Gmiev tae tet spice i j ete — Saye Hohn fF tev Np Teh “SCIENCE Pe NtILIVe TRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY VOLUME II JULY—DECEMBER 1883 SMITHSON AK JUL 23 1986 CAMBRIDGE MASS. igh Ol eN CoE s.C O.M PANY 1883 CONTENTS OF VOLUME ILI. SPEOIAL ARTICLES PAGE Abbott, C. C. csmeence a of macnn ee ad wae in New Jersey. Jil. - a ae - - 3 258 The intelligence of birds . . “pe. et A Ree Acoustic rotation apparatus. Ji... ©. fate 818 American association for the advancement of science, 151, 181, 211 Proceedings at the Minneapolis meeting, 190, 227, 272, 314, 358 American explorations at Assos. Jl. 2... . . 646 American oriental society. . . 651 American society of civil engineers, fifteenth annual con- vention of . . FP ee . 75, 100 American society of microscopists | .. , 508 Lewis, H.C. The great terminal moraine across Penn- sylvania. 2 71S ER ae te te ee Pe eS Lick trust. . in ® ke nets Lyon, D. G. “Recent Babylonian research. | 1) 1. 40 Manayunkia speciosa . - « 162 Marcou, J.B. The affinities of Richthofenia + «ee Marey, E. J. The physiological station of Paris. 2. 678, 709 Mason, O.T. The scope and value of anthropological studies . - 358 Merriman, G. B. Iilustrative apparatus for astronomy. 218 Minot, on 4 ‘Balfour's last researches on _Peripatus, = - 306 Composition of themesoderm : 1. ....;, orien Histology of insects a atts 430 Origin of the mesoderm. mM. + ors vabglel We IR Miiller, Hermann. Portrait. . . oe) SBT National academy of sciences, November meeting of. er) National observatory . ... - Aa a2 pra 415 National traits in science . . 455 Neale, D. H. eae. The national “railway expoai- tion. Tl. - 3, 32, 97, 125, 417 Newcomb, Simon. The Psy chological meehaniyy of direction .. » . 554 The units of mass and force | . 493 Nordenskiéld, A. E., on the inland ice of Greenland. “mM. ~ 732 Osborn, Henry F. Francis Malay, Balfour. Por. trait . . eer oo eye Suniel, a minty, opiate Cee Paris observatory oe ct ae eer ee || Peale, A.C. Some geyser comparisons | é 101 Peirce, G. 8. A new rule for division in arithmetic . | 788 Pengelly, William. The Devonshire caverns and their contents. . . 3 562 Pickering, W. HH. Surface conditions on the other planets. . a 5) sage Precision of observation asa branch of instruction | ° - 519 Railway time, standard. . . Siew, ak Rathbun, R. *Sponge- culture in Florida ae . 213 The U.S: fish-commission steamer Albatross. _J2/. . 6, 66 Reade, John. Sonnet. a 255 Rogers, W. A. te German survey of the northern e@avens. . .« oe ee oy 2D Rowland, H. A. a plea for pure faclence. -..) hea 242 Ryder, J. A. Oyster-culture in Holland 79 earing oysters from artificially fertilized eggs at Stock- ton, Md.. . 465 Salmon, D.E. Reliability of the evidence obtained in the study of contagia. . . 212 Saaieae: H. E. The zodlogical station of Holland. Wied . os be yt ue Sawin, A. M. Real roots of cubics |; 158 Schwatka, Frederick. The igloo of the Innuit. TU. 182, 216, 259, 304, 347 Scott, i iB. On the development of teeth in the lam- prey. On the actetopment of the pituitary body in Petromyzon, and the significance of that organ in other types. Jil. . Shaler, N.S. The Americanswamp cypress .. . iv SCIENCE. — CONTENTS PAGE Shufeldt, R. W. Remarks upon the osteologye of BRAS crocorax bicristatus. Jil. . 0 = 640 Romalea microptera. With a plate Hin 811 The habits of Muraenopsis tridactylus in captivity; with observations onitsanatomy. Ji. . 159 State weather services, July reports of, 399; August reports of, 359; Se tember reports of, 681. Storer, FP. Symmetrical linear figures sisehneer by reflection along a river-bank. Jil. . . . ce itdie S13 Superstition, from, to humbug . . ........ « 687 Swiss naturalists, meeting of. . 400 Tanner, Z. L. A four- Baye) cruise of the “Albatross. : SiS foes 615 Thurston, R. H. The ex aleion of the Riverdale. . . 464 Tylor, HE. B. The natural history of implements . . . 48 w., W. July reports of state weather services . . . . 399 The French eclipseiexpedition -.. Ss. 8) 4). 591 United States national museum . é 63, 119 OF VOLUME I. PAGE United States signal-service . . giger eat, 811 United States signal-service and ‘standard time ho 75d Urnatella gracilis. Jl... 6 789 Verrill, A. E. Recent explorations i in the “region of the Gulf Stream off the eastern coast of the United States by the U.S. fish-commission . . ee OS. Virchow, R. The invention and spread of bronze |. 527 Vivisection question. . . 551 -, W.C. The American association at Minneapolis - 181 The lessons of the meeting . . 5 cue et Wadsworth, M. EB. Ocean water and bottoms |. . 41 Weather in May, 1883, il/. 34; in June, 1883, idl. 186; in July, 1888, i//. 394; in AuguS&t, 1883, é//. 5245 in Sep- tember, 1883, ¢//. 671; in October, 1883, ill. 786. Whitman, C. ’O. The advantages of study at the Naples zoological station. Portraitof Anton Dohin . . 93 Williamson, Nafe Se: The yeceration of the ‘earbonitfer- ousage. . oi fietane a there a (ego Smee BOOK REVIEWS. PAGE Adams’s Lecture on evolution . . a. ©6609 Alnwick Castle antiquities. By Henry | W. “Haynes « « « 186 Archeology in Portugal . maior ON Bell’s Primer of visible speech f - « 204 Bremiker’s Logarithmic tables. By Baward ‘s. Hotden. . 174 Briggs’s Steam-heating . . 2 = = 686 Bulletin of the U.S. fish- commission, “vol. ii. » . 685 Burnham’s History and uses of limestones and marbles. | 203 Cornell mathematical library. . Bee ice ey elon ich SPA DeLong’s Voyage of the Jeannette, DRG Nae EIN) Fergusson’s Parthenon. . . AE a pins sites ema a Ae dO Hinley’s Tornado studies . . . - - =. . «=. -. « = 403 Fletcher’s Human proportion . ...... =. . . . dad Flynn’ iS Hydraulictables ~ 2. 2 1 1 1 1 ew se ess GOT Foye’s Chemical problems . ..... +--+ - + « + 627 Galton’s TRUE MEAN) Sold As OV Buen tap nto vo 6 al ne) Geikie’s Text-book of geology . aie egy Rees INOS Gottsche’s Pebbles of Bohlea wiz: Holstein 31) sos See geh Semen ee Green’s Eureka . . es Bmobe Pec ecmeciy yo At cust h 0) Haeckel’s Visit to Ceylon DRC AnUCh Ieee aia cl Syd... tdi) Hale’s Troquois book of rites. Rperee ch 67 CO: wal ACY) Harrington’s Life of Sir William Logan nape Ceol Sper ae Heer’s Fossil flora of Greenland . . etre oo eet) Herrick’s Types of animallife . ...... . =. « « 688 Hicks’s Critique of designarguments .. . ... . . 309 Ideas of motion, Some recent studies on. By Josiah Royce, 713 Inspired science . . ST Moai d ety fork al psultethien theiey eatnemeTL OD Joly’s Man before metals. 1. Bei tdeesd: ap hay Mon can GA Konkoly’ 's Astronomical instruments. . . .. . . . . 202 Ledger’s Sun andits planets. ...... +... -.. (Ii Lewis’s Geology of Philadelphia . . ..... =. . . 269 Macloskie’s Elementary WELK? chin Mold fo-%o1.00 Oo ed Moe 163 Maudsley’s Body andwill. . .....-.... . . 600 Maynard’s Manual of taxidermy . . iG reste uey ees ol Miller-Hauenfel’s Theoretische meteorologic Oh laeNoven bo. i: sy Minor DOOKINOLICER eee Stowell’s Microscopical diagnosis . . 83 Stricker’s Studien iiber die bewegungs ‘Yvorstellungen. ‘By SOSA LOYCE! civ ppiedie) siite Vail) lee) tel nst eu teen ann Taylor's Alphabet Aiwa PuCMCIEC MEET Os Oy. ce si: Thompson’s Philipp Reis. . Zl. . ae fe Thomson and Tait’s Treatise on natural philosophy - 497, 795 Transactions of the American society of mechanical engi- neers. . . 267 Transactions of the International geodetic association of Europe. By 0.4.8... ... 656 Trutat’s Traité valemeriaive du mier oscope. ‘By 0. cc Stowell . . . : 313 Tryon’s Structural and systematic sgonchology, vol.ii. . 658 Tudor’s Orkneys and Shetland. Ji/.. . . 743 Ward’s Dynamic sociology ...... = “45, 105, 171, 222 Ware’s Modern perspective . . . . B54 Winslow’s Report on the Chesapeake oy ster: beds. Tl. : 440 Ziegler’s Pathologicalanatomy . ... . . of 5S Baer WEEKLY SUMMARY OF THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. ** Under this heading the boldfaced numerals refer to the separate paragraphs ; the others, as elsewhere, to the pages. Acoustics, 50. Seneniture, 20, 110, 141, 176, 205, 628, 661, 690, 719, 746, 771, 801, 29, Anthropology, iJ. 24, 56, 89, 114, 145, 179, 207, 383, 411, 448, 548, 578, 632, 669, 694, 723, 751, 775, 805, 833. Arachnids, 664, Astronomy, 17, 49, 175, 444, 545, 575, 627, 660, 688. Birds, 89, 447, 578, 664, 722, 749, 834. Botany, 21, 53, 87, 112, 178, 381, 410, 447, 548, 577, 630, 663, 691, 720, 772, 802, 831. hemintty, 19, 51, 85, 141, 176, 205, 380, 407, 546, 576, 770, 800, Coelenterates, 22, 692, 773, 832. Crustaceans, 22, 410, 664, 693, 833. Cryptogams, 21, 112, 831. Early institutions, 57, 146, 383, 688, 695, 752. EOROTIE entomology, 143. Electricity, z//. 83, 140, 175, 407, 545. Engineering, 19, 51, 110, 140, 380, 407, 445, 545, 575, 628, 660, 689, 718, 746, 770, 799, 828. Fish, 53, 144, 722. Geography, 20, 52, 86, 112, 142, 177, 206, 881, 409, 446, 547, 576, 630, 662, 690, 719, 830; (Africa), 58, 87, 142, 206, 381, 547, 691, 720, 831; (dipina), 4i6; (Arctic), 20, 86, 142, 206, 409, 576, 662, 719, 830; (Asia), 86, 112, 177, 547, 663, 690; (ALurope), 177; (North America), 630; (South America), 52, 142, 409, 446, 630. Geology, 20, 52, 85, 111, 141, 380, 446, 546, 629, 661, 771, 801, 829. Insects, 22, 0d. 55, 148, 632, 748, 778, 833. = Lithology, 52, 111, 141, 446, 629, 829. uaa) 24, 89, 144, 178, 207, 448, 548, 693, 722, 750, 775, 803, Man, 145, 448, 750, 804. Mathematics, 18, 50, 83, 109, 189, 175, 879, 407, 444, 575, 628, 689, — ee 717, 745, 769, 799, 827. Metallurgy, 83, 380, 408, 628, 661. at PY ev eee? a SCIENCE. — CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. Meteorites, 380. Meteorology , 111, 206, 408, 446, 576, 629, 662, 690, 747. Mineralogy,-141, 176, 381, 408, 547, 629, 690, 719, 747, 772, 830. Mollusks, 22, 54, 113, 206, 381, 447, 663, 692, 721, 748, 773, 803. Optics, 18. Phanerogams, 22, 112, 831. Photography, 18, 140, 445. Physical geography, 111, 802. Physics, 18, 50, 83, 140, 175, 407, 445, 545, 769. Protozoa, 88, 143, 831. Reptiles, 24, 56, i//. 207, 447, 548. Vertebrates, 23, 55, 88, 118, 143, 207, 382, 411, 447, 548, 578, 664, 693, 722, 749, 774, 803, 833. Worms, 88, 382, 631, 721, 748, 832. Zovlogy, 22, 54, 87, 113, 143, 178, 206, 381, 410, 447, 578, 631, 663, 692, 721, 747, 772, 802, 831. LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS WHOSE NAMES APPEAR BY INITIALS IN THE WEEKLY SUMMARY. W. F. Aven. H. P. AnMsBy. W. K. Brooks. W. H. Datu. W. M. Davis. W. G. Fartow. L. LesQuer Cc. J. A. JEFFRIES. F. MABERY. 8S. L. PENFIELD. EUX. J. W. PowELt. E. Burcess. G. L. GoopALe. M. McNEr. R. H. Ricwarps. J. H. Comstock. C, E. GREENE. J. B. Marcov. D. W. Ross. T. Crate. E. H. Haut. O. T. Mason. 8. H. ScuppErR. Cc. R. Cross. H. A. Hazen. C. 8. Minor. 8. I. Smirn. G. E. Curtis. W. H. Howe tt, }. E. MUNROE. C. A. STUDLEY. W. H. PICKERING. R. H. Tourston. D. P. Topp. W. TRELEASE. J. TROWBRIDGE. F. W. True. W. Upton. M. E. Wapsworru. OC. A. Youne. LIST OF PERSONS WHOSE WRITINGS ARE QUOTED IN THE WEEKLY SUMMARY. Abbott, C. C., 436. Agardh, 565. Albrecht, 211. Allen, G., 394. Allen, H., 35. Amezaga, C. de, 344. André, G., 12. Andrews, E. A., 372. Andrews, R. R., 284. Angot, 364. Antisell, 117. Aoust, 410. Apgar, A. C., 434, 436. relia 41, 382. Ardissone, F., 426. Areschoug, J. E., 21. Arnstein, 462. Arntz, 581. Arthur, J. C., 22, 23. Arzruni, 539. Ashburner, C. A., 18. Asbford, C., 525. Assaky, 579. Aubry, A., 298. Aymé, L. H., 286. Baber, E. C., 379, 405. Baerwald, C., 418. Baeyer, A., 511. Bailey, W. W., 226, 228. Bainier, 122. Baird, Mrs. H. 8., 377. Banks, E., 268. Barber, E. A., 169. Bardeleben, K., 283. Barros, 562. Baumann, E., 478. Baur, C., 137. Bechterew, 438, 458. Becke, F., 557. Bellonci, 98. Bellonci, G., 90. Bellot, A., 365. Benedict, B. G. and F. L., 198. Beni, 586. Bergh, 454. Bertrand. Bertrand. Bertrand, A., 131. Beseler and Miircker, 361. Beyer. See Conn and Beyer. Birge, E. A., 575. Blake, L. J., 291. Blake, W. P., 482. Blanchard, R. See Regnard, P., and Blanchard, R. Blandy, J. 'T., $2. Bloxam, C. L., 218. Borgen, 422. Botiger, 230. Bitticher, E., 539. Bon, Gustave le, 193. Bongartz, J., 479. Bonney, F., 540. Boog-Watson, R., 27. Born, 521. Borodine, 49. Bor-ies, 475. See Pauchon and Bosshard. See Schulze and Bosshard. Bouchen-Brandely, 58. Boulvin, 384. Bourne, F. 8, A., 235. Bove, 254, 365. Bowditch, H. P., and Warren, J.C., 497. Bozzoli and Graziadei, 97. Brefeld, 368. Bremer, L., 258. Brooks, W., 267. Brooks, W. K., 489. Brush, G. J., and Penfield, 8. L., 223. Buchner, -M., 56, 195. Biisgen, 486. Burckhardt, 31. Butler, Fielding, and Reid, 580. Butler, J. D., 351. Cadiat, 463. Caldwell and Roberts, 145. Caldwell, W. H., 432. Canefri, Tapparone, 490. Canini and Gaule, 279. Capitan, L., 168. Caspary, 2. Cattani, Mile. J., 460. Cayley, A., 541. Chanute, O., 309. Chareyre, 25. Charnay, D., 260. Chatin, J., 432,573. Chernaieft, 296. Chester, F. D., 221. Ciaccio, 162. Clamageran, J. J., 116. Clark, B. F., 213. Cobbold, T. 8., 432. Cohnheim and Roy, 499. Comstock, J. H., 159. Conn and Beyer, 396. Cooke, M. C., 346. Cope, E. D., 17, 26, 66, 163. Copeland, R., 53. Cornevin, 130. Cornu, 40. Cornu, 121. Cornu and Obrecht, 173. Corre, A., 132. Coryell, M., 477. Coulanges, F. de, 470. Couty, 534. Cragin, F. W., 29. Craig, T., 383. Cramer, G., 6. Cresson, H. T., 305. Cross, C. Z., and Higgin, A. F., 244, Crosse and Fischer, 371. Dally, 212. Damour, 250. Damour and Des Cloizeaux, 249. Dana, E. 8., 295. Dana, J. D., 118. Darboux, 441. Dareste, 354. Dartre and Morat, 401. D’Auria, L., 292. Davidson, T., 526. léhérain and Maguenne, 388. Des Cloizeaux, 389. See also Damour and Des Cloizeaux. Diller, J. 8., 52. Ditte, A., 242. Doberck, 390. Débner, O., 50. Doelter, C., 298, 484. Dogicl, 462. Donaldson and Stevens, 530. Dowdeswell, 67. Drasche, R. v., 572. Dunbar, J. B., 104. Duncan, W.8., 70. Dybowski, 402. Ebell, P., 546. Ebermayer. See Giimbel, v., and Ebermayer. Edlund, 177. Egoroff, 327. Ebrmann, C., 268. Eimer, 164. Elliott, A. H., 218. Ely. See Howell and Ely. Emery, 161. Emmerling, 180. Engelmann, I’. W., 487. Erckert, von, 539. Ercolani, 528. Ewald and Kobert, 160, 210. Farlow, W. G., 255, 275. Farsky, 335, 360, 446, 447. Fewkes, J. W., 94. . Fick, A., 204. Fielding. See Butler, Fielding, and Reid. Fineman, 363. Fischer. See Crosse and Fis- cher. Fischer, P., 208, 278. Fisher, 110, Fletcher, R., 503, 585. Floquet, G., 134. Foettinger, A., 455. Fol, H., 321, 523. Fontaine, W. F., 338. Forbes, 280, 281, 375, 435. Forbes, H. O., 406. Forbes, S. A., 158, 577. Franck, 444, Frankland, P. F., and Jordan, F., 109. Fraser, A., 191. Frazer, P., 113. Frere, H. Bartle, 73. Frohlich, J., 138. Froidevaux, H., 152. Fuller, A. J., 411. Gadow, 437. Gaidoz, 504. Galle, 391. Galton, F., 533. Gardner, C., 237. Garson, J. G., 465, 505. Gatschet, A. 8., 536. Gaule. Sce Canini and Gaule. Gazan, 476. Geuther, A., 312. Gilbert. See Lawes, Gilbert, and Warington. Gill, T., 64, 65. Girard, J., 183. Gissler, C. F., 256. Glasson, 408. Golgi, C., 578. Gomme, G: L., 171. Goodyear, W. A., 219. Gorgen, A., 13, 313. Gosse, P. H1., 30. Graff, F., 411. Gram, J. P., 329. Grant, J. A., 403. Gray, A., 394. Graziadei. See Bozzoli Graziadei. Gregorio, Marquis de, 430, 524. ° Griesbach, H., 432. Griveaux, 45. Groneman, 75. Grouven, H., 15. Gruber, 570. Griinwedel, 539. Giimbel, v., and Ebermayer, 185. Giissfeldt, 153. Giittler, H., 197. and Hadley, H. N., 243. Halbert, H. 8., 440. Hall, Maxwell, 290. Haller, B., 398. Hamson, 569. Hamy, E. 'T., 234, 325. Hansen, 347. Harger, O., 574. Harnack, 308. Harris, V., 32. Harrison, J. P., 466. Haupt, 411. Hautreux, 364. Haviland, E., 276. Haynes, H. W., 324. Heath, E. R., 274. Hebner, O., 142, Heiden, 548. Heilprin, A., 362, 399. Heim, 108. Heinrich, 112. Hellriegel, 112, 417. Hemsley, 125. Hermite, 542. Heude, 59. Higgin, A. F. See Cross, C. Z., and Higgin, A. F. Hildebrandsson, 451. Hinde, 8. H., 196, Hoffmann, 369. vi Hoggan, G. and F., 63. Holden, E. 8., 306. Hollrung, M. U., 556. Hopkins, E, W., 535. Hovelacque, 72. Howell and Ely, 584. Howitt, A. W., 69, 540. Hubrecht, A. A. W., 232, 348. Hudson, C. T., 92. Huggins, 380. Hurwitz, 3. Hussey, L., 140. Huxley, T. H., 376. Igelstrém, L. J., 450. Irving, R. D., 51. Jager, de, 527. Jeffreys, J. G., 27, 126, 431, 453. Jessen, 303. John. See Teller and John. Johnson, J. B., 269. Jones, E. H., 61. Jones, M. A., 124. Jordan, F. See Frankland, P. F., and Jordan, F. dJusserand, 353. Karzin, 560. Keane, A. H., 500, 540. Kent, W., 332. Kessler, H. L., 311. Kirbach, P., 576. Kittredge, C. 8., 252. Klein, C., 224. Klemensiewicz, 8., 350. Klug, 582. Kobelt, 370. Kobert. See Ewald and Ko- bert. Kohlrausch, F., 176. Kollman, J., 37. Konchin, $5. Korevaer, P. A., 508. Korotneff, 571. Krause, Aurel, 419, 539. Kiihn, J., 101. Kaulischer, 539. Kummell, C. H., 473. Kunzé, 227. Kuster, 59. Lachowicz, B., 510. Lacoe, R. D., 60. Lagerheim, 564. Lang, 251. Lang, A., 538. Lankester, 59. Laroche. See Prat and La- roche. Lasaulx, A. v., 558. Last, J. T., 502. Layocat, 129. Lawes, Gilbert, and Waring- ton, 16. Lawes, W. G., 119, 324.: Lebedeff, 400. Lefort, 43. Legoux, A., 105. Lemaire, 123. Lemstrém, 75. Levinsen, G. M. R., 572. Lewis, H. C., 182. Linstow, v., 432. Lippmann, E. O., 76. Lloyd and Symes, 507. Lockington, 532. Lockwood, 8., 373, 494. Loew, 144. Lovett, 261. Lovisato, 344. Lubboek, Sir J., 157. McCook, H. C., 374,493,495. Macdonald. See Stirling and Macdonald. MacMunn, C. A., 452, Marcker, 181, 513, 548, 549. 550. See also Beseler and Mircker. Magitot, 464. Maguenne. See Déhérain and Maguenne. Major, M. F., 302. Malahide, 103. Malair, 567. Maltzan, v., 229. Mangoldt, v., 74. Manhés, P., 333. Manouyrier, 194. Marcy, H. O., 528. Markham, C. R., 274. Marsh, O. C., 209. Martel, 165. Martens, E. y., 429. Martin, 62. Matthews, W., 468. Maudslay, A. P., 262. Maumené, E., 11. Mayer, Ad., 200. Mayo, Ear! of, 404. Meehan, T., 294, 519. Mendelssohn, 433. Merrill, G. P., 481, 553. Merrill, S , 364. Merton, Henry, & Co., 359. Metschnikoff, 34.9. Meyer, H., 136. Meyer, W., 306, 307, 381. Mises, v., 36. Mitchell and Reichert, 34. Ménninghoff and Piesbergen, 285. Moret. See Dartre. Moreaux, F., 385. Morgan, A. P., 24, 425. Morlet, L., 231. Miiller, 99. Miiller, 319. Miiller, Fritz, 189. Muir, T., 265. Murphy, H., 411. Napoli, D., 443. Nehrling, 282. Néis, 187. Nessler, 516. Neve, 568. Newbury, 146. Neyreneuf, 44, Nourse, J. H., $4. Obrecht. See Cornu and Ob- recht. Olszewski, K. See Wroblew- sky, and Olszewski, K. O'Neill, H., 407. Oppert, G., 489. Osborn, H., 320. Osborne, 491. Owen, R., 459. Packard, A. 8., jun., 457. Parker, G. W., 38. Parker, W., 545. Partsch, J., 155. Patterson, A. J., 133. Pauchon and Bertrand, 42. Pawlewsky, B., 293. Peacock, 367. Pechuel-Loesche, 55. Peet, 8S. D., 378. Penfield, S. L., 483. See also Brush, G. J., and Penfield, 8. L. Perpetue, 341. Peter, y. See Schrodt and yon Peter. Petrie, 467. Pettersson, O., 420. Pfliiger, E., 190. Picard, 266, 472. Pickering, 8. U., 10. Piesbergen. See Monninghoff and Piesbergen. Poincaré, 506. Poirier, J., 432. Porter, C. T., 330. Poulton, E. B., 461. Powell, W., 501. Prat and Laroche, 247. Precht, H. See Wittjen, B., and Precht, H. Prevost. See Swanwick and Prevost. Prillieux, 563. Putnam, F. W., 304. Rath, G. v., 449. Rauber, 33. Ray, 316. Regnard, P.,and Blanchard, R., 238. Reichert. See Mitchell and Reichert, and Wood and Reichert. Reid. See Butler, Fielding, and Reid. Rein, G., 583. Reisenegger, H., 78. Repiachoff, 488. Ricco, 172. Richardson, R, A., 9. - Richter, V. v., ‘77. Ringer and Sainsbury, 96. Rink, 150. Roberts. See Caldwell and Roberts. Robertson, 554. Robertson, D., 126. Robinson, 8. W., 216, 543. Rochas, A. de, 537. Rochebrune, A. T. de, 587. Roeback, 492. Rohlfs, G., 154. Romanis, R., 337. Roy. See Cohnheim and Roy. Sabatier, 95, 393. Saceardo, P. A., 345. Sainsbury. See Ringer and Sainsbury. Saint-Loup, 456. Salensky, W., 432. Salomon, C., 424. Salterain, $1. Sandoy, 245. Schacko, 429. Schaeffer, C. A., 270. Scharizer, R., 271. Schiaparelli, 264, 289. Schieffelin, 365. Schiff, R., 547. Schleh, 386. Schmidt, F., 420, 559. Schneider, A., 156. Schrodt and yon Peter, 552. Schulze and Bosshard, 517. Schulze, B., 202. Schwarz, H., 314. Schweinfurth, G., 39. Sedgwick, 395. Sharp, B., 397, 522. Shedd and Ward, 217. Sibree, J., jun., 236, 540. Siemens, Werner, 328. Sluiter, C. P., 93. Smith, E. F. See Thomas, N. W., and Smith, HE. F. Smith, J. L., 222. Smith, 8. L., 257. Soleillet, P., 298. Spring, W., 14. Staude, 471. Steel, F. A., 259. Stejneger, 402. Sterneck, R. v., 175. Stevens. See Donaldson and Stevens, Stirling and Macdonald, 68. Stokes, A. C,, 428. Sturm, R., 215, 238. Sturtevant, E. 1.., 485, SCIENCE.— CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. Stutzer, 387. Sutherland, W.5., 246. Swanwick and Prevost, 199. Symes. See Lloyd and Symes. Szabo, J., 336. ‘Tacchini, P., 115, 263. Tait, 5. Talausier, C., 357. Taljanzeff, 496. Tarchanoff, 322, 323. Tate, 46. Taylor, 427. Taylor, W. B., 355. Teller and John, 271. ‘Tenison-Woods, J. E., 520. Thomas, N. W., and Smith, E. ¥F., 141. Tremlett, 540. Tryon, 371. Tuttle, A. H., 531. Twitchell, E., 178. Urban, 57, 566. Uskow, 100, 233. Valentini, P. J. J., 287. Vambery, H., 102. Van Bemmelen, 127. Van Calker, F. J. P., 148. Van Hasselt. See Veth and Van Hasselt. Vayssiére, 207. Venukoff, M., 83. Verdonck, H., 344. Vesque, 88. Veth and Van Hasselt, 273. Vierordt, K., 239. Vieth, 144. Vignier, C., 432. Voelcker, 416, 448. Vossler, 512. Waddington, H. J., 91. Wagner, F., 111, 480. Wake, C. 8., 540. Walcott, C. D., 518. Walecki, 409. Walker, J. T., 120. . See Shedd and Ward. Ward. Warington, See Lawes, Gilbert, and Warington. Warren, J. See Bowditch, . H.P., and Warren, J. 0. Warrington, J. N., 442. Waterford, 469. Watteville, de, 166. Wauters, 423. Weingarten, 174. Weinland, 59. Werner, R. R., 48. Westmacott, 310. < White, R. B., 54. Whitham, J. M., 413. Whitman, C. O., 348. Wieler, 188. Wiesner, 300. Wildt, 416. Williams, G. H., 149. Willoughby, E. F., 143. Wiltheiss, E., 214. Winslow, 128. Wittjen, B., and Precht, H., 555. Wolff, W., 529. ‘Wood and Reichert, 581. Wortmann, J., 299. Wright, E. R., 301. Wroblewsky, S., and Olszew- ski, K., 4. Wundt, 59. Young, C. A., 1. Young, J., 526. Young, 8. H., 253. Zawarykin, 192. Zuntz, 551. ss SCIENCE. — CONTENTS OF VOLUME IL vii INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Bureau of ethnology, 580. Geological survey, 633, 724, 11, 807, 836. Magnetic observato! a en Los Angeles, Cal., ill. 58. National museum, Naval! bureau of ordnance, ‘58. STATE INSTITUTIONS. Illinois state laboratory of natural history, 483. Towa weather service, 27, 339. Massachusetts institute of technology, 449. Missouri weather service, 26. Ohio Wesleyan university, 91. State university University of of Kansas, 90, 340. ichigan, 208. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS, Dudley observatory, 449. Williams college, 808. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, 12, 44, 105, il/. 182, ill. 167, 201, 221, il/. 265, ill. 309, 353, 402, 435, 470, 496, 539, 569, i//. 599, 620, id. 652, ill. 682, 712, 789, 764, il2. 793, ill. 820. Nores AND NEWS, 27, 61, 91, 115, 146, 179, 209, 258, 297, 340, 384, é//. 412, 450, 484, é//. 516, 549, 580, i7/, G04, 634, 665, 696, 725, 752, il. 778, i22. 808, 837. REcENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS, 30, 62, 92, 118, 150, 180, 210, 254, 298, 342, 453, 486, 518, 550, 582, 608, 636, 668. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Acoustic rotation 9 om (5 figs.). . . - . .818, 819 Albatross, U.S. fish-commission : 3 longitudinal section of, 8,9; captain’s cabin, 67; main laboratory, forward end, 83; same, after end, 69; the Sigsbee sounding-machine on, 70; forward deck of, 71; electric light on (17 figs.) . . . . 643, 644, 645, 673, 674, 675, 707 Assos, city walls of, 647; corner of oldest poly. gonal Sty WAILOF 22. = a. Va ahaa) ee sen 648 Astronomy, illustrative ‘apparatus Torco wae tek 218 Aurora borealis, ae of Lemstrém’s wires in experi. mentson . « -. 84 Auroral experiments i in Lapland, diagram explaining. « - 820 Balfour, Francis Maitland, Boreal and esaclaniire Of is « 299 Balloon, fall ofa (6 figs.) . - "3 "189, 190 Banyuls, Arago mboratoce at, 568; “as seen from the labora- tory .. oe) ge > o DOD Barrande, Joachim, portrait and signature ‘of oesa,+; Var op G09 A A IS eS Cs eg Bennett Island. . . 543 Bombinator, section through’ head of embryo of, 186; sec- tion through head of tadpoleof . . . . .... . 186 Boyle’s law, apparatus for (2 figs.) . . ..... +. . 284 Brontosaurus, restoration of . . 207 Cars, racks of postal, 418; suspension truck for, 49; dump, 419; diagram showing action of suspension truck for, 419; elipHe spring for, 420; prewbae for, 420; automat- ic brake for . . Ruts 421 Chick’s skull, anatomy of @ figs. 4 BA * 43, 552, 553, $87, 588 Crystals in bark. . Ee ers 708 Dissociation of salts, diagram showing results of Ror iw pei ) Dobrn, Anton, portraitand signatureof ....... 98 Figures, symmetrical, by reflection . . . ..... . 38 Fish-hooks, bone . . . « 653 Fisheries exhibition, ‘American section of International. : French soldiers resting. . . Se eee bal. b Frog ovum, frontal section through SMe ay at abhaties Fen tel, DAE Galvanometer, method of calibrationof . . i, . Glacial scratches on Scotland and Shetland, map of Bitte Gravity, method of finding centre of . . 283 Greenland, map of western coast of, 413; map of Norden- skidld’s journey on, 733; fissure in inlandiceof . . . 735 Gulf slope, chartof. . . PP hie Ahrens) C3 Heer, Oswald, portrait and signature of Pensa satel rhe. DOG Heliostat . . . ; ARR She ROO Ice-chart for June, 1883. . 188 _ Igloo, making an ice, 216; ice, with snow ‘capping, 217; ; diagram showing method of building, 259; a snow-block for, 260; half-built, 260; finishing touches to, 261; ver- tical cross-section through wall of, 261; diagram show- ing method of laying the snow- blocks for, 260; vertical section of, 304; plan of, 304; Lieut. Schwatka’s party encamped in snow, 348; section through ge 3495 Innuit tight-ropesin . . ‘ . . 349 Ischia, earthquake of July 28, 1883, on island of. + « «897, 485 dJavaearthquake,mapof .......-. ow ert 5: 400 PAGE Jeannette Island . . 542 Lamprey, sagittal section through head ‘of embryo of, 134: section through head of older embryo of, 185; section through peed of young larva of, 185; section “of inner side of lipof . . . ayy that of the earth [it is } approx- imately] ... our typical man would only weigh about 2} pounds. ... An 80-ton locomotive would not propel a train of empty cars. .. . A rifle-ball might be caught in the hand without harm.” According to the law of gravitation, the ‘ typical man’ would weigh 66 pounds. Supposing the 80-ton locomotive re- duced in weight in the proportion he states, the cars would be so also: therefore, under any such conditions whatever, the 80-ton locomotive would draw precisely as great a quantity of matter there as it would upon the surface of the earth. As to the rifle-ball, its stored energy is proportional to MV; that is, it is~ proportional to its mass, and independent of its weight. But the mass of a body is the same through- out the universe: therefore experiments in catching rifle-balls in the hand on the surface of Mars would be dangerous. Finally, referring to Mars, he says, ‘‘ Nothing can be more certain than that there is no liquid in Mars, and no life.”” As seen through the telescope, the poles of Mars appear of a brilliant white color. When one of the poles is turned towards the sun, the size of the white spot diminishes, and, when it is turned away again, it increases. Some astronomers have imagined these white spots to be snow: in that case, it is difficult to account for the disappearance, unless we suppose that it melts. It therefore seems rather a strong way of expressing it to say that “nothing can be more certain than that there is no liquid in Mars.’’ There are several other points raised by our author which would bear mentioning, — one or two on the subject of energy, particularly ‘a large aspect of the question, which seems to have escaped the attention of thinkers;’’ but I think the points referred to above will be sufficient for the present occasion. W. H. PickERING. ~ JuLy 6, 1883.] COMPOSITION OF THE MESODERM. _. UNDER the title ‘Archiblast and parablast,’ Wal- deyer has published a long article (Arch. mikrosk. anat., xxii. 1), in which he reviews chiefly His’s views concerning the origin of the connective tissue, blood- yessels, etc.; but he also considers several cognate questions, His’s investigations have been confined to verte- brates, but he apparently believes that his view is also applicable to invertebrates. Professor His dis- tinguishes two distinct groups of tissues, — the archi- blastic and parablastic. The former includes all the epithelial, muscular, and nervous tissues, comprising, therefore, the glands, smooth muscles, and neuroglia: the parablastic group comprises all the connective tissues and blood, with which are counted the blood and lymph vessels, and also the leucocytes. The parablast arises beyond the embryonic area proper as cells which grow into the embryonic region. These cells arise, according to His, out of the granules of the white yolk; these granules, from cells in the yolk; which cells are immigrated leucocytes, that enter the ovum while it is still in the follicle of the ovary. Waldeyer accepts this division, but he differs from ‘His mainly in two points, — first, in excluding the lin- ing of the peritoneal cavity from the list of endothelia, and therefore also from the parablast; second, in ascribing a different origin to the parablastic cells. (As regards the first point, there can be no reason- able doubt that His’s account of the origin of the membrane is erroneous: because, 1, the disappear- ance of the original epithelium, and the new forma- tion by leucocytes of an epithelium on top of it, was, to the last degree, improbable, so that a gross error of observation would be more probable; 2, His was unable to bring forward any definite observations in his favor; 3, his conclusion was and has since been contradicted by the direct observations of others. Waldeyer has done good service in calling general attention to these objections, but the matter can hardly be considered new.) ; As regards the second point, we reproduce Wal- deyer’s own summary (p. 47). In the eggs of all animals which have blood and connective tissue at all, the segmentation of the egg does not continue in the same manner up to the end; but one must distinguish a primary and a secondary segmentation: the first divides the egg, so far as it is capable of seg- mentation, into a number of cells which are mature for the formation of the tissue, and form the primary germinal layers. A remainder of immature segmen- tation-cells (in holoblastic eggs), or of egg-protoplasm, which has not assumed the cell-form (in meroblastic eggs), is left over. In either form, this remainder does not directly enter into the germ-layers as an integral component, but undergoes first a further cell- formation, — the secondary segmentation. From the cells thus formed, the parts richer in protoplasm are cut off, and make the primitive parablast-cells; while the part richer in yolk remains only to be used as nutritive material. It will be seen that the essence of Waldeyer’s theory is, that a portion of the segmenting SCIENCE. 11 egg is retarded by the presence of yolk; and so there are some cells, or, in meroblastic eggs, some proto- plasm, which is laggard in development, and does not directly enter into the primitive layers, but becomes the parablast. The parablast is essentially identical with the mes- enchyma of the brothers Hertwig, except that the latter include the smooth muscles in the group. Waldeyer endeavors to justify his theory of the origin of these tissues from laggard cells, but it seems to the reporter unsuccessfully. There is given also, p. 38-44, a discussion of the relation of the yolk to cleavage, in which the views advancéd several years ago by Minot (Proc. Bost. soc. nat. hist., xix.) are brought forward anew, apparently without knowledge of their previous publication by another writer. In the discussion of the origin of the parablast-cells, p. 9-27, it appears that His’s view of their origin from the white yolk is definitely shown to be untenable. Incidentally, emphasis is laid upon the fact, that, in meroblastic eggs, the protoplasm of the animal pole sends down processes into the yolk: it is from these processes in the ‘keimwall’ of birds’ eggs that the parablast-cells arise, according to Wal- deyer. His article, as a whole, is chiefly a discussion of the literature of his subject. Cc. S. Minor. THE ECLIPSE OF 1882. AT the present time, when interest is chiefly drawn toward the successes of the astronomers who observed the eclipse of the sun month before last from the small islands in the Pacific Ocean, the results of the eclipse of May 17, 1882, obtained in Egypt, have especial significance. These were briefly stated by Dr. Schuster at a late meeting of the Royal astro- nomical society. During the progress of the eclipse three photographic instruments were at work:*one took photographs of the corona itself; a second was a photographic camera with a prism placed in front of it, that is, a spectroscope without a collima- tor; and the third was a complete spectroscope. Photographs were obtained in all three instruments. The direct photographs of the corona indicate its variations from eclipse to eclipse, —a matter of much importance in solar physics. If the photographs taken during eclipses in the past twenty years are compared with each other, it will be seen that the corona varies in a regular way with the state of the sun’s surface, although there are irregular minor changes. At the sun-spot minimum the corona is much more regular than at the maximum. At the minimum there is a large equatorial extension, and near the solar poles a series of curved rays. At the maximum there is practically no regularity at all: the long streamers go up sometimes in one direction, and sometimes in another; and this last year, near the sun-spot maximum, there was absolutely no symmetry in the appearance of the corona, The transparency of the streamers was most striking. One streamer can sometimes be traced through another, showing that the matter, whatever it is, must be very thin. The rifts start from the solar surface in an entirely 12 SCIENCE. irregular way, with a tendency very often toward the tangential direction at the lower parts of the rifts. The photographs extend about a diameter and a half from the sun’s limb, and a comet appears on the plates about a solar diameter and a half from the sun’s centre. It must have been very bright, as it appears clearly in the photographs. Measurements seem to indicate a small shift in its position during the interval between the first photograph and the last. Turning now to the photographs taken with the camera and prism in front, —an instrument which gives an image of the prominences as oft repeated as there are rays in the prominence, —the plates employed were sensible to the infra-red as well as violet rays. One prominence gave a great number of lines in the ultra-violet. The fact was brought out in this eclipse, that the brightest lines in the prominences are due, not to hydrogen, but to cal- cium. Besides these and the hydrogen lines, there is the line D; in the yellow, and the C line of hydrogen in the red, and also a photograph of two prominence-lines in the ultra-red. In addition to the prominences, there are visible in the photographs certain short rings round the moon, which mean that at these places the light sent out by the gaseous part surrounding the moon is not confined to the prom- inences. It is, as would be expected, the green coronal line which chiefly corresponds to one of those rings. This green line, K 1474, is a true coronal Jine, and is only very faintly traceable in one of the prominences. In considering the results obtained with the com- plete spectroscope, it isa striking fact that some of the lines cross the moon’s disk, and especially the two lines Hand K. This proyes that the calcium-lines, H and K, wereso strong in the prominences that the light was scattered in our atmosphere, and reflected right in front of the moon. The prominence-lines are very numerous : thirty such lines appear in the photograph, The hydrogen- lines are there, including those in the ultra-violet photographed by Dr. Huggins; also H and K, and other calcium-lines; and still others, chiefly un- known. Close to the sun’s limb we can only trace a con- tinuous spectrum, a very strong one, going up to about a quarter of a solar diameter. The photo- graphs bear out the distinction between the inner and the outer corona, the former being much Stronger in light. The boundary at which this con- tinuous spectrum ends corresponds to the extension of the inner corona. The continuous spectrum is stronger on the side where the prominences are weaker. In the corona we first of all see a very faint continuous spectrum, and in that continuous spec- trum one can trace at G the reversal of the dark Fraunhofer lines. In addition, a series of faint true coronal lines can be traced in the outer regions of the corona. We have not traced any known substances in the solar corona. The greater number of the prominence-lines in the ultra-violet are also un- known, but they seem to be present in Dr, Huggins’s photograph of the spectrum of a Aquilae. [Vou IL, No. 22. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *,* Correspondents are requested to beas brief as poxsible. The writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. The relative ages of planets, comets, and meteors. THE theory that the sun was once a gaseous mass extending beyond the most distant planet, and that it has contracted to its present dimensions by the continuous action of gravity, and is still so contract- ing, is now very generally accepted by astronomers. It is well known, moreover, that the condensation of a gaseous body produces heat, and that the impact of solar matter in consequence of its motion towards the centre of gravity is one cause, at least, — perhaps the principal one, —of the sun’s high temperature. The modern law of the conservation of energy af- fords data for determining the amount of heat pro- - duced by the condensation of the sun’s mass from one volume to another. It is thus found that the contraction to its present dimensions, from a primi- tive volume extending indefinitely beyond the orbit of Neptune, would have kept up a uniform supply of heat equal to the present for twenty millions of years.1 The age of the solar system, however, may be great- er or less than this, as the sun’s radiation may not have been constant. In any form of the nebular hypothesis, Neptune is the oldest planet known, and the innermost of the number has had the most recent origin. A majority of comets probably move in hyperbolas, and visit the solar system but once. Some orbits have been changed into ellipses by planetary pertur- bation. For any thing we can know to the contrary, com- etary matter has been falling towards the centre of our system in all ages of its existence. Whenever the perihelion distance has been less than the radius of the solar spheroid, the comet’s orbital motion must have been arrested, and transformed into heat. As the limits of geological dates are determined by the strata of the earth’s crust, so the superior limits of the age of periodic comets are fixed by the plane- tary orbits next exterior to their perihelia. Of the comets known to be periodic, the perihelion distances of thirteen are less than the earth’s distance from the sun. The ages of all these must therefore be less than that of the earth. In like manner the ages of others are shown to be less than that of Venus, while those of a few are found to be less than the age of Mercury. We may conclude, then, in general, that the ages of comets, as members of the solar sys- tem, are less than those of planets. But as metevroids, partly at least, are derived from comets, their origin as separate bodies in connection with our system must be still more recent: in fact, _ MINeteoric matter is being constantly detached from comets at each successive return to perihelion. The indications of this process were unmistakable in the case of the great comet of 1832, and many meteoroids of the Biela group have been separated from the comet in our own day. DANIEL KirRKWoop. Bloomington, Ind. First use of wire in sounding. Professor Verrill is quite right in supposing that I was unaware that any report of the sounding expedi- tion of Walsh had been published. A casual reference to Walsh in the ‘ Depths of the sea’ led me to inquire, 1 A contraction of the radius equal to a hundred and twenty- nine feet per annum would yield the present supply of heat. See Monthly notices of the R, A. 8., April, 1872. | ; : Juty 6, 1883.] through a nayal friend, of an officer in the Navy department, unofficially, whether any report had been publi-hed., This gentleman was kind enough to make inquiries, and finally replied that he could not find out that any thing had been printed, but that the log- books were at the department. On this account I made no further search for printed data; but later, on Commander Bartlett’s installation at the Hydro- graphic office, I mentioned it to him, and he had the goodness to search the log-books, and to send me copies of all references to the work with wire, con- tained in them, from which my note was compiled. Doubtless other note-books might have been used also. In regard to the breaking of the wire, it is spe- cifically stated in the log-book that it parted ‘ owing to some of the links catching at times on others,’ as the line was paid out in one or two cases, and in others as it was being hauled in. In another instance it parted ‘owing to one of the joints catching upon another joint on the reel.’ It is nowhere in the orivinal log referred to the heaving of the vessel; and the last entry repeats, ‘ entirely owing to the short nip of the catch upon the reel.’ Having had some experience in sounding in great depths of water with a small sailing-vessel, I have come to the opinion, in which I think most practised hydrographers would concur, that it is impossible that a plumb sound should be obtained from such a vessel under any cir- cumstances likely to occur in actual work. The words quoted by Professor Verrill from Walsh’s report show that the latter officer deceived himself; for it is evident, that, if the wire ‘ served as an anchor to keep the vessel steady,’ it could not have been plumb; and, even if it appeared to be so at the surface, what it was below the surface no man could state with con- fidence, except that it was not plumb. A steamer may be kept over the wire, and, with wire properly spliced and heavily weighted, a plumb sound can be had, but not otherwise; and it may be confidently said that accurate sounding in deep water dates from the combination of these two factors. I may say, also, that in my note I did not, nor do I now, consider that successful trial of a sounding apparatus has been arrived at, until bottom has been reached, and the signs of it brought up. Wo. H. DALL. Washington, June 23, 1883. False claims. It is to be regretted that the pages of a popular magazine of high standing should be made the vehicle -of such an advertisement as appears in the Century for July, entitled ‘Cheap food for the million,’ re- ee in the publisher's department of SCIENCE ‘or June 22. Of the merits or demerits of a new food-preservative, of which so many have been -. brought forward within the last few years, I have nothing to say: the testimony of Prof. S. W. Johnson, cited in its favor, is certainly entitled to respectful consideration. But I wish to call attention to the elaim of the inventor of the new nostrum to public confidence on the ground that he is ‘‘a fellow of the Chemical society of London, and also of the Geological society, being elected after unusually severe examina- tions. President Huxley, of the latter society, said that ‘no American should boast of an election with- out a severe struggle.” In evidence of this prejudice towards Americans, the fact that Professor Humiston was given two hundred and fifty questions (five times the usual number) may be cited. He is now super- intendent of the company’s works,”’ etc. It is not clear what meaning is to be attached to the words put into Huxley’s mouth; but it is a well- known fact that neither in the societies named, nor SCIENCE. 13 any others with which I am acquainted, is there any examination whatever required, or are any ques- tions asked. A nomination by three members, one of whom must have personal knowledge of the candi- date, and the payment of fees, are the only conditions necessary to membership of the Geological society of London, which has several hundred members upon its lists, including many Americans. In the complete catalogue of all scientific papers published in Europe and America up to 1877 (Roy. soc. cat.) we search in vain for the name of the ‘superintendent of the company’s works.’ It is not creditable to the adver- tisers that the names of illustrious men of science and of learned societies, coupled with erroneous statements and absurd appeals to national prejudices, should be invoked, even indirectly, to recommend their wares. T. Sterry Hunt. Montreal, June 25, 1883. MACLOSKIE’S ELEMENTARY BOTANY. Elementary botany, with students’ guide to the exami- nation and description of plants. By GrorGe Mac osxie, D Sc , LL D., professor of natural history in the J. G. Green school of science, Princeton, N J., etc. New York, Holt, 1883. Stops 12°. Scrence is ready to welcome a new text- book, asking only for some particular line of excellence as a warrant of its reason to be. Considering that ‘‘ this volume aims to supply areadable sketch of botany,’’ and so to treat the subject ‘‘as to meet the wants of a large class of readers who wish to know something of the fundamental principles and philosophi- cal bearings of the science without being dis- tracted by technicalities,’’ we think that its read- able character and the comparatively sparing use of unnecessary technical terms are among its commendable features. The style is easy, sometimes a little odd in its concatenations, as where ‘‘it is said that a monkey first intro- duced tea to the notice of the Chinese; the English government started its cultivation in Assam, whence the best teas now come ;’’ and in the following paragraph it becomes even sensational. ‘Their power of increasing in thickness imparts to roots their capacity for mischief. Their vigor is somewhat surprising. They make their way through dense soil, loosening it so that it becomes soft and spongy. They ean split rocks, overturn walls and buildings, stop up sewers, and root up our street-pave- ments. They effect more injury to man’s handiwork than tempest, fire, and war com- bined. . . . We possess a root hugging an old bottle in irredeemable captivity.’’ In a well-known passage at the close of one of his books, Darwin likened the tip of a root to the brain of one of the lower animals; and brains, we know, are capable of mischief, and 14 therefore of demoralization. Whether the root which the author is so fortunate as to pos- sess is in dipsomaniac captivity to the bottle it hugs, or whether the bottle is captivated by the caressing root, is not quite clear from the context. And how such dire mischief to man wrought by roots — more injurious ‘ than tempest, fire, and war combined ’—is to be reconciled with creative benevolence, we must leave for the Princeton theologians to settle, and pass on to another topic, that of judicious abstinence from technicalities. Writers of text-books are prone to employ all the technical terms they can find, especially new-fangled ones which have not yet proved their right or reason to exist by continued usage, or which, though convenient in an origi- nal treatise or memoir, and harmless or even useful in a glossary, may be advantageously dispensed with in ordinary scientific teaching. We all know of the painter commemorated by Punch, who ‘rubbed out a good deal,’ and who claimed to ‘ get his best effects that way.’ Many scientific books for students’ use might be bettered by the same process. Professor Macloskie has so well resisted the ordinary temptation, or restrained in parenthesis need- less terms which he did not like to leave out, —such as xylem, Greek for wood, most barba- rously Germanized (as if, where a Greek said zylon and a Roman said lignum, we might not say wood when we meant it), — that it may be a little ungracious to complain of his making one or two himself, and making them badly. Where he says, ‘‘ to avoid confusion, we shall call [the seed-coats] exotest and endotest,’’ the inference is, that these terms are original. Nor, not to insist that confusion is rather made than avoided by the substitution of new names for well-recognized old ones, we might suggest that the coinage is ‘in a small way pedantic, ex- cept that a pedant would not violate what our author in another place terms ‘ the jus connubii ” by hybridizing Greek with Latin. Nor, if we must have such Greek-Latin crosses, would he have truncated them into quasi English, which is as bad as a third cross, but have written exo- testa and endotesta in full, vile as the terms are. Gametic is certainly new coinage; and the author does not clearly say what he means it to pass for. But it may be gathered that ‘gametic affinity” means relationship near enough to allow of interbreeding. We are to say, then, that species belonging to different genera have gametic affinity in the rare cases when they can be made to hybridize; and that certain species strictly of the same genus, which we have failed to hybridize, are devoid SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 22. of gametic affinity : so the term has no explan- atory value whatever. Some of the borrowed woodcuts are very good ; most of the original ones are quite the re- verse ; and the one which is said to represent a ‘tip shoot of pea’ is a complete puzzle, after all the enlightenment which the letterpress affords. Turning over the pages, we now and then come upon statements which dampen any en- thusiasm of commendation which a reviewer might wish to express. On p. 16 we read that ‘*eymose flowers are always actinomorphic, being equally exposed to light in all directions.” The implication that ‘ actinomorphic,’ i.e., reg- ular, flowers are so because equally exposed to | light from all directions is a bit of deductive botany of the Grant Allen school. And the assertion that cymose inflorescence and actino- morphic flowers always go together is by no means true, as witness all Labiatae and a large share of other didynamous flowers. The seed ‘*in Lepidium, on being moistened, darts out mucilaginous threads.’’ Is Dr. Macloskie sure of this, or does he infer that there must be Such threads because they exist in various other seeds and seed-like fruits which develop muci- lage when wetted? The hypocotyledonary stem ‘‘in the pea is short because the seed re- mains underground.’’ Were it not better to say that the seed remains underground because this initial stem does not lengthen? On p. 82 it is asserted, or at least implied, that root- hairs last all summer long, and may be renewed on a surface that has lost them. To Grant Allen, in the year 1882, is attributed the idea that neutral ray-flowers of Compositae are sterilized members set apart and enlarged for purposes of display. Has Dr. Macloskie met with no earlier exposition of that doctrine? Not to prolong questioning, let us say, that, for those who are most likely to use this book, it was a good idea to devote a few pages at the close to the derivation of common terms, Latin and Greek root-words, and prefixes, and to help those who do not know the Greek alpha- bet by writing out the words, as nearly as may be, in Roman letters. THE GEOLOGY OF BELGIUM. Géologie de la Belgique. Par Mrcuet Mourton. 2vols. Bruxelles, Hayez, 1880-81. 317; 16+392 p-; illustr. 8°, — eS Tus book, a model in its way, will be read with equal profit by the geologist and by the general reader. The geologist will find in it, critically exposed, and in a short and impar- tial manner, the immense amount of labor ~ ' . _ Jury 6, 1883.] ~ author : “zoic masses. and of detail which is seattered in the numer- ous papers of the Belgian geologists. Any one of ordinary intellectual culture, and inter- ested in Belgium, will find it a dear and read- able account of the past history and chief" features of the country. Two causes have contributed to make easier the task of the the works on the geology of Belgium by d’Omalius, Dewalque, and especially the celebrated ‘ Esquisses géologiques’ of Gosselet, have already pointed out the way to success ; and, moreover, the natural disposition of the country allows a very simple grouping of facts. Both geologically and geographically, Bel- gium is formed of two distinct parts. The ‘southern half (the Ardennes) is a hilly region, a continuation of the old paleozoic nucleus of Europe, — the so-called Hereynian mountain- range; the northern half (Flandres, ete.) isa flat land or prairie region, and forms part of the great plain of northern Europe, the basin of the North Sea. The Ardennes is a paleo- zoic district; Flandres, a tertiary one; the triassic, Jurassic, and cretaceous formations forming but a broken belt around the paleo- All these formations are, how- -eyer, studied by the author in a complete manner, and their mineralogical, paleontologi- eal, and stratigraphical characters successively described. Both their historical divisions and their local extension are given with care. Beginning with the older rocks, we first meet the Cambrian shales, forming two principal ranges (massifs de Rocroy and de Stavelot). These rocks can be compared to the Ocoe conglomerates and shales of the Appalachian region; they contain the curious interbedded erystalline porphyroids, so well illustrated by de la Vallée Poussin and Renard, whose papers are here summarized in two good plates. The Silurian beds form two small crests extending east and west, through Brabant and Condros, and have supplied fossils of Barrande’s second fauna. These beds, like the underlying Cam- brian, have a southerly dip. The upper Silu- rian fauna is not represented. The folding of the Silurian rocks was the q initial cause of the so-called Dinant and Namur devono-carboniferous depressions, or basins. It was followed by a long-continued _ depression of the area, in consequence of _which the accumulation of an enormous thick- ness of stratified rocks within the great troughs ‘of Dinant and of Namur took place. This downward bending of the earth’s crust did not go on continuously, but submitted to some irregularities related to the breaks and numer- ous stratigraphical divisions of the Devonian SCIENCE. 15 formation. The Devonian formation of Ar- dennes is the most complete and best studied in Europe, through the labors of Dumont, Gosselet, Dupont, and the author. It shows a thick series of four thousand metres of alternating fossiliferous shales, sandstones, and limestones, marine for the chief part, though some beds have furnished Psilophyton and other plant-remains. After the period of the mountain limestone, littoral, brackish’ water, and finally lacustrine and _ terrestrial deposits, came in, and the coal continued forming. A general movement of elevation sueceeded towards the end of the coal-measures, and folded all the paleozoic sediments as if they had been crushed from south to north. This thrust had a more violent effect in the Namur than in the Dinant basin. In the former are comprised the celebrated coal-fields of Mons, Liége, and Charleroy,—the chief causes of Belgian prosperity and wealth. At the close of the paleozoic period, the mountainous region of southern Belgium was formed; and since then it has always been exposed to denudation. South of this moun- tainous district, the Jura-triassic beds of east- ern France now began to accumulate in the Gulf of Luxemburg (Buntersandstein and Keu- per, and the Jurassic from the Avicula contorta beds to the middle odlites). These mesozoic seas did not penetrate north of the Ardennes, where the lower cretaceous are the most an- cient mesozoic formations. The cretaceous formations in this district possess great interest, notwithstanding their small geographical extent. The lower beds have furnished the splendid iguanodons of the Brussels museum, and the upper ones are the well-known Maestricht beds. All are chiefly littoral formations; and the so-called tourtias of the middle cretaceous are famous by the variety and richness of their faunas. In the deep and narrow Gulf of Mons, the cre- taceous beds are found in a chalky condition, as in the Anglo-French basins. _In the neighborhood of Mons and Landen are found the most ancient representatives known in Europe of the tertiary epoch (systémes mon- tien, heersien), so well illustrated by Cornet and Briart. The Landenian system has a wider extension, forming, with the other terms of the eocene series, nearly all of lower Bel- gium. “Thus it is to the wide-spread mass of the London clay, which covers the Landenian sands, that Belgium owes its meadows and well-cultivated fields, which extend in an im- mense plain from the Brabant to the coast. 16 and from Dunkirk to Ostend. The Bruxellian and Laekenian systems form superficial hills in the neighborhood of Brussels, Gand, ete. The oligocene system shows two principal divisions (tongrian, rupelian), which stretch across the lower part of the river Escaut, where it leaves the eocene districts, through which it flows in the western part of the country. The plio- cene formations overlap irregularly the under- lying tertiary beds, and extend from Antwerp to Louvain. Many fine fossils have been found in these beds, where Mourlon admits several divisions, — Diestien (in part), Anversien, and Scaldisien. The last chapters of the work treat of the quaternary (diluvien, hesbayen, and campinien) and recent periods. Though special attention has here been given to the stratigraphical extent and dis- position of the beds, the author has treated with equal care of their lithological and paleon- tological characters, their minerals and fossils, and the useful products they furnish to Bel- gian industry. It will be enough, to indicate what amount of documents are included in the book, to state that the lists of fossils occupy 240, and the bibliographical lists 144 pages. DU MONCEL’S ELECTRO-MAGNETS. The determination of the elements of By Tu. Du Moncet. From New York, Van Electro-magnets. their construction. the second French edition. Nostrand, 1883. The same. Translated from the French by C. J. Wharton. London, Spon, 1883. Tue great interest in the practical applica- tions of electricity demands simple treatises on the most economical methods of making elec- tro-magnets. ‘ Count Th. Du Moncel has en- deavored to supply this want, and has added another treatise to the long list he has already published upon electricity. He disclaims any endeavor to make a treatise on electro-mag- nets which shall embody scientific theories upon that most difficult of subjects, theoretical magnetism. His desire is to give the mech- anician a vade mecum by means of which he can construct electro-magnets for operations outside the laboratory. Indeed, this treatise is intended to stand in the same relation to the maker of dynamo-electric machines as a trea- tise on the practical construction of boilers, minus theories of elasticity, would stand to the constructor of steam-engines. ‘There is need for such a treatise, undoubtedly; for much expense can be saved by a little knowl- edge where to put the material to the best advantage. Most of the dynamo machines SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 22. which are before the world at the present time are defective in the arrangement of the wire of the field electro-magnets. Does the trea- tise of Du Moncel supply this want? The author follows the antiquated French fashion of expressing the resistance of a wire in terms of the length and diameter, without specifying, in many cases, the specific resist- ance. Thus, instead of ohms, we read so many metres of telegraph-wire ; and one must enter into a troublesome arithmetical drudgery to ascertain what is meant. The English edi- tion, published by Spon, states in the preface the relation between Du Moncel’s units and the commonly received units of resistance and ~ electro-motive force; but the American edi- tion, published by Van Nostrand, leaves the reader to find out this relation after he has plodded some distance through the treatise. The two imprints, one by Spon and the other by Van Nostrand, are carelessly edited. Thus, on p. 43 in Van Nostrand, we find an inconsistency between the values of ¢? and A. On p. 47, Van Nostrand gives = = 0.000506 ¢/Y/P4 Es i ( 0.0225 (VPP), while Spon gives, on p. 34, 5 ( .0225 \/ ver) £ 000506 \/ Paps, We give this as an example of similar mis- takes which meet the eye. The question arises whether a more carefully prepared treatise, which would start with the funda- mental system of electrical measurements, is not still needed. It is useless for any one to- endeavor to become a practical electrician to-day, without a sound training in mathe- matics as far as the principles of the differ- ential and integral calculus. A genius may arise, but he will know enough to employ a steady plodder who has been steeped in the principles of the calculus. Most constructors ab ab ‘who desire to build electro-magnets will find that the exigences of space and material will demand a certain form. Unless they’ under- stand the theory of magnetic measurements, they will find the treatise of Du Moncel of little value ; for so many and so large approx- imations must be made, that the final result. would not differ much from those obtained by a thumb-rule. We commend to the practical. —— "= —_ ' JuLY 6, 1883.] electrician a study of the fundamental mag- netic measurements rather than the perusal of treatises of this nature. LEDGER’S SUN AND ITS PLANETS. The sun, its planets, and their satellites. By Rev. Epmunp LepGer, M.A. London, Stanford, 1882. 432 p. 12°. Or late a considerable number of semi- popular works have appeared on astronomical subjects. They seem to meet a felt want of the community, and have been very success- ful. We call them semi-popular: because, while they are not written for professional as- tronomers, they are adapted, in their style and mode of treatment, less to the great masses of the business and laboring population than to the educated people who are engaged in vari- ous professional occupations. Those, for in- stance, who are busy in teaching, or with the practice of medicine or law, or who are pursu- ing geological or biological research (in short, pretty much all who would naturally subscribe for Science), generally wish to keep aw cou- “rant of what is going on in other than their own special lines of work, and are delighted to find what they want, when they can get it in an attractive form. Mr. Ledger’s book is an excellent one of this class. It is less diffuse than Mr. Proc- tor’s essays, and not quite so imaginative. It is narrower in its scope than Professor Newcomb’s Popular astronomy, but easier reading, and fuller of detail in respect to the subjects of which it does treat. It makes no special claims to originality, but is accurate and clear, and the style is unpretentious and agreeable. The book is nicely gotten up, and _very well illustrated. Altogether, we have no SCIENCE. 17 hesitation in pronouncing it a volume well worth reading and possessing. Tt is made up of fifteen lectures read in 1881 and 1882 in Gresham college, London. Two are upon the sun, two are devoted to the moon, two to the earth, and two to Jupiter and his satellites. Each of the other planets has a chapter to itself (counting the group of plane- toids as one), and there is a chapter entitled ‘Ptolemy versus Copernicus.’ Naturally, the lectures are not all of equal interest and value ; but none of them are poor, or could be well dispensed with. The chapters upon Mars and the planetoids strike us as particularly good, and contain information not otherwise very easily accessible. The chapters on the sun and moon are also excellent, though naturally enough, in the main, only an abridgment and compilation from the recent books on these subjects; to which books the author hand- somely acknowledges his obligations. There are remarkably few mistakes in the work: in fact, in reading it over for this notice, we have found none at all, unless we count as such, a blunder in the illustration on p. 147, representing the comparative size of the sun as seen from Mercury at perihelion and aphe- lion ; the difference being represented very much greater than the truth. Speaking of illustra-_ tions, the fine Woodbury-type of the eclipse of 1871 deserves special mention, and several of the pictures of Mars and Jupiter are unusually excellent. It is rather a pity that a few pages of tables were not appended, containing the numerical statistics of the planetary system. They would have greatly increased the value of the book for those who wish not merely to read it once, but to keep it on their shelves for occasional reference. WEEKLY SUMMARY OF THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. ASTRONOMY. Flexure of the broken transit. — Professor C. A. Young, after alluding to the fact that the flexure-cor- rection of this peculiar form of transit is not treated of in any of the common text-books on practical astron- _ omy (not evenin Sawitsch, who specially describes and discusses the instrument itself), states the theory of the correction to transits of stars observed with the ‘broken transit,’ which is often so great as to amount to a large fraction of a second of time at the zenith. The constant of flexure must be known, and its effect eliminated, before the collimation error can be determined by reversal of the instrument on a circumpolar star. The correction has the same co- efficient with the level-error; and denoting this lat- ter, as usually obtained, by b, the flexure-constant by f, and the pivot-correction by p, the complete formula for the ‘level-constant’ is [b + (f+ p)]. Thus, by flexure, the time of transit of a star is af- fected by f cos zsecd. The sign of f changes with the reversal of the instrument, being always plus for eye east, and minus for eye west. Prof. Young gives several methods of determining /; by obsery- ing zenith stars in reversed positions of the instru- ment, by means of the collimating eye-piece and mercury-basin, or a vertical collimator supported above the instrument, and by least-square treatment of equations given by repeated observation of suit- 18 SCIENCE. able stars in both positions of the instrument. Some forms of the ‘ broken telescope’ transit, espe- cially those with a slender axis, require the addition of terms involving other functions of z than its cosine. Prof. Watson found for a Stackpole transit a flexure-correction of the form (fcosz+//" cos2z) sec d. But if the axis is reasonably stiff, the second term is never sensible. — (Sid. mess., June.) D. P. T. [2 MATHEMATICS. Double theta-functions.— M. Caspary gives an account of some of the more elementary theorems concerning the theta-functions of two variables. He proves first, in a very simple manner, that the squared functions can be arranged in the form of a determi- nant of the fourth order which satisfies all the condi- tions of a determinant of an orthogonal substitution. He derives also the Gopel relations between these functions and their application to Kummer’s surface. A number of other fundamental theorems are also arrived at in a very elementary manner, making the paper a valuable introduction to the study of the double theta-functions. — (Journ. reine ang. math., xciv. no. 1.) T. c. {2 Periodic functions. — M. Hurwitz discusses sin- gle-valued 2 n-fold periodic functions which through- out a finite region have the character of rational functions, and which are real for real values of their arguments. More exactly he examines the properties of the periods of such Abelian integrals as belong toa real algebraic form (gebilde). form he means the aggregate of all pairs of values of (x, y) which satisfy an irreducible algebraic equation (F(x, y) = 0) whose coefficients are all real. Defin- ing a periodic function by the equation $(u, + Py, U2 + Po... -Un+ Pn) = $(uj, Us. -- Un), the complex of quantities Pa is called a period of the function 9, a single one of these quantities being called a modulus of periodicity. A period is then real or pure imaginary when the moduli of periodicity which constitute it are real or pure imaginary. The principal theorem arrived at by the author is as follows: let ¢(u,, U2... %) denote a single-valued 2n-fold periodic function which everywhere through- out a finite region possesses the character of a rational function, and which takes real values whenever its arguments are real; then there are always n period- pairs, : (Pip,P28--- Png), (Pi,n+p,P2,n+p--+Pn,n+s), which form together a system of primitive periods of the function, and which are of such a nature, that, for each pair, one of the two conditions following is satis- fied: either the first period (Pig . . . Pyg) is real, and the second period (Pi, n+ ,--- Pn, n +8) is purely imaginary; or the first period is real, and the period (2Pi,n+p— Pisg---2Pn, n+p — Png) is purely imaginary. — (Journ. reine ang. math., xciv. no. 1.) T. Cc. [s ; PHYSICS. Liquefaction of nitrogen and carbonic oxide. —S. Wroblewsky and K. Olszewski give a more detailed account of the liquefaction of nitrogen (ScrmncE, i. 970). The gas remained invisible when By a real algebraic | [Vor. II., No. 22. submitted to a pressure of one hundred and fifty at- mospheres and a temperature of — 136°; but, when the pressure was slowly reduced to fifty atmospheres, the gas was liquefied, presenting a visible meniscus, and evaporating very rapidly. Under the same con- ditions, the authors succeeded in liquefying carbonic oxide, which formed a colorless liquid with a visible meniscus. — (Comptes rendus, xevi. 1225.) Cc. F. M. 4 Optios, : Mirage.—In an article entitled “State of the atmosphere which produces the forms of mirage ob- served by Vince and by Scoresby,’ Prof. Tait presents some very interesting researches regarding these par- ticular forms of mirage. After an historical note, in which he refers to two valuable contributions to the . subject by Wallaston and by Biot, which go far to- ward a solution of the problem, but have unfortu- nately fallen into oblivion, he presents his own investigations. His method consists in treating the curvature of a ray of light in the same way as the motion of a projectile; the two cases corresponding when, in the case of mirage, the square of the index of refraction of the air is proportional to the distance from a given horizontal plane. He finds, however, that, ‘‘ whatever be the law of refractive index of the air (provided it be the same at the same elevation), all we have to do to find the various possible images of an object at the same level as the eye is to draw the curve of vertices for all rays passing through the eye in the vertical plane containing the eye and the object, and find its inter- section with the vertical line midway between the eye and the obdject.’’ By making suitable suppositions regarding the change of density, he finds that “ the ‘conditions requisite for the production of Vince’s phenomenon are a stratum in which the.refractive index diminishes upwards to a nearly stationary state, and below it a stratum in which the upward diminu- tion is either less, or vanishes altogether.’”’ It will be seen that the solution of the problem of atmospheric density and refraction by this means is entirely in- determinate. The supposition of Prof. Tait satisfies the conditions presented by the observations of Vince; but that it is the only law or the true law must be verified by investigations of a different nature. The method is especially valuable in its inverse form as affording a test of supposed laws of density and re- fraction in their ability to furnish the various phe- nomena of mirage. — (Nature, May 24.) a. B. c. (Photography.) [s Concentrated developer in one solution. — Where the photographer intends to travel, and devel- ope on the route, it is very desirable to reduce his chemical outfit to the smallest bulk and to the fewest liquids possible. Mr. G. Cramer, the dry-plate manu- facturer, gives the following formula for a developer, which he considers gives the best of results, and at the same time has the advantage of extreme porta- _ bility. Stock solution. Sulphite of soda (crystals) . . . . . 8 ounces, Bromide of ammonium ... . . . ounce. JuLy 6, 1883,] Bromide of potassium. . . . . . . 1} ounces. Byrogallic acid: «0: i «| «aihefe’s a « 2 Ounces. Dissolve in distilled water . . . . . 32 ounces. Add sulphuric acid (ce. p.) . . « 120 minims. Add aqua ammonia (strongest) - » © 8 ounces, Add water to make up bulk to . . . 40 ounces. The sulphuric acid and aqua ammonia should be measured very exactly. Instead of three ounces of crystals, two ounces of granular sulphite of soda may be substituted to produce the same effect. Dilute a sufficient quantity for one day’s use as follows: for ordinary purposes, one part in eleven; for very short exposures, one part in three to six; for over-exposed plates, or in all cases where great intensity and con- trast are desirable, one part in twenty. This devel- oper may be used repeatedly if it is always returned immediately to the pouring-bottle, which should be provided with a tight-fitting rubber stopper. As long as the solution remains transparent, it is good; but when it looks muddy its use should be discontinued. —(Philad. phot., June.) w. 4. P. [6 . 3 ENGINEERING. Mill-engines.— The Southwark iron foundry has constructed for Messrs. Cheney Brothers of South Manchester, Conn., a compound ‘ Porter-Allen’ en- gine, having steam-cylinders 12 and 21 inches diam- eter, 2-feet stroke, to run at 180 revolutions per minute. The power is given at 200 horse-power. The ratio of expansion is 16. The expenditure of water was 18.5 pounds per horse-power and per hour. Of this, 11.75 was aceounted for by the indicator: the rest was wasted by condensation in the steam-cyl- inders and by leakage. In these engines the low- pressure cylinder is steam-jacketed, and the exhaust from the high-pressure cylinder passes into an inter- mediate reservoir, from which the large cylinder is supplied. The reservoir acts as a separator for the water carried in with the steam; and this water is trapped off, and does not reach the low-pressure cyl- inder. — (Mechanics, May 19.) Rk. H. T. (7 Compressed steel.— Tests have been made at the Watertown arsenal on cold-worked steel made by Naylor & Co, at the Norway steel and iron works, Boston, Mass. The elastic limit is raised from 26,540 pounds per square inch (1,966 kgs. per sq. em.), in the hot-rolled bar, to 61,000 pounds (4,288 kgs.) in the cold-rolled steel. The ultimate strength is increased from 55,400 pounds (3,895 kgs.) to 70,420 (5,140 kgs.), in one case, and to 81,890 (5,757 kgs.) in another. The results of tests made at the mechanical laboratory of the department of engineering of the Stevens insti- tute of technology are given, showing the increase due to cold rolling to be 70 per cent of the original torsional strength with iron, and over 150 per cent with soft steel. The resilience, or shock-resisting _ power, was increased, in an average of three tests, nearly 300 per cent in iron, and to double the latter quantity in steel. —(Ibid.) R. H. T. |8 Time-fuze for artillery.— Col. Richardson, R.A., finds that all the forms of time-fuzes at present in use are unsatisfactory, since they depend for their SCIENCE. 19 accuracy on the length of time during which a given column of composition burns; and this is a matter which is difficult of control at the best. He proposes to take advantage of the rapid and regular rotation of the shell during its flight by which to work a mechanism, which shall liberate a concussion-fuze at any desired moment. —(Proc. roy. artill. inst., April, 1883.) c. E. M. {9 . CHEMISTRY. (General, physical, and inorganic.) Basic sulphates of copper.— By continued boil- ing of a solution of cupric sulphate, S. U. Picker- ing obtained a basic sulphate, to which he assigns the formula 6CuO.2S0,.5H,0O. Precipitation in the cold with potassie hydrate gave the basic salt 4CuO . SO;.— (Chem. news, xlvii. 181.) c. F. M. {10 The hydrates of chlorine. — EF. Maumen? thinks that the hydrate Cl . 10 H.O, mentioned by Faraday, does not exist. Maumené observed the formation of the hydrate Cl .4H,.O, which erystallized in cubes, and of the hydrate Cl. 7 H,O in well-marked crystals. With an excess of water, the hydrate Cl. 4H,O is converted into the form Cl. 12H.O, which forms orthorhombic crystals, — (Bull. soc. chim., xxxix. 397.) C.F. M. ’ {11 Ammoniacal bromides and oxy-bromides of zinc. — When zine oxide is dissolved with the aid of heat in a solution of ammonic bromide, G. André states that the compound 3ZnBr, .3NH,.H,O is formed. This compound is completely decomposed when boiled with a large quantity of water, leaving only the oxide. The compound 3 ZnBr, .4NH,;.H,O is formed when the experiment is conducted in the cold. On passing dry ammonia gas into a solution of zine bromide, it is absorbed, with the formation of the product 3 ZnBr. .5NH,.H,O. The compound 2ZnBr, .5 NH, results when the ammoniacal bro- mide 2ZnBr, . 5NH,; . 2H.O is heated. The follow- ing oxy-bromides were prepared by methods similar to those which give the oxy-chlorides: ZnBr, . 4Zn0O . 13H-.O, ZnBr, . 4ZnO . 19H,O, ZnBry . 5ZnO.6H.,0, ZnBr, .6ZnO. 35H,O. —(Bull. soc. chim., xxxix. 398.) c. F. M. [12 Artificial hausmannite. — By heating manganous chloride to the point of fusion for several hours, A. Gorgen obtained crystals, on cooling, which possessed all the properties of the mineral hausmannite. — (Comptes rendus, xevi. 1144.) c. F. M. fa3 Formation of sulphides by pressure. — W. Spring submitted finely divided magnesium with the amount of sulphur calculated for one atom to a press- ure of sixty-five hundred atmospheres. The prod- uct proved to be a homogeneous mass which gave off hydric sulphide when heated with water to 50° or 60°. Zine sulphide was formed by subjecting a mix- ture of zinc and sulphur to the same pressure. Iron united with sulphur, forming, probably, a polysul- phide. Cadmium gave a yellow powder, from which hydrochloric acid liberated hydric sulphide. Sul- phides of aluminum, bismuth, lead, silver, copper, 20 tin, and antimony were obtained by this process, — (Berichte deutsch. chem. gesellsch., xvi. 999,) C.F. M. {14 (Analytical.) Determination of nitrogen.— A new method for determining nitrogen, applicable to all nitrogen compounds, is proposed by H. Grouven. It consists essentially in burning the substance at a bright-red heat in a current of superheated steam. He first ap- plied the process on the large scale to the production of ammonium salts from peat, but has since perfected it as an analytical method. The substance is burned in a boat, and the vapors arising from it are passed over a glowing layer of small fragments of a prepa- ration called by the author ‘ contact-mass’, and then through standard acid, as in the soda-lime method. The contact-mass consists of an ignited mixture of peat, chalk, and cement clay in certain proportions, and must be renewed after about fifty combustions., The advantages claimed for the method are, that com- bustions may succeed each other rapidly in the same apparatus (constructed of iron, with asbestos stop- pers), that large quantities of material (two to three grams) may be used, that no drying or pulverization is necessary, and that it may be combined with an ash determination. Nitrates are dissolved with addition of sugar, sufficient clay is added to make a stiff dough, and the latter is introduced into the appa- ratus. The method is said to give concordant results, which are slightly higher than those obtained by the soda-lime method. — (Landw. vers.-stat., xxviii. 343.) H. P. A. [15 AGRICULTURE, Chemistry of ‘fairy-rings.’— The formation on pasture-land of so-called ‘fairy-rings,’ that is, of circles of dark-green grass more luxuriant than the sur- rounding herbage, has long been supposed to be con- nected with the growth and decay of fungi, which serve as manure for the grasses which succeed them. The effect has by some been ascribed chiefly to the ash of the fungi, while others attribute it largely to their nitrogen. Two views.are possible in regard to the way in which the fungi enrich the soil. They may have the power of attacking those organic and mineral matters in the soil which are not available -as food for higher plants, and so of converting them into an available form, or it is possible that they have the power to assimilate free nitrogen from the air, and thus increase the store of this element in the soil. Lawes, Gilbert, and Warington have en- deavored to decide between these alternatives by ana- lyzing samples of soil from within, on, and outside of, several such rings. Almost uniformly the percent- age of nitrogen in the surface-soil to the depth of nine inches was greatest outside the ring, least within it, and intermediate onthe ring. The results of the carbon determinations were similar, but less uniform. The authors conclude that the fungi sim- ply render more available to vegetation materials already existing in the soil ; and that, as these mate- rials are taken up and removed in the more abundant | growth which follows, the soil is naturally impover- ished. This conclusion applies, in the first place, to SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 22.: 1 . the nitrogen ; but it would seem that it must be equal- ly true of the ash ingredients. Whether there nay not also be an evolution of free nitrogen by the fungi, or whether, on the other hand, nitrogen may not be assimilated from the air, are undetermined questions ; but the phenomena are explainable without these sup- positions. — (Journ. chem. soc., ecxlvi. 208.) uu. P. A. [16 GEOLOGY. Puerco beds in France. — Professor E. D. Cope referred to an analysis by Dr. Lemoine of the marsu- pial types belonging to the faune cernaysienne as having been made considerably later than the speak- er’s diagnosis of similar forms from the Puerco beds, which belong to the same geological horizon. He claimed, that, as the age of the American formation - had been the first to be definitely determined, its name should be applied to the corresponding French de- posits. — (Acad. nat. sc. Philad.; meeting June 12. (17 The Allegheny oil-sands. — Mr. C. A. Ashburner stated that he had recently examined the Allegheny oil-fields of western New York, and had been able to determine one or two points of interest both to com- merce and to geology. After defining the Bradford and Allegheny oil-fields, the varying horizons of the oil-supply were alluded to. He had determined that the Allegheny oil-sands of New York were not above the Bradford sands of Pennsylvania, but were the same. Investigations extended into Livingston, Steu- ben, and Wyoming counties, N.Y., established the belief that the sands alluded to belong to the lower Chemung group. Mr. Ashburner further re- marked, that, while these sands are doubtless for the most part reservoirs of oil produced in lower strata, some of the material was formed from plants con- tained in the sands themselves. The oil in Pennsyl- | vania never reaches the reservoirs from above. Mr. Benjamin S. Lyman stated his belief that the oil always originates in the sand where it is found. — (Acad. nat. sc.; meeting June 12.) [1s GEOGRAPHY. (Arctic.) Northern notes, Atlantic region. — The Ger- mania sailed from Hamburg, June 20, with provisions and instruments for the German expedition at Cum- berland Inlet. —— The departure of the Willem Barents in search of the Dutch expedition on the Varna took place as proposed. ——The account recently published of the wintering at Cape Flora, Franz Josef Land, by the Hira party, contains numer- ous items of interest in connection with the proposed use of this land as a starting-point or base for more northerly expeditions. As might be expected from the insularity of the land, the winter is milder than in the same latitude on the west Greenland coast. The land is probably slowly rising, like most other aretie land. ‘Terraces ninety feet above the sea-level were observed. Resident land-animals, such as reindeer, __ arctic hares or rabbits, and ptarmigan, there are none, ’ Of wandering arctic animals who live in the sea or on the ice, and are common to the whole frozen re- JuLy 6, 1883.]. gion, and sea-birds, there is a certain supply, the for- mer being present the year round, though only male * bears oecur in winter, and the small auks for two- thirds of the year. The lowest temperature observed was forty-three degrees below zero, Fahrenheit, and this in latitude 80°. Tromholt, whose researches into the aurora borealis have proved its connection with electrical discharges from the earth, proposes to spend the winter 1883-84 in Iceland, devoting himself to similar studies with Lemstrém’s apparatus, and on the lines indicated by him. —— The U.S.S. Yantic sailed June 14, from New York, to join the Proteus at St. Johns. Ensign H. G. Dresel, U.S. N., accom- panies the Yantic as naturalist. Later advices an- nounce the departure of both vessels from St. Johns for Lady Franklin Bay, June 29. The Danish South Greenland expedition has arrived at its field of work, and at last accounts expected to begin operations immediately. — w. H. D. fig Northern notes, Pacific region.—June 2, the steamship Dakota left San Francisco for an excur- sion throughout south-eastern Alaska with a large number of excursionists. Similar excursions are planned for July and August. —— The schooner Leo has sailed from San Francisco to Point Barrow, to relieve Lieut. Ray and his party, and to obtain absolute magnetic astronomical and pendulum ob- servations at the station. Returning, Mr. Clarke of the signal-service will relieve the present officer at St. Michaels, Norton Sound, and take charge of the station, which will be the most northern signal-ser- vice station then in operation. —~ A vessel for the hydrographic exploration of the waters of Alaska, under the auspices of the U.S. coast-survey, is about to be constructed on the Atlantic coast, and sent out vid Cape Horn, it being found that the expense of building her on the Pacific coast would considerably ‘exceed the funds available. The last reports from the mines near Juneau, Alaska, are very favorable: the owners of one mine ‘cleaned up’ $9,000 in April; $80,000 have been refused by the owners of another elaim. A number of miners will have preceded Lieut. Schwatka on his journey down the Lewis and Yukon rivers this season, bound to join the Schreffelin party on the Tananah. If these numerous prospect- ors and adventurers were to record their observa- tions, doubtless much valuable information on other than mining topics might be preserved. The rock upon which the steamer Eureka was lost last month proves to be a previously unknown danger. — The decrease of salmon in the rivers of Oregon and elsewhere has led to much activity in pushing out into the new north-west in search of unpillaged ‘streams. A great many new salmon-fisheries have been established at various points in British-Colum- bia and Alaska. —— The U.S. 8S. Adams is to visit the island of Kadiak on her summer cruise. —— The authorities of British Columbia have instituted an exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands with reference to agricultural lands. The north-eastern portion of the northern island has been noted for nearly a century for its attractive aspect. The Hudson Bay company has long had a station at the entrance SCIENCE. 21 of Massett Inlet (named Hancock River by Capt. Crowell of Boston in 1791), where potatoes and other vegetables flourish ; and the fat and sleek appearance of the cattle has been often mentioned by more recent visitors. The western coast of these islands has hardly been visited by explorers since Ingraham, in 1791, made his sketch-map of the coast. It is high and mountainous as far as known, and, like the south-eastern part of the group, likely to be chiefly valuable for its timber, minerals, and fish. —— The body of a white man murdered by the British Indi- ans has been found near Milbank Sound, concealed near the shore; while two Alaskan Indians, who enlivened a visit to British Columbia by slaying two Chinamen, have been sentenced to be hanged at Victoria, V.I. The steamer Vinta of the U.S. navy, which was prepared for police-duty and explo- ration on the Alaskan coast, and lately pronounced unseaworthy, has been re-examined, and the decision reversed : she will sail shortly vid Cape Horn under the command of Lieut. Uriel Sebree, U.S.N. This voyage will offer excellent opportunities for scientific observations en route. —— The U.S. S. Corwin, under the command of Capt. Healy, has sailed under in- structions to visit Juneau, and settle certain quar- rels between American and British miners there, then to proceed to the Pribiloff Islands to protect the seal-fisheries; after which St. Lawrence Bay, Bering Strait, will be visited, and the presents from the gov- ernment to those hospitable Chukchis who preserved the lives of the Rodgers party will be delivered, arc- tie whiskey-smugglers looked after, and the usual observations made. — W. H. D. [20 BOTANY. Cryptogams. Notes on Laminariae, —In the fourth part of his Observationes phycologicae, Prof. J. E, Areschoug gives a revision of some species of Laminaria and related genera, including several of the forms found in the United States. Ie considers that L. platy- meris, De la Pyl., is the same as L, Cloustoni, which he places in the genus Hafgygia, to which he considers that L. Andersonii also belongs. — W. G. F. weak Iowa fungi.— Professor J. C. Arthur gives very full descriptions of twelve species of Iowa Uromyces, including one new species, U. acuminatus, on Spar- tina, At the end is an index of synonyms and host-plants. — (Bull. Minn. acad.,ii.) W.G.F. [22 Injurious Algae. —In a paper on some Algae of Minnesota supposed to be poisonous, Prof. J. C. Arthur gives an account of a species of Rivularia infesting the water of ponds at Waterville, Minn., and supposed to be the cause of death or injury to cattle. He also describes the condition of Lake Phalen, near St. Paul, in which he found several species of Nostochaceae. —(Bull. Minn. acad., ii.) Wro.ken [23 Ohio fungi.—In a continuation of his paper on the mycologic flora of the Miami valley, Mr, A. P. Morgan gives a description of the Hyporhodii, Der- mini, Pratelli, and Coprinarii of the region mentioned, including sixty-five species, —W. G. F. [24 22 SCIENCE. Phenogams, Formation of cystoliths.—Chareyre has exam- ined the development of these bodies with special reference to the source of the materials from which they are produced. He finds that the food-reserve in seeds of Urticaceae is composed of aleuron grains possessing ‘globoids;’? and yet the calcareous mat- ter forming the globoids, though disappearing at the period of germination, does not contribute to the formation of the cystoliths. Sometimes, when grown upon pure sand, the seedlings exhibit the pedicle of the cystolith, but nothing more. Upon chalky soil, or even ordinary earth, the cystoliths appear very soon, —in fact, as soon as the cotyledons are disen- gaged from the seed-coats. If the seeds are made to germinate in darkness, even if other conditions are favorable, the cystoliths remain in the rudimentary state. Furthermore, in some cases, cystoliths already formed disappear upon keeping the plants in dark- ness. — (Comptes rendus, May 28.) G. L. G. [25 ZOOLOGY. Coelenterates, A new hydroid polyp.— Professor E. D. Cope described an interesting form of hydroid polyp found in large numbers on the bark of submerged trees in Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon. Its coenoecium is a mass of creeping yellowish stems embedded in sar- code. Each zooid is of an elongate oval form, sessile, and with six rays of equal size, each one-half as long as the body. The zodids are translucent, but with two oval bodies in the lower half of the body-cavity of a yellow color. These are collected in masses as large as the fist. The length of each zodid is one millimetre. They did not extend themselves beyond this length, neither did the rays elongate to beyond half the same during the time they were observed. They retracted themselves on being irritated. They do not possess any fringes like the arms of the polyzoa. As the possession of a coenoecium dis- tinguishes this genus from all the fresh-water hy- droids, it was proposed to distinguish it as the type of a new genus with the name Rhizohydra, the species being named flavitincta. An attempt to pre- serve some of the masses of zodids in alcohol was not successful. —(Acad. nat. sc. Philad. ; meeting June 19.) [26 Mollusks, ‘ Abyssal mollusks.— The fifth part of the Mol- lusca of the Lightning and Porcupine expeditions, by Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, has been received. It treats of the Solenoconchia, Polyplacophora, Docoglossa, and scutibranchiate limpets, contains supplementary notes to the preceding four parts, and is illustrated by _two excellent plates. The number of species first described herein is not large; but a surprising num- ber of facts as to distribution, synonymy, biography, and external anatomy, are brought together. In adopting a later name than Acmaea for that genus, he observes that in the original description no type or species was mentioned by Eschscholtz, but has apparently overlooked the fact that the same is true of the genus Tectura, by which he would replace ‘and Ostracoda. [Von. IL., No. 22. Acmaea. —— Parts xv. and xvi. of the preliminary descriptions of the Mollusea of the Challenger expe- dition, by Rev. R. Boog-Watson, are at hand. They cover the Ranellidae, Muricidae, Scalariidae, and Solariidae in the first, and the Fissurellidae and Cocculinidae in the second part. Quite a number of the species are from comparatively shallow water. Hight new species of Puncturella were obtained from one dredging at a locality north of Culebra Island, near St. Thomas, in the Danish West Indies. One of these is the largest yet known. The common Puncturella noachina Linn. of British, north-east American, and Alaskan seas was obtained in the Straits of Magellan, at Kerguelen Island, and at a station between these two, which seems truly re- markable. The operculum of Nassaria kampyla Watson, and the dentition of a new species of Coccu- lina from the Philippine Islands, are figured. The teeth closely resemble in general features those of the American species, except that the median tooth is more, and the major laterals less, developed than in the forms obtained by the U. S. fish-commission. The descriptions are in the full and faithful manner characteristic of Mr. Watson’s work. — w. H. D. : (27 y k Crustaceans, Haemoglobin in the blood of Branchiopoda. — Some years ago E. Van Beneden discovered a dou- ble system of circulation in some of the parasitic Copepoda like that in many annelids, and deseribed — a complicated system of vessels with true walls, filled with a red fluid containing haemoglobin, but no cor- puscles, and entirely distinct from the lacunar sys- tem with colorless fluid containing corpuscles. P. Regnard and R. Blanchard find a similar system in Apus, and believe that it exists also in some Cladocera Chemical examination convinces them that true haemoglobin is present in the blood of Apus, is always combined with oxygen, and plays some part in respiration. — (Zool. anz., May 7, 1883.) 8. I. S. [28 Fresh-water Copepoda.— F. W. Cragin enu- merates the genera of free-swimming Copepoda known to inhabit inland waters, describes and fig- ures ten species of Cyclops, half of them new, from Cambridge, Mass., and publishes a translation of de- scriptions in Russia of several species of Cyclops by Poggenpol. Mr. Cragin notes the occurrence of the gregarinian, Lagenella nobilis, in North American species of Cyclops. — (rans. Kansas acad. se., viii. 1883.) Ss. I. S. [29 “Insects. The male genital armature of Lepidoptera. — Considering how important a use has been made of these organs to distinguish species in nearly all other groups of insects, it is a little surprising to see how few lepidopterists have availed themselves of the excellent marks of distinction they afford. Rambur in 1839 (whose writings Gosse in the paper before us entirely overlooks), de Haan in 1842, and recently Bu- chanan White, are the only European authors who have paid any attention to these organs in butterflies ; and Scudder and Burgess stand alone in this country. Jury 6, 1883.] _In the present paper, Gosse describes and figures their appearance in eleven species of Ornithoptera, and fifty-six species of Papilio, including our own Thoas and Turnus. In one, P. Schmeltzi, he found a slight asymmetry in the armature of the two classes. Gosse gives new names to nearly all the parts. The side-plates, or flaps, which conceal the whole, he terms, as usual, ‘valves;’ the inwardly projecting armature of the interior of these, the ‘harpes ;’ the beak-like mesial prolongation of the eighth abdominal] segment, the ‘uncus ;’ the unpaired appendage lying between it and the intromittent organ, the ‘scaphium.’ He has done particular service in the care with which he has reproduced the scaphium, — an organ consist- ing, in the swallow-tails, of chitinous points on a mem- branous body, and therefore badly distorted in dried specimens. This portion was studied and drawn after it had been made to assume its natural fresh appear- ance by absorbing a drop of water. The variety and strangeness of form and armature assumed by these parts, and particularly by the so-called scaphium and harpes, is very remarkable. In his naming of these parts anew, Gosse has burdened us with new terms for organs which are abundantly named already ; but they will, perhaps, have their advantages, if they do not survive after homologues in other insects are pointed out. In his remarks on these organs in other butterflies, Gosse fails to see the homologies which exist, and which Burgess points out in part in a paper which Gosse appears not to have seen (Anniv. mem. Bost. soc. nat. hist.), and Buchanan White as well (Trans. Linn. soc., Zoél., i. 358). In brief, it may be stated that the organs in butter- flies consist, besides the intromittent organ, of ‘simply an unpaired upper organ, and paired lower appendages ; both of which are attached, the upper immovably, to the ninth abdominal segment. The upper organ usually takes the form of a hook, and the lower, of claspers. In the Papilionides, however (including in that both swallow-tails and pierids), the dorsum of the eighth segment of the abdomen is pro- longed posteriorly into a terminal hook overlying and concealing the true upper appendage, and at first readily mistaken for it, as shown in the swallow-tails by White and in the pierids by Burgess. Burgess also shows that false claspers exist in Danais, differ- ing only from true claspers in not being articulated. Bearing in mind the attachment of the different ex- ternal organs ancillary to generation, their homolo- gies throughout the insects are not difficult to trace. Buchanan White termed the ‘upper organ’ of Scud- der and Burgess the ‘tegumen,’ and their ‘clasps,’ ‘harpagones.’ The uncus of Gosse (which on rare oceasions is wanting in some swallow-tails) is there- fore no proper part of the ordinary organs ancillary to generation, but a prolongation of the eighth abdom- inal segment. The scaphium is the upper organ, or the tegumen, of White; the valves of Gosse, the clasps of Scudder and Burgess or the harpagones of White ; and the harpe, merely the armature of the clasp, which is extremely varied and complex, not only in the group where Gosse has so well illustrated it, but also in many skippers : indeed, this bizarre form SCIENCE. 23 of armature, both of ‘scaphium’ and ‘harpe,’ is anew indication of the alliance between the swallow-tails and skippers. We may further remark, that, if the old genus Papilio is the sooner broken up by the additional help afforded by these new studies, Gosse will have done systematists a real service. — (Trans. Linn. soc. Lond., Zodl., ii. 265.) s. mH. s. [30 VERTEBRATES. Chemistry and physiology of blood-serum. — In dogs which have been starved for a period of five or six days, and which previous to the commence- ment of the starvation had been fed for two or three weeks on horse-flesh freed as far as possible from fat, Burckhardt finds a diminution in the total amount of proteids in the blood-serum, the loss varying from 4% to 16% of the original amount of proteids present. Of the two proteids of serum, the quantity of serum- globulin increases during starvation, the increase ranging in his experiments from 22.8% to 66.4% of the quantity present before starvation. Serum-albu- men, on the other hand, suffers a marked diminu- tion, from 5.3% to 21.66% of the normal quantity. A calculation of the probable loss of albumen from the blood and lymph on the basis of his experiments, when compared with the amount of urea excreted by dogs, according to Voit, in the first five days of starvation, shows that the quantity of albumen lost from the circulating liquids is much too small to account for the proteid destruction indicated by the urea. Burckhardt made use of dialysis chiefly in determining the quantity of serum-globulin present in serum. The serum-albumen was estimated as the difference between the total proteids and the serum- globulin. He states that Hammarsten’s method of obtaining serum-globulin by means of MgSO, is not reliable. Complete saturation with MgSO, throws down not only the serum-globulin, but also a large amount of proteid, which resembles seruin-albumen, as usually understood, in every respect except in its precipitation by Mg.SO,. — (Arch. exper. path. phar- mak., Xvi, 322.) W. HW. H. [31 Double staining blood-corpuscles.— Dr. Vin- cent Harris has made a series of systematic ex- periments on double staining of nucleated blood corpuscles with aniline dyes, and gives in connection therewith a table of the aniline dyes, and their solu- bility in water and alcohol. A little blood was dried rapidly in a thin layer on a slide, and treated with two dyes in succession. The only entirely successful combinations were the following: rosein and aniline green, fuchsin and methylen blue, fuchsin and Bis- marek brown, eosin and resuyin, iodine green and Bismarck brown, Hoffman’s violet and Bismarek brown, aniline violet and metbylen blue. The greens were not at all permanent. The results were often variable and uncertain. For success the solu- tions must be quite fresh. The time each dye is al- lowed to remain greatly affects the results. — (Quart. journ. micr. sc., 1883, 292.) ©. 8. M. [32 The primitive mouth of vertebrates. — Accord- ing to Rauber, the gastrula mouth (original blastopore 24 or prostoma) is represented by various parts in verte- brates. In Pretromyzon, sturgeons, and Amphibia it is undivided. In sharks it is divided into two parts ; i.e., primitive furrow, and posterior marginal open- ing. In birds it consists of the primitive furrow and marginal notch of the germinal area, and includes also the various small openings formed at the termi- nal swelling of the embryo; viz., the neurenteric canal, the passage observed by Gasser in the embryo of the Cochin-China breed of hens, and the break which sometimes occurs between the allantois sack and the ectodermal ingrowth behind the tail (caudal sack). Rauber also asserts in the same paper that the bilateral outgrowths from the primitive streak of amniote embryos are homologous with the divestic- ula forming the mesoderm in Amphioxus. — (Zool. anz., Vi. 148, 163.) [s3 « Reptiles, Venom of serpents. — The constitution of the venom of certain of the poisonous serpents has been examined by Mitchell and Reichert with interesting _and somewhat remarkable results. According to them, three distinct proteids may be isolated from the venom of the moccason and the rattlesnake (C. adamanteus). These they propose to call respective- ly, venom-peptone, venom-globulin, and venom-albu- men. The venom-peptone may be obtained from fresh yenom, or from the aqueous solution of the dried material by dialysis, or by boiling and filtering off from the precipitated proteids. It is soluble in water, not coagulated by boiling, and readily dialyza- ble. Its solutions, while answering to all the general tests for peptones, exhibit certain peculiar reactions which distinguish it from the class of peptones as usually understood. The most marked of these spe- cific reactions are its precipitation from aqueous solutions by saturation with potassium hydroxide or sodium chloride, and by the addition of dilute acetic acid. Its solutions possess the poisonous properties of venom, though in a less marked degree, giving rise to putrefactive changes when injected into the living animal. : : The solution of the peptone obtained by boiling venom, and filtering from the precipitate of coagu- lated proteids, breaks up on drying with the forma- tion of two proteids, one of which is soluble, and gives all the reactions of the original substance, with the exception that it is not poisonous. The other is insoluble in water, and likewise innocuous. If an aqueous solution of yenom is allowed to stand for some time, a precipitate occurs which gives the usual reactions of globulins. This substance possesses all the toxic powers of fresh venom. After the separation of the peptone and globulin, a third proteid remains in solution which is apparent- ly closely connected with the albumens, though the _authors have not been able to obtain it in a state of sufficient purity to make decisive tests. It is soluble in water, coagulates below 70° C., and is precipitated from its solutions by weak alkalies and acids. It is probably not poisonous. — (Medical news, April 28, 1883.) Ww. H. H. [34 SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 22. Mammals, Cutaneous nerves in mammals. — Dr. Harrison Allen has succeeded in tracing nerve-filaments to the larger setae-bearing hair-follicles in mammals as ex- posed after depilation. He believes that the hair- follicles of the oral, the mental, the supra-orbital and the disto-carpal tufts, as well as those placed on the lat- eral aspects of the limbs, are in all cases supplied with nerve-filaments, as are the pteryls of birds. In speci- mens in which the follicles are rudimentary there is a corresponding failure of the nerve, thus indicating a close relation between the two. — (Acad. nat. sc. Philad. ; meeting June 12.) [35 Nerves of the human eyelid.— Von Mises de- scribes the results of his studies. The nerves enter in bundles from the sides as well as from above, and _ are distributed more or less parallel with the blood- vessels, and form a rich plexus along the edge of the lid. Some details are given as to the distribution of the nerves to the conjunctiva. — (Sitzungsb. akad. wiss. Wien, 1xxxv., abth., iii. p.172.) oc. s.M. [86 ANTHROPOLOGY. The autochthones of America.—Dr. J. Koll- man of Basel gives his views of American craniol- ogy, based on a study of the breadth indices of 1,500 crania, quoted from published measurements, and representing all the countries between Bering Strait and Tierra del Fuego. Five curves are appended, Dolicho- Meso- Brachy- which reproduce graphically the breadth indices of five groups of American skulls. Curve I. represents 1,292 crania of aborigines of America, whether from - Jury 6, 1883.] ancient Indian burying-places or picked up on recent battle-fields; curve II., 917 North Americans, inelud- ing the territories of the United States and British America, with the exception of the Eskimo; curve IIL., 248 Central and South Americans, including the - Mexicans on account of their peculiar civilization; curve IV., 127 Eskimo, consisting of all crania from the arctic regions of North America; curve V., 208 pre-Columbians, discriminated from other North Americans by their manner of burial, i-e., mound- builders and stonegrave people. A study of these teaches, 1°. The plurality of varieties in America; 2°. The diffusion of these varieties over the whole { continent. As an illustration, the stonegrave people ' of Tennessee are cited. Their remains are those of a single people, as Mr. Putnam has shown by the correspondence of their customs, and grade of civili- _ zation; while the measurements of their skulls by } Mr. Carr show a varying proportion of dolichoceph- ali, mesocephali, brachycephali, and artificially shor- ‘ tened crania. A people is an ethnic unity, which, according to the results of craniology, may consist of an anatomical plurality of races; but a race is an anatomically characteristic variety of the human spe- cies. Like the Germans, the mound-builders consist . of many races, which have combined to an ethnic unity. The term ‘race,’ as here employed, is equiv- _ alent to a sub-species of the species Homo sapiens of Dr. Kollman’s system, illustrated by the following diagram. ; 18 Varieties. Dolicho- Meso- Brachy- # Dolicho- Meso- Brachy- cephali. cephali. cephali - cephali. cephali. cephali. VI. Ve IV. & ur. ul. ry , 2 s MA oe te ee oo | — ne Chamaeprosopo-mesocephali. (Stem. | form.) Species: Homo sapiens. ‘The varieties are distinguished by peculiarities of _ the hair: 1, 4, 7, being smooth-haired, indicated by _ the sign O; 2, 5, 8, etc., straight-haired, by the sign @; 3, 6, 9, etc., woolly-haired, by the sign V. So far _asis known, only straight-haired varieties have im- migrated into America, of the following sub-species: 1. Broad-faced dolichocephali (Eskimo) ; 2. Broad- faced mesaticephali (Indians) ; 3, Broad-faced brachy- cephali (mound-builders) ; 4. Long-faced brachyceph- ali (ancient Peruvians). SCIENCE. 25 Like the European, the American varieties of the species Homo sapiens have long since passed into the condition of permanent types. The time of elasti- city, of the organization of new physically diverse forms, has long gone by. Wherever human remains are found in the glacial formations of Europe, they are as highly organized as to-day. Undoubtedly they represent men of a lower plane of civilization. It is erroneous at every footstep of advance in civilization to infer a new and more highly organized race. Cra-~ niology demonstrates that varieties, unchanged phys- ically since the glacial epoch, are continually making their way to higher grades of civilization. — (Zeitschr. ethnol., 1883, 1.) c. A. 8. (37 Madagascar.— The vast island of Madagascar, 960 by 300 miles in extent, is unique in its proximity to a continent with which it has such feeble connec- tions. Its population is about 4,000,000; but it is subject to great fluctuations through epidemics, witch- craft, infanticide, intertribal wars, and murders. The peculiar formation of the island effects a tropical, malarial climate around the coast, and a nearly tem- perate climate elsewhere. All around the island there is a belt of forest, often splitting into two parts, which enclose fertile valleys teeming with people. The na- tives are the Hovas, of Malay origin, and the Malaga- sy proper, of African origin, who forthe past hundred years have been augmented by importation of slaves from central Africa. The system of government among the negro tribes is purely African in form. Among the Hovas, however, a queen holds sway, through the agency of a prime-minister, who is ex-offi- cio husband of the queen. The religion of all the Malagasy is fetishism, with a shadowy recognition of a superior power. They believe in ghost-souls who are capable of good or harm to us, and this belief leads to great respect for the dead. Their beliefs, witchcraft, burials, roads, commerce, and language have been carefully studied by Dr. G. W. Parker, who has communicated a paper on the subject to the London anthropological institute. The island became known to the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English early in the seventeenth century; although the Arabs traded there long before that. At the beginning of the present century the Hovas became the firm friends of the English, —a connection which has re- mained unbroken except during the reign of Queen Ranavalona I, Upon the assassination of her son, Radama IT., the present system of queens and prime- ministers began. The languages belong to the class of purely spoken tongues, no one of them having ever been reduced to writing by the natives. The vowels are ah, ay, ed, 0, oo; the consonant sounds, }, d, f, g, h, j, k,l, m, ny NY, P, *, 8, t, v, 2; the diphthongs are eye and ow. The number of consonantal combinations is very small, which occasions many euphonie changes in compounds. The meaning of words and sentences depends little on the tone, but much on accent, posi- tion, and the discriminative particle no. * Onomatopoeia is common. The grammatic struc- ture is quite regular. A large percentage of the words are traceable to verbal and denominative roots, which 26 SCIENCE. are affixed and compounded to an indefinite extent. Gender is indicated by the affixes for male and female, and there is no distinction between animate and in- animate. The numeral system is decimal, and ends With tapitrisa (ended are the numbers), the word for amillion, There are two moods of the verb,— the in- dicative and the imperative. There are two classes of personal pronouns,— the inclusive of the speaker, and the exclusive. Other peculiarities in grammar are pointed out by Dr. Parker in an exhaustive diction- ary of fourteen dialects, which unite the Malagasy with the Malay stock-language. To account for this anomaly of race and language, Dr. Hildebrand sup- poses the Hovas to have first settled the island, and to have been overpowered by African marauders, who killed most of the Hova men, and married their wives. The children, learning their language from the mothers, perpetuated at the same time their African blood and their Malay language. But Dr. Parker seriously objects to this explanation. Mr. Keane is of the opinion that the Africans were intro- duced as slaves, who, while gradually corrupting the blood, would have little effect upon the language. Dr. G. Oppert also commented upon the paper. — (Journ. anthrop. inst., xii. 478.) J. Ww. P. [38 ° [Vox II., No. 22. _ The flora of ancient Egypt.— The student of anthropology is repeatedly charmed and surprised by the varied and brilliant illumination thrown wpon his subject by sister sciences. He is not less pleased to know that quite frequently the light proceeds in the other direction, and that human custom pre- serves for other sciences their sibylline leaves. In 1881 Emil Brugsch Bey discovered in the vault of a king of the twentieth dynasty a large number of plants contained in the funeral offerings, repasts, and _ wreaths of the dead. Among these are several species not known to have belonged to ancient Egypt. Mr. G. Schweinfurth, deputed by M. Maspero, has studied these plants, and classified them in the Egyp- tological museum of Boulak, according to the high personages for whom they were intended. A very. extended and interesting account of these labors was communicated to Sir Joseph D, Hooker, together with a set of the wreaths, flowers, etc., described. Ex- cellent illustrations accompany the paper of Mr. Schweinfurth. These objects were exhibited at the annual soirée of the Royal society on the 25th of May, and are now on view at the Royal gardens, Kew. — (Nature, May 31.) J. w. P. [39 INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCLENTIFIC STATIONS. : STATE INSTITUTIONS. Pence: weather service, St. Louis, Weather report for May.—The average tempera- ture for May at the central station has been 63.4°, which is 2.8° below the normal temperature, and 3.5° above the temperature of May, 1882. Since 1837 the May temperature has fallen below that of last month five times. The extremes during last month at the central station were 38.0° and 88.4°; although, in the suburbs of St. Louis, the temperature fell to 36.0° on the evening of the 21st. In 1851 Dr. Engelmann observed a temperature of 29.0° in May, but it was in the early part of the month. The lowest minimum temperatures reported were, 29.5° at Centreville; 31.0°, at Big Creek, Warren county; 32.0°, at Steel- ville; all other stations reporting over 34.0°. The highest minimum temperatures are reported from Glasgow, 45.0°, and Harrisonville, 47.0°. The high- est maximum temperatures reported were, Corring, 91.0°; Miami, 98.0°; Harrisonville and Big Creek, 90.0°.. The highest average temperatures reported were, Cairo, Ill., 65.2°; Mascoutah, Ill., 65.0°; Harri- sonville, 64.0°: the lowest being at Keokuk, Io., 59.9°; Macon, 60.4°; Louisiana, 60.5°. The rainfall at the central station was 2.61 inches, which is 2.2 inches below the normal May rainfall at St. Louis. In western Missouri, however, from Harri- sonville northward along the Missouri valley, the rain- fall has been over seven inches; and a small maximum of over seven inches occurs in the region around Iron- ton. An area of minimum rainfall of between two and three inches occurs in south-west Missouri, around Greenfield and Lamar, and another occurs along the lower Missouri below Chamois, extending along the Mississippi as far south as Cairo. On the 13th, tornadoes occurred at various points in Missouri and Kansas, as follows: the town of Oronogo, Jasper county, was destroyed at about 7.40 P.M., two persons being killed, and forty injured, This tornado is probably the one which passed about two miles north of Carthage. Hailstones as large as hen’s eggs fell at Springfield at about 10 p.m. An- other storm passed two miles south-east of Pattons- ville, Davies county, on the same evening. Two tornadoes passed through Kansas City at 5 o’ clock, one _ passing a few minutes later than the other. Several — persons were killed, and a great deal of damage was done to property. These whirls were slender whip- like vortices, the diameter at the surface of the earth being only a few feet, although the destructive path was about seventy feet. These storms originated apparently in Wyandotte county, Kan., where they caused great damage. A later development of this storm passed through Macon City, one hundred and twenty miles east-north-east from Kansas City, where a tornado occurred about 8.30 P.M. The track was from one-fourth to three-eighths of a mile wide. Three persons were killed at Macon. On the 18th, tornadoes occurred in Missouri, Illi- nois, and Wisconsin. At 7 P.M. a tornado did con- siderable damage at Berger, Gasconade county, Mo. At about 8.20 P.M, a tornado passed through Wentz- ville from the south-west, causing great destruction to property, and loss of life, as far as St. Paul, Mo. At about the same time a storm passed from Cottle- — ee ©.” © - Jury 6, 1883.] ville, through Elm Point, to Grafton, on the Illinois shore of the Mississippi River. Hail-storms have occurred as follows: at Big Creek, 10th; Centreville, 9th; eight miles north of Savannah, 3d; Hannibal, 9th; Louisiana, 9th and 10th (and at Springfield and Dover church, near Louisiana, large hail fell on the afternoon of the 18th); Lamar, 3d; Chamois, 9th, —a violent storm of wind and hail at 7 p.M., for seven to ten minutes, the hail completely covering the ground, some stones weighing six ounces. On the 18th, at 5.50 p.m., a dark cloud in the south- west moved to the west with a heavy roaring noise, appearing to spend its force when due west, rain and small hail following. Killing frosts occurred on the nights of the 2Ist and 22d. At Big Creek great damage was done to wheat, corn, and fruit. At Centreville, at9 P.M., on the 2Ist, the temperature was 32°, and fell later to 29.5°,—the latest frost in sixteen years. Fog pre- vented damage in the valleys of the Black River, but _ in the dry valleys every thing was killed. Louisiana, 13th and l4th, 17th and 27th. 32° at sunrise on the 22d; Chamois, destructive frost with ice an eighth of an inch thickin a pan of water; Greenfield, heavy frost, which injured foliage of “Co so that they looked as though scorched by re. White frosts occurred at Hannibal, Greenfield, Mexico, Chamois, 5th; Hannibal, Louisiana, Cha- mois, Miami, 11th; Ironton, 16th; over the entire state, 21st and 22d, but light in the south-west, where the temperature was about 40°; Mexico, Ironton (33° at 5.30 a.m.), Louisiana, Chamois, Miami, Greenfield, 23d; Sedalia, Centreville, Greenfield (heavy), Iron- ton, Chamois, Miami, 31st. ADDENDwM to April report. — At Cairo a heavy shock of earthquake was felt at 2.36 A.m. on the 12th, which lasted thirty seconds. Vibrations, three per second, from south-south-west to north-north-east. An old one-story frame-building, which was occupied at the time the shock occurred, was shaken down and collapsed, the inmates receiving slight injuries. Towa weather service, Iowa City. Weather bulletin for May.— May was remarkably cold, very rainy, with late frosts, westerly and north- erly winds prevailing. The mean temperature of the air was nearly five degrees below normal. In forty- five years, May has been six times as cold or colder than this year; namely, in 1882, 1867, 1858, 1851, 1850, and 1849. The late frosts about the 12th and 22d were general. The rainfall was much above normal throughout s Towa, except in middle northern Iowa and down the middle Cedar and Wapsipinicon yalleys. The total rainfall was highest along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and from Wayne to Polk county: in the re- gions here specified, the rainfall averaged seven inches. The rain frequency was also high: two of every three days were rainy in most parts of the state. The principal storm-days were the 8th and 9th, the On the 9th a very small tornado did slight damage in Linn county, near Norway station: on the other storm-days, Iowa was SCIENCE. 27 spared the visitation of tornadoes, which struck, on the 13th, Kansas City; 18th, Racine; 28th, southern Indiana. While unusually cold and quite wet, the season is much more promising than last year, when May was much colder. NOTES AND NEWS. Stephen Alexander, professor emeritus of as- tronomy at Princeton, died June 26. He was born at Schenectady, N.Y., and was educated at Union college, where he graduated in 1824. Since 1840 he has been connected with Princeton, first as professor of astronomy, and later as professor of mechanics as well. As an astronomer he became widely known. — Sir Edward Sabine, whose death has been lately announced, was born in Dublin in October, 1788. He studied at the military schools of Marlow and Woolwich, and at the age of fifteen entered the English army. In 1813 he was made captain, and took part in the campaign on the Niagara frontier, commanding the batteries at the siege of Fort Erie, 1814. From 1818 to 1825 he made a number of voy- ages from the equator to the arctic regions for the purpose of studying terrestrial magnetism, the figure of the earth, and other questions in terrestrial physics. He was with Ross and Parry on the arctic expedition of 1818, and with Parry the following year. He edited a number of translations of scien- tific books, and published a large number of papers on his favorite studies, having read more than forty before the Royal society, and haying contributed many to the proceedings of the British association. From 1827 to 1830 he was secretary of the Royal society, and president for the ten years 1861 to 1871, and president of the British association in 1853. In 1875 the French academy elected him as a corre- sponding member. —A few weeks ago (April 26) Nature gave a sketch of the life of Spottiswoode. In the number for June 14 we find a regret expressed at his absence, on ac- count of sickness, from the Royal society meeting of that week. On June 27 he died. Born in London, Jan. 11, 1825, he began his education in a private school at Laleham, and then at Eton and Harrow; his stay at Eton being short on account of some experiments with detonating mixtures, in which he was found to be interested. In 1842 he entered Balliol college, Oxford, where, in his last year (1845) as undergraduate, he read with the Rey. Bartholomew Rice. After graduation he held university mathe- matical scholarships for two years, and for a short time lectured on geometry of three dimensions. But he soon took an active part in the management of the large printing-business about this time resigned to him by his father, and which he largely developed. His scientific work was mainly in mathematics, although of late years he has devoted himself to physics, his recent investigations in electricity being well known. When a young man, he travelled widely, and, among others, published a very lively account entitled ‘‘A Farantasse journey through 28 SCIENCE, eastern Russia in the autumn of 1856.” He also studied languages, both oriental and European, and gave evidence of the thoroughness of these studies in his contributions to our knowledge. — The Dickson expedition, in charge of Professor Nordenskisld, which left Thurso May 29, is report- ed as having called at Reikiavik, Iceland, June 6, and was to sail for Greenland on the 10th. When the expedition started, it was the intention that - Count Stromfeldt(botanist), Dr. Arpi (philologist and archeologist), and Mr. Flink (mineralogist) should disembark at Reikiavik, and remain in Iceland for study and exploration. It is reported by recently arrived whalers that the condition of the seas west from Iceland, as regards ice, is at present not un- favorable to the success of the expedition. The Sofia, upon which the party is embarked, is a little iron propeller of less than two hundred tons, capable of a speed of eleven knots, and draws ten feet of water, —a vessel much better suited to her purpose than the unwieldy craft which have been used in many of the English expeditions. It was originally intended that Palander should command the Sofia, but cir- cumstances intervened to prevent this ; and the ves- sel has been intrusted to Capt. Emil Nilsson, who is well qualified by experience, and who will be ably seconded by the well-known Norwegian ice-master, Johannesen. The scientific staff does not compre- hend any of the members of the Vega expedition, who are mostly engaged in working up the inves- tigations made on that voyage, but, after Baron Nordenskiéld, is composed of Dr. Kolthoff, ento- mologist and ornithologist ; Dr. Nathorst, geologist. and paleontologist; Dr. Berlin, surgeon, botanist, and general biologist ; Mr. Forsstrand, taxidermist and preparator ; Dr. Hamberg, hydrographer ; Mr. Kjell- strom, photographer. Beside these, there are a har- pooneer, two mountain Lapps (in accordance with the suggestion of Professor Fries, to which we have already alluded), and eight or nine picked men, to accompany the party over the inland ice. This party will be provided with fourteen months’ provis- ions in the most compact shape possible. The crew of the Sofia comprises twenty-four men. The party is thoroughly equipped with scientific apparatus, and even includes a flying-machine contributed for trial by its inventor, according to the Swedish papers. — Among the most interesting of the living animals in the gardens of the London fisheries exhibition are two British-born beavers from the Isle of Bute in Scotland. They were members of a colony estab- lished by the Earl of Bute upon his estate of Rothe- say several years since. A considerable tract of land was walled in, and beavers were imported from Canada, which soon established theniselves, gnawing down the trees, building a dam, and forming a lake of considerable size. The ‘beaver wood’ is consid- ered one of the most interesting features of the island. Mr. R. B. Matthews writes to the Field, complaining, that, in capturing the two beavers to send to the exhibition, the colony has been broken up, the dams destroyed, the houses pulled down, and all the other beavers killed. It is to be hoped [Vou. IL, No. 22. that the damage is not so serious as is represented, for the acclimation of the American beaver in Scot- land isa task which is not likely to be often at- tempted. — The next issue of the Proceedings of the nayal institute (vol. ix. no. 3; whole no. 25) will be entire- ly devoted to an article by Lieut. Edward W. Very, on the development of armor for naval use. The number will thus be a complete work of itself, fully illustrated, and will possess more than ordinary interest in being the only work extant devoted exclusively to the details of armor development. Orders for this number should be sent to the seere- tary U. S. naval institute, Annapolis, Md., as early as possible. Price $1. —The extraordinary meeting of the geological society of France for this year is to take place at ~ Charleville (Ardennes) on Sunday, Sept. 2, and the excursions will end Tuesday, Sept. 11. —The yearly meeting of the Schweizerischen naturforschenden gesellschaft will take place from the 6th to the 9th of August in Zurich, where the national exposition is attracting many people this year. —G. Valentin, for forty-five years professor of physiology at the university of Berne, died on the 24th of May at the age of seventy-three. He was a native of Breslau. He was formerly one of Louis Agassiz’s collaborators; and the fourth livraison of Agassiz’s ‘Monographies d’echinodermes vivants et — fossiles’, containing the anatomy of the genus Echi- nus, is by Valentin. — Past assistant-engineer N. B. Clarke, U.S. N., read a paper on water-line defence and gun-shields for cruisers, at the meeting of the U. 8. nayal insti- _ tute (Washington branch) on June 7. — The bureau of education has issued, as one of the ‘ circulars of information,’ a pamphlet containing the legal provisions respecting the examination and licensing of teachers. — A contributor’s note in the Ailantic monthly for June calls attention to the question of the spelling and pronunciation of geographic names, on which several articles have lately appeared in foreign jour- nals. The question is not always settled by adopting local spelling and sound, for in many cases foreign names are well Anglicized, and will so remain ; the difficulty is rather in knowing where to begin using the original pronunciation. As we do not say Paree and Bairleen, why may we not say Prague and Hague, even though we do drop a visible s from Calais, and attempt the difficulties of Rouen, Amiens, Chartres, and Blois? As to St. Petersburg, the error of sanctification is not ours, but the Russians’, from whom we have taken it. one, is in putting ans after Peter, for this seldom occurs in the original. A similar but incorrect ad- dition is often made in Prince Edward Island. The back-and-forth method of naming seen in the Ger- man Vogesen, which the contributor explains as coming from the original German Wassigen (watery), through the French Vosges, is found again in the same polyglot borderland in the Laacher See. : Our mistake, if it be- — 3 Jury 6, 1883]. Ecole des mines. ees 2S SM a Ry Ke aed oat : 7 — The Comision del mapa geologico de Espafia has just published, for the Exposicion de mineria at Madrid, a brief account of the history of the survey from its beginning, about the year 1831, under D. Angel Vallejo, down to the present time. Two maps show the condition of the work in March, 1873, at the beginning of the present system of the survey, and in March of the present year, showing how great an amount of work has been done in the last ten years, Eighteen provinces are finished ; viz., Oviedo, Mar drid, Santander, Castellon, Albacete, Murcia, Te- ruel, Cadiz, Zaragoza, Cuenca, Caceres, Valladolid, Huesca, Avila, Salamanca, Guadalajara, Barcelona, and Valencia. More or less has been published con- eerning twenty-three other provinces, but their full descriptive memoirs are still to appear ; viz., Corufia, Lugo, Orense, Pontevedra, Segovia, Palencia, Ba- leares, Alicante, Burgos, Logrofio, Soria, Alava, Gui- ptizeoa, Vizcaya, Tarragona, Huelva,Toledo, Badajoz, Cordoba, Ciudad-Real, Granada, Navarre, and Al- meria. Seven provinces are entirely unpublished or under study ; namely, Leon, Lérida, Zamora, Malaga, Gerona, Jaén, and Sévilla. A rough draught of the final map, on the scale of 1 : 400,000, is shown in the exposition, upon which all the work done up to date is entered. — The Belgian photographie association has orga- nized an international exhibition of photography to be held, during the month of August, 1883, in the palais des beaux-arts at Brussels. — The sixth international congress of orientalists will be held at Leyden, Sept. 10. — The international congress of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals will be held at Vienna in September. A number of local societies, among them those of Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Dresden, and Hanover, besides several Spanish Italian, and Russian, have expressed their intention to be represented. — The British association for the advancement of science meets this year at Southport, Sept. 10. —Dr. William Lee read before the Philosophical society of Washington, June 2, a paper on medical history as illustrated by medals; Prof. Theo. Gill discussed analogues in zodgeography. The society then adjourned till October. The Mathematical section of the society adjourned for the summer on June 6. At the last two meet- ings, Mr. G. W. Hill discussed the planetary pertur- bations of the moon, Mr. G. K. Gilbert explained the construction of graphic tables for use in connection with his new method of determining heights from barometric data, and Mr. E. B. Elliott gave an im- _ proved system of electrical units. — An excursion to northern Norway and Spitzber- gen is projected for some of the students at the Paris Two French naturalists will ac- company the party, which will charter a steamer directed by a competent arctic navigator for the pur- pose. — Professor Fries has proposed the colonization of Greenland by Lapps, on the hypothesis that in the ¥ interior, in summer, abundant reindeer-pasture can SCIENCE. 29 be found. How the reindeer are to get at it does not seem to have been considered, nor how they are to be subsisted during their travels over the continental ice-sheet. —Mr. Oliver W. Huntington, assistant in the chemical laboratory of Harvard college, has edited a book of five-place logarithms, which will finally form part of a set of tables mostly for use in chemical cal- culations, but is now published in separate form. The logarithm tables are well arranged, and very clearly printed. The book is published by Moses King, Cambridge. — The museum at Oxford, Eng., has lately bought the unique collection of Silurian fossils of Dr. Grin- drad of Malvern. — It is rare to find, at the present time, a scientific memoir in Latin. Aloysius Molina, a student at Pisa, has, however, recurred to the ancient custom, and has published a memoir, ‘ De hominis mamma- liumque cute,’ in volume y. of the Alti della sociel& Toscana, The opening sentence sufficiently describes the paper: ‘‘Expectans dum Ranyierus in lucem perfecte proferat conclusiones omnes suarum inves- tigationum de intima structura cutis, prodesse exis- timo breviter quae praecipua facta sunt resumere, nonnullas considerationes addens, quas ipse feci dum per duos annos ad. Anatomicam Scientiam meum adhiberi studium in Laboratorio Anatomiae Com- parativae hujus universitatis.”’ The ‘nonnullas considerationes, quas ipse feci’ one finds not very numerous, the chief value of the paper being as a summary. A good bibliography is appended. — Much progress has been made at the Lick obser- vatory during the past year. The dome for the twelve-inch equatorial has been entirely completed ina very thorough manner. It is, without any doubt, the most convenient and complete dome of the size in the country. The four-inch transit-house, and the buildings for the photoheliograph, are in capital working order. They were utilized last December in a very successful observation of the transit of Venus. The walls of the main building are half done, and the cellar for the dome of the thirty-six- inch equatorial is excavated. Many of the original arrangements of the buildings and grounds were only provisional, and these are being replaced by others more substantial and permanent. A brick reservoir containing 83,000 gallons of water (derived from three springs) has been built during the season; another of 20,000 gallons (spring-water), and another of 83,000 gallons (rain-water), will shortly be begun. The roads have been extended. The house for the meridian circle (Repsold) will be begun in a few weeks, as well as a house for the astronomers, and buildings to contain the appliances for heating and lighting the buildings and moving the dome. The end of this season will show great progress. — The division of entomology of the U.S. depart- ment of agriculture has begun the publication of a series of bulletins for the purpose of placing before the public, current matter that would either lose much of its value if kept for the annual report, or find no space in the limited pages of that volume. 30 Two numbers have been issued. The first includes reports of experiments, chiefly with kerosene, upon the insects injuriously affecting the orange-tree and the cotton-plant. The second includes reports of observations on the Rocky Mountain locust and the chinch-bug, together with extracts from the corre- spondence of the division on miscellaneous insects. —The University of Pennsylvania has conferred the degree of M.A. on Professor Lewis M. Haupt, C.E.; and of Se.D. on Professor Isaac Sharpless, professor in Haverford college. — At the meeting of the Royal astronomical society, May 11, Professor C. Pritchard of Oxford gaye an account of his recent expedition to Cairo, and of the work on which he has for the last two years been engaged; viz., the measurement of the magnitude of the stars visible to the naked eye from the pole to the equator, including at present all those brighter than the fifth magnitude. This work is now complete. He found, that, at Oxford, Laplace’s law of alteration of astar’s light as measured in magnitude —accord- ing to the secant of the star’s zenith distance —did not hold good for zenith distances exceeding 65°, and that for stars at lower altitudes the alterations in apparent magnitude were conflicting and not satis- factory. For the purpose of accurately investigating the effect of atmospheric extinction of light under better circumstances, he chose the climate of Upper Egypt, where the atmosphere is uniform and stable, as the proper locality for repeating the Oxford obser- vations, and rendering the research complete. A duplicate set of instruments was left at Oxford in charge of the senior assistant, who observed the same stars with Professor Pritchard at Cairo. The results of both sets of observations are embodied in the formulae, — Atmospheric absorption At Gairo = 0.187 X Sec. Z.D. in magnitude; At Oxford = 0.253 X Sec. Z.D. in magnitude. Thus the whole effect of the atmosphere at Cairo is to diminish the brightness of stars seen in the zenith by about two-tenths of a magnitude, and at Oxford by about one-fourth of a magnitude. At an altitude of about 30°, the stars at Cairo will be brighter than in England by about one-fifth of a magnitude, and consequently many more faint stars are just visible at Cairo than can be seen at Oxford. — Alexander Melville Bell has written a primer, which will soon be published, for use in elementary schools in teaching the methods of visible speech. The book can be used by any teacher without spe- cial training in the peculiarities of the system. —A correspondent states that the shortest scien- tific article known to him, and perhaps the shortest eyer published, is by William Griffith, in the bulletin of the U. S. fish-commission for 1882, p. 12, under the title ‘Result of planting shad in the Ohio River.’ The article contains twenty-six words, and occupies two lines. — At the meeting of the Cambridge entomological club, June §, Mr. S. H. Scudder discussed the homol- ogies of the male abdominal appendages of butter- SCIENCE. FVox. IL, No. 22. flies, and Mr, G. Dimmock showed a living Buthus occitanus, and described some of its habits. — The Argentine government has sent Col. Sola, with a party of two hundred soldiers, to explore the Pileomayo in its course through the Gran Chaco. The party is accompanied by a delegate of the Argen- tine geographic institute, whose chief object is to dis- cover the remains of Creyaux, and ransom two of his ~ men who are reported to be held as prisoners by the Indians. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. ** Continuations and brief papers extracted from serial literature without repagination are not included in this list. Exceptions are made for annual reports of American insti- tutions, newly established periodicals, and memoirs of con- siderable extent. Adam, L. Les idiomes négro-aryen et maléo-aryen, essai ahybuldelonie linguistique. Paris, Jaisonneuve, 1885. 76 p. Bisson, E. Nouveau compas de mer donnant la direction vraie du méridien magnétique sur les nayires en fer. Paris, impr. Ohaix, 1888. 20p.,4 fig. 8°. Boutillier, L. Des corallaires 4 madrépores et de leur action géologique. Rouen, impr. Cagniard, 1883. 30p. 8° Camoy, J. B. Biologie cellulaire: étude comparée de la cellule dans Jes deux régnes au triple point de yue, anatomique, chimique et physiologique. Aachen, Barth, 1883. 8°. Crié, L. Les origines de la vie, essaisur la flore primordiale ; organisation, développement, affinités; distribution gcologique et géographique. Paris, Doin, 1883. 79 p., illustr. 5°. Crozals, J. Les Peulhs, étude d’ethnologie africaine. Paris, Maisonneuve, 1883. 271p. 8°. Desdevises du Dezert, T. marches de la langue d’oyl. 28p. 8°. Duguit, L. Quelques mots sur la famille primitive, con- férence faite 4 Bordeaux, le 16 mars 1888. Paris, Larose, 1888. 32p. 8°. Elsner, F. Recepte fiir pharmacie und chemische grossin- dustrie. Halle, Knapp, 1883. 9+216p. 8. : Fabre, J. H. Cours de physique (programmes de 1882). Paris, Delagrave, 1888. 304p., illustr. 18°. Ferri, L. La psychologie de l’association depuis Hobbes jus- qu’a nos jours (histoire et critique). Paris, Sailliére, 1583. 44882 p. 8°. ; Fricero; A. Considérations diverses sur |’emploi des huiles minérales lourdes dites oléonaphtes comme lubrifiants. Mar- seille, impr. Grangé, 1883. 12p. 8°. 5 Greer, H. Recent wonders in electricity, electric lighting, magnetism, telegraphy, telephony, etc., N.Y¥., Agent Coll. electy’. eng., 1883. 168 p., illustr. 8°. : Guyot, A. Memoir of Louis Agassiz, 1807-73. Princeton, Robinson pr., 1888. 49 p. 8°. Instructions relatives 4 l’éstablissement des pépinitres de yignes américaines. Paris, impr. nat. 1883. 3836p. 8. Le Breton, G. Lacéramique polychrome ’ glagures met. alliques dans lantiquité. Rouen, impr. Cagniard, 1583. 45 p- 8°. Leplay, H.. Chimie théorique et pratique des industries du sucre: étude historique, chimique, et industrielle des procédés d’analyse des matiéres sucrées, etc., suivie de la description d’un nouveau procédé d@’analyse chimique industrielle des matiéres sucrées. V.i. Paris, Baudorn, 1883. 28+452p. 8°. Marin La Meslée, E. L’Australie nouvelle. Paris, Plon, 1883. 12+298 p., illustr. 18°. Quenstedt, F. A. Die ammoniten der schwibischen Jura. i. heft, mit ein atlas. Stuttgart, Schweizerbart, 1883. 48 p., illustr. 8°. Pet Schneider, A. Zoologische beitriige. i. band, i. heft. Breslau, Kern, 1883. 3463 p.,12lith. 8°. Tellier, ©. Etude sur la’ thermo-dynamique appliques a la production de la force motrice et du froid. fasc.i. Paris, impr. Mowillot, 1883. 7+97 p. Sra Thompson, D’Arcy W. A catalogue of books and papers relating to the fertilization of flowers. London, Macmillan, 1883. (2)+86 p. 8°. Le noyau central et les Rouen, impr. Cagniard, 1888. ! , ‘ * SCIENCE. : : _. FRIDAY, JULY 13, 1883. ‘ THE GOVERNMENT AS A PUBLISHING HOUSE. WE have called attention to the report of Messrs. Ames, Spofford, and Baird upon the distribution of public documents, and noted ' the propriety of the recommendations made to the government by the committee. If these recommendations were to be carried out, some- thing would be gained; but we have little faith that any real reform would be effected, for the evil lies deeper, and requires more radical treatment. Eyer since the government went definitely into the printing business in 1861, the evil has been growing, until now there is waste, con- fusion, and public mischief. It is no more essential to government to carry on the large printing business which it conducts than it is for it to manufacture paper. Let us make a distinction. There is a necessity’, in the ordinary administration of Congress and the _ executive department, for a large printing- q office in the immediate vicinity ; and we are - quite ready to grant, as immaterial to our t argument, that it is better to have such an establishment, with its manager as a civil of- ficer of the United States, immediately under the control of Congress. There is a vast deal of printing required in the exigencies of the daily business of government, and there is _ reason for this being done by persons hired ‘ J directly for the purpose. There the necessity stops, but the business of the printing-office does not. Costly scien- tific reports are manufactured year after year, and then published ; that is, given away reck- lessly and with little discrimination. The report of scientific experts, to which we have referred, points out the desirability of a single agency for distribution, which should act upon some systematic plan. We do not object to a policy by which government shall put before | > No. 23.—1888. the public the results of the surveys and ex- periments which it is carrying on; but we contend, that, in doing this, it should employ economic agencies already existing, which are far more efficient than any immediate govern- mental agency can be. Government should contract with publishers to print and publish its scientific reports. The plan is perfectly feasible. Every copy which the government might wish to give away to public libraries could be bought of the pub- lisher at a cost fifty per cent less, we venture to say, than government now pays for the same work. It would be the publisher’s busi- ness to make the work known everywhere ; and such a work would be far more read than it now is, for it would be made as other books are, and brought before the people intelli- gently. By such a policy no scientific organi- zation or student of science now in commu- nication with the distributing-office would suffer loss, while a great many people who are accustomed to get their books from book- sellers would come into possession, in the most natural way, of this important body of litera- ture. The effect of such a system would be to contract the business of the government print- ing-office, and that is an end devoutly to be wished for by every honest citizen who sees the necessity of checking corruption .by limit- ing the opportunities for corruption. The fewer salaried offices this government has, the less chance there is for an abuse of the civil service ; and science will gain nothing by ask- ing favors of the machine. ‘There is an excel- lent opportunity here for the educated classes to enter a protest, and to encourage a reform in administration. We have been demanding that the administration should be conducted on business principles ; and the present system by which government prints and publishes books is un-businesslike, extravagant, and in peril of being scandalous. THE NATIONAL RAILWAY EXPOSI- TION.1—Il. Tue numerous accidents that have occurred owing to the signals showing ‘ clear’ when the switches were set for a side-track led to the invention of ‘interlocking,’ which is now used extensively in England, and is being intro- duced into this country. The term ‘ interlock- ing’ applies to a system where the switches and signals ean be so worked by levers con- centrated at one point, that no safety-signal can be given for any track until the switches are properly set for the safe passage of the train; and, when the signal is set to safety, none of the switches can be moved until the signal is again made to indicate danger. The advantages of this system are, that one man can operate a large number of switches and signals, and the interlocking apparatus acts as a check upon him, and renders it impossible for him to commit a mistake and move a wrong lever; and the mechanism is so arranged that a certain definite routine must be gone through in making a safe course for a train. The sig- nals standing at their normal position of ‘ dan- ger,’ the switches are first moved, then they are locked firmly in position: then only can the danger-signal be changed to safety for the passage of the train when all possible conflict- ing signals or switches are locked, so that they cannot be operated. When acertain track has been prepared for the safe passage of a train, the necessary alteration of switches and signals is begun at the point farthest from the train, and ended at the signal nearest to it, this signal being locked to indicate danger until the track is ready for the train; and the setting of this signal to safety shall lock to danger all conflict- ing signals not already locked. The amount of safety secured by the adop- tion of interlocking apparatus is thus laid down by an English author: ‘If a man were to go blindfold into a signal-box with an interlock- ing apparatus, he might, as far as accordance between points and signals is concerned, be allowed with safety to pull over any lever at random. He might doubtless delay the trafiic, because he would not know which signal to lower for a particular train; but he could not lower such a signal, nor produce such a combi- nation of position of points (switches) and signals, as would, if the signals were obeyed, produce a collision.’ Interlocking has been very generally adopted in England, but hitherto little attention has been paid to the subject in this country ; though 1 Continued from No. 22. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 23. - in some crowded depots, such as Lowell, Wil- mington (Del.), and Boston (Boston and Al- bany railroad), it has recently been introduced with great success. The two principal exhibits of interlocking and signalling apparatus at the Chicago exposi- tion are those of the Pennsylvania steel com- pany and the Union switch and signal company ; Mr. George Westinghouse, so well known as the inventor of the break bearing his name, — being the president of the latter company. The Union switch and signal company exhibits several distinct methods. of working switches and signals controlled by interlocking appara- tus. First, the Saxby and Farmer. method, which is very generally used in England, and in some station-yards on the continent; Brus- sels, for example, — moving the signals and switches is effected by In this the whole work of the manual power of the signalman. But as” this involves considerable physical exertion in’ places where the levers are numerous, and some of the signals are a considerable distance away, Mr. Westinghouse has introduced a system whereby the “signalman only moves valves ad- mitting either compressed air, or a mixture of water and wood, or methylated spirits of wine, to cylinders, the pistons of which perform the actual hard work of shifting the switches and signals. The Pennsylvania steel company shows an American invention, which proceeds on similar lines to the Saxby and Farmer ap- paratus, attaining, however, the same end by the use of fewer levers. As, therefore, these two systems are very similar, except as re- — gards mechanical details, into which we need : not enter here, the following description of — the general methods and purposes of interlock- ing mechanism will apply to both exhibits. — The whole question is novel on this side of the water, and will well repay a careful study by — all those who are interested in the progress of — railroads. One of the points that has been equipped” with interlocking apparatus by the Pennsyl- vania steel company is shown in the accom- panying plan of tracks at the Union Junction of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Balti- more railroad, at Wilmington, Del. junction is one mile west of the passenger- station, at the crossing (at grade) of the Wil- mington and northern railroad and of the Delaware western railroad, where the Dela- ware railroad branches from the main line of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore railroad. Through trains pass this junction at lightning express speed. The main line is protected from crossing roads by dead & This _ ) 4 JULY 13, 1883.] ~ switehes on the cross- ing roads, so that cross- ing trains running against signals will be turned into aside-track, and cannot, therefore, cross or foul the main line. There are, in all, fifteen switches handled and controlled, and three other switches not handled (owing to the infrequent use, or being required only for hand-drilling) , are ‘also perfectly con- trolled. Twelve facing point locks and seven- teen signals are em- ployed, some of them 2,150 feet from the sig- nal-tower. To operate the above, twenty-eight interlocking levers are used, with two spare levers in the frame for future improvements. At this writing, the apparatus at Union Junction has been in use over one year with perfect success, and it will probably repay any railroad manager to visit it, and study its workings. In arranging a yard on the interlocking sys- tem, it is important to concentrate the switch- es so that they can be worked by one man from one machine, where as many as fifty levers operating switches and signals can be conveniently ar- ranged. Provided that the yard is well laid out, it is possible not only to gain greater safety and security in switching and drilling, but a saving in time and labor is effected, as one man who is always on the same _ spot can perform the which © SCIENCE. 33 ui) work of several men scattered about a yard, and having continually to move from one spot to another. The levers should be placed in a house constructed so as to shelter the signalman from the weather, and enable him to have a good view of the whole yard; and the latter object is generally best attained by placing him at some distance above the ground- level, so that his view is not obstructed by passing engines and cars. The levers, which resemble the reverse lever of a locomotive, are mounted close to- gether in a line, and a name or number plate on each lever shows its use and purpose ; and, to further distinguish the levers, all those operating switches may be painted one color, locking levers another color, and so on. Each hand-lever carries a spring-catch, which secures the lever at either end of the stroke ; and the detent, forced down by the spring, and pulled up by the action of the signalman’s hand in grasping the handle-end of the lever and its catch, instead of engaging m a notched rack, as on a locomotive, slides in a curved slot in a pivoted bar. This bar, or ‘ rocker,’ is therefore moved about its pivot by the very action of the signalman grasping the lever. Interlocking virtually consists of mechanism attached to this pivoted bar, which renders it immovable under certain circumstances. These controlling circumstances are the posi- 34 tions of certain of the other levers in the frame. To exemplify this, we will take three levers, A, B, and C. If A and B be in such position that a signal given by the movement of lever C will be dangerous or misleading to a train, the pivoted bar connected to lever C is locked, and cannot be moved by any exer- tion of strength on the part of the signalman ; and therefore he cannot even begin to move lever C, and the possibility of giving a wrong signal is put beyond doubt. Similarly, nothing is effected unless the lever completes its stroke. The pivoted bar or ‘ rocker,’ through which the whole work of interlocking is done, moves only at the extreme ends of the stroke of the levers, and then is only moved by the rising or falling of the spring detent. This inven- tion, simple as it seems, is the result of many years’ experience, accidents having often oc- curred through a lazy signalman pulling his lever through part only of the stroke, and thus only partially effecting the locking. This is now impossible ; and the intention of a switch- man to move a lever, expressed by his grasping the lever and so moving the spring-catch, inde- pendently of his putting the intention into force, actuates all the necessary locking. The details of locking-apparatus are some- what complicated, but the principle is simple. Certain bars carrying lugs or projections are made to slide or move by the movements of the rockers. Certain other bars, which are also moved by the action of one or more rockers, are slotted or pierced with holes, so that, in certain positions, the lugs in the first'set of bars can enter the holes in the second set of bars, and, in other positions, the lugs strike against the bars, and cannot be moved. It is, of course, obvious that the arrangement is such as to prevent unsafe or contradictory signals being given, and permit only of safe or harmo- nious signals; and, by a careful arrangement of the locking-apparatus, it is sometimes pos- sible to make a few movements effect important changes of the switches and signals with a minimum of levers and complication. It is obvious, that, when switches are worked from a distance, there is a chance of the switch being incompletely closed, owing either to dirt, or a stone, or ice, choking the switch itself, or the switch-rods working it. There is also a danger that the switch-rod ‘might break or become disconnected, and that, though the signalman moved all his levers, and all the locking and unlocking was properly per- formed in his cabin, yet the switch itself might remain unshifted, or be left half open. To obviate this, the facing point lock was invented. SCIENCE. [Vox. IL, No. 23. This is a holt which can only be shot into a crossbar connecting the two rails of the switch when the switch is either properly closed, or wide open. A failure of the switch connections, or an obstruction in the switeh, will render it impossible for the bolt to enter the opening to lock the switch; and, as the signalman’s lever actuating this lock inter- locks with the signal levers, no train can be signalled to approach until the switch is either closed, or wide open, as the case may be, and firmly locked in its proper position. But an- other danger has to be guarded against: signal- men, to save time, will generally throw a signal again to danger directly the engine of an ap- proaching train has passed ; his other levers are then set free, and he can unlock his switch, and actually change the switch, before the whole train has passed, thus probably throwing the rear vehicles off the track, and causing a serious accident. To guard against this, a locking or detector bar is used, which lies near the rail, but clear of a wheel, when the switch is either shut or full open; but directiy the switch is moved from either of these positions, the bar moyes close to the tread of the rail, and takes such a position that it must come in contact with any wheel approaching the switch. As the bar is made longer than the distance between any two trucks, it follows, that, as” long as a train is passing over the switch, one or more wheels of the train must prevent this bar being moved, and, as the switch-lock and the bar are arranged to move together, it fol- lows that the switch cannot be unlocked until the last truck of the last car of a train has passed. The Union switch and signal com- pany adheres to Saxby and Farmer’s arrange- ment of this bar where it moves vertically. The Pennsylvania steel company shifts it later- ally. The latter movement is more easily per- formed, ‘and the bar can serye as a Quard-rail ; but its movement,'seems somewhat liable to be impeded by snow falling between the rail and bar. (To be continued.) THE WEATHER IN MAY, 1888. TueEre have been two periods of very severe storms, and at many places of tornadoes. ‘The first of these accompanied a ‘ low,’ first noted in Colorado? on the 13th. This moved with considerable energy over Colorado and Ne- braska. On the 14th, increasing in energy, 1 It has been found necessary, owing to the smallness of the appropriation, to give up all telegraphing reports west of the Rocky Mountains: hence the charts are made up only to the east. SECRETARY OF WAR. “ = r » ° © u 2 © o ¥ rT] ry . z e 3 . 3 “ MONTHLY MEAN ISOBARS, ISOTHERMS, AND WIND-DIRECTIONS, MAY, 188% REPRINTED IN REDUCED FORM BY PERMISSION OF CHIEF SIGNAL-OFFICER. 36 it advanced into Ohio. At the morning obser- vation of this date, pressures .5 to .6 inch below the mean were noted in Lowa. Reports of hail on the 13th, 14th, and 15th, sometimes of astonishing size, have been sent from thirty-six stations, mostly in Iowa, Kan- sas, Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois. The following is a brief summary of tornado reports. Indiana: Amity, 14th, 7.30 p.m.; Waterloo,, night of 14th, only three houses left standing ; , Muncie, night of 14th; Indianapolis, 14th, 6. p.m. InKansas: Troy, 13th, 5 p.m. ; Muncie, 13th, 4.30 p.m., most violent storm ever known in the county. In Michigan: White Pigeon, 14th, 4 p.m.; Sturgis, 14th, 3.30 p.m., came from south-east. In Missouri: Kansas City, 13th, 4.30 e.m,, from south-west, track from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty yards wide, damage $300,000; Cameron, 13th, 5 p.m.; Macon, 13th, 8 p.m.; Pattonsburg, 13th, 5 p.m. In Ohio: Frederickstown, 14th, afternoon. The second period was ushered in by a deep ‘low’ in Colorado on the 17th. At 11 P.m., Washington time, pressures at Yankton and North Platte were 29.16 inches, or more than .7 inch below the mean. On the 18th the ‘ low’ moyed into Minnesota, and on the 20th a por- tion of it moved east into the St. Lawrence valley ; while its influence was felt in forming a second subsidiary ‘low’ in western Tennes- see on the same date. The latter moved slow- ly, and passed off the Atlantic coast on the 24th. Tornadoes are reported as follows. In Arkansas: Eureka Springs, 18th; it cut a path a quarter of a mile wide through a dense forest, and destroyed several buildings. In Illinois: Hillsboro’, 18th, 10 e.m., a funnel- shaped cloud moving north-east, the width of destruction, ten to thirty rods; Grafton, a car loaded with stone weighing twenty-one tons was lifted from the track, and the stones were scattered; Chemung, 18th, before 6 P.M. ; Chicago, night of 18th; Springfield, 18th, 7.10 p.m.; Pesotum, 18th, 11.30 p.m. ; Little- berry was nearly destroyed ; Jacksonville, 18th evening, severest storm ever known ; Edwards- ville, 18th evening, came from south-east, width ‘of track six- hundred to eight hundred feet ; Tallula, 18th,9 e.m. Up to midnight of 19th, the number of deaths in Illinois caused by the tornadoes of this date was sixty-three. In Missouri: Moody, 18th, 19th, every house blown down; Berger, 18th, 7 P.m., six houses and one mill destroyed; Oronogo, 18th, 7.40 P.M., six persons killed, $75,000 damage. New York: 21st, one of the severest storms that ever visited Long Island. In Tennessee: iY [Vou. IL, No. 23. Chattanooga, 20th, 4 p.m. In Wisconsin: Janesville, 18th evening ; Racine, 18th, 7 p.m., twenty-five people killed, damage $60,000, track five hundred yards wide. The chart of monthly isobars, isotherms, and wind-directions is given on p. 35. The per- manent summer low-pressure area has en- larged a little, and moved only slightly from its position last month. Mean pressures are in general below the normal, except in Florida and the upper Missouri valley. The mean temperature east of the 100th meridian was 3.1° below the mean; highest temperature, 109° at Eagle Pass, Tex., and Yuma, Cal. Illinois and Missouri report damaging frosts — on the 22d. A comparison of floating ice with May, 1882, shows the eastern limit 3° west of last May, but the southern limit is the same. The number and size of icebergs are much less than last year, while there has been no field-ice. The Gulf of St. Lawrence, blocked last year, is clear this. There were deficiencies in rainfall: Middle Atlantic, .58 inch; West Gulf, 1.50; Rio Grande valley, 2.953; extreme north-west, 1.65 ; and middle plateau, .69. Excesses: New England, 1.41; South Atlantic, 2.91 ; Tennes- see, .54; Ohio valley, .77; lower lakes, 3.02; upper lakes, .85; upper Mississippi valley, .68 ; Missouri valley, 3.03 ; middle slope, 1.09 ; southern slope, 1.91; northern plateau, .99; North Pacific coast, .86; Middle Pacific coast, — 2.383; and Southern Pacific coast, .80. In California the rain has been four times the usual May fall. A hundred and thirty-nine cautionary sig- nals were displayed, of which 84% were justi- fied by winds of 25 miles or more per hour, at or within 100 miles of the station. SYMMETRICAL LINEAR FIGURES PRO- DUCED BY REFLECTION ALONG A RIVER-BANK. - In July, 1882, I noticed on the Magaguida- vie River, in New Brunswick, some figures, apparently formed through combination of actual fissures in the rocks at the water’s edge, and the reflections of these fissures from the surface of the water, which were not a little remarkable. It was late in the afternoon. shower had just ceased, and another was about to begin. The sky was somewhat overcast, and the water more or less shaded by the forest which covers most of the adjacent land. The banks of the river are bold, the shore being lined ~ in many places with steep rocks having abrupt One thunder- ; - oe ” oe we en ae ww ph v . SCIENCE. | SuLy 18, 1883.) 4 faces. Thanks to the lifting of the salt or brackish water by the tides, the boughs of the trees which overhang the river are trimmed off sharply and squarely, as if by shears, at a plane which marks the limit reached by the water of the highest tides. By the same means, the rocks on the strand are kept clear of vegeta- tion; so that there is ordinarily a well-defined wall of bare rock between the water and the trees, even when the tide is high, and the river not far from being full. At the time I am speaking of, there was no wind: the surface of the water was absolutely glassy, and a superb reflection of the foliage of the forest was _ to be seen in the mirror which the river made. I had just remarked to a chance companion on (our little steamboat how difficult it was to distinguish between the water and the land, so j completely were the real rocks and trees blended _ with their reflections, when my attention was . attracted by a rock, apparently at the water’s edge, which was covered with symmetrical lines and figures. I called out to a friend, who was 4 standing at some distance from me on the deck of the boat, to ‘look at the pictured rock,’ and, on turning from him to again look at the shore, I perceived that it was not one - rock alone that bore figures: there was a long, broad ribbon or dado of similar picturing at _ the edge of the water, running along the shore - between the real trees and the picture e produced by the reflection of the trees in the water. I am fortunate in being able to say that my friend saw the picturing on the rock to which his attention was thus hastily directed, for the fact enables me to dismiss the notion that the figures might possibly have been ‘ subjective ’ tomyself. I had, however, hardly time enough to get a fair view of the picture before a new shower of rain ruffled the water, hid the shore, and drove us under cover. Beside herring-bone patterns, there were symmetrical lines, bars, and flutings of various lengths, together with figures suggesting short maces, staves, or even spears and arrows, as well as others in the semblance of hieroglyph- ies. Indeed, the whole effect was very Poy p- tian-like ; while many of the lines recalled those so commonly used of late years for ornament- ing furniture, — such lines as are, I believe, _ technically called * reeding.’ On thinking the matter over, I was at first inclined to believe that I must have been look- ing into a great natural kaleidoscope ; but, on further consideration and observation, it seems plain that simple reflection — that is to say, duplication by the water-mirror of lines, cracks, dents, or scars upon the rocks — might account ~~ SCIENCE. 37 for most, if not for all, the appearances I wit- nessed. I regret that the attitude of mere wonder and admiration into which my mind was thrown should have hindered me for the moment from making a proper critical exami- nation of the figures ; but I have been impressed by the conceptions that similar appearances cannot possibly be infrequent when the water of the river is still, and that some of the first rudiments of primitive art did probably origi- nate in efforts made to copy such natural line- ations as these. There is, I believe, an old, perhaps it is an endless, dispute as to whether, in the history of human art, such kinds of ornamentation as herring-bone figures, reeding, and fluting have ever been derived from a direct imitation of natural objects, or whether they have not always arisen from mental conceptions. It has seemed to me that the observation here recorded should bear with considerable foree in favor of the view of those students who refer the beginnings of all things to facts of actual observation and experience. I am well aware that the atmospheric con- ditions were of somewhat exceptional character at the moment when I saw the picturing ; but it is evident that rock-fissures, properly placed as regards a body of still water, will naturally be duplicated by reflection therefrom. There is every reason to suppose that figures analogous to those I witnessed may often be seen where rocks and water meet, and it is hard to believe that they have not been seen frequently by persons favorably situated. There is conse- quently no improbability in the idea that some of the primitive designs of savage nations may have been copied fromthem. Different effects would, of course, be produced in different locali- ties, according to the quality and mode of stratification of the rocks, and to the nature of the jointings, seams, and scars which the rocks bear; and it is not unlikely that the rocks on the Magaguidavic River may be peculiarly well fitted for exhibiting these pictorial effects. But the capital fact of duplication by reflection must be common to all localities; and there are probably many places where ornamental figures would be produced by mere force of repetition even of very simple forms; that is to say, by the formation, at one and the same time, of a series of figures comprising many individual reflections, each one of which was similar to all the rest. A general idea of some kinds of forms that may possibly be seen where cracks in rocks are reflected from a body of calm water may be got by drawing figures like those of the diagram which I have selected 38 from a hundred or more that occurred to me. No effort has been made in the diagram to copy the actual appearances seen on the river-bank. Can MST in Vo a Th Sci rons ed Oe WAN NN /f2 “0 > ISX A fie ie She eas An essentially different style of representation would be needed in order to convey a just con- fem) aaa] | (=a ception of the effect of the scene I witnessed. With the exception of the herring-bone figure, I cannot profess that either of the figures of the diagram is like any of those I saw in New Brunswick. It is to be remembered, however, that, whatever the forms may be that are pro- duced by reflection from one particular bank of rock, the same kinds of forms will usually and probably be repeated again and again with the result that a pattern or ‘design’ will be produced. I consider myself so little qualified to lools up a matter wholly foreign to my usual studies, that I have made no effort. to search for rec- ords of observations similar to the one here described, though I am strongly inclined to believe that such records must exist. I would say merely, that on again steaming up the Magaguidayic River at a time when a breeze was stirring, and the surface of the water was ruffled, I saw none of the picturing excepting in one quiet nook or cove, where a series of really superb herring-bone figures was produced by reflection from the surface of the calm water of the lines of stratification between the beds of rock, which were here tilted at a consider- able angle. Although during this second visit I saw none of the ‘ reeding,’ or of the other kinds of symmetrical figures which had so much impressed me before, the multiplicity of the herring-bones, i.e., the continued repetition of this figure, was specially noteworthy. A pecul- iar kind of beauty or sense of satisfaction to the eye was thus obtained, which a single figure would clearly not have been competent to give. It is reasonable to suppose, that wherever SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 23. complete herring-bone figures are formed, as. here, by reflection of those lines between the layers of rock which are continuous, and, so to » say, perfect, a variety of related or derived figures will be produced by the reflection of lines which are not continuous; that is to say, the reflections from lines that are imperfect in any way, or broken into various lengths, would give rise to hieroglyphic characters in consid- erable variety, though they might all belong to one common group or kind. At the time of my second visit to the river, I could see no reason to doubt that the figures might be seen almost any day when the time of high tide, and consequently of a full river, happened to be coincident with the calm moments so common in summer at the hours not far from sunrise and sunset. As bearing on the question of human imita- tion, it is of interest to note, that while herring- bone patterns would naturally be produced wherever the lines of stratification of tilted layers. of rock are reflected from calm water, — i.e., in numberless localities, it is precisely these figures which have been most frequently de- lineated by savages upon pottery and other im- plements as one of their earliest artistic efforts. Excepting the two instances here recorded, I have never noticed any such figures in the course of my own travels, nor have i heard of their being seen by others. I am assured, moreover, by several of the most competent. and experienced observers of my acquaintance,. that they have never witnessed any thing simi-- lar. see such figures from this time forth, when opportunity offers, and I trust that many other persons will do so. It is to be hoped, withal, that some of the more noteworthy effects of this sort may be accurately depicted. F. H. Srorer.. — THE AMERICAN SWAMP CYPRESS. THE following observations on the bald or swamp cypress of the southern states are condensed from the forthcoming second yolume of the memoirs of the Kentucky geological survey. They embody the results of certain inquiries which show that this peculiar tree: deserves more study than has been given to. it by our botanists. The Taxodium distichum is, as is well known, a common tree in the swamps of the southern states, extending from New Jersey to Texas, and northwardly in the Mississippi valley, to the lowlands of southern Illinois. It has several titles to distinction: it is not. I expect, however, for my own part, to- — — —— ae ee lCUC a - r a ee ee a é JuLy 13, 1883.] have this nature. only in all its proportions the noblest of all our coniferous trees east of the Rocky Moun- tains, vying in girth and height with the yellow poplar (the Liriodendron tulipifera of the botanists), but it is by far the most stately all the of trees belonging on the eastern face of the continent. Moreover, it has certain habits which are altogether peculiar to its species, and which constitute it a very exceptional member of the Coniferae. When this tree grows on the dry ground, or on a surface where the water does not stand during the summer half of the year, it differs in no important feature from its kindred species ; but, when it grows in swamps which are flooded during the spring or summer months, the roots form excrescences, which rise so that their crests overtop the level of the water during these seasons. These excres- cences are of varying height, their projection above the level of the roots depending on the depth of the swamp-waters during those sea- sons of growth. These conditions may be satisfied by projections, or ‘ knees’ as they are called, that rise only a few inches above the root, or they may rise to the height of five or six feet above the soil. These knees are sub-cylindrical in form ; near the base they are elongated in the direction in which the root extends; above, they give a nearly circular section; at the top they are crowned by a eabbage-shaped expansion of bark of irregular shape, rough and warty without, often hollow within. They are often as much as eighteen inches in diameter. They are so commonly hollow, and of such size, that they are sometimes used by the natives for beehives or for well- buckets, for either of which uses they are toler- ably well adapted. A tree of large size, say six feet in diameter, will often have as many as thirty or forty of these knees projecting above the swamp-water which surrounds its base. Looking closely at these knees, we observe, that, unless they are evidently decayed, they generally have a very porous, spongy bark over the surface of their crests; and the bark on this summit, peeling off from time to time, often exposes a singularly spongy surface, such as we find in the inner bark of the pine-tree when the coarse outer bark is peeled away. There have been many conjectures as to the _ function of these knees. It has been supposed that they were in the nature of suckers or branches from the roots, which gave rise to new trees; but, after examining thousands of these ‘knees, I am convinced that they never In no ease have I seen or heard of any buds appearing on them. The ee " SCIENCE. 