinations of their paths and various phenomema; for which purpose special definite instructions are issued. The observers are called tornado reporters, and now number about eight hundred. Their stations are mostly located in the states of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Lilinois, Indiana, lowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. These are the states in which tor- nadoes are of most frequent occurrence: and this dis- tribution limits our study to certain states, and even certain portions of a single state; for there are por- 1 Communicated by permission of the chief signal-ofiicer, U,S. army. SCIENCE. 767 tions of some states that are frequently visited, and other portions seldom, if ever, visited by tornadoes. In the regions of greatest frequency the stations num- ber from one to three in each county, depending upon its size. Tornado reporters, in return for their voluntary contributions, are supplied with the tornado publica- tions of the signal-service; they are also furnished with the material necessary for the proper record and mailing of observations and reports. Reports are forwarded to the chief signal-officer as soon as possible after the occurrence of a tornado, and consist of detailed descriptions, instrumental ob- servations, photographs, diagrams, charts, and illus- trations. ' While attention is mainly given to the examination and report of tonadoes for the current year, each re- porter is instructed to work up the past history of these storms in his state, making careful search after any facts relating to windfalls, or other traces of past tornadoes. Some of the results sought to be attained by the above method of investigation may be briefly given as follows: 1°, to determine the origin of tornadoes, and their relation to other atmospheric phenomena; 2°, to determine the geographical dis- tribution of tornadoes, and their relative frequency of occurrence in different states, and in different parts of the same state; 8°, to determine the conditions of formation with a view to the prediction of tor- nadoes; 4°, to determine the means of protection for life and property; 5°, to determine the periodi- city of the occurrence of tornadoes, and their relative frequency by seasons, months, parts of month, and time of day; 6°, to determine the prevailing char- acteristics of tornadoes; 7°, to determine the relation of tornado regions to areas of barometric minimum. A review of the past year gives the following as some of the principal results: — 1°. That there is a definite portion of an area of low pressure within which the conditions for the develop- ment of tornadoes is most favorable; and this has been called the ‘dangerous octant.’ 2°. That there is a definite relation between the position of tornado regions and the region of high contrasts in temperature, the former lying to the south and east. 3°. That there is a similar definite relation of position of tornado regions and the region of high contrasts in dew-point; the former being, as before, to the south and east. 4°, That the position of tornado regions is to the south and east of the region of high contrasts of cool northerly and warm southerly winds,—a rule that seems to follow from the preceding, and is of use when observations of temperature and dew-point are not accessible. 5°. The relation of tornado regions to the move- ment of upper and lower clouds has been studied, and good results are still hoped for. 6°. The study of the relation of tornado regions to the form of barometric depressions seems to show that tornadoes are more frequent when the major axis of the barometric troughs trend north and south, 768 or north-east and south-west, thai when they trend east and west. 7°, Tornado predictions have been made a matter of daily study since the 10th of March, 1884; and the average up to June 1 shows that it has been possible on fifty-five days to successfully predict from the morning weather-map that no tornado would occur RECENT PROCEEDINGS Trenton natural-history society. June 10. — Mr. F. A. Lucas described the building- habits of some birds. The cat-bird seems indifferent as to locality, building ten feet from the ground, or quite as often in a tangle of weeds within eighteen inches of the surface. The song-sparrow’s nest is small and delicate, resting on the ground, often in a slight depression, which makes it very inconspicuous. Dr. C. C. Abbott remarked on crayfish; also on a catfish new to the locality, and on field-mice. He had taken the meadow-mouse (Arvicola riparia) from a dead log, where it had hollowed a nest, lining it with hay and a few feathers; also from driftwood into which it had tunnelled. The food seems to be chiefly seeds, although it is probably carnivorous at times. Under the loose bark of decaying, prostrate trees, the white-footed mouse (Hesperomys leucopus) is occa- sionally found, although it usually makes a home in a thicket of briers or a deserted bird’s nest. The favorite food is unfledged birds. They are much afraid of snakes. They beat a hasty retreat when a dead snake is placed near the nest; but when con- vinced, by cautious examination, that the intruder is harmless, they bravely devour it. —— Prof. A. C. Apgar remarked on some rare plants: Vicia Ameri- cana, Muhl., never before observed in New Jersey; Viola pubescens eriocarpa, Nutt., a western variety ; Polemonium reptans, L., which had been removed from the Geological survey’s preliminary catalogue of New-Jersey plants, under the supposition, that, be- ing so remote from its usual habitat, it must have been incorrectly determined; Nuphar pumilum, Smith, and Struthiopteris Germanica, Willd., the last not having been previously observed in the state. —— Dr. A. C. Stokes communicated a paper on Tarantula arenicola Scudder, detailing its method of burrowing, of building the tower above the entrance, and of cap- turing food. Before the pit and tower are completed, the spider will seize food at some distance from the aperture: when finished, she leaps from the tower, and runs across the ground to take the selected vic- tim. If within the burrow when an insect passes over the tower, or becomes entangled in the loose grass of which it is usually formed, the spider rushes to the top, and the insect, if acceptable, is seized. The towers are irregularly five-sided, and an inch or less high. The burrows are cylindrical, perpendicular, and vary in depth from eight to twenty inches; in diameter, from one-quarter to three-quarters of an inch. SCIENCE. asta ’ eo) a ed ee ee ‘ i ‘ [Vou. IIL, No. 72, on that day. On twenty-eight other days tornadoes were predicted for particular states or larger regions; and of them the tornadoes on seventeen days occurred in or near the specified region, while on eleven days tornadoes occurred in regions for which they were not predicted. JNO. P. FINLEY, Sergeant signal-corps, U. S. army. OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Entomological society, Washington. June 5. — Mr. George Marx read a composite paper on the geographical distribution of the Arachnidae of the United States, on the respiration of Epeira insularis, and biological notes on Latrodectes vere- cundus. The range of each family was pointed out in succession ; and the colorational changes, depend- ent upon locality, were treated at some length. The speaker had noticed a true alternate opening and closing of the pulmonary stigmata of the Epeira, on taking it from a tight box in which it had been con- fined for some days. By a careful rearing of the La- trodectes, he had thrown together no less than ten species described by Abbott, which are now referable to the different stages of L. verecundus. ——Mr. E. A. Schwarz exhibited specimens of Ino immunda (Cucujidae) and Eleusis pallida (Staphylinidae), call- ing attention to the marvellous resemblance, which he stated could not be referred to mimicry for pro- tective reasons, but must be considered accidental. — Mr. L. O. Howard exhibited specimens of Inos- temma Boscii (Proctotrupidae), and gave a short his- tory of the theories concerning the curious thoracic appendage, arriving at the conclusion that it is a sec- ondary sexual character. He also exhibited speci- mens of a new species of the genus Schizaspidia, collected in Florida by Mr. Schwarz, and which is also furnished with remarkable thoracic prolonga- tions. —— Dr. W. S. Barnard read a short paper on the development of Gordius and Mermis, exhibiting a specimen observed to issue from Harpalus pennsyl- vanicus. : Brookville society of natural history, Indiana, June 3. —Robert M. King presented a paper upon some studies of the land-shells of Indiana, showing differences in habits, food, and color of the shell. —— Aug. Diener gave a short paper upon the Luna moth, presenting the time of its appearance, and the length of periods of its several changes. ——E. R. Quick spoke at some length on the results of the trip of Alexander Wilson down the Ohio River in 1810, re- ferring particularly to Wilson’s advice concerning the opening of the Grave Creek mound, and to his labors in the neighborhood of Cincinnati, at the mouth of the Big Miami River, at what is now the town of Vevay in Switzerland county, this state, and in the neighborhood of Louisville, —all points of interest, because of their proximity to the field in which the ~ society is working. JUNE 20, 1884.] © Biological society, Washington. May 31.—Mr. James E. Benedict described the recent cruise of the steamer Albatross in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and exhibited some of the most remarkable objects collected. Ensign E. EK. Hayden, U.S.N., read a paper on a new method of figuring fossil leaves and other objects by the aid of photography, with a saving of time, and increase of accuracy; the method consisting of drawing in India ink, upon a silver-print photograph, the outline of the object to be figured, the defects of the photograph being supplied by the draughtsman through com- parison with the specimen. The photograph is then dismissed, and a photo-engraving is made by the ordinary method from the black lines of the sketch which remains. In the discussion which followed, it was shown that this process was novel only in its _ successful application by the author to the illustration of fossil leaves. —— Mr. J. A. Ryder spoke of the de- velopment of viviparous minnows, and particularly of Gambrusia patruelis B. & G. The young fish develop within the body of the female parent, and within the follicles in which the eggs themselves were developed. These follicles, which were covered with a rich network of fine capillary vessels, assumed the office of a respiratory apparatus, by which the gases were interchanged between the embryo and the par- ent fish. This follicle also acted as an egg-membrane, being actually perforated by a round opening, which the speaker termed the ‘follicular pore,’ and which was analogous to the micropyle of the ordinary fish- egg. The arrangement of the follicles of the ovary within the body of the female was described at some length, and the peculiar differences between the two sexes in the arrangement of the viscera were pointed out. The fibrous bands, which act as supports or stays to the basal portion of the anal fin of the male, which is modified as an intromittent organ, were also described. The great difference in the sizes of the sexes was also referred to, the female weighing over six times as much as the male. The speaker con- cluded by expressing his earnest desire to investigate the other known forms of viviparous fishes, such as the Embiotocoids of the west coast, the viviparous blenny, and other bony fishes which have this habit, and which, in his opinion, would throw considerable light upon some of the peculiar physiological pro- cesses involved in the viviparous methods of develop- ment. —— Mr. Romyn Hitchcock exhibited a collec- tion of Foraminifera belonging to the genus Lagena, and explained the relations between this genus and the Nodosarine group; these briefly being that Lage- na may be taken as the type of the group, passing through various stages of complexity, through Nodo- saria, and ending in Cristellaria as the most complete manifestation of its method of growth. Natural-history society of New Brunswick, St. John. May 6. —Mr. R. Chalmers read a paper on the his- tory of the Grand Falls of the St. John River, explain- ing its origin and features. Like Niagara Falls, it was shown to be the result of geographical changes in the quaternary era, causing the damming-up of a SCIENCE. 769 more ancient channel, and the consequent erosion of anew one. Facts bearing upon the nature and rate of change were at the same time given. June 4.—Mr. C. F. Matthew gave an account of the late meeting of the Royal society of Canada, in Ottawa, reviewing the papers read in the natural- history section, and especially remarking on the im- portance of Dr. G. M. Dawson’s discovery of evidences of an interglacial era in the north-west. —— Dr. L. Allison read a paper on the structure and habits of rhizopods, with special reference to local forms. NOTES AND NEWS. OnE of the best results of the polar exploration congress, held at Vienna in April, was a resolution that the observations of all the polar stations should be published not only in the language in which they were written, but in German, English, or French as well, Neumayer of Hamburg appealed to the con- gress for aid in his endeavors to make hydrographic charts of the South Atlantic Ocean. The chiefs of the different stations reported their observations. The scale adopted by the committee of the electrical exhibition of Paris, in 1881, was adopted as a basis for the observations of the intensity of the magnetic earth-currents. The end of the year 1885 was named for the conclusion of the work of the various stations. — Prof. F. H. Snow of the University of Kansas reports, that although the month of May was one of the coldest on record, yet it was marked by an entire absence of frosts. The rainfall was ample, though less than the average. — Prof. W. B. Scott is now on his way to Montana with the fourth scientific expedition from Princeton, with the object of exploring the Wahsatch eocene of Wyoming and Montana. — Professor Mushketoff will be sent by the geo- logical committee of the St. Petersburg academy of sciences to explore the Kalmuk steppe (between Volga, Don, and Manikh). Later in the season he will make a geological exploration of the cele- brated mineral springs of Piotigozsk and vicinity (northern Caucasus). This study is to decide many important questions about their protection and im- provement. These springs are under direct govern- ment administration from the beginning of this year, after a long lease to a contractor. — Nature announces the call of Dr. Hugo Gyldén, director of the Stockholm observatory, to the profes- sorship of practical astronomy at Gottingen. — The forthcoming volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the seventeenth, extending from MOT to ORM, will contain the following articles: Naviga- tion, by Capt. H. A. Moriarty, R.N.; Nebular theory, by Dr. R. S. Ball, F.R.S.; Newton, by Mr. H. M. Taylor of Trinity college, Cambridge; Nitrogen, by Prof. W. Dittmar; Nitroglycerine, by Sir Frederick A. Abel; Numbers, by Prof. A. Cayley; Numerals, by Prof. W. Robertson Smith; Numismatics, by Mr. Reginald S. Poole; Nutrition, by Prof. A. Gamgee; TT0 Observatory, by Dr. J. L. E. Dreyer of Armagh; Opium, by Mr. E. M. Holmes; Optics, by Lord Ray- leigh; Orchids, by Dr. M. T. Masters; and Organ, by Prof. R. H. M. Bosanquet. — At the meeting of the Royal astronomical so- ciety, May 9, Prof. C. Pritchard of Oxford read a paper on the proper motions of forty stars in the Pleiades, which he has determined from a compari- son of Bessel’s heliometer-measures with recent mi- crometric measures made at Oxford, and also with the positions determined ten years ago by Wolf at the Paris observatory. The existence of certain small proper motions of these stars in different directions is interpreted as indicating the mutual interference of a group of gravitating bodies. At the same meet- ing of the society, Dr. David Gill, her Majesty’s as- tronomer at Cape Town, described the mounting of the great thirty-inch refractor now constructing at the shops of the Messrs. Repsold, at Hamburg, and which is to be set up this year at the Pulkowa ob- servatory, near St. Petersburg. The tube of the telescope will be about fifty feet long; and the me- chanical arrangements of the mounting will be so thorough and convenient in use, that a single assist- ant, sitting at the lower end of the polar axis, will be able to point the instrument accurately to any part of the heavens. A paper was likewise read by Mr. A. A. Common of Ealing, proposing the appli- cation of his method of relieving the friction in the axes of large instruments, to the polar axis of a large equatorial telescope. In his plan, somewhat similar to that of the Repsolds, the centre of flota- tion in a bath of mercury is vertically underneath the centre of gravity of the polar axis and telescope combined. The Repsolds employ, instead, a friction- roller under the centre of gravity to support the Pul- kowa telescope. — Dr. A. Berghaus has called attention in Aus- land to the successful revival of the use of fibres derived from the nettle, as a material for spinning and weaving. That the common stinging nettle was formerly largely used in Germany to afford a material for the making of woven fabrics, is proved in an interesting manner by the fact that the old Ger- man name for muslin literally means ‘ nettle-cloth’ (nesseltuch). Before the new material was intro- duced, the fabric most nearly corresponding to the new cloth must, undoubtedly, have been made from the nettle, and, as in many other cases,. the name remained (at least for a time) after the thing was changed. But on the introduction of cotton from America, the nettle soon fell into neglect; and it was not till comparatively recent years that attention Was again called to it. After the exhibition at Philadelphia, when the German manufacturers saw that they must do something to put themselves on an equal footing with rival nations, Professor Reu- leaux, their representative in America, strongly ad- vised them to pay more heed to the products of their Own soil in order to make themselves less dependent on foreign supplies, and, among other plants suitable for the purpose, he reminded them of the nettle.’ An enterprising lady took the matter up practically, SCIENCE. * 5 ere [Vou. III, No. 72. and, in the end, with the most gratifying success. She planted nettles on a part of her estate composed of poor stony ground, covered only with a thin layer of soil, and, at an agricultural exhibition held in the autumn of 1877, she was able to exhibit nettle-fibres in all stages of preparation up to yarn. This suc- cess convinced the unbelievers; and hundreds there- upon began to cultivate nettles, not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Austria, and even in this country. Two years later the first German manufactory devoted to the new industry was opened at Dresden. The ex- periments made there at. first were not altogether satisfactory; but, after repeated attempts, a yarn was produced which left nothing to be desired. In this manufactory the common nettle is used to some ex- tent, but the best results are obtained by using the Chinese nettle, which yields a fine glossy yarn, of greater strength than the common nettle. The fibre is hence knownas China grass. — In the first number of the Jahrbuch der Deutsch- en malakozoologischen gesellschaft for 1884, Heyne- mann continues his studies of little-known genera of slugs. From an examination of the type-specimen, he shows that Aspidoporus of Fitzinger is founded. on a malformed individual of Amalia carinata. The genera Urocyclus, Elisa, and Dendrolimax are also discussed. Brusina, in a paper on the Neritodon- tas of Dalmatia, indulges in a lively polemic with relation to some rather peculiar publications by Bourgnignat. Both papers are illustrated. In the accompanying Nachrichtsblatt, Simroth discusses the European and especially the German slugs, a group of the Pulmonates which has recently excited much interest. Simon and Boettger describe the land-shells of the Cottish Alps, and Kobelt describes some new operculated land-shells from the Philippine Islands. — At the séances held during April by the Société frangaise de physique, in the rooms of the observatory, the curious experiment of using a gloved hand as a telephone-receiver was exhibited. Fig. 1 shows the apparatus used, P and M being a battery and a micro- phone-transmitter in the main circuit; B, an induc- tion-coil with the break-circuit closed; while P’ is a battery, and R, ordinary holders for receiving a shock. Mehiget, Il. When two people, each with a gloved hand, take hold of the two holders with their bare hands, and one of them holds his gloved hand over the ear of the other, any conversation or music near the microphone be- comes audible to this other; or, if they hold one an- other’s ears, both may hear. By leaning their heads ~ together, so that their ears would touch except for a — sheet of paper placed between them, the same result was obtained. It was also found possible to do away ree ar eee JUNE 20, 1884.] with the stretched membrane, the glove or paper, and for a third person to hear the conversation in the bare hands of the two holding the electrodes, when these two held his ears as shown in fig. 2. It has even been possible to render the sounds audible to a chain of people, each holding the ear of his neighbor. WES 2. — In the report of the meeting of the Royal society of Canada, published in Science for June 6, it was stated that Mr. F. N. Gisborne had devised a new method of getting rid of the cross-talk in telephone cables. The device, that of the use of a metallic cir- cuit of wires near one another, was patented by A. Graham Bell in England in i877, and later in the United States. — Dr. Palisa has had a declinograph, on the plan of Dr. Knorre’s at Berlin, fitted to the twelve-inch Alvan Clark refractor at Vienna, and he is observing zones with even greater assiduity than usual. He reports himself as satisfied with the working of the instrument, which gives positions accurate to about 05.2 and 2”. In a zone 25™ by 20’ a hundred and fifty stars can be registered. ‘The positions are to be reduced to 1875.0, and this is chosen as the equinox for all the new Vienna maps. Each map is to have a catalogue of its stars accompanying it, which is an excellent addition. Dr. Peters’s catalogue of sixty thousand zone stars would be of great usefulness, if it were available, as a supplement to his splendid series of celestial charts. — Prof. W. Preyer of Jena is publishing a ‘Spe- cielle physiologie des embryo’ in four parts, of which the first two have appeared. It is written from a purely medica] stand-point ; for it discusses really human embryology, drawing upon mammals, birds, and other lower forms, for illustration. In spite, how- ever, of its narrow scope and one-sided view, it is a valuable treatise. By the collation of the researches previously published, and the addition of some obser- vations of his own, Preyer has compiled a work SCIENCE. 71 which reveals an extent of positive knowledge in this obscure field, which few would have anticipated. In the parts before us, the circulation, respiration, and nutrition of the embryo are very fully treated. The work is excellent, and, without doubt, will do much towards dispelling some of the crude and erro- neous conceptions still prevalent in regard to the physiology of the mammalian embryo. — The French geographical societies will hold their seventh general congress in the month of August at Toulouse. Geographers of several adjacent coun- tries, especially of Spain, are expected to participate in the proceedings. ‘The municipality has devoted a sum of twenty thousand francs to the expenses of the local committee, of which Dr. Ozenne is president, and Commander Blanchot, general secretary. — An international fisheries, ornithological, and hunting-appliances exhibition is planned for 1886, in Vienna. — A new expedition to Greenland has started from Copenhagen: it consists of Lieut. Jensen, Lorenzen as geologist, and the painter Ris-Carstensen. The object of the expedition is the exploration of the west coast of Greenland between Holstensborg and Luk- kertoppen. They expect to return in October. — Prof. F. A. Forel of Morges reports that the glaciers of Mont Blane, after decreasing for a consid- erable time, are now again advancing. Professor Forel has for many years recorded his observations on the Mer de Glace. — A botanical section of the Cincinnati society of natural history was organized June 7, under the chair- manship of the curator of botany in the society. Its object was stated to be, to bring together those inter- ested in the study of botany for the purposes of mu- tual encouragement and benefit, the investigation of the flora of the vicinity of Cincinnati, and the for- mation of alocal herbarium. A number of specimens of plants were exhibited, and two or three new addi- tions to the flora were announced. One of these was Matricaria discoidea, from near Loveland, O.,—a very late introduction. — There is no truth, the Athenaeum states, in the rumor that Mr. Herbert Spencer purposes paying a visit to Australia. His trip to the United States in- jured his health too seriously to induce him to try another experiment of a like kind on a much larger scale. Though still suffering from impaired health, he is happily able to devote a portion of his time to his favorite studies. — Lieut. Frederick Schwatka, the arctic explorer, has resigned his position on Gen. Miles’s staff, and will join his regiment in Arizona. The Russian geo- graphical society has awarded its silver medal to. Schwatka for his explorations. — Dr. Griffiths sends to the Chemical news of March 7 a note on the formation of the recently dis- covered parafiine shale deposits of Servia,; which he thinks coincides with the results of his other inves- tigations. ‘These deposits are situated on the River Golabara, in the western part of Servia. The shale occurs in upheaved cliffs about two hundred feet 172 above the surrounding plain. The formation con- sists of hundreds of layers of white and gray shale, one above the other, sometimes being separated by small beds of clay of a whitish color, containing rock- salt, and sodium and manganese sulphides. It is stated that this part of the country strongly resembles the paraffine and salt districts of Galicia. It has been known for ages that cattle and birds resorted to these cliffs to eat the clay containing the rock-salt, but the quality of the shale remained unknown until a year ago. The paraffine shale is entirely free from bitu- minous impurities, it is nearly white in color, and has no odor. When heated to about 800° F., it takes fire, and burns with a clear, bright, smokeless flame, leaving a gray ash behind. The deposits are of marine origin and eocene period. LEruptive por- phyritic and trachytic rocks are plentiful at a distance of five or six miles. In the clay-beds (which are peculiarly free from ferric oxide) large numbers of the fossil remains of the eocene period are to be found. It is thought, that, in the limestone rocks which underlie these shale deposits, rock-salt and petroleum wells may be found. A sample of the paraffine shale yielded, on distillation, 2% of a semi- solid hydrocarbon somewhat similar in appearance to ozocerite wax, which, on extraction with ‘ ben- zoline,’ gave 1.75 % of wax. It also contains 3.02 % of water of combination, and 1.18 % of ammonia; the remaining ingredients being mineral constitu- ents. It is stated that the mineral constituents of these paraffine shale deposits would make a useful hydro-cement, and could easily be obtained by open quarrying: they could be used as fuel with gas- retorts. They lie within easy reach of the Danube. — The death is announced of Sir Sidney Smith Saunders, a leading English entomologist, who had made the Strepsiptera—a curious group of minute beetles parasitic on Hymenoptera — his special study. — The medical congress in Berlin, in April, was very well attended, and most of the prominent medi- cal questions of the day were discussed. ‘The meet- ing opened with a paper on true pneumonia, which Professor Jiirgensen considered infectious. Very opposite opinions were expressed during the discus- sion. Reflex action, and vaccination, followed. On the second day, diphtheria was the subject most dis- cussed, which Dr. Loffles considered to be a local affection, caused by a chemical poison; but the theory found an opponent in Dr. Heubner of Leipzig. Professor Weber of London read a paper on school hygiene in England, and recommended medical in- spection of schools. Nervous dyspepsia, and other nervous affections, filled up the rest of the discus- sions. Professor Rosbach of Jena read the report of the commission on the treatment of infectious diseases. Next year the congress will be held at Wiesbaden. — As is well known, the work of excavating in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, the seat of the old Babylo- nian-Assyrian empire, has been carried on vigorously for the last forty years, and a vast mass of material has been collected and brought to Europe. Many SCIENCE. —— ? ee |) Pe ee ee “ei [Vou. III, No. 72. thousand historical and commercial inscriptions, copies of ancient epic poems, magic rules and formu- las, religious hymns, and specimens of architecture - and sculpture, are now to be found in the museums of London, Paris, and Berlin. The most of this work has been done by the English. The cuneiform collection in the British museum is by far the richest in the world. Mr. Rassam, a wealthy Syrian gentle- man of London, is now devoting all his time to ex- cavating: he goes out every year, and brings back to England a larger or smaller quantity of tablets and other Assyrian remains. Already there is enough Assyrian material in the British museum to occupy scholars for the next fifty years. But the field is large; and there is room for other exploring parties, without danger of encroaching on the English domain. American Assyriologists have for some time felt the desirableness of having a collection of cuneiform ma- terial in this country; and last autumn some gentle- men interested in the matter held a conference, and determined to make the attempt to organize an expe- dition to Mesopotamia. It was thought best that the first attempt should be in the way of exploration and survey of the ground, in order to fix on the best points of work, and come to an understanding with the English parties now in the field. In spite of some unfavorable conditions, the preliminary arrangements have now been completed. The money is assured, Miss C. L. Wolfe of New York having given the whole of the sum which it was computed would be required. In accordance with her desire, the expedi- tion will be called, in honor of her father’s memory, ‘the Wolfe expedition ;’ and this name will be, in the feeling of the public concerned, a no less fitting trib- ute to her most praiseworthy liberality. The gentle- . men who have been selected to go out are Messrs. W. H. Ward, editor of the New-York independent, and J. T. Clarke and J. R. S. Sterrett, lately of the Assos expedition, — all proved men. The expedition has re- ceived the indorsement of the Archeological insti- tute of America, in whose name it will go out. The department of state has promised to use its influence to procure the necessary firman from the Ottoman government. The purpose is to try southern Meso- potamia, the old Babylonia, the seat of the oldest civilization, and the portion of the country which has been less explored than any other. It is believed that here, and in the opposite region across the Tigris, there is probably abundance of early material. If this preliminary expedition should report favorably on its return, an effort will then be made to organize an ex- cavating party immediately, and begin serious work. — In the region had in view there are not only Babylo- nian-Assyrian, but also more modern Arabic and Syriac treasures to be hoped for; and the explorers will be instructed to gather all that they can find. The present expectation is that Dr. Ward will sail for England about September next. In London he will find Mr. Clarke, who is engaged in working up his Assos report; and the two will be joined by Dr. Sterrett, who is now in Athens, where, during the sickness of Professor Packard, he has been in charge © of the American school of classical studies. | SCIENCE, FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1884. COMMENT AND CRITICISM. Tue new and promising biological depart- ment of the University of Pennsylvania has issued a modest prospectus, announcing op- portunities for special work, and courses of in- struction in biology, open to both sexes. A high ground is taken in its simple ‘ aim,’ which is avowed to be, ‘* to encourage original re- search in biology by offering facilities to sci- entists engaged in investigation, and by giving instruction to advanced students prosecuting special work.’’ Besides this principal func- tion, ‘‘ the department will further conduct the instruction of those students of biology ... in a course leading to the degree of doctor of phi- losophy, and of those . . . who have elected the course preparatory to the study of medi- cine.’’ A suitable laboratory is to be ready by Sept. 1, and is to possess one feature which cannot be too highly commended ; viz., ‘* pri- vate rooms for the use of investigators.’’ There is as yet no symptom of any attempt to force investigation unduly, and let us hope there never will be. Investigators are born, not made ; and now that the first step has been taken in promising them ‘ facilities,’ the next will quickly follow ; viz., to supply a stimulus. For this, example is better than any mechani- cal pressure ; and to the faculty we must look for the healthy stimulus of example. Last, but by no means least, the university or its friends should see to it that a moderate pe- cuniary support shall be obtainable in the shape of fellowships or otherwise ; so that poy- erty may never be permitted to interfere too far with the real investigator. Dourine the past two years, great interest has been manifested in the subject of the uni- fication of time and longitudes the world over. In our own country, the universal adoption, in No. 73. — 1884. November last, of standard time according to a system of meridians distant from that of Green- wich by an exact number of hours, has led to results of great importance in the convenient arrangements and intercourse of ordinary life. Though not at all a matter of necessity, itis still desirable that this system of standard meridi- ans, or some other, shall be adopted every- where ; and, in pursuance of an act of congress, the president of the United States has invited the principal nations concerned to send dele- gates to a time-convention, to meet at Wash- ington next October, to deliberate upon the question of the adoption of such a prime or zero meridian. By far the greater part of all calculations in geography, astronomy, and geod- esy, where a zero meridian is concerned, are, by common consent, referred to the meridian of the observatory at Greenwich, England ; so that this meridian stands among the first proposed for universal adoption. ‘The representatives of other governments, however, will undoubtedly have decided preferences for other meridians ; and there is much to be said in favor of the adoption of one or another zero point of ref- erence. ‘The interest in this subject is plainly apparent from the fact that nearly all of the invited nations have appointed suitable dele- gates, whom our own commissioners will at an early date be expected to receive at Washington. It goes without saying, that the learned men of other lands, thus convened, will expect to see our own nation represented by its highest order of talent, especially as the convention has been called by ourselves. And it is par- ticularly desirable that our own commissioners shall be men of the greatest scientific authority in these matters; for, as the representatives from foreign countries are our guests, they will the more readily accept proposals from our commissioners, should these representatives prove competent to take a very prominent part in all the deliberations of the congress, as T74 scientific men of the first rank. It may also fairly be supposed that the French language will be more generally spoken by the delegates from all nations; and the necessity of a thor- ough acquaintance with the French and Ger- man languages ought to be duly weighed by those having power to make the appoint- ments of the American commissioners. ‘The power of appointment having been apparently delegated to the secretary of state, no suffi- cient reason is apparent why this officer, whose appointments to similar positions of responsi- bility have heretofore been excellent, should have transferred his prerogative, in part, to the secretaries of war and the navy, the former of whom has not yet, it is believed, made his own designation. The time-convention act provides for the appointment of three commissioners. On gen- eral grounds, the appointment of President Barnard by Secretary Frelinghuysen himself is open to no objection; for he has long been interested in these matters, occupies a com- manding position, is a scientific man of recog- nized ability, and has had, in addition, much practical experience in international confer- ences. His personal disability of extreme deafness ought, however, we think, to have excluded him from membership of the com- mission, as it will practically prevent his taking a leading and representative part in its deliberations. ‘The second commissioner, al- ready named by the secretary of the navy, is not open to any such objection: but he is practically unknown in science, outside of a limited circle in the United States; and, aside from his being at present on duty at the naval observatory, there is very little reason why he should have been selected for this responsible scientific appointment, rather than any other line-officer of the navy; and, besides, we are credibly informed that he speaks no language but English. It remains to be seen what name the secre- tary of war will designate; and it is to be hoped that he may consider well the appoint- SCIENCE. ut.) ia ch Sy ey Pee Oe) ee chat Pale od [Vou. III., No. 73. ments already made, and add by his own the strongest possible name to the list of commis- sioners. Unless we mistake, he is not required to make the appointment from the army, but may select from the ranks of scientific men in general. Had Mr. Frelinghuysen asked the secretary of the treasury for a name, and had: he designated the superintendent of the coast- survey to act as commissioner, we should have had an officer in all respects competent to represent the interests of the nation. Nor had any one the power to make a wiser ap- pointment than lay in the way of the secretary of the navy, —to detail the superintendent of — the ‘ Nautical almanac’ for this service. This condition of affairs, in so far as the present appointment of the American commissioners is concerned, points to the advisability of ad- ditional legislation on the subject. Congress should at once supplement the commission by not less than two additional members, and stipulate that these be recommended to the president (as the original commission might well have been) by the president of the National academy of sciences; thus making the mat- ter one in which the advice of the academy is sought by the government, and which, by its act of incorporation, the academy is re- quired to give. The appropriation of a mod- erate sum to defray the necessary expenses attending the sessions and records of the de- liberations of the convention, ought also to be granted. This, indeed, we understand, has already been proposed. Tue call made by the Peabody museum for immediate funds for the continuation of its — explorations in Ohio deserves to meet with a cordial response ; and, were the valuable and novel results which are being secured by this exploration more widely known, there would be no doubt as to its success. Probably, for the first time in all the years that have passed since the Ohio mounds and earthworks have ~ excited the curiosity of the people, a thoroughly scientific and exhaustive exploration is making of one locality. This is not merely to collect relics from the mounds, which has heretofore JUNE 27, 1884.] so often been the single purpose of so-called exploration ; nor is it carried out by sinking shafts in the centre of a mound, or cutting a ditch or two through it: but every foot of earth is removed, and the whole structure laid bare foot by foot. This mode of work has led to the discovery of singular and remarkable structures, not only in the mound and at the natural level of the surrounding land, but for six feet be- neath this, to the underlying gravel-deposit. These operations have brought so many novel facts to light, that we have now the right to class all former mound-explorations in the Ohio valley as so superficial as to be scientifically worthless, until further thorough work on groups not yet destroyed shall give the means of com- parison, and place the partial results that were formerly obtained in their proper relations. The recent explorations have shown conclu- sively that the mounds and earthworks in vari-. ous parts of the country were made at greatly different periods of time, and presumably by different peoples, even should it be ascer- tained that they all belonged to the great Mon- goloid stock, of which our Indians probably represent more than one subdivision. ‘This, however, is not yet proved ; and the conclusions that have been drawn from time to time, that there has only been one people on this conti- nent who made the earthworks of various kinds, are too hasty deductions from the present im- perfect knowledge of our archeology. That some Indian tribes made mounds and earth- works and fortifications is not to be questioned, and that others did not is probably equally true ; but this does not give us the right to throw over- board other facts tending to show that peoples of various stages of development, and, so far as craniological and artistic conclusions can be at present drawn, of distinct ethnical stocks, were also former inhabitants of this continent. One man will class all the past and present native inhabitants of all America, both north and south, as Indians; the next, with equal assurance, will state that the ancient Mexicans, the builders of the stone structures in Yucatan, the old Peruvian and other South-American na- SCIENCE. 7715 tions, etc., were races distinct from the North- American Indians ; and there have been many variations from these theories. The fact is, we do not know who the Indians are, or who were the old builders of Palenque, of Uxmal, of Tiahuanuco, and numerous other old cities from Mexico to the eastern side of the Andes in South America. Until we awake to the fact that America has an inter- esting past, and can arouse ourselves to the effort of making out the ancestors and descend- ants of all these peoples, who have left us such marked differences in their architecture, their works of art, their customs and their languages, we act the part of amateurs, when from a little knowledge of a few of these different conditions, and from superficial or very general resem- blances, we draw hasty conclusions. Only the most thorough explorations, conducted by men who have broad views and careful methods of work, — men who are above being led by theo- ries to be maintained ; who will look at facts in the same manner as a geologist or a biologist looks at his facts, letting them lead him where they will, — will solve for us the great problems of American archeology. The days of collect- ors of curiosities and hasty writers are over. Archeology is a science, and no longer in the hands of the mercenary dealer and the equally avaricious collector of curiosities. Give the proper institutions the support they ask for, and the near future will bring valuable results. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. x*x Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. Gyration of a vibrating pendulum. Ir a body move in any curve about any centre of curvature, the inertia of the body is manifested as a force acting in the plane of the curve, and in a direc- tion opposite to that of the centre of curvature; and if v denote the lineal velocity of the body, and p its distance from the centre of curvature, the force thus manifested will be represented by Os and is called the centrifugal force due the motion. If the body move in a straight line on a limited portion of the earth’s surface while the earth is ro- tating on its polar axis, its motion may be regarded, without sensible error, as being on a tangent plane; and because any tangent plane rotates about an axis 7176 normal to that plane, with a constant angular velocity wsindA, where w is the angular velocity of the earth about its polar axis, and / is the latitude of the nor- mal axis, the path of the body, in space, will evi- dently be a spiral curve; and from the properties of that spiral, the centrifugal force at its origin, which is the deflecting force resulting from the earth’s motion on its axis, is readily found to be 2ovsina (see Science, iii. No. 57 ). The same result that is here found from the prop- erties of the spiral which the body describes in space was found by Mr. Ferrel from the equations of motion on a spherical surface (see eq. 58, Professional papers of the signal-service, No. viii., 1882, p. 30); but, by assuming that the motion of the body in space is in the circumference of a circle, he finds for the time, T, of a revolution in that circumference, — ‘r= secd X 4 day;’ and he says, ‘‘ The gradual gyration of a vibrating pendulum is caused by this same deflecting force, and hence the time of gyration is the same as that of 7 in the preceding equation.”’ But it is well known that the time of gyration of a vibrating pendulum is sec@ X 1 day. This discrepancy may be explained as follows: — Let P represent the position of the normal axis or centre of the tangent plane ABCD, which therefore SCIENCE. | KrakatoaLafitode....__.6°09' 30” South | a L ongitude... 105° 27 00° East H Saucelitos Latitude.....37°5} North == peoveroweee--ee Longitude..122°29' West = H Kadiak Latitude rotates about P with the velocity wsindA, or wcos 6, if we adopt Mr. Ferrel’s notation; and because the radius of curvature at P is the same for the spiral PA’A as for the circle s, the centrifugal force at P will be the same, whether the body move in the spiral, or in the circumference of the circle s: but if we suppose the body to describe the circumference of the circle s by moving along the radius vector PA’, while the radius vector rotates about P, the circum- ference of s will obviously be described while the A radius vector makes a half-revolution about P ; that is, in the time t= sec@ X 4 day. The time 7 of gyration of a vibrating pendulum, however, does not correspond with the time Tin which the circle s would 2982 andviach Ids. be described, but is the time in which the spiral PA’A is described, and hence — = sec X 1 day, as has been abunaeaan proved by experiment. J. E. HENDRICKS. Des Moines, Io., May 29. [Vox. IIL, No. 73, JUNE 27, 1884.] Water-waves from Krakatoa. You published, in May, a couple of interesting communications on atmospheric waves from Krakatoa. As the effect through the water was still more marked and more sharply defined at very great distances, I have made for publication, by au- thority of the superintendent of the U.S. coast and geodetic survey, re- duced photographic copies of the records of the self-registering tide- gauges at Kadiak, Alaska, and at Saucelito, near San Francisco. These copies cover the period from 0h. Aug. 27, to Oh. Aug. 30, or the seventy-two hours during which the tide-gauges show, in a very marked manner, the effect of the Krakatoa earthquake upon the masses of water in the North Pacific Ocean. It is interesting to notice that the impact of the earthquake was appar- ently felt earlier and in a greater degree at San Francisco than at Ka- diak; although the former is 1,478 geographical miles more distant, in a direct line, from Krakatoa. The observations at Honolulu, where the U.S. coast and geodetic survey has a self-registering tide- gauge, are expected to arrive shortly, and will he!p to throw more light on this interesting point. All this suggests inquiry into the path which the great wave pursued. According to the accepted theory of wayve-transmission in deep waters, the time is shortest in the most pro- found depths, and therefore the tidal register at Honolulu is Jooked for with great interest. There are evi- dently several pathways through the great congeries of islands north-east of Krakatoa, and two to the south of Australia,—one between Aus- tralia and New Zealand, thence through the Pacific; and the other east of New Zealand, and northward through the Pacific. (See opposite map. ) if it had been possible to maintain the tide-gauge at Mazatlan, it would have afforded very valuable informa- tion as to the most probable direc- tion taken by the great earthquake- wave. The dates upon the records are given for local mean solar time, ‘ civil account’ at each gauge. The tem- peratures recorded are of the water at the time indicated. The geo- graphical positions are as follows: — Krakatoa . lat. 6° 09.5’ S., long. 105° 27’ = Th. 01m. 48s. E. Saucelito . lat. 87° 51’ N., long. 122° 29/ = 8h. 09m. 56s. W. Kadiak . . lat. 57° 5 ~N., long. 152° 20 = 10/. 