39 only clew to their function I have obtained in the following way : whenever it happens that the knees become entirely submerged during the growing season, the trees to which they belong inevitably die. Very extensive proof of this point was given by the general submer- gence of extensive districts during the earth- quakes of 1811-13, in the region near the Mississippi, where the cypress-trees over a region several hundred miles in area were killed by a subsidence that brought the water a foot or two below the crests of the knees. In Reel-Foot Lake, in Kentucky and Tennes- see, thousands of these long ordinary cypress- boles still stand in the shallow waters, though it is now seventy years since they were killed by the slight submergence of their knees. The same thing can be seen on a smaller scale in several mill-ponds in western Ken- tucky, where the change in level of the swamp- water has brought these excrescences below the surface of the water. These facts — viz., the absence of the knees when the tree grows on high land, and the death of the tree when the knees are permanently submerged — lead me to the opinion that the use of these ex- crescences is to bring the sap while in the roots in contact with the air. That they have this function is made more probable by the fact that their heads, i.e., the parts which always project above the water during the growing season, remain yery vascular, and, by a process of desyuamation, secure the expos- ure of the inner bark to the air. It is evident that this tree affords us a very interesting instance of a specialized structure, that only develops when the plant occupies a certain position. We often find this tree arti- ficially transplanted to the gardens of the western country. It then shows no distinct tendency to form knees, though the surface of the roots show a few short spurs not over an inch or so high. It is a well-known fact that the genus Tax- odium dates back into the early tertiaries. I am not aware, however, that fossil knees have ever been found. We have only to examine the borders of the swamps to see that it can- not, on the uplands, maintain a battle with the contending broad-leaved trees, though in any artificial open place it will grow with singular luxuriance. It seems to me likely that we have here a very interesting case of a species owing its survival to a peculiar habit of growth. There can hardly be a doubt that the kindred of this Taxodium held an important place on the continent before the development of the broad- 40 leaved trees. It seems not unlikely that it was crowded out on the higher ground, and forced to limit itself to this station which the swamps afford. In these permanent though shallow waters it clearly has an advantage over the broad-leaved forms of trees. Lam not aware that any structures resem- bling these knees are found among other plants. If it be the fact that they are peculiar to the Taxodium distichum, we have in this species a yery remarkable case of a peculiar organ developed for a special purpose. There is another interesting problem con- cerning this species. The seeds seem to ger- minate beneath the water. I have seen many young trees growing in what must be perma- nent swamp, where the soil was buried to the depth of a foot or more. I have long desired to try some experiments on this point, but haye not been able to do so. Lhope that some observer will undertake the inquiry. This tree is certain to have a great economic value. Its great size, its favorable position in relation to our great water-courses, its very rapid growth and excellent timber qualities, are all calculated to commend it for use as a constructive wood. There are many million acres of land in the southern states where it could be cultivated to advantage. If kept from competition with the deciduous trees, it will do as well on any moist lowlands as in the actual swamps. Its growth is more rapid than that of any other of our timber-trees; the wood is said to be much stronger than that of any pine; it endures well in the open air with- out paint, as is shown by the fact that the trunks of trees killed in 1811 still stand unde- cayed in the EWACApS near the Mississippi River. ' N.S. Suarer. RECENT BABYLONIAN RESEARCH. In the Proceedings of the Society of biblical arche- ology for November, 1882, Mr. T. G. Pinches, the Assyrian scholar of the British museum, reports a discovery of more than ordinary interest. This is an historical notice on an inscribed cylinder, coming from the ancient city of Sippar, and belonging to Nabonidus, the last of the native Babylonian kings. The cylinder was written before Cyrus had captured Babylon, but after his conquest of the Medes. The inscription of Nabonidus, after the usual introduc- tory formulas, relates the reconstruction of several famous temples. The first of these, the temple of the Moon-god at Haran, had been destroyed by the Medes. Being instructed by the gods Marduk and Sin to rebuild it, Nabonidus recalls for this purpose his armies from Gaza, on the borders of Egypt. He informs us that the temple had once before been re- SCIENCE. b pat ae 7 ot ~~" [Vou. IL., No. 23. stored by the Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sarda- napalus), and that he found, while engaged in the work, the inscribed cylinders of Assurbanipal and of Shalmaneser II. The great historic event referred to in this part of the inscription is the fall of the Median empire be- fore Cyrus the Great. When commanded to restore the temple by the god Marduk, Nabonidus replies that the Medes have destroyed it, and receives from Marduk the promise that they in their turn shall also be destroyed. Nabonidus then relates: *‘ At the be- ginning of the third year, they (the gods) caused them (literally ‘him,’ the Median nation) to go out to war; and Cyrus, king of the land Anzan, their (lit. “his,’ i.e., the Median nation’s) young servant, over- threw with his small army the Median hosts, cap- - tured Astyages, king of the Medes, and carried him bound to his own (Cyrus’s) land.”’ The undoubted value of this passage for the solu- tion of the riddle left us by the conflicting testimony of the Greek writers, as to the relations of Cyrus and ~ the Persians to Astyages and the Medes, is in part. impaired by the ambiguous use of the pronouns, It is partly owing to this ambiguity that the translation just given differs from that of Mr. Pinches, who ren- ders: “‘In the third year, he [the god Marduk] caused Cyrus, king of Anzan, his young servant, to go with his little army; he overthrew the wide-spreading Sab- manda [Medes], he captured IStumegu (Astyages), king of Sabmanda, and took his treasures to his (own) land.”’ It is difficult to say whether the words ‘his servant’ mean servant of Marduk, as Mr. Pinches supposes, or servant (= tributary) of the Median people; but the latter seems, for certain grammatical reasons, more probable. It is also improbable that Nabonidus, a special votary of Marduk, should speak of Cyrus, a foreigner, as a servant of the same deity, although we know that later, perhaps for state rea- sons, Cyrus was friendly to the worship of Marduk (VY. Rawl. 35). It is more probable, that, when Naboni- dus mentions Cyrus as ‘his small servant,’ he means to say that Cyrus was a vassal prince to the Medes. The translation ‘him bound’ (kamittsu, lit. “his bond- age’), instead of ‘his treasures,’ is well established (I. Rawl, 13, 24 ff.), and adds not a little to the in- terest of the passage. In the cuneiform annals of Cyrus, written after he had captured Babylon, we have this monarch’s brief account of the war with Media (Zrans. soc. bibl. arch., vii. 155 f.). After a renewed careful collation of this important passage, Mr. Pinches has published the original a second time (Proc. soc. bibl. arch., Nov:, 1882). Itis unfortunate that the ends of the lines are lost by mutilation of the clay tablet con- taining the inscription. Following is a translation of this passage: ‘‘[Astyages relied. upon his troops] and marched against Cyrus, king of Anan to [eap- ture him?]... The troops of Astyages revolted against him, made him prisoner [and delivered him] _ to Cyrus . . . Cyrus (marched) to Ecbatana, the royal city. [He captured] the silver, gold, treasures (2), (and) possessions (?), which Ecbatana had gotten by plunder and he carried to Ansan the treasures 7 Te WA — ee a Ce . JuLY 13, 1883.] and possessions which [he took?].”’ This version differs slightly from the one offered by Mr. Pinches, but not as to the revolt of the troops of Astyages, his delivery to Cyrus, and the capture of Ecbatana. _ The accounts of Nabonidus and of Cyrus vary somewhat. The language of the former implies a battle in which Cyrus defeated the Medes and cap- tured Astyages, but does not mention a revolt, nor the capture of Ecbatana, the Median capital. The account by Cyrus, being the state annals, is likely to be the more exact, and enters more into detail than that of Nabonidus; but the two are not at all contra- dictory. All that Nabonidus wished to record was the overthrow of the Median power and the capture of their king, and it was unimportant whether this took place in battle or by mutiny. It may be that ’ he did not know the details of the war, or it is possi- ble that one division of the Median army gave battle, while another mutinied and delivered Astyages to Cyrus. There is an apparent difference in the two accounts as to the date of the capture of Astyages. According to the Cyrus text, this event took place in the sixth year of Nabonidus, while Nabonidus says that it occurred in the ‘third year.’ It is, however, ; not clear from what point Nabonidus reckons, — per- . haps from the date of his dream. 1 There is nothing in either of these accounts to ) show whether Cyrus was in any way connected by ] } eee ee birth with Astyages. As to the relation of the coun- tries of Media and Persia at this time, it is clear, from the language of Nabonidus, that Persia was a very small power; and if the word ‘his servant’ (aradsu), as applied to Cyrus, means the servant of the Medes, the conclusion would be that Cyrus was a tributary king to the Median power. This agrees with the statement of Herodotus (i. 107), that Cam- __ byses, the father of Cyrus, was considered by As- P tyages as of respectable family, but inferior to an ; ordinary Mede, Nicolaus of Damascus also makes ‘ Persia subject to Media (Miiller, Frag. hist. Gr., iii. 399, Fr. 66). It is certain that the mystery surrounding the rela- tions of the Median and Persian courts and people can never be cleared up with the aids hitherto pos- sessed. Nothing but the contemporaneous literature of these peoples themselves, and of neighboring peo- ples, can ever solve the problem. In another inserip- q tion Cyrus calls himself the king of Babylon, son of Cambyses king of AnSan, grandson of Cyrus king of AnSan, descendant of SiSpiS king of Ansan, royal offspring (V. Rawl. 35). This language is, however, not inconsistent with the tradition, so strongly repre- sented by the Greeks, that the Persians were tribu- tary to the Medes. To leave the government of subject nations in the hands of native kings was the rule in the later centuries of the Assyrian empire, and the Medes may well have practised the same policy. It was sufficient that the vassal king sent his yearly tribute, and, on proper occasion, kissed the foot of his master; but further than this was not required, and he was regarded as king in his own tribe or nation. A word as to AnSan and Anzan. These are geo- SCIENCE. 41 graphical terms, — the first a city; the second appar- ently a land, because preceded by the sign for a country. But since this sign often represents a city also, it may well be that Ansan and Anzan are only two different ways of writing the name of the same place. ‘This seems to be also the opinion of Profes- sor Sayce (Trans. soc. bibl. arch., iii. 475). Probably there was both a city and a country AnSan, or Anzan. But what was Ansan? In the same inscription Cyrus calls himself king of Ansan and king of Per- sia (Parsu, Trans. soc. bibl. arch., vii. 155, 159). Pos- sibly Ansan, or Anzan, was originally the name of a tribe, city, and district, to which Cyrus and his fam- ily belonged. Another temple which Nabonidus restores is the celebrated temple of the Sun-god at Sippar. Nebu-~- chadnezzar, he relates, had restored this edifice, and had sought for cylinders, but without success. But Nabonidus was determined to find the inscription of the founder of the temple; and his search was re- warded, for, at a depth of eighteen cubits, he came across the cylinder of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which no king preceding him had seen for ‘three thousand two hundred years.’ According to the custom of the kings, he placed an inscription of his own by the side of that of Naram-Sin. As the date of Nabonidus was about 550 B.C., that of Naram- Sin would go back to 3750 B.C. But even at this time civilization must have been far advanced, for Sargon, the father of Naram-Sin (if the same as the Sargon of Agane), had in his library an astronomical work comprising seventy tablets. With this ancient date would agree the statement of Sargon IL, king of Assyria 721-705 B.C., that three hundred and ~ fifty princes had preceded him on the throne (Cylin- der inscription, l. 45), and the long list of Babylonian kings, numbering, before the tablet was broken, two hundred or more. A third temple, which Nabonidus restores, is that of the goddess Anunit at Sippar. By digging he found the inscription of the last king who had re- stored the temple, Saggasti-Burias, son of Kudii- Bel, about 1050 B.C. Anunit, goddess of this temple, seems to be the planet Venus as morning and as evening star. These two celebrated temples at Sippar are men- tioned several times in the cuneiform literature. From Berosus, also, we know that the people of Sip- par were devoted to the worship of the sun, for he calls the place ‘city of the sun’ (év m6Aet HAiou Lunna- pow). It was also, no doubt, as a part of this worship that the people of Sippar, whom the Assyrian king settled in the land of Samaria, burned their children in the fire (2 Kings, xvii. 31). D. G. Lyon. OCEAN WATER AND BOTTOMS. THE ocean explored by the Norske Nordhavs expedition, 1876-78, was a part of the North Atlan- tic lying to the west and north of Norway. The sea- water was especially studied in order to ascertain, if possible, whether the relation subsisting between its 42 component parts varies sufficiently"to admit of deter- mining its fluctuations by the most exact analytical methods, and whether, in that case, it were possible to deduce some definite rule regarding them, As the result of the analyses, L. Schmelek con- cludes, ‘‘The hypothesis which assumes the ocean to consist throughout its entire depth of one homoge- neous fluid, in which the most accurate of chemical analyses shall fail to detect dissimilarity of composi- tion, has received from the experiments here described probably stronger confirmation than from any that have gone before them.’”’ Some of the most interest- ing results are tabulated as follows, the first table showing the mean amounts of certain substances in sea-water at various depths, and the second showing the same for different parallels of latitude: — I. _ | Inter- Nien Surface.|Bottom./mediate depths. value. Specific gravity 1.0265 | 1.0265 | 1.0266 | 1.0265 Chlorine . 5 1.930 1.933 1.934 1.932 Calcium oxide . 0.0576 | 0.0581 | 0.0577 | 0.0578 Magnesium oxide 0.2205 | 0.2207 | 0.2200 | 0.2203 Sulphuric oxide . 0.2211 | 0.2208 | 0.2223 | 0.2214 Il. 80°-71°. 71°-66°. 66°-62°. Specific eravily 1.0264 |_ 1.0265 1.0268 Chlorine . bn eos 1.929 1.937 = Calcium oxide... . 0.0580 0.0579 0.0577 Magnesium oxide 0.2190 0.2219 0.2205 Sulphuric oxide . . . 0.2208 0.2210 0.2223 The mean value of the salts occurring in sea-water is given as follows: — KCl, CaGO;, CaSO,, MgSO,, MgCl, NaHCO,, NCI. 0.002, 0.1395, 0.2071, 0.8561, 0.0747, 0.0166, 2.682. Hence 100 parts of dry sea-salt contain — CaCO;, CaSO,, MgSO,, MgCl, KCl, NaCO,, NaCl. 0.057, 4.00, 5.93, 10.20, 2.14, 0.475, 76.84. The ocean-bottom studied is especially interesting from the amount of present and past volcanic and glacial activity in the lands surrounding it. Here, as elsewhere, depth was found to be the principal factor in determining the character of the deposits. Along ' the coasts of Norway and Spitzbergen, generally at a less depth than five hundred fathoms, the bottom was found 1o be covered with a more or less plastic gray clay. Its coarseness or fineness varies consid- erably; and grains of quartz, as a rule with rounded edges, constitute the chief portion of the mineral particles in it. At the approximate depth of from five hundred to a thousand fathoms, a brown clay is found, forming a transition from the gray clay to the true oceanic deposits. At nearly all depths below a thousand fathoms, and oftentimes at less depths, is a fine light to dark brown colored deposit containing minute white shells of the genus Biloculina, in size and shape like a pin-head. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 23. This shell gives name to the clay, which corresponds approximately to the Globigerina ooze of the Chal- lenger expedition. The ground is taken, that the power of sea-water to dissolve the carbonate of lime of the foraminiferal shells is not owing to the greater amount of carbonic acid at great depths in the ocean; for the observations of Mr. Torn¢ge showed that the sea-water invariably reacted as an alkali, and hence the carbonic acid could not be free. Again: the latter was found to be about the same in the depths of the ocean as on the surface; while the general uniformity of composition of the sea-water, as shown by numerous investigations, renders it improbable that any deviation in amount of carbonic acid oc- curs; hence the power possessed by sea-water to dissolve carbonate of lime does not depend upon the greater or less proportion of free carbonic acid. The bottom of the shallow ocean between Norway, Beeren Eiland, Spitzbergen, and Novaia Zemlaia, was found to be covered with a greenish-gray clay con- taining but few animal remains. Minute and gen- erally sharp-edged quartz grains were the principal constituent. This deposit was termed the Rhabdam- mina clay, from a genus of Foraminifera which often abounds in that part of the ocean-bed. ‘This clay, according to Schmelck, originates from the ‘decom- position of quartzitic rocks,’ especially those of Beeren Hiland. Off the volcanic island of Jan Mayen, above the six-hundred-fathom line, occurs a deposit of dark- gray sand, and sabulous clay containing fragments of basaltic lava, olivine, augite, etc., which seem to have been derived from the volcanic débris of the island. An important fact bearing on the question of the distribution of débris by bottom-currents in the ocean is the statement that ‘‘all samples of water brought up from the bottom were perfectly clear, without a trace of floating particles.’’ The occurrence of numerous stones and pebbles on the sea-floor, as well as not uncommonly a rocky bot- tom, is of interest. The pebbles decrease in size and number in going from the shore towards deep water. While rare in the deep water south of the 72d par- allel, they are quite common in that to the west of Spitzbergen and Beeren Eiland, where drift-ice abounds. Out of three hundred and seventy-five stations, pebbles and fragments of minerals and rocks were dredged at a hundred and twenty-three of them, while at many others no sample of the bottom could be obtained on account of its rocky condition. Of especial interest is the finding of numerous frag- ments of flint and chalk, a fossil (belemnite) from the chalk, fragments of coal, and some striated stones. Other pebbles and fragments found were marble, limestone, granite of various kinds, sandstone, argil- lite, quartzite, flint, chalk, granitic veinstone, quartz porphyry, gabbro, basalt, pumice, amygdaloidal rocks; chloritic, hornblendic, quartz, mica, and other erystal- line schists; calcite, quartz, mica, hornblende, fel- spar, asbestos, coal, olivine, augite, coral, shells of various kinds, rotten wood, ete. Schmelck concludes that organic agency is a sub- ordinate factor in the formation of the floor-deposits Pah. Sa, .”.* =~ ——— —_ » JuLy 13, 1883.] of the northern ocean, as is volcanic débris, but that the chief portion of the material consists of the solid matter carried out to sea by drift-ice and glacial riv- ers. M. E. Wapswortna. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF IMPLE- MENTS. “WHEN will hearing be like seeing?’’ says the Persian proverb. Words of description will never give the grasp that the mind takes through actual sight and handling of objects; and this is why, in fix- ing and forming ideas of civilization, a museum is so necessary. One understands the function of sucha museum the better for knowing how the remarkable collection formed by Gen. Pitt-Rivers came into ex- istence. About 1851 its collector, then Col. Lane Fox, was serving on a military sub-committee to ex- amine improvements in small arms. In those days the British army was still armed (except special rifle- men) with the old smooth-bore percussion musket, the well-known ‘ Brown Bess.’ The improved wea- pons of continental armies had brought on the ques- tion of reform; but the task of this committee of juniors to press changes on the heads of the service was not an easy one, even when the Duke of Welling- ton, at last convinced by actual trial at the butts, decreed that he would have every man in the army armed with a rifle-musket, Col. Fox was no mere theorist, but a practical man, who knew what to do and how to do it; and his place in the history of the destructive machinery of war is marked by his hav- ing been the originator and first instructor of the School of musketry at Hythe. While engaged in this work of improving weapons, his experience led his thoughts into a newchannel. It was forced upon him that stubbornly fixed military habit could not accept progress by leaps and bounds, only by small partial changes, an alteration of the form of the bul- let here, then a slight change in the grooving of the - barrel; and so on, till a succession of these small changes gradually transformed a weapon of low or- ganization into a higher one, while the disappearance of the intermediate steps, as they were superseded, left apparent gaps in the stages of the invention, — gaps which those who had followed its actual course knew to have been really filled up by a series of interme- diate stages. These stages Col. Lane Fox collected and arranged in their actual order of development, and thereupon there grew up in his mind the idea that such had been the general course of develop- ment of arts among mankind. He set himself to col- lect weapons and other implements till the walls of his house were covered from cellar to attic with series of spears, boomerangs, bows, and other instruments, so grouped as to show the probable history of their development. After a while this expanded far beyond the limits of a private collection, and grew into his Museum. There the student may observe in the ac- 1 Extract from a lecture on anthropology, delivered Feb. 21, at the University museum, Oxford, by E. B. Tytor, D.C.L., F.R.S. From Nature of May 17. SCIENCE. 43 tual specimens the transitions by which the parrying- stick, used in Australia and elsewhere to ward off spears, must have passed into the shield. It is re- markable that one of the forms of shield which lasted on latest into modern times had not passed into a mere screen, but was still, so to speak, fenced with. This was the target carried by the Highland regiments in the low countries in 1747. In this museum, again, are shown the series of changes through which the rudest protection of the warrior by the hides of ani- mals led on to elaborate suits of plate and chain armor. The principles which are true of the develop- ment of weapons are not less applicable to peaceful instruments, whose history is illustrated in this col- lection. It is seen how (as was pointed out by the late Carl Engel) the primitive stringed instrument was the hunter’s bow, furnished afterwards with a gourd to strengthen the tone by resonance, till at last the hollow resonator came to be formed in the body of the instrument, as in the harp or violin. Thus the hookah or nargileh still keeps something of the shape of the cocoanut-shell, from which it was originally made, and is still called after (Persian, ndrjil = cocoa- nut). But why describe more of these lines of de- velopment when the very point of the argument is that verbal description fails to do them justice, and that really to understand them they ought to be fol- lowed in the series of actual specimens? All who have been initiated into the principle of development or modified sequence know how admirable a training the study of these tangible things is for the study of other branches of human history, where intermediate stages have more often disappeared, and therefore trained skill and judgment are the more needed to guide the imagination of the student in reconstruct- ing the course along which art and science, morals and government, have moved since they began, and will continue to move in the future. THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE AMERI- CAN TURRET SPIDER. AT the meeting of the Academy of natural sciences of Philadelphia, June 19, Rev. Henry C. McCook exhibited nests of Tarentula arenicola Scudder, —a species of ground spider of the family Lyco- sidae, properly known as the turret spider. The nests in natural site are surmounted by structures which quite closely resemble miniature old-fashioned chimneys composed of mud and crossed sticks, as seen in the log cabins of pioneer settlers. From half an inch to one inch of the tube projects above ground, while it extends straight downward twelve or more inches into the earth. The projecting por- tion, or turret, is in the form of a pentagon, more or less regular, and is built up of bits of grass, stalks of straw, small twigs, etc., laid across each other at the corners. The upper or projecting parts have a thin lining of silk. Taking its position just inside the watch-tower, the spider leaps out, and captures such insects as may come in its way. Nests had been found at the base of the Alleghany Mountains d4 SCIENCE. near Altoona, and in New Jersey on the seashore. In the latter location the animal had availed itself of the building-material at hand by forming the foundation of its watch-tower of little quartz pebbles, sometimes producing a structure of considerable beauty. In this sandy site the tube is preserved intact by a delicate secretion of silk, to which the particles of sand adhere. This secretion scarcely presents the character of a web-lining, but has suf- ficient consistency to hold aloft a frail cylinder of sand when it is carefully freed from its surroundings, A nest recently obtained from Vineland, N.J., fur- nished an interesting illustration of the power of these araneids to intelligently adapt themselves to varying surroundings, and to take advantage of cir- cumstances with which they certainly could not have been previously familiar. In order to preserve the nest with a view to study the life-history of its occupant, the sod containing the tube had been care- fully dug up, and the upper and lower openings plugged with cotton. Upon the arrival of the nest in Philadelphia, the plug guarding the entrance had -been removed; but the other had been forgotten, and allowed to remain. The spider, which still inhabited the tube, immediately began removing the cotton at the lower portion, and cast some of it out. -Guided, however, apparently by its sense of touch, to the knowledge that the soft fibres of the cotton would be an excellent material with which to line the tube, she speedily began putting it to that use, and had soon spread a soft smooth layer over the inner surface and around the opening. The nest in this condition was exhibited, and showed the interior to be padded for about four inches from the summit of the tower: The very manifest inference was drawn, that the spider must for the first time have come in contact with such a material as cotton, and had im- mediately utilized its new experience by substituting the soft fibre for the ordinary silken lining, or by adding it thereto. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Equations of third degree. THE second or third terms of any equation may be made to disappear, and we may therefore assume w+ Ac? + B= 0; (1) and the solution of this equation must involve the general solution of cubics. Assume v= ys — yses + 2. (2) Hence ys = Va = faze + 428 3 LD = ApS BEE AO e — 82% y+ 2— 3028 = Vea + ta ye beatles aime eg ls aa Reh cl Ky 3.x? feed oe AE iy WOR aa =\| 12a + oa,” a ‘ey Lyte, dlytz)? [ee = Fee 1222 re 4x2 12 02 [Vou. IL, No. 23, 432 2°(z — y)? = 640° + 240 x5(y + z)? + 192 a3(y + z)* — B4(y + z)% x —8a8(y +z)? +328(y + z)t—(y+2z)8= —27 zyx, +3 Vay a — (y +22 = i (3) In (1) and (8), equating coefficients, te A’ 3 Vy =A, y= a" (4) —(y+2)?=B, y2+2yz2+22=—B. (5) Whence, from (4) and (5), Br Tp PaaS oe. -= [4 a _\az8 Substituting these values of y and z in (2), BA oo pe anil — ot (ee + |-4-2 On ROB al See pies cae AY formula (a) 4 4° OF 3 3 RB? A&B 2a? A i 2 aT N4 27 3 [2 a |B, 2B Na 3 7 + {2 aia a formula (b) In the-case of the irreducible case of formula (6), which is similar to Cardan’s formula, formula (a) may eB) be used. In such case, only one part, as Tn ae of wee 3 B AB formula (a) is imaginary, and a “qlee is real; and if the signs of the roots of equation (1) be changed, which is done by changing simultaneously the signs of A and Bin equation. (d i — converse is BD) ees Tees true, that is, \jJ— a3 real, and \ = is im- aginary- then, arbitrarily chosen. Hence, factoring prepara- tory to expansion by the binomial theorem, the co- efficient of V —=1 may be made less than unity when the real term is unity. A. M. SAwIn. Evansville, Wis. Solar constant. It is feared that the letter of Mr. Hazen (ScrENCE, i, 542) in relation to above topic may not entirely re- move the confusion of which he justly complains. It should be premised that there are two units of heat in common use among physicists: the smaller being the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of water 1° C.; the larger, the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilo- gram of water 1° C. The larger of these units is a thousand times as great as the smaller; and. in ordi- nary applications, no confusion is liable to arise. In either case, the number of units of heat received by the unit-mass of water is (sensibly) proportional to the number of degrees of rise of temperature. . With regard to the ‘solar constant,’ two additional units are required, —a unit of surface, and a unit of time. This constant may be defined in general terms Which shall be the nee term is, ee Jury 13, 1883.] ‘to be the number of units of sun-heat incident per- pendicularly on a unit-surface, in a unit of time, at the upper limit of the earth’s atmosphere; or it is the number of degrees Centigrade a unit-mass of water would be raised in temperature by the sun-heat inci- dent perpendicularly on a unit-surface, in a unit of time, at the upper limit of the atmosphere. The three units here indicated are, of course, arbitrary. But most physicists, following the example of Pouillet (Comp- tes rendus, vii. 24), take the gram, square centime- tre, and minute, as respectively the units of mass, surface, and time. With regard to time, there is no diversity, the minute being universally used; but, for mass and surface, some employ the larger units of a kilogram and a square metre, and hence the ap- arent confusion. To obtain a general expression or the value of the ‘solar constant,’ let Q = Quantity of sun-heat incident normally on a unit-surface in a unit of time = solar con- stant. S = Area of surface receiving the_heat. T = Time of receiving the heat. m = Unit mass of water. n = Number of unit masses of water heated. i? = Rise in temperature of the mass of water. Then we have QxSxT=nxmx te Consequently, when S, T, and n are severally equal to unity, we have Q = m X 1t°; and, when m = 1, Q = t° = rise in temperature of a unit-mass of water = value of solar constant in units of heat. Now, when the unit of time remains the same, but the units of mass and surface are changed, the value ; of ¢° (which measures the solar constant) will be altered, unless both of these units are changed in the . Same ratio. For, from the equation Q = m X 1°, it mn portional to the magnitude of the unit of surface: unit of surface unit of mass of water " _ For example: using Pouillet’s units, Langley’s recent experiments make the solar constant = 2.84; ‘that is, the sun-heat incident normally on one square centimetre, in one minute, at the upper limit of the atmosphere, would raise the temperature of one gram of water 2.84° C., or would heat 2.84 grams of water 1° C. Now, the unit remaining the same, if we assume the unit of mass to be one kilogram (1,000 grams), and the unit of surface to be one square metre (10,000 square centimetres), we should have 10,000 1,000 : kilogram-units of heat; that is, the sun-heat incident : normally on one square metre, in one minute, at _ the upper limit of the atmosphere, would raise the j temperature of one kilogram of water 28.4° C., or would heat 28.4 kilograms of water 1° C. Moreover, as it requires a definite number of units of heat to liquefy a unit-mass of ice, or to evaporate a unit-mass of water, or to produce a unit of mechanical energy, it follows that this constant may be measured by either of these units. The exact determination of the value of this con- stant is a most refined and difficult experimental roblem; for it involves the precise estimation of @ amouné of solar heat absorbed in traversing the earth’s atmosphere, or the law of extinction of sun- heat in passing through it: hence it is, that, although Several excellent physical experimenters have at- tacked the problem, their results are not so accordant : follows that 1° varies as = but evidently Q is pro- hence ¢° varies as the value of the constant ¢° = SCIENCE. ‘the one that follows. - - 45 as would be desirable. The following are some of the results: — | SOLAR CONSTANT. EXPeERt- Dare. | MENTER. *|Gram-units of heat |Kilogram - units of | | per square centi-| heat per square | metre per minute. | metre per minute. ’ Pouillet . . | 1838 17.633 Forbes - | 1842 28.47 Crova . | 1876 23.23 Violle . | 1876 25.40 Langley . .| 1882 28.40 Joun LECONTE. Berkeley, Cal., June 25, 1883. WARD'S DYNAMIC SOCIOLOGY. Dynamic sociology, or applied social science, as based upon statical sociology and the less complex sciences. By Lester F. Warp, A.M. 2 vols. New York, Appleton, 18838. 20+706; 7+690p. 8°. ie Tuts work of Mr. Ward is composed of two distinct parts. The first gives the outlines of his philosophy, as a basis for his reasoning in The second is a discus- sion of the causes and consequences of prog- ress, or evolution, in human society. For some purposes it would have been wise to give each part a distinct title, reserving for the last part the one used; but the philo- sophie system propounded in the first part has evidently been prepared as a_ basis for the second, and in itself would not be considered by the author as a complete exhibit of his philosophy. Vol. i. contains: first, an outline of the work, in which the author’s purposes are clearly set forth ; second, an historical review, chiefly devoted to a discussion of the philoso- phies of August Comte and Herbert Spencer ; third, the cosmic principles underlying social phenomena, in which the outlines of the new system are set forth. Under the general title of ‘primary aggregation,’ he discusses the constitution of celestial bodies and chemical relations. Under that of ‘ secondary aggrega- tion,’ he discusses biology, psychology, and the genesis of man. Under that of ‘ tertiary aggregation,’ he discusses the genesis of so- ciety and the characteristics of social organiza- tion. The purpose of this preliminary volume on general philosophy, and of the introduction to thé second volume, is tersely given by Mr. Ward himself, as follows : — ‘*The purpose of the present chapter [chap. viii. ], as already announced, has been to accomplish the complete orientation of 46 the reader for the voyage before him. With- out this, much that is to come might appear meaningless, or at least lose its point. ‘¢ Men think in systems. Most systematic treatises are unintelligible unless followed from the beginning and grasped in their en- tirety. A fundamental tone runs through them which prescribes the special sense of every line, and which is wholly unheard in isolated passages. The careful reader of such works, without necessarily acquiescing in the author’s views, is able at least to comprehend them and to do justice to them.”’ 5 “In the following argument, now to be briefly stated, and subsequently to be fully elaborated, the statements made in this chap- ter, as well as those contained in the preced- ine volume, are to be taken as.the basis, or premises, and must be granted ‘for the sake of the argument’ at least, however unsound they may be deemed in themselves.” Elsewhere the theory is more fully elabo- rated, that the more complex sciences can be erasped only as the more simple, sciences upon which they are based are properly understood, and that anthropologic sciences in general must rest firmly upon physics and biology. Though the reader may differ from Mr. Ward in relation to his classification and conclusions, he will still be interested in the symmetry of his system and the perspicuity.of his presen- tation. The essential principle running through the treatise is, that progress in society is based upon the struggle for happiness in the same manner as biologic progress is based upon the struggle for existence. It is therefore a new system, in radical contrast with that taught in our schools and enunciated by the majority of publicists of the present day, of whom Her- bert Spencer is the chief. For this struggle for happiness the term ‘ conation’ (conari, to endeavor) is used, taken from Sir William Hamilton ; and he says, ‘‘ The term ‘ conation ’ will be employed in this work to represent the efforts which organisms put forth in seeking the satisfaction of their desires, and the ends thus sought will be designated as the ‘ ends of conation.’”” Again, the author classifies phenomena as genetic and teleologic. Genetic phenomena are such as appear in series, with natural ante- cedents and consequents, unaffected by design or purpose. Teleologic phenomena do not appear in natural series, the antecedents being physical phenomena controlled by design ex- isting in mind, and the consequents being the purposes for which the will is exercised. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 23. Throughout the work these two classes of phe- nomena are clearly distinguished ; but it is impossible, in a brief review, to set forth fully the importance of the distinction, as the author himself has done. In general terms, it may be stated that biologie progress is due to the struggle for existence, and inyolves genetic phenomena; while sociologic progress is due to the struggle for happiness (conation), and involves teleologic phenomena. ‘« All progress is brought about by adapta- tion. Whatever view we may take of the cause of progress, it must be the result of a correspondence between the organism and the changed environment. This, in, sense, is adaptation. But adaptation is of two kinds. One form of adaptation is pas- sive or consensual, the other form is active or previsional. The former represents natural progress, the latter artificial progress. The former results in a growth, the latter in a manufacture. The one is the genetic process, the other the teleological process. In passive adaptation the means and the end are in im- | mediate proximity, the variation takes place by infinitesimal differences; it is a process of differentiation. In active adaptation, on the contrary, the end is remote from the means ; the latter are adjusted to secure the former by the exercise of foresight; it is a process of calculation.’ By the term ‘dynamic sociology,’ as used by the author, is to be understood a systematie treatise on ‘the forces which impel mankind into social relations, to develop social organi- zation, and to provide and modify the insti- tutions of society. The subject-matter of dynamic sociology, appearing in the second volume, is arranged in the following order, as set forth by the author : — ‘¢The remainder of this work will chiefly consist in the discussion of six terms; and therefore, before entering upon such discus- sion, it is a primary necessity to furnish rigid definitions of each of these terms. ‘« For a purpose which will presently appear, we will assign to each of these terms a letter, — which will fix their order in a series not ad- mitting of any alteration. ‘“‘The first of these terms, ebioh we will designate by the letter A, is happiness; the — second, which we will designate by B, is prog- ress; the third, which we will designate by C, is dynamic action; the fourth, which we will designate by D, is dynamic Ce the fifth, which we will designate by E, is knowledge ; and the sixth, which we yall designate by F, is education. its widest . _ follows: ; ‘* A. Happiness. — Excess of pleasure, or - enjoyment, over pain, or discomfort. ‘*B, Progress. — Success in harmonizing natural phenomena with human advantage. **C, Dynamic action. — Employment of the intellectual, inventive, or indirect method of conation. ‘*D. Dynamic opinion. — Correct views of the relations of man to the universe. **E. Knowledge. — Acquaintance with the environment. ‘* FB. Edueation. — Universal distribution of extant knowledge. j ‘Corresponding to these six terms thus defined, there are six theorems of dynamic sociology, which require to be elaborated and established, and to each of which a separate chapter will be devoted. : ‘* Continuing the literal designations, these theorems are the following : — ‘* A. Happiness is the ultimate end of cona- tion. ‘*B. Progress is the direct means to happi- ~ ness; it is, therefore, the first proximate end of conation, or primary means to the ultimate end. **C. Dynamic action is the direct means to progress; it is, therefore, the second proxi- mate end of conation, or secondary means to the ultimate end. ‘“*D. Dynamic opinion is the direct means to dynamic action; it is, therefore, the third proximate end of conation, or tertiary means to the ultimate end. ‘““E. Knowledge is the direct means to - dynamic opinion; it is, therefore, the fourth proximate end of conation, or fourth means to the ultimate end. ‘*F, Education is the direct means to knowl- edge ; it is, therefore, the fifth proximate end of conation, and is the fifth and initial means to the ultimate end.’’ The remaining six chapters of the work, namely, chapters ix., x., xi., xii., xili., xiv., treat of these six subjects seriatim. In chapter ix., then, the doctrine is set forth __ that happiness is the ultimate end of conation, or human endeavor. Here Mr. Ward discusses _ the nature and genesis of feeling, as the proper basis of a philosophic system involving the interests of man; and he subsequently en- deavors to show, that, what function is to biology, feeling is to sociology. And after a discussion of the intellectual method as com- pared with the physical method of conation, and seyeral collateral subjects, he sets forth + ig i 4 by _. % Jury 13, 1883,] ; SCIENCE, 47 __ * The definitions of these six terms are as_ the doctrine that degree of feeling is con- comitant with degree of organization, and that the pursuit of happiness by man leads to higher physical, mental, and social organi- zation; that, in turn, such higher organization increases feeling, and thus increases pleasure, and thus increases happiness. Chapter x. is devoted to the consideration of progress as the primary means to happiness, and includes : a discussion of the difference be- tween dynamic sociology and moral science ; then a discussion of the growth of the means for communicating ideas, — language in all its forms; then of the arts and industries which are developed in the pursuit of subsistence ; then the origin of government and the institu- tions of government; and, finally, the origin and institutions of religion. , Chapter xi. is entitled *‘ Action,’ —a term chosen in preference to the more common ex- pression, conduct. The chapter is chiefly de- voted to the discussion of a systematic classi- fication of actions, first, as involuntary and voluntary; and yoluntary actions are again divided into impulsive or sensori-motor, and deliberative or ideo-motor. Each of the latter classes consists of two groups ; namely, actions possessing moral quality, and actions devoid of moral quality. It is no part of the author’s purpose to treat of action possessing moral quality ; although, _in order to make clear the irrelevancy of such actions to his discussion, he occupies some space in going over the ground usually covered by writers on ethics. Actions devoid of moral quality are those upon which progress essen- tially depends, and chiefly that branch which falls under the more general head of delibera- tive or ideo-motor actions. They are further subdivided into static and dynamic, the former group embracing the great bulk of human activities in the performance of the ordinary du- ties of life. Static actions of this class do not result in progress, but tend simply to preserve the existing social status. Dynamic actions constitute the really progressive class of actions. The chief fact which distinguishes dynamic actions from all others is, that they are per- formed by the indirect or inventive method. All the progress that has taken place in society has been due to such action. However spon- taneous such progress may appear, it has, nevertheless, been the result of teleologic meth- ods in adjusting natural phenomena in such a manner that they will accomplish desired ends, —remote in themselves, but foreseen by the intelligence of the developing intellect. The results are the essential elements of human 48 -art ; and consequently civilization is fundamen- tally and wholly artificial. Here Mr. Ward introduces a series of illustrations of typical dynamic actions performed in the course of social progress, for the purpose of elucidating the central idea which he desires to embody in the term ‘ dynamic action.’ Chapter xii. is a discussion of opinion as the direct means to progressive action. As dynamic actions are ideo-motor, such actions must result from the possession by the agent of certain underlying and directing ideas. The truism that ‘ideas rule the world’ simply means, that opinions determine actions. But in order to produce dynamic actions, — that is, actions which will, in fact, result in progress, —it is essential that the opinions which under- lie them be in rigid harmony with objective reality. Dynamic action can only flow from -eorrect opinion. Opinions must not only be correct, they must be important. Unless important, no appreciable dynamic result will flow therefrom. The most important opinions, or ideas, are arranged under four general heads: first, cos- mologic ideas; second, biologic ideas; third, anthropologie ideas ; fourth, sociologic ideas. Correct ideas belonging to these four great classes constitute the primary motive power to all human progress. Chapter xiii. is upon knowledge, — the im- mediate data of ideas. Opinions cannot be, directly reached. They are not subject to the will, either of the party holding them or of any other : they are simply consequents. Obviously, the antecedents of ideas consist in the data possessed by the mind relative to the mate- rials and phenomena of nature. Such data are grouped by the author under the general term ‘knowledge.’ Knowledge, therefore, must first exist ; and, if it exist, no effort need be expend- ed in determining opinion. In this chapter the author shows that the chasm which in fact separates the intelligence of the lowest and the highest classes of mankind is chiefly due to inequality in the possession of the data for thought. He shows that the capacity of the mind is, in any particular class of society, prac- tically equal; that, even in what are known as semi-civilized or barbaric races, the capacity exists for a far greater amount of knowledge than is ever obtained. Chapter xiv. is on education as the direct means to knowledge. The possession of knowledge, therefore, if it could be secured, would constitute the true means to the proxi- mate end, and thus secure the ultimate purpose. But the human mind is so constituted that it SCIENCE. bai [Vou. IL, No. 23. cannot be safely intrusted to secure this end for itself; for the individual cannot understand the necessity for this knowledge, or guide himself wisely in its attainment, prior to its acquisition: that is, the period of acquisition is in the earlier years of the life of the indi- vidual, when he must be guided by others. The initial means in the entire series is there- fore education, actively considered as a func- tion of society. The work closes with a condensed but fun- damental treatment of the general subject of popular education, in which appears a review of the various theories that have been held, and that still control human action on this subject. He divides the general body of publie opinion into five parts, which he denominates ‘ the five kinds of education.’ These are: first, edu- cation of experience; second, of discipline ; third, of culture ; fourth, of research; fifth, of information. The first four of these kinds of education are considered for the purpose of showing, that, however important in them- selves, they are insufficient to accomplish the great end of securing an artificial civilization as the product of direct social action. last of these forms of education, therefore, is the only one which embodies such promise. The author sees little hope in the imperfect and desultory attempts of individuals to secure this great need in society. To render it of any value, he claims that education must be the sys- tematic work of society in its organized capa- city. Ceasing to exert itself longer in yain attempts to secure directly the various proxi- mate ends, society should vigorously adopt this inital means, and concentrate its energies on the work which is clearly practicable, — that of fur- nishing to all its members the data actually in its possession. Under the heading ‘ Matter of education ” the author briefly, but without dogmatism, dis- cusses the general theorem that the subject- matter should be a knowledge of nature, —a knowledge of the environment of the individ- ual and of mankind. His treatment of the methods of popular instruction is brief, main- taining that this is merely a matter of supply in the politico-economic sense, which will cer- tainly come as soon as there shall be an ade- quate demand. He says, ‘‘ The methods and — the teachers have always been as good as the © popular notions of education, and they will doubtless continue to be so.’’ The only crite- rion which he does lay down with regard to method is that it be teleologic. He insists that education, like every other department of civili- zation, must be an artificial product; that it The. tos. ae San JULY 13, 1883.] _ must be undertaken deliberately, planned by ‘human intelligence, and achieved through hu- man effort. The author discusses, in a broad and philo- sophic manner, a great body of questions in - which civilized, man is deeply interested. He has therefore written for a wide reading; and happily his style, in its essential character- istics, will not repel those to whom it is pre- sented. GEOLOGY OF SOUTHERN PENNSYL- : VANIA. Second geological survey of Pennsylvania. — Report of progress T*.—The geology of Bedford and Fulton counties. By J. J. Stevenson. Harris- burg, Survey, 1882. 154382 p.,2 maps. 8°. Proressor Stevenson has made a detailed survey of the district, which has led to but few _ material changes in the map of the first survey. ‘The descriptions of the structural geology are careful, plain, and easily understood; and the second part of the report, consisting of a day- book of observations along the roads, with ref- erence to outcrops, mines, and quarries, will doubtless prove very useful. It is well that Professor Stevenson has not completely neglected paleontology in his de- __ seriptions of the various formations; but this feature of his report is capable of much im- _ provement, only about sixty species being cited as occurring in a section that extends from the upper coal-measures to the calcifer- ous. The value of his determinations, and the scientific interest of his work, would have been much increased, if care had been taken to collect and determine the fossils found in each group, and lists of them published, together with the localities in which they oc- curred. It is not meant to infer that Profes- 'sor Stevenson’s determinations are incorrect, -but simply that he gives no evidence in sup- port of them. For instance: he says, ‘‘ Some - of these layers contain fossils which are dis- ASTRONOMY. Eclipses of Jupiter's satellites.— Cornu pro- ‘poses to observe these eclipses photometrically, com- paring the light of the satellite during the time _ while it is entering or emerging from the shadow _ with that of an artificial satellite visible in the same field, and made to vary in brightness at pleasure by “an adjustable ‘ cat’s eye,’ so called. He shows that the moment when the light of the satellite is half SCIENCE. ? 49 tinctly Chemung, none whatever of Portage type being present; but, owing to the weath- ering, the forms can be identified only generi- eally.’? The writer does not think he is alone in doubting whether there are any fossils which are distinctively Chemung. At any rate, it would be interesting to know what these gen- eraare. He mentions no fossils in his Hudson River group, and in the Trenton mentions only three forms, which are also very common at the top of the lower Silurian. The director of the survey, in his letter of transmittal, makes the following curious remark, which seems to indicate a peculiar conception of the objects of paleontology. He says, ‘‘ Paleontologists will find it an easy task to copy out from the index, separately, the whole list of fossil names, and arrange them afterwards to suit their own pur- poses.’’ Certainly, paleontologists do not want to arrange fossils to suit themselves, but to find out how nature has arranged them. The two maps accompanying the report are of very indifferent quality, as it is difficult, especially over the Broad Top area, to follow on the maps the descriptions in the text. Mr. Stevenson disclaims responsibility for several things in them, which may account for the discrepancies between the text and the maps. Professor Les- ley seems to think that the maps may be easily followed by a person familiar with the country ; but the maps should have been constructed so that others, also, may be able to understand them. He seems to apply preconceived no- tions of orography, whether it agrees with the geology as studied in the field or not; and, if the responsibility of preparing the maps rested with the same person who has done the field- work and prepared the text, the result would probably be more intelligible. Mr. Stevenson mentions a bed 195 feet above the Pittsburg coal. This would apparently belong to the upper series, considered Permian in other re- ports of the survey; but this does not appear to be represented anywhere on the map. WEEKLY SUMMARY OF THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. that of its unobscured condition is the one which can be most accurately determined, and urges that the photometric observations should be so arranged as to give an automatic record. Admiral Mouchez has authorized the application of the necessary ap- paratus to one of the large equatorials of the Paris observatory. M. Cornu does not seem to be aware that a very similar, but really more precise, method of observa- 50 SCIENCE. tion has been in use at the,Harvard college obser- vatory for the past two years. Prof. Pickering, however, very wisely prefers to compare the eclipsing satellite with one of the other satellites, or with an image of the planet, rather than with an artificial star; and he uses polarization apparatus instead of a cat’s eye to equalize the brightness of the objects compared. — (Comptes rendus, June 4.) ©. A. ¥. [40 MATHEMATICS. Theory of functions. —In a series of three me- moirs, M. Appell has reproduced in a more extended form a number of investigations which he has recently communicated to the French academy of sciences. The first of the three memoirs treats of uniform functions of an analytical point (2, y); the term ‘analytical point’ meaning simply the system of values of (a, y) formed by any arbitrary value of x and the, say, m corresponding values of y, The first section of the memoir contains three theorems con- cerning the development in rational fractions of such functions. In the second section a uniform function is defined, and also the poles and essential singular points (points singuliers essentiels, Weierstrass’ wesent- liche singuldére stelle). Functions with a finite num- ber of singular points are then taken up, and a generalization of a known theorem concerning the coefficients in the development of a uniform func- tion is given: viz., if F(a, y) is a uniform function of the analytical point (a, y), haying a finite number of singular points (aj, 6;), and if R; are the residues relatively to these points; if, further, in a certain region of the analytical point (@= ee, lim 2 = Ch), v=o . we have F(z,y) = = A® a — then we have y=—o vay the relation AD +A +...+A™ = Ri+Rot... +R, Tn this, 7 has all values from 1 up to n, and & has all values from 1 up to m; m denoting the number of values of y corresponding to a given value of 2. After a brief review of some of the properties of the Abelian integrals, the author gives a generalization of a holomorphic function of x in the interior of a circle whose centre is a in terms of ascending powers of (c—a). The subject of functions with an in- finite number of singular points is then taken up, and a generalization is first given of Mittag-Zeffler’s theorem concerning these functions; viz., if a series of distinct analytical points (a,,6,)... (505): ahs are such that lim. (a,, b,) = (ab) for » = o, and if F(x, y), Fo(a, y)... F(a, y) isa series of rational functions of « and y which become infinite only in the two points (a@,, b,) and (a, b) respectively, then there exists a uniform function ®(z, y) having only the point (a, b) as an essential singular point, and admitting as poles the points (q@,, b,) in such a man- ner that the difference ®(x, y) — F(a, y) is regular in the point (q,, D,). The second memoir by M. Appell is a continuation of the first. In it he considers the decomposition into prime factors of a uniform function of an analyti- (Vou. IL, No. 28. cal point (x,y) having only one essential singular point, and also gives a theory of doubly periodic functions with essential singular points. The author examines, first, functions having in a parallelogram of periods a finite number of singular points, and gives an interesting theorem; viz., the sum of the residues of F (u) relative to the singular points situated in a given parallelogram of periods is equal to zero. A general expression is then obtained for a doubly periodic uniform function F (uw) having in‘a given parallelogram of periods only one singular point. __ In the third memoir, M. Appell considers the de- velopment of functions in series inside an area bounded by arcs of circles. These three memoirs by M. Appell, taken with a memoir by M. Poincaré, which precedes them, and which has already been © referred to in these pages, constitute a very valuable series of papers on the modern theory of functions. — (Acta math., i. no. 2.) T. Cc. [41 PHYSICS. Acoustics, Upper limit of audibility.—Pauchon and Ber- trand have investigated the question of the effect of the intensity of the sound upon this limit. A siren blown by steam with pressures varying from 0.5 to 1.5 atmospheres gave from 24,000 to 30,000 double vibrations as a limit; but, with certain modifications and a higher pressure (24 atmospheres), the most acute sound that could be produced by the instrument, due to 86,000 vibrations, was still heard. Metallic rods of different lengths, set into longitudinal vibration in the usual manner, gave the following results: 1. The length of the rod giving the highest perceptible sound is independent of its diameter ; 2. For steel, copper, and silver, the lengths are proportional to the velocity of sound in those media, These results disagree with those reached with the siren. The authors find, however, that, if the ear is aided bya resonating trumpet, the limit is slightiy raised ; that the limit is raised with substances like rosin, producing the most energetic friction ; and that the sound, even when too high to affect the ear, still acts on a sensitive flame. These results of Pauchon with the siren agree with the fact observed several years since by Dr. H. P.. Bowditch of Boston, that, with a Konig’s bar of exceedingly large diameter, the limit of audibility is higher than with one of the ordinary size, — (Comp- tes rendus, April 9.) c. R. c. [42 Production of whispered vowels.— Lefort calls attention to the wide range of whispered vowels that can be artificially produced by blowing across resonant tubes or spheres: ou, 0 (closed), 0 (open), U, eu, @, i, € (closed), é (open), —all being produced as the capacity of the resonator is diminished. By diminishing the length of an open tube the vowels a, &, e, eu, u, &, é, 7, are successively heard, while ou, 6, 0, are obtained by closing the upper end of the tube more or less.— (Comptes rendus, April 23.) Cc, R. CG. [43 Transmission of sounds by gases.— Ney- reneuf has studied the relative transmission of sound bd | Jury 13, 1883.) 7 through air, carbonic oxide, carbonic acid, and illu- minating-gas. The sound is transmitted through a tube two metres long, containing the gas experimented upon, and the intensity is studied by noticing the distance at which a sensitive flame ceases to be acted upon by it. He finds that air and carbonic oxide _ have the same transmissive power, air and illuminat- _ ing-gas give very variable results, and carbonic acid _ has a much greater transmissive power than air, A _ table of results for air and carbonic acid is given. — _ (Comptes rendus, April 30.) ©. R. c. [44 Experimental demonstration of velocity of sound.—Griveaux arranges a glass tube and a bar of pine wood of equal length, so that the passage of a pulse through either the column of air in the tube or the wooden rod shall move one of two light screws, and so break an electric contact. The cur- rent from a battery is divided, and passes into the two coils of a differential galvanometer; the light screw _ resting on the end of the rod being placed in one circuit, and a similar screw, resting on a membrane closing the end of the tube, in the other. The re- _ sistances are so arranged that the needle of the dif- ferential galyanometer remains normally undeflected. If a sound is produced by striking a drum, the needle of the galvanometer is deflected in such a direction as to show that the contact is broken by the move- ) ment of that screw resting on the end of the wooden rod, thus illustrating the greater velocity of the sound-wave in wood than in air. —(Journ. phys., f May.) ©.-B. c. [45 P ENGINEERING. bs Electric stop for steam-engines.— Mr. Tate, an _ English engineer, has combined the Leclanché bat- tery, an electro-magnet, an auxiliary steam-cylinder, and a stop, to the closing of the stop-valve of the steam-engine, if its sudden stoppage should become necessary. It has been applied by Mr. Tate to the { driving-engines of his large woollen-mills in Bradford. _ The mechanism consists of a weighted suspension 4 rod attached to the stop-valve by a bracket, and actu- ated by a small steam-cylinder, the piston of which is supplied with steam through a valve which is opened by the action of the electro-magnet and the weighted rod. The movement of this auxiliary en- gine shuts the stop-valve of the engine in a small fraction of the time usually required to close it by hand. The wires of the battery are carried to vari- ous parts of the mill, so that the engine can be * shut down’ at any instant, and from any one of a number of promptly accessible points. This arrangement is proposed to be attached to the engines of steam-vessels, the wires being led to the bridge, and to other parts of the vessel where the officers can easily reach the button. — (London times, Oct. 21.) RB. A. T. [46 _ Forms of steamers.— Two vessels recently built by the Messrs. J. & G. Thompson have been compared to determine their relative economy as a means of transportation as affected by a considerable differ- ence in proportions, One was 390 feet long, 42 feet beam, and drew 18 feet of water : the second was 375 by 45 by 20 feet. The longer vessel had less fine ends _ = $ SCIENCE. 51 than the broader ship. The former required 5,100- horse power to drive her 15 knots an hour, while the latter only demanded 3,900. At 13 knots, the power demanded was the same for both ; but at higher speeds the difference became greater and greater, and more and more in favor of the shorter, broader, but finer ended vessel. The gain to be expected from giving ships greater beam, and, at the same time, finer ends, is expected to be observed in larger and faster vessels. — (Mechanics, May 26.) Rk. H. 7. [47 Efficiency of the steam-engine.— Professor R. R. Werner, of the Technical high school at Darmstadt, publishes a paper describing his trial of a compound engine driving a mill in Augsburg. The engine has an indicated power of 132 horses. The cylinders have a proportion of 2.75 to 1; they are steam-jacket- ed, as is the intermediate reservoir ; the ratio of ex- pansion is 14. The boilers carry a pressure of about 7 atmospheres, and the steam supplied contains 3 per cent water. The steam-jackets condense about 11 percent of the steam, and the cylinders demand about 7 kilograms (15.4 lbs.) of steam per horse-power and per hour, beside that condensed in the jackets, This is about the amount required as a minimum in the best-known English and American engines. In this country, a very similar figure has been reached by Corliss and by Leavitt. — (Zeitschr. ver. deutsch. ing., May.) 8. H. T. [48 ‘Compound’ locomotives.—M. Mallet com- municates to the French society of engineers a note from M. Borodine, giving the results of experiments to determine the relative economy of the simple and the compound system of engine for locomotives. The engines experimented with were those designed for the railway from Bayonne to Biarritz by M. Mallet. The trials extended over a considerable period of time, and the comparisons were made fairly com- plete. The result showed the compound system to have an economy of from ten to twenty per cent, according to the conditions under which they are carried out. The variation in the ratio of expan- sion is very greatly restricted in the compound engine. The use of the steam-jackets with which the engines were provided did not prove to be of advantage. The expenditure of steam was greater when they were in use than when they were shut off. —(Mem. soc. ing. civ.) BR. H. T. [49 CHEMISTRY. ( Organic.) Compounds of benzotrichloride with phenols and phenylamines. — When a mixture of one mole- cule of benzotrichloride and two molecules of phenol is heated gently, O. Débner finds that the following reaction takes place: — O,H,0OH C,H,CCl, + 20,H,OH = O,H,CCl ® + 2HOI. ots The remaining chlorine atom is replaced by a hydroxyl group when the product is heated with water, forming dioxytriphenylcarbinol, — (OH), _/0,H,0H C,H,“ \C,H,OH” 52 By reduction, dioxytriphenylmethan Bee (age ne) is formed. An analogous reaction takes place if resorcine is used instead of phenol. * The resulting resorcine benzein, by reduction, gives tetraoxytri- phenylmethan, — C,H,CH CHG OLS: With primary aromatic amines, benzotrichloride united readily. When added to a mixture of di- methylaniline and zine chloride, it formed malachite green, — (OH) CyHiN(CH3)2 Cry CyHyN(CH)» By reduction, this substance gave the corresponding leuko-base, — H C,H,N(CHg)>. CH, CoH (CH) | The base malachite green was easily decomposed, when heated with hydrochloric acid, into dimethyl- amine and benzoyldimethylaniline. This reaction points. to the following structure for malachite green: — (CHy)> pe = G as ie (CH) >. The action of benzoyl clam upon hydroxyl or amido compounds seems, therefore, to be normal to the para position with respect to the amido or the hydroxyl group. — (Ann. chem., ccxvii. 223.) C.F. M. 50 GEOLOGY. ! Lithology: The Potsdam and St. Peters sandstones. — The surface induration of the friable Potsdam and St. Peters sandstones, as determined by macroscopic observations in 1871-73, was brought to the notice of the readers of ScrmeNcE some time ago (i. 146), while a recent interesting paper by Prof. R. D. Irving gives the results of his microscopic investigations on the same subject. Irving finds, as Sorby had previously, that ordinary quartz grains, formerly rounded and worn, have been built out and supplied with crystal facets from silica depos- ‘ited later on them. He finds that the induration of the above-mentioned sandstones arises from the depo- sition of intersticial quartz cementing the grains. The deposited quartz is found to be optically ori- ented, the same as the enclosed grain, which is dis- tinguished by its cloudiness and worn surface, and frequently by a coating of oxide of iron upon it. To the deposition of quartz upon worn quartz grains is ascribed the occurrence of quartz crystals in the Potsdam sandstone described in 1882 by Rev. A. A. Young. Credit should have been given by both Irying and Young to Rev. John Murrish for calling attention to the occurrence of quartz crystals in Potsdam sandstone in 1870-72 (Bull. Wise. acad., ii. 32), especially since Murrish’s observations were dis- credited at the time. SCIENCE. All quartz crystals in sandstone have not this derivation, as the writer showed for the Lake Supe- rior sandstone in 1880, the crystals of which come from old eruptive rocks owing to the decomposition of the matrix. It is pleasant to find my earlier observations on the surface induration of the Wis- consin sandstones, and the formation in them of quartz crystals, sustained by the much more complete and valuable work of Irving, made, as his was, with- out any knowledge of mine. Irving holds that the quartz deposited may come from the action of water on the occasional felspar particles in the rock, although sometimes from an external source. He further regards the induration of quartzites and quartz schists as caused by the same deposition of intersticial quartz. — (Amer. jowrn. « sc., xxv. 401.) M. E. W. [SL Antase as an alteration product of titanite.— The titanite in a biotite amphibole granite from the Troad was found by Mr. J. S. Diller to be replaced by a light wine-yellow to honey-yellow mineral, showing, under the microscope, quadratic and rhom- bic sections. The former are isotropic, and have a well-marked cleavage parallel to their sides; the latter are strongly doubly refracting, extinguish parallel to the diagonal, and have one cleavage par- allel to the short diagonal and another to the edges. In order to isolate the substance, the finely pulver- ized rock was separated into two portions, one of lighter and the other of heavier specific gravity than 2.72, by means of the potassium-iodine-mereury solu- tion. The yellow mineral was found in the second portion, which contained also iron ore, zircon, and apatite. The ore was removed by the electro-magnet, and the apatite by nitric acid. By means of the cad- mium-boron-tungstate solution it was shown that the yellow mineral had a specific gravity between 3.6 and 4.5. Some grains were picked out, and found to be insoluble in hot aqua regia. The mixed zircon and yellow mineral powder gave a reaction for titanium, while the pure zircon would not: hence it was inferred that the mineral contained titanium. Its angles were found to be 98° 24° and 136° 16’, while the corresponding ones of antase are 97° 51’ and 136° 36’. From its optical, chemical, and crystallographic characters, it was then inferred that the yellow mineral was antase. — (Neues jahrb. miner., 1883.) M. E. W. [52 q GHOGRAPHY. (South America.) The Puno railroad, Peru.—Dr. R. Copeland gives a readable account of a journey over this re- markable railroad from its beginning at Mollendo on the coast, through Arequipa, to Puno on Lake Titi- caca, and of his farther travels by boat on the lake, and by stage, beyond to La Paz in Bolivia, The features that attracted his special attention were the deep, narrow valleys followed by the road in its sharp: windings while ascending from one pampa level to the next; the broad, flat, barren pampas at great and greater altitudes; and the superb views of the vol- canic peaks and ranges of the Cordillera, — Misti, [Vou. IL, No. 23... Jury 13, 1883.] ; Chaycam, and Pichupichu, eighteen to nineteen thou- sand feetin height. On the pampa of La Joya (4,100 feet) he saw countless hillocks of pure, sharp sand : (médanos), in half-moon form, with the curve to the west or windward (see Scrence, i. 488). A ; mirage gave these white hills the appearance of drift- ice in an arctie sea.—(Deutsch. geogr. bliitter, vi. 1883, 105.) Ww. M. D. [53 : Colombia.— R. B. White, for several years resi- dent in Colombia, and a companion of Stiibel and Reiss in some of their expeditions, furnishes a sum- Mary account of the more attractive parts of this republic, and of its productions, and chance of devel- opment. Several of the rivers that flow northward between parallel ranges of the Cordillera are navi- gable for small steamers for many miles into the in- terior, opening districts well adapted to agriculture, and well supplied with timber and mineral products. _ Above the low plains the climate is healthy. A good share of the world’s platinum supply is obtained from the upper valley of the San Juan, and gold oceurs in profitable quantity in many of the river- gravels. Brief mention is made of an ascent of the snowy volcano, Puracé; and the extensive view from the Cerro Munchique, nearly ten thousand feet high, west of Popayan, is highly praised. The geological observations on the origin of mountain and valley form do not carry conviction, and the frequent men- tion of volcanic upheaval and valleys of fracture re- mind one of the theories of fifty years ago. — (Proc. roy. geogr. soc., Vv. 1883, 249.) Ww. M. D. [54 (Africa.) _The Kongo. — Dr. Pechuel-Loesche, a member of the German-African expedition to Loango in 1873-76, and later in charge at Stanley Pool while Stanley went to Europe, recently read an address on the Kongo and the neighboring mountains of western _ Africa before the German geographical congress at _ Frankfort. The river is remarkable for the rapids all along its course, and especially in its narrow __ passage through the mountains below Stanley Pool, where it falls nine hundred and twenty-eight feet in some three hundred and forty miles, Of the several falls in this part of its course, only one is vertical, that of Isangila, with a height of sixteen feet. There are two periods of high water, with a rise of twenty feet, when the falls disappear in a uniform rushing flow. The water rises from September to January, falls from January to March, attains its greatest height in the rainy months (April and May), and its lowest level in July and August. Many of the mountain brooks have cut deep channels, and join the main stream on a level; but some of the larger - rivers of the interior, flowing over horizontal rocks, haye not cut their way so deeply, and, on joining the _ Kongo, form cataracts. Thus the Luenga falls three hundred feet, and the Luvubi five hundred feet. (This, if correctly reported, is certainly a yery abnormal arrangement.) The mountain belt is about two hundred miles wide, rising from a sloping plain at about one thousand feet to rounded and monotonous elevations with a maximum of three thousand feet. The higher land is grassy, with small SCIENCE. 53 trees and apparently leafless bushes : the more lux- uriant growth of lofty trees and palms is hidden in the valleys. It is these deep and steep-sided valleys that make the rather open upland difficult to traverse. Near the river, the natives have destroyed all the forest-trees, either by burning or cutting. The villages are built on high and bare summits. Dr. Pechuel-Loesche regarded the Makoko (ruler of the stream), with whom de Brazza had made a treaty two years ago (SCIENCE, i. 7), as a local ruler of no general authority. The Makoko’s son had reported that his father had ceded no land to de Brazza, and that he had no French flag in his possession. There are four Makokos in this region; and none of them has a right of precedence over the others, or any title to be sovereign of the Bateke population of this part of the Kongo. — (Proc. roy. geogr. soc., vy. 1883, 286.) W. M. D. [55 The muatiamvo of the southern Kongo basin. — Max Buchner, the fourth European who has been in this region in the last two centuries, spent half a year at the residence of the ‘muatiamvo,’ or king (ScIENCE, i. 19), and reports on the peculiar form of his government. The kingdom on the southern side of the Kongo basin, the special field of the German-African explorations, includes an area about as large as Germany. Its population can hardly exceed two millions, and its power cannot compare with that of Mtesa’s country, farther east, where an army of a hundred thousand men can take the field. Here the army is not more than one thousand strong at the highest ; and Buchner says he could go where he chose with fifty European soldiers, if they were not attacked by that more dreaded enemy, the African fever. And yet, through a large part of south-western Africa, the muatiamvo is the greatest native power. The most notable peculiarity of the government consists in the presence of a second high authority besides the muatiamyo, namely, the ‘lukokessa,’ or queen: she is not the wife of the king, who has some sixty wives of his own, but is free and independent of him, having her own chief consort, the ‘shamoana,’ and numerous frequently changing husbands of lower order. Buch- ner traces the origin of this form of government, and gives a list of thirteen muatiamvos, down to Shanana or Naoesh-a-kat, the present king, and de- seribes the different parts of the kingdom and its neighboring states. — (Deutsche geogr. blitter., vi. 1883, 56.) W. M. D. [56 BOTANY. Pollination of Rutaceae.— Urban has studied the adaptations for fertilization in a considerable number of species of this heterogeneous order, using living material at the Berlin botanic garden. As few of the genera have been previously studied in this respect, a rather full translation of his tabulated summary is given. : I. MONOCLINOUS SPECIES. A. With dichogamous (protandrous) flowers. 1. Nutation successively places the dehiscent an- thers at the point which the receptive stigma occu- pies later, See es ae | Be ae es Lk i ; Zt " 54 SCIENCE. a. Style undeveloped in the staminate stage. a. The filaments rise from their original horizon- tal position, place themselves against the ovary, re- sume their original position, and again become erect, but without lengthening; petals plane; self-pollina- tion usually impossible: Ruta. 8. The originally short, erect filaments length- en, curye inwards, and again straighten; petals united below in a tube; close pollination possible by gravitation: Coleonema. b. Style developed in the staminate stage, though not always to its full length; so placed as to oppose self-pollination. — Flowers zygomorphic. a. The stamens which lie on the lower lip suc- cessively bend upward, and, after dehiscence, resume their original position; the end of the style likewise bends up at maturity: Dictamnus. 8. The stamens, originally bent upwards, suc- cessively straighten at maturity, then bend outward; the style, bent downward when young, straightens when the stigma becomes receptive: Calodendron. | = Flowers actinomorphic. The filaments suc- cessively elongate after dehiscence. a. In the staminate stage the style is bent hori- zontally across the ovary; the stamens bend over the pistil successively at maturity, then lengthen, and turn outward between the finally erect petals: Diosma tenuifolia. 8. Similar to the last; but the staminodia, and not the petals, become erect, the stamens bending outward but little: Adenandra. y. After flowering, the style bends outward and downward between the staminodia, the petals remain horizontal, the staminodia lie against the ovary, and, after dehiscence, the fertile stamens resume their original horizontal position: Barosma. 2. The stamens nutate but once, and simultane- ously. In the staminate stage they are perpendicu- lar, or incline but little toward each other, so that the anthers are in contact at their margin; in the pistillate stage they have bent outward. a. The anthers fall away when the filaments curve outward: Ravenia. b. Anthers persistent on the bent filaments. — Pollen may fall on the unreceptive stigma, and so effect self-fertilization. Even later this is not im- possible, as the wind or gravitation may carry pollen from the reflexed stamens to the mature stigma. a. In the pistillate stage the style elongates: Zieria and EHriostemon. 8. With normally developed stigma: Boronia (ex parte). y. When the style lengthens, the stigma may encounter the anthers of the still erect stamens: Erythrochiton. = The viscidity of the pollen, and the situation of the anthers, prevent self-pollination: Metrodorea. 3. The stamens do not nutate at all. a. Self-pollination possible in the pendant flowers after the separation of the lobes of the stigma: Correa. b. The style is surrounded by staminodia in the [Vou, IIL., No. 28. first stage; in the second stage spontaneous pollina- tion by neighboring flowers may occur if insect- crossing has not been effected: Agathosma (ex parte). B. With synacmic flowers. 1. Self-fertilization impossible. a. With viscid pollen: Boronia (ex parte). b. The stigma surpassing the anthers: Triphasia. 2. Spontaneous self-pollination impossible because of the situation of the filaments, but spontaneous crossing between neighboring flowers favored: Aga- thosma (ex parte). 8. Spontaneous pollination of either sort opposed; crossing by insects inevitable: Crowea. 4, Spontaneous close fertilization possible; cross- ing favored: Cusparia, Choisya, Skimmia (ex parte), - Murraya, Citrus. II. DIcLINOUS SPECIES. Self-fertilization impossible; crossing necessary: Ptelea, Skimmia (ex parte). — (Jahrbuch bot. gart. Berlin, ii.) Ww. . [57 ZOOLOGY. Mollusks, Credit to an American naturalist.—In an official report by M. Bouchen-Brandely, secretary of the college of France, the author states that he has learned by two years of study that the sexes of the Portuguese oyster are confined to separate indi- viduals ; that after this discovery he conceived that it might be possible to artificially fertilize the eggs of this mollusk ; and that, after two years more of experi- menting, this attempt has been successful. Ameri- cans will be interested to learn that in 1879 an American naval officer, Lieut. Francis Winslow, who was stationed at Gibraltar for a few weeks, determined the unisexuality of the Portuguese oys- ter, and reared it from artificially fertilized eggs. His results were printed in the American naturalist in 1879 or 1880; but, as I have no opportunity for reference at present, I cannot give the exact date. —w. kK. B. [58 Notes. — In the year-book of the Verein fir vaterlandische naturkunde in Wirttemberg, published lately at Stuttgart, Weinland has a paper on the mol- lusk fauna of the Wiirttembergisch Franken, and Wundt one on the zone of Ammonites transversarius in the Suabian white Jura. —— The second part of the Quarterly journal of microscopical science con- tains a paper by Lankester on the existence of Spen- gel’s olfactory organ and of paired genital ducts in Nautilus pompilius. —— Heude’s ‘Conchyliologie fluviatile’ of Nanking and Central China approaches completion. The ninth and concluding fasciculus will appear during the present year. It is luxuri- ously illustrated, and printed in large quarto, —— Kuster’s continuation of Martini and Chemnitz Conchylien cabinet bids fair to go on, like Tenny- son’s brook, forever. Lieferung 322 is announced. This work would be much benefited by the total exclusion of the frightful engravings which illus- trated the earlier editions and are still pressed into the service. —— J. B. Gassiés, known by his concho- oe JuLy 138, 1888.] logical researches in New Caledonia and Southern France, has recently died. —w. H. D. [59 Insects. American paleozoic insects.—R. D. Lacoe, whose collection of these objects must be one of the largest, if not the largest, in the country, has prepared a list of those hitherto published, including twenty- six genera and forty-eight species of hexapods, five genera and species of arachnids, and nine genera and nineteen species of myriapods, —a total of forty genera and seventy-two species, This embraces, how- ever, three genera and fourteen species still unpub- lished. The list is purely bibliographical, excepting that it contains careful statements of the place of discovery of the fossils, the name of the finder, and the place of present deposit. About half of the described species have been published within the last five years. — (Wyom. hist. geol. soc., publ. 5.) [60 A monstrous caterpillar.— E. H. Jones figures a curious larva of the geometrid moth Melanippe montanata of Europe, which he exhibited at an entomological reunion at the Royal aquarium on March 5. It has the antennae and legs of the perfect insect fully developed, while in other respects a normal larva. It was reared from the egg with a dozen others. Last November this one, then normal, was considerably larger than the rest of the brood, Abnormal larva of Melanippe montanata. and was noticed as a constant feeder. ‘‘On Feb, 15 I was astonished to find that this forward individual __ had developed the antennae of the imago, but with- out in any other way altering its laryal appearance. For a space of two or three days the antennae were beautifully pectinated, and then the prolegs [thoracic legs ?] of the imago became perfect... . Both antennae and legs then gradually shrank and dried until the 20th.’’ — (Entom., xvi. 121.) [61 VERTEBRATES. : Temperature and pulse rate.— By means of his new method of isolating the mammalian heart, _ Prof. Martin has been able to make an accurate study of the effect of variations of temperature on the rate of beat of the dog’s heart when completely separated physiologically from all the rest of the body except the lungs. In the brief abstract of his _ work which has been published, a short description of the method of operating is given, together with “some of the more important results which have been obtained. He finds that in the mammalian heart, as in that of the frog, the rate of beat is gradually in- creased as the temperature of the blood is raised from 27° to 42° C. The quick pulse of fever can ‘therefore be explained by the direct action of the ae eas ee el SCIENCE. 5d heated blood on the heart itself, without assuming any special action upon the extrinsic inhibitory or accelerator nerve-centres, The rate of beat of the heart is found to bear a much more direct relation to the temperature of the blood in the coronary arteries than to the tem- perature of the blood in the right auricle or ven- tricle. An interesting point which comes ont of the method of work is, that, although the defibrinated calf’s blood used to nourish the heart was repeatedly cir- culated through the heart and lungs for several hours, it gave no evidence of clotting at the end of an experiment, showing that fibrinogen is not formed in these organs. — (Proc. roy. soc., no. 223, 1883.) W. H. H. [62 Lymphatics of periosteum.— George Hoggan and Frances Hoggan criticise the previous writings on this subject, and give the results of their own studies, They assert that what Budge described as the lym- phatics are really capillary blood-vessels, Their own conclusions they summarize as follows :— 1. The lymphatics of the periosteum exist only on the outer surface, or within the outer gelatinous (white fibrous) stratum of the membrane. They never ramify upon the inner or bony surface. 2. When the periosteum is thin, more especially when the animal is old, the whole lymphatic plexus lies free upon the outer surface; but when the periosteum is thick, lymphatic twigs may pass part way through, but they never reach the inner surface. 3, The lym- phatics accompany the blood-vessels, as if arranged to drain them. 4. No lymphatics exist on the sur- face of the great cavities of the bone. ‘‘ There is thus every reason to believe that the lymphatics neyer come in contact with the bone itself, and that bone possesses no lymphatics apart from those found within the periosteum, which may be physiologically considered, therefore, as the lymphatics of bone.’’ — (Journ. anat. physiol., xvii. 308.) Cc. S. M. [63 Fish. Classification of the Petromyzontids. — The Lampreys have been systematically considered by Gill, and are differentiated into two sub-families: 1. The Petromyzontinae, ‘ with the suproral lamina me- dian and undivided ;’ and 2. The Caragolinae, ‘ with two lateral suproral Jaminae.’ The former embraces six genera, one of which is named for the first time Exomegas, and is intended for the Petromyzon ma crostomus of Buenos Aires: the Caragolinae are con- fined to the southern hemisphere; i.e., Australia and Pacific South America. —(Proc. U. S, nat. mus., iv. 521.) [64 Characters of the Ephippiids.— The family of Ephippiids is distinguished by T. Gill from the Chae- todontids by ‘the bifurcation of the post-temporal bones, and the wide, scaly isthmus extending from the pectoral region to the chin, and separating the branchial apertures.—(Proc. U. S. nat. mus., iv. 557.) (65 Extinct fauna of Idaho and Oregon. — Professor E. D. Cope, referring to the remains of 56 erence fishes from the middle valley of the Snake River in Idaho and eastern Oregon, stated that bones collected from sections now dry, but which had formerly been portions of lake-basins in the Oregon district, in- dicated a close relationship with the fishes now found in the remaining lakes and rivers. The number of species of fishes collected from the Idaho beds amounts to twenty-two. They are all distinct from those found in the Oregon basin, and cannot be iden- tified with existing forms, although, with two excep- tions, they belong to existing genera. families of fishes obtained from these beds are ‘not now found west of the Rocky Mountains, except a single species of one of them (Percidae) in California. Of eyen greater interest was the fact that this fauna includes representatives of the Cobitidae, —a family of fishes entitely absent in the living fauna of North America. The presence of their remains in the Idaho beds indicates a probable former con- nection between North America and Asia. The names ‘Idaho Lake’ and ‘Idaho - deposits’ were proposed for the lake and deposits now first described. The formation is distinct from any previously known, and is older than the Oregon lake-deposit. With the exception of fishes, the remains of but few vertebrates were found in the Idaho beds, although the Oregon deposits are full of the bones of mammals and birds. The means of indicating the exact geological position of these pliocene beds, as compared with those of Europe, was as yet wanting. —(Acad. nat. sc. Philad.; meeting June 19.) [66 Reptiles and batrachians. Spermatozoon of newt.— Dowdeswell describes avery minute barb at the tip of the head of the spermatozoon of the newt: it measures 1.5“ in breadth by 2/in length. He looked for it in other animals, but did not find it. —(Quart. journ. micr. sc., 1883, 836.) C. S. M. ; [67 Werves of the frog’s palate. — Stirling and Mac- donald describe fully the palatine nerves of the frog, their origin, and their general and minute distribu- tion. There is a coarse plexus of medullated fibres and a finer plexus of naked fibres, which last inner- vate the blood-vessels and the glands, besides forming the ultimate ramifications of the nerves. In the course of the former plexus are scattered unipolar cells, each with a straight and a spiral fibre. There are, besides, many details given. This well illus- trated and admirably written paper may be specially commended to histologists engaged in laboratory prac- tice. — (Journ. anat. physiol., xvii. 293.) cC. Ss. M. ; [68 ANTHROPOLOGY. Australian class systems.—In the Australian division of the tribe the communes are represented by two primary classes, each of which has a group of totem names, which are chiefly names of things animate or inanimate. The two primary inter- marrying classes are over a large part of south-eastern Australia called Eaglehawk and Crow. Each group of totem names is a representation of its primary; and, ee 5 oe Four of the [Vou. IL, No. 23. as a general rule, any one of the group may marry with any other of the complementary group. If the primaries are A and B, and the groups, 1, 2, 3, etc., and i, ii, iii, etc., in certain localities, A 1 must marry Bionly, andsoon. The next change is the subdivision of A and B as in the Kamilaroi, thus :— a A 1, 2, 3, etc. @ n b B i, li, iii, ete. B The effect of this is to remove the woman of the second generation from the possibility of marrying her father. Were this not so, the law ‘A (male) marries B (female)’ would permit A to take his daughter to wife, the simpler law forbidding the marriage of brothers and sisters only. Under the form a+a¢=A and b+ 8=B, each - half of an original class has marital rights over the women of one particular half of the other class, whose children do not take the class name of the mother, but of the sister class. For example: a+ =b, who must marry a; and the children of the third generation, by mother right, will be again a and 8. Mr. Howitt, who has worked out these systems with great patience, is of the opinion that this subdi- vision into classes was designed to render impossible tliose unions which were considered, and are now considered, as deep pollution. He has certainly given the most rational explanation of aversion to mothers- in-law. Under the old régime a daughter was of the clan of her mother, and B could marry any A. The law against looking at a mother-in-law, therefore, was to prevent the possibility of marrying her. Mr. Howitt sums up his labors in the following conclusions: 1. The primary division prevented brother and sister marriage; 2. The secondary, in- termarriage between parents and children; 3. The prohibition of intercourse between a woman and her son-in-law prevented connections not to be reached by class rules; 4. These changes were all reformatory in the community. — (Journ. anthrop. inst., xii. 496.) J. W. P. [69 Region of man’s evolution. — Mr. W. S. Duncan is the author of a paper upon the probable region of man’s evolution, in which the following points are made. Man formed one of a set of families of man- like animals, somewhat similar to the present apes. Since only the lowest members of the Primates have been distributed to the eastern and the western con- tinent, it is probable that the Primates originated within the. arctic circle, while the higher groups sprang from the eastern continent : man, therefore, did not originate within the arctic circle, nor in the new world. The Cynopithecidae, since tertiary time, have been spread over nearly the entire eastern con- tinent. The Semnopithecidae have been dispersed over central and western Europe to southern Europe and south-eastern Asia, as far south as Ethiopia. The anthropoid apes have been more circumscribed, but all the genera of living apes are derived from south- ern Europe and subtropical Asia, As apes existed bee. ane ee y a JuLy 18, 1883.] in Europe and Asia before they reached the tropics, so we may infer that man existed in Europe and Africa before the low types, the Akkas and the Aetas, occupied tropical Asia and Malasia. The present habitat of the apes is not conducive to change : we must look to some region where apes were com- pelled to change their food and modes of locomotion. The stoppage of the southern migration by vast sheets of water shut up the apes in temperate regions. The crowding of other animals in the same locations sharpened the intelligence of the precursor of man. Here, then, Mr. Duncan supposes the great conflict and transition from man-like apes to ape-like men took place. — (Journ. anthrop. inst., xii. 513-525.) J. W. P. [70 Tylor’s lectures at Oxford.—The concluding _ portion of Dr. Tylor’s lectures on anthropology, de- livered in the Oxford museum in February (see i. - 1055), is devoted to the history of the growth of practical art. ‘In considering the claims of anthro- pology as a practical means of understanding our- selves, we have to form an opinion how the ideas and, arts of any people are to be accounted for as - developed from preceding stages. To work out the lines along which the process of organization has ‘actually moved, is a task needing caution. A tribe may have some art which plainly shows progress from aruder state of things: and yet it may be wrong to suppose this development to have taken place among themselves; it may be an item of higher culture, that they have learned from sight of a more advanced nation. It is essential, in studying even savage and barbaric culture, to allow for borrowing.’’ Illustra- tions are given by Dr. Tylor of this borrowing, one of which is quite amusing. The later Danish travellers among the Eskimo enter very minutely into the de- scription of the tools and dress of these people, before contact with Europeans, meaning the post-Columbian voyagers; but, unwittingly in many instances, they are describing fashions and forms borrowed from the _ Skraelling ancestors of these very writers a thousand years ago. Another very important point discussed in the lectures is the possibility of national degrada- tion. Dr. Tylor was the first to discover, after the_ battle between the advocates of ‘degradation’ and those of evolution, that both were right, and that a proper view of human history must include both vi- cissitudes over and over again, and the commingling of both in every degree of complexity. Mr. Tylor gives a succinct account of the formation of the Pitt- Rivers collection, now housed at Oxford, and, in com- menting upon the evolution of gesture-speech, pays this tribute to our country: ‘‘The labor and ex- pense which anthropologists in the United States are now bestowing on the study of the indigenous tribes contrasts, I am sorry to say, with the indiffer- ence shown to such observations in Canada, where the habits of yet more interesting native tribes are allowed to die out without even a record.’’ With very great shrewdness the speaker discussed the sub- ject of magic and the benefit derived from even such useless search as that for the ‘lost tribes of Israel.’ — (Nature, May 17.) J. w. Pp. [71 SCIENCE. -) fd ba lS a7 The North-American Indians and the horse. — Professor Hovelacque, in his recent work Les races humaines, gives as one of the important character- izations of the North-American Indians the state- ment that they do not breed horses, leaving it to be inferred from the context that they obtain their supply from wild herds. It may be remarked, that, however general the use of horses is at this time among the Indian tribes of the great plains, an ethnologic distinction based upon any treatment of that animal — a European importation and intrusion —is hardly legitimate. For centuries after the Columbian discovery but a small proportion of the tribes of North America ever saw a horse. The fact that the horse was not known to or used by them in their prehistoric condition constitutes an important element in establishing their position in the ethnic scale, their rise from savagery and barbarism having been retarded by that deprivation. ~ Further, it must be suggested that there is little evidence, apart from the novels of Capt. Mayne Reid and similar au- thorities, of the existence in North America of herds of wild horses similar to those in South America, sufficiently large to supply the Plains tribes. There were, doubtless, some wild horses, the descendants of those imported by the Spaniards, in a condition to be captured by a past generation ; but probably no living Indian has relied upon recruiting his stock from such herds, and his horses have been obtained by the civilized method of purchase or the more convenient process of stealing. The latter expe- dient has of late years been stopped by the powers of ' the United States authorities: so some of the tribes have learned to breed from their horses, though as yet the practice is limited by the same want of pru- dence as is shown in their neglect to provide food and shelter for their ponies. The whole connection of the tribes with the horse simply shows a course of education to a certain extent by a foreign civilization. The statement of M. Hovelacque is therefore as untrue in fact as it is unphilosophie as an ethnic characterization. —J. w. P. (72 EARLY INSTITUTIONS. Land-holding in South Africa.—Sir H. Bartle Frere gives us an account of the systems of land- tenure among the aboriginal tribes of South Africa, — Bushmen, Hottentots, Kaffirs. Among the Kaflirs, if a man wishes to leave the paternal kraal, he seeks a tract of unoccupied land, and builds a kraal for himself. His wives proceed to cultivate as much land as they please, and the live-stock is turned out to pasture. The settlement descends from father to sons, unless, as often happens, this is prevented by the chief oranenemy. Titles rest simply on force. A man owns the land he occupies as long as he can hold it by his own might, or with the aid of the chief, or the tribe, if this is given, Authority of the chief or elders to resume or recognize possession has not been discovered by Sir Bartle Frere; but he says that it may, perhaps, be discovered by future in- vestigators. — (Journ. anthrop. inst., Feb.) D. w. R. (73 Lea ae. Raney be \ : * 38 SCIENCE. ae my [Vou. IL, No. 23- INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Naval bureau of ordnance, Experiments at Annapolis. — By direction of the Naval bureau of ordnance, experiments with the six-inch steel gun were resumed at the experimental battery recently, the chief object being to develop and encourage the home manufacture of steel pro- jectiles. Steel projectiles manufactured by the Mid- vale steel company near Philadelphia, having different physical characteristics as to toughness, extensibility, ete., were fired at a target consisting of two mild steel five-inch plates strongly bolted together, and backed with twenty inches of live-oak. The first and the second shots broke up; the third pierced the plates, and was stopped by the backing ; while the fourth perforated target and backing, and buried itself in a mound of earth beyond the target. This projectile had an initial velocity of 1,983 feet, and weighed 75 pounds. The charge of powder was 32 pounds, and the striking energy per inch of shot’s circumference was 108 foot-tons. The results indicate that there will be no serious difficulty in procuring the proper material for armor-piercing shells in this coun- try. - A somewhat remarkable result was obtained with a projectile weighing 52 pounds, and a charge of 33 pounds of powder. The muzzle velocity obtained was 2,323 feet per second, with a pressure of about 13 tons. The ratio of charge to projectile was adopted as being nearly that which will be used in the new ten-inch guns designed by Commodore Sicard. These guns will be manufactured at the Washington. nayvy-yard, and are intended for the batteries of the four double-turreted monitors. It does not necessarily follow that results equally favorable will be obtained with the ten-inch gun, since the masses of ‘both charge and projectile will be greatly increased. The pressures will doubtless be higher; but these guns will be sufficiently strong to withstand a working pressure of more than 25 tons to the square inch. The indications, however, are, on the whole, extremely favorable to the success of the ten-inch gun. : This experiment is likewise interesting when com- pared with the record of a six-inch gun constructed by Sir William Armstrong, in which, with an 80- pound projectile and a charge of 55 pounds of pow- der, a muzzle velocity of 2,297 feet was reached with a pressure of 21 tons. In the latter case the ratio of charge to projectile is 11:16, whereas in the former case the ratio is 11:17. It is to be regretted that the size of the chamber of this experimental gun does not permit the employment of a larger charge of powder. Two six-inch guns, representing the types proposed for the broadside batteries of the new steel cruisers, are now in process of construction at the Wash- ington navy-yard, and will be ready for testing in August. —J. M. RB. ry U, §, magnetic observatory at Los Angeles, Cal.t Magnetic observations. — There is at present but. one self-registering magnetic observatory within the limits of the United States. That observatory is located in Los Angeles, Cal. ; and the object of the present article is to present a brief description of the observatory and its work, together with a short account of its origin. Continuous series of magnetic observations, cover- ing longer or shorter periods, have been made at several stationsin North America ; but, with two ex- ceptions, they have all been made on the eastern side of the continent. of five years (1840-45) at Girard college, Philadel- phia, by A. D. Bache; six years’ observations at Key West, Fla. (1860-66), by the U. S. coast-survey; and a long series, still continuing, at Toronto, Canada (1841-83). We have, further, a series of nearly five years of photographic records taken at Madison, Wis., by the U. S. coast and geodetic survey. On the western coast the only continuous series of magnetic observations we have, were made by the Russian government at Sitka at the magnetic and meteorological observatory established in March, 1842, and maintained until the cession of Alaska to the United States in October, 1867; and the series of hourly observations at Point Barrow in 1852-54 by Capt. Maguire, R.N. Up to the present time, a great part of these observations have remained undigested and undiscussed. It was therefore contemplated by the coast-survey, many years ago, to obtain a continuous series of mag- netic records from some station on the western coast of the United States ; and, with this end in view, an Adie magnetograph of the latest and most approved pattern was purchased in 1860. The outbreak of the war, however, prevented the carrying-out of this plan. The instruments remained packed until 1878, when a favorable time seemed to have arrived to put it touse. Assistant C. A. Schott, aided by Mr. Suess, then set it up for trial in the basement of the coast- survey office in Washington. Some minor defects of construction were remedied, and the magneto- graph set to work in January, 1879. It was kept - going for about two weeks on trial, and found to perform satisfactorily. During this time, it was in- spected by Superintendent Patterson, and its work- ings observed by various members of the survey. At the close of this trial it was packed up for shipment to some station in California. It was found, however, that more money would be required to run the instrument than could be then set apart for this work, and it therefore remained in the eoast-survey office. — > In response to the invitation of the International polar conference, our government consented, in 1881, 1 Communicated, with permission of the superintendent of the U.S. coast and geodetic survey, by MaRcus Baker, acting assistant in charge of the observatory. We have a series of observations © Se eee ee ae y a ee Juuy 13, 1883.) r to the establishment of two observing stations in high northern latitudes. Observations, especially of mete- orology and magnetism, were to be undertaken; and it was arranged to carry on these observations under the joint auspices of the signal-service and coast and geodetic survey. The executive management of these stations, the selection of observers, etc., were put under the direction of the chief signal-officer. The coast-survey co-operated by furnishing such mag- netic instruments as were on hand, and by training, during the short time available for their work, the mag- netic observers selected by the signal-office. It is to be regretted that there was not time enough to pro- cure suitable differential instruments for the sta- tions. Two parties were despatched to the north, — one to Lady Franklin Bay, near the northern end of Green- land, under the charge of Lieut. A. W. Greely ; and the other to Point Barrow, Alaska, under the direc- tion of Lieut. P. H. Ray. Both these parties reached their destination in the fall of 1881. It was the wish of the International polar confer- ence that, all the northern stations should be occu- pied three years; and a special effort was to be made to secure a complete and continuous record from August, 1882, to August, 1883. In the spring of 1882, additional observers were selected by the signal-oftice to replace any of the former ones that might have become disabled, or to act as auxiliaries, should such be needed. These magnetic observers, like their predecessors, received instruction at the coast-survey office prior to their departure for the north ; and a set of differential magnetic instruments, hastily con- structed, was sent to Point Barrow. ' The spring of 1882 seemed, therefore, a peculiarly favorable time to put the Adie magnetograph to work, and to secure at one and the same time the long-desired series of magnetic observations from the western coast, and a series whieh would also be avail- able for comparison with those observations made at the International polar conference stations. It was therefore mutually agreed by the signal and coast survey offices to establish a magnetic station at the joint expense of the two offices. In the case of the northern stations, the management was intrusted to the signal-office. The expense of the Lady Franklin Bay station was specifically provided for by act of Congress. The expense of the Point Barrow station was to be borne by the signal-service and coast and geodetic survey jointly. In the new station to be established in California, and which was to be de- voted to observations of magnetism only, the man- agement was left entirely to the coast-survey. At first San Diego was suggested as the site of the new station, it being the place on the western coast of the United States farthest from the northern stations. A somewhat better location, nearly as far south, was, however, finally selected in Los Angeles, Cal. Plans for a building were prepared in Washington, and forwarded to Assistant J. S. Lawson of the coast and geodetic survey, who proceeded to Los Angeles, and superintended the selection of a site, and erec- tion of a building, in June and July, 1882. i. ie | SCIENCE. .. il 59 In July, 1882, the instruments, were shipped to Los Angeles, Cal., in the care of Mr. Werner Suess, a skilful mechanician in the coast-survey, and who had attended to the mounting of the instrument in 1878, and to its packing up after the test trial was com- plete. At the same time, the writer was assigned to the charge of the observatory, with instructions to mount and adjust the instrument, determine its constants, and proceed to bring out a continuous record of the changes in the elements of the earth’s magnetism. Leaving Washington July 26, he arrived in Los Angeles Aug. 7, 1882, where he found Mr. Suess in waiting, and the observatory complete. After arranging preliminaries, the work of mount- ing and adjusting the instrument was begun, and pushed forward as rapidly as possible. Observations for the determination of the constants and scale values were made; the compensation of the vertical- force magnet for temperature was made; tempera- ture. coefficients were determined; and finally, on Sept. 28, every thing was in readiness, and the first sensitive paper was put upon the cylinders, and the first record made. The first few days were in the nature of atrial. A slight re-adjustment was made on Oct. 13, after which every thing worked satis- factorily. On Oct. 31 the horizontal and vertical force constants were redetermined; and since that date the instrument has continued to work almost perfectly, and to make a complete and continuous record of the changes of all the magnetic ele- ments. The observatory is situated in latitude 34° 03’ N., longitude 118° 15’ W. from Greenwich, and 317 feet above the level of the sea. It is on a rather steep hillside sloping to the south-west in the grounds of the Branch normal school in the city of Los Angeles, exactly one mile, in a direct line, from the centre of the plaza, or park, in the centre of the old town, or about a mile from the central business part of the town. Street-cars run within two squares of the observatory. It is on adobe soil underlaid by clay, and in the midst of an orange plantation formerly known as Belle Vue Terrace. The observatory is built of redwood fastened with copper nails, is double walled, with an air-space 2.5 feet between the walls; which walls are four- teen inches thick, and filled with adobe soil. It is twenty-eight feet long by twenty-one feet wide, and painted white. The entrance to the observatory is on the south side. On the north side is the pho- tographic or dark room, P, where the various photo- graphic processes are carried on, This room is twelve feet long by ten feet wide. The accompany- ing plan will show the arrangement of rooms and instruments. The three magnets are placed, the uni- filar or declinometer, U, to the east, the bifilar or hor- izontal-force magnetometer, B, to the west, and the vertical-force magnetometer, V, to the north, of the central driving-clock, C. A picture of the instrument, showing it as a whole, and also showing details, may be found in Gordon’s Electricity and magnetism, For illumination, student-lamps burning kerosene-oil 60 are used, and yield satisfactory results. The record is made on paper sensitized by the bromo-iodide process. The paper is sensitized at the observatory. Each trace contains two days’ record; and the record is absolutely complete and continuous, except the time lost in changing papers to begin a new record, and in ‘ moving spots,’ or shifting the luminous dots to get the second day’s record on the same sheet. The time required for the first operation is from seven to eight minutes; for the second, from two to three minutes. Thus only about ten minutes are lost in two days, or an average of five minutes per day, — RON pe 7 Scale of feet QR ANON AIO OMA, ae OMIT ITO! a quantity too small to be of any importance on any ‘occasion thus far observed. ORE minute of time on the traces is represented by y4o of an inch approximately, and a movement through one minute of are by the unifilar magnet is represented on the trace by 72> of an inch. A motion of the bifilar magnet of one scale division, represented on the trace by 0.027 inch, corresponds to a change of horizontal force of about its gqoy part. The traces can readily be read off within half a scale division, or changes of force of its tsto9 part are recorded. This adjustment has not proved too sen- sitive, as the luminous dot has never left the recording cylinder, except once for a short time during the great magnetic storm of November, 1882. es ae ee SCIENCE. Dec. 14° 32 Dip 59°30" [Vou. IL, No. 28. , Visitors are admitted to the observatory, and the traces generally show their presence by a break in the curve. The instrument records, as is well known, changes of declination, changes of horizontal force, and changes of vertical force. Each of these changes is recorded on a separate sheet, or trace as it is called; and thus, on an average, forty-five traces are produced each month. These traces are six inches by sixteen inches and a half, and are made on plain photographic paper prepared for use at the observatory. This préparation consists of two processes, salting and silvering.. The salting process, as it is called, consists in soaking the paper from ten to fifteen minutes in a bath of iodide and | bromide of potassium, with a little tincture of iodine added, after which the paper is hung up to dry. This process is carried on in the daylight. “The silvering or sensitizing process is car- ried on in a room as dark as can well‘be made, and then lighted up dimly with a red lantern. Some difficulty has been found in keeping the room dark enough, and on some occasions the silvering has been done at night. «For silvering, four wooden trays are placed in a row: the first containing a bath of nitrate of silver, acetic acid, and water; the second, distilled water; the third, a weak solution of chloride of ammonium; and the fourth, dis- tilled water. A sheet of salted paper is then floated on tray no. 1, special care and some skill being required to prevent (a) any of the solution from getting on the back of the sheet, and (b) any air-bubbles from clinging to the front side of the sheet. The first defect pro- duces stains, and the second, spots. In about nine minutes the paper is transferred to tray no. 2, being floated on as in the case of no. 1, and a new sheet is floated on tray no. 1. In about nine minutes more, the sheets are moved forward, as before; the paper in no, 2 is floated on no. 3; that in no. 1 is transferred, as before, to no. 2, and a new sheet floated on no. 1. This continues till tray 4 is reached; after which the sensitizing is complete, and the paper is then hung up to dry in the dark. Special care is necessary in hanging up the wet paper to avoid stains from the fingers, from the line, or from the pin which holds the paper on the line. After drying thoroughly, the papers are taken down, packed in a large envelope, and kept in a dark drawer to be used as needed. From this envelope the sheets are transferred to the three recording cylinders pre- pared to carry them. They remain two days upon the cylinders, and thus receive two days’ record. At quarter-past nine A.M. of each alternate day the ~ papers are changed. ‘Over the central driving-clock is hung a heavy orange-flannel curtain. To change papers, the at- tendant, with the envelope of sensitive paper, goes Sie . : ) EO a aes a — eo usually found inferior. After the development is complete, the traces are fixed in hyposulphite of soda cleansed in a saturated solution of alum, washed for about two hours in running water, and then hung uptodry. After drying, the date is stamped upon them. The exact instant of beginning and ending of each line on the trace, together with the correspond- ing scale value, is written on. Time observations, with sextant and artificial horizon, are taken from time to time, usually monthly, to regulate the stand- ‘ard chronometer. After the traces have been thus completed, they are practically paper negatives, from which any num- ber of copies may be made photographically. Two sets are made by the well-known blue-print process. The traces require no special treatment, such as oil- ing, waxing, etc., for the successful application of this process. For tabulating from the traces, it is found most convenient to use a ruler subdivided into hourly divisions for the time scale, and a triangular piece of card-board upon the edge of which is ruled the scale corresponding to the trace to be read. The unifilar and bifilar traces have all been read, tabulated, and the means calculated. The vertical-force traces have not yet been read. There is also in the magnet-room of the observa- tory a thermograph, which records the temperature every half-hour. From the records produced by it, _ the time of maximum temperature in the observatory is found to be about five p.M., and the time of mini- mum temperature, about half-past eight A.M. At these hours the thermometers under the bel] glasses and near the magnets are read; and from these read- ings it appears that the magnets are subjected to an average daily range of temperature of about 17°C. On the 14th, 15th, and 16th of each month, obser- vations are made to determine the absolute decli- nation, dip, and intensity. These observations are made in the usual manner of taking such obser- vations by field parties in the coast and geodetic survey. Monthly reports and returns of results are made to the superintendent of the survey. The declinations and dips have all been computed, but the intensities only approximately as yet. The following table contains the declinations and dips resulting from the monthly absolute determinations. Each declination is the mean derived from the elon- gation on three successive days, and each dip is the mean of six sets with two needles on the same three days. a 4 J F ~~ a: Mi s 7 >. =" . JOLY 13, 1883.] SCIENCE. 61 behind this flannel curtain, through which sufficient U. 8S. magnetic observatory at Los Angeles, light from the three lamps comes to enable the lat. G08, Rone. 118915’ W. G. change to be made without further artificial Jight. —-— The orange flannel serves to satisfactorily exclude | Declination. | Dip. actinic light. 7 1882, Sept. 14,15,16. . . °35.0 5 The traces, removed from the cylinders, are then "Oct. 14, 15, 18 cee uw 46 7B. / * 30. 2 carried in a large envelope to the dark room, and ay. a SEE Oem. ca it! there developed, the developer used being pyrogallic 1883, Jan. isis. 2] ] 35.1 | is acid. The best developments are those which take Loe ee . 31.5 | dy place rather quickly, in about ten to fifteen minutes, April MY AGHABP She) ee ene a } mx ‘When the development is slower, the traces are May 14,15,16...... 825 | 29.7 The horizontal intensity is approximately 5.97 in British units = 0.275 dyne. U. 8. magnetic observatory, Los Angeles, Cal., June 1, 1883. NOTES AND NEWS. Professor Huxley has been elected president of the Royal society of London, in the place of Mr. Spottis- wood, — The recently issued report of the signal-office for 1881 contains a record of primary and secondary observing stations, established in that year in Alaska, with summaries of observations at. some Alaskan stations in preceding years. There is also some account of the fitting-out of the Greely expedition to Lady Franklin Bay and that to Point Barrow. But the most important article for arctic students is the report of Prof. E. W. Nelson on the meteorology of St. Michaels, Norton Sound, where, as is well known, he had been stationed for four years; his leisure being employed in pursuing investigations into the natural history and ethnology of the region with the greatest energy, devotion, and success, The article itself being a summary and an abstract, with somewhat wider limits in regard to the treat- ment of auroras and the so-called ‘polar band’ formation of clouds, it will not be attempted to con- dense it here, but merely to call attention to some of its leading features. According to observations by Danenhower, the position (hitherto somewhat uncertain) of St. Michaels is latitude 63° 282’, and longitude 162° 043?’ west. The mean annual temper- ature for the period is 25°.5 F. The highest observed temperature was 75°, and the lowest,—55° A curious fact was noted with great regularity. In early winter darkness comes on between three and four P.M., and the temperature falls until about six P.M., when a rise follows of two or three hours’ dura- tion, and sometimes five or six degrees in extent, fol- lowed by the usual steady nocturnal fall. It does not result from changes in the wind, but may be due to greater radiation immediately after sunset from the land, resulting in local atmospheric movements, causing warmer air from the adjacent sea to flow in the vicinity of the station. Alongshore, winds N., N.E.,S., S.E.,S.W., are most prevalent. Winds off the sea, N.W. and W., are the least frequent, not exceeding together over ten per cent of the whole. Topographical bias is, however, distinctly evident, as at most stations in Alaska. 62 SCIENCE. , The measured precipitation averaged twelve inches and a quarter, to which Mr. Nelson estimates a correction of one-half more must be added for un- measurable drizzle and blown snow. The record and discussion of the aurora is a valuable contribution to the subject, and cannot be summarized. Thunder- storms are almost unknown. Lightning was observed but twice, and no thunder was heard during the whole period. It is referred to as reported common on the upper Yukon in summer; but in 1865-68, by the ex- plorers of the Telegraph expedition on the upper part of the river, thunder and lightning were not observed on a single occasion. There are but two seasons at St. Michaels, — winter (October—May) and summer (the remaining five months), The sea is open until about Oct. 15; and the ice disappears in the spring, usually in early June. The tides are small, but over the shallow sea adjacent the rise in level due to gales is often sufficient to submerge the marshy shores for miles inland. Gardening is not a success, except for turnips, radishes, and lettuce. The earliest birds, chiefly geese, begin to arrive in April; and the migration continues to June, the main body of birds arriving between May 15 and 25. . Most of the birds leave for the south in August, and the first sharp frost of September sends away the laggards. - —On the Ist of January, 1883, there were in exist- ‘ence 79 societies of geography, distributed all over the world, with about 38,000 members. — The American society of mechanical engineers met at Cleveland, O., June 14, President E. D. Leavitt, jun., of Cambridge, Mass., in the chair. Highty members were present, and fifty-four were elected, raising the total membership to four hundred and sixteen. The papers were generally short, plain, and practical. Mr. J. K. Holloway described a steam starting gear for throwing marine engines ‘ off the centre.’ It consists of a steam-cylinder and a friction- wheel on the main shaft, which can be actuated by the auxiliary steam-cylinder. The device works either way, and may be applied repeatedly if necessary. Mr. Charles N. Comly detailed “his experience with lubricating materials, resulting in the substitution of grease for oil. Other members had found grease the cheaper lubricant, but had observed that it had a much higher coefficient of friction than oil. Mr. J. E. Sweet described a new method of casting iron pipe having flanges, making chilled flange-faces and cored bolt-holes. Other papers remain to be reported. During the session, it was announced that an honor- ary degree had been conferred on President Leavitt by the Stevens institute of technology. —W. H. Edwards announces that he will not, at present, complete the Synopsis of species commenced in the tenth part of his Butterflies of North America, but substitute for it a mere list of species, which will be issued with the next (concluding) part of the sec- ond series. ’ RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Annuaire de Vélectricité pour 1883. (lre année), par A. Réyérend. Paris, Gauthier- Villars, 1883. 216p., illustr. 8°. Saint Nazaire, impr. Fronteau, 1883. [Vou. IL, No. 28. Blanchet. Notice sur la naturalisation & Bayonne d'une nouvelle plante exotique. Dax, impr. Justére, 1883. 15 p. 8°. Delfau. De la maladie de Ja vigne causée par le piviloxem. et de’son traitement efficace, facile et économique. Perpignan, impr. de VIndépendent, 1883. 34p. 8°. English, T. Alfred, Haussen, C. Julius, and Sturgeon, J. Report on a scheme for supplying compressed air motive-power in the town of Birmingham ; ‘vith tables and formulae for cal- culating the useful effect obtained from compressed air, and examples and diagrams showing the application thereof; with confirmatory report by Prof. H. Robinson. New York, Spon, 1883. 60p., illustr. 4°. Farmer, E. J. The resources of the Rocky Mountains; being a brief description of the mineral, grazing, agricultural, and timber resources of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, ete. Cleve- land, 1883. illustr. 8°. Forbes, P. R. Sciences and spiritualism. Schlaeber, 1888. 16p. 8°. Forestier, C. Paralléle entre l’instruction des sourds-muets par le langage des signes et leur enseignement par l’articuiation artificielle, suivi de quelques observations sur la méthode du célébre Périére et sur les résolutions qu’a votées contre l’enseigne- ment par le langage des signes le congrés international tenu & Milan du 6 au 12 septembre 1880 pour Famélioration du sort des sourds-muets. Lyon, impr. Pitrat, 1883. 8+90p. 8. Frankland, P.F. Agricultural chemical analysis. Founded upon ‘ Leitfaden fiir die agriculturchemiker,’ vou Dr. F. Krocker. London, Dacmillan, 1883. 320p. 8°. Guenot, C. Les chinois et, les indous. 1883. Bibliothéque morale. 87 p. 12°. India-rubber and gutta-percha and their cultivation. Lon- don, Haddon, 1888. 8° Jaffré, P. Théorie complete plenionbalrg des occultations. 24s) D Loni ace a Keeping, W.- The fossils and paleontological affinities of the neocomian deposits of Upware and Brickhill; with plates: being the Sedgwick prize essay for 1879. .London, Cambridge warehouse, 1883. 8°. Knight, D. Morphology of the vertebrata. With plates. London, Dryden, 1883. 8°. Kuropatkin. Kashgaria (Eastern or Chinese Turkestan) : Historical, geographical, military, and industrial. Translated by Major Gowan. London, Thacker, 1883. 8°. Ladureau, A. W’acide sulfureux dans Vatmosphére de Lille, Lille, impr. Danel, 1883. 8p. 8°. > ‘Leplay, H. L’Osmose et l’osmogene Dubrunfaut dans la dabriention, et le raflinage des sucres. Paris, impr. Dubreuil, 1883. 104p. 8°. Macrobe, A. La flore pornographique, glossaire de l’école naturaliste extrait des oeuvres de M. Emile Zola et de ses disci- ples. Paris, Doublelzerie, 1883. 230 p.,illustr. 18°. Merrifield, J. A treatise on navigation, for the use of students. London, Longmans, 1883. 306p. 8°. Miller, W. The heavenly bodies: their nature and habita- bility. London, Hodder, 1883, 3854p. 8°. ; Murgue, Daniel. The theories and practice of centrifugal ventilating machines. Translated and with an introduction by A. L. Steavenson. New York, Spon, 1883. 81p. 8°. Owen, T. C. Notes on cardamon cultivation. Haddon, 1883. 8°. — Thecinchona planter’s manual. London, Haddon, 1883. 8°. Pickering, E. C. Elements of physical manipulation. Parts 1, 2. London, Maemillan, 1883. , Rowan, T. Disease and putrescent air: some principles which must govern the eflicient ventilation of sewers, and the effective hygienic treatment of sewer-gas; also the sanitary ven- coeur house drains and connections. New York, Spon, 1883. Dewoa ; Roy, C. Destruction des phylloxéras par le sulfure de car- ~ bone au moyen des cubes gélatineux, exposé scientifique et pra- tique. Bordeaux, Feret, 1883. 40p. 8°. Scientific Californian. Vol. 1, no. 1. San Francisco and Paris, impr. Limoges, Barbou, London, Oakland. 14p.,illustr. 4°. m. Scott, J. Draining and embanking: a practical treatise em- bodying the most recent experience in the application of im- piored a Oue. (Weale’s series.) London, Lockwood, 1883. p. 12°. Smyth, W. W. Evolution explained. London, Stock, 1883. 8°. Watt, A. The history of a lump of chalk: its family circle and theiruses. London, A. Johnston, 1888. 96 p.,illustr. 12°. _ Witz, A. I’Keole pratique de physique, cours de manipula- tions de physique préparatoire a la licence. Paris, Gauthier- Villars, 1883. 14+506 p,. illustr. 8°. » - SAY By Sie FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1883. THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. ie Tue brief pamphlet recently issued by the assistant director of the museum as his special report for 1881 is, perhaps, one of the most important documents which has yet appeared in the history of science in this country. It represents the institution which in the natural course of events should become the leading organization of its kind on this continent, and also furnish the motive and the pattern for the many similar copies which will natu- tally follow its example in other parts of our extensive possessions. It also presents to foreign nations the ideals, which, they will naturally suppose, represent our existing scien- tific culture and the tendencies of science in this country. They will hardly imagine that it has not been debated at all by scientific men at large, that it is the work of no represen- tative commission, and that it cannot in any sense be considered as the deliberate result of consultation with the leading men of the United States in all departments. In this respect, we think that the action of the government —if the plan is, as we under- stand, already adopted in the museum — is open to the severest criticism, and that it shows a curious want of prudence to definitely settle the future of an institution in which the whole country is more deeply interested than any other of its kind, without allowing the voice and criticisms of scientific men to be heard. It is certainly a wide departure from the wise example of the Smithsonian, and shows, that, at Washington, success has already begun to dull the edge of the wise forethought which led to such successful results in the planning of that institution. That the museum must be a loser in influ- ence by such a proceeding lies in the nature No. 24.— 1883. of things. The science of this country is certainly not responsible for the plan, and, however good it may prove to be, has had no proper opportunities for expressing its opinion about a matter in which its deepest interests are concerned. In his opening considerations, Mr. Goode divides museums into three classes, — those for record, those for research, and those for educa- tion. He considers that all three of these ob- jects are essential to the development of any comprehensive and philosophically organized museum. By record, the author means the preservation of collections which haye served as the instruments of past research; and by research, the accumulation of materials of all kinds to provide for new investigations. The author here assumes an historical stand- ard, and thinks that the objects of museum administration determine their classification ; whereas, in our opinion, practical considera- tions really settle the class to which a given museum should be referred. There is, as the author remarks, no separation of the two pur- poses of record and research; and it would perhaps have been clearer to the inexperi- enced in this branch of technology if the preservation of records, and accumulation of materials for research, together with adequate provision for the publication of original results, which is not mentioned by him, had been de- fined as the inseparable trinity of a museum of the first class. Mr. Goode’s opinion, that such museums should have exhibition-rooms, and display both their records and the results of research, indicates a broad and well-balanced judgment of the aims of museum administra- tion. The prevalent opinion among young investigators, that no public display of records should be made, arises from obstacles which the expenses of exhibition have heretofore presented to the successful performance of the proper functions of this class of museums in the encouragement of research, and also to 64 SCIENCE. their frequent failures as instruments for the education of the public. Two functions, that of museums of research and that of museums of education, have been confused in their display of specimens; but, while this shows the necessity of a separation and a change of policy in their choice of col- lections for exhibition, it does not justify the withdrawal of valuable and useful records from public view. Leave to consult original speci- mens cannot be lightly granted, and the idio- syncrasies of their guardians is a large element of uncertainty in the way of those desiring to see such treasures. There are also classes of persons daily on the increase who should, at any rate, have the privilege of seeing them, though not fit to be trusted with their direct handling; and the wants of this class cannot be justly disregarded. We are therefore most heartily in sympathy with Mr. Goode in his opinion, that the highest value of original rec- ords is given to them when they are placed on exhibition; but we probably differ in think- ing that this should be done in museums or collections: exclusively devoted. to research, and meant for the use of the special student rather than the general public. Mr. Goode’s third class of museums, the educational, we should designate as the second class; since these are often separated from the former, and ought always to be conducted with distinct purposes, and governed by a class .of men who are familiar with the educational wants of the public, i.e., all those classes of persons who must get their information through the glass, and are not permitted to handle specimens. The needs of this class are but imperfectly understood by the investigator, or, if understood, very apt to be considered by him as of slight importance. It is certainly not his essential function to satisfy these de- mands, as in the ease of the true educator, and as should be the case with the curator of an educational collection. Mr. Goode’s ideal of a great educational mu- seum is accomplished by the union of the natu- ral history and industrial museums; and this has eyidently arisen from his experience and .[Vou. IL, No. 24 study of similar unions occurring more or less accidentally in the different great exhibitions held in civilized countries of late years. He points out, that, while these great industrial exhibitions have shown a tendency to become purely commercial, they have served, wherever they have been held, as the starting-points, in time and materials, of permanent industrial mu- seums. The effect of the world’s fair in Phila- delphia in 1876, in accordance with this law, demonstrated the educational value of a more permanent industrial museum, and suggested that an immense field of usefulness would be open to an institution which should be based upon similargrounds, but which would endeay- or, by a more efficient and scientific arrange- ment of its specimens, to impart ‘‘ a consistent and systematic idea of the resources of the world and of human achievement.’’ This novel and somewhat startling aim is announced as the future guiding-star of the National museum, which is declared to be in the best possible trim for the accomplishment of such a purpose, since it is now starting anew, and is not encumbered by the immense masses of duplicates which have become the most serious obstacles in the path of the older museums. It is, in other words, free to choose the path of its future work ; and while this seems to be true, and the author must be acknowl- edged the best judge of the fact, we do not find any allusion to the accumulations formerly stored in the Smithsonian, nor as to how these and other collections, made upon the old basis for purely scientific research, are to be brought into harmony with the new ideal. It is much to be regretted, that, in this preliminary announce- ment of so important a national enterprise, the author had not taken more space for such in- teresting explanations, and also for the fuller consideration of the arrangement of topics according to their relative importance. This treatise shows, nevertheless, in all its 1 Though we do find (as quoted in italics immediately below), that these collections, and we presume those which will be con- tinually flowing in from the Geological survey, the Fish.com- mission, and other sources, are to be arranged on a different plaw from all the other collections. It would have greatly enlightened us if we could have known what this plan was, but nothing fur- ther is said of it. ae wa JULY 20, 1883.] parts, that the practical aspects and difficulties of the question have been studied with great thoroughness and ability, and have naturally absorbed the time and thoughts of the author, and taken, therefore, the most prominent place. What seem to us the most valuable and fun- damental of all the considerations are brought in as secondary. Thus we find an intimation only that the museum ‘‘ attempts to show the evolution of civilization ;’’ we cannot be wrong, it appears to us, in imagining that this is to be the great aim of the National muse- um; and again, ‘‘ the collections should form a museum of anthropology, the word ‘ anthro- pology’ being applied in its most compre- hensive sense. It should exhibit the physical characteristics, the history, the manners (past and present) of all peoples (civilized and sav- age), and should illustrate human culture and industry in all its phases. The earth, its physical structure and its products, is to be exhibited with special reference to its adapta- tion for use by man and its resources for his future needs. The so-called natural history collections —that is to say, the collections in pure zoblogy, geology, and botany — should be grouped in separate series, which, though arranged on another plan, shall illustrate and supplement the collections in industrial and economic natural history.’”” We felt immedi- ately the deepest interest in knowing how so large a part of the National museum could be arranged on another plan without confusing the effect of the whole, but looked for ex- planations in vain. The idea of making the National museum a museum of anthropology must, we think, command unqualified respect ; and it seems to us to contain so much of future promise, that we feel all the more regret that the details of the scheme had not received the healthy pur- gation of general and expert criticism. The classification is also highly original, and shows the result of extensive study, and practical knowledge of ways and methods. The general outlines of the scheme of clas- sification, which is announced as _ provisional and open to necessary] modification, are as SCIENCE. 65 follows: the exhibition of articles is to be divided into eight large divisions, or ‘ sec- tions,’ including sixty-four smaller divisions ; which last we shall, for convenience, designate under the name of ‘topics,’ to distinguish them from the sections into which they are grouped by Mr. Goode, —‘‘ Section I., Man- kind; II., The earth as man’s abode; III., Natural resources; IV., The exploitative in- dustries ; V., The elaborative industries; VLI., Ultimate products and their utilization; VII., Social relations of mankind; VIII., Intel- lectual occupations of mankind.’ We recognize the enormous difliculties in the way of the author of this scheme; and, while we congratulate him upon the successful han- dling of the details, — which we have not the space to quote in full, and therefore cannot do him personally full justice, —we must dissent strongly from the main ideas, which, we think, show the want of a broad and masterly com- prehension of the philosophical ideas which should govern the classification and purposes of our National museum. ‘The scheme itself, in this respect, is a curious mixture of the old notion, that, in order to understand man, we must necessarily start with the study of man- kind, and of the modern idea of evolution. The legitimate process of instruction from this stand-point begins with the simplest forms of life, and follows up their developmental and evolutionary history in organization and in time, until we arrive at the most highly spe- cialized forms. Man is the most highly specialized of all animals, physically and psychologically, and therefore, it is claimed, needs to be viewed in the light of all knowl- edge, unobscured by the prejudices and mis- conceptions which are liable to arise from the adoption of the opposite modes of study. Certainly the former mode is incompati- ble with the thorough and direct method of studying the principles of evolution, whether these relate to one set of objects or another, and is not accordant with the idea of the ‘ evo- lution of civilization’ and the evident neces- sity of expressing, in all the minor industrial collections, *‘ the steps by which man has ar- 66 rived at the present condition in every direc- tion in which human industry has been exerted, —a graphic history of the development of the human culture and civilization.’’ These are Mr. Goode’s own declarations of what seem to be the vital intentions of his scheme; and it is therefore a serious error, both practically and theoretically, when he places the natural history of man, including his psychology and individual manifestations, at the head of his scheme, in place of making this department the terminal one, to be viewed by visitors only after they had gone through with all the other departments. The author has arranged the sections and sixty-four topics according to a system which is artificial, and irreconcilable with his inten- tions and his general objects, and shows this SCIENCE. (Vou. IL, No. 24. in the place assigned to mankind. Man is essentially the product of the forces which have acted upon this earth. Without going into the question of whether these forces were divine or material, which is of no value in such a technical discussion, it is certainly very illogical to place the conclusion before the be- ginning, the consequent before the antecedent, man before the earth. This may be very satis- factory to those who need, or think they need, to perpetually swing the censer before the old idol of man’s supremacy in the universe; but it is none the less unnatural and illogical to have one mode of arrangement for the parts of a great collection, and another for the whole. In a future number we shall consider some of the minor features of this elaborate scheme. LIST OF TWENTY-THREE NEW DOUBLE STARS, DISCOVERED AT CAROLINE ISLAND, SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN, BETWEEN APRIL 27 AND MAY 7, 18838, BY E. S. HOLDEN AND C. 8S. HASTINGS. , | Star. a, 1880.0 5, 1880.0. p. s Mags. Observer. Date. h. m. 8. Soc, WS 5 5 5 6 6 6 10 28 35 —5£° 467 250° 2 8.5 - 9 Holden .« .| Mayl. ION Socal oe a oD 11 31 28 —60 14 380 15 8.5 — 9.5 Holden . . | April 28. INC CRED GG a0 te We) vos ‘11 48 58 —5d 20 230 2 75-8) Holden . .| Mayl. ZNO, co Gere BR) von 11 57 40 —5T 5 240 1} 8.5 — 9.5 Holden ...| May 4 Ween BYP BIG LG) an. coded 12 31 24 —5d 16 205 i 7.3 - 9.3 Holden . . | Mayl JANOS eo a 13 1 16 —52 5 200 1h 9.5 — 9.5 Holden « | May 4 AD) BYES UE Riyals Siniubict iG 13° 6 59 —62 o7 40 1 7.5 -10 Holden . . | May 6. Lac., 5738 18 48 28 —53 33 330 2 6.5 - 8.5 Russell . . A. roa 12 carat NAM ony Sty 290 25 6.5 -13 Holden . .| May2,A.C. Ws MS ae eo 38 13, 59 56 —49 18 30 } 7.5 - 7.5 Hastings . May 1, TLE GUL Gans ould 5 14 6 14 —6l 9 180 3e v= 9 Hastings . May 2 ‘ Wevecg GNA 9 lo G6 abo 14 41 16 —72 42 90 1; 6 -8 Hastings . May 2 Ae (MII. cd aac! a 14 50 35 —67 30 0 5 7 -10 Hastings . April 27. ANIONS Ie biG ya) ay Dilot Cana 1s 2 18 —40 31 70 4 7-8 Hastings . May 4 SHOES S2c0)e we yelele el a ls 1b) 3 (33 —51 38 220 3 7.5 -9 Holden . .| May 2 WAC AO2ZOO Rare, si Nepean ae 15 6 36 —60 27 300 12 6.5 -13 Hastings . . | April 27, ZNOAZ Gv Oidae on OND lori Loma tacue —68 8 0 1} 7.5 -9 Hastings . . | May 2 Anon. . ciel ee eahehis 15 8 40 —53 30 170 3 8 -10 Hastings . .| May 1 Stone, Gein te Mae 15 14 18 —47 29 225 1k 8.0 - 8.5 Hastings . May 1. Elio s gle bo ola oO 15 14 32 —44 15 175 A 3-6 Hastings . .| April 27. ac 0488 cetera larsis palee 15 36 li —50 24 210 2 7 -9 Holden May 4 IEE GEM) 5 55g ino 5 15 44 44 —60 23 85 1 65-9 Hastings. . | May 2. Stoney O22 ae mieiecssetianie 16 50 15 —56 25 125 2 7.5 -10 Holden . .| May7 WEN RIGS G5 a ola oO) 17 23 16 —40 57 95 1 8.0 - 8.5 Holden . .| MayT. THE UNITED STATES FISH-COMMIS- SION STEAMER ALBATROSS.1— II. Tue fitting-up of a small floating scientific laboratory, which might remain at sea for a month or more at a time, and yet include every necessary convenience, was a somewhat novel problem, and required a considerable 1 Concluded from No. 22. amount of planning, based mainly upon past experiences of the fish-commission. The gen- eral arrangements are now, for the most part, complete, but they are subject to alteration and improvement. The main laboratory (see figures, pp. 68, 69) is twenty feet long, twenty-six feet wide, and nearly eight feet high. The forward-end of the room is devoted to storage, and the sides and: JULY 20, 1883.] after-end to work-tables. The storage-case consists of a series of six double racks, with wire doors in front for holding the trays of bot- tles and jars, the trays being all of the same size, so as to fit any part of the case. Under the racks are six large bins for the tanks of alcohol in use, the large fish-pans, dishes, and other heavy laboratory utensils, and at either side is a small case for chemicals and preserva- SCIENCE. 67 as the general laboratory, though of less height, and is entirely fitted up for the storage of jars, bottles, tanks, alcohol, zodlogical specimens, and the lighter kinds of collecting apparatus. A single series of bins on a level with the floor extends around the entire room, excepting in front of the stairway, and serves as compart- ments for the copper tanks of alcohol, which are contained in uniform-sized boxes. In these ETAT FE Se aii) wt Ce CAPTAIN’S CABIN. tives. In one of the after-corners is a photo- graphic dark room, and opposite to it the sink and water-supply. The remainder of the space on each side is occupied by a sorting-table, one being at the proper height to work while stand- ing, the other while sitting. The after-bulkhead contains the arrangements for chemical and physical investigations, consisting of a broad table, with drawers and cupboards underneath, and racks above. The storeroom is of about the same size bins there is room for fifty tank-boxes, each with a capacity of sixteen gallons, making a total of eight hundred gallons of alcohol which it is possible to carry in this way. Against the fore and after bulkheads, above the bins, are two sets of racks for bottle-trays, similar to those in the general laboratory. They are intended for the storage of the main supply of bottles and jars ; and, as rapidly as those in the laboratory become filled with specimens, they are carried below, and their places supplied 68 SS = MANY ry at LITZ, = a salatrntantnn sherse, BO Maiaelalannreegnitast ieloenatarennelaa OO [Vou. IL, No. 24. MAIN LABORATORY, FORWARD-END, with empty ones, without the necessity of re- moving any from the trays. On the two sides of the storeroom are large, deep bins for nets and other light appliances, the dredges and trawls being stored elsewhere: The deck-laboratory, which receives the greatest amount of light, is more especially arranged for study. The after-end is oceu- pied by a bookease, with a cupboard for the physical apparatus on one side; and the for- ward-end, by the medical case, and stairway to the lower laboratory. A large square table, with accommodations for four persons, stands in the centre of the room, under the skylight. Under one window is the sink, and beside it two upright cylindrical tanks for sea-water and alcohol, which empty by means of faucets. The other window-spaces are supplied with folding tables, which, when not in use, can be shut down against the wall. _ Arrangements are yet to be made in this room for small work- ing-hquaria, where the living forms and colors of delicate marine animals can be studied and pictured. They will probably be modelled after the new style of hatching-jars, recently intro- duced at Washington, for the propagation of shad and salmon. The Albatross is furnished with two pro- peller-screws instead of the usual number, one, to enable her to execute more readily the vari- ous manoeuvres demanded by the peculiar character of her work. ‘They are right and left handed,—one being placed under each counter, — and measure nine feet in diameter. By their means the steamer can be turned completely around almost within her own length, and placed in position for dredging and sounding without the delays incidental to most exploring steamers. The motive power is furnished by two compound engines, with Hl JuLy 20, 1883.] two cylinders each, — one of high, the other of low pressure, — the stroke of piston being thirty inches. The engines are. slightly in- clined, the upper ends of the cylinders being drawn inboard over the condenser, which is common to both engines, and forms their framing. The boilers are two in number, of the overhead return-flue pattern, and measure twenty-one feet and a half in length by eight feet and a half in diameter. The proper ventilation of all parts of the ship was carefully considered during her con- struction, and the plan adopted has given the greatest satisfaction. It consists simply in withdrawing the foul air from the lower parts of each room through small ventilators, by means of a Sturtevant exhaust-fan with Wise’s Pill i {Til I | ry 2s eo <— SR SS SS SS = So ee SOON, SS Se SWistec eat SS = REPENS SCIENCE. 69 steam-motor attachment. The influx of air is from above, through open doors or ports; and a constant circulation is maintained, even in the lowest inhabited portions of the ship. One of the most interesting features of the Albatross is the system of electric lighting, which has already been referred to. Some such method of replacing the dingy lamps common to most ocean vessels was rendered imperative from the fact that this steamer is supposed to continue her observations as regu- larly through the night as through the day, and the surrounding surface of the sea must also be lighted. To accomplish this, a hun- dred and twenty eight-candle B lamps of the Edison incandescent system are distributed through the ship; every portion, including the LULL] FAGHY _— MAIN LABORATORY, AFTER END. 70 holds, storerooms, and open decks, having its share. They are controlled by a Z dynamo, driven by an Armington and Sim’s high-speed engine. An arc-lamp of great power, designed by Dr. O. A. Moses, and intended for illumi- nating the surface of the water, works in cir- cuit with the same system ; and there is also a powerful submarine lamp which can be lowered to any depth not exceeding a thousand feet. This latter feature is quite noy- el, and is to be used to attract schools of fish and other free swimmers, should its strong rays of light. possess the in- fluence which they are sup- posed to have. The sounding and dredging appliances and working-gear supplied to the ‘ The dredging machinery con- — ae - — oo | (| JULY 20, 1883.] hoisting-machine. The course taken by the dredge-rope while in use is as follows: start- ing from the reel on which it is contained, it passes through a pulley on the berth-deck to the drum of the hoisting-engine, thence up to and throngh an iron block at the lower end of the accumulator, and down again through a sheave in the heel of the boom, from which it extends to the outer end of the boom, where there is another large pulley. The free end of the rope is spliced into the eye of a set of _safety-hooks, to which the dredge or trawl is _ fastened, and which are so arranged as to open and release the apparatus, should the strain, by reason of fouling on the bottom, exceed a certain amount. These hooks can be adjusted to detach at any point between three thousand SCIENCE, — 7c = 71 and six thousand pounds, which is less than the tensile strength of the rope they are intended to secure from breakage. The amount of rope out atall times is recorded by a register attached to the sheave in the heel of the boom, the sheave measuring just half a fathom in circumference. In preparing for work, the dredging-boom is topped up at the requisite angle over the i U b y oe ee ] “| | Mad | Bf i D-H HY i A = 40n 2B y i a ~ -An WD nie z= “14 f i He y) 4 % ny = -BY i i Hy = = ad = Ot 4] 8 2 nua y ae ee On wae o BY aoe. 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‘TSst st S01 or jo |e |# |9 |8 Jocler\t | |9 \|Frl\er jor |6 |# |o |e |S Jor | OL | St yen |08 | eo | 6G) Oe) Fr | OF | GT | St + + soqmesaq ie 9°GL oz |aa|oalee |er\#r\or|ct |e |oz |sz |ce |galog|4n |ct |az|s je jo |a |e je |e |OL) 92) 0a) Fa )\ Gz | ce * = Taq meAON, 91 rie |or |\#r |9r\sr\oz |\aa|Fa)ez |Fa)\ 0s |ez | 9a\ea |9L| Gr) or |r |r| er] | Fo | co | 20 | OL | aE | ot | SZ} 02 | 09 | Sg) ce + 5 = 1090390 02 Pee 02 |o¢ |or|ee|zec |x |x |S Jon |oz |aa\eo | oz |er | 8a | Sr | 89 | G4 }08 | 98 |e2 | 99|OF |OE)Oe\It | |& |2 | SE * + saquiaydag st oe or \0c |0z |st jor |9 |e |¢ jor }ez |oe | or | a | 9F| SE 0S | oF | OF | 98 Jog | 9G) Fa | ce | Sa | eo |9L|SL)OL/T |e |g ss qsnsny he SIL 9 19 |er lor |st |e |aaloz jo |ez |ezis |g |F |o |o Jo Jo Jo |o |0O |&@ Jor |Os)os | se) oe) or | et | oz) 97 Bo 8 Ane ye Chal 0c |sales |os|eel|oe\re|voe |re |co |eaieo jkr jor |4 |# |Z 10 Je |e |% |e |4 1G |G IF J9 [2 8 |eE 29 8 2 ati ‘O88T ‘shup| “Uo jo | PAtesqo | te | og | 62 | 8a | 12 | 92 | Go| ta | eo] 2 | 12] 02) GL | SL} AU) OL | SL} FL] SL | cL} Ir] 0r}6 |8 |2 |9 |G |r |S ye | F “you Jo Aug ‘ox | fine ‘paprjouog — ‘suoTyearesqo 4yods-uns sppog, ‘d ‘d JOid JULY 20, 1888.] Plotting the monthly numbers, it will be seen that there are plain indications that the maxi- mum has passed, though it is thought by some that it is still to come. 1a Gils FIFTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. —I. Tue members of the society began to assemble in Chicago as early as Thursday, June 14, to visit the exposition of railway ap- pliances, and to take part in the excursions planned for their benefit by the Engineers’ club of the north-west. By Monday morning, June 18, the number of those intending to take the special train for St. Paul, generously tendered by the officers of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul rail- way, had swelled to three hundred. ‘The train of eight cars, well filled, left Chicago at 7.30 A.M., arriving at St. Paul at 10 Pp... But few _ stops were made on the way, the principal one being at the crossing of the Wisconsin River, for the object of inspecting the railway bridge, and taking a better view of the fine scenery at that point. Quite an accession to the party ~ came on board at Milwaukee. Upon reaching St. Paul, an engine of the | St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba railroad > was attached; and the train was drawn over that line, through Minneapolis, to Lake Min- - netonka,—a beautiful sheet of water some thirty miles long, where, at Hotel Lafayette, _ thirty-three miles from St. Paul, the members of the society and their invited guests were to be quartered during the convention. i The two cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, — only a few miles apart, and each containing over eighty thousand inhabitants, were rivals for the opportunity of entertaining the society ; and to prevent any ill-feeling, as well as to avoid crowding any of the city hotels, already - taxed to accommodate their own patrons, this summer hotel, just opened for the season, only built one year, newly enlarged and furnished, and capable of providing for the comfort of ve hundred or six hundred guests, was chosen for headquarters. With the exception that ‘some valuable time was lost in going to and returning from the place of holding, the daily ‘sessions, this selection is to be commended ; for the location was extremely pleasant, and the air fresh and cool. Those who did not desire to go to the meetings each day could find ‘rest and enjoyment at this agreeable summer resort. A special train was at the service of the convention each day throughout the entire a SCIENCE. 75 week. A large accession to the number of members present was made as the week pro- gressed, so that the attendance was larger than at any previous convention. On Tuesday morning the engineers took the special train for St. Paul, and thence went to the state capitol, where the first meeting was called to order in Representatives’ hall. After formal announcements of programme and ar- rangements, the usual addresses of welcome were made. | The first paper read was by the late Major F. U. Farquhar, U.S. eng., on the building of the dike for the preservation of the Falls of St. Anthony. The falls, which furnish the water-power for the mills of Minneapolis, were first described. A stratum of upper magnesian limestone, eleven feet thick at the lower edge, is underlaid by an extremely soft sandrock, which is rapidly worn away; and the limestone is thus undermined and broken off. The recession of the falls was rapid ; and, as the limestone outcrops with a thin edge twelve hundred feet above the pres- ent brink of the falls, their final reduction to rapids would occur, if not prevented. Citi- zens dug a tunnel for a tail-race in the sand- rock, and the river broke in at the upper end. The immediate destruction of the falls was imminent; and attempts to check the rush of water, which rapidly enlarged the tunnel and repeatedly broke through in different places, proved ineffectual. The citizens, after building cofferdams at various weak points, discouraged by failures at times of high water, obtained an appropriation from the U.S. government, on the ground that the wearing-away of the fails would injure navigation above. JULY 20, 1883.] - minims of absolute alcohol in a hundred cubic centi- metres of the circulating liquid, necessary to cause complete arrest of the heart): methyl, 205.5; ethyl, 114; propyl (primary), 59.3; isobutyl, 17; isoamyl (amyl alcohol of fermentation), 6.6. The activity of - the higher members of the series increases rapidly; and as the propyl, butyl, and amyl alcohols are con- stituents of fusel oil, we have evidence of the directly injurious effect of this impurity of ordinary alcoholic drinks. — ( Practitioner, xxx. v. 339.) W.u. Hu. [96 Pulmonary epithelium. — Bozzoli and Graziadei publish a note chiefly to claim priority for certain of their observations on the lungs. We have only to notice that they have not seen any hyaline plates without nuclei in the epithelium, such as Feurstack has described. They also again insist upon the pres- ence and pathological importance of groups of little cells, not yet differentiated into the special] pulmonary epithelial cells (plates). — (Arch. ital. biol., iii. 222 ) Cc. 8. M. [97 Birds, Molecular layer of the retina.— According to Bellonci, the formation of the inner molecular layer of the retina begins in the chick on the eighth day of incubation. At that time there is a special row of clear cells just outside the layer. The cells in the situation of the layer disappear on the ninth day: the clear cells undergo fatty degeneration of the nucleus, and disappear by the twelfth day. They form the molecular layer, which, however, continues to enlarge. Both the inner and outer molecular layer are penetrated by optic nerve-fibres. Thus is produced a structural relation with the molecular layers of the brain. —(Arch. ital. bivl., iii. 196.) c. 8. M. [98 The birds of Tonkak.— In this paper Herr Miil- ler has given us an elaborate review of the birds of this island, based on a collection of sixteen hundred skins of one hundred and fifty-five species. The paper contains many systematic notes of interest. The author has prepared an extended set of tables from which he concludes that the Tonkak birds be- long rather to the Indo-Chinese sub-region than to the Indo-Malayan as given by Wallace. — (Journ. f. ornith., Xxx. iv.) J. A. J. {99 Mammals, Development of the liver and lungs.—In connection with his researches on the development of the body-cavity Uskow made some observations on the liver and lungs of embryos. From the sinus venosus there grow out irregular cavities into the septum transversum, which extend into papillary _ growths, projecting into the pericardial cavity. The papillae are, of course, covered by a continuation of the epithelium of the pericardial cavity. They after- wards unite into a spongy mesh of tissue, into which the liver extends as it grows. The further history was not followed, but it is probable that the hollow outgrowths from the sinus venosus become hepatic vessels. Concerning the lungs, from a study of a rabbit embryo of a little less than ten days, Uskow draws SCIENCE. 89 the following conclusions. At the time of the closure of the ‘vorderdarm,’ the separation of oesophagus and trachea is already indicated. The lung is an un- paired evagination of the ventral wall of the ‘ vor- derdarm.’ The trachea and the lung arise at the same time, and independently; but the separation of the lung from the * vorderdarm’ precedes the separation of the trachea. The lung arises immediately in front of the liver; at the same time the cells of the meso- derm around the lung proliferate; and Uskow believes that the pleural (i.e., coelom) epithelium forms not only the pleural epithelium, but also the deeper-lying mesodermic elements (muscles, etc.) of the lung. — (Arch. mikr. anat., xxii. 219.) ©. Ss. M. [100 A hybrid between the gayal and zebu.— Dr. Julius Kiihn announces the birth, at the agricultural institute of the Halle university, of a hybrid between the gayal of eastern India and the long-horned race of zebus known as sangas, which was held in domesti- cation by the ancient Egyptians, and is now abundant in Soudan and Abyssinia. The hybrid in question is a female; it weighed, at birth, 21.5 kilograms, or about one-twentieth the weight of the sanga mother. The latter is of a mottled red and white color, while the calf is of a clear red brown, only the belly and inner sides of the legs and the fetlocks being white. The hump on the withers, so characteristic of the zebu, is only slightly developed. ‘* In the birth of this animal it is shown that animals of the most primitive forms, which for thousands of years have had unchanged surroundings, by suitable treatment, may remain unimpaired in fertility, even when placed in relations which are in the greatest degree different from those of their native home.’’ — (Zool. garten, xxiv. 1883, 126.) ¥F. w. T. {101 ANTHROPOLOGY. Origin of the Magyars.— Mr. Herman Vambery published a work in Leipzig last year, in which he takes the ground that the Hungarians are of Turkish and not of Finno-Ugrian origin, as is believed by most ethnologists, and especially by M. Hunfalvy. A census of the Turco-Tatar stock is given, which may be of service to some of our readers. Turco-Siberians 141,992 Eastern Turkestan + 1,040,000 Kirghiz - 2,299,366 Kara-Kirghiz ~ » 850,000 Turcomans - 1,000,000 Kara-Kalpaks . 70,000 Usbegs . + 2,500,000 Kipehaks . 70,000 Kuramans 77,301 Sarts 900,000 Bushirs 500,000 Tatars . 638,710 Nogajs. . . 200,000 Kuvaks [?] . + 600,000 Kalmuks . 2 AF -' 71,000 ‘Transcaucasic Turks 900,000 Ita 6 es} fe és 200,000 Osmanili « 10,000,000 21,558,369 — (Archiv. per Vanthrop., xii. 297.) J. w. Pp. [102 Macrobiotia.— The narrative of Genesis about the long lives of the patriarchs has very, frequently 90 led to the collation of the ages of persons who have lived to a very great age: Lord Malahide is inclined to give credit to the great number of cases of recorded longevity occurring among the inscriptions recovered from old Roman graves in Algeria and Tunisia. Mr. Renier has published a collection of these, and a still more complete series is by Mr. Willman, under the auspices of the Royal academy of Berlin. Upwards of ten thousand inscriptions are thus calendared. The following is a list from Numidia: — 101... . . iJ4persons. MLO) foveal tial fe 5 persons. OLE. creivinptreyy epee LO lined MLS peebatg st Met rele HOSS acrig re micae a8 IP 5 By LOSWeaneysiii-ty ren persons DO laren stare iece) nie) onde Se WE wot bo we imesh |p Wa a 6 5 1 person. LOGE yep -ti tet Lp erEONs EDT aie st tem het tees s6 LO Teaeliterieie ny boy teeta LS Uiareiiely PERG) itepd leds LOSI ris onelter al ital) tig tiaeninn DEP Aeere! ns MOpee WER MeL The At Mastar, a small town, the cemetery yields the following: — i JMET Gg sd! - 101 | Marcela 5.) c2 Ui 20 Coecilius . ... . . 100 | Januarius. ...:+. . 101 Gargilius . . . .. . 103 Martialisy . (2). “allue wa nelOD Graninsi) f5).0 =) fe) - 110 “Another? jassat cor roma me ello WHEE So coh ood ce. alls) Jussata. . . . . . . 105 Petreiaise Fo eits\ sale «pho Lord Malahide, in order to show the credibility of these figures, speaks at length upon the duties of the Roman censors. — (Journ. anthrop. inst., xii. 441.) J. W. P. } [Los The Pawnees.— Mr. John B. Dunbar of Bloom- field, N.Y., has brought together in a quarto pam- SCIENCE, [Vou. II., No. 24. phlet his researches into the Pini family of North American Indians. The tribes embraced in this group are the Pawnees, Arikaras, Caddos, Huecos or Wacos, Keechies, Tawaconies, and Pawnee Picts or Wichitas. The last five are the southern or Red River branches. A brief account of each of these is given in the first few pages of the pamphlet. The third paragraph is devoted to the Arikaras, and the remainder of the monograph to the Pani, or Pawnees. A very extensive bibliography of the stock has been collected, commencing with the expedition of Lewis and Clarke, and including the publications of Pike, Long, J. T. Irving, Murray, Hayden, and the reports of the several commissioners of Indian af- fairs. Earlier notices are found in la Harpe, du Pratz, and Charlevoix, ; The name ‘ Pawnee’ is probably derived from Pd- rik-i (a horn), referring to their peculiar scalp-lock. The original hunting-ground extended from the Nio- brara, south to the Arkansas, but no definite bounda- ries can be fixed. ° Mr. Dunbar has collected from various sources the traditions of their origin and migrations (§ 8), their conflicts (§ 9), their census (§ 10), and their later his- tory since the beginning of our century. Consider- able space is given to their tribal organization, physical characteristics, social usages, dress, names, lodges, arts, trade, feasts, hunting, war, medicine, mourning, religion, calendar, present condition and prospects. Brief chapters are deyoted to the cele- brated chiefs, Pitale-sharu, Lone Chief, and Medi- cine Bull. —J. w. P. [104 INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. STATE INSTITUTIONS. State university of Kansas, Lawrence. Weather report for June.