09m. 20s. W. C. O. BOUTELLE, Asst. in charge U. 8. C. and G. survey, Washington, D.C., June 10. of office. “ANNVS-ACIL UVIGVSM 93 “SnW "13 80 8g “SnW ‘onW 63 8L_9L FL ZL OL SCIENCE, _ mh CRON It Ont FEC — Co we Or ua | ' in ee Th G 0G) OST. 0 Or ft ral EEE? : = reas 6G) 0G Si OE Te “GE eee aa eo 4 Feared aa elereal ae PE (iad al ae 0 Go 06 PEEP Pee —H- CaORURREseZ oro "SSSI ‘OS-1Z “DAV ((LAGa NI HIVOS IVOILUATA ) OOSIONVUW NVG YVAN ‘OLITHOAVE LV SHNAVO-ACIL ONIVALSIOAU-TIAS ATAUAS OILAAGOAY ANV LSVOO AHL NO CACNOOAN SHAVA-TMVASALUVY ‘VESVTY ‘SVIGVY LV ANY ‘Ivo ‘ ‘SUV “9G 13 “S0V "8g “OnVW "63 “Sn be fl , 2 = 06 St 91 FL MPS (Pa NS dS fe a a ce $y tS HRS Se alka ENS ey | GE eS | | | ‘HONVYP-HAIL OLITHONVS 778 ‘THE U.S. CENSUS OFFICE. THERE is a popular disposition to belittle the importance of the census, and to underestimate the value of what has been accomplished under the direction of Gen. Walker, which will pass away when the magnitude of the difficulties to be overcome, and the skill displayed in handling such a mass of figures, are better understood by the public. Six volumes have already been issued, which have excited the admiration and enthusiastic approval of statis- ticians on both sides of the Atlantic. It is said that the whole number of volumes will be nearly twenty, of which some are now in type, others ready for the compositor, and of a part the manuscript copy is not yet fully prepared. The entire series will constitute an encyclo- paedia of information, not only as to the popu- lation of the United States and its composition and growth, but as to the financial and other resources of the country, and the burdens to be borne by the American people, and will be of the greatest historical value. As an advertise- ment of the national wealth, and of the rapidity with which this country is assuming a foremost position among the nations of the earth, the tenth census is worth many times its cost ; and we are not claiming too much for it when we venture the assertion that no statistical work of equal extent and merit has ever been exe- cuted by any nation. . The unpopularity of the census appears to be due, partly to its having exceeded in cost the original estimate, and partly to the delay in the publication of the results. But it is not surprising that Congress was unable to foresee the actual amount of expense involved in so elaborate and exhaustive an inquiry; and the delay in publication is owing to insufficient appropriations from time to time, and the too rapid reduction of the force engaged, which has unduly prolonged the examination and tabula- tion of the returns. It is probable, also, that the failure to ask and obtain sufficient appro- priations has curtailed the proportions of the work, and led to the omission of information which was in fact gathered, and might have been given to the world. Really it is more than doubtful whether the methods adopted for taking the census do not need to be thoroughly revised, and new methods adopted. It must be a serious loss to the government to do as it does, —to disband the force trained for this special undertaking, and scatter it, once in ten years, and then re- organize it with unskilled and inexperienced clerks, who require to be educated at great SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL, No. 73. expense before they understand what it is that they are employed to do. No other scientific undertaking is carried on in this way. We assume that the purely clerical portion of the work may be done by untrained clerks, if they are directed by skilled and competent chiefs of division, just as raw recruits may be of service in war, when drilled and commanded by veterans. But it would seem that the office of commissioner or superintendent of census ought to be made a permanent one, and work enough assigned to this bureau to employ a permanent staff of assistants capable of giving impulse and direction to the largely augmented number of clerks required when the decennial enumeration of the population ismade. ‘There are many varieties of social statistics which it would be desirable to collect and publish annually ; and it is not essential that all the special and occasional investigations which are of national importance should be made at the same moment of time. Why might not the population be enumerated in one year, and the agricultural statistics obtained in another, andsoon? ‘Then, too, it is difficult to conceive how a census can properly be made without reference to documents, state and municipal, which should be permanently preserved in a special library under the control of the office, with a librarian charged with the duty of keep- ing it up, and thoroughly acquainted with its contents and arrangement; which implies a permanent census bureau. Lists of corre- spondents are also requisite, which should be constantly revised and corrected. The addi- tional expense of a permanent force, which need not be large, would be far less than the waste of money occasioned by the want of thorough preparation for taking the census on the present plan, and the mistakes and mis- directed energy of a clerical force destitute of scientific knowledge or skill, unacquainted with each other, and unorganized for effective work. There must also be improved modes of col- lecting and digesting information which are practicable. The process of tallying results by hand, so painful and slow, which is at present in vogue, must give way to some other process, involving less mental and manual labor, and increased accuracy. Too many clerks and too much time are required to meet the wants of an active and impatient people like ours. We do not appreciate information which is not recent and fresh. There must be some way devised of utilizing steam or electricity in the tabulation of results. If this can be accom- plished, then instead of waiting several years for the published census, as we now have to do, ~ JUNE 27, 1884.] we might hope to have it on the shelves of our libraries in six months, or a year at most, after it is taken. These remarks are made purely in the interest of science. Scientific investigation deals, first, with the elementary substances of which masses are composed, then with the forces which are at work to combine them into composite forms, and finally with the relations and principles which characterize and control organisms. Human society is an organism, for the right apprehension of which it is as essential to ac- cumulate facts, and by means of comparison and analysis to deduce the laws which govern social phenomena, as it is to follow the same method of study in any other branch of science. The political and commercial bearings of the census we do not discuss; but it is evident that the census of the population and material resources of this country has for us a special significance, in view of our representative form of government and of the unprecedented growth of the American people. ‘To these considera- tions may be added another; namely, that no other nation has such a heterogeneous popula- tion, and therefore such need of self-introspec- tion, in order to comprehend its true capacity, limitations, and destiny. The political and financial needs of the country minister to science, and promote scientific research in this particular direction. All that scientific men insist upon is, that the investigation shall be in competent hands, and conducted according to the principles and methods which have done so much for science in general. A census bureau, wisely constituted, might, with respect to social science, occupy a relation, and perform a work, similar to that of the Smithsonian institution in the domain of the natural and physical sciences. HEAD WATERS OF THE ATNA OR COP- PER RIVER.! Very little has been known of this river, which enters the Pacific in about latitude 60° north, longitude 145° west. Several prospect- ors were left there tomake explorations last year, and will be called for this summer. The Ah-tena or Atnah Tinneh Indians reside on its banks, and from its bed have been taken nu- merous pieces of native copper resembling that of the Lake Superior region. The Wrangell Voleano is situated near it, about a hundred miles from its mouth. In crossing the Chilkat portage from the head 1 Communicated by authority of the superintendent of the U. S. coast and geodetic survey. SCIENCE. 179 of Lynn Canal to the head waters of the Lewis branch of the Yukon, the head waters of another stream, called the Altsek River, are crossed. The natives allege that this stream falls into the sea; and on Tebienkoff’s charts the mouth of the Altsek River is placed on the ocean-coast just north-west from Mount Fairweather, in the bed of the Grand Plateau Glacier. The observa- tions of the U. S. coast-survey party, under my charge, in 1874 showed that no river from the interior could enter the Pacific between Cape Spencer and Yakutat Bay ; all the depressions of the St. Elias Alps being filled with glaciers. In recent charts the Altsek has therefore been connected by a dotted line with the White River, one of the branches of the Yukon. I have for some time suspected that the Altsek was the head of the Copper or Atna River, but until lately have had no evidence sufficiently weighty to make it desirable to alter the charts. A recent letter from Dr. Arthur Krause states that his Indian guides told him that they had descended the Altsek to salt water, where there was a small village of Tlinkit Indians. This makes it certain that the Altsek and Atna rivers are continuous ; for the Chilkhaat village at the mouth of the Atna is the only one answering to the situation, and the westernmost of all the Tlinkit villages, being separated from most of the others by a wide stretch of unoccupied coast. This determination is of much importance. It determines the Atna River to be over four hundred miles in length, and the longest river falling into the Pacific between the Fraser in British Columbia and the Aliaskan peninsula. The opportunity for a most interesting explo- ration is here evident. The explorer need only take a couple of good canoes or portable boats up the Chilkat River, and across the portage to the Altsek, and float down the latter. Within a couple of days of the mouth of the Atna is the trading-post of Fort Constantine at Port Etches, commonly known as Nuchek, where supplies could be had and arrangements made for the trading company’s vessel to convey the party to St. Paul, Kadiak Island, whence transpor- tation to San Francisco could be had without difficulty, at some time during the autumn. Wan. H. Dat. THE ETOWAH MOUNDS. In Science of April 11 is an article by Mr. W. H. Holmes, on certain engraved shells and figured plates of copper found in southern mounds. As some of the most interesting of these articles were obtained from one of the 780 mounds forming the celebrated Etowah group near Cartersville, Ga., a description of the form, structure, and contents of this tumulus may be of interest to those who have read Mr. Holmes’s article. As this group has been repeatedly described and figured (see Jones’s ‘ Antiquities of the southern Indians,’ chap. vi., pl. i.; and an article by Col. Whittlesey in the ‘ Smithsonian report’ for 1880, p. 624), it will be unneces- sary for me to add more in this regard than to correct one or two errors. The dimensions of the large mound marked A in the figure alluded to, as ascertained by the assistants of the Bureau of ethnology, are as follows: the slant height along the steepest slope, which I found by personal examination to be just about 45°, is eighty-five feet, giving a perpendicular height of sixty-one feet; the longer diameter of the level top a hundred and seventy-five feet, and the shorter a hun- dred and seventy, giving an area of about SCIENCE. hy la Lady Moda [Vou. IIL, No. 73. the original surface of the ground, sixteen feet. The form is more nearly that of a truncated cone than represented in the figures alluded to. The construction was found, by very thorough excavation, to be as follows: the entire sur- rounding slope (No. 4, fig. 1) was of hard, tough, red clay, which could not have been ob- tained nearer than half a mile; the cylindrical core, sixty feet in diameter, and extending down to the original surface of the ground, was com- posed of three horizontal layers, — the bottom layer (No. 1), ten feet thick, of rich, dark, and rather loose loam; the next (No. 2), four feet thick, of hard, beaten (or tramped) clay, so tough and hard that it was difficult to pene- trate it even with a pick; and the uppermost (No. 3), of sand and surface soil between one and two feet thick. A trench was dug from opposite sides to the central core; and, when the arrangement was ascertained, this central portion was carefully explored to the original surface of the ground. seven-tenths of an acre; the length of the roadway which winds up the southern slope is two hundred and one feet, and the width sixty- one feet. This roadway is described, in all the reports I have seen, as reaching the summit level. This is a mistake; as it stops short of the top by thirty feet slant height, or twenty feet perpendicular height. I can also state confidently that it never reached any farther up, as is apparent from a mere glance at the plan of construction. The remainder of the ascent, which is quite steep, was probably made by steps or ladders. The mound in which the articles mentioned were found by Mr. Rogan, who excavated it on behalf of the bureau, and a vertical section of which is given in fig. 1, is the smallest of the three, and the one marked C in Jones’s plate, and also in Col. Whittlesey’s fig. 2. The measurements, as ascertained by Mr. Rogan, are as follows: average diameter at the base, a hundred and twenty feet; diam- eter of the level top, sixty feet; height above Nothing was found in the layer of clay (No. 2), except a rude clay pipe, some small shell beads, a piece of mica, and a chunkee stone. The burials were all in the lower layer (No. 1), of dark, rich loam, and chiefly in stone cists or coffins of the usual box-shape, formed of stone slabs, and distributed horizontally, as shown in fig. 2, which is a plan of this lower bed. From Mr. Rogan’s field-notes I quote the following description of these graves, mode of burial, etc. : — Grave a, fig. 2.—A stone sepulchre two feet and a half wide, eight feet long, and two feet deep, formed by placing steatite slabs on edge at the sides and ends, and others across the top. The bottom consisted simply of earth hardened by fire. It con- tained the remains of a single skeleton, lying on its back, with the head east. ‘The frame was heavy, and about seven feet long. The head was resting on a thin copper plate, ornamented with figures of some kind; but the head was crushed and the plate in- jured by fallen slabs. remains of a skin of some kind; and under this, — coarse matting, probably of splitcane. ‘The skin and > Under the copper were the ~ JUNE 27, 1884.] matting were both so rotten that I could only secure them in fragments. At the left of the feet were two clay vessels, — one a water-bottle, and the other a very small vase. On the right of the feet were some mus- sel and sea shells; and immediately under the feet two conch-shells, Pyrula perversa, partially filled with small shell beads. of similar beads. The bones and most of the shells were so far decomposed that they could not be saved. Grave 6b. — A stone sepulchre four feet and a quar- ter long, two feet wide, and a foot and a half deep, differing from a only in size and the fact that the bottom was covered with stone slabs. The skeleton was extended on the back, head east. On the fore- head was a thin plate of copper, the only article found. Grave c.—A stone sepulchre three feet and a half long, a foot and a third wide, and a foot and a half deep; the bottom being formed of burnt earth. Although extending east and west, as shown in fig. 2, the bones had probably been interred without regard to order, and disconnected; the head being found in the north-east corner with face to the wall, and the remain- ing portion of the skeleton in a promis- cuous heap. Yet there is no indication of disturbance after burial, as the coffin was intact. Between some of the bones I found a thin plate of copper that had been formed by uniting and riveting to- gether smaller sections. Some of the bones found in this grave were saved. Grave d.— A small sepulchre, a foot and a half square by a foot deep, con- tained the remains of an infant, alsoa few small shell beads. The slabs form- ing the sides and bottom of this grave bore very distinct marks of fire. Grave e.—Simply a headstone and footstone, with the skeleton of a very small child between them; head east. On the wrists were some very small shell beads. The earth on the north and south sides had been hardened in order to form the walls. Grave f. — Stone sepulchre six feet long, three feet wide, and a foot anda third deep, with stone in the bottom. Skeleton with the head north. There was a lot of copper about the head, which, together with the skeleton, was wrapped inaskin. The head rested on a large conch- shell (Pyrula perversa), and this on the remains of a coarse mat. Shell beads were found around the neck, each wrist, and ankle. On the right was a small cup, and on the breast an engraved shell. The copper had preserved a portion of the hair, which I saved; por- tions of the skin and matting were also secured. Immediately under b was another stone grave or coffin, three feet long, a foot and a half wide and deep, extending north and south. The head of the skele- ton was toward the north, but the feet were doubled back under the frame in order to get it in the allotted space. The only things found with this skeleton were some beads around the neck. At g the remains of a child were found, without any stones about them. Some shell beads were around the neck and wrist, and an engraved shell on the breast. Grave h.—A stone sepulchre a foot and a half square and a foot deep, stone slabs on the four sides and top, but the bottom consisting simply of earth hardened by fire. This contained only a trace of bones, and presented indications of at least partial Around each ankle was a strand . SCIENCE. 781 cremation; as all around the slabs, outside and inside, was a solid mass of charcoal, and the earth was burned to the depth of a foot. Grave i.— A stone sepulchre four feet and a half long, a foot and a half wide and deep, bottom earth, contained the remains of a skeleton resting on the back, head north, and feet doubled back so as to come within the coffin. On the breast was a thin plate of copper, five inches square, with a hole through the centre. Around the wrists were beads, and about the neck rather more than a quart of the same. At j were the remains of a small child, without stone surroundings; under the head was a piece of copper, and about the neck and wrists shell beads. These graves were not on the same level; the top of some being but two feet below the clay bed (No. 2), while others were from two to three feet lower. N Fig. 2. All the articles alluded to as obtained in this mound were forwarded at once to the Bureau of ethnology, and are now in the National mu- seum. Examining them somewhat carefully since their reception, I find there are really more copper plates among them than Mr. Rogan supposed ; the number and description being as follows :— 1. A human figure with wings, represented in fig. 5 of Mr. Holmes’s paper, and repeated in our fig. 3. This is thirteen inches long and nine inches wide. A portion of the lower part, as shown by the figure, is wanting, probably some three or four inches. ‘There is a break across the middle, but not sufficient to inter- fere with tracing out the design. A crown- piece to the head ornament is also wanting. 7182 2. Also a human figure, shown in our fig. 4. Length, sixteen inches; width, seven inches and a half. O OSG S ie SS O ' a \ HIG. 3. 3. Figure of a bird, very similar to that rep- resented in fig. 6 of Mr. Holmes’s paper, but considerably larger, and varying slightly in de- tails. This is imperfect, as part of the head, and the outer margin of the wings, are wanting. Length, thirteen inches and a half; width, seven inches and a half. ‘This plate shows indubitable evidence of having been formed of smaller pieces welded together, as the over- lapping portions can be easily traced. It has also undergone repairs : a fracture commencing on the left margin, and running irregularly half- way across the body, has been mended by pla- cing a strip of copper along it on the under side, and riveting it to the main plate ; a small piece has also been riveted to the head, and the head to the body ; several other pieces are at- tached in the sameway. ‘The rivets are small, and the work neatly done. 4. An ornament or badge of some kind, shown in fig. 5. The two crescent-shaped pieces are entirely plain, except some slightly impressed lines on the portion connecting them with the central stem. ‘This central stem, throughout its entire length and to the width of six-tenths of an inch, is raised, and cross-strips placed at various points along the under side, for the purpose of inserting a strip of bone; a SCIENCE. part of which yet remains in it, and is seen in — the figure at the break immediately below the point where the oblique strips meet. The most important and interesting fact presented by this specimen is the indubitable evidence it fur- nishes that the workman who formed it made use of metallic tools, as the cutting in this case could not possibly have been done with any thing except a metallic implement. A single glance at it is sufficient to satisfy any one of the truth of this assertion. Length of the stem, nine inches ; width across the crescents, seven inches and a half. Fig. 4. 5. Part of an ornament similar to No. 4. These plates, especially No. 4, appear to be enlarged patterns of that seen behind the head of fig. 3. | di _ JUNE 27, 1884.] 6. An ornament or badge, shown in fig. 6, which Mr. Rogan, when he found it under the head of the skeleton in grave a, was inclined to Fie. 5. consider a crown. It is imperfect, a narrow strip across the middle and a portion of the tip being missing. As shown in the figure, it measures around the outer border nineteen inches and across the broad end three inches and a half. The six holes at the larger end, in which the remains of strings can be detected, indicate that it was, when in use, attached to some portion of the dress, or fastened on a staff. 7. A fragment from the larger end of a piece similar to the preceding. Attached to this is a piece of cloth. In addition to the foregoing, there are a num- ber of small fragments, probably broken from SCIENCE. 183 these plates ; but so far I have been unable to fit them to their proper places. An examination of what Mr. Rogan calls a skin shows beyond question that it is animal matter. The matting he speaks of appears to be made of split canes. Fig. 7. The shell represented in Mr. Holmes’s fig. 3, reproduced in our fig. 7, is the one obtained in grave g. The one shown in Mr. Holmes’s fig. 4, reproduced in our fig. 8, is that found in grave f. I shall not attempt at present to speculate upon these singular specimens of art, further than to call attention to one or two facts which appear to bear upon their age and distribution. First, We notice the fact alluded to by Mr. Holmes, which is apparent to every one who inspects his accurately drawn figures, that, ‘‘ in all their leading features, the designs them- selves are suggestive of Mexican or Central- American work.’’ Yet a close inspection brings to light one or two features which are anomalies in Mexican or Central-American Fie. 8. designs; as, for example, in figs. 3 and 4, where the wings are represented as rising from the back of the shoulders,— a fact alluded to by Mr. Holmes. Although we can find numerous figures of winged individuals in Mexican de- 184 signs (they are unknown in Central-American), they always carry with them the idea that the individual is partly or ee clothed in the skin of the bird. This is partially carried out in our copper plate, as we see by the bird-bill over the head ; the eye being that of the bird, and not of the man. But when we come to the wings, we at once see that the artist had in mind the angel figure with wings arising from the back of the;shoulders, — an idea wholly foreign to Mexican art. | Another fact worthy of note, in regard to these two plates, is that there is a combination of Central-American and Mexican designs: the graceful limbs, and the ornaments of the arms, Fig. 10. legs, waist, and top of the head, are Central American ; and the rest, with the exception, _ possibly, of what is carried in the right hand, Mexican. SCIENCE. [Vor IIL, No. 73. That these plates are not the work of the Indi- ans found inhabiting the southern sections of the United States, or of their direct ancestors, I freely concede. That they were not made by an aboriginal artisan of Central America or Mexico of ante-Columbian times, I think is evident, if not from the designs themselves, from the indisputable evidence that the work was done with hard metallic tools. Second, Plates like those of this collection have only been found, so far as I can ascer- tain, in northern Georgia and northern and southern Illinois. The bird figure represented in fig. 9 was obtained by Major Powell, the y ee “N a oe >» oe CO e \ ANY NG : Wee . | \ Xe ae ~~ —S 7 S- ot NN wees! = Fre. 11. director of the U. S. geological survey, from a mound near Peoria, Ill. Another was obtained in Jackson county, Ill., by Mr. Thing, while engaged by the Bureau of ethnology, from an ordinary stone grave. From another simi- lar grave, at the same place, he also obtained the plate represented in fig. 10. Fragments of another similar plate were obtained by Mr. Earle from a stone grave in a mound in Alex- ander county, Ill. All these specimens were received by the Bureau of ethnology, and are now in the National museum. I cannot enter at present into a discussion ~ of the questions raised by the discovery of these engraved shells ; nor is it necessary that \ JUNE 27, 1884.] I should do so, as Mr. Holmes has discussed somewhat fully these designs in the second annual report of the Bureau of ethnology. But I may add that these figured copper plates and engraved shells present a problem very difficult to solve, as is evident from the follow- ing facts : — | 1°. A number of the designs bear too strong resemblance to those of Mexico and Central America to warrant us in supposing this simi- larity to be accidental. 2°. The indications of European workmanship are too evident to be overlooked. 3°. The fact that some of them were found in connection with articles of European manufacture is unquestionable. 4°. The evidence that some , of the engraved shells ean be traced to the In- dians is well-nigh conclu- sive. Mr. Rogan sank a large shaft, seventeen feet square, to the bot- tom of the second mound (marked B in Jones’s plate, and also in Col. Whittlesey’s figure). No burials or objects of in- terest were found in it, except the remains of four posts, extending four feet below the surface, placed in the form of a parallelogram, two feet one way, and six feet the other. The strata were as follows: first, a_ bot- tom layer of white sand two feet thick; next, between nine and ten feet of dark red clay; then two feet more of white sand ; and, lastly, a top layer of some six or seven feet of dark sandy loam. Mr. Rogan found in one of the small, low mounds east of the large one (those marked FF on Jones’s plate), the fragment of a stone image. This fragment, which shows most of the form of the bust, is represented in our fig. 11. Itis made of a coarse white marble: and the part shown in the figure is ten inches and three-quarters long ; the length of the head, seven inches and a fifth; and width of the head, five inches and three-quarters. The face is entirely wanting, and from appearance, I judge, was broken off designedly. Cyrus THOMAS. SCIENCE. 785 A HUMAN SKULL FROM THE LOESS OF PODBABA, NEAR PRAGUE.} AMONG collections of bones from the diluvium of the vicinity of Prague, human skulls are often found. From the color of the earth adhering to them, how- ever, it is evident that they come from graves of the stone and bronze age, which here frequently occur in the top layer of the loess deposit, and are filled with dark loam. I also once received a normal skull found at a great depth in a lime-kiln at Tyrolka, not far from Prague, but in such relations that the over- lying strata were presumed to have obtained their present position from a slide down the steep sides of the valley. In the winter of 1883 some workmen brought me numerous bones of the reindeer, the rhinoceros, and Fie. 1.— LATERAL VIEW OF HUMAN SKULL, FROM DELUVIAL CLAY NEAR PRAGUE (ONE- HALF NATURAL SIZE.) the mammoth, from the clay behind the brewery at Podbaba, and, on the 30th of November, the remains of a human skull. After carefully putting together the newly broken parts, a skull was apparent, the re- markably depressed shape of the forehead of which must surprise every one. As this came from the same strata as the bones of ancient mammals ob- tained from this place, I immediately went there in order to determine more definitely the state of things. The skull was found by a workman named Hlavaty, in undisturbed brick-clay (loess) two metres thick, lying under one metre of dense loam, and at the same level at which, about a week previously, I had ob- tained the tusk of a mammoth. 1 Abstract of a communication to the Bohemian society of sciences, by Dr. ANTON FRITSCH. 7186 The skull consists of the frontal bone, the whole left parietal, a fragment of the right as well as a part of the left temporal bone, with the petrosa. The oc- cipital bone, the face, and the base of the skull, are lacking; but freshly broken surfaces indicate that the skull was complete, and that the missing fragments are lost. On this account, measurements according to the accepted,rules could not be given. I therefore sought for lines which would permit a comparative measurement with a modern skull. I joined the point of the upper edge of the orbit with that in which the parietal bones are connected at the end of their median suture, and from it drew a line perpendicular to the lower end of the mastoid process of the petrosa (see fig. 1). I did the same, also, to a normal skull, and ascertained by this means the great difference in the shape of the forehead, and the lowness of the skull arch. A measurement made in the same way, of the slope of the forehead in a nor- mal brachycephalic Bohemian, amounts to seventy- two degrees, while the skull from Podbaba measures fifty-six degrees. In a normal skull, the height of the crown above this horizontal line is 7.2 centime- tres; in the skull from Podbaba, 5.6 centimetres. The position of the outer opening of the ear may be recon- structed with some exactness by means of the chan- nel running diagonally across the temporal bone. A further remarkable characteristic of the skull is the very strongly developed eyebrows, which, in their Fig. 2. — THE SAME, TOP VIEW. inner half, are little inferior to the Neanderthal skull. A cross-section of the stoutest portion of the parietal bone shows that only the middle third is porous. The bone has nearly the same appearance as those of the diluvial mammals found in the same clay, com- monly considered fossil. A few small fragments of SCIENCE. t Fi Vets "ay 7° 0 a D (Vox. IIL, No. 73. the bones of the extremities were obtained with the © skull, but their inter-relation would be difficult to — prove. Fig. 8.— THE SAME, FRONT VIEW. From the same clay a skeleton of a girl of the bronze age was recently brought to me, one hand still _- holding a bracelet, which had turned the distal end of the arm green. A few days later I obtained two nearly perfect skeletons of full-grown men from a neighboring lime-kiln. All these skeletons came from graves situated in the top layer of the loess and in the loam. All are typical dolichocephali, with beau- tifully arched foreheads. The bones are soft and fragile, and are at once distinguishable, on a glance, from the skull with low forehead found deep in the loess. After repeated visits to the locality, I succeeded in determining that it was in precisely this layer, two metres below the loam, that all the mammal remains obtained at this place had been found; viz., a tusk of a mammoth seventy-five centimetres long, two skulls of Rhinoceros tychorhinus, reindeer, and horse. Since this is the same level from which the human skull came, it may be considered as established be- yond doubt, that the mammoth, the rhinoceros, and man lived in Bohemia at the same period. As Iam no craniologist by profession, and am espe- cially occupied with other paleontological material, I think I act agreeably to all anthropologists in sending the skull for further examination to Professor Schaaf- hausen. This high authority, to whom I have already sent a plaster cast, declares it very interest- ing, and will be prepared shortly to report on it. PRIMITIVE COMMUNITIES. DuRING the year 1888 three books were published which were of so great importance in the early history of institutions, that it seems worth while to examine them with some care in their relation tg one another, in order to determine the precise extent and value of their contribution to this study. ‘These books are, Sir Henry Maine’s ‘Early law and custom,’ Mr. Frederic Seebohm’s ‘ English village community,’ and Mr. D. W. Ross’s ‘Early history of land-holding among the Germans.’ Sir Henry Maine’s book, be- ing a collection of essays of a considerable range of discussion, will be touched upon only incidentally: the other two, those of Mr.Ross and Mr. Seebohm, ~ eT Tt re ft - ' ; ’ : ; ‘ : ' : 1 é e ’ F . ’ . y : 4 se . ; . f is an ye 7% “% r A sa : >’ wal .} \ m J * ¥) gre} hs wid, wap € ; by 3 | | Fi ‘ ry oo / 4 % 5 ; , ay a Gs ay ~< a us ty ar ag PY fim. = Spd re i Se qce aa y ~ er Py os aa | - = a oe — = te —- co \ . 1, AMAZONIAN IDOL; 2, SEPULCHRAL URN OF THE PROVINCE OF PARA, BRAZIL; 3, FIGUR- INE OF TERRACOTTA, FOUND IN UTATLAN; 4, VASE FOUND IN TENNESSEE; 5, VASE FOUND IN THE MISSOURI RIVER (?).— La Nature. a BRECCIA COLUMNS IN qv > GROUP OF PAPUANS. — Science monthly. SELECTED ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ) | | | i | HOTOGRAPHY. NEOUS P LA OW INS tan \ TER i HOTOGKRAPHIC KREVOLY , 1 Chile ie as w ve Vero be cH a ES bo Fa 5 AE oO Sc me oS MSS pO 5 see] tanita a a8 D 25845 Wn 20 a5 =, 3 We c Sac oad oO eeors re Hee 6°97 A T)' pit KY cree” Seogs =o Se Sool ares 14, OSES Se BS May , eas OoDneras + 3 on SS Ba danse 5 as OS © ¢ j= ipa Sos some COTES aa se ee oo S oS Lan Sar Lany. = ny Ora i, A800 42 hae wo ao Sra OBO. o 5 Pras Fe tCn As Serene 2 saG7 a pad Er 2 Sst & aie Oe Sada es SCmMaqareu eee Oo oH Ss o HESS os o a a saver Sel leet Sh Wet i=) (sies Se UV S nok G'S w o ORS Seresge ePesetsaea Fae OF ica] iy n~ <3 alee} |< i= 4 4 BF of ND BA Ay fs [om 5 Ef oa fa ak Go) 4 mi & S$ Bhs MAS fae tes a ae | id Zid: qian Et Yt nm es ia a A jms AQ Z Z CZ Lie EE Z Ly Ze AZ TG: LL ZZz fp W4tOF, TORY, ATURAL HIS [ OF N S PHOTOGRAPH. —La Nature. SUN MUS Is AR EOU THE YOUNG GORILLA OF THE P , La N N INSTANTA AN FROM Ure. at ,» KOHISTAN g GNAOU OF JA | INTEMPORARY FOREIGN JOURNALS. 'E, June 27, 1884, SCIENC Supplement to hes ge ce ala ee <> 1, AMAZONIAN IDOL; 2, SEPULCHRAL URN OF THE PROYIN INE OF TERRACOTTA, FOUND IN UTATLAN; 4, VASE F FOUND IN THE Missourt RivER (?).— La Nature. A Group oF Pary © OF PARA, BRAZIL ND IN TENNESSEE . — Science monthly. SELECTED Breccia COLUMNS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ry THE za PHOTOG KAPHK REVOLVER FORK LN5vaNLANEOUS PHOTOGRAPHY. A, the shutter rotated by clock rk ure on the trigger. “After ae i Tames revolved by hand; and, the catch If bei hee _Yeleased from the teeth 1K by press- ; Geen exposed in the holder GQ, the barrel G is INBIANTANEOQUSD EHOTOGRALH OF A FLASH OF transferred to the chamber for exposed p rereased by the inclined plane at Fy, the plate is TAKEN BY Robert HAENSEL, AT REICHEM rotation, the chamber of fresh ale Sai (Oren Neny in the figuke). continued 1A, — Naturen. pressed by the spring into the Hee eee opposite the holder, and another plate 8, Kontsran.— Tatu ‘THE YOUNG GORILLA OF THE PARIS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, ‘ TAN.