— The chief meteoro- logical features of this month were the low mean temperature and the abundant rainfall. During the fifteen preceding years, three Junes have been cooler than this, and only one (1876) has had a larger rain- fall. Mean temperature, 71.38°, which is 2.87° below the June average. The highest temperature was 94°, on the 22d and 30th. The mercury reached or exceeded 90° on only six days. The lowest temperature was 48.5°, giving a range of 45.5° for the month. Mean temperature at 7 A.M., 66.22°; at 2 P.m., 80.39; at 9 P.M., 69.5°. Rainfall, 7.73 inches, which is 2.80 inches above the June average. There were seven thunder-showers, one of which, on the night of the 11th, continued for six hours, and brought 2.92 inches of rain. The entire rainfall for the six months of 1883 now completed has been 21.80 inches, which is 5.05 inches above the average for the first half-year of the past fifteen years. Mean cloudiness, 38.56% of the sky, the month being 3.64% clearer than the average. Number of clear days (less than one-third cloudy), 14; half clear (from one to two thirds cloudy), 12; cloudy (more than two-thirds), 4. There were four entirely clear days, and only one entirely cloudy day. Mean at 7 A.M., 42.67%; at 2 P.M., 39.83%; at 9P.M., 33.67%. Wind: S.W., 24 times; S.E., 24 times; N.W., 17 times; N.E., 14 times; N., 4 times; S., 4 times; E., 3 times. The entire distance travelled by the wind was 10,737 miles, which is just two miles above the June average. This gives a mean daily velocity of 357.90 miles, and a mean hourly velocity of 14,91 miles. The highest velocity was 45 miles an hour, on the 22d and 28d. The thunder-storm of the 11th was ushered in at 11.30 p.m. by a very strong ‘straight’ wind, which unroofed a portion of the Cen- tral school building at Lawrence, but was in no sense a tornado. Mean height of barometer, 29.028 inches; at 7 A.M., 29.050 inches; at 2 P.M., 29.013 inches; at 9 P.M., 29.020 inches; maximum, 29.217 inches, on 14th; minimum, 28,671 inches; monthly range, only 0.546 inch. Relative humidity: mean for month, 74.3; at 7 A.M., 83.1; at 2 P.m., 57.7; at 9 P.m., 82.1; greatest, 97, on 23d and 24th; least, 37, on 14th. JULY 20, 1883,] PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS, Ohio Wesleyan university, Delaware, 0. Additions to the museum. — The increase to the collections for the year amounts to 9,202 specimens. The aim of the curator is not to build up a great museum, but one of great educational value, which shall in time contain every specimen needed to ex- plain the facts of natural history as presented in the text-books of the department. All purchases and solicited exchanges are for this end, and even the vol- unteer exchanges are turned in this direction as far -as practicable. W. F. Falconer has given an exten- sive collection made at the phosphate beds of Charles- ton, S.C. An elephant’s tooth in this collection measures ten by fourteen inches, and weighs twenty- nine pounds. Prof. R. E. Call of Nebraska, a most enthusiastic naturalist, spent the summer of 1882 on a collecting trip through Georgia. The museum joined with oth- er institutions in defraying his expenses, and sharing the results. Although all the material has not been distributed, over five thousand specimens have been received, and a large number of new and valuable species. The U.S. fish-commission has presented a collec- tion illustrating the marine fauna of. the New Eng- land coast. It contains nearly one hundred species, many of which were obtained by dredging at depths as great as two hundred fathoms. Collections of importance have also been received from the late Mr. C. R. McClellan, a former assistant, _and from Revs. J. M. Barker of Mexico, and H. Man- sell of India, and the Brothers Willis, recently re- turned from a tour of the world. The shelves in all the cases are overcrowded; and at least twenty-five thousand specimens are packed away in boxes and drawers, awaiting study, and room in which to display them. The erection of one or more new cases is required. NOTES AND NEWS. The summer courses of instruction in chemistry, offered to teachers by Harvard university, opened July 6, in the chemical laboratories of Boylston hall, and will continue six weeks. The course in general and descriptive chemistry is taken by twelve persons, the course in qualitative analysis by ten, and quanti- tative analysis by five. There are also eight persons who are engaged on advanced quantitative analysis, organic chemistry, and original research. Lectures are given twice a week on general chemistry, daily on qualitative analysis, and twice a week on quantitative analysis. The laboratories are open daily from 8 A.M. to 6 p.m. The following states are represented: Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Geor- gia. Of the thirty-five persons mentioned above, five are women, and eight are continuing their work from former courses. As in previous years, these courses are under the direction of Dr. C. F. Mabery. SCIENCE. 91 — Upon the death of Charles Darwin, last year, the advocates of evolution in the Paris anthropo- logical society organized a Conférence annuelle trans- Jormiste, in which one of their number who is a specialist shall set forth the manner in which the doctrine of transformism has affected his department of research, and also the arguments which his studies have furnished for the substantiation of the doctrine. The opening lecture of the course was delivered by M. Mathias Duval, upon the mutual relations of evolution and the embryology of the eye, and is published in the Revue scientifique for May 12. The first part of the discussion is an attack upon the doctrine of special creation and final causes. It does not seem to have come to the notice of our French colleagues, that the doctrine of special crea- tion, like all other doctrines (evolution, for instance), has modified itself from time to time by the increase of knowledge. ‘‘ These admirable appropriations of an organ to an end,’’ says M. Duval, ‘‘are ex- plained by the gradual perfecting of a mechanism, which, setting forth from simple and elementary adjustments, develops, by heredity and_ selection, the forms that are more and more advantageous to the individual. Upon the question whether embry- ology confirms this theory, it is proposed to examine the successive forms which the eye presents in the animal series, and the successive stages of its de- velopment in man or the higher vertebrates. In other words, the phylogeny will first be questioned, and afterward the ontogeny, of the globe oculaire, to see whether these two series of facts are a repetition the one of the other.’’ Briefly passing over the unicellular forms, and those in which the eye is un- differentiated, the author commences his more spe- cial investigation with the tunicates and amphioxus, from which point the argument is conducted with great precision, and is well illustrated. — The French academy of sciences proposed as a subject for one of its 1882 prizes the following: ‘‘To find the origin of the electricity of the atmosphere, and the causes of the great development of electrical phenomena in storm-clouds.’’? Several memoirs were received by the academy; but no one of them was adjudged worthy of the prize, although a reward and encouragement of a thousand franes was granted to one of the competitors. The academy, therefore, continues the above as one of the prize subjects for 1885. Memoirs will be received up to June 1, 1885. Each must be accompanied by a sealed envelope con- taining the name and address of the author. The envelope will not be opened unless the memoir is successful. The value of the prize is three thousand francs, — The sixth annual convention of American libra- rians will be held in Buffalo, Aug. 14 to 17. The opening address will be delivered by the president, Justin Winsor. Excursions will be made down the Niagara River, and, at the close of the session, to Niagara Falls. Further details may be obtained from Mr. John N. Larned, Young men’s library, Buffalo. — The Smithsonian institution will soon publish 92 Professor Bolton’s Catalogue of scientific and techni cal periodicals. Proof-sheets have been sent to the leading libraries of the country, with the request that it should be noted what journals might ‘be on their shelves; so that we shall have a complete list of available scientific periodicals. — The Johns Hopkins university circular for June is given up to a statement of the work of the past year, and a programme of the courses offered for the year 1883-84. — According to Nature, the emperor of Austria, on June 5, inaugurated the new Vienna observatory on the Turken Schanze, in the northern outskirts of the town. The new building has taken nine years to construct; and during that time the present di- rector has travelled all over Europe and America in order to study the construction and equipment of the best observatories. The result is, that the Vienna observatory is probably one of the most complete in existence. — Dr. Ph. Paulitschke’s work on the ‘ Geograph- ische erforschung des afrikanischen continents’ (Vi- ena, 188U), in which he gave a brief statement of the work of all explorers from ancient times down to the date of publication, is now supplemented by his ‘ Afrika-literatur in der zeit von 1500 bis 1750 n. Chr.’ (Vienna, 1882), —a work of 122 pages, with 1,212 titles. Valuable cartographic aid to study in the same direction is given in H. Kiepert’s maps of the progress of African exploration from 1750 to 1873, and of the expeditions of this century, col- ored according to their nationality; these being pub- lished in the journal of the Berlin geographical society in 1873 and 1874, and again in the ten larger seale charts of inner Africa by Petermann and Has- senstein, issued as a supplement to the Miltheilungen in 1863. i — Mr. W. G. Black is preparing tbe index for his Folk-medicine, already in print, and to be issued im- mediately by the Folk-lore society. The work treats of the origin and communication of disease, and the influence in folk-medicine of charms, saints, and heavenly bodies. ev) The same society hopes soon to obtain for publi- cation a collection of Zulu nursery literature, which has been in the hands of Bishop Callaway for ten years. This will be an addition to folk-lore of very great interest and value. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Adrian, T. Ueber projectivitiits- und dualitiits-beziehungen im gebiete mehrfach unendlicher kegelschnittschaaren. Berlin, 1882. 54p. 8°. Ambthl, G. Anleitung zur milchpriifung. St. Gallen, Huber, 1883. 43 p. 8°. Amundtegui, M. L. El terremoto del 13 mayo de 1647. Santiago de Chile, 1883. 620 p. 4°. Ballard, H. H. Hand-book of the St. Nicholas Agassiz association. Pittsfield, Axtell & Pomeroy, pr., 1882. 5+85 p. 24°. Barron, A.F. Vines and vine-culture: being a treatise on the cultivation of the grape-yine, with description of the prin- cipal varieties. London, 1883. 240 p., illustr. 8°, SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 24. Bastian, A. schaftliche nachbarn. pl. 8°. Bechamps. : Vhéterogénie, Vhistogénie, la physiologie et la pathologie. 1883. 8°. Behrend, G. Eis- und kiilteerzeugungs.maschinen, nebst einer anzahl ausgefiihrter anlagen zur erzeugung von eis, abkiih- lung von fliissigkeiten und rdumen. Halle, 1883. 8°. Bersch, J. Die verwerthung des holzes auf chemischem wege. Iie fubrikation von oxulsaure, alkohol und cellulose, der gerbstoff- und farbstoff-extracte aus rinden und hélzern, der atherischen oele und harze. Wien, 1883. 368 p., illusur. 8°. Bleunard, A. Le mouvement et la matiére. Lectures sur Ja physique et la chimie. Paris, 1883. 37tp., illustr. 8°. Branco, W., und Reiss, W. Ueber eine fossile siiugethier- fauna von Punin bei Riobamba in Ecuador. Mit geologischer einleitung. Berlin, 1883. 166 p. gr. 4°. Brown, J.E. The forest flora of South Australia. London, 18838. pl. f*. Volkerstiimme am Brahmaputra und verwandt- Berlin, Diimmlers, 1883. 70+130 p., 2 col. Les microzymas dans leurs rapports avec Paris, part i. Buccola, G. La legge del tempo nei fenomeni del pensiero; saggio di psicologia sperimentale. Milano, Dumolard, 1883. Bibl. intern. 15+482 p. 8°. Buckland, F. Log-book of a fisherman and zodlogist. New edit. London, 1883. 352 p., illustr. 8°. Candolle, A. de. L’origine delle piante coltivate. 1883. 644 p. 8°. Cantor, G. Grundlagen einer allgemeinen mannigfaltigkeits- lehre, mathematisch-philosophischer versuch in der lehre des unendlichen, Leipzig, /ewbner, 1883. 51 p. 8°. Cer6n, 8. Estudio sobre los materiales y efectos usados en la marina. Cadiz, 1883. 652 p., illustr. 4°. Congresso g¢ografico internazionale terzo tenuto. a Venezia dal 15 al 22 settembre, 1881. vol. i. Notizie e rendiconti-. Roma, Soc. geogx. itul., 1882. 404 p., pl. 8°. Cotteau, Peron, et Gauthier. Echinides fossiles de PAlgeérie. fase. i. Terrains jurassiques. Paris, 1883. 79 p., illustr. 8°. Credner, H. Geologische profile durch den boden der stadt Leipzig und deren nichster umgebung. Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1883. 5+71p., pl. f. Dawidowsky, F. Fabrication of glue, gelatine, cements, pastes, mucilages, ete. Translated from the German, with addi- tions, by W. T. Braunt. Philadelphia, 18838. 275 p. 12°. Dodel-Port, A. Illustrirtes pflanzenleben. Gemeinyer- standliche originalabhandlungen iiber die interessantesten und wichtigsten fragen der pflanzenkunde. Ziirich, 1883. 490 p., Milano, illustr. 8°. Faa di Bruno, F. Théorie des formes binaires. Turin, 1883. illustr. 8°. : Faber, G. L. The fisheries of the Adriatic and the fish thereof, with a systematic list of the Adriatic fauna. Preceded by an introduction by Giinther. London, 1883. illustr. 4°. Falkenburg, C Neue schieberdiagramme und neue theo- rie der dampfvertheilung in anwendung auf die steuerung der stationsien und locomotorischen dampfmaschinen. Leipzig, 1883. 5 Faramelli, T. Descrizione geologica della provincia di Payia, con annessa carta geologica a calori nella scala di 1 per 200,000. Milano, 1882. 104 p, 4°. Graetz, L. Die elektricitét und ihre anwendungen zur beleuchtung, kraftiibertragung, metallurgie, telephonie, und telegraphie. Stuttgart, 1883. illustr. 8°. Gross, V. Les Protohelvétes ou les premiers colons sur les bords des lacs de Bienne et Neuchatel. Avec préfuce de Vir- chow. Berlin, 1883. 120 p., illustr. 4°. Halphen. Mémoire sur la réduction des équations différen- tielles linéaires aux formes intégrales. Paris, 1883. 301 p. 4°. Harting, J. E. Sketches of bird life from 20 years’ observa- tions of their haunts and habits. 8°. Heen, M.P.de. De la dilatabilité de quelques liquides or- ganiques et des solutions salines.. Bruxelles, 1883. 51 p., illustr. 8° . Helderich, T. de. Flore de l’ile de Céphalone ou catalogue des plantes, qui croissent naturellement et se cultivent le plus frequemment dans cette ile. Lausanne, Beide/, 1883. 90 p. 8°. Hellrieg], H. Beitriige zu den naturwissenschaftlichen grundlagen des Ackerbaues. Braunschweiy, 1883. 8°. Herbert, ID., edit. Selection from the prize essays of the International fisheries exhibition, Edinburgh, 1882. New York, 1883. illustr. 8°. > Hofmann, E. Der kiifersammler. Stuttgart, 1883. illustr. 8°. ——S ee London, 1883. 302 p., illustr. TE ING F. FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1833. THE ADVANTAGES OF STUDY AT THE NAPLES ZOOLOGICAL STATION. Tue opening of the marine laboratory in Naples in 1874 marks an important epoch in the progress of biological studies, as seen, not only in the prodi- gious and ever-increas- ing amount of work which it produces, but also in the general interest which its success has inspired in other quar- ters. As in America sea- side schools and laborato- ries may be traced to the example set at Penikese, so in Europe most of the marine labo- ratories owe their origin to influences emanating from Naples. But the ben- eficial _influ- ence of the Naples station is by no means confined to Europe. Already we hear of marine stations in Algiers, in Sydney, and in Java. In Japan too, as we are informed, a laboratory has been established by Professor Mitsukuri in a Buddh- No. 25.— 1888. ist temple, —anexample the moral of which is easily drawn. Thus the prediction made by the founder of the Naples station, Profes- sor Anton Dohrn, some ten years ago, — that marine zodlogy was destined to become para- and that the would soon be encircled by a net-work earth mount, of zodlogical stations ,— seems to be rapidly proaching its fulfilment. Every one can now see that the Na- ples ‘labora- ap- tory was a gi- gantice enter- prise, mag- nificent alike in concep- tion and in achievement, although few are aware of the magni- tude and ya- ried nature of the difficul- ties which opposed _ its progress. It is a matter for rejoicing, that this in- stitution was planned on such broad and liberal views, and with such wise prevision of the course its development should take in order to secure a long and prosperous existence. With the addition of a physiological depart- ment now determined upon, it becomes a bio- 94 logical station in the broader sense of the word, —an organization on a grand scale for the study of marine life in all its aspects. Its brilliant career during the first nine years of its existence not only insures its permanency, but also gives pledge of future growth com- mensurate with the ever-expanding needs of biological research. The station is no less liberal in its manage- ment than comprehensive in its aims; for it opens its doors to naturalists from all quarters of the globe on like conditions. It is the in- ternational character of the station, combined with the natural advantages of situation, which has made it, in so short time, the Mecca of biologists, and a seat of unprecedented prolific activity. The mild and equable climate of Naples, the unsurpassed richness of the fauna and flora of its bay, and the best equipped laboratory in the world, conspire to give the Naples station pre-eminence among institu- tions of its kind, and to render it probable that it will remain what it is now acknowl- edged to be,—the world’s great biological station. The detailed account given in Miss Nunn’s valuable article (Scmmncr, Nos. 17 and 18) makes it unnecessary to enter here into a de- scription of the laboratory ; and Mr. Cunning- ham’s excellent review of the work which it has already accomplished (Natwre, March 15) is doubtless accessible to most of the readers of Science. i Let us rather consider the practical question of our own interest, as Americans, in this institution. Except in a single and note- worthy case of very recent date, we have thus far taken no active interest in this matter. The distance between us and Naples has seemed to foster the idea that we have no immediate and common concern with European nations in opportunities that lie so much near- er their doors than ours. But recent events have demonstrated that there is a demand on the part of American naturalists for just such opportunities as are now offered at Naples, and nowhere else; and with them political isola- tion is not likely to be mistaken for scientific SCIENCE. Spi AR ee ee ae ere [Vou. IL, No. 25. isolation. That this demand does not arise from whimsical reasons will certainly be con- ceded by all who understandits meaning. Still there may be some who will ask if the field for investigation is not sufficiently broad at home, and the facilities for work sufficiently ample, to satisfy the requirements of American natu- ralists. With all due respect to such queries, we would suggest that they do not contain the gist of the matter: for even on the pre- posterous supposition that our facilities for biological research are fully as great as those — at Naples, no one could claim that they are identical; so that it would still be pertinent to ask, Can we not profitably add the advantages in Naples to those enjoyed at home? The real question comes to this: Are there advantages at Naples which are not offered here, and are they worth the time and money required to obtain them? » Now, it is no disparagement to home talent and resources, to say that the advantages of study at the Naples station are incomparably greater, and certainly more numerous, than those at our command. More than this, there is not a single laboratory in Europe where the student of natural history can pursue his studies under so favorable cir- cumstances as at Naples. This is doubtless much to say, when we remember that the laboratories of Huxley, Lankester, Lacaze- Duthiers, Van Beneden, Leuckart, Haeckel, Gegenbaur, Claus, Semper, Kolliker, Barrois, and Giard are of world-wide repute; but it is not merely our private opinion, it is an acknowledged fact. Of course, we are not now speaking of the comparative merits of this institution for students just beginning their ~ studies, but for those who are already more or less prepared for independent work. The Naples station makes no pretension to fulfilling the functions of a school or a college: its aim is to advance biological re- search; and to this end it consecrates all its energies. It is a laboratory organized and equipped, not for training the inexperienced, but for aiding the investigator. It represents, in many respects, the excellences of all the best laboratories of Europe combined, and sur- a , : JULY 27, 1883.] passes them all in the inexhaustible wealth of its resources, and in the many exceptional advantages that naturally spring from its inter- national character. Although no lectures or courses of instruc- tion are provided for, an able staff of assistants are constantly employed, whose aid and counsel in all matters pertaining to methods of work leave nothing to be desired. It is one of the great advantages of work at the station, that it gives one opportunities for the acquisition of methods. An institution which pushes research with such energy and success will naturally be prolific in the discovery of ways and means. The station brings together a body of zealous workers from the best labora- tories of Europe, and thus, besides giving a rare opportunity for the formation of valuable acquaintances, direct interchange of thought, and discussion of problems, opens another way for the accumulation and refinement of meth- ods. It is in this way that it becomes a sort of international depot for the reception of dis- coveries and improvements made elsewhere. The heterogeneous material thus obtained is sifted, systematized, tested, further elaborated and refined, and redistributed. The methods _ of microscopical research published by Paul Mayer, and the well-known discoveries of Giesbrecht, show that the station is doing no less important work as an originator than as an accumulator and a distributer of meth- ods. Now, whoever knows the value of methods —and we need not argue with those who do not — will admit, that, in this particular, the Naples station is unrivalled, and that, from the nature of things, it will probably remain so indefinitely. However successful we may become in the development and application of methods, we are not likely to see the time when it will not be desirable to see, and to know by experience, how work is done at Naples. This one but all-important matter, ‘to say nothing of the many other advantages that must accrue to an occupant of a table at the station, — such as social intercourse, direct knowledge of a very important fauna, and SCIENCE. 95 opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of the four languages with which every naturalist must now be familiar, — makes it very desirable, particularly for our younger naturalists, to spend some time at Naples. ‘One of the indispensable requisites to suc- cessful work in natural history is an extensive library ; and this is precisely one of the needs most felt in seaside laboratories. As a rule, naturalists are compelled to select a few of the books which they conjecture will be useful to them, and transport them to the place of study. This method is, of course, very unsatisfactory, for reasons too obyious to be mentioned. The Naples station has met this difficulty by estab- lishing a permanent library in an apartment adjoining its laboratory. Already this library has become one of the most complete biologi- cal libraries in Europe, and forms one of the chief attractions of the station. Its manage- ment, we are happy to say, is the least con- spicuous thing about it. Those accustomed to depend upon public libraries, open only at stated hours, approached only through officials, and encumbered with rules, blanks, fines, ete., have a pleasing sense of relief on finding the doors of this rich library thrown open to them, with the liberty of helping themselves at any time to whatever books are desired, with no further requirement than to place a card bear- ing their name in the place of each book taken. This simple device enables others who chance to want the same books to know precisely where to find them. The supply of material furnishes another topic well worth consideration in this connec- tion. It is the method of supply, rather than its richness, which merits attention. An organ- ized body of men is constantly employed for this purpose; and they make it their busi- ness not only to know what material can be obtained, but also when and where. These men now work with all the advantages of long experience and systematic training. The occupant of a table has only to announce what object he wishes to study, and it is de- livered alive at his table. In this way the investigator is able to accomplish the largest 96 SCIENCE. amount of work in a given time, and with the least possible annoyance. The furnishing of the table also selon: attention. Within twenty-four hours after notice is given, one finds his table ready for use, supplied with drawing-material, a large variety of reagents, staining-fluids, and all the appurtenances required for the most difficult kinds of research. It is not the raw material that one finds on his table, but every thing actually prepared and ready for immediate use. Further needs are promptly supplied on request. Thus every thing is arranged to save the time of the investigator, and render his work as effective as possible. Compare these facilities for study with those offered anywhere else, and the contrast is at once apparent. The conseryator’s department, under the direction of Salvatore Lo Bianco, has become one of unusual interest and importance; and the work it is doing deserves to be generally known in this country. The work of this de: partment is the preservation of all the material brought to the station, except what is required to supply the tables and the public aquarium. The success with which this most difficult busi- ness of preserving marine animals in lifelike appearance is accomplished, is certainly mar- vellous, and richly deserves the highest tribute. of praise. This department is producing results of immense value to science, and its usefulness is. now widely recognized. Its beautiful preparations adorn the shelves of nearly every museum in Europe; and it is constantly sending out supplies to laboratories for teaching purposes. Many naturalists who find it inconvenient to work at Naples are supplied by this department with material in such perfect state of preservation for anatomi- cal and histological study, that they are en- abled to carry out their investigations without once visiting the station. There are undoubt- edly museums and laboratories in this country that would do well to avail themselves of this opportunity. This department has been cre- ated for the special purpose of serving science in the above-named ways, and not for increas- ing the funds of the station; and hence the [Vou. IL, No. 25. preparations are made for a sum that scarcely more than covers the expense of the alcohol and other reagents used in their preservation. There is still another way in which this de- partment of the station might be of importance to this country. Doubtless some arrange- ments might be made between our naval au- thorities and the director of the station, such as have been made in the case of Germany and Italy, which would enable us to send an officer from time to time to the station, with a view to gaining a practical knowledge of the methods of preserving animals. In this way each of our war-ships might be supplied with one officer prepared to take advantage of the rare opportunities for advancing our knowl- edge of marine life which arise in the course of their distant cruises. In view of the considerable number of Amer- ican students in ‘the biological laboratories of Europe, and the many applications on their part for permission to work at Naples, there has naturally been some surprise at the fact that America has hitherto declined to con- tribute any thing towards the support of the station. The honor of taking the first step towards rectifying our mistake in this matter belongs to Williams college. It is to be hoped that the example set by President Car- ter and the trustees of this college will not long remain the only evidence of our appre- ciation of the Naples station. Three or four tables will at least be required to meet the demands of our zodlogists alone, judging from the number now at work there. It is not right that American students should go to Naples as beggars, to be received out of cour- tesy, or indirectly through the liberality of © English or German universities. Of the twen- ty-six tables now taken at the station, Ger- many controls twelve; Italy, four; England, two; Russia, two; Belgium, two; Holland, one; Hungary, one; Switzerland, one; and Williams college, one. There are four tables not yet disposed of, two of which, at least, should be secured at once by America. Will not some one or more of our universities take this matter in hand? eS eee ee ee ee ee JULY 27, 1883.] The establishment of a biological station at Wood’s Holl, which, in the hands of Professor Baird, will doubtless be pushed to a speedy completion, will create facilities for the study of marine life on a much larger scale than we have hitherto seen in this country; and the successful issue of this enterprise, we venture to predict, will increase rather than diminish the number of American naturalists at Naples. Whatever improves our facilities for study will tend to increase the general interest in biology, and to augment the number of natu- ralists who will seek the best that the world affords in the way of methods. The time will neyer come when direct interchange of thought, and comparison of methods of research, will cease to be of the highest importance to the biologist. On the contrary, these things will become more and more a necessary part of the experience of every one who aims to be a use- ful and successful student of life. The prog- ress of biological studies will soon create a - demand for more than one international labora- tory, and we certainly hope that the new sta- tion at Wood’s Holl will take this character. The establishment of several great stations at different points, selected according to the rela- tive richness and importance of the fauna and flora, each offering facilities for study similar to those enjoyed at Naples, and open to nat- uralists of every country, would prepare the way for a concentration and organization of forces, and inevitably raise the standard of work, and check the accumulation of drift- wood. It is obvious that the usefulness of one station would not be impaired by the exist- ence of others, since the work of each would be supplementary to that of the others. The character and importance of the publi- eations of the station have been so well stated by Mr. Cunningham in the article before re- ferred to, that little remains to be said on this topic. In looking over the list of subscribers to the Fauna and flora, we are again forced to acknowledge the slender interest which America has taken in the Naples station. Here is a colossal series of magnificent mono- graphs, designed to give an exhaustive treat- SCIENCE. 97 ment of the plants and animals found in the Gulf of Naples, and published at a price that ought to insure them a place in the private library of every zodlogist and botanist in the country ; and yet the list of subscribers, ac- cording to the last circular, numbers only eight. Eyen such countries as Holland and Switzer- land outdo us. Austria and Russia have each twice this number of subscribers ; Italy has nearly four times, England about five times, and Germany ten times, as many. As our poor representation cannot be at- tributed wholly to indifference, it is safe to conclude that these monographs are not so generally known as they deserve to be. Thirty of the series have already been announced, six of which have been completed. From two to four are published each year in quarto form, and illustrated with numerous expensive plates, at an annual subscription-price of only twelve dollars and a half. The number of subscribers is now two hundred and seventy, and the three hundred and fifty copies of Dr. Chun’s Mono- graphie der Ctenophorae — the first in the se- ries —have been already nearly exhausted. The monographs are written either in English, German, French, or Italian, according to the preference of the authors. Such brilliant achievements in the line of exhaustive research as are embodied in these monographs certain- ly command our homage, and assuredly de- serve a more generous recognition than they have yet received in this country. C. O, Wuirman. THE NATIONAL RAILWAY EXPOSI- TION. — Ill. In England and Europe generally, signals of every conceivable variety have been used ; but experience has shown that the semaphore is the best signal, and its universal adoption in Great Britain and on the busiest railways on the continent of Europe is a gopd exam- ple of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The exposition, we regret to observe, contains many forms of signals that are neither distinct in appearance nor positive in meaning. It is hard to say whether some of them mean safety or danger. A mere change 1 Continued from No, 23. A le et A ed eR ee 98 - SCIENCE. of color from red "to white, without any change of form, conveys no information what- ever in certain states of the weather and with certain backgrounds. Other signals are alike, back and front. Facing the train, they signify danger ; standing edgewise, they mean safety : but unfortunately it is difficult to know whether they refer to an east-bound train or a west-bound train; and, though they may be placed on the right hand of the engineer to whom they refer, this’ arrangement is not always free from ambiguity. The semaphore signals, as shown at the ex- position, consist of vertical posts which have one or more arms pivoted at their upper ends ; and these arms are capable of moving through a right angle in a vertical plane. An arm raised to a horizontal position signifies danger ; inclined at an angle of about 45°, it signifies safety. A powerful lamp is fixed near the top of the post; and, when the arm stands hori- zontally, a disk of red glass stands in front of the lens of the lantern, which then, of course, shows a red light, indicating danger. When the arm drops to an angle of 45°, the red disk moves, and leaves the lantern unobscured, showing a white light, and indicating safety. The semaphore arms are weighted, so that their normal position is horizontal, indicating danger; and the signalman has to overcome this weight in pulling them to safety. The object of this arrangement is, that the break- age of the connection between the lever in the signalman’s cabin and the semaphore will release the signal, and let it fly to danger. It is usual to place one signal at or as near as possible to both the signalman’s cabin and the spot where the engine of an advancing train should stop if the signal is against the train. This signal is called the ‘home’ or ‘ main’ signal. Another signal is placed some dis- - tance off in the direction from which the train comes: this is termed the ‘distant’ signal. The object of this arrangement\is, that, on catching sight of the distant signal, the engi- neer is warned, and has some time and distance in which to stop his train before he reaches the home signal, beyond which the danger lies. As the levers work switches and signals at a considerable distance, the connections be- tween them have to be carefully made and protected from accidental injury and the effects of the weather, while the difference in length due to difference in temperature has to be compensated for; so that the signal is moved with certainty, though the wire or pipe connecting it to the lever vary in length several inches in the twenty-four hours, owing [Vou. IL., No. 25. to the difference in temperature ‘between the day and night. The Pennsylvania steel company exhibits an especially neat device for keeping the wire or connection to a dis- SEMAPHORE. tant signal always tight. The wire is kept stretched by an ingenious application of the pull of a weight, which acts only when the signal is in its normal position of danger to which it is weighted. When the signal is Rey JULY 27, 1883.] pulled to safety, it is directly controlled by the signalman. Connections to switches are generally made by means of rods or pipes jointed together, DEVICE FOR KEEPING SIGNAL-WIRE TIGHT. and running on rollers. A ‘trunking’ or wooden covering is then placed over them to protect them from snow and the feet of any- one walking about the yard. As it is very important that the movement of switches should be absolute and exact under all conditions, — that is to say, that the switch be always either tightly closed or wide open, and never stand partly open,—a compensating arrangement is introduced half way between the switch and the signal, so that, whatever the variation of length of connection from tem- perature, the switch is unaffected, and its movements can always be under exact control. COMPENSATING JOINT FOR EXPANSION OF RODS. The full lines show the position in cold weather; the dotted lines, in hot. It is evi- dent, however much the rod expand, the distance between switch and signalman is un- altered, and therefore the movements of the switch and lever are unaffected. In working railroads, some difficulty has SCIENCE. — =e AXLE ANO PAIR OF WHEELS always been experienced in keeping trains running in the same direction, on the same line of rails, from running into one another, as naturally, on a crowded line, an accidental stop- page to even a fast train may enable a slow train to overtake it and cause a rear collision. The Pennsylvania railroad adopted, some years ago, what is known as the block system, by which a definite interval of space (the dis- tance between two adjoining signal-cabins) can always be maintained between two follow- ing trains. ‘The system is too well known to need description here; but Mr. George West- inghouse has invented a system in which the same results are obtained, not by men signal- ling from one cabin to another, but by the trains themselves operating signals through the medium of electricity. The principle of the invention is easily understood, although the details are complicated and the results mar- vellous. A battery is connected to each signal by means of the rails, the current flowing to the signal by one rail, and returning by the other. The presence of an axle and pair of wheels on the track enables the current to flow through them, instead of through the signal apparatus. Directly the current is thus short circuited, the signal flies to danger. This simple principle is so ingeniously worked out in detail, that a train approaching a road- crossing rings a bell fixed on a post at the AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC BLOCK SYSTEM. crossing until the crossing is reached, when the bell stops ringing ; and this is done by trains travelling in either direction. In working on an ordinary piece of road, two signals behind the train are always kept at danger; and, on a single line, two signals in advance of the train are always kept at danger against a train advancing in the opposite direction. In afew words, the trains warn one another of their proximity. We have dwelt on the subject of signals at considerable length, as the question is novel, and of great and growing importance; and we have no doubt that those who take an inter- est in railroads have found much to be gained by visiting the exposition, and studying this question on the spot. The two exhibits we have mentioned represent the best results attained in England after forty years’ patient and careful study of signals, under such trying 100 conditions that the very existence of railways there depends upon the handling of enormously concentrated traffic with safety, certainty, and rapidity ; and the results of these labors are probably not far from a perfect solution of the problem, and deserve our most careful study. (To be continued.) FIFTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. — Il. : On Thursday the convention again assem- bled at St. Paul, at 11 a.m., and listened to a paper by J. P. Frizzell of St. Louis, upon the water-power at St. Anthony’s Falls. The height of fall, watershed, rainfall, and horse- power utilized were given. He criticised the means taken for preserving the falls, the build- ing of storage-dams at the head waters of the Mississippi, and the method of using the water at Minneapolis. He condemned the waste of power occasioned by a gross disregard of the laws of hydraulics, and pointed out the remedy. He stated that three things should be done, — the U.S. government must be induced to with- draw wholly, leaving the work of preservation of the falls to the owners of water-power; the two companies controlling the power must be ~ united under one management; the natural width of channels at the falls must be restored. Capt. O. E. Michaelis, U.S.A., followed with a short paper on metrological investigations, which he said were brought about by the at- tempt to determine how much a certain bullet was ‘out of true.’ He constructed and exhib- ited an instrument closely allied to the sphe- rometer, to which he gave the name of ‘ tripod caliper.’ He read results of measurements with this instrument, and applied it further to testing the accuracy of one turn of a screw-thread. Mr. D. J. Whittemore, chief engineer of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway, read a brief paper on the use of the Nasmyth steam-hammer for driving piles, and gave in- stances of the hindrance which a very slight ‘brooming’ of the pile-head offered to the effective action of the hammer. He also sub- mitted a section from the top of a green Nor- way pine pile, where the friction of the fibres, under the rapid blows of the hammer, had generated sufficient heat to burn the heart of. the head of the pile quite across. Papers by Benjamin Reece, of Toledo, O., upon railway-track repairs, and by J. W. Put- nam, upon cause of decay in timber, were read by title, and ordered printed in the proceedings. 1 Concluded from No. 24. SCIENCE. Eds 2. vey" Pe py Fe ee eee See ? ; ak [Vou. II., No. 25. In another room, before the persons most directly interested, a paper was read by F. P. Stearns of Boston, upon the current meter, ~ giving a theory for the maximum velocity of water, flowing in an open channel, being found below the surface. The society then held a business-meeting, in which a committee for nominating officers of the society was elected. Committees on uni- form tests of cement and on the preservation of timber were granted further time. The committee appointed to procure aid from Con- gress to carry on the tests of iron and steel reported progress, and was continued. The special committee on standard time made a report through Dr. Eggleston to the effect that they had obtained a general expres- sion of opinion from men prominent as engi- neers, railway managers and operators, and others in all parts of the United States and Canada, and found that exceptional unanimity prevailed with respect to the fundamental prin- ciple which should govern in the adoption of a system of standard time for the whole coun- try. The benefits of a change from the present lack of system were illustrated, and it was claimed that the time had arrived for action in the matter. The report was accepted, and the committee continued. The convention at St. Paul then adjourned. The U.S. engineer officers on duty in this — vicinity had an exhibit, in another room, of plans showing the various works of improve- ment under their charge. On Friday, June 22, the convention met in Minneapolis. The party was carried from Hotel Lafayette across Lake Minnetonka by steamer, and thence by a narrow-gauge railway, in open cars, to the city. The meeting took place in the opera-house. A welcome ~was given by ex-Mayor Rand in behalf of the city ; a reply and the annual address, in the absence of President Charles Paine, was read by Director William Metcalf, who took for his subject ‘ Engineering improvements in the Mississippi valley.’ Mr. William P. Shinn then read a paper upon the subject, ‘ How can railways be made more efficient in the transportation of freight? ’ which is a sequel to his paper of similar title read at the annual meeting in 1882, and aims to sum up the discussion, and more particularly to reply to the criticisms of Mr. O. Chanute thereon. He claims that facts and figures, which he adduces, prove that the present, mile- age basis for the adjustment of car accounts be- tween different railroad companies is unjust to the companies furnishing the cars; that it is f 1 ” } 4 EE rr eee ey ee eS a a a JuLy 27, 1883.] costly and discouraging to prompt shippers ; that it leads to slow movement of loaded cars and to non-movement of empty cars; that it is not practised in other countries, nor does any like practice obtain in any other business in this country. The per-diem basis, on the con- trary, is perfectly practicable, as proved by two years’ trial on the Union Pacific, and Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy railroads, and its use in a modified form in two European countries. At noon the convention adjourned. The rest of the day, and Saturday, were given up to the very pleasant excursions and entertain- ments furnished by the people of the vicinity. If one-half as much is done to render the coming meeting of the American association pleasant, those who attend will find themselves well entertained. SOME GEYSER COMPARISONS. Haypen’s twelfth annual report, published by the U. S. interior department, has been in the printer’s hands for some time, and will doubtless be shortly issued from the govern- ment printing-office. Part ii. of this report relates to the Yellowstone national park, and in it the hot-springs are fully described, and the geology and topography of the park treated of in detail. It is proposed here to point out briefly some of the differences in relation to geysers be- tween the results of the work in the park and those reached by Bunsen in his study of the Iceland field. It is not necessary to present Bunsen’s conclusions in detail, nor to describe his theory, with which doubtless the majority of the readers of Scrence are familiar. Bunsen’s conclusions, as presented here, are mainly the same as stated by LeConte in his Elements of geology, although not considered in the same order. 1. Bunsen found in Iceland two kinds of springs, viz., acid springs and alkaline car- bonate springs; and he says that only alkaline carbonate springs become siliceous, and that only silicated springs form geysers. 2. The silica in solution does not deposit on cooling, but only by drying. Our observations in the Yellowstone national park in the main verify this last conclusion, and it is inserted, because LeConte takes ex- ception to it as follows: ‘* This, however, is not true; for the Yellowstone geyser-waters, which? deposit abundantly by cooling, evidently because they contain much more silica than those of Iceland.’’ 1 This is evidently a grammatical error. SCIENCE. a tu, if x a . 101 The following table gives the results of the observations in the park as far as. they have been made in regard to the points just enu- merated. y fat | Grains of | Condition of water Wine Perea | | silica to | peo after three years, : | imperial or. | When bottles were Spring. gallon. ere tl opened. 2 ee = Jug «| Quietspr’g,, 14.56 | Alkaline, Perfectly clear, no # 1 it deposit. Echinus.|Geyser. .| 10.60 | Acta aes Perfectly clear, no | deposit. Pearl. .|Geyser. .| 7.84 | Alkaline, Clear, with small | deposit of gelati- | nous silica. Opal . .|Quietspr’g,) 53.76 | Alkaline, Opaline as vie bottled, no e posit in bottle. Here, then, we have an alkaline spring and an acid spring, both of which are geysers. We see, also, that the mere fact of cooling has little to do with the throwing down of the silica, nor does the precipitation appear to be due to the amount of silica held in the water. Ordi- narily the formation of siliceous sinter or geyserite must be explained by the evapora- tion or drying of the water as it flows from the springs, or falls from the geysers. The chimney-like form is very noticeable in the craters of the Yellowstone geysers; and LeConte attributes it to the greater abundance of silica in solution in the waters of the Yel- lowstone geysers.? As a fact, however, the analyses already made of geyser-waters from the park show usually a smaller percentage of silica than do those of Iceland. Opal spring (see table above) is an exception, and it is a spring without the least appearance of a crater or chimney. The real explanation is probably in the greater age of our geyser region. 3. Bunsen’s conclusions as to temperature are as follows : — a. The temperature increases with the depth of the tube. b. At no point in the tube does the water have the temperature of ebullition which it should have under the pressure to which it is subjected. c. The temperature depends on the time that has elapsed since the last eruption; and, as a great eruption approaches, the nearer it comes to the boiling-point. d, At a depth of forty-five feet in the Great geyser, the difference “between the observed temperature and. the calculated boiling-point of the water for that depth and pressure was the least. 1 Elements of geology, p. 104. 102 In the Yellowstone national park, wherever deep temperatures were taken in active springs and geysers, they were found to increase with the depth; but temperatures of ebullition were found at the surface of many springs, and in some the temperatures exceeded the boiling- point. As the time for an eruption in a geyser approached, the temperature increased, which fact agrees with Bunsen’s observations. In 1865 a Mr. Bryson of Edinburgh found that the tube of the Great geyser of Iceland has a ledge about forty-five feet below the top of the tube, and that, from beneath this ledge, steam-bubbles rose while the tube was filling. A thermometer sunk to this point was violently dashed about and broken, but, when sunk below it, was quiet and undisturbed. The conclusion is, that here is an opening by which steam and superheated water have access to the main geyser-tube from the side. Similar side-openings are known to exist in Strokhr; but the Great geyser is so full of water that its structure cannot be so readily studied as in the case of the smaller Strokhr. In Bunsen’s theory this point forty-five feet below the sur- face plays an important part. He allowed his thermometer to remain at the bottom of the geyser-tube during a great eruption, and it was undisturbed. Mr. Bryson’s discovery explains its safety. It was below the active side-vent of the geyser. Bunsen’s conclusion would therefore prob- ably have to be modified so far as relates to the temperature of ebullition not being reached ; for, could he have obtained temper- atures in the side-conduit, there is but little doubt that the boiling-point would soon haye been reached, ‘even for the pressure of that depth. The mass of water in the main tubes prevents that condition at the surface; and, when it is attained opposite the See an eruption occurs. Bunsen’s theory of the formation of geyser- tubes also requires some modification: Con- trary to his opinion, the deposit of silica is not necessary for geyseric action. In the Gibbon geyser basin in the national park are several geysers conspicuous from the small amount of siliceous deposit surrounding them ; and one in 1878 was entirely without a deposit, having just broken out as a steam-vent. By the following year it had settled down to regu- lar geyser action. As already mentioned, there are, in the park, geysers the water of which is acid in reaction ; and therefore the theory that before develop- ing into a geyser the spring must pass through a ‘preliminary tranquil or non-eruptive stage SCIENCE. No. 25. [Vou. IL, (in which it is an acid spring) is not war- ranted by the facts observed in the Yellow- ~ stone region. Jt is probable that all geysers are originally due to a violent outbreak of steam and water, and that the first stage is that of a huge steam-vent. Under such con- ditions, irregular cavities and passages are more likely to be formed than regular tubes. The lining of the passages and tubes takes place afterwards, and is a slow process. Whether the subterranean passages in which the water is heated are narrow channels, en- largements of tubes, or caverns and tubes, is probably of little consequence, except as the periods or intervals of the geyser are influenced. If water in a glass tube be heated rapidly “from the bottom, it will be violently expelled from the tube, or, if boiled in a kettle that has a lid and a spout, either the lid will be blown off, or the water will be forced out of the spout. In the first case we have an’ explana- tion, in part at least, of Bunsen’s theory ; and the second exemplifies the theories which pre- suppose the existence of subterranean cavi- ties and connected tubes. The simpler the form of the geyser-tube, the less is the im- pediment to the circulation of the superheated water; and in this fact lies the explanation of the difference between constantly boiling springs and geysers. The variations and modifications of the subterranean water-pas- sages, however, must be important factors entering into any complete explanation of gey- seric action. Bunsen’s theory, somewhat modified, is probably the best yet proposed, especially that part of it which explains the effect of the rise of water nearly at the boiling-point to an upper portion of the channel where its tem- perature is in excess of that necessary to cause ebullition. The excess of heat is violently and instantaneously applied to the production of steam. McKenzie, in 1810, also recognized the fact that the sudden evolution of steam was the proximate cause of the eruptions ; but he could not account for their periodical pro- duction. ; The water of geysers and hot-springs has been boiled and reboiled for an inconceivable period, and is freed from air as no other water is. Its cohesion is therefore immensely in- creased; and this fact, together with the obstruction to the free escape of steam caused by irregularities in the channels, offers a com- plete explanation of the superheating of the water; and it is well known, that, when water so heated does boil, the production of vapor is instantaneous. A. C. PEALE. JuLy 27, 1883.] THE AFFINITIES OF RICHTHOFENIA. Dr. W. WAAGEN considers the results of his recent study of the new genus Richthofenia Kays. (Anomia Lawrenciana Koninck) so remarkable as to deserve a preliminary notice (Rec. geol. surv. India, xvi. 1). Mr. Barrande and Professors Valérin and Moller were of opinion that this fossil was more nearly re- lated to the corals than to any other class of animals, while Professors Zittel and Lindstrém seemed to be in favor of the view that it was a brachiopod. In favor of the latter view, the microscopic structure of the shell is the most important point. Its silky lustre is identical with that of Productus, though this seems to be effected by different means. In the shell of Productus it is caused by obliquely ascending prisms, whilst in Richthofenia it depends apparently on the fine lamination of the shell, as in Placuna or similar genera. Of great importance is the prismatic structure of the single laminae of which the shell of Richthofenia is composed. Such a prismatic structure is chiefly characteristic of mollusks and molluscoids. Dr. Waagen has never yet observed this structure in corals. In Calceola sandalina, which seems the most kindred form among corals, a microscopic section through the larger valve showed well its radial septa ; but all these septa exhibited a granular, not a prismatic structure. The punctation of the shell is very similar to that of Productus, and so are the hollow root-like tubes which penetrate the shell-substance of the larger valve, and adhere to other bodies. The smaller valve can also be very well compared to the same valve of Productus, although it is doubtful whether the thick parallel ridges on the hinge-line of this valve of Richthofenia can at all be compared to a cardinal process, and whether the impressions on the valve can be taken as muscular impressions. Reniform bodies are most certainly absent. Nevertheless, among the brachiopods, the Productides are the only ones to which the genus Richthofenia might stand in any relation. Richthofenia possesses certain points of resem- blance with rugose corals, — the irregular parti- tions in the lower part of the larger valve ; the columella-like portion, which is divided off by three vertical septa; these septa themselves, which can well be compared to the primary and the two lateral septa of a rugose coral ; the cellular structure of the shell ; the septa-like ridges on the outer wall of the animal chambers, which are in connection with ' the hollow canals which pierce the substance of the shell ; and the tortuous tubes themselves, into which the canals are prolonged on the outer side of the larger valve. There can be no doubt, that on first inspection, ignoring the silky lustre of the shell, one would be far more likely to regard this fossil as a coral than as a brachiopod. The points of similarity between Richthofenia and the Rudista, chiefly Hippurites, are not very numer- ous. If we make a section of Richthofenia from the hinge-line to the opposite wall, so as just to touch the median vertical septum, we obtain a figure very similar to what a Hippurites shows when cut so as to touch the first columellar fold. Another point of SCIENCE. , 103 similarity consists in the direction of the prisms, of which the substance of the shell is composed. The Rudista differ from all the other groups of Pelecypoda in having the prisms of the outer shell arranged ver- tically ; i.e., longitudinally to the whole extension of the shell. The same is the case in the median shell-layer of Richthofenia, A third point of great importance exists in the pallial impression which is common to Richthofenia and the Rudista ; and, finally, it is not quite certain that the sinuations of the large valve of Richthofenia on both sides of the hinge-line, which stand in so close a connection to the lateral vertical septa, may not be regarded as the beginning of the infoldings of the shell, so character- istic of the Rudista. The distance in time between Richthofenia, which comes probably from the limits between the carboniferous and Permian formations, and the Rudista, which are for the most part upper cretaceous, is so enormous, and the absence of every connecting-link so complete, that a close affinity be- tween the paleozoic and the cretaceous forms should not be expected, It will therefore only be possible to prove the connection between the present fossil and the Rudista, when further members of such a developmental series are discovered. As the case now stands, it will be most prudent, in accordance with the microscopic structure of the shell, to consider the fossil as something like a brachiopod. As far as Dr. Waagen’s opinion goes, he is convinced that Richthofenia is a member of a series, which, branching off somewhere from the rugose corals, has reached in Richthofenia a brachio- pod-like stage, and is going to terminate its career as a Pelecypod, as one of the Rudista. But opinion is nothing in science, and proofs are every thing. As yet, it cannot be positively denied that Richtho- fenia may be a predecessor of the Rudista. J. B. MArcov, THE GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. Amone the leading points referred to in the report of the astronomer royal, W. H. M. Christie, F.R.S., to the board of visitors of the Royal observatory, Greenwich, read at the annual visitation on June 2, are the following : — Besides the regular subjects of observation with the transit-circle,—the sun, moon, planets, and fun- damental stars, —a new working-list of 2,600 stars, comprising all those down to the sixth magnitude inclusive, and not observed since 1860, has been pre- pared, and was brought into use at the beginning of March. The entire number of transits observed with this instrument during the year was 4,188; deter- minations of collimation-error, 354; determinations of level-error, 323; number of circle-observations, 4,485; determinations of nadir-point, 298; reflection-obser- vations of stars, 484. Comet a 1882 was observed seven times on the meridian, and comet 6 1882, three, The routine reductions of all the observations with this instrument are reported in an extraordinary state of forwardness. From the beginning of this year, a correction of — 0”.39 has been applied to the 104 Is results of the nadir-observations to make them agree in the mean with the results of the reflection-obser- vations of stars. This discordance was insignificant in 1878, and is on the increase: its source has not yet been traced. Three determinations of flexure have been made during the year. The correction for R—D, the error of assumed co-latitude, and the posi- tion of the ecliptic, have been investigated for 1882. The value for the co-latitude, from the observations of . 1882, is 38° 31’ 21”.93. The correction to the tabular obliquity of the ecliptic is + 0”.44, The mean error of the tabular right ascension of the moon, from observations with the transit-circle, is + 0°.82. The observations of the moon with the altazimuth have been restricted to the semi-lunation between last quarter and first quarter ; and some limitations have been adopted in the computations which render the reduction of observations with this in- strument comparatively light. The movon’s diameter has been measured thirty-three times, counting meas- ures in both co-ordinates with the transit-circle and the altazimuth. A very valuable addition has been made to the instruments of the Royal observatory by the gift of the Lassell two-feet reflecting equatorial, generously presented by the Misses Lassell. This is the instru- ment with which the Saturnian satellite Hyperion was discovered in 1848. It was removed from Maiden- head early in March, and has been suitably mounted in the grounds of the Royal observatory. The tele- scope has two large mirrors available for use; and the astronomer royal contemplates attaching one of thei to the tube of the ‘south-east equatorial,’ which has a firm mounting and a perfect clock-work, and employing it for spectroscopic and photographic work. The Lassell telescope itself is well suited for the observation of faint satellites and comets which are beyond the present instrumental means of the observatory. ¥ The observations of the solar eclipse of 1882, May 17, with the south-east equatorial, have been com- pletely reduced, and the final equations solved. Spectroscopic observations during twelve months have been somewhat restricted through the pressure of photographie reductions at the time of a maxi- mum of sun-spot frequency. The solar prominences were observed on eight days, and four sun-spots were examined on eight days with reference to broadening of lines in their spectra. The spectrum of the great spot of 1882, Nov. 12-25, showed some remarkable reversals of the lines of hydrogen and sodium, and extraordinary displacement of the F line. As regards determinations of motion of stars in the line of sight, a hundred and forty-two measures have been made of the displacement of the F line in the spectra of twenty-three stars, and twenty-six meas- ures of the line 6; in nine stars. The observations of Sirius during the past winter tend, on the whole, to confirm the impression that the rate of recession of this star had diminished progressively since 1877, and that its motion is now on the point of being converted into one of approach. SCIENCE. The spectrum of comet a 1882 was examined on three nights; that of the great comet 6 1882, also on three nights; and that of comet a 1883, on one night. The spectrum of the first-named object showed the yellow sodium-lines with great brillianey just before perihelion passage. The spectrum of the aurora was also examined in 1882, Noy. 17. The spectro- scopic observations of all kinds are completely re- duced to 1883, May 20. During the year ending at this time, photographs of the sun were taken on two hundred days, and three hundred and thirty-nine plates have been selected for preservation. The sun’s disk was free from spots on seven days; and, since the extraordi- nary outburst of last November, the sun has been comparatively quiescent. poses soon to employ a modified photoheliograph for this work, so as to obtain photographs of the sun eight inches in diameter instead of four. The meas- urement of a large number of Indian and other photographs of the sun, required to fill gaps in the Greenwich series, has been completed, these photo- graphs having been received from the Solar physics committee. The course of the magnetic observations has remained the same as in former years. Improve- ments have been made in the methods of photo- graphic registration. There has been considerable magnetic activity during the year. The disturbances of November last are to be detailed graphically in the ‘Greenwich magnetic results for 1882.’ Particulars of magnetic disturbances are regularly communicated to the Colliery guardian newspaper, for the infor- mation of mining surveyors. The mean temperature of 1882 was 49°.6, or 0°.1 lower than the average. The highest air-tempera- ture was 81°.0, on Aug. 6; and the lowest, 22°.2, on Dec. 11. The mean monthly temperature was above the average from January to May, then below until September, and differed little from the average dur- ing the remainder of the year. The mean daily motion of the air was 806 miles, 27 miles greater than the average. The greatest daily motion was 758 miles, on Noy. 4; and the least, 30 miles, on Dee. 11. The greatest hourly velocity was 64 miles, Oct. 24. The number of hours of bright sunshine, as recorded by Campbell's sunshine instrument, was 1,245; that is, 40 hours above the average of the five preceding years. The rainfall of 1882 was 25.2 inches, slightly above the average. In conclusion, the restriction in the observations of the moon with the altazimuth enables more attention to be given to observations with the equa- torials. Two observers are now available for spectro- scopic observations during the coming year. Mr. Christie characterizes the past year as, in some slight degree, one of transition, and preparation for future work. Some administrative changes have been made; but the regular course of observation and reduction has not been disturbed, and the stand- ard meridian observations have been maintained in full vigor. [Vou. II., No. 25. The astronomer royal pro- - bane tg iti _~ JULY 27, 1883.] LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Impregnation in the turkey. WHEN I was a boy, my father used to send me to some of the neighbors with our turkey-hen, and we left her there with the cock a day or so. Either this, or we would borrow a cock for a day or so, and turn him with our hen. This was not only for one year, but our custom; as we never wintered a turkey-cock, and we did raise turkeys by this process. There was no possibility of the turkey-cock getting with our hen after the contact mentioned above. I did not know that this fact was still unknown to people. What is still a question that I should like settled by experiment is, whether the spermatozoids are re- tained somewhere in the oviduct until the eggs reach a certain stage of development, dr whether they at once impregnate the eggs. W. MANN. Potsdam, N.Y., July 5. [We give place to the foregoing extract from Mr. Mann’s letter, referring to Mr. Shepard’s communi- cation in No. 20, p. 576, on the same subject. There are probably many species of birds in which one con- nection with the male suffices to impregnate a whole batch of eggs. That the turkey, like the common hen, is one of these, is a fact which hardly requires further confirmation. There can be little question that the spermatozoids are retained in the oviduct, as in other animals, and the eggs impregnated as they successively mature. ] Macloskie's Elementary botany. The review with which you favor my Elementary botany catechises me as to whether I am sure that the seeds of Lepidium emit mucilaginous threads. Permit me to auswer that I am sure, having made the experiment a dozen times. Violets, besides the orders cited by the reviewer, prove that the state- ment as to cymose flowers being actinomorphic re- quires modification. I sympathize with the objection to the terms ‘ exotest’ and *endotest;’ but the terms * primine’ and *secundine’ are bewildering to authors as well a~ students, and give priority to the part which is in most cases a result of secondary differentiation; ‘tegmen’ is obsolete, and the whole subject of the development and structure of the seed-wall requires revision : hence the provisional use of terms which, though hybrid, are easily understood, and not likely to mislead the young. G. MACLOSKIE. July 10, 1883. [We conjecture that Professor Macloskie had mixed in his mind, or at least in his statement, two different cases, — one, that in which the wall of the surface- cells of the seed-coat, changed into asubstance which swells into mucilage upon wetting, contains a spiral thread, as in Collomia; the other, in which there is no contained thread. According to our observations, the seeds of Lepidium belong to the latter: hence the ‘catechism,’ which was intended to call attention to a possible oversight. We have to-day verified our observation upon seeds of Lepidium ruderale. Per- haps Professor Macloskie will kindly indicate the species in which he found fhe threads. — ReVieWER. | Primitive streak of vertebrates. Dr. Strahl of Marburg has had the kindness to write to me concerning the abstract of his researches (Science. i. 521). A part of his letter contains an explanation which I shall be glad to have published in justice to Dr. Strahl. Translated, the passage is as follows: — ** As regards the esteemed remark at the close of SCIENCE. 105 the abstract, —that I have declared erroneous Bal- four’s comparison between the primitive streak and neurenteric canal on one side, and the blastopore of Amphia and fishes on the other, —the remark may be due to a misunderstanding. So far as known to me from his descriptions, Balfour placed the neuren- teric canal at the anterior end of the primitve streak. But, as I have shown in my paper, the neurenteric canal originally lies in the middle of the primitive streak. The object of my demonstration is to show that the premises from which Balfour starts do not agree with the observations: this, I believe, was accomplished. This would also decide the second point made by you, — that my argumentation against Balfour was defective.”’ I am much indebted to Dr. Strahl for his letter, and I think others will value his short statement of his position. CHARLES SEDGWICK MINOT, - In an Indian grave. In an Indian grave in Santa Barbara county, Cal., the writer found a beautiful specimen of doubly ter- minated limpid quartz, with a cavity half an inch long containing water or some other fluid. It was about four feet below the surface, and had been care- fully deposited with many other stone implements, and was doubtless highly prized by its aboriginal owner. STEPHEN BoweEks. WARD'S DYNAMIC SOCIOLOGY. fe Ir is proposed to show the relation of Mr. Ward’s publication to current thought. The law is composed of the rules of conduct which organized society endeavors to enforce. The law, therefore, represents the quantity and quality of regulation, or, in other words, of government, which the people of the state in their corporate capacity deem necessary for their welfare. With respect to the amount and kind of government (i.e., of regulation, i.e., of law) which the best interests of society require, there is a very wide divergence of opinion between the chief publicists of civil- ized nations and the people themselves as they are represented by law-making bodies. The publicists tell us we are governed too much; but the people are demanding more government, and, in obedience to this demand, law-making bodies are rapidly extending the scope of law. The careful observer of the progress of government, who is at the same time a careful reader of opinion presented in the larger body of works on state craft, in the more carefully prepared dissertations.on this subject appearing in the great reviews, and in many of the best editorials of the daily press, is astonished at the extreme conflict between opinion and practice. There are two classes of law-making bodies, —courts and legislatures. The growth of law through the courts is almost unrecognized by the people at large; yet its development 106 by this agency is perhaps more rapid than by legislation. The legal principles enunciated in “the decisions of a system of courts such as we have under the general government and in the several states are rapidly developing to meet the demands of the vigorous growth of civilization. Some months ago the public prints announced a decision of the supreme court of California which well illustrates this statement. In more than two-fifths of the area of the United States all agriculture is dependent upon artificial irrigation. In 1866 the Con- gress of the United States, in order to promote mining industries in this region, and inci- dentally to promote agriculture, enacted a statute giving to individuals and corporations the right to. take the water of the running streams of that country from the natural channels in which they run, and use the same for mining and agricultural purposes. Now, the nature of this use is such that the water itself cannot be returned to the natural chan- ‘nels to be used again; and by this law the an- tecedent common law relating to riparian rights was repealed. As the agricultural interests of the country were developed, it was soon discovered that all agricultural operations were under the control of water companies; for these companies claimed ownership to the; water, and the right to use it themselves or to sell it to whom they pleased. But the decision mentioned above was to the effect that these companies possess only the water-ways, the canals and hydraulic appliances connected therewith; that they are common earriers of water, and are themselves subject to the law relating to common carriers. By reflection it will be perceived that this decision will affect vast interests, and deeply influence the daily life of thousands, and eventually of millions, of people. This serves to illustrate the nature of the court-made law, which is so rapidly growing, and affecting in a multitude of ways the relations of men, and restricting the rights of the few for the benefit of the many, which is in the very nature of law. In the above statement it will be observed that the initial change in the law was the statute of 1866. So the national and state legislatures are con- stantly engaged in making new laws for the government of the people; and this, in the main, ever in obedience to popular demand. Such is the practice. The legislature stimu- lates the court, and legal decisions incite new legislation; and thus it is that the public men of this country and of other civilized nations devote their energies to the development of government by devising new laws for the reg- SCIENCE. 8 eg, ulation of conduct, and creating new offices for the administration of law. : Again: in every community there is a body of good and earnest people demanding reform, or devising methods for the improvement of mankind in diverse ways, —for the relief of the unfortunate, for the education of the masses, to diminish suffering, crime, and ignorance; and the energies of these people, exerted everywhere, in season and out of season, create a sentiment that law-making bodies cannot ignore. Yet, in opposition to all this, the publicists ask for less government, and say, ‘ Let soci- ety alone.’ This theoretic opposition to the course of progress, manifest in the develop- ment of institutions, arises from the stand- peint, or phase of the philosophy of evolution, at which our thinkers have arrived. The laws of biologie evolution are applied to sociology. The philosophy of science, which is but in- choate, is adjudged to be complete, and prin- ciples that require restriction are held to be universal. In biologic evolution the cause of progress is recognized as the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence ; and this has been widely accepted as the cause of sociologic progress, and Herbert Spencer is the prophet of this philosophy. As set forth by him and his large following, progress is secured by an inexorable law of nature, which brooks no interference; and the efforts of mankind to improve the condition of mankind do but retard the natural process: and the proper sphere of government is the direct suppression and punishment of crime, and that only. It is from this postulate that the theorists are antagonizing the practice of all the legislatures and courts of civilization. Though Mr. Ward does not state the problem as above, yet his book is written to controvert the Spencerian and generally accepted theory, to present a new philosophy of society which shall be suf- ficient warrant for the course pursued by practical statesmen and jurists, and to support the earnest people of the world in their efforts to benefit the race. His postulate, though stated in other terms, is essentially this: that social progress is due to the struggle for hap- piness, and the adoptioh of that conduct which secures happiness; and that the process, in- stead of being natural and genetic, is artificial and teleologic; that men devise methods for securing happiness, and gradually aitann their ends. Mr. Spencer looks upon society as an organism, and in this he is followed by Mr. Pere, een iia [Vou. Il., No. 25. s JoLy 27, 1883.] Ward; but the former author makes it the eentral point of his sociology, around which all other facts are gathered, and he elaborates a system of analogies with biologie organization, as if, in fact, they were homologies. It will perhaps be nearer the truth to speak of a state, rather than society at large, as an organism. The organization of mankind is twofold, —activital and regulative. By the activital organization, which is usually discussed in works on political economy under the title ‘ division of labor,’ the industries and other occupations of mankind are parcelled out to individuals and corporations; so that a man, in working for himself, works for many others, and an interdependence of parts in the social organism is thus established. For the suc- cessful operation of the activital organization, the regulative organization is established, which results in government, with its three co-ordinate departments, — executive, legis- lative, and judicial. Without division of labor and governmental regulation, the individuals of the human race would be entirely discrete ; with them, mankind is organized into societies which we call ‘ states.’ In so far as the people of one state are related to the people of another through their industries, there is an inchoate organization of state with state, which can only be completed by the consolidation of such states. Though Mr. Spencer devotes an in- ordinate space to the demonstration of the organization of society, he fails to discover, that, in so far as organization is accomplished, the method of biologie progress by the sur- vival of the fittest is repealed. In the struggle for existence, state comes into competition with state ; and to this extent the biologic law of the survival of the fittest applies. But in the relations of the interdependent parts of states, i.e., the different classes of people existing in a tribe or nation, the law of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence no longer applies; the unfit do not succumb; the wel- fare of each class (i.e., each organ, interde- pendent part) depends upon the welfare of each other part, — of the whole. There may be a competition for leadership, or for emi- nence in other respects, but not for existence. Those who adopt the Spencerian theory believe that they find "confirmation of their doctrine in the history of legislation. In modern times, since the differentiation of ex- ecutive, legislative, and judicial organs and functions in government, legislation has often been unwise, and laws have failed to secure the purposes for which they were enacted. In this branch of human endeayor it would be SCIENCE. “Terr, | = “rr bie ad 107 strange if it were everywhere and at all times characterized by wisdom, when man has so frequently failed in other effort. But beside the general failure for lack of wisdom, there hag been failure for certain special reasons. Early law was common law ; later law is in part statutory. In the change from the former to the latter, many great mis- takes have been made. The body of law exist- ing in a state, be it tribal or national, is the chief body of the ethics of the people of such state. But among such people there are ethical rules not found in the law, but held y individuals in a greater or less number. These non-legalized ethics are of two kinds, — first, those which have passed from the law, and are yet held in veneration by a part of the people; second, those which the more advanced minds are endeavoring to establish. The first are obsolete; the second, inchoate. Much of the law which Spencerian philosophers have used to illustrate the folly of legislation has been in instances where an attempt has been made to revive obsolete common-law prin- ciples by effective statutory law. Mr. Spencer’s illustrations are chiefly of this class; and he has been followed by many a writer. This source of disaster can be avoided, not by re- fusing to legislate, but by a proper knowledge of the course of progr€ss in social evolution. This course of evolution has not been, as Mr. Spencer postulates and elaborately discusses, from more regulation to less, from militancy to industrialism, but from less to more law, and from non-essential to essential regulation. When diseases were believed to be the work of evil spirits, or to result from the practice of sorcery, the relations of men to supposed spiritual beings were regulated, and witchcraft was punished; but, when diseases are dis- covered to be due to unwholesome conditions of environment, sanitary laws are enacted. And in like manner in every department of government the change is going on. Laws are sociologic inventions, analogous to the tech- nologic inventions of the industries. Along with much failure there is much success. As the progress of industries would cease were no new methods devised, so the progress of society would end if new law were not enacted. Dynamic sociology, as presented by the author, is the philosophy of human’ endeavor, and the justification of man in his effort to to improve his condition. Those persons, and they are many, who are actively engaged in the promotion of institutions and regulations for the benefit of mankind, will find in it. philosophic hope ; while those who are opposed ee ae ee ow Ps HT 108 to the course of practical events appearing in publie affairs cannot afford to ignore their strongest opponent. The evolution which is discovered every- where in nature, to be properly demonstrated, must have its explanation set forth in three parts. First, it must be explained why there is change, for without change there can be no development; second, it must be shown by what agency change results in progress, for change to inferior or co-ordinaté conditions is not evolution; and, third, what is the course of progress, for, if there is progress, it must be in some direction that can be determined, and thus science becomes prophetic. Of the three departments of sociology, — namely, the causes of social change, the causes of social progress, and the course of social progress, — the work under consideration, as its name indicates, is devoted to but one, — the cause of social progress; though it in- cidentally discusses many of the subjects of evolution in other branches of science, and the author ultimately reaches the conclusion that education is the chief means to secure social progress, and thus secure human hap- piness. SIEMENS’ SOLAR ENERGY. On the conservation of solar energy: a collection of papers and discussions. By C. WILLIAMS SiE- mens, F.R.S., D.C.L. London, Macmillan & Co., 1883. 20+111lp. 8°. : Tuis is a collection of the original paper read before the Royal society by Siemens, and the criticisms from Fitzgerald, Faye, Hirn, Archibald, and others, together with the re- plies of Siemens. | The theory, well summed up on p. 22, sup- poses that space is filled with aqueous vapor and carbon compounds; that these, at low pressures, are dissociated by the radiant ener- ey of the sun; that the dissociated elements are drawn into the sun at its poles, unite, and generate heat sufficient to give a temperature of about 2,800° C.; and that the aqueous va- ‘por and carbon compounds formed are again thrown off by centrifugal force at the sun’s equator. As evidence of the presence of carbon va- pors in space, Siemens refers to the analyses of meteors, which in some cases have proved that hydrocarbons were a component of the meteoric mass, and again to the work of Abney and Langley on the absorption of the radiant energy of the sun. The dissociation of vapors at low tensions SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 25. is a point which seems to be well established. One of the earliest proofs is given in Prof. J. Willard Gibbs’s paper on the equilibrium of heterogeneous substances.’ He shows, that in a mixture of gases, as of oxygen, hydro- gen, and vapor of water, in which the vapor is formed with a decrease in volume from that of the components, it is possible to assign a value to the tension such that the mixture may be in a state of dissipated energy ; i.e., in such a condition that the energy of the system is a minimum for its entropy ; and that any change in energy can be brought about only by work done by some outside system and in propor- tion to that outside work. In such a state, ~ nothing of the nature of an explosion could be caused by an electric spark: the elements would cease to show the phenomenon of chem- ical affinity. Willard Gibbs writes, ‘‘It may, indeed, be true, that at ordinary temperatures, except when the quantity either of hydrogen or of oxygen is very small compared with the quantity of water, the state of dissipated en- ergy is one of such extreme rarefaction as to lie entirely beyond our power of experimental verification.”” In the formula from which these results are deduced, the ratio occurs of the amounts of the components to that of the compound, these’ amounts being raised to small powers. This explains the qualification as to the amount of components which may exist in a free state. This last condition may have an important bearing on the possibility of the truth of Sie- mens’ theory ; for, although Gibbs has shown that dissociation may occur in rarefied vapors, still the amount of the dissociation is limited unless the rarefaction be very great. Some two or three years ago Professor Og- den Rood succeeded in getting experimental evidence of dissociation in rarefied gases at ordinary temperatures, but has never published his results. Dr. Siemens gives, on p. 13, what evidence he early obtained of dissociation of gases in vacuum tubes under the influence of sunlight. What he has done since may be found from an account of his recent lecture at the Royal in- stitution (Nature, May 3). Objections to the theory are well put by Fitzgerald when he asks (p. 41) ‘* how the interplanetary gases near the sun acquire a sufficient radial velocity to pre- vent their becoming a dense atmosphere round him ; why enormous atmospheres have not long ago become attached to the planets, notably to the moon ; why the earth has not long ago been ~ deluged when a constant stream of aqueous 1 Proc. Conn. acad. s¢., iii. JULY 27, 1883.] vapor, that would produce a rain of more than thirty inches per annum all over the earth, must annually pass out past the earth in order to supply fuel to be dissociated by the heat that annually passes the earth; and why we can see the stars, although most of the solar radia- tions are absorbed within some reasonable dis- tance of the sun.”’ It can be hardly looked on as a strong answer to the first question, that ‘‘ the gases, being for the most part hydrogen and hydro- gen compounds, have a low specific gravity as compared with the denser gases forming the permanent solar atmosphere. On flashing into flame in the photosphere, their specific gravity would be vastly diminished, thus giving rise to a certain rebound action, which, coupled with their acquired onward motion and with the centrifugal impulse they receive by frictional contact with the lower atmosphere, constitutes them a surface-stream flowing from the polar to the equatorial regions, and thence into space.’’ It is certainly hard to understand why the atmosphere of any member of the solar system should not be made up of the gases of interplanetary space in the same pro- portions in which they may exist in such space, if there is the free circulation called for by Siemens’ theory. Faye objects that the presence of such a resisting medium in space as the vapors is not to be accepted, with our present knowledge, and that the centrifugal force at the sun’s equator is far too small for the action required. Hirn, starting with the supposition that the sun’s temperature is 20,000° C., writes, that, although the dissociated gases might unite in the chromosphere, they would, on passing down through the sun’s atmosphere, be again disso- ciated, and absorb as much heat as they had given out on combining. To this, Siemens SCIENCE. 109 might have answered that the gases would again combine on passing off at the equator. The discussion of the theory at the time of its first statement was most earnest; but, in spite of the ingenuity displayed in its elabora- tion, it as yet cannot be accepted as probable. INSPIRED SCIENCE. Eureka; or, The golden door ajar, the mysteries of the world mysteriously revealed. By Asa T. GREEN. Cincinnati, Collins, 1883. 141 p., portr., cuts. 16°. Tue publisher acts as editor of this book, interspersing his own chapters among the author’s in an odd fashion. The florid periods of the one form a curious setting for the rough, ungrammatical language of the other. The author has ‘revelations’ of a ‘ wonder- ful knowledge’ which he obtained, partly in the woods, and partly in Oil City, and desires to impart them to scientific men. We will offer them a bit. “Tf we would lay a telegraph-wire down down (sic) from every point of the earth, and of water, and all points telegraph at one time to a given point, the re- sult would be to find that the atmosphere was going as fast as the earth, and the earth as fast as the at- mosphere. Thus you see it is the atmosphere that carries the earth around. .. . “Third reason why the earth is round; namely, because the mountains are up. If the earth was flat, the mountains would be just as liable to be down as up, but as the curvature of the earth is up, hence the mountains areup,... **Tf sound travels by vibration, as science teaches, and science teaches that vibration creates heat, that if a cricket should stand on one end of a solid slab- stone and rub his wings together, why is it that the vibration with the particles of stone does not com- pletely melt the stone in ten minutes? I deny the hypothesis.” * Wonderful knowledge,’ indeed ! WEEKLY SUMMARY OF THE PRO GRESS OF SCIENCE. MATHEMATICS. Points of inflection. — Let U = x*y8z¥ + ku = 0 be an equation in homogeneous co-ordinates; x, y, 2, are the sides of the triangle of reference, and u = ax + by + cz; a, B, y, J, are integers such that a+fP+y=<4; a,b, c, are given quantities, and k a variable parameter. Fora = 8 = y = 1, this equa- tion gives a system of cubics having, as is well known, their points of inflection distributed by threes upon three right lines; viz., the three real points of inflection upon u, and the remaining six points, in threes, upon two imaginary lines. The author, M. A. Legoux, proposes to consider the general case of curves of the order 6. The three sides of the triangle of reference are tangents to all the curves of the system in the points where these sides meet the line uv. The order of contact is 6—1: if dis even, the curve in the neighborhood of the point of contact lies on one side of the tangent; if d is odd, the curve here cuts the tangent, giving a point of inflec- tion of a higher order. M. Legoux shows that the proposed curves have imaginary points of inflection, which are distributed upon two conjugate imaginary right lines which are independent of the value of k. If dis even, there are no other inflections; but, if dis 110 odd, there exist three real points of inflection upon the line wu, so that in the last case there exists, as in the case of cubics, an inflectional triangle. — (Nouv. ann. math., Feb.) T. C. [105 ENGINEERING. Electric-lighting machines on shipboard.— More than a dozen of the steamers plying between New York and Liverpool are fitted up with electric- lighting machinery. Probably three times as many are so fitted out on the various other lines of ocean- going steamships. The British steamers are largely supplied with the Siemens and Swan apparatus, but the other systems are well represented. The electric- light apparatus of the Arizona consists of two Sie- mens compound dynamos, each sufficient to supply current to three hundred high-resistance Swan lamps. They are driven by a pair of ‘Caledonian’ engines of nine and a half inch cylinders and fourteen inches stroke of piston. The two machines are mounted upon a common foundation, and are set in such manner that the driving-pulleys do not interfere with each other. The belts are tightened by moving the machines away from each other; they are formed of one continuous rope carried around each pulley ten times. Both cabins, and the steerage as well, are lighted by these machines. — (Engineering, May.) R. H. T. [106 New engine for electric-lighting.— Mr. E. D. Farcot has designed a new form of compound engine for electric-lighting machinery. It consists of two cylinders, the larger set above the smaller. ‘Thespace between the two pistous is undivided, and is in com- munication with the interior of the engine-frame, and is never put in connection with the steam-supply pipe. The steam first enters the small cylinder, and is thence exhausted into the large cylinder, thus driving the pistons, which are both on a single rod, in opposite directions by a system of intermitted expansion. The engine is thus seen to be of the “Wolff system.’ The space between the two pistons is made to communicate with the larger space in the frame, merely to secure a reduced variation of uncoun- terbalanced pressure. No stuffing-box is needed in this engine in any inaccessible part of the machine. The valve-gear is of the plainest possible description, and the whole engine is built with a view to simpli- city and small cost in construction and operation. It is intended to be driven up to four hundred reyolu- tions per minute. — (Publication industrielle, May.) R. H. T. [107 Steam-jackets for steam-engines. — Herr Heim reports to the German society of engineers the results of experiments to determine the economy to be de- rived by the addition of steam-jackets to various forms of steam-engine, He finds that a six-horse power portable engine, unjacketed, demanded an excess of thirty-five per cent over the theoretical quantity of steam that should have been required to do the work; an eighteen inch Wheelock engine required the same excess over the calculated quantity. Both were non- condensing. Condensing-engines experience a still greater loss due to internal ‘cylinder condensation.’ SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No, 25. Engines expanding ten times demand seventy-four per cent excess; when cutting off at one-fifth, sixty- two per cent; and expanding three times, fifty-five per cent more than the calculated amount when they are unjacketed. By adding a jacket, he concludes that the loss can be reduced to sixty-four, fifty-four, and forty-eight per cent. The effect of increase of piston speed is similar to that of adding a jacket. An engine at three feet, and at seven feet piston speed per second, gave arecord of loss amounting to ninety- six and seventy per cent. The addition of the con- denser causes increase of this loss. A twenty-inch non-condensing engine, working at five atmospheres pressure, was provided with a condenser, and, while the power was increased one hundred and forty per _ cent, the waste was increased from forty-two to sixty- — two per cent. A hoisting-engine, working intermit- tently, exhibited a loss of a hundred and forty-two per cent of the weight of steam utilized. — (Mechanics, June.) R&R. H. T, [108 AGRICULTURE. The gases evolved during the conversion of grass into hay.—In a series of experiments on this subject, conducted by Dr. P. F. Frankland and Mr. F. Jordan, freshly-cut grass in quantities of five grams each was allowed to stand in a glass tube over mer- cury. The glass tube was filled with air, inert gases, and experiments were also performed in vacuo. In air all the oxygen was absorbed at the end of three days, and 46% of carbonic dioxide was evolved. At the end of thirty days the percentage of carbonic dioxide reached 85.33, requiring a corresponding amount of oxygen, which must have come from the substance of the grass itself. Nearly pure carbonic dioxide was evolved in an atmosphere of the same gas, and a higher percentage seemed to be given off in darkness than in sunlight, although the authors were somewhat in doubt onthis point. In an atmos- phere of pure oxygen, the latter was absorbed com- pletely in seven days, and the evolution of nitrogen | ceased when the oxygen disappeared. When the experiment was conducted in an atmosphere of hydrogen, 21.11% of this gas was replaced by car- bonic dioxide at the end of three days. It thus appears that certain constituents of the grass under- go a rapid process of oxidation, and that nitrogen is evolved as long as the atmosphere contains free oxygen. The decomposition-products of grass, when allowed to stand under water, were also examined. The grass was first soaked in distilled water, and the dissolved air removed with a Sprengel pump. Car- bonic dioxide formed about 90 %, and hydrogen about 9%, of the gases collected at the end of thirty days. No gas was evolved when the formation of bacteria was prevented by the addition to the water of phenol or mercuric chloride, As the other products of the fermentation, acetic and lactic acids, and probably propionic acid, were identified. — (Journ. chem. soc., June, 1883.) c. F. M. [109° Absorption of moisture by soils. — Fisher finds that, contrary to Knop’s statement, the amount of hygroscopic moisture retained by a soil varies greatly with the amount of moisture present in the air, as JuLy 27, 1883.] well as with the temperature. At temperatures ran- ging approximately from 20° to 380° C,, about half as much water was retained in a half-saturated as in a saturated atmosphere. As the temperature was raised, more water was absorbed from the saturated atmosphere, but less from the half-saturated one. — (Rep. Cal. college agr., 1882, 52.) H.P. A. {110 Influence of organic manures on temperature of soil.— In experiments on this subject, F. Wagner finds that organic manures raise the temperature of the soil to an extent increasing with the quantity of the manure, the temperature of the soil, and its moisture, so long as the latter is not in such excess as to hinder access of oxygen to the organic matter, or to cool the soil too much by itsevaporation. Porosity and ready decomposability on the part of the manure favor the action. The increase of temperature is greatest at first, may continue from four to twelve or more weeks, but under practical conditions is too small to be of much significance. — (Forsch. agr. phys., v. 373.) H. P. A. {111 Moisture of the soil.—In pot-experiments with peat, Heinrich obtained the largest crop when the peat contained sixty per cent of the total quantity of water which it was capable of containing. Earlier experiment by Hellriegel on sandy soil gave nearly the same results. Whenthe moisture of the peat fell below twenty per cent of its water-capacity, no crop was obtained, while in case of sand a small crop was obtained when the moisture was only ten per cent of the total water-capacity.—(Bied. centr.-blatt., xii. 109.) .P. A. GEOLOGY. Lithology. Cleopatra's Needle. — Ina paper by Dr. P. Frazer is given a description of some thin sections of the New-York obelisk, made by Prof. A. Stelzner of Freiberg, accompanied by four lithographic plates. The rock is composed of fresh microcline, showing in polarized light its characteristic grating; oligoclase, somewhat decomposed, and showing fine twinning striation; quartz in grains and granular aggregates, containing fluid cavities, trichites, and hematite plates; light green hornblende with irregular outlines ; biotite in large brown, translucent scales; titanite in numerous small yellowish-red grains; water-clear acicular apatite crystals; magnetite in opaque irregu- lar grains and in octahedrons; minute zircon crystals; yellowish-green needles of epidote and viridite. A granite from Germantown was regarded as similar to the Syene granite. The former is composed of microcline, plagioclase, quartz, hornblende, biotite, muscovite, titanite, ete. Frazer gives the literature of the subject. —(Trans. Amer. inst. min. eng., Boston meeting.) M. ©. W. {113 Journalistic lithology. — A weekly journal was established last year in England on the peculiar plan _ of publishing descriptions of microscopic slides, with figures of the same, while duplicates of the described preparations were to be sent to every subscriber. This method, if under the direction of competent specialists, would serve as a valuable means of home SCIENCE. [112 111 training for those who are unable to place them- selves under the direct instruction of competent teachers. It promised twenty-six histological, eigh- teen botanical, and eight lithological sections a year. The lithological descriptions, so far, have embraced the following rocks: pikrite, dolerite, diabage,, red and white syenite, and serpentine, with some biblio- graphical lists. While the journal contains some matter of interest to lithologists, it is, on the whole, a disappointing and unsafe guide fora student. In some cases the style of the lowest grade of ‘ popular scientific lecturers’ has been adopted; and the phrase ‘plugs of exosmotic transference,’ used for veins, is too good to be lost. — (Studies in microscopical sci- ence, London, 1882-83.) M. E. W. {114 METEOROLOGY. | Sun-spots.— At the university observatory at Rome on 269 days in 1881, and 290 in 1882, Tacchini has made observations of sun-spots. He shows that in 1882 there was an increase in spots over 1881. The mean daily number by months was, in 1881, 19.55, and, in 1882, 22.57. There were peculiar maxima in the number in April and November, 1882, Taking each period of constant activity in the daily observa- tions in 1882, a second maximum and minimum period appears at the half sun’s rotation. For the faculae we also find that the increase is less with the growth of the spots; the yearly mean in 1881 being 88.36, and, in 1882, $1.55. It is believed from the character of the sun’s activity at the last maximum period, as compared with the present, that the maxi- mum spottedness will occur in 1883. —(Naturfor- scher, May 12.) wu. A. H. [115 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. Artesian wells in Algeria. — In the south of the province of Constantine, Algeria, the boring ‘of arte- sian wells, begun in 1856, was continued with re- newed activity, after the interruption occasioned by the Franco-Prussian war, under the direction of M. Jus. At the end of 1879 the long line of wells fol- lowing the Wady Rir, between Biskra and Tugurt, included 434 sunk by the Arabs, and yielding 64,000 litres a minute, and 68 bored by the French, yielding 113,000 litres. In the same decade, the number of palm-trees in the oases had increased from 359,000 to 517,000; of fruit-trees, from 40,000 to 90,000; of inhabitants, from 6,672 to 12,827. During the first half of 1880, twelve new wells were bored, yielding 22,000 litres, and, at the end of 1881, the total supply of water from these underground sources was 209,- 000 litres a minute. —(J. J. Clamageran, Rev. géogr. internat., 1883, 43.) {116 Currents of the Pacific Ocean.— Antisell dis- cusses the general motion of the warm currents of the western and northern Pacific, brings together a number of data not before correlated, illustrates them by maps and diagrams, and comes to the conclusion that, 1°, the warming influence of the North Pacific is the Kurosiwo, the motor power of which is the south-west monsoon, blowing from April to October; and, 2°, that the North Pacific Ocean has practically 112 no northern outlet, Bering Strait affording no real access for ocean-currents into the Arctic Ocean. — (Bull. Amer. geogr. soc., ii. 1883.) Ww. H. D. [117 The Connecticut River in the glacial period. — Professor J. D. Dana continues his studies on the former lines of flow of the flooded Connecticut at the end of the ice time, and finds evidence, from the height and coarseness of the terraces, that some of the river’s waters found their way southward along the Farmington valley (where the Farmington River now runs northward), down the upper course of the Quinnipiac, and thence directly southward along the present Mill River channel, to the Sound at New Haven, and not all the way along the Quinnipiac, as was formerly supposed. —(Amer. journ. sc., XXv. 1883, 440.) Ww. M. D. [118 GHOGRAPHY. (Asia.) Wew Guinea.— A ten-days’ trip inland from Port Moresby, made by W. G. Lawes and two others, with a party of natives, led them over the Veriata Mountain, about two thousand feet high, and up the valley of the Laloke River. From the mountain-sum- mit, they had a fine view of sea and coast, hill and valley, intersected by many winding streams. In the valley, they visited the Rouna Falls, — about two hun- dred and fifty feet in height, and a hundred and fifty feet wide. The travellers saw many of the natives of the Koiari tribes, and found them-all friendly and honest. They are smaller, darker, and more hairy than the coast tribes, and it was not uncommon to find aman with beard and mustache. They have a super- stitious belief, that, when a man dies, he has been bewitched by a spirit belonging to a neighboring tribe, who then must pay for the loss: fighting, therefore, always follows the death of a man of any consequence. Fruit is very plentiful and in great variety. Salt is highly prized, and makes a very ac- ceptable present. The native method of getting fire is peculiar: a piece of dry, pithy wood is split a little way, and held open with a stone; some tinder is put in the cleft, and a strip of rattan or bamboo is passed through it, and then pulled rapidly one way and the other till smoke and fire appear. In the ‘Sogere’ district, the villages consist of only eight or ten houses, and two or three ‘tree-houses’ which serve as forts. The occupants prepare for an attack by carrying up a supply of stones into the tree-houses; and as they are sometimes over one hundred feet high, and command the whole village, they are not easily taken. Travelling was not easy, as there were numerous streams to cross, and leeches were very plentiful in the wet grass. — (Proc. roy. geogr. soc., y. 1883, 355.) W. M. D. [119. Indian surveys.— A general report on surveys in India- during 1881-82, by Gen. J. T. Walker, an- nounces the completion of the triangulation of all India on the lines long ago marked out by Col. Eyerest and sanctioned by the East India company. The latest part of this Great trigonometrical survey was the eastern frontier series of triangles extending from Assam to Tenasserim, where it was brought to SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 25. a close on a base line of verification at Mergui. The topographical survey has continued its work in vari- ous parts of the peninsula, turning ouf maps on sey- eral scales embracing nearly twenty-five thousand square miles, besides forest and town surveys on large scales, A new survey of the Hoogly is begun, as the existing maps are out of date and on too small a seale for utility in so densely populated and valuable a region. The chief geographic interest in the yolume is found in the reports on trans-Himalayan explorations by trained native travellers, and in the reports of vari- ous executive officers of the survey on their districts. — (Proc. roy. geogr. soc., v. 1883, 368.) Ww. M. D. [120 BOTANY. Cryptogams. New Ustilagineae. — Cornu gives an account of the anatomy and germination of the spores in seyeral curious Ustilagineae. Ustilago axicola, Berk. and Curt., is made the type of a new genus, Cintractia, characterized by the formation of the spores in suc- cessive concentric circles. The curious Testicularia Cyperi from the United States is figured, and a second species of Leersia is described. The new genus Doassansia, in which the spore masses aré sur- rounded by a peculiar envelope, has one represen- tative from North America which is figured by Cornu. — (Ann. sc. nat., xv. 269.) W. G. F. {121 Zygospores of Mucors.—Bainier has ‘studied the conditions which favor the production of zygo- spores in Mucors, and finds that the conditions vary in the different species. The absence of free oxygen or of light is not a necessary condition, noris a deficient supply of nourishment always required for the pro- duction of zygospores. Bainier cites a considerable number of cases where he has cultivated different species, and gives the manipulations required in each case for securing sporangia and zygospores; and he adds some observations on the chemical action of certain species. It appears that Phycomyces nitens, which usually grows on fatty substances, which it decomposes, can also be cultivated on cochineal, caus- ing it to assume a deeper color, and rendering it more valuable commercially. Mucor racemosus, and a new species, M. tenuis, are described and illustrated in full. — (Ann. se. nat., xv. 342.) W. GF. [122 Phenogams, Lignification of epidermal membranes. — Be- sides cutinization, the change which characterizes epidermal cell-walls in general, the exposed wall may undergo two others: it may be converted into muci- lage, thereby becoming weakened, or it may be ren- dered firm by the deposition or infiltration of mineral matters. To these well-known transformations of epidermal cells, Lemaire now adds lignification, hith- erto supposed to be confined to internal tissues. For the detection of lignine, he uses the useful reagent suggested by Wiesner, phloroglucine. A section of epidermis is transferred from an alcoholic solution of the agent to hydrochloric acid, when the lignified membranes assume a rose color, the other parts re- JULY 27, 1883.] / maining unchanged. For purposes of control, similar sections are first treated with either nitric acid or a solution of bleaching-powder, by which reagents, preferably the latter, the lignineis removed. Lemaire has detected lignine in the epidermal walls of Cycads, many Coniferae, and in the petiole of certain ferns. The stomata of gymnospermous plants have been found by him to always have the membranes some- what lignified. — (Ann. sc. nat., xv. 302.) G. L. @. [223 Mentzelia laevicaulis as a fly-catcher. — Mar- cus A. Jones of Salt Lake City, acting upon Dr. Gray’s suggestion, examined this plant with the fol- lowing interesting results: ‘‘the leaves are thickly beset with coarse hairs, which are furnished with several pairs of barbs pointing downward along them, while the top’ has an anchor-shaped summit twice as large as the other barbs. These hairs stand so close together that the barbs almost touch. Thickly studding the leaf, were many dead and dying mosquitoes, species of aphis, and other small insects. Some of these were caught by the head; but most of them were held by the proboscis, as their heads were too large to slip between the barbs. All were more or less mutilated, probably by other in- sects. A sweet fluid was secreted by the leaf, and this attracted the insects. There was no evidence of any digestion going on, as none of the victims could get close enough to the surface of the leaf to be touched by the fluid.”” — (Bull. Torrey club, June.) G. L. G. (124 Elongation of pedicels in Didymoplexis. — Hemsley calls attention to the elongation of the pedicels in these Asiatie orchids after fertilization, by which the ripening capsules are carried up above the decaying vegetable matter in which the plants ‘grow. It is thus quite different from the elongation of the flower-stalks of Arachis and other plants which bury their ripening fruit. Whatits exact bearing on dissemination may be is not quite clear. — (Journ. Linn, soc. bot., June 6.) w. . {125 ZOOLOGY. Mollusks. Mediterranean Mollusca.— Dr. J. Gwyn Jetf- freys publishes a useful annotated list of species ob- tained near Crete by Admiral Spratt in seventy to a hundred and twenty fathoms. They are mostly quite minute. Ten new species are described and well figured. One, an extremely minute shell, which might well prove the fry of something larger, is globosely conical, imperforate, and with the pillar angulated and spread out at its base. It is referred to a new genus, Brugnonia, and placed in the Solari- idae. A list of Ostracoda and Foraminifera, collected with the shells, is added by Mr. David Robertson. — (Ann. mag. nat. hist., May.) Ww. H. D. [126 Structure of the shell in brachiopods and chitons. — Van Bemmelen has prepared an English abstract of that part of his Dutch paper which relates to the brachiopods. The principal points of the dissertation are also to be found in the Jenaische zeit- SCIENCE. —s 7. he 7 7 2. ee “= "> s° 9 115 schrift, ix. h, 1-2, 1883. That part relating to the chi- tons, which is the more interesting because in a fresher field, has not been made available for students who do not read Dutch. The paper is decidedly sopho- morical, containing much that is important but not new, and a little that is new but not important, if we except the opinions of the author. The statement that there is any difference, except in degree, between the structure of the peduncle in Lingulidae and in other brachiopods, will require much more demonstra- tion before it can hope to be accepted; and the prin- ciples upon which he includes the greater in the less by placing brachiopods among the chaetopods, would, if carried to their logical conclusion, include man among the Ascidians. —(Ann. mag. nat. hist., May.) W. H. D. [127 Economic mollusks at the Fisheries exhibi- tion.— The catalogue of the economic mollusks exhibited by the U. S. fish-commission at London, prepared by Lieut. Winslow, U.S.N., has just ap- peared, and forms a pamphlet of 85 pages, contain- ing much information. —w. H. D. {128 VERTEBRATES. Homologues of the parts of the temporal bones. — M. Lavocat, at the close of his revision of this subject, offers the following conclusions : — 1. That the relations of the squamosal and the zygomatic process in mammals show how ill applied SS — to the oviparous vertebrates are the terms ‘ tympanic — bone’ (os tympanique), generally applied to the squamosal, and ‘squamous portion of the temporal’ (écaille temporale), given to the zygomatic process. In the oviparous vertebrates the tympanic bone does not exist. 2. That the zygomatic process, always included. between the squamosal and the jugal, should never be confounded with the squamosal. 3. That there is a vulgar error relative to the tempo- ral of serpents, in which the superior part of the squamosal has been considered to be the mastoid ; while, in reality, the mastoid is invariably situated above or behind the auditory cavity, and is never movable. 4. That in birds the squamosal cannot be represented by the posterior frontal, because the lat- ter is orbital in its relations, while the former is tem- poral; also that the zygomatic process should not be confounded with the jugal, the one having rela- tions with the squamosal, the other with the max- illary. The author also states concisely that that bone must be considered the squamosal which, though fixed or movable, is situated in front of the auditory eanal, and articulates with the pterygoid and the mandible. In the oviparous vertebrates, the squa- mosal has commonly been wrongly designated * the tympanic.’ The zygomatic process, whether fixed or free, is always included between the squamosal and the malar. The parts of the temporal are also clear- ly distinguishable by their teleological relations. The author furnishes the data for the table (see p. 114) of the synonymy of the temporal bone in the fishes and lower vertebrates. — (Mem. acad. se. Tou- louse, iv. 1882, 71.) F. W. T. {129 114 SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 25. Nomenclature of the squamosal bone (temporal écailleux) of the Vertebrata pisciformes. Tavocat. | Cuvier. Owen. | St. Hilaire. | Agassiz. Vogt. Bojanus. | M.-Edwards.| Bakker. | Rosenthal. | Hallman. | | | fue £ ; — {SS Epitym- i Symplec- Piéce su-/| Tem- Epitym-) | a4. Caisse ty|/mpanique. pity , ticum | Os carré. Rene poral. panic. { Sérial. IU l primum. [ Carus. ] 39 . Hypo- s —|\— ( Ptery- ( Symplee- nee Piéce in- Hypo- ?} mT “ Hypotym- Os discoi- ae Ne ym- 4 5 goid . ; férieure. { Tuga bial cotyléal. ) Os ‘ciarre l aieenet panique. anata deum,. Ptéry- 3 7 Fae . ide Piece an-)| Tym- Pretym- / | Bpicoty- , Pretym- gor térieure. | Daan panic. léal. | Caisse: panique. Le Meckel. ] = Meso- [ ‘ Piéce pos-)| Symplec-) t ois pike Symplec- pepe Las fey tal ym- Uro-sérial. Mesotym- 4 térieure. tique. § panic. § panique.| ea Styloide. ANTHROPOLOGY. Domestication of the horse. — M. Cornevin, dis- cussing the earliest evidence of taming the horse, very pertinently sets out with the question, ‘‘ What is a domestic animal ?”’ and replies, “‘ One that partici- pates in the domus, submits itself to the domination of a master, to whom it renders its products or its services, reproduces in captivity, and gives birth to young, which become more and more submissive to control.’? The idea of domestication comports with that of property in some form. M. Corneyin, for reasons mentioned in his communication, places the time of the event in the bronze age contemporaneous with the bronze bit. The fact seems incontestable _ that the use of bronze was imported into Europe and Africa from the orient. M. Pietrement, in his work on the origin of the domestic horse, and, before him, M. Pictet, in his Origines indo-européennes, have proved that the Aryans, of the central Asiatic plateau, utilized the horse at a time when Europe was in the stone age. In the discussion which followed M. Cornevin’s paper, M. Faure remarked, that, while the bronze bit was good proof of the domestication of the horse, the latter may have been tamed long be- fore bronze was known. Indeed, the Gauchos catch the wild horses with a simple lasso. Could not pre- historic man, after catching a horse by means of a lasso, like the Gauchos, have made a simple bridle of raw hide, and have managed the animal thereby ? — (Bull. soc. anthrop. Lyon, i. 116.) J. w. P. [130 The troglodytes.—M. Alex. Bertrand, conser- vator of the museum of national antiquities of St. Ger- maine-en-Laye, delivered an address in December last on the cave-dwellers, now published with copious illustrations in the first part, vol. ii., of the Revue @ ethnographie (Jan.—Feb., 1883). The address is in popular language, and gives many valuable particu- lars, deduced from their remains, of the environment, habits, utensils, and art of the prehistoric inhabit- ants of Europe. Perhaps the most interesting points are the evidences presented of their domestication of the reindeer, and the parallel drawn between their supposed mode of life and that of the modern hyperboreans. — J. w. P. [131 The Serers of Joal and Portudal.—Dr. A. Corre of the French marine service gives an interest- ing and illustrated ethnographic sketch of the re- markable people on the west coast of Africa, chiefly near Cape Verd, and mentioned by Brue, towards the end of the seventeenth century, as being strongly dis- tinguished from the surrounding negroes. In many particulars, these people show characteristics similar to those of tribes separated from them by half the circumference of the globe. A short sentence may be literally translated in illustration : ‘t They call the unele, father ; the aunt, mother; the cousins, male and female, brothers and sisters.’? The writer of the sketch did not appear to understand, or at least to fol- ‘low up, this evidence of the system of consanguinity and affinity so frequently found in the stage of savagery. — (Rev. dethnographie, Jan.—Feb,, 1883.) J. W. P. [132 Roumanian ethnology.— Trajan conquered Dacia in A.D. 106, colonizing it with subjects drawn from various parts of the empire. When this same country became known to the inhabitants of western Europe, they found there a people speaking a lan- guage derived from the Latin, and evidently descended from Roman provincials. With their imperfect knowledge of the intervening centuries, it was but — natural, says A. J. Patterson, that they should connect these facts together, and assume that the Wallachs of their own times were the direct descend- ants of Trajan’s colonists, and that they had dwelt uninterruptedly on Dacian soil. As soon, however, as the Rouman language and Rouman institutions : a - JuLy 27, 1883.] were examined in detail, more and more points were discovered which could with difficulty be brought into harmony with that prima facie view. Inquirers who were not subject to the disturbing influence of Rouman patriotism came to the conclusion that the present Romance-speaking population of Roumania and Transylvania have migrated thither from the lands south of the Danube since the beginning of the twelfth century. In addition to the ordinary ethnologic evidence, the philological argument has been effectually urged by Paul Hunfalvy. Both in the middle ages and at the present time, a people is found in various parts of the Balkan peninsula whose speech so closely resembles that of the northern Roumans as to prove that they are dialects of one language, and must have been diffused from a com- mon centre. — (Academy, May 19.) J.w.P. [133 NOTES AND NEWS. It was known some months since how Mr. Henri Harrisse had made, as he claimed, a discovery that the Portuguese had as early as 1502 mapped out the eastern seaboard of the present United States from Florida to the neighborhood of 40° north latitude. A few weeks ago Mr. Harrisse laid a copy of the dis- covered map before the French institute with docu- mentary proof of its date (1502). A more particular statement has reached us in a letter from the Rey. Edward E. Hale, written in Paris, where he had in- spected Mr. Harrisse’s copy of the map and document which were found in the archives of the Este family in Modena. We must await conclusive particulars, to be published by Mr. Harrisse, before determining if this last be one of the important contributions to the study of early American cartography, which this whilom New-York lawyer has made. Meanwhile it is not at all clear whether the new map is going to contribute any thing further than what we have already known from the old Portuguese chart, which Lelewel gives in his Géographie du moyen dge, pl. 43, with a conjectural date between 1501 and 1504. This gives a rude representation of Florida, with its east- erly coast trending northerly, and coming abruptly to anend. Lying to the north-east, and in mid-ocean, is a bit of continental shore, indicating the Cortereal discoveries in its latinized name, ‘ Regalis domus,’ with a large island adjacent called ‘‘lerra labora- torum,’ or Labrador. The earliest printed map of this region bears a strong resemblance to the Por- tuguese chart, and would seem to have been based on the same or similar information; and this is the famous Stobnicza map, which was published at Cracow not far from 1512. The 1511 Ptolemy has the Cortereal region, but omits Florida. From two maps in the 1513 Ptolemy a delineation very like the Portuguese chart can be made up; and after this its contours became for some years an established type frequently met with. Another Portuguese chart is well known to students in this field; and that is the one which has been reproduced by Stevens, Kunst- mann, Kohl, and others, and is usually placed be- tween 1514 and 1520. If it embodied current knowl- SCIENCE. . 115 edge in Portugal, it was certainly not generally known there that the eastern coast united with the Cortereal region; for the ocean is represented as washing uninterruptedly between. From what Mr. Hale writes, the newly found map would seem to be much the same in character as the 1513 printed Ptolemy maps, thus carrying back their delineation ten or eleven years earlier; and this, we have seen, takes us to the supposed date (1501-1504) of the Lelewel Portuguese chart, which is essentially like the 1513 maps, and seemingly like the Este map: but a sight of Harrisse’s discovered chart, in due time to reach us, will give us something more than conjecture on which to base an estimate of its im- portance, There is one discovery, however, which we are waiting for, and in time it may come; that is, the evidence, cartographical we hope, rather than docu- mentary, that the Biscayan fisherman knew the Grand Banks and the ailjacent coasts long before - Columbus. It seems harder not to believe that this was the case than to believe it. The hardy fisher- men of the Bay of Biscay had stretched their courses farther and farther to the north in pursuit of the stock-fish or cod, which was the staple food of Catholic Europe for more than a hundred days in the year. ‘They had gone to Iceland, and, by easy gra- dation, to the Greenland seas; and we must remem- ber that on this very Portuguese chart of 1501-1504, and in the Ptolemy, preceding the time of Columbus, Greenland was but a prolongation of north-western Europe. Accordingly, following their game, the fishermen could easily have cruised still farther along the Labrador coast,.and to the neighborhood of Newfoundland, without in the least supposing they had found a new world, but rather a hitherto unvisited region of the old world. So, on their re- turn, their sailor’s yarns. would raise no suspicion of a new quarter of the globe, such as Europe was startled at when Columbus returned from his pur- posed quest. It was not the fishermen’s report, ac- cordingly, that could have incited Cabot; but, when news reached England of the discovery of the Spaniards, it can easily be conceived how these sailor’s yarns may have been interpreted in the belief that the land found by Columbus must, by the analogy of continents, have stretched to the north, and could be found by sailing west from England. Further, so far as Columbus’ views were shared, that he had reached the coast of Asia, the reports of Marco Polo and the rest showed that the Asian coast must lie also in that very direction. Now, when Cabot reached the land, and found the natives calling the stock-fish or cod, baccalaos, where did they get the very term which Biscayan fishermen had applied to the same fish for centuries? This has always been a puzzle. It seems to us that it will yet be discovered that Cabot had only reached by a southern passage the region which the Biscayans had long been sailing to by the northern, The archives of Europe, we are confident, will yet reveal the proof. Only last summer the Rey. Mr. Hale, search- ing the archives at Madrid, found a sketch by Cortes ‘\ 116 of the Gulf of California, made six years before the earliest that had previously been known; and it dis- closed the extent of Cortes’ own examination of the Pacific coast in advance of his captains. The archives of the old world have by no means yet yielded all that they may. — The funeral of the late Mr. William Spottiswoode took place atnoon July 5 in Westminster Abbey, and was attended by many distinguished men from the various scientific and other societies with which the deceased was connected. There was also a large at- tendance of the general public, The pall-bearers were Marquis of Salisbury, Oxford university; Lord Gran- ville, London university; Sir W. Siemens, British as- sociation; Sir F. Leighton, Royal academy; Sir J. Lubbock, Linnaean society; Sir Bartle Frere, Royal Asiatic society; Sir W. Armstrong, Institute of civil engineers; Dr. Evans, Royal society; Chancellor of the exchequer, H. M. government; Duke of Northum- berland, Royal institution; Master of the stationers’ company, the company; Lord Aberdare, Royal geo- graphical society; G. Busk, Esq., Royal astronomi- eal society; Professor Flower, Zodlogical society; Mr. Shinn, Mr. Carey, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Millwood, Mr. White, Mr. Wilson, representing departments in the Queen’s printing-office. The Athenaeum says of Mr. Spottiswoode: “Mr. W. Spottiswoode’s illness had from the first caused serious alarm; still it was hoped that he would tri- umph over typhoid-fever, though complicated by congestion of the lungs. His strength had, however, been shaken by the severe accident he met with some months ago, and there is little doubt that his indefati- gable attention to duties of various sorts had over- tasked even his vigorous constitution. He combined with the studies of a physicist and a mathematician the supervision of a great mercantile concern. To accomplish all this; to make elaborate and delicate experiments, contribute a succession of papers to the Transactions of the Royal society and The Philo- sophical magazine; to mix frequently in general society ; to preside over the chief of our scientific bodies, and manage a large business, — was possible only to a man who would map out the work of every day, and never waste a minute of his time. And this was the case with Mr. Spottiswoode. His was eminently an organizing brain, gifted with great clearness, complete mastery of detail, unfailing punctuality, and power at once to seize the essence of any matter brought under his notice. Personally he was most kind and generous, eminently tolerant of differences of opinion, and courteous to all with whom he came in contact.’’ —On Thursday night, July 12, 1883, the newer of the buildings of the Indiana university was struck by lightning and thoroughly destroyed. The build- ing was a four-story brick of Gothic design. Upon the first floor were the collections of geology, miner- alogy, and archeology, and the chemical laboratory; on the second floor were the libraries and the physi- cal laboratory ; while the third contained the valuable zoological collections of the university, and the mu- seum of comparative anatomy. The loss as reported . SCIENCE. [Vou, II., No. 25. is as follows: museum, $75,000; library, $36,000; laboratory, $10,000; building, $45,000; total, $166,- 000; upon which there was a total insurance of 327,- 454.54. The entire Owen collection of 85,000 specimens of geology and mineralogy was destroyed. ‘This collec- tion contained many types of species described by Dayid Dale Owen and others. The geological col- lection also contained many noted specimens from Europe and America, among the more celebrated of which were the large Wiirtemberg Ichthyosaurus, and a Megalonyx from Henderson, Ky. The latter has fortunately been described and figured by Professor Cope for the forthcoming report of the Indiana geo- logical survey. A fine set of Ward’s casts was also | destroyed, but can readily be replaced. Professor Van Nuys’ chemical laboratory, contain- ing a number of fine imported pieces of chemical apparatus; Professor Wylie’s physical laboratory, including a number of the owner’s ingenious mech- anisms, and the entire ichthyological collections of Professors Jordan and Gilbert,— representing years of patient work, and probably the finest private col- lection of fishes in the United States, —were also destroyed, together with valuable collections belong- ing to the U. S. national museum, Yale college, Cornell university, and other institutions. The Brookville society of natural history, of Brook- ville, Ind., has been the first to offer aid to the insti- tution: they have placed their entire collection of duplicates at the service of the trustees, from which several thousand specimens will be received as soon as arrangements can be made to accommodate them. It is understood that the trustees will proceed at once to replace the building which was destroyed; and they should erect a substantial fire-proof building in which to keep what valuable material they may here- after acquire. — The circular of the local committee of the Ameri- can association announces reduced rates on very many railways and at the hotels of Minneapolis. ~ The latter, however, are crowded at this season; and members are recommended to resort to the subur- ban hotels on Lake Minnetonka and Lake Calhoun, about twelve miles from the city, to and from many of which the railways will carry members free, the time being about half an hour. Many members will be entertained by the citizens of Minneapolis; and a sub-committee will endeavor to find entertainment for all who will notify its chairman, Hon. A. C. Rand, early, of their intention to be present. The usual favors will be granted by the telegraph companies. Badges, a daily lunch, and low-priced carriages will be furnished, together with a descrip- tive and illustrated guide to the city of Minneapolis, now in preparation. Express packages containing apparatus, specimens, maps, books, drawings, or other articles designed for use in the meetings, will be forwarded by the American express company, and delivered free of charge at the University of Minne- sota. Such parcels should be addressed in care of Prof. J. A. Dodge, to whom, also, all correspondence relating to the same should be sent. After Aug. 12, JULY 27, 1883.] letters may be addressed to members at Minneapolis, in care of the association, and they will be delivered from the office of the local committee at the uni- versity. An excursion will be made to Minnetonka, and return, on Saturday afternoon, when a lawn picnic will be served at the Lake Park Hotel. If a party of a hundred and fifty or more desire to make an excursion to Winnipeg, and return, at one-half of regular fare, the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba railway will send a special train for their accommo- dation. No definite arrangements have yet been made for other excursions. The retiring address of President J. W. Dawson will be given at the Westminster church, on Nicollet avenue, on Wednesday evening. After the address a reception will be held by the local committee at the Nicollet House. The meeting will probably be one of special inter- est to glacial geologists, numerous papers concerning the terminal moraine and other glacial phenomena being expected. : — The annual meeting of the Society for the pro- motion of agricultural science will be held in Minne- apolis on Aug. 13 and 14, in the Agricultural college building, of the State university. —A special public meeting of the Cambyidge ento- mological club will be held in Minneapolis, at the chapel of the university, at two P.M. on Tuesday, Aug. 14, to which all persons interested in ento- mology are invited. — The annual meeting of the American forestry congress will be held at St..Paul, Minn., commencing © on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 1883. The local committee has in charge the arrangement of railroad facilities, ete., announcement of which will be sent to all mem- bers in due time, and to all those who express their desire to attend the meeting. Papers to be read at the meeting, or abstracts of the same, should be sent in to the corresponding secretary two weeks before meeting, according to the by-laws of the congress. —A geographical and ethnological exhibition will be held in Nancy from Aug. 20 to Sept. 20. — The French association for the advancement of sciences meet at Rouen, Aug. 16-23. — The sixth congress of the French geographical societies will meet under the presidency of M. de Lesseps at Douai on the 26th of August, and remain five days in session. A geographical exposition will form a feature of the meeting. The seventh congress will meet at Rouen in 1884, and the eighth at Oran in 1885. — The seventh congress of the Russian scientific association will be held in Odessa from Aug. 30 to Sept. 9. ois —The sixth annual meeting of the American society of microscopists will be held in Chicago, be- ginning Tuesday, Aug. 7, 1883, and continuing four days. Ample preparations are making by the com- mittee of the State microscopical society of Illinois, and the Chicago academy of sciences; and the attend- ance of members is expected to be larger than ever before. First-class hotel accommodations at reduced SCIENCE. special rates have been secured, and choice arrange- ments made for the comfort and convenience of the meeting. ‘Titles of papers may be sent to the secre- tary, Prof. D. S. Kellicott, Ph.D., 119 14th St., Buffalo, N.Y. Full provision will be made for illus- tration, by projection apparatus, of any article when the authors may so desire. A special hour will be allotted each day to the exhibition of objects and ap- paratus referred to or described in communications read before the society; an evening will also be set apart for the presentation of methods of work, in- cluding staining, section-cutting, mounting, micro- photography, ete. A general microscopical soirée will be held on another evening, and members are requested to bring instruments and slides with them. The exhibition of instruments and accessories by makers and dealers promises to be unusually fine. The officers of the society are Albert McCalla of Fairfield, Io., president; E. H. Griffith of Fairport, N.Y., and George C. Taylor of Thibodeaux, La., vice-presidents; D. S. Kellicott of Buffalo, N.Y., see- retary; and George E. Fell of Buffalo, N.Y., treas- urer. — The Société académique of Brest held an exhi- bition of matters relating to geography, June 3-17. An especial object was to bring to notice the rich ethnological material which has accumulated in this city during many years. The halls devoted to Japan, China, Cochin-China, and West Africa, presented much of interest. —In the Philosophical transactions for 1817 (p. 325), Sir William Herschel says, that, ‘‘ beside the 683 star-gauges published in the Philosophical transac- tions for 1785 (p. 221), above 400 more have been taken in various parts of the heavens.”’ These four hundred unpublished gauges have lately been extracted from the original observing-books preserved at the Herschel family residence at Colling- wood, through the kindness of Sir William Herschel, the present baronet, and of his brother, Major John Herschel; and the manuscript has been presented to Professor Holden, director of the Washburn observatory. The original records are in the handwriting of Miss Caroline Herschel, and by her faithful care every detail necessary to their accurate deduction is preserved. It will be observed that only two-thirds of the star-gauges of Herschel have heretofore been known. The new acquisition will be welcomed by those interested in this class of observations, They are a new gift from an inexhaustible mine. —The bureau of education has just published a circular of information, containing the results of an inquiry into the effects of co-educating the sexes in three hundred and forty cities and large towns of the Union. Of these, three hundred and twenty-one practise co-education throughout the public-school course, seventeen co-educate for part of the course, and two separate the sexes entirely. A careful analysis of the reasons adduced for co-education en- ables the editor to formulate them as follows: co- education of the sexes is preferred where practised, because it is, 1°, natural, following the usual struc- 118 ture of the family and of society; 2°, customary, or in harmony with the habits and sentiments of every-day life and law; 3°, impartial, affording to both sexes equal opportunities for culture; 4°, eco- nomical, using school-funds to the best advantage; 5°, convenient both to superintendent and teachers in assigning, grading, instruction, and discipline; and, 6°, beneficial to the minds, morals, habits, and development of the pupils. The pamphlet concludes by observing that ‘‘ both the general instruction of girls, and the common employment of women as public-school teachers, depend, to a very great degree, on the prevalence of co-education, and that a general discontinuance of it would entail either much in- creased expense for additional buildings and teachers, or a withdrawal of educational privileges from the future women and mothers of the nation.” — Mr. Charles B. Dyer, a well-known collector of Cincinnati fossils, died at his home on Wednesday, July 11, after a painful illness of over three months’ duration. He was for many years engaged in amass- ing one of the finest collections of local paleon- tology in the country, which now reposes in the Agassiz museum in Cambridge. His rarest fossils were collected by himself, and his industry in the pursuit of new and fine specimens was untiring. In connection with Mr. 8. A. Miller, Mr. Dyer issued a few years ago, at his own expense, a pamphlet with two plates, containing descriptions of new forms from his collection, entitled ‘ Contributions to paleon- tology.’ Thirty years ago Mr. Dyer retired from business with a moderate fortune, and devoted all his time to collecting. He was an eccentric man, with strong feelings, but a fast friend and a pleasant com- panion. He was in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and had lived in Cincinnati for over fifty-five years. His name is attached to one of the common- est crinoids of the Cincinnati rocks, Glyptocrinus Dyeri, and to several very rare and beautiful forms discovered by him. — The Imperial geographical society of St. Peters- burg has awarded its great gold medal to H. W. Abich for his researches into the geology of the Cau- casus. The Litké medal was received by W. K. Dollen of the Pulkova observatory for improvements in astronomical instruments; Vitkoffski, Barsoff, and Krasnoperoff have received medals for ethnographic and statistical works; Oshanin, for travels in Turkes- tan, etc. Silver medals were awarded to Brunoff for meteorological researches, and to Lessar, Schultz, Gladisheff, Kiseleff, Rodionoff, and Slovtsoff for sur- veys and journeys, chiefly on the Asiatic frontier of Russia. —The observatory at. Moscow was among the establishments of the northern hemisphere which co- operated with Mr. David Gill, Her majesty’s astrono- mer at Cape Town, in securing observations of the small planet Victoria, at its late opposition, for a new determination of the solar parallax. The ninth vol- ume (livraison i.) of the Annales of this institution contains the results of these observations, together with several papers by its director, Dr. Bredichin, relating to comets and allied subjects. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 25. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. ** Continuations and brief papers extracted from serial literature without repagination are not included in this list, Exceptions are made for annual reports of American insti- tutions, newly established periodicals, and memoirs of con- siderable extent. Hospitalier, E. Formulaire pratique de lélectricitien. année i. 1883. Paris, 1883. 280 p., illustr. 12%. Huxley, T.H. Ilgambero. Introduzione allo studio della zoologia. Milano, 1883. 3852p. 8°. Jobnston’s Botanical atlas; with explanatory text. 2 vols. (i. Phanerogams; ii. Cryptogams). London, 1883. 52pl. 4°. Jonas, J. Studien und yorschliige auf dem gebiete des le- bensversicherungs-geschiftes. Berlin, 1883. 83 p. 8°. Kloeber, C. Der pilzsammler. Genaue beschreibung der in Deutschland und den angrenzenden liindern wachsenden speiseschwimme nebst zubereitung fiir die ktiche, sowie kultur- anweisung der champignonzucht. Quedlinburg, 1883, illustr. 8°. Kobelt, W. Iconographie der schalentragenden europii- pecs meeresconehylien. hefti. Kassel, Mischer, 1883. 16 p., 4lith. 4°. Krok, 0. B., och S. Almqvist. Svensk flora for skolor. i. Phanerogamer. Stockholm, 1883 26+198p. 8°. Le Monnier, G. Dix legons de botanique. Paris, 1883. 124 fig. 12°. . Lepsius, R. Das Mainzer becken, geologischer beschrei- bung. Darmst, 1883. illustr. 4°. Luhmann, E. Die fabrikation der dachpappe und der an- strichmasse fiir pappdicher in verbindung mit der theerdestilla- tion nebst anfertigung aller arten yon pappbedachungen und asphaltirungen. Wien, 1883. 256 p., illustr. 8°. Magaud, L. Les oiseaux de la France. Premiére mono- graphie: corvidés. Histoire naturelle et particuliére des passe- reaux déodactyles cultrirostres obseryés en France. Paris, 1883. 4°. Medical &ra. vol.i., no. 1. Chicago, Gross & Delbridge, July, 1883. 8+82p. 8°. m. Mina-Palumbo, F. Monografia botanica ed agraria sulla cultivazione dei pistacchi in Sicilia. Palermo, Zauwriel, 1883. 272 p.; 28'pi. 8%. € Wazzani, 1. Trattato @idraulica pratica. yol.i. Milano, Toepli, 1883. 646p. 8°. Patouillard, N. Tabulae analyticae Fungorum. Deserip- tions et analyses microscopiques des champignons nouveaux, rares ou critiques. ‘cent.i. Poligny, 1883. illustr. 8°. Pattison, M. M. Chemists. London, 1883. (Heroes of science.) illustr. roy. 8°. Petermann, A. Recherches de chimie et de physiologie appliquées & Pagriculture. Analyses de matiéres fertilisantes et alimentaires. 1872-82. Bruxelles, 1883. 448 p. 8°. ; Peters, P. Darstellung elliptischer functionen durch flaichen. KGnigsberg, 1883. 32p. 4°. Pucci, E. Fondamenti di geodosia. 1883. 403 p. 8°. Rovelli, C. Lateoria delle funzione potenziale di Green ap- plicata allo studio dei fenomeni della gravitazione univyersale. Como, Franchi, 1883. 96p. 8. Saint-Lager. Des origines des sciences naturelles. Paris, 1883. 1834p. 8°. Sauvage, H.E. La grande péche (poissons). Paris, 1885. illustr, 8°. Slack, J. H. Practical trout-culture. illustr. 8°. Strasser, H. Zurkenntniss der funktionellen anpassung der quergestreiften muskeln. Stuttgart, 1883. 1145p. 8°. Targioni-Tozzetti, A. Ortotteri agrari. Firenze, 1882. illustr. 8°. Toula, Fl. Geologische karte von Oesterreich-Ungarn nebst Bosnien und Herzegovina. Wien, 1882. f°. . Vallot, J. Etudes sur la flore du Sénégal. fase. i. Paris, 1883. 80p.,pl. 8°. [To contain 6-8 fase. ] ‘ Vélain, Ch. Cours élémentaire de géologie stratigraphique. Paris, 1883. 3816 p., illustr. 12°. — Excursion géologique dans le Morvan. Paris,1883. 129p., illustr. 4°. Violle, J. Cours de physique. tome i. laire, partie 1. Paris, 1883. 511 p., 209 fig. Wernicke, A. Grundziige der Braunschweig, 1883. 448 p., illustr. 8°. Zoltz, A.de. Principii della eguaglianza di poliedri e di poli- goni sferici. Milano, Brida, 1883. 48p. 8°. vol. i. Milano, Hoepli, New York, 1883. Physique molécu- elementar-mechanik. ie le a iil a Tt he Nalin oA Pole NCE. FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 1883. THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. i: Ty a former number we reviewed some of the important principles of general classifica- tion suggested by Mr. Goode’s plan of the National museum. We resume the topic to discuss some of the salient points in the minor groupings of the same scheme. Section iii., ‘ natural resources,’ i.e., ‘ force and matter,’ appears to be out of place. Certainly these are primary subjects; and we cannot, as a merely practical matter, under- stand why the study of physics and chemistry -is placed after that of the earth, which is to be treated of earlier under the separate heads of ‘cosmology,’ ‘ geology,’ ‘ physiography,’ etc., in section ii. Imagine a person trying to learn something of the relations of force and matter to the history of the development of the earth and its topography as it now appears, and hay- ing in view the applications of these studies to the explanation of some of man’s migrations or racial differences, or to any other anthropologi- cal problem which might reach back to primary connections. Is it supposable that his inquiries would be facilitated by placing the collection in such relations to each other as completely to cover up and invert their natural relations and logical order? Or is it probable that the mind of the visitor would be more enlightened by getting his information about the relations of the elements after he had passed through celestial and terrestrial physics and chemistry, and all the applications of these to the history of the development of the earth? We can readily picture to ourselves the con- fusion which might be generated in his mind, and the discovery he might make of the neces- sity of reviewing all he had passed over before ; but we fail in attempts to imagine the advan- tages of this inversion. We cannot, therefore, understand the considerations which induced No. 26. — 1883. BS s Mr. Goode to adopt this method of arranging the sections, nor why he did not place natural resources first, and man last, in his natural history division ; for that is what the first three sections really constitute when taken together. They would then have stood in approximately natural, and certainly respectably logical, rela- tions to each other. We should then have had in section i., phys- ies, chemistry, and all the mineralogical, botan- ical, and zoological collections as introductions to the study of section ii., where the princi- ples of science learned in passing them in re- view would be found of essential assistance in understanding the earth, with all the topics of cosmology, geology, etc., whether presented, as Mr. Goode proposes, solely as man’s abode, or in its more natural relation to the universe as a planetary body. The last seems to us the preferable because more natural mode of pres- entation; and the author shows this by bring- ing in cosmology. This, if at all effective, must show that the earth is a planet primarily uninhabitable by man, and evolved without ref-: erence to his existence, conducted in its career by cosmic forces uninfluenced by his presence, and, in all likelihood, destined to become unfit, in course of time, for his existence. After the earth as man’s abode had been passed through by the visitor, we could readily conceive of his being all the better prepared for the understanding of section iii., ‘ the nat- ural history of man and his adjuncts of all kinds.’ Passing over section iv. (‘ the exploitative industries’) and section v. (‘the elaborative industries’), which together constitute what appears to be a second grand division of the museum representing the purely industrial side, we come to section vi. In this section are in- cluded foods, and drinks in their final stages of preparation for the use of man, narcotics, dress, buildings, furniture, heating and illumi- nation. medicine, hygiene, transportation. All es Cl 120 of these are supposed to have a more direct relation to the physical condition of mankind, either from their nature, or in the peculiar stages of their manufacture which makes them admissible to the cases of this section. Section vii., ‘social relations of mankind (sociology and its accessories) ,’ is to be an ex- position of the appliances and methods made use of by man in his social relations, commu- nication of ideas and their record, trade and commerce, societies and federations, govern- ment and law, war, ceremonies. Section viii., ‘ intellectual occupations of mankind (art, science, and philosophy) ,’ is to show the existing intellectual and moral condi- tion of man, and the most perfect results of human achievement in every direction of ac- tivity. Its topics are to be games and amuse- ments, music, the drama, the arts, literature, folk-lore, science, philosophy, education, and climaxes of human achievement. The sixth to the eighth sections contain the special topics which can be used to illustrate the results of the intellectual progress of man more completely and directly, perhaps, than the industries, in sections iv. and v. ; and these are accordingly placed in a succession leading ‘naturally to their culmination in the topic which terminates section vili., and is at the same time the sixty-fourth and last of all of the topics. This terminal topic is to be an exposition of the most remarkable achievements of man. The separation of this from the final topic of sec- tion i. (‘man in his individual manifestations, representative men, biography *) shows, that, though Mr. Goode has kept in view the key- note of man’s progress in civilization, the development of the individual, he has never- theless either failed in seeing, or considered of subordinate importance, the racial peculiarities and advantages of which the representative man is necessarily only the concentrated or focalized expression. In fact, this want of what we might call psychological insight is apparent everywhere ; and throughout the scheme the race is subor- dinated to the notion that man should be pre- sented and considered as a whole, whether in SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 26. the development of the topics separately, or the purely comparative arrangement of the sixty- four topics themselyes as assembled in the different sections of the museum. In section i. man is treated of ‘ psychologically as a unit ;’ and it is only in the second topic of this{sec- tion, where the natural relations of men force the treatment to stand upon a racial basis, that we find this policy even apparently abandoned. We say apparently ; because, as we understand it, the effort here will be not to show the his- torical or physical development of the races, - so much as to contrast them side by side and exhibit the characteristics of each race. In all its parts, the arrangement is based in each topic upon a comparison of the work of different races; and the objects used for these purposes must be withdrawn from their natural associations in other collections, and their significance in the history, physical and psychological, of any particular race, be sacri- ficed. This is the method of comparative anatomy, and has certain obvious advantages for the study of anatomy if it is confined in applica- tion within the well-defined limits of any one type of plants or animals; but it is liable to lead to serious errors when carried beyond these limits. The dismembered organs or parts, though similar, are, when found in distinct types, unquestionably often distinct in origin. The comparative method necessarily cuts across the natural order of things in their relations to time and to the successive stages of their development: and this is an obvious defect, which, when applied to anthropological col- lections, is destructive of all natural concep- tions as to the way in which modifications and changes really arise or flow out of pre-existing localized or racial conditions. , Anthropology as a science is essentially con- cerned in tracing the history of different races of men: it clings to the race as the safest basis of classification at present existing, and — it is the test by which all general conclusions with regard to the nature of man and the evolu- tion of civilization are judged. A museum of anthropology departs widely from this basis AveusT 3, 1883.] and true scientific conservatism when it as- sumes the task of harmonizing the psychology of all the races of men, especially in the pres- ent almost unexplored condition of this field in savage races, and when it declares that it can present a true picture of the existing con- dition of man by the method of general com- parison of things whose connections, as they stand side by side, are obviously unnatural. The presentation of the results of achieve- ment in all directions, as attained by each race or natural association of races, could not have been open to such serious objec- tions, would have been far more effectual, and more in accordance with the principles of modern classification and the practice of mu- seums of anthropology. It would, at any rate, haye retained the collections in what are known to be their natural relations; such a presentation could not have failed, therefore, to meet the wants of the future and the demands of the present in a more effectual way than by any artificial classification, whatever its con- venience. We do not think that the industrial side would have suffered from this policy, but, on the contrary, we think its subjects would have greatly gained in interest from being shown as developed by the different races; nor do we believe that such a plan would have demanded more room than the present plan, required any more duplicate collections for its proper illus- tration, or yet have greatly increased the diffi- culties of the classification of topics which Mr. Goode has so ably handled in his scheme. The comparative method could then, if deemed necessary, have been resorted to as a crowning effort to show, side by side in a single collection, the ultimate achievements and results attained by each race, how far it had been able to advance in civilization, and what influence, if any, its finest work had had upon the existing conditions of that civiliza- tion. Such a summary certainly could be so limited by judicious selection as to be brought within the mental grasp of the intelligent and diligent student; whereas a definite concep- - tion of Mr. Goode’s sixty-four topics presup- SCIENCE. a. =.= sty ee at de es i ee 121 poses mental powers of a titanie order. In fact, the graphic picture of civilization which they will present will, from their number and mode of arrangement, be necessarily heteroge- neous, —an improvement, no doubt, on general notions in being composed of objects fnstead of individualized mental conceptions, but certain- ly not capable of giving the harmonious effect which the author aims at producing. The National museum is, however, to be not only the representative educational mu- seum of this country, but is also to be com- bined with departments of research. We have, therefore, to consider the probable influence of the museum of education and its collections upon the departments of research, bequeathed to its care by the Smithsonian, as well as those likely to come under its influence in the future. ‘These last collections might, perhaps, be safely left to themselves; but it must be remembered, that, though at present secure, they will eventually obey the law of attraction, and their curators must begin immediately to take an active interest in the collections which are to represent their achievements before the country at large, and the relations of these de- partments to the prospects of investigators. At present the departments of research and those of education are not only under one head, but the subordinate offices are also united in the same persons. Under these circumstances, we view with apprehension certain tendencies, which are eyident in the pamphlet before us, and especially the prominence given to the industrial sections. Their present mode of arrangement and ideals do not definitively shut out all possibility of co-operation with business ; on the contrary, if we understand certain pas- sages in Mr. Goode’s pamphlet, this co-opera- tion is invited, and some firms are already providing the cases with collections of indus- trial products. We know that science is not the weakest now in the National museum, and our fears will probably highly amuse the officers of the industrial sections ; but nevertheless, we cannot see what is to prevent enterprising firms from presently finding out the value of these departments as advertising mediums, and being tes . A? 122 aggressively if not successfully generous in supplying their wants with expensive gifts, accompanied by their business-cards. The fer- tility of the imagination in the construction of wedges may certainly be counted upon as quite equal to the opening of any cracks which may present themselves ; and we think it would have been far more prudent to recognize and provide for these dangers, however remote they might be considered. We are, of course, conscious that the joining of hands between science and the industries is the general drift of the tendencies of the day, especially in this country. That this will ele- vate the industries, we have no doubt; but that it will also elevate the ideals of science, we do not believe. How will the future di- rector, however scientific, avoid the necessity of becoming, before the government and the country, the representative of great commer- cial and industrial questions and interests, and be in danger of having his interests and his thoughts drawn into the vortex of such affairs, to the exclusion and neglect of the purely scientific aims and objects of the mu- seum ? to be the case, but simply that we do not see how he can avoid the natural results of his position at the head of the great industrial museum of the country. Mr. Goode’s pamphlet also contains other matters, which, when viewed in the light given by the past history of other museums, show the neglect of essential precautions. There is, for example, no provision for limiting the ac- cumulations of specimens. On the contrary, overpowered by the wants of his world-embra- cing scheme, he appeals to public-spirited citi- zens to come forward and depasit their valuable and extensive private collections; and it is especially recommended that the officers, by a wise forethought, should encourage this pro- pensity to the utmost. Private collections have been made for the most heterogeneous purposes; and it is well known that their possessors usually demand, in return for their generosity in giving them, that they shall be kept together, or have a goodly SCIENCE. We do not claim that this will be sure [Vou. II., No. 26. proportion of exhibition space allotted to them. Such unqualified appeals, and the neglect of all other precautions + against the unlimited acqui- sition of materials, are entirely at variance with the selective policy previously announced, and a complete surrender of the principles which should govern a museum starting with a new ideal, and bent upon avoiding the errors of policy and the unnecessary burdens which had been previously and truthfully described by Mr. Goode as the greatest obstacles in the path of the older museums. It does not require a prophetic eye to see in the near future, that assisted by the Fish-com- mission, the Geological survey, and other de- partments of the government, the business energy and liberality of the American citizen, the pride, energy, and influence of the present — staff of museum, uncontrolled by any prudential considerations, and stimulated by the universal field they are required to cover, will heap up materials not only faster than they can be han- dled, but in such masses that they will become, as in older museums, serious obstacles to the progress of the museum of education itself, and be still more serious in their effects upon the museum of research. The resources of the National museum, however great they may be, will inevitably find themselves, sooner or later, blocked by these accumulations ; and their care will occupy the time of the officers in an in- creasing ratio. Luckily for science, men in such positions have frequently found them- selves unable to resist the suggestive seduc- tions of research, and allowed collections to suffer while they studied ; but many, too con- scientious to do this, have been sacrificed to the mere preservation of materials, whose labors would have repaid the daily wages of many more lower-class laborers to any civilized goy- ernment. Large accumulations, however, not - only directly discourage the investigator by 1 That we are not misrepresenting the spirit of the museum by this remark may be learned in Mr. Goode’s own words: “The classification proposed should provide a place for every object in existence which it is possible to describe, or which may be designated by a name. When the object itself cannot be ob- tained, its place should be supplied by a model, picture, or dia- gram.” _—_ = s- oe : : J . 4 ) ae hh» ee De AuGust 3, 1883.] wasting his time, but their necessary preserva- tion strikes at a still more vital point in using up funds which could otherwise be employed for the publication of the results of researches. They also equally interfere with the purchase of delicate instruments, the employment of labor to directly assist in carrying out the purposes of' research, prevent the purchase of such specimens or collections as may be essential, and cut off opportunities for travel and study in other museums or parts of the world. We think, therefore, that, while the National museum may open some paths to the investi- gator, it will neither directly do the very best work in this direction, nor give us any grounds for believing that it will introduce a new era of prosperity for abstract investigation. It will add one more to the useful scientific institu- tions of its kind, it will undoubtedly contribute to the progress of science by increasing the opportunities for employment and by the ex- ample of its officers; but it will not do much for them or for us in the way of an exalted ideal. If the museum of education had been lim- ited by a wise policy of selection in its ac- cumulations of materials, and placed under a distinct staff, we could have made no such ob- jections ; then the practical objects of its ex- istence would not have suffered, as they now surely will, from the psychological tendencies of the investigating curators ; nor, on the other hand, would the investigators themselves have been distracted by having a double purpose in all that they were doing, and frequently obliged to sacrifice one or the other. We do not wish to imply that the museums should not be under one general head, and have all the benefits of mutual association, but simply insist that the ideals are quite distinct, and the officers should realize this by being under - different regulations, and under a different gov- ernment, in each of the two museums. The investigator cannot avoid placing on exhibition the record of his own and others’ work; and he will find a thousand good reasons for crowd- ing the cases with fine collections, because they are fine, and because they are important in SCIENCE. 123 research, or unique, or remarkable; and the educational idea will be subordinate or com- pletely lost in such parts of the museum, so far as the average student is concerned. The cost of the museum will be enormous ; but if its lessons can be easily mastered by the average student, and in this case the student is the average congressman, he will not begrudge the funds which are necessary for its support. It must be remembered that these are keen men, quick to see the advan- tages of such lessons as the museum can teach them; especially if, like the library, it can make itself really useful to them, and keep up with the times by illustrating the new results of discovery and research in all departments of learning in an explanatory and popular way. We imagine that they will not be slow in call- ing upon the officers of the museum whenever they have need of their services, and that they will be rather disgusted if any of the require- ments of research interfere with their desire for information. While we wish the greatest success to the National museum and its energetic and de- seryedly popular director, and have the high- est respect and friendliest feeling towards their undertaking, and a faith that they will finally work out a better result than is prom- ised, we think that neither this faith nor their great scientific achievements, of which we are justly proud, nor the liberality of the govern- ment, can entirely make up for the absence of the public recognition of a more purely scien- tific ideal in ovr National museum. . KINETIC CONSIDERATIONS AS TO THE NATURE OF THE ATOMIC MOTIONS WHICH PROBABLY ORIGINATE RA- DIATIONS.1— Il. ‘ Havine now sufficiently cleared the field of inquiry by this preliminary discussion, let us consider the proposed hypothesis somewhat more closely, both as to what it is precisely, and as to how far it is in accordance with the phenomena. The whole outcome of Lockyer’s investigations, to which we have referred, leads to the conclusion that atoms of the chemi- cal elements are complex bodies, all of which 1 Concluded from No. 24. See also Proc. Ohio mech. inst., ii. 89. 124 are formed of ultimate atoms of the same kind ; so that, on this hypothesis, there is but one kind of substance from which all others are com- pounded. Chemical atoms might be compared to a chime of bells all.cast from the same ma- terial, but each having its own special series of harmonic vibrations. A necessary result flowing from this hypoth- esis would be, that the atomic weights should all be exact multiples of some fraction of the atomic weight of hydrogen, which would in- clude Prout’s hypothesis as a particular case. The experimental data are, perhaps, not yet sufficiently precise to enable us to obtain a trustworthy result as to the probability of the truth of Prout’s hypothesis ; yet Clarke’s* re- sults as to the atomic weights seem to show that the hypothesis has a high degree of proba- bility. _ If the chemical atoms of all bodies are as- sumed to be formed of ultimate atoms, which are in all respects equal and alike, this hypothesis furnishes a basis for investigation at once defi- nite and simple, some of whose consequences we shall now endeavor to show to be in ac- cordance with experimental facts. We wish, in the first place, to show that this hypothesis will make the temperature of a gas proportional to its mean kinetic energy. A chemical atom may be assumed to be a per- fectly elastic body, as its deformation is as- sumed to be extremely small. But according to the mathematical theory of elastic impact,” ~‘* when two such bodies come into collision, sometimes with greater and sometimes with less mutual velocity, but with other circum- stances similar, the velocities of all particles of either body at ‘corresponding times of the impacts will always be in tlie same propor- tion ;’’ from which it is clear, that in a mix- ture of two kinds of gas, as hydrogen and oxygen for example, when the mean velocity of the molecules is so increased that the vibra- tion of the ultimate atoms of the hydrogen is increased a certain per cent, then that of the ultimate atoms of the oxygen is increased by the same per cent. But the circumstances of the encounters and the forces acting be- tween the ulitmate molecules determine what fraction the mean kinetic energy of vibration of the ultimate atoms shall be of that of the molecules whose encounters cause these vibra- tions. Since the circumstances attending the encounters are dependent simply upon the forces acting between the ultimate atoms as- 1 Constants of nature, part v. . weights. Washington, 1882. ? Thomson and Tait’s Natural philosophy, 1867, art. 302. A recalculation of the atomic SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 26. sumed to be in all respects equal, the energy of their vibration will be the same in an atom of hydrogen as it is in an atom of oxygen; for each degree of freedom of every ultimate atom of either element is similarly cireumstanced, both as regards forces between itself and other ultimate atoms of the same chemical atom, and also as regards the impacts of other molecules. The proposition of the kinetic theory which makes the energy of each degree of freedom the same, which has been erroneously applied to the degrees of freedom of molecules, can therefore be correctly applied to the ultimate atoms. ; But it might not, at first glance, be apparent whether these vibrations are caused by, and are proportional to, the mean progressive energy of the molecules, or to their rotary energy combined with it. But it is not dif- ficult to show that the vibrations of the chemi- cal atoms with respect to each other are pro- portional to the mean progressive energy alone, and then to show the same for the ultimate atoms. Although, in the paper upon the vibratory motions of atoms within the mole- cule, we have for mathematical purposes con- sidered the centrifugal force as causing vibra- tions of atoms with respect to each other, yet in fact the vibrations so caused are vanishing © quantities, compared with those caused by the component of the impulsive force acting during an encounter along the line joining the atoms of a molecule. The magnitude of such a vibra- - tion, other things being equal, depends upon the suddenness of the impulse; and the sud- denness of the force called into play during a change of rotary velocity, by deviation from motion in a tangent to motion in a circle, can bear no comparison to the suddenness of a direct impulse along the radius of the circle. Hence the direct impulse due to the progres- sive motion need alone be considered. It thus appears that the energy of vibration of chemical atoms with respect to each other in a simple gas is proportional to its mean progressive energy. The same is true of the vibrations, with respect to each other, of the ultimate atoms which form a chemical atom, and for the same reasons ; for the forces which act upon the ultimate atoms are the impulses due to the encounters of other molecules, and those due to the remaining chemical atoms of the same molecule. The energy of the latter of these motions is proportional to the former, as has just been shown; hence their sum is so also: therefore the energy exerted to deform a chemical molecule, and set it in vibration, is proportional to the mean progressive energy. oS _ Aveust 3, 1883.] == a But it is to be noticed that the impulses due to the vibrations of the chemical atoms within a molecule are vastly more frequent than the molecular impulses; and it appears probable that the vibrations of the chemical atoms set up during an encounter will rapidly ~ decay, even in case they do not themselves directly originate radiations. The vibratory energy of this kind may then be changed almost instantly into that of vibration of the ultimate atoms. According to the hypothesis which we are now considering, the temperature of the body and the intensity of the radiation depend solely on the vibratory energy of the ultimate atoms ; but, since these ultimate atoms are assumed to be in all respects equal, they vibrate under the action of the same forces, and have the same degrees of freedom and constraint within the chemical atoms of one element as they do within those of a different element. Hence it appears, that if the ultimate atoms of two different gases haye the same vibratory energy (i-e., cause vibrations of the same intensity), so that the flow of radiant energy is the same from all the ultimate atoms of each gas, then there will be no disturbance of this equilib- rium when these gases are mixed; in which case the distribution of energy is effected by molecular encounters, which distribute equal mean amounts of energy to each molecule, in- stead of by radiations, which distribute equal mean amounts of energy to each ultimate atom. In attempting to account for the high specific heat of liquids, I have elsewhere given reasons for supposing that it is due to a certain per cent of dissociation, which increases with the temperature. It appears probable, that, al- though some small amount of dissociation may exist in gases also, there is not so large a per cent as in the liquid state, nor does the per cent necessarily increase with the temperature ; for by reason of the free progressive motion in a gas, which does not exist in a liquid, any dissociated atoms have a much better opportu- nity to recombine ; and, as the velocities (espe- cially those of free atoms) increase with the temperature, these opportunities increase, as well as the number of dissociations occurring in a unit of time; so that, at a high tempera- ture, an atom of gas may not stay dissociated so long as at a lower temperature, while in a liquid this interval will not be sensibly affected by the temperature. It is thought that the law of Dulong and Petit receives reasonable explanation on the hypothesis that the ultimate atoms have each the same kinetic energy at the same temper- SCIENCE. 