— La Nature. FROM AN INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPH. — {La Nature. T!MPO RARY FOREIGN JOU RNALS. Supplement to SCTEN' 2 June 27, 1884, Top JAGNAov: JUNE 27, 1884.] being in the same general line of investigation, and arriving at essentially the same results, deserve care- ful study by themselves. . The principal object of these two books, so far as they are controversial in character, is to disprove the accepted theory of village communities. The exist- ence of village communities as a feature of serfdom, they readily accept; and Mr. Ross even recognizes certain quasi communities of freemen, of a compara- tively late date, and of subordinate importance: but the agricultural community of free peasants, purely democratic in its structure, as a regular and necessary phase in the history of Germanic society, they either deny altogether, or accept as a merely transient and unimportant phenomenon. It may be noted here, that neither of these treatises aims to cover the entire ground of the inquiry. Mr. Seebohm’s investigations are, for the most part, con- fined to the English people, — an intruding people, settled by conquest upon a soil to which they were foreign. Here he appears to have completely estab- lished his thesis by a series of inductions of remark- able fulness and cogency, and to have shown that the evidence before us does not warrant us in going back of the servile community which we know to have ex- isted in the middle ages. But when he passes from England to the original home of the English, he con- tents himself with the discussion of two or three points, of considerable interest and importance, it is true, but which do not go to the bottom of the mat- ter. Mr. Ross pursues his inquiries by a precisely opposite method. Instead of working back inductive- ly from the present to the past, he begins with the first settlement of the Germans in their permanent homes, and traces their landed institutions step by step down to fully historicaltimes. Likeall deductive processes, his reasoning depends for its force upon our acceptance of the proposition with which he starts. This proposition is (p. 1), that ‘‘ the freemen settled neither in villages nor in towns, but apart from one another, in isolated farmsteads.’’ Of the evidence for this proposition, derived from chap. xvi. of the Germania of Tacitus, I spoke some months ago (see Science, No. 45), in a review of Mr. Ross’s book. My object now is not to repeat what I said then, or to examine the proposition itself, but to bring it into relation with other connected branches of inquiry. Mr. Ross has given us an invaluable treatise upon early German land-holding; but landed institutions are only one of a group of institutions, and, however fundamental their importance, they cannot be fully understood, except in connection with the social or- ganization and the political institutions of the people in question. Moreover, however fundamental the landed institutions are at the stage of civilization in which the Germans were at the time of the migra- tions, in the earlier stages of society they are of only secondary importance, and, indeed, only come into existence at a relatively late epoch in the life of any community. Primitive communities stand in no relation to the land except that of occupation. Land is to them a free gift of nature, just like air; and individual own- SCIENCE. 7187 ership, or even permanent individual occupation, is in- conceivable tothem. For primitive communities, the most fundamental consideration is that of the social organization, — the structure of society: the relation to the land does not come into consideration until the people has passed through savage life and the lower stages of barbarism, and has settled down to perma- nent occupation and systematic agriculture. Then, upon the passage from the personal to the territorial basis of organization, the land becomes the subject of the first consequence. It is readily seen, therefore, that Mr. Ross, starting with individual property in land, leaves out of sight —as he has a right to do — all the earlier phases of landed relations, as well as the entire question of social structure. We cannot, however, fully understand the landed institutions themselves, or fully appreciate the bearing of Mr. Ross’s researches, without bringing them into rela- tion with these cognate branches of inquiry. It will be well to diverge here for a moment to Sir Henry Maine’s book, which raises a question similar to that under consideration. In chap. vii., ‘ Theories of primitive society,’ he pronounces in favor of the ‘patriarchal theory of society,’ — that is, ‘* the theory of its origin in separate families, held together by the authority and protection of the eldest valid male as- cendant,’’ — against the view presented by Morgan and McLennan, of its origin in the horde. That this was the history of society as we are in condition to trace it, especially in the Indo-European family of nations, there is no doubt; but the patriarchal family, like individual ownership of land, requires something back of it to account for its origin. It is not primi- tive, but must itself be the outcome of ages of gradual advancement. The theory of the patriarchal family, as defined by Sir Henry Maine, lends itself readily to Mr. Ross’s theory of landed relations. ‘The German warrior, upon the settlement of his tribe in a new region, may be supposed to have taken a tract of land, and settled upon it with his sons and daughters, his slaves and serfs. From this beginning, the sketch of landed relations presented by Mr. Ross possesses unity and consistency. To accept it in full, however, as an exhaustive theory of the subject, we must not only agree to the interpretation of Tacitus, by which he establishes his premise, but must also bring his the- oryinto harmony with what we know of the primi- tive social organization of the Germans. It is generally agreed that the Germans, in the time of Caesar, — and these remarks apply also, in the main, to the time of Tacitus, a hundred and fifty years later, — were in what is sometimes called the semi- nomadic stage, but what we may, perhaps, better de- scribe as the end of a series of migrations. There is good evidence that the intruding Germans had dis- placed Celts in some parts of Germany at a relatively recent date; and.the great invasion of the Teutones and Cimbri at just the time of Caesar’s birth, was, no doubt, apart of this general migration. This erratic movement of the Cimbri and Teutones was checked by the Romans with considerable difficulty; but an effective barrier was placed against the slow west- 788 ward advance of the Germans by Caesar’s defeat of Ariovistus, the later campaigns of Drusus and Tibe- rius, and finally by the limes, or line of fortified posts constructed from the Rhine across to the Dan- ube in the second century.1 The Germans, at the time of Caesar, cultivated the ground to a certain extent, — a form of industry not inconsistent with the slow migration, occupying perhaps several centu- ries, by which they passed from their original home to central Europe. Once this migratory movement stopped, no longer finding scope for expansion, the Germans appear to have settled quietly within their now established boundaries, and to have passed with great rapidity into a settled condition of society, with permanent occupation of land, and a regular system of cultivating it. At this point there is an absolute blank in our knowledge for a period of nearly three hundred years, after which time, in the weakness and disruption of the Roman empire, the Germans burst over the bar- riers which had held them stationary, and began a new series of migrations, of a very different type. These years, as I have said, are a complete blank, except so far as we are enabled to infer what hap- pened during the interval, from what appears at its close. In the time of Caesar, and probably in that of Tacitus, when the limes was in process of con- struction, the Germans appear to have been still in the stage of temporary occupation of land by groups of kinsmen. What was the nature and organization of these family groups it is impossible to tell; only we have every reason to conclude that they were of far less importance in their system than in that of either Greeks, Romans, Slavs, or Celts. Like the Romans, the Germans advanced to the territorial or political stage at a relatively very early period; but while the Romans continued, even under their highly devel- oped political system, to retain their gentile organ- ization unimpaired, — although only as a branch of private law, — the corresponding institutions among the Germans were rapidly outgrown, and have left very slight traces in their later institutions. The larger subdivisions, which may very likely have been gentes in their origin, appear, in the time of Caesar and Tacitus, to have become purely territorial dis- tricts, in which, so far as our information extends, there is absolutely no feature of the family prin- ciple. They are administered, not by an hereditary or quasi-hereditary chief representing the original patriarch, as among the Slavs and Celts, but by elected magistrates (principes), in which no trace of the patriarchal origin is discernible; and so strongly developed are the political habits of the people, that these magistrates are elected by the entire nation in their public assembly, and assigned to the several districts.2, Within these districts the family groups still continue, and receive annual assignments of land at the discretion of the magistrates. This is 1 For the historical importance of this limes, see Arnold, Deutsche urzeit, book i. chap. iii. 2 This subject I have discussed more fully in a paper in vol. vi. of the Transactions of the Wisconsin academy of sciences, arts, and letters, now in press. SCIENCE. ‘ature. in the time of Caesar. In the time of Tacitus, even these lesser family groups appear to have lost much of their original character; for he does not mention it as a feature of their constitution. When we reach the settlement of the Angles and Saxons in England, we find that the maegth, or legal kin, was not a pre- cisely defined group, like the Roman agnatio, but was — irregular and fluctuating in the highest degree.1 The same fact, the inferior importance of the kin as com- pared with all the other European branches of the Aryan race, is shown distinctly in the popular liter- In the story of Burnt Njal, for example, the patriarch lives surrounded by his sons and daughters; but so far is he from possessing the Roman patria potestas, that he has no power even to withhold his sons from the perpetration of a gross crime. When the Germans come under our observation again, at the time of the migrations in the fourth and fifth centuries, we find, in place of the system of shifting occupation of land, a fully developed system of individual ownership. This Mr. Ross appears to have completely proved. That the ownership was not yet complete, for the purposes of alienation and devise, does not affect the main question. It was precisely so among the ancient Romans, who possessed the most vigorous and logical conception of individual property (dominium) in land which any people has ever had; nevertheless, the paterfamilias held this property in trust, as it were, for his heirs, without power either of alienation or devise. Here comes in the importance of the distinction made by Mr. Ross between common and undivided property. The land belonged to the freeman and his heirs, not to the community, and, when divided, was divided per stirpes: it was therefore not common, but undivided. The question now arises, What connection was there between the system of shifting occupation de- scribed by Caesar and Tacitus, and that of individual ownership which existed at the time of the migra- tions? To answer this question, we have absolutely no positive data, but may arrive at certain inferences by following deductively the tendencies at work in the earlier period, or by detecting in the later period survivals of perished institutions. It may be said that the natural course of events would be something like this. The family group, which in the time-of Caesar received an assignment of land for a year at a time, appears in the time of Tacitus to have held it for a series of years; its family character being, perhaps, at the same time modified. This is what we should naturally expect, and it is the most probable explanation of the much-disputed passage in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Germania. This shifting occupation, the natural accompani- ment of semi-nomadic or migratory life, would cease by the force of circumstances when this form of life came to anend. The German nations being confined within definite territories, divided into permanent districts, the lesser groups would likewise become fixed. The habits of settled agriculture, the at- tachment to lands and residences once occupied, ~ would very soon transform the shifting occupation — 1 See Professor Young’s essay upon Anglo-Saxon family law. JUNE 27, 1884.] into a permanent occupation; and with permanent occupation comes in at ouce the idea of ownership. Ownership of land is the outcome of a settlement in permanent homes, and the adoption of a regular system of agriculture. This ownership would be of the group, the universi of Tacitus, and must be common ownership in the strictest sense of the word: for the shifting occupation of individuals or house- holds (quos mox inter se secundum dignationem par- tiuntur) would continue for a while after that of the larger groups (agri ab universis in vices occupantur) had ceased; and in this interval there would be real ownership, because permanency of occupation, on the part of these larger groups (wniversi), originally them- selves family groups in nature, and probably still so in their prevailing character. At last the same causes which had called into existence the common owner- ship of the larger group would create, in turn, the individual ownership of the household. This would probably be a very rapid process. Such as it is here described, as a probable result of known causes, it is precisely what Mr. Seebohm appears to have in mind (p. 367) when he says, ‘‘ It is certainly possible that during a short period .. . tribal households may have expanded into free village communities.”’ If it took place at all, it must have been in this period of blank between the construction of the limes and the mi- grations of the fifth century. The free village community is therefore a natural and probable connecting link between what we know to have existed in the first century, and what we know to have existed in the fifth century. That it actually existed among the Germans during this epoch, we have no direct and positive evidence; but there are numerous features of the later system, in the community of cultivation, the rights of pre-emption, and the traces of occasional re-distribution, which are easiest explained as survivals of the village com- munity. For a description of these, I need only refer to Sir Henry Maine’s ‘ Village communities,’ and similar works. Of actual cases of village communities, indeed, in any country, it is surprising how few we have knowl- edge of, considering the large part they have played, of late years, in treatises upon early institutions. The villages of India are composed of independent families, joint or individual. Those of the South Slavonians are groups of house communities; the Celts never appear to have had any institution of this nature; the Greeks and Romans afford no traces of them; the German villages, as Mr. Ross has proved, were communities of independent proprie- tors, although bound together by ties,. which seem to indicate a previous condition of collective owner- ship; Russia alone affords unquestionable examples of the village community of the theory. What is common to all of these, and may be fairly pronounced a universal institution of the Indo-European race, if not of the human race, in its early stages, is the family group with collective occupation of land. The nature and organization of the group, and the later history of its relation to the land, are questions into which we have not space to enter. SCIENCE. 789 The obscurity and vagueness in the prevailing ideas upon the subject result from not attending to the fundamental character of the transition, in early society, from the personal structure of society (based upon the family relation) to the political organization (based upon territory). In the earlier stage we have family groups occupying a definite territory: in the later stage we may have a definite territory — the mark or village circumscription — occupied and owned in common by a group of proprietors. These pro- prietors may be the family group of the earlier stage, or they may have taken in members of different origin: in any case, the point of view has shifted, and is now territorial instead of personal. This condition of things, if it ever existed, is the free village community. W. F. ALLEN. TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE. A SECOND and important instalment of the Royal commission, appointed in England in 1881 to inquire into the subject of technical education, was published on May16. The preliminary report presented during the session of 1882 dealt exclusively with the condition of things in France, where educational development has been most remarkable. The percentage of illiterate conscripts in 1833 was forty-seven and eight-tenths: in 1867 it had fallen to twenty-three, and in 1880 to fifteen, per cent. The law of the 16th of June, 1881, which came into operation on the 1st of January fol- lowing, decreed gratuitous instruction available for the working-classes throughout an extended series of schools, commencing with the Salles d’asile, which are being converted into kindergarten schools, and graded upwards to the ‘superior elementary schools,’ in which technical instruction is given, and trades taught. The commissioners appear to have been favorably impressed with what they saw of the handi- craft teaching of the Christian brethren in France, Belgium, and Ireland. The combination of manual with ordinary literary instruction imparted to very young children appears to have been first tried in 1873, at the communal school in the Rue Tournefort, with such satisfactory results that schools of the same type are being rapidly and extensively established. ‘“‘Drawing, modelling, and carving are taught as part of the curriculum; and lathes, forges, and joiners’ benches are as much matters of course as desks and blackboards. In the Boulevard de la Villette is the apprenticeship school, established some twelve years ago by the city of Paris, for boys who have completed the ordinary primary-school course, and to whom is given what professes to be a very thorough training in the theory and practice of numerous handicrafts; the pupils especially distinguishing themselves as pattern-makers and engine-fitters. Nearly fifty thou- sand pounds is said to have been expended on the establishment of this institution, and nearly three thousand pounds is required for its annual mainte- nance.” The abolishing of the old system of apprentice- ship is the main object of this institution. The most striking examples of primary schools are to be found 790 in the Swiss cantons. In Zurich a communal school is described the building for which cost sixty-six pounds per pupil, —five times the much-complained of London average. There are no fees, and ninety- seven and a half per cent of all the children of school age are said to attend schools of this type. The aver- age attendance is returned as ninety-five,—a re- markable contrast to the seventy-two per cent which was the average in England and Wales a year ago; and no proposal for the reduction of school expendi- ture can find a hearing as an election cry in Switzer- land. Without a mine, a canal, or a navigable river, Switzerland carries on extensive cotton and silk weav- ing, paper-making, and calico-printing works; and the report grows quite enthusiastic on the aniline- color works of Basle, an abundant supply of skilful chemists being thoroughly trained in such institutions as the Polytechnicum at Zurich, or the Bernoullianum at Basle. The report shows that the higher educational institutions are as various in the different countries as they are generous and complete in most. In the German empire there are twenty-four universities. The buildings for the Strasburg university are now nearly complete, and are to cost six hundred thou- sand pounds. The department of botany has had a sum of twenty thousand pounds devoted to it; that of physics, thirty thousand pounds; and that of chem- istry, thirty-five thousand pounds. The votes for Maintenance are similarly ample. ‘The rivalry be- tween the universities and the polytechnic schools is wholesome, if costly. New buildings are now being completed at Charlottenberg, in which the work of the old technical high school of Berlin will be carried on. There are many intermediate schools between the primary schools and the universities and polytechnic schools. The ‘ Fortbildungsschulen’ of Germany are very beneficial institutions. ‘‘ The work of the primary day schools is carried on in evening classes with a direct and practical bearing on the occupations upon which the pupils have entered. But in every coun- try, and notably in France and Belgium, there are night classes provided for the instruction of the in- dustrial classes in drawing and modelling, directly applied to decorative art, as well as in popular sci- ence and general knowledge. ‘Then, again, there are schools still more specialized for instruction in weaving, in practical mining, in dyeing, and in de- signing for every conceivable kind of artistic manu- facture. This teaching is often gratuitous; but, where fees are exacted, they are always small; and there is everywhere prevailing a system of bourses and scholarships by which meritorious pupils are enabled to carry on their studies. The state, the province, and the commune bear the charges in their allotted proportions.’? The use of museums and art-galleries, open on Sunday for the benefit of designers, is much dwelt on by the commissioners, who embody a recommendation of Sunday opening in their report. Mr Samuelson and his colleagues travelled at their Own expense, and have spared no exertion to place their facts before the public in a complete and useful manner. SCIENCE. 34 [Vou. IIL, No. 78. THE AGE OF STEEL. The creators of the age of steel (on Sir Henry Besse- mer, Sir C. W. Siemens, Sir Joseph Whitworth, Sir John Brown, Mr S. T. Thomas, and Mr. G. J. Snelus). By W. T. Jeans. New York, Charles Scribner’s sons, 1884. 314p. 8°. In this little collection of biography, the au- thor has given a very interesting, and we may presume thoroughly authentic, account of the lives and the achievements of the great engi- neers who have during the past generation, 1850 to 1880, become famous as the ‘ creators” of the age of steel.’ The list given by Mr. Jeans includes Messrs. Bessemer, Siemens, Whitworth, Brown, Thomas, and Snelus, but omits Mr. Mushet (in regard to whose claims a somewhat sharp controversy is now going on in the Eng- lish periodicals), and makes no mention of two great American claimants for hardly less honor than is indisputably due to Bessemer himself, — Mr. Kelly, the contemporaneous inventor of the pneumatic process; and Mr. Holley, the great engineer, who by his won- derful ingenuity in the development of the details of the mechanical processes involved, and by his exceptional genius for designing automatic and efficient machinery, brought up the productiveness of our American establish- ments to double and treble that of those of European construction, and, in some cases, to several times the magnitude of output for which they were originally calculated. The sketch of Sir Henry Bessemer is par- ticularly full and satisfactory ; and the author evidently feels unlimited admiration for the man, as well as for his work. He outlines the career of the exiled Anthony Bessemer, the father of Sir Henry, whose expulsion from France gave to Great Britain a family of» whose achievements the world has learned to speak as those of its greatest benefactors. The father was no less ingenious than the son, and was famous, in his day, for his success in the arts of the gold-refiner and of type en- graving and founding. The son, now Sir Henry Bessemer, was born in England in 18138, and at a very early age exhibited his predilection for mechanics, and especially for its more artistic branches. He became a modeller, a designer, and an en- graver, and invented new processes for use in the stamp-office, that were admired both for their singular ingenuity and for their efficiency. Losing the hoped-for reward for these inven- tions through those delays and those soulless methods characteristic of government offices, Py}! Bees JUNE 27, 1884.] he turned his attention to other lines of inven- tion, producing a machine for working velvets, new type-making machinery, apparatus for making bronze powders, and other equally important and profitable devices. For many years previous to the conception of his great- est invention, the young man’s mind was as- tonishingly prolific of valuable and remarkable devices and processes. In 18538, when forty years of age, his atten- tion was called to the importance of effecting improvements in the then crude forms of ord- nance, and the unsatisfactory character of all ordnance metal. He devised a method of firing elongated projectiles from smooth bore guns, —a plan which had been attempted, but unsuccessfully, at intervals of every few years, from the time of probably its first and tolerably successful inventor, Robert L. Ste- vens, in the beginning of the century. The plan was to a certain degree satisfactory ; but it brought out very strongly the evident neces- sity of obtaining a better metal for ordnance ; and to this problem the young mechanic now addressed himself. Studying the problem in the truly philosophic manner, he saw that the end to be gained was the removal of carbon, and other impurities in the crude cast-iron, by some process that should do the work thor- oughly, quickly, cheaply, and yet give a prod- uct in the form of ingot-metal. He saw that this could be done by a process of oxidation, and finally hit upon the idea of performing this operation by driving air, in finely divided streams, upward from a submerged reservoir, through the mass of molten cast-iron. This was the invention of the ‘ Bessemer process,’ the greatest invention in the history of metal- lurgy. It was as simple, and apparently as obvious, a method of accomplishing the work, as can be conceived: its simplicity and ob- viousness are such as make it seem wonderful that it had not been done a century earlier. The story of Columbus and the egg here finds a parallel. Some minor and accessory, yet essential, inventions were required to perfect the main invention, which delayed success some months ; but they were in time perfected by the uncon- querable Bessemer: and the process, after those delays which are inevitable whenever it is necessary to overthrow old methods in the introduction of new ones, became commercially successful. It was only, however, after Bes- semer and his partners had built steel-works, and had shown on a full scale how far his de- vices were capable of yielding profit, that the iron-manufacturers and the steel-makers were SCIENCE. 791 induced to accept if as the coming steel-mak- ing process. But the Bessemer process would be of com- paratively little value, except for the invention of the now universal method of recarburizing — after the first operation, that of removing the silicon and carbon, is completed — by the use of ‘spiegeleisen’ or of ferro-manganese. It is this detail that gave the inventor success, after months of delay, within sight, apparent- ly, of his goal. The question of priority of discovery of this method of recarburizing is still in dispute between the friends of Besse- mer and of R. F. Mushet, and may never be fully settled to the satisfaction of either. There would seem to be no doubt that both of these metallurgists were working in this direc- tion at the same time, and that both hit upon it at very nearly the same date. The fact, however, that Bessemer has never paid royal- ties to Mushet, is perhaps the best evidence, at least, of the legal status of the case.1 No one will, however, question that Mushet was on this track when Bessemer was working at the same point; and it is most probable that he found the solution of the problem at about the same time with the more fortunate invent- or. Bessemer has himself frankly acknowl- edged the importance of Mushet’s share in the invention claimed for him. ‘The fact seems to be, that Mushet used spiegeleisen, or ferro- manganese, while Bessemer was still trying to use the oxide of manganese. This, in brief, is the history of the invention of the Bessemer process of making steel, — an invention which has, in the short space of a quarter of a century, completely revolutionized some of the greatest of human industries ; which has reduced enormously the cost of making the ‘ mild’ steels which are now, con- sequently, displacing iron in every department of manufactures ; and which bids fair in a very few years, even if it cannot be said to be an accomplished fact to-day, to convert the iron- manufactures of the world into steel-manufac- tures, and which has thus inaugurated the ‘ age of steel.’ To make the story of the Bessemer process complete, the author of this little history should have told of the advances made in the United States, where the work done by Bessemer in Great Britain was first copied, then improved upon, till to-day the capacity for production has been enormously increased, works originally built for a production of thirty thousand tons per year having carried the figure up to from 1 Mushet patented the invention, but three years later al- lowed the patent to lapse by non-payment of the stamp-tax. 792 a hundred and twenty-five thousand to a hun- dred and forty thousand tons. This wonder- ful gain has been entirely due to American genius, and principally to the splendid engineer- ing of the late A. L. Holley, who told his friend Thomas, the inventor of the ‘ basic process’ (who, when visiting the steel-works at Troy, looked for an ingot-mould on which to seat himself after a fatiguing tour of the estab- lishment), that, if he wished to find an ingot- mould cool enough to sit upon, he must go back to England for it. A sketch of Sir William Siemens follows that of Sir Henry Bessemer, and a very good account is given of the so-called Siemens pro- cess of making steel. For a short outline of the life of this wonderfully versatile inventor and engineer, the reader may turn to the col- umns of Science for Jan. 11; but he will find a more detailed story of his life in the Crea- tors of the age of steel. The Siemens process of steel- making differs from the Bessemer process, of which it is in some sense a rival, but with which it is more strictly a coadjutor, in being a slow and gradual operation, conducted upon the hearth of a rever- beratory furnace, — an ‘ open-hearth ’ furnace, as it is often called,—#éinstead of being a process of rapid reduction in a closed vessel, in- accessible to the operator at any time during the period of change. ‘This slowness of transition from the condition of cast to that of wrought iron, and the perfect accessibility permitted by the use of the open-hearth furnace, afford the workman an opportunity to watch the process of evolution of carbon, and to check it, if he desires, at any stage; to increase or diminish the proportions of any element, as he may find it necessary ; and thus to obtain with certainty precisely the quality that he seeks. In the Bessemer process, the right proportions must be hit upon at the right instant, or the error permanently injures the product, and cannot be rectified. metal is not right when ready to tap off, the operator can readjust the proportions of carbon or of manganese until he finds, by test of samples taken from the furnace, that it is pre- cisely as he wishes it; and he can then cast it into ingots with a positive certainty that he will obtain a marketable product. In this process, too, the refuse scrap, the rail-ends, and other waste from the Bessemer converter, can be worked up; and by it a great market for scrap wrought-iron is made. A long and sometimes sharp controversy has arisen between the friends of the two great inventors, and especially between the friends SCIENCE. In the Siemens process, if the ie of Siemens and of Martin, who introduced this process in France, as to the priority and the relative merits of the inventions. The true facts of this case are probably correctly given by a committee of the Styrian metal- lurgical association, who voted that the prin- ciple of making cast-steel on the hearth of a reverberatory furnace was known at the begin- ning of the century, and that it was success- fully practised in France in 1860; that Sir William Siemens invented the process of mak- ing steel in the Siemens regenerative furnace ; that Martin discovered the proper mixtures. for the commercial grades of steel; that the processes devised by the latter have been now superseded, and are of no present use. There is and can be no rivalry between the Bessemer and the Siemens processes, or their inventors. They occupy entirely different fields of pro- duction; and each is peculiarly adapted to making a special kind of steel, and to working up materials such as the other is least fitted to handle. Each has its place in our indus- trial system, and each is of direct and sub- stantial value to the other. The Bessemer process will probably make the bulk of our steel rails, and the Siemens process will prob- ably supply us with the best of boiler-plate, for an indefinite period of time. We shall always find a field open to both, and shall al- ways see each taking its own place, and filling it in a manner that the other cannot imitate. The original Siemens process was one in which the carbon was removed from cast-iron, partly by dilution with wrought-iron scrap- metal, and partly by oxidation in the flame of the reverberatory furnace of Siemens, and also, perhaps, to some extent by ‘ dissociation.’ This method of making ‘ mild steel’ involved the use of a large quantity of scrap, and al- though at first a very economical process, and continuing to be economical so long as scrap-iron flooded the market, as it did at the first, became uneconomical, comparatively, as the price of wrought-iron scrap advanced. Siemens then introduced his so-called ‘ ore process,’ in which the reduction of the carbon was effected by the use of the ores of iron. The process as now usually conducted, under the direction of the agents of the inventor, is" a mixed ore and scrap process. The peculiarity of the product of the Siemens process is the wonderful uniformity, toughness, and purity of the metal. The most stringent. demands of the engineer are readily met by the open-hearth steel-maker; and the most. delicate shades of quality are obtained with an ease and accuracy that are approached by [Vou. IIL, No. 73.5 7 JUNE 27, 1884.] no other known methods of making mild steels in large quantities. This is the only kind of steel in general use for boiler-plate, for bridge- work, or for general construction. The largest and finest steamships in the world are now made of this material, and their machinery is gradually absorbing a larger and larger pro- portion of the same kind of metal; and the time is probably not far distant when it will have completely displaced iron for all ordinary purposes of engineering construction, — as completely as has Bessemer steel displaced its - rival in the manufacture of rails. The great bridge over the Firth of Forth, with its two spans of seventeen hundred feet each, is to take forty-two thousand tons of Siemens steel. The one firm of Elder & Co. of Glasgow, the pioneers in the introduction of the marine compound engine and of steel ships, uses some twenty thousand tons of this steel per annum. In the ship-building trade, over two hundred and sixty thousand tons are now used each year. There are now over a hundred and fifty open-hearth furnaces in operation in Great Britain alone, exclusively for the manufacture of the Siemens steel. It has been found possi- ble to obtain temperatures sufficiently high to remove phosphorus, that bane of the steel- maker; and now moderately phosphuretted ores are worked for steel. The scrap-iron used is to a considerable extent obtained from the Bessemer works, which supply rail-ends and other waste. Space does not permit more than a mention of the other minor, but nevertheless great, ‘creators of the age of steel.’ Sir Joseph Whitworth has, by a system of compression of the molten and solidifying ingot, given us a steel so perfectly sound and free from ‘ blow- holes’ that it may be used for a thousand purposes for which ordinary steel is entirely unfitted. This steel is made by the ordinary processes, and, when poured into the ingot, is immediately placed under the plunger of a very powerful hydraulic press, and there subjected to a pressure of a thousand or two thousand tons ; under which enormous load every pore is closed up, and the steel solidifies in a compact mass of such fineness of structure, that no microscope, and no physical or mechanical test, ean detect the slightest defect in homogeneous- ness. Its strength and its ductility are such that the inventor tests the ordnance which he makes of this metal by securing the shot in the gun so that it cannot be driven out; and then, firing the charge behind it, the whole mass of gas resulting from the combustion blows out at SCIENCE. 793 the ‘ vent’ without injury to the gun. Nosuch test was ever dreamed of by any ordnance officer, or attempted with any other kind of ordnance metal. Sir John Brown, the proprietor of the great iron and steel works at Sheffield, famous for the magnitude of the armor-plates often made there, was the first manufacturer in Great Britain to countenance Bessemer in his en- deavor to make a new steel, and was the first to put up a Bessemer converter, after the early experiments of the inventor had indicated a probable success. ‘The armor-plating of ships — an invention of our countryman, Robert L. Stevens of Hoboken — was adopted in England during the Crimean war, at about the time that the Emperor Napoleon made the first attempt to make armored vessels of service in attack- ing the forts at Sevastopol. Sir John Brown was one of the first of the British iron manu- facturers to fit up works for the purpose of making heavy plate. He soon added Besse- mer works to his establishment, and produced steel for the general market. His armor-plate is now made as a ‘compound’ plate, consist- ing of an iron backing, with a facing of steel,— a combination of which more is expected than from the simple construction. The magnitude of the works may be imagined from the fact that there are in use a hundred and sixty steam-boilers, supplying steam to the amount of eleven thousand or twelve thousand horse- power. Other great promoters of the revolution now in progress are Messrs. Gilchrist and Thomas and Snelus: they have done much toward the reduction of the cost of making steel by the modern processes, by making it possible to use the cheap phosphuretted ores which had pre- viously been unavailable. The new method of operation of the Bessemer process, which has effected this change, and which, as Mr. Carnegie says, has ‘“‘ done more for England’s greatness than all her kings and queens and aristocracy together,’’ consists simply in the lining of the converter with materials having a basic reac- tion, and in the introduction of similar material with the charge. Lime is the base found best adapted to the purpose; and its use has, after long experiment and the expenditure of much time and money, been made practicable by Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist, and Mr. Snelus. At extremely high temperatures, and in the presence of lime, phosphorus will pass from the molten iron in the converter into the lime with which it meets in the lining of the vessel, and which is added before the blow; and the steel is thus freed from its most persistent and 194 dangerous impurity. Mr. Snelus seems to have been the first to work out this problem, and it was then perfected by the other inventors mentioned. ‘The success of the process is to a considerable extent dependent upon the me- chanical details of the plant and of its oper- ation, — details perfected, in part, by the late Mr. A. L. Holley, one of whose latest inven- tions was a form of rapidly removable convert- er especially adapted to this modification of the older process. This new method has not been introduced as rapidly outside of Great Britain as in that country, where the scarcity of pure ores renders it of very great importance. In the United States the abundance of ores comparatively free from phosphorus renders the steel-maker to a great extent independent of the ‘basic process.’ All of the larger makers now have their own mines of good ‘ Bessemer ores,’ and do not feel much interest in this latest of the great inventions of the opening age of steel. The ‘creators of the age of steel’ have ren- dered inestimable service to mankind, and all mankind will be interested in reading the story told by Mr. Jeans. R. H. THurston. THE GUATEMALTEC LANGUAGES. Von OTtTo 1884. 9+ Zur ethnographie der republik Guatemala. Stotu. Ziirich, Orell Fiissli & Co., 180 pp. map, BP: A grammar of the Cakchiquel language of Guatemala. Translated by D. G. Brinton. Philadelphia, McCalla and Stavely, 1884. 72 p., map. 8°. To suppose that dialects of the Maya family are the only languages spoken by the Indians of this extensive Central-American republic would be at variance with existing facts, al- though they cover, indeed, the largest part of its area. The present tribes speaking allophylic languages (that is, languages belonging to other families) are the Pipil Indians, speaking an Aztec tongue, and now found in two districts only (near Escuintla, Salama, etc.) ; the Pupu- luca Indians, on the border of San Salvador, belonging to the Mije stock ; and the Caribs, at the mouth of Rio Dulce and in the adjacent territory of Honduras, who still speak the lan- guage of the Lesser Antilles. Otto Stoll, who, during a five-years’ stay in the mountainous parts of Guatemala, has made extensive lin- guistic and ethnographic studies of the abori- gines, has established the above classification, and also mentions the former (if not present) existence of two other dialects which may pos- sibly form linguistic families for themselves, SCIENCE. Sey ne ee ee — the Sinca on the southern coast, and the Alaguilac on Middle Motagua River, both from the historian Juarros.* The first three of the above languages are illustrated by vo- cabularies and linguistic comparisons with cog- nate dialects. Of sixteen Maya dialects, the learned inves- tigator offers a useful and complete vocabulary extending over three hundred terms. Subjoined to these are short texts, conversations in In- dian, historic and ethnographic notices from the conquest down to our times, and an elabo- rate bibliography. To judge from their lexical and grammatic character, the dialects have evolved, according to Stoll (pp. 173-175), iu the following historic order from the parent language : — 1. Huastec forms the most archaic group, now separated from all the others by its north- ern location. 2. Maya, with its subdialects of Peten and Lacandon. The following groups (8-6) have detached themselves from the Maya of Yucatan, and their forms are of a much less archaic type : — 3. Tzental group, embracing Chontal of Tabasco, Tzental proper, Tzotzil, Chanabal, Chol,—all in southern Mexico; Mopan in northern Guatemala. 4, Poconchi group, embracing Qu’ekchi, Poconchi, Pocomam, Chorti, in central and eastern Guatemala. 5. Quiché group, comprehending Qu’iché, Uspantec (dialect discovered by Stoll) , Cakchi- quel (the dialect studied more especially by the author) , T'z’utujil, — all in south-western Gua- temala. 6. Mam group, comprehending Ixil, Mam, Aguacatec, in the western sections of the republic. The third group constitutes a much younger branch of the Maya of Yucatan than the fourth, fifth, and sixth groups. The Cakchiquel language is a Maya dialect, spoken on the Upper and Middle Motagua River, and around Guatemala, the capital of the republic of the same name. It was therefore called also ‘lengua metropolitana’ and ‘lengua guatemalteca.’? By request of the American philosophical society of Philadelphia, Dr. Brin- ton has just translated and published in its pro- ceedings, and also in a handy, separate edition quoted above, a Spanish grammar of that lan- guage, dated 1692, and composed by an un- known author. the language, which is extremely harsh of pro- 1 Sinca is declared to be a Mixtec language by Alphonse L. Pinart. [Vou. IIL, No. 9B. Fee To render the exposition of — : is JUNE 27, 1884.] nunciation, more complete, Brinton has added extracts from two manuscript grammars of his own library, —that of the Dominican Benito de Villacanas, who died in 1610; and that of Fray Estevan Torresano, composed shortly after 1753. Cakchiquel possesses a rich literature, SCIENCE. 795 consisting of theological and some semi-his- torical works of native writers, of which but little has ever been printed. A map facing the titlepage points out the location of the princi- pal tribes. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. U. S. geological survey. Publications. — Although advance copies of the third annual report of the survey were issued some time ago, it was incomplete as regards the illustra- tions. The complete report, bound, has now been received at the office, and will soon be distributed. —— The fourth annual report has been issued, al- though it is not yet ready for distribution. It con- tains five hundred and five pages (i.-xxxii., 1-473), and is illustrated with eighty-five plates and fifteen figures. The report of the director presents a résumé of the operations of the survey for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1883; and the administrative reports follow- ing give amore detailed account of the work. The latter are by Messrs. Henry Gannett, Arnold Hague, G. K. Gilbert, C. E. Dutton, T. C. Chamberlin, RB. D. Irving, S. F. Emmons, G. F. Becker, O. C. Marsh, C. A. White, C. D. Walcott, L. C. Johnson, L. F. Ward, Carl Barus, and Albert Williams, jun. The accompanying papers are by Capt. C. E. Dut- ton, Mr. Joseph S. Curtis, Mr. Albert Williams, jun., Dr. C. A. White, and Mr. Israel C. Russell. Capt. Dutton’s paper ison Hawaiian volcanoes, and consists of thirteen chapters, covering a hundred and forty pages, in which the geography of the islands, and their volcanic phenomena, are described. The paper is illustrated with twenty-nine plates and three figures. The paper by Mr. Joseph 8. Curtis is en- titled *“‘ Abstract of a report on the mining geology of the Eureka district, Nevada.”’ It occupies twenty- eight pages. A general outline of the district is given. The structure of ‘Prospect Mountain’ and of Ruby Hill are detailed; and the occurrence and source of the ore, and the future prospect of Ruby Hill, are considered. Three plates present a horizontal section and two vertical cross-sections. Mr. Albert Williams, in fifteen pages, treats of popular fallacies regarding precious-metal ore-deposits. ‘A review of the fossil Ostreidae of North America, and a com- parison of the fossil with the living forms,’ by Dr. Charles A. White, follows Mr. Williams’s paper. There are two appendices to Dr. White’s paper: viz., ‘North-American tertiary Ostreidae,’ by Professor Angelo Heilprin; and ‘A sketch of the life-history of the oyster,’ by John A. Ryder. The whole paper, including the plate explanations, occupies a hundred and fifty-two pages, in which there are forty-nine full- page plates. ‘A geological reconnoissance in southern Oregon,’ by Israel C. Russell, a paper of thirty pages, with three plates and ten figures, and the index of nine pages, complete the volume. Bulletin No. 3, ‘On the fossil faunas of the upper Devonian along the meridian of 76°30’ from Tomp- kins county, N.Y., to Bradford county, Penn.,’ by Henry S. Williams, was issued in May. It contains thirty-six pages, four of which are devoted to the index, and is the first of a series of articles on the comparative paleontology of the Devonian and car- boniferous faunas. The price of this bulletin is five cents. Bulletin No. 4, ‘On mesozoic fossils,’ by C. A. White, is all in type, and will soon be issued. The total number of pages, including the explanations of plates, is a hundred and twenty-four. There are three papers, as follows: ‘‘ Description of certain aberrant forms of the Chamidae from the cretaceous rocks of Texas;’’ ‘‘On a small collection of meso- zoic fossils collected in Alaska by Mr. W. H. Dall;”’ and ‘‘On the nautiloid genus Enclimatoceras Hyatt, and a description of the type species.’’ ‘There are nine woodcut plates. Bulletin No. 5 is by Mr. Henry Gannett, chief geog- rapher of the survey, and is almost ready to be issued. It contains three hundred and twenty-six pages, and is called ‘ A dictionary of altitudes in the United States.’ Mr. Gannett began the compilation of measurements of altitudes when connected with the Geological and geographical survey of the territories; and three dif- ferent editions of the results were published by that organization, the last bearing the date of 1877. They related principally to the country west of the Missis- sippi, while the present work embraces the whole country. The elevations are arranged alphabetically ‘under the states and territories. Bulletin No. 6, ‘Elevations in Canada,’ by J. W. Spencer, is in press, and supplements bulletin No. 5. Bulletin No. 7 is also being rapidly put into type. It is entitled ‘‘Mapoteca geologica Americana: a catalogue of geological maps of America (north and south), 1752-1881, in geographic and chronologic order,’ by Jules Marcou and John Belknap Marcou. This catalogue is modelled on ‘ Mapoteca Colombiana,’ by Uricoechea of Bogota, which was published in London in 1860, and is now out of print, and rare. Besides a list of some thirty numbers relating to maps on the geology of America, in Cotta’s ‘ Geognostische karten unseres jahrhunderts,’ published at Freiberg in 1850, the only list of geological maps of Aierica is the ‘List of general geological maps relating to North America,’ in the ‘ Geology of North America,’ 796 by Jules Marcou (p. 122), published at Zurich in 1858. When it is remembered how the publication of American geological maps has increased in the past twenty-five years, the importance of this cata- logue will be appreciated. Bulletin No. 8, ‘On enlargements of mineral frag- ments in certain rocks,’ by Roland Duer Irving, is also in press. It will be illustrated with one wood- cut plate, five chromolithograph plates, and four woodcuts. SCIENCE- [Von. IIL, No. 73. eg Bulletin No. 7 begins the second volume. A num- ber of other bulletins are in course of preparation, and will soon be sent to the printer. Monograph No. vii., ‘Silver-lead deposits of Eureka, Nev.,’ by Joseph Story Curtis, is all in type with the exception of the index. It has a hundred and ninety-three pages, and will be illustrated with sixteen plates and ten figures. —— Monograph No. viii., ‘Paleontology of the Eureka district,’ by Charles Doolittle Walcott, is also in press, and is being rapidly put into type. RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Society of arts, Massachusetts institute of technology. May 22.— A paper by Mr. J. M. Batchelder was read by the secretary on the electro-deposition of iridium on engraved copper plates. A process had been used by Mr. Batchelder over twenty years ago; but it did not seem to have become known, and was presented as comparatively new. The solution was prepared by fusing iridium and osmium with three times their weight of nitrate of potassium for about one hour at a bright-red heat. A fused mass was broken into small pieces, and treated with nitric acid, in a glass retort with a condenser. The osmium was separated out, and the iridium which remained was treated with chlorhydric acid, after removing the nitrate of potassium by crystallization. The solution contained about one-eighth of an ounce of iridium to a gallon of water, to which about one-quarter pound of sulphuric acid should be added. The plate is to be immersed, and connected with the battery, as usual, and, when removed, will be found coated with iridium, closely resembling the common steel plates. Such plates, coated with iridium, were very durable, and possessed many other advantages.