125 ature, as will be shown in a subsequent paper ; but perhaps the strongest direct evidence in favor of the proposed hypothesis is found in the fact that even the simplest elements, such as hydrogen or mercury, have spectra of several lines at least, showing that the source of the light must be sufficiently complex to be able to vibrate in a number of different ways, such as may well be possible for an atom formed of a number of ultimate atoms, but such as is in- conceivable in a molecule consisting of one or two perfectly hard atoms. H. T. Eppy. THE NATIONAL RAILWAY EXPOSI- TION. —IV. Tue exhibit of locomotives was remarkably complete, and comprised engines differing widely in size and power, and adapted for every variety of work; but a certain uniformity of the design of the main features would seem to indicate that locomotive practice has settled down into a certain groove, and that the meth- ods of construction now adopted are so satis- factory that few exhibiters propose to greatly improve upon them by any radical alterations, though one or two of these new departures, such as the Wootten firebox and the Stevens valye-gear, seem likely to come into extensive use. The main tendency of locomotive design seems to run rather in the direction of larger bearing surfaces and stronger working parts than in any novel methods of construction ; while sound and accurate workmanship, and plenty of good material judiciously distributed, are relied on to make a locomotive durable, hard-working, and trustworthy under trying conditions. Mr. E. Shay of Haring, Mich., exhibits a model of an engine of peculiar construction for ‘logging’ purposes. These small railways are exceedingly light in construction, and the rails and ties are generally laid directly on the sur- face of the ground, without any great attention being paid to preliminary grading or align- ment; and therefore a suitable locomotive must unite considerable tractive power with great flexibility of wheel-base, and a small weight, on any one pair of wheels. Mr. Shay accom- plishes this by using a Forney type of loco- motive, having a pair of drivers under the barrel of the boiler, and a four-wheel truck, carrying the tank and fuel, behind the firebox. All the wheels being made of the same diameter, a pair of vertical engines are secured to one side of the firebox, working a longitudinal shaft which 1 Continued from No. 25. 126 SCIENCE. Ei, NUIT [ i | i runs beside the wheels. Bevel pinions on this shaft engage bevel wheels on the hubs of the wheels, and, as the shaft is provided with universal and telescopic joints, the whole of the wheels can be driven simultaneously, no matter how sharp the curve over which the engine may be running; and, owing to the interposition of gearing, comparatively small- sized cylinders are sufficient to enable the engine to haul very heavy loads, and yet run sufficiently fast for the nature of the work. Mr. Shay informs us that nearly a hundred of these engines are at work, some on wooden rails, and that they are giving great satisfac- tion. The mode of driving appears to be noyel, and, despite some complexity, is free from many of the disadvantages of the Fairlie LOGGING LOCOMOTIVE WITH GEARED DRIVING-WHEELS. system, which also utilizes the adhesion of radiating axles. Messrs. H. K. Porter & Co. of Pittsburgh, Penn., also exhibit an engine specially adapted for logging railways. Ordinary methods of construction are, however, followed; and the consequent greater simplicity is of great ad- vantage where the work for a few months in the year is very severe, and no repair-shops are situated within convenient distance. ‘The engine exhibited is of the following dimen- sions, and is calculated to work safely on a rail weighing only thirty pounds per yard : — Cylinders, diameter and stroke . 10 in. X 16 in. Driving-wheels, diameter . . . «a ORL Truck-wheels, diameter . eC he iba Rigid wheel, base .- . nuke . 5ft. 3 in. LOGGING LOCOMOTIVE EXHIBITED BY H. K. PortTER & Co. _ -Avousr 3,183. | SCIENCE. ‘ 127 Total wheel base . 13 ft. 4 in. ventor, Dr. Holland, proposes to raise steam . 4 q Weight in working order . , 31,000 lbs. Weight on drivers. - 26,000 lbs. Water-capacity of tank . . 500 gallons. Messrs. Porter state that a similar engine, working day and night on a road 11 miles in length, with grades of 53 feet per mile, has handled 350,000 feet of logs in 24 hours, run- ning about 180 miles in that time. The engine exhibited is well designed, and the workmanship is fully equal to that on a first-class main-line engine. The Cooke locomotive works of Paterson, N.J., exhibit an engine for the Southern Pacific railroad which is believed to be the largest locomotive in the world, the cylinders being 20 inches diameter by no less than 30 inches stroke. The designer of this engine, Mr. N. I. Stevens, general master mechanic of the Central Pacific railroad, is, however, building a still larger engine at the company’s shops at Sacramento, Cal., the cylinders of which measure 21 inches by 36 inches. This latest development will exert a tractive force of 278 pounds for every pound per square inch average pressure on the pistons ; that is to say, with an average pressure on the pistons of 100 pounds per square inch throughout the stroke, this engine would exert a tractive force or pull of 27,800 pounds, less the internal friction of the working-parts of the engine. Whether the average drawbar of the average freight- ear is capable of safely standing such a strain is a question which experience will probably solve in a direction unfavorable to weak draw- gear. Apart from their immense size, these engines are interesting as being fitted with a novel form of valve-motion. The engine ex- hibited has four slide-valves to each cylinder, two main valves, and two riding cut-off valves. An excellent diagram is obtained, the cut-off being sharp, and the compression very slight ; _ and the gear seems well adapted to a slow-run- ning freight-engine. In the later and larger engine, but two valves are employed, and but one eccentric; motion being taken from the engine crossbead. The results of this simpler _ gear promise to be equally good, and the trial- trip of this engine will be looked forward to with great interest. The Grant locomotive works are the makers of the only engine which departs from the sober suit of black in which its competitors are arrayed ; and further examination shows that its peculiarities are not confined to the outside appearance, but extend to the fuel to be used, which is entirely novel in character. The in- by means of the combustion of decomposed water. The heat evolved by burning naphtha is used to separate the oxygen and hydrogen in superheated steam; and, the carbon of the naphtha kindly uniting with the oxygen thus set free, the hydrogen is burnt by means of" oxygen ‘obtained from atmospheric air. The inventor states that the only products of this combustion are carbonic acid and water, the nitrogen disappearing in some mysterious man- ner not yet fully understood. The old fallacy that water can be decomposed and then re- united, with a positive advantage as regards heat, is here again illustrated ; while the strong smell of burning naphtha during the trial of the engine in the exposition indicated that this convenient auxiliary was used to a considerable and probably wasteful extent. Ql LL al J” INDICATOR DIAGRAMS OBTAINED ON LOCOMOTIVE BUILT AT THE COOKE LOCOMOTIVE WORKS. The Philadelphia and Reading railroad ex- hibit a fast passenger-engine fitted with Woot- tens’ patent firebox, which is adapted to burn any waste or inferior quality of fuel. Re- versing the usual practice on locomotives, the combustion on this engine is slow, owing to the enormous area of the grate (72 square feet), instead of a small one (16 or 17 square feet), while the blast is not severe, and the fire is one- third the usual thickness (4 inches instead of 10 or 12 inches) ; the result being a less vivid combustion, the interior of the fire-box being dull red in place of the white heat usual when 128 7 a locomotive is at work. Trials at Chicago seemed to indicate that the engine was capa- ble of maintaining steam with almost any kind of fuel, and that the lignite and inferior coal of the new north-west, which often contains only thirty-five per cent of carbon, can there- fore be utilized under locomotives. The slow combustion does not produce a heat intense enough to fuse the slag, and therefore the firebars keep clean and free from clinker ; and it need hardly be pointed out that this is an important practical consideration in deal- ing with fuel which contains over fifty per cent of ash. The large grate area is obtained by placing the fire and grate bars completely over the driving-wheels, where plenty of width is ob- tainable; and the firebox is accordingly made no less then 8 feet wide inside, instead of the usual 33 inches. It might be anticipated that the increased height of the centre of gravity would tend to make the engine unsteady at a high speed; but a precisely opposité result is obtained, as the engine rides with remarkable steadiness and smoothness, even at the highest speeds. The Shaw engine has been so often de- scribed, and been so prominently before the public, that it is only necessary to say here, that, though exhibited at the Chicago exposi- tion, want of time prevented any proper scien- tific tests being made to ascertain the real value of the invention. METALLIC PACKING FOR PISTON-RODS. - Various forms of metallic packing for piston- rods are now being extensively used with ex- excellent results, the wear of both rod and packing being very slight, while the use of anti- ‘ SCIENCE. : [Vou IL, No. 26: friction metal obviates the frequent renéwals necessary with hemp, rubber, and other pack- ings which are destroyed by heat rather than by wear. In the packing which we illustrate, provision is made for any inaccuracy in fitting by allowing the piston-rod some play in the stufling-box ; the vibrating eup, 4, sliding on the ball and socket ring, 3. As the packing rings are pressed to their work by a spring, it is impossible for a careless engineer to screw his packing too tight, or to make it bear on one side only of the rod. Steam. ‘To boiler. ‘ Regulating spindle. BG Water. MACK’S IMPROVED LIFTING INJECTOR. Overflow. The National tube-works of Boston, Mass., exhibited an injector at work, which possessed some points of novelty, and appeared to be well adapted for use on locomotives working with bad water. The very fact that a simple ar- rangement of hollow cones can enable steam to lift and force water into a boiler working at the same pressure is in itself a remarkable paradox; but Mack’s injector, as shown at work in the exposition, forced a small quantity of water into a boiler working at two hundred pounds per square inch when the injector itself was only supplied with steam of half that press- ure. The apparatus was so arranged that the quantity of water forced against different boiler-pressures by the same pressure of steam could be readily gauged ; and the results were interesting as showing what a large range of work can be performed by an apparatus which has no moving parts. The injector is made in several pieces, so that it can be readily taken apart, and cleaned of scale deposited by hard or lime water. When the injector is started, the water is lifted by means of a jet of steam, which rushes through a very fine hole running longitudinally through the centre spin- dle; the injector becomes full of water, which escapes at the overflow ; the regulating spindle is then screwed back, and the large volume of steam thus admitted is condensed by the water already in the injector, mingles with it, and the momentum of the steam due to its great velocity (some five thousand feet per minute) drives the combined steam and water into the boiler. 4 int August 3, 1885. ] THE INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EX- HIBITION.— THIRD PAPER. In eight weeks over seven hundred thousand persons have visited the exhibition; and there are no signs of any decrease in the daily attend- ance, which averages from twelve thousand to eighteen thousand, except on Wednesdays, when, the price of admission being half a crown instead of one shilling, the number is only about half as great. Wherever one travels by public conveyance, some of his neighbors in the car or the omnibus are always laden with the ponderous blue catalogue of the ex- hibition. London is thoroughly permeated by the interest in fish and fisheries. On Sunday T felt a desire for a change of topic, and sought refuge under the dome of St. Paul’s; but the canon of Worcester, who ofliciated at the service, preached a sermon on the miraculous draught of fishes. Since the middle of July the galleries have been lighted by electricity until ten o’clock. The result has been very satisfactory, the illumination in many cases being more effec- tive than that by sunlight. The annoyance of heavy shadows is avoided by the use of a large number of lamps. All the principal systems being represented, there is an excellent oppor- tunity for comparison. The following ‘is the Official distribution of the electric lighting of the exhibition : — 1. Siemens Brothers and company (limited) Main gallery Great Britain Royal pavilion . ; ( China, New South Ww ales, ‘ete. ’ Caniuda and United States / Norway and Sweden we Fish-market . Aquarium and west corridor Machinery in motion 2. Swan united company (limited) . 3. Giilcher electric-light company (limited). 2 ; 4. Electric-light supply company (limited) . o . Ferranti, Thompson, and Ince SCIENCE. { Conservatory 129 fied that a few large are-lamps are preferable to a great number of small ones. The light seems softer, more powerful, and more evenly diffused, in a room like the main gallery as- signed to the United States, where there are six lamps in a room fifty by a hundred and forty feet, at a distance of perhaps fifteen feet from the floor, than by a system like that in the British sea-fishery gallery, where the twelve hundred Swan incandescent lamps are used ‘to demonstrate the possibility of lighting large areas by incandescence,’ as the official catalogue states. Thirty lights of the Giilcher or Ed- munds patterns would give a much better effect in this great shed, eight hundred and forty by fifty feet in dimension. The effect of a large number of incandescent lamps disposed along the roof of a room in every direction is very bewildering: they detract the attention, and give one the feeling that a long stay will be sure to result in a headache. In the Chinese court the Crookes incandescent lamps are used, each suspénded under a shade of brightly- colored glass: the general effect is rather pretty, but the collections are scarcely dis- cernible. My observations at the exhibition have been confirmed by what I saw at the Royal college of surgeons at the conyersazione recently given by the president and Lady Wells. The museum was perfectly lighted by about six are-lamps in each of its spacious halls. The arc-lights, dare-lights, 6,000-candle powcr. { +e © «© « » + - « 1,200 incandescent lamps (Swan). 280 incandescent lamps (Swan). 600 incandescent lamps (Crookes). 30 are-lights, 1,000-candle power. \ 7 are-lights (Volta) “; 50 incandescent lamps. 1,000 incandesceut lights 26 are-lights (Perranti), 5,000-can- | Electric-light machine-shed a } laiowartbatt Greece, Italy, Great Briain a Pig Power each. a Promenade ' 4 ies > ead 50 are-lights. Pe CCIE: ine, we, aie eter et oh tt . } Upper terrace 6 large arc-lights on mast. * Eastern corridor and fine arts vestibule, 500 incandescent lamps. Council-room } TePGNENEw UAVEr SS ee! Ge ee . peel ? Seer ae Leys 28 arc-lamps (Lever). Kitchens Netherlands, Belgium 8. Jablochkoff electric-light company (limited) Part of the United ‘States, ete. 60 lamps (Jablochkoff). Part of Sweden, ete Life-saving apparatus shed 14 arc-lamps (Lea). MS MOORIB Gs 241855 wpa GS Nh Board of trade shed . 6 are-lamps (Werrdemann). 10. BrockiGs si) = 8s _{ North corridors to for exhibition of stutted / 20 are-lamps (Brockie). 11. Gérard . . . Spain and Russia . 36 arc-lamps (Gérard). 12. Sun- lamp electric- light company. * Entrance vestibule 24 lamps (Soleile). ’ { Sixteen stations in different parts of the } Are and incandescent lamps of va- 718. Goulardand Gibbs... .- - Bat building. : Fase mi tthe rious characters. - I have been particularly interested in study- ing the adaptability of the various lights to museum purposes, and am thoroughly satis- too, are used in the art museum at South Ken- sington with very excellent effect ; six of them accomplishing what is done, no more effectively 130 though perhaps more agreeably, in a hall of the same size by about two hundred gas-jets. The expense of lighting some twenty halls by gas in this generous manner must be far greater than by electricity. On the 18th of June the International fishery conference began its sessions in the conser- vatory of the Royal horticultural society, ad- joining the exhibition galleries. Meetings haye since been held every day except Wednes- days and Saturdays. The inaugural address was delivered by Professor Huxley, and was an admirable introduction to the papers which were to follow. First referring to the an- tiquity of fisheries and their influence upon the history of man, he spoke at some length of the fisheries of the Phoenicians, the Romans, and the early Britons. Insisting upon the importance of fish as food, he next took up the question, ‘ Are the fisheries exhaustible?’ and, after tacitly admitting that certain fisheries may be destroyed, went on to describe the enormous abundance of cod, mackerel, her- rings, and sardines, and to express his firm belief that their numbers cannot be effected by human agency. He concluded with a very strong condemnation of unnecessary legis- lation. Upon this occasion the Prince of Wales presided, and there was an impressive assem- blage of diplomats and state officials. On the following day the prince again was present, and read a paper an hour and a half in length, written by his brother the Duke of Edinburgh, who is absent in Russia attending the corona- tion of the czar. This paper, entitled ‘ Notes on the sea-fisheries and fishing population of. the United Kingdom,’ is in many respects the most remarkable which has been presented to the conference. It is by far the most exhaus- tive and scholarly essay on the fisheries of Great Britain which has ever been published, and contains a great store of valuable facts gathered by the Duke of Edinburgh during the three years in which he served as admiral in command of the naval reserve, together with extensive statistics obtained at his instance by the men of the coast-guard. On the 21st Sir James Gibson Maitland, the proprietor of the most extensive fish-cultural establishment in Europe, located at Howieton, near Stirling, read a paper on the ‘ Culture of Salmonidae and the acclimatization of fish,’ and the following day Professor Leone Levi of University college, London, on the ‘ Economic condition of fisher- men,’ — an important contribution to social economy. On Monday, the 25th, the Ameri- can commissioner read a paper on the ‘ Fish- SCIENCE. CE Re ee Se a are [Vou. IL, No.. 26. eries of the United States and the work of the U.S. fish-commission.’ Mr. James Russell Lowell occupied the chair, and made one of his wise and witty little speeches which are so thoroughly enjoyed by the English people. On the 28th Mr. R. W. Duff, M.P., spoke on the ‘ Herring fisheries;’ on the 29th Prof. A.A. W. Hubrecht of Utrecht university, on ‘ Oyster-culture and the oyster-fisheries in Holland,’ and Mr. R. B. Marston, on‘ Coarse fish-culture,’— ‘coarse fish’ in England signifying fresh-water fish other than the Salmonidae. On July 1 Mr. L. Z. Joneas- read a paper on the ‘ Fisheries of the Domin- ion (of Canada) ;’ and, on the 3d, Professor — Huxley spoke most instructively upon the ‘ Dis- eases of fishes,’ confining his remarks to the history of the salmon-infesting Saprolegnia ferax. On the 5th several of the commission- ers from continental European nations spoke of the fisheries of their respective countries, and on the 6th Capt. Temple gave an account of the antarctic seal-fisheries. The discussions have been in some instances important, though the usual disposition to ramble has been difficult to check. In fact, the ponderous British system of closing each session with four formal speeches, in connec- tion with the votes of thanks to the chairman and the speaker, has rather tended to encour- age the utterances of generalities. The ‘ prac- tical men,’ as they style themselves, who take the very unnecessary precaution of informing their hearers that they make no claim to being ‘scientific,’ have been rampant at these meet- ings. Professor Huxley’s inaugural address has caused great unhappiness to those who believe in legislative protection without limit. or reason. Close seasons for river-fisheries are needful and useful; but what is to be done ~ with economists who claim that legislation will relieve the salmon from its pestilential para- site, the Saprolegnia ferax ? - The juries began their sessions about the middle of the month; and the galleries are still daily invaded by enterprising little groups of men with note-books. Their task is nota light one; for the number of exhibiters must be at least three thousand, and the heat is greater than London has known since 1860. Science is well represented among the jury- men: Professor Flower, Professor Allman, Mr. John W. Clark of the Cambridge museum,’ Mr. Henry Woodward of the British museum, Professor Moseley of Oxford, Mr. John Mur-. — ray of the Challenger, Lord Russell, Dr. Murie (secretary of the Linnaean society), Dr. Francis Day, Professor Huxley, Mr. R. H. Aveust 3, 1883.] Scott, Professor Ray Lankester of University college (London) and Professor Jeffrey Bell of Kings college, Dr. Spencer Cobbold, Mr. Romyn Hitchcock of New York, Mr. R. E. Earll of Washington, Dr. Hubrecht of Utrecht, Professor Smitt, Professor Torell and Dr. Trybom of Sweden, Dr. W. A. Buch of Nor- way, Professor Giglioli of Florence, Dr. Stein- dachner of Vienna, and Mr. E. P. Ramsay of the Sydney museum (New South Wales) ,—are all here in the work. Just before the opening of the exhibition, Nature, in an editorial, after stating that the management of affairs had been trusted almost entirely to ‘ practical’ men, to the exclusion of English men of science, ex- pressed some doubt as to whether this policy would effect as satisfactory results as that of the Berlin exhibition. It would be interesting to know how far this hint has influenced the action of the executive committee. The com- mittee has shown itself singularly . sensitive to the voices of well-meaning advisers, and changes are constantly being made for the better in the management of affairs. For instance: the conference chamber has been removed from thé conservatory, where it was torture either to speak or to listen, to one of the picture-galleries near the main entrance ; and the experimental fish-market in connec- tion with the exhibition has been thrown open to the public without admission-fees, and a separate entrance cut through from Exhibition road. The papers read at the conferences are being printed in full, together with the discus- sions which follow them, and will form a val- uable little library, when supplemented by the shilling handbooks to the exhibition, which are being rapidly printed. Fifteen of these handbooks are announced, in addition to the eighteen or more ‘ papers of the conferences.’ The literature of the exhibition is reserved for future discussion. It is much to be hoped that the authorities will crown the series with an illustrated report, prepared by scientific committees, similar to the valuable ‘ Amt- liche berichte iiber die Internationale fischerei- ausstellung zu Berlin.’ The closing address at the conference by Professor Ray Lankester will be upon ‘The scientific results of the exhibition.’ It would not be surprising if Professor Lankester were to choose to act the part of the prophet rather than that of the recorder, and to point out in his discourse what the exhibition ought to do for science. A number of prominent educators and investigators have already addressed to the executive committee a memorial adyocat- SCIENCE. 131 ing the establishment of a national marine zoological station with a part of the surplus funds, which, from present appearances, are likely to remain over at the end of the exhibi- tion. In another letter I hope to review briefly. the most important features of the exhibits of the several countries. G. Brown Gooner. Richmond Hill, July 10. THE PARIS OBSERVATORY. WE abstract from Nature the items of chief interest in the report of Admiral Mouchez, the director of the Paris observatory, on the state of that institution during the past year. Its service has been consider- ably deranged by the preparations for the transit of Venus. The various members of the expedition at- tended the observatory to be trained either in photog- raphy or in the use of the artificial transit, and no less than five of the personnel of the observatory themselves took part in the work. The grounds of the observatory have been extended, the equatorial coudé has been installed, and several underground chambers have been constructed for the purpose of studying magnetism and terrestrial physics generally. A revision of Lalande’s catalogue of stars, numbering forty thousand, has been going on for the past four years. The general catalogue, which will form eight volumes in quarto, is well in hand; and four volumes will be published during the next three years. Me- ridian observations, numbering a hundred and ten thousand, have already been made, to assist in the construction of the catalogue. The common inconveniences attending the use of equatorials of the usual form of construction have led M. Loewy to conceive the idea of adapting to the equatorial the system of ‘ lunette brisée,’ employed first in England, and afterward to a greater extent in Germany, especially in small transit instruments. The new coudé equatorial may be thus described: the polar axis of the instrument is supported at its extremities on two pillars, like a meridian instrument; round this axis the telescope turns, forming a right angle at the lower support; by means of a mirror placed at the summit of this angle, the light is re- flected along the pierced axis, at the end of which the eye-piece, or micrometer, is placed. Under these conditions, with the telescope at rest, objects on the celestial equator pass across the observer's field of view. In order to secure the observation of objects not on the equator, a mirror free to rotate is placed before the object-glass, and connected with the dec- lination-cirele.. The inclination of this mirror may be changed so as to throw into the tube the light coming from a star of any declination. The obsery- er may thus explore every part of the heavens with- out quitting his position at one end of the polar axis, The telescope may practically, by a rotation of this axis, be directed toward any part of the celestial equator, whilst a star of any declination may be made to throw its light down the broken telescope by means of the external mirror. Preliminary ex- 152 periments have shown that this double reflection does -not occasion a great loss of light; and the figure and polish of the silver on glass mirrors are very satisfac- tory. The observatory possesses this new instrument through the liberality of the well-known patron of French astronomy, M. Bischoffsheim, In regard to physical observations, M. Egoroff, professor of physics at Warsaw, was occupied at Paris during the months of July and August, as in preceding years, with the spectroscopic study of at- mospheric absorption, working with a beam of electric light sent from Mont Valérien to the observatory. In consequence of the decision of Admiral Mouchez to separate special meteorological investigations from the astronomical work of the observatory, meteoro- logical observations of a much higher value are now being made, with the special object of determining the different corrections, of the nature of refraction, _to be applied to the astronomical observations. A series of observations is to be made from a captive balloon of such size, that, with ordinary gas, it can, in calm weather, take self-registering barometers, thermometers, and hygrometers up to a height of five hundred, and with pure hydrogen to a height of eight hundred metres. The balloon cannot be well managed if the velocity of the wind exceeds four or five metres per second; but this is not regarded as in- convenient, because it is during complete calm that the greatest abnormal perturbations of astronomical refraction manifest themselves, Simultaneous ob- servations will be made on the meridian of the Paris observatory, north at the observatory of Montmartre, and south at the observatory of Montsouris. The construction of the great refractor of 16 m, focus, together with its dome 20 m. in diameter, is steadily progressing. The object-glass figured by M. Martin is already complete. The dome is to be of the same dimensions as the Pantheon, and the lar- gest ever attempted. The arrangement for insuring its turning with ease, and which has been adopted for its construction, is that proposed by M. Liffel. In order to reduce to a minimum the friction of circular rollers, he proposes to float the dome by means of an annular caisson plunged in a receptacle of the same form, and filled with a liquid which will not freeze, such as an aqueous solution of chloride of magnesium. At the Paris observatory it is quite necessary that some such arrangement as this should be adopted; for the observatory is situate over the catacombs, one result of which has been, that for many years the pillars of the meridian-circle erected in the gardens have gradually inclined toward the east in consequence of the displacement of the soil. With mechanism of this form for rotating the dome, any probable change of level would not prevent the dome from turning. The magnetic observatory now being completed will be one of the first order. Six subterranean chambers of constant temperature have been built under the best possible conditions of isolation and stability. An outer wall of nearly 2 m. thickness encloses a rectangular space 40 m. in length and 14 m, wide, completely impervious to moisture. The SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 26. vaulted roof, 1 m. thick, is covered by earth to the thickness of 2 m,, and grass and planks protect the soil from the direct rays of the sun and from frost. The observing chambers can be lighted either by gas, or by reflection from without. Advantage has been taken of the existence of these chambers by placing in them the clocks from which the time is distributed throughout Paris; but, in spite of all precautions, the chambers are found to be not altogether free from minor trepidations resulting from the traffic of the streets. Apparatus has been constructed, and is now ready for use in investigat- ing the vertical and slow movements of thesoil. This will be placed in a gallery in the catacombs 27 m. below the surface. : . The erection of an astronomical observatory on the Pie du Midi, at a height of 2,859 m., is engaging the attention of the director. At this elevation, it is said to be easy to read at night by starlight alone, and fifteen stars are visible to the naked eye in the cluster of the Pleiades. It is intended that any as- tronomer who wishes to make any special researches may take advantage of the observatory on the Pic du Midi. 2 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. The right whale of the North Atlantic. I HAVE noticed in a late number of your journal a criticism on the last Bulletin of the American museum of natural history. Being away from town, I have not access to works referring to the subject of cetology; but with the aid of notes that I have with me, as well as drawings of the subjects involved, I hope to show conclusively that other views than those taken by the critic are the correct ones. I shall not attempt to justify the carelessness that permits the presence of typographical errors; but, when an errata list accompanies a work, it should have due credit for its intentions. The writer says, ‘“‘ There are errors of statement ‘of so grave a character as to require notice,’’ and continues, ‘‘It would seem, for instance, that only the merest novice in cetology could have been mis- led,” ete. —referring to the identity of the St. Law- rence whales. Lesson wrote, ‘‘ What an impenetrable veil covers our knowledge of the Cetacea! Groping in the dark, we advance in a field strewn with thorns.”’ I believe that some in later days, not quite novices, admit a degree of unfamiliarity with the great beasts of the sea. In that view, let us see if ‘errors of statement -of grave character’ have really been made. The president of the Quebec historical society, Dr. Anderson, with Dr. DeKay’s Report on mammalia before him, says, speaking of a large whale that had foundered in the St. Lawrence River, ‘‘ It turned out to be an aged male, apparently the species Balaena mysticetus. . . . The back was black; the belly, fur- rowed, presenting the appearance of a clinker-built boat. . . . I concluded, after a careful examination, it answered fully the description given by Dr. DeKay for the mysticetus. . . . As the whale lay upon the beach, he was sixty-five feet long; the fluke of his tail was twelve feet; his jaw, fifteen feet.’’ This whale was noticed primarily by us for the pur- pose of directing attention to the fact, that such a _great form had really pushed into the fresh-water 5 , : > 2 has AuGusT 3, 1883.] ‘ stream as far as Quebec, and to show that possibly Professor Flower had misapprehended when he was told of stranded whales in the St. Lawrence; he, in absence of description, naturally regarding them as white Belugas. Besides this, several alternatives were presented in the absence of the mention of most distinctive characters; but no definite statement was hazarded, nor was one intended. The first paragraph touching on this notice of the St. Lawrence whale, and which is included by the critic as among the ‘ grave errors of statement,’ is as follows: ‘‘It is pretty certain that if the creature was really a Balaena, and not a Balaenopter, it was an example of unusual size.’’ As we had no inten- tion of arguing any case, this cannot be regarded as more than courtesy to Dr. Anderson, who had stated his unqualified opinion as above. The next passage in our text is, ‘‘ The furrows on the belly naturally suggest the Balaenopters; but it is inferred that there was no dorsal fin.’”?” The dorsal adipose fin being an essential feature in the latter, absence of any notice of it naturally seemed strange. As there was no description of the head, save as related to its length, the baleen not being measured, the only character that suggested strongly the fin- back was the clinker-built aspect of the belly. In this view the statement of Scoresby might well lead to misapprehension, even by some not wholly “novices. Scoresby says (in his description of the B. mysti- cetus), ‘‘ The skin of the body is slightly furrowed, like the water-lines in coarse-laid paper.” The fluke of the tail is described as twelve feet in length, Here, regarding the possible fact of there being two flukes to the tail, the total width of the caudal extremity would be twenty-four feet, the act- ual measurement of a large example of a right whale. That the writer in the bulletin did so regard it is true; but, in the light of after-knowledge, we have no doubt that Dr. Anderson meant to include the whole width as twelve feet. In the absence of definite features in Dr. Ander- son’s description, and in view of the absence of any attempt in the bulletin to argue in favor of any one genus or species, we regard it as a subject that hardly calls for criticism. In short, taking the evidence recorded, to our mind it seems to be quite as easy to prove the creature of one genus as the other; and by that we mean that Dr. Anderson’s positive state- ments should not go for nothing. We are not, how- ever, ready to hazard an opinion that the whale was not a fin-back, as we certainly did not in the bulletin. The next point refers to Scoresby and his drawings. That Scoresby did not portray his subject correctly, so far as relates to the Greenland whale, is, we feel sure, susceptible of demonstration, even if we should omit the opinions of three of the most able cetolo- ists. The critic claims, ‘‘ That it was the best figure Scoresby’s], if not quite correct in all points, of the species down to 1874, when Scammon’s admirable illustration, was published, has, I think, hitherto been unquestioned.’”?’ When we are told that our opinion that Scoresby ‘furnished to science an in- correct figure’ is ‘an error of statement of so grave a character as to require notice,’ we answer by quoting from Professors Eschricht and Reinhardt, in their article on Greenland whale, in Ray society’s publ., p. 29. It is well known that these distinguished authors are leading cetologists, whose work is edited in English by Professor Flower. The latter, there- fore, is supposed to acquiesce in their opinions. These authors say, ‘‘ We must confess, that as to = SCIENCE. 133 proportions we confide more in these drawings [refer- ring to Marten’s and Zorgdrager’s| than Scoresby’s, which certainly represents the Greenland whale (B. mysticetus) more slender than it really is.’’ Besides this, we claim to be able to demonstrate the correctness of our statement by reference to the figures. We have before us those of Scammon, Scoresby, Zorgdrager, and Lacépede, representing the Greenland whale. We also have the Bachstrom figure of nordcaper, published in Lacépéde’s work. With Capt. Scammon’s figure before us, the one ad- mitted by our critic to be an ‘ admirable illustration,’ compare now Zorgdrager’s; and we find, that, though rude in finish, it is nearly an exact counterpart of the Scammon figure. We see that the form is bulky, and has avery short ‘small,’ or caudal region; that its head is of the proportion of one-third the total length of body; its pectoral limbs are situated very closely behind the eye and angle of the mouth, not a quarter of the total length of the ‘flipper’ distant therefrom, —all of which features are recognized as correct. Let Scoresby’s figure be compared with Zorg- drager’s, which we have seen is essentially the same as Scammon’s. We see that the form is not only not bulky, with a very short ‘small,’ or caudal region, but has the body very slender, with an elongated ‘small;’ the latter being so slender that it is repre- sented whipping the air like the tail of a saurian. Its head is one-fourth of the total length of body, in- stead of one-third, as in nature, and in the Zorg- drager and Scammon figures. Its pectoral limbs are situated at a distance from the eye and angle of mouth represented by the tofal length of the limbs. It is therefore seen, that, in accordance with all evidence, Scoresby’s figure was not correct. Hence it is * de- plorable that nearly every book published to this day has an illustration copied from Scoresby.” “°Tis true ’tis pity, and pity ’tis ’tis true.’’ Our critic next attributes unfamiliarity with Scores- by’s cetological writings, from the fact that we credit Godman with ‘an amount of anatomical knowledge quite unusual.’ The truth is, the edition of Scoresby in our posses- sion does not contain the portion relating to interior anatomy and physiology, and the plates reprefnt- ing the spiracles. It is ‘An account of the arctic regions, Edinburgh, 1820.’ The work is not before us, but a reference to this edition will verify our statement. Since the matter was prepared for the bulletin, we find that the several pages relating to this portion of Scoresby’s description were probably never printed therein. We have, however, found the whole in Sir William Jardine’s Naturalists’ library, volume on whales, by Col. Hamilton. In view of this fact, one may venture to claim a degree of immunity from severe criticism, though evidently he may be open to the accusation that ‘he is none too familiar with Scoresby’s cetological writings,’ or at least his various editions. Not having met with this matter relating to the anatomy and physiology in Scoresby’s book, it was but natural to attribute to Godman ‘an amount... quite unusual.’ A point succeeds this, concerning which we must take issue with the critic. He says, ‘‘ Phe fact being that Godman’s account is an unaccredited compila- tion from Scoresby’s work, whole pages being taken entire,’ ete. We find in our edition of Godman’s Natural history, instead of ‘an unaccredited com- pilation,’ the following: ‘* Having never personally enjoyed opportunities of studying the whale in his native floods, and having derjved all we know in relation thereto from Scoresby, we should deem it 134 injustice to the reader to give this account in any other language than that ‘of the original. We do this without Teluctance, as our object is to convey the most accurate knowledge, rather than produce a work exclusively of our own composition. All that follows in relation to the whale is selected from the different works of the accurate and philosophical Scoresby.’’ If the critic’s edition of Godman has played false with him, as our edition of Scoresby has with us, perhaps he may think it wise to ‘ery quits,’ and join with us in throwing out of the case the two slippery points. It may be proper to add here, that.we are familiar with Scoresby’s second figure of mysticetus, which is so far improved as to haye the ‘small’ shortened; but unfortunately the first figure, with all its im- perfections, is the one that has been brought down to us through every book on natural history. The reference to Bachstrom’s figure of nordcaper is obscure. It matters not what that figure is: it was regarded as one of nordeaper by Cuvier; and he, in comparison with the old figures of mysticetus, which we claim were nearer true than Scoresby’s in general propor- tion, wisely admitted two species. They were both, as we have said, about equally incorrect; yet they both had certain features that agreed with the descriptions of the two forms. The nordcaper had been described in nearly the same terms by various authors, great stress being laid on its slenderness and mobility. Scoresby now presents his figure, which, instead of being bulky, with a very short ‘small,’ or caudal region, and a head one-third the total, had quite nearly the proportions of the figure of Bachstrom, received by Cuvier as that of nordcaper, and with no other specific feature to dis- tinguish them. The mention of inaccuracies, seen near the close of the criticism, is not wholly free from error; for ex- ample: the citation touching Col. Hamilton and the Naturalists’ library is exactly correct, yet it is noticed as one of the errors that render the historical résumé ‘seriously defective and misleading.’ We are now willing to rest this showing, trusting to the facts hergin referred to for our ‘vindication | in the face of this grave charge. J. B. HoupEr. Fortunately for Dr. Holder, he did not state directly and unequivocally that the St. Lawrence whale was a Balaena; but he occupies several pages in trying to explain away the obvious discrepancies in the way of such an identification and in offsetting them with the possibilities in its favor, leaving the reader with | the conviction that the specimen is cited as, in Dr, Holder’s opinion, an instance of the occurrence of a Balaena in the St. Lawrence near Quebec. Indeed, he goes so far as to say, ‘‘and the second example [the one here in question] . . . shows that the largest of the right whales [Balaena] have really found their way as far up a fresh-water stream as Quebec and ' Montreal” (p. 116). Again he says, ‘‘ This example is valuable for record, 1°, as a specimen of unusual size; 2°, as one of great age; 3°, as one out of its usual habitat in so far as to be quite within fresh water’’ (p. 115). From the context, the point in doubt seems to be, not whether the species is a Ba- laena, but whether it is B. cisarctica or B. mysticetus; and the whole tenor of the argument (for such it really is) is fairly open to only this construction, what- ever may have been intended. In evidence that my criticism on this poigt is not groundless, or due to perversity on my part, I may cite Mr. F. W. True’s SCIENCE. notice (Scient. lit. gossip, i. 72) of Dr. Holder’s memoir, where the same criticism is made. As to other points, I will take space to say merely that I regret to notice that Dr. Holder forgets to tell us where Scoresby got his drawings, which, he (Dr. Holder) informs us, ‘ were evidently ill-consilered and taken at second hand,’ and to ask for proof that Col. Hamilton wrote the ‘Cetacea’ of Jardine’s *‘ Natu- ralists’ library.’ The copies of the work I have seen are anonymous, but the work is accredited by Gray and other cetologists to Jardine; and some time since, I took pains to satisfy myself that Jardine was the author. As to Godman, I confess to having done him injustice in overlooking his credit to Scoresby, which my friend Dr. Holder appears to have unfor- tunately only recently discovered; otherwise, doubt- less my stricture on this point would not have been called out. . A. ALLEN. The Ainos of Japan. On p. 307 of Scrmncr, D. P. Penhallow objects to my statement of the number of Ainos. It is rather surprising how little he heeds what I said, The numbers he gives are official; i.e., he gives the num- ber of Ainos known to the Japanese government. Therefore he reaches the surprising result, that,_ with the exception of the Ainos brought over from Saghalien (now about 800), there are but 200 in all the province of Ischicari. That province is about as large as Hitaka (according to Penhallow, with 5,000 to 6 ,000). Penhallow gives the Aino population in Kitami, Kushiro, Tokachi, and Teshiwo as ranging from 350 to 1,500 in each, when it is well known that they are full of Ainos, as any one travelling there will see, their villages being thickly scattered along the coast and the banks of all the larger rivers. I should estimate from those seen at such points that there must be more than 50,000 Ainos in all. Taking Penhallow’s figures for Iburi and Hitaka as correct, and assum- ing that the four provinces named above must have as many Ainos as Hitaka, we should have about 26,000 in these five. Granting that Ischicari, Shiri- peshi, and Nemuro have also been taken as much too thickly populated, still we must give them 4,000 more than Penhallow allows; i.e., about 6,000. Now add to them Penhallow’s number for Iburi, nearly 4,000, and the small remnant of Oshima, (Penhallow, 250), and lastly for Chishima (not Chisuma) or the Kuriles a minimum of 750, we get 33,000 as the minimum for Yezo. Saghalien haying 10,000 to 12,000, and South Kamtchatka 5,000 to 6,000 (perhaps less), there cannot be fewer than 50,000 Ainos altogether. D. BRAUNS. The Iroquois. A close study of the Mohawks of Quebec province, Canada, after the plan and in the service of the Bu- reau of ethnology, reveals several facts hitherto un- noticed in the various histories of the Iroquois. Isolated by the early Jesuit fathers from their for- mer Pagan friends and surroundings, every trace of their old folk-lore and of their Pagan customs has disappeared. The division and nomenclature of their gentes differ materially from those of any of the other tribes, and present an interesting field of inquiry. The Mohawk gentes, as given-by Morgan, are the wolf, bear, and turtle. Among the Mohawks at Oka, we find, in addition to those, the lark and the eel, while at Caughnawaga they are the bear, wolf, calu- met, rock, lark, turtle, and dove. Among the wampum belts of this tribe is a very fine one, upon which the calumet is figured in white [Vou. IL, No. 26. n v -, tags ’ > ‘ Aveusr 3, 1883.] wampum beads, the remainder of the belt being in dark purple. This probably belonged to the gens bearing the name of the calumet, and whose office it was to prepare and present the grand calumet in all the solemn a-semblies. The effect of the isolation of this tribe upon its languaze is also an interesting and important study. Through the courtesy of Superior Antoine and Pére Burtin, I have obtained access to an invaluable col- lection by the French missionary Marcoux, which will furnish Mohawk synonymes for a dictionary of the six Iroquois dialects, for which thirty thousand words have already been gathered. -ERMINNIE SMITH. 203 Pacific Ave., Jersey City. Many snakes killed. The number of snakes killed near this city during the late overflow of the Nemaha River is almost be- yond belief. They were driven by the water from the bottom-lands to the higher grounds, and espe- cially to the embankments thrown up across the bottom for the Burlington and Missouri and the Missouri Pacific railways. It is estimated that more than three thousand snakes were killed within a mile of this town. They were chiefly garter snakes; but water moccasons, blue racers, and rattlesnakes were also killed. A horse was confined in a pasture sur- rounded by a wire fence in the overflowed district, and, when released, it was found that several snakes had taken refuge in the long hair of his mane. Since my residence here, I have travelled nearly all over this county, a portion of the time engaged in geo- logical explorations; yet, up to the time of the pres- ent June overflow, I had failed to see half a dozen snakes all told. The overflowed district along the Nemaha would not average over a mile in width; and it is astonishing where so many snakes found hiding- places. Undoubtedly, nearly all the snakes in this county are confined to the creek and river bottoms. STEPHEN Bowers. Falls City, Neb., July 10, 1883. Swallows in Boston. Has any one seen a swallow in Boston this sum- mer? The old proverb says, ‘One swallow does not make a summer.’ Have we a summer and not one swallow ? Caru REDpDoTS. _ Singular lightning. On the evening of July 4, 1883, I noticed some lightning which differed from any that I have preyi- ously seen. About sunset a mass of very threaten- ing clouds, accompanied by heavy rain and lightning of the usual character, rose in the north-west, and, following an easterly course, passed a little to the northward, giving us a few drops of rain from its ragged southern edge. It was quickly succeeded by a comparatively thin cloud-stratum, — apparently the after-birth of the main storm, —the course of which was directly overhead. During the passage of this cloud, rain fell briskly but not heavily for perhaps half an hour, and rather frequent flashes of lightning preceded and followed the first sprinkle. Owing to my position on the eastern side of a large building, I could not see the earlier flashes; but their light, thrown on the walls of neighboring houses, was noticeably rose-colored. At length, however, one came that could be accurately noted. It passed di- rectly overhead, forking into five fine, thread-like lines of vivid yellow light. Each line was distinctly zig-zagged with sharp though not prominent angles. The divergence of the lines was nearly regular, but the outer pair branched at a greater angle than the SCIENCE. 135 inner three, The relative divergence was similar to that of the outstretched fingers of a human hand; but a still more accurate idea may be given by the following sketch. / > The flash above described was followed, in a few minutes, by a second one, apparently similar, but less satisfactorily noted. After this the rapid pas- sage of the storm carried the lightning beyond my limited space Of observation. I may add that none of the lightning from this cloud seemed to come to the earth, its course being on an apparently horizontal plane. The accompany- ing thunder was unusually deep and grand. WILLIAM BREWSTER. Cambridge, Mass. Deflective effect of the earth’s rotation. In Scrence for March 2 (No. 4), Mr. W. M. Davis says, ‘A correct knowledge of the deflective effect of the earth’s rotation is generally accounted the result of studies made within the last twenty-five years.”” This correct knowledge, he says, is still disputed by some authors. By transferring the axis of rotation to the tangent plane on which the body is supposed to move, and resolving the earth’s rotary motion into two motions, —one around the meridian of the tangent plane, and the other around a vertical to that plane, —it is easily seen, without recourse to the equations of motion, that the angular motion of the tangent plane with respect to a fixed plane will depend upon the angular rotation of the earth and the sine of the latitude of the tangent plane; from which it follows that the de- flective force is the same, in whatever direction the body is supposed to move on any given tangent plane. But in resolving the actual motion into two mo- tions, respectively around the vertical to the tangent plane and around the meridian of that plane, we have neglected the effect resulting from the latter, — a consideration of which would have introduced an- other term, containing a function of, and therefore varying with, the cosine of the angle contained be- tween the meridian and the line of projection of the moving body; we have also neglected the effect of the centrifugal force resulting from the motion of the body, which is a minimum when the motion is in the meridian, and a maximum when at right angles to the meridian, and therefore also variés with the cosine of the angle contained between the meridian and the line of projection of the moving body. When the velocity is considerable, both these terms become sensible; and therefore the deflective force is least when the body moves in the meridian, and greatest when the motion is at right angles with the meridian. This conclusion is in conflict with the ‘correct knowledge’ above alluded to; viz., that the deflec- 136 tion of the moving body depends ‘not at all on the direction of its motion.’ But I may remark, that Routh (see Rigid dynamics, p. 192) has also given the subject a rigorous investigation by means of the equations of motion, and finds for the deviation to the right, in north latitude, two terms, —the one agreeing with the above, as found from the compo- nent about the vertical; and the other, a function of the cosine of the angle contained between the merid- ian and the line of projection of the moving body. J. E. HENDRICKS. Des Moines, Io., July 16, 1883. ALNWICK CASTLE ANTIQUITIES. A descriptive catalogue of antiquities, chiefly British, at Alnwick Castle. Printed for private distribu- tion. Neweastle-upon-Tyne, 1880. 11+210p., 43 pl. 4°. By the generosity of the Duke of Northum- berland, the Boston public library has recently been made the recipient of a copy of this truly magnificent work, and of the companion vyol- ume descriptive of the important collection of Egyptian antiquities, also preserved at Aln- wick. Inno more satisfactory manner could the liberality and public spirit of the noble proprietor have been manifested than in thus sharing his treasures with the antiquaries and art-lovers of other countries. Such sumptuous volumes as these constitute a monument aere perennius, like those which illustrate the lit- erary and artistic treasures of Earl Spencer at Althorp, or the magnificent publications in which the Archduke Ludwig of Austria has recorded his travels. In its artistic and mechanical execution, this catalogue is beyond praise : never have we seen more beautiful or more faithful delineations of the various kinds of antiquities. If we cannot speak in quite such high terms of commenda- tion of the accompanying letterpress, the fault should not be laid to the charge of Dr. Colling- wood Bruce, upon whom devolved the task of preparing the work for the press. His com= peteney as an antiquary has been sufficiently manifested by his able and thorough study of ‘The Roman wall,’ whose ‘stations’ have yielded to the explorer many of the objects de- scribed in the volume. It is to the untimely death of Mr. Albert Way, by whose assistance and advice much of the collection was gathered, who knew its contents thoroughly, and to whom the preparation of the catalogue had been originally intrusted, that any shortcom- ing must be attributed. Although several dis- tinguished English antiquaries have lent their aid to the editor in their respective departments of knowledge, we miss the influence of one guiding mind, familiar with the results of re- SCIENCE. (Vou. IL, No. 26. cent archeological research in all its various branches, and capable of ‘ speaking the latest word’ upon the many interesting and impor- tant topics suggested. Still the reader cannot fail to receive instruction from the accounts given of numerous relics of various periods in the ages long since past, while the beauty of many of the objects delineated goes far to jus- tify the claim that, — ‘Not rough nor barren are the winding ways Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers.” The expression ‘ chiefly British ’ in the title must be understood to mean that the greater part of the antiquities described have been found in Great Britain. Those first represented belong to the prehistoric periods of stone, of bronze, and of iron, and consist mainly of weapons and implements, such as axes and celts of stone, and swords and celts of bronze, or of a great variety of those rude, hand-made, sepulchral yases found in grave-mounds, in which was stored a supply of food for the dead. To the same remote ages are to be ascmbed those singular markings found upon stones, known to archeologists by the name of ‘ cup- cuttings,’ of which two remarkable examples occurring in Northumberland are represented. ~ They are found in countries widely separated, and everywhere they closely resemble one another, and they have greatly exercised the minds of antiquaries as to their origin and sig- nificance. They consist of a series of shallow pits or cups, incised upon ledges, or, more fre- quently, upon bowlders. Of these, a central one is often found surrounded by one or more con- centric circles; and a characteristic feature of such groups is a longitudinal groove extending from the central cup to beyond the outermost of the circles that surround it. That they are religious emblems is generally conceded, as the same kind of markings is found upon the slabs of stone of which ancient grayes have been constructed. It is highly probable that they are a conventional representation of a primitive system of nature-worship that pre- vailed among our Aryan ancestors, symbolizing the mysterious origin of life. The whole sub- ject has recently been treated in the most able and exhaustive manner by the learned arche- ologist of the Smithsonian institution, Mr. Charles Rau, in the fifth volume of Major Pow- ell’s ‘ Contributions to American ethnology.’ We cannot help feeling surprised that the editor, while quoting largely from Sir James Simpson’s ‘ Archaic sculptures,’ makes no ref- erence whatever to the late Professor Edouard Desor of Neuchatel, whose various writings 4 AveusT 3, 1883.] upon Les pierres a écuelles have shed much light upon this obscure subject. Another strange problem bearing upon this vexed question of early religious symbols is but just touched upon in this volume. We refer to the use from a very remote period, either for emblematic or decorative purposes, of a peculiar form of cross, resembling the Greek letter gamma four times repeated. This has been called by various names, — pate digammated cross,’ or * gamma- dion ;’ in “the middle ages the * fylfot :° and ay by Sanscrit scholars, the ‘ swastica.’ M. Burnouf believes that this, also, is a primi- tive religious symbol of the Aryan races, and that it represents the two pieces of wood which in early times were laid crosswise before the sacrificial altar in order to produce the holy fire, having their ends bent at right angles and fastened in such a way as not “to be “moved. Where the pieces crossed there was a small hole, in which a third piece of wood was rotated by means of a cord until fire was generated by friction. This sign occurs upon two Roman altars figured in the volume, which have been transferred to the museum at Alnwick from neighboring stations upon the Roman wall, where they had been disinterred. Several ref- erences are given to authors who have treated of this emblem,—among them, to Dr. Schlie- mann, who found it at Hissarlik upon ‘ whorls ’ of baked clay ; and the statement is made, that it eventually came to have a Christian signifi- eation, and is found in the catacombs at Rome in conjunction with the usual Christian sym- bols. The elaborate study, however, by De Mortillet, entitled Le signe de la croix avant le christianisme, is entirely overlooked, in which its occurrence is traced down from the ‘terremares ’ of the age of bronze, in Emilia, in upper Italy. A unique object represented is an example of the so-called ‘chrisma,’ the monogram formed by uniting the first two Greek charac- ters of the name Christ, X and P. This combination had long been in use as an se abbreviation of different words, and it is found upon the coinage of various eastern na- tions. Constantine placed it upon the * Laba- rum’ as a Christian emblem; and it is often met with upon his coins and those of his im- mediate successors, and upon terra-cotta lamps found in the catacombs at Rome and elsewhere. Three, at least, of such ancient Christian lamps, haye been discovered in England; but the rarity of the present example consists in the fact that it is embossed upon the outside of a little drinking-cup made of red clay. SCIENCE. 137 This is of the very uncommon kind of pottery oceasionally brought to light in England, which was manufactured by the Romanized Britons at Caistor, in Northamptonshire, the Duro- brivae of the Romans. It is used as an orna- ment in association with a very well executed representation of the coursing of a hare, and it is probably to be referred to about the middle of the fourth century. Several fine specimens of ancient Roman fic- tile ware from Pompeii are delineated, as well as those found in Great Britain, among them handsome lamps and facsimiles of the potter’s stamps, which are often found impressed upon their under side. Such stamps were also usu- ally placed upon the bottom of the finest kind of table-ware that was manufactured by the Romans, — that called ‘Samian ware’ from the place of its origin, but of which the best quality was fabricated at Arezzo, and spread by commerce over the whole Roman world. It is of a lustrous coral color, and often has embossed upon the outside, figures of different deities, or of men and animals, especially of those gladiatorial scenes of which the Romans were so fond. These figures were fashioned in moulds, many of which have come down to our own times, and are ofa high grade of artistic merit. Frequently, however, the orna- mentation consists only of harmonious conven- tional patterns, or of a scroll-work of leaves and vines of much grace and beauty of design. The potter’s stamp sometimes contains the whole name, sometimes only initials, and occa- sionally it consists merely of some symbol. One figured in the volume is a representation of ‘a tiny human foot,’ which the editor thinks is ** probably a rebus upon the name of the potter, which may have been Crasstres.’’ This is rather an unfortunate conjecture, as it was a special whim of some of the potters of Arezzo to have their stamps made in the shape of a human foot. They are found in this form containing a variety of names, as well as no name at all. The writer has in his possession at least twenty different inscriptions of this sort. Itis certainly remarkable that only in Eng- land have there been found, it would appear, any specimens of the actual shoes or sandals worn by the Roman soldiers. One such is represented from the ruins of one of the camps that mark the line of the Roman wall. Simi- lar discoveries upon such sites are recorded, angl a few of these objects have been found in the bed of the Thames at London. The writer saw several that came to light in London in 1873. in excavating the foundation fora large building in the heart of the ‘ city.” On that 1388 ; occasion the ditch that surrounded the fortified Roman town was laid bare, formed out of the natural bed of a little brook, and in it these and many other curious relics were found. These ancient Roman shoes are singularly like modern ones in pattern and mode of fabrica- tion; and, in consideration of their wonderful state of preservation, they would seem to jus- tify the cobbler’s proverb, ‘ There’s nothing like leather.’ Among the ‘ medieval remains,’ we find figured and described ‘a bronze eagle with up- lifted head and open mouth.’ The bird, how- ever, strongly resembles one represented in Archaeologia, vol. 46, pl. 17, that was discoy- ered in the recent excavations at Silchester in 1870. This, the late John Richard Green, in his Making of England, calls ‘‘a legionary eagle, hidden away, as it would seem, in some secret recess, and there buried for ages to tell the pathetic tale of the fall of Silchester.’’ In Horsley’s Britannia romana, there is also figured a similar bronze eagle discovered in England. It is true, that the Roman eagles that are delineated upon Trajan’s Column and upon the Arch of Constantine are represented with expanded wings, and that Montfaucon and recent writers upon classical antiquity, copying him, have stated that they were invari- ably made in this manner. All three of these birds, however, have their wings folded, from which we may infer that the other fashion of representing them may have arisen in part from the exigencies of pictorial art. We have an example given of one of those singular seals, in the shape of a monkey perched upon a cube, made of a peculiar kind of porcelain, and bearing an inscription in an- cient Chinese characters, such as are occasion- ally found in the bogs in various parts of Treland. At first they were believed to be of remote antiquity ; and it was even supposed that they had been brought into the country by the Phoenicians, since it was asserted that they are not to be found in China at the present time. But this is not the case, as they can now occasionally be procured of the dealers in curiosities in that country. The inscriptions are engraved in an antique character, now only employed for seals, and kuown as the ‘ seal character.’ Frequently they consist of some poetic quotation like the one given: ‘ When the water falls, the rocks appear.’ Their presence is undoubtedly due to modern commerg¢e, though not of a very recent period. In this particular they resemble the little Chinese bot- tles used for holding snuff, which are found in ancient Egyptian tombs, one of which is ° SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 26. preserved in the museum at Alnwick. They are about two inches in height, and have on one side a flower, and on the other an inserip- tion, which on several specimens reads, ‘ The flower opens; lo! another year!’ This is known to be a quotation from a poet who lived in the eighth century P.C., and the ob- ject evidently was intended for a New-Year’s gift. Instead of proving, as Rosellini sup- posed, the existence of a commerce between the two countries in Pharaonic, or at all events in Ptolemaic times, it is now known that they were brought to Egypt in the middle ages by car- avans from western China. They are not of ex- ceeding rarity, as Sir Gardner Wilkinson states that he has seen more than twenty of them, found in the tombs at Thebes and other places, and the writer has half adozen obtained in Cairo. Unquestionably the most pleasing object de- lineated in the volume, and one of the glories of the collection, is the well-known ‘ Rudge cup.’ This is a little bronze vessel, about four inches in diameter and three in height, of a simple bowl shape, and adorned in the most tasteful manner with different colored enamels, in the style called champlevé. In this, the metallic field is cut away so as to produce cay- ities, in which is inserted the paste that be- comes vitrified upon being subjected to heat. The ornamentation consists of a series of pan- els made up of four squares of various colors, alternating with compartments containing four crescents of different hues, set back to back. The colors‘are turquoise and dark blue, beauti- fully contrasted with a narrow border of pale red, which outlines and separates the several compartments. Around the top runs an in- scription which is supposed to contain the - names of several localities lying along the line of the Roman wall, but which has thus far proved a puzzle to the interpreters. It was found in the year 1725, at a place called Rudge Coppice, near Froxfield, in Wiltshire, in a well near the site of some Roman ruins. The well was filled with rubbish ; and in it were also found four or five human skeletons, some animal bones, and several coins of the lower empire. It is described as merely ‘ a remark- able relic of the Roman times ;’ but this would appear to be a very unmeaning designation, when we call to mind the fact that ‘ relics’* of this description are never discovered in Italy. It may be worth the while to give a brief account of the more important specimens of ancient champlevé enamelling that have come to light in Europe, and to state what is known or surmised in regard to their probable origin and place of fabrication. August 3, 1883.) | For purposes of comparison, the editor has given an engraving of an enamelled bronze cup, of similar shape and method of manufacture, which was found at Harwood, in Northumber- land, and is now in the British museum. He also describes a facsimile cast of a beautiful ves- sel, known as the ‘ Bartlow vase,’ the original of which was nearly ruined in a fire which took place in the mansion of Lord Maynard, by whom it was discovered in 1832, during excava- tions made in a series of remarkable flat-topped tumuli situated at Bartlow, in Essex. A plate showing it in all its pristine beauty may be found in Archaeologia, vol. 26, pl. 35. It is now in the British museum, where can also be seen a similar vase, discovered at Ambleteuse, near Boulogne. Still another of the same charac- ter, found in the western part of France, is preserved at Angouléme. Finally in the Mé- moires de la société des antiquaires du nord,n.s., 1868, there is represented an exceedingly beau- tiful specimen of an enamelled bronze cup of the same pattern, discovered in 1867 in a peat- moss at Maltboeck, in the southern part of the peninsula of Jutland, in Denmark. Beside these vases, enamelled fibulae and horse-trappings have frequently been found in ancient graves, especially in England. Pro- fessor Boyd Dawkins, in his Cave-hunting, also gives a plate representing several brooches of this kind, which were discovered during the explorations of the Victoria cave, in Settle, Yorkshire. This was so named on account of its discovery upon the coronation day of Queen Victoria, in 1839; and it is especially interest- ing as having been a place of refuge of the mis- erable British fugitives who fled before the sword of the ‘* conquering Engle.’ The art of enamelling was known to the ancient Egyptians, the Etruseans, and the Greeks ; but the last had ceased to make use of it at least two hundred years B.C. By the Romans it was never practised at all; and it is not alluded to by Pliny in his encyclopedic SCIENCE. 139 ‘ Natural history.’ The only reference to it to be found in any ancient author occurs in the Imagines of Philostratus the elder (lib. i., im. 27). In a description of a picture of a boar- hunt, after enumerating the different colors of the horses ridden by the youthful huntsmen, and saying that the bits were of silver and the housings enriched with gold and various colors, he-adds, ‘‘ They say that the barbarians, who dwell near the ocean, pour these colors upon heated brass, and that they adhere, and become like stone, and preserve the designs made by them.’’ Now, Philostratus was a Greek rhet- orician, called from Athens, in the beginning of the third century, to the court of Julia Domna, wife of the emperor Septimius Sev- erus. As this emperor passed considerable time in Britain, where he built, or at any rate repaired, the wall that goes by his name, and died at York, it is by no means improbable that Philostratus gained his knowledge of the processes of enamelling from accounts brought to the court from that region. To the English antiquaries it seems to be established, by the number and the beauty of such objects that have been discovered in their own country, that this was the principal seat of its manufacture ; and Mr. John R. Green does not hesitate to call the ‘ party-colored enamel the peculiar workmanship of Celtic Britain.’ But from the fact that the late Abbé Cochet has found precisely similar enamelled objects in his ex- plorations of ancient cemeteries in Normandy, and from the discovery of cups of the same kind upon the soil of France, the antiquaries of that nation maintain that their own country- men were ‘ the barbarians that dwelt near the ocean.’ Non nostrum tantas componere lites ; but certainly objects of this character ought never to be styled ‘ Roman.’ We wish that we had more space at our dis- posal to direct attention to the many other beautiful objects of antiquity to be found in this fine collection. Henry W. Haynes. WEEKLY SUMMARY OF THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. MATHEMATICS. Linear differential equations. — M. G. Floquet, in a paper entitled ‘‘ Sur les équations différentielles linéaires & coefficients périodique,”’ has made an in- teresting and seemingly important addition to the literature of periodic functions. He considers a ho- mogeneous linear. differential equation of the fonn dm—ly \dam—1 a™ qd -? Pi), = 54 + + pit 4+. ..+ pny =0, the coefficients being uniform functions having all the same period, w, and the general integral being sup- posed uniform. If the variable be changed by the substitution 4 Qaiz é = §, the result is a linear transformation of P, in which the coefficients are uniform functions of & From the known expression for its integrals in the region of a 140 singular point, we may, by giving & the above value, vary the form of the solutions of P (y)=0. The author prefers, however, to treat the question directly, inasmuch as he is thus enabled to employ many of the results arrived at by M. Fuchs, and as he can use pro- cesses identical with those employed by Fuchs in his study of the integrals around a singular point. M. Floquet obtains thus a fundamental system, S, of solutions connected with a certain algebraic equation, A=0, which he calls the fundamental equation rela- tive to the period w; the first member of A= 0 is a de- terminant of degree m with respect to the unknown «, The elements of the system S constitute as many groups as the equation A=0 has distinct roots; and, by applying a process due to M. Hamburger, these groups are divided into sub-groups which are mutu- ally independent. The particular conclusions arrived at are as follows. I. Let ¢,, e:.... &» denote the dis- tinct roots of A =0; let A; denote the order parting from which the minors of A cease being all zero for «=g. 1°. P=0 admits as distinct integrals 2, + A, 4+... + Ay periodic functions of the second kind, and no more. 2°. There exists a fundamental system of solutions, including, first, 2; +A22+...+An periodic functions of the second kind; second, m—(A, + 4.... + d,) expressions, each having the form of an integral polynomial in «, and having for coefficients periodic functions of the second kind pos- sessing the same multiplier. 3°. The multipliers of the periodic functions which appear in the funda- mental system, either as elements or as coefficients in the elements, are equal to the different roots €,,€2... & _ of the fundamental equation. II. In order that P=0 may have m periodic functions of the second kind as distinct integrals, it is necessary’and sufficient that each of the roots of A=0 shall annul all the minors of A up to those of an order equal to the degree of the multiplicity of each root. In the above, a periodic function of the second kind, with a period #, means a function defined by relation F (w + o) =e F(x); ¢is the multiplier; and, if «= 1, the function is said to be periodic of the first kind. — (Ann. V’école norm. sup., Feb.) . C. sae [134 PHYSICS. (Photography.) The effect of pressure on the gelatine film. — Capt. Abney has shown, that, if pressure is ap- plied to the sensitive surface of the gelatine plates, the same result is obtained as if the plate had been exposed to the light. The editor of the British jour- nal of photography, experimenting further, finds that abrasion, such as may. be produced by the motion of a glass rod drawn out to a fine rounded point, is necessary to the action, and that mere pressure, such as would be obtained by a carpenter’s vise, produces no effect whatever. upon the other one, and the markings made with the rod upon it, with very heavy pressure. On develop- ment with pyro, no effect was at first produced; but, by prolonged action, a green fog was created in the adjacent regions of the film, leaving the figures clear on a dark ground. — (Brit. journ: phot., June 15.) W. H. P. mies [135 SCIENCE. long. — (Mechanics, June 23.) A stripped film was next placed - Cee ely [Vou. IL, No. 26. Electricity. Unipolar conductivity. — Hugo Meyer confirms the result previously obtained by him, that the min- eral psilomelan possesses the curious property of uni- polar conductivity for electricity. He finds, also, that the resistance to a constant current is independent of the duration of the current, and that different speci- mens of the mineral are radically different in elec- trical properties: hence the inconsistent results of different observers are admissible. — (Ann. phys. chem., xix. 70.) J. T. {136 A cheap bolometer.—C Baur describes a ther- moscope which consists of thin gold leaves blackened with platinum chloride, and cut so as to combine large surface with low resistance. These are attached to opposite ends of a cylinder which is hollow and open at the ends, and solid in the middle. These leaves are made the arms of a Wheatstone bridge, and prove to be a much more delicate test for radiant heat than the thermopile. The author terms the instrument a radiometer. — (Ann. phys. chem., xix. 12.) J. . [137 Measurement of the ohm.—J. Fréhlich de- scribes a ‘dynamometric’ method of measuring the ohm: the secondary coil is balanced on a rigid hori- zontal arm, suspended bifilarly so that the plane of winding is perpendicular to the meridian; opposite is placed the inducing coil, in which, by an ingenious arrangement of keys, the current is made, shunted, and broken without a spark. The consequent attrac- tions and repulsions are measured by the swinging of the suspended apparatus. From a preliminary ex- periment, the author is encouraged to consider the method a practical one. —(Ann. phys. chem., xix. 106.) {138 ENGINEERING. Engines of lake steamers.— One of the steam- ers of the Western transportation line has engines of the ‘compound’ type, two low and two high pressure cylinders, of 20 and of 40 inches diameter and of 40 inches stroke. The steam is cut off at 8 inches in the high-pressure cylinder, and the consumption of steam amounts to but 19 pounds per hour and per horse-power. The boat is 256 feet long, 38 feet beam, and 16 feet draught. The engines and boilers weigh about 100 tons. The latter have 100 square feet of grate-surface, and 3,366 square feet of heating-surface. Another vessel, the E. B. Hale, has simple engines, carries 1,600 tons of freight at 14 feet draught, makes about 10 knots an hour on 1,400 pounds of coal. The engines are 36 by 36, and are supplied with steam by one boiler 12 feet in diameter by 18 feet TP Eh {139 Heating by superheated exhaust-steam. — Mr. Levi Hussey has devised a method of heating buildings in winter by the exhaust-steam from en- gines by first passing it through a superheater in the flue, and there taking up heat which would other- wise be sent up the chimney and wasted. The steam is thus deprived of all moisture, and then heated to so high a temperature that it will heat more thoroughly, and with less obstruction by back-press- AueustT 3, 1883.] 7h HT. ure, than saturated’ and wet steam. ' Heat is thus obtained without cost, and rendered effective for useful application to a greater extent than has hitherto been possible. — ( Amer. mach., July 1.) {140 CHEMISTRY. (Analytical.) Electrolysis of bismuth solutions. — Messrs. N. W. Thomas and E. F. Smith find that bismuth may be accurately determined in solution either as sulphate or as citrate by electrolysis. By three bichromate cells all the bismuth was deposited in a compact form in three hours. It was washed, first with water, then with alcohol, dried, and weighed. The reduction goes on equally well in a solution containing an ex- cess of citric acid. — (Amer. chem. journ., v. 114.) Cc. F. M. (141 Estimation of hardness in water without soap solution.—Instead of the usual method for estimating the hardness of water, O. Hehner prefers titration with standard sulphuric acid and sodie car- bonate solutions. He claims that the results ob- tained with the soap solution are very variable and wholly See May, 1883.) c. F. mM. [142 The presence of copper in cereals.—In an article on this subject, Mr. E. F. Willoughby reviews the instances in which copper has been found in cereals, and he quotes the following results obtained by Dr. V. Galippe:— Copper ina kilogram. Wheat from Central France ... . . 0.0100 erm. ~ ** La Chatre (Indre) . . . 0. 0080 = “* Grand Villiers (Oise) . . 0.0052 ‘ eS wep MCHICAN. 3). 6, [« net Os OOTO.ciF" * America (Redwinter) 0. 0085‘ 5 ET ORIITOVIID. wa et cup ac¥ oy c hONOOD0 | <5 ‘ Se Napvey GHCthe 2) co a. Os O0DE ye Sak “© America, soft. . 0.0108 ‘* KS ** Russia, hard (Taganrog) « 0. 0088 * Be CorAlsiem shard sJf? <0. bis 0. 0062. ‘* RMRE NEDA mai Ruste Cte SPat eles l/ee f 0.0050 *S RPM Da Tet fal ris as OSS Jon janes 0. 0084 * BOI y se. ist! 298 0.0108‘ IGG O FNS toe 0.0016 * — (Analyst, May, 1983,) c. F. M. {143 AGRICULTURE. Preserved milk.— Loew found that a sample of milk which had been sealed up and heated to 101°, and then preserved for eight years, had undergone decided change. The color was brownish, and the taste intensely bitter. The milk-sagar was changed into dextrose and levulose; the caseine and albumen, into peptone. A sediment yielded crystals of tyrosin after boiling with potash. Milk preserved for a year by Scherff’s process was found by Vieth considerably altered in taste, but samples kept in a cool cellar for several months appeared unaltered. — (Bied. centr.- ‘blatt., xii. 57.) oH. P. A. {144 Calculation of feeding-rations.—In two feed- ing-experiments with steers, Caldwell and Roberts found that a ration calculated to correspond to that SCIENCE. 141 recommended by Wolff for maintenance caused a very decided and steady gain in weight, while a richer ration gave much greater gains than have been ob- tained by other experimenters from rations calculated to furnish the same amounts of digestible matters. They conclude that ‘‘ We have not yet sufficient data, from actual feeding-experiments, upon which to base a reliable calculation of the maintenance-ration, or of a ration for the production of a certain effect.”? — (Rep. Cornell univ. exp. stat., 1882-83,18.) Ho. P. A. [145 Determination of proteine.— Trials of Stutzer’s method of separating true proteine from other nitro- genous matters failed to give Newbury concordant results in the case of several concentrated fodders, and numerous difficulties in manipulation were ex- perienced. With coarse fodders the results were concordant. — (Rep. Cornell univ. exp. stat., 1882-83, 34.) HL. P. A. {146 Determination of phosphoric acid. — Pember- ton’s method for the volumetric determination of phosphoric acid in fertilizers by titration with a standard solution of ammonium molybdate gaye results closely agreeing with gravimetric determina- tions. Two improvements in the process are de- scribed. —(Rep. Cornell univ. exp. stat., 1882-83, 29 ) H. P. A. [147 MINERALOGY. Peculiar crystals of fluorite.— On a hand speci- men of fluorite, probably from Zinnwald, Bohemia, F. J. P. Van Calker noticed that there were on all of the small erystals, which were combinations of cube, hexoctahedron, and octahedron, well-defined markings on each cubic face, making a perfect rec- tangle whose sides were parallel to the intersection of the cube and octahedron. To account for these peculiar markings, which were present on all of the crystals, the author suggested that each crystal might originally have been of a simpler form, around which a subsequent shell of fluorite had been deposited; and a section from a single crystal, cut near and parallel to a cubic face, showed, when examined by transmitted light, a colorless centre, with the rectan- gular marking appearing as a dotted line, and outside of this another colorless portion completing the erys- tal. This fully confirmed the author’s suggestion of an enclosure of fluorite in fluorite, showing that the crystals were originally of simple form, combina- tions of cube and octahedron, which had become coated with some pigment, and subsequently another deposit of fluorite had taken place, building up the hexoctahedron planes on all of the solid angles. — (Zeitschr. kryst., vii. 447.) 8. L. P. {148 GEOLOGY. Lithology. The eruptive rocks of Tryberg, Schwarz- wald.— George H. Williams has published for the doctorate degree a valuable petrographical paper on the Tryberg region, the country rocks of which are gneiss, granitite, and granite, cut by dikes of granite, quartz-perphyry, mica-syenite-porphyry, tica-dio- 142 rite and nepheline-basalt, while porphyrytuff occu- pies a portion of the Kesselberg area. The granitite is a crystalline granular mixture of felspar, quartz, and biotite, and is regarded as a typical rock of its kind. The quartz-porphyry has a compact, red groundmass porphyritically enclosing quartz and felspar, also biotite, apatite, and magnetite. The mica-syenite- porphyry has a compact, deep reddish-brown ground- mass, holding biotite and felspar, as well as some quartz, apatite, and zircon. The nepheline-basalt shows a compact, greenish- ‘black groundmass, holding erystals and grains of a fresh, nearly colorless olivine. The groundmass is composed of a mixture of augite, little olivine crys- tals, and magnetite grains cemented by a colorless mass of nephelite and glass. Some reddish-brown biotite was observed, while apatite in little needles occurs abundantly. The paper is accompanied by a plate and map, while the classification followed is that of Prof. Rosenbusch of Heidelberg, with whom Dr. Williams studied. This classification of eruptive rocks is now the prevailing one in Germany, and, on account of the number of Rosenbusch’s students con- nected with the U.S. geological survey and with other institutions, will be soon generally used in Amer- ica. — (Neues jahrb. min., beil., 1883, ii.) M. E. Ww. : ' [149 GEOGRAPHY. (Aretic.) Danish expeditions in Greenland in 1883.— Dr. Rink, who is now resident in Kristiania, gives some details as to the proposed work for this sea- son. Lieut. G. Holm, assisted by Lieut. Garde, geologist Knutsen, botanist Eberlin (who also acts as surgeon), and a number of Greenlanders, will under- take the exploration of the eastern coast of Green- land in umiaks, in the narrow strip of water between the great stream of drift-ice and the shore, where these boats may be able to accomplish much not practicable for a vessel. They will endeavor to pass the northern extreme reached by Graah, 1828-30, and to penetrate to the interior by some of the deep fiords, thus obtaining some idea of the region between them and the western coast. The other expedition will endeavor to map the unexplored portion of the west- ern coast between 67° and 70° N. lat., and will be commanded by Lieut. Hammer, assisted by Sylow as geologist, and naval Lieut. Larsen. Notice has already been taken of the arrival of these parties in Greenland. — (Naturen, Mai, 1883.) w.u.p. [150 (South America.) The death of Crevaux. — The details of the de- struction of this gallant explorer and his party have been obtained from a native interpreter, who was made captive at the time, but finally escaped across the desert to Ankaroinga, The party had arrived at a spot on the right bank of the Pilcomayo, five leagues above the Rio Tigre, where there is a village of Toba Indians called Cuvarocai. After having been assured of a peaceful welcome, the doctor began to distribute presents to the natives, who, at the advice of their chief, rendered covetous by the sight of the valuables in the hands of the party, fell suddenly upon the ex- SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 26. plorers, and killed those on the shore. Those still in the boats attempted to escape by swimming, and were pursued, and several of them killed in the water. Only two, Haurat and Blanco, being good swimmers, succeeded in reaching the opposite shore, and hiding themselves in the forest. Nothing has been heard of them since. prisoner. The bodies were thrown into the water or left where they fell, except that of Dr. Crevaux, which was carried to a neighboring village, where for thirty-six hours the Tobas sang and performed incantations around it, after which it was conveyed to a spot near to and visible from the huts. The Argentine government has sent Col. Sol with two hundred men up the Pileomayo to punish the assas- sins, while the geographical society of Buenos Ayres has sent one of its number to search for the two survivors, and report on the whole subject. —W. H. D. [151 Crevauz’s voyages in Guiana.— Henri Froide- vaux summarizes previous investigations of the rivers of Guiana, and narrates the advances due to Crevaux. He notes that the indigenous population of Guiana is visibly decreasing, and states that Crevaux believed, that, judging by the abundance of village sites and relics on the river-banks now absolutely depopulated, there was formerly an abundant population. — (Rev. géogr., May, 1883.) Ww. H. D. 152 Notes. — Dr. ,Giissfeldt has made interesting trig- onometrical surveys in the Cordillera, together with observations on glaciers. He will soon take up the region about Aconcagua. —— The English brothers Haspold, with the warmest approbation of the goy- ernment of the republic, have undertaken a very exact geological, mineralogical, and natural history survey of the different Argentine states. — (Mitt. geogr. ges. Wien, xxvi. no. vy.) W. H. D. [153 ( Africa.) Number of Jews in Africa. — According to the estimate of Brunialti, the Jews in Africa number 450,000. Gerhard Rohlfs criticises this as much too high, and, by reviewing the estimates of population in all parts of the continent, concludes that 220,000 is much nearer the truth. —(Peterm. geoyr. mitth., 1883, 211.) Ww. M. D. [154 The coast-line of Tunis.— In his description of the Mediterranean lands, Th. Fischer has included Tunis in the area of rising coasts about Sicily, The interpreter was carried off as a ~ Sardinia, and south-eastern France. The correctness ~ of this is questioned by Dr. J. Partsch of Breslau, who presents a considerable mass of evidence to show that the Tunisian shores have not changed their altitude in the historic period, although their out- line has varied distinctly at certain points by delta growth. The river Medjerda (the ancient Bagradas) has shifted its mouth several miles to the north, and built out its delta into the Gulf of Tunis; and this in combination with the wind-action, by which sand has been blown inland from the shore, has added nearly one hundred square miles of lowland outside of the coast-line of the third century before Christ. Former lines of river-flow are distinctly visible at ' in Aveust 3, 1883.] several points. But all this, and other facts of a sim- ilar nature, must not be explained by an elevation of the land; for the ruins of Carthage, on a promontory a few miles to the south, are still close to the sea, and the remains of some of its harbor-works are yet at the water’s edge. A variety of ancient and modern descriptions of this region are referred to. —(Peterm. geogr. mitth., 1883, 201, map.) Ww. M. D. [155 ZOOLOGY. Protozoa. New sporozoon.— A. Schneider has discovered in the Malpighian vessels of Blaps an amoeboid para- site. Multiplication takes place principally by means of cysts. Encystment occurs only between individ- uals with a single nucleus and of spherical form. The two conjugated organisms secrete around themselves several envelopes, each marked with an equatorial line of dehiscence. Each of the two nuclei divide into three. Of the six nuclei thus formed, four, together with a part of the granular mass, remain unused, while the other two become the spores. The species is named Ophryocystis Biitschlii. — (Comptes rendus, 1888, 1378; Ann. mag. nat. hist., xi. 459.) Cc. 8. Mt. [156 } Insects. Observations on Hymenoptera. —In part x. of his Observations, Lubbock answers some of Dr, Miiller’s objections to his methods in studying the color-preferences of the hive-bee, believing that his conclusions are not invalidated by them. To test _ the sense of hearing in bees, telephonic communica- q tion was established between two sets of bees, one of which was then excited, but with no effect on the other. Others were accustomed to visit honey placed near a music-box, the position of which was several times changed. The bees did not, however, appear to hear the music, though they seem to have connected the presence of the instrument with that of the honey, and were guided by it, even if it were not playing, so long as they could see it; but if they could not see it, even if it were playing, it did not assist them, It is, however, uncertain but that high over-tones, beyond our range of hearing, may be audible to bees. Further experiments seem to show that the indus- try of wasps has been underrated. One individual visited some honey no less than a hundred and six- teen times in a day, loading herself each time, and carrying away more than sixty-four grains of honey. Her working-hours extended from 4.13 A.M. to 7.47 P.M., while a bee, working on honey the same day, made but twenty-nine visits, between 5.45 A.M. and 7.15 P.M. A curious demonstration of the recognition of the queen by worker-ants was made in the following way: “I was starting a new nest of Lasius flavus in which were two queens. We allowed the ants to take one of them into their new glass house; the other we kept with a small retinue in a separate bot- tle. If this bottle is placed near the nest, some of the retinue leave it, go into the nest, and soon the SCIENCE. 143 ants come out in large numbers to see, I had almost said to pay their respects to, their queen.” The dislike of ants for the ultra-violet rays of the spectrum, indicated by earlier experiments, was fur- ther shown by the use of two screens, —one consist- ing of a solution of iodine in carbon bisulphide ; the other of indigo, carmine, and roseine, mixed so as to produce the same tint, but not, like the bisulphide solution, intercepting the ultra-violet rays. The ants collected, in most instances, under the iodine screen. The record of the occurrence of Ponera contracta in England, and the description of a new Australian honey-ant, Melophorus Bagoti, are of interest to the systematist. — (Journ. Linn. soc., zo6l., xvii.) W. T. {157 (Zeonomic entomology.) Insects affecting the strawberry. — Professor S. A. Forbes summarizes what has been published respecting the insects that infest the strawberry in the United States, and adds original observations respecting several of them. These observations refer chiefly to the crown-borer, the root-worm, and the crown-miner. A very useful calendar is given, indi- cating in a concise form the periods of each of the species discussed and the particular place in which each insect occurs in each of its stages. — (Trans. Miss. Valley hort. soc., 1888.) J. H. Cc. {158 The hop-vine borer.— Although this pest has been very destructive for many years, the life-history of the species has not been known till now. Prof. Comstock gives an account, with figures, of the insect in each of its stages, —(Amer. agric., June, 1883.) [159 VERTEBRATES. Are the lungs air-tight ? — That the lungs are nor- mally air-tight under the ordinary condition of life has been accepted in physiology as an alinost neces- sary consequence of the function which they perform. Ewald and Kobert have lately reported some experi- ments which appear to show that this belief is not strictly correct. If the intra-pulmonic pressure is raised above a certain limit, not higher than may oceur normally during life, there is an escape of air from the lungs into the pleural cavity or into the blood-vessels of the pulmonary circulation. When a curarized dog was exposed to artificial respiration at a proportionally high pressure for about an hour, the dog killed, and the chest opened under water, both the pleural cavity and the heart were found to contain air. Experiments made upon excised lungs, expanded under water by positive pressure, showed, that, at a certain pressure, air escaped, while, if the pressure was again lowered, the lungs again became air-tight. The authors satisfied themselves in all cases that there was no actual gross rupture of the lung-tissue or blood-vessels. The maximal expirato- ry pressure which a dog can produce was found to vary between 50 mms. and 90 mms. of mercury; while, to get an escape of air into the pleural cavity or heart, it was only necessary to keep the intra-pulmon- ic pressure at about 35 mms. of mercury. A similar result was obtained with rabbits. The escape of air 144 may take place not only through the walls of the alveoli, but also through the trachea, with the pro- duction of emphyaema of the subcutaneous cellular tissue of the neck, which in time may spread as far as the extremities of the body. ‘The peculiar pains in the chest which sometimes follow upon violent ex- piratory efforts may be owing, they think, to a small escape of air into the pleural cavity. So many hither- to inexplicable cases in which, after sudden death, air has been found in the heart or pleural cavity, although there was no evidence of any rupture, may be explained in this way by the escape of air through the lung-tissue. — (Pfliiger’s archiv, xxxi. 160.) Ww. H. H. [160 Structureless basal substance. — The structure- less substance which forms the basis of the ‘ jelly’ in medusae, Emery thinks, is still represented in the higher animals, preceding in certain places the true connective tissue. Emery employs the name given by Hensen, ‘tissue of secretion,’ it being supposed to be secreted by the surrounding epithelia. In verte- brates an anhistic layer in the cornea precedes the true connective tissue (Kessler, Emery). In the embryos of teleosts, particularly those that leave the egg early, the ectoderm is separated by a thick layer of homogeneous, unorganized matter from the inner tissues. This hyaline mass also fills out the embryonic median fins. It is probably changed later into connective tissue by the immigration of cells. The clear membranes separating two adjacent epithe- lia, or an epithelium from connective tissue, the vitreous humor, and the substance filling the segmen- tation cavity of the ovum, are also, perhaps, to be enumerated here as preservations of a very ancient primitive formation, —the tissue of secretion of the most distant ancestors of vertebrates. Its excessive deyelopment in teleost larvae is probably an acquired embryonic characteristic. This interesting little pa- per especially deserves attention from those studying the embryology of fishes. — (Arch. ital. biol., iii. 37.) c. 8. M. : f [161 Fish. Motor-nerve endings. — Ciaccio has investigated the motor-nerve plates in the depressor muscle of the jaw of Torpedo marmorata by treatment with double chloride of gold and cadmium. From the anterior third of the muscles, strips one millimetre thick were cut with scissors; the strips were then left for five minutes in fresh filtered lemon-juice, washed in distilled water, and placed for half an hour in a one- per-cent solution of gold and cadmium, being kept dark; washed again in one-per-cent aqueous solution of formic acid, in which they were left twelve hours in the dark, then twelve in the light; finally, kept in the dark in stronger formic acid for one day, and pre- served in glycerine. Such strips may be easily dis- sociated into fibres. Two forms of nerve-endings are observed. One, the rarer, represents probably the initialform: it con- sists of bunches of grains, suspended by peduncles arising by repeated division of the pale fibres towards their termination. The second form has been pre- viously described (Mem. accad. se. istit. Bologna, SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 26. 1877), but the following new points deserve mention: the end-plate appears to be more closely united to the sarcolemma than to the muscular substance; between the ramifications of the fibres appear certain corpus- cles, probably connective tissue, but whether they lie within or without the sarcolemma was not deter- mined; a secondary sheath extends over the primary and secondary, but stops at the tertiary branches; the ultimate terminations are bunches of peduncu- lated grains, the grains being colored dark, their stalks light; finally, the presence of a granular em- bedding substance around the nervous branches. — (Arch. ital. biol., iii. 75.) c. Ss. M. [162 Fishes of the Batstoe River, New Jersey. — Professor E. D. Cope stated that eleven species col- lected in the confined waters of a broken dam on the Batstoe River, New Jersey, represented the fish fauna of the Carolinian district of the nearctic realm, only three extending into the Alleghanian district. A species of Amiurus new to science was at first sup- posed to be an unusually dark-colored example of the common Amiurus nebulosus. A critical examina- tion soon showed that it differs in the important characters of the considerably more anterior position of the dorsal fin, four to seven more anal radii, and more rounded outline of the caudal fin. Its charac- ters ally it to the western A. natalis, from which it differs by its more slender form and more rounded caudal fin. The name A. prosthistius was proposed for it. — (Acad. nat. sc. Philad.; meeting June 26.) [163 Mammals, Color-markings of mammals. — Professor Eimer has continued his studies in regard to the color-mark- ings of vertebrates. As the result of his observations, he has drawn out certain general principles, which he applies to the different groups, notably to the mammals. The following general statements are elaborated: 1. That the color-markings of mammals may be re- duced to longitudinal stripes, spots, and transverse stripes; 2. That the longitudinal stripes are the old- est form, and that the other two follow in course; 8. That the primitive mammalian fauna was a lon- gitudinally striped one; 4. That the males have been first to take on the new forms of markings, while the females hold longer to the older form; 5. That . the effects of the law by which the development of the markings takes place from the posterior part of the body toward the anterior part are not so easily traced in mammals as in the case of other groups, such as the saurians; 6. That in mammals the develop- ment of markings follows a regular course, that is, the longitudinal markings are followed by spots, which, in turn, run together, and finally form the transverse or tiger stripes; 7. That the position of the smallest spot on a mammal is not accidental, but due to the action of genetic and philogenetic laws, from which it follows that markings are an available means for the determination of species; 8. That the regularity of the development of markings shows that they arise from constitutional causes. The author takes the Viverridae as the original Ds Vs! eee Oh .hlL eS: AvGusT 3, 1883.] types of the carnivores, and believes that in the hyena, cats, dogs, bears, and weasels, he can trace the form and position of markings possessed by the former. He acknowledges several difficulties, however, in the case of the leopard, jaguar, and other peculiarly spot- ted cats. He believes that the ungulates follow the same law in regard to markings as the carnivores. — (Jahresb. verein vaterl. naturk. Wiirlt., xxxix. 1883. 56.) F. w. T. {164 (Man.) Function of the crico-thyroid muscle.— Martel brings forward some experiments to show that the crico-thyroid, and not the thyro-arytenoid muscle is par excellence the muscle used in the production of different tones in singing and speaking. The most interesting point of the paper, perhaps, is, that he shows, by registering with simple levers the movements of the thyroid and cricoid cartilages re- spectively, that, when the different chest-notes (from do” to do*) are sounded, the thyroid cartilage re- mains immovable, while the cricoid is brought closer and closer to it as the pitch of the note is raised. “In the contraction of the crico-thyroid muscle, or, as he prefers to call it, the thyro-cricoid muscle, the thyroid cartilage is therefore to be considered as the fixed point. The action of the thyro-arytenoid muscle, according to him, is preparatory to that of the crico-thyroid, in that it gives the vocal cords their proper position, and acts as an antagonist to the latter muscle. The length and tension of the vocal cords, however, are governed by the crico-thyroid. This view of the function of the crico-thyroid is sup- ported by the results obtained when the muscle, or the nerve going to it, is divided in the dog, and, among men, by the pathological cases in which there is paralysis of this muscle. The general result in such cases is a pronounced hoarseness, and an in- ability to sound any but the lowest tones. — (Arch. de physiol., 1883, 582.) Ww. H. H. {165 Summation of stimuli in the sensory nerves of man.—From numerous experiments made upon himself with electrical stimuli, de Watteville comes to the conclusion that the action of stimuli applied to a sensory nerve increases, within certain limits, with their frequency. Stimuli which are subminimal, as long as they follow at slow intervals, will call forth a sensation when made to follow each other with greater rapidity. This summation takes place more readily when the stimulated nerve is exposed to the action of the kathode; and the author is of the opin- ion that it is local, as in motor nerves, and not cen- tral. The summation may be explained as the after action of electrical stimulation; the induction shocks following with such rapidity that the excitation in each case falls within the period of heightened irrita- bility. — (Neurol. centralbl, no. 7, 1883.) W. H. H. {166 ANTHROPOLOGY. Tribute to American scholarship. — An inter- esting tribute to American scholarship is paid in the fact that M. Barbier, on the authority of Mr. Stephens and later writers, was setting up Del Rio’s ‘images of men in bas-relief’ in front of the model of the SCIENCE. Temple of the Sun, as he had done in the Trocadero. Dr. Rau of the Smithsonian institution drew his attention to Del Rio’s description of the Temple of the Cross, as well as to the statements of Dupaix and Galindo; and the bas-reliefs at Washington will stand in their proper place in front of the shrine containing the group of the Cross. Again, Prof. Cyrus Thomas has discovered that the cast on the left slab of the Tablet of the Cross proves conclusively the correct- ness of the statement previously made in SCIENCE, that Waldeck’s figure of this slab, as published by the French scientific commission, 1860-66, was cop- ied from Catherwood’s drawing. This is proved by the fact that Catherwood’s errors, of which M. Char- nay’s cast brings to view quite a number, are all faithfully reproduced in Waldeck. — 0. T. M. [167 Prehistoric trepanning.— The object of reeall- ing attention to this much described subject is to speak of the novel experiments of L. Capitan. Many years ago Dr. Charles Rau, wishing to know how long it would take a savage to bore a hole through a hard rock with a wooden spindle, using sand and water, actually made the experiment, and has put on record his experience. M. Capitan has proceeded in the same way respecting prehistoric trephining, test- ing the various methods of boring and of removing a rondelle or fragment of bone. The experiments on the skulls of the dead were to study the methods, the difficulties in the way of the operation, and the time required. It is the trephining of the living among savages, and the fatality of the result, that most inter- est the student: therefore M. Capitan continued his researches upon living canine subjects. The first experiment was upon a small spaniel. The skin of the head and temporal muscle were removed, and the trephining was practised upon the antero-superior portion of the right parietal. ‘The operation was not very painful, and in twenty minutes a rondelle of bone wasremoved. There was little hemorrhage and the meninges were not wounded. After a few days the spaniel wasas lively as ever. Two other dogs were subsequently treated, with like success. Just what the method and amount of cicatrization might be, after such primitive operations, will be known when the autopsy of the subjects takes place in the future. —(Bull. soc. anthrop. Paris, v. 535.) J.W.P. [168 Catlinite. — The beautiful red stone pipes in col- lections of Indian culture-objects are made of a stone called eatlinite. Mr. E. A. Barber tells us that for many generations the aborigines have procured this material from the Great. red pipestone quarry, situ- ated on the dividing-ridge between the Minnesota and Missouri rivers, at a place called by the French Couteau des prairies. Catlin, the celebrated travel- ler, was the first white man permitted by the Indians to visit the place; and therefore Dr. C.’T. Jackson, to whom specimens were sent, named the mineral catlinite. The myths relating to the quarry, as well as surface indications, show that the place has been worked for a very long time. In 1673 Marquette smoked in peace a catlinite pipe with the Indians of the upper Mississippi. Father Hennepin applies the term ‘calumet’ to these ceremonial pipes. There is no 146 doubt that an extensive traffic was carried on in this material for a considerable length of time by the abo- riginal tribes, extending from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountain system and from New York and Min- nesota on the north to the Gulf of Mexico. The fact that objects of catlinite have been taken from Indian graves in the state of New York, and that others were found on the ancient site of an abandoned village in Georgia, at opposite points twelve hundred miles’ dis- tant from the pipestone quarry of Minnesota, reveals the great extent of intercommunication which for- merly existed among the North American peoples. When we consider that many pipes of catlinite have been taken from the bottom of mounds from four to seven feet deep, where they were found in connection with cloth-wrapped copper axes and many other ob- jects of high antiquity, and that some of them are of the typical form of the oldest mound-pipes, we are forced to ascribe to some of them a high antiquity. — (Amer. nat., July.) J. w. P. [169 The Charnay collection.— Visitors to the Na- tional museum at Washington are surprised to find the great hall adjoining the last doorway on the south side shut off by screens. Looking behind this barri- cade, the visitor may imagine himself transported to’ Central America, and in the presence of some of her grandest aboriginal remains. Here M. Barbier, from the Trocadero museum at Paris, is setting up casts of the most celebrated relics of Mexican and Central American ruins secured by M. Charnay. The read- ers of SCIENCE will recall that Mr. Pierre Lorillard of New York, conjointly with the French government, equipped an expedition in 1880, and’ maintained it for two years, for a systematic investigation of the so- called ‘ruined cities’ and other remains of ancient civilization in Central America and Mxeico. The expedition was placed under the charge of M. Désiré Charnay, and thoroughly furnished with the means of making photographs and casts by the process of M. Lotin de Laval. Copies of these casts were first to be presented to the Smithsonian institution and to the French government, the latter set to be placed in the Trocadero museum at Paris. The story of M. Charnay’s travels and successes has been told in the North American review, commencing with August, 1880; the editor, Mr. Thorndike Rice, favoring and encouraging the expedition from the first. M. Char- nay’s moulds having been transported to Paris, he proceeded to make his reproductions. With’ refer- ence to the Smithsonian series, now being set up in the National museum, Mr. Rice writes, ‘“‘ These casts are duplicates of those now on permanent exhibition at the Trocadero, Paris. The casts have been made in order to afford to students of American antiquities the fullest opportunity for studying these products of indigenous art and the hitherto indecipherable in- scriptions.’ The collection includes a bas-relief from Ocosingo, the stone of Tizoc, fragment from Tezcuco, thirty-eight pieces from Palenque, including the most celebrated sculptures and inscriptions, and thirty-four pieces from Chichen-Itza. M. Hamy will shortly send a detailed account of each piece, and the readers of SCIENCE will receive the benefit of his in- SCIENCE. [Vor. IL, No. 26. formation. Professor Baird will have the bas-reliefs of the Temple of the Sun and those of the Temple of the Cross mounted in wooden frames, the exact reproduc- tion of the rooms which they occupied in Palenque. —J. W. P. [170 EARLY INSTITUTIONS. The Nottingham records. — The records of the borough of Nottingham haye been published by Quaritch in London. They cover the period from 1155 to 1399, and contain much interesting matter bearing upon the history of town customs and goyern- ment in England. Mr. G. L.: Gomme, the author of Primitive folk-moots, reviews the volume, and gives us some extracts from it. Assuming that the mu- nicipal corporation of the thirteenth century is the primitive village community in a late stage of devel- opment, he discovers various customs which he describes as belonging to the primitive village. The history of the primitive village is in this way extended and enlarged. Some very interesting passages, illus- trative of the right of pre-emption which kinsmen enjoyed, are given. It appears, that, ‘‘if a person sold his land [in Nottingham], his nearest heirs might lawfully enter into such lands and tenements if they offered to the purchaser, in the gild hall of the town, the money which he had given for the property.” Some passages bearing upon the history of the open- field system are also cited. Mr. Gomme regards the open-field system as ‘the best evidence of the old primitive tenure of land.’ The custom of borough English —or ‘junior-right,’ as Mr. Elton calls it — obtained at Nottingham. — (The antiquary, April, 1883.) D. w. R. [L71 NOTES AND NEWS. It is hoped that the new section for mechanics of the American association for the advancement of science will receive the earnest co-operation of all interested, who may find it convenient to attend. The approaching meeting at Minneapolis will be the second held by the section. Those haying matters of interest to present are requested to notify the secre- tary of section D (A. A. A. 8.) at Minneapolis as early as possible. Circulars relating to the meeting may be obtained of the permanent secretary of the association, F. W. Putnam, at Minneapolis. — During the coming year, experiments will be made at the physical laboratory of Johns Hopkins ~ university with a view to aid in establishing an inter- national unit of electrical resistance. The experi- ments will be carried on, under the direction of Professor Rowland, with an appropriation from the government of the United States. The results will be communicated to the International commission of electricians, meeting in Paris. — We alluded a few weeks ago to the award of the first Walker prize of the Boston society of natural history to Mr. Howard Ayres of Fort Smith, Ark., for his memoir on the development of Oecanthus. *This memoir is now printing by the society. The award of the second prize has now been made. Sey- eral papers of unquestionable merit were before the ere Ve we eae , ; " ve od August 3, 1883.] committee, and the subjects were so diverse as to make it difficult to decide between them. Expert aid was sought; and it has been at last concluded to divide it equally between William Patten of Water- town, Mass., who offered an essay on the develop- ment of Phryganidae, and H. W. Conn of Johns Hopkins university, who presented an essay on the life-history of Thalassema millita. — Recognizing the demand for thoroughly trained engineers conversant with electrical science, at the beginning of the next academic year (Sept. 18, 1883) the trustees of Cornell university will receive stu- dents who desire to fit themselves to enter this new and constantly extending field. While the general studies are mainly those of the departments of civil and mechanical engineering, the special studies of the course embrace the theory of electricity, the construction and testing of telegraph lines, cables, and instruments, and of dynamo machines, and the methods of electrical measurement, electrical light- ing, and the electrical transmission of power. — During the past year original investigations, the results of which either have been or soon will be pub- lished, have been made in the biological laboratory of Johns Hopkins university, in the following sub- jects: the direct action upon the heart of ethyl alcohol, the influence of digitaline upon the heart and blood-vessels, the influence of quinine upon the blood-vessels, the influence of variations in arterial pressure upon the time occupied by the systole of the heart, the minute structure of the kidney, the life- history of Penicillium, viscous fermentation, the in- fluence of various illuminations on the growth of yeast, the structure of Porpita, the structure of the gasteropod gill, the developmer® of the mammary gland, the structure and properties of the cavernous tissue beneath the olfactory mucous membrane. — The U.S. geological survey has appointed Prof. H. S. Williams of Cornell university upon its staff, Under its auspices he will carry out more fully the studies he has long undertaken upon the upper De- vonian fossils of the rich localities of his neighbor- hood in New York, and extend the work beyond the limits of the state, as well as into the immediately underlying and overlying strata, for better compari- son of the upper Devonian species, and study of their faunal relations. Professor Williams has been en- deavoring to build up a thorough school of compara- tive paleontology at Cornell with good success; and the assistance he will gain from his connection with the U.S. survey will offer a special attraction to those wishing to pursue paleontological studies under him. Mr. C.S. Prosser, a recent graduate of Cornell, assists him this summer in his geological work in connection with the U.S. survey. —A very interesting sketch of the life of Count Rumford, by Professor Tyndall, is printed in the Con- temporary review for July. An account of his sci- entific labors is promised in a future issue, —W. Hi. M. Christie, F.R.S., astronomer royal, has withdrawn from the editorship of The observatory, a monthly review of astronomy. This periodical will now be edited by E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S.; and all SCIENCE. ~~? a — i 147 communications should be addressed to him at the Royal observatory, Greenwich, as formerly. —Dr. M. Braun in Dorpat proposes a zodlogical investigation of the Gulf of Finland. The Russian government will furnish a steamer, and the explora- tions are to be made on behalf of the Naturalists’ society of Dorpat. — The American apiculturist is the ninth periodical in the United States devoted to bees and apiculture. Several of these papers have a circulation num- bering thousands, and one is a weekly. It would seem rash to start another bee paper under these cir- cumstances. Silas M. Locke, editor of this new jour- nal, seems, however, to have counted the cost, and means to act on the principle that there is always room up higher. He is an experienced bee-keeper, and expert in all the manipulations of the apiary. He has paid special attention to the qualities of the several races of bees, and is alive to the importance of great care in breeding bees, if the apiarist would secure the highest success. It is evident that he intends to give special attention to matters of sci- entific interest connected with bees and bee-culture. Mr. Locke has also secured the assistance of the ablest writers on the apiary in the country, —not men who are simply given to fine writing, but prac- tical men, who have won eminent success in the art which they practise. The paper is published at Salem, Mass., and, in typography and general style, has no superior among our apiarian periodicals. — According to Nature, the report of the sanitary commissioner with the government of Bombay shows, that, among other causes of death in that presidency in the year 1881, 1,209 persons died from snake-bite. A comparison of the deaths in 1881 with the mean of those of five preceding years shows, that, in 1881 at least, the number had in- creased. These figures prove that one person in 13,610 of the whole population of the twenty-four presidency districts died from snake-bite. Adding to this the destruction of human life effected by other venomous and carnivorous animals, we see how im- portant a matter to the residents of those regions is the destruction of this unfavorable environment. — All the readers of SCIENCE have been familiar with the word ‘wampum’ from their childhood. Roger Williams wrote in his Key, ‘‘The New-Eng- land Indians are ignorant of Europe’s coyne. Their owne is of two sorts, — one white, which they make of the stem or stock of the periwincle, which they call meteauhok when all the shell is broken off. This they call wampam (white). The second is black, inclining to blue, which is made of the shell of a fish which some English call hens (poquahock),’’ This money was called suckauhock (sucki, black). Various shells were used in different parts of the country under names adopted from the languages of the tribes who coined the money. But in the history of the early colonies the name ‘ wampum’ has gained a footing for all shell-money as well as for its imi- tations. Mr. Earnest Ingersoll has brought together a large amount of information on the subject in the May Naturalist. 148 — The death is announced of E. Mohler, secretary of the Danube commission, and of Hermann Alexan- der von Berlepsch of Zurich, the latter in his seventy- first year. —The death is also announced of Dr. J. S. Bailey of Albany, a young entomologist who had published a few papers of some importance on Lepidoptera. —In the June number of the Journal of science is given the following account of a bird-eating frog. “‘A lady living in the George district (Cape Colony) sup- plies the G. R. herald with the following particulars of the remarkable habits of this creature: ‘I have much pleasure in furnishing all the information we have, regarding the large frogs which have proved so destructive to our young chickens. A water-sluit runs round our terrace, and passes through the ground over which the poultry range, and in this the © frogs harbor. The first time our attention was drawn to their bird-eating propensity was by the cries of a small bird in a fuchsia near the stream. Thinking it had been seized by a snake, several hastened to the spot, and saw a beautiful red and green sugar- bird in the mouth of a large greenish frog. Only the bird’s head was visible; and, its cries becoming faint- er, the frog was killed, and the bird released. Its feathers were all wet and slimy, and for some days after we could distinguish it in the garden by its ruffled plumage. Since then the same species of frog has on several occasions been killed with young chickens, half-swallowed; and once a duckling was rescued from the same fate. Whether the noise is natural to these frogs, or assumed to decoy the chickens within their reach, we know not; but they constantly make a chuckling sound so exactly like a hen ¢calling her chickens for food that we have seen whole broods deceived, and rushing towards the sluit, where they supposed the hen to be. The frogs are very wary, and it is difficult to find them unless by the screams of their victims. We have lost large numbers of small chickens in an unaccountable manner, and feel sure now that these frogs must be answerable for very many of them, as there are no rats here, and the chickens are carefully housed at night. If I can give you any further details, I shall be glad to do so.’”’ i — The distinguished spectroscopist, M. Thollon, is now working at the observatory at Paris, as has been his custom during previous summers. The proposed observatory on the top of the Pic du Midi — where the brothers Henry saw the planet Venus with the naked eye in full daylight, when only three or four degrees from the sun, and two days after the transit —is said to be making great progress toward completion. It is expected that Admiral Mouchez, M. Thollon, and other astronomers will visit it toward the end of August. — The Vierteljahrsschrift der astronomischen ge- sellschaft (18 jahrgang, erstes heft) is frontispieced with a solar print of Dr. Carl Christian Bruhns, the late director of the observatory at Leipzig. In the nekrologe are brief notices of Bruhns and C. Baeker, and amore extended one of HE. Plantamour, by Dr. Rudolph Wolf of Zurich. Among the literarische SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 26. anzeigen are the following: Backlund, Zur theorie des Encke’schen cometen, by Paul Harzer; Callan- drean, Détermination des perturbations d’une petite ‘planéte par les méthodes de M. Gyldén, by O. Back- lund; Ginzel, Astronomische untersuchungen tuber finsternisse, by Th. von Oppolzer; and Fischer, Der einfluss der lateralrefraction auf das messen yon horizontal-winkeln, by Wilhelm Schur. Among the newly elected members of the gesellschaft are P. Harzer of Leipzig, J. Holetschek of Vienna, J. Scheiner of Bonn, and C. Wagner of Kremsmiinster. The next meeting of the gesellscha/t will be held at Vienna, commencing on Friday, Sept. 14, and lasting four days. 3 —The geological commission of Spain has pre- pared a pamphlet of twenty pages for the mineral ex- hibition, now open at Madrid, giving a brief account of the different geological formations occurring in Spain, their geographical distribution, general charac- ters, and the minerals of economic interest occurring ineach. It also gives a short orographical account of the country, which has a higher average elevation than any country in Europe excepting Switzerland. The highest peak is that of Mulahacen, in the Sierra Nevada, 3,554 metres above the sea-level. The for- mation which has the greatest extent in Spain is the tertiary, which covers 34 per cent of the sur- face; next comes the primary, covering 27 per cent; the secondary, 18} per cent; the hipogenica, 10 per cent; the quaternary, 10 per cent; and the azoic, 4 percent. Given in numerical order, the miocene and oligocene cover together 137,877 O kilom.; the Cam- brian and Silurian, 114,382; the hipogenica, 49,665; the quaternary, 49,477; the cretaceous, 47,002; the eocene, 23,564; thé Jurassic, 22,697; the triassic, 22,443; the carboniferous, 11,301; the pliocene, 9,064; the Devonian, 5,780; and the crystalline strata, 1,694, —a total of 494,946 1 kilom. The term ‘rocas hipo- genicas’ is applied to what are generally called plu- tonic and volcanic rocks, both old and recent eruptive rocks. — Pére Vidal, French missionary at Tutuila, Nayi- . gator’s Islands, announces the discovery, made last year, of the place of burial of Commandant Fleuriot de Langle, of the unfortunate expedition of la Pe- rouse. De Langle and his companions were killed by the natives at a point named Massacre Bay,*in De- cember, 1787; but up to this recent date their remains and place of burial had not been discovered. The pious missionary intends to erect an expiatory chapel for the converted natives on the spot where their bar- barous ancestors’ victims were buried. — Mr. Henry H. Howorth, who is our standard authority on the Mongols, reviews with favor the work of the Rey. James Gilmour, who has lived as a missionary among them. We have space only for a brief abstract upon the hospitality of these least sophisticated tribes of men: ‘‘ Any traveller is at perfect liberty to alight at any village he may wish, and demand admittance; and any Mongol who re- fuses admittance, or gives a cold welcome eyen, is at once stigmatized as not a man, but a dog. Any host who did not offer tea without money and with- -' ’ . : | . _of the injured plant. are too small or too perishable to be used, drawings or models will be substituted. The carrying-out of AveusrT 3, 1883.] out price would soon earn the same reputation; the reason being, I suppose, that Mongolia has no inns, and all travellers are dependent on private houses for shelter and refreshment. At first sight it seems rather exacting to leap off your horse at the door of a perfect stranger, and expect to find tea prepared and offered to you free; but probably the master of the tent where you refresh yourself is at the same time sitting likewise, refreshing himself in some other man’s tent some hundred miles away; and thus the thing balances itself. The hospitality received by Mongols in travelling compensates for the hospitality shown to travellers.”’ — Two noteworthy ornithological papers appear in the August magazines. The habits and mental traits of the cat-bird in confinement have found an excellent student in Olive Miller, who gives us in the Atlantic a vivid picture of its curiosity, and its tyranny over weaker birds, with proofs of how it can learn by ex- perience, and its capacity for jealousy. The article is well worth reading. The friends of Prof. A. M. Meyer of Hoboken, who are aware of his zeal as a sportsman, will be less surprised than those who know him only by his professional studies, at his interesting paper on the quail, or ‘Bob White’ as it is familiarly known, which appears as the leading paper in the midsummer Century. Eight or nine exquisite woodcuts by Beard illustrate the different species of this class of game- birds in Europe and America, and far surpass in finish, and in excellence of delineation, any previous pictures we have seen. — An increased interest in economic entomology is being shown in England. The Council of education (My lords of the privy council) have formed a com- mittee of advice and reference regarding the entomo- logical collections which have existed for some time in connection with South Kensington museum. This committee is under Professor Huxley as chairman; and among the members are Professor Westwood, Mr. Dyer (sub-director at Kew gardens), and Miss Ormerod. It is planned to form a collection of cases that shall show the insects commonly injurious to a serious extent to the crops, fruit and timber trees, of the British Isles. Each case is to be accompanied by short life-histories of the species in it, and descrip- tions of the most serviceable methods of preventing their ravages. It is the purpose of the committee to make the collection thoroughly plain to be under- stood, so that farmers and gardeners may be able to consult it serviceably. As far as possible, the insects will be shown in all stages, together with specimens In those cases where specimens this plan in a thoroughly scientific manner has been assured by placing the preparation of the cases in the hands of Professor Westwood and Miss Ormerod. —In order to bring together the greatest amount of solid information respecting the natural history of man, students have published manuals of anthropol- ogy from time to time, formulating the questions they _ desire to have answered. In 1800 Degeraudo, a mem- SCIENCE, 149 ber of the Institut de France, published a quarto of fifty-seven pages, entitled ‘Considérations sur les diverses méthodes & suivre dans l’observation des peuples sauvage.’ The Société ethnologique de Paris, in 1839, published its first memoir, which was pre- ceded by general instructions addressed to travellers, among which were three chapters on the individual, family, social, and religious life of peoples. Mr. Gal- latin, in our own country, while preparing his com- parative Indian linguistics, issued circulars to all army officers, Indian agents, and travellers. Mr. School- craft prepared a very elaborate scheme. George Gibbs published through the Smithsonian institu- tion a linguistic circular, and the same institution has issued a number of others on anthropological sub- jects. The most elaborate published in our country are Major Powell’s manual for collectors of linguis- ties, and Professor Mason’s directions to collectors for the Centennial exhibition, and his pamphlet on the study of North American antiquities. In 1875 the Geographical society of Paris published ‘ Instrue- tions aux voyageurs.’ The British association have printed three sets of questions, in 1851, 1854, and in 1874. The last named bears the title ‘Notes and queries on anthropology for the use of travellers and residents in uncivilized lands.’ The Austrian expe- dition in the frigate Novara was furnished with a very elaborate volume of questions upon anthropol- ogy. In addition to these, we have ‘ Instructions anthropologiques’ and ‘ Instructions eraniologiques ” by the Paris society, and manuals by Roberts and Kaltbrunner, Finally, the last-named society has been discussing with much learning and a slight loss of temper a ‘ Questionnaire de sociologie et d’ethno- graphie.’ — The following investigations have been com- pleted by advanced students at the chemieal laborato- ry of Johns Hopkins university during the past year: on the conduct of moist phosphorus and air towards carbon monoxide; white phosphorus; oxidation of a compound containing the sulphamine and propy] groups in the ortho-position with reference to each other, showing protection of the propyl; oxidation of paradipropylbenzine-sulphamide, showing protection of the propyl; on the nature of sinapic acid; the in- fluence of light on fermentation; chemical examina- tion of minerals from the neighborhood of Jones's Falls. — Regarding the early telescopic observations of the ring of Saturn, Dr. H. G. van de Sande Bakhuyzen, the director of the observatory at Leiden, writes to the editor of The observatory: It is clear that Bell is not the discoverer of the division of Saturn’s ring; but that Cassini ought to be accounted the discoverer is not quite so certain. In a volume of MS. obser- vations by Huygens, in the library of the university of Leiden, there is a drawing of Saturn, made 1675, Dee. 8 (and which has been copied, and published by Kaiser in 1855), wherein the division in the ring, and the difference of brightness of the two parts, are clearly indicated. Above and on the side of the drawing, Huygens wrote, among other things, “‘. . . Saturnus eum comite observatus tubo 36 pedum Campani; 150 aderat de Cassinius. . . . [A description of the ball and the ring as seen by the observer here follows, and succeeding the words] quod a Josepho Campano jam olim observatum, ut figura ab ipso edita com- probat. . . .”’ When Huygens made this observation, Cassini was with him; but, from the notice in the Philosophical transactions, it is probable that Cassini saw the division of the ring in August or September, 1675; so that there is no sufficient ground to think that it was Huygens who showed the division to Cassini. But with regard to the allusion of Huygens to the observation of the two parts of the ring, made by Campani, and the figure of the same which he had published, Dr. Bakhuyzen searched in vain in differ- ent books for the figure until he found, between a number of letters addressed to Huygens from Leopold, Prince of Etruria (the same to whom Huygens dedi- cated his ‘Systema Saturnium’), a sheet of paper with two printed drawings of Saturn and Jupiter. The details in the belts of the latter planet show that Campani’s telescope was a very good one. The shadow of the ring is to be seen on the disk of Saturn; and the outer part of the ring, for somewhat less than half the total breadth, is dotted, whilst the inner part is bright. There is no line between the two parts, but they are distinctly separated from one another by the difference in brightness. One can also see traces of the inner darkring. It is highly probable that the above words of Huygens refer to this figure of Saturn; and Dr. Bakhuyzen therefore concludes that Joseph Campani was the first astron- omer who, by means of a very good telescope made by himself, saw distinctly the darker and the brighter part of the ring in 1664, It is, however, possible that Cassini was the first who saw the line of separa- tion. The drawings of Saturn and Jupiter made by Campani are printed in ‘Stanislai Lubiensecii de Lubienietz Theatrum Cometicum,’ Pars prior, page 574. Lubienietz received the drawings from Athana- sius Kircher in Rome. — The proprietors of the Melbourne age have sent an exploring expedition to New Guinea. —In the Proceedings of the American philosophical society (xx. no. 113) Professor Pliny Earle Chase has along paper, thirty-three pages, on ‘ photodynamics,’ in which, starting with ‘combined cometary harmon- ics,’ he comes out at ‘lines of force and of motion;’ and Professor George F. Barker gives an account of his very simple form of constant battery. — The aeronautical exhibition was held in Paris, at the Palais du Trocadéro, from June 5 to 24,—one week longer than was the intention. There were a number of plans for flying-machines shown, but a strange lack of successful results. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. ** Continuations and brief papers extracted from serial literature without repagination are not included in this list. Exceptions are made for annual reports of American insti- tutions, newly established periodicals, and memoirs of con- siderable extent. Adams, KR. C. Evolution; a summary of evidence: a lecture peuvered in Montreal, March, 1888. New York, Putnam, 1888. 4p. 12°. SCIENCE. = —_ Ne ee eee es oe ‘ [Vou. II., No. 26. Amsterdam. — Wiskundig genootschap. Catalogus der bibliotheek. Amsterdam, Sikken, 18838. 8+112p. 8°. Béguyer de Chancourtois. Questions de géologie synthétique; études, documents et modéles exposés & l’exposition de 1883 & Madrid. Paris, impr. nat., 1883. 27p. 8°. Bentley, R. The student’s guide to structural, morphologi- eal, and physiological botany. London, Churchill, 1883. 490 p. 12°, Bernard, G. Champignons observés i La Rochelle et dans les environs. Paris, Bailliére, 1883. 300 p., 56 pl., atlas. 8°. Boulnois, H. P. The municipal and sanitary engineer's handbook. London, Spon, 1883. 3898p. 8°. Boussinesq, J. Cours d’analyse infinitésimale de l’Institute industriel du Nord. Lille, Dane/, 1883. 28+254 p. 4°. Carr, H. Our domestic poisons; or the poisonous effects of certain dyes and colors (especially those containing arsenic) used in domestic fabrics. London, Ridgway, 1883. 47p. 8°. Carton. Solutions raisonnées des exercises de géométrie contenus dans les deux cours de M, l’abbé Carton, professeur de mathématiques &l’institution Notre-Dame a Valenciennes. Paris, Poussielgue, 1888. 312 p. 12°. Casseé, E. Aérostation pratique; épure et construction des aérostats et montgolfiéres, avec quatre planches explicatives. Paris, Hennuyer, 1883. 41p. 8°. Crié, L. Cours de botanique: organographie et familles na- turelles pour la classe de quatriéme, les écoles normales et les €coles d’agriculture. Paris, Doin, 1883. 12+481 p., 865 fig. 18°. Daguillon. Entre vignerons 4 la veillée, causeries sur la culture de la vigne, la vinification et la conservation du vin. Clermont-Ferrand, impr. Mont-Louis, 1883. 463 p. 18°. Davy, G. Tout par l’électricité. Tours, Mame, 1883. 475 Deore Dubois, A. populaire; grand et petite rapaces, oiseaux chasseurs. ges, Barbou, 1888. 124p. 12°. The same. Oiseaux fantastiques et oiseaux chasseurs. Limoges, Barbou, 1883. 125 p. 12°. Duclau, 8. La science populaire: les ballons et les pre- miers voyagers aériens. Limoges, drdant, 1883. 143p. 12°. Fontannes, F. Note surla découverte d’un Unio plissé dans le miocéne du Portugal. Paris. Savy, 1883. 24p., pl. 8°. Graeff, A. Traité Vhydraulique, précédé d’une introduction sur les principes généraux de la mécanique. 3 Vol. tom.i.: partie théorique, 8+333 p.; tom. ii.: partie pratique, 541 p.; tom. iii.: tables numériques, notes, errata, planches, 52 p. Paris, impr. nat., 1883, illustr. 4°. Herrick, C.L. Types of animal life, selected for laboratory use in inland districts. pt. i.: Arthropoda. Minneapolis, Kimball pr., 1888. 33p., [7] pl. 8°. Holmes, A. Bromley. Practical electric lighting. York, Spon, 1883. 154 p., illustr. 8°. Johnston’s new map of South Africa, with index. London, Johnston, 1883. Lalande, J. de. Tables de logarithmes pour les nombres et pour les sinus. Revues par le baron Reynaud. Edition sté- réotype, augmentée de formules pour la résolution des triangles, par M. Bailleul, typographe, et d'une nouvelle introduction. Paris, Gauthier- Villars, 18838. 42+236 p. 16°. Lambert,-J. The germ theory of disease concisely and simply explained. London, Bailliére, 1883. illustr. Lyras de Moléon. La mer, description de ses merveilles, ses curiosités les plus remarquables. Limoges, Ardant, 1883. 144 p. 12°. Martin and Watson. Handbook to the fernery and aqua- rium. London, Unwin, 1888. illustr. Mascart, E., and Joubert, J. A treatise on electricity and magnetism. Translated by E. Atkinson. yol.i. London, De la Rue, 1883. 662p. 8°. Oliver, J. A. W. Sunspottery; or, What do we owe to the sun? A popular examination on the cycle theory of the weather, famines, pestilences, commercial panics, ete. London, Simpkin, 1883. 54p. 8°. Pierret, P. Le livre des morts des anciens Egyptiens. Tra- duction complete d’aprés le papyrus de Turin et les manuscrits du Louvre, accompagnée de notes et suivie d’un index alphabé- tique. Paris, Zerowx, 1882. 9+665p. 18°. k Simmonds, P. L. A dictionary of useful animals and their products: a manual of ready reference for all those which are commercially important, 4nd others which man has utilized; in- cluding also a glossary of trade and technical terms connected therewith. London, Spon, 1883. 1386p. 12°. Woolcock, J. Studies in anthropology; or, lectures on man. London, Partridge, 1883. Histoire naturelle vulgarisée, ornithologie Limo- New ESE ——————————eo es Cie oP ald . dee, 20 - SCTENCE:” FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1833. THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. - Next week will see the annual meeting of the American association for the advancement of science. Although the pendulum-like swing of its migration takes it this year to the westernmost. point of its meetings,— to a flourishing city that was founded ‘since the association began its good work, —there is a promise of a larger and more successful meet- ing than has been its lot to have for several years. Though its roots go down slowly, there is good reason to believe that this society is at last taking firm hold in our hard and stubborn American society, which long seemed to deny it a fair chance of growth. It was, in fact, a much more serious task than it at first seemed, to create in America an association on the basis of that which grew so rapidly and so well in the British mother-country. The suc- cess of the British association was due in the main to the fact that the distances the mem- bers had to travel were small, so that a large part of the working members could be relied on to attend from year to year in a regular way ; thus giving a continuity to its intellectual life that has been denied to our association. Then in Britain, and the sister kingdom of Ireland, there are a score or more places where there exists a strong local life, a pride in the reputation of locality, and a mass of inherited wealth liberalized by long tradition that could easily be brought to the support of such meet- ings. Still more effective was the support which a centralized government could give, and the money that came easily at the call of the scientific leaders who made themselves responsible for the work the association under- took. All these advantages were denied to the American association in its earlier years. In the most of its meeting-places there was No. 27.— 1883. little to uphold its work; it toiled as a mis- sionary enterprise — patiently, but with scanty reward. Its recent gain in public esteem has been in part the result of its own good and devoted work, but in larger measure it is the result of the exceedingly rapid change in the condition of American city life. The frontier spirit in our American towns, the greed for immediate ends, is passing away. Few towns of twenty thousand people but have their leisured class, or are without some well-shaped ambition for a good name among men of learning. Although the association was, in its earlier years, somewhat before its time, our life is fast growing up to be a support for such work as it seeks to do. Every friend of learn- ing will welcome the assurance of strong life that these changes give to the association, and will look forward to its future with confidence in its work. Experience ‘that we may gain from the results of the association and of its kindred so- Geties in the mother-country and on the con- tinent shows us clearly what this work should be. First of all is the good-fellowship, the solidarity that is bred by bringing together in one assembly people who have no other chance to get the light from each others’ eyes or the spirit from their fellow-workers’ tongues. However we may value the material gain of fact, there can be no doubt that this is the precious thing which the association can give to American science. Our workers are neces- sarily scattered by the geographical immensities of their land; the teaching that the nature about their homes gives them is, from the con- formity of conditions in almost all neighbor- hoods, limited and incomplete. More than any other men of science, they need a season of contact with those trained amidst other con- ditions. Some things grow well in a corner, but natural science is not of them. Whoever has brought to a meeting of the American association memories of similar gatherings in 152 Europe must have felt that this social element in our society left much to be desired. The writer recalls the time when he attended the Swiss association at Rheinfelden in one year, and the American the next, in a rather gloomy manufacturing town. At the Swiss meeting all-the members dined together in a garden on the banks of the Rhine, after the morning session had been gone through with all due solemnity. There was, be it confessed, much wine, but so much wit and wisdom, withal, that the very prophets of teetotalism would haye been moved to sympathy. In the social fire that only a table can provoke, in ordinary mortals at least, these diverse folk, separated by race and tongue, were fused into unity and brotherhood. © Making all due allowance for our inherited need of taking diversions a little sadly, it does seem that we might heighten the social ele- ment in our meetings. Even the most august British societies descend to tea after the meet- ings, and find their profit in it from the closer and more familiar life that it gives. Although we use it little, our American folk have an unequalled capacity for after-dinner talking ; half our folk have the toast-master in them: so we need not fear that such gatherings would be dull. : Coming to the apparently more scientific aspects of its labors, maintaining the while that the science of good-fellowship is the prince of all learning, let us consider some other parts of the association’s work. The experience of the British association seems to show that they succeed in avoiding the extreme haphazard nature of the discussions which mark our own association. This is in part due to the con- tinuity of attendance of its leading members, but it seems as if.a part of its gain in this direction had been due to the fashion of having special committees charged with the study of large questions of public interest. Coming to the association with their minds full of the results of especially designated inquiries, the committee-men have been able to give an ele- ment of direction to its discussions that have often made them admirably deliberative, and SCIENCE. ‘the local effects of these meetings. [Vou. IL., No. 27. exceedingly profitable to all who heard them. If our association would take care to provide committees with important inquiries, and could furnish them with the money necessary for the securing of information when such aid was required, we might have each year a solid body of matter which would insure a profit to all who might attend. Giving these reports and their discussion the precedence in the meet- ings, the vagarists, the lost tribes of cirele- squarers, law-finders, and others who wander in the wilderness, would not be able to render the sessions unprofitable to students, as they not unfrequently do, even in these latter days of the association. There is yet another chance of bettering the association-work. One of its highest aims is to foster the spirit of philosophical inquiry among the people with whom its lot is cast from year to year. Something, but not much, may be accomplished by the mere presence of notable men, and their wise words. Yet the odor of the sanctuary is but fleeting: it is not in the least a monumental thing. The ordinary citizens or the school-children mark the fact that for a week some hall puts on a beehive look; the papers have reports, mostly incom- prehensible ; and then the matter is forgotten. There seem to be several ways of increasing First, there should be a careful preliminary study of the scientific problems that the neighborhood affords, a sufficient presentation of those that are understood, and a suggestion of inquiries thereafter to be made. This should be printed, and would serve for a local guide for the use of the association, and as an incentive to local workers. Then, if it seems well, the associa~ tion should offer some small prize to those students on the ground who would carry farther the inquiries that this report has shown to be desirable. If the conditions permit, the association would do well to see that some local society, such as the field-clubs that were recently advocated in these columns, should be created, to remain as a successor to its objects and a fosterer of its work. In the inspiration that these meetings generally ———s Aucust 10, 1883.] > e leeiellllaais ail ‘arouse, such a society might even secure a ‘smail fund for its maintenance. Last, and if such a work be possible, best of all, the association might, through a proper committee, do much to promote science-teach- ing in the schools of the cities where it each year bides. Every meeting of the association has among its attendants those who have the much-needed skill in the matter of teaching science. There is hardly a publie school in the land where there is not a crying need of such help as could best be given at such times. There should be a committee, or even perhaps a section of the association, devoted to the promotion of sound teaching in natural science; for the gravest danger before this branch of learning is to be found in the radi- cal imperfection of the methods of science- teaching in use in our schools. These sugges- tions may seem to lay heavy burdens of advice on the association, but none of them seem beyond the promise of its strength. RECENT EXPLORATIONS IN THE RE- GION OF THE GULF-STREAM OFF THE EASTERN COAST OF THE UNITED STATES BY THE U. S. FISH-COMMIS- SION. 4. Nature and origin of the deposits. Atone part of the Gulf-Stream slope exam- ined by us, the bottom, in 65 to 150 fathoms, 80 to 110 miles from the shore, is composed mainly of very fine siliceous sand, mixed with a little clay, and containing always a consid- erable percentage of the shells of Foraminifera and other caleareous organisms, and frequently spherical, rod-like, and stellate sand-covered rhizopods, sometimes in large quantities. Among the Foraminifera, Globigerina is abundant ; but many other forms occur, some of them of large size and elegant in form. Grains of green sand (glauconite) were fre- quently met with, but were not abundant. Large quantities of the tubes of annelids fre- quently occur. Some of these are made of cemented mud, fine sand, or of gravel ; others, of parchment-like secretions. On the inshore plateau, and also in the deeper localities on the slope, there is usually more or less genuine mud or clay; but this is generally mixed with considerable fine sand, even in 300 to 600 fathoms. The sand, however, is often so fine 1 Continued from No. 19. SCIENCE. 153 as to resemble mud, and is frequently so re- ported when the preliminary soundings are made. In several localities the bottom was so ‘hard,’ in 65 to 125 fathoms, that the bulk of the material brought up consisted of sponges, worm-tubes, shells, etc., with some gravel, but with neither mud nor fine sand. Such bottoms were very rich in animal life. In many instances, even in our deeper dredgings (about 700 fathoms), and throughout the belt exam- ined, we have taken numerous pebbles, and small, rounded bowlders of all sizes, up to sev- eral pounds in weight, consisting of granite, sienite, mica schist, etc. These are abundantin some localities, and covered with ab. (Algebra) : hence inequality (8) is true. From (1), omitting the term = NE G 4 3 Bas (14 3 7 )'+ spear ftir 2527 Je ANG ‘ oe ——+ = eee ee cele Aueust 10, 1883.] In (4) the coefficient of ¥—1 may have any magnitude, and in (5) the coefficient of ¥—1 is the reciprocal of that magnitude. And since from any cubic (Theorem I.) (4) or (5) may be obtained, it follows, that, when the real part is unity, the coefficient of ¥—1 may be made less than unity, and real (Theorem II.). Put n = coefficient of ¥—1, we have, by expansion, (1+)! + (1—n)i = 1 4.7 or ‘Sees ay — 2 (575) (as) Wee eee : Cecstee) aoha The series, already converging, is made doubly converging by the high powers of n, since n has been made a fraction. Putting n, for example, no smaller than ;45, the correction for the sum of the series at the eighth term 1 1,400,000,000,000,000,000° And, as the precision of the value of x is de- termined proportionally to the accuracy with which the series is summed, it follows that a good approximation to x may be obtained by using a very few first terms of the series. A. M. Sawin. would be less than THE HABITS OF MURAENOPSIS TRI- DACTYLUS IN CAPTIVITY; WITH OB- SERVATIONS ON ITS ANATOMY. Tue Louisianian district of the Austrori- parian region is a particularly rich field for the herpetologist. Thirty-six species of rep- tiles are known to be confined to its limits alone, not to mention a long list of others that range generally over the southern states; and to these we must add those species which are men- tioned by the old French authors, but have not yet been taken by American naturalists, a knowledge of which fact always enhances the in- terest of a country in the eyes of the explorer, who pushes his way through its tangled jun- ; gles, or visits its unfrequented spots and its sultry forests, for the first time. After my arrival in New Orleans, the months a are included in the pseudo-winter of this / SCIENCE. Fie. 1.—Life-size head of Muraenopsis tridactylus; adult. 159 sub-tropical land came and passed by, before my collection could boast of a single specimen representing the Amphiumida: indeed, it was not until April had almost made its appear- ance that a superannuated old negro presented — himself one morning with a live but rather small specimen of the three-toed siren, the subject of this essay. He called it a ‘ Congo eel,’ —a name which is indifferently applied by every one here, intelligent as well as ignorant, to both this reptile and Amphiuma means. Long before this, reports had come to me from far and near of the dreaded ‘ Congo ,’ or ‘ lamprey ’ as it is often called. It was universally said that its bite was invariably fatal. To such an extent was this believed, that, I am told, a physi- cian of the city, of undoubted reputation in his profession, and a capital chemist, but pos- sessing nothing more than a general knowledge of natural science, was actually making experi- ments with the view of examining the venom of this innocent amphibian. When my aims became pretty thoroughly known throughout my section of the country, I applied a very different kind of analysis to this problem: a good round sum of money was offered to any one.who would bring me the full record of a well authenticated case of death from the bite of the Congo snake, or eel. It is almost need- less to add, that I never had to pay the re- ward. One person, more mercenary than well informed in such matters, did bring forward a case of an hysterical old colored woman who had been bitten several years ago by a Congo eel, and died six months after the infliction of the wound, in spasms! The small one, which now came into my Drawn from the living specimen by the author. possession, was placed in water, in a large comfortable vessel, for observations upon his habits, before he was finally consigned to his tank of alcohol. In handling him, he rarely 160 offered to bite, unless the examination was pro- longed or roughly conducted; then he would eurl up, slowly open his mouth, and make an awkward longe at the fingers or hand that held him. Sometimes he would only open his mouth, and hiss in a subdued manner. On one occasion, however, this reptile succeeded in getting out of his tub during the night. When I found him, in the morning, in a distant part of the room, he snapped at me quite savage- ly several times before he was retaken. It was amusing to see the way in which he suc- ceeded in leaping out of his place of confine-. ment, —a large tin bath-tub, with the water seven or eight inches below the brim. He swam round and round with increasing rapid- ity till the necessary impetus was acquired, when he would prettily make a sort of spring over the side of his tub on the floor, where he would squirm round like an eel until he was replaced. In such situations he uses his legs to the full extent to which they seem capable of being put; in the water, too, these members are constantly brought into use, — the fore-pair when he desires to move very slowly forward, in’ which case he may or may not, generally not, use the hind-pair in aiding the action. The fore-pair are also used alternately to push himself one way or another, when he wishes to change his course. A common use for the hind-pair, is to throw them forward, and brace them against the ground he may be passing over, in order to check his onward movement either partially or entirely. In swimming about he has all the appearance of the com- mon eel; and during these times he draws both pairs of limbs close beside his body, when his action is graceful and interesting to behold. When these sirens are at rest, they either stretch out in gentle curves, sluggishly along the bottom, or, what is not very uncommon for them to do, eurl up tightly, in a spiral manner, the latter two thirds of their length, while the head and remaining third is protruded for- ward in a direct line. In this curious position they float near the surface, the head being lowermost. If two occupy the same vessel, they often curl about each other in a rather affectionate manner; but I have never wit- nessed them quarrel or fight. One time I threw a dead king-snake into the tub of my first small specimen, the snake being at least three times as long as the siren. Imagine my surprise to see him fly at the intruder, seize’ him just below the head, straighten out as stiff .as he could, then rapidly whirl round, as a drill does, causing the dead snake to be spirally coiled about his body. A moment of quietude SCIENCE. (Vou. IL, No. 27. followed this strange manoeuvre, during which time one could see a crunching movement on the part of the jaws of the siren going on; but, finding his enemy showed, no resistance, he slowly let go his hold, and, freeing himself from the dead snake’s coils, swam about the tub without paying him any further attention. In a few moments, however, I repeated the experiment, when he made the same attack with just as much vigor as before ; but all sub- sequent trials failed, and I could never induce him to take further heed of such a harmless enemy. This siren will eat crayfish in confinement ; but I could neyer induce one to take any thing else, although raw meat is the commom bait used by the negroes in catching them for me. Sometimes before a meal, or may be after, your captive will swim gracefully about his limited quarters, and, occasionally rise to the surface, stick his nose out of the water, and give vent to a loud blowing sound, that may be heard anywhere in a large room, even if con- versation be going on. As remarked above, my collectors usually took such specimens as were brought me, with the ordinary hook and line, baited with fresh meat; but very often they are captured in hand dip-nets, or even thrown out of a shallow drain or bayou with a stick. They are most numerous after heavy rains, when their usual places of resort are flooded over. When taken by others than those who are collecting for me, they are in- variably despatched on the spot, and dread- fully and wantonly mutilated, so deep-seated is the detestation and dread of this harmless creature in the minds of all the people here- about. ; In a large, shallow tank of water, I have be- fore me now two fine living specimens of this siren, which have been under my observation for nearly a fortnight. The larger of these two has a total length of eighty centimetres, with a mid-girth of fourteen centimetres. I have kept specimens alive that measured a hundred or more centimetres, but they have since been consigned to alcohol. The speci- men now before me, just measured, is of a dark olivaceous brown above, and entirely so on all the parts beyond the hind-pair of limbs. A patch of this color is also found upon the throat. The color of the under parts is a dull, whitish leaden hue, being mottled with an in- termediate shade as it joins the darker and more sombre color of the dorsal aspect of the body. This mottling grows denser as it ap- proaches the hinder limbs, where finally it merges into the general tint of the upper sur- Se ee tt—t ded Avene de Avueusr 10, 1883.] face, which is carried over the tail. A faint lateral crease is found along the mid-third of the body, with feeble corrugations crossing it vertically, that are quite evident as the crea- ture writhes about, and the eel-like slime that naturally coyers his entire body partially dries. The limbs are pretty well developed: each is three-fingered, or, better, each possesses three digits. The hinder limbs are larger than the fore ones, and stronger in every way. The body tapers to a tail beyond the genital fissure, but no well-marked constriction indicates to us its exact commencement, or attachment to the body. It is rounded beneath, and finished off along the median dorsal line with a thick- ened, feebly pronounced crest. Sections made through the body itself, between the fore and hind limbs, are elliptical, with the major axes in the horizontal plane. I have taken other measurements from this specimen, which I present in the form of a table. OS TERRI SS eS © ee pOe eee rey 80.0 cent. ROROOMIE te se Sk is les ie ce yee mish Als 14.0 Weguror fore-liinb sua rie Ms 1 fea Aes hind-Minds Wier penesiveyt ketaageh io) bey 1 2.5m ee OAC ss, ).6/ ba Lisle te ds cohen oie iA fan) s 6.054 Distance between theeyes . . .-...--+s 20 mei ic wih es APO TOStrIS, Pre i I eae 5 ¥ RS mid-points bet’n eyes and nostrils, 2.2 * SORE ATOM AIO ee ed del ois ee etd py mize 4.2 BOGRNCPE EPALG Sic ae We a) se ee a, by ta oy * PP a Lome tal fete be ct M iio Pteh siete he! Te iar et Length of genital fissure. . 2... ee ew ee 12 “ Commissure of jaw from gill-cleft. . . ..... 3.0. « From a point midway between hind-limbs to tip of tail, 20.0 The nasal apertures are very small, and the eyes are black, round, a little more than a millimetre in diameter, and devoid of lids. I may remark here, that, while engaged in taking these measurements, this specimen suc- ceeded in seizing my thumb in his mouth, and immediately commenced his peculiar gyrations, turning himself in the long axis of his body; but I was too strong for him, and soon disen- gaged myself. The bite caused no more in- convenience than those I have received from alligators a month old. The upper lips of the three-fingered siren are thin-edged and pendulous, extending from the commissure of the jaw to a point nearly opposite the nostril on either side, where they merge into the rounded snout. The lower lips do not meetin front by a centimetre. They are likewise thick and sharp-edged, overbanging the common integument of the lower jaw, and originating posteriorly within the commissure and beneath the upper lips. Minute glandular openings are seen on the head above, and in the maxillary space beneath, symmetrically arranged in rows, as on other parts of the SCIENCE. 7 161 body. We find the gill-clefts with two obliquely placed lips, with which they can be closed, the anterior one being the larger. The internal openings to the gill-clefts are far back in the pharynx, nearly opposite the rudimen- tary and partially cartilaginous larynx, which latter communicates directly with the superior extremities of the membranous pulmonary air- passages. A pair of normal lungs are among the most exquisite of structures in any verte- brate. Here they are particularly beautiful, being very long, cylindrical in form, extending far down into the abdomen, to terminate in pointed extremities. The right is thirteen cen- timetres longer than the left, and is carried nearly down to a point opposite the cloaca. From one end to the other, the alimentary tract is nearly or quite a straight tube. The oesoph- ageal portion is rather small and tubular, with a few circular constrictions in its lower third. This division soon dilates into a spindle-shaped stomach of some size, which, in the specimen before me, is fourteen centimetres below the pharyngeal aperture. Below this last dilation the intestinal tract is carried straight to the cloaca, or rectal enlargement, into which the urinary and genital organs open. A very peculiar feature is noticeable in the circular constrictions that occur in the intestine at ir- regular intervals along its length. Very dark in color, the many-lobed liver is about twenty- six centimetres long, and covers at its lower tenth, or thicker extremity, an ellipsoidal gall- bladder of no small size. Many features of interest and importance present themselves in the circulatory and renal systems ; but our space will not permit us to enter upon them here, as we have something to say about the osteology of Muraenopsis. Among other organs, a well- developed pancreas is to be observed ; and the Wolffian bodies are present, and their dilated upper extremities are about opposite the lower end of the liver. The tongue in this siren is in an extremely rudimentary stage of development. I will close this brief sketch of the anatomy of the soft parts — yet it can hardly be termed a sketch, for many structures have not even been alluded to—by calling the reader’s attention to the remarkable length of time that nervous excita- bility, if I may apply such a term t6 the phe- nomenon, was kept up. My specimen was killed with chloroform. That of itself took a long time, forty minutes or more ;. but what is this, compared with the fact that its heart continued to pulsate in good rhythmical time during three hours and a half of my operations, and after the most extensive dis- 162 Fie. 2.— Dorsal, ventral, lateral, and posterior views of the skull of Muraenopsis tridactylus (life-size), respectively rep- resented in A, B, C, and D, where like lettering has the same indicationineach view. Pmzx, premaxillary; Vo, vomer; mz, maxillary ; s.e, splen-ethmoid; pa. s, parasphenoid; pt, ptery- goid; sg, squamosal; ca, columella auris; e.o, exoccipital; 0.c, occipital cordyle; pn, foramen for exit of pneumogastric and glosso-pharyngeal nerves; ena, external nasal aperture; Wa, nasal; F, frontal; p, parietal; on, foramen for the pas- sage of of the orbito-nasal nerve, the first division of the fifth pair, to the rhinal cavity ; 0s, orbito-sphenoidal region; pr.o, ro-otic; d, dental element of mandible; an, angulae; jm, foramen magnum; pi, roof of the mouth. SCIENCE. i [Vou. IL, No. 27. sections had been made? And four hours and a half after, when all the organs had been re- moved, and inroads made upon the trunk, this creature would still writhe vigorously by simply pinching his tail, or close his jaws like a vice in a way that would put the hardiest of eels to shame, and crush any claim the latter might have in standing at the head of the list of those animals most tenacious of life. We find the cranium of Muraenopsis very thoroughly ossi- fied, and many of the sutures observable only after close inspection.- The teeth are of the pleurodont type, and may be seen in all stages of development in the deep grooves that exist in the mandible, the maxilla, the premaxilla (which usually supports twelve), and the entire inner margins of the descending plates of the vomers, which meet each other anteriorly (fig. 2, A). A long, slender, sphen-ethmoid is in- serted between these last bones, quite distinctly seen on the inferior aspect. The premaxilla throws backward a nasal process that overlaps the frontals above, and passes between the nasals. These latter seg- ments are very much honeycombed and grooved, —a characteristic which is adopted by the an- terior extremities of the frontals and the upper parts of the maxilla on either side. The co- ronal suture is seen beyond, a demi-lozenge shaped and elevated plate, developed by the united frontals, directed backward (fig. 2, B). Each outer margin of the parietal region is raised into a curling crest, as if pushed up by the unusually large squamosals, which lend to the lateral aspect of the skull of this creature such a massive appearance. As in other Urodela, a large columella auris is seen on either side, external to the extensive pro- cesses that project backward, to bear the occipital condyles (fig. 2, D). A pro-otie is well developed ; but it is difficult to determine in the adult cranium whether a separate epi- otic and opisthotic exist or not, though I am strongly inclined to think they do not. The pterygoids are completely ossified, and quite extensive, horizontally flattened, and curved plates of bone, their anterior extremities being prolonged with a fibrous tissue to form the floors of the orbits. The lower maxilla is very deep and solid; and, although the meeting of the dentary elements anteriorly is quite extensive, the symphysis is not firm. Nearly the entire basicranial region is occupied by the wide- spreading and anteriorly produced parasphe- noid (fig. 2, A), which, with its serrated margin, articulates with the parallel vomerine plates beyond. We have presented us for examination in — Aveust 10, 1883.] the hyoidean apparatus (fig. 3) two reniform hypo-hyals in cartilage, surmounted by a triple piece of the same material that occupies the usual site of the glosso-hyal. In the median line we have a thoroughly ossified basi-hyal ; while curved bony cerato-hyals, with expanded cartilaginous anterior ends, are suspended from the hypo-hyals. Four branchial arches are represented ; the first pair being long, curved bones, and the remaining ones cartilage. The gill-clefts open to the rear of the last pair on either side. The spinal column of an adult Muraenopsis contains one hundred and ten well-ossified vertebrae. The second and third of these have suspended from their transverse processes free ribs, of which the anterior pair is the larger. A strongly marked intercondyloid process is formed between the two concave facets on the anterior aspect of the atlas. As a rule, all these vertebrae, except the first and the ex- tremely rudimentary caudal ones, are of the amphicoelous type, with lofty neural spines,— far-spreading transversed processes that become horizontally broadened in mid-spinal region, — and with well-marked zygapophysial processes to link the series together. None of these ' vertebrae are modified to form a sacrum in con- am L Fic. 3.—Hyoidean and branchial ‘apparatus of Muraenopsis tridactylus; life-size; dotted parts in cartilage; gh, rudi- mentary glosso-hyal; AA, hypo-hyal; ch, cerato-hyal; 1, b?, 68, and J, branchial arches; ge, gill-cleft. nection with the pelvis in the precaudal region ; beyond which, each segment throws down parial hypapophysial processes, which are not lost, as we proceed backwards, until we arrive at the ultimate nodules that complete the tip of the tail. In my specimen the thirty-third and thirty- fourth vertebrae have coalesced in the most : SCIENCE. 163 remarkable manner, forming one bone, with nearly all the parts double. The appendicular skeleton is represented by extremely rudimen- tary shoulder and pelvic girdles, supporting equally feebly developed limbs, with their seg- ments arranged as seen in fig. 4. We find 22 fi Fie. 4.—A, right fore-limb and rudimentary shoulder-girdle; B, right hind-limb and rudimentary pelvis, both slightly en- larged, of M. tridactylus. From dissections by the author. the carpus has three cartilaginous elements in its structure, —two in the proximal row, and only one in the distal.. This number is in- creased by an additional segment in the tarsus, which has two elements in each row, articulat- ing with the digits, as shown in the figure. Osseous tissue of an elementary character may be deposited in the humerus, the femur, and certain points in the pelvis, more particu- larly the projecting rod that appears to repre- sent the pubic bone; otherwise all this part of the skeleton in our siren remains in cartilage throughout life. R. W. SHurevpr. THE GREAT TERMINAL MORAINE ACROSS PENNSYLVANIA.) AFTER describing the investigations which else- where had demonstrated the existence of a true ter- minal moraine to the glacier covering north-eastern America, the author stated, that having obtained the aid of the geological survey of Pennsylvania, and, during a portion of his work, the assistance of Prof. G. F. Wright, he had been able to follow and define the southern limit of glaciation for the first time in a continuous line four hundred miles in length, and to find that it was everywhere marked by a remark- able accumulation of glaciated material, which, wind- ing across mountains and valleys, from the lowlands of the Delaware to the great Alleghany plateau, was continuous from end to end, and formed a true ter- minal moraine. There is a marked distinction between the glaci- ated portion of Pennsylvania and that region south of glacial action. Although the general topography of the two regions is alike, the varied superficial features due to glacial agencies, the far travelled and seratched bowlders, the smoothed and striated 1 Abstract of a paper before the American association for the advancement of science, in Montreal, August, 1882. By Prof. H. Carvitt Lewis. : 164 rock-exposures, the unstratified deposit of till, the many kames, and especially the numerous glacier- scratched fragments and pebbles, — all these deposits are in strong contrast with those south of the moraine, where all the gravels are stratified and the pebbles water-worn, where the rocks are never polished or striated, but, on the other hand, often decomposed to a great depth, and where, except near the seacoast, wide stretches of the more elevated regions are per- fectly free from all drift. The method employed in discovering the line of the moraine was to zigzag along its course from the glaciated into the non-glaciated region, and vice versa, going each time far enough on the one side to be fully satisfied of the absence of glaciation, and, on the other, to find undoubted traces of its action. Nowhere south of the line of the terminal moraine had he found any traces of glacial action, all state- ments by other geologists to the contrary notwithstand- ing. When typically developed, the terminal moraine is characterized by peculiar contours of its own. A series of hummocks, or low conical hills, alternate with short straight ridges, and enclose shallow basin- shaped depressions, which, like inverted hummocks in shape, are known as kettle-holes. Large bowlders are scattered over the surface; and the unstratified till which composes the deposit is filled with glacier- scratched bowlders and fragments of all sizes and shapes. The average width of the moraine is about one mile. } At many places, however, the limit of glaciation is marked merely by an unusual collection of large transported bowlders. This is especially the case in front of a high mountain range which has ‘ combed out’ the drift from the ice. The general course of the moraine across Pennsyl- vania was defined as follows: appearing first in Northampton county, a mile below Belvidere, at lati- tude 40° 49’, it winds in a great curve, first westward and then northward, reaching the base of the Kitta- tinny Mountain, three miles east of the Wind-Gap. Ascending to the top of the Kittatinny Mountain, sixteen hundred feet high, the moraine crosses the great valley between the Kittatinny and the Pocono, and then swings sharply back and around Pocono Knob, immediately afterwards to ascend the steep face of the mountain to the wide plateau on top, twenty-one hundred feet above the sea. Crossing this in a fine curve, and heaped up in an immense accumulation, it goes first north and afterwards west, reaching the gorge of the Lehigh River, some ten miles north of Mauch Chunk. It crosses the gorge at Hickory Run, and, without swerving from its general north-western course, ascends mountain range after mountain range, descends to the valley of the east branch of the Susquehanna, and cross the river at Beach Haven. Then, following the base of Huntington or ees Mountain, it finally ascends it, and crossing its sum- mit, at a height of fifteen hundred feet above the Susquehanna just below, descends the north slope of the mountain to the broad, undulating valley to the north. Taking a northerly course, it follows up on SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 27. the east bank of Fishing Creek to the North or Alleghany Mountain, enters Lycoming county,”passes westward along the base of the mountain, crossing in its course the Muncy and Loyalsock creeks, and then, near the village of Loyalsock, turns at right angles, and ascends the mountain. Having reached the summit of the Alleghanies, over two thousand feet above the sea, it passes west through a wild, wooded region nearly as far as {Pine Creek, where it begins a nearly straight north- westward course through the south-west corner of Tioga county, and the north-west part of Potter. In the high ground of Potter county, the moraine crosses a great continental watershed, from’ which the waters flow into the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario, and Chesapeake Bay. The moraine is}here finely shown at an elevation of twenty-five hundred and eighty feet, being higher than elsewhere in”the United States. It now enters the state of New York in the south- west corner of Allegany county. Passing still north- west, and entering Cattaraugus county, it twice crosses the winding course of the Allegheny River, east and west of Olean; then trending to a point five mniles north of Salamanca, in latitude 42° 15’, it forms aremarkable apex, whence to the Ohio line its course is south-west. Turning at right angles to its former course, the moraine passes south-west through the south-east corner of Chautauqua county, and, keep- ing approximately parallel to the course of the Alle- gheny River, re-enters Pennsylvania in Pine Grove township, Warren county. Itcrosses the Conewango River seven miles north of Warren; then trending west, still at a general elevation of nearly two thou- sand feet above the sea, it crosses one gorge after another, and forms a line separating not only the glaciated from the non-glaciated region, but also the cultivated from the uncultivated and densely wooded region. It crosses the south-east corner of Crawford county, skirts the north-west and west boundary,of Venango county, crosses Beaver River eight miles south of New Castle, and, traversing the extreme north-west corner of Beaver county, crosses the Ohio state line in the middle of Darlington township, thirteen miles north of the Ohio River. The moraine thus leaves Pennsylvania at precisely the latitude at which it entered the state; and, if a straight line were drawn across the state between these two points, the line of the moraine would form with it a nearly right-angled triangle whose apex was a hundred miles distant perpendicularly from its base. The total length of the moraine, as here shown, is about four hundred miles. The moraine crosses the Delaware at an elevation of two hundred and fifty feet, the Allegheny at an elevation of four- teen hundred and twenty-five feet, and the Beaver at an elevation of eight hundred feet, above the sea, or two hundred and twenty-five feet above Lake Erie. Upon the high lands it rises higher by a thousand feet or more. Coming to the details of the moraine, many of which are of great interest, reference was made to its fine development in Northampton county, west of «~ ~ inareie Wee Jay THE GREAT TERMINAL MORAINE ACROSS PENNSYLVANIA, by H. Carvitt Lewis. +s The Glaciated area is shaded. 166 Bangor, where it forms a series of hummocky hills, which, a hundred to two hundred feet in height, and covered with transported and striated bowlders, rise abruptly out of a clayey plain to the west. Glacial striae upon exposed surfaces near Bangor point south-west, or towards the moraine. After fol- lowing the moraine to the base of the Kittatinny Mountain, it became of great interest to know whether a great lobe of ice descended from New Jersey along the lower side of the mountain, or whether a tongue projected through the Delaware Water-Gap, or whether the glacier, even so close to its southern limit, came bodily over the top of the mountain, unchecked by it, and unchanged in its course. ‘The last, the most improbable of these hypotheses, and certainly the least expected by the author, proved to be undoubtedly the trueone. The author had been able to show that the moraine crossed the mountain near Offset Knob; that large bowlders, derived from lower elevations several miles northward, lie perched all along the summit, fourteen hundred feet above the sea; and that, as shown by the numerous striae on the northern slope of the mountain, running wp-hill, the glacier moved diago- nally up and across the mountain, uninfluenced in any way by the presence of the Water-Gap, and finally came to an end in the valley south of the moun- tain, as marked out by the terminal moraine. Huge bowlders of fossiliferous limestone, sometimes thirty feet long, were torn by the ice from their parent strata in Monroe county, on the north side of the mountain, lifted up a thousand feet, carried across the mountain, and dropped finally in the slate valley of Northampton county. The author had found one of these limestone bowlders upon the very summit of the mountain, where the jagged sandstone rocks had combed it out of the ice during its passage across. The journeys of these bowlders were short; but that of a well-rounded bowlder of Adirondack syenite, which the author had found in the same county, was about two hundred miles. . Another interesting point is in Monroe county, upon the summit of Pocono Mountain, over two thousand feet above the sea, where a great ridge of moraine hills twelye miles long, one mile wide, and a hundred or more feet high, composed of unstratified till, and bearing numerous bowlders of Adirondack gneisses and granites, rises out of the level, sandy plain of the Pocono plateau, and sweeps around from Pocono Knob into Carbon county. Known locally as ‘Long Ridge,’ its origin had never before been suspected. It encloses re- markable little ‘moraine lakes’ without inlet or outlet, and is heaped up into just such ‘conical hills as may be seen in the moraine in southern Massachusetts. Nothing can more clearly show the continuity and uniformity of action of the great glacier than the identity of its moraine accumulations at such remote points. In fact, the course of the moraine, as it winds from the top of the Kittatinny Mountain down to Cherry valley, and then up again on to the Pocono, is a complete vindication of the glacial hypothesis. Itis SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No, 27. in no sense a water-level, nor could it have been formed by floating ice. No other cause than that of a great glacier could form a continuous accumulation of glaciated material which contains no evidences of water-action, and which follows such a course. Neither on the mountains nor in the valley does the moraine rest against any defined barrier, as would be the case were it a shore-line. The kames of Cherry valley, fine examples of which appear south of Stroudsburg, are interesting relics of sub-glacial water-action. They are com- posed of stratified water-worn gravel, having often an anticlinal structure, and as a series of conical hills and reticulated ridges, enclosing ‘ kettle-holes,’ form conspicuous objects in the centre of the valley. They appear to have been formed by sub-glacial rivers, which, flowing from the moraine backwards, under or at the edge of the ice, emptied into the Delaware valley. They thus probably differ in origin from the longer kames in New England, and other regions more remote from the edge of the glacier, The glacier had produced very slight effect upon the topography of Pennsylvania. It neither levelled down mountains nor scooped out eafions, The glacier passed bodily across the sharp edge of the Kittatinny Mountain without having any appreciable effect upon it, the glaciated part of the ridge being as~ high and as sharp as that part south of the moraine. In describing the course of the moraine across Luzerne county, the author showed that it crossed several mountain chains in succession, by each of which it was locally deflected northward. At the point where the terminal moraine crosses Buck Mountain, in a line diagonally across the mountain, the moraine was so sharply defined that he was able to stand with one foot upon ihe glaciated and the other upon the non-glaciated region. It was interesting to find, that in front of a mountain chain, such as Huntington Mountain or the Alleghany Mountain, the moraine. was poorly developed, as though the mountain had ‘combed out’ the drift from the ice. He described an instructive portion of the moraine, where, three and one-half miles north-west of Ber- wick, it seems to abut against a high slate hill, which furnishes, therefore, a section of the end of the glacier. It shows that the extreme edge of the ice was here only about four hundred feet thick, and that, while the moraine and the scratched pebbles were carried along at the base of the ice, sharp frag- ments of sandstone were carried on top. In speaking of the apex made by the moraine in New York, and of the high plateau region of Potter county, it was inferred, from the local influence al- ready shown by the author to have been exerted by single mountain chains, that this region of high eleyation had a decided influence upon the general course of the moraine. Certain facts observed as to the grayel-ridges of the Allegheny River rendered it probable that the river flowed under a tongue of the glacier, ten miles broad and two miles long, through a sub-glacial channel, at the time of its greatest extension near Olean, He ~ Vi as Aveusrt 10, 1883.] described a great natural dam across the valley of the Great Valley Creek, near Peth, where the moraine stretches across the valley from side to side: and he spoke of the contrast between the numerous drain- age valleys which drained the waters of the melting ice into the Allegheny River, and those valleys which took their rise south of the moraine, and were free from all drift. After giving some details of the western lobe of the ice-sheet, and dwelling upon the agricultural significance of the moraine, he spoke of some curious deposits of glaciated material which occurred in a narrow strip of ground immediately in front of the moraine, and which he had named the ‘fringe.’ These deposits consisted of bowlders of Canadian granite, and other rocks, which he found perched upon the summits of hills, sometimes as far as five miles in front of the moraine, though never farther. This glacial ‘ fringe,’ confined to the western part of the state, was found to increase in width from two miles in Warren county to five miles on the Ohio line, and was at first a puzzling phenomenon. The hy- pothesis suggested was, that, like breakers on the sea- shore, the top of the ice overreached the lowest strata by the width of the ‘fringe,’ and that while the moraine marked the halting-place of the bottom of the ice, by which it was formed, the far-transported bowlders were carried on more rapidly in the top strata of the ice, and were dropped outside of the moraine to form the ‘fringe.’ It was stated that the striae in the western part of the state all pointed south-east, being at right angles to those in the eastern part of the state, but, like them, pointing ~ always towards the moraine. In conclusion, the author reviewed the more im- portant facts discovered during his exploration of the line of the moraine, dwelling upon the character of the moraine where crossing river-valleys, the absence of proof of any tongues of ice down such valleys, the absence of glacial drift south of the moraine, the very slight erosion caused by the pas- sage of the glacier, and especially upon the deflec- tions, large and small, in the line of the moraine, which were inexplicable on any other hypothesis than that the moraine now described was pushed out at the foot of a continuous ice-sheet of immense extent. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Change of birds’ notes. For some years it has been known to many about here, that in one locality the cardinal bird (Cardinalis virginianus) has been in the habit of imitating the notes of the whippoorwill (Antrostomus vociferus). From articles I have read from time to time in vari- ous scientific journals, I infer that it is not generally known that birds ever, in the wild state (especially eardinalis), change their song. I therefore thought it well to report this case. I have in several instances known this bird to change its song, under confinement, for one entirely different; but this is the only case I have ever known where such a thing has occurred in the wild state. I have known of this case for about ten years. F, O. JAcoss. Newark, Licking county, O. SCIENCE. 167 St. David's rocks and universal law. The article with the above heading in Scrence of June 15, by Dr. M. E. Wadsworth, has just come under my observation; and, as it refers to questions which have arisen chiefly in consequence of my re- searches among those rocks, I shall deem it a favor if you will allow me space in Science for a few remarks in explanation. Professor Geikie’s paper was written with, as he states, ‘a sense of duty’ to ‘defend the views of his predecessors ;’ and it is per- fectly certain, from the hasty manner in which the work was gone over by Professor Geikie and his two assistants, that the object was to vindicate the work of the Geological survey of thirty or forty years ago, rather than to apply the knowledge gained by the work of many independent observers since that time to correct the errors well known to have been com- mitted by the surveyors, which remain as blots on the maps even now issued by the Geological survey. In the district of St. David's, these maps show a great intrusive mass passing under the city of St. David's, about eight miles in length, and with an average width of about a mile. The southern portion is called syenite, and the other felstone. The rocks ly- ing along the north-western edge for about a mile in width are colored as altered Cambrian, presumably as the result of the intrusion; but on the south-east the rocks of the same age are supposed to be in con- tact with the mass in an unaltered condition, and without even a line of fault to separate them. ‘These appearances were curiously anomalous if true: hence I felt it necessary to go very carefully into the ques- tion. My large acquaintance with the district, and the knowledge I bad obtained in my explorations among the lower fossiliferous rocks of the area, enabled me to do this with some advantage. I had also, from time to time, much valuable assistance from Professors Harkness, Hughes, and Bonney, and from Mr. T. Davies. of the British museum, Mr. Tawney, ete. I found that under the same name, rocks of very different characters had been grouped together. The so-called syenite ridge was seen to consist in part of granitoid rocks, but also of quartz-felsites, of hille- flintas, of breccias, and of porcellanites freely trav- ersed by intrusive dikes of various kinds. The so- called metamorphic Cambrian on the north-west was soon discovered to be an entirely distinct series from any Cambrian rocks known in the district, or, indeed, anywhere in Wales, and to be largely made up of voleanie rocks; and the basal Cambrian conglomer- ate, as marked on the survey-maps, was shown to overlie the granitoid, the quartz-felsite, hiilleflinta, and the voleanic schistose and brecciated series un- conformably, and to be mainly made up of fragments derived from those series. From the examination of the conglomerates also, it was seen that there were distinet evidences of their having been deposited along old coast-lines, and that their materials varied with the rocks upon which they reposed; also that these pre-Cambrian rocks must have been much in the condition in which they are now found, before the Cambrian conglomerates were deposited upon them. Curiously, also, I found that many of the masses colored as intrusive greenstones 6n the sur- vey-maps were highly acid rocks, and others in- durated voleanic ashes of pre-Cambrian age. Indeed, nearly all the so-called intrusive masses marked so abundantly on the survey-map among the older rocks in the St, David’s area have been proved beyond doubt to be the result of erroneous observation; and yet we are told by the present director-general that little or no change is required in these maps, and that he 168 feels it his duty to ‘defend the views of his prede- cessors’ as there indicated. There is a still larger area of the Dimetian rocks about ten miles to the east of St. David’s; and there, as at St. David’s, these granitoid rocks underlie the lowest Cambrian beds without producing the slightest alteration in the latter. Indeed, I have now found no less than six areas in Wales where typical Dimetian granitoid rocks occur under the Cambrian or pre-Cambrian rocks; and in neither of these areas, though several excellent observers have, in addition to myself, searched the boundaries carefully, have we found the slightest indications of their being intrusive in those rocks, though they are all colored as intrusive rocks in the survey-maps. In several of these areas the fact that they must be pre-Cambrian rocks is rendered perfectly certain, as large fragments of the granitoid rocks in exactly the same condition in which they are now found occur in the basal conglomerates of the Cam- brian. In one area only, in Wales, have I found Dimetian rocks entirely surrounded by rocks newer than the Cambrian; and here the Llandovery con- glomerates and sandstones repose upon them, and are largely made up of materials derived from the Dimetian. In the other areas newer rocks than the Cambrian are found occasionally in contact with limited portions of the Dimetian exposures; but these effects are clearly seen to have been produced by faults. _ In his paper to the Geological society, referred to in Screncr, Professor Geikie maintained ‘‘that the “Dimetian group’ is an eruptive granite which has disrupted and altered the Cambrian strata, even above the horizon of the supposed basal conglomerate.” The evidence adduced to support this view was from a section at Ogof-Llesugn, where, as he supposed, ‘‘ the conglomerate had been torn off and enclosed in the granite, and has been intensely indurated so as to be- come a sort of pebbly quartzite.’ Professor Hughes and myself, along with a number of other competent observers, have since examined this spot; and we found that the conglomerate lies quite loosely upon the Dimetian, that at almost every point we could pass our hand between the conglomerate and the granitoid rock, and that the Cambrian conglomerate had no change whatever induced in it beyond that common to it in all parts of the district. Two other sections were mentioned, and drawings exhibited to show the ‘ Dimetian’ intrusive in the Cambrian, and as having eaten deeply into the series at Porthclais. These sections I knew perfectly well, at the time, to be in the lines of faults; but for greater satisfaction I asked Professor Hughes and party to re-examine these with me. The result proved that I was entirely Tight, and that Professor Geikie and his assistants had mistaken a junction produced by well-marked faulting for an intrusion, and the beds which he sup- posed had been eaten away had simply been dropped by the fault. He could not produce a single speci- men showing contact alteration between the grani- toid (Dimetian series) and overlying rocks. His evidence, therefore, fails utterly, on examination; and the pre-Cambrian age of the granitoid rocks of St. Dayvid’s is rendered, if possible, more than ever certain. An attempt was made to show that the quartz-porphyries which I had pointed out as being intrusive in the Pebidian rocks, which alter the rocks in their immediate vicinity, were just such rocks as might be apophyses of the ‘ granite,’ but, with a curi- ous want of knowledge of the fact that these quartz- borphyries are common to many other parts of the area far distant from the granitoid series, that they also actually in some places cut across the latter. _ SCIENCE. ae 4 oad: bi = [Vou. IL, No. 27. As Professor Geikie did not spend the time neces- sary to examine the area where the Arvonian rocks are chiefly exposed, but hastily arrived at the conclu- sion, without seeing them, that the hiilleflintas, brec- cias, and porcellanites must be intrusive felstones, I need scarcely refer to Professor Geikie’s views on this point. I shall refer fully to this question in my paper, in reply, to the Geological society. I may, however, mention, that I exhibited a series of magnificent brec- cias from this group, and showed large masses of the Cambrian basement conglomerates from Ramsey Is- land, consisting almost entirely of the rocks of the Aryonian group upon which they repose. The latter are colored in the survey-map as intrusive in beds high up in the Silurian (fossiliferous Arenig). : The Pebidian, Professor Geikie says, ‘forms an in- tegral part of the Cambrian system.’ He acknowl- edges that it underlies the Cambrian conglomerate, _ but says the latter rests quite conformably upon the former. In the survey-map these Pebidian beds are supposed to be Cambrian beds higher than the con- glomerate, but altered by the so-called intrusions. Here, therefore, some modification of the map is acknowledged to be necessary. Had Professor Geikie and his assistants used ordinary care in examining these conglomerates, they would haye seen also that they are constantly in contact with different mem- bers of the underlying rocks, that they lie unconform- _ ably on the edges of those beds, and also that they are very largely made up of the rocks below. Professor Geikie did not refer to North Wales in his paper; but as the facts are, if possible, clearer there than in South Wales, I may be allowed to call the attention of the readers of SciENCE to some sections just published by the Geologists’ association of London, preparatory to the visit to be paid by the members to Carnarvonshire and Anglesey, July 23— -28. These sections show in a very clear manner how the Cambrian conglomerates creep over the Dime- tian, Arvonian, and Pebidian rocks in that area. The rocks of the first two and lowest groups are in that area, as at St. David’s, colored as intrusive rocks in the survey-maps, and the last as altered Cambrian and Silurian rocks. The sections have been prepared by Prof. T. McK, Hughes (Woodwardian professor of geology at Cam- bridge, and formerly of the Geological survey), who has carefully worked out the geology of this district. He and I were the first to point out, in the year 1877, the similarity of the conditions exhibited here to those at St. David’s; and since then he has devoted much time to the elucidation of the facts bearing upon the questions in that area. In a diagram (no. 1) he shows how the basement conglomerate of the Cambrian, between Bangor and Carnarvon, creeps over no less than four sub-groups of the archean rocks: viz., at Bangor, over the Bry- niau beds (Pebidian); at Brithdir, the Dinorwig beds (Arvonian ?); at another part farther south, the Crug beds (upper Dimetian); and at Tut Hill, the Carnar- von beds (lower Dimetian). In section 2, the uncon- formable overlap of the Cambrian over the Pebidian near Bangor is clearly shown; and in no, 3, a diagram section showing the sequence of the rocks from Car- narvon to Snowdon, the basement beds of the Cam- brian are shown rolling over the Carnarvon and Din-. orwig groups at different points.- ; , Altogether, the evidence afforded by these sections is of the most conclusive kind; and it seems impos- sible to believe that the surveyors, when they have seen and examined these sections, and have had more experience with the Welsh rocks, can still cling to the antiquated faith that all these pre-Cambrian rocks : | x _ Aueusr 10, 1883.] - rian and Cambrian age. SCIENCE. 169 1.— Diagram plan showing how the Cambrian basement beds creep over the*various divisions of the archean between Bangor and Carnarvon (Hughes). OARNARYON. S.W. * Cambrian. Bancor. Archean. ~ &, Sandstone and shale of Cambrian. a, Conglomerate and grit of Cambrian basement beds. . bidian, ete.). - — ~ — - — - ——s A, Bryniau beds } Bangor group (= Pe- | C, Crug beds / Carnarvon group (= Dime- B, Dinorwig beds } D, Twt beds \_ tian). *1, Twt Hill; *2, Yscyborwen; *3, Careggoch; *4, Llandeiniolen; *5, Tymawr; *6, Brithdir; *7, Hendrewen; *8, Bryniau Bangor. 2. — Diagram section east and west across Bryniau Bangor. Length of section about one mile (Ilughes). 102 é a2s S Fe g BOs = P25 x Rass 3 2°58 e gwLe°9 = e7-2k i=] oe > = i=) a he ze Nee a o¢ £9 S 2k as > 24 Pr as os Se og as, Zo us : se ef S Sos om 2 55% 2 - 2 —— = — ae a a a”? a a* a b, Bangor beds (upper Pebidian); a', Conglomerate and sandstone (basement bed of Cambrian); a@*, Sandy mudstone; a, Finer felspathic mudstone; a‘, Pale green felspathic mudstone; a5, Cleaved and contorted felspathic mudstone; @*, Purple and green fine mudstone and slate; a’, Fine sandy flags, like the Bray beds, purple, and here and there green, passing up into brown; a’, Even-bedded thin gray sandstones; a®, Banded flags, passing up into a", Black slates. 8. — Diagram-section showing the sequence of rocks from Carnarvon to Snowdon. Length of section ten miles (Hughes). Carnarvon. Twt Hill. Pont Seiont. NW. Oe ee Ee Aa c CpFx @ B Lianrug. Slate Cwmglo. Llyn Padarn. quarries. Llyn Peris. “a T= Snowdon. Ez ees a, Ba SONNE Archean. ‘ A, Carnarvon group (Dimetian); B, Dinorwig group. a, Conglomerate and sandstone (basement bed of Cambrian); 6, Lower and middle portions of Cambrian, not subdivided, but probably including Harlech, Menevian, Lingula flags, and Tremadoc beds; c, Arenig; p, Pisolitic iron ore; d, Bala group, with subordinate volcanic beds; #, Faults; z, Broken ground; D, Dikes. are merely intrusive masses or altered beds of Silu- The basal conglomerate in this area consists in places almost entirely of quartz- felsites, at other points of a mixture of granitoid (true Dimetian) and felsite rocks, and in some cases of schists. I may further mention with regard to the crystalline schists in Anglesey and in Scotland, supposed by the Geological survey also to be of Cam- brian and Silurian age, that the recent researches of Bonney, Callaway, Lapworth, and myself, tend to make it certain that they are all, like the similar rocks in America described by Dr. Sterry Hunt and others, of pre-Cambrian age. Henry Hicks. Hendon, N. W., London, July 5, 1883. a a Silurian strata near Winnipeg. Presuming that it may be of interest to some read- ers of ScrENCE to read something on the geology of a locality near Winnipeg, I take pleasure in furnish- ing information, hitherto unpublished, concerning an outcrop of Silurian strata in this: part of the north-west. This interesting exposure occurs a short distance from Selkirk, situated some twenty-one miles north of Winnipeg on the Canadian Pacific railway, and near the Red River. At this place a quarry was opened about a year ago, which, on examination, affords many attractions to a student of science. Fossils belonging to some sixteen species are readily obtained, not only in the 170 solid rock, but also in the innumerable chippings that lie scattered about the quarry. The rock is magnesian limestone, dresses readily, and, when burnt, supplies excellent lime. Stone from this place is shipped by rail to Winnipeg, where it is used for ordinary and ornamental building-purposes. Many of the fossils being in the form of casts, they frequently interfere with the successful dressing of the stone. About four feet of drift material overlies the rock; but at another quarry lately opened, nearer the river and a short distance farther north, the drift material attains a thickness of twenty feet. The rock is much the same, but apparently not so fossil- iferous. In the quarry first referred to, the remains of cor- als belonging to the genera Alveolaria, Halysites, and Zaphrentis, are very numerous. Some specimens obtained bear a close resemblance to the genus Fayo- sites. Another group of very common fossils are representatives of the genera Orthoceras, Endoceras, Ormoceras, and Cyrtoceras. An excellent specimen measuring eight inches in diameter, with three whorls, wasfound. ‘The specific characters are much obliterated, but in general out- line and appearance it bears a close resemblance to Trocholites ammonius of the Trenton. Several imperfect specimens of Trilobites were found. One appears to be a member of the genus Illaenus. Fragments of Stromatopora are common, showing in all cases distinct lamination, and, in sey- eral, well-defined oscula; while in a few, conical elevations can be observed. The specimens obtained were found among the fragments of rock scattered about the quarry; but the characters of all are exceed- ingly uniform. The largest obtained measures. 7 inches across, 5 in depth, and 2 in thickness. The laminae are well marked, numbering four to the line. They present a wave-like appearance, there being three crests in the section under examination. At the summit of each crest a large aperture is observed. Viewing the specimen from the top, six of these os- cula are seen, all about the same distance apart. As yet, I have discovered no rods or pillars present; but there is no question regarding the presence of well-marked laminae and oscula. I have read carefully the description of the species S. tuberculata, S. perforata, S. granulata, S. mam- mnillata, and S. ostiolata, of Nicholson, and S. concen- trica of Goldfuss, and none seem to embrace the species from this quarry. If any reader of Science can suggest the species to which this interesting fos- sil from Selkirk belongs, he will confer a great favor upon the writer. J. HovES PANTON. Pre-Bonneville climate. In a critical notice of my preliminary report on Lake Bonneville (SctENCE, no. 20), Mr. Dayis points out that a certain conclusion as to the history of the basin isnot sustained by the phenomena described. Since reading his comment, I have not been able to consult my text; but, if memory serves, his restriction is fully warranted. Still, the conclusion is not of necessity overthrown; for it is based in part on omitted. data, the report aiming to present only an outline of the subject. Now that the matter is up for discussion, it may be well to indicate these. The facts set forth are as follows. Above the Bonneville shore-line the topographic forms are those produced by sub-aerial agencies. Below the shore= line the details are of sub-aqueous origin, but the SCIENCE, larger features are sub-aerial in type. Especially are the great alluvial cones constituting the pedi- ments of some of the mountains continued beneath the old water-margin, their surfaces being lightly etched and embossed by lake agencies. Lvidently these alluvial cones are of pre-Bonneville date; and evidently, too, the goal of drainage —‘the base level of erosion’ — was lower when they were built than during the Bonneville epoch. The questioned conclusion is, that the emptiness of the basin during the long pre-Bonneville, alluvial- cone epoch was due to aridity. Mr. Davis acutely perceives, that the adduced phenomena comport equally well with the alternative hypothesis that the pre-Bonneville condition of the basin was one of free drainage to the ocean, the present continuity of the basin’s rim haying been instituted either at or just before the beginning of the Bonneyille ep- och. On this hypothesis, the place at which the drainage of the basin was discharged must have acquired the peculiar configuration of a river-channel; and since, as our observations show, alluvial accumulation has not been great in the region during Bonneyille and post-Bonneyille time, vestiges of this channel should remain. The fact that they have not been found goes far to show that they are not visible; for intelligent search has been made for them, our eyes having been trained for their recognition by the dis- covery of pre-Bonneville channels within the basin. All the low passes of the enclosing rim have been scrutinized. At whatever points, then, earlier drain- age systems have intersected this rim, the channels appear to have been obliterated by the erosive and constructive agencies of land sculpture. Again: the principal plain of the Bonneville basin is at heart mountainous. Its surface is level only because the alluvial mountain bases are deeply buried by Jater deposits. Of the nature of these deposits we know little more than that the uppermost is lacustrine, the Bonneville layer concealing all else. The deposit representing the pre-Bonneville or alluvial-cone epoch must be relatively heavy, and may be assumed to dominate in the determination of the general configuration of the plain. With the basin closed, a certain system of slopes would arise: with the basin open, there would arise a certain other system, definitely related to the point of dis- charge. The actual system of slopes is adjusted to the existing status, —a closed basin, with lacustral sedimentation. Assuming that there was at some remote date a channel of outflow, and that the configuration of the plain was adjusted thereto, the period consumed in the obliteration of the one and the remodelling of the other must have been long as compared with the Bonneville epoch. The pre-Bonneville portion of the period — when the basin was closed, but con- tained no lake — was presumably characterized by a climate similar to the present. The aridity of the pre-Bonneville epoch is one of the features associating the Bonneville history with glacial history; for, if it be disproved, the Bonneville flooding no longer demonstrates a climatic episode and the apparent homology disappears. And the Bonneville oscillations have, of course, no climato- graphic value if they were orographically produced, It is well, therefore, to test thoroughly.every link in the chain of evidence. G. K, GILBERT. Nevada, July 14, 1883. [Vou. IL, No. 27. — r a ar AveustT 10, 1883. } WARD'S DYNAMIC SOCIOLOGY. III. Mr. Warp presents a classification of the sci- ences differing from those proposed by August Comte and Herbert Spencer. The new classi- fication is of great interest, and deserves espe- cial mention. The classification of Comte was made prior to the great development of modern scientific research, and is imperfect. The classification of Spencer is, like much of his philosophy, a mixture of metaphysical speculation and positive knowledge. Does the classification of Ward meet the require- ments of scientific philosophy ? He divides the subject-matter of all science into three parts, which he denominates the ‘ primary,’ ‘ secondary,’ and ‘ tertiary ’ aggre- gations. It is a classification of the objects of the cosmos by modes of aggregation. The primary aggregation is molecular, and gives an inorganic kingdom; the secondary is morpho- logic, and gives a biologic kingdom; the terti- ary is sociologic, and is represented by human society. A mountain is an aggregation of rocks, or geological formations, some of which may be erystalline, others detrital. It is an inorganic molar aggregate, and must fall into Mr. Ward’s first class. But the earth itself is an aggregate of solids, fluids, and gases. Its solids are molar aggregates of detrital and crystalline rocks. These rocks at the surface are arranged in mountains, hills, and valleys, with interven- ing depressions filled with bodies of water, — seas, lakes, and rivers; and beneath, an un- known interior; and above, the atmosphere. The atmosphere is in motion. The water is earried into the air, and moves with it, and de- scends again upon the earth. ‘The known solid portion of the earth is also in motion, rising and falling in its relation to the centre of the earth; while portions of the unknown interior of the earth are, by extravasation, coming to the surface, and the land portions of the earth are being carried by the waters into the sea. Geology teaches us, then, that the earth is composed of interdependent parts; that the circulation of the air, of the waters, of the solids, and of the interior liquids is carried on by the action of the several interdependent parts ; and the earth has been not inaptly com- pared by eminent geologists to a living or organized being. If we properly understand Mr. Ward, this aggregation also is to be rele- gated to his first class. Again: the earth is one of a group of worlds composing the solar system, — the solar aggre- SCIENCE. 171 gation, composed of interdependent parts ; and this aggregation is also to be included in the first class. The inclusion of all of these modes of aggre- gation in the one class is tacit. He does not clearly set them forth, and his definitions are imperfect. It is difficult to understand from his discussion whether they were considered in his general scheme, or whether he would, if considering them, establish one or two more grand categories. Again: psychology is included in the secon- dary aggregation as belonging to biology. As the term is now used by scientific men, ‘ psy- chology’ includes a consideration. of the bio- logie organ of the mind and its operations. Through these operations are produced lan- guages, giving the science of philology; arts, giving the science of technology; societies, giving the science of sociology; and opin- ions, giving the science of philosophy. With _ Mr. Ward, philology, technology, and perhaps philosophy, are subordinate parts of sociology. Though he does not make direct statement to this effect, yet his presentation leads to this conclusion, in the same manner as his presen- tation of the subject of primary aggregation leads to the supposition that he intends to include molar and stellar aggregations therein. Psychology has its biologic organ in the brain and nervous system ; and mind is discovy- ered in the lower orders of life, as well as in man. The genesis of psychology is manifestly in biology. In like manner, the organs of speech, active and passive, alike in oral, sign, and written language, are biologic; and lan- guage is also found in the lower orders of life. Language, therefore, has its genesis in biology. In the same manner, the organs of the arts are biologic ; and rude arts are discovered in the lower orders of life. Technology, there- fore, has its genesis in biology. The first step in sociologie organization is the biologic differ- entiation of the sexes, giving husband and wife, parent and child ; and rude social organ- ization is also found in the lower orders of life. Sociology, therefore, has its genesis in biology. The same considerations that would lead to the relegation of psychology, to biology would also lead to the inclusion of philology, technology, and sociology, and perhaps of phi- losophy. ‘ Now, these five sciences are so bound to- gether that the absence of one would void all. They are interdependent anp co-ordinate in such a manner that the evolution of one is dependent on the evolution of all. Language is a means of communication between individ- 172 ual minds. Discrete minds could not develop language: it is produced by many co-existing individuals of each of a long series of genera- tions. Society and mind were necessary to its production. The arts are produced by many persons in the same manner as languages, and involve also the operations of mind; but the arts could not have been developed with- out the concomitant development of language, for art is built on art, and that which remains in art must pass from person to person and from generation to generation by means of language. The arts of absolutely discrete men could make no progress. For the evolution of society, language is necessary for the intercommunication of thought. The interdependence of men as integral parts of bodies politic would be im- possible without language; and _ sociologic organization is dependent upon the differen- tiation of human activities, or the division of - labor, and is therefore dependent upon the development of arts or technology. Philos- ophy, or the science of evolving opinion, is the final product of the mind, and is therefore dependent upon psychologic evolution. It is dependent upon philology, for language is the mould of thought, and determines its form. It is dependent upon technology, for by the arts men reach knowledge not otherwise attain- able; and upon sociology, for it is the com- bined knowledge of many, accumulating through the generations. Again: all that part of the evolution of psychology which distinguishes the human mind from that of the lower animals is due to the tertiary aggregation in the develop- ment of philology; technology, sociology, and philosophy. In philology the method of evo- lution is the survival of the economic in the struggle for expression; and the course of evolution is through the specialization of the erammatic processes, the differentiation of the parts of speech, and the integration of the sentence. The method of evolution in technology is the survival of the useful in the struggle to have; and the course of evolution is the employment of the forces and materials of nature for the benefit of mankind. The method of sociologic evolution is the survival of justice in the struggle for peace; and the course of evolutjon is the differentiation of the functions and organs of government, and the integration of tribes and nations. The method of evolution in philosophy is the sur- vival of the true in the struggle to know; and the course of evolution is in the discern- ment and discrimination of phenomena, the SCIENCE. 7 a er [Vou. II., No. 27. relegation from analogic to homologic cate- gories in classification, and the discovery of more and more complex sequences. In these psychologic sciences the struggle, i.e., the endeavor, i.e., the conation, is teleologic. The primary method of psychologic eyolu- tion is the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, and is purely biologic. ‘The struggling subject itself survives. The secon- dary or indirect method of psychologic evo- lution is by the agencies of the philologic, technologie, sociologic, and philosophic meth- ods; and, combined, they constitute the successful struggle for happiness. All that part of the evolution of psychology which — separates man from the lower animals is due to this secondary or indirect method, and is teleologic; and progress is due, not to the survival of the fittest of the struggling subjects, but to the suryival of the object for which the struggle is made. These five sciences, therefore, constitute one group, through the fact that they belong properly to the tertiary aggregation of matter, and the further fact that the method or cause of evolution exhibited therein is radically different from the method or cause of evolution in biology. The five sciences are co-ordinate, reciprocal, and in- terdependent. As biology has its genesis through protoplasm and organic chemistry in the physical ageregation, so these five sciences of the tertiary aggregation have their genesis in biology, —in the biologic organs of man- kind, and the beginnings of these sciences dis- covered among the lower animals. Elsewhere Mr. Ward classifies phenomena in the manner shown in the table on the fol- lowing page, which is copied from his work. Of the four groups thus derived, the first, inorganic, corresponds to the group embraced in his primary aggregation; the second, or- ganic, to the group embraced in his secondary aggregation, but excludes psychology, philol- ogy, technology, sociology, and philosophy. If we combine his direct and indirect teleo- logic phenomena into one group, the five great sciences which include the operations and products of the mind are thrown into one. Let the first, then, be called physical phenom- ena or phenomena of the primary aggregation, and the sciences which pertain thereto physical sciences; the second, biologic phenomena or phenomena of the secondary aggregation, and the sciences pertaining thereto biologie sci- ences. But what shall the third group be called? If the term psychology is used, it must be with a wider connoting than that which it has heretofore had. Psychology. Aveusr 10, 1883.] SCIENCE. 173 Phenomena are: Genetic; physical; unconscious: producing change through infinitesimal increments. — Teleological; psychical; conscious: proceeding from volition and involving purpose. - ~~ —-— — Indirect : proceeding according to the indirect method of conation, Direct: proceeding according to the direct method of conation. —__—"— —_—__-——, Inorganic : _ Organic: the result of pbysical or me- the result of vital or biologi- ehbanical forces. cal forces. Zodlogical : as manifested by creatures below man. oS SL Se eee Natural : taking place according to uniform laws, and produced by true natural forces; capable of prediction and modification. then, would include the operations of the mind, and the products, or results, of those operations. If we use anthropology, the term will not include the beginnings of psy- chology, philology, technology, and sociology, found among the lower animals ; for they have mind, language, art, and society in a com- paratively low form. On the other hand, an- thropology has been used so as to include the biology of man. If we use sociology, following Comte, Spencer, and Ward, the term must include more than these authors design, and some other term must be selected for that differentiated science which forms one of the group of five, and which above has been desig- nated as sociology. Altogether it seems better to use the term anthropology, which would then include psychology, philology, technology, sociology, and philosophy. Mr. Ward does not relegate ethics to any place in his scheme. Moral science relates to that portion of human conduct in which the qualities of right and wrong inhere; and the moral quality depends upon the relations which exist between men and men: it is therefore a part of sociology; and the principal body of ethics at any time existing among a people is formulated as law, made by the court or the legislature. Mr. Spencer, in his essay on the classification of the sciences, gives it no place, but, in the elaborate scheme of philos- ophy embraced in his works, places it above sociology. It may be asked, What place does logic take in the classification here proposed? ‘The reply is, that the logic of the ancients has no place in science. To modern logic something else has been added; and this something else belongs to psychology. The logic of the ancients, and a large part of that of modern _ metaphysicians, is a system designed to dis- cover truth by a form of words. If it be —- — ———s Anthropological : as manifested by man. Do- main of the social forces. — =e | ee eel Artificial: consisting of nat- ural phenomena modified by the inventive faculty, truthfully asserted that an object is white, no form of words can prove the truth of the as- sertion. If questioned, the questioner must perceive that the body is white in the same manner as it was perceived by the person making the assertion; and the assertor can only point out, i.e., demonstrate, the fact. And the same is true of any other fact, how- soever simple or complex. | v Butt Central Tip Blauted. kernels. kernels. kernels. \June 1. June 4. June. June 4. June}. June 4. 1A1, May 16 . 533 | 551 581 | 564 600 1A2, ne see 478 534 515 = 564 564 583 1A3, Bs b Heh ie fs 497 9 558 490 «70 500 549 1A4, ee vuka fe 6 428 496 463 560 519 SST 1A 5, a ot tal eibe 362 «467 456 526) 428 526 Total vegetated . . | 2211 2588 |. 2485 2801 | 2575 2845 Total planted . - «| 3420 3420 | 3420 3420 | 3420 3420 Per cent vegetated . . | 64 75 | 72 82} 75 83 | — (N.Y. agric. exp. stat., bull. xlvii.) mu. rp. A. [201 Chemistry of asparagin. — B. Schulze finds that asparagin is not decomposed to any notable extent by heating with water, even under a pressure of three to four atmospheres, and in the presence of acid plant-juices. Consequently, when fodders contain- ing asparagin, of which there are many, are cooked, this substance is unaltered; and, since its nutritive value has been established, the knowledge of this fact is of some importance. When heated with alka- lies, asparagin yields asparaginic acid and ammonia, while a portion of the acid is further acted on, and malice acid is formed. —(Landw. vers,-stut., xxix. 233.) H. PR. A. [202 206 METEOROLOGY. Observations on Ben Nevis.— A permanent ob- servatory is to be established at the summit of this mountain by the Scottish meteorological society. A road to the summit has been begun: the building will be erected this summer, and it is expected that regular observations will be made after Nov. 1. The records will be kept hourly, not only at the summit, 4,406 feet above sea-level, but also at Fort William, which is situated twenty-eight feet above the sea, and at the base of the mountain. Since June 1, 1881, simultaneous observations at these points have been made at frequent intervals of the day, in the sum- mer-time, by Mr. and Mrs. C. L. Wragge, the former of whom made the ascent every day until the storms of October rendered this impossible. The results ob- tained have been discussed by Mr. Buchan sufficiently to warrant the permanent establishment of the ob- servatory. — W. U. [203 The origin of lightning. —In explaining satisfac- torily the phenomenon of lightning, a difficulty is encountered in accounting for the enormous electric tensions which are necessary to explain the great length of the spark often observed. The theory is advanced by A. Fick, that the.high tensions are pro- _duced by the sudden concentration of electricity already existing in a free state. This concentration is caused by the formation of large drops of rain from the small vesicles of moisture existing in the clouds, by which the surface upon which the elec- tricity exists is greatly diminished. The sudden formation of drops of water from the mass of aqueous vapor may be due to the advance of cold-air currents. The author endeavors to answer two objections which may be urged against his theory: 1. That in every rain-storm lightning ought to be seen; 2. That it ought to rain whenever it lightens. To the first ob- jection he replies, that the drops may be formed grad- ually, and not suddenly, in which case the tensions would be dissipated gradually; and, to the second, that drops are always formed in connection with lightning, but that in falling to the earth they some- times encounter a layer of dry air, and are absorbed in their passage. — (Naturforscher, June 23.) Ww. U- [204 GEOGRAPHY. (Arctic.) Wews from Bering Sea.— News to July § has been received from the North Pacific whaling-fleet. The promise of a late spring had been fulfilled to date. Large quantities of drift-ice were afloat in Bering Sea some distance south of Bering Strait as late as the end of June. The whalers had taken but few whales, — only nine for the whole fleet. St. Law- rence Bay did not open until July 1. The Leo, bound for Point Barrow to relieve the party at the U.S. international polar station, had arrived at Plover Bay July 5. During the last few days of June strong southerly winds prevailed, driving the ice northward, so that at least one of the steam-whalers was able to reach ten leagues north of Cape Lisburne, The Corwin had not arrived. The bark Mary and Susan had been nipped, and was leaking badly; and SCIENCE. a Pe | ne a - > rs , [Von. If., No. 28. the steam-whaler Balaena had returned to Plover Bay with the loss of, her propeller-blades. Most of the fleet met south of St. Paul Island, in latitude 57° N., in April, and were fast in the ice from forty to eighty days, encountering very heavy ice and severe cold. The whales in their northward migration passed Cape Chaplin about July 9. The bark Hunt- er had been injured by a serious fire in the fore- castle. A small number of walrus had been taken in default of larger game. Notwithstanding the unfavorable spring, a few weeks suitable weather may change the conditions sufficiently to enable the fleet to make a fair season’s catch; but it must be confessed that the prospect of this; as well as for the Leo’s reaching Point Barrow; and securing the desired observations there, are not encouraging. — W. H. D. ; {205 (Africa.) Revoil’s journey to Somali-land.— M. G. Reyoil, recently intrusted with the direction of an expedi- tion to Somali-land by the French ministry of public instruction, left Zanzibar about the first of May. During detentions at Aden and Zanzibar, collections of natural history and ethnology were obtained, and the members of the party instructed in the methods of work. Friendly relations were established with several chiefs of the Somali coast, who were on an annual visit to Zanzibar, and recommendations to various tributary chieftains obtained from the sultan. M. Revoil intended to enter the country with Arab guides at Mogadoxo. and to ascend the Wabbi River to Geledi, whence, after a short stay, he would proceed to Gananeh on the Juba River, which he would en- deaver to map, while obtaining collections of all kinds. After this the Juba would be ascended to the region of the Ugadines toward the west, or he would enter the Galla country toward Kaffa and Shoa, where it is thought the friendly relations of the French with King Menelik would insure him a fayor- able reception. It is expected that the journey will terminate by traversing the country to Harrar, and thence to Zeila on the Gulf of Aden. — (Comptes rendus soc. géogr., no. 11.) W.H. D. [206 ZOOLOGY. Mollusks, Existence of a shell in Notarchus. — Vays- sire has demonstrated the existence of a minute internal spiral shell in Notarchus. ‘Taken into con- sideration with a similar discovery by Krohn in Gas- teropteron, the author thinks it very probable that both are persistent embryonic shells (in Notarehus it is about one-fiftieth as lone as the animal itself), and that an analogous appendage will be found eventually in most tectibranchs, which, up to the present time, have been considered shell-less, — (Journ. de con- chyl., xxii. 4.) W. H. D. [207 New abyssal mollusks.—Fischer describes a number of new species from the deep-sea dredgings of the Travailleur in 1882, They belong to the gen- era Dentalium, Mitra, Sipho, Pseudomurex, and Belo- mitra. The latter is a new genus resembling Bela, but with numerous small plications on the columella. _ Aueusr 17, 1883.] One species, Mitra cryptodon, comes from a depth of 1,900 metres in the Atlantic, — probably the greatest depth recorded for any species of that genus up to the present time.— (Journ. de conchyl., xxii. 4.) W. H. D, [208 VERTEBRATES. Reptiles. Restoration of Brontosaurus.—In the con- tinuation of his papers on Sauropoda, Marsh gives the accompanying restoration of Brontosaurus almost entirely from a single individual about fifty feet long. “The head was remarkably small; the neck was long, and, considering its proportions, flexible, and was the lightest portion of the vertebral column; the body was quite short, and the abdominal cavity of moderate size; the legs and feet were massive, and the bones all solid; the feet were plantigrade, and each footprint must have been about a square yard in extent; the tail was large, and nearly all the bones solid.’ Special attention is drawn to the head, which is ‘*smaller in proportion to the body than in any vertebrate hitherto known,” the entire skull weighing and measuring less than the fourth or fifth cervical vertebra. The animal is estimated to have © weighed more than twenty tons, was more or less amphibious, probably fed on aquatic plants, and was doubtless a ‘stupid, slow-moving reptile,’ wholly wanting any offensive or defensive weapons, — (Amer. journ, sc., Aug.) [209 Mammals. Influence of pressure on heart-beat.— Many _ observers have noticed that the mammalian heart, after the death of the animal, vill, under certain con- ditions, continue to beat spontaneously for some hours, especially if artificial inflation of the lungs is kept up. Ewald and Kobert have made some ob- servations on this subject, inflating the heart directly with air, and find that hearts which have ceased to .beat spontaneously, or after the application of me- chanical stimuli, will again give contractions when the pressure within their cavities is raised. They come to the conclusion that one of the conditions which the blood must fulfil, in order to maintain the heart in activity, is, that it must exert a certain press- ure on the heart-walls. — ( Pfliiger’s archiv, xxxi. 187.) Ww. H. H. {210 Epiphyses on the centra of the vertebrae of the manatee.— M. Albrecht describes these rudi- mentary epiphyses at length. He believes that the presence of crests and furrows upon the interverte- bral faces is a sure indication of epiphyses; but he goes further, and describes these processes. They are ‘ partially ossified in a peripheral zone, particular- ly in the dorsal region.’ He also forms the hypothe- _ sis that the epiphyses are the remnants of more perfect ones, basing it upon the fact of the presence of the _ ridges and grooyes upon the faces of the centra, — (Bull. mus, hist. nat Belg., ii. 1883, 38.) F. w. 7. [211 ANTHROPOLOGY. The skulls of assassins.— A short time since, attention was called to the investigations made upon criminals and delinquents, with a view to study the *SQUOVSOLNOUD FO NOILVUOLSAN SCIENCE. ee ae a. ee 208 early stages of humanity. The discussion is kept up by the French society, and most elaborate measure- ments are reported. M. Dally is not quite satisfied with the methods, however, aud makes the following remarks. It is very wrung to confound things differ- ent inéer se under one abstract term, and to study them as a natural group. Assassins, murderers, criminals, and even the assassinated, constitute juridical categories; but surely they are not philo- sophic. Highwaymen, ravishers, the jealous, mono- maniacs, avengers, nihilists, etc., may be assassins; yet they have nothing in. common, except that their actions lead to the same result. The organic con- ditions which lead to’ murder are quite different in each case. Again: every one knows that nothing is more rare than a perfectly symmetrical skull. Before establishing the proportions of anomalous crania among criminals, it is necessary to fix the standard among the virtuous. In fact, all men who have heavy lower jaws are not necessarily assassins; nor can we assume that all crime is evidence of atavism, and argue, hence, that in the anatomy of murderers SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 28. we have the portraits of our prehistoric ancestors. — (Bull. soc. anthrop. Paris, v. T78.) J. W. P. [212 Easter Island. — Commander Bouverie F. Clark, in June last, visited the Easter Island, landing at the village of Malaveri, where the vessel was boarded by Mr. Alexander Salmon, agent of the Maison Brander of Tahiti, who purchased the property of the mis- sionaries four years ago. The latter then left for the Gambier Archipelago, taking three hundred natives with them. The natives now number a hundred and fifty, and are decreasing. About five hundred were shipped to Tahiti eight years ago, to work on the plantations of the Maison Brander. Among the remaining people are no traces of the missionary work. They are divided into several small clans; and their chief quarrels are about the first eggs of the ‘ wide-awake’ every year from Needle rock. The myth or ,tradition of their arrival is given by Commander Clark, who also speaks hopefully of the fertility of the island, as well as its value as a provision station. — (Proc. roy. geogr. soc., v. 40.) J. W. P. [213 INTELLIGENCH FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. University of Michigan, « Central laboratory for microscopy and general histoloyy. — Instruction is given in this laboratory in the fullowing subjects. 1. Microscopical technics, or the science and art of microscopy, comprising, (a) the theory and construction of the instrument and its various accessories; (b) the methods of determin- ing magnifications; (c) the methods of microscopic drawing, microscopic photography, and microscopic projections; (d) the preparation of objects of various classes. 2. Human histology. 3. Comparative his- tology. 4. Vegetable histology. 5. Dental histol- ogy. 6. Pathological anatomy. 7. Completion of microscopic study in such other subjects as may be desired by professors in charge. The following is the plan pursued in the principal divisions : — Normalhuman histology.—This course con- sists of thirty lectures in the amphitheatre on the use of the microscope and on histology. In laboratory work the student is taught the manipulation of the instrument, use of accessories, ete. Then follows the study of such subjects as blood, epithelium, bone, tooth, cartilage, elastic tissue, muscle, kidney, stomach, liver, intestine, brain, spinal cord, and various miscellaneous subjects, as the oesophagus, tongue, skin, etc. The students are given instruc- tion in mounting, so that eacl specimen is preserved as it is studied. The average number of mounts per stiident is about twenty. Each student is required to have at least twelve mounts, and some ambitious ones mount as high as fifty or sixty. Over six thousand mounts are carried away each year by students in this department. ‘The object of the course is, first, to make the student better acquainted with the structure of tissues, and, second, that he may become familiar enough with the microscope and its manipulations to work to CANE DLS without the aid of an instructor. P: Vegetable histology.—The first course con- sists of work in structural botany for a term of twenty weeks. Special attention is given to the correct re- presentation of microscopic objects on paper. Sixty accurate drawings of the various structures examined during the course are required of each student, the specimens being prepared by the students themselves. ° Vegetable protoplasm is studied with the special view of ascertaining the effects of the various re- agents employed in general laboratory work. Then follow lessons on the vegetable cells, diatoms, and other miscellaneous subjects. Course two in vegetable histology consists of work in pharmaceutical botany, three forenoons of labora- tory work each week for twenty weeks. At the close of the course each student chooses a particular drug, studies it thoroughly, and presents the results of his labors in the form of a thesis. Advanced normal and pathological histology. — Any student who has completed the primary course in the histological laboratory, or who has performed an equivalent amount of work in some other institu- tion, can enter the class for advanced work, The first work here is in testing objectives with test- plates and diatoms, and in becoming more familiar with a few useful accessories. The art of injecting is then taken up, and the frog and cat are experi- mented upon, as well as individual organs from Jarger animals. Each student then chooses some particular organ or tissue, and prepares it in as many ways as possible for study. He thus becomes 4 , Aveusr 17, 1883.] familiar with the various methods of hardening, cutting, and staining. Pathological structures are now carefully studied. This includes the study of inflammation and its results, the study of diseased organs and tissues, and of the non-inflammatory new formations. Embryology.—A study of the development of the chick, including microscopic sections of the same. Urinalysis.—A course of six weeks in the chemical analysis of the urine, including the use of the microscope in determining the character of the various deposits and crystals. NOTES AND NEWS. Dr. H. Newell Martin, professor of biology in Jolns Hopkins university, has been appointed Croonian lecturer of the Royal society of London for the current year. The Croonian lecture was founded by Lady Sadlier, in fulfilment of a plan of her former husband, Dr. Croone, one of the founders and the first registrar of the Royal society. By her will, made in 1701, she devised ‘one-fifth of the clear rent of the King’s-Head Tavern, in or near Old Fish Street, London, at the corner of Lambeth Hill, to be vested in the Royal society, for the support of a lecture and illustrative experiment on local motion.” For many years past there has been no formal delivery of the lecture. The council of the Royal society select from the papers presented to them during the preceding twelve months that one dealing with ani- mal motion which they think most noteworthy, and publish it as the Croonian lecture, sending to the author the sum derived from Lady Sadlier’s bequest. The amount of money is trivial, but the appointment as Croonian lecturer is a highly prized distinction. The paper by Professor Martin, which is to be printed as the Croonian lecture for 1883, is on the Effect of changes of temperature on the beat of the heart. It is interesting to note that the first Croonian lecture, delivered by Dr. Stuart in 1738, was on the Motion of the heart. — Nature of Aug. 2 prints the following telegram from the Swedish party which wintered at Spitzber- gen, and was last heard from in October. ‘‘ Cape Thordsen, July 4, 1883. This message will be for- warded to-morrow to Capt. Startschin, with the boat fetching our first mail this year. ‘lhe wintering of the expedition has in every respect been attended with success, particularly as the scientific researches have throughout been carried on exactly in accord- ance with the regulations formulated by the Inter- national polar commission. Hydrographical and Magnetic studies have also been pursued on the ice in the Ice Fjord, as well as parallax measurements of clouds, and observations as to the temperature of the air, the snow, and the earth. The winter has, on the whole, been mild; the greatest cold occurring on Jan. 2, when the thermometer registered 35.5° C. below freezing-point. Storms have beenfew. Since September last the following buildings have been SCIENCE. 209 erected: a hut on a mountain at an elevation of 270 metres, containing the anemometer and the wind- fan, which were read by a self-registering electrical apparatus; two astronomical observatories; another magnetic hut; a bath-house, a forge, and a wood storehouse. The dwelling-house and working-room have also been enlarged. The following game was shot during the winter: 61 ptarmigans, 9 reindeer, 18 wild geese, 20 foxes, and some wild fowl. With continuous labor, plenty of food and drink, and frequent baths, the members of the expedition haye throughout enjoyed excellent health, Descriptions of the nature of our labor and life here during the wintering will follow.” — The new biological laboratory of the Johns Hop- kins university, which will be opened next Septem- ber, has been especially constructed with reference to providing opportunity for advanced work in ex- perimental physiology. It contains two large rooms for general advanced work in animal physiology, in addition to others specially designed for work with the spectroscope, with the myograph, for electro- physiological researches, and for physiological chem- istry. It also contains a special room constructed for advanced histvlogical work, and well supplied with apparatus and reagents, a ‘room for micro- photography, and rooms for advanced work in ani- mal morphology. Prof. C. H. F. Peters of Clinton, N.Y., announces to Harvard college observatory the discovery of a new planet by him on the night of Aug. 12. Its position at time of discovery was as follows: Aug. 12, 13 hours, 49 minutes, 27 seconds, Clinton mean time; right ascension, 21 hours, 20 minutes, 48.17 seconds; declination, south, 12 degrees, 29 minutes, §.2 seconds. The daily motion of the object is — 36 seconds in right ascension, and in declination 20 minutes and 50 seconds south. It is unusually bright * for an asteroid, being of the ninth magnitude. — The Nation for Aug. 2 calls attention to a very interesting feature of the table of ages (table XLII.) in the compendium of the tenth census. The table exhibits an astonishing preponderance of persons whose age is a ‘round number,’ i.e., a multiple of five or ten. One of the instances mentioned is, that while, according to the table, there are 1,094,324 persons at the age of 30, there are only 621,852 per- sons of 29 years, and only 492,530 persons of 31 years. There is a less powerful but still very marked and constant attraction to even numbers as compared with odd: for example, 42 claims 458,949, while 43 is content with 384,259; 47 is credited with 349,512, but 48 with 400,549. These are from the table of aggre- gates for the United States. The peculiarities are, of course, much more strongly marked in the columns referring to the classes and localities where there is most ignorance. Thus the number of the colored females in Mississippi who are put down as 30 years of age is 10,619, while the years immediately preced- ing and following are given only 2,253 and 1,236 respectively. The writer of the interesting note in. the Nation attributes the phenomenon to conjectural statements 210 by people who did not know their own ages; but probably only a small part of it is due to that cause, at least in the more intelligent portions of the popula- tion. In so intelligent a state as Rhode Island, for instance, we find for the years 29, 30, 31, the numbers 3,965, 6,550, 3,112; which is not, much, better than in the aggregate of the United States. How much is due to guessing by relatives, servants, masters, etc., and especially to suggestions and guesses by the census-gatherers themselves, — who, of course, do not regard the exact ages as important, and most of whom have probably no strong views on the subject of the ‘personal equation,’ —no one can tell, but probably very much more than to peo- ple’s ignorance of their own ages. An examination and comparison of the original note-books of the various census-takers would furnish materials for an interesting exercise, if nothing more, in statistical re- search, and might reveal approximately the extent to which the personal qualities of the census-takers has affected the result; while a comparison of the table with well-established tables of mortality might enable us to estimate the force of the tendency to under- state age which would doubtless be found to exist. The whole thing makes a very pretty problem, and serves to illustrate in a rather gross and exaggerated way the complexity of statistical investigations. —We learn from Nature that a meeting which may have an important result upon science and art instruction in England has been inaugurated at Manchester. An association has been established to effect the general advancement of the profession of science and art teaching by securing improvements in the schemes of study, and the establishment of satisfactory relations between teachers and the Sci- ence and art department, the city and guilds of London institute, and other public authorities. It proposes also to collect such information as may be of service to teachers professionally; and it will en- , deavor, by constant watchfulness, to advance the status and material interests of science and art teachers in all directions. The president of the new association is Professor Huxley, and the vice-presi- dents are Dr. H. E. Roscoe, Mr. Norman Lockyer, Pro- fessor Boyd Dawkins, Professor Gamgee, Professor Ayrton, Professor Silvanus Thompson, Dr. John _ Watts, Mr. S. Leigh-Gregson, Mr. John Angell, Mr. W. Lockett Agnew, Mr. C. M. Foden, and Mr. J. H. Reynolds. Mr. W. E. Crowther, of the Technical school and mechanie’s institution, Manchester, is the honorary secretary; and all communications should be addressed to him, especially by those who are desirous of forming affiliated unions in other districts. We believe that branches are already being established at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Liver- pool. — The attorney-general of the United States has approved the title to the proposed site of the fish- commission establishments at Wood’s Holl, Mass.; and the contracts for the work on the breakwater, pier, and basin, will, it is expected, soon be made. — King’s Dictionary of Boston, after the manner of Dickens’s Dictionary of London, has recently SCIENCE. [Vor. IL, No. 28. been published, Edwin M. Bacon is the editor. A short introduction is written by George E, Ellis, D.D. The brief notices of the libraries and scientific asso- ciations of Boston are satisfactory, and well brought down to date. —For the last two years a couple of buck moun- tain sheep have been running with the flock of Mr. Bailey of Bull Run Basin, Nevada; and there are now between twenty and thirty half-breed lambs in the lot. According to the Tuscarora mining news, they are mostly covered with hair, although there is some wool amongst it. They carry their heads high, like the wild sheep, but are as easily herded as those of pure domestic blood. They are of no value for shear- ing, but are said to make excellent mutton. — The subsidence of land in the Cheshire salt-dis- - tricts of England is again becoming alarming. The bed of the river Weaver has widened out below North- wich, forming a lake of about two miles square, called the Flashes. Crater-like holes suddenly fall in, form- ing in a day or two deep ponds of saltish water. In one instance, two years ago, the river itself flowed backwards into the subsidence for the space of two minutes, filling up several old rock-salt mines in the neighborhood: from these the water is now pumped, and used as brine, Land-owners in the neighborhood brought a bill into Parliament during the session of 1882, to obtain compensation for the damage done by the salt-works; but it was argued that subsidence would occur by natural filtration, even if the brine were unworked, and the bill was thrown out. — Mr. Albert Marth, F.R.A.S., has succeeded Dr. W. Doberck as astronomer at Col. Cooper’s observa- tory, Markree, Ireland. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Albert-Levy. Les nouveautés de la science. Paris, Za- chette, 1883. 192p. 18°. Alvarez, Llanos, C. Electricidad estiatica. militar, 1883. 288 p.,illustr. 8°. Bell, A. Melville. Visible-speech reader for the nursery and primary school. Cambridge, King, 1883.. 4+952 p. 16°. Bernimolin, H. Catalogues des plantes spontanées et cultivées du Tournnisis, avec indication des localités om on les rencontre. Tournai, Vasseur-Delmée, 1883. 1383p. 12°. Beringer, A. Kritische vergleichung der elektrischen krafliibertragung mit den gebriiuchlichsten mechanischen kratt- jibertragungssystemen. Berlin, 1883. 8°. Brandza, D. Prodromul florei romane san enumeratiunea Madrid, lidr. ‘ plantelor pana astade cunoscute in Moldoya si Valachia. Bu- curesci, 1883, 652 p. 8°. ' Bureau, Th. ‘Technologie des matiéres textiles. 1883. 285 p.,17 pl. et figures. autogr. 4°. Gand, Carnoy, J. B. Biologie cellulaire; étude comparée de la — cellule dans les deux régnes, au triple point de yue anatomique, chimique et physiologique. Lierre, 1883. illustr. 8°. Centralbureau der europiiischen gradmessung. Verhand- lungen der vom 11 bis zum 15 September, 1882, im Haag verei- nigten permanenten commission der europitischen gridmessung, redigirt von den schriftfiihren A. Hirsch, und Th. vo. Oppolzer, zugleich mit dem generalbericht fiir die jahre 1881 und 1882. Berlin, Reime7, 1883. 6+155p.,2 maps. 4°. Cervera Bachiller, J. Creencias y supersticiones, tradi- ciones, leyendas, consejas, historias misticas y preocupaciones populares de todos los siglos y de todos los pueblos. Madrid, impr. Riva, 1883. 2304p. 8°. . Chamberland, ©. Le charbon et la vaccination charbon- neuse d’aprés les trayaux récents de M. Pasteur. Paris, 1883. 324p. 8. y os molt a Ty As el 5 I A Oe ae FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 1883. THE LESSONS OF THE MEETING. Tue question as to the distance from the eastern seaboard to which the American association for the advancement of science can carry its annual assemblages is partly solved by the meeting at Minneapolis. That has registered about three hundred members in attendance; a small number, indeed, as compared with the Boston and Montreal meet- ings, but larger than was at first anticipated. One-third came from the Atlantic and New- England states. Astronomy and physics are fairly represented in the list; geology, as was expected, claimed the largest proportion; of botanists, there were over twenty-five — this was a surprise; the ethnologists were in con- siderable force; in all other branches of science, the attendance was somewhat meagre. This, therefore, has not been one of the large meetings. Its addresses and papers have not contained any very striking feature that appealed to the interest of the general public. On the other hand, all that was pre- sented, with few exceptions, though not bril- liant, was above mediocrity. Looking over the list of papers, we find fewer than usual _of the kind that brings sorrow to the hearts of , scientific students ; that provokes the question, How did such things ever pass the standing : afid sectional committees? _ _ The merits and the disadvantages of the pres- ent system of conducting these meetings have been placed in very sharp light. Excellent addresses were delivered by most of the presi- 4 dents of sections; in fact, these productions this year are a credit to the association. But the strain of obtaining such representative addresses from so many sections will soon be Baeparent it may prove difficult to find the men to deliver them, within a very few years, especially if the number of sections continues No. 20.— 1883. to increase. The delivery of two or more of these addresses simultaneously, and the com- pletion of the delivery of all of them in one afternoon, was felt to be a matter of grave injustice, both to speakers and hearers. To our readers we shall offer the only remedy now possible for this injustice, by printing the ad- dresses in full, and by detachments. Local committees, in cities to which the association will hereafter be invited, may learn some valuable lessons from the experience at Minneapolis. There was no lack of hospi- table intention: the hearty courtesies of a western community were liberally extended. But the generous intentions were not carried out in the minor details that are essential to comfort if not to success. The meetings were held at a distance from the city, at the extreme end of a one-horse car route. Consequently the conveyances were overcrowded, much time was lost in going and coming, and — worse than all — few of the citizens of Minneapolis attended the sessions. We do not remember a meeting of the association at which the local interest, so far as audiences indicate it, was so deficient. The hotel selected for headquarters was not agreeable, because not exactly suit- able. Members scattered to distant points, finding delicious havens of rest and recreation at summer-hotels on the lakes, but having to take yet longer time to attend the daily ses- sions. Free railroad transportation was pro- vided to these distant resorts, but there was a confusing uncertainty about late trains that caused many embarrassments. These things may be trifles, but they are apt to be remem- bered when the lavishness of entertainment is forgotten. e As was anticipated, the association has chosen Philadelphia for its next session, where we may look again for the great numbers which attended the Boston and Montreal meet- The exact date for holding it has been wisely left in the hands of the executive board, ings. 212 pending the choice of time by the British association for their Montreal meeting. A preference, however, has been indicated for the week beginning Sept. 3, —a date earlier than usual, but welcome to all who know how warm Philadelphia can be in August. Wako MYA RELIABILITY OF THE EVIDENCE OB- TAINED IN THE STUDY OF CONTAGIA. Ture is certainly a disposition, among some of our scientific men, to doubt the possibility of making direct and satisfactory demonstra- tions of the ré/e played by the schizophytes, or microbia, in the production of disease, and that which they may be compelled to take in its prevention. Recent publications by ac- cepted authorities have tended rather to con- firm these doubts than to remoye them, and we are frequently asked if our results are not founded on probabilities rather than on defi- nite and conclusive facts. While this uncer- tainty is still felt, it is well to occasionally review the connection between the facts estab- lished and the conclusions drawn from them. Though the schizophytes are the smallest of living organisms, that is not an insurmountable obstacle to their careful study, as is proved by the well-known investigations of the Bacillus anthracis by Koch. His demonstration that this exists in two forms (a vegetating filament and a spore), and that the latter survives un- favorable conditions which destroy the former, enabled him to trace a connection between the activity of the virus and the life of the para- site, which other investigators had failed to establish. Thus, the blood of anthrax vic- tims, which contained only Bacillus rods, lost its power to reproduce the disease after a few days’ putrefaction ; while that which contained spores remained virulent an indefinite time. A certain degree of cold, and also an insufii- cient supply “ot oxygen, prevent the formation of spores; and, the filaments being short-lived, thé organism loses its vitality in a few days under such conditions. If spores had formed before the liquid was exposed to these con- ‘ditions, however, they were unaffected, and were capable of germination after weeks or months. Again: if a virulent hquid was large- ly diluted, the filaments were destroyed, but the spores survived. In all these cases the actiy- ity of the virus disappeared with the death of the organism, and was retained whenever the formation of spores had enabled this to resist the unfavorable conditions. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 29. Here was a proof of the pathogenic charac- ter of the schizophyte much more satisfactory than the mere demonstration of its presence in all cases of the disease, or the additional evyi- dence that it might be passed through a certain number of cultivation-flasks ; the liquid in the last being as virulent as in the first. Since Koch’s paper was published, Pasteur has added obseryations of an equally convin- — cing character. The liquid part of the virus may be freed from the organism either by filtering through plaster or by decanting after it has stood in a constant temperature for a few days to allow the germs to gravitate to the bottom of the flask. In either case the liquid is harmless, and the separated germs still pro- duce the disease. Again: compressed oxygen destroys the filaments, but does not affect the — spores; and a virus containing only the former loses its activity when treated with this agent, while one in which spores have formed retains its virulence. We are able to say, therefore, that, in the disease known by the French as charbon and by the English as anthrax, no liquid is virulent unless it contains the living Bacillus anthracis, — and that the death of this organism always — coincides with the destruction of the virulence. — This demonstration of the pathogenic action ~ of the Bacillus cannot but be regarded as equal- — ly satisfactory with what is obtained by inyes- — tigations in other departments of biological — science. Ifthe observations of these gentle- ‘ men are accurate, and they have been con- — firmed too often to be doubted, then there is — no escaping the conclusion that the Bacillus — anthracis is the essential and only cause of — anthrax. It is not to be denied, however, that the size of the parasite in anthrax, and the fact — of its existence under two forms haying such ~ unequal resistance to unfavorable conditions, — were characters which greatly facilitated the demonstration of its pathogenic relation to the disease. Is it possible to obtain equally satisfactory evidence in regard to the smallest — of the schizophytes, and one which only a 4 in the vegetating condition ? The micrococeus of chicken-cholera is of this kind, and it is consequently yery inter- esting to see just what progress we have made in demonstrating its identity with the virulent principle. We know from Pasteur’s inyesti- gations that it is always present in this dis- ease; that it may be cultivated, and passed from. flask to flask for many times, withou losing its virulence. The filtered liquid loses its activ ity ; that from which the germs are ‘f ~Avaust 24, 1883.] | separated by gravitation is equally harmless. Taking up the study here, I have proved that _ the exact degree of heat which, in a given time, kills the micrococcus (132° F. for 15 minutes), _ destroys the virulence at precisely the same _ point; also that the proportion of carbolic acid, of sulphuric acid, and ofa solution of chlo- rides (Platt’s), which destroys the virulence in from two to four hours, corresponds with the proportion which is required to kill the organism in the same time. The effect of heat and of these disinfect- ants on the virus was determined by inocula- tion experiments. The point at which the micrococcus is killed was learned by placing a drop or two of virus in the sterilized liquid of a cultivation-tube after the proper proportion of disinfectant had been added. In a given time a drop was taken from this tube, and placed in a second one which contained a favorable medium for the growth of the germs. If the schizophytes had been destroyed by the disinfectant, there would be no multiplication ; while, if they had resisted it, they would cer- tainly reveal the fact by developing in their usual manner. The exact correspondence which exists between the results of the two series of experiments in every case, is also an evidence of the reliability of the method. _ While it might be conceived, that, even _ though the virulent agent consisted of some- thing entirely different from the micrococcus, both might be destroyed by the same degree of heat in the same time, it is not conceiv- able that this would also occur from the effect _ of three different chemical agents. If it were _ necessary, this line of evidence could probably _ be increased indefinitely; but it is already equal to what is usually considered necessary - to demonstrate a point in other departments of science. It is possible, then, by present methods of research, to determine satisfactorily whether a B given organism is the cause of a certain dis- ease, or whether it is an epi-phenomenon ; and, if there is still much doubt in regard to some of these, it would seem to be owing to the fact that observers have relied too im- _ plicitly upon the microscope, and neglected the ; cultivation and inoculation experiments, that are essential to definite and reliable conclu- _ sions. D. E. Sarton. SPONGE-CULTURE IN FLORIDA. 3 - Tue U.S. national museum has lately re- geived from Messrs. McKesson and Robbins, 7, SCIENCE. 213 sponge-importers of New York, an interesting contribution representing the first. successful attempts at sponge-cultivation on the Ameri- can coast. It consists of only four specimens, all of the finest or sheep’s-wool variety, which were raised from cuttings at Key West, Fla., by the agent of the above-named firm. The localities in which the sponges were planted were not the most favorable for sponge-devel- opment, and their growth was therefore less rapid and perfect than might otherwise have been the case. They were fastened to the bottom, in a depth of two feet and a half, by means of wires or sticks running through them, and allowed to remain down a period of about six months before they were taken up. Fully four months elapsed before they recov- ered from the injury done them in the cutting, which removes the outer ‘skin’ along the edges of the section; and the actual growth exhibited was for about two months only. The original height of each of the cuttings was about two inches and a half. One was planted in a cove or bight where there was little or no current, and its increase in size was very slight. The other specimens were placed in tide-ways, and have grown to from four to six times their former bulk, which certainly promises well for the future of sponge-propagation. Two hundred and six- teen specimens in all were planted at the same date, and, at the last accounts, those which remained were doing finely. The chief obstacle to the artificial cultiya- tion of sponges at Key West arises from the fact that the sponge-fishermen infest every part of the region where sponges are likely to grow, and there is no legal protection for the would-be culturist against intruders. The enactment of judicious laws bearing upon this subject by the state of Florida, or the grant- ing of special privileges conferring the right to occupy certain prescribed areas for sponge- propagation, would undoubtedly tend to in- crease the annual production of this important fishery, which has remained at a standstill for several years past, mainly because of the partial exhaustion of several of the most ex- tensive sponging-areas. Accompanying these artificial growths was a collection of over a hundred specimens of the various grades of Florida sponges of different sizes, each labelled with its supposed age, based upon estimates of the average rate of growth, by the sponge-collectors. This entire collection now forms a part of the American exhibit at the great London fisheries exhibition. R. Rarusun. 214 THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR THE SENSATION OF LIGHT. Ir is generally assumed that the only condi- tion necessary for the production of the sen- sation of light by the action of radiant energy is, that the radiant energy must be of a certain wave-length within the limits of wave-length of the visible spectrum, namely, between waye- lengths 7.60410 centimetres and 3.933 x 10-* centimetres ; that, when the eye perceives nothing, none of these wave-lengths can be present. It is worth while, therefore, to ex- amine those physical conditions that result in giving the sensation of light to ascertain whether such assumption is warranted. As to the eye itself, it will not make any difference so far as this question is concerned, whether one accepts the Young-Helmholtz theory of vision, the Herring theory, or any other. The only important fact is, that, in either, energy is re- quired and is expended in the eye; but it is important to know how to measure the energy, and to have a tolerably clear idea about its form. Without any question, a ray of radiant energy, such as is emitted by a heated molecule or atom of hydrogen, consists of a single line of undulations of a definite wave-length, for the molecule cools (that is, loses its heat-energy ) by imparting it to the ether; and a ‘ wave- length’ is simply the distance to which such a disturbance in the ether will be propagated during the time of a single vibration of the molecule. As each vibration of the latter imparts some of its energy to the moving ether, it follows that the energy of a ray of light must depend upon the number of vibra- tions per second ; or, what is the same thing, the energy of the ray is proportional to its length. As all rays move with the same velocity in the ether, it follows that any object that should receive such radiant energy would receive an amount proportional to the time. Suppose, now, that an atom of hydrogen be made to vibrate, no matter how, so as to give a wave-length C=6.562 x 107° centimetres. If such a ray falls upon the eye, it will produce the sensation of redness, and, if the eye re- ceives the vibrations for one second, it will receive 4.577 x 10" vibrations ; that is to say, it will receive as many undulations from the ether as the generating atom made in the interval of one second. Now, we know experi- mentally that the eye can perceive when the interval is as small as the millionth of a sec- ond, when the number of vibrations of such a ray as the above would be 4.577 x 10*, a very respectable number. It would seem probable SCIENCE. [Vot. IL, No. 29. that that number might be considerably re- duced, and still leave a sufficient number to affect the eye. If the time-interval should be made so short as the one ten-billionth of a second, there would then be 45,770 such undu- lations that would enter the eye. But there must be a limit to the number needed to pro- duce the sensation; and it is also. probable that this limit will differ in different persons. Admitting this time-limit, it follows that undu- lations of proper wave-length may exist about us, and yet not be sufficient in time-quantity to affect the eye. If other vertebrates or in- sects possess a shorter limit than man, it is certain that they will see when man cannot. But the energy of vibrations varies as the square of the amplitude; and hence, if one of two rays of equal length has a greater ampli- tude than the other, the latter might be seen, while the former might not, although they had the same wave-length. : According to the kinetic theory of gases, the molecules are in incessant motion, in which collisions result in changing the direc- tions of the free paths of each of the mole- cules, and also in making each to vibrate, because moiecules are elastic. This vibratory motion proper, being a change of form of the molecule, is what constitutes its heat-energy. The interval between encounters gives oppor- tunity to each molecule to vibrate in its own periodic time or some of its harmonics. Maxs- well computed the number of impacts per second for several gases,’ and gives, for hydro- gen, 17,750 x 10°. If, then, we divide the num- ber of vibrations per second by the number of impacts, we shall have the number of vibra- 7; 8 tions between impacts : eS = 25,700. 177.50 x 10° This is on the supposition that the vibrations produced are all of the wave-length of the C hydrogen-line. It is highly probable that this hydrogen-line is not due to the fundamental vibrations of the hydrogen molecule, but that it is some harmonic (the twentieth, according to Stoney). Whatever its harmonic relation may be, it must be highly probable that it will frequently be produced when the conditions are as they are in ordinary gas; but, in normal conditions as to temperature, that gas is not luminous. If this reasoning be right, the reason it is not luminous at ordinary temperatures and press- ures is due solely to the slight amplitude of the vibrations of proper wave-length, not to their entire absence. When the gas is heat- 1 Nature, Sept. 25, 1873. 204 7 oo . So ’ . , AucGust 24, 1883.] ed, or is impelled with great energy from the terminal of an induction-coil in a Geisler’s tube, it is not necessary to assume that the molecules are made to vibrate in wholly new periods, but that the amplitude of their vibra- tions in any and all periods has been in- creased, thereby giving greater amplitude, and consequent energy, to the radiant undulations ‘emitted, sufficient to affect the eye. When one considers the kinetic energy of molecules due to their temperature, it seems probable that all bodies — solid and liquid, as well as gaseous — must be vibrating in all pos- sible periods continuously ; but in solid sand in liquids the shortness of the free paths makes interference too frequent to allow any mole- cule to vibrate many times between impacts, and hence the harmonics suffer most, and are destroyed before they can have given rise to undulations in sufficient number or in ampli- tude to perform any optical service. By.heat- ing a solid, greater amplitude is given to all the vibrations, and we see the red or longer undulations first during the process of heating, because such are less easily destroyed by im- pact than the shorter ones, which cannot have at best so great an amplitude. This state- ment assumes that it is with molecules as it is with visible masses of matter: the greater the number of vibrations possible to it, the less the possible amplitude. With these conditions as stated, it is readily seen why common objects are not at all times visible, that is to say, are not luminous. It is because our eyes are not sensitive enough to respond to the slight energy of the undula- tions due to both lack of amplitude and short- ness of the rays, not because those rays are absolutely wanting. A. E. Dorsear. RADIOMETERS WITH CURVED VANES. Amone the radiometers in a collection which TI have recently examined were two with curved vanes of silver. The radius of curvature was less than 2 em. When placed in front of a lamp, the concave side moves towards the source of heat. I have found no satisfactory explanation of these movements. According to a recent article by Dr. Pringsheim, the convex side of these vanes is supposed to be at a higher temperature than the concave side. The grounds for such an hypothesis are not obvious; and it would seem hardly possible that an appreciable difference could exist. be- tween the surfaces of a thin sheet of silver. It is more probable that the air on one side of the vane is hotter than that on the other. SCIENCE. 215 Since the ‘ kick’ its inerease in move tow warmer. Dr. Pringsheim mentions an experiment in which he brought the heat to a focus inside the radiometer at a point in front of the vane. He found that the air gave no evidence of being heated. I repeated the experiment with solar heat, using a lens of three inches diameter and four inches focal length. The heat in air was sufficient to ignite instantly a common parlor match. When the focus was kept in front of the vane of an ordinary radi- ometer for two minutes, no appreciable effect was observed: the instant it touched the vanes, however, they gave a start, and began to re- volve. This. experiment shows that the effects observed with curved vanes cannot be attributed to concentration of heat-rays from the vanes. According to the kinetic theory, this rota- tion is set up only if.the molecules arriving on the convex side of the vane receive a greater positive increment to their velocity than those arriving on the concave side. These conditions are satisfied in this way: if the vanes are warmer than the air, the particles leaving the vane in both directions have an increased velo- city; but take, for instance, the particles moving in lines parallel to the axis of the concayity towards the vane from either side, those on the convex side are scattered by re- flection, those on the concave side are brought to a focus at a distance (in this instrument) of less than 1 cm. from the vertex of the coneavity. The molecules in the vicinity of this focus receive an increase of kinetic energy; and similar reasoning holds for the sets of molecules moving parallel to each other in any other direction. Hence the molecules on the concave side are hotter than those on the convex side, though not necessarily so hot as the vane itself. Since the molecules on the concave side receive a smaller increase of velocity from the vane, ‘they give it a smaller reactive push. The action of the case in a radiometer is very prettily shown by wetting it with cold water. The action is best examined with curved vanes, or with vanes of metal covered on one side with mica. The rotation is at first in the same direction as on heating, show- ing that the air has become cooled by contact with the glass, but is after a time reversed, showing, that, by quasi-conduction through the air, the vanes have become cool, while the glass is regaining its original temperature. Grorce W, Eyans. of a molecule depends on temperature, the vane will ards the side on which the air is the 216 THE IGLOO OF THE INNUITA—IL. Amone the natives of North Hudson’s Bay, the first huts of the season, if there is a scarcity of compact snow, are made of ice. Rectan- gular slabs, three to four by six or six and one-half feet, are cut from some neighboring fresh-water lake where the ice has formed to a thickness of sixinches. As arough approxima- SCIENCE. slabs weigh nearly half a ton. When dragged from the lake, they are turned on edge, and a hole cut through their centre. By means of a strong seal-skin line passed through this hole, two strong men can handle a slab with consid- erable ease, moving or sliding it long distances. It takes four or five persons to put the first two together, the slight inclination which is given them holding them up when once in po- MAKING AN ICE-IGLOO. tion, these slabs may be said to be about the size of an ordinary door. ‘The slabs are placed almost upright, resting on their ends, and joined so as to form a circular pen of from ten to fifteen feetin diameter. Over the top of this the sum- mer seal-skin tent (tod-pik) is spread for a roof; being supported by the tent-poles cross- ing at convenient places, and held in place by a lashing of seal-skin about a foot below the top of the ice-slabs. In one of the slabs, generally on the side facing the south, a large opening is cut, which -is further protected by a smaller storm-igloo having an entrance-hole no larger than the girth of the most corpulent Innuit of that par- ticular village. As an aid in cutting, a rectangle is marked on the surface of the ice, having : a width equal to the length of the praposed slabs, and from it they are cut with an ice-chisel (tod-oke). This chisel is generally a heavy mortising- chisel, securely lashed to the end of a pole from six to seven feet long. I have seen bay- onets, sabre or sword points, or sharpened files made to serve the same purpose. The Es- quimaux around King William’s Land used the spikes from the wrecked ships of Sir John ‘Franklin’s ill-fated expedition. The large ice- ’ + Continued from No. 28. sition. After this, two or three are all that are needed to add each slab, until the house is completed. When two slabs are abutted against each other, the edges are trimmed with a snow-knife to give as much bearing-surface as possible ; and, when permanently set, snow dipped in water is applied to the joint inside- -and out, completely closing all crevices, and, when frozen, binding the two as solidly as if but one. A handful is also put in the central hole, which held the seal-skin thong, and the ice-pen is practically air-tight around its sides. The floor of snow has become packed by the treading of the builders ; and over it are laid flat stones, on which are spread a great many coarse robes of reindeer, musk-ox, and polar- bear skins, and over these: the finer reindeer- skins that make the bed, which occupies over half the floor. These ice-igloos are as transparent as elass ; and before they are covered by the drifting — snow, or their interiors dimmed by the smok- ing of the sooty lamps, a night-scene in one of these villages, especially if it be lar gee, with — the brilliant burning stone lamps i in full blaze, is one of the most Deautiful sights I have ever witnessed, especially in this dvear y land. Could one imagine the little Lilliputs living in flat — candy-jars with drumhead covers, he would [Vo1. If., No. 29. my SS ar eee an — Avavsr 24, 1883. have a fair miniature representation of an ice- village. Our canvas tent becoming very uncomforta- ble on account of the intense cold, which had sunk to nearly — 30° F., we had a large ice- igloo constructed, into which we mov ed on the Ist of November, 1878, and found it decid- edly more habitable. If the village be small, they generally con- struct an ice- -house per day, all w vorking, either cutting out the slabs, hauling them to the igloo site, putting them into shape, or chinking “the tracks with wet snow; and this is continued until all are housed. If a large village, they divide into parties. Sometimes the Innuits will retain their ice- igloo, even after the snow has become fit for building-purposes, the seal-skin tent being removed, and a new dome-shaped roof made of Buow-Ulocks. Such cases, however, are extremely rare; and unless this combination igloo is covered in thoroughly with deep snow- drifts, or with snow thrown upon it to a depth of at least four to six feet, it will not compare in comfort with that of snow alone. ‘The rela- tive conductivity of the two materials, snow and ice, readily explains the reason. The ice also condenses the moisture of the breath, and SCIENCE. 217 the steam from cooking, more readily upon its cold, smooth surface ; and this becomes at last an almost unbearable annoyance, — an annoy- ance which can be comprehended without ex- planation. The advantage of this igloo of ice is in its straight upright walls, which give more room than the slanting sides of the snow-house, while it is also easier to build, the ice portion being already constructed. We lived in such an igloo during the winter of 1878-79 ; but none of the Innuits around us retained theirs, and often complained of the cold when in ours, and referred it to its peculiar construction. I might add, however, that our three bedrooms or bed- igloos, which were attached to and communicated with the main one of ice, were wholly of snow. As the reader must have already surmised from the hints given from time to time, the true igloo is built of snow, those already de- scribed being used but a very small portion of the year. It is used on all their winter jour- neys, even for a single night; and, as contrary to the prevailing belief, the Innuits travel the most during this season, one can see that a person sharing their life and travels would have many opportunities, during two long winters with them, to see igloo-building and igloo-life in nearly all its aspects. AN ICE-IGLOO WITH SNOW CAPPING. 218 When the native has decided to relinquish his house of ice for one of snow, or on a sledge- journey has decided to go into camp, —in short, is going to build an igloo, — the first thing done is to get out the ‘ snow-testers,’ with which they determine the compactness, depth, and general availability for building-purposes of the snow- drifts. The ancient style of snow-tester, a, and SNOW-TESTERS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. those yet used by the Esquimaux who have no trading communications with the whalers and explorers, is one made from reindeer-horn, about the diameter of a little finger, and probably three feet long. One end is sharpened, and the other, formed as a button about the size of a quarter of a dollar, is held in the palm of the hand. The modern tester, 0, is simply the iron rod of the seal-spear with the barb removed. Having halted on some lake that they know by certain signs has not yet frozen to the bot- tom,! the men scatter out like skirmishers along the deep snow-drifts near the shore, and commence prodding with their testers. Finally a shout from one shows that he has been suc- cessful; and, leaving the tester sticking in the snow to mark the spot, he and the others re- turn to the sledges, which are then brought up, and the building commences. It takes considerable experience, coupled with good judgment, to pick out the best building-site ; and, while the constant prodding with the testers oftentimes looks foolish to a spectator, it is no inconsiderable part of the performance. Snow which looks perfect on the crust may be friable beyond use a few inches deeper, and this the tester will reveal. Soft drifting snow may cover a bank of splen- did building-material. Again, the drift may be freely interspersed with hidden stones and bowlders, which the testers will bring to light if freely used. This testing for good snow generally occupies from ten minutes to a quar- ter of an hour: but I have seen it drawn out to an hour, or so long as it takes to build the igloo itself: and, in fact, I have seen them compelled to abandon the most favorable looking lake after haying skirted its whole outline, and move on to the next. 1 This is generally done by lying flat on the ice, and placing their eyes as close to it as the nose will allow, when some vary- ing peculiarities of the ice-colors decide their conjectures. (To be continued.) SCIENCE. cle of the equinoctial. [Vou. IL, No. 29. ILLUSTRATIVE APPARATUS FOR ASTRONOMY. Tue accompanying figure represents an ap- paratus designed for use in teaching astronomy. It is mounted so that the axis on which it rotates is parallel to the earth’s axis. Two circles represent the equinoctial and ecliptic, and on the latter is a strip of wire cloth to represent the zo- diac. The circles are of such a size that the meshes of the cloth (in this case a half-inch) are. one degree in size, and larger meshes of five degrees are made, extending to the cir- The northern halves of the two colures help to hold all in position. The lower part of these latter circles are dis- pensed with, so that one may conveniently stand near the centre, the frame being of such a height as to bring the centre nearly on a level with the eye. It helps the beginner to obtain a clear con- ception of the fundamental circles so often referred to, of their actual position in the a STII TIT heavens, and their apparent diurnal- change of motion. It enables him also to represent the sun, moon, and planets in their correct Aueust 24, 1883.] positions at any time, their right ascensions and declinations (or longitudes and latitudes) being given. For this purpose I use disks of cardboard, with small hooks attached by which they may be readily fastened to the wires. It q "ye ae is, besides, very convenient to use in the expla- | nation of many questions and topics that arise | in the course of the subject. A light rod or wire attached to a standard serves as a hori- : zon when required. The apparatus grew out of the need felt of something besides the celestial globe and the usual means of illustration for use in the lec- ture-room. ‘The idea of it was suggested by a description of something like it which some one had seen ; but the description was so vague, Iam unable to say how nearly similar is this design, or whether it is any improvement or not : on what may be used elsewhere. But I have found it to serve a very good purpose in the lecture-room, and think it may be serviceable to other teachers. G. B. Merrmiay. HELL’S OBSERVATIONS OF THE TRAN- SIT OF VENUS IN 1769. Prorressor Newcomes has lately taken advantage . of a visit to the Imperial observatory of Vienna to | make, with the consent and support of its director, Prof. E. Weiss, an examination of Father Hell’s manuscript record, with reference to deciding on the alleged falsification of these observations by Hell himself. The result of his examination was so dif- ferent from that generally accepted, that Professor Newcomb prepared and presented to the Royal astronomical society a statement of the evidence and his conclusions. The story of Hell’s supposed tam- pering with his observations of the transit, made at Wardhus in 1769, is, in substance, that he delayed publishing them so long as to give rise to the suspi- cion of intending to alter them; that he showed them to no one until after he had received the observations made at other stations; that a cloud was thus thrown over their genuineness; that the suspicions thus excited were confirmed in 1835 through the discovery and publication by Littrow of Hell's original manuscript journal, which its author had neglected to destroy; and that the examination of this journal showed numerous cases of alteration and erasure of the original observed figures, includ- ing the seconds of first interior contact, which had been completely erased, and replaced by new numbers inserted with different ink at some subsequent time. And the reason for all this was supposed to be, that Hell desired to publish, not his true observations, but results which should be in the best possible accord- ance with the observations of others. More precise statements on some points are these: the transit occurred 1769, June 3; Hell’s party sailed from Ward- hus, June 27, but meeting with delays from adverse ee ee SS ee ee ee SCIENCE. 219 weather, and stopping to make observations, they did not reach Drontheim until Aug. 30; after some stay here and in Christiania, Copenhagen was reached on Sept. 17; the observations were communicated to the Danish academy of sciences in November or December; the printing commenced Dee. 13, and*on Jan. 13, 1770, Hell received twenty printed copies. Professor Newcomb remarks that he does not know the original authority for the statement that Hell was loudly called upon for his observations before he would consent to their publication. The document which Professor Newcomb has scrutinized is a thin manuscript volume in folio, con- taining twenty-seven finely written pages, and nearly as many blank ones, bearing the heading ‘‘ Observa- tiones Astronomicae et Caetera in Itinere litterario Vienné Wardéehusium factae. 1768. A. M. Hell.”’ This volume is assumed to be in Hell’s own writing, and to be his original journal of his observations. Littrow apparently treats of it as the actual first record of the observations, but to Professor New- comb this seems very improbable. He concludes that the writing of this journal was done at the observing-station, probably at the close of each day’s work or each set of observations. What Hell sent to press in December, 1769, was not a transcript of this journal, but a more copious account, containing eighty-one printed pages, with only an occasional identity of language. But, with a single unimpor- tant exception, the numbers are all printed with- out change from.the original manuscript journal, whether corrected or uncorrected in that journal. It is very clear to Professor Newcomb that nearly all the alterations were made at the station — two, at least, before the ink got dry. And he further con- cludes, that, whatever the sources from which the cor- rections were derived, the numbers as printed by Hell were all but one or two obtained at Wardhus. Going into these manuscript corrections more in detail, it seems quite clear to Professor Newcomb that the alterations in the numbers representing the observa- tions of first contact were made with the same ink as the original; and he regards only one conclusion as certain, — that the corrections were mnade at the time of writing, and without the slightest intention of giving any thing but the actually observed moment when Venus was first seen. Coming now to the much disputed observations of internal contact, the figures of seconds seem at first sight to be corrected. Littrow says that the paper bears marks of having been scraped, and that the original’ figures of seconds had been carefully erased, the ink, in consequence, spreading in the paper. Professor Newcomb remarks, that one sees at a glatice that the latter statement is erroneous; and he applies to the question of erasure the test of viewing the paper by oblique sunlight, and proves the texture of the surface to be still uninjured. The evi- dence thus leads to the certain conclusion, that no dif- ferent figures from those now visible were ever written there. If, then, they are in any way the result of calculation from other observations, the place must have been left blank until Hell got back to Copen- 220 hagen, and made the necesSaty calculations, — an hypothesis too fanciful for serious discussion. An- other part of the record looks more suspicious, —a line, ‘fulmen 9 32 48,’ is not only an interlineation, but is written in decidedly different ink from all the_ original manuscript. The original journal, up to the time that Hell left Wardhus, being all written in one kind of ink, we conclude that the inser- tion was made after he reached Copenhagen, and after he had seen the observations of others. Two hypotheses are before us as to how the insertion was determined, —we may suppose that Hell, when he found he had omitted what other observers con- sidered an important phase, tried to remember how long after the recorded contact he first saw the sun’s limb continuous, and wrote the result in his journal; or we may suppose that he made a memorandum at the time of the observation, but omitted to copy it in the journal, either through inadvertence, or because he deemed it too late for contact. When he found the phase important, he merely copied the omitted record in his journal. The use of the queer word ‘fulmen,’ which appears only in the manu- script, seems to Professor Newcomb to give color to the latter hypothesis. He can hardly conceive of one using it deliberately, after six months, to express the formation of the thread of light; whereas, at the moment of observation, in the excitement and hurry, it would be a very natural single word to des- ignate the rapid increase of the effulgence of solar light around the following limb of Venus, which fol- lows true contact at ingress. It is a strong confirma- tion of this view, that Mr. Stone, without apparently having made any comparison with Hell’s printed observations, reached this same conclusion as to the probable use of the word ‘fulmen.’ With regard to the egress of the planet, the times of Hell’s notes of the ‘ gutta nigra’ are each increased by two seconds; but obviously this correction was made at the time of writing. More serious is a cor- rection of the time of observation by Sajnovies, the companion and assistant of Hell. They, no doubt, discussed their times; and,-in consequence of such discussion, Sajnovies concluded that his times were late. In the exterior contacts, the only corrections are such as were made at the time of writing, and to which Professor Newcomb attaches no impor- tance. Regarding certain collateral circumstances which have been supposed to cast suspicion upon Hell’s intentions, not only does Professor Newcomb see no suspicious delay in making known his observations (for the whole paper, containing an account. of his instruments, observations, and results, including an investigation of his quadrant and clocks, a discussion of his latitude, longitude, and time, and a full state- ment of his observations, was written, printed, and ready for distribution, four months after his return to Copenhagen), but it seems difficult for him to Suppose that Hell could have had time to make so complete a reduction of the observations of others as to be able to compare them with his own. That his observed times of the contacts were not pub- SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 29. lished in advance, as were those of many other observers, but appeared first in an official form under the imprint of the Academy of sciences, seems to Professor Newcomb in accord with very proper feel- ing, as the observations were made under the au- spices of the king of Denmark, and dedicated to him; and furthermore, owing to the position of the station being unknown, publication in adyance could have served no useful purpose. In his discussion, Professor Newcomb makes but slight allusion to the absence of many circumstances which might be expected to accompany manufactured observations; but he has presented all the positive evidence within reach so fully as to enable every one to draw his own independent conclusions. His own conclusions are, — First, The belief that there was any suspicious delay in the publication of Hell’s observations, or any thing in his course to give reasonable ground for a suspicion that he intended to tamper with his observations, is a pure myth. Second, Excepting the time of formation of the thread of light at ingress; excepting, also, a discrep- ancy of one second in the time of internal contact, and a change of two seconds in one of Sajnovics’s times, —it is proved, not only negatively and presump- tively, but by positive evidence and beyond serious doubt, that all the essential numbers of observation given by Hell, whether relating to the transit, time, or longitude, are printed as concluded upon and written in his journal at Wardhus, before there was any possibility of communication with other ob- servers. Third, The addition of the time of the formation of the thread of light was suggested by the accounts of other observers; but the time itself isHell’s own, obtained possibly from estimation and memory, but more probably from a memorandum made at the time of observation, which he neglected to insert in his journal. Fourth, The alterations in Sajnovics’s time of second internal contact were probably made, because Sajnovics himself afterward concluded that his re- corded time was too late; but it may be assumed, that, in reaching this conclusion, he was influenced by Hell's observations. Professor Newcomb adds, respecting his own pro- ceedings in investigating this subject, that, in com- mencing the examination of Hell's journal, he had no hope of doing more than deciding whether it was or was not safe to use Hell’s numbers as actual re- sults of observations, and no thought of doubting the commonly received view of the case. He soon became perplexed to find himself differing entirely from the conclusions.of Littrow. Before the latter had found the manuscript, suspicion had rested upon Hell’s truthfulness; so that when he looked into the manuscript, and saw such extensive alterations, the indictment seemed so clearly proven that Lit- trow’s only duty was to make the facts which proved it; known to the world. ile thus unconsciously assumed the tone of a public prosecutor, and saw all the circumstances from an accuser’s point of view. a : Aveust 24, 1883.] , LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Errata in catalogues of stars. The Washburn observatory possesses a nearly complete cullection of such star-catalogues as have been printed since the year 1800. A list of them is given below. It will be noticed that this list does not include the very expensive British association eatalogue. Oeltzen’s Argelander’s Northern zones is also missing from the list, as I have been unable to buy it in Europe during the past two years. An- other very scarce catalogue (Weisse’s Lessel’s Zones from + 15° to— 15°) I have just obtained after two years’ delay. In each one of these catalogues, I have had every erratum known to me inserted in its proper place, so that the set of catalogues really represents what is known, freed from an enormous mass of misprints and real errors. ) Iam not able to say how many material errors have been corrected, but certainly not less than twelve thousand. I think those who use star-catalogues most will be most surprised at the amazing number of material errors which still remain in the catalogues which they employ daily. I have called attention to these errors in order to say that I will engage to have any of the cata- logues of the following list corrected completely, in all respects like my own, for any observatory, or for any astronomer who may desire it. The catalogue should be sent by American ex- press, prepaid, addressed to me, and accompanied by a note asking that the work be done. The book, when corrected, will be returned by express at the owner’s expense. The corrections will be made by one of my assist- ants, under my direction, and an account kept of the number of hours spent on the work. The work will be charged for at the rate of fifty cents per hour. I may say that the sum so received will be paid to the copyist. It has appeared to me, that, after the large amount of labor which has been expended on my own cata- logues, I was under obligations to give the benefit of such work to others, and this [ willingly do. The first list following gives the names of the catalogues owned by the Washburn observatory; the second gives the sources from which the errata have been derived. 1 shall be much indebted for references to errata not there mentioned. Epwarp S. HOoLpEn. Washburn Observatory, Madison, Wis., Aug. 1, 1883. I. List of star-catalogues. Catalogue of 1,439 stars, 1840.0. ce “1,576 ‘* 1850.0 (6-year). oo “< cee ae TEREO (Ty **” ). — ee pT ele its Te oa eu “ee “ee 2,203 “ “872109, ) Argelander: Bonn observations, vols. 1-7. [Vols. 1 and Z not corrected. | — Uranometria rected. ] Baily’s Lalande. Behrmann: Uranometry. |The maps not corrected. | Brisbane: Paramatta catalogue. Carrington: 3,735 cireumpolar stars, Gould: Uranometria argentina. — D’Agelet’s Catalogue. Heis: Atlas coelestis. [‘The maps not corrected. } Johnson: First Radeliffe catalogue. Lamont: Catalogues, 6 vols. nova. [The maps not cor- SCIENCE. 221 Main: Second Radcliffe catalogue. Robinson: Armagh catalogue. Riimker: 12,000 stars. Schjellerup: 10,000 stars. Stoue: Cape catalogue. 1873. es BX 1578. x 43 1880. Weisse’s Bessel’s Zones I. and II. White: Melbourne general catalogue. 1870. IT, List of sources where errata are found. *,* The name of the author of the catalogue comes first, then a brief reference to the particular cata- lugue, and, last, a reference to the place where the errata are given. No reference is made here to ecor- rections which are usually bound in the same covers with the original catalogue, or which are given in subsequent volumes of the same work. I have also included here a few reviews which contain no errata, properly speaking. Airy: New 7-year catalogue. —v. J. s. 1871, 100. Argelander: Bonn obs., vi. —v. 4.8. 1867, 272. Durehmusterung. | A single correction to D. M.] — Astr. nachr., Ixxi. col. 240. — - [Places of two stars not in D. M.] — Astr. nachr., Ixxii. col. 55, — - Astr. nachr., no. 1765. — - Astr. nachr., ‘no. 2396, col. 305; no. 2429, col. 69. — [Ueber einen in der D. M. feblenden stern. | — Astr, nachr., no, 2459. —— - Astr. nachr., no, 2478. Same, no. 2527. : — Uranometria nova. — Astr. nachr., xxvi. col. 318. —— - Annals Harv. coll. obs., ix. — Northern zones. — Bonn obs., v. —— - [Fortsetzung von band v.] — Boun obs., vi. — |'Theoretical; with a few corrections to the zones.]— V. J. S. vol. 8, 221. —— Southern zones. — Bonn obs., vi.; Cooper's Ecliptie stars, iv. ; Baily’s Lacaille: Catalogue.— Bonn obs., vii. 245; Cape catalogue, 1880. Baily’s Lalande: Catalogue. — Bonn obs., vii. 213 seq. ; Schjellerup, 10,000 stars, p. 225. Behrmann: Atlas des siidlichen gestirnten Him- mels. — Vv. J. S. 1875, 89. Bessel: Zones. — Bonn obs., iv. p. i.; v. p. xxxii. British association catalogue. — Cape catalogue, 1840; same, 1SSU. apnea 7,385 stars. — Cape catalogue, 1840; same, 1880. Cape catalogue: 1840.—Stone, Cape catalogue, 1880, 559. [A single correction. | Catalogues: Errata in standard catalogues of stars, — Monthly not. R. A. S., viii. 161. [This volume I have not access to at present. | Copeland & Borgen: Mitulere oerter sterne zwi- schen 0° und —1°.— v. 3. s. 1870, 197. D’ Arrest: Siderum neb. obs, hav.—v. J. s. 1868, 94. Dreyer: Supplement to Herschel’s General cata- logue. —V. 3.8. 1878, 274. Ellery: First Melbourne catalogue. — vy. J. s. 178; Monthly not. R. A. S., xlii. 808. + Fedorenko: Catalogue. — Bonn obs., vi. Gilliss: Catalogue U.S. naval astron. expedition, — v. J. 8. 1872, 46. Gould: Reduction of D’Agelet. — v. 7. s. — Standard places of fund. 1867, 22. — Uranometria argentina. —Cordoba observa- tions, ii, 205. 1876, 1867, 2. stars. — V. J. 8. 222 Groombridge: Catalogue. —In First Radcliffe cata- logue. — Bonn obs., vi. Heis: Atlas coelestis. —Annals Harv. coll. obs., ix. — V. J. 8. vill. 67, 278; ix. 236; xiii. 111. Herschel: Gen. cat. nebulae and clusters. — vy. J. s. 1866, 176. — Catalogue of 10,300 double stars.—v. J. s. 1876. 61. Johnson: First Radcliffe catalogue. — Bonn obs., Vi. Lacaille: Coelum australe stelliferum. — Bonn obs., vii. Lalande: Catalogue. — Monthly not. R. A. S., xiv. 195. [This volume I have not access to at present. | — Histoire céleste. — Bonn obs., vii. — Observations of 1789-90. — Bonn obs,, vi. —— Catalogue. — Cooper’s Ecliptic stars, iv. Lamont: Catalogues (6 vols.) —v. J. 8s. ix, 94. Main, R.: 2d Radcliffe catalogue. —v.g.s. 1870, 292. Newcomb, S.: On the R. Asc. of the eq. fund. stars. Ven Se lonorlage — Catalogue of 1,098 stars. —yv. J. s. 1882, 259. Piazzi: Positiones mediae, 1814. — Bonn obs., vi. Riimker: 12,000 stars. — Bonn obs., vi. — - Cooper’s Ecliptie stars, iv. — Neuer folge. — Bonn obs., vi. — Preliminary catalogue of southern stars. — Stone, Cape catalogue, 1880. Santini: First two catalogues. — Bonn obs., vi. Posizioni medie di 1,425 stelle.—v. gs. s. 1872, 18. f Schjellerup: Al-Sufi’s Uranometry. — Monthly not. R. A. S., xliii. 266. — 10,000 stars. — Bonn obs., vi. Schénfeld, E. : Catalog von verinderlichen sternen. —v.J.s. 1866, 113. — Zweiter catalog von verinderlichen sternen. — Vid. S. L570, 13: Stone, E. J.: Results of astronomical observations at Cape of Good Hope, 1856-58. —v. 3. s. 1875, 192. Cape catalogue, 1880. — v. J. s. 1880, 207. Strasser: Mittlere oerter von fixsternen. — vy. J. s. 1878, 88. ; Struve (W.): Positiones mediae. — Bonn obs., vi. —— - Schijellerup’s 10,000 stars, p. 225. Taylor: Madras catalogue. — Bonn obs., vi.; Cape catalogue, 1840; same, 1880. - —— Astron. obs. at Madras, 1843-47.—v. 3. s. 1873, 180. Vogel, H. C.: Positionsbestimmungen yon nebel- flecken, etc. —v. J. S. 1876, 276. Weisse’s Bessel’s Zones, +15° to — 15°. — Cooper’s Ecliptie stars, iv. Gould’s Astronomical journal, iii. 115. [This contains all the errata of the Astr. nachr. up to 1853, June.] - Annals Hary. coll. observatory, i., pt. ii., p. lviii. - Schjellerup’s 10,000 stars, p. 225. —— - Weisse’s Bessel’s Zones, + 15° to +.45°, p. xly. ““Catalogue.”? —Monthly not. R. A. S., xiv. 195. [This volume I have not access to at present. | Wilson & Seabroke: Catalogue of measures of double stars. —v. J. 8. _1877, 108. Yarnall: Catalogue U. S. naval obs.—v. J. 8. 1880, 20. The search for Crevaux. Apropos of your recent weekly summary of the progress of geography under the titles of the Death SCIENCE. [Vor. II., No. 29. of Crevaux, etc., I may say that a member of the French geographical society, M. Thouars, accom- panied the U.S. solar eclipse expedition from Panama to Callao, March 12-21, of this year. M. Thouars had familiarized himself with explorations in South America by extensive travels in Columbia and else- where, and intended to penetrate the Pileomayo region, in search of the relies of the Crevaux expe- dition, alone, or with only one companion, the two disguised as Catholie priests. The attempt seems foolhardy; and, for my part, I am glad to know that M. Thouars intends to carry a revolver under his priest’s robe, and that he is a braye man and an excellent shot. If he has not abandoned his daring project, we should hear of him during the early part of 1884. Epwarp S. HoLpEN. Madison, Aug. 6, 1883. Occurrence of the swallow-tailed hawk in New Jersey. Early in the evening of July 28 I was standing on the brow of the bluff overlooking the Delaware River, near Bordentown, N.J., when my attention was called to a large bird sailing in comparatively small circles high overhead. Fortunately there was a dark blue-black cloud behind it, so that I had an ex- cellent opportunity to observe the bird. It was the swallow-tailed hawk (Nauclerus forficatus). It re- mained in nearly the same position for over an hour, when it altered its flight, and, with steady wing- strokes, flew rapidly in a north-west direction. The appearance of this hawk here is one of the rarest events in the experience of New Jersey orni- thologists. Cuas. C. ABBotr, M.D. A reckless flier. ONE might think a tragic end would await such birds as the Swifts, so bold and persistent their flight; and doubtless such is in store for many, though they seem to steer clear of most obstacles. A case in point came recently to hand, —that of an unfortunate bird impaled to the spear-point of a lightning-rod above a chimney. There it remained until shot off with a gun, —a warning and a ghastly one, indeed, to all this swift race. F. H. HERRICK. Swallows in Boston. I saw on the 4th of this month the first swallow in Boston, at the extreme end of City Point, South Boston. I have been on the lookout for them since April. Two friends, good observers, report that they have not seen one this season. CARL Reppots. Boston, Aug. 7, 1883. “HAs any one seen a swallow this summer in Bos- ton?’ inquires a correspondent in ScrencE, Aug. 3. Yes: I saw six last week, perched on the state-house. Prior to this I had also raised the query. Whether it was the pugnacious sparrows, or legislature, that had banished these aerial visitors from the capitol, their old haunt, was and is a query. LEANDER WETHERELL. Boston, Aug. 11. WARD’S DYNAMIC SOCIOLOGY. IV. _ Iris Mr. Ward’s theory, that the more com- plex sciences should be based upon the less complex. This he avowedly derives from ——S eed are ss eee in acl i Aveusr 24, 1883] Comte, but himself defends at length; and his work is constructed consistently therewith. The part which relates to sociology, therefore, is based upon principles derived from the physical and biologic sciences and psychology, which he treats as a biologic science. Some general mention is made of languages, arts, and opinions, in various portions of the book ; but no systematic treatment of these subjects is presented. The same is true with respect to all that body of facts which, if systema- tized, the author would call static sociology. He only attempts to treat, at length and in order, the forces of society. This theory is but a half-truth, and the method of treatment resulting therefrom has sometimes led to con- clusions that are erroneous. The most im- portant failure in this respect is Mr. Ward’s presentation of what he denominates the four stages of society: viz., ‘‘ (1) the solitary or antarchic stage; (2) the constrained aggre- gate or anarchic stage; (3) the national or politarchie stage ; and (4) the cosmopolitan or pantarchic stage.’’ The first or solitary stage is that which Mr. Ward supposes to exist among animals. In the second stage he sup- poses mankind to have multiplied in great numbers, to have been widely spread through- out the earth, and to have been aggregated without organization. The third stage is repre- sented by the organized tribes and nations of the earth. The fourth stage is a prophecy, when all men shall be organized in one body politic. Tt will be well to compare this scheme with that of Morgan in his ‘ Ancient society.’ Mor- gan attempts to establish what he denominates ethicalperiods. The three grand periods are savagery, barbarism, and civilization; and savagery and barbarism are subdivided. The following is his scheme : — SCIENCE. 223 method of aggregation, while Morgan’s scheme is based on the development of arts. Ward is right in his philosophic plan, but altogether wrong in its execution: Morgan is wrong in his plan, or method, but more nearly right in his final conclusions ; for the three grand stages which he endeavors to establish can with some modification be fully based on the method of aggregation, i.e., on the data of sociology as distinguished from technology. This will be briefly set forth. The inception of social organization is in the biologic differentiation of the sexes, giving husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, and other relations of affinity and consanguinity. At that time, when the species now known as man had made no farther prog- ress than have some of the lower animals at the present time, this elementary organization existed; and a greater or less development of this organization is discovered among many species of the lower-animals. On it the sub- sequent organization was built. The impor- tance of this fundamental organization seems to have escaped Mr. Ward. Archeologie evidence is now abundant to show, that man was widely scattered through- out the earth at a very early stage in the de- velopment of art, i.e., in the paleolithic age. Again: there is abundant linguistic evidence to show, that man was widely scattered through- out the earth at the inception or beginning of the development of articulate, i.e., organized, speech. In this condition he must have had at least something of the social organization which is based on sex. The stories which have been told, to which Mr. Ward refers without giving full credence, of men living in utterly discrete conditions, are but idle tales, and have-no place in the data of scientific yi. IL. Il. Lower status of savagery . Middle status of savagery Upper status of savagery. . Lower status of barbarism Middle status of barbarism . Upper status of barbarism Status of civilization Tt will be seen, that Ward’s scheme is con- sistent with his philosophy, and based on { From the infancy of the human race to the commencement of the *) next period. From the acquisition of a fish subsistence and a knowledge of the use 4 of fire to the commencement of the next period. From fhe invention of the bow and arrow to the commencement of “4 the next period. From the invention of the art of pottery to the commencement of the 4 next period. From the domestication of animals on the eastern hemisphere, and in the western from the cultivation of maize and plants by irri- gation, with the use of adobe-brick and stone, to fe commence- ment of the next period. From the invention of the process of smelting iron ore, with the use | of iron tools, to the commencement of the next period. rom the invention of a phonetic alphabet, with the use of writing, ee to the present time. anthropology. Mr. Ward says, ‘*‘ The second stage embodies none of the elements: of per- 224 manency, and cannot be expected to be found extensively prevailing at any age of the world. It is essentially a transition stage, and, like transition forms in biology, is characterized by an ephemeral duration. Nevertheless, it has numerous living representatives among the lower existing tribes, particularly among the Fuegians, interior Australians, Wood-Veddas, and Bushmen.’’ The illustrations given of this second stage are also idle tales. These people must also have had the organization mentioned above as based on sex; and it is now known that some of them at least, espe- cially the Australians, have a highly organized system of social aggregation based on kinship. These people are, in fact, organized as tribes. In the presence of facts, the first and second periods of Mr. Ward disappear. Travellers among savage peoples, seeking for the institutions with which they were them- selves acquainted among civilized men, have found them not, and have sometimes reported the peoples to be without institutions, and at other times have completely misinterpreted what they did discover. If we accept such statements, we must believe that some tribes were without organization, and some had the institutions and governments of civilization. And if we compare the statements of a number of travellers about the same people, we shall discover that most of the savage tribes of the earth have been reported, now as being desti- tute of government and sociologic institutions, and now as having kings, aristocracies, and the elaborate paraphernalia of civilized govern- ments. None of these accounts are true: all are to be rejected. But there yet remains a body of sociologic data relating to the lower tribes of mankind, collected by scientific an- thropologists, chiefly during the last two or three decades. We owe much of this knowl- edge to Morgan’s researches, and the investi- gations of others which have grown out of his suggestions. We now know something of the organization of almost every tribe on the face of the earth, though in many cases our knowl- edge is exceedingly meagre and fragmentary. Yet perhaps enough is known to warrant the assertion, that there is no tribe so low but that it has a sociologic organization highly de- veloped in comparison with that mentioned above as based on sex and exhibited among the lower animals. ‘The outlines of this plan of organization must be set forth. The tribes of mankind, as distinguished from nations, have each an organization based on kinship. This system of kinship invariably recognizes grades, based primarily on degrees SCIENCE. Wwe OW [Vou. IL, No. 29. of affinity and consanguinity, and secondarily on relative age, or the series of generations which may be extant among a people at any given time. All of the relations which exist among such a people, and which may be de- nominated as rights and duties, are deter- mined by the kinship relations recognized in their social organization, and expressed in their language. This subject is too vast for thorough exposition here, and a single illus- tration must suffice. Among all such tribes age gives authority, but no method of de- termining the absolute age of any individual exists among them. Dates of birth are soon | forgotten. every such tribe a device by which relative age is invariably expressed ; for every man, woman, and child accosts and designates every other man, woman, and child within the tribe by a term which in itself expresses relative age. Thus, in these languages there is no term for brother; but there is one term for elder brother, and another for younger brother. A man cannot speak of his ‘ brother’ as such simply: he must use a term which says ‘ my elder brother,’ or ‘my younger brother,’ as the case may be. In the same manner, if he speaks to or of any other person in the tribe, the term by which that person is designated will itself show the relative ages of the persons speaking and spoken to or of. Age gives au- thority, and this authority is so important and so universal that it is woven into the texture of every tribal language. Every tribe is or- ganized as a great family, —a system of kin- dred. t From this plan of early tribal organization, there is a great development exhibited in many ways; for tribes are differentiated into classes, or clans, or gentes, which are interde- pendent bodies politic. This tribal organization, so briefly character- ized, has its fundamental idea in kinship; and the minds of the people in this stage can con- ceive of no other form of organization. If two or more tribes form an alliance, temporary or permanent, for defensive or offensive pur- poses, one or both, the same thought prevails. In a council for such an alliance, one of the first propositions to be settled is,‘ What shall . be the kinship relations existing between us ?’ and, before the alliance can be consummated, this must be settled. Once upon a time the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Muskokees, and other tribes met in council for the purpose of forming an alli- ance against the upper Mississippi tribes of the Dakota stock; and it was decided, that, TPS eo See But there is in the language of © Aueusr 24, 1883.] as the Cherokees lived at the sources of the streams that watered the country occupied by the other tribes, they, the Cherokees, should be called ‘elder brothers,’ and the tribes living on the lower courses of the streams should come in order from east to west as second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth born sons, be- cause such was the course of the sun as it travelled over their lands. Then the people of one tribe called the people of another ‘elder’ or ‘ younger’ brothers, and took pre- eedence and authority in council and war therefrom. This plan of organization is a distinct method of aggregation, designated as kinship, or tribal; but it gradually developed into something else. As tribes, by alliance, by con- quest, and various other processes, enlarged, it was done by establishing artificial kinship, —by what Sir Henry Maine denominates a ‘legal fiction ;” and in many cases it came to be that the whole organization was chiefly a legal fiction. Kinship ties were chiefly arti- ficial. Under these circumstances the kinship bond, composed of marriage-ties and streams of kindred blood, was found to be but a rope of sand; and gradually, by many steps, the basis of aggregation was changed to territory, and the bonds of society became the organs of government for the regulation of relations arising from property. But, before a territo- rial system of aggregation is fully established, intermediate stages are discovered. First, the tribal organization occupies a distinct territory, but the territorial organization is latent; then aggregations partly by territory and partly by kinship supervene; and finally, by many steps, kinship organization is abandoned, and territorial organization remains. ‘This gives two very distinct methods of aggregation or _plans of social organization, viz., kinship and territorial society, or tribal and national govy- ernment; and the two are objectively dis- covered, and not simply theoretical. The first in its simplest state is Morgan’s Status of savagery ; the second in its simplest state is Morgan’s Status of civilization. His Status of barbarism includes the higher forms of kinship organization and the transition forms mentioned above. If we confine his Status of barbarism to the transition forms, we will then have savagery, barbarism, and civilization established properly on modes of aggregation ; but barbarism will merely be a transition stage, and comparatively ephemeral. : Of Mr. Ward’s fourth stage, it is simply necessary to say that he himself recognizes it as an ideal of the future; but it is properly SCIENCE. 225 based upon history, and is in the manifest course of social evolution. Of the myriads of languages once existing, and of many of which we now have but mere glimpses, few remain, and of these few a very small number are rap- idly predominating. ‘The many have become few, and the few will be completely unified, for such is the course of philologic evolution. Of the myriads of tribes scattered by the shores of the seas, on the margins of the lakes, and along the streams of all the habitable earth, but few remain. ‘They have been gradually integrated into larger tribes, and finally, with the most advanced, into nations; and the time will come when there will be but one body politic, for such is the course of sociologic evolution. Every tribe of the myriads that have spoken distinct languages has each for itself developed a mythologic philosophy. These mythologic pnilosophies are: rapidly dis- appearing, and now are comparatively but few ; anc the time will come when but one philosophy will remain, —the philosophy of science, the truth, — for such is the course of philosophic evolution. The fourth stage of society —the cosmopolitan or pantarchic—is a legitimate induction, a qualitative but not a quantitative prophecy, for who shall say when it shall come ? Morgan’s method of basing his stages upon the arts is unphilosophic: it was simply stages of art development, not stages of social organ- ization. But, because art and society have evolved interdependently together, it very nearly represents the truth; but the actual condition of the progress of any given society or body politic can be determined with less accuracy from its arts than from any other de- partment of anthropology, and this from the fact that art is expressed in material form that can be easily imitated. Its use is at once ap- parent; and a people may easily borrow an art, or an aggregate of arts, without passing through the stage necessary for its invention. Arts, therefore, travel beyond the boundaries of tribes, languages, and philosophies, and are rapidly spread throughout the world. Tribes that to-day use the bow and arrow may to- morrow use the gun, though they have no knowledge of chemistry and metallurgy. The attempts of the archeologists of modern times to trace migrations, or to connect peoples by a genetic tie, have been to a large extent ren- dered vicious by the failure to recognize this principle. Tribes and nations, peoples, bodies politic, cannot be classified by arts: but the evolution of arts may be marked off in stages, as done by Morgan; and his stages are the 226 best yet proposed, though he failed as an eth- nologist in the attempt to classify races. In the same manner, but to a less degree, scholars have failed to classify peoples by languages; for languages only to a limited extent represent genetic connections of peo- ples. Tribes speaking diverse languages have coalesced ; and languages have thus been com- pounded, and lancuage has supplanted lan- guage. A linguistic Classification, therefore, is not completely ethnic, but it comes nearer to the truth than the technologie classification. If a classification by philosophies were at- tempted, it also would fail, though it would be superior to the philologie ; for opinions last longer than words. A sociologie classification of peoples also fails to exhibit genetic relation- ships. Arts, languages, states, philosophies, may be classified, each to show genetic relation- ships; but they each and all ‘together fail to classify mankind in a fundamental and philo- sophic manner. Scholars have devoted much time and inge- nuity to classify mankind by biologic charac- teristics, sought for in the color of the skin, the texture of the hair, the form of the skull, the relative proportion of parts, etc. These attempts have all failed. It is probable that in the early history of mankind biologic differ- entiation progressed so far as to produce some well-marked varieties ; but the biologic method of evolution by the survival of the fittest was more and more repealed as the anthropologic methods of evolution gained ground, and the scattered and discrete tribes were more and more commingled by the union here and there of distinct streams of blood, by the spread of arts, that placed all peoples under conditions of artificial environment, and made them more and more independent of natural environment, and by various other anthropologic conditions too numerous and complex to be here set forth. But, altogether, the tendency to differentiate into distinct biologic peoples has been over- come, and the tendency to unification has been steadily increasing : so that the distinctions of biologic varieties of mankind, of which we now haye but hints in the biologic characteristics remaining, are gradually being obliterated ; and we may contidently predict that in the fourth stage, yet to be reached, race distinc- tions will be utterly lost. In the short articles of this review an at- tempt has been made to give a synopsis of the work in question, to show the relation of * Dy- namic sociology’ to current philosophy, and to point out its more important defects. Little space is left for that commendation which its SCIENCE. ‘ & ey [Vou. II., No. 29. intrinsic merits deserve. Mr. Ward’s presen- tation of the subject is simple, clear, syste- matic, and courageous. For its preparation he has explored vast fields of thought; and his conclusions, however they may be questioned, cannot, be ignored by those who are interested in modern philosophy. Ward’s Dynamic so- ciology is America’s greatest contribution to scientific philosophy. ELEMENTARY METEOROLOGY. Elementary metevrology, with meteorological charts and illustrations. By RK H. Scorr. London, Kegan Paul, Trench, § Co., 1883. 408p. 8°. Tuis volume, the latest English contribution to the science of meteorology, is not a treatise, as the title indicates. It is, however, an ex- cellent work, treating the subject from a mod- ern stand-point, and sweeping away many untenable theories. We especially note the chapters on the barometer and on the forma- tion of rain and hail. The descriptive chap- ters collecting all known facts relating to wind and ocean currents are very valuable and well presented. Our author rejects the once seemingly satis- factory theory, attributing the south-west mon- soon winds of India to the rising of heated air above the plains to the north-east of the Him- alaya range, and also the theory that the ex- istence of sea-breezes is due to the rising of heated air upon the land near oceans. He, however, adopts this theory of ascending cur- rents of heated air in explaining the formation of cumulus-clouds. It is difficult to see how the atmosphere can be heated, save gradually, in strata parallel to the earth’s surface, except on mountain sides. This is the theory adopted by Hann, who regards the cumulus-cloud as simply indicating the layer at which the air has the temperature of the dew-point. Mr. Scott seems to indorse the theory that there is an ascending current in the centre of a barometric depression, though his storm- chart on p. 855 shows all the wind-directions near the low centre tangent to the isobars. This shows that the air- motion, which at the outside of the storm is directed more or less toward the centre, gradually becomes circular as it approaches the centre. Such a whirl moving over the earth’s surface, losing a part of the air in its path, does not require ‘any ascending current at its centre. The same may be said of our author’s theory that rain can be formed by rising currents of heated air. In this case, not only is there the doubt- ful assumption of an ascending current, but _ AuGusT’ 24, 1883.] the formation of rain under these circumstances seems disproved, in another place, by the author himself, who rejects the theory that any considerable precipitation can be produced by the mixture of masses of hot and cold air. Mr. Scott acknowledges that nothing definite is known as to the origin of atmospheric elec- tricity ; but his conjecture that the coalescence of cloud-droplets into rain-drops may be due to electricity will hardly be accepted by mete- orologists at present. The description of a peculiar electrical manifestation observed in the Alps, July 10, 1863, is very similar to that given by Siemens while on Cheops pyramid, April 14, 1859. The division of thunder-storms into heat and cyclonic is hardly applicable to the United States, where it appears as if no thunder- storms occur, except as largely influenced by, or directly dependent on, the presence of a barometric depression. The error of more than forty million square : : SCIENCE. 227 miles in the earth’s surface between the equa- tor and 30° north latitude should be corrected in the next edition. The statement, that at great depths in the ocean a probable uniform temperature of 32° F. prevails, has been disproved by the researches of Professor Verrill and the U.S. fish-com- mission, We notice on p. 362 the surprising state- ment, that, asthe central office of the U.S. weather bureau is in the eastern part of the country, there is a great advantage to those predicting storms by the use of the tele- graph. The chart of mean January isobars does not incorporate Stelling’s work in Siberia, published in 1879, and accepted by Mohn in the last edition’of his Meteorology. Mohn’s chart shows a mean pressure over central Si- beria of 780 mm. (30.79 in.), while the highest figure in Scott for the same region is 30.4 inches. AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. Tue thirty-second annual meeting of the American association was opened in the halls q of the university of Minnesota, Minneapolis, . Aug. 15, at 10.30 a.m. Dr. J. W. Dawson, the retiring president, introduced the presi- - dent elect, Prof. C. A. Young, who briefly and gracefully expressed his thanks to the association for the distinction they had offered him. After welcomes spoken by the governor of the state and the mayor of the city, the principal address was made by the acting president of the university, Dr. W. W. Folwell, on behalf of the local committee. From his _ address we print the closing sentences : — I should do a wrong to my city if I should leave upon you the impression that we are so overwhelmed _ and engrossed with our material labors as to have no care for the things.of the mind and the higher life. If that were true, why should we welcome with so much sincere ardor the assemblage of your associa- tion? From the villages of New England, and the _ farmhouses of the Middle states, our people have brought that perennial curiosity, that thirst for knowledge, that intense though sombre imagination, which have given American civilization and American ‘literature a cast and hue of its own. I must, ina word, praise our system of public schools, both city and state, which under able management and popu- Jar support cannot, we believe, be ranked below those of any communities of our size in the Union. Minne- ta is the first place which has organized its second- as well as its primary education, and offered to every child in the state a free course of studies, from the alphabet to the degree of master of arts. Our churches, goodly in size and number, may speak for the interests of religion. The future will attest the diligenee and the fidelity of those who love music and the sister arts, of whom far older cities might be proud. It is thus, however, Mr. President, that we Minneapolitans, alert, pre-occupied, pause in the midst of our labors to welcome your already venerable asso- ciation. We hail youas the survivors of a generation of great investigators, —the Sillimans, the Baches, the Morses, the Rogerses, who have made their own country famous and their own names as imperishable as science herself. We hail you as the worthy suc- cessors of such.a generation, perpetuating and enlar- ging their work. In common with civilized people, we recognize the immense debt of the modern world to science; yet often, no doubt, while we are filling the sky with applause to some lucky inventor, we are not remembering the years, perhaps generations, of incon- spicuous and painful labors, carried on in our studies and laboratories, which made the invention possible. Let the inventor have his glory and his profit without envy and without stint; but let us not fail to bnild the cenotaph of a thousand nameless geometers, star- gazers, and natural philosophers, who, working in silence and obscurity, without thought of fame or hope of reward, put it in his power to bless and ecapti- vate the world. We are grateful, therefore, to science for the telegraph and the microscope, for chloroform, for the photograph, for all the nameless applications of electricity. To science we owe that magnificent apparatus of transportation which is the crowning and distinctive feature of modern material life. To 228 science we owe the thousand appliances which yield comfort and even elegance to the humblest house- hold. Immense as are these contributions of science to material comfort and happiness, she has still, I think, performed greater services to mankind. The scientific method developed in the study of nature has spread to all branches of investigation. It has permeated all our education: it has boldly leaped the boundary between physics and metaphysics. It has even penetrated into industry and business and com- mon life. The modern man first collects what knowl- edge he can about his enterprise or adventure, and assures himself of its value. He then makes the best quest he can in regard to the future. Then he as- sembles new ficts, and, as the facts require, revises and amends his theory, till at length it becomes a working rule, maxim,and principle. He knows not merely how to know, but how to guess. The pene- tration of the scientific method into the operations of trade in great commercial centres is very conspicuous. We even endeavor to gamble scientifically. No Drew, - or Armour, or Gould ever forms his corner without a most careful study of the situation; and his yenture is his bet on the correctness of his theory. The farther extension of the scientific method, till it shall become the guide of conduct in the every-day life of all men, is now the chief problem in educa- tion. In the next place, I think science may at length fairly claim to have wrought out, under great diffi- culties, a working hypothesis of our universe in the nebular iy potdhees and its almost necessary corollary, ‘evolution.’ It cannot be denied that we are all, in some sense, evolutionists, —some of us against our prepossessions, some of us by insensible but progressive lapses. I am not competent to argue out this great theme. I feel bound to admit that the evolution doctrine, in one form or other, has quietly taken possession of the modern mind. Why may we not gladly accept it as a most useful working hy- pothesis of the mode of creation? I say, of the mode of creation; for the mystery of creation will forever mock the powers of man. Only this we know: that unless human consciousness is a juggle, and human language a mockery, there can never be to man a creation without a creator, nor an evolution without an eyolver. Another great service of science is the mainte- nance in the world of a body of men, a lay priest- hood, devoted to the search for truth for its own sake and its own value. In a mercenary age, when, in the opinion of a distinguished contemporary, mercantilism has become a huge disease and excres- cence on society, the example of such a body of men is of supreme value in the training of the new gener- ations. Youth are formed, a wise Greek has taught us, not so much by schools as by the example of dis- tinguished men. A still greater benefit of science to mankind is the emancipation it has wrought for us, in the last genera- tion, from superstition and the’ dominion of: imagi- nary pow ers. It isno long time since it was cenerally believed by civilized men, that human affairs were SCIENCE. _relief to childhood ! [Von. IL, No, 29. under the control of the spirits of the air, good or evil. Men walked in cringing terror, by day and night, of demons and goblins damned. The earth- quake, the tornado, the lightning’s stroke, they looked upon as instruments of punishment for the sins of rulers and peoples. Thanks to science, the modern world has emerged from this cloud of gloom. We have some certain knowledge. Knowledge is not merely qualitative, but quantitative. Truth ever makes free. Above all, we know that all things in nature are governed by law, — law, ‘t whose seat is in the bosom of God, whose voice is the harmony of the world.”? The beautiful conception of the Greeks of the universe as a kosmos, that is, an embodiment of divine and perfect order, is pervading modern thought. _ We now know that the phenomena of nature have no relation to human conduct, the impartial rain falling alike on the just and unjust. Men walk the earth erect and free, fearing no bogies, or warlocks, or demons of any kind. How vast and how blessed the In dispelling superstition, sci- ence has incidentally wrought her greatest service to mankind in the purification of religion. The time is coming when grateful thanks will be rendered by the minister of religion for the emancipation which sci- ence has wrought for the faith; when the conflict of science and religion will only be remembered as the ‘antagonism of.crude theories on the one hand, and cruder superstitions on the other. Grateful we are for the knowledge which science has collected and collated and perpetuated to our use. All honor to the men who are consecrated to truth in her service! We may not know what marvels, far surpassing all the gifts of the past, the science of the future may reveal. Still, we must remember that the human mind is finite, while truth is infinite. The vast un- known engirdles our little circle of light. The mys- tery of life and death, no son of earth has eyer penetrated. Welcome, then, the faith which points to the continuance of life in a land where study will be no weariness to the soul, where no veil of flesh will cloud the vision, where science and religion shall be forever one, where men shall know even as they were known. = To welcome you as a body of scientists, lovers and seekers after truth from love of it and of your kind, would be well worth our while, were it our only motive to improve and inspire the children and youth of our city. In doing you honor, we give them a lesson no books nor masters could impart, For their sake we renew our welcome. President Young briefly responded : — GENTLEMEN, — On behalf of my fellow-members of the association, I return you my sincerest thanks for the hearty welcome we have received to this mag- nificent state, this young and beautiful city, this vig- orous, energetic, warm-hearted community. When you first invited us here, it was not in our power to come; but your second invitation we have accepted most gladly, and hope and believe that our meeting here will prove a benefit and pleasure to all con- iat. oP ee a edd FP anaials ge Aueust 24, 1883.] cerned. Some of us have known you personally be- fore, and most of us have long been more or less familiar at second hand with your state and city; and yet, I think, to many of us it is something like a new revelation to see for ourselves what a few years have accomplished. I am not enough of a Latin scholar to quote my Virgil well; but I have been all the time most forcibly reminded of the pas- sage in which Eneas first comes in sight of rising Carthage. Most emphatically the work ‘hails’ here. We see no drones or sluggards; but every shoulder is at the wheel, and every thing is moving. It may, perhaps, seem to you sometimes, when in our sectional meetings we discuss some question about the stars, or some hypothesis as to the formation of rock-strata, or the structure of some worm or insect, that we are out of the current, and contributing nothing to the advancement of the world. But you know it is not so, and your invitation to hold our ‘Ineeting here shows that you know it. The world advances, not on one line only, but on many, —on lines material, intellectual, spiritual. To some ex- tent, the movements are indeed independent, but not very far. Any true advance on either line im- plies corresponding movement on each of the others, SCIENCE. if not absolutely simultaneous, yet surely consequent. There is no need to ask you here how much this city owes to modern science, when I see on every side, in your streets and storehouses and mills, the practical application of the highest engineering, mechanical, and electric art; and in the future it is almost certain that science is to contribute still more liberally to business. But not mainly f6r this reason do I claim your regard to science; but because, made in the im- age of God as we are, knowledge and understanding are as truly wealth and power as lands and food and money. I need not add that, as you have invited us here, so we on our part cordially invite you to attend all our meetings, to listen to the papers and their discus- sion. We cannot promise that every paper will be interesting to all, but each one, I think, will be able to select certain ones he will be glad to hear; and if any of you choose to join us, and enroll yourselves as promoters of the advancement of science, our mem- bership is open on easy terms. Once more, gentlemen, we thank you for the cordial welcome, and address ourselves to our business, in the hope and confidence that our meeting here is to be in the highest degree pleasant and successful. PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION A.—MATHEMATICS AND ASTRONOMY. ADDRESS OF WILLIAM A. ROGERS, OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS., VICE-PRESI- DENT OF THE SECTION, AUG. 15, 1883. THE GERMAN SURVEY OF THE NORTH- ERN HEAVENS. THE illustrious Argelander was accustomed to say, in the quaint form of speech which he often em- ployed, ‘‘ The attainable is often not attained if the range of inquiry is extended too far.”” In no under- taking is there greater need of a judicious applicatitn of this sound maxim than in the systematic determi- nation of the exact positions of all the stars in the visible heavens which fall within the reach of tele- scopes of moderate power. The first subject which engaged the attention of the Astronomische gesellschaft, at its formation in 1865, was the proposition to determine accurately the co-ordinates of all the stars in the northern heay- ens down to the ninth magnitude. To this associa- tion of astronomers (at first national, but since become largely international, in its character and or- ganization) belongs the credit of arranging a scheme of observations by which, through the co-operation of astronomers in different parts of the world, it has been possible to accomplish the most important piece of astronomical work of modern times. With a fea- ‘ sible plan of operations, undertaken with entire unity =— of purpose on the part of the observers to whom the several divisions of the labor were assigned, this great work is now approaching completion. While it is yet too early to speak with confidence concerning the definitive results which the discussion of all the ob- servations are expected to show, we may with profit consider the object sought in the undertaking, the general plan of the work, the difficulties which have been encountered, and the probable bearing which the execution of the present work will have upon the solution of a problem concerning which we now know absolutely nothing with certainty, —a problem of which what we call universal gravitation is only one element, if, indeed, it be an element, —a problem which reaches farther than all others into the mys- teries of the universe, —the motion of the solar and the sidereal systems in space. Our first inquiry will be with respect to the con- dition of the question of stellar positions at the time when this proposal was made by the gesellschaft in 1865. All the observations which had been made up to this time possess one of two distinct characteris- tics. A portion of them were made without direct reference to any assumed system of stellar co-ordi- nates as a base, but by far the larger part are differ- ential in their character. This remark holds more especially with reference to right ascensions. ‘Nearly all of the observations of the brighter stars made pre- vious to about 1830 were referred to the origin from which stellar co-ordinates are reckoned by correspond- ing observations of the sun; but since that date it has been the custom to select a sufficient number of ref- erence stars, symmetrically distributed both in right ascension and declination, and whose co-ordinates were supposed to be well known. The unequalled Pulkova observations for the epoch 1845 form, I be- lieve, the only exception to this statement. From the assumed system of primary stars are derived the clock errors and instrumental constants which are employed 230 in the reduction of all the other stars observed. The positions of these secondary stars, therefore, partake of all the errors of the assumed fundamental sys- tem, in addition to the direct errors of observation. The following list comprises the most important of the catalogues which have been independently formed; viz., Bessel’s Bradley for 1755, the various catalogues of Maskelyne between 1766 and 1805, Gould’s D’Agelet for 1783, Piazzi for 1800, Auwer’s Cacciatore for 1805, Bessel for 1815, a few of the earlier catalogues of Pond, Brinkley for 1824, Bessel for 1825, Struve for 1825, Bessel for 1827, Struve for 1830, Argelander for 1830, and Pulkova for 1845. The important catalogues of secondary stars pub- lished previous to 1865 are comprised in the following table. [ Zable omitied.] An analysis of these catalogues reveals four impor- tant facts: — First, that a large share of the observations relate to bright stars, at least to stars brighter than the eighth magnitude. Second, that in a large number of cases the same star is found in different catalogues, but that no rule is discoverable in the selection. Third, that with the exception of the polar cata- logues of Fedorenko, Groombridge, Schwerd, and Carrington, the double-star observations of Struve, and the zone observations of Bessel and Argelander, the observations were not arranged with reference to the accomplishment of a definite object. Fourth, that each catalogue involves a system of errors peculiar to the observers, to the character of the instrument employed, and to the system of pri- mary stars selected, but that thus far there had been no attempt to reduce the results obtained by differ- ent observers to a homogeneous system. In esti- mating the value of these observations it will be necessary to refer to the researches which have been made subsequent to 1865. The systematic deviations of different catalogues in right ascension inter se were noticed at an early date by several astronomers; but the first attempt to determine the law of these variations seems to have been made by Safford in a communication to the monthly notices of the Royal astronomical society in 1861 (xxi. 245), ‘On the positions of the Radcliffe catalogue.’ I quote the equation derived by Safford, since it appears to be the first published account of a form of investigation almost exclusively followed since that time. It is as follows:— Diff. of R. A. (Greenw. 12- Year cat. — Rad.) = — 0.588. + 0.328, sin (@ + 5h. 32m,). Extending this expression to terms of the second order, it may be put under the form, A = a constant + (m sina+n cos a) + (m’ sin 2a+ n/ cos 2a) +, ete. Safford also seems to have been the first to notice the connection between the observed résiduals, and the errors in position of the primary stars employed. He remarks, “In investigating the causes * which would give rise to such systematic discrepancies, I was struck with the fact that the same or nearly the same variations were apparent in the assumed places SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 29. of the time stars for the years since 1845; that, if the correct positions of the time stars had been assumed, the resulting positions would have been free from these small errors.”” That the relation given by Saf- ford should have been observed at all, is the more remarkable, since the primary stars upon which the Radcliffe positions depend are nearly the same as those employed at Greenwich. In reality, the sys- tematic errors of both catalogues have since been found to be considerably greater than is here indi- cated, and the deviation pointed out by Safford is in the nature of a second difference. The speaker has shown (Proc. Amer. acad., 1874, 182) that the weight of the errors of the provisional catalogue assumed, fell between the first and the third quadrants in the Radcliffe observations’ for 1841-42, on account of the omission of certain clock stars which were used at Greenwich. Since the discordances which exist between two catalogues may arise from errors in either one or in both, it is clearly impossible either to determine the nature of the erorrs, or to assign their true cause, until a fundamental system has been established which is free both from accidental and from periodic errors, — from accidental errors, since a few abnormal differences may easily invalidate the determination of the errors which are really. periodic; from periodie errors, because a relative system can only become an absolute one when one of the elements of which it is composed becomes absolute. We owe to the researches of Newcomb, published in 1869-70, a homogeneous system of stellar co-ordi- nates in right ascension, which are probably as nearly absolute in their character as it is possible to obtain from the data at present available. He determined the absolute right ascensions of thirty-two stars of the first, second, and third: magnitudes, and comprised between the limits — 30° and + 46° declination. A comparison of the places of these stars fora given epoch, with the same stars in any catalogue for the same epoch, enables us to determine with consider- able precision the system of errors inherent in that catalogue. Several cireumstances prevent the exact determination of this relation. Among them may be mentioned the fact that Newcomb’s system cannot safely be extended far beyond the limits in decli- nation of the stars.composing the system, that the stars are not symmetrically distributed in declination, and that the system of errors derived from bright stars is probably not the same as that derived from stars of less magnitude. To a certain extent all of these objections have been met in the later discussion by Auwers, to which reference will presently be made. The substantial agreement of these two systems, independently deter- mined, furnishes satisfactory evidence that we have at last obtained a foundation system with which it is safe to make comparisons, from which we may draw conclusions with comparative safety. When the eata- logues which were formed between 1825 and 1865 are compared with Newcomb’s fundamental system, through the medium of these thirty-two stars, the following facts are revealed. 4 : ’ : ; : _ AuGusrT 24, 1883.] a. The only catalogues in which there is freedom from both accidental and periodic errors are Arge- lander’s Abo catalogue for 1830, and the Pulkova catalogue for 1845. One is reminded, in this connec- nection, of the remark of Pond, that ‘‘ we can hardly obtain a better test of our power of predicting the future positions of stars than by trying by the same formula how accurately we can interpolate for the past. Ina variety of papers which I have submitted to the Royal society, I have endeavored to show, that, with us, the experiment entirely fails.”’ b. During this interval the constant differences be- tween the earlier catalogues and Neweomb’s system vary between + 0.17§ for Pond, 1820; and —0.19* for Pond, 1830: and for later catalogues, between +- 0.07§ for Cambridge, 1860; and +.02* for Greenwich, 1860. ec. All the right ascensions determined at English observatories, and especially those which depend upon _the positions published by the British Nautical al- manac, are too large in the region of five hours, and too small in the region of eighteen hours. The gen- eral tendency of the constant part of the deviation from Newcomb’s system is to netitralize the periodic errors in the region of five hours, aud to augmept them in the region of eighteen hours, where, in the case of a few catalogues, the error becomes as great as 0.108, — a quantity which can be readily detected from the observations of two or three evenings with an indifferent instrument, if it relates to a single star. The right ascensions determined at French obserya- tories exhibit systematic errors, which follow nearly the same law as those which characterize English observations. Distinctively German observations are nearly free from systematic errors. As far as they exist at all, their tendency is to neutralize the errors inherent in distinctively English and French observations. d. In the case of several catalogues, residual errors of considerable magnitude remain after the syste- matic errors depending upon the right ascensions have been allowed for. These errors are found to be functions of the declination of the stars observed, and without doubt have gome connection with the form of the pivots of the instrument with which the observations were made, This statement holds true, especially with respect to the observations at Paris, Melbourne, and Brussels, between 1858 and 1871; and to the Washington observations between 1858 and 1861. e. The systematic errors which exist in observations previous to 1865 follow the same law, and have nearly the same magnitude, as the errors of the same class which are inherent in the national ephemerides of the country in which they were made. - The British Nautical almanac and the Connaisance des temps are largely responsible for the perpetua- tion of this class of errors. Fora few years before and after 1860, the ephemerides of the Nautical almanac were based upon the observations of Pond, which contain large periodic errors. It is found that the errors of this system have been transferred with- out sensible diminution to every catalogue in which the observations depend upon Nautical almanac clock ee ee ge et eR SCIENCE. 231 stars. At English observatories it has been the cus- tom to correct the positions of the fundamental stars by the observations of each successive year; but this has produced no sensible effect on the diminution of the periodic errors, which belong to the fundamental system. The periodic errors of the American ephem- exis follow nearly the same law as the errors of the Nautical almanac, but their magnitude is somewhat reduced. The error of equinox is also less. Wolfer’s Tab. reg., upon which the Berliner jahr- buch is based, has no well-defined systematic errors; and the correction for equinox is nearly the same in amount as in the American ephemeris, but with the opposite sign. The accidental errors seem to be rather larger than in the system of the American ephemeris. f. A general estimate may be formed of the rela- tive magnitudes of the errors of secondary catalogues by comparing the average error for each star of the primary catalogue. The numbers given below rep- resent the average deviation for each star, expressed in hundredths of seconds, after the various catalogues have been reduced to a common equinox. / Average error for each star. Argelander . . - + + 2 + s+ « : 1830 / 1.1 Paolerivaie tewie. ete Anka ee 1845 | 11 Greenwich & ls = © 2 + sew 1845 2.0 Greenwich . P 5 1860 | 2.0 D’Agelet (Gould) - yy 1783 om Cape of Good Hope (Henderson) « of 1883 | 22 Greenwich . . . Fae 1850 | 2.2 Greenwich Setanta eo Feil 1871 2.2 Paris . e ° / 1867 24 Ww ashington . sp isp doet tet yf 1846-52 2.5 —_ whos Bh oo Neie eo eul 1830 2.5 Cape of Good Hope P | 1856 2.8 Radcliffe .. . Gan ee . 1860 | 3.1 Greamwiah OREN ae 1840 , | 3.1 Bessel . ’ ieee | 1825 3.2 POndig ge pa =! so fe ne) sore we | 1830 3.7 Gillis. . . oa 1840 3.8 a (Tay lor) . ‘ 1880 3.9 Cape of Good Hope (Faitows) : 1830 3.9 Radcliffe ....-.- - 7 1845 45 AliNGKe Strats. @ tee ves Ye ais 1840 5.0 Piazzi . pen ose hetie os teil 1800 5.3 Bessel’s Bradley eae pet ae CON | 1755 7a Lalande) .'. 9. 5 « « - 1800 13.2 Lika eeete ee wm «Pouce! ot tall igo 175 24.9 It is obvious from these relations, that previous to about 1825 the magnitude of the accidental errors of observation, combined with the errors of reduction, prevent any definite conclusions with respect to the periodic errors inherent in these early observations, It is probable, also, that early observations of stars of the eighth and ninth magnitudes are subject to a class of errors peculiar to themselves, the nature of which it is now well-nigh impossible to determine. The systematic errors in declination which belong to the various secondary catalogues named are even more marked than those in right ascension. The experience of Pond in 1535 is the experience of every astronomer who has attempted to compare observations of the same star made at different times, under different circumstances, with different” in- 232 struments, and by different observers. He says, “‘ With all these precautions, we do not find, by com- paring the present observations with those of Bradley made eighty years ago under the same roof, and com- puted by the same table of refractions, that we can obtain by interpolation any intermediate catalogue which shall agree with the observations within the probable limits of error.’’ “We owe to the investigations of Auwers (Astron. nachr., nos. 1532-1586), the first definite system of declinations which is measurably absolute in its character. Yet the deviations of this system from that derived by the same author, but from much additional data in publication xiv. of the gesellschaft, is no less than 1.2’. The present difference outstand- ing between the Pulkova and the Greenwich systems at 10° south declination is 1.7/. Within the past five years, the labors’ of Auwers, of Safford, of Boss, and of Newcomb, have resulted in the establishment of a mean system of declinations from which accidental errors may be considered to be eliminated in the case of a large number of stars; but the different systems still differ systematically inter se by quantities which are considerably greater than the probable error of any single position. When the discussion of the question of a uniform determination of all the stars in the northern heavens to the ninth magnitude was taken up by the gesell- schaft at its session in Leipzig in 1865, Argelander, who was then president of the society, appears to have been the only astronomer who had a clear ap- prehension of the difficulties of the problem. He alone had detected the class of errors whose existence subsequent investigations have definitely established. He alone had found a well-considered plan by which these errors might be eliminated, as far as possible, from future observations. Argelander, however, always claimed for Bessel the first definite proposal of the proposition under consideration (see Astron. nachr., i. 257). It was in pursuance of this plan that the zones between — 15° and + 15° in declination were observed. These zones were to form the ground-work of the Berlin charts; and Argelander, in the execution of the Boun Durchmusterung, simply carried out the second part of Bessel’s recommendation. With the exception of the observations of Cooper at Makree observatory, and the charts of Chacornac, these two great works—the second being a con- tinuation of the first, under a better and more feasible plan — are the only ones in existence which give us any knowledge of the general structure of the stellar system. The observations of stars to the ninth magnitude, found in the catalogues of Bessel, Lalande, and Piazzi, form the ground-work of these charts. The co-ordinates in right ascension and declination of the stars found in these authorities were first reduced to . the epoch 1800; the resulting right ascension being given to seconds of time, and the declination to tenths of minutes of are. With these places as points of reference, all other stars were filled in, down to the ninth magnityde, by observations with equatorial SCIENCE [Vou. II., No. 29. instruments. The work was divided into zones of one hour each. Bremiker undertook five zones; Argelander and Schmidt, two; Wolfers, three; and Harding, two. The remaining zones were under- taken by different astronomers in widely separated localities. ; The work seems to have been performed with somewhat unequal thoroughness, some zones con- taining nearly all the stars to the ninth magnitude, while in others a large number of stars haying this limit in magnitude are wanting. The Durchmusterung undertaken by Argelander at Bonn was a far more serious and well-considered undertaking. This unequalled work consists in the approximate determination of the co-ordinates of 324,198 stars situated between — 2° and -++ 90° decli- nation. It includes stars to the 9.5 magnitude, the co-ordinates being given to tenths of minutes of time, and the declinations to tenths of minutes of are. The first definite proposal of this work undertaken by the gesellschaft, however, appears to have been made by Bruhns. In the course of a report upon the operations of the Leipzig observatory, he stated, that, in his view, the time had come for undertaking a uniform system of determinations of the places of stars to the ninth magnitude in the northern hemi- sphere by means of meridian circles; but he pro- posed, at the same time, that the positions of stars fainter than the ninth magnitude should be deter- mined by means of differential observations with equatorial instruments. After explaining certain plans and arrangements relating particularly to his own observatory, he introduced the following resolu- tion: — * “The Astronomische gesellschaft regards it as need- ful that all the stars to the ninth magnitude, occurring in the Durchmusterung, should be observed with meridian circles, and commissions the council to arrange for the execution of the work.”’ This proposal occasioned a long and somewhat animated discussion, in which Argelander, Hirsch, Bruhns, Forster, Schonfeld, and Struve took part. Argelander declared himself surprised at this pro- posal, which called for the rapid realization of a:plan of organization which he had been considering for years with the greatest care, the difficulties of which he had maturely considered, and the execution of which still demanded the most careful deliberation and preparation. One of the necessary preliminary steps was a plan which he had already prepared, pub- lished and presented to the society in an informal way, which provided for contemporaneous and cor- responding observations of the brighter stars. As president of the society, he felt unequal to undertak- ing the charge whieh the acceptance of the resolution proposed would involve; as this procedure seemed to him premature without previous preparation. He would admit, however, that every call to action of this kind tended to stimulate enthusiasm, and should therefore be encouraged; but he felt obliged to ask the society not to require from him the immediate execution of the plan, but to intrust the serious con- 2 August 24, 1883.] he ik es. ) ie Oe al P? sideration of it, and the preparation for it, to his zealous friends in the council. P Upon the motion of Struve, the society by a rising vote, expressed its confidence in the assurance of the president that he would bring forward his plan at the proper time, as soon as the means for its execution could be assured. At the meeting held at Bonn in 1867, Argelander ~ again brought up the subject in a communication which appears to have been an exhaustive discussion of the whole problem. This paper is not printed in the proceedings of the gesellschaft; but at its con- clusion a committee was appointed to take definite action with respect to the recommendations which it contained. The committee reported at the same session; and their report, which is published in the place of the paper presented by Argelander, is prob- ably identical in substance with it. The plan pro- posed and adopted was finally published in the form of a programme, in which the details of the work are arranged with considerable minuteness. As this programme has been widely distributed, it seems unnecessary to give any thing more than a general abstract of it. Since it differs in a few minor poiuts from the first report of the committee at the Bonn meeting, the essential features of this report will be given instead of an abstract of the programme itself. They are as follows: — a. The limits in declination of the proposed series of observations are—2° and + 80°. The first limit was chosen on account of the lack of suitable funda- mental stars south of the equator. It is probable, also, that Argelander had a suspicion of the fact, since proven, that the uncertainty with respect to the systematic errors of southern stars is, of necessity, considerably greater than for northern stars, and that on this account it would be better to defer this part of the work until further investigations in this direc- tion could be made. The limit + 80° was chosen because the repetition of Carrington’s observations between 81° and 90° was considered superfluous, and Hamburg had already undertaken the extension of Carrington’s observa- tions from 81° to 80°. b. Within these limits, all stars in the Durchmus- terung to the ninth magnitude, and, in addition, all Stars which have been more exactly observed by La- lairde, by Bessel at Koenigsberg, and by Argelander at Bonn, are to be observed. c. The observations are to be differential. The clock errors are not to be found from the fundamen- tal stars usually chosen for this purpose, and the equator point corrections are not to be derived from observations at upper and lower culminations, but these elements are to be derived from a series of 500 or 600 stars, distributed as uniformly as possible over the northern heavens. The exact co-ordinates of these stars are to be determined at Pulkova,, thus securing the unity necessary in order to connect in one system the observations of different zones. d. Every star is to be observed twice. If the two observations differ by a quantity greater than ought to be expected, a third observation will be necessary, SCIENCE. 233 e. In order to facilitate the work, it will be desira- ble to use only three or four transit threads, and only one or two microscopes. In order to facilitate the reductions to apparent place, the working-list of stars should be comprised within narrow limits. f. Before the commencement and. after the close of each zone, two orthree fundamental stars are to be observed upon the same threads and with the same microscopes as were used in the zone observations. When the seeing is not good, and when for any other cause it seems desirable, one or more fundamental stars may be observed in the course of the zone. The number and selection of the stars will depend upon the character of the instrument employed. If it remains steady for several hours, and has no strongly marked flexure or division errors, or if these errors have been sharply determined, the fundamental stars may be situated ten degrees or fifteeu degrees away from the zone limits. However, there must remain many things for which no general rule can be given, and which must be left to the judgment of the observer, aided by an accurate knowledge of his instrument. g. With a Repsold or a Martin instrument, one microscope will be sufficient, if its position with re- spect to the whole four can be determined. It will be sufficient, if the change in position during the observations can be interpolate] to 0.2”. h. It will be desirable to divide beforehand the zones into such time intervals that the observations ean be easily made. i. Zones exceeding one and one-half or at the most two hours are not advisable, first, because the zero points will be too far apart, and, second, because a longer duration will involve too much fatigue physi- eally and mentally. At the conclusion of this report, all the astron- omers present who were willing to take part in this work were requested to communicate with the coun- cil, stating the region of the heavens which they pre- ferred to select for observation. At this meeting, Berlin, Bonn, Helsingfors, Leip- zig, and Mannheim signified their intention to share in the work.. Leiden also expressed its intention of taking part as soon as the work already undertaken should be completed. When the stars to be observed had been selected from the Durchmusterung, it was found that the number would not vary much from 100,000, requiring rather more than 200,000 observations. Preparations for the work of observation were immediately com- menced; and, by the time of the next report in 1869, considerable progress had been made. In the report for this year, the provisional places of a catalogue of 539 fundamental stars were published. This catalogue is compo:ed of two parts. The list of hauptsterne consists of 336 stars to the fourth magnitude, observed at Pulkova by Wagner with” the large transit instrument, and by Gyldén with the Ertel vertical circle. The list of zusat-sterne consists of 203 stars fainter than the fourth magnitude. As the details of the work in the formation of the pro- yisional places of the stars of this list are not given 234 in the report, it is not quite clear upon what authority they rest. The work assigned to the Pulkova observa- tory by the zone commission was the exact determi- nation of the places of the stars of this list. The observations were undertaken by Gromadski with the Repsold meridian circle. In accordance with the plan adopted, each star was observed eight times, — four times in each position of the instrument. The observations were differential with respect to the hauptsterne. The results were published by Struve in 1876; and the places there given were used in the first reduction of the Harvard-college observations for 1874-75, and perhaps in some other cases. About this time a change seems to have been made in the original plan with respect to the formation of the final catalogue of fundamental stars, of which I have been unable to find a clear account. The origi- nal intention was to make the positions depend en- tirely upon the observations at Pulkova. The zone commission established by the gesellschaft, bowever, committed the formation of this catalogue to Atuwers; : and it is to him that we owe the most complete and the most perfect catalogue of fundamental stars yet published. The Pulkoyasystem for 1865 was adopted as the basis; but, in order to obtain greater freedom from accidental errors for individual stars, the final catalogue was obtained by combining with the Pul- kova series, the Greenwich observations from 1836 to 1876, the Haryard-college observations for 1871-72, the Leipsic observations, in declination only, between 1866 and 1870, and the Leiden observations in declina- tion between 1864 and 1870. Before this combination was made, however, these observations were all re- duced to the Pulkova system. The following observatories have taken part in the zone observations :— Limits of Limits of Observatories. zones in = Observatories. zones in declination. | declination. 1 Nicolajeff . . . |= 2°to + 1°! Lund «= |t385° to +40° Albany > Ss eS Boon +40 © +50 Leipsie . . . . i+ 4 * +10|| Harvard college . +50 ** +55 Leipsic . . . ./|+10 “ +15]|| Helsingfors . . |+55 “ +60 Bevin. 3s +15 “ +25 || Christiana. . . |+65 “ +70 Cambridge CEng.) +25 *f +30]! Dorpat . =. : 2 |+70 “+75 Leiden . +30 ‘* +35 || Kasan . .-. . |+75 ** +80 \ The zone between —2° and +1° was originally un- dertaken at Palermo, that between +1° and +4° at Neuchatel, that between +4° and +10° at Mannheim, and that between +25° and +40° at Chicago. In the latter case, the great fire at Chicago crippled the resources of the observatory to such an extent, that Safford was compelled to relinquish the work, which was at that time quite far advanced. The chief items of interest in connection with this work are found in the following tabular statement: — [ Zable omitted.] Attention was called, at an early date, to the im- portance of continuing the survey of the northern heavens beyond the southern limit fixed by Argelan- SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No, 29. der. The preparation necessary for the execution of © this werk consisted in the extension of the Dureh- musterung to the tropic of Capricorn. ‘This was undertaken by Schonfeld at Leipsic. In the report to the gesellschaft at the meeting held at Stockholm in 1877, he has given an account of this work, in which he stated that it was sufficiently near completion to invite the consideration of the question of the meridian circle determinations of the places of stars to the ninth magnitude. The lack of southern fundamental stars whose positions were well deter- mined was still a hinderance to the immediate com- mencement of the work. Relatively more stars of this class are required than in the northern observa- tions, in order to eliminate the inequalities due to refraction. Schénfeld stated, that, while the burden of the determination of the places of these southern fundamental stars must rest mainly upon southern observations, it seemed necessary to connect them with the Pulkova system by a connecting link (mit- telglied), through observations at some observatory well situated for this purpose. At this meeting Sande Bakhuysen, at Leiden, gave notice of intention to take part in this work. Gyldén urged the importance of securing the co-operation of Melbourne; and Pe- ters suggested the advantage of securing Washington as an additional ‘mean term’ (V. J. S. 1877, p. 269). The next reference to this work is contained in the vierteljahrsscbrift for 1881, xv. p. 270. A list of 803 southern stars is here given, whose exact places were at that time being determined at Leiden and at the Cape of Good Hope. This list was selected by Schénfeld and Sande Bakhuysen, in a way to meet the requirements referred to in previous discussions. A final catalogue of 83 southern fundamental stars — by Auwers appears in this number of the vierteljahrs-. schrift. The places depend upon the same authorities as for the northern stars, with the addition of the Cape of Good Hope catalogue for 1860, Williamstown, Mel- bourne for 1870, and Harvard college (Safford) for 1864, For stars not observed at Pulkoya, the general catalogue of Yarnall (1858-1861), and the Washing- ton observations, with the new meridian cirele be- tween 1872 and 1875, were employed. As in the ease of the northern stars, these observations are all re- duced to the Pulkova system for 1865. It is under- derstood that the co-ordinates of the list of: 303 stars are to deperid upon this extension of the general system of publication xiv. to the limits required by the southern Durchmusterung of Schonfeld. It would be surprising if all the conditions of sne- cess were fulfilled in the first execution of a work having the magnitude, and involving the difficulties, of the scheme of observations undertaken under the auspices of the gesellschaft. The extent of the dis- cordances which are to be expected between the results obtained by different observers can only be ascertained when the observations by which the dif- ferent zones are to be connected haye been reduced, Each observer extended the working-list of his own _ zone 10’ north and south; and it is expected that a sufficient number of observations of this kind has been made to determine the systematic relations ‘in right ascension and 2.3 "xe Aveusr 24, 1883.] existing between the co-ordinates of each zone with those of its neighbor. . It is probable, however, that the experience of Gill will be repeated on a larger scale. In 1878 he solicited the co-operation of astronomers in the determination of the co-ordinates of twenty-eight stars, which he desired to employ in the reduction of his heliometer observations of the planet Mars for the purpose of obtaining the solar parallax. The results obtained at twelve observatories of the first class are published in vol, xxxix. p. 99, of the monthly notices of the Royal astronomical society. Notwithstanding the fact that the final values obtained at each observa- tory depend upon several observations, the average difference between the least and the greatest results, obtained by differeut observers for each star, is 0.245. 3” in declination. In four eases the difference in right ascension exceeds 3.0, and in four cases the difference in declination ex- ceeds 3.0.” Even after the results are reduced to ahomogeneous system, the following outstanding deviations from a mean system are found: — | | Authority. | Aa} A& } Authority. |} Aa As ~ ae | 8 ” | . 8 | ” ' Koenigsberg . .|+.005|-0.71 |} Leiden. . |—.053 | —0.19 Melbourne, . .|+.026|-049 || Paris . . . . +.055) +0.01 Pulkova. . . .|+.905|+0.36 || Washington . . |—.120 | +0.78 Leipsic .. . . |+.049 |+0.40 || Harvard college, |—.072 | +0.09 Greenwich. + |+.009 |—-0.56 || Cordoba . . . |—.032 | —0.20 LON aa oe Cb May || Oxford. . . \* 076 | +0.21 The observations of a second list of twelve stars, . one-half of the number being comparatively bright, and the remaining half faint, showed no marked im- provement, either with respect to the magnitude of errors which could be classed as accidental, or in regard to the systematic deviations from a mean system. This discussion revealed one source of discordance which will doubtless affect the zone observations; viz., the difference between right ascensions deter- mined by the eye-and-ear method, and those deter- mined with the aid of the chronograph. The programme of the gesellschaft makes no pro- vision for the elimination of errors which depend upon the magnitude of the stars observed; but special observations have been undertaken at several observatories for the purpose of defining the relation between the results for stars of different magnitudes. At Harvard-college observatory, the direct effect of a reduction of the magnitude has been ascertained by reducing the aperture of the telescope by means of diaphragms, Beside this, the observations have been arranged in such a manner that an error depend- ing upon the magnitude can be derived from an in- vestigation of the observations upon two successive nights. At Leiden, at Albany, and perhaps at other observatories, the effect of magnitude has been deter- mined by observations throngh wire gauze. But SCIENCE. 235 notwithstanding all the precautions which have been taken in the observations, and which may be taken in the reductions, it will undoubtedly be found that the final results obtained will involve errors which cannot be entirely eliminated. In the experience of the speaker, two other sources of error have been detected. It has been found, that there is a well-defined equation between the observa- tions, which is a function of the amount, and the character of the illumination of the field of the tel- escope. It has also been found that observations made under very unfavorable atmospheric conditions differ systematically from those made under favorable conditions. When the seeing was noted as very bad, it is found that the observed right ascensions are about -085 too great, and that the observed declina- tions are about 0.8” too great. There are doubtless other sources of error which the discussion of the observations will bring to light. The effect of the discovery of these and other errors will probably be to hasten the repetition of the zone observations under a more perfect scheme, framed in such a manner as to cover all the deficiencies which experience has revealed, or may yet reveal. One would not probably go far astray in naming the year 1900 as the mean epoch of the new survey. If the observations are again repeated in 1950, sufficient data will then have been accumulated for at least an approximate determination of the laws of siderial motion. What is the present state of our knowledge upon this subject? It can be safely said that it is very limited. First of all, it cannot be affirmed that there is a sidereal system in the sense in which we speak of the solar system. In the case of the solar system, we have a central sun about which the planets and their satellites revolve in obedience to Jaws which are satisfied by the hypothesis of universal gravita- tion. Do the same laws pervade the inter-stellar spaces? Is the law of gravitation indeed universal ? What physical connection exists between the solar system and the unnumbered and innumerable stars which form the galaxy of the heavens? Do these stars form a-system which has its own laws of rela- tive rest and motion ? or is the solar system a part of the stupendous whole? Does the solarsystem re- ceive its laws from the sidereal system? or has Kepler indeed pierced the depths of the universe in the discoy- ery of the laws which gave him immortality ? Are we to take the alternative stated by Ball, — either that our sidereal system is not an entirely isolated object, or its bodies must be vastly more numerous or more massive than even our most liberal interpretation of observations would seem to warrant? Are we to conclude, for example, that stars like. 1830 Groom- bridge and a Centauri, ‘‘after having travelled from an infinitely great distance on one side of the heavens, are now passing through our system for the first and only time, and that after leaving our system they will retreat again into the depths of space to a dis- tance which, for any thing we can tell, may be prac- tically regarded as infinite’? ? Can we assert with Newcomb, that in all probability the stars do not 236 form a stable system in the sense in which we say that the solar system is stable, — that the stars of this system do not revolve around definite attractive cen- tres? Admitting that the solar system is moving through space, can we at the present moment even de- termine whether that motion is rectilinear, or curved, to say nothing of the laws which govern that motion ? How much of truth is there in the conjectures of Wright, Kant, Lambert, and Mitchel, or even in the more serious conclusions of Moedler, that the Aleyone of the Pleiades is the central sun about which the solar system revolves ? These are questions which, if solved at all, must be solved by a critical study of observations of precis- ion accumulated at widely separated epochs of time. The first step in the solution has been taken in the systematic survey of the northern heavens undertaken by the gesellschaft, and in the survey of the south- ern heayens at Cordoba by Dr. Gould. The year 1875 is the epoch about which are grouped the data which, combined with similar data for an epoch not earlier than 1950, will go far towards clearing up the doubts which now rest upon the question of the di- rection and the amount of the solar motion in space; and it cannot be doubted that our knowledge of the laws which connect the sidereal with the solar system will be largely increased through this investigation. The basis of this knowledge must be the observed proper motions of a selected list of stars, so exactly determined that the residual mean error shall not affect the results derived; or, failing in this, of groups of stars symmetrically distributed over the visible heavens, sufficient in number to affect an elimina- tion of the accidental errors of observation, without disturbing the equilibrium of the general system. For an investigation of this kind, a complete sys- tem of zone observations, at widely separated inter- vals, will afford the necessary data, if the following conditions are fulfilled. First: The proper motions must be derived by a method which does not involve an exact knowledge of the constants of precession. In every investiga- tion with which I am acquainted, the derived prop- er motions are functions of this element. Second: The general system of proper motions derived must be free from systematic errors. Errors of this class may be introduced either through the periodic errors inherent in the system of fundamental stars employed in the reduction of the zone observa- tions, or in a change in the constants of precession. It is in this respect that the utmost precaution will be required. If from any cause errors of even small magnitude are introduced into the general system of proper motions at any point, the effect of these errors upon the values of the co-ordinates at any future epoch will be directly proportional to the interval elapsed. We can, therefore, compute the exact amount of the accumulated error for any given time. When this test is applied to the fundamental stel- lar systems independently determined by Auwers, Safford, Boss, and Newcomb, we find the following deviations inter se at the end of a century. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 29. Maximum systematic deviation in a Maximum mean deviation in a century. century. Aa a6 Auwers minus Safford . —0.228-} +0.2%) 0.238] 1 Auwers minus Boss. . . . - +0.8 - 2) Auwers minus Newcomb . —0.09 40.8 0.06 2.2 It is the common impression, that both the direction and the amount of the motion of the solar system in space are now well established. The conclusions of Struve upon this point are stated in such explicit language that it is not surprising that this impres- sion exists. He says, ‘‘ The motion of the solar sys- tem in space is directed to a point in the celestial sphere situated on the right line which joins the two stars measured from 7 and » Herculis. The velocity of this motion is such that the sun, with the whole cortége of bodies depending on him, advances annu- ally in the direction indicated, through a space equal to one hundred and fifty-four million miles.” It must be admitted that there is a general agree- ment in the assignment by different investigators of - the co-ordinates of the solar apex. This will be seen from the following tabular values. Authorities. yr Rughe x Declination. icrschel; 1783) yeeen~ iter = 257° OOF +25° OOF TERE Ale oho. ko ON ole 1. 230 00 +25 00 ies busy ss oo so a 5 260 00 +27 00 Herschel, 1805 ...... . 245 52 +49 38 Argelander, 1837 . . . . = . 257 49 +28 50 IPHENN 6 6°96 55 3 Gos co 252 24 +14 26 SHURE laeeg Merah oo ES 261 22 +37 36 Galloways ier sh le uetnl ten ac 260 O01 +34 23 MIRON So 6 oe 6 eB ooo 261 38 +39 «(54 J 256 54 +34 29 FANE AG Ser vel sYe! he he inital lain hag 99 +26 ot s 261 14 +82 «55 penn 203 4 $35 0 In estimating the value which should be attached to these results, several considerations must be taken into account. (a) All of the results except those of Galloway de- pend practically upon the same authorities at one epoch, viz., upon Brodley. (b) The deviations inter se probably result, in a large measure, from the systematic errors inherent in one or both of the fundamental systems from which the proper motions were derived. For example, Lundahl employed Pond as one of his authorities, and it is in Pond’s catalogue that the most decided periodic errors exist. (c) Brot in 1812, Bessel in 1818, and Airy in 1860, reached the conclusion that the certainty of the move- ment of the solar system towards a given point in the heavens could not be affirmed. (d) The problemisindirect. Inthe case of a mem- = AvuGusT 24, 1883.] ber of the solar system, exact data will determine the exact position in orbit at a given time; but here we have neither exact data, nor can we employ trigono- metrical methods in the solution. We simply find that the observed proper motions are probably some- what better reconciled under the hypothesis of an as- sumed position of the apex of the solar motion. The method of investigation employed by Safford, who has of late years given much attention to this sub- ject, consists in assuming a system of co-ordinates for the pole of the solar motion, from which is deter- mined the direction each star would have if its own proper motions were zero. Comparing this direction with the observed direction as indicated by the ob- served proper motion, equations of condition are formed from which a correction is found to the as- sumed position of the apex, by the methods of least squares. It must always be kept in mind, that the quantities with which we must deal in this investigation are exceedingly minute, and that the accidental errors of observation are at any time liable to lead to illusory results. The weak link in the chain of Miidler’s reasoning is to be found here. I think we can as- sume 0.2” as the limit of precision in the absolute determination of the co-ordinates of any star, how- ever great the number of observations upon which it depends. Beyond this limit it is impossible to go, in the present date of instrumental astronomy. It is safe to say, that there is not a single star in the heavens whose co-ordinates are known with cer- tainty within this limit. Do not misunderstand me. Doubtless there are many stars in which the error will at some future time be found to fall within this limit. The law of probabilities requires this, if the maximum limit falls within 1”. But who is prepared to select a particular star, and say that the absolute position of this star in space cannot be more than 0.2” in error ? e. At present an arbitrary hypothesis is necessary in the discussion of the problem. Airy assumed that the relative distances of the stars are proportional to their magnitudes; and he found slightly different results according to different modes of treatment. Safford assumed that the distances are, at least ap- proximately, in inverse proportion to the magnitude of the proper motions. The general result of his investigations, up to this point, is, that there is some hope of using the solar motion as a base, to advance our knowledge of stellar distances. Later investiga- tions have been made by De Ball, but the details have not yet come to hand. It is understood, how- ever, that his results coincide in a general way with those previously obtained. It is clear from this brief review, that we have here a field of investigation worthy of the highest powers of’ the astronomer. The first step has been taken in the survey of the heavens carried on under the auspices of the gesellschaft. It remains for the astronomers of the present generation to solve the difficulties which now environ the problem, and pre- pare the way for a more perfect scheme of observation in the next century. SCIENCE. 237 PAPERS READ BEFORE SECTION A. The total solar eclipse of May 6, 1883. BY EDWARD S. HOLDEN, OF WASHBURN OBSERVA- TORY, MADISON, WIS. Tus eclipse had the longest totality of any which has been observed. An expedition was sent by the National academy of sciences and the U. S. coast-survey jointly, under direction of a committee from the former. Ex- penses were met by an appropriation of $5,000 by congress and by the National academy of sciences from a fund left by Professor Watson. The navy department also placed the U.S. steamer Hartford at the disposal of the academy, to transport the ex- pedition from Peru to Caroline island, where the eclipse was to be observed, and thence to Honolulu. The efforts of Mr. Rockwell to provide money by private subscription for this undertaking, though directly unsuccessful, prepared the way by drawing public attention. Professor Young was the chairman of the com- mittee of the National academy of sciences: it was at one time hoped that he would take charge of the observing-party, but this proved impracticable. The reports of different members of the party are to be submitted to the National academy of sciences in November. Mr. Holden has, however, permission of the academy to present an account of the observation before the American association. It is understood that the present is not by any means a final report. This especially applies to the observations of Dr. Hastings, from which that gentleman concludes that the solar corona is chiefly a phenomenon due to the diffraction of the solar light at the moon’s limb. The computations to demonstrate this are not yet at hand, but are to be completed in a few weeks. The American party consisted of Edward S. Holden, director of Washburn observatory, Madison, Wis. ; Charles 8. Hastings, professor of physics in the Johns Hopkins university, Baltimore, Md.; Charles H. Rockwell, Tarrytown, N.Y.; E. D. Preston, aid U.S. coast and geodetic survey, Washington, D.C.; Winslow Upton, U.S. signal-office, Washington, D.C. ; and Ensign S. J. Brown, U.S.N., U.S. naval observa- tory, Washington, D.C: The original six members of the party were joined, on April 20, by four volunteer observers, all officers of the U.S. ship Hartford: these were Lieut. E. F. Qualtrough, U.S.N.; Passed assistant-surgeon W. S. Dixon, U.S.N.; Midshipman W. S. Fletcher, U.S.N.; and Midshipman J. G. Doyle, U.S.N. On March 11 the party was strengthened by the joining (at Colon) of the two English gentlemen who were sent out by the Royal society of London to make photographic observations of the eclipse, under instructions from J. Norman Lockyer, Esq., F.R.S., and Capt. W. de W. Abney, R.E., of the science and art department of the South Kensington museum. These were H. A. Lawrance, London, Eng., and C. Ray Woods, London, Eng. During the stay of the party on Caroline island 238 (April 21 to May 9), ten petty officers and men of the Hartford remained, and rendered very intelligent assistance. In all, the party on the island consisted of twenty- two persons. After giving details of the proceedings of the expedition, its arrival, and the preparations for the eclipse, Mr: Holden states, as to the event itself, that the following atmospheric conditions prevailed: The sky proved clear at first contact, cloudy at inter- vals till near totality, clear during totality except a slight haze in its first minutes, cloudy a few minutes after third contact, and finally clear at fourth contact. The meteorological observations (for which due credit is given to the members of the party that had them in charge) are noteworthy. In two weeks, April 25 to May 9, twenty showers were recorded; but the rainfall in each was very small, the total in the two weeks being about 8 inches. Half of this fell during the only considerable disturbance of the weather, which took place May 4, when it rained from midnight to 9.50 A.M. The barometer was notably uniform. Its diurnal movements were plainly marked; the maxima being at 9 A.M.-and p.m., the minima at 3 A.M. and P.M. The indications of the thermometer were very con- stant. The daily range was 9.3°, the highest reading 89.3°, the lowest 72.4°, the daily maximum at noon, the minimum at 6 A.M. The relative humidity ranged from 70 per cent at midday to S4 in early morning, and at no time fell below 61. The island lies in the region of the south-east trades, but the wind (which was very steady) blew constantly be- tween north and east. The average velocity of the wind was 6.05 miles; the largest during twenty-four hours was 212 miles, the least 59 miles; the highest velocity, registered in a squall, was 16 miles per hour. , The botanical and zodlogical observations are not yet ready for publication. During the voyage a series of observations was made by Mr. Upton on southern variable stars. Dr. Hastings and Mr. Holden, while on the island, discovered twenty-three new double stars, a list of which has appeared in SCIENCE. In preparing for the eclipse? Mr. Holden assigned to each observer a single duty, not requiring him to move trom one instrument to another. The excel- lent photographic apparatus, prepared under the di- rection of Prof. W. Harkness of the U.S. naval observatory, was not used: the entire field of pho- tography was left to the English party accompanying our own, and to the French party under M. Jan- ssen, who were very successful in photographing the corona. The combination of polariscope and telescope was used, but not with successful results, the apparatus proving unsuitable. Dr. W.S. Dixon, who attended to a telescopic examination of the details of the inner corona, will report on the same separately, giving a drawing of the corona. : chief point of observation was as to the relative SCIENCE. With the spectroscope, the - [Vox. IL, No. 29. lengths of the line 1474 east and west of the sun. At second contact, this line was 12! longitude east and 3’ west. The length of 1474 east diminished, while 1474 west imcreased. At mid-totality these were equal. Before the third contact, the appearances were reversed: 1474 west was longer and brighter than 1474 east. At the beginning of totality, the lines C, D3, F, and (near G) were seen brilliant but very short. At mid-eclipse the spectrum was deliberately examined. On a continuous spectrum, two lines only were seen: 1474 bright, and the D line dark. -C, EB, b, F, were certainly wanting. Near the end of totality, C, Ds, and Ff appeared again, very short. Five seconds after second contact, four curved lines were seen, — C, D3, 1474, F. A light cloud passed over the sun; and on its disappearance the spectrum showed a small line, of about one-third the height of the others, between 1474 and #. One hundred seconds after second contact, three coronal rings took the place of the lines: they were red, yellowish-green, and green, and are supposed to be C, Dz, and 1474. Two hundred seconds after second contact, the red ring was decidedly the brightest, and it continued to increase in brightness during sixty seconds. Two hundred and ninety seconds after second contact, the four curved lines, C, D3, 1474, F, appeared. The reversal of the bright lines at third contact was observed. The change was instantaneous, or nearly so. The reversal of the Fraunhofer lines was not seen. The only bright line seen for the first 190 seconds was 1474. 1A) as The use of the rubber tube is not new: the method of adjusting the air-mass is be- a Equating, H— d= Avausr 31, 1883.] lieved to be. This form is convenient because it answers for demonstrating the law at pressures above and below one atmosphere. Of course, for the latter, the air in D must be removed through S as at first. Natural snow-balls or snow-rollers. BY SAMUEL HART OF HARTFORD, CONN. The author carefully described the production and appearance of snow-balls or snow-rollers, the result of natural causes, of which a fine example was pre- : sented in Connecticut and southern Massachusetts last February. Snow had fallen, and had been coy- ered with a frozen surface by a light subsequent rain. Upon this surface fresh snow fell, and this under the influence of wind was collected in masses of differing ‘ Shapes. Some were spherical, from one to nine inches in diameter; most were rollers shaped like muffs, cylindrical, with a conical depression at each end reaching nearly to the middle. The largest observed by the author was 18 inches long, and 12 inches in diameter; but some were reported much larger. The path of formation showed that the roller had started with a small pellet, and, gaining both in length and diameter, had rolled up a long isosceles triangle of snow from its vertex. These paths were observed of alength of 25 to 30 feet, and others were reported as of 60 feet. The paths of the round balls were of _ nearly the same width throughout, None of these masses could be lifted without breakage. Such rollers were seen over an area of 40 miles in length: the author believed that they must haye been millions in number. Remarks on the tracings of self-registering in- struments, and the value of the signal-service indications for Iowa, in June and July, 1883. BY GUSTAVUS HINRICHS OF IOWA CITY, I0, _ This paper was mainly a severe criticism on the work of the signal-service bureau. The author claimed that the predictions of the weather for Iowa in June had been quite untrustworthy, only 50 per cent proving correct. His views as to the value of this service were vigorously combated in a discussion which followed the reading of his paper. A new heliostat. BY B. F. THOMAS OF COLUMBIA, MO. The instrument is intended to throw the reflected ray horizontally in the meridian. A polar axis A C, driven by clockwork, is provided with a declination-arm EZ F, with arc, pivoted at C, and pivoted to the longer axis of the mirror at 2 and -F. A ‘horizontal axis’ B GH, with the shaft por- tion B supported (by proper bearings in the standard ‘not represented) in the same vertical plane with the _ polar axis, is pivoted to the mirror in its shorter axis at Gand H, the points E C FG H being always in one plane, and G and H so adjusted that a line through them will pass through C perpendicular to CF. Moreover, the axis of the shaft portion B, mded, is perpendicular to and bisects G C H at - SCIENCE. 285 C. In order that the reflected ray be thrown hori- zontally in the meridian by our mirror, two condi- tions must be met: viz., 1°. The longer axis of the mirror must make and maintain the proper angle be- tween itself and a line from C to the sun; or, what is the same thing, the angle A C 2 must equal latitude plus one-half the sun’s altitude at noon. 2°. The shorter axis must move in a vertical plane, perpen- dicular to the meridian; or, in other words, the prime vertical. These conditions are rigidly met by the above combination. The static telephone. BY PROF. A, E. DOLBEAR OF COLLEGE HILL, MASS, In the static telephone, a ring of hard rubber is used, within which are two parallel metal-plates sepa- rated by a body of air (a non-conductor), one plate connected with the line carrying the current. The electrifying of one plate then causes attraction or repulsion of the free plate, and thus a sound in the receiver. This does away with magnetism. This system therefore requires a very large electro-motive power, and uses an induction coil of 2,000 ohms. A ground or return circuit is not present here, The equivalent is the body itself. ‘There is no passage of electricity from plate to plate: the action is purely inductive through space. The insulation is aceom- plished by the intervening air-space, and by a coating of varnish, — an excellent di-electric, There is a de- vice to discharge the induction plate in connection with this instrument, which keeps it constantly up to its full possibilities. When this instrument is fully charged, and the electrical conditions are perfect, the receiver may be entirely disconnected from the trans- mitter, and sounds and conversation can still be heard, even across a room. He also called attention to the fact, that instru- ments that have been in use work much better than new ones, as each plate acts as a condenser. In the discussion which followed, Dr. Dolbear was asked if the state of the atmosphere, in any way, affects the operation of the instrument, I have used these instruments, said he, on an actual line between Boston and New York, in a night when it rained over the whole length of the line, and the whole line was 286 as badly insulated as it well could be. I have also used it on the same line under the most favorable conditions for insulation, and could not really per- ceive much difference. It seemed to be as loud at one time as at another. Pres. H. A. RowLAnp. — Of course this is on an entirely different principle from our telephone. What interested me considerably was the fact, that one could hear better when the plates were charged. The explanation theoretically is very simple, and it is the same as that the Thompson electrometer is more sensitive when the jar is charged than when it is not charged; the reason being, that the attraction is proportionate to the square of the difference of the potentials, rather than the simple difference of the potentials. Therefore a small difference in the quan- tity, when it is large, produces a greater effect than when it is small. So the explanation is exactly the same as that the Thompson electrometer is more sensilive when you have the jar charged than when you do not. So, the higher the charge one would get, the more sensitive the instrument would be. I was especially interested in it, because it was on such an entirely different principle from the Bell instrument. I don’t wish to say any thing about patent laws or decisions on this subject, for they have nothing to do with this; but, scientifically, this is an entirely differ- ent instrument from the Bell instrument, and I am especially interested on that account. Prof. T. C. MenDENHALL. —I profess not to have quite understood the statement made by Professor Dolbear. I should like to hear your own (the presi- dent’s) opinion with regard to that charge which remains in spite of the fact that the two poles of the condenser are connected by conductors. I may have misunderstood the statement; but if that is correct, I should like to know whether that can be explained or not. President RowLAND. — Well, I suppose we all know how retentive an electroscope is of a charge. I sup- pose the idea is very similar in this case. I do not suppose the plates have a difference of potential. If you should leave them fora moment, I should suppose they would soon have a little return charge. If the two plates of the condenser were together, they would have the same potential. I understood it as merely areturn charge. Ido not know how Professor Dol- bear understands it. Professor DOLBEAR. — The instrument itself is a most delicate electrometer when tested in this way; and when it is charged and really in good working order, the gentlest tap upon the instrument serves to show that it is in good working order, for one can apply the instrument to his earand hear himself talk. This is the case, even when the two plates of the con- denser are connected with each other through the induction coil; and so, although they may have been there for hours, or even for days, — the difference be- tween an instrument that has not been used and one that has been charged is very appreciable. President RowLanp.—I suppose in that case it would be simply from the charge of the varnished surface ? SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 80, Professor DoLBEAR. — Yes: I think they retain their charge for a much longer time if the surface is varnished. Ido think there is a difference between the behavior of this and the charged cable. If a cable be charged for half an hour by battery, it will require half an hour to run out again, but it will be at that time quite discharged. But that is not the case with this instrument. President RowLanp. —I should suppose it was the charge in the varnished surface. Prof. W. A. Antuony.— Professor Dolbear did not say any thing about one advantage that this tele- phone has over the other, that struck me when I read the descriptions of it earlier, —that, in consequence of using this electricity at such a high potential, the ordinary telegraph-lines or other instruments would have very little effect upon it: therefore the tele- phone is very free from induction. ; Professor DOLBEAR. — My experience has been in accordance with that theory. Electro-motive force from induction from telegraph-lines is ordinarily tolerably small, although there may be at times con- siderable strength of current. But, the electro-motive force being so strong in my circuit, it follows that the action of such induced currents is very slight, and does not interfere with work. Prof. C. A. Youne. —I would like to inquire whether you have tried any experiments in putting the end of the wire to the ear to illustrate the sensi- tiveness of the ear ? Professor DoLBEAR. — Yes: I have heard simply by putting the end of an insulated wire to my ear, and listening. I consider the instrument as simply the enlarged terminal of a wire, and that you are actually listening at the end of a wire. Mr. E. Gray. —I have made a good many experi- ‘ments in another line, which I may state briefly, which may throw some light upon this, and yet I think it is very well understood. You remember, some of you, reading of such experiments made in 1874, relating to the reproducing of music on a plate by simply rapping with the finger or with some animal tissue. Now, I made this experiment, which seems to prove to my mind that the operation is as Profes- sor Dolbear has explained it. I set my revolving disc, which was asimple dise of zine, revolving at a steady rate, giving if a pressure with the fingers. Then I had fifty cells of battery set-up, as much as I could bear, passing through them, and had some one close the circuit with a Morse key. At the same time the key was closed, my finger would be jerked forward in the direction of the rotation of the disc; and it would remain in that forward condition, showing an increase of friction, until the key would be opened, and then it would drop back; showing that from some cause there was an increase of friction, either due to molecular disturbance, or, what is prob- ably the case, to attraction between the finger and the plate. It is necessary, to produce this experi- ment, that the cuticle be perfectly dry. You must rub it a long time, and have it perfectly polished; and then the cuticle becomes a dielectric, and the body is charged with one kind of electricity, and the wire or “ - _ AveusT 31, 1883.] the plate with another. - tee, the only feasible one at present. Later I got some fairly good results in articulation by using a small diaphragm - with all the conditions as nearly right as possible; and, having a current of sufficient electro-motive force, I could actually understand words produced on the end of my finger. President RowLanp. — What is the difference be- tween that and Edison’s motorphone ? Mr. Gray.—In Edison’s motorphone, when the current was thrown on, there was a decrease of fric- tion; there was chemical action taking place on the surface. In this case there is none, and there is an increase of friction when the current is on: perhaps ‘current’ is a bad word to use. President RowLanp. — The principle is the same. Mr. Gray.— One is a chemical action, which causes the friction to be less at the moment of charge. In this case, however, this is purely static contact, and increases the friction in the same manner that the plates are thrown together when they are charged in this telephone. And the motion, of course, or sound, is produced by a letting-go of the finger from the plate, and not by actual vibration, in the same ee Te ee ee eee ee SCIENCE. 287 sense that it takes place between the two plates in this receiver of Professor Dolbear. President RowLanp. — You attribute it to attrac- tion? Mr. Gray. — Yes: my experiments seem to prove that; I presume, because there was adhesion, there was an increase of friction during the time of the charge and the letting-go, when the circuit was open. There was really no circuit except when the charge was taken off. Sec. F. E. NipHer. — In regard to the case of which Professor Dolbear spoke, when it might be supposed that electricity does actually pass from the line into the ground, it seems to me that that fact, so far as it did exist, would be prejudicial to the action of the instruments; that what we want to bring about is not a current, but as great a difference of potential as possible, between the plates. List of other papers. The following additional paper was read in this section: — An extension of the theorem of the virial to rotary oscillation, by H. T. Eddy. PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C.—CHEMISTRY. Report of the committee on indexing the literature of chemical elements. Tue undersigned, a committee appointed at the Montreal meeting of the American association for the advancement of science, ‘“‘to devise and inau- gurate a plan for the proper indexing of the litera- ture of the chemical elemeunts,’’ respectfully submit the following report. The members have conferred with each, other orally and by correspondence. Several plans have been suggested, and their merits discussed. Three meth- ods of collecting material for the indexes may be named: — 1°. Revising the Catalogue of scientific papers published by the Royal Society (8 vols. 4to). 2°. Indexing special journals by different individ- uals, and collating the matter. 3°. The independent plan, whereby each chemist indexes all the journals available to him with refer- ence to a given element, in which he is presumably especially interested. ’ Each of these schemes is open to objections, and has its difficulties. The first would necessitate an ‘enormous amount of clerical labor, for which volun- teers would scarcely be secured; besides, data previ- ous to 1800 could not be obtained from this catalogue. The second involves, also, securing a large num- ber of self-sacrificing volunteers; and both plans would require a vast amount of editorial work on the part of this committee. The third plan seems, to a majority of the commit- On the inde- pendent plan, seven indexes have already been com- piled. The best arrangement of material has also been considered; and here again a threefold prob- lem oceurs ; — 1. Chronologically. 2. Alphabetically, by authors. 3. Topically. The committee do not venture to dictate to inde- pendent workers, but recommend the chronological arrangement, with the understanding that a topical index accompany each monograph. The best channel of publication has also been con- sidered’ by the committee. All the indexes hitherto published have been printed in the annals of the New-York academy of sciences; and the academy has generously offered, through its officers, to con- tinue its good work. The Smithsonian institution further agrees to distribute, free of expense, all circulars and documents in furtherance of this un- dertaking; an offer which is of greatest importance, and for which this committee expresses sincere thanks. Since the appointment of the committee, Mr. Webb’s index to the literature of electrolysis has been published in the annals of the New-York academy of sciences; and several chemists have expressed a willingness to co-operate in the proposed undertaking. Prof. R. B. Warder of Cincinnati has promised an index to the literature of the velocity of chemical reactions; and Dr. Henry Leffmann of Philadelphia proposes to index the important element arsenic. Your committee present to the association this brief report of progress, and respectfully desire to be continued. H. C. Boiron, Chairman; IRA Remsen; F. W. CLARKE; A. R. LEEps; A. A. JULIEN, 288 PAPERS READ BEFORE SECTION C. ‘On y-dichlordibrompropionic and y-dichlor- bromacrylic acids. BY C. Fr. MABERY AND H. H. NICHOLSON. WHEN dry chlorine is passed through (-dibroma- crylic acid, the reaction is easily accomplished, and the product may be purified without difficulty by crystallization from carbonic disulphide. This acid is very sparingly soluble in water, more soluble in hot than in cold carbonic disulphide and chloroform, It melts at 100°. Its salts were carefully studied, but the silver salt was found so unstable that it could not be prepared in a state of purity. Since B-dibromacrylic acid has, without doubt, the form Woe CH , the chlorine addition product would have COOH CBr.Cl | the form CHCl This acid is entirely decomposed | COOH when heated with an excess of any alkaline hydrate. If, however, the reaction is allowed to progress in the cold, keeping the hydrate in slight excess, the elements of hydrobromiec acid are easily removed, with the formation of the corresponding dichlordi- bromacrylic acid. In order to distinguish this from two other products which have already been obtained, it will be called the y-acid. It is prepared by the ac- tion of baric hydrate upon y-dichlordibrompropionic acid, and the reaction proceeds so rapidly that it is difficult to keep the solution alkaline. Upon acidi- fying the baric hydrate solution with hydrochloric acid, y-dichlorbromacrylic acid is precipitated partly as a crystalline solid, and is easily purified by crys- tallization from hot water. It is sparingly soluble in cold, readily in hot water, and in alcohol, ether, carbonic disulphide, and chloroform. It crystallizes in pearly-white scales, which melt at 78° to 80°. _ For further identification, the acid was analyzed, and its salts submitted to careful study. The sub-aqueous dissociation of certain salts. BY JOHN W. LANGLEY AND CHARLES EK. M°GEE OF ANN ARBOR, MICH. THE question as to whether salts are dissociated into their components when simply dissolved in water has been attacked by different chemists in various ways. The method described in this paper seems to haye furnished some remarkable results, which may help in pointing the way to the final answer of this important problem. Sainte Claire Deville has called attention to ap- parent chemical changes which a salt may undergo by the mere fact of solution, and that such changes may increase in extent with the mere addition of water. He concludes that there is no absolute dis- tinction between solution and chemical union; that SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 80. the difference is rather of degree than of kind. From this point of view, a salt in dissolving has its particles separated much as if it were vaporized by heat, and the heat units necessary to perform this sort of vaporization are taken from surrounding bodies. As the heat absorbed increases with the de- gree of dilution, it will eventually become sufficient to dissociate into its elements a salt dissolved in a suita- bly large quantity of a neutral solvent, such as water. Assuming that salts tend to dissociate by solution, and are decomposed when sufficiently diluted, we should expect them to break into simpler molecules first, and, of course, along the lines of least resist- ance. We may take three views of the possible con- dition of a salt dissolved in a small quantity of water —as, for instance, one molecule of sodic sulphate in two molecules of water: 1. That it is attached to the water by a sort of physical adhesion, which may be represented by .[Na2 SO, , 2H». Oj. 2. That the water and salt are united in a new group which acts as a compound molecule so long as the amount of the solvent is small; this might be [2 (Na OH), Hs SO,], the comma indicating a molecular as distinguished from an atomic union, 3. That we have in these cases a certain quantity of different kinds of mat- ter held momentarily in equilibrium, but ready to form definite combinations when the external forces- change. The last view would be expressed by [Nas H, SO,], and does not require that Na be combined with H, S, or SO,. The heat of combination between H, SO, and 2Na OH is less than that in the formation of sodium hydrate starting with metallic sodium and water, or of sulphuric acid starting with SO; and water. There- fore, in the group Na» H, SOg, the line of least resist- ance probably passes through where the comma is placed in the arrangement [2 (Na OH), Hy SO,]. Then the first stage of dissociation will be the appear- ance of free sodium hydrate and free sulphuric acid. The change will be partial for finite ratios between quantities of the salt and the water, and should grad- ually increase with augmented dilution to a point where free acid can be shown quantitatively. For the present occasion, advantage was taken of — the circumstance that in some neutral salts the bases have less power to turn litmus blue than the acids have to turn it red; and also, that in certain other salts the converse is true. Thus the power of the hydrates of zinc, iron, and copper, to turn litmus blue, is quite feeble; while the power of the mineral acids to redden litmus is very great. On the other hand, the hydrates of the alkaline metals are singularly powerful in turning litmus blue. Now, if the power of the base to produce the blue is not the exact quan- titative counterpart of the acid to produce red, the difference of color-producing power must increase in proportion as the solution becomes more dilute, if the theory of dissociation is well founded. The method of experiment may be briefly stated. A series of test tubes was prepared, holding respect- ively one, two, three, four, ete., portions of. sul- phurie acid; and each was then diluted with litmus solution to an equal amount. The tubes thus filled presented a series from neutral purple to decided red. This formed a scale of colors for reference. Saturated solutions were prepared of the sulphates of Zn, Cu, Pb, Ag, Ca, Na, Hg, Mn, Al, and Fe, and Zn Cl,. To each of these solutions, enough litmus solution was added, in a series for each salt, to exactly correspond in amount with the sulphuric-acid tubes. As each tube of a dissolved salt was prepared, and also as it was successively diluted with increasing amounts of litmus, it was compared with the tubes in the ¢olor-scale, by looking across the two tubes, until its corresponding tint was found. A complete record of these correspondences was made; and it furnished the means for constructing a diagram, in which the results are plotted in curves. SCIENCE. Prat eT ere 2é t NS eae he 289 neutral under all degrees of dilution. 2°. Sulphates of the R. SO, type, where R is a dyad metal, show an amount of dissociation proportioned to the degree of dilution. 8°. Aluminie sulphate, and other double triads, are not neutral when concentrated. When diluted they soon become strongly acid. When the dilution exceeds a certain limit, they lose acid at a decreasing rate. Suggestions for computing the speed of chemi- cal reactions. BY R. B. WARDER OF CINCINNATI, 0. Tuts paper urges a thorough discussion of data upon the subject indicated in its title, for the follow- ing reasons: 1°. To discover and investigate the GRA) F SULP ACID 25) €0 70 8 _ ‘The following were the chief results:]Ca So, and _ Naz So, each continued to act as a neutral salt, with- _ out effect on the litmus throughout the range of dilu- tions. Ag, SO, was the only salt which changed the solution toa blue. The results with Fe, (SO,), and _ Fe SO, were unsatisfactory because of a dirty pre- - cipitate, but both made the litmus red. Zn Cl, pre- _ sented a similar difficulty. There is a doubt about _ the result with Hg SO,, and some obscurity about the greatly diluted solutions of Al, (SO,), and Cu So,. On account of instability of color, probably caused by oxidation, a fresh color-scale had to be prepared _ every day, and the mixtures were made under a film _ of paraffine. These experiments seem to indicate that: 1°. Sul- ” phates of the alkali metals, except silver, are strictly causes of certain discrepancies between published observations and current theories. 2°. To obtain more definite information as to the nature of certain reactions and the conditions determining their speed. 3°. To afford numerical data for a fuller study of relations between the speed of reactions and other physical constants. 4°. To suggest fruitful lines for further research in chemical dynamics. As instances of the need of such discussion, the de- terminations by Professor Menschutkin, of the speed and limits of the etherification of the several alcohols and acids, give numbers for the initial speed of reac- tionin one hour which are not proportional to speeds during the first minute. Prof. L. Meyer in his Dyna- mik der atomen passes very lightly over both the theory and the obseryations of speed during a reaction. mae 290 The prevalent theory of the action of mass is ex- pressed, oe = kuv... in which the differential expresses the rate of change in any substance, u and v represent the masses taking part in the change, and & is a constant. Some observations by Ostwald and - others indicate that some modifications of this theory are needed. Determinations of the speed of reaction require special care, both to measure time in relation to mass, and to control temperature and other condi- tions. The chemical section of the Ohio mechanics’ institute has recently undertaken some work of the sort, and invites co-operation. The following provisional system is suggested: for volume, one cc.; for mass, the chemical equivalent expressed in mg.; and for time, one hour. The unit of speed would be the transformation of unit of each active body per unit of volume and time. Possibly the comparison of the constants of speed or of chemical affinity with those of heat, elec- tricity, etc., could be better made from the unit of one second or 1,000 seconds. At least two observa- tions of time and two of mass are required, and preferably several, to determine the limits of error. Determinations which do not accord with the hy- pothesis that diminished speed and diminished prod- uct vary in the same ratio, need special investiga- tion. In reciprocal reactions, some of the ratios may be combined with constants of speed already determined. By bringing all the facts into syste- matic order, these data can be made of use for com- parison in other physical-science fields. The paper concludes with an extended bibliography of the sub- ject, which will be very serviceable to workers in this branch of research. SCIENCE. [Vot. II., No. 80. Twelve months of lysimeter record at the New- York agricultural experiment station, BY E. L. STURTEVANT OF GENEVA, N.Y. Tue lysimeters were described. They are boxes of peculiar construction, containing selected samples of soils in layers. The relative percolation of rain- fall through these different soils, and the evaporation, are determined by observations of the instrument. The results are summarized as follows: Sod land allowed 11.68 of the rainfall to percotate; soil of which the surface was simply bared allowed 25.88 per cent percolation; the cultivated soil passed 37.93 per cent. ‘The evaporation from the first of these was, of course, 88.82 per cent; from the second, 74.12; from the third, 62.07; the sum of percolation and evapora- - tion being held to account for the entire rain-fall. The composition of American wheat and corn. : e BY CLIFFORD RICHARDSON OF WASHINGTON, D.C. THIS paper gave an account of results obtained by the author in his work as first assistant chemist of the U. 8S. department of agriculture. analyses of wheat, and 100 of corn, have been made during the last ten years under his supervision. It appears that while our wheats are of somewhat lighter weight, they contain less water, about the same ash, more oil, less fibre, and less albumen, than the foreign wheats. Among our wheats, only those from Colo- rado, Dakota, and Minnesota equal the European in albuminoids and in size of grain. The wheats of the Atlantic states are poor in nitrogen. Corn, compared with wheat, contains twice as much oil, less starch, more water and fibre, and less of albuminoids, The following table gives a condensed statement of the wheat analyses: — Average percentage of nitrogen, albumen, etc., in wheats of the world. Per cent | Per cent A Weight . CounrRres. NOL OR of of Highest Tower of 100 Hiphesk Lowery Authority. analyses. | nitrogen, |albumen, | 2/>umen. | albumen. | yeynojs, | Weight. | weig 2 INDEIE GD io GGG aio o 24 3.12 19.48 24.56 10.68 - - - Laskowsky. IRIIBBIAplck. iia tena cien se a he 5 2.34 14.63 16.56 14.24 3.610 5.350 2.000 Von Bibra. North Germany ..... 25 2,24 14.00 18.26 9.80 4.498 5.400 4.000 as os South Germany ..... 13 2.17 13.56 17.76 10.21 4.485 7.000 2.875 es ny Germany GF BRE Mech nani - 2.11 13.19 - - - - = Kiihn. Germany. . ...... - 2.08 13.09 - - - = = Wolff. SPAM Giom retails steted tauae havens 8 2.10 13.18 15.29 11.26 4.270 5.125 3.275 | Von Bibra. IBNAN CEN ticlivetn vac lc memes nt - 2.08 13.00 = = = - - Reiset. Scotland CAP Ou D hone ate Or sit 14 2.01 12.56 - - 4,680 5.200 4.250 Von Bibra, INOS oy ve a) eve dl 4 2 1.60 10.00 - - - - - - G Egypt .. gee) iis! Verh nclish is 5 1.47 9.19 9.92, 8.75 5.540 - - ic ce Allbut Russia. . . .. . 176 2.29 13.65 19.10 5.33 = - = Koenig. America GriBulcncon iy ola a 254 1.92 12.00 17.15 8.05 - 5 924 1.830 Various. America, except Colorado. . 163 1.86 11.62 16.63 8.05 3.532 5,079 1.8380 a Colorado, WNT OG dee 33 2.14 13.40 15.94 11.19 4.833 5.924 3.851 Richardson. Colorado, UG ed al Go /8 12 2.09 13.06 14.88 11.55 4.299. 4.670 3.976 wo Minnesota QO) Une acu dls 12 2.05 12.79 17.15 10.85 3.394 3.699 3.116 CG Michigan Boi UdP AL OLY Oy ccanics 38 1.92 12.00 14.47 9.13 4.116 - - Kedzie. IUESOUIET cai of yk oo be 10 1.83 11.44 12.44 10.50 3.502 3.867 3.098 Richardson. Oregon DALI Act «ie Ose Oe) 7 1.46 9.17 10.63 8.05 4.800 = = & Atlantic State) mPitey heck aie pats 56 1.79 11.18 14.00 8 93 3.057 4.628 1.8380 W Pennsylvania Pea Toe. (ie 23 1.80 11.25 12.78 9.45 8.211 4.063 2.526 ag eNoxthiCarolina <2). ee 21 1.67 10.46 12.43 8.93 3.782 4.628 2.780 se LEY GP Boa a ol | |G 17 1.82 11.32 13.65 9.80 3.137 4.647 2,011 Co is ny More than 200 | : q Avausr 31, 1883.] ie ; water, and heat is applied beneath. 4 The sotol, a Mexican forage plant. BY CLIFFORD RICHARDSON OF WASHINGTON, D.C. Tus plant, Dasylinion texanum, grows wild and extensively on the borders of the Rio Grande and elsewhere in Texas, and in Mexico, on a rocky and gravelly soil. The plains covered with it look like a vast cabbage-field. Sheep feeding on it go without water for many weeks, Only the bulb is eaten. It is split open by the shepherd, who carries a knife for the purpose. Mexicans eat the bulb after roasting or baking it in pits. Also a liquor is obtained from it, by fermenting and distilling after roasting, called “sotol mescal,’ and possessed of highly intoxicating _ powers. The plant is described in Watson's Revision of the North-American Liliaceae. About 18 per cent of Sugar can be obtained from the outer husks; in the interior, more than 10.5 per cent exists; and in the whole head of the plant there is probably more than 15.5 per cent of sugars. No starch seems to be pres- ent. A proximate analysis of the soft interior of the head gave 17 percent sugars: 65 per cent, of this soft substance in the head, when fresh, is water. As a food-plant in dry districts, the sotol is of great value; as a fibre-producing plant, it will not be of any importance, owing to the shortness of the cells. American butters and their adulterations. BY H. W. WILEY OF WASHINGTON, D.C. A SERIES of elaborate experiments and analyses of various samples of butter, oleomargarine, tallow, and lard, have been made by Professor Wiley, chemist of the U.S. department of agriculture. The paper contained a description of Professor Wiley’s method. He takes a weighed quantity of the butter, puts it in a sand-bath, and dries for two hours at 100°. The eurd or caseine is determined by ignition: five grains are used for the purpose. Dry combustion in a tube is difficult and unsatisfactory: he therefore uses the moist-combustion method, with permanganate and nesslerizing. The amount of salt he considers im- portant. It is usually determined by ignition, and _ weighing the residue; but he found that so much chlorine was thereby lost, that the result was not trustworthy. He washes the butter by shaking it in - a separating funnel with hot water, and then deter- Mines the chlorine with standard silver nitrate and potassium bichromate as an indicator. Professor Wiley has devised several novelties for these analyses. One of the neatest is for ascertain- ing the melting-point. The butter is packed in a U-shaped tube, of which one leg is longer than the other. The tube is placed upright in a vessel con- y : taining sufficient mercury to overflow the top of the tube. This vessel is placed in another containing The water, heated, in turn heats the mercury surrounding the _ tube, until the contents of the tube are melted. As _ soon as the melting takes place, the melted material SCIENCE. 291 leaves the tube, and floats on the surface of the mer- cury. Another method consisted in laying platinum wires upon the sample of butter, ete., heating the wires, and noting the heat required to cause them to disappear by sinking into the sample. These meth- ods determined not only the melting-point of samples of butter, oleomargarine, tallow, and lard, but also of the fatty acids. But the variations in the melting- point of genuine butter are so wide, that no certain conclusion can be arrived at by comparison with melting-point of oleomargarine, ete., to test the question of genuineness. Thus it was found that first-rate butter from an Alderney cow at one time, owing to special feeding, had a higher melting-point than oleomargarine; while a few weeks later, with different food, the same cow supplied milk from which was made butter with a lower melting-point than oleomargarine. In regard to other tests, concerning which full details were given in the paper, it may be briefly stated, that, as a general rule, the amount of casvine present in pure butter is much greater than in oleo- margarine. The specific gravity of genuine butter is lower. The saturation co-efficient for the insoluble acids in the genuine butter is low, in the imitations itis high. Professor Wiley seems to place more reli- ance on tests for saturation co-efficient than on other methods, The soluble fatty acids in pure butter range from three to five per cent; while in oleo- margarine, tallow, etc., they are either absent, or show a mere trace. The author also called attention to polarization tests. The genuine butter gives a uniform field in polarized light: oleomargarine gives a field with mottled and crystalline structure. He had made no analysis of butter known or suspected to be adulterated by mixture. He considered it unwise to decide the question of genuinehess from any one of the constituents or conditions of a sample; believing that all the different tests should be brought to bear, He presented elaborate tables of analyses of different kinds of butter, ete. ; specifying for exch the place of purchase, name sold by, price, color, percentage of water, of casvine, of salt, specific gravity at 409, melt- ing and solidifying points, percentage of soluble and of insoluble acids, and the melting and solidifying points aud the saturation equivalent of the insoluble acids. The discussion respecting the analysis of butter which was brought about by this paper revolved around the question of the value of the data pre- sented for the practical work of the determination of actual proportion of adulteration. Mr. Noyes held that the variations in puré butters in specifie gravity, in melting-point, in saturation co-efficient, and in caseine, as determined by Professor Wiley, would be of little value except in cases where the agulteration was very great. Mr. Springer held that the principal constituent to be taken into account in the determi- nation of adulteration was the amount of caseine, and that although there were some difficulties in the way of its accurate determination, they might be removed, and he should then have more faith in Uns than in the comparison of other data. He suggested that the 292 accurate determination of caseine might be effected by some rapid-fermentation process by which caseine could be broken up into other organic products that could be separated by albumen. He held to this point as to caseine, because it cannot conveniently be added in the manufacture of oleomargarine; while the acids upon which the saturation co-efficient depends could readily be added as sodium com- pounds. On account of the difficulty of getting accurate results in determining nitrogen, it was thought best to use the wet-combustion method with permanga- nate, because a small quantity of material might be used, and there would be fewer chances for loss that otherwise occurs in nitrogen determinations that are effected by the combustion of butters. Dr. Wheeler called the attention of the section to the use of what is known as ‘cotton-seed-oil stock,’ PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION PAPERS READ BEFORE SECTION D. A comparison of terra-cotta lumber with other materials. BY T. R. BAKER OF MILLERSVILLE, PENN. TuHE material called ‘terra-cotta lumber’ is made out of clay and sawdust. The investigation which formed the subject of this paper was to ascertain certain qualities of this artificial product. The paper also described the apparatus used for the tests. The results indicated that the material was 875 times as permeable to air as pine, and 135 times as brick. Air was forced by pressure of a column of Water. Other tests showed that the material was tour times as hard as pine, but not so hard as brick. Its grip on nails driven into it was about half that of pine. The author was careful to disclaim any intention of adver- tising the merits of the material, but he evidently regarded it as serviceable for the purposes for which itis intended. Specimens were exhibited. Improvements in shaping-machines. BY J. BURKITT WEBB OF ITHACA, N.Y. Iy the ordinary shaping-machine there are two. de- fects, one of which is found also in the planer. The ram of a shaping-machine is a bar sliding in bearings, — and carrying at one end the cutting-tool. If we rep- resent by a the variable horizontal distance from the tool to the first bearing (or nearest end of the long bearing), and by 6 the variable horizontal distance from the tool to the second or farthest bearing (baclx end of long bearing), and by ¢ the length of stroke, we shall have, — ‘ Maximum yalue of a = (minimum yalue of a) + ¢. Maximum yalue of b = (minimum ‘value of 6) +c. . In other words, the length of the ram is variable, and the spring of the ram from the work is variable, the tool springing away from its work more at the end of its stroke. This springing takes place mostly in the joint between the ram and its bearings, and cannot SCIENCE. (Vou. II., No. 80. .in the manufacture of oleomargarine. This, doubt- less, contains considerable nitrogen, and, of course, would reduce the value of the caseine-test for adul- teration, A sample was shown, supposed to contain cotton-seed-oil. The sense of the discussion was, that it was very desirable that Professor Wiley should continue his experiments, as they are of great value; but there is yet a great deal of work to be done in the. investiga- tion. List of other papers. The following additional papers were read in this section: — The formation and constitution of chlordi- bromacrylic acid, by C. F. Mabery and Rachel Lloyd. Orthiodtoluolsulfonie acid, by C. F. Mabery and G. M. Palmer. organic compounds, by C. Leo Mees. burettes, by W. H. Seaman. New forms of D.— MECHANICAL SCIENCE. be wholly avoided without a change of construction. To remedy the defect, the author proposes a reversed construction of the sliding parts; the two bearings (preferable to a long bearing) to be formed on the ram, so as to make the distances a and 6 constant, and the long slide being part of the bed of the ma- chine. The second defect, which is also common to the. planer, is in having a ‘drop-block’ which fits but in- differently between the jaws and against the bottom of its seat. From the necessity of the usual construc- tion, the tool attached ta this block will have more or less spring. The remedy is to dispense with the drop- block, and introduce an automatic motion to lift the tool on the return stroke, as has been done, the author has understood, on some large machines, Regularity of flow in double-cylinder rotary pumps. BY J. BURKITT WEBB OF ITHACA, N.Y. Tue speaker introduced his subject by exhibiting a number of models of these pumps from the cabinets of Cornell university, which has recently purchased copies (243 in number) of the celebrated models of the Reuleaux collection in Berlin. Class I. of this collection is devoted to these pumps. The speaker then produced and demonstrated a formula for the flow of these pumps, and showed that the regularity of flow depended upon other principles opposite to those which have been given for determining this point. The formula given for the flow was:— F mR? + Rk’? — (r2 + r’?)] = Flow for one revolution, when R’ and R” (generally equal to each other) are the extreme radii of the two revoly- ing wheels; and 7‘ and 7” are the radii (often, per- haps generally, variable) from the point of contact between the wheels to their centres. It was shown that the regularity of flow depends upon r@ + 72 = constant. R’and R” may be called the ‘ piston radii,’ and # and +” the ‘valve radii.’ Estimation of carbon and nitrogen in” These pumps are a - c vat ws by * se i lait 1 Jo: See phe | ¢ Bae Avaust 31, 1883.] ealled by Reuleaus ‘ Kapsel riiderwerke,’ or ‘cham- ber-crank trains,” according to Kennedy. List of other papers. The following additional papers were read in this _ section, some of them by title only: —A method of PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. ADDRESS OF C. Il. HITCHCOCK OF ITAN- OVER, N.1., VICE-PRESIDENT OF SEC- TION L, AUG. 15, 1888. TNE EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTII- AMERICAN CONTINENT, TUERE is a special appropriateness in the associa- lion of geography with geology, as indicated in the assignment of sciences to section E; for the latter gives us an account of the origin of every topograph- ical feature of the earth’s surface, whether island, continent, mountain, plateau, valley, or oceanic de- pression. If we would properly understand the sig- nificance of the earth’s contours, we must unravel the mysteries of geology: so a knowledge of topog- raphy is essential to the complete comprehension of the geological features of any country. If a geologist were taken by a balloon to an unexplored part of the earth, he would instantly recognize, from their topo- graphical outlines, voleanic and granitic cones, lime- stone hills, elevated plateaus of basalt or horizontal sandstones, and special types of orographie structure. Hence the modern geologist first draws the contours of his district befure applying the colors of geological age. The existing relief features of the earth have been produced one by one in successive periods; and it ix the task of the geologist to discover what were the characteristic physical developments of the several ages. He can delineate a connected historical sketch of the beginuing, growth, and completion of acontinent, Such histories are rare, because atten- fiou has but recently been turned into this direction. ~ One of the first American geologists to frame such an outline is Prof. J. D. Dana, to whom we owe the euunciation of this fundamental truth, — that the first formed land has always remained above water, aud has been a nucleus about which zones of sedi- ment have accumulated. We can now recognize _ this primitive continent, with all its successive stages of growth, upon every geological map. Time would fail us to present the entire physical history of our continent; and we will therefore confine our atténtion chiefly to its earlier chapters, noting those points which are under discussion, As we are - endeavoring to advance science, we must touch upon debatable topics, and hope by friendly discussions to become wiser. ~ We mu-t assume the correctness of the commonly received opinions concerning the earlicst history of our planet, —that it passed throngh the condition of a nebula, and then of a burning sun, the period of SCIENCE. _-_- testing long plane surfaces, applicable to the align- ment of;planer-beds, lathe-beds, heavy shafting, ete., by W. A. Rogers. The commercial and dynamic efficiencies of the steam-engine ; Centrifugal action in turbines, by R. H.. Thurston. Velocity of the piston of a crank engine, by C. M. Woodward. — GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY. igneous fluidity. By subsequent refrigeration it has become either partially or wholly solid. Not until a crust had formed, and the earth had cooled enough to allow water to remain permanently, was it pos- sible to talk of dry land and ocean, With these prem- ises allowed, it seems to us evident that the material of the earth must be disposed in concentric zones, arranged according to density, the heaviest being at the centre. If the various elements were free to move, as is the case in all natural or artificial igneous fluids, we must expect to find the heavier metals situated beneath the others; and, following the analogy of extra-terrestrial bodies, the central nucleus may be principally iron, like the heavier meteors. Zones corresponding to stony meteors, lavas, the trap family, and granites would naturally succeed in order, the last named being at the surface. This outer zone is also characterized by the presence of much silica and oxygen. ‘The primeval ocean came from the vapors surrounding the igneous sphere, con- densed to liquidity as soon as water could remain upon the solid crust without immediate vaporization, This original crust may have been essentially a plain, and consequently entirely covered by water; for if the land were now levelled off, the ocean would submerge every acre of the continents. As refrige- ration progressed, ridges and valleys would form in accordance with that fundamental principle that the outer envelope must conform to the shrunken nucleus; and this contraction gives rise to that tangential force or lateral pressure which has acted through all time. Whether these earliest ridges rose above the ocean would depend upon the amount of elevation. Some authors argue that. these ridges fol- low the course of great circles. If there are causes adequate to produce such results,—or any other world-wide arrangement,—they must have com- menced to operate at the very beginning of contrac- tion, Most authors maintain that the yery thick strata of the older rocks have been formed just like modern sediments, having been broken off the ledges, and transported into oceanic basins in horizontal attitude. If so, there must have been great moun- tainous elevations, deep oceanic depressions, and extensive aqueous action; since the thickness of the crystalline schists is greater than that of, the strata in the fossiliferous ages. The amount of distortion, erumpling, and faulting of the erystalline rocks is also greater. These same authors hold that the original strata were in all respects like modern sands, gravels, and clays, and that their present crystalline structure is due to metamorphism. No one has yet discovered any uncrystalline pre-Cambrian beds; nor 294 have the original foundation rocks been pointed out, since the oldest known layers are stratified, and canuot therefore have constituted part of the original unstratified crust. Professor Dana thinks the primitive land originated because of a difference in the rate of conduction of heat during the process of refrigeration. Cooling would be fastest where the heat was conducted most rapidly. The first areas to cool would be the first to solidify. The first solidified crust was heavier than the adjacent liquid: so it sank until it found a fluid as dense as itself. Then the liquid above this crust would in turn become solid, and sink; and this process is supposed to have continued until a perma- nent shell had become fixed in the earth’s circum- ference, which constantly increased in breadth and thickness, becoming continents. Meanwhile the other portions remained liquid; and their surfaces must have stood at the same level with the first- formed crust till that congealed, and became depressed because of the diminution of volume in solidifica- tion. These depressions became the ocean’s beds. From this beginning down to the present time the processes of growth have consisted in the thicken- ing of the continents and the settling-down of the oceanic depressions, while the chief force employed has"been the lateral pressure derived from contrac- tion. LeConte and Pratt express the process thus far described by the term ‘unequal radial contraction.’ The total gravity of the particles of matter along each radius is supposed to be the same; and hence, if the heat is conducted most rapidly over the shorter radii composed of denser minerals, the ocean-basins would cool first. These two views thus demand a different arrangement of the lighter and denser materials; the one necessitating that the continents, and the other the depressions, were first to congeal. Both, however, make the gratuitous and unproved assumption, that the surface was not uniform in composition; the differences being probably like that between granite and trap. The principle stated above —that, where all the particles are free to move in a liquid, the lighter elements must rise to the sur- face, and the heavier minerals sink down in propor- tion to their specific gravity —is at variance with this assumptions Fortunately it is not essential toa right theory of continental growth. There is no reason, therefore, to doubt that the original crust had essentially a uniform thickness over the whole earth. Contraction would originate ridges and val- leys in the normal way, most likely of similar dimensions. There must soon burst forth ejections of igneous matter, owing to tidal attraction; and these would show themselves along the weakest lines. At the outset it is difficult to assign reasons why either the elevations or depressions would be the weaker; and hence we should look for a multitude of locations of igneous overflow, both over the future continents and oceans. There may be no better reason for the eventual enlargement of certain of these volcanoes than that circumstances only very slightly favored them; but, this favor being con- tinued, they would exist and enlarge at the expense SCIENCE. [Vor. IL, No. 30. of the others, affording us another illustration of the ‘survival of the fittest.’ It seems to us there is now afforded an opportunity for reviving in a modified form the view of Poulett Serope in regard to the origination of the earlier crystalline deposits. Suppose we say, that, besides the original unstratified igneous granitic material, the oldest stratified crystalline rocks are derived from voleanic ejections; being the continued enlarge- ment in size, and reduction in number, of the early indeterminate vents. The several ejections would increase in size till they became islands, either gneis- sic or granitic; and, if an archipelago is allowed us, we can easily show how continents would accumulate, using only the universally acting forces of lateral } pressure and sedimentary accumulation. Of other theories relating to the origin of the earlier crystalline beds I may mention two. The first is that advocated by Lyell, who termed these rocks hypoyene. After the solid granitic crust had been formed by refrigeration, ‘‘ the hot waters of the ocean held in solution the ingredients of gneiss, — mica-schist, hornblende-schist, clay slate, and marble, —rocks which were precipitated one after the other in a crystalline form”’ (Lyell’s Principles of geology, 10th ed., i. 142). In such a menstruum, life could not have existed. A very similiar view was advocated by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt in his presidential address before this association in 1871. The second is the view more commonly entertained, — that, after the solidification of the crust, sedimen- tation accumulated stratified systems from the granitic foundations, as ordinary sand, gravel, and clay, which were subsequently acted upon by thermal and aqueous influences termed metamorphic, and thus converted into crystalline schists. The wide- spread and powerful action of metamorphism is conceded; but it is a more appropriate adjunct to volcanic than sedimentary accumulation. A few of the considerations favoring our eea will now be presented. + 1. Considering the igneous origin of the earth, voleanie energies would naturally continue their action as soon as there was a crust to be broken — through, and immense piles of melted rock would ooze from the numerous fissures. Up to Laurentian times all admit the universality of igneous outflow, while but few have ventured to speak of any thing like volcanic action, except as it has been manifested in the formation of dikes in these early periods. There has been a tendency to class the ancient granites and porphyries with rocks of sedimentary origin, and consequently to restrict the action of igneous agencies to phenomena of slight importance. Several English writers, and, in our country, Dr, eee Se a Selwyn-of Canada, have been calling our attention to the existence of a volcanic group in later Huronian or early Cambrian times. These are the rocks so largely developed about Lake Superior, New Eng- Jand, and’ the Province of Quebec, consisting of stratified schists, diorites, diabases, amygdaloids, and — felsites, identical in composition with true eruptive — Investigation shows that masses of ‘the same name. : ; ; % Aveust 31, 1883.] oftentimes these schists are disposed like the lavas ejected from one series of volcanic vents. Suppose, for example, that Etna or Vesuvius should become extinct. In the course of ages the rains would obliterate the craters, aud reduce the lavas to a rounded dome of greater or less regularity. We should recognize the volcanic origin of the mountain in the absence of craters from the lithological simi- larity of the rocks to those known to have been melted and ejected from vents, while the disposal of _ the material in a conical attitude shows us that it might once have been covered by craters. So we find in our eastern country many domes of diabasiec or protogenic schists, whose volcanic origin may be predicated, both from their lithological character and physical aspect. Now, this voleanic group of Huronian times in- dicates the existence of a greater degree of igneous activity than has been described for the paleozoic ages, even those of Great Britain ; and consequently this is an indication pointing signiticantly towards the predominance of thermal influences in the still earlier periods. In the Laurentian age the fires should have been yet more vigorous, because the time of universal igneous fluidity was less remote. 2. A careful study of the erystalline rocks of the Atlantic slope indicates the presence of scattered ovoidal areas of Laurentian gneisses. Those best ’ known have been described in the Geology of New Hampshire. Instead of a few large synclinal troughs filled to great depths with sediments, the oldest group is disposed in no less than twenty-two areas of small size, scattered like the islands in an archipelago. In a chapter upon the physical history of the state, I have proposed the theory that the earliest land with- in its limits consisted of this series of islands, not packed as closely together as now, in an area of per- haps:three thousand five hundred square miles, but as rhuch more widely separated as would be deter- mined by smoothing out the various anticlinals and synclinals that were formed later. By reference to - our maps in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, many similar ovoidal Laurentian areas may be specified, usually larger than those of New Hampshire. This may be due partly to a less thorough knowledge of the exact areas occupied by this older gneiss, and partly to the existence of a greater number of vol- eanic vents, giving rise to a more widely spread and thicker mass of ejected material. Over the Atlantic slope and Canadian highlands these primeval islands have, in later periods, been cemented together by a subsequent deposition of material; but in Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, we recognize, even now, these early islands. 3. The lithology of the Laurentian and other crys- talline rocks is very like that of igneous ejections. It is proper at this point to recall the proper restric- tion of the term Laurentian. As originally defined by Logan, it included every formation that ante- dated the Huronian. In the Report upon the geology of Canada for 1877-78, Selwyn proposes to restrict the Laurentian outcrops to ‘all those clearly lower, SCIENCE. 295 unconformable, granitoid, or syenitie gneisses in which we never find interstratified bands of calea- reous, argillaceous, arenaceous, and conglomeratic rocks.’? The Hastings and Grenville series, and all the schists containing the eozoon, are excluded from the Laurentian by this definition, as well as the Bethlehem, Lake Winnipiseogee, and Montalban groups of the Atlantic slope. The Laurentian is azoic, the other groups eozoic; and, unless newer distinctions are to be made hereafter, it looks as if we might claim these various azoic Laurentian islands as the first-formed dry land, as they certainly are the nuclei of the existing continents. There are no minerals in these Laurentian islands that do not occur in eruptive granite; and the schis- tose structure is often so faint that the field geologist need not be blamed if he acknowledges his inability to detect it. Likewise we discover the same fluidal inclusions and the vacuoles that pertain to granite. lf we follow Sorby and Clifton Ward in saying that granite has been formed beneath a pressure equiva- lent to a weight of forty thousand feet of strata, the same must be said of the early gneisses. With this general assertion of the identity of gneiss and erup- tive granite, we must be satisfied at present, without entering into detail. 4. The analogy of the origin of oceanic islands at the present day suggests the igneous derivation of the Laurentian areas. Most of the high islands of the Pacific are composed of lava, with the voleanoes frequently in action. lawaii, of the Hawaiian group, may illustrate their position and shape. Its aurea above the water-line is 4,210 O miles, and its cubical contents above the sea-level are about the same with those of New Hampshire. It rises from a plateau over 16,000 feet deep, thus forming a cone 30,000 feet high, whose cubical! contents must be twenty times greater than the portion making dry land. The length of the entire series of islands, all of similar character, is 350 miles, and the area of the base of the lava must be about 100,000 O miles. These cones have been built up by the accumulation of lava ejected from the interior of the earth, and they are entirely isolated, the nearest land being 1,000 miles distant. The ground-plan of this volcanic mass is that of two elliptical areas, either of which is like some of our Laurentian islands, and is certainly as large as any of these ancient lands south of the St. Lawrence. The land area of the Hawaiian Islands is Jess than that of Massachusetts, but their base must be equal to the whole of New England and New York combined. Surely it cannot be avowed that voleanic areas are too small to be compared with the space occupied by our oldest formation. The so-called lowlands are likewise of volcanic ori- gin; since coral polyps have built up reefs upon the igneous area after the disappearance of the fire, and the Hawaiian areas are encircled by reefs. After the voleanoes have become cold, loose material would be worked in between them, coral reefs would grow, and, in various ways, the land area would be enlarged, and finally an archipelago may become a large island. It needs only time and a repetition of these construc- 296 tive agencies to make a continent out of a series of archipelagos. There are two points requiring explanation in this connection, — first, the supposed deeply seated locali- ties where granite is produced; and, second, the ori- gin of foliation in the schists. We should naturally expect that the earlier igneous rocks would have been derived from reservoirs quite near the surface, because of the thinness of the crust. With this notion agrees the presence of cavities con- taining liquid, and of hydrated minerals, whicli are more common in the older eruptive rocks, and have led to the aqueo-igneous theories of the origin of granite. Water would be scarce at great depths, and lience these rocks ought to originate near the surface where moisture was abundant. It seems to us that this consideration should more than balance the argu- iments usually cited in favor of the origin of granite at enormous depths, as it is difficult to see how both ean be true. ; ; Mr. H. C. Sorby has led the way in studies of the mineral constituents of eruptive rocks. He measures the included cavities in the component minerals, and ealeulates how much the contained substances must have contracted in cooling, allowing for an increase in the temperature of the point of vaporization under pressure. By assuming the temperature to be cor- rectly determined, he ascertains the amount of press- ure indicated by mathematical formulae, and finds it to be the equivalent of a thickness of 40,000 feet of overlying rock in Cornish granites, and of 60,000 feet in Scotch granites. Later writers seem to have regarded this pressure as certainly: produced in the way thus suggested, and that its appearance at the surface has been due to an enormous erosion which has denuded the overlying blanket. This conclusion is not necessary; for, 1°, an enormous pressure would result from the tangential force of eontraction, which would be entirely adequate to have produced the cavities. 2°. The necessity of an erosion of 40,000 feet over all the granites in every part of the world cannot be maintained. In North America, for example, it would necessitate the sup- position that nearly eight miles’ thickness of rock liud been remoyed from one-fourth of the surface since the Laurentian, for the blanket removed would lave equalled in dimensions the erystalline areas. The mere statement of the amount of denudation re- quired refutes the theory. 3°. By reference to existing yoleanoes, it is plain that a column of lava will often be adequate to exert the needed pressure. Teneriffe rises 12,000 feet above the ocean, and its cone de- scends 18,000 feet more to the submarine plateau. When the crater is full of melted lava, there must be a pressure of 3,000 feet at the base of the cone: hence the lava from the reservoir supplying Teneriffe might exhibit the vacuities produced by a pressure of 30,000 feet without any weight above the peak. When molten lava pours down the side of a crater, the included vapors and liquids must disappear be- cause of the removal of the pressure; but, after.asub- stantial crust has formed, the peculiar markings imprinted at the great depth would remain: hence SCIENCE. [Vor. IL, No. 30. we can understand how it is that the vacuilies are to be seen both in granites and lavas that have been sub- jected to great pressure. At the Boston meeting of this association I endeavored to show that there are- mountain masses of granite in New England possess- ing all the physical characteristics of volcanic cones. The material must have been liquid, hot, ejected from a vent, and flowed over a plateau, building up @ cone, and indurating the underlying floor. It was claimed that such phenomena could be explained only by supposing the granite to have been erupted just like lava. This granite contained the usual vacuities indicative of great pressure just as they are also found in the lava of Monte Somma or the trachyte of Ponza. When one examines the interior structure of mod-— ern laya-flows, he is surprised to find beds nearly as” well defined as the foliation of schists. Around vents like Vesuvius or Etna the lava accumulates naturally in quaquayersal sheets, no one eruption being very extensive. When steam and hot water are copiously supplied from the caldron, there may. be flows of hot mud and tufa. The closing phases of eruptions are usually showers of ashes falling upon the cone or beyond. If the vent is beneath the ocean-level, the lava is minutely subdivided and the* deposit will be like sand or gravel. Between the ig- neous flows the ordinary aqueous agencies will wear off excrescences, and scatter the fragments down the slope. These various agencies will produce a con- centric stratiform arrangement in the whole mass, Where the eruption is massive, a similar set of layers will be formed. This mass of voleanic material will be very sus- ceptible to metamorphic influences when placed under the proper conditions of heat and pressure. As the result, new minerals will be formed, arranged in foliated beds or schists. Thus briefly stated may be the origin of foliation. So long ago as 1825, Poulett Scrope advocated essentially this doctrine for — the arrangement of the crystalline particles in the crystalline schists, having found an analogous strue- ture in certain voleanic accumulations. Sufficient has now been said in advocacy of our doctrine that the first land consisted of voleanic” islands. This was the Laurentian or azoic accuniu- lation. Cartographers have not yet distinguished the several crystalline deposits, so that it will not be practicable at present to point out the supposed vol- canic areas of the Hastings, Grenville, Montalban, Huronian, and other eozoic periods. Sedimentation would also act so that in this age many beds must be referred to an aqueous derivation. By the close of the eozoic tlhe continent was outlined; or at least the framework of the future superstructure was put into position. The broader patches about to be men- tioned had their origin in the earlier numerous is- — lands cemented by detrital accumulations. The more important areas developed in the eozoic must have been Greenland, Canada east of Lake — Winnipeg, the Atlantic district, the Rocky Moun-— tains, the Sierra Nevadas, and numerous buttes over — the Cordilleras. The three great depressions of Hud-— ~~ © = _ 4 _ it southerly to Mexico. ware Ke ro eS NP Acoust 31, 18S3.] son’s Bay, the Mississippi valley, and the Salt-Lake and Nevada basins commenced to sink very early, and the future growth of the continent consisted largely in filling them up with marine sediments. An inspection of a map drawn upon a correct scale will dissipate the fancied resemblance to the letter V, in the Canadian dominion, so often insisted upon. Neither has the development of the land been in bands parallel to the north-west and south-east arms of this supposed angle. A better conception would find three great basins, excluding the unknown re- gions of Mexico and Alaska, in each of which opera- tious were conducted independently. The best known is that of the interior of the United States, or the Mississippi hydrographic basin. This depression was nearly encircled by a crystalline border of high land. Beginning at Alabama, we follow it to New England, thence by a slight gap to the Adirondack promontory, thence across the Lakes to the Dakota promontory. In Minnesota and Dakota the schists are more or less covered by cretaceous clays and ter- tiary sands; but they evidently constitute the floor for the surface strata occasionally piercing through the Jater deposit, as in the Black Hills. Thus we may connect the Dakota and Rocky Mountain crystal- lines. From Wyoming southerly the granites are again conspicuous into New Mexico. Thus the cir- cuit is not complete: it is like a borseshoe, with the lower Mississippi valley in the gap; yet this may have been filled in the Cambrian age, since Laurentian islands are found in Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, We might give reasons for believing in the recent origin of the depression between New Mexico and Alabama. ‘The map will show, around the borders of this Mediterranean Sea, the primordial sea-beach, whether examined in Virginia, New York, Michigan, Colo- rado, or Texas. Could we dissect the land, we should find an immense platter of Cambrian sediments co- extensive with the crystalline highlands surrounding and underlying it. In Cambro-Silurian times the story is repeated. Marine limestones formed other dishes, each limited in size by the upturned edges of the platter underneath. ‘The rest of the history is given in ourtext-books. Our Mediterranean Sea was not closed till the end of the cretaceous, when the salt-water was expelled, never to return. In the west a similar ovoidal, crystalline border can be traced, holding paleozoie sediments, Beginning at the Rocky Mountain chain in Wyoming, we follow Across Arizona are many gneissic outlines, but not sufficiently numerous to close the gap. In California we reach a country en- tirely gneissic beneath the sands of the desert, which eonnects with the Sierra Nevadas, and is traceable along the Nevada line nearly to Oregon. There the course is changed, the rocks trend north-easterly, show themselves conspicuously in the Blue Moun- tains of eastern Oregon, the Salmon River Moun- tains of Idaho, and western spurs of the Rockies again in Montana, which are continuous to our start- ing-point in Wyoming. Our erystallines do not pass north of the parallel of 49° into Coluinbia. We have SCIENCE. 297 therefore found a complete crystalline border for the depressions of our western territories, and, within this ovoidal line, all the members of the paleozoic, mesozoic, and cenozoic groups, but not arranged with the simplicity of their distribution in the east. Less is known of the aretic basin than of the others; but the scattered sketches afforded by voy- agers indicate the presence of the more important members of the geological column. Where these basins adjoin, there is a much wider area of ancient land. In conclusion, I will simply recapitulate the more important phases of the growth of our continent. We start with the earth in the condition of igueous fluidity. It cools so as to become incrusted and covered by an ocean. Numerous volcanoes discharge melted rock, build- ing up ovyoidal piles of granite, which change gradu- ally into crystalline schists, When these hills are high enough to overlook the water, they constitute the beginnings of dry land. At the commencement of paleozoic time the conti- nent is composed of three immense basins, located near Hudson’s Bay, the Mississippi hydrographic area, and the great Nevada series of land-locked valleys. The later history of the development of the couti- nent presents the details of the filling-up of these depressions, the expulsion of the Mediterranean seas, and the description of the varied forms of life that successively peopled the land and water. The history opens with igneous agency in the ascendant. Aqueous and organie forces became conspicuous later on, and ice has put on the finish- ing touches to the terrestrial contours. The eom- pleted structure we must acknowledge to be ‘ very good,’ NOTES AND NEWS. Our leading article of June 29 was based in part upon a mistake, which we desire to correct. Foreign periodicals received by mail-in single num- bers have not been dutiable within the last five years, Nevertheless, the writer of the article, who subscribes to three foreign scientific journals, and receives them by mail, had been forced to pay duty on each number for the past nine or ten months; and the same has been the case with others of our acquaintance. Our post-office regulations are so frequently changed that one can rarely tell whether he is the victim of a blunder or a whim. —M. Pasteur, who has just obtained a grant of fifty thousand francs from the French Chambers to send a scientific mission to Egypt to investigate whether the cholera be not due to the development of a microscopic animal in the human body, states, in a letter to Voltaire, the reasons which induced him to recommend the board of health to send out the mission in question. He says, ** L urged the sending- out of this mission on account of the great progress that science has made since the last cholera epidemic respecting transmissible diseases, Every one of those 298 diseases that have been the subject of a thorough investigation has led biologists to the conclusion that they were caused by the development, in the body of man or the animals, of a microscopic animal, caus- ing therein disturbances frequently fatal. All the symptoms of the disease, all the causes of death, are directly under the influence of the physiological prop- érties of the microbes. What is needed at present to meet the requirements of science, is to ascertain the primary cause of the scourge. Now, the present state of our knowledge indicates that we should direct all our attention to the possible existence in the blood, or in such or such an organ, of an infinitesimally small being whose nature and properties would in all likelihood account for all the peculiarities of cholera, ‘both as regards its morbid symptoms and the mode of its propagation. The existence of that microbe once ascertained would speedily settle the question as to the measures to be taken to check the spread of the disease, and might possibly suggest new thera- peutic means to cureit.’”? The mission consists of four young savants, doctors, and biologists, — Drs. Roux, Thuillier, Straus, and Nocard. M. Pasteur hopes, that, by scrupulously attending to the hygienic precautions he has written down for them, the great danger they are incurring may be minimized. — The September Century has several papers to which our readers’ attention may be called. One of the illustrated articles relates Lieut. Schwatka’s personal adventures in the hunt for the musk-ox. Ernest Ingersoll gives an excellent account of Mr. Agassiz’ private laboratory at Newport, and of the methods he has-so successfully introduced for carry- ing delicate sea-animals through their earlier stages. An admirable portrait, engraved by Velten, from a photograph of Notman’s, will interest many. It has more spirit than one formerly published in the Har- vard register. Under the title, ‘The tragedies of the nests,’ John Burroughs writes of the difficulties birds encounter in rearing their young. The at- tempts: toward the unification in railway time in this country are briefly discussed by W. F. Allen. A writer on ornamental forms in nature gives several striking illustrations of the effects pro- ducible, with due study, by ‘the naturalistic school’ of decorators. With eyes capable of seeing the stream, moth, vine, and skunk-cabbage ‘in nature’ as they appear to our writer, we may doubt the possibility of their evolutionary limit in art being ever reached. Like the Spanish-Moorish designer, he ‘evidently did not care three straws for what all the botanists and florists on earth might think of his work,’ so long as it teach us to regard nature from the standpoint of art, and tend in some measure to straighten the devious paths of the modern conventionalizer. — The Tribune of Minneapolis, for Aug. 16, printed Dr. Dawson’s address before the American associa- tion in full, as well as long abstracts of several of the sectional addresses. Subsequent issues gave very fair reports of the papers read. — The first number of Kobelt’s Iconographie der schalentragenden europaischen Meeres conchylien has > SCIENCE. [Vor. IL, No. 30. appeared. It is in quarto, with colored plates, and this number is devoted to species of Muricidae. The descriptions are in Latin, with German text. —The Washington, of the Italian navy, under command of Capt. Magnaghi, is engaged in its annual cruise for the study of the western Mediter- ranean. — One of the Akkas (African pygmies) taken to Italy in 1873 by Miani has just died of consumption at Verona. vd — The newspapers of yesterday announce that Mr: J. A. Ryder has sueceeded in rearing the American oyster from the egg. His experiments were made in natural enclosures, and so conducted as to preclude any doubt that the spat obtained has been derived from any source except that of the spawn artificially’ fertilized and introduced into the enclosure. The — greatest obstacle to the cultivation of the oyster is now removed. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Delogne, C.H. Flore cryptogamique de la Belgique. livr. i,: mousses. Bruxelles, 1888. 8°. . Delpino, F. Teoria generale della fillotassi. Genova, 1883. “J 345 p. 4°. ‘ Depérais, C. Hygiéne publique: nouveau traitement des cadavres ayant pour but la destruction des germes contagieux qu’ils peuvent contenir. Naples, Jnst. roy. d’encouragement, 1888. 19p., pl. autogr. 8°. > q Drinker’s Explosive compounds and rock drills. Forming a supplementary volume to the first edition of Drinker’s Tun- nelling. N.Y., 1853. 4°. Duclaux. Microbiologie. Paris, 1883. 908 p., 111 fig. 8°. Gerland, E. Der leere raum, die constitution der kérper und der aether. Berlin, 1883. 8°. Grindon, L. H. The Shakspeare flora. Guide to all the principal passages in which mention is made of trees, plants, flowers, and yegetable productions. ical particulars.. Manchester, 1883. 3830p. 8°. With comments and botan- EAU NIESESS, J. Leverre et le cristal. Paris, 1883. atlas, 26 pl. 8°. + Heriz, E. Construccién de mapas. Barcelona, Ramirez, 1882. 12p.,8pl. 4°. er Herrmann, G. Der reibungswinkel. Aachen, 1883. fig. 4°. Heukels, H. Schoolflora yan Nederland. Bewerkt naar O. — Wiinsche’s Schulflora yon Deutschland. Groningen, 1883. 62+ 368 p. 8°. Israels, A. H., en Daniéls, C. E. De verdiensten der hollandsche geleerden ten opzichte van Harvey’s leer yan den i bloedsomloop. Utrecht, 1883. 1483p. 8°, ; Jordan, D.S,and Gilbert, C.H. Synopsis of the fishes : of North America. Washington, 1883. 1,018 p. 8°. \ Jordan, W. L. New principles of natural philosopby. London, 1883. illustr. 8°. ‘. Koehler, R. Recherches sur Jes echinides des cOtes de Provence. Marseille, 1883. 167 p.,7pl. 4°. : Kohlfiirst, L. Die elektrischen einrichtungen der eisen- bahnen und das signalwesen. Wien, 1883. (elektro-techn. bibl., xii.) 288 p., illustr. 8°. an Lambert, E. Traité pratique de botanique. Propriétés des plantes, leur utilité et lear emploi dans la médecine, l’indus-— trie, etc. Paris, 1883. illustr. 8°. q Larden, W. School course on heat. N.Y., 1883. 321 p., illustr. 8°. 4 List of British birds. Compiled by a committee of the British — ornithologists’ union. London, 1883. 258 p. 8°. Lubbock, J. Fourmis, abeilles et guépes. Etudes expéri- mentales sur l’organisation et lés moeurs des insectes hyménop- — teres. 2 vols. Paris, 1883. illustr. 8°. ~ f Mann, L. Die atomgestalt der chemischen grundstoffe. Berlin, 1888. illustr. 8°. ‘ i Martini, A. Manuale di metrologia, ossia misure, pesi e monete in uso attualmente e anticamente presso tutti i popoli. Torino, 1883. 912p. 8°. — aye ee Nae. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1883. FRANCIS MAITLAND BALFOUR. ApovuT a year ago came the sad news of the ber last, to found the Memorial studentship, — was remarkable in many ways: rarely have been heard such words of admiration and love for one man as were then expressed for Bal- sudden death of Professor Balfour of Cam- four. Many spoke at length of the debt Cam- bridge. If the loss was felt less severely in this country than in England, it was only because he had fewer person- al friends here; and to fully un- derstand his worth one must have known and talked with him. It is true that it re- quired no unusual insight to read the fine qualities of the man in his writ- ings; but none save those who knew him could appreciate his re- markable personal attractiveness. Not the least part of the wonderful work of his short life was that which he accom- plished as a teach- er: here as every- where, his person- al influence had a large share; and a sketch of Bal- four’s scientific work would be incomplete without a recognition of the bearing which his noble character had upon it. The meeting of leading biologists in Octo- q No. 31.— 1883. bridge owed him. It may be said that he divided with Foster the honor of giving the great impetus to the bi- ological movement in the English uni- versities. | What Huxley had done for Foster, the lat- ter did for Bal- four, giving him the first hearty en- couragement and support; together they raised biolo- gy from the third to the level of the first rank of stud- ies at Cambridge, equalling that held by mathematics. Oxford soon fol- lowed this impor- tant movement, trying to secure Balfour for the professorship left vacant by the death of Rolle- ston. His con- nection’ with nat- ural science at Cambridge was described in warm language by Foster, his teacher, and by Sedgwick, one of his pupils: he advanced morphology there by his brilliant success in teaching and in research. 300 In teaching he combined manly force with a delicate regard for the feelings of his pupils. From the writer’s personal impressions of him as a lecturer, he did not aim at eloquence, but to be understood in every step; rarely looking at his hearers, he spoke rapidly and with in- tense earnestness, crowding a vast deal into the hour. The main qualities of his character shone forth in his lectures, — energy, which he infused into his hearers; truthfulness, which soon gaye implicit confidence in his state- ments ; modesty and sympathy, which inspired effort and free exchange of thought. Balfour’s love of truth came constantly into play in his laboratory instruction. While looking oyer a student’s shoulder, he would sometimes say with a laugh, ‘‘ You must in- terpret that specimen with the eye of faith; ” but this was very far from being a serious in- junction, for he exacted of his students the greatest caution in the progress of their mi- croscopic work. However tempting a certain interpretation of a specimen might be, Balfour neyer accepted it until it rested on the clear- est evidence. An instance of this sort is re- called by the writer, which related to the much disputed origin of a well-known embryonic structure. A number of sections had been prepared, seeming to confirm the view which Balfour himself had advocated some time be- fore; it required considerable self-control not to attach them: this was, however, forbidden; and it was not until several days afterwards that fresh sections established the fact beyond question. To Foster, Balfour repaid his student-debt by extending, in turn, continued encourage- ment to others. He did not fear, as many creat teachers have, that joint labor with his juniors would derogate from his reputation: his joint articles are numerous; he was zeal- ous to recognize research done by his pupils, seeming to be prouder of this than of his own work. Nothing could be more stimulating to the young men about him, still distrustful of their powers, than this generous co-operation. Is it surprising, then, that the voluntary attend- SCIENCE. a somewhat forced meaning to - Pe ee Se a eee ek ee (Vou. IL, No. 31. ance upon his lectures increased in seven years from ten to ninety, and that at the time of his death twenty students were engaged in difficult research in his laboratory? Only those who are familiar by experience with the few incen- tives among younger students to the study of biology: can appreciate what these numbers mean. We need not attempt to give a full list of Balfour’s writings. They began in 1873, his twenty-first year, with a few short papers ap- pearing over Foster’s name and his own in the — Quarterly journal of microscopical science : they terminated nine years later, with his fine work upon Peripatus, published posthumously in the same journal, and of which a full abstract will be found farther on. His extensive in- termediate works, the Elasmobranch fishes and Comparative embryology, are universally known. From the first he devoted himself to embry- ology. While this, as among the youngest of the biological sciences, admits of rapid work, it is far from admitting rapid generalization. No other branch of morphology requires more the very materials one has to painstaking ; study ave minute and indefinite ; and two minds will often place different constructions upon the same specimen.” tunity for scientific guesswork, with the feeling of security that disproval will be difficult. Balfour understood the real value of guessing at truth, but he always made it very clear to the reader when he was so doing; his hy- potheses were accompanied by definite state- ments, in which the reasons pro and con were set forth in all impartiality to each. Herein lies a chief charm and merit of his work, its brilliant suggestiveness, side by side but never in confusion with well-established facts. Every chapter contains half a dozen invita- tions to other investigators to prove or dis- prove certain. provisional statements. as is the information contained in his Com- parative embryology, Balfour himself appreci- ated, that, as far as mere’ facts went, the first — volume would be somewhat out of date before the second was in press. Not so, however, ; Vast - There is abundant oppor- — : > ee » , . modest opinion of his work; - of a lifetime. _ fold, — first, upon those with whom he came in personal contact, especially his scientific as- -sociates and students (an influence which can- with his masterly discussions of these facts, which are found on every page, and the value of which, to embryologists, cannot be estimated. Moreover, to his authorship is largely due the rapidly spreading interest in embryology in England and America, —a branch of science, it will be remembered, which had previously been mostly in German hands. One frequently heard from him his own very this was not at all inconsistent with striking independence and originality of thought, and adherence to his convictions. His modesty added more to the recognition of his genius than any assertions of his own could have done. Many were press- ing forward to assert his claims, and honors were fast showered upon him in England and abroad. He was admired and beloved by all who knew him. In scientific discussion he -had the rare quality, which Richard Cobden is said to have possessed, of remaining on the pleasantest personal terms with his oppo- nents. His energy in all matters was great, and his power of writing was unusually rapid ; but, ad- vised by kind friends, he rarely overtaxed his strength, which was limited. He spent most of his evenings with his friends, throwing off from his mind the labors of the day, and talk- ing vivaciously upon the topics of the times. When the first volume of Comparative embry- ology was being written, he generally worked but five hours daily, giving much time to physical exercise, bicycling, or tennjs, into which he entered with all the enthusiasm of his nature. He was courageous, but not reck- less; and nothing in his previous life would lead us to suppose that the mountain climb which proved fatal was undertaken in a fool- hardy spirit. Balfour in a few years accomplished the work His influence was and is two- _ not fail to endure, well expressed by Professor ® Kitchen Parker: ‘‘ I feel that his presence is still with me; I cannot lose the sense of his SCIENCE. 7." tr eee presence’’) ; and, secondly, the influence of his scientific work, which for genius, breadth, May the splendid memorial which has been raised for him perpetuate his noble example as a teacher and man of science ! Henry F. and truth, can never be surpassed. OSBORN. THE INTELLIGENCE OF BIRDS. HavinG met with many instances wherein birds have shown considerable ingenuity in overcoming the ill results of accidents to their nests, such as often arise during violent storms, it occurred to me, at the outset of the bird- nesting season of the present year, to endeavor to test their intellectual powers generally, by a series of simple experiments, hoping there- by to be able to determine to what extent birds exercise their reasoning faculties. My experiments, and the inferences I drew, are as follows : — Noting the material being gathered for the nest, partially constructed, ofa chipping-spar- row (Spizella socialis), I placed a small quan- tity of the same in a conspicuous position near the nest. It was seen by the sparrows, and examined, but none was removed. I placed a portion of it upon the margin of the unfin- ished nest: it was promptly removed by the male bird, who used only such materials as were brought to him by his mate. The follow- ing day the task of lining the nest with hair was commenced. I placed a quantity of this mate- rial on a branch near by, but it was passed unnoticed. I next placed a few hairs on the margin of the nest: they were promptly re- moved. On replacing many of these in the nest, the entire lining was thrown out. I re- placed it, and the nest was abandoned. A week later, finding another nest with three eggs, I added a few white cat-hairs to the lining: these were removed. Others of dark colors were added: they, also, were re- moved. I replaced both dark and white hairs : the eg@s were broken, and the nest abandoned. Four eggs found in a third nest were re- moved without touching the nest, a wooden spoon whittled for the purpose being used. In three days the female commenced layi ing again : four days later three eggs had been laid. Re- placed the four I had removed: they were promptly thrown from the nest. I then re- moved the nest, and, substituting another, carefully replaced the eggs without handling them. After what appeared to be a serious consultation, the new nest was accepted. 301. te oe ee 302 These birds suffered no further annoyance, and reared their brood without mishap. Why should not these have utilized the ma- terial for their nest which I offered, rather than gather similar stuff from distant points? They could not have been frightened by any odor attached to the material through han- dling, as I was careful not to touch a particle of it, using a pair of wooden tweezers in every ease. Neither did they see me carrying any thing to or from their nests. As these, in all cases, were nearly or quite completed, the birds had necessarily become thoroughly fa- miliar with the surroundings, and doubtless recognized the fact that these offered twigs and the hair had suddenly appeared in, to them, some unexplained manner, and the mystery surrounding it made them suspicious. Suspicion, I suggest, is a complicated mental effort. Again: the sparrows were sorely per- plexed when a nest not of their building, but of the same character, was substituted for their own. Here, these birds exhibited fear ; but finally the maternal instinct overcame the timidity of the female, and she resolved to brave the danger or solve the mystery, and cared for her eggs as usual. The male bird kept aloof for several days, I think; but of this I am not positive. These sparrows were moved by conflicting emotions, — evidence, I think, of an advanced degree of intelligence. Another series of experiments were as fol- lows: finding a nest of the summer warbler (Dendroeca aestiva) in a low alder, the foliage of which was about one-third grown, I girdled the supporting growths a few inches below the nest. The leaf-buds withered, and the nest, which under ordinary circumstances would have been quite concealed from view by the full- grown leaves, was now exposed. The nest was abandoned. : The next girdling experiment was made on the nest of a white-eyed vireo (Vireo nove- boracencis) found attached to a low limb of a small beech. The leaves quickly shrivelled, and the nest, although just finished, was aban- doned. A second experiment of the same sort was tried, with identical result. A nest of the summer warbler was found in a low shrub, containing young birds, and the supporting branches girdled. The leaves with- ered and fell, exposing the nest to full view. The parent birds remained, and successfully reared their brood. In these cases we have evidence of mental operations of a more complicated character than any exhibited by the sparrows. It is evi- SCIENCE. dent, that in every case, these birds, in selecting the position for their nests, knew that the growth of the foliage would afford a desirable, if not necessary, protection to them. Finding that the growth of the foliage had been checked, that the little shelter at first afforded was daily growing less, they foresaw that the nests, under these circumstances, would be too much ex- posed to be safe from molestation, and they were abandoned, even after a full complement of eggs had been laid. Can we explain this by any other means than by using that yery sug- gestive term ‘foresight’? But mark: when the same circumstance occurred after the young had appeared, the claims of the brood upon the parents were too strong to be over- come, and the danger of occupying an exposed nest was readily braved. Experiments of another character were as follows: I placed a series of short pieces of woollen yarn, fastened together at one end, near the tree containing a partially constructed nest of a Baltimore oriole (Icterus Baltimore) . These yarns were red, yellow, purple, green, and gray. An equal number of strands of each color were thus offered to the orioles as building-materials. I purposely placed the red and yellow strands on the outside of the tas- sel-shaped mass, so that these would be first taken, if the color was not objectionable. To my complete surprise, the gray strands only were taken, until the nest was nearly finished, when afew of the purple and blue yarns were used. Nota red, yellow, or green strand was disturbed. Here we have an instance of the exercise of choice, on the part of a bird, which is full of interest. The woollen threads being otherwise identical, it was the color only that influenced the choice of the birds: they real- ized that the red or yellow yarns would render the nest conspicuous, although well protected by the foliage of the branch to which it was attached. Why the green threads were not taken I cannot imagine. As a result of this experiment, I anticipated that the orioles would reserve the brightly colored yarns for the lining of the nest, and the gray and green for the exterior. This was a result obtained two years ago, when I tried a similar experi- ment; but the use of red yarn as a lining may have been merely accidental. Out of mere curiosity, for I could not an- [Vou. II., No. 31. ticipate what might be the result, I made a few Ky transfers of the eggs of one species into the nest of another bird. ‘The results were not, however, particularly suggestive. I placed the eggs of a cat-bird (Mimus carolinensis) in the nest of a song-thrush (Turdus mustelinus) , and vice versa. SEPTEMBER 7, 1883. ] The eggs of the former are dark green; of the latter, light blue. No act indicative of recognition of the change was observed. I placed eggs of the song-sparrow (Melospiza melodia) in the nest of a pee-wee (Sayornis fuscus), and vice versa. ‘The fly- catchers rejected the eggs of the sparrow ; but the latter accepted the situation, although dis- turbed by it. Many other changes were made, with similar results ; and I coneluded, that, un- less the eggs were greatly different in size and color, about one-half would be accepted ; but, when a single egg was placed in the nest of another bird, it was destroyed in nearly every ease. This I found to be true, even when I tested such birds as are subjected to the annoy- ance of the cowpen bird’s egg being deposited in their nests. I was surprised at this result, and am led to believe that large numbers of the eggs of this bird are destroyed. It is well known that our summer warbler frequently out- wits the cowpen bird by building a new nest directly above the old, —a two-story nest, in fact, —and leaves the egg that has been left to her care to rot in the basement, while she rears her young on the floor above. It will be seen that from these experiments no very posi- tive results were obtained. I did note, how- ever, that, where the change was accepted, it was not because it passed. uinoticed, but was _ submitted to, notwithstanding the evidences of much misgiving on the part of the birds. In one case, the nest was practically deserted for twenty-four hours, and the eggs were chilled in consequence. The birds sat upon them for five days, when, as they did not hatch, the nest was abandoned. In previous years I have made these changes occasionally with success, but was not able to determine that the young were recognized as not the offspring of the parent birds. In such cases the young were tended with the usual care up to the time for leaving the nest. This may possibly be indicative of stupidity. It appeared so to me at the time ; but I am now disposed to see in it an indication that the maternal instincts here, as in other cases I have mentioned, overcame all other feelings, and that the fact was accepted by the birds with as good grace as they could command. The co-operation of birds, when construct- ing their nests, is a subject that demands a good deal of close attention, and is one surely worthy of more systematic observation than has as yet been given it. The many ways in which birds assist each other in nest-build- ing offer, perhaps, the clearest evidence that they have a very intelligent notion of what SCIENCE. 303 they are doing, or propose to do. I feel war- ranted at the outset in making the somewhat startling assertion, that the choice of location for a nest is made only after protracted joint examination of suitable sites, and is the choice of both birds. I doubt if it ever happens that one of a pair of birds ‘ gives in’ to its mate. Certainly such a thing as madame giving up to her lord is unknown in the bird- world. My impression is, that the female birds of every species are exacting, obstinate, and tyrannical. I have seen marked instances of this among house-wrens, pee-wees, and even known a cooing turtle-dove to exhibit unmistakable evidences of a quick temper. These may seem to be trivial matters, and not within the range of the scientific study of animal intelligence ; but it is an error to look upon such proofs of individuality in this light : they are among the most convincing evidences of a high degree of intelligence. If a hun- dred or more nests of the same species of birds are carefully compared, it will be found that there is a considerable range of variation in their construction, and a varying degree of merit in the skill shown by the builders. Is not this evidence of different degrees of mental strength occurring among birds of the same species ? But to return to the subject of co-operation in nest-building. I have found, that where very long, fibrous materials are used, as in the case of the globular nests of the marsh-wrens, the birds work together in weaving the long grasses that form the exterior. I have seen one of these birds adjusting one end of a long blade of rush-grass, while its mate held the other end, until the former had completed its task to its satisfaction. It was evident that the weight. of the ribbon-like growth that the bird was using, quite a metre in length, was too heavy to be moved to and fro, and at the same time prevented from slipping from the unfinished nest. Only by assistance could such materials be utilized, and only by intel- ligent joint labor could these little birds build such large and complete globular nests. Many birds, too, have been known to jointly carry away a long string or piece of muslin too heavy or cumbersome for either one to move. Again: materials are often brought by one of a pair of birds to a nest which thé other con- siders unsuitable, and fierce quarrels often arise from this circumstance. In such cases we have instances of a difference of opinion among birds, which is a marked indication of mental activity. Cuartes C. Asporr, M.D, 304 THE IGLOO OF THE INNUIT.1—IV. Tue interior of an igloo can be best under- stood by reference to the diagrams. ‘The one, fig. 1, is a vertical section through the en- trance; and the other, fig. 2, a ground-plan. Directly opposite the entrance is raised a plat- form of solid snow, eighteen inches to two feet SSNS SSNS SS SCIENCE. \ Ee [Vou. II., No. 31. very small: but in compensation their igloos are the warmest and most comfortable in the whole arctic region. These Netschilluks (in and around King William’s Land) nearly al- ways have to jump out in front of their beds to get standing-room to dress in, although all Innuits are adepts in the art of putting on the most intricate clothing in the smallest space conceivable. The Kinnepetoo In- nuits (around Chester- field Inlet, especially north of it) use few or no lamps to warm their snow-huts, and, despite \\ inv) \j a5 \ ie the high beds and low BRK CK Wy\ TS. S Rey roofs, they are cold, [ Nai. N Kr cheerless, and uncom- AXICRCRREREXRKE CTS SSS fortable beyond measure. Fie. 1. These Innuits are es- in height, which takes up about two-thirds of the floor; and on this are spread the reindeer- skins which make the bed. Sometimes, if the party be large and but one igloo built, there are two of these snow-beds, separated by a narrow aisle running from the entrance; the persons then sleeping at right angles to the positions shown in the illustration. But such large igloos are rare, unless of a permanent or semi-permanent character. On an extension of the platform forward, on the woman’s side, is placed the stone lamp; and here the food is cooked, and the native skin clothes are dried. The height of this plat- form or snow-bed is nearly always above the top of the low door; for the Innuits are instinctively masters of the simple laws of pneumatics, and try to keep the snow-bed as high as possible to reach the upper or warmer strata of air, especially to keep higher than the cold air, which can come in through the open door. The height varies with the perma- neney of the abode, the tempera- ture, and with’the tribe. If very cold, or if intending to occupy the igloo for some time, the beds are made higher than they would be otherwise. The Netschilluks and Kinnepetoo always make much higher beds than the Iwilliks or Iglooliks. There is also much variation in the flatness of the dome ; those of the former tribes, especially the Netschilluks, being very flat. This, with their high beds, makes the space between them 1 Continued from No. 30. sentially reindeer killers and eaters, and lay in an insignificant stock of seal-oil to burn in their lamps. Walrus-kill- ing is unknown to them. For light they use a piece of rendered reindeer suet, laid beside a piece of lighted moss, all being on a large flat stone. The light of the stone lamp in all igloos where it js used is sufficient for all pur- poses of sewing and repairing. It is certainly equal to the light from three or four kerosene- lamps, and, with the white snow-walls, gives ample illumination. The Oo-quee-sik Salik Innuits (around the mouth of Back’s River), who are salmon-eaters, are another tribe that dispense with warming the snow-houses for want-of oil; and this with their very poor stock of clothing, they being ~ SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] almost constantly in rags, makes them a most forlorn, uncomfortable-looking, and dejected lot of human beings. ‘The powers of these two tribes to withstand the cold seem almost phe- nomenal. : The flatness of the domes, however, is not wholly a tribal peculiarity, but is also a func- tion of the season of the year. In the winter- time, when the snow is hard and compact, the roof can be made much flatter than in the spring, when the warm, sunny days bring on a thaw, and threaten to tumble it in. At such times it is made very peaked, to gain strength for its weakest points, the inclining blocks. The Iwilliks and Iglooliks (among the estu- aries of North Hudson’s Bay) have ample supplies of whale, seal, and walrus oil, and, despite their higher roofs, have very comfort- able houses in the way of warmth, while they exceed all others in roominess, and ease and comfort in dressing and undressing. The heated air, of course, rises to the top; and, should it grow too warm inside, this heat soon cuts its way through the joints of the top blocks, and enough fresh air enters to quickly reduce the temperature below freezing again, especially if it be very cold on the outside. Sometimes this ascending heat makes so much impression on the edges of the top blocks that they commence to thaw and drip in an annoy- ing manner. This is always remedied by tak- ing a handful or a small block of snow from the floor, where the temperature is very low, and applying it to the dripping spot, where it freezes immediately, and, like a sponge, ab- sorbs the drippings. These little pests have to be watched closely, however : for when they are saturated with water, and thawed from their frozen fastenings, they will come down like a slushy ball of lead; and it seems as if they would defy all the laws of gravity to get down a person’s-back, or hit a sleeper in the face. I orice had a large one fall in a pint cup full of hot reindeer-soup just as I had it near my nose, blowing it to hurry up the meal and get away _ froma delayed camp. Small store-igloos are built outside to hold the bulky material, and often connect with the main igloo or its entrance, if their contents are needed from time to time. Where several families, generally related, build a family igloo, it is done by making a large central one, without bed-platforms or other impediments to roominess; and around this are built the smaller family igloos, — two, three, or even a half-dozen, — connecting with the central one by high groined arches that SCIENCE. 305 will generally allow of passing from one to the other without stooping ; and conversation can be readily carried on between them, these smaller igloos being more like radiating al- coves than separate structures. Then the entrance to the main part is made very long (fifteen or twenty feet), and its outer end is changed from time to time to face away from the wind, if it be at all strong. The usual en- trance is.so low that one always has to enter on his hands and knees; but in these family igloos the greater part one can accomplish by stooping considerably. There is always a crowd of hungry dogs ready to take advantage of a person’s entering to crowd in close behind, so as to steal a stray piece of blubber from the lamp-platform or floor. At all other times two or three of their heads can be seen closing the entrance, waiting a good opportunity for a dash. The matron of the house, sitting a /a Ture on the edge of the bed, keeps a good stout club convenient, and whacks them over the nose whenever they make an unusually impu- dent intrusion. At night-times, and during cold, windy weather, the more belligerent of these camels of the cold monopolize the en- trance for sleeping-apartments ; but they gen- erally manage to get into some sort of fight, breaking in the door, and the master then arises and vacates these canine compartments with the butt-end of a whip or a sledge-slat, and they remain quiet for the rest of the night. The temperature inside ranges from freezing (above which, of course, it cannot ascend) to about ten to twenty degrees below. Late in the winter, when all have inured themselves to the cold, the same tribe will keep their houses much colder with the same apparent comfort. At these temperatures one feels very warm after coming in from the outside. The outer clothes are taken off, and even baths are in- dulged in; the little children, stark naked, playing on the reindeer-skins of the bed with the little puppies and toy harness. Those tribes that do not use oil-lamps are, of course, much colder in their houses, having only the warmth of the body and a few lights, with occasionally some cooking from the lamps; yet I do not think it ever gets below zero. Even in these igloos I have known a Kinne- petoo to take a reindeer-skin that had been soaked to rid it of hair, and that Was appar- ently frozen as solid as boiler plate iron, and, putting it under his coat against the bare skin, hold it there not only until it was thawed out, but also until it was dry, and fit to be used for a drumhead for their superstitious rites. Jug- gernaut could show no greater devotees among 306 his followers. Such are the iron Innuits of the unwarmed igloos of the Arctic. A recently constructed igloo is more comfort- able than one long used, the alternating heat and cold of the day and night soon converting the latter into a translucent mass of ice, that becomes uncomfortably chilly on a cold night ; besides, the steam from the cooking and the moisture from the breath congeal upon the roof, and, in the course of ten or twelve days, become so thick as to form a base for a constant liliputian snow-storm, which is disa- greeable beyond measure. One of the most conspicuous comforts of arctic travelling is the constant changing of igloos. (To be continued.) BALFOUR’S LAST RESEARCHES ON PERIPATUS. } AT the time of his death, the late lamented Prof. F. M. Balfour was engaged upon an investigation of the anatomy and development of Peripatus, the low- est known form of Tracheata (insects). Unfortu- nately, he left his work far from complete; but two friends, Mr. Sedgwick and Professor Moseley, both thoroughly competent, have undertaken and com- pleted the grateful task of editing what could be gathered from Balfour’s material. We have, how- ever, hardly more than a descriptive account of the .anatomy and development of the animal. We miss the fruitful thought with which Balfour enriched his writings before committing them to the press. - The article is published in the April number of the Quarterly journal of microscopical science, and is ac- companied by numerous beautiful plates. A portion of these were drawn by. Miss Balfour. Their excel- lence graces this quiet expression of a sister’s close relation to a gifted brother. Balfour's investigations were directed especially upon Peripatus capensis. The memoir opens with a careful description of the external characters of the species. The account of the legs is the first satisfac- tory one published. The number of legs is variable, but usually there are seventeen pairs. Each leg has the form of a cone, with a pair of claws at the apex: it bears a succession of rings of papillae, but towards the tip the papillae in part fuse together to form three ventrally placed pads. The foot is distinct, being separated by a constriction from the upper part of the limb, and has several pads upon its ventral sur- face, and bears the two conical recurved claws. the middle of the ventral line of junction of the leg with the body lies the opening of the segmental or- gans. The disposition of this opening on the fourth and fifth legs is slightly different. The last leg has a papilla with a slit-like gland opening at its apex. The gland itself is large, and runs far forward, and is probably a modified crural gland. Part IT. is a monograph of the internal anatomy. In the alimentary canal, a nearly straight tube slightly SCIENCE. On ‘- ee al [Vou. IL., No. 31. longer than the body, five parts may be distinguished, 1. The buccal cavity. Its opening is surrounded by a tumid lip, covered by a soft skin raised into papilli- form ridges. Attached to the median dorsal wall of the cavity is a muscular protuberance (tongue), covered by the oral epithelium, and furnished with organs of special sense, like those in the skin, and with chitinous teeth. On each side of the tongue is placed the jaw, with recurved chitinous teeth. The jaws are, no doubt, modified limbs: their structure and action are miuutely described. The salivary glands open into the buccal cavity by a short common duct, are variable in length, but stretch usually two-thirds the length of the body. They consist of two parts: the first runs backward as a wide, straight tube; the second runs forward and upward, is small in diameter, and ap- — parently branching in the figures, though the fact is not mentioned in the text. The anterior end of the first part serves as a duct, and is lined by a eubical- celled epithelium; while’the rest of the same part is © \ i i : \ i : ! ; irp sal v1) i Fre. 1. Horizontal section through the head: trp, tracheal pit; sal, salivary gland; J/, mouth; sd, common salivary duct; J, jaw; oj, outer jaw, or muscular portion; between the two jaws lies the section of the tongue. sd J sal oj glandular, and lined by very elongated epithelial cells with their nuclei at their bases. 2. The pharynx is a highly muscular tube, with a triangular lumen, which extends from the mouth to about half way be- tween the first and second pair of legs. (It appears to me that the author is in error when he statgs that such a structure is not characteristic of insects.) 3. The oesophagus, on the dorsal wall of which occurs the junction of the two sympathetic nerves. stomach, by far the largest part of the alim@ntary tract, has its walls irregularly, not segmentally, folded. The walls themselves are composed principally by the internal epithelium, the cells of which are elongated, fibre-like, with their nuclei about one-fourth of the way from the base; and around their bases are short cells irregularly scattered, and having round nuclei. 5. The short rectum is chiefly remarkable because the circular muscular layer is outside the internal layer formed of isolated longitudinal bands. rt The nervous system is particularly interesting; for — it consists of two ventral cords united by numerous transverse bands, and having an enlargement corre- 4. The 7 .. a _ sponding to each leg. _ above the oesophagus, to form the cephalic ganglia, The cords are united in front, and are also united behind over the anus. The arrangement of the commissure and nerves of the ven- tral cords is minutely described. The supra-oesopha- geal ganglia give origin to the immense antennary _ herves, and a few small epidermal nerves; laterally, one-third of the way back, the optic nerves, and two pairs of smaller nerves near the optic; still farther __ back, a large median nerve from the dorsal surface; 5 ee eee ~ac a . _ Fig. 2. General anatomy; the digestive tract is supposed to be excised; the nervous system is represented in black: ant, antenna; op, oral papilla; br, brain; sad, salivary gland; pA, harynx; oes, oesophagus; com, conmmissures; #1, #2, F 17, vet; mo 4, 806,8017, segmental organs; ag, accessory gland; +g, genital opening; an, anus; ac, anal commissure, ale nM als from the ventral surface, the sympathetic nerves, which follow the grooves of the pharynx, and unite upon the dorsal wall of the oesophagus. The gan- glion-cells are confined, for the most part, to the sur- _ face in the supra-oesophageal ganglia, and to the _ ventral layer in the longitudinal cords. On the under _ side of each lobe of the brain is a conical protuberance ; of ganglion-cells, which Grube regards as an organ of hearing; but Balfour questions that interpretation. The skin resembles that of other insects, The cuti- cle is thin, and forms a separate conical cap over each ef”. SCIENCE. cell. are organs of special sense, which I think resemble the olfactory organs of insects; but Balfour regards them as tactile. Each is a broad, conical, cutic- ular spine supported by large specialized sensory cells. The tracheae arise from openings be- tween the ridges of the skin, Each aper- ture leads into a pit formed by the invagi- nated skin; and from the bottom thereof springs a bunch of fine tracheal tubes, which display large adherent nuclei on their walls, and trans- verse lines indicating the presence of a spi- ral fibre. The open- ings form two rows (subdorsal) on the back, and two rows 307 The surface of the cuticle is dotted over with minute spinous tubercles. Scattered over the skin I a uuulf SEY sag Fig. 8. Anterior portion of nervous system: ‘ant, antennal nerve; oc, eye; d, ventral appendages; co 7, first commissure; J n, nerves of the jaw; sy, sympathetic nerves; pe, posterior lobe of brain; orn, nerves of the oral papillae; org, ganglion of oral nerves; en, lat- eral nerves of ventral chords; pn, pedal nerves; sg I, enlargement corresponding to pedal nerves; co, commissure. on either side of the median ventral line; they are also found on the feet, around the bases of the feet, and on the head. The muscles of the jaws are alone striated: all others are unstriated. ‘The muscles of the body form an external double layer of circular fibres, an inner Jayer of longitudinal muscles forming five bands (une . Pp . Fie. 4. Section of tracheal orifice: 0, external orifice; p, pit; tracheae; n, tracheal nuclei. being median and ventral), and vertical septa of trans- verse fibres (one septum on each side of the alimen- tary canal): so that the body-cavity is divided into three regions, — a median, containing the alimentary tract, slime-glands, ete.; aud two lateral, containing 308 the nervous system, salivary glands, segmental or- gans, etc. The vascular system is imperfectly known. Bal- four describes a dorsal tube without apparent muscu- lar walls as the probable representative of the heart, and mentions a less distinct ventral vessel. (Cf. note.) The segmental organs, which were first recognized by Balfour,! conform to the structures designated by the same name in annelids. vesicular portion opening to the exterior; 2°.,a coiled portion, which is again subdivided into several sec- tions; 3°. a terminal section ending by a somewhat en- larged opening into the lateral compartment of the body-cavity. The first two pairs, corresponding to the fourth and fifth legs, differ somewhat from the rest, which are all similarly constructed. They are lined by an epithelium, which varies in character in the ° different parts of the organs: in the first portion, the cells are large, flattened, and have large protuberant nuclei; the second portion has a columnar epithelium in its outer part, in which, further, two regious may dos * Fie. 5. Part of segmental organ: os, external opening of the segmental organ; d, terminal portion of duct; v, vesicle; sc, 1, 2, 3, 4, successive portions of segmental canal: p//, inter- nal opening; s ot, terminal portion. be distinguished histologically; a third region within this outer part has large, flat, granular cells, with disk-like nucleolated nuclei; while a fourth region,’ the innermost of the middle portion again, has a lin- ing of small columnar cells. The inner portion has a thick columnar epithelium crowded with oval nuclei, and opens with reflected lips into the body-cavity. The generative oryans are briefly described by the editors, who do not, however, deal with their histology. The male organs consist of a pair of testes, a pair of prostates, and vasa deferentia and accessory glandular tubules. The female organs consist of a median un- paired ovary and a pair of oviducts, which are dilated for a great part of their course to perform a uterine function, and which open behind into a common ves- tibule communicating directly with the exterior. In all the legs except the first there are glandular bodies. The large accessory gland opening in the last leg of the’ male is probably a modification of one of the series for which the name ‘crural glands’ is proposed: Part III., also entirely written by the editors, treats 1 Balfour: Quart. journ. microsc. sc., xix. 1879. ( SCIENCE. They consist of: 19°. a. Lf om er a ee Ae a at's [Vou. II., No. 31. of the development. This contains illustrations, serving to accompany the notice published in the Royal society’s proceedings (SctmNcE, i. 453); certain requisite explanations are added; then follow deserip- tions and figures of older embryos than had been pre- viously described by Bal- four. Special attention is called to the following more important facts: — ‘‘1, The greater part of the mesoblast is developed from the walls of the ar- chenteron. “2. The embryonic mouth and anus are derived from the respective ends of the original blastopore, the middle part of the blasto- pore closing up. “3. The embryonic mouth almost certainly be- comes the adult mouth; i.e., the aperture leading from the buccal cavity into the pharynx, the two being in the same position. The embryonic anus is in front of the position of the adult anus, but in all probability shifts back, and persists as the adult anus. } ‘4, The anterior pair of mesoblastic somites give rise to the swellings of the pre-oral lobes and to the mesoblast of the head.! ‘There is no need for us to enlarge upon the impor- tance of these facts. Their close bearing upon some Fie. 6. Embryo, ‘stage C,’ with five somites: a, anal (?) end. The lips of the blastopore haye united in the middle. Fi. 7. Section through the open blastopore of the embryo drawn in fig. 6: Ud, blastopore; mes, mesoderm; ec, ectoderm; ent, entoderm. l of the most important problems of morphology will be apparent to all.’’ The paper terminates with a few appropriate and telling quotations from Balfour’s ‘Comparative em- bryology.? The memoir displays the best qualities 1 «We have seen nothing in any of our sections which we can identify as of so-called mesenchymatous origin.” 7 ‘ - ' ne SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] of Balfour’s work, and can only enhance the respect which all biologists feel for him. [LNoTE. —Since writing this notice, I have learned of the paper since published by Gaffron upon Peri- patus (Schneider’s Zoologische beitriige, i. 33). The original I have not seen, but only a notice in the Biologisches centralblatt, iii. 319. From the latter it appears that Gatfron has independently observed many of the facts discovered by Balfour, and in some respects has added to them. The following is the ab- stract of his description of the heart. ‘As in the tracheate arthropods, it lies in a special pericardial sinus, completely embedded in a cellular mass, most developed laterally. Its walls are perforated by fis- sures, corresponding tothe body-segments, and which must be sought in the upper half of the tube. Along the dorsal median line runs a round cord, which is held (probably wrongly) to be anerve. The pericar- dial sinus and the body-cavity communicate through numerous oval openings in the septum.’’| CHARLES SEDG@WICK MINOT. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Prairie warbler in New Hampshire. Several seasons ago the prairie warbler (Den- droeca discolor Bd.), was found nesting at Northfield in New Hampshire, in June I believe, though I can- not give the exact date. Two of the nests, however, and an egg, are preserved, and place the identity be- yond question. The locality was a high, bush-grown pasture in the vicinity of a town; and tbe nests were pitched about head-high from the ground, in the crotch of a thorn- bush. ‘The birds made no demonstrations at the ap- proach to their haunts, but retired noiselessly, seeking to screen themselves from view. One nest contained three eggs, a second four. They are substantially the same, finely and firmly wrought, cup-shaped struc- tures, with a well-turned rim. In the latter instance, the external depth is 24 inches, the internal 1}; outer diameter 24, inner 14. The nest is composed essen- tially of bark strippings, Andromeda chiefly, fine rass, and blasted vegetable fibre intermingled, and fined with hairs and the reddish filaments of Poly- trichum. The exterior is covered with much cobweb ~ silk and some soft compositaceous substance, which serves to compact the whole and secure it in position. The egg is pointed at one end, dull white, rather finely and sparsely specked with lilae and marble markings, aggregating in a circle about the crown, measures .68 X .50 inches, resembling occasional speci- mens of the chestnut-sided warbler. So faras I am aware, there is no previous authentic record of this warbler breeding north of Massachu- setts in New England. ; F. H. Herrick. Kalmia. In your issue for Aug. 17, Dr. Abbott doubts if Kal- mia grows sufficiently large to be used for making spoons. The abundant thickets of Kalmia latifolia, beautiful but troublesome, are among the clearest recollections of my youth in southern New Hamp- shire. This shrub is there familiarly known as *spoonhunt;’ and its stems, near the ground, are not infrequently three or four inches in diameter. Cuas. H, CHANDLER. Ripon, Wis., Aug. 23, 1883. SCIENCE. Letters in a surface film. Can any one suggest an explanation of the phe- nomenon described below ? In a box four feet square, and sunk five feet below the surface of the ground, was a water-meter con- nected with pipes for supplying a factory. Over the face or dial of this meter was a cast-iron cover, on the outside of which the maker's name was inscribed in raised letters. During the spring thaws, the box was half full of surface-water, submerging the top of the meter some eight or ten inches. After a time a greasy film collected on the water, and in this film appeared a counterpart of the raised letters. That it was not a reflection or other optical illusion, was proved by carefully introducing a shovel under these filmy letters, when they were raised and taken out- side of the box, being still visible. In the course of a few hours, fresh letters would appear on the surface, A Po HG Boston, Aug. 28, 1883. An interesting sun-spot. Owing to a misunderstanding, the scale given with the sketch of a sun-spot, in the letter from S. P. Langley and F. W. Very (Scrence, ii. 266), was =e . " Pm Si s = ga). o = te soi a 2 s +2 rs] & ~ -3 he et | = Fe -R/s = 4 = S be printed too large. We reprotiuce the illustration showing the spot, with a corrected scale. — Ep, A CRITIQUE OF DESIGN ARGUMENTS. A critique of design arguments. A historical review and free evamination of the methods of reasoning in natural theology. By L. E. Hicks, Professor of geology in Denison university, Granville, Ohio. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883. 11 + 417 p. 8°. Tuar men can talk about the most serious problems without passion, is certainly shown by our author, whose candor and excellent aims have already been recognized on all hands. For the rest, we must regard the book with mixed feelings. When we undertook to read it. we did not go forth to see a reed shaken by the wind, nor did we find such; we did not venture to look for a. prophet, nor did we find one: but we were prepared for just a 310 little more definiteness of philosophic thought, for just a little more acquaintance with the his- tory of the subject, and, in general, for just a little more strength. But we must not be too exacting. This is the work of a student of a special science. He comes with suggestions that have been a good while in maturing; he expresses himself in clear language, with great and generally successful effort at fairness ; and he shows no small ingenuity. His book will do good both to theological and to scientific students if they read it. And it can do no harm to philosophy. Such discussion is, in fact, so timely that one cannot wish that the book had been kept any longer out of print; but one must wish that the author had begun to study the history of thought a good deal earlier. Achilles at the trench will always be a sublime figure ; but the lack of armor is not just that feature in the situation of Achilles which it is safest for other, people, at other trenches, to imitate. The argument from design, says the author, is in fact twofold. In one form it is teleo- logical. Certain events or things are judged to be intended for certain purposes. This argument has less signifiance for the men of to-day than it had for former generations. The advance of science throws it somewhat into the shade. But the advance of science itself tends to bring into clearer light the other design argument. This is the argument from the order of nature. Order, it maintains, im- plies intelligence, is itself a mark or sign of mind. The more order we discover, the more intelligence is indicated in the world. This does not necessarily mean that we infer intel- ligence as the cavse of order; but it means that we regard order, however it may actually be connected with intelligence, as a mark of intelligence. This argument needs a name; and Mr. Hicks proposes to call it the eutaxio- logical argument, to distinguish it from the teleological. The teleological argument alone is not satis- factory. ‘To prove that any thing implies in- telligence as the cause whereby it was adjusted to an end, you must know what the end or purpose of this thing is. And to do this, you must know that there are ends or purposes for things at all; but to assume that you know this is to beg the question. Teleologically, therefore, intelligence as the cause of things cannot be proven; but only particular adjust- ments, made by an intelligence already known to be the cause of things, can be teleologically discovered. Teleologically you could at best show, that, if there is intelligence in connection SCIENCE. with the world as a whole, then this intel- ligence works for certain special aims. But teleologically it would be impossible, without aid from some other source, to make certain that any mind at all is associated with the world as a whole. It is impossible ‘to prove the existence of intelligence by means of the definite direction given to intelligence,’ because the existence of intelligence ‘ must be assumed in order to ascertain its direction.’ On the other hand, maintains our author, the eutaxiological argument escapes the analogous objection. Teleology has to assume the exist- ence of purpose, in order to use it as a proof - of intelligence. But eutaxiology has not to as- sume the existence of order. Order is the first and Jast word of natural science ; and from first to last science continues to deepen the mean- ing, and to widen the application, of the word ‘order.’ The difficulty of the eutaxiologist begins not at this point, but later. Are we sure that order is asign of intelligence? An orderly arrangement of things is a mark of intelligence in many cases. ‘‘ Suppose we find smooth stones or shells on the beach, arranged at _ regular intervals in a straight line, or in three straight lines to form a triangle: we should say that an intelligent being had done this.’’ To be sure, in this case we should suppose that some man had done it; but that would not affect the matter, for, ‘‘ if we saw such figures upon the moon or upon any of the planets, we should at once conclude that they were inhabited by intelligent beings.’’ Thus in these eases, reasons Mr. Hicks, order is inductively connected by us with intelligence. ‘“* We see intelligence producing orderly re- sults; and we project the inference thence derived over those cases of orderly phenomena of which we do not know the cause.’ But what is done in special cases of order observed in forms or in groupings of objects, ought fairly to be done in regard to the whole of nature ; and that especially because every case of orderly connection that we find, and that suggests intelligence, is found not alone, but itself in connection with other cases, so that we could not finally stop with our examination of one case of order before we should know its connections with the whole of the rest of the universe. ‘The more, then, we know of nature, the more orderly and connected does it seem, and the more reason we have to apply our induction to the world as a whole. All this, of course, implies no definite view about the way in which intelligence is con- nected with the order of the universe. Whether it be that arbitrary collocations of matter are [Vot. II., No. 31. | } ‘ SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] the immediate sources of the order, or whether the order follows from the fundamental prop- erties of matter, the result,is the same. And for a like reason eutaxiology has nothing to say of divine attributes over and above intel- telligence. Eutaxiology does not even by itself prove the existence of God. It simply proves that intelligence exists in the universe. It leayes to other proofs the discussion of other divine attributes. Eutaxiology having proved intelligence, teleology can then be used to prove that this intelligence is somehow associated with will and power, and works (through evolution or otherwise) for definite aims ; and other proofs may be used for other purposes. In conclusion, why may not the various theistic arguments agree to divide labor, and combine the outcome, so that each one shall undertake to prove just that divine attribute to whose defence it is especially fitted ? Thus confusion might be avoided, and the cause of natural theology advanced. Mr. Hicks even goes so far as to suggest, in a very generous outburst (p- 389), that possibly that despised creature, the ontological proof, might find some kind of mission in the midst of his desired association of theistic arguments. The ontological proof, having very long. been able to say, — **T lie so composedly now in my bed, That any beholder might fancy me dead,’’— must regard the kindness of Mr. Hicks with very mixed emotions. He thinks that it might be ‘ just the thing to supplement’ the others. But during its natural life the ontological proof used to think that the others might possibly be of use to supplement itself. Such, then, is our author’s own line of argument. Between the introduction and the final exposition of this argument, he inserts a discussion of the history of design arguments. This is a mere collection of notes, with more or less ingenious reflections that suggested themselyes to the mind of the collector here and there in the course of his work. The ‘Natural theology of the Greeks and Romans’ is treated in some thirty pages, which are devoted to Socrates, Cicero, and Galen. How, one may ask, would it look for one to head a chapter with the title ‘ The astronomy of modern times,’ and then to treat the subject by briefly expounding some statements of Galileo, Lord Brougham, and Dr. Whewell? Thirty pages might well be the limit allowed by the plan of our author; but such a space is not too limited for a really connected historical sketch, with some attention to the perspective SCIENCE. 311 in which every man’s thought ought to be viewed. The author’s account of Spinoza is similarly imperfect, because no effort has been made to see what the man, with his odd, crabbed method, really had in mind. We are told, what we all knew before, that Spinoza’s method is unsuccessful; but, for the rest, we learn more in this chapter about Mr. Lewes than about Spinoza. ‘ Reimarus, Kant, Hume, and Reid’ are somewhat embarrassed to find themselves side by side in one chapter; and poor Kant especially is made to speak as he did in 1763, instead of being allowed to present himself as he does in the ‘ Critique of pure reason,’ nearly twenty years later. Although this erroris in just this discussion not so serious as the corresponding error would be in expounding other parts of Kant’s doctrine, yet the method is unhistorical; and the result is, that, in summing up, Mr. Hicks hopelessly confuses Kant’s pre-critical and critical periods. In short, our author shows himself in general no historian of thought. Throughout the whole sketch, there is a lack of a sense of the development of thought. Each man’s notions stand beside his neighbor’s, as if the philoso- phers were all speakers in a debating-club. And Mr. Hicks, as intelligent listener, adds his applause and his comments in brackets, and is not afraid to express himself with even boyish freedom of speech. But he is always good-humored, and his criticisms often hit the mark very well. Yet it is to be hoped that nobody will undertake to judge the history of natural theology on the basis of this account. Now as to the result. What shall we say of eutaxiology? We have no hesitation in declaring the argument, as our author presents it, an altogether defective one. For, as he presents the eutaxiological argument, it is an inductive argument, and solely inductive. If we saw a triangular arrangement of objects on the moon, we should conclude that some intel- ligence had done this. We should extend the known association of intelligence and order, as we find it about us, to cases_of order more remote from our direct observation. We should conclude that order is a sign of intel- ligence, even where we have no other evidence of the presence of intelligence. So reasons Mr. Hicks. But is this sound? And, firstyis the author’s suggestion about the supposed geometrical figure seen on some planet a correct one? Should we, if we saw such a figure on some planet, at once conclude that intelligence had caused it, or was in any way associated with it? Surely not everybody would feel the foree of such an induction. 312 Most scientific astronomers, observing such a regular figure for the first time, would at once look for some ordinary physical explanation of its presence, even as they now try to explain the shapes of the planets ; and, failing to find such an explanation, they would be content to call the triangle a mystery. Only some man whose position as a public lecturer on astronomy demanded that he should have a new sensation ready for each new lecture- season would be apt to insist on the existence of some set of geometrically disposed plan- etary giants. More sober people would he content with an ignoramus. But how much less satisfactory becomes such an induction when applied to the whole of nature! At best would not such an argument be like the induc- tive reasoning of a man, who, having already learned the modern doctrine of the relation of the colors of flowers to the habits of insects, should for the first time, and without any pre- vious knowledge of marine zodlogy, find a colored shell by the sea-shore, and who should then at once expect to find some race of insects in some analogous relation to the inhabitant of this sheil? Or, again, if one extended even to the rainbow, or to the sunset, an explanation derived from the case of colored flowers, and their relations to insects, would not the argument possibly be no more absurd than the induction upon which Mr. Hicks lays so much stress? Men and beavers and other creatures make orderly groupings of things. Hence ‘order implies intelligence, and that wherever we find order. Is this argument any better than the old teleology ?. Mr. Hicks is deceived, it would seem, by the vast wealth of facts to which his areument appeals. He neglects the difficulty of bringing such various facts within the control of an induction that has for its narrow basis such intelligent activity as we see about us among men and animals. As induction, pure and simple, eutaxiology seems to us simply worthless. But is the order argument in any form there- fore worthless? Certainly not. Mr. Hicks does fine service in bringing before the public, just at this moment, a thought that is by no means new, and that is profoundly suggestive. ‘What does the order in the world imply?’ Tnis is a great question, not of inductive science, which is concerned solely with dis- covering the actual order itself, but of general philosophy. And Mr. Hicks is, we doubt not at all, quite right in saying that order implies intelligence. But how, and what intelligence? Such questions he leaves wholly unanswered. The critical philosophy of Kant would, strictly SCIENCE. Se a ee [Vor. IL, No. 81. speaking, affirm that order in the world implies only the intelligence of the thinking subject to whom the world appears. The world is orderly, because only as orderly could it be- come known to an intelligent being. Not the world in itself, but the world for thinking beings, is to be viewed as orderly.: This view would make short work of our author’s ‘ in- duction,’ but it would not satisfy him. He would then need to know and build beyond Kant. In short, Mr. Hicks has very ingeniously set his reader down at the beginning of a great philosophic problem. It would argue a lack of intelligence in the reader if he did not seek to bring his thoughts into a better order than that in which Mr. Hicks will have left them ; and the author’s service lies in making it im- possible for an inquiring mind to rest content with what is here offered to him. This, how- ever, at least, he has very well suggested, though he has not proved his suggestion : viz., that the postulate of natural science is the rationality’ of the world. Whether we find order, or only seek it in nature, we are always a priori sure that the world is actually full of connections that admit of expression in rational terms, of explanation to an intelligent mind. And so we assume a fundamental like- ness of nature and intelligence that suggests — to us very strongly some kind of real unity or identity of nature and intelligence. But whether this suggestion has any ground, whether this identity of nature and mind is to be accepted at all, or is to be accepted in Kant’s sense only, or in Berkeley’s sense, or in Hegel’s sense, or in some other sense, this is a matter for philosophy to discuss. We thank Mr. Hicks for having shown afresh the necessity for such discussion. His eutaxiol- ogy is not so original as he thinks; but his offering on the altar of philosophy deserves the reward due to every gift that a special student of natural science finds time to offer in the true spirit of calm investigation. MAYNARD’S MANUAL OF TAXIDERMY. Manual of taxidermy: a complete guide in collecting and preserving birds and mammals. By C. J. Maynarp. Boston, S. EB. Cassino § Co., 1883. — 16+ 111 p., illustr. 12°. A REALLY complete guide in collecting and preserving the objects named in the title of this work, which can safely be relied upon for information under all cireumstaneces and in all climates, has long been sorely needed by the host of amateurs, taxidermists, travellers, and even professional naturalists interested in yerte- SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] brate zodlogy. Notwithstanding the presence of the neat little volume before us, and its prom- ising title, a complete guide is still as much a desideratum as ever. Like all other books which have appeared in English on this subject, this volume is small and thin, and, we are com- pelled to add, wretchedly illustrated. Of the one hundred and one pages of subject-matter, sixteen are frittered away in an effort to inform the reader where birds of the various families from Turdidae to Alcidae are to be found. How much better to have devoted this space to adequate instructions for mounting dried skins, which important branch of the subject is sum- _ marily disposed of on a single page, instead of to such cheap information as that ‘the chimney-swift inhabits chimneys,’ that king- fishers are found ‘in the vicinity of streams,’ - andthelike. With the exception of the above, all the information and advice contained in the chapter on collecting is valuable, and bears the stamp which experience places upon its work. The chapters on ‘ skinning birds’ and ‘ mak- _ ing skins’ would be very satisfactory but for one thing. While the author strongly con- demns dry arsenic as a dangerous poison, and . says not a word about arsenical soap, the only preservative he recommends as fit for use is one compounded only by himself. After extol- ling its virtues to the extent of two pages, but carefully withholding all information as to its composition, he coolly informs the reader that its price is ‘twenty-five cents per single pound.’ We are told that tannic acid, alum, salt, or black pepper (!) may be used to tem- porarily preserve skins until the other can be procured. The ‘ dermal preservative,’ which, strange to say, is not a poison, is recommended, or rather exclusively directed, in no fewer than - fourteen places throughout the work, for mam- mals, birds, reptiles, and fishes, as a non-poi- sonous astringent, absorbent, deodorizer, and insecticide ; and, if the reader is at all credu- lous, he will be led to exclaim, There is but one preservative, and C. J. Maynard is its maker! If this little book is honestly in- tended to meet the wants of amateur collect- ors wherever it may find them, and not to increase the sale of a nostrum of doubtful yalue, nor to advertise the author’s business, the author has taken a queer way to show it. It will not be surprising if his readers resent such unfair treatment. -_ While there is much that is practical, valua- _ ble, and new in the chapter on mounting birds, -and in those detailing the treatment of mam- mals, reptiles, and fishes, they are all deplor- ably incomplete ; and we vainly regret that the el x SCIENCE. 313 author did not go as deeply into the subject, and with as good diagrams and illustrations, as he might have done. The information given is valuable as far as it goes; but there are only one-quarter as many facts stated, and direc- tions given, as the unskilled operator needs to know. As an example of the doubtful value of such highly condensed instructions, we may take those for skinning small mammals. The an- thor says, ‘‘ . . . peel down on either side [of the body] until the knee-bones are exposed, then cut the joint, and draw out the leg, at least as far as the heel.’’ Nota word is said about skinning the foot, and removing the flesh under the metacarpal and metatarsal bones: hence we suppose it is left to decompose, which it will generally do right speedily, and at the expense of the hair and epidermis above. We should like to see the author remove and pre- pare the skin of any monkey according to his own directions. ; We are ‘honestly sorry we cannot freely recommend this manual —nor any other in our language, for that matter —as being well calculated to meet the wants of those for whom it is intended. An epitome of the subject is no longer wanted, but a handbook which shall be really complete is needed very much. ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE 1 MICROSCOPE. z Traité élémentaire du ‘microscope. Par EvuGENE Trutar, Conservateur du musée d’histoire natu- rellede Toulouse. Paris, Gauthier- Villars, 1883. 322 p., 165 ill. Few are aware of the magnitude to which microscopical work has grown. The modern methods of research in the physical and bio- logical sciences have involved more and more an appeal to the microscope. As a result of this growth,-we find whole volumes devoted to a description of the microscope and its appli- cation to the various departments of study. Microscopy has been taught in our schools only a very few years. This is partly due to the fact that formerly the instruments were both expensive and imperfect. There was also an almost total lack of literature upon» the subject. At the present time, ‘however, there are plenty of good works on microscopical technology, and the microscope as applied to the study of medicine in all its branches, in- cluding biological research. In a work like this before us, it is necessary to present a large amount of material of such an elementary character that it is of value 314 only to the novice. It is decidedly a French work, written by a true Frenchman. Neither an instrument nor an accessory is mentioned, unless either invented or manufactured by a Frenchman. The stands of Verick are given great prominence, as are also those of Hartnack. When we consider how beautiful and useful are the instruments of our own country, to say nothing of the fine productions of English houses, we are forced to call the work ‘ an elementary treatise on the French wicro- scope.’ For convenience, elegance of design, and varied adaptability, the French microscope will not compare with those of our own coun- try, while we far excel in the superior quality of our objectives. The microscopist will be much interested in reading the chapter on the projection micro- scope. Electricity will soon furnish us with proper illumination. AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E.—GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY. ‘ Reports of committees on geological subjects. To the call for a report of the Committee to memo- rialize the legislature of New York for a new sur- vey of Niagara Falls, Prof. James Hall responded, that several surveys had been made, or were in progress, in connection with legislation by the State of New York for preserving the scenery. These would supersede the need of any work of the kind by the association. The committee was discharged. To the call for a-report of the Committee on state geological surveys, Prof. N. H. Winchell responded, that the committee had never been called together, and there was no probability of its action. committee was discharged. To the call for a report of the Committee on the international congress of geologists, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt (by request of the chairman, Professor Hall) responded as follows: — The committee held a meeting in the month of November last. Two important questions came up, —of geological nomenclature, and topography. It was suggested by Professor Hall, that the only action which could be taken in support of the system of uniform mapping and colors, and signs and symbols, would be to prepare maps of the United States as a whole, and perhaps also maps of portions of the United States, and to color them by different systems; the system adopted being that of Major Powell of the U. S. geological survey, and one or two others. Major Powell has been good enough to say that he would endeavor to prepare such maps, and aid in every way the carrying-out of the scheme. I have no doubt that the matter will be so well man- SCIENCE. The?* [Vou. II., No. 31. More information is given under the head of mineralogical research than in any work brought to our notice. Among the accessories mentioned is the camera lucida of Oberhauser. It is a form little used in America, and yet itis one of the most convenient and perfect of its kind. The new pattern of Malassez’s Compte- globules, by Verick, is minutely described. The results obtained by this instrument promise to be very accurate: we have practically tested its merits, and can give testimony to its pre- cision. The method for photographing from the microscope is not so simple as that em- - ployed here by the use of dry plates; and, if the frontispiece be taken as a sample, itis not more satisfactory. ‘The author shows perfect familiarity with the instruments and accesso- _ ries, together with their applications as made and used in his own country. OC. H. Stowern. aged that the whole question of geological topography will be settled. As to the question of geological nomenclature. we had much difficulty in getting reports of the previous meetings; and we have named several persons, some of whom have already handed in, or have in process of preparation, their abstracts of geological nomenclature; and I have every rea- son to hope that in the course of a few weeks we shall have the whole of that matter in shape to transmit to the Berlin congress a full and proper representation of the views of American geologists with regard to our geological nomenclature. There is one thing very much to be regretted, —the possi- bility that the meeting of the American association J and the British association will come in collision : OE EE _——— = —_—— with the meeting of the Berlin congress. Nothing definite has been arranged, so far as I can learn*>by letters. I have met with no response, but I was told that the time of the Berlin congress had not been fixed. In the committee which was held to consider — arrangements for the meeting of the British associ- — ation, it was suggested that we put ourselves in com- ~ munication with the local authorities of the Berlin ~ congress, and endeavor to get them to fix the time of — their meeting so late in September as will allow members of the American and British associations to leave this continent after the meeting of our asso- ciations so as to be present at the Berlin congress. — The committee was continued. 7 The Committee to confer with the United-States geologist in regard to co-operation between govern- ment and state geological surveys was called on for a report. Prof. James Hall of Albany responded in- SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] to be materially influenced by the law of the general government extending the U. S. geological survey over the states. Proper deference to the head of the U. S. survey required that some action should be taken by which we could confer with Major Powell, to understand our relations to the survey. To prevent any jealousy or uncertainty with regard . to what might be the relation of the state survey and the general survey, I suggested the appointment of this committee. I had no intention myself of taking any active part in the matter; and I think there are gentlemen on the committee, much younger than myself, who will do all the work. I believe several members of the committee have had very pleasant interviews with Major Powell, as I have myself, since these meetings commenced; but I had forgotten that I was to make a report. I think it is desirable that there should be very frank intercourse between the gentlemen who are conducting the state surveys and the head of the general government survey, so that we may know what is to be the result of their various surveys which are so very important to geological science. Workers at a distance from each other cannot, without some means of inter-com- munication, — which, I think, may be established with the head of the general survey,—bring the results of their labors to a fair comparison with those which are done a thousand miles away. Major Powell expressed the hope that the commit- tee would be continued. Several members of the committee had conferred with him with reference to the surveys, but they had not conferred as a com- mittee. Practical relations have been established between the general survey of the United States and several of the state surveys. He thought it was probable that such arrangements could be established as would make it satisfactory to all. The committee was continued. PAPERS READ BEFORE SECTION E. (PAPERS ON GLACIAL PHENOMENA.) The life history of the’ Niagara river. BY JULIUS POHLMAN OF BUFFALO, N.Y. A SERIES of observations whose points were given in detail had convinced the author that the forma- tion of the gorge of Niagara had been a matter of tens of thousands, rather than of hundreds of thou- sands, of years. The beginning of the history might be stated as in the pre-glacial epoch. A lake then occupied the valley of the Tonawanda; its outlet was the line of the ancient Niagara River from the falls to the whirlpool; thence, by way of the St. Davids valley, into the Ontario valley. All these val- leys were closed during the glacial period. The sub- sidence of Lakes Erie and Ontario was that of one body or region, until they were separated by the Lewiston escarpment; after that» the drainage of Lake Erie found its path through drift deposits SCIENCE. | formally: The condition of the state survey is likely 315 and old existing valleys to Lake Ontario. The lat- ter lake subsided slowly, and no waterfall was formed at its entrance. The river excavated its gorge to the whirlpool, not by means of a retreating fall, but as a rapid in an old shallow valley. At the third pool, this path met the ancient river-valley: it was along that valley only, that the falls receded to their present site. The retreat of the fall was not the means of excavation, for at least seven miles usually ascribed to it; the portion which would offer the most resistance, between the falls and the whirl- pool, being already excavated. From that point to Lewiston, the progress was very rapid in cutting the gorge; a shallow valley had partly remoyed the hard limestone, and the softer underlying shale rock was a barrier much more easily penetrated. We have no exact data of the retrocession of the falls within periods of modern observation. A comparison of Professor Hall’s map of the falls in 1841, and that of the United- States lake survey in 1875, shows wide discrepancies. After all reasonable allowance for inaccuracies, we must admit that parts of the Horse-shoe fall have re- ceded in thirty-four years at least one hundred feet, and on the American side the recession is from twenty to forty feet. These facts all tend toward a shortening of the history of the present river. In the discussion that followed, Professor Hall ex- pressed a doubt as to the dependence that could be placed on differences between surveys made by dif- ferent persons, using differing methods. That there had been retrocession within the period of our obser- vation, he did not doubt; but it could scarcely be so rapid as was indicated by the estimates of Dr. Pohl- man. Other speakers discussed the paper, which was of special interest, because it fired the first gun of the glacialists in the geological section, and it roused their opponents. Glacial caiions. BY W. J. McGEE OF SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH. Tus paper was read, in the absence of its author, by Mr. Warren Upham. It considered the action of a glacier as being, to a certain extent, capable of representation by mathematical formulae. It was admitted, however, that some of the quantities in the equations must remain very indefinite. The paper was almost wholly theoretical, and arrived at the following conclusions : The temporary occupancy of a typical water-cut cafion by glacier-ice will, 1°. increase its width; 2°. change the V to a U cross profile; 3°. cut off the terminal portions of tributary cafions, and thus relatively elevate their embouchures; 4°. intensify certain irregularities of gradient in the cafion bottom; 5°. excavate rock basins; 6°. develop cirques; and, in general, transform each’ cafion into an equally typical glacial cafion. It follows that these features do not necessarily imply extensive glacial excavation, or indicate that glaciers are superlatively- energetic engines of erosion. Owing to the custom of abstaining from discussion on a paper in the absence of its author, the dissen- tient opinion of many who were present was not 316 fully elicited. The general expression was to the effect, that the theory had been framed without suf- ficient observation of the facts, and that, if the author had taken the trouble to see and examine various cafions, he would haye come to a widely different set of conclusions. The ancient glaciation of North America: its extent, character, and teachings. BY J, S. NEWBERRY OF NEW YORK. WHILE the glacial area on our continent has not been fully explored, there is abundant proof for the following propositions: 1°. Glaciers covered most of the elevated portions of the mountain belts in the far west as far south as the 36th parallel, and in the eastern half of the continent to the 40th parallel of latitude. 2°. The ancient glaciers, which occupied the area above described, were not produced by local causes, but were evidences of a general climatic con- dition. 3°. They could not have been the effect of a warm climate and an abundant precipitation of moisture, but were results of a general depression of temperature. The traces of glaciation are similar in kind, and apparently in date, over the whole area: they are therefore effects of general, not of local, causes. Hast of the Mississippi, the evidence is even more wide- spread and impressive than in the far west. The area bearing marks of ice action, and strewn with drift, extends from New England westward, parallel with the Canadian highlands, in a belt five hundred miles wide and over two thousand miles long. Its northern extension has not been traced beyond Winnipeg; but there are reasons for believing that it reached to the Arctic ocean, and that the great lakes are pre-glacial river-valleys, scooped out and modified by ice. Fully half the continent north of the 36th parallel was glaciated. So far as we now know, the glaciation was synchronous. The iceberg theory was opposed by Dr. Newberry, on the following grounds: It postulated a waterline with irregularities of level that are irreconcilable. The direction of the scratches, and the lines of devi- ation of the bowlders, require’ that the northern por- tion of the continent should have been all submerged, leaving no land for the origin and starting-point of icebergs. If the icebergs could have been formed and floated, an incomprehensible tangle of ocean- currents would be required to account for their move- ments. The evidence of sea-covering, in the form of marine shells, is totally absent from the great drift area of the interior, while they are found abundantly in the Champlain and bowlder clays of the coast. Finally, the inscription left by the eroding agency is characteristic and sui generis. The record of the ice period on our continent is far more extensive and impressive than it has heen rep- resented. The phenomena were due to an extrane- ous and cosmical cause, not to any thing local or even telluric. The question here passes from the geolo- gist, and must be addressed to the astronomer. Pro- fessor Newberry briefly recapitulated some of the SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 31. theories which have been suggested by Croll, New- comb, and others, to account for the glacial epoch. Result of explorations of the glacial boundary between New Jersey and Illinois. BY G. F. WRIGHT OF OBERLIN, OHIO: AFTER citing reasons for desiring a careful résumé of the subject, — the observations being scattered in , the works of different explorers, —the author pro- ceeded to name those who had determined, for dif- ferent regions, the southern boundary of the glacial area. Starting at the eastern coast, President Edward Hitchcock was the first to intimate that the backbone of Cape Cod was a part of the terminal moraine if the theory of Professor Agassiz were true. Clarence King made a similar assertion as to ac- cumulations near Wood’s Holl and on the Elizabeth islands. Professor Charles H. Hitchcock declared that the backbone of Long Island was the foot of a terminal moraine. Warren Upham went over this field, from the end of Cape Cod to Brooklyn, to verify the hypothesis. Professors Cook and Smock traced the moraine across the state of New Jersey. Pro- fessor Lesley commissioned Professor Carvill Lewis and the author of the paper to continue the explora- tion across Pennsylvania. In Ohio, Professor New- berry has approximately outlined the boundary; but in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the survey was carried on by a number of different persons before the most distinctive glacial features were fully understood. The chief indications on which reliance can be placed to determine glacial action are striated rocks, striated stones, bowlders, and till. Rocks near the margin are often so deeply embedded in till, that their markings are not apparent. The softer rocks do not always retain their striae: this has often been the case in Ohio. In certain situations, stones might be striated by a landslide, or the grounding of an iceberg; but the area over which striated stones are found is too vast for such explanation of their pres- ence. The bowlders are of granite and metamor- phosed rocks from northern Canada and the shores of Lake Superior: their presence is relied upon only when they are on such high lines as to preclude the likelihood of their having been transported by the agency of rivers. ‘Till is spread over the whole area: it is defined as an unstratified deposit, containing striated stones of various sizes, — fragments of rock foreign to the locality. Its composition varies, through mixture with underlying material. It covers and gives fertility to northern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Till has been characterized by Professor Newberry as the grist of the glacier. Briefly told, the boundary-line of the glaciated area, so far as now accurately known, is as follows: Begin- ning on the island of Nantucket, it runs through Mar- tha’s Vineyard, No Man’s Land, Long Island from east to west, across Staten Island, entering New Jersey at North Amboy, and after bending northward and mak- ing a right angle near Dover, crosses the Delaware at, Belvidere. Thence it runs north-westerly through — Northampton, Monroe, Luzerne, Columbia,’ Lycom- _ SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] ing, Tioga, and Potter counties in Pennsylvania, and Cattaraugus county, New York, reaching its most _northerly part about five miles north of Salamanca. From here it runs through Warren, Venango, Butler, Lawrence, and Beaver counties, to the Ohio line, crossing Beaver creek at Chaintown about fifteen miles above the Ohio river. The boundary enters Ohio in the northern part of Columbiana county, and proceeds nearly west to the middle of Stark; then turns more to the south, touching the corner of Tuscarawas, and dividing Holmes into two nearly north-and-south sections. Near the north-east corner of Knox, the line makesa right angle, and runs south through Knox, Licking, the north-west corner of Perry, Fairfield, Ross, High- land, Adams, and Brown counties. Then it follows the line of the Ohio river across Clermont, and enters Kentucky near the boundary between Pendleton and Campbell counties, and, after crossing the northern part of Kenton and Boone counties, recrosses the Ohio, entering Indiana a little below Aurora. In Indiana the line still continues to bear in a southerly direction through Ohio and Jefferson counties, grazing the edge of Kentucky again oppo- site Madison, and reaching its southernmost point near Charleston in Clarke county, Ind. From here it bears again to the north, through Scott and Jack- son counties, to the line between Bartholomew and Brown, and follows this to the north-east corner of Brown. There again it turns to the south-west, touching the north-east corner of Monroe, where it again bears north for ten miles, to near Martinsville in Morgan county. Here again the line turns west and south, passing diagonally through Owen and Green counties, and in Knox as far as Harrison town- ship, ten miles south-east of Vincennes. Beyond this point, the author did not propose at present to trace the line. The signs of glaciation cease where there is no barrier to account for their cessation, and where no barrier ever could have existed such as must be supposed if the so-called glacial phenomena are the product of floating ice. Of the correctness of this inference, the different elevations at which the signs of glacial action cease are sufficient proof. For in- stance, the line is near sea-level in New Jersey; in Pennsylvania it rises over Mount Kittatinny to a height of 1,200 feet, then descends 800 feet into a val- ley, and, again rising, reaches the summits of moun- tains 2,000 feet above sea-level. Crossing tlte valley of the Susquehanna at an elevation of only 500 feet, the line mounts the Alleghanies diagonally, and runs over them at a height of 2,500 feet. The paper proceeds to describe certain marked features of glaciated areas. South of New England, the terminal line is characterized by a series of gla- -cial hills, 100 to 300 feet high. These are also ob- servable in New Jersey, near Plainfield and Menlo Park. Among the most interesting results of the author's _ survey in Ohio, was the demonstration of the exist- ence of an ice-dam across the river at Cincinnati. _ The line bounding two glacial accumulations crosses SCIENCE. Pee. a en Ne 4 ih eh oF. Fe? Oe * 317 the Ohio river into Kentucky, near the boundary between Campbell and Pendleton counties, about twenty-five miles above Cincinnati, and recrosses it near Aurora, Ind., about twenty-five miles below Cincinnati, thus filling the channel for about fifty miles of its course. The Ohio, it should be said, oceupies, throughout nearly its whole extent, a nar- row valley of erosion, not often. more than a mile wide, and from 300 to 500 feet deep. Emptying into the main channel there are subordinate channels all along, of smaller dimensions, but of nearly equal depth. The proofs that the ice bodily crossed the river at the point indicated are, that till and granitie bowlders are found in the Kentucky hills south of the river to a certain distance, and not beyond it. To the question, Why is the boundary of the glacial area so crooked ? the author replied at some length; assigning as a principal cause, aside from differences of level, the probability that unequal amounts of snow fell over different regions of the north. The effect of such differences of accumulating snowfall, in determining the extension of the glacial outline, is illustrated by supposing that two loads of sand are placed in one pile, and one load in an adjoining pile; when the sand will flow downward to unequal dis- tances upon a level. A little reflection will show that the glacial theory will not make extravagant suppositions as to the amount of ice required. The ice was indeed 600 feet deep over New England, and, very likely, of an equal depth over the area to the west; but it is not necessary to suppose a great increase of this depth to the north. All that is necessary is to suppose great accumulations of ice to the north of the granitic hills of Canada, starting a movement past them to the south. This movement may have been kept up to- ward the margin by fresh accumulations of snow upon the spreading giacier. An accumulation of snow over the glacier in any part of it would spend its effective force in giving impetus to the movement of the front along the lines of least resistance. The discussion which followed the reading of this paper took a wide range, as the paper itself contained many points of interest. The opponents of the gla- cial theory, or of the younger theories which have sprung from its loins, based their criticisms chiefly upon doubts of the evidences of glaciation. The questions raised, as to the distinctive characteristics of glacial and subaqueous deposits, gave tone to the paper of the next speaker, which was delivered orally, and was, at least in part, extemporaneous. The terminal moraine west of Ohio. BY T. C. CHAMBERLIN OF BELOIT, WIS, Tus paper was introduced by a statment of the author’s views on some points that had been alluded to in the discussion of Professor Wright’s paper. Dr. Chamberlin had himself observed the features of the drift-bearing area west of the Rocky Mountains. Certain of the drift clays are unquestionably glacial: others have quite as certainly had a wholly different origin. He specified with great particularity the J ph o 318 means for discrimination between the clays, but ad- mitted that there were instances where the different types seem to blend insensibly into each other. West of the Scioto valley, the border of the drift- bearing area is not marked by what is regarded as a moraine. There is, however, an extension of what Professor Wright has characterized as the ‘glacial fringe,’ consisting of bowlders. In Dakota county, Minn., this fringe is very wide. At Crystal lake there is a well-marked moraine, and possibly there is another a little to the westward. Farther to the west, there is no accumulated morainic drift. West of the Missouri, there is no evidence of glacial ploughing. A. line of drift-hills known as the Potash Kettle range, in eastern Wisconsin, had been regarded as an old beach-line. Dr. Chamberlin has ascertained that the range is a glacial moraine. He described it as an interlobate moraine, formed jointly by glacial lobes occupying the valleys of Lake Michigan and Green Bay, respectively. This was correlated with mo- raines to the westward in Wisconsin. Furthermore, there was a system of moraines, — a belt or group, including the glacier lobes at Lake Michigan, in the Chippewa valley, at the western ex- tension of Lake Superior, and in the valley of the Minnesota River, and Red River of the North. These moraines were more pronounced, with a few excep- tions, than those on the outer edge. Investigations were being carried eastward with a view of showing their correlation with other moraines in that direc- tion. The hypothesis of their exact correlation, of course, would imply that they were contemporane- ous; but there are doubts upon that point. The author claimed, that there were evidences that the lake-basins were caused in part by depressions during the ice age, caused by the exceptional accu- mulation of ice in the basins. He deprecated the no- tion that subsidence must always take as long a period as elevation, or that the reverse is true. He applied this to the case which he alleged of the depression during the presence of ice in the lake-basins, and the elevation since. ; In discussing this paper, Professor Lesley said it was time to cry halt as to this theory of depression by weight of ice. It was made to do duty for a great variety of emergencies. In point of fact, ice was much lighter, very much lighter, than any rock. Professor Lesley pointed out instances where this theory had been advanced to account for depressions which now contained a greater weight than the ice could have made with any reasonable hypothesis of its thickness. Professor Chamberlin explained the theory further, and claimed that in instances which he cited the depression was greatest at the weakest part of the strata. Prof. E. S. Morse referred to some English ex- periments to determine the question whether the moon’s attraction deformed the earth’s outline. It was found (according to newspaper report), that the weight of the incoming tide deformed the surface to such an extent that the effect of the moon’s attrac- SCIENCE. [Vor. IL, No. 31. tion could not be separately calculated. Major Powell called attention to the theory, that, if the earth were divided into conical sections radiating from its centre, there would be found an equal press- ure in each. Every sediment, every erosion of the surface, must be balanced by corresponding depres- sion or rise elsewhere. Finally, the case of Lake Saltonstall was cited by Mr. Hovey. It is evidently situated in a valley that was ploughed out by the foot of a glacier; certainly not in a hollow caused by pressure. Professor Cox clung to another theory entirely, as to the great lakes. He believed them to be prolongations of a sea-coast which had at one time extended to them through the valley of the St. Lawrence. The Minnesota valley in the ice age. BY WARREN UPHAM OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. ‘THE paper was based upon the author’s observa- tions for three years as assistant on the geological and natural-history survey of Minnesota, under the direction of Professor Winchell. To the question: During what ages was the glacial, rock-walled chan- nel of the valley of the Minnesota River formed ? — the paper offered an answer. Deposits of cretaceous clay were found in water-worn hollows at several enumerated localities; and, in other places, cretaceous sandstone and shale occasionally containing lignite. It thus appears, that, before the cretaceous age, a deep channel had been cut by some river in the lower magnesian sandstone, and the Potsdam formation. The slopes, the drainage, perhaps even the channel, of that river, were not widely different from those of the present; but that channel was probably eroded during the later paleozoic and earlier mesozoic ages, before the cretaceous subsidence. In the first epoch of glaciation, when the ice coy- ered its greatest area, a thick drift-sheet, mostly un- modified, probably covered all this region, including the preglacial valley, with an unbroken, though un- dulating, expanse of till. During the ensuing in- terglacial epoch, the drainage cut a channel, whose position was largely determined by the slopes of the erosion which had preceded the glacial epoch. The preglacial, and also the interglacial river, lay far be- low the present stream. The till of the later epoch blocked the course of the river only in part of its ex- tent, and the obstacle was soon channelled anew. During the recession of the last ice-sheet, the val- ley was filled with modified drift. After the ice was melted in the Minnesota basin, this avenue of drain- age was, for a long period, the outlet of Lake Agassiz. The volume of water that it carried was very large, being supplied by the melting ice-fields of North- western Minnesota, and from the region of Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan. While streams ~ poured into this river from the melting ice-sheet, its modified drift continually increased in depth; but, when the great glacier had sufficiently retreated, the water from Lake Agassiz not only ceased to contain drift, but became a powerful eroding agent. The de- posited drift was mostly swept away, and the channel — va a>? _ SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] _ Was again excavated, perhaps to a greater depth than the present river, possibly to the bottom of the gravel and sand, at a point in the valley which is 150 feet below the river there, and 135 feet below low water in the Mississippi at St. Paul. When the ice-barrier which had made Lake Agassiz disappeared, that lake was drained northward toward Hudson bay. Thenceforward, the rivers of the Min- nesota and Mississippi valleys carried only a fraction of the former volume of water from this source. They have since become extensively filled with al- luvial gravel, sand, clay, and silt, brought in by the tributaries of those rivers. The changes produced by this post-glacia] sedimentation have been ably dis- cussed by Gen. G. K. Warren, and were briefly sum- marized in the paper of Mr. Upham. Lake Superior seems to have been held by an ice- barrier at a level of about 500 feet from its present height. The locality of its overflow was stated, and _ various results detailed. Lake Michigan, until the ice-sheet receded from its northern border, dis- charged southward by the Illinois river, which, like the former outlet of Lake Superior, was eventually obstructed by alluvium, so that now it has a very slight current for two hundred miles. The paper closed with a proposition to call the ancient river of the glacial age, the river Warren, in honor of Gen. G. K. Warren. The discussion which followed was, in part, a con- flict between the glacialists and their opponents, and, in part, a debate upon the general question of nam- ing geological features after distinguished investi- gators, _ Changes in the currents of the ice of the last ‘ glacial epoch in eastern Minnesota. _ BY WARREN UPHAM OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. WirHour a map, or a thorough familiarity with the region referred to, this paper would not convey very definite ideas. Through some inadvertency the map intended to be used was not on hand when the paper was read. The author’s observations had led him to conclusions of a very definite character. He conceived, that, when the ice of the last glacial epoch attained its maximum extent, there were two ice- currents. One moved south-westerly from Lake Superior, across the north-east part of Mignesota, _ spreading a reddish till with bowlders and pebbles, _ and limited by a line from Lake St. Croix south-west across the Mississippi, and thence bending north- _ west by Lake Minnetonka, and through Wright and _ Stearns counties. The other portion of the ice-sheet was pushed from the region of Lake Winnipeg, south and south-east. The two met along a line from Stearns county, south-east by Lake Minnetonka to _ Crystal Lake, Dakota county. Afterward, when the ice had partly melted and retreated, a second and _ inner terminal moraine was formed. Owing to cli- matic changes (the rationale of which was carefully and yery explicitly set forth in the paper), the current _ from the north-west pushed back that from the east, and covered the reddish till, already deposited, with a a SCIENCE. ¥ 319 blue till from the west and north-west, also abundant in its peculiar bowlders and other evidences of its source, The kame rivers of Maine. BY Gy H, STONE OF COLORADO SPRINGS, COL: In the absence of its author, this paper was read by Mr. Upham. After defining and describing the char- acteristics of kames, and stating that they are very numerous in Maine, where he had observed them, the author proceeded to discuss a single question in rela- tion to these geological features. Most glacialists are agreed that the kame gravels of the drift region were chiefly deposited by glacial streams. The question is, whether these streams were sub-glacial or super-gla- cial. In exploration during the past five years, the author had found evidences of both kinds of streams; but he nowhere found stratified or even water-classi- fied material enclosed in this formation, except within a few miles of the coast. The essayist sought to answer the question by con- sidering the processes of melting which take place in aglacier. Strict analogy with existing glaciers —even with those of Greenland—should not be supposed. In modern glaciers, nearly all the water of their lower extremities is sub-glacial. The ice is so broken by crevasses that melting waters soon find their way to thebottom. But a different state of affairs may have prevailed in the continental glacier. Several of these kame rivers are a hundred or more miles in length. Granting all reasonable development of sub-glacial streams, these kames can scarcely be thus accounted for. Superficial water flowing along the surface would gradually deepen its channel: when the melt- ing had so far proceeded that the bottoms of these streams reached the moraine stuff in the lower part of the ice, the kame gravel would begin to gather on the bottoms of their channels. During the final melt- ing, when the condition was such that few if any ad- ditional crevasses would be formed, there would be no time to extend the previously formed sub-glacial channels. The sudden floods would pass over the lowest part of the ice as they would over ground. A great and rapid northward extension of the superfi- cial streams would result. In discussing this paper, Mr. Upham stated that erosion does not appear in kames. They are not un- frequently a hundred feet in height: one on the bor- ders of the Merrimac river was instanced. They appear to be gravel deposits laid down before the glacier was fully melted. Relation of the glacial dam at Cincinnati to the terrace in the upper Ohio and its tribu- taries. BY I. C. WHITE OF MORGANTOWN, W. VA. Tuts paper, in the absence of its author, was read by Professor Winchell. In a paper read before the Boston society of natu- ral history, March 7, 1883, Rev. G. F. Wright showed that the southern rim of the great northern ice-sheet ee 3. Tae 320 covered the Ohio river near the site of New Rich- mond, a few miles above Cincinnati; and presented the hypothesis, that one effect of this invasion of the Ohio valley by the glacial ice was to form an im- mense dam of ice and morainic débris, which ef- fectually closed the old channel way, and set back the water of the Ohio and its tributaries, until, rising to the level of the Licking River divide, it prob- ably found an outlet through Kentucky, around the glacial dam. The writer of the essay, after review- ing the evidence, regards Mr. Wright’s hypothe- sis as proved beyond a reasonable doubt. He also claimed, that during the period of the continuance of the dam, the principal tributaries of the Ohio had their valleys filled with sediment carried down and dumped into them by the mountain torrents and other streams which drained the area south from the glaciated region; that subsequently, when the barrier disappeared, the rivers recut their channels through the silt deposits, probably by spasmodic low- ering of the dam, in such a manner as to leave the deposits in a series of more or less regular terraces, which in favored localities subsequent erosion has failed to obliterate, though from steep slopes it has removed their every trace. The elevation of this dam at Cincinnati, as determined from the upper limit of the fifth Monongahela River terrace, would be somewhere about 625 feet above low water there in the present Ohio. In discussing this paper, Professor Lesley said that there were two separate glacial formations to be considered, and the two could not be correlated. The ice-dam could not thus be explained. Professor Wright had discussed the subject’ with clearness, claiming that the dam was glacial; but at best there were only a few places in the west where the height of the ice could be measured. The eroding. power of ice. BY J. 8S. NEWBERRY OF NEW YORE. THE object of this essay was to enter a protest against the theories of certain geologists who claim that glacial ice has not played an important part in the erosion of valleys. They have undertaken to deny that ice has any great excavating power. Ex- amples of utterances of this school, the speaker said, were to be found in Prof. J. D. Whitney’s Climatic changes; in papers by Prof. J. W. Spencer, on the Old outlet of Lake Erie; by Mr. W. M. Davis, on the Classification of lake basins, and the erosive action of ice; and remarks on the same subject by Prof. J. P. Lesley. The most important heresies which had been ad- vanced in regard to this subject were, first, the denial that there was ever a glacial period; second, if there was an ice period, it was a warm and not a cold one; third, that the phenomena usually ascribed to glacial action in the record of an ice period were generally due to icebergs; fourth, that ice has little or no erod- ing power, and that glaciers have never been an im- portant geological agent. Professor Newberry pro- SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 31. ceeded, in controversion of these theories, to give the results of his extended studies of geological action in the Alps and in many different regions of the United States and Canada. These observations lead to the conclusions, 1°. That the glacial period was a reality, and that its record constitutes one of the most impor- tant and interesting chapters of geological history; 2°. That this was a cold period; 3°. That ice has a great, though unmeasured and perhaps immeasurable, erod- ing power; and that, in regions which they have occupied, glaciers have been always important, and often preponderating, agents in effecting geological changes. : No cautious geologist would assert cr concede that all lake-basins had been excavated by ice, but to deny its influence in their formation would be a far greater error. The basins of our great lakes, and of many of our smaller ones, bear the traces of ice that has moyed in the line, at least approximately, of their major axes. The broad, boat-shaped basins indicate the work of this same agency. The islands of Lake Erie are carved from the solid rock: their surfaces and sides, and the channels between them, are all glaciated. The plastic ice has inwrapped those islands, fitting into every irregularity, and carving, with the sand it carried, every surface. The marks of glaciation are to be seen on mountain belts from Canada to Mexico. Even at the present day glaciers are transporting enormous loads. In midsummer the Aar glacier brings down 280 tons per day; the Juste- dal glacier of Norway wears down, it is estimated, 69,000 cubic meters of solid rock annually. These measurements of the eroding power of two small glaciers should show the fallacy of a denial of the excavating power of ice. Dr. Newberry concluded by citing authorities on the subject. This paper elicited the most acrimonious discussion of the meeting. Professor Lesley took exception to certain phrases in the paper which seemed to cast a reflection upon the methods of his coadjutors, —men who were conscientiously engaged in scientific inves- tigation, and had seen reason for breaking away from the trammels of opinion formulated by Agassiz and Ramsey. For himself, he did not believe in the theory of erosive glacial processes, and he asserted that there was no good reason for believing that the basins of the great lakes were so produced. He claimed that the basin of Ontario was a Silurian valley; the basins of Erie, Michigan, and Huron, were Devonian val- leys. Ice had no more eroding effect than a piece of sandpaper has upon arough board. He believed in the eroding of water, and represented his idea of the relative power of ice and water, as follows: Ice, 1; rain-water, 10; acidulated water, 100; ice set with stones, 1,000; water set with stones, 10,000. Professor Newberry disclaimed any intention of attacking the young men of science who were labor- ing in this field. He re-affirmed the positions taken in his paper. On the other hand, Professor T. Sterry Hunt declared his substantial agreement with the views of Professor Lesley. On account of the length of this debate, the five-minute rule for discussions was adopted and subsequently enforced. a Be Z + ‘ . = SOE yo ae eS ee ee ee ee eS < a é t SEPTEMBER 7, 1883. ] Informal remarks on moraines and terraces. BY J. W. DAWSON OF MONTREAL, AND J. W. POWELL OF WASHINGTON. Av the opening of the morning and afternoon sessions of the geological section in its last day’s work, Dr. Dawson and Major Powell made respec- tively some informal remarks of interest. Dr. Dawson objected to the loose significance with which the term ‘moraine’ had been used, and especially to the definition of it as ‘detrital matter heaped up by the forcible mechanical action of ice.’ He pointed out that such a definition would include work which certainly was not performed by lan glaciers. Dr. Dawson described the glacial deposits exposed along the line of the Canadian Pacific railway, from the Laurentian areas west and north of Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains, noticing the lacustrine deposit of the Red-river valley, containing only a very few, small, ice-borne stones; the second prairie level covered with Laurentian drift from the north- east, and with an interrupted ridge of scrub material _ extending along the middle of it, northward from Turtle mountain. He referred to the great Missouri coteau, at an elevation of 2,500 feet, and made up of local mud, and sand, with Laurentian bowlders piled up against the higher prairie steppe; the drift on the surface of this steppe being partly Laurentian 'and Silurian from the east, and partly from the Rocky Mountains. He finally stated, that huge Laurentian and Huronian bowlders were placed at an elevation of more than 4,000 feet on the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, more than 700 miles from their original site. He did not intend to offer any explanation, as investigations into the matter were still being carried on by his son; but he wished to say briefly, that it appeared to him perfectly plain that we could not account for such phenomena as had been described, without taking into account great changes of level, or, without doubt, great sub- mergence and remergence, Major Powell called attention to the fact, that wholly different agencies, each acting in its own way, produced a class of geological features that went under the general name of ‘terraces.’ We have sea-beach terraces, lake-shore terraces, and yet another class of terraces exceedingly common in the Rocky and the Cascade mountains. The last- named class of terraces is due to a different cause from the others. Some of this class in the east have been relegated erroneously to the class of beach ter- races: those which are said to dam the Ohio, and others found in the Alleghanies, have been formed by a process which can be briefly sketched. We have a valley. It runs irregularly between bluffs and mountains. We havea force in the river which simply tends down stream; it is itself ir- regular, its energy depending upon its transient volume and local depth. If the region is upheaved, the river no longer keeps its old course. It seeks the line of least resistance, and may form a new flood-plain below. Then the river, for a while at least, excavates laterally instead of vertically. No SCIENCE. 321 longer occupying its old place in the valley, it grad- ually cuts a new path. But the old terrace may remain. In some places there are more than twenty systems of terraces: in a locality near Pittsburgh, there are fifty-three such systems. These the speaker regarded as chiefly due to changes in the level of the regions, —to elevations and depressions. Further explanation by the speaker was cut short under the five-minute rule, (OTHER GEOLOGICAL PAPERS.) The earth’s orographic framework; its seis- mology and geology. The ‘continental type,’ or the normal orography and geology of continents. BY RICHARD OWEN OF NEW HARMONY, IND. THESE papers were read successively, as being closely related. They refer to a well-known theory of their author, which traces the frame-work of the earth in its mountain chains. He finds such a frame- work running from east to west in numerous parallel ranges near the equator, and instances those of Su- matra and.of South America. This he calls the *strong girdle’ of the earth: it is of mesozoie age, terminating its heights in the cenozoic age. Re- motely parallel are the arctic and antarctic belts. Great braces come down to meet this girdle, having at least four ramifications in Asia, starting from the great plateau, and in America forming the great ‘backbone’ of the continent. The five equidistant continental trends of mountain chains often mark paleozoic belts. But the later as well as the older results tell of strong interior forces that have pro- duced the mountains, and the central belt gives marked evidence that an intense reaction from within aided in its construction. The similarity of the five great continents has often been the occasion of remark. They seem to have a general plan of construction, that may have been con- nected with their appearance as land above the ocean. The similarity extends even to their present geo- graphical area. If we cut cross-sections from W.S. W. to E. S. E. through the geographical centre of each con- tinent, we shall find in each case a seismic belt near one rim of the continent, and often near both rims. Thus the continent is usually basin-shaped, and com- paratively low in its central area with its chief river drainage, and low near the ocean borders; rising in an eastern and western main range, with usually sev- eral parallel subordinate ridges. These eastern and western mountains converge southerly, thus assum- ing a somewhat irregular form, evolving usually on the west some table-land. The eastern river is usually paleozoic, with perhaps some mesozoic on the flanks and cenozoic on the ocean border. The west- ern elevation is more commonly mesozoie in its main range, and cenozoic in the flanks or subordinate ridges. A section running north and south through the three northern continents would successively expose Cam- brian, paleozoic, mesozoic, and cenozoie cuts, which would generally increase in area as we go south, 322 The papers of Professor Owen elicited, for the greater part, unfavorable comment. It was urged against them, that their generalizations were too broad, and that they were based rather upon closet study than actual observation. As to at least one of the continents, we know as yet far too little of its geol- ogy, especially in the interior, to frame a theory of its history and constitution. The pre-Cambrian rocks of the Alps. BY T. STERRY HUNT OF MONTREAL, CAN. THE writer began by reyiewing the history of Alpine geology, and noticed first that speculative period when the crystalline rocks of the Alps, in- cluding gneisses, hornblendic and micaceous schists, euphotides, serpentines, etc., were looked upon as altered sedimentary strata of carboniferous or more recent times. He then traced the steps by which these views have been discarded, and more and more of these rocks shown to belong to eozoic or pre- Cambrian ages. In this connection the labors of von Hauer, Gerlach, Heim, Favre, Renevier, Lory, Gastaldi, and others, were analyzed; and reference was made to the great progress since the writer in 1872 published a review of Favre on the geology of the Alps. The sections by Neri, Gerlach, and Gastaldi in the western, and those of von Hauer in the eastern Alps, were described; and it was shown that all these agree in establishing in the crystalline rocks four great divisions in ascending order: 1°. The older granitoid gneiss with crystalline limestones, graphite, ete., referred by Gastaldi to the Laurentian. 2°. The so-called pietre verdi, or greenstone group, consisting chiefly of dioritic, chloritic, steatitic, and epidotic rocks, with euphotides and serpentines, including also talecose gneisses, limestones, and dolomites, and regarded by Gastaldi as Huronian. 3°. The so-called recent gneisses of von Hauer and Gastaldi, inter- stratified with and passing into granulites and mica- ceous and hornblendic schists, also with serpentines and crystalline limestones. 4°. ‘The series of argillites and soft glossy schists with quartzites and detrital sandstones, including also beds of serpentine with tale, gypsum, karstenite, dolomite, and much crystal- line limestone. This fourth series, well seen at the Mont Cenis tunnel, is still claimed by Lory and some others as altered trias; but the present writer’s view, put forth in 1872, that it is, like the preceding groups, of eozoic age, was subsequently accepted by Fayre and by Gastaldi, and is now established by many observations. To this horizon belong the crys- talline limestones of the Apnan Alps, including the: marbles of Carrara. The writer next recalls the fact that he, in 1870, insisted upon the existence of a younger series of gneisses in North America, alike in the Atlantic states, in Ontario, and to the north-west of Lake Superior. These, in his address before the Ameri- can association for the advancement of science, in 1871, he further described under the name of the White-Mountain series, and subsequently, in the SCIENCE. Alps. ie ee ee [Vou. IL, No. 381. same year, called them Montalban. ‘These rocks were then declared to be younger than the Huronian, and to overlie it; though, in the absence of this latter, it was pointed out that in Ontario and in New- foundland the Montalban reposes unconformably upon the Laurentian. When these newer gneisses and mica-schists were first described, in 1870, there was included with them an overlying group of argil- lites, quartzites, and crystalline limestones; and for the whole the name of Terranovan was suggested, provisionally. But in defining, in the following year, the White-Mountain series, this upper group was omitted, and was subsequently referred to the Taco- nian series, —the lower Taconic of Emmons, and the so-called altered primal and auroral of H. D. Rogers, in eastern Pennsylvania. The writer next describes his own observations in the Alps and the Apennines in 1881. He affirms the correctness of Gastaldi in referring the groups one and two to Laurentian and MHuronian, finds the third, or the younger gneiss and mica-schist group of the Alps, indistinguishable from the Montalban, and regards the fourth as the representative of the American Taconian. It was maintained by Gastaldi, that these pre-Cambrian groups of the Alps underlie directly the newer rocks of northern and central Italy, forming the skeleton of the Apennines, re- appearing in Calabria, and, moreover, protruding in various localities in Liguria, Tuscany, and elsewhere. The serpentines, euphotides, and other resisting rocks thus exposed, have been regarded as eruptive masses of triassic and eocene time. The writer, how- ever, holds with Gastaldi, that they are indigenous rocks of pre-Cambrian age, exposed by geological accidents. The uncrystalline rocks of the mainland of Italy are chiefly cenozoic or mesozoic, and the only paleo- zoic strata known are carboniferous, the organic forms in the limestone of Chaberton having been shown to be triassic. Triassic, liassic, cretaceous, eocene, and miocene strata are found in different localities, resting on the various pre-Cambrian groups. In the island of Sardinia, however, all these are oyer- laid by a great body of uncrystalline lower paleozoie rocks, in which the late studies of Bornemann and Meneghini have made known the existence of a lower Cambrian fauna, including Paradoxides, Con- ocephalites, and Archeocyathus, succeeded by an abundant fauna of upper Cambrian or Ordovian age. The existence of the younger or Montalban gneiss in Sweden and in the Harz and the Erzgebirge was no- ticed, and to it were referred the Hereynian gneisses and mica-schists of Giimbel. The presence both in Sweden and in Saxony of conglomerates, as described by Hummel and by Sauer, wherein pebbles of the older gneiss are enclosed in beds of the younger series, was discussed, and the direct unconformable superposition of the latter upon the older gneiss, in the absence of the Huronian, was considered; evi- dences of the same relations being adduced from the The gneisses of the St. Gothard, as seen on the Italian slope, were also referred to the newer series; and the important studies of Stapf in this ij SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] connection were discussed. It was declared that the views put forth by the author in 1870-71, on the rela- tions and succession of the crystalline stratified rocks in North America, and then extended by him to Europe, have been fully confirmed by the labors of a great many European geologists, as already shown. Those of Hicks, Hughes, Bonney, Callaway, Lap- worth, and others, in the pre-Cambrian rocks of the British islands, were cited in support of these con- clusions. It was said, that, whatever may have been the conditions under which these vast series of crystalline stratified rocks were deposited, there is evidence, in the similarity of their mineralogical and geognostical relations, of a remarkable uniformity over widely separated regions of the earth’s surface, as well as of long intervals of time, marked by great foldings and disturbance, and by vast and wide-spread erosion of the successive series of rocks. In conclusion, the writer took occasion to call attention to the important labors of the present school of Italian geologists, and their great zeal, skill, and disinterested service, as shown in the memoirs of the R. accademia dei lincei, and in the work of the Royal geological commission, including the special Studies, maps, and memoirs prepared by it for the International geological congress of Bologna in 1881. The new Geological society of Italy, founded at the same date, gives promise of a brilliant future, and has already published many important memoirs. The serpentine of Staten Island, New York. BY T. STERRY HUNT OF MONTREAL, CAN. THE serpentine of Staten Island appears as a north- and-south range of bold hills rising out of a plain of mesozoie rocks, which on the west side are triassie sandstones like those of the adjacent mainland, in- cluding a belt of intrusive diorite, and on the east the overlying, nearly horizontal, cretaceous marls, which are traced south and west into New Jersey. The only rocks besides these mentioned, seen on the island, are small areas of a coarse-grained granite, having the character of a veinstone or endogenous mass, and others of an actinolite rock; both exposed among the sands on the north-east shore of the island. Mather, who described this locality more than forty years since, looked upon the serpentine as an eruptive rock, related in origin to the parallel belt of diabase which is included in the triassie sandstone to the west. Dr. Britton, of the School of mines, Columbia college, who in 1880 published, in the transactions of the New- York academy of sciences, a careful geological de- scription and map of the island, regarded the serpeii- _ tine belt as a protruding portion of the eozoie series, including serpentine, which is seen at Hoboken, on Manhattan Island, and in Westchester County, New _ York, —a conclusion which the writer regards as un- questionably correct. The appearance of isolated hills and ridges of ser- SCIENCE. ee 4 > yar » ae | - . 323 - gneisses to clay; the removal of which rocks leaves exposed the included beds and lenticular masses of serpentine. Similar appearances are seen in many parts of Italy, where ridges and bosses of serpentine are found protruding in the midst of eocene strata, and have hitherto by most European geologists been regarded as eruptive masses of tertiary age. The problem is there often complicated by the fact that subsequent movements of the earth’s crust have in- volved alike the older crystalline strata (of which the serpentines form an integral part) and the uncon- formably overlying eocene beds; faulting and folding the latter, and even giving rise to inversions by which the newer rocks, overturned, are made to dip towards and beneath the ancient crystalline masses. This the writer illustrated by reference to localities re- cently examined by him in Liguria and in Tuscany, where this relation of the serpentines had already been pointed out by Gastaldi. The structure in question was declared to be analogous to that pre- sented by similar foldings and overturns to be seen along the western base of the Atlantic belt through- out the Appalachian valley. The speaker further alluded to the fact, that, al- though the sub-aérial decay of serpentine was far less rapid than that of most other rocks, it had not eseaped this process; and described the decayed layer on por- tions of the Staten Island serpentine hills, including a chromiferous limonite segregated from the decayed serpentine. This was a slow pre-glacial process, and in the subsequent erosion of the serpentine ridges the decayed layer has been in parts entirely removed. The details of this decay, and its relations to the limonite, and to glaciation in this locality, have been described by the writer in an essay on the de- cay of rocks, to appear in the American journal of science for September, 1883. He gratefully acknowl- edged his personal obligations to Dr. Britton for the many facts contained in his memoir and map, as well as for personal guidance during a late visit to Staten Island. The equivalent of the New-York water-lime group developed in Iowa. BY A, 8. TIFFANY OF DAVENPORT, I0. Tue author stated, that the upper Silurian rocks of Iowa had hitherto been classed wholly as of the Niagara limestone. There has, however, been some dispute as to the magnesian buff-colored limestone of the Le Claire and Anamosa quarries. Such dis- putes must, of course, be settled by the fossils; but he had been for more than twelve years seeking organic remains in that formation, without success until February of last year, when he found them in considerable quantities. Specimens of, the fossils were exhibited. Mr. Tiffany considered that they gave conclusive evidence of belonging to a group higher in the scale than the fossils of the Niagara Se SSS a eee limestone, that their affinities were with those of the water-lime group of the lower Helderberg, and that the identity of many species had been deter- mined, _ pentine is common in other regions, and is by the _ writer explained by the consideration that this very insoluble magnesian silicate resists the atmospheric agencies which dissolve limestones, and convert © 824 Clay pebbles from Princetown, Minn. BY N. H. WINCHELL OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. THIS paper was accompanied by an exhibition of specimens. The pebbles were of various shapes and sizes, several of them somewhat cylindrical. Out- side, they are composed of fine sand and gravel ; inside, they consist wholly of a fine sedimentary clay, such as is deposited by standing water, and contain no interior pebbles. Professor Winchell had compared these with pebbles found in till-deposits, and with various others, without finding any thing exactly similar. Professor Newberry examined the pebbles, and ad- mitted that they were not exactly like any that he had seen, but he thought they bore a general resem- blance to pebbles found throughout the range of geological strata wherever there is a bed of sand- stone capped by clay. Professor Claypole claimed to have seen similar specimens in Pennsylvania deposits. The ‘earthquake’ at New Madrid, Mo., in 1811, probably not an earthquake. BY JAMES MACFARLANE OF TOWANDA, PENN. AFTER dwelling upon the fact, that the locality of the alleged earthquake was not the seat of any ap- parent volcanic action, the author proceeded to state his view that the event in question was due to a different cause. He claimed that the locality was underlaid by cavernous limestones of the St. Louis group. He believed that what took place was a sub- sidence, due to the solution of underlying strata. He alluded to the descriptions afforded by Humboldt and Lyell, the latter having visited the locality, and given it a careful examination. The inhabitants described it as a convulsion, taking place at intervals during several months, creating new lakes and islands, changing the face of the country. The graveyard was precipitated into the Mississippi river; forest- trees were tilted in all directions; vast volumes of sand and water were discharged on high. The author claimed that the long continuance of such phenomena, which lasted for several months, was an evidence that they proceeded from mere sub- sidence, and not from earthquake shock. In respect to the geology of the region, he stated that New Madrid and its vicinity rested on tertiary or quater- nary strata. Underlying sub-carboniferous formations are represented near the borders of the depression. The sinking of a shaft brought to light coal, or coal- shales; also there were coaly shales found in the erevices and sink-holes thirty-five years after the so- called earthquake. This paper elicited strong expressions of dissent from several members. Professor Cox declared that there were no sub-carboniferous rocks in that locality, no caverns, no soluble limestones underlying the surface. The shocks were sudden. There was great destruction of life. No mere subsidence can account for what actually happened. A question as to the truthfulness of the reports from that region brought out very contradictory opinions in the discussion SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 31, Professor Cox, who had personally examined the scene of the occurrences, declared that he had found evidences of great disturbance. Professor Nipher suggested that the position of the trees, whether upright or not, which were alleged to be at the bot- tom of Reelfoot Lake (a lake formed at the time of the earthquake), would help to determine whether a subsidence, or an earthquake, had taken place. Some doubt was expressed as to whether any submerged trees were there. To these doubts and queries, Pro- fessor Cox was able to give a definite answer: he had seen the trees still upright beneath the water. Comparative strength of Minnesota and New- England granites. BY N. H. WINCHELL OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. HAVING had recent occasion to test the qualities of the building-stones of Minnesota, the author sub- jected them to the usual tests of crushing, using for this purpose specimens of two-inch cube. The spe- cimens included sandstones, limestones, granites, and trap-rocks, and numbered about 100. Great care was taken in preparing them accurately. They were sent to Gen. Gillmore at Staten Island, and there sub- jected to the tests, which were applied by crushing the samples, one in the direction of the schistose structure and one across it. The following were the results with twenty samples of Minnesota granites: Strength in pounds. Kind of stone. | Location of quarry.| Position. Per Of cubic sample.) inch. Dark trap-rock,|( Taylor’s Falls, On bed .| 105,000 | 26,250 TaRE a aed ae URES count] On edge, | 105,000 | 26,250 Figther’ 's creek, Dark trap-rock, On bed .| 105,000} 26,250 from adyke . ne i On edge, 105,000 26,250 , Gray _ gabbro, nee Points) | On bed .| 109,000 | 27,250 massive, fine, innit oars ‘S On edge, | 105,000 | 26,250 , Red, fine sien-| { Beaver evel On bed .| 106,000 | 25,000 igen hy Lake county,.) | On edge, | 103,000 | 25,750 Red quartzose | ake aca On bed .| 103,000} 25,750 sienite. . county . On edge, | 103,000!) 25,750 Red quartzose | { Bast, Bt, Cloud, On bed .| 112,000 28,000 sienite . county . On edge, | 105,000 | 26,250 ‘ Pipestone City, )| on pea .| 111,000! 27,760 Red quartzite . asta stone | On edge, 1087000 27,000 Massive gray | ( Hast a Cloud, On bed .| 105,000] 26,250 auanizonelsls ane dees ef On edge, | 103,000} 25,750 Fine - grained | { Past oe On bed .| 112,000 28,000 gray sienite . county . On edge, | 105,000 | 26,250 Fine - grained On bed .| 86,000} 21,500 gray sienite,? { Sauk Rapids | On edge, | 100,000 | 25,000 Average of | twenty samples, - | 104,800 | 26,675 Allowing for eleven per cent difference between processes of crushing between steel-plates and be- tween wooden cushions, this gives an ayerage for Minnesota granites of 23,318 pounds. 1 Estimated. 2 Probably imperfect sample. The following are the records of tests of New-Eng- land granites : — | Strength in 4 ‘ pounds. Kind of stone.) Location of quarry. | Position. Pp er | Of cubic ] | | sample. inch } } ; Blue . . .| Staten Island, N.Y..| On bed 89,250 | Fox Island, Me. . .| - —- | 59,500 Dix Island, Me. . .| - = | 60,000 Dark . -| Quincy, Mass.. . .| - = | 71,000 Light . . .| Quincy, Mass... .| = = | 59,000 Flagging . .| Hudson River, N.Y.) - — | 53,700 Cape Ann, Mass.. .| On bed .| 59,750 Porter’s rock, | Mystic River, Conn. | On bed «| 72,500 Gray . . .| Stony Creek, Conn. .| On bed .| 60,000 Gray . . .| Fall River, Mass.. .| On bed .| 63,750 Bluish-gray .| Keene, N.H. . . | On bed .| 41,000 Bluish-gray .| Keene, N.H. . . «| On bed .| 51,500 Millstone Pt., Conn.) - - 64,750 | Greenwich, Conn. .| - — | 45,200 | Niantic river, | New London, Conn.) - - | 50,000 Niantic river, | New London, Conn. | On edge,! 56,700 14,175 Vinalhaven, Me.. ./ - — | 52,600 1 Vinalhaven, Me.. .| - = 67,000 | Westerly, R.I. .| On bed .| 58,750 14,689 Westerly, R.1. -| On edge, | 59,750 | 14,937 Average of | twenty granites . . |. . 59,785 | 14,946 AD After discussing several supposable causes of error, and showing that they could not have applied to the present case, the author proceeds to suggest causes why the Minnesota granites may be stronger than those of New England. He thinks those of the west may have been less changed by decay. The lateness of the glaciation to which they were exposed may _ have left them comparatively fresh through the recent removal of a considerable thickness. On this point we shall be more certain when the glacial moraines have been fully traced from east to west, and the western analogues are determined. The singing beach of Manchester, Mass. BY A. A. JULIEN OF NEW YORK AND H. C, BOLTON OF HARTFORD, CONN. Sanps were taken from the so-called ‘ singing beach’ on the coast of Massachusetts, near Manchester-on- the-Sea, arfd subjected to microscopical examination. In this beach, the felspathic rocks are intersected by numerous dykes of igneous rocks, among which _ porphyritie diorite is noticeable. The phenomenon which gives rise to the name of the beach is confined to the portion of sand lying between the water-line and the loose sand above the reach of ordinary high tide. Portions emit the sound; but closely contigu- ous areas fail to do so, or answer feebly. The sound- ing sand is near the surface; at the depth of one or two feet it ceases, perhaps because of moisture. The sound is produced by pressure, and may be likened to a subdued crushing; it is of low intensity and pitch, is not metallic nor crackling. It occurs when the sand is pressed by ordinary walking, increases with sudden pressure of the foot upon the sand, and is perceptible upon mere stirring by the hand, or even plunging one finger and removing it suddenly. It ean be intensified by dragging wood over the beach. SCIENCE. 325 The authors review and cite very fully the litera- ture of the subject, giving in full a description of the singing sands of the island of Kaui, one of the Ha- waiian group. That gives a sound as of distant thunder, when any thing of weight is dragged over it. Dampness prevents the sound. That sand is calcareous. Hugh Miller cites similar instances at Jebel Nakous in Arabia Petrea, and Reg Rawan near Cabul. Those are silicious sands. ‘The sounds were a sort of humming. In Churchill county, Nevada, a similar phenomenon is described with regard to a sand-hill, as like the sound of telegraph-wires when wind blows them. The authors also review and characterize the vari- ous sands of different mineral origin. To explain the sonorous peculiarity of the sand, several theories are considered. That of equality, or of the unequal size of the grains, is rejected. Cellu- lar structure has been supposed, but is not found in the present instance. Effervescence of air between moistened surfaces does not apply to this case. So- norous mineral, such as clinkstone, is not present. There is no evidence of electrical phenomena being concerned. The hypothesis adopted is that the sand, instead of being, as ordinarily, composed of rounded particles, is made up of grains with flat and angular surfaces. In the present instance, the plane surface of felspar is apparent in many of the grains. Prob- ably a certain proportion of quartz and felspar grains is adapted to give the sound, while less or more of either component would fail of the result. Dr. Bolton has himself examined a sand of similar quality, on the island of Eigg in the Hebrides, and has described its properties. That is largely caleare- ous. Its constitution is a mixture of large and small grains, the larger ones being rounded quartz. Many small, angular fragments of quartz are also con- tained, and many dark granules of chert, the last being about three or four per cent of the whole, and having a cellular structure. It is concluded, that the sound is produced either by the intermixture of grains having cleavage planes, or of grains with minute cavities. The paper ends with a table of the physical structure of the sands of many localities. (PALEONTOLOGICAL PAPERS.) Preliminary note on the microscopic shell- structure of the paleozoic Brachiopoda. BY JAMES HALL OF ALBANY, N.Y. In the earlier studies of the Brachiopoda, the nu- merous species were referred to few generic terms, determined from their perforated apex and external form, and later from the study of the interior as these became known. The author said, that from time to time, as these characters had become known to him from the study of large collections, he had found it necessary to propose the separation of eigh- teen new generic forms from those previously known in this class of fossils. Other authors had also pro- posed new generic terms, until the list had become many times greater than it was twenty-five years ago. 326 While the interior structure of the hinge, and the muscular and vascular markings, were now pretty well known for most of the generic forms in use, com- paratively little attention had been given to the minute structure of the shell. Little more had been done than to show that some forms possessed a punc- tate and others a fibrous texture. The study of this structure had been commenced by him many years ago, but he had been thwarted in his efforts to procure the required cutting and polish- ing of specimens of the shells for microscopic study. He had now been able to obtain such thin slices of the shell as were required for this purpose, and had already several hundred slides prepared for the mi- croscope. A few of these only were shown, exhibiting the shell structure of as many genera. A considerable number of photographs had been made, illustrating, in a very satisfactory manner, the minute structure of each one, enlarged to twenty diameters. The photographs exhibited were illustrations of several species of Orthis, Leptaena, Strophomena, Stropho- donta, Chonetes, ete. The study of this shell-structure has shown very satisfactorily, what was partially known before, that the genus Orthis, as now defined and constituted, includes very heterogenous material. External form, hinge characters, and interior muscular impressions, have been the chief guide; and yet forms have been included under this genus, showing widely different muscular markings. On further microscopic study, it has been found that these differences in form of muscular imprints are accompanied by important differences in the shell structure. These differences may be noted in the illustrations presented, where the shell of Orthis biforata, O. bo- realis, O. tricenaria, O. occidentalis, O. flabella, are non-punctate and coarsely fibrous. Orthis (?) stro- phomenoides is, like Streptorhynchus, fibrous. Orthis subquadrata has, like O, occidentalis, a few large punctae. e In the second group, Orthis testudinaria, O. Vanu- xemi, O. perveta, O. penelope, O. elegantula, O. clytie, and O. hybrida, have one or more rows of punctae to each ray, the rows well defined, and the intermediate shell finely fibrous. The third group, consisting of Orthis multicostata of the lower Helderberg, O. jowensis of the Hamilton group, O. tulliensis of the Tully limestone, O. im- pressa of the Chemung group, are highly punctate with a fine fibrous texture of the shell substance. The punctae usually come out along the summits of the radiating striae or plications of the shell. In some species the minute tubes perforating the shell, and producing these punctae, bifurcate and diverge before coming to the external surface of the shell. This difference in shell structure, in forms known as Orthis, will require a separation of the species into groups based upon the shell structure, and character of muscular impressions. Already we see that the shells of compact fibrous texture have a form of mus- cular impression quite unlike those with the punc- tate structure; and we shall probably find that all SCIENCE. ' garded these bodies as spore-cases, and as the chief [Vou. II., No. 31. accompanied by differences in the microscopic struc- ture, This method of determining the shell structure, in cases where the specimens may be imperfect, and thereby enabling the determination of obseure or fragmentary material, and its geological relations, will be of much importance to the geologist. The structure of the shellin Strophomenais closely _ ‘ the interior modifications of the muscular system are | , ‘ i : fibrous, with distant large punctae. In Stropho- donta, the punctae are more numerous. In Chonetes, the punctae are large, and arranged parallel to the radii, having a pustulose aspect. ‘ In many other forms, the punctate texture of the shell is characteristic, and of importance in the de- termination of the generic forms. ; The physiological significance of this peculiar shell structure will be considered upon some future occa- sion, illustrated by more numerous examples. Rhizocarps in the paleozoic period. BY J. W. DAWSON OF MONTREAL, CAN. THE author referred to a previous memoir, entitled ~ : ‘Spore-cases in coal,’ published in 1871. This de- scribed fossil remains in a shale from the Erian for- mation at Kettle Point, Lake Huron, supposed to be 4 on'the horizon of the Marcellus shale of New York. . The remains are minute brownish discs scarcely more __ than one-hundredth of an inch in diameter. They were recognized as probably spore-cases or macro- spores of some acrogenous plant. The shale also con- tains vast numbers of granules, which may be escaped spores or microspores. In 1882 Dr. Dawson’s atten- tion was called to the discovery of similar bodies in yast numbers in the Erian and lower carboniferous shales of Ohio. The discoverer, Professor Orton, re- source. of the bituminous matter in those shales. Professor Williams found similar bodies in the Ham- __ ilton shales of New York; and Prof. J. M. Clarke, in the Genesee shale and in the corniferous lime- _ stone. The last named are of larger size than the others. No certain clew had been thus far afforded to the affinities of these widely distributed bodies. But last March, specimens were found in the Erian formation of Brazil, by Mr. Orville Derby, which threw new light on the subject, containing as they did, along with the Sporangites, abundant fronds of Spirophy- ton. The Sporangites of Brazil resemble in every respect the involucres or spore-sacs of modern rhizo- carps, and especially the sporocarps of the genus Sal- vinia. Dr. Dawson describes with technical exactness two leading types which he has named provisionally Spo- rangites braziliensis and §. bilobatus. The paper offers the suggestion that these plants, now so insig- nificant, culminated in the paleozoie age, and, oceu- pying the submerged flats of that period with abun- dant vegetation, produced a great quantity of the bituminous matter found in resulting beds. A rich rhizocarpean vegetation in the early paleozoic and : SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] eozoic ages may have preceded the great development of acrogens in the later paleozoic. In the diseussion which followed, Dr. Dawson dis- claimed any intention to assert that the Sporangites were the sole source of the bituminous matter. Rensselaeria and a fossil fish from the Hamil- ton group of Pennsylvania. BY E. W. CLAYPOLE OF NEW BLOOMFIELD, PENN. Tue Hamilton sandstone of Pennsylvania is found in ridges just before we come to the Blue Mountains. The sand tapers off from a centre in these ridges both ways. At places it is eight bundred feet in thickness, some of it quite hard and flinty. Perhaps this sand was left by rivers; but, at all events, where it is missing it must have been cut away by erosion. The author believed that an ancient river had occu- pied nearly the place of the present Susquebanna, but running in an opposite direction,—to the north, — and probably debouching where the city of Harrisburg now stands. That locality had previously been below the sea: it was raised so as to become dry land through which this river runs. That land and that _ river again sank slowly. Then the sunken land re- ceived sand from the river. Afterward this region became the bed of asea. It is a fan-shaped deposit, thickening toward the centre of the fan. The author exhibited a model of a fish whose re- mains were discovered in this sandstone. He also showed specimens of alleged Rensselaeria found in the Hamilton sandstone. The latter were shown to Prof. James Hall, during the reading of the paper. Mr. Claypole thought them identical with the Rens- selaeria of the Oriskany sandstone, there being a difference of a thousand feet between the two hori- zons; and he believed this the first instance of such discovery. The strata were tilted on edge in the lo- eality where the fossils were found. Mr. Claypole made a diagram of the geological structure of the region. The fossils were in the middle of the sand- stone, which is six hundred to eight hundred feet thick. A Spirifer very much like S. formosa is found there in great quantities. Profesor Hall, after a brief examination, said that anybody was excusable for supposing the fossils to be Rensselaeria. The differences between them and the Oriskany fossil were slight though well marked. Professor Hall described some of these differences, and Mr. Claypole acknowledged that a certain V- shaped groove was wanting in his specimens. Pro- fessor Hall thought that possibly the fossils should be referrred to Amphigenia, which had many similari- ties to Rensselaeria. Professor Newberry thought the fish fossil new. A large crustacean from the Catskill group of if Pennsylvania. -BY E. W. CLAYPOLE OF NEW BLOOMFIELD, PENN. Or this fossil the author exhibited a cast. It showed no evidence of fish structure. Its apparent aflinities were with the king crab, yet it was not a SCIENCE. 327 true Limulus nor even a limuloid. A cast in gutta- percha was also shown, which better exhibited the markings. There was a resemblance in the fine sur- face-marks to Eurypterus. But the eurypterids, with a single exception, were all found in strata vertically distant six thousand feet. Professor Hall said that the eurypterids were widely distributed. They were found in the coal-measures, inthe Waverly sandstone, and perhaps — though that was not quite certain —in the Portage group. Animal remains from the loess and glacial clays. BY WILLIAM McADAMS OF ALTON, ILL. Tue drift clays proper at Alton, Ill., had a maxi- mum thickness of about one hundred feet, and the bluff clays were nearly of the same thickness. These clays were remarkably rich in animal remains, such as teeth and bones, attached to calcareous nodules or claystones. Remains of thirteen different species, now perhaps all extinct, had been found. The ro- dents were well represented in the bones of seven species, including three or more beavers and some gophers. Nearly seventy teeth were found in the quaternary deposits, a majority of them in a single quarry. A new vertebrate from the St. Louis lime- stone. BY WILLIAM M°ADAMS OF ALTON, ILL. OnE of the groups of subcarboniferous limestone is quarried extensively near Alton and St. Louis. It lies beneath the coal, and in some places the coal rests directly upon it. A number of vertebrate re- mains have been found in one of the quarries near Alton. Specimens were shown by the author of the paper. In the judgment of Professor Newberry, the fossils shown were the bones of some large fish. One appeared to be the mandible or dental bone of the lower jaw. Without pronouncing a final opinion, he would say that it bore a general resemblance to a group of fossil fishes in which the teeth were in- serted in sockets; but the animal itself was large and hitherto unknown. List of other papers. The following additional papers were read in this section, some of them by title only: Thermal belts, by J. W. Chickering. The Hamilton sandstone of middle Pennsylvania, by 2. W.Claypole. Evidences from southern New England against the iceberg theory of the drift, by J. D. Dana |this paper will ap- pear in full in Science]. ‘Topaz and associated min- erals from Stoneham, Oxford county, Me.; Colored tourmalines and lepidotite crystals from a new American locality; A note on the finding of two American beryls; Andalusite from a new American locality; On a white garnet from near Hull, Canada, —by G. F. Kunz. The genesis and classification of mineral veins, by J. S. Newberry. 328 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F.— BIOLOGY. ADDRESS OF W. J. BEAL OF LANSING, MICH., VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION, AUG. 15, 1883. AGRICULTURE: ITS NEEDS AND OPPOR-_ TUNITIES. InsTEAD of presenting a summary of the progress made in biology during the past year, I have chosen, rather, to speak of the ‘Needs and opportunities of agriculture,’ —a subject which has heretofore scarce- ly been mentioned at the meetings of this association. Within the past few years the progress of agriculture, which I use in its broadest sense, has been greater than ever before. This may be attributed to a varie- ty of causes; such as the general thrift and intelli- gence of our people, and the advancement of science. Many agricultural schools have been established, experiment-stations organized, the rural press has been much improved in quality and quantity, clubs and societies are flourishing, and thousands of granges have helped to stimulate thought and investigation. Though there is much chance for improvement, the U. S. department of agriculture in several of its sec- tions has done excellent work. It is true, and it is strange that it should be true, that, until within a comparatively recent period, but very little of the best thought, even of civilized nations, has been devoted to subjects intended to advance agriculture. Columella, eighteen hundred years ago, keenly felt the want of more thought in agriculture when he said, ‘‘ Husbandry alone, which, without doubt, is next to, and, as it were, near akin to, wisdom, is in want of both masters and scholars. Of agriculture, I have never known any that professed themselves either teachers or students.”? Many of our states have freely appropriated money to conduct surveys in geology, mining, with a little attention given to zoology and botany, not neglecting to provide liber- ally for coast-surveys. : The nation, considering its age, has also been yery generous with money in support of surveys of vari- ous kinds, including, also, anthropology, construction of lighthouses, improving rivers and harbors, inves- tigating the supplies of fish, and even astronomy has been generously supported. It is true that some of this work performed by the government has been very poorly done, and has been enormously expen- sive; but the methods of work are improving. This munificence of the United States in support of science is encouraging, and, as far as it goes, speaks well for the country and our law-makers. Doubtless, in many cases, the close connection with politics is one great hindrance to successfully conducting investiga- tions in science for the government. The chances of losing positions are often too great to make them desirable, especially to persons who dislike political contests. Frequent changes are fatal to good, long- continued work. Notwithstanding the large sums of money expended SCIENCE. [Vor. IL, No. 81. . by our national and state governments in support of science, but a small sum, considering its importance, has been appropriated in the interest of agriculture. Even private gifts have gone to endow literary col- leges, schools of physical or natural science, astro- nomical observatories, public libraries, and not to endow something which is directly intended to en- courage agriculture. The men like Lawrence, Shef- field, Smithson, Peabody, Washburn, Swift, Stevens, are numerous, but not numerous enough. All honor to the noble names of those who have so generously contributed to the advancement of science. To illustrate the hesitancy of men to bequeath money for the promotion of agriculture, I take the following from an address given by President T. C. Abbot :— ““T met a very pleasant and intelligent gentleman, who, from his large wealth, was about to give some sixty or seventy thousand dollars for the adyance- ment of higher education. He had been for some years, and was still, the president of a state agricul- tural society. Hewasafarmer, Did he then endow some chair of agriculture, or agricultural chemistry, of veterinary science, of horticulture ? Did he fit out an experiment-station to analyze fertilizers, to study the value of cattle-foods? Did he establish an agri- cultural library? None of these. He found the science that was the most advanced of any, the one that government supports at a great expense from the public treasury. This farmer gave his thousands to endow another workshop of astronomy.”’ Yet, even in respect to private endowment, there are approaching signs of better days for agriculture. A few far-seeing men haye observed the needs of this interest, and have set a noble example by giving of their-wealth bounteously. Cornell, Bussey, Purdue, Valentine, Storrs, in this country, are names which will long be honored for liberal gifts in the interest of agriculture. They showed great sagacity, and not a little originality, by placing endowments in a new field, where gifts are few, and the opportunities for good are boundless. It is hoped that these ilfustrious examples will stimulate others to make similar be- quests. Where agriculture thrives, there we always find a prosperous people. She needs more trained minds to work in her interest. With better thought would come great and needed improvements in the agri- cultural department of the nation. It lacks means, strength, and stability. The matter of plans, and the naming of a compe- tent director of the geological survey, was referred to the National academy of sciences, whose suggestions the government authorities sought and adopted. The same body, or the standing committee of this association, or the members of the Society for the promotion of agricultural science, would be amply competent to name a good man for commissioner of agriculture. more out of politics, and it would be more likely to ‘ Such a plan would throw the position — ¥ : Tae Ane ee ‘bls f art _ SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] : _ run smoothly on, like the work of the Smithsonian institution. Greater permanency would tend to make the de- partment more efficient, and help it to co-operate with the agricultural departments of the several states and the agricultural colleges and experiment- stations. : The leading object of these remarks is to call the attention of those who are working for the advance- ment of pure science to the great needs of agricul- ture, the grand opportunities for making discoveries, and the lasting gratitude which such workers are likely to receive from the people. Of course, we grant that all science is valuable, that much of pure science has a practical bearing, that no one can foretell what practical results may be reached by investigations in pure science; still there is a ten- dency among scientific men to ignore economic sci- | ence. I will illtstrate my meaning. The U.S. signal- service is generally supposed to have been established in the interest of science, with the avowed intention, also, of benefiting navigation. The benefits in these respects are certainly worth all they cost, but these are not all the benefits which the service should rec- ognize. . : I note the following as given by Dr. R. C. Kedzie science and the government to promptly grant assist- ance to the interests of agriculture. _ “No industry, except navigation, is so completely ‘at the mercy of the weather as agriculture, in its _ widest sense. In the magnitude of the interests thus threatened, agriculture outweighs all others in importance. Indeed, without the sustaining in- fluence of agriculture, commerce itself would vanish like the dew of morning. Timely warnings of im- pendiug meteorological dangers might be given by _ the signal-service, which would be of incalculable _ worth to agriculture.” He illustrates the subject by referring to the pro- tracted rainy weather during the wheat-harvest of 1882, in Michigan, where the loss was very great. “The approach of a protracted storm was known for days before the damage was done. If specific warn- _ ing had been given our farmers at that time, most of the wheat might have been safely housed, and the farmers of Michigan saved from a loss of more than $1,000,000. ‘The damage inflicted in this way is not isolated and exceptional.” At length the growers of cotton and tobacco in the south, and of cranberries in New Jersey, have been recognized by the government, and warnings of ap- _ proaching frosts have been promptly given. ‘* The general government, through the signal-service, should hold the shield of its protection over land as over sea, over corn-field as over tobacco-plant, over hay-field as over cranberry-marsh, over wheat-field as over cotton-plantation, over orchards and vineyards, and the cattle upon a tltousand hills and prairie leas, _ Why not extend this work into wider fields by doing r the producer what it has so well done for the carrier?” } q some months ago, to illustrate the tardiness of q TVR ee Pee ee ea. oe SCIENCE. —— =F oe 329 The opinion seems to be too prevalent that few experiments in agriculture are worth attempting, unless it be those conducted by a chemist. This is by no meaus the case, though it is true that none but a chemist is capable of making those of a certain nature, A physicist will still find in the soil much to interest him, and there is, no doubt, a chance to make discoveries valuable to agriculture. With regard to the great importance of investiga- tions and united action concerning the control of various plagues of our domestic animals, we should suppose no one would give a dissenting voice. Some valuable investigations have been made concerning the cause and nature of these diseases, among the most interesting of which, it seems to me, are the experiments made by Dr. Salmon in using an attenu- ated virus for inoculating animals, and inoculating again and again with a stronger virus those not affected by the attenuated virus. If the subject of animal plagues and the means of controlling them were fully discussed at meetings of this association, it would tend to allay prejudice, enlighten the minds of our citizens, and stimulate our law-makers to action. That there is need of a more general knowl- edge of this subject, I quote from a recent article by Professor Law in the proceedings of the Society for the promotion of agricultural science. ‘‘The present agitation on behalf of legislation for the extinction of this lung plague in America began actively in 1878, and, notwithstanding that the subject has been con- tinually before federal and state legislators for four years, but little real progress has been made, Among the drawbacks that may be specially named is the ignorance of legislators, of executives, and even of electors, on this subject.’’ In learning how to economically feed domestic animals, there is a great opportunity for investigation. There is much of interest and value to be learned in reference to the causes of fluctuation in weight of auimals which are carefully fed and watered in a uniform manner. Concerning the great need of continued and in- creasing efforts to investigate our injurious and bene- ficial insects, I need say but little; for the subject has been kept before the people, and the people are always interested to know something about an insect as soon as it injures their crops, or causes them trouble in any way. There is especially much need of more experinients to find better remedies for inju- rious insects. Attention to this portion of the sub- ject cannot fail to meet with some degree of success. Success here is sure to win the gratitude of every one engaged in agriculture. Success in finding good, cheap, and safe remedies for injurious insects will tend to make science popular, and make endowments for research much easier and more frequent than ever before. I need hardly add, that he who finds or breeds a race of honey-bees which is hardier, more industrious, longer-lived, quieter, possessed of longer tongues, and, last but not least, possessed of blunter stings, with less inclination to use them, — he who can suc- ceed in any or all of these objects is entitled to rank en ee 330 with the man who shall cause two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before. The U.S. commission on fish and fisheries is an example of good scientific work, with prospects of early returns in the form of an increase in knowledge and a large increase in the supply of fish. A some- what similar work, conducted by Prof. S. A. Forbes of Illinois, is in progress, where the object of the survey is to inquire into the food of birds and the food of fishes. Some valuable scientific work of an economic nature has been done in connection with the tenth census, conspicuous among which is that performed by Prof. C. S. Sargent, in the study of forestry. Botanical explorers in every land have repeatedly and liberally contributed plants of economic impor- tance to the horticulturist, — a few new fruits, but more especially flowers and foliage-plants. An occa- sional contribution has been made to agriculture in the form of plants which promised to be of value for seeds or forage, or for some other purpose. I have often been surprised that more attempts had not been made to secure the introduction of some new foreign grasses, and test them to ascertain their value for meadows and pastures. To be sure, grasses from western Europe have been tried; but we need others. More than twelve years ago this idea appeared in my address on grasses, as given before the North- western dairymen’s association, where the advice was given to get other grasses from Japan, China, central Asia, and the dryer portions of South America. The cereals and pasture-grasses, the world over, are of more value to man and his domestic animals than all other plants taken together; yet the list of pasture- grasses now generally sown in any state can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In Great Brit- ain, where much attention has been given to the subject, twenty-five or thirty species are much cul- tivated. It is hard.to give all the reasons why so few grasses are employed in this country; but the fact remains, that few are cultivated. The grass fam- — ily is a large one, containing from thirty-one hundred to four thousand or more species. They are widely distributed in nearly al! parts of the habitable globe, in every soil, in society with others, and alone. This does not convey an adequate idea of their value in unwooded regions, because the number of individ- uals of several of them is exceedingly large. I have recently found the following in the Ameri- can agriculturist for 1858, a statement probably made by Dr. Thurber. ‘A dozen sorts, probably, cover nineteen-twentieths of all the cultivated meadow- land from Maine to Texas. It can hardly be sup- posed that so limited a number meets, in the best manner possible, all the wants of so great a variety of soil and climate. This is one of the pressing wants of our agriculture. Experimental farms are needed where the value of new grasses and kindred questions can, be determined. A single new grass, that would add but an extra yield of a hundred pounds to the acre, would add millions of dollars annually to the productive wealth of the nation.” . SCIENCE. ‘were enterprising enough to see that a complete eco- — en Lae [Vou. IL, No. 81. Still farther back, in 1853, the late I, A. Lapham of Wisconsin expressed similar views; and still longer ago, in 1843, forty years ago, in a prize-essay, J. J. Thomas said, ‘‘The great deficiency in the number and variety of our cultivated grasses has been long felt by intelligent cultivators.’? In this subject, but very slow progress has been made in forty years. . In the extensive unwooded regions west of the Mis- sissippi, the native grasses afford much pasture; but many of them start very late in spring, and stop growing early in autumn. They do not completely occupy the ground: they are easily stamped out by the hoofs of cattle and sheep. Some of the tame grasses will thrive better, and afford much more pasture. } In ScIENCE, vol. i. p. 186, of this year, Prof. N.S. Shaler refers to this subject. He says, ‘It seems possible to improve this pasture by the introduction of other forage-plants indigenous to regions having something like the same climate. The regions likely — to furnish plants calculated to flourish in a region of — low rainfall include a large part of the earth’s sur- face. Those that would succeed in Dakota are not likely to do well in Texas or Arizona. Forthe north- — ern region, the uplands of northern Asia or Patagonia are the most promising fields of search; while for the middle and southern fields, the valley of the La Plata, southern Africa, Australia, and the Algerian — district, may be looked to for suitable species.” He — recommends three experiment-stations, —one in Nee i braska, one in Texas, and one in Arizona. : In this connection, when we remember that exotic plants often thrive better than natives, we see what a vast field lies ready for experimenting with the 2 # studied them; so that farmers — in fact, none except botanists are likely to attempt experiments. This is _ a strong reason why the state and national govern 4 ments should assist agriculture in an undertaking which seems so fruitful of good results within a short : * grasses. . Grasses look much alike to all who have not closely — time, at so trifling an expense. Expeditions are sent at, great. expense to explore polar seas, with a view to slightly extending our knowledge of a barren por- — tion of the earth’s surface. Large sums are employed _ to fit up in magnificent style, and send to the re- ’ motest parts of the earth, expeditions to spendafew minutes in observing an eclipse or a transitof Venus. Would the sending of competent persons around the earth in search of better grasses be an unde 7 less praiseworthy ? iW The men who control the Northern Pacific railway — nomic survey of the adjacent territory would help the sale of their lands. Among other things, the grasses will be carefully examined. For the past ten years the writer has been testing, — in a small way, some hundred and fifty species of — grasses. These, with few exceptions, are natives of the eastern United States and western Europe. Lam — fully convinced that further experiments, carefully made on a larger scale in several portions of our country, will be quite sure to result in pet gain iy agriculture. fi _ terminates at once. SEPTEMBER 7, 1883. ] Grasses suitable for the western prairies, to take the place of those which will be rapidly stamped out by close feeding, are sure to be found even without the aid of the government; but greater time will be required. : Prof. E. M. Shelton of Kansas agricultural college has probably done more than any one else in the west . to test grasses and clovers, and diffuse information in regard to the results, which are most gratifying. At nearly all gatherings of farmers in the west, this question of new grasses is a prominent topic of dis- cussion, Wherever irrigation has been well tried, especially on land which is light and well drained, the results have been quite surprising, converting a dry, hungry meadow into a little oasis. Such a meadow is the triumph of agricultural art. One of the most remarkable results of irrigation, as viewed by a scientific man, is this: the list of grasses will not remain the same, or maintain the same proportion. The bad grasses will nearly all die out, or improve in quality; while the best ones will rapidly increase. And again: experiments in England have shown that irrigation causes many herbaceous plants, distinct from grasses, such as plantain and butter- cups, to give place to good grasses. Docks are not di- minished by irrigation. The best grasses are a sign of good land in fine condition. Such grasses are hearty feeders, and are most sensitive to good treat- ment. In a well-managed meadow, irrigation.in four years increased the value threefold. Solon Robinson long ago expressed the view, that, if the streams of Connecticut were properly utilized in irrigating the soil, they would be more productive in value than by turning all the water-wheels of the state. More experiments in irrigation are much needed in this country. Baron J. B. Lawes, a most renowned experimenter in agriculture, possessed an old pasture having been in permanent grass over a century. No fresh seed of any kind was sown during this period. For some seven years or more, he experimented by applying to this old pasture, on different plats, twelve different kinds of manures. The results were very interesting and gratifying. ‘‘The manures, which much in- ‘ereased the produce of hay, at the same time very much increased its proportion of graminaceous herb- age. The total miscellaneous herbage (chiefly weeds) was the most numerous in kind, and nearly in the greatest proportion, on the unmanured land, — viz., sixteen per cent, — while on the manured plat it de- creased to two percent. Every description of manure diminished the number of species and the frequency of occurrence of the miscellaneous or weedy herbage. A few weeds were increased by the manures, such as Rumex and Achillaea.”’ “The plants of a meadow,’’ in the words of the Agricultural gazette, “live in harmony on the unma- nured open park, having nothing to fight for in a state of nature ; but toss them a bone, ground fine. or any - other choice bit, and their harmonious companionship Every act of improved cultiva- tion occasions instant war. A grass likes the best SCIENCE. 331 that can be got. It will swallow soda, but not when it can get potash. Asa general principle, all manures tend to drive out the weeds by increasing the better herbage.”? A repetition of like experiments in this country could not fail to give valuable results. In Europe some success has been reached in select- ing and cultivating different varieties of Lolium pe- renne, Dactylis glomerata, and Trifolium pratense. The field is a promising one for any careful and en- thusiastic student. For three years past, I have been studying hundreds of plants of red clover at all sea- sons and stages of growth. I have plants growing, the seeds of which came from marked plants which varied much from each other. Plants in the fields of red clover vary amazingly in many respects, which influences their value for forage-crops, I believe our fields of red clover to-day contain nearly or quite as‘ great a variety of plants as would a field of Indian corn, if we were to mix in a little seed of all the varieties cultivated in any one state. Some of our grasses in cultivation are quite varia- ble, notably the fescues, orchard-grass, and peren- nial rye-grass. It was some time ago observed that alfalfa of California, and lucerne of Europe, were quite different in their capacity to endure dry weath- er, though they belong to the same species. Differ- ent treatment in widely separated countries for many years has wrought a great change. The subject of changing seed, planting old seed, mixing seed, raising it one year or more in a remote country, and then returning to the starting-point, deserves the attention of careful experimenters. The late Charles Darwin experimented on the effects of cross and self fertilization of plants, and found that in most cases plants from crossed stock were earlier, hardier, germinated better, and yielded more seeds, than those from seed of self-fertilized plants, while crossing with foreign stock of the same variety is a far greater improvement. The idea is to cross the flowers of a plant with pollen from other plants of the same variety, the seeds of which were raised pure for five or more years in a remote locality, fifty miles or more away. Mr. Darwin said, “It is a common practice with horticulturists to obtain seeds from another place, having a very different soil, so as to avoid raising plants for a long succession of generations under the same conditions; but, with all the species which freely intercross by the aid of insects or the wind, it would be an incomparably better plan to obtain seeds of the required variety, which had been raised for some generations under as different conditions as possible, and sow them in alternate rows with seeds matured in the old garden. The two stocks would thén intercross, with a thorough blending of their whole organizations, and with no loss of purity to the variety; and this would yield far more favorable results than a mere exchange of seeds,’’ In a word, with plants which may be easily crossed, get some foreign seed of the same sort to mix with your own seeds to raise seeds for ensuing crops. ; In 1877 I began some experiments of this kind with Indian corn and with beans, and have since 332 made others. The advantage shown by crossing of corn over that not crossed was as 151 exceeds 100, and in the ease of black wax-beans it was as 236 exceeds 100. Since then similar experiments have several times resulted in showing a large increase in favor of crossing with foreign stock. In a review of Darwin’s book, the Gardener’s chron- icle of England said in 1877, “‘ It is certain that these practical results will be a long time filtering into the minds of those who will eventually profit most by them.”? The results of my experiments have been widely printed in the agricultural papers of the day, and haye been given at numerous farmers’ institutes and granges, beginning in the winter of 1877, nearly six years ago; and yet I cannot learn that any other person in this country has attempted similar experi- ments. I will make one exception, in case of Prof. W. A. Henry of Wisconsin university, who tried the experiment in connection with myself. The results, so far, fully accord with the prophetic statement above quoted from the Gardener’s chronicle. In originating new varieties and races, see what has already been done, largely in our own country, ina haphazard way, with strawberries, raspberries, black- berries, gooseberries, and grapes, to say nothing of improvements in ornamental plants. I need hardly add, that some of the best results, considering the time and means employed, have been obtained by persons who have crossed and hybridized according to some well-devised plan. Our yarieties of fruits in cultivation have become so numerous, that to describe them. by the fruit and foliage alone often baffles the skill of the most expert pomologist. In the proceedings of the American pomological society for 1877, 1879, and 1881, I have shown that much help can be obtained by noticing the peculiarities of the flowers of appies and pears. ‘he same is no doubt true, to some extent, with grapes, peaches, gooseberries, and other fruits. Here is a promising field, full of interest to the botanist, —a field where he may accomplish much to -aid the horticulturist, and something to advance science. A new variety of any cultivated fruit can no longer be considered as well described, unless some account be made of the flowers. It has often been shown that many kinds of insects are beneficial to plants by aiding the fertilization of the flowers. The subject has still about it much that is new. Even Mr. Darwin said he did not suppose that he fully understood all the contrivances fof fer- tilization in any one flower. If it be true, as my experiments during the past six years help to indicate, that bumble-bees aid in fertilizing red clover, then farmers should try to encourage these interesting insects, even though they be disagreeable companions: Bumble-bees prefer to raise their colonies in old nests of meadow-mice. I mentioned in my last report, that it had been sug- gested that we should not keep many cats, nor allow hawks, foxes, or dogs to catch these mice; for they make nests which are quite necessary for the bum- ble-bees, which help fertilize our red clover, and thereby largely increase the yield of seed. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 81. Perhaps it may not be altogether visionary to pre- dict that men will yet engage in raising bumble-bee queens, and sell them to farmers at a fair profit, for starting colonies to improve the yield of cloyer-seed. We may yet have conventions and societies where the leading object shall be to discuss the merits of different sorts of bumble-bees. A few years ago experiment-stations in Europe began testing seeds which were offered for sale in the markets. Adulterations were discovered most ingen- ious in character, harmful in effect, and remarkable in amount. The more the subject was investigated, the worse it seemed to be. Something of the same sort has been undertaken in this country, showing that even _ in Michigan some worthless seeds are put on the ~ market. In 1877 and later I tested large numbers of vegetable-seeds purchased of fifteen of our large dealers and growers. Not one of these is free from selling seeds that are worthless. The remedy is not easy. On account of its effect on their advertising, publishers are unwilling to print for their readers the results of these experiments. Only a few people can acquire the information after experiments are made. In making tests of seeds, we still lack information in regard to the surest and best mode of testing each __ sort. Here is a good work for some accurate andin- genious scientist to invent new apparatus, learn the “ proper amount of heat, air, and moisture, for produ- cing the best results, find out whether seeds will thrive best with a constant temperature, or a varia- ble temperature; and learn the best modes of presery- ing seeds alive from one year to another. : I need hardly mention to intelligent students, that there is an extensive field, a very attractive one,in the study of fungi. The agriculturist who deals with plants, not only wants to know the kinds, but the re- 4 quirements which are favorable or unfavorable to their development. In the study of effectual reme- dies against fungi, something has been done; but — there is still much demand for more knowledge. Successful experiments in regard to fungi are nob likely to be made except by botanists. I have only glanced at a few points where the biologist can find interesting work which will give threefold returns by advancing science, helping to elevate agriculture, and benefiting our country. There are many experiment-stations in Europe, and some in this country. We hope their number may — soon increase, and that liberal and permanent endow- ments will not be lacking. This association, and all other societies working in the interest of science, can — render a great service by doing what they can to en- courage experiments in all departments of agriculture, Men can be encouraged to prepare papers, and com- mittees can make reports pertaining to the subject. There is a need of thorough state surveys, solely with a view to the interests of agriculture and kindred subjects. More knowledge of our soils, water, build- ing-materials, plants, timber, injurious fungi, insects, and birds, would return to a state, fivefold the cost of acquiring such information. In brief, then, as one of the humble workers in the interests of agriculture, — SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] TI most cordially invite you to turn your attention to some of the problems which vex the husbandman. PAPERS READ BEFORE SECTION F. On the use of vaseline to prevent the loss of alcohol from specimen jars. BY B. G. WILDER AND S. H. GAGE OF ITHACA, N.Y. Iy the absence of the authors of the paper, an abstract of it was read by the secretary of the sec- tion, Professor Forbes. Vaseline, when used for the purpose indicated, proves to be an agent unaffected by temperature, and by most chemical substances. It is sparingly soluble in cold alcohol, but wholly soluble in hot alcohol, solidifying on cooling. It can be fitly applied in sealing specimen-jars, and meets many requirements when so used. A new plan of museum-case. BY E. S. MORSE OF SALEM, MASS. THE author described, and exhibited by means of drawings, a new plan of museum-case. He said his observations in the museums of Paris proved the great inferiority of the cases there to those in the United States. He gave, in addition to a detailed plan of a case, some suggestions as to the best method of arranging articles within. Mr. Morse has had the subject of arrangements for museum exhibitions under consideration for several years, and the pres- ent plan includes contrivances which he has previ- ously suggested as separate devices. (BOTANICAL PAPERS.) A supposed poisonous seaweed in the lakes of Minnesota. BY J. C. ARTHUR OF CHAKLES CITY, I0. In the summer of last year many cattle and hogs died in the vicinity of Waterville, Minn. Residents in the locality believed that the animals were poisoned by drinking the water of adjoining lakes. There are two lakes of considerable size in the neighborhood: they are free from marsh, and have wooded borders; through them runs a somewhat sluggish river. At the time of the occurrence, the lakes showed a quantity of dark-green scum on the surface, as well as disseminated through the water. The surface- layers of the scum were in places several inches thick. The scum proved to be a water-weed, having some characteristics like those of the nostoc, but is known to botanists as Rivularia fluitans, and las been described by Cohn, a European naturalist. The plant is spoken of by the author of this paper as a seaweed: he supposed it did not occur in this coun- try elsewhere than in Minnesota, and it is not fre- quent in Europe. i Last year Mr. Arthur visited the locality of the occurrence, and he repeated his visit this summer; but in each instance too late in the season to examine the scum in situ. It appears to be composed of in- numerable small round bulbs of a transparent gelat- a a + Bs. — SCIENCE. 333 inous substance, which are filled with a dark-green material. After they first begin to be seen on the water, the bulbs increase in number with marvellous rapidity. In about two weeks they begin to decay, and their entire disappearance quickly ensues. These phenomena take place usually in June. As no actual experiments have been made upon animals, the deadly qualities ascribed to the so-called seaweed are as yet a matter of conjecture, though the reported facts tend strongly to strengthen the belief that the plant is poisonous, Relations of certain forms of algae to disa- greeable tastes and odors. BY W. G. FARLOW OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS, ALTHOUGH large masses of any decaying vegetation may render water unfit for drinking, the only group of plants to be feared, as far as their effect on the taste and odor is concerned, is the members of the nostoe family, which form floating scums of a bluish-green color. When exposed to a bright sun, especially in shallow water, they are transformed into fetid, repul- sive-looking masses of slime, which give to the water the so-called pig-pen odor. The water-supplies of sey- eral eastern cities have been thus contaminated, and principally by species of Coelosphaerium, Clathro- eystis, and Anabaena. In Minnesota is the represent- ative of a fourth genus, Rivularia, which was first found last year at Waterville by Professor Arthur, and which has been found to be very abundant this year in Lake Minnetonka; and in all probability it occurs in most of the other lakes of this region. The singular fact is, that while unknown elsewhere in this country, the species was found several years ago by Cohn in Silesia, who named it Rivularia fluitans; and it was detected also by Gobi near the Gulf of Riga. Tt appears also to be very closely related to, if not identical with, an alga abundant in certain parts of England, referred by Harvey and more recently by Philips to Echinella articulata, Ag. This is another illustration of the very wide distribution of the species of the nostoc family, of which we have other recent illustrations in the Nostochopsis lobatus of Wood, first described from the northern states, but which has since been found to be identical with Mazea Rivulariaides subsequently discovered in Bra- zil, and with Hormactis Quoyi found only at Fal- mouth, Mass., and the Marianne islands in the Pacific. There is astrong probability, that in the future Min- neapolis may be troubled by the decay of the different nostocs floating in the lakes near the city, where they are very abundant. As far as avoiding trouble from these plants is concerned, undoubtedly river-water is to be preferred to Jake-water; but before many years the Mississippi near Minneapolis: will be con- taminated by sewage, and the water will probably then be obtained from the lakes. If the shallower lakes near the city are used, there can be little doubt that in summer Minneapolis will have the same trouble as that experienced in Boston. Even at greater expense, the water should be brought from large and deep lakes, especially those across which the 334 winds sweep so as to keep the surface-water rough- ened. The spread of epidemic diseases in plants. BY w. G. FARLOW OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS. In the ease of animals it can be said, that, except- ing the diseases attributed to bacteria, they are subject to but few diseases caused by fungi. In the case of plants, however, the greater part of the diseases to which they are subject are caused by parasitic fungi; excepting, of course, the injuries caused by insects, which need hardly be considered in speaking of epi- demic diseases. Most of the violent epidemic diseases of plants are caused by fungi of the orders Uredineae, rusts, and Peronosporeae, rots. Fortunately the spe- cies of these orders attack only a single species of host, or at most several species closely related botan- ically; so that, for instance, a rot which would attack the potato would not probably attack the grape, although it might be expected to attack the tomato, which is botanically closely allied to the potato. As might be expected, the most violent epidemics occur during, or just after, unusually wet periods. An epidemic disease spreads either by the dispersion of its’spores through the air, or by the transportation of the host-plant on which it is growing; the latter being probably the means by which diseases are carried across large bodies of water, as the Atlantic. With the introduction of food-plants from Europe to this country come, of course, many of th 2ir parasitic diseases. It should be noted, however, that the most violent plant-epidemics of recent times have advanced not from east to west, but from west to'east. The best-known case is that of the potato-rot in 1845, and since then the very accurately recorded case of the grape-mildew, Peronospora viticola, has arisen. In the first case, the disease is supposed to have reached Europe from the west coast of South America, by way of the United States. In the latter case, the grape- ‘mould, which is a native of North America, can, as I showed by experiments in 1876, be transferred to the European vine;and it was prophesied that the disease would extend to Europe, and do more harm than with us. The prophesy was very soon fulfilled, as you all know. In the two diseases just mentioned, it is a characteristic of the spores, that in germinating, in- stead of giving off a filament, they discharge a number of motile zodspores, each of which is capable of propa- gating the disease. We have several other species of Peronospora, which produce zoéspores, some of which have apparently crossed from America to Europe; and there are others which, although common in this country, have not yet appeared in Europe, although, following the grape-mould, they may be expected to appear there hereafter. Among these may be men- tioned Peronospora Halstedii, which grows on com- posites, and may later be found in Europe on the Jerusalem artichoke. Professor Trelease has recently * found a Peronospora on Sicyos in Wisconsin, which resembles the grape-mould in general appearance. The germination of the spores has not yet been ob- served, but judging by analogy one would expect them to produce zodspores. It would not be surpris- SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 31. ing if the Peronospora on Sicyos should also be found hereafter causing a disease of squashes or melons; and its progress eastward might be expected as in the cases previously cited. : The speaker then referred to a modification of the spores sometimes observed in Peronospora, Mr. Earle of Cobden, Ill., collected species on Geranium and Viola, where, instead of the usual branching spore-stalks, the spores were borne on the mycelium close to the breathing-pores; the spores themselves being very much larger than in the common form, A similar monstrosity has been noted by Cornu in the erape-mould. The specimens were collected by Mr. Farle in April, and the speaker suggested that this form of spores might perhaps be an adaptation to the cold and wet weather of spring. The conditions which produce the monstrous forms are worth con- sidering by collectors. Of the diseases caused by Uredineae which have advanced from west to east, the hollyhock-disease, Puccinia malvacearum, is the best-known instance. Its original home was probably Chili; but it spread through Europe about ten years ago, not, however, by way of this country, as was probably the case with the potato-rot. The diseases produced by fungi of other orders, as Ascomycetes, do not spread with the same rapidity as the rusts and rots. This is shown by the black knot, which is so destructive in this country to plums and some kinds of cherries. It is a native of this country, and is found on most of our wild species of Prunus, especially the choke-cherry, a shrub which has been introduced into many places — in Europe. As yet, however, the black knot has not made its appearance in Europe. The speaker then said that he had just found the grape-mildew growing on the Virginia creeper (Am- pelopsis quinquefolia) near Minneapolis. plant is closely related to the vine, the occurrence of the mildew might have been expected. In attempt- ing to prevent the spread of the disease to countries where it is now unknown, the discovery is of impor- tance. It is evident, that, to prevent the spread of the disease, the importation of Ampelopsis as well as of grape-vines must be prohibited. Parallelism of structure of maize and sorghum kernels. BY E, L. STURTEVANT OF GENEVA, N.Y. Ir kernels of flint, pop, sweet, and Tuscarora maize be split parallel to the germ, each race will be seen to present a definite arrangement of structure. Thus, the flint corn presents a germ surrounded by starchy matter, and this in turn by a corneous envelope; in the pop-corn proper, the germ is enclosed in the cor- neous matter, the starchy matter being absent except as the pop variety intrenches upon the flints; the sweet corn has a similar structure to the pop, but the corneous matter is translucent and wrinkled. By means of blackboard diagrams, the relative arrangements were exhibited of the ‘chit’ or germ, the corneous matter, and the starch, in the kernels of the above-named varieties of maize and in sorghum. As this . : . | : : . | SEPTEMBER 7, 1883. | *» » _ These different arrangements are constant, and do _ not pass into each other. The proportion of these elements is also, in general, constant throughout the development of the kernels. The parallelism which is apparent may be accounted for on the familiar axiom that similar forces acting under like circum- stances produce similar results. Agricultural botany. BY E. L. STURTEVANT OF GENEVA, N.Y. Ir kitehen-garden plants be closely studied, in many varieties it will be found that selection has differentiated the various natural species in accord- ance with desired uses. It will be noticed, that, while there is a striking uniformity within varieties in those portions of the plant which have not been selected for improvement, there is a great variation between those portions which have secured attention on ac- count of their uses. Thus, in forty-five varieties of onions growing side by side, the foliage is all similar; yet the bulbs vary in size, color, shape, and habit of formation. The effect of selection concentrated upon visible forms has been to produce and fix changes from the natural plant to such an extent as in cases ‘to mask the original plant, so that historical data must supplement morphological data in order to con- nect the genetic record. It is clearly evident, that conscious selection is a powerful agency for the changing of form, and by long exercise can overcome the type affixed by nature to a species. In the do- mesticated plant, the power of intelligence to elimi- nate, modify, and direct the action of natural laws influence plant-growth; and forms designed for uses mask genetic resemblances in those portions of the plant where change means value to man. If these views are correctly stated, then it is seen that an agricultural botany, as an annex to natural botany, is imperatively required for the purpose of furthering classification of domesticated plants; and such an annex must vary in its methods as widely from the ‘methods of the natural botany as cultivated plants vary from feral plants, the key to the motive being in one case the use, while in the other it is the floral organs. The present condition of the box huckleberry, Vaccinium brachycerum, in Perry county, _ Pennsylvania. A _ BY E. W. CLAYPOLE OF NEW BLOOMFIELD, PENN, THIS was an interesting account of a plant that may become extinct. The discovery of this plant _ took place over hundred years ago, in Virginia, and it subsequently disappeared until 1846, when it was R again discovered by Prof. Spencer F. Baird in Penn- ’ sylvania. This peculiar plant exists in Perry county, - Penn., and in New Castle county, Md., and in no other known locality in the world. It exists in lim- ited quantities there. Its geographical limits are - indicating a probability of its extinction. ; sharply defined, and never extend, but rather recede, “ SCIENCE. wnder a given purpose introduced a new factor to” ee ae eee! Se ol 339 Relation of root and leaf areas; corn. BY D. P. PENHALLOW OF MONTREAL, CAN. In the absence of the author of the paper, the sec- retary of the section briefly stated the contents. The paper sets forth the importance of the relations be- tween the aérial and subterranean surfaces of plants, especially in respect to area, The experiments of the author were mainly upon the growth and devel- opment of maize, of which he has tabulated careful measttrements showing the proportions of areas above and beneath the soil. Influence of position on seed. BY E. L. STURTEVANT OF GENEVA, N.Y. Tire ‘ position’ referred to in the title of this paper is that of the individual seeds grown on a spike. The object of experiment was to ascertain the differences of germinating force between seeds from the middle and from the ends of the spike. In trials carried forward at the New-York agricultural experiment- station 4ast winter, it was found, that, for an average of 91 per cent of butt kernels, 88 per cent of central kernels, and 98 per cent of tip kernels, of flint corn, germinated. Other experiments gave the following results: In the butts planted, 79 percent germinated; of the centres, 84 per cent germinated; and of the tips, 86 per cent germinated. For flint-corn, the tip-ker- nels have the stronger vegetative power. Periodicity of Sabbacia angularis. BY MARY E, MURTFELDT OF ST. LOUIS, MO. TuE attention of the authoress was first drawn to this plant in Missouri. It is a matter of pgpular be- lief there, that the plant flowers only once in seven years. Mindful of the story in the Greek Reader, of the scholasticus who bought a turtle to ascertain whether it would live a hundred years, Miss Murt- feldt obtained some seed of the Sabbacia, and planted it at once. Seven years have expired since the planting, and now the plant is for the first time in flower. In a brief discussion on this paper, Pro- fessor Mason showed reasons for doubting in general the popular notions about periodicity in the flower- ing of certain plants. An abnormal orchid, Habenaria hyperborea. BY W. R. DUDLEY OF ITHACA, N.Y. Tue peculiarities of this orchid, as observed by the author of this paper, consist of the spur character- istic of its generic relations, the smaller size of the plant, the narrowness of the side petals, and the broad spatula-form of the lips of the flower. These changes are apparently in a direction from an irregu- lar to a regular form of flower. The peculiar cases observed, of which mounted specimehs were ex- hibited to the section, may be due to arrested de- velopment; but, the author suggested, they possibly indicate a tendency to revert to older and simpler forms. The habitat of this orchid is not invariably in swamps, but also in dry beech-woods, where they are found to bloom much later than in damp regions. ad ~< 336 In the discussion of the paper, Prof. E. D. Cope inquired as to the likelihood of a reversion to a variety of non-spurred orchids, an idea which met with a fayorable response from the author. Origin of the flora of the central New-York lake region. BY W. R. DUDLEY OF ITHACA, N.Y. s Tue region referred to contains a series of lakes, and is bounded on the west by the Genesee river and on the east by Oneida lake. It is of a low, sandy character, the shores of the lakes haying but a slight elevation; but towards the north the country gradu- ally rises to a level of 2,000 feet above the sea. The whole region may be regarded as a series of old eroded valleys, filled with drift deposits, and having occasional lake-basins; its entire characteristics being such as would naturally give rise to a peculiar flora. Professor Dudley deseribed seven species among a large and varied flora peculiarly localized in this lake-country, the natural or ordinary habitat of which is variously situated to the south-west, west, and north-west. The conclusion he sought to estab- lish was that the waters of the great lakes had formerly flowed through these valleys, and carried with them these several varieties of a widely scat- tered flora. The remarks which followed the reading of the essay favored this theory, and pointed especially to the abrupt eastern limit of the species in question. ‘ Development of a dandelion flower. BY J. M. COULTER OF CRAWFORDSVILLE, IND. By means of crayon illustrations, the author of this paper displayed the changes which the different parts of a dandelion-flower undergo in the process of growth to full maturity. The main object was to demonstrate the place, and method of origin, of the ovule, (ZOOLOGICAL PAPERS.) Mya arenaria: its changes in pliocene and prehistoric times. BY E. 8S. MORSE OF SALEM, MASS. AT a previous meeting of the association, the au- thor showed that the species of shells found in the Indian shell-heaps along the coast of New England differed in their proportionate diameters from the same species living to-day. He pointed out, more- over, that species belonging to similar genera, in the shell-heaps of Japan, had changed in precisely simi- lar ways. It was important to find out, if possible, the’ cause of these changes. A comparison between the shells of two common species, found north and south of Cape Cod, gave indications that temperature was the inducing cause. The two species selected were Mya arenaria and Venus mercenaria; the for- mer extremely variable, the latter very constant, in its characters. Specimens of these species had been collected in great numbers, both recent and an- SCIENCE. a ee ee oe ee, eee [Vou. II., No. 81. cient. The following are the indices, of Mya are- naria:— RECENT. ANCIENT. pokes Je —_ SSS South of North of South of North of Cape Cod, Cape Cod, Cape Cod, Cupe Cod, 61.42. 61.67. 62. 62.78. of Venus mercenaria: — RECENT. ANCIENT. Se TE pee See South of North of South of North of Cape Cod, Cape Cod, Cape Cod, Cape Cod, $1.01. $1.10. $1.51. 81.81. Since the waters south of Cape Cod are much warmer than those north of Cape Cod, it was reason- able to suppose that these changes were due to tem- — perature, and that the higher index of the ancient specimens found in the Indian deposits might indi- eate a colder climate. This supposition receives some. support in the fact that a measurement of specimens found in the glacial'clays about Portland, Me., and on the Kennebec river in the same state, gave the high index of 66, and a number of Norwich and Red Crag fossils of Mya, which he had the opportunity of meas- uring at the British museum, had an index of 64; recent Mya from South End, Eng., having the low index of 58.30. 4 It was interesting to observe, that measurements of Myzin Japan gave, for the southern form, an index of 61.10, and, of a more northern form, 62.50. In the discussion which followed, Mr. Morse stated that he had made similar observations with regard to other shell-fish. Some recent discoveries in reference to Phyl- loxera. BY C. V. RILEY OF WASHINGTON, D.C. Every new fact in the life-history of the insects of this genus has an exceptional interest, because of its bearing on the destructive grape-vine Phylloxera. The genus is most largely represented in this country by a number of gall-making species on our different hickories, and the full annual life-cycle of none of them has hitherto been traced. The galls are pro- duced, for the most part, in early spring; the winged females issue therefrom in early summer; and thence- forth, for the remainder of the year, the where-— abouts of the insect has been a mystery. The author has for several years endeavored to solve this mystery and at last the stem-mother (the founder of the gall), the winged agamic females (issue of the stem-moth- — er), the eggs (of two sizes) from these winged fe- males, the sexed individuals from these eggs, and the single impregnated eg, been traced in several species. There is some evi- dence, though not yet absolutely conclusive, that this impregnated egg hatches exceptionally the same sea- son; also, of a summer root-inhabiting life. In Phyl- loxera spinosa, which forms a large roseate somewhat spinose gall on Carya alba, and which has been most closely studied, the impregnated egg is laid in all sorts of crevices upon the twigs and bark and in the ~ old galls, in which last case they fall to the ground. ¢ from the true female, have SEPTEMBER 7, 1883.] Up to this time they have remained unhatched, and will in all probability not hatch till next spring, thus corresponding to the ‘ winter egg’ of the grape Phyl- loxera, q ‘ Psephenus Lecontei; the external anatomy of the larva. : BY D. S. KELLICOTT OF BUFFALO, N.Y. Tue species referred to is found in large numbers at the rapids above the falls of Niagara, and is _ scattered throughout the north-eastern part of North } America. The author proposed to supplement the accounts given of it by earlier observers with a - record of his own observations, which differed in some respects from those of Dr. LeConte. Sev- eral details of anatomical structure were brought to _ the attention of the members, and illustrated with _ wood-cuts prepared for the purpose and with speci- mens mounted in balsam for observation under the microscope. . The Psyllidae of the United States. BY C. V. RILEY OF WASHINGTON, D.C. D> ‘Tre Psyllidae, or flea-lice, are rather small homop- terous insects, that have remarkable jumping powers. _ Some of them injure cultivated plants. ‘This is nota- bly true of the Psylla pyri, which blights the buds of _ pear-trees; and Phylloplecta tripunctata, which crum- _ ples the tips of the blackberry. The family has re- ceived little attention in the United States, and searcely any thing has been known of the life-history and development of the species. The paper enumer- ates 17 described species, four of these being syno- _ hymes, and one of them (Psylla pyri) introduced from Europe. They fall into four subfamilies, and represent four genera already characterized, and three new genera, — Brachylivia, Pachypsylla, and Phyllo- _plecta. The new species characterized are Calophya vitreipennis, from Arizona; C. nigripennis, on Rhus copallina; C. flavida, on Rhus glabra; Pachypsylla celtidis-cucurbita, forming galls on Celtis texana; P. ¢.-pubescens, P. ¢.-asteriscus, P. c.-umbilicus, and P. ¢.-vesiculum —all forming galls on leaves of Celtis occidentalis ; Blastophysa (nov. gen.) e.-gemma, form- ‘ing galls on the twigs of the same tree; Ceropsylla (noy. gen.) xyderoxyli, a remarkable form developing in pits on the leaves of Xyderoxylon masticodendron; Trioza sanguinosa, on Pinus australis; T. sonchi, on Sonchus arvensis; and Rhinopsylla Schwarzii, from _ the cypress-swamps of Florida. The paper records discoveries as to the entomography of the species, and especially those affecting Rhus and Celtis; the - Jatter forming a group peculiar to North America, and _ the most perfect gall-makers in the family. _ The most interesting portion of Professor Riley’s paper, to those who are not entomologists, was that where he dwelt on the life-histories and habits of the _ insects he described. The eggs are attached to leaves .} by a pedicel, and are somewhat pointed at one end, and often terminate in a filament. The young are broad and flattened, with a fringed margin. They are generally pale, and more or less covered with a SCIENCE. 337 flocenlent secretion. Those on sumach are dark, and without such flocculence. Those making galls on hackberry have stout spines at the end of the body, by the aid of which they are able to work out of their galls. Note on Phytoptidae. BY HERBERT OSBORN OF AMES, IO. Tue Phytoptidae comprise a group of very minute mites, species of which produce galls of various forms on the leaves or twigs of various trees. Recent in- vestigation in Europe has placed the group in a dif- ferent light from that in which it previously was considered. Their study is rendered difficult by their extreine minuteness, and the care necessary to dis- cover the different stages. One of the most common species -produces the little wart-like swellings which occur so abundantly on soft maple leaves. A species on ash leaves produces a swelling which is nearly uniform on the upper and under surfaces of the leaf; while another species on the same tree produces a leafy growth at the end of the twigs, the growth sometimes being inhabited also by cecidomyian larvae. On the elm occurs a large deformed leafy growth, which also contains Phytopti: while still another form of gall occurs on box elder, consisting of a depression on the under surface of the leaf, this depression being filled with a woolly growth, and containing Phytopti. Notes on the potato-beetle and the Hessian fly for 1883. BY E. W. CLAYPOLE OF NEW BLOOMFIELD, PENN. THE author found that only one brood of the po- tato-beetle appeared last year. This seemed an un- usual fact, but no second brood had appeared on the potatoes under his observation. In the present year, no beetles appeared during the early stage of the growth of the plant. This fact had been also noticed in New York and New Jersey. He attrib- uted the cessation in the early part of this year to the same unknown cause which had checked the late brood of last year, and asked the opinions of members in determining the cause. Professor Riley thought the disappearance of the beetle could be attributed to the drought, But Professor Claypole said that in 1881, which was an unusually hot and dry season, the beetles were more numerous than he had ever seen them, and gave him more trouble than ever before or since. In regard to the Hessian fly, Professor OClaypole was of opinion that the insect injured the later wheat much more than the early crop, beeause the crops that gain full strength are best able to resist the attack. Wheat sown before Sept. 10 escaped the ravages of the fly. The winter wheat béing chiefly attacked, the observations on the insect had been directed especially to that crop. Contrary to the opinion of many farmers, Professor Claypole believes there are two broods, one in the autumn, and one in the spring. The insect, it is thought, often killed the stalk in the fall, and then probably died with it. sa ‘ ae > Te. ae. es ee 7 338 Professor Riley thought that this class of observa- tions could apply only to certain localities, and that in the southern states the conditions might be entirely changed. Professor Forbes thought there were three distinct broods per year in Illinois. As late as July he had found eggs of a brood already abroad. The structure of the skull in Diclonius mira- bilis, a Laramie dinosaurian. BY E. D. COPE OF PHILADELPHIA, PENN, A BLACKBOARD sketch of this dinosaur, as recon- structed by Professor Cope, attracted much attention. The animal existed in the mesozoic age, and is esti- mated to have been 38 feet long. The skull, which is about four feet in length, is in profile a good deal like that of a goose, but, seen from above, is some- what like that of a spoonbill. Skulls of this type of reptiles are rarely found, and this one throws much light on the question of the classification of the order. The arrangement of the teeth is very peculiar; and the number is very great, amounting to nearly 2,000. The general form of the animal is that of a gigantic kangaroo. The food evidently consisted of very soft aquatic vegetation. The trituberculate type of superior molar, and the origin of the quadrituberculate. BY E, D. COPE OF PHILADELPHIA, PENN. In the lower eocene, Professor Cope finds all the mammalian molar-teeth to be trituberculate. He has now a complete series of molar-teeth from differ- ent mammals in successive horizons, showing all the steps of transition from trituberculate molars of somewhat triangular form and very simple structure, up to the regular quadrituberculate tooth, which is defined as of nearly square section and having four tubercles. Man has quadrituberculate molars: all the monkeys are similarly equipped. Some of the lemurs haye trituberculate teeth. Among lower types, such as marsupials and hedgehogs, about half have the tri- and half the quadri-tuberculate develop- ment. The insectivora are similarly divided, about half having the old eocene molars and half the modern form. The various steps of development were illustrated by blackboard-drawings, Two primitive types of Ungulata. BY E. D. COPE OF PHILADELPHIA, PENN. TuE author announced the discovery of a new mammalian fauna of the eocene, having the follow- ing characteristics: 1°. All the fingers and toes are retained; they are plantigrade, each limb having five digital extremities. 2°. The limbs are shorter than usual. 3°. They invariably have a flat astragalus. To the second specification there is one exception, a swimming animal whose hind-limbs were long. One of the discoveries is of a hoof-type animal with carnivorous jaws. It existed in the eocene, and appears to have been of short duration. In the discussion on this paper, Dr. Dawson stated that some of the plants he had traced in the eocene SCIENCE. [Von IL, No. 8h. ? were well adapted, by the circumstances under which they grew, for supplying food to the creatures de- scribed. Professor Cope received this announce- — ment with expressions of pleasure. ‘Thus the new " mammal of the old eocene not only bridged the interval between ungulates and carnivores, but also the wider gulf between Dr. Dawson and Professor Cope. aS Pharyngeal respiration in the soft-shelled tur- — tle, Aspidonectes spinifer. BY 8S. H. GAGE OF ITHACA, N.Y. DurRinG the last twenty-five years, respiration in the Chelonia has been investigated with considerable — thoroughness, both in this country and in Europe; — and at present the chelonian form of respiration is — considered to be comparable with that of the mam- — mal, rather than with that of the frog as formerly sup- ~ posed. While, however, the mechanism of respira-— tion has been very fully investigated, there has been, so far as the author is aware, but one investigator 7 who has considered the organs of respiration in the — different groups of turtles. The author showed rea- — sons for believing that a true aquatic respiration, and — a true aérial respiration, co-existed in the soft-shelled h turtle. It is hoped, that, during the coming year, — investigations may be completed which shall detenay mine the exact proportion of the pharyngeal respira- — tion, and the structure of this unusual respiratory — organ. ; The application of nitrous oxide and air to produce anaesthesia; with clinics on ~ animals in an experimental air-chamber. _ i BY E, P. HOWLAND OF WASHINGTON, D.C, wy THE paper opened with the conclusion of the ; author that a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen, ; administered in a clused air-chamber, would event- ually take the place of ether and chloroform as an 4 anaesthetic for all surgical operations. As ordinarily 4 administered, nitrous oxide cannot be used for pro- longed operations, because the blood does not separate — oxygen from the gas. Nitrous oxide is expelled from the lungs without change: if it is supplied to them | without air or oxygen, death ensues from asphyxia, — The author claimed to have administered nitrous oxide for dental and surgical operations in over 30,000 : cases. He has found that where unmixed nitrous — oxide is used, in the average of cases insensibility is produced in fifty seconds, and recovery from uncon-— sciousness takes place intwo minutes. With animals — experimented upon, in the average of cases, death ensued within two and a half minutes, where air or oxygen was excluded. If, at the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere, — enough air is mixed with nitrous oxide to support respiration, the mixture fails in producing anaesthe- sia. But the increase of pressure which can be effected by administration in an air-tight chamber changes the result materially. In such a chamber, with suitable air-pressure, equal parts of air and nitrous oxide breathed from a gas-bag, or a mixti ere & SEPTEMBER #/, 1883.] = ' of 85 parts oxide and 15 parts oxygen, can be breathed _ for an indefinite time without danger or injury, pro- ducing perfect anaesthesia while thoroughly oxygen- 4 ating the blood. The effect of the pressure of air in - the chamber is simply to concentrate the mixture in the gas-bag into smaller space; and, when thus con- _ centrated, the oxide does the work of producing insen- sibility, while the air or oxygen of the mixture keeps up the vital processes. The author gave an historical account of the dis- covery of this method of administration by Paul Bert in 1878, and its subsequent applications. Hay- ing used it for many capital operations, Dr. Howland _ recommends the system unhesitatingly. Some points of its excellence, in addition to those already men- _ tioned, were stated as follows: By augmenting or diminishing the pressure, the degree of anaesthesia may be regulated at will, and with mathematical _ precision. Therefore there is no danger of any of the accidents incurred through the use of ether or chloroform. When inhalation of nitrous oxide and | oxygen is stopped, the patient recovers consciousness _ in a few seconds, and feels no subsequent discomfort. - The action of compressed air on the surgeon and his _ assistants is not injurious. _ After the reading of the paper, the operation of the _ system was exhibited. The air-chamber in this case _ was a tight box with glass sides; and the patient was acchicken. Perfect anaesthesia was produced and _ proved; and then, after the chicken was restored to consciousness, it was again placed in the chamber, . \ SCIENCE, 339 and killed by the administration of unmixed nitrous oxide. Conscious automatism. PY C. P. HART OF WYOMING, 0. THE author confined his inquiry to the manifesta- tion of conscious automatism in man. The question was whether the centres in the cortex of the brain were essential to the production of automatic func- tions of this character. Claiming that the destruc- tion of these cortical centres induces complete and permanent motor paralysis, the author drew the con- clusion that conscious automatism depends upon the integrity of that portion of the brain in which arise consciousness and volition. Prof. E. D. Cope, discussing the paper, hinted that the author had raised the question upon mis- taken grounds; that conscious automatism, of neces- sity, originated in the cortical portion of the brain, but by the influences of use and heredity became so far habitual that it is independent of volitional im- pulses. The question is evidently not one of auto- matical origination, but of functional independence. List of other papers. The following additional ‘papers were read in this section, some of them by title only: A fact bearing upon the evolution of the genus Cypripedium, by ZF. S. Bastin; Leaves of the Gramineae with closed sheaths, by W. J. Beal; Observations on Cephalo- poda, by Alpheus Hyatt ; Position of the Compositae in the natural system, by Joseph F. James. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. : GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. *s At National museum. Priestley’s apparatus. — Priestley’s chemical and physical apparatus, now in the possession of his descendants in Northumberland, Penn., has been _ presented by the latter to the National museum, and will be placed in the collection illustrating the his- tory of science. STATE INSTITUTIONS. Iowa weather service, Iowa city. _- Weather bulletin for July. — The weather of July, _ 1883, was very favorable to the crops, being fair, _ nearly normal in temperature, with an excess of rain- - fall, and southerly winds prevailing. _ The mean temperature of the air was but a little over one degree below normal: last year July was nearly five degrees below normal. The number of hot days has been high, especially during the first and last decade, while the middle decade was cool. Insolation has been high, because, even during the stormy period, cloudy days were rare, and during the month clear days were numerous. The sun thermometer exceeded 140° on twenty-one days; its highest reading was 161°, on the 23d. The total rainfall was below normal in southern- aS = CU central Iowa, from Union to Jasper counties: in the balance of the state it was considerably above normal, averaging about six inches in the north-west and in the south-east, and nine inches in the north- east. The highest rainfall, of fourteen inches, for the month, was measured at Decorah. The number of rainy days averaged ten for the east and north- west, and about six for the balance of the state. As usual during July, very heavy rains have oc- curred, but only in the north. The highest rainfall measured on one day was nearly six inches, at Home- dale, south of Sibley, in Osceola county, on the 23d; next to this stands Algona, Kossuth county, with over five inches on the same date. But the most notable rain period of the month occurred in north- eastern Iowa, from the 20th to the 23d inclusive, giving very nearly ten inches of rain in Howard and Winnesheik counties. No tornadoes have occurred, but several squalls have visited parts of Iowa; yet the most destruc- tive of these storms have but touched Iewa. The squall of the 4th started about 5 P.M. in central Iowa, and reached south-eastern Iowa about 9 P.M.: it was not very severe. The squall of the 12th started about 6 p.m. in Black Hawk county, reached the Mississippi in Scott and Clinton counties about 9 p.w., doing much damage by wind and hail : it 3.40) continued to spread over central Illinois till about 11 p.m. About noon on the 13th another very severe squall started from south-western Iowa, where con- siderable damage was done in Fremont and Page counties: the storm increased in fury while spreading over north-western Missouri till about 3 p.m. Another storm of less severity visited north-eastern Missouri and southern Illinois on the evening of the same day. A severe squall with hail reached, on the after- noon of the 18th, into north-western Iowa, coming from Dakota. A southerly squall reached Polk and Jasper counties early on the 16th. On the whole, the weather during July has been very fine: bright skies, aglow with ripening sunshine, alternated with enriching rains, —summed up in splendid crops of small grain and hay, and excellent pastures, and giving promise of a good crop of corn, for the fall season promises well also. State university of Kansas, Lawrence. Weather report for July. —In four of the past fif- teen years, the July mean temperature has been lower than in this year; but the July rainfall has been but once exceeded during that period (in 1871). Mean temperature, 76.18°, which is 2.17° below the July average. The highest temperature was 96.5°, on the 23d; the lowest was 56°, on the 9th: giving a monthly range of 40.5°. The mercury reached or exceeded 90° on seventeen days. Mean temperature at ‘7 A.M., 71.279; at 2 p.m, 85.719; at 9 P.M., 73.909. Rainfall, 7.23 inches, which is 2.94 inches above the July average. Rain fell in measurable quantities on nine days. There were five thunder-showers. The rain of the 30th yielded 3.10 inches. The entire rain- fall of the seven months of 1883, now completed, has been 29.03 inches, which is 7.99. inches above the average for the corresponding period of the preceding fifteen years, and is 1.43 inches above the total rain- fall of the year 1882. Mean cloudiness, 39.46% of the sky, the month being 1.89% cloudier than the average. Number of clear days (less than one-third cloudy), 18; half-clear (from one to two thirds cloudy), 7; cloudy (more than two-thirds), 6. There were three entirely clear days, and three entirely cloudy. Mean cloudiness at 7 A.M., 38.39%; at2 P.M., 45.48%; at 9 P.M, 34.52%. Wind: S.W., 39 times; N.E., 15 times; N.W., 12 times; N., 9 times; S., 7 times; W., 5 times; 5.E., 5 times; E., once. The entire distance trayelled by the wind was 10,901 mile8, which is 2,229 miles above the July average. This gives a mean daily velocity of 351.64 miles, and a mean hourly velocity of 14.65 miles. The highest velocity was 40 miles an hour, from 1.30 to 2 A.M, onthe 12th. Mean height of barometer, 29.086 inches; at '7 A.M., 29.111 inches; at 2 p.m., 29.071 inches; at 9 P.M., 29.078 inches; maximum, 29.381 inches, on the 18th; minimum, 28.679 inches, on the 11th; monthly range, 0.702 inch, Relative humidity: mean for the month, 71.4; at 7 A.M., 80.3; at 2 p.m., 54.7; at 9 p.M., 79.1; greatest, 97, on the 31st; least, 20, on the 2d. There was no fog. ; SCIENCE. NOTES AND NEWS. Circumstances were not favorable to the produc- tion of remarkable essays at the recent meeting of the American association. The attendance was not large. The officers of the meeting, and especially those who had to make addresses, could searcely be expected to produce elaborate papers in addition to their other labors. As the number of addresses per meeting has increased, we may observe more readily — some of the effects of the system that demands them. The most evident result is, that usually, where we gain one good address, we lose two or three good papers, The distance of the meeting from their homes affected especially members of sections A, B, C, and D, devoted to the exact sciences. Perhaps it affected the quality as well as the number of their papers. — There were not many from the east to present essays, — though quite as many as could have reasonably been expected; but there were scarcely any from the local- ity of the meeting and its neighborhood. Local in- terest, both as to authors and hearers, was of course deficient. In short, there was nothing remarkable in those sections to spur production, and the product was not remarkable. It was good, but not great. Some of the papers seem to have lost their way among the sections; a paper that was chiefly botan- ical having gone before the chemists, and the paleon-— tological papers being divided between biology and geology. rather than of subjects may have been consulted, though probably the discrepancy was mostly created in efforts to equalize the amount of work in the dif- ferent sections. During the progress of the meeting, it being found that botanists were present in unusual numbers, a botanical club was formed. The immediate object was the organization of botanical excursions. An In some cases the affinities of authors be ultimate object is to arrange for preparing a petition — to memorialize congress respecting differences be- tween the rulings of the post-office department as to the sending of plants by mail at home and abroad. The organization of the club was somewhat informal. Prof. W. J. Beal of Lansing, Mich., was appointed president, and John M. Coulter of Crawfordsville, Ind., secretary. The roll was signed by twenty-five botanists who were present at the first session of the club, and their number was increased before the meeting of the association adjourned. We have before alluded to the singular want of executive ability, or of co-ordination in achieving re- — sults, which marred the work of the local committee. — That continued throughout the meeting, with many — embarrassing results. We again refer to it, not to find fault anew, but to mention that the committee- — men themselves acknowledged their blunders most heartily in their farewell speeches, and that their — kind intentions were manifest throughout. } —Students of meteorology will be interested in a paper lately read by M, Faye before the French acad- emy of sciences on the whirlwinds of sand observed by - Col. Prejevalsky in central Asia. M. Faye believes that such sand-storms, like those of Mexico, India, — Cs Ty ae ford the Sahara, have the same origin and mechanical ‘action as the tornadoes of the United States and all water-spouts. They are vertical spiral movements, ‘moving horizontally and nearly in a straight line. — The operations of France in the region of Annam have naturally excited great interest in the geography and ethnography. statistics and commerce, of Annam. _A crowd of publications of all sorts are constantly appearing. References of the briefest sort to some of the more notable may be of interest to those who ignore the political side of the question. J. Gaultier publishes for Mallard-Cressin a chart of the region on the scale of 1: 850,000. This is stated to be on the largest scale of any of the maps of this region, and as perfect as the state of knowledge will admit. An- other map by Henri Mager, though smaller, is very carefully executed, and includes a plan of the fortress of Hanoi. The oriental studies of the author have enabled him to unify and correct the nomenclature in a satisfactory manner. NRomanet du Caillaud has published a long memoir on the protectorate of France over Annam, and the relations between the latter state and China, in the quarterly bulletin of the Société de géographie. —The enterprise of Johns Hopkins university is “shown by the publication of one of its cireulars in mid- ‘summer, filled with scientific notes in mathematics, physics, biology, and philology. They are all abstracts of papers read before the different active associations in the university, and in most cases will probably be published in full elsewhere. The circular also re- prints, from the Royal society’s proceedings, the ab- -stract of Dr. Martin’s Croonian lecture; and, from the London Times, an account of the eclipse observations of May 6, to which Dr. Hastings appends a brief note, pointing out one mistake made by the writer. A list of mathematical models belonging to the university, and of works in the Assyrian and other oriental lan- guages found in the Peabody institute, are also given. _—The following appointments to fellowships in jience in Johns Hopkins university are published: ‘Tn mathematics, G. Bissing and E. W. Davis of Bal- timore, and A. L. Daniels of Kendallville, Ind.; in physics, Gustav A. Liebig, jun., of Baltimore, anid Charles A. Perkins of Ware, Mass. ; in chemistry, D T. Day of Baltimore, J. R. Duggan of Macon, Ga., and E. H. Keiser of Allentown, Penn.; in biology, W. H. Howell and L. T. Stevens of Baltimore. - —Miiller’s record of the literature of pollination d dissemination for 1889-81 has recently appeared in Just’s Jahresbericht, containing abstracts of one hundred and forty-nine papers, with many useful items, both critical and supplementary, by the able “reviewer. Though these records are very useful “when they reach us, their value would be much ‘increased if it were possible to present them to the public more promptly after their preparation. As ‘itis, they are usually two or three years in appearing. _ — Nature states that the Dutch government have “ecided not to grant the sum of thirty thousand guilders, which Baron Nordenskiéld claims as the scoverer of the north-east passage. The decision is ounded on the motive which led the States-general, SCIENCE. 341 in 1596, to offer this award; viz., to find a passage of commercial value to the nation. Baron Norden- skiéld having, however, discovered what may be termed a purely scientific one, the award, it is argued, has not been earned, As several reasons have been advanced for this claim made by the gallant Swedish explorer, we do not think we err, says Nature, when we assert that it was his intention to have expended the sum in the interest of science; viz., on an ex- pedition to the arctic regions. : — George Mantoux has just edited a volume con- taining the letters and journals of La Pérouse, on his celebrated and unfortunate voyage around the world; preceded by a memoir of that officer, who was last heard from at Botany Bay, and, with his entire party, was wrecked on one of the South Sea Islands, where the survivors were murdered by the natives. It forms*one of the Bibliotheque d’aventures et de voyages issued by Dreyfous of Paris, —A Yokohama paper states that Mr. John Milne, whose researches on earthquakes, as explained by him to the British association at Southampton, have excited great interest in scientific circles, and who has since returned to his duties in Japan, has applied to the Japanese authorities to establish an observa- tory, in order that he may be able to thoroughly investigate underground phenomena. He has sent the authorities a long treatise upon the earthquakes of Japan. —The London daily news says that the Darwin memorial fund has risen to £3,300. Among the most interesting of the sums that the treasurer has re- . ceived is a cheque for £94.4, collected in Finland. — The next number of the Journal of the Cincin- nati society of natural history will contain an illus- trated paper by Professor Mickleborough, upon a specimen found by Mr. D. A. McCord of Oxford, Os which has been creating much interest among the paleontologists of Cincinnati and vicinity. It is a small slab of limestone showing on one side the shell of an Asaphus, and on the other the legs of the animal. Fortunately, the rock was split in such a way as to show both the legs and their cast. The characters of the ambulatory appendages of the trilobite are finely shown, and confirm in a remarkable manner the dis- coveries of Mr. Walcott, who several years since established beyond a doubt the existence of legs in specimens of Calymene. —The bodies of Professor Palmer, and his com- panions Capt. Gill and Lieut. Carrington, assassi- nated by the Bedouin, have been discovered by Capt. Warren, and transported to England, where it is anticipated they will find a resting-place in St. Paul's cathedral. — Mr. Charles Depérais read a paper before l’ Insti- tute royal d’encouragement de Naples, April 4, in which he advocated the embalming of bodies by boiling them in a solution of chloride of calcium, and then in a solution of sulphate of soda. —The government of Ontario has published for the Entomological society of that province a general index to the thirteen annual reports upon injurious insects which the society has made to the commis- ae eee, of te oe Oe eee 342 sioner of agriculture. The index is prepared by Wil- liam Baynes-Reed, and consists of a serial and a classified list of illustrations, and a general index to the text. It appears to be prepared and printed care- fully. — The death of the famous M’tesa, King of Uganda and baiter of missionaries, is announced, — The following papers were prepared during the past year by members of the Lawrence scientific school, Harvard university, under the supervision of Dr. E. L. Mark in the embryological laboratory at the Museum of comparative zodlogy : — On the development of Oecanthus, and its parasite Teleas, by Howard Ayers of Fort Smith, Ark.; on the development of the posterior fissure of the spinal cord, and the reduction of the central canal, in the pig, by William Barnes of Decatur, Ill.; notes on the development of Phryganidae, by William Patten of Watertown, Mass.; the relation of the external meatus, tympanum, and eustachian tube, to the first visceral cleft, by Albert H. Tuttle of Dorchester, Mass. The papers by Mr. Ayers and Mr. been awarded respectively the first and one of the second Walker prizes by the Boston society of natural history, as already stated in these columns. All are to be published in the course of a few weeks. * —The eighth annual report of the Buffalo micro- ‘scopical club shows a membership of forty-six,—a gain of fifteen during the year. The average attend- ance at the monthly meetings is stated to have been about twenty-five, —certainly a very large percent- age. , —-Prof. D. P. Penhallow, having resigned his con- nection with the experiment department of Houghton farm as botanist and chemist, has accepted the lec- tureship of botany at McGill university. — Messrs. Allen, Coues, and Brewster sign a call for a convention of American ornithologists, to be held in New-York City, beginning on Sept. 26, 1883, for the purpose of founding an American ornitholo- gists’ union, upon a basis similar to that of the ‘ Brit- ish ornithologists’ union.’ The object of the union will be the promotion of social and scientific inter- course between American ornithologists, and their co-operation in whatever may tend to the advance- ment of ornithology in North America. —a- - = .* ey - rie , . SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] diffusion in sufficiently general use: but, in the mean time, the confusion of tongues is being gradually reduced by the struggle for supremacy among established languages ; and this process will go om until one tongue shall be intelligible, if not predominant, every- where. All languages have their physical material in common: they use the same vocal organs, and essentially the same elementary sounds. The voice is susceptible only of a limited num- ber of modifications, and the lips and the tongue only of a limited number of articula- tive actions; and, from the combinations of these, all the varieties of human utterance re- sult. This elementary simplicity and uniformi- ty are not, however, reflected in the writing of languages. Alphabets are wholly arbitrary ; and, although the same letters are used in many alphabets, a different value is, in nearly every case, associated with the individual let- ters. A universally intelligible method of rep- resenting the sounds of speech is a necessary prerequisite for a universal language. Ordi- nary alphabetic writing is, indeed, as much a hindrance to combined effort for the unification of language as was the confusion of tongues to the building of the tower of Babel. Some method of classifying and representing all known modifications of voice and articulation; if not of discovering all possible moditications, had long been the great desideratum of philolo- gists. Attempts were made to frame a uni- versal alphabet by collating the elements from local alphabets, ancient and modern; but the number of shades of difference discovered among the elementary sounds, and the diffi- culty of recognizing sounds under varied as- sociations, rendered any complete classification impracticable. So far as the discovery of the entire category of possible sounds was con- cerned, the object of endeavor was considered to be hopeless; and the attempt to realize it was finally and forfnally abandoned at a con- vention of philologists of different countries, held at London in 1854. The declaration of this convention stands on record, that — ‘© Tt would be useless and impossible to at- tempt to find for each possible variety of sound a different graphic sign.”’ This ‘impossibility’ has, however, been since accomplished with completeness and simplicity, in the system entitled ‘ Visible speech,’ the principles of which will now be explained. In this system no sound is arbi- trarily represented, but each letter is built up of symbols which denote the organic positions and actions that produce the sound. ‘The let- SCIENCE., 301 ters are thus physiological pictures, which in- terpret themselves to those who have learned the meaning of the elementary symbols of which they are composed. The first letter of our ordinary alphabet, which we call @, is known in other countries as ah; but we discover, in using the letter, that it represents both a and ah, and a variety of other sounds in our own language, the letter a being employed for the six diverse vowels in the words ale, air, an, agree,.ah, and all. In Visible speech each of these sounds has a sepa- rate letter, and each letter explains to the eye the organic means by which its sound differs from other sounds. For example: The letter for the vowel in the word ale tells the reader to — Advance the front of the tongue towards the Sront of the palate, so as to leave a channel of medium breadth for the passage of the voice. The letter for the vowel in air tells him to — Place the tongue in the same position as befure, but to expand the back cavity of the mouth. The letter for the vowel in an tells him to— Broaden to the utmost degree the channel between the front of the tongue and the palate, and at the same time expand the back cavity of the mouth. The letter for the sound of a in agree tells the reader to — Place the tongue in a neutral position, — neither advanced nor retracted, raised nor de- pressed, — and expand the back cavity of the mouth. The letter for the sound ah tells him to — Depress the tongue backward as fur as pos- sible, and expand the back cavity as before. The letter for the vowel in ali tells him to— Place the tongue in the same position as for AH, but compress the back cavity, and round the corners of the lips. All these directions are perfectly conveyed at a glance in the different letters; and yet the letters, so far from being complex, consist of forms more simple than the letters of the Roman alphabet. Here, for example, are the symbols, — four in number, — from the combi- nations of which, not merely the sounds above illustrated, but every vowel in every language, can be expressed to the eye, so as to be at once pronounced with exactitude by the reader. ELEMENTARY SYMBOLS OF VOWELS. OPT These synibols have the following invariable meanings : — 302 1. The straight line means voice. 2. The bar across the line means contrac- tion or rounding of the lips. 3. The solid point means compression of the back cayity of the mouth. 4. The open hook means eapansion of the back cavity of the mouth. The position of the point or hook on the straight line denotes the position of the tongue in reference to the palate. Thus :— a. When on the right side, the meaning is, ‘that the tongue is advanced towards the front of the palate. b. When on the left side, that the tongue is retracted towards the back of the mouth. c. When on both sides, that the tongue oc- cupies a middle position between front and back. - d. When at the top of the line, that the tongue is raised towards the palate. e. When at the bottom, that the tongue is depressed. f. When at both ends, that the tongue oc- cupies a middle position between high and low. _ Nothing could be simpler than these ele- ments, the meanings of which are remembered by every person after a single explanation ; yet from*these four elements alone the entire series of normal vowels, thirty-six in number, are built up. Two diacritic sighs extend the possible number of shades of yowel-sound, which these four elements can be made to represent, to the largely superfluous total of one hundred and eighty. The English alphabet contains only five yowel-letters, while our speech makes use of at least sixteen vowel-sounds, without includ- ing diphthongs. No wonder, therefore, that the relation between letters and sounds is one of irreconcilable confusion. A purely phonetic alphabet, in addition to the common system of letters, is a necessity for the intelligible writing of English alone; much more is it in- dispensable for the writing of all languages intelligibly to all readers. The system of Visible speech is the ready vehicle for a universal language, when that shall be evolved; but it is also immediately serviceable for the conveyance of the diverse utterances of every existing language. No matter what foreign words may be written in this universal character, they will be pro- nounced by readers in any country with ab- solute uniformity. The means have been explained by which vowels are represented for this purpose. The principles are now to be shown on which consonants are written with the same effect. SCIENCE. [Vot. IL, No. 32. ELEMENTARY SYMBOLS OF CONSONANTS. Five elementary symbols furnish letters for all the consonant actions of the lips and tongue. ‘These symbols are — Cres as As with vowels, so with consonants: all the elements of each class have one symbol in common. The vowel-symbol was shown to be a straight line: the consonant-symbol is a curve; and the direction in which the curve is turned denotes the part of the mouth by which the consonant is formed. Thus : — a. The curve turned to the right denotes the lips. b. The curve turned to the left denotes the back of the tongue. c. The curve turned archwise, with its end down, denotes the top of the tongue. d. The curve turned with its end up de- notes the point of the tongue. The five radical symbols have the following meanings in every combination : — 1. The first (C ) is the sign of a part of the mouth used to form a consonant. 2. The second (¢ ) is the sign of a part of the mouth which divides the breath. 3. The third (|) is drawn across the ends of a curve to denote a consonant that stops the breath. 4. The fourth (§) is the sign of emission — of breath through the nose. 5. The fifth ( 2) is added to the ends of a curve to denote simultaneous modification by two parts of the mouth. These elements, combined into sta forms of letters, suffice for the whole series of conso- nant actions of the lips and tongue. The six forms turned in the four directions, as above, yield twenty-four letters; and the uniform ad- dition of one sign for voice —a straight line in the centre of the curves —converts the twenty- four into forty-eight letters.° Every part of every letter has thus a mean- ing legible at a glance; and the most complex letter in the alphabet — combining four of the elementary symbols to exhibit the sound of m —jis as simple in form as the common Roman letter for the same consonant. Thus :— 9 M, m. The following are the four symbols com- bined in this letter : — 1. A curve to the right, which denotes the lips. 2. A centre straight line, which denotes voice. SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] 3. A waving line, which denotes nasal emission. 4. A line closing the curve, which denotes stoppage of the breath. The letter thus says to the reader : — Stop the breath by means of the lips, and sound the voice through the nose. It must be obvious that such directions, conveyed without words, will be uniformly in- terpreted by readers of any nationality who have simply learned the meaning of the radical symbols. All the Visible-speech letters are formed in this way, by synthesis of two or more out of a total number of nine elements. Such letters, consequently, make up an alpha- bet adapted for universality, because independ- ent of explanatory language ; also because its symbols are physiological pictures, and because the writing, even of unheard foreign tongues, is self-explanatory to the reader’s eye. Visible speech was first published sixteen years ago (August, 1867) ; and it has been very generally studied by philologists, and adopted in théoretical works as a necessary exponent of linguistic phonetics. It has also been widely utilized in America for the teaching of articu- lation to the deaf. But its popular uses for the teaching of vernacular languages to. chil- dren and illiterates, and of foreign languages in schools and colleges, as well «is for the litera- tion of hitherto unwritten Indian and other tongues, have not yet been correspondingly developed. People generally do not take the trouble to investigate the nature of the charac- ters, but suffer themselves to be repelled by fancied difficulty, — as if what is strange must needs be difficult. But the difficulty is only to eyes unacquainted with the principles of the symbolization. When these are known, there is no comparison, in point of simplicity, be- tween Roman letters and Visible-speech letters. To children and illiterates, all letters are equal- ly strange. To one who can already read, the eye is simply prejudiced in favor of established letters. In the present exposition the letters of Visible speech have not been made the basis of illustration, but only the rudimentary sym- bols from which all the letters are derived. This mode of treatment will, it is hoped, leave no room for prejudice to act. In this stage of the world’s history we do not need to concern ourselves about a uni- versal language: that will develop itself in due time. But a universal medium for the communication of languages is a_ practical necessity, which every day renders of more and higher importance. Without a universal alphabet there never could be a uniyersal lan- aa ss allied > a¥ [AS os I™ © te) } SCIENCE. 353 guage; with a universal alphabet the progress of the fittest language towards universality will be enormously accelerated. At present, English seems the most likely to achieve this distinction ; but its natural fitness is antago- nized by its defective and irregular system of letters. Give English the advantage of an alphabet simple and phonetically perfect, and, whereas it is now the most diflicult of all tongues for foreigners to learn, it will become by far the easiest. In the system of Visible speech a universal alphabet is for the first time attained: the system is of English birth. Let its native language have the benefit of this instrument of diffusion, and the world-wide predominance of the speech of Britain and America will be assured. A. Metvitte Bett. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Variations in butterflies. BETWEEN the 20th of June and the 10th of July, I obtained three hundred and eighty Vanessa Anti- opa from eaterpillars fed on swamp willow. Twenty- five of these were varieties, and the balance were of the usual form. ‘Two of the varieties were Lintne- ri, from which all the blue had disappeared. The third had the primaries Lintneri, while the secon- daries had the usual blue spots. The fourth had the secondaries Lintneri, while the primaries bore the blue spots. In the remaining twenty-one, the whole upper surface of the wings had a mottled appearance, showing that the colors had been disturbed. They retained the blue spots, but the spots were much smaller than usual. The veins in the twenty-five varieties remained soft for several days; not becoming firm and hard, like the veins in the others, although treated in the same manner. I have also found this softness of the veins in the varieties of Turnus, where the red is suffused, and in the rust-colored specimens. All the Vanessa Antiopa which I have seen this season have the yellow of a much deeper shade than I have ever before noticed. Colias Philodice is also remarkable this season in this respect. S. LoweLei EL ior. New York City, 3d August, 1883. Function of the colorless blood-corpuscles. The interesting abstract of Zawarykin’s important investigations into the function of the leucocytes in the absorption of fats from the intestinal canal (ScrencK, ii. 192) calls to mind an investigation by Franz Hofmeister, into the absorption and assimila- tion of the peptones, which will be of interest in connection with the abstract referred to. In a series of papers published in 1881, Hofmeister * comes to the interesting conclusion, that ‘‘ absorption of peptones in the intestinal canal is, accordingly, no simple mechanical process of diffusion or filtration, but is rather a function of particular living cells, the colorless blood-corpuscles; and these play, in the nu- trition of the organism, a similar réle to that of the red corpuscles in respiration.” In his discussion he calls attention to the presence 1 Zeitschr. phys. chem., v. 151, 304 of the leucocytes, in great numbers, in the adenoid tissue during digestion; and, also, to certain proofs of the ability of the leucocytes to combine with pep- tones in a loose form of combination. The similarity of these two functions of the color- less corpuscles, as determined by Hofmeister for pep- tones, and by Zawarykin for fats, cannot fail to suggest the probability of a very definite and important func- tion of these corpuscles in general nutrition. Pos- sibly, also, the anomalies observed in the absorption of saccharine food, and in the glycogenic functions of liver and muscles, may in time receive some ex- planation through the functions of the colorless cor- puscles. It seems as if we were, at last, beginning to obtain an idea of the functions performed by these impor- tant cells, whose close connection with the life of the organization has been generally recognized, though put vaguely understood. J. M.S. HUMAN PROPORTION. Human proportion in art and anthropometry: a lecture delivered at the National museum, Washington, D.C. By Rosert Fuetcuer, M. R.C.S.£. Cam- bridge, King, 1883. 3837p. illustr. 8°. From the earliest ages, man has found his standards of measurement most conveniently in some bodily measure, like the digit, the palm, the span, the foot, or the cubit. As these measures necessarily vary with the size of the individual, the attempt to ascertain their aver- age led to the first systematic measurements of the human body: hence have sprung the innumerable schemes of human proportion de- vised by artists and anatomists, all founded on the belief that some one part of the body was a standard of measurement for all its other dimensions. The Egyptians first de- veloped a canon of proportion as early as the thirty-fifth century B.C-., which was twice sub- sequently changed. Their last canon adopted the length of the middle finger as the stand- ard, reckoning it precisely one-nineteenth of the entire stature. But in the ‘ canon of Poly- kleitos,’ the famous sculptor who flourished about 450 B.C., was embodied the highest tule of Greek art in its most flourishing pe- riod. This has fortunately been preserved in a well-known passage of Vitruvius, and is illus- trated by a recently discovered drawing by Lionardo da Vinci. The restless spirit of modern life has not remained content with this, as more than a hundred different at- tempts bear witness by men of all nations, including the celebrated English sculptor Gib- son and our own Story. All these methods have been based upon the theory that there is a fixed relation between some one portion of the body and all its other dimensions; and their number proves the fallacy of the idea. Anthropometry, on the other hand, measures SCIENCE. [Vou. Il, No. 82. \ with the strictest scientific accuracy the living man, and from an immense mass of measure- ments obtains the mean of the human form, and thus ‘arrives at the perfect human type. The father of this science is the Belgian Que- telet, and the enormous number of measure- ments rendered necessary by the draft during our civil war have greatly advanced it. By its tests many a time-honored dogma bearing upon human proportion has been exploded. ‘Thus it has been proved that the length of the out- stretched arms is somewhat greater than, and not exactly equal to, the height of the body; that not eight, but seven and a half heads make up the entire stature; and that only in the negro skeleton can be found the length of humerus bestowed upon the Apollo Belvedere. All these matters the author has illustrated with great learning and in a clear and ani- mated style. We have noticed, however, that his knowledge of archeology is sometimes at fault, —as where he calls the ‘ crua ansata’ in the hand of the Egyptian standard figure ‘a key,’ which is really a cross with a loop or handle attached to it, and is the symbol of eternity ; or suggests that the ‘ golden fleece” was in reality ‘ the secret of Egyptian art;’ or states that the Doryphoros of Polykleitos was ‘a beautiful youth in the act of throwing a spear,’ instead of its being one of the ‘ spear- bearers,’ the body-guard of the Persian king. The most marvellous statement, however, is, that ‘‘ prior to the time of Phidias, the face, hands, feet, or other exposed parts of the body were carved in marble, and fastened to a wooden block, which was covered with real drapery.’’ ‘This is a complete misunderstand- ing of the nature of the archaic foava, or wooden statues, which in Greece preceded those made of stone or metal. WARE’S MODERN PERSPECTIVE. Modern perspective: a treatise upon the principles and practice of plane and cylindrical perspective. By Witt1Am R. Ware, Professor of architecture in the School of mines, Columbia college. Bos- ton, James R. Osgood & Co., 1883. 321p. 12°. Proressor WaAreE’s Modern perspective is in substance a series of papers printed two or three years ago in the American architect, but with additions which extend its range, and give it more the scope of a scientific treatise. Sci- entitic it is, both in its idea and its methods; though its treatment is naturally freer than would be given it for scientific uses alone, — freer, perhaps, than the author would have given if it had originally been written as a formal hg 2 ithe Neate d ~~ SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] treatise. The purely geometrical method comes out most clearly in the chapters added in the revision, particularly in two (xvii., xviii.), in which, after going over the ground of practical perspective, Professor Ware sums up, first the principles and relations, and then the chief problems, in the most abstract and generalized form. ‘This portion is, therefore, scientifically the essence of the book, and is that which a reader versed in pure mathematics, but unac- quainted with perspective, might properly read first. Such a reader would find pleasure in its neatness and comprehensiveness of state- ment, and in the skilful way in which the whole subject is cast in condensed and logical form ; every phenomenon or process being first pre- sented in its most general aspect, — against the usual habit of books on perspective, — and particular cases deduced from it afterwards. These chapters make a sort of inner treatise, whose appeal will be to the geometer and the special student. They are probably too ab- stract and too concise to be acceptable to the ordinary student, and he may be left to skip them. The methods of the book are naturally those of descriptive geometry. We could wish Pro- fessor Ware had held to the received termin- ology when he names the perspective of the vanishing-line of a plane its ‘ trace,’ and diverts the word from its received sense as the inter- section of the plane with the plane of projection. What in descriptive geometry is called the trace, Mr. Ware calls the ‘ initial line’ of the plane: the point where a line pierces the pic- ture-plane, which might by proper analogy be called the trace of the line, he calls its ‘ initial point.” The use of ‘horizon’ for the actual yanishing-line of anysystem of planes is hap- pier. The subscript notation employed is the author’s own, and is cleverly contrived to suit the manner of his exposition. It contains in itself a symmetrical record of the principal data and relations, and its neatness and effi- ciency make one the more regret that the author has not cared to follow an accepted terminology where there is one. The phenomena of planes in perspective are first discussed, according to the author’s uni- formly analytical method: first oblique planes, then parallel and normal. So much of the perspective phenomena of lines is accounted for by treating them as intersections of planes, _ that their separate consideration is much short- ened by anticipation; and by the time the point is reached, its discussion is reduced to a minimum. In like manner, instead of confin- ing the discussion of points of distance, as is SCIENCE. et ae et Oe ee ee Bi) common, to points in the horizon-line, or the prime vertical, the most general case is first considered, and the circular locus of all the points of distance of a given line is determined. We miss the categorical statement, — implied, to be sure, but worth making distinctly, —that the points of distance are the same for all par- allel lines ; as in another place it is apparently taken to go without saying, that the vanishing- point of a line, or the vanishing-line of a plane, is enough to determine problems relating to its direction, even when its position is unknown. The chapter of abstract problems presents pretty much all the problems of descriptive geometry, so far as concerns planes and right lines, applied in perspective, and therefore covers, except for a few special cases, all the elements of perspective practice. Here, again, generalization and condensation are carried very far: some, indeed, of the problems in which many alternatives are grouped together are perhaps too succinet and comprehensive to be satisfying to the student. The same method and quality are found in the other chapters of the book, so far as suits with its practical purpose. Thus parallel per- spective, usually taken first, is postponed, and treated as a special case. There is throughout a watchful eye to the needs of the architectural draughtsman and the painter. The work is made interesting by observation of natural and pictorial phenomena, many of which are, so far as we know, new to the books. Some special topics which are taken up in the advanced treatises are here hardly mentioned, —the per- spective of curved surfaces and of solids of revolution, for instance; even vaulting being left untouched, and the problems not going beyond plane figures and solids with plane faces. But within its limits, the discussion is very complete ; and some subjects are enlarged upon which it is usual to dismiss with slight mention, —the perspective of reflections, and of shadows by both parallel and divergent light, and especially the chapters on. the perspective of the circle, and on perspective distortions and corrections. The method of the perspective plan is made much of, as it deserves ; and some space is given to M. Adhémar’s ingenious devices for avoiding remote vanishing-points, and carrying on all the operations on a small sheet by means of what Mr. Ware calls ‘ small- seale data,’ — points of fractional distance, scales of depth, marginal co-ordinates, and the like, —a method which is much less known than it deserves to be. Mr. Ware adds an ingen- ious alternative for M. Adhémar’s device of enlarging the remote parts of the perspective 356 plan by planes of successively steeper inclina- tion. The plates which accompany the book are as thoughtfully and ingeniously composed as the text. We commend the whole treatise as the most complete, so far as we know, and the most interesting and instructive for practical use, that has been published in this country. SEEBOHM’S VILLAGE COMMUNITY. The English village community, examined in its rela- tions to the manorial and tribal systems, and to the common or open field system of husbandry: an essay mm economic history. By FREDERIC SEE- BOHM. London, Longmans, Green, § Co., 18838. 464 p., 13 maps and plates. 8°. ' Ir is now many years since G. L. von Maurer wrote his Introduction to the history of marks and manors. Since then the subject has attracted many students, and has been much looked into and talked about. Many books have been written upon it; those of Nasse, de Layeleye, and Maine being the best known to American readers. The impression con- veyed by these writings is, that the mark or village community, though almost always found upon a manor, under manorial overlord- ship, was in its origin independent. Manorial overlordship arose, we are told, in later times. The village community was drawn under it, and became subject to it. It has been the work of modern times to restore it to its ancient independence. ‘This is the theory of von Maurer and his followers, which we have gathered from their books. Objections to this theory are from time to time raised. It is urged that the village community is usually found under manorial landlordship ; that it is, therefore, an open question whether the village community, or the landlordship oyer it, is the earlier institution. In Mr. Seebohm’s book, which now lies before us, it is maintained that landlordship is more ancient than the village community, that the village community arose under landlordship, as a community of slaves or serfs, that it has been slowly emancipated from slavery and from serfdom in the course of centuries. Our economic history, we are told, begins with the serfdom of the masses un- der manorial landlordship. Looking through the records, back to the earliest period, we find ~ no free village communities, only manors with village communities in villenage upon them. The argument upon this point is almost con- clusive. The existence of a manorial system during the Saxon period of our history is established beyond doubt. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 32. But there were parts of Britain which were not. manorial, where village communities (the village community being considered a part of the manor) did not exist. What was there in the parts of Britain where there were no manors? By the side of the manorial system was a tribal system more ancient, perhaps, than the mano- rial system. Then follows an account of the tribal system of the Welsh and Irish, which is extremely interesting. It is not clear at first, why, in a work upon English economic history, so much space should be given to the institu- tions of the Welsh and Irish; but we find out» directly: it is that we may the more clearly understand the statements of Caesar and Taci- tus regarding the Germans. It is well known that the statements of Caesar and Tacitus are very vague; that they become intelligible only in the light of extraneous eyidence. We ourselves should not have presumed to draw this evidence from the Welsh laws, nor from the Brehon tracts. It has always seemed to us best to keep the records of different peoples quite distinct. We should, therefore, have turned from Caesar and Tacitus to the German folk-laws, formulae, and documents. ‘The tri- bal system of the Germans is very well de- scribed in the German records. It happens, however, that the tribal system ofthe Germans resembles very closely that of the Welsh and Irish: so, though we do not follow all the steps of Mr. Seebohm’s argument, we come, at last, to very nearly the same conclusion. What we have in the time of Caesar and Tacitus, and afterwards in many places where the manorial system has not been developed, are tribal households (to use Mr. Seebohm’s phrase) , — isolated farmsteads, occupied by groups of de- scendants and heirs; the land being held by them as an undivided inheritance for two or three generations, and then divided, several households arising where there was but one before. Mr. Seebohm finds a vestige of this system in the custom of Gavelkind in Kent, where we have divisions among male heirs, with traces of the right of the youngest to the original homestead. Almost everywhere else in England the tribal system has quite passed away. Already, however, in the time of Tacitus, the manorial system was germinating. The free tribesmen who lived in the tribal house- holds here and there —vut fons ut campus ut nemus placuit —had slaves who cultivated the land for them. These slaves were dis- tributed by the tribesmen in village com- munities, in regard to which they were yery much in the position of the later manorial * SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] lords. It was only a step, indeed, from this condition of things to the manorial system. This step was taken immediately after the permanent settlement of the Germans within the limits of the Roman empire. The land system of the later empire was very much like & manorial system. So it happened, that, while the Germans were approaching this sys- tem on the one hand, the Romans were ap- proaching it on the other. They reached it together. This is the briefest possible réswmé of Mr. Seebohm’s extremely interesting and valuable book. The argument is well arranged and very convincing. It is, perhaps, a little too much encumbered by details; but we should be sorry not to have these details, and the book is quite readable in spite of them. The ‘account of the manorial system is the most complete that we have. The book is a ‘mine of information upon the subject. It will be found indispensable to students. It is very well printed, and illustrated by plates and maps. It would be worth having for these alone. In conclusion, we must heartily con- gratulate the writer upon the completion of so excellent and useful a work. STEARNS AND COUES’ NEW-ENGLAN BIRD-LIFE. : New-England bird-life ; being a manual of New- England ornithology. Revised and edited from the manuscript of Winfrid A. Stearns, by Dr. Elliott Coues. Boston, Lee & Shepard, 1851, 1883. 324+409 p. IIllustr. 8°. Unver this title Mr. Winfrid A. Stearns and Dr. Elliott Coues have just produced an excellent and much-needed work. Previous to its appearance we have had no complete or satisfactory exposition of the subject, despite several attempts on the part of inexperienced or otherwise incompetent authors to cover the interesting field: hence the present book is doubly welcome. It has appeared in two volumes, or parts. Part i., issued two years ago, begins with Turdidae, or thrushes, and carries the subject through Oscines, ending with the family Corvidae. In addition to the 270 pages occu- pied by its main portion, there is an ‘ Intro- duction ’ of fifty pages, which includes useful chapters on the classification and structure of birds; the ‘Preparation of specimens for study ;’ the ‘ Subject of faunal areas ;’ and the ‘ Literature of New-England ornithology.’ Including those-devoted to its special index SCIENCE. 397 as well as to the introduction, part i. contains 324 pages. Pari ii. was published early in the present year. It has in all 409 pages, of which ten are occupied by an ‘ editor’s preface,’ and eight by the index; the remaining 597 pages treating the general subject from Tyrannidae through the successive families to Alcidae, last and lowest in the scale of New-England bird- life. Both volumes are rather copiously illus- trated with fairly good woodeuts; some of which are full-length figures, others represen- tations of the heads, feet, wings, ete., of birds, designed to show technical or distinguishing characters. Most of these cuts have done similar duty before, but on this account they are none the less useful in the present connec- tion. The plan of the book is so clearly and tersely outlined in the preface to part i., that we cannot do better than give it in the editor’s own words : — **Tt is the object of the present volume to go care- fully over the whole ground, and to present, in con- cise and convenient form, an epitome of the bird-life of New England. The claims of each species to be considered a member of the New-England fauna are critically examined, and not one is admitted upon insufficient evidence of its occurrence within this area; the design being to give a thoroughly reliable list of the birds, with an account of the leading facts in the life-history of each species. The plan of the work ineludes brief descriptions of the birds them- selves, enabling one to identify any specimen he may have in hand; the local distribution, migration, and relative abundance of every species; together with as much general information respecting their habits as can conveniently be brought within the compass of a hand-book of New-England ornithology.”’ . This plan is consistently and faithfully car- ried out. The descriptions of the birds, to be sure, are a little meagre and unsatisfactory at times; but it must be remembered that they are intended primarily for a class of amateurs who are not fitted, either by experience or in- clination, to wade through more exact, tech- nical diagnoses. The biographical matter is written in the editor’s well-known and eminently character- istic style, —a style not wholly free from faults perhaps, but, in the main, so finished and picturesque that it is sure to attract and interest every lover of birds. In the present * instanee, the only fault we have to find with these biographies is that they are often too brief and general, —in short, that there is too much condensation. Especially is this the case among water-birds, where the account of habits, distribution, etc., is frequently crowded into a few lines. Doubtless this was necessary 358 to keep the work within its assigned limits, but it is none the less a disappointment. One of the most valuable features of the book —to the scientific ornithologist, at least — is the bringing together of previous records pertaining to the rarer birds. In almost all eases these have been exhaustively collated, a work chiefly, if not wholly, performed by Mr. Purdie, whose well-known fitness for the task is a practical guaranty of its thorough ‘accomplishment. The weakest spot in the structure is that of the editor’s rulings on questions affecting the comparative abundance and seasonal dis- tribution of the less-known birds. In many —far too many — cases, his conclusions are more or less unwarranted or premature; in not a few, they are positively and demonstrably erroneous. This was to be expected, how- ever, in view of the fact that neither editor nor author is known to have had an exten- sive experience in New-England fields or woodlands; and, considering such limitations, it is chiefly remarkable that they have done so well. But, despite its shortcomings, ‘ New-England bird-life,’ as a whole, may be honestly charac- terized as a work of real merit and unques- tioned utility. Its faults are seldom vital, its excellences many and obyious.. Although a manual, rather than a comprehensive general treatise, it cannot fail to take a high and permanent place among the literature of North- American ornithology. To the student of New- England birds, it is sure to prove a valuable hand-book, adequate for the determination of most problems which the limited field is likely to furnish. There is still room, of course, for the more extensive structures which some NY (ey ee Re aes ae ; SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 32. future builders will doubtless rear on this sub- stantial corner-stone. Before concluding, we find it necessary to reyert to arather delicate subject, — that of the ostensible authorship of the book. In the preface to part i., the editor touches on this, as follows : — ‘Mr. Stearns undertook this work several years ago, at the writer’s suggestion, that such a treatise was much to be desired, and could not fail to subserve a useful purpose. Having been diligently revised from time to time, in the light of our steadily inereas- ing knowledge, Mr. Stearns’s manuscripts have been submitted to the editor’s final corrections. In revis- ing, and to some extent rewriting, them for publica- tion, the editor has been influenced by the author’s request that he would alter and amend at his own discretion.”’ Perhaps we are bound to accept this ex- planation literally ; but the reader familiar with - Dr. Coues’s characteristic style and methods will find few traces of Mr. Stearns’s alleged participation. Clearly the ‘revising’ was very thoroughly done. We might go even farther, and venture the surmise that Dr. Coues not only edited, but wrote, the entire book. But is this a matter with which we have any business to meddle? Probably not so far as Dr. Coues’s interests are at stake. If he chooses to do all the work, and take less than half the credit, it is his own affair. Nevertheless, it certainly 7s our right to chal- lenge a reputation unfairly won, and until fur- ther proofs are forthcoming we shall refuse to believe that Mr. Stearns’s agency in ‘ New- England bird-life* has been much more than nominal. Perhaps the inside history of the book will never be made public, but intelli- gent ornithologists are likely to see through a millstone with a hole in the middle. ¥ AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. _ PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. ADDRESS OF OTIS T. MASON OF WASH- INGTON, D.C., THE SECTION, AUG. 15, 1888. THE SCOPE AND VALUE OF ANTHROPO- LOGICAL STUDIES. EVERY thing that comes before the human mind has to pass through a process of weighing and meas- uring, and receives a valuation according to the thinker’s standards of merit. In this critical spirit let us pass in review those studies called anthropole- VICE-PRESIDENT OF. - tive study of man. gical, in order to form some estimate of their value according to the measures commonly applied to vari- ous departments of learning. Anthropology is the application of the instrumen- talities and methods of natural history to the induc- The anthropologist, in this sense, is not a dilettante philosopher, who inquires into old things because they are old, or into curious things while they are curious, omitting all the great move- ments and needs of society, and overloading the baggage-train of progress with trumpery picked up along the march. The practical spirit of our age de- mands that we ask what truth, or good, or beauty SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] comes from such investigations, and how we can make them subservient to human weal. As to the scope of anthropology, we may be in- structed by the work of others. The natural history of any species, say of the domestic horse, includes many inquiries, such as the time and place of its origin; its ancestry; its pristine size, appearance, and mode of living. We should afterwards inquire con- cerning the archeology or the paleontology of the Equidae, their embryology, anatomy, physiology, diseases, abnormalities, and external characteristics. Mr. Romanes would have a chapter on the intelli- gence of the animal, as to its nature and amount, supplementing the discussion with notes on the vari- ous ways in which the horse manifests its mind, its wills, emotions, and opinions. Horses do not con- struct elaborate houses like the ants and the beavers; but the members of all species occupy their daily lives in some habitual industries by means of which they wear out the excess of muscle. Sir John Lub- bock would lead us farther, and show us that horses go in droves, follow a leader, plan migrations, at- tacks, and defenee, amuse themselves, enjoy one another’s company, improve in appearance, intelli- gence, and usefulness by cultivation, —in a thousand ways show themselves to be social creatures. At last Mr. Mivart would insist that the horse has its habi- tude (é&¢), its manner of action, its economy (oecol- ogy), and its members are affected in a characteristic manner by heat, light, moisture, winds, the kind and quality and abundance of food and drink, by bene- ficial or injurious animal neighbors, and by the vital, procreative, inheritable energy with which they are endowed. These and many other kindred inquiries concerning this homogeneous group would constitute the science of hippology. The conscientious devotee to this science would frequently ask himself what practical good would re- sult from all this expenditure of time, thought, and resources necessary to collect specimens and facts, and to formulate his science. Could they be em- ployed on some subject more ennobling and profitable to himself, better calculated to inform, enrich, and beatify mankind ? Now, instead of horses, let us substitute the genus homo, laying aside all predilections; and, if possible, let us imagine the student of anthropology to belong to quite another genus than the subject of his re- search. He would have, in the fourteen hundred millions of human beings now living on the earth, and the remains of their congeners slumbering in its bosom, perhaps tbe best defined group of ani- mals. Calling them a genus or a species, as you like, they are so -well hedged off from all other animal groups that not the least embarrassment has ever disturbed the naturalist in distinguishing the an- thropos even from the anthropoid. No one was ever puzzled to tell, concerning any living thing, whether or not it was a human being. The earth has never yielded a bone concerning which the practical anato- mist stood in doubt whether it had been once part of a human body. Now, Iake it for granted that any inquiry what- SCIENCE. 359 ever which would be useful or entertaining respect- ing another species would be intensified in importance having man for its object. Indeed, there are few questions which naturalists are wont to propose to their groups whica ought not to be carefully consid- ered when we are studying man. Before entering upon the weighing process, therefore, it may make our task more easy if we consider the present scope of anthropology, and briefly pass in review some of the questions which are being propounded by an- thropologists every day. When did man first appear on earth, —at what time and in what geological horizon? Have all the individuals of our race descended from a common human ancestry? in other words, are we monogenists, or polygenists ? Where was the birthplace of humanity ? What manner of creature was that first man in specific characteristics, in size, aspect, intelligence, and social condition ? and how did he get here? To all such queries, Haeckel aptly gives the name of anthropogeny: therefore, in order to be anthropol- ogists we must be anthropogenists. Another set of questions relates to that stretch of time which lies between the pristine man, or the pristine condition, and the beginnings of recorded history. Have we complete, irrefragable evidence that our race has progressed from a brute-like condition, in which it was devoid of all experience and appliances ? What application must we make of Professor Tylor’s belief that civilization has progressed up- ward like a column of vapor, some parts advancing while other parts are being rolled downward, but, on the whole, ascending and expanding ? Granting that there has been improvement, what paths have been pursued ? Speaking of our own peculiar province, what is the real import of such discoveries as those of Dr. Abbott and Professor Whitney in establishing the great an- tiquity and early rudeness of the Aierican savage ? Who were the builders of the mounds, earthworks, cliff-dwellings, and the stone structures of Middle America? What were the functions of these various edifices ? What credence is to be given to the early historians of American culture ? Already we have our schools of interpretation, such as the Bancroft school and the Morgan school. Where, among these opposing schemes, does the truth lie? In the administration of this science, there is oc- ecupation for the greatest diversity of talent. The biologists of our time are entering into the minutest inspection of the life-history of each animal form. With enthusiasm the embryologists trace the modifi- cations of structure as they succeed one another in the germ. [Before their eyes the very play of creation is dimly shadowed, and organic structure built up. They pass their work on to the anatomists and physi- ologists. Now, the anthropologist must endeavor to comprehend the whole in its synthesis. As Newton and Laplace grasped the unity and organization of 360 the stellar world, as Humboldt gazed upon all cre- ated things as elements of the universal cosmos, as Darwin first conceived the consanguinity of all liv- ing beings and their mutual help or harm, so the an- thropologist seeks to unite all that can be known respecting man into a comprehensive science, and to study the innumerable correlations which bind the most incongruous actions and thoughts together in harmony. May we gain help, in solving questions of human origin, by carefully observing the evolution of the embryo? Does a knowledge of the life history of the indi- vidual furnish a clew to the life history of the species ? What does a comparison of the anatomy of man with that of the quadrumana say respecting the gene- alogy of the species ? What are the proper methods and instruments of anthropometry, — observing the growth of children, the dimensions, angles, and curves of the cranium, the diversity and size of the brain according to age and sex and race, the weight of the body, the color of the skin, hair, and eyes, the muscular movements, the development of faculties, longevity, fecundity, plas- ticity under change of environment, and vigor? and what are the legitimate inferences to be drawn from such investigations ? Finally, by what devices can the multitudinous correlations of structure and function in the human body find expression in graphic methods ? Another set of observers must now be brought into this great laboratory. We have to deal with a group of animals in which intelligence has manifested itself to such a degree as to dominate all other functions. Teleological inquiries can be no longer excluded. Hitherto the application of scientific methods to the mind has required that we should be satisfied with sensuous results of thought, and forbidden us to in- quire into the nature of the mind itself. Now, we are met at the outset with this puzzling question: Shall consciousness or introspection be admitted as an in- strument of observation? How are we to record its dicta? and how (to bor- row a term from the astronomers) shall we eliminate the personal equation ? Or, if we are not in a position to admit introspec- tion among our tools of observation, can we not in- vent some delicate apparatus by means of which the strength of feeling and the inmost thoughts may be known and measured ? Does the brain generate thought as the liver gen- erates bile? What can science tell us concerning the existence of a human soul, non-material, and not susceptible of measurement by the standards of well-known forces ? r Hlow does it come about that children inherit the traits, tendencies, and faculties of their progenitors ? By what routes does the mind pass on its way from infancy to maturity? What use should be made of the multitudes of in- quiries prosecuted with reference to the minds of animals, in the study of human reason? SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 32. The student of anthropology frequently finds him- self in sympathy with Wordsworth, singing, — Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar.” — If, as Mr. Spencer says, that which we inherit rep- resents the accumulated experiences of a thousand generations, is it also possible to retain the conscious- ness of those experiences? Will the sensitiveness of consciousness keep pace with the growth of knowl- edge, and obviate the necessity of laborious records? In which case we should have mental and spiritual atavism explained, and that universal sympathy felt by cultivated people for those standing on the lower steps of civilization. Now, whatever thoughts any other creature than ourselves may have, and leaving out the possibility of mechanical mind-reading in the future, up to this time the only knowledge men have gained about one another’s thoughts has been acquired from expression. The expression of thought is language. Dr. Hoffman finds language in rock paintings and carvings; Col. Mallery, in gestures; Mr. Thomas, in the Maya hiero- glyphies; and the glossologists, in human utterance, Happily for us, they are a clever set, and well up in their craft. Let us hear some of the questions they are discussing: — What are all the devices employed by living crea- tures to express their thoughts, emotions, and vyoli- tions ? Which took precedence in the origin of language, signs, or vocal utterances ? What is the explanation of the origin of language ? What light does language throw upon the origin of species ? Is the evolution of language a safe gnide to the knowledge of the unfolding of the human mind? By what lines have the forms of speech progressed ? How far is similarity of language an evidence of consanguinity among peoples? i ; Is there a genetic relationship between monosyl]la- bism, polysynthetism, and inflection ? } What credit must be given to the ear, and the in- vention of writing, in the conservation, and lines of progress, of language ? How should languages be classified ? Here we may leave the students of language, and take anew guide. Looking over the earth, we behold men divided into races or consanguineous groups, filled with race prejudices, and restricted by race capa- bilities. What are those external and anatomical charaecter- istics which have become transmissible by inherit- ance? When and how were they fixed? Are we to imagine, with Dr. Kollmann, that certain race forms" were fixed far back in the past, just as the chemical elements were made irresolvable by a former state of matter? Of these heritable marks, which is the best criterion of race, — the skull, the color of the skin, the texture of the hair, language, art, social organization, or — mythology ? or is it certain fixed correlations of these SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] and other characteristics? If so, what are the laws of correlation and conservation in the races? Should the same set of structures be depended on in each race? How many races of men are there? and are these species, or varieties ? In what manner should the question of race enter into the administration of polities, economy, educa- tion, and colonization ? > It is impossible to say when this subject of race first became attractive to human minds. In the old- est histories and on very ancient monuments, are to be seen attempts to classify the families of mankind. In all the encyclopaedias, under the word ‘ ethnology’ will be found the schemes of modern writers. But, since the commencement of our century, the subject has been taken out of the hands of individuals, and has engrossed the attention of societies. Manuals of instruction have guided the voyager and the traveller in recording the characteristics of races. In Stan- ford’s Compendiums, based on von Hellwald, Mr. A. H. Keane has commenced a codification and synonymy of all the tribes of men. This he proposes to follow up with a biographical dictionary of tribes. The Bureau of ethnology has collated the names, priscan homes, migrations, and bibliography of all the North- American Indian tribes. So that we are in a fair way to know something about the races of men, by proceeding from particulars to a general view. Passing from man to his works, we are face to face with aesthetic and practical art as a unique study. Allart relates to human desires for food, clothing, shelter, for activity in peace and war, for beauty, for social and spiritual happiness. Mr. Tylor has taught us to look upon art products as species that have had an evolution, a life history; and this was very much the plan of Gustav Klemm. This sort of study has captivated many anthropologists, and they are asking such questions as these: — Admitting that the arts have been progressive, what have been the lines of their elaboration ? May we, by a process of elimination, trace backward the life history of each art, as a patent attorney or a chancery lawyer ? At what degree of workmanship may we be sure that flakes of flint, gashed bones, and wrought wood, give evidence of human handicraft ? When does similarity of art-forms indicate social or commercial contact? when, consanguinity? and when, merely the same gradus of culture ? Is degenerate art a facsimile of early, progressive art? : Js it allowable to fill up the gaps in the arts of any tribe by seemingly intermediate forms from other tribes ? Whence is the sense of beauty ? The answers which we unconsciously give to these queries are the major premises of our arguments re- specting the history of civilization. By marriage in some of its forms, human beings are united into consanguineous groups, whose other needs demand and produce other bonds of union, and widen the separatio; from other groups. With reference to each set of duties in the tribe, unwritten or written ‘ SCIENCE. a» Di tal a 4 ee C8 ry A A Bens > , codes embody a system of ethics, regulating conduct in every particular. Farther on in their history, groups have relations of war and peace, and the ab- sorption of homogeneous and heterogeneous peoples into a defined area gives rise to nationalities. Were men ever herded together in promiscuity ? What were the earliest forms of social life ? What were the most primitive forms of marriage in groups ? Have all the tribes of men passed through the same systems of consanguinity and affinity? Can the highest systems of altruistic ethics be ex- plained by natural processes ? What are the most beneficial relations of labor to natural resources ? and how have the present relations been brought about ? What is the history of the control of the body politie over the individual, and of the jurisdiction of corporations ? and to what extent may individual free- dom be controlled without discouraging private ambition? What has been the life history of communism, crime, fashion, and politics? Is it possible to regard and define facts in sociology by the terms of physical scieuce? Again, these human beings spend a great portion of their time acting and speaking as if other eyes and ears than those of mortals were cognizant of them. In the darkest nights, at the rising sun, throughout the day, at certain seasons of the year, this unseen world isinvolved. In groves, in caverns, in estufas, or in costly temples, it is all the same: praises, petitions, and offerings confront the inscru- table power that cau work men weal or woe. How did man come to believe in the animation of things, fetiches, the wanderings of ghost-souls, spirits benevolent and malignant, the gods of classic myth- ology, and the Great Father of all? What are the first conceptions of children respect- ing such things? and will these guide us aright to the childhood of faith? Has the history of mythology run paraliel with the history of material and intellectual progress ? How may we divest ourselves of the personal equation, and learn the true psychology of savage worship ? Is Dr. Brinton right in applying the rules of inter- pretration adopted for Aryan mythology to American Indian myths, and in assuming that their crude stories are disguised deificationus of the phenomena and powers of nature ? Finally, as men wander about the earth, and certain families are to be found chiefly in certain localities, so is it with races. Longevity, fecundity, and vigor are influenced by such causes as height above the sea-level, purity of the atmosphere, amount and dis- tribution of heat, moisture, winds, fertility of the soil, and proximities, whether they be vegetal, animal, or human, whether they be beneficial or injurious. By what subtle chemistries of the things around us, by what exposures in this terrestrial camera, come to pass the various hues of the skin and hair and eyes, the long skull and the short skull, the long face and the broad face, and the fixed compounds called natural characteristics ? By what processes of selection and adaptation has this cosmopolitan species come to occupy the whole earth, its genial climes, its frozen areas, and its fever- cursed tropics ? Is it possible to control these phenomena, or to adjust the human machine so as to anticipate and assist nature, to expedite natural selection and the survival of the fittest? or even to subdue nature, and decide for her what shall be the fittest to survive ? From this hasty survey of the scope of anthro- pology, we return to inquite what benefit the world derives from the cultivation of this science. I answer, firstly, that every study is improved by study. All things become clearer to him who steadily fixes his gaze upon them. The sciences all began with vain speculations, —astronomy with astrology, chemistry with alchemy, geology with cosmogonies, biology with nature-worship, and theology with myth- ology. Long before the word ‘anthropology’ was employed in its present acceptation, Alexander Pope wrote, ‘‘The proper study of mankind is man.” But, millenniums before his day, mankind studied mankind by the light of their time. The study of man is no new thing, therefore. Now, since human thought has run, and will continue to run, in that direction, it becomes our privilege to rejoice that the stream has in these last days run wider and deeper and clearer. The proper study of mankind is the scientific study of man, the multiplication of rigor- ously exact observations, the collection of thousands of well-authenticated specimens, the classification of both observations and specimens on rational bases, and the limitation of our conclusions to the extension of our premises. Some of my hearers have worked systematically and patiently for years at American archeology, or the anthropology of the modern In- dians ; and you rejoice with me to-day that our science has at last attained dignity and respect. With profound veneration I mention the names of Hildreth, Atwater, Stephens, Gibbs, Schoolcraft, Morton, Gallatin, Wyman, Squier, and Davis: with what buoyant hope they looked forward to this day, and with what exquisite pleasure must such living witnesses of the beginning as Horatio Hale, Col. Whittlesey, Dr. Jones, and Mr. Hempstead now con- template the progress of solid work! The Smith- sonian institution will have to republish Squier and Davis, with many additions and corrections by Dr. Rau; the Bureau of ethnology will antiquate School- eraft and Gallatin and Gibbs; Morton’s and Wyman’s work will be entirely susperseded by that of the Pea- body museum and the Army medical museum. The Archaeological institute of America will throw new light upon the researches of Stephens; and Mr. H. H. Bancroft will make it entirely unnecessary to wade through thousands of pages of ancient Spanish literature. Therefore the first and most beneficial result of'modern anthropology has been the direction of an immense amount of rambling and disorganized labor into systematic and rational employment. This clearing of rubbish, correction of misconcep- SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 32. tions, cultivation of a modest spirit, willingness to abide the result, multiplication of materials, refine- ment of instruments, improvement of processes, in a study which thousands are determined to pursue, must strike every thinking person as a wonderful reformation. ; Secondly, the value of a study must be estimated by its effects upon human weal. Farmers, miners, fishermen, lumbermen, mechanics, are slow to rec- ognize their debts to the man of science. But who can estimate the millions of dollars saved by such studies as those of Packard, Riley, and Thomas, on the grasshopper, potato-beetle, and army and cotton worms, and the confidence engendered by the belief that a knowledge of the habits of these animals would lead to their conquest? It would take but a few moments to show that this argument applies with manifold force to the study of man himself. It is not enough for the good physician to know the nature of remedies, or the use of knives and diagnostic apparatus. Sad will be his use of these if he has not familiarized himself with the structure of the human body in health and in disease, and, above all, if he has not made a correct diagnosis of his patient’s case. Are not all the questions asked ‘in the first part of this discourse, and many others agitated by anthropologists, connected with human welfare? Do they not relate to the body, mind, and speech of man, to the races of mankind, their arts, amusements, social needs, political organizations, religion, and dispersion over the earth? For instance, the French in Africa, the British in India, and our own Citizens in malarious and fever-laden regions, — have they not learned from loss of treasure, ruined health, and the shadow of death, that there is a law of nature which cannot be transgressed with im- punity? It is the same with sociology and religion. The pages of history glow with the narratives of crusades against alleged wrongs, which were in reality cam- paigns against the sacred laws of nature. Social systems, which had required centuries to crystallize, have been shattered in the effort to bend them to some new order of things. Arts and planted in uncongenial soil, at great expense, have brought ruin upon their patrons, who had notstudied the intricate laws of environment. What a modification of temper, for instance, has been wrought among Indo-Germanic peoples by those studies in comparative philology which have led them by the hand back to their priscan home, and demon- strated, that though they may have aggregated into antagonistic nationalities, and fostered inimical in- dustries, the same blood courses through their veins! The better knowledge of race and race peculiarities has revolutionized and humanized the theories of aborigines. The doctrine of extermination, formerly thought to be the only legitimate result of coloniza- tion, has hecome as odious as it is illogical. The inductive study of mind has hardly begun; but how much more successfully and rapidly will education and the development of the species progress — when the teacher and the legislator can proceed at industries — Re Pe SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] once from diagnosis to safe prescription, when natural selection and human legislation shall co-operate in the more speedy survival of the fittest! The time seems to me to have arrived when our great anthro- pological societies and institutions should institute a Systematic, co-operative study of psychology. In a Jand where the archeologist may tally off most of his finds by savage implements in use at his very door, it seems like presumption to speak to you of the advantages of the most careful archeological methods. But there is a difference between the old and the new archeology. There are times in the settlement of a new country, when every man is his own carpenter, smith, and physician. But how soon your energies have worked out of that! Now [speak only ef professional archeology and its advantages. How many mistakes of his predecessors has Mr. Putnam alone corrected? We have all read with pleasure his recent correction of Dr. Hildreth’s mis- takes about iron in the mounds. It is so with your archeological collections: only those gathered in a Uscientitic spirit will have any lasting value. But in the accumulation and preservation of such, you are the storers of force of the greatest value. You are recovering the scattered fragments of an ancient mosaic which will one day be reset, and its legend will be the lost history of prehistoric man. The third benefit to which I will call your attention is the opportunity which the science affords for the exercise of every talent, even the highest. The dif- ficulty of any problem depends upon the number or the degree of its unknown quantities. When facts were few, and the data of the science were beclouded with many sources of error, no wonder that men of logical minds left these investigations to those of a more imaginative disposition. Their crude, prelim- inary efforts have given place to organized work, directed by men of the greatest executive ability, assisted by skilful specialists, and endowed both by private munificence and by public appropriation. Not to go beyond the limits of our own country, we all point with pride to the Peabody museum, the Archaeological institute of America, the American antiquarian society, the museums of New York city and of Philadelphia, the Smithsonian institution, National museum, Bureau of ethnology, Army medical museum, and the Anthropological society at Washington, the academies of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Davenport, and the historical societies of many of our states, including the Minnesota collections. Now, the special merit of such great centralization of resources is that everybody can study something. It is possible for every craft and profession thus to prosecute its researches and to make its contributions. During the past winter, papers were read before the Anthropological society at Washington by compara- tive anatomists, biologists, archeologists, geologists, physicians, paleographers, sign-linguists, philolo- gists, patent-examiners, artists, statisticians, sociol- ogists, clergymen, metaphysicians, and ethnogra- phers. And this does not exhaust the scheme. Mothers, school-teachers, those in charge of the insane, the criminal, and the defective classes, law- SCIENCE. 363 yers, mechanics, musicians, philanthropists, legis- lators, may all contribute to this science some handi- work which will help to make the.pilecomplete. ‘To be still more personal, permit me to say to each one before me, that there is anthropological work which your peculiar occupation fits you to do better than any one else on earth. For example, a distinguished ornithologist, Mr. Henshaw, has recently identified all the birds in the well-known mound-pipes. An artist, Mr. Holmes, has succeeded in bringing order out of confusion in the shell ornaments of the mounds. A patent-examiner, Mr. Seely, traces back- ward aboriginal art. A general in the British army, Pitt-Rivers, worked out the history of the elaboration of the implements of war. An educator, Mr. Peck- ham, has recently given us the result of a laborious investigation on the growth of children. The geolo- gists must interpret for us the significance of our discoveries in the drift. Where can I stop? I will boldly avow that the day of tyros is gone. There is a great multitude of collectors throughout our states who will have to go to school to Professor Putnam, or Dr. Rau, or Dr. Thomas, before they will have the faintest conception of the significance of their treasures. The inevitable result of speciat research is general- ization. Kepler, Newton, Count Rumford, Kirchhoff, Bunsen, and Dgrwin, are names that stand for these processes in material science. To Herbert Spencer we are indebted for the first effort in this direction respecting human phenomena, and his work will be revised and corrected by those who will approach the task with better instruments and more reliable material. In this heaving mass of humanity, returning into itself ever with vast gulf-streams and eddies, each act- uated by its special forces, there is, after all, orderly motion. We discover that our little circle is part of a greater circle, and for a moment the mind is satis- fied in the contemplation of this wider truth. Recov- ering, and renewing our investigation, the fact is reached, that this and its congeneric circles are part of a greater movement more complicated and per- plexing. By the pursuit of this wider knowledge the intellect is strengthened, and tliereby is brought about the natural selection of the mind. While many tire, or are unable to comprehend the situation, others press on, and grow strong by the effort. The last advantage of which my time will allow me to speak is the assistance which such studies render to philanthropy and legislation. Standing on the deck of a steamer, and looking at the land left behind, we seem to be but a mile or two away. Weare surprised with the information, that what seems so near is many miles distant. It is so with human history. In our childhood we believed that the first. man walked the earth only a few cen- turies ago. All the events known to us then could easily have occurred in that brief period. The in- crease of knowledge expands the boundaries of time, and the origin of man is now lost in the mists of the past. Could any thing fill our minds with greater love for our race than the maguificent struggle they 364 have made in these millenniums? At the other end of the journey we were no better than brutes, and now we look out upon the cosmos as something . reasonably comprehended. If ‘ pity for a horse o’er-driven’ fills the heart of the poet, with what tenderness should we look upon the savage races, and remember that the whole family of man has stopped, some time or other, at that way- side inn! Each aberrant form, abnormality, criminal, dwarf, and giant shows the by-paths of human growth into which our life-stuff may have wandered. The arrow is the parent of the cannon-ball ; the stone or bone spear-point, of the bayonet; the flint chip, of all edged tools ; the cave-man, of the French savant ; the hut, of the palace; the tattoo, of regalia; the gorget, of the crown jewels ; the quipo and picto- graph, of the printed book ; promiscuous concubin- age, of holy wedlock ; the hunting-party, of society ; the clan, of the state ; the fetich, of the pantheon ; and universal animism, of universal causation. Instead of our ancestral belief in a tree with roots in the earth and branches in heaven, our tree has its roots in the past, and is ever putting forth leaves and flowers in a brighter present. All sciences are retrospective. The astronomer, the physicist, the biologist, find the bases of their prophecies in the past history of the universe. The statesman, if he be wise, will imitate gheir example, and feel secure of his legislation for the future only so far as it is founded upon an intimate knowledge of the past. The value of this study to philanthropy is easily shown. With what admiration do we read of the devo- tion of those missionaries who have suffered the loss of all things in their propagandist zeal! Science has her missionaries as well as religion, and the scientific -study of peoples has notably modified the methods of the Christian missionary. The conviction that savage races are in possession of our family records, that they are our elder kindred, wrinkled and weather- beaten mayhap, but yet worthyof our highest re- spect, has revolutionized men’s thoughts and feelings respecting them. The Bureau of ethnology has its missionaries among many of the tribes in our domain, no longer bent on their destruction, but treating them with the greatest consideration, in order to win their confidence, to get down to their level, to think their thoughts, to charm from them the sibylline secrets. It sounds something like the old Jesuit relations, to hear of Mr. Cushing at Zufi, eating vile food, wear- ing savage costume, worshipping nature-gods, subject- ing himself to long fastings and vigils, committing to memory dreary rituals, standing between disarmed Indians and their white enemies on every hand, in order to save their contributions to the early history of mankind. You will recall the fact, that an honor- able senator more than a year ago offered, as an ar- gument against sudden disruption of tribal affinities, an elaborate scheme of the Wyandotte confederacy. Max Miiller says, ‘* He who knows little of those who preceded him is likely to care little for those that come after. Life would be to him a chain of sand, while it ought to be a kind of electric chain that SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 32. makes our hearts vibrate with the most ancient thoughts of the past as well as the most distant hope of the future.” In the study of this anthropo-cosmos, as in other studies, we are brought face to face with the inseru- table. In these voyages of discovery we have no right to expect that we shall ever find a passage to the ulti- mate truth. As with the child, so with the man; as with the individual, so with the race; as in the past, so in the present and the future, — the solution of one problem only prepares the way for many far more complicated. With all our sciences comes the con- sciousness of new ignorances. There is more known to be unknown now than when wise men knew that they did not understand many things well known to us. Sowillit ever be. Just about one hundred*years ago, Peter Camper’s measurements of the facial angle, with a few observations on height and weight, were thought to be all that anthropometry could furnish to the natural history of man: In 1881 Paul Broca laid down for the skull and the encephalon more than one hundred and fifty measurements; and the Ger- mans go beyond that. Think you, the weighing and measuring will stop at these? We are just on the threshold of applying experienced training and in- struments of precision to the study of man. Exam- ine, if you please, the circulars for information issued by the old Paris ethnological society, Albert Gallatin, Lepsius, Max Miller, and the Smithsonian institu- tion, with those published for the Novara expedition, by the British association, Kaltbrinner, Roberts, the uew Paris society, or Major Powell, and you will have ocular evidence of the advance of anthropology. But there is no Ultima Thule in science. No ques- tion propounded to nature will ever be answered. I can imagine the night of despair that would settle around any one of my hearers when he had reached the consciousness of having gathered the whole har- vest of truth. On the other hand, I am sorry to hear any of our great thinkers uttering the words igno- ramus et ignorabimus as a wail of despair. They should be to all the sweet voice of hope. They do not mean that we know nothing, or that we shall ever remain totally ignorant. Fresh, vigorous, buoy- ant, science feels itself to be on a pleasant journey, whose destination may remain unknown, but every mile of whose progress unfolds new vistas of beauty and variety in nature, each transcending the other. I congratulate you, dearfriends, that the American. association has delegated to you such an important trust. The illustrious names to be found among our members and fellows are a sufficient guaranty that you have lighted your torches, and that our science will not be a laggard in this grand march. Professor Henry said, in 1859, ‘‘ The statement cannot be too often repeated, that each branch of knowledge is con- nected with every other, and that no light can be gained in regard to one which is not reflected upon all’? (Smith. rep., 1859, p. 15). We may go farther, and say, that, whenever, any marked generalization is made in any science, all other sciences proceed at once to put themselves in line with the new order. It is the duty of the anthropologists, therefore, not SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] only to rejoice in the growing light of chemistry and biology, but, quickened by their warmth, to put forth new life and vigor, and to apply to their investiga- tions the most refined instrumentalities and the mostsubtle thought; believing with Lord Lytton that man. is a subject of far nobler contemplation, of far more glowing hope, of a far purer and loftier vein of sentiment, than all the ‘floods and fells’ in the uni- verse, PAPERS READ BEFORE SECTION H. (MOUNDS AND MOUND-BUILDERS.) The great mounds of Cahokia. BY WILLIAM MoADAMS OF ALTON, ILL. THE mounds referred to are in the locality known as the ‘ American bottom.’ The region so called is a strip of alluvial land in the state of Illinois, lying between the bluff and the Mississippi river, and ex- tending from the city of Alton to a point below the city of East St. Louis. A map of the locatity, show- ing the places and dimensions of the mounds, was exhibited before the section. The mounds are over two hundred in number, and are the largest in the United States. A group of seventy-two mounds on the Cahokia creek was specially considered. The central mound of the group is the largest: it is a hundred feet high, and covers fourteen acres of ground, It is a truncated pyramid with two terraces: its flat top has an area of one and a half acres. The surrounding mounds are thirty to forty feet high: they are square, in this respect differing from the conical mounds of Ohio. The mounds on the bluff seem to be of a different order, being only four or five feet high, and round or oval. Unquestionably the mounds of the Cahokia valley are artificial, being made of black alluvial earth, entirely different from the ground on which they rest. The author accounted for the fact that there were few mounds on the banks of the Mississippi river, by supposing that the mound-builders were afraid of their enemies beyond the stream. Numbers of relics have been found in the Cahokia mounds, mostly of flint, some of them eighteen inches long. The finest is a white flint axe, which is of a smoothness and polish like ivory. In reply to an inquiry, the author stated that there had been considerable alluvial deposit formed since the mounds were built. The subsoil is a yellow clay loam: under the mounds is a floor of white sand. In discussing the paper, Gov. Bross stated that be had discovered, on the top of the only round mound of the group, a large flat stone, which he thought might have been used for sacrificial purposes, A skeleton had been found, of a man more than six feet high: the whole series of mounds gave evidence of the energy and industry the men of that time had possessed. Dr. Hoy said that there was in Africaa mere bird that threw up a mound fifteen feet high, so that these men might not have been even large. Mr. Putnam expressed the opinion that the mounds SCIENCE. 365 were simply a site for a town, and not a worshipping- place. Mr. MeAdams said he had been led to believe they were places of worship, by the use of just such mounds for places of worship in Mexico, their sun- worship being their government. There are few, if any, evidences of habitation. Metrical standard of the mound-builders, by the method of even divisors. BY CHARLES WHITTLESEY OF CLEVELAND, 0. In the absence of the author, an abstract of the paper was read by the secretary of the section. An endeavor was made, by the method named, to ascer- tain the standard of linear measurement which was used by the mound-builders. It is supposed that they, in common with other early races, used the length of some part of the human body as a linear unit. Several theories of the kind were tested math- ematically, but, thus far, with only negative results. The mound-builders identified. BY JOHN CAMPBELL OF MONTREAL, CAN. Tus paper was read by the secretary of the section, in the absence of the author. It was a pains-taking attempt to trace the origin of the mound-builders in the eastern hemisphere, chiefly by means of a comparison of ancient lan- guages along the line of a supposed route. The line of similarity was believed to indicate that the origi- nal people were Khitan or Khitos, Kathaei, Katei, Khilon, or Citem; and that they had made their way across Europe and northern Asia to Alaska, and thence to the United States, down the Mississippi valley, to Mexico. Professor Mason, the president of the section, ex- pressed the opinion that Professor Campbell was on the wrong track, while complimenting him upon his exceeding zeal and patience in his research. Pro- fessor Mason consoled himself, however, with the thought that the author had so thoroughly ex- hausted the subject that no one would ever attempt a similar experiment. Mr. D. A. Robertson of St. Paul differed from the president, and expressed the opinion that Professor Campbell was on the right track, and that the migration of the mound-builders would be traced from Siberia, or by the European isles, and, if not in one migration, in several. Typical shapes among the emblematic ~_ mounds. BY 8S. D. PEET OF CLINTON, WIS. By means of diagrams, the author exhibited the ground-outlines of different mounds which he had surveyed in Wisconsin, which showed,that they had been made in the form of animals, in different pos- tures. There were flying geese, eagles, jack-rabbits, panthers in the act of jumping upon their prey. Many of the supposed effigies were of great size, the tail of one squirrel having a length of three hundred feet. One of the mounds was in the shape of an elephant, with a very pronounced trunk. This mound, however, is now destroyed; and the 366 only authority for its existence is that of a man uow dead. There were mounds, also, in the shape of water-animals, such as turtles, crawfish, etc. His theory of these mounds was, that the animals were’ supposed to be scattered about to guard the central sacrifice or altar mound. He was led to this belief by observing that the altar mounds are nearly always situated on high ground, overlooking a river, while the emblematic mounds are so disposed around the altar mounds, as to suggest the notion of guarding the latter. Personal observations of the Missouri mounds from Omaha to St. Louis. BY E. P. WEST. In the absence of the author, the paper was read by Dr. Case of Kansas City. Observations were given with some detail, by which it appears that the Missouri mounds are built on the lower bluffs or terraces. The author shows also that these mounds must have been coeval with the loess deposits. He says we have reason to believe that the occupaney of the mound-builders was prior to the subsidence of the Missouri river and Kansas lakes, and that it was not continued long thereafter. It must have begun previous to the subsidence; since the remains and implements of this people are found in the undisturbed primitive deposits. Their ingress was probably from the south, and extended northward after the close of the glacial period. Turning northward after the close of the ice reign, they found the warm waters:of the Cham- plain lakes filled with fish, inviting an occupancy along their hospitable shores. Here they erected their abodes, and drew their principal food-supply from the lakes. In time, owing to geological changes, the lakes were drained: The conditions for existence being altered, the lake-dwellers either suffered ex- tinction, or were forced to change their mode of life. Their distinctive characteristics, at any rate, ceased long before the European touched foot on this con- tinent. We have no means of knowing whether they were exterminated by neighboring nomadic tribes, or became themselves nomadic in their habits. Game-drives among the emblematic mounds. BY S. D. PEET OF CLINTON, WIS. INDIAN mounds are divided by the author into five classes, as follows: 1, Emblematic, and built by hunt- ers who worshipped animals. 2. Burial-mounds: this class mostly prevails in Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota. 8. Mounds which are probably the re- mains of the stockades of an agricultural people. 4. Village mounds, —the remains of villages, and their high places for worship. mounds of the Pueblos and Aztecs. The first of these classes was the special subject of the paper. The author’s theory is, that the emblem- atic mounds, having the form of the animals hunted, served a useful, as well as a religious. purpose. He regards tllem as having been employed by the hunt- ers as screens from behind which to shoot the ani- SCIENCE. _ adversary. 5. The peculiar - [Vor IL, No. 32. mals which would pass along the game-drives between the mounds. Diagrams and charts were used to illus- trate the theory. (OTHER ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS.) In-door games of the Japanese. BY E. 8. MORSE OF SALEM, MASS. In introducing this subject, Mr. Morse said that there are curious affiliations between the Japanese and the American Indians, which may some time show a connection by family ties. Among the sim- ple in-door games of the Japanese are some that are played with balls, jackstones, and cat’s-cradle; but all these are more elaborate than with us, and the cat’s-cradle goes through a far greater variety of changes. The author believes that the greater intri- cacy of Japanese simple games is due to the fact that older people take more interest in them. Among these games, there is one similar to ‘Simon says thumbs up;’ there are tricks with the hands, much like our own; and there are numerous games of strik- ing hands, which appear easy, but require much prac- tice to acquire adroitness. There are many games that test strength or endurance; among them are some in which ears and noses are pulled, and others where the competitors each hop on one foot, and try to push their rivals over. They have a more elaborate game of checkers than ours. The pieces are placed on intersections instead of on squares. It frequently takes a month to play one game, and the players often deliberate over a move fur an hour or two. Experts in the game acquire a wide reputation. Japanese chess is prob- ably the most intricate game in the world. The board has 81 squares, and 20 pieces are used, which have moves somewhat like our own, though none are exactly similar. The pieces change in grade when they arrive at a certain position on the board. The strangest feature of the game is, that either player can take any piece which has been captured from him, replace it on the board, and use it against his This makes the game utterly bewilder- ing to a foreigner. The Japanese have no games with spotted and court cards like ours; but they have a card game of ‘authors,’ which compels players to cap verses of classic poetry. Mr. Morse was delighted to find this intellectual amusement a favorite with the Japanese; and he hopes they will never substitute for it our inferior struggles in seven-up, whist, and euchre. Life among the Mohawks in the Catholic mis- sions of Quebec province. BY ERMINNIE A. SMITH OF JERSEY CITY, N.J. THE paper was an interesting account of the In- dians brought under Roman-Catholic influence by missionary labors continued through many genera- tions. These Indians regard their priests as temporal directors as well as spiritual fathers. The manners and customs of the Indians were described, and some account was given of the studies of the author in the © SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] Indian dialects of the province; roting, especially, the more curious peculiarities of the language, the dialectie differences of the tribes, and the modes in which such changes have been effected. The principal occupation of the men is that of boatmen on the St. Lawrence, though the bead-work goods of the tribe are sold everywhere. The speaker detailed her exciting experience in shooting the rapids of the St. Lawrence, on a raft, under the skilful charge of these Indian boatmen. Many of the laws of the old aboriginal Mohawks are forgotten by the tribe described. The significance of some of the Wampum-belts was outlined; and the speaker recited the legend of the old bell in the chapel, closing with a tribute to the zeal and the results of the labors of the old Catholic priests who have worked so ‘long among these Indians. An exhibition was made, in connection with the reading of the paper, of wampum-belts, drawings of ornaments, and the work of the earlier priests, in- cluding some literature. Observations on the laws and privileges of the gens in Indian society. BY ALICE C. FLETCHER OF NEW YORK. Tus paper was read by the secretary of the sec- tion, in the absence of the author. An elucidation of the customs and circumstances under which the gens system in Indian tribes super- sedes parental ties, was the chief feature of this paper. The author had an excellent opportunity for observations of this character, during the work of placing the Omaha tribe of Indians upon their lands in severalty, and while adjusting the line of descent and inheritance according to our laws. ** A child who has lost its father or mother is con- sidered an orphan. Its particular place is gone, and it passes into the gens.” Beyond the foregoing state- ment, the paper does not make it quite clear, whether, in case of the death of the mother only, the child remains somewhat under direction of the father, or is wholly assigned to a family of the father’s relatives. But as to the results when the father dies, leaving offspring, the paper is quite explicit. In that case, the mother loses all maternal rights. Each child, unless of very tender age, will be separated from the mother, and will go into the family of some one of the father’s relatives. It may thereafter be claimed as his own child by the male head of the family to which it has been allotted. This separation of her children from a widow is permanent. Sbe usually marries again, and in that event is not burdened with her offspring by previous husband or husbands ; but if she should remain unmarried, she would be expected to work for the family that has adopted her children, rather than for the children themselves. Tf she dies when her children are young, it is proba- ble, that, at maturity, they will have forgotten even her name. The women are not wanting in affection for the children of whom they are bereft; but the separation is looked upon as a matter of course, none of the Pas eae is Ce nse” OA, eee CP SCIENCE. 367 interested parties regarding it as a grievance, or even a hardship. It surprises an Indian to have the pro- priety of this arrangement questioned. No point of our law of inheritance is so difficult for him to under- stand, as that whieh binds together the child and the surviving parent. Young men whose mothers are of the same gens are accounted brothers to each other, and the broth- ers of the mothers are uncles. Between these uncles and the nephews aud neices, there is an easy famil- iarity, not unlike that of parents and children. The author has observed a decided lack of family likeness among Indians. This observation applies, however, to entire families, which include cousins, aunts, and uncles; a striking resemblance between parents and children being not unusual. The Indian may be ‘the stoic of the woods;’ but he is neither averse to pleasantry, nor deficient in sensitiveness of a certain kind. He delights in chaff- ing his fellow Indian; and dreads, more than aught else, being made a laughing-stock. Symbolic earth formations. BY ALICE C. FLETCHER OF NEW YORK. Tuis paper was read by the secretary of the section, in the absence of the author. By the foregoing title, the author refers to certain heaps of earth which are piled up with care and formality during religious ceremonies of Indian tribes. Miss Fletcher has in previous papers described the preparation ofthese little mounds among the Sioux, where it formed part of every religious ceremony she witnessed. The present paper described this prac- tice among the Winnebagoes in the ‘ buffalo-dance,’ which is given by them four times in May and early June. The Winnebagoes, the author says, are ad- mitted to be one of the older branches of the great family to which their tribe belongs. Their antiquity is shown by the construction of their language, by finding many religious ceremonies of different tribes referred to the Winnebagoes, and by Winnebago words used by other tribes in connection with reli- gious ritual. The buffalo-dance was described in detail. As the dancers enter, each woman brings in a handful of fine earth, and deposits it, so that two small mounds are raised midway between the eastern entrance and a fire which is about fifteen feet from the entrance. The mounds thus formed are truncated cones; and an old Indian said to Miss Fletcher, ‘‘ That is the way all mounds were built: that is why we build so for the biffalo.”? The mounds were about four inches high, and not far from eighteen inches in diameter, When the mounds were completed, the head-gear of the four male dancers was placed upon them, consist- ing of claws, tails, and other trophies of the chase. The men imitate the buffalo in his wild tramping and roaring. The women follow in single file, each with her feet nearly straight and her heels together, propelling herself by a jerk of the body, or a kind of hop. The appearance of the entire line of female dancers is suggestive of the undulating movement of 368 a herd of buffaloes. The track left by the women’s feet is aregular pattern like a close-leaved vine, each woman hopping exactly into her predecessor’s foot- steps. The fire before: referred to is built east of the cen- tre of the tent, and contains four logs placed with their inner ends joining, and their outer ends toward the points of the compass. During the initiation of a candidate, at a certain point in the ceremony when he has fallen dead to the old life, and is raised to the new, the four logs are taken away, and the ashes are heaped in a sharply conical mound. The essayist also described one of the sacred rest- ing-places for spirits on the bluffs of the Missouri river. Such places are at intervals about fifty miles apart. They are cleared and cleaned by sacred hands every year. The place contained a depression in the ground, of circular form except as to an extension of the outline in an elongation or entrance exactly point- ing to the east. The depression is just one foot in circumference, and about six inches deep. An ad- joining tree, now partly blown down, has the reputa- tion among Indians of being haunted by spirits. The author hoped that other observers would be able to trace the probable connection between these obsery- ances and the building of the larger mounds. Osage war customs. BY J. 0. DORSEY OF WASHINGTON, D.C. THE paper was read by the president of the sec- tion, in the absence of the author. A By means of an illustration the preparations were shown which the tribe makes for a war-march, the order followed being that of rank in the tribe. The paper described the tactics by which the Osages camp in a circle, the war-men on one side, and the non- combatants on the other. The road travelled by the Indians forms the line down through the centre of the camp, and the division-line. The great war-tent is placed with the rear to the west, the place of honor being at the east. The author detailed at consid- erble length, with the aid of illustrated charts, the method of selecting the forces, and the ceremo- nials preparatory to war, the decoration of the Kean Woctake, or Cheezhoe peacemaker, the form of the dance around the village, the nature of the moving dance, the order of march from home by twos four abreast. Marriage ceremonials and funeral rites were also described and explained in detail. A marked feature of this paper was its use of draw- ings illustrating the grouping of bantieipants in ceremonies. Tae Charnay collection at Washington. BY 0. T. MASON OF WASHINGTON, D.c. Tue collection referred to contains the material obtained by the Charnay expedition to Mexico and ‘Central America. ‘The expenses of the expedition were defrayed by Mr. Pierre Lorillard. The author of the paper called attention to the fact that Mr. Lor- illard was not himself proficient in any branch of SCIENCE. science. ‘Thesuccess of the expedition showed how a gentleman of fortune might render valuable service to the cause of science, although not specially con- versant with scientific lore. In this expedition, a point was made by obtaining, as far as possible, casts (in plaster strengthened with tow) of the objects of antiquity. By means of these casts, the drawings of this and other exploring expe- ditions can be verified and corrected. Great success was attained, as to casts from little-known and almost inaccessible ruins; and many new objects of beauty and curiosity were brought to light, among them a large number of interesting reliefs and statues. The casts will be preserved in the museum at Washing- ton, and in duplicate at the Trocadéro museum in Paris. Numerous photographs and drawings were obtained; and measures have been taken, under the auspices of the Smithsonian institution, to reproduce several of the more important ruins by correctly arranging the casts in position with suitable acces- sories. Good success has already been attained, both in making restorations of ancient temples and other _ Tuins, and in correcting recorded measurements and drawings. The correspondence between the prehistoric map of North America and the system of social development. BY 8S. D. PEET OF CLINTON, WIS. In introductory remarks, the author claimed that the American continent was peculiarly favorable for the study of primitive life. The isolation of the continent, and the freedom from historical impres- sions, had contributed to a unique development. There is no trace of a Homeric age. Thesymbolism and mythology are homogeneous. In the eastern hemisphere, we have mountain ranges running east and west, which divided races: here we find little trace of such divisions, and the people were to be regarded as a unit. The theory of the author was, that the develop- ment of the North-American aborigines depended upon their surroundings. Dividing the development into three successive grades of savagery, barbarism, and civilization, he found these in successive paral- lels from colder to warmer climates. The isothermal lines of this continent do not follow parallels of latitude; aud due allowance must be made for their deflections to the north and south, in considering the effect of climate upon development. The author differed from Mr. Morgan on certain points. The production of pottery is not so certain an evidence of emergence from barbarism as is the pursuit of agriculture. While Mr, Morgan regarded the devel- opment of village-life as a distinguishing feature, Dr. Peet had found traces of village-life everywhere among the aborigines. In respect to the origin of the American races, the author believed that some aboriginal tribes came from the east, and others from the west. It is pos- sible that this diversity of descent can be detected by careful observation of the tribes on the Pacific coast. N [Von. II., No. 82. SEPTEMBER. 14, 1883.] The kitchens of the east. BY E. 8. MORSE OF SALEM, MASS. Tue author, during his travels in eastern Asia, had made some observations on the cooking-apparatus there in common use. The Japanese largely employ amere fireplace, over which the vessels containing food are suspended by hooks: they have, however, two or three kinds of regular stoves of different designs. In China, stoves of a definite character are in use: one was*found in Canton which was very elaborate; it was long, and had numerous openings. In Singapore, there appears to be only one kind of stove; and it is of decidedly primitive construction. In fact, it is little more than a rough trough filled with earth and sand, on which are laid rough stones selected with reference to pots of various sizes; and the fire is built among the stones. The kitchens in which these constructions are found are invariably very dark and dirty. In northern Java the author found a stove made of arched clay, as half an earthen pipe would be if cut through the axis of the eylinder. This half-cylinder is set with the open part down, and fire is built under its arch. Holes are cut through the crown of the arch, to hold some of the pots, while others are merely set upon the surface. Methods of arrow release. BY E. S, MORSE OF SALEM, MASS. Tue author recited the rules at present applied in the American system of archery; the bow being drawn with the right arm, the arrow being placed on the left side of the bow, and three fingers being used to hold the arrow. Among the Japanese, a different system prevails: the arrow is placed on the right side of the bow as it is held perpendicularly, and the draw- ing of the bow is performed with only the thumb and one finger on the shaft. China, Japan, and the Corea are alike in this manner of drawing the bow. Among Indian tribes, the methods of arrow-release differ very widely. In general it may be stated that our system of arrow-release (which the author des- ignated as the Saxon metho) is substantially the same as that of the majority of European races, the modifications of the system among them not being important. The Japanese use a glove with a heavy thumb, and sometimes a heavy ring on the thumb. Mr. Morse exhibited the Japanese archery-glove. It has a fill- ing of wood and pitch in the thumb, which aids in grasping the arrow. He considered this glove the best of its kind. Our system of three-finger release is certainly as good as any other, and probably is the best. With this system our archers—for instance, some in Ohio —are able to outshoot any Indian, tried by all the usual tests. As to the methods of stringing the bow, the author had not been able to find much uniformity. A number of different modes were exhibited. SCIENCE. 369 Vestiges of glacial man in central Minnesota. BY FRANC E, BABBITT OF LITTLE FALLS, MINN. In the absence of the author, this paper was read by Mr. Upton. The field of the discoveries detailed in this paper lies on the bank of the Mississippi river, in central Minnesota, about one hundred miles north-west of St. Paul, and within the township and village of Little Falls, Morrison county. In his report for 1877, Prof. N. H. Winchell, state geologist of Minnesota, de- scribed certain rudely worked pieces of quartz dis- covered by him in this locality. The author of this paper describes a discovery of worked bits of quartz in a much older stratum than the one explored by Professor Winchell. Fragments of sharp, opaque quartz were found by the author in 1879, in a gap or notch, eut by drain- age, in an‘ancient river-terrace, which has an eleva- tion of twenty-five feet above the present river. The gap had been deepened by use as a wagon-track, which has latterly become a highway. Ultimately the source of these fragments was traced, and found in the form of a thin layer, situated from ten inches to two feet above the point in the notch where Miss Babbitt began her discoveries. The ancient terrace consists of stratified gravel and sand. The layer of quartz-chips extended in a nearly horizontal plane into the terrace, and was partially « broken up on the edge where the gap, with its wagon- road, had disturbed a portion. Both the inferior and superior planes of the quartz-bearing stratum were sharply defined : its thickness averaged a few inches, varying a little with the size of included pieces. The quartz-bed rested upon a few inches of sandy soil, which passed downward into a coarse water-worn gravel immediately overlying till. Above the quartz- bed, stratified gravel and sand extend up to the sur- face of the terrace, which is twelve to fifteen feet higher than the plane of the quartz. The pebbles of the gravel lying directly on the quartz were small well-rounded, and less angular than those of the gravel below. ¢These observations show that the quartz- chips were spread originally upon an ancient surface that was afterward covered deeply by the modified drift that forms the terrace. The quartz-chips and implements discovered by Dr. Winchell were in the upper stratum of the terrace-plain. ‘The two sets of objects cannot be synchronous in deposit: between the periods when they were left there, an interval of time must have passed sufficient for the deposit of twelve or fifteen feet of modified drift. The specimens are mostly small, and very numer- ous. Among them are some of a type unknown to the author, of which the most finished have delicate, fragile edges, formed by a single thin leaf of the quartz prolonged beyond the mass of the object in a series of minute, irregular notches. The speci- mens of different types were found in groups, each of its own type, in this deposit. Some are thus de- scribed: ‘Axe-like quartzes,’ ‘rasping-stones,’ ‘long prong-shaped objects,’ ‘hammer-stones of different shapes, sharp pieces adaptable as cutting-blades, and 370 a great many sharp and long splinters.’ They are made of many different varieties of the quartz min- eral; but the greater part appears to have been taken from quartz-bearing slate in the vicinity. Numbers have evidently been formed from water-worn pebbles. Objects shaped from some special variety or tint of quartz were found generally together in loose groups of two or three to a dozen pieces. Where a piece is of large size, the chips surrounding it are usually much smaller. 4 Professor Henry W. Haynes of Boston, to whom a collection of the specimens was submitted, has writ- ten, that he believes some of them to be implements; many, chips and refuse struck off in the work; many are natural forms, and a few are rolled pebbles. Those which he thinks are implements, he supposes were held in the hand of the workman; masses of quartz were fitted for use by having most of their projections battered off by another stone. He be- lieyes, also, that he has found traces of moss or leaves being used to soften the roughness of these implements when held in the hand. Mr. Warren Upham, assistant of the state geologi- eal survey, contributed the following statement on the subject, showing how man could live while the modified drift was deposited, and how relics of his work might be enclosed within that formation. He says, — “As soon as the ice had so far retreated as to uncover the present valley of the Mississippi river in Morrison county, the deposition of the modified drift, constituting the terrace-plain in which are found the quartz chippings, ensued, during the con- tinued retreat of the ice. It seems very probable, that vegetation and animals followed close upon the retiring ice-border; and that even man, who lived near the Atlantic coast in this closing stage of the glacial period, as abundantly proved by recent dis- eoveries in the drift-gravel near Trenton, N.J., may also have lived here at that time, and occupied the Mississippi valley directly after the ice-sheet retired. While the deposition of the valley-drift at Little Falls was still going forward, men may have lived there, and left, as the remnants of their manufacture of stone implements, the multitude of quartz fragments here described. By the continued deposition of the modified drift, lifting the river upon the surface of . its glacial flood-plain, these quartz-chips were deeply buried in that formation. The date of this valley- drift must be that of the retreat of the ice of the last glacial epoch, from whose melting were supplied both this sediment and the floods by which it was brought. The glacial flood-plain, beneath whose surface the quartz-fragments occur, was deposited in the same. manner as additions are now made to the surface of the bottom-land; but the flooded condition of the river, by which this is done, was doubtless maintained through all the warm portion of the year, while the ice-sheet was being melted away upon the region of its head waters. In spring, autumn, and winter, or, in exceptional years, through much of the summer, | it seems probable that the river was confined to a channel, being of insufficient volume to cover its SCIENCE. [Von. II., No. 32. flood-plain. At such a time this plain seems to have been the site of human habitations and industry, as shown in this paper. After the complete disappear- ance of the ice from the basin of the upper Missis- sippi, the supply of both water and sediment was so diminished that the river, from that time till now, has been occupied more in erosion than in deposition, and has cut its channel far below the level at which it then flowed, excavating and carrying to the Gulf of Mexico a great part of its glacial flood-plain, the remnants of which are seen as high terraces or plains upon each side of the river,’’ An animated discussion followed the reading of Miss Babbitt’s paper. Mr. Putnam referred briefly to the discoveries made by Dr. Abbott in New Jersey, some of which are unquestionably artificial produc- tions, and prove that man resided in that region prior to the last glacial deposit, or, as some claim, between two glacial deposits. The discoveries made here seem to be of the same character as those in New Jersey. Their age belongs to geologists to as- certain. He considered the discovery very important, and the paper one of great value. Rev. Mr. Peet took issue with Mr. Putnam as to the value of the discoveries, and thought, that, if paleotiths had to depend upon such a shallow foundation as was fur- nished by these alleged discoveries, the matter would better be dropped. He thought there was absolutely no evidence that the specimens discovered by Miss Babbitt were the work of man, and was of the opinion that the whole theory was without any foundation whatever. A classification of the sciences. BY J. W. POWELL OF WASHINGTON, D.C. Tus is an endeavor to classify sciences in the order of the evolution of phenomena, and with reference to complexity. The first group of science, relating to physics, the author divided into molecular, stellar, and mechanical science. In the second group, the biological sciences, he placed botany and zoology. In the third group, anthropology, we have pyschol- ogy, sociology, philology, technology, and philosophy. Geology is a compound of the first group; paleon- tology, of the second. The following subdivisions of the third group were suggested: As branches of philology: 1. sign language: 2. spoken language; 3. written language. Under technology: 1. activital; 2. regulative; 3. ethics. Under philosophy: 1. mythology; 2. meta- physic; 8. scientific. Technology is also either industrial or aesthetic. The author explained in further detail the reasons for this order of classifica- tion, and the relations of the members of different ' groups to each other. List of other papers. TuHE following additional papers were read in this section, some of them by title only: An ancient village of the emblematic mound-builders; caches guarded by effigies; effigies guarding the village and - sacrificial places not far away; high places connected Serremben 14, 1883.] with ancient villages; The religious structures com- mon to villages in prehistoric time, by S. D. Peet. An abnormal human skull from a stone grave in Tennessee; A new stand for mounting skulls, devised ale win SCIENCE. Let hc ili lalla "yo +. =| oe 371 by E. E. Chick, by F. W. Putnam. Accidents, or mode-signs of verbs in the Iroquois dialects; Studies in the Iroquois concerning the verb ‘to be,’ and its substitutes, by Erminnie A. Smith. PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I.— ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. ADDRESS OF FRANKLIN B. HOUGH OF LOWVILLE, N.Y., VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION, AUG. 15, 1883. THE METHODS OF STATISTICS. I INVITE your attention to afew thoughts upon the methods of statistics—using the term *‘statis- ties’ in its broadest sense, as a ‘statement of facts.’ The subject naturally divides itself into two dis- tinct operations, —the collection of the data from which information is to be obtained, and their classi- fication in a manner that shall without error, and with the least labor, present the results in a form most convenient for use. Commencing with the first of these, — the collec- tion of facts, —it would be needless to remark, that every thing depends upon the simplicity, accuracy, and completeness with which they are obtained, and that by no subsequent operation can their errors be eliminated, ‘or their deficiencies satisfactorily sup- plied. % It may be remarked, in general, that no intelligent person, business firm, or corporation, can safely begin any enterprise, — nor can any government, from the lowest municipal to the highest national form, under- take any measure with prudence,— without first knowing all that can be ascertained beforehand con- cerning it. In private business, inquiries are naturally made as to the cost and the profits. If it requires the use of a raw material, the parties will endeavor to make themselves sure as to its abundance,— the probability that the supply will be maintained, —or, if it be of limited amount, the quantity, and the time that it will hold out. They will need to know the changes that may happen in amount, quality, and cost; and similar inquiries will be made as to the expenses that may be incurred while in their hands, — the chances of loss, or of change in value, — and, finally, the extent of the demand for whatever may be the product of their skill, industry, and investment, its probable perma- nence, and its tendencies to change. These questions, being well considered in the begin- ning, will enable the careful operator to avoid losses from imprudent investment, from over-supply of the markets, or from the depression of receipts below the limits of cost. By a train of reasoning analogous to this, those intrusted with the government of towns, cities, or states, may determine as to how far the cost and maintenance of publie enterprises will be justified by the results; but with this difference, that the benefits or profits, instead of being measured by a money value, are often to be found in an advancement of the public welfare, and in the security, convenience, and prosperity that may ensue. But, whether in private enterprise or public under- taking, we may attribute success alike, in both, to an attentive notice of the facts and the circumstances upon which they depend; and, if loss or failure fol- low, the reasons may very generally be traced to igno- ranee or inattention as to the facts and probabilities that should have been known beforehand. These thoughts lead us directly to the point we are first to consider; viz., How shall the knowledge of the required information be obtained ? In the prim- itive way (and for a small business this may be the best one), the person will, from his own observation, ‘look over the ground,’ and consider the various ~ points to be taken into the account. He will make inquiries of others, as to the supply, demand, pros- pects of competition, and the like; and thus aceumu- late a certain amount of information, upon the extent and aceuracy of which, his success or failure will in a great degree depend. Advancing a step farther, we find, in most great industries and interests of the country, that those in the same business or pursuit, whether in the arts or sciences, or in financial operations, however they may be influenced by local rivalries or petty jealousies, are constantly tending to the formation of associa- tions or societies, for the advancement of their com- mon interests. They meet for the discussion of methods by which expenses may be saved, or profits inereased. They inquire of one another as to their experience or observation upon doubtful points. They seek to gather light and aid from science, to stimulate and reward invention, and to excite rival- ries in the comparison of improved products. ‘They discuss financial and national questions that may affect their welfare; and not unfrequently they ap- point committees or agents, from their own num- ber, to gather statistical facts and details for their own use and guidance. We consider the information thus obtained, as de- serving high rank in point of accuracy. It is chiefly taken from records, without a motive for conceal- ment or evasion, and with a full knowledge that self- deception and loss would result from error, whether above or below the truth. From this combined experience, each member who participates obtains a standard for comparing his own results with the general average. He cannot afford to fall below it,,-and he has the strongest motives for reaching the highest limits that have been reached by others. Still these statistics, however accurate they may be, are necessarily special, and often technical in their nature. They cannot be compared with those 372 of another business, and may be incomplete within themselves, as naturally relating to methods, rather than to financial details. They might show how, rather than how much. They will seldom contain a balance-sheet of profit or loss, or any thing that would advance the fortunes of a rival in business, or reveal the secrets of an unprofitable enterprise. We must receive them as we find them, —good only as far as they go. ’ Besides these associated business inquiries, prompt- ed and guaranteed by self-interest, we find various others, voluntarily undertaken with reference to par- ticular subjects, often for the promotion of a moral, religious, benevolent, educational, or political object, and ranging in value all the way between the accu- racy of statements taken from records, or gathered by faithful inquiry, by chosen special and zealous agents on the one hand, and the random conjectures ecare- lessly returned by those who know but little, and care still less, about the subject of inquiry, on the other. It would be wholly impossible to assign a seale of value to statistics thus obtained, where every ‘thing depends upon the circumstances of the case, and the accuracy of information on the part of those who make returns, — the fulness with which they are reported, and the care with which they are combined. We have another class of non-official statistics col- lected and published by private enterprise, for the information of particular trades or professions, or for use by the general public; their reputation and suc- cess depending wholly upon their accuracy, and being brought to the test of local and personal knowledge every day and everywhere, we may naturally expect them to be as accurate as they can be made. In this class, we may include directories, trade and market reports, financial transactions, and the current com- mercial statistics generally. There may be instances where they are tainted with a suspicion of private or speculative motive: but such is the vigilance of rival enterprise, that detection will quickly follow; and an exposure would at once de- grade a reputation for independence and impartial statement, to the rank of a private job for a specula- tive end. j Exhibits openly made, for the avowed purpose of presenting the favorable side of a business enterprise, may be taken for what they are worth, and are often trustworthy; but, when concealed under a false pre- tence, they deserve suspicion, and, when exposed, they generally injure the interest that they represent. The best of these statistics are taken from records, and are entirely correct; others are collected by spe- cial agents, and should be approximately near the truth; and there is still another class, made up from the estimates of those supposed to know the facts, and which must wander more or less from the actual conditions that they attempt to represent. It may be said of all of them, that their greatest value is for present use. ‘They quickly pass by, to give place to the next issue, and remain only as historical records; but, as such, they still afford a most valuable means of comparison between the present and the past, and become landmarks of progress, ever instructive to SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 32. those who may be seeking to trace the origin and growth of our industries and our resources; and now and then they are recalled as precedents, where new questions arise, under circumstances deemed similar to the past. We will next consider some points relating to inquiries undertaken by authority of government, either for the intelligent discharge of its own func- tions, or for general information, the good of its eiti- zens, and the advancement of knowledge among mankind. We may, in general, remark, that nothing can be properly done, in the machinery of government, with- out leaving its record. If money or property is re- ceived, there is an entry; if a payment is made, or if property is issued, there is also an entry, and a receipt to proveit. Inshort, the whole theory of our goyern- ment involves the necessity of a record of every offi- cial transaction; and it is only in cases of intentional fraud, or gross neglect, or unavoidable accident, that the history of every public act cannot be traced from these records. P A record, to be trustworthy, should be made at the time of the transaction, and while all the facts as to time, subject, and amount, or other points of state- ment, are fresh in mind. Nothing should be trusted to the memory, and for record at a more convenient season. It should be concise, and easily understood, and may often be very greatly assisted by tabular arrangement. The summaries of these records, as published by the government, are, we believe, with few exceptions, entitled to great confidence, as far as they present transactions done by authority, or passing under the notice of government agents. We may classify the official statistics of the govern- ment under the following heads: — First, Summaries of current business, published annually or at shorter intervals. . Second, Periodical inquiries made at wider inter- vals, as in the census, and requiring special agencies for their execution. Third, The inquiries made by experts, or by special commissions or agencies created for a particular pur- pose. This class is sometimes associated with one or the other of the preceding. Taking from among these classes the census, as one of the most important, let us notice some of the methods by which it has been taken. Ths earliest returns that I have found, in colonial times, were made by sheriffs and constables. Ata later period, the national census was for along period taken by the marshals of the district courts, or their deputies, — officers whose duties are quite analogous to the former; and this practice of assigning the task to sheriffs still prevails in several of the states. In many other cases, assessors discharge the duty. In New York, before 1855, special agents were ap- pointed by local authorities; and, commencing with that year, they have since been appointed by the secretary of state. The appointing power has been vested in state boards, in boards of county eom- missioners, and in the judges of inferior county - Sepremper 14, 1883.] courts. Assuming what I think all will admit, that census inquiries should be made entirely free from “any suspicion that some tax or some personal liabil- ity is to be incurred, it is evident that an assessor cannot question an ignorant man about his property and his erops, without exciting his fears that some tax is to be laid. The sheriff or the constable seldom makes a professional call, except to serve some papers ormake an arrest. There is, therefore, a strong reason for appointing persons who are to make the census inquiries their only business, and for making it widely known that there is no taxation, enrolment, or other liability incurred by giving full and true returns, and that there is no sectarian or political end to be served by the inquiry. This excellent end is now well enough secured under the national law, and in several of the states. They have a still better method in Great Britain, where a system of registration of births, marriages, and deaths, has its districts and its agents under constant organization, and to which, once in ten years, the census can be assigned, without creating new offices. In Sweden, where a system of registration, including also a record of change of residence, is in charge of the parish-clerks, they take a census whenever they choose to post the books, without any special inqui- ries being made, more than what these records con- tain. In the national census before 1850, — in New York before 1855,—and in some of the states still, each family had one line upon the blanks; and the number of persons of different ages, sexes, and colors, was entered in columns provided. The limit of classifica- tion was of course restricted to these columns; and, although the totals of each class were easily obtained by adding, the results were meagre and unsatisfac- » tory. 4 The change that allowed a line for each name, one column for the exact age, and other columns for native country, profession or occupation, ete., while it sim- plified the labor of taking, allowed ample field for classification; and it made it necessary to employ a large force of clerks, in a central office, for the reduc- tion of the returns for publication. By a method now generally used in Europe, the eensus is taken upon ‘householders’ schedules,’ which are distributed one to each family, some days beforehand, filled out by the head of the family, and collected upon one day. The only instance in which this has been done in the United States, within my knowledge, was in the District of Columbia, upon the 11th of November, 1867. This census was taken by the metropolitan police, under my own direction, and with entire success. It was attempted in the city of Baltimore some months afterwards, and failed, apparently from want of proper management on the part of those in charge. For all kinds of official inquiries, relating to busi- ness, as well as to personal statistics, I think the true and proper method is, by means of special blanks, carefully prepared, simple, and fully explained. These should be distributed some little time before- _hand, and should be taken up, if not in one day, SCIENCE. 373 within a short period of time, but with reference to agiven day. The chief difficulty to be encountered is the illiteracy of thuse who should fill the blanks; but in the District of Columbia, which in 1867 con- tained a large number of colored families, but recently freed from slavery, the blanks had been, in almost every case, filled out by some one to whom they had been carried. In following our subject, — the ‘ methods of statis- tics,’ — we may notice some points in the condensa- tion and arrangement of facts that may be of interest. With a vast amount of information before us, as, for example, in the returns of a census, let us con- sider what is to be done, and how it can be done with the least labor and greatest certainty. After inspec- tion to make sure that the work is all together, in proper order and condition, it will be found that sey- eral distinct operations are necessary, in preparing the results for the press. Columns of figures must of course be added, and carefully revised. As the totals of several sheets will often be consolidated into one sum, it is best to use spare sheets of the same sched- ule for entering the totals of pages, so that these partial totals can be easily combined. It is always a good practice, where long columns, of many figures in each, are to be entered for adding, to provide paper with narrow vertical ruling, that shall allow of but one figure in a space. In cases where the first two or three right-hand characters are generally ciphers, they may be left out altogether, the significant figures only being entered in their proper places. It savesa little time and labor, and does not lead to error. Where a great amount of statistical material is re- ported, — as, for example, the names in a census,— the blanks should always be plainly divided by herizontal and vertical lines, printed in preference toruled. The horizontal lines should be numbered from the top downward, upon both margins. This numbering is the more important where an entry is carried across to another page. Each line should contain but one entry, and there should be, if possible, no blank lines except at the end. Then, with a little multiplica- tion-table at hand, showing the number of lines in a full sheet, and for each number up to the highest that are likely to be found in a return, the totals can be rapidly and accurately ascertained, as follows: The number of sheets is first counted on the back edge, and the number of entries they should contain, if full, is set down. Then, by glancing over each page separately, it is easy to notice whether there are any lines with two entries, any blanks, or any lines in excess. The deficiencies are set down in one column, the excess in another, and their difference is added or subtracted, as the case may require, when the true sum is at once found. This operation, which is the first thing done, should be repeated by another per- son; and, when found to agree, it should be kept as a test-number for verifying the accuracy of much of the work that is to follow. In measuring parts of pages, a scale made of a strip from the margin of a blan schedule, and pasted upon a card, will save all labor of counting. In statistical labors, where the same returns afford 374 material for a considerable number of deductions, — as, for example, the population sheet of the census, — it is generally best to take but one thing at a time. Thus, the ages, professions, nativities, civil condition, etc., should be taken by separate operations, and not two or more at once. There is not, however, the least need of confusion in keeping the subdivisions of these subjects, in two or four classes, —as, for example, ages by sex and color, —by a simple arrangement of heavy and light horizontal lines upon the tally-sheet, and a little practice in its use. There is much to be gained, both in time and accu- racy, by a proper arrangement of a tally-sheet. The grouping together of tally-marks, by making four down and one across, so as to divide the work into groups of fives, is so natural and obvious a method, that few who have had occasion for this kind of work could have failed to adopt it. By an arrangement which I have used to a large extent in census work, Ihave had my tally-sheets printed off into squares, so that each compartment should receive one group of five, and no more. Then, by a series of numbers with a common difference of five, printed across the top of the sheet, at the head of each vertical column, the number of tally-marks in a horizontal row can be known at once, by glancing along the vertical col- umn containing the last full group of fives, to the number printed at the top, and then adding the marks in excess, but less than five, in the next compartment. This saves all counting, and a considerable amount of time. There is also an advantage, on account of the eye-sight, in having the tally-sheets of some other color than white: a neutral tint might-be best, but I have found common manilla paper answer every pur- pose. ; Plans have been proposed for using cards of differ- ent sizes and colors, properly inscribed or numbered, as counters, for classifying a variety of facts, forming together a definite whole. By using colors, the eye becomes, without mental effort, a guide to the hand, in their distribution into piles or cells in a case; and, when the work is done, their number may be accu- rately known by weighing, or by measuring the height of each pile. Those of different sizes could be sepa- rated by mechanical devices, without handling, and, by a little practice, without liability to error. It may be said generally, that the chief, indeed the only real, difficulty, in the preparation of statistical data, consists in getting the facts correctly. There is nothing in the operation of a central office that needs to involve error; or, if an error is committed, there should be no difficulty in tracing it to the clerk who is responsible for it. An efficient way to secure accu- racy in work would be, to make a money-charge against the clerk who commits an error, to be paid to the one who finds it. I believe that something of the kind is done in some of the statistical offices in Europe, a class of revisers being employed, who are paid by the fines thus imposed upon the careless. With respect to statistics obtained by circulars ad- dressed to persons supposed to have the information desired, we have every grade of value, from good to good for nothing. The result depends upon many cir- SCIENCE. mediante a A ene ee “4 . ‘ “Tt [Vou. IL, No. 32. cumstances: as, for example, whether the person making the return is paid, or is under some obliga- tion to, or expects some favor from, the person or office making the inquiry; whether the inquiry can be answered by reference to a record, or by some research more or less conveniently made, or is to be supplied from personal opinion, and a general knowledge of the subject; or, finally, whether the question can be answered by any thing better than a guess, by one who knows perhaps very little about it. I would hold it to be the general rule, that where the inquiries are few and simple, exact as to their object, and, if they refer to a record, exact as to time and subject, and especially if they can be returned upon the same blank, and without expense for postage or otherwise,a very large percentage will be answered without a second application. A repeated call would probably bring a third or a half of the remainder; - but there will be, now and then, one who will fail to reply, unless under official or personal obligation to do so. We have thus far considered the dealing with sta- tistics that have been gathered from the whole of a given field of inquiry: there are other methods that deserve notice, and the first of these is that ‘by samples.’ A portion of some whole is carefully studied, and the results obtained are deemed appli- cable to the entire field. ; The French statistician Moreau de Jonneés has given some instances of this method, as applied in times past, by persons who had acquired eminence, and whose work gained confidence; and yery prop- erly asks, ‘ What is such work worth ?’ Vauban, distinguished as a military engineer, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, wishing to know the agricultural production of France, and the revenue it would yield, resorted to a method which would appear strange enough now, but still may be called ingenious. He attempted to reach his object by taking an exact account of the production of a square league, reckoning the arable land, vineyards, pastures, and woodlands, with their products in quantity and value; and then, by the simple ‘‘rule of three,’’ he said, “‘as 1 is to 25,000, so is the result to the whole of France.” The English agriculturist, Arthur Young, sought to ascertain the proportions of meadow-land, mount- ains, and the like, in France, by cutting up a map by lines following these features of the surface, and weighing the parts. In 1790 Lavoisier, distinguished in science, and for this reason consulted by the national assembly upon a question of imposts, found no existing data that applied to the internal resources of the country, until he himself supplied them, by a method that is now altogether neglected*in statistical researches. He proposed to ascertain the number of ploughs in the country, and from this to calculate the quantities, production, and consumption of agricultural crops. In 1784 M. Necker, the distinguished statesman, deduced the population of France from an assumed percentage of the birth-rate; and this was taken for a census! SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] But coming down to a much later period, we find a remarkable application of the law of induction ina work upon the industries of France, by the minister Chaptal. He presents agricultural tables, which have been received with great confidence, since they bear the appearance of official statistics, and were exe- cuted under the Empire. His tables are found to have been computed, without acknowledgment, from a statement addressed by M. Hennet, director of the cadastral survey, in 1817, at a time when not more than a seventh part of this work had been finished. The other six-sevenths were obtained by a simple multiplication of the finished part. Many years ago, a ‘distinguished statistician’ published, with great apparent precision, the yield of potatoes in France. There had been no official in- ventory taken; but when one came to be made, some time afterwards, it was found that this deduction had been obtained by mutiplying the yield of a single commune by 37,000, the number of communes in France. These examples might be multiplied indefinitely; and we need not cross the Atlantic, nor go far back in time, to find them. There is scarcely a day, but that we see passing through the newspapers, estimates, deductions, and statements, that have no more solid foundation than those that we have cited. Never- theless, we must not wholly disregard the inductive method in statistics: there are many cases in which we can get nothing else. The chemist must analyze the soils and the ores fromsamples. In every operation of testing the qual- ity and the value of any commodity whatever, we must select from the material before us what appears to be the average quality. And so of.statistics gen- erally: if there is no actual and general inventory made, we must collect from what is deemed a fair average, and, from these data, obtain such conclusions as they afford. The result in this, as in every thing, will depend upon the intelligence and honesty of the person who makes the estimate, the extent of his opportunities, his experience, and his skill. Returning to the field of exact statistics, we may remark, that we can never have an accurate census of the population until we have a thorough and uni- form registration of births, marriages, and deaths; a measure which this association undertook to pro- mote, more than a quarter of a century ago, but which has not made successful progress, We cannot have a faithful statement of the indus- tries, without a record kept of the production, the consumption, and the cost of operation. This is already done by most of the important ones, as an incident of business; but we lose the advantages by the hurried manner in which the official inquiries are made, Yet upon these returns we rely for all that is collectively kuown about them, It follows, that, until we can realize these desirable features, the best we can expect is, to afford more time for previous preparation, by submitting before- hand the questions that are to be answered; which can only be done by the aid of ‘ householders’ sched- ules’ for population, on ‘special blanks’ for each of SCIENCE. 375 the industries, or other subjects, that’come within the range of inquiry. It was my intention to dwell at some length upon the illustration of statistical facts by graphic methods; but time will not permit, and opportunity for full preparation has not been found. For more than thirty years [have been accustomed to note down the principles involved in these methods, whenever, in the course of a wide and varied range of opportunity, a new one was found; and it has been with me a cherished intention to present the whole subject in a systematic form. We may concisely state, that graphic illustrations, using lines, areas, or angular spaces, often supple- mented by colors, may be employed for representing either — 1. Quantities, with or without reference to time. 2. Time, in recurring, interrupted, or progressive periods. 3. Direction, or relative position ; and 4. Intensity or force. In general, but two elements can be clearly pre- sented at once; but by a skilful use of different colors, or kinds of lines, subjects of the same nature may be admirably compared, and the relations of cause and effect not only illustrated, but even discov- ered and proved. It is often admissible to introduce subjects having dissimilar notation, —as, for exam- ple, degrees of temperature, and height of barometer, —in the same drawing; but in these cases each must have its own scale, and, in a general way, every dia- gram must haye a scale for every element of the sub- ject that is represented, either expressed or implied. Quantities may be shown either as they exist at certain periods of time, or as they form parts of a gen- eral total; and they may be presented so as to exhibit successive subdivisions, down to any desirable degree. If the divisions of a general total do not require sub- division, they may best be shown by angular spaces, as sectors, which together make up the whole of a circular area. If the divisions have some qualities in common, the shades of color may be of different in- tensity, significant of the degrees of quality that may exist. But where there are successive subdivisions, or parts of parts of a whole, there is no way so exact as by means of rectangular areas, which may also be shaded in different tints, as well to separate them one from another as to show differences of intensity or degree. In both of these methods, as well of angular spaces as of rectangular areas, we can only show quantities as they exist at a given point of time. We catch, as it were, the conditions, as does the light, the image in a camera. They admit of no such thing as motion or change; but these changes may often be strikingly represented by a series of diagrams, presenting the conditions at different periods of time. Where time and quantity are combined, we have an easy and striking means of illustration; and in this the time may be in recurring periods, such as the hours of a day, or the months of a year, or it may be progressive, as in a series of years. For the recurring periods, I think there is nothing 376 ® so convenient and instructive as the circle, in which the quantities are measured along the radii, from the centre as their base. The entire radius may some- times represent the whole of that of which these partial measurements are a part. For a progressive series, the ordinates representing quantities should be measured from a level base-line, and the scale of graduation shown upon the side margin, while the time is measured from left to right by a scale along the upper margin. For simple comparison, a series of bars or lines, measured from a common base, and either horizontal or vertical, is a convenient and striking mode of illus- tration, and has now come into very common use. A rectangular area, with parallel divisions, amounts to the same thing as a line; but with this difference, that a secondary subdivision may sometimes be repre- sented with great effect. Having thus stated some points in reference to graphic illustrations upon a true principle, I should not leave the subject without a word of censure for some that are false. I willspecify, particularly, such as attempt to represent comparativé quantities by concentric figures, such as circles or squares. The eye has, in these cases, no means of just comparison; .and they are very apt to mislead, where they are intended to instruct. _ . The same objection may be made against similar geometrical solids; for, although they may be literally true, their contents being to each other as the cubes of similar lines, the eye does not readily see the difference. It would be better, in such cases, to use cylinders or prisms of the same base, but proportioned in length to the quantities that they represent, PAPERS READ BEFORE SECTION I. Life-insurance and self-insurance. BY ELIZUR WRIGHT OF BOSTON, MASS. Tus subject has been a favorite theme with Mr. Wright for several years. His ability as an actuary is acknowledged; and his theory.on this subject has at least the merit of disinterestedness, so far as in- surance-companies are concerned. Without going into the technicalities and mathematical considera- tions that must be met in a thorough review of Mr. Wright’s theory, its object may, perhaps, be stated correctly in a few words. A reserve is accumulated by the practical workings of life-insurance in a well- regulated company, which is more than sufficient to meet the claims upon it as fast as they mature. The usual system divides that reserve, less the amount which the company withholds as a surplus for ex- traordinary emergencies, among the policy-holders. Mr. Wright takes the view that each policy earns, during its continuance, an ascertainable part of that reserve. He supplies the means for determining what this part is, for each policy: of course, it is a matter of calculation for each. He denominates this part of the reserve, or surplus, the ‘self-insurance.’ By his system it is possible to ascertain at any time how SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 32. much this self-insurance on a given policy amounts to, or how much it will amount to at any future time, if kept in force. Mr. Wright believes that the self- insurance is the property of the policy-holder; and that, if not payable to him on demand, it should at least be applicable for a renewal of the policy to pre- vent forfeiture. The increase of the colored population of the United States. BY C. S. MIXTER OF WASHINGTON, D.C. Tr is frequently asserted that the colored population of the United States is increasing more rapidly now than it did prior to 1861. The large apparent increase shown by a comparison of the census-returns of 1880 with those of 1870 seems to justify this opinion; but the results of investigations made by the superin- tendent of census in South Carolina and Mississippi show that the census in 1870 was seriously defective in this respect, while that of 1880 was very full and complete. The accompanying statistical table pre- sents the returns of these people according to each U.S. census from 1840 to 1880, and gives the num- bers reported from the South in detail. These results seem to indicate that they are not increasing as rapidly as formerly. The burden of supporting their minor children, and their disregard of the rules of health, seem to furnish additional reasons for think- ing that their future rate of increase will be less than it has been heretofore. Resided in 1880. 1870. 1860. 1850. 1840. Alabama. . . 600,103) 475,510) 437,770) 345,109) 255,571 Arkansas. . 210,666} 122,269) 111,259) 47,708) 20,400 Delaware. . . .| 26,442) 22,794) 21,627) 20,363) 19,524 Dist. of Columbia .} 59,596) 43,404) 14,816) 13,746) 18,055 Florida .. .| 126,690} 91,689) 62,667) 40,242) 26,534 Georgia . . . .| 725,183) 545,142] 465,698) 384,613] 283,697 Kentucky. . . .| 271,461) 222,210) 236,167) 220,992) 189,475 Louisiana . . .| 483,655} 364,210) 350,373) 262,271) 198,954 — Maryland . 210,280) 175,391) 171,181] 165,091) 151,815 Mississippi . . | 650,391) 444,201) 437,404) 310,808) 196,577 Missouri . . . .| 145,850) 118,071) 118,503) 90,040) 59,814 North Carolina. .| 531,277) 391,650) 361,522) 316,011) 268,249 South Carolina . 604,382) 415,814) 412,320) 398,944) 335,514 Tennessee 403,151) 322,331) 283,019) 245,881) 188,583 Texas . . 393,383} 253,415) 182,921) 58,538) - Virginia * 631,616) 512,841) 527,763) 526,861) 498,829 West Virginia . 25,886) 17,980) 21,144 - - Other States . 481,540) $41,127) 226,219 196,570) 171,857 Total U. 8. ‘ peal men 4,441,830|3,638,808) 2,873,648" Oyster-farming in Connecticut waters. BY H. C. HOVEY OF NEW HAVEN, CONN. AN explanation of the difference between seed oysters and those fit for market gave the author oc- — casion to mention that ‘saddle rock’ oysters in their best edible condition were six or seven years old. A history of Connecticut experience and legislation in relation to oysters was given in detail. There are now 325,000 acres of disposable space for oyster- beds, and 100,000 are occupied. The area of the _ natural beds is only 6,000 acres, and this furnishes . SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] the seed for new beginners. The present expansion of oyster-farming is due to the use of steam-power in gathering the harvest. The first thing done on an oyster-farm is to stake it out into sections, and then the bottom is ex- amined. The next step is to scatter oyster shells over the farm, and the oyster spawn is scattered. After this, in some muddy localities, small trees, mainly birch, are thrust into the water, in a standing position; and the young oysters set on these trees. The spawn is cast out from June until November, and for a few days the young oysters swim everywhere they please, leading a happy life for a brief period. Shelling begins about June 15, and ends about Aug. 15. When the oysters fill the trees, the latter are pulled up and cleaned off. From one acre of bushes, 1,000 bushels of oysters have been gathered in one year. ,The oysters set on anything which is clean. They had been found on old boots, old wrecks, and a pair were found on an old padlock. Oyster-farm- ing was not profitable every year; one firm having lost $20,000 by the ravages of the star-fish in one bed, and another firm $100,000 in two years from the same eause. Oysters were formerly imported, but are now exported in immense quantities. The German carp, and its introduction into the United States. BY C. W. SMILEY OF WASHINGTON, D. C. “THE United States fish-commission, he said, had some years ago imported from Germany thirty or forty pairs of this fish. They were placed in breeding- ponds in Washington, and have increased many-fold, the number spawned this year being 400,000. The carp is naturally a warm-water fish, and in the waters of the southern states grows with astonishing rapid- ity, and to great size. They will also do well in the cold water of the north, even in Minnesota, Nearly every state and county in the United States has a fish-commission, and they are all propagating carp. It has also been taken up as a private speculation, and carp are sold for breeding-purposes as high as $5 per pair. The carp roots about in the mud for aliment, and much resembles poultry in its manner of getting food. Carp aged three years are often found to weigh twelve to fifteen pounds, and a gain in weight of four pounds has been observed ina carp in one year. The carp is sluggish; while trout, bass, and other lively fish frisk about, and do not fatten so fast as the carp. Experi- ments have shown that female carp spawn at the age of one year in southern waters, at two years in colder waters, and in the extreme northern waters of the United States at three years. Other fish, turtles, muskrats, snakes, and even birds, eat young carp. A bird shot in Washington recently hadin its stomach the heads of seventy-nine youngcarp. The U.S. fish- commissioner recently sent out requests for informa- tion about carp experimented with in this country; most of the replies placing the carp on an equality with trout, bass, and shad as a food fish, while a few classed them with pike, and a very few said they had a mud- eS Sea Te ee, SCIENCE. Jd alive Fr Be , dy taste. The carp is the best pond fish yet known, and in a very small pond will thrive well, so that families may easily have their own fish-garden if they have enough water to make a permanent pond. The carp is a’very hardy fish for shipment, requiring little water to keep alive in. The U.S. fish-commissioner is giving away carp, sending them by express to any point, the receiver paying express charges. The fish will thrive on table-refuse and almost any thing edi- ble. Carp can be kept in winter in a tub in the cellar, the water requiring to be kept fresh. Care should be taken to keep poisonous substances out of carp-ponds, and too much food should not be thrown in. In cooking carp, thorough cleansing is needed; and frying should be done in hot pans and hot grease. As to the economics of this subject, Mr. Smiley said that fish-culture was more and more becoming a part of the farmer’s occupation, and thought that, not very long in the future, most of the farmers of the country would have little fish-ponds in their door- yards, both as a method of obtaining food and as an ornament to the homestead. Cable-cars for city passenger traffic. BY E. T. COX OF NEW HARMONY, IND. ProFEssOR Cox, though devoted to geology, has always taken a kindly interest in schemes for indus- trial advancement. In the present paper he describes the success of the cable system as a substitute for horse-cars; and urges ils general adoption, on the ground of its convenience and comfort to humanity, as well as the diminution of suffering to the horse. Some of the collateral statistics presented in the paper are interesting; e.g., the figures given by Mr. Moody Merrill, chairman of the horse-car railroad convention held at Boston last March: ‘‘ There are in the United States and Canada 415 street-railways, giving employ- ment to about 85,000 men, 18,000 cars, and 100,000 horses in daily use. These horses consume 150,000 tons of hay, and 111,000,000 bushels of grain. 3,000 miles of track represent an invested capital of $159,- 000,000. The number of passengers annually car- ried is 1;212,460,000. In the city of New York there are 110 miles of horse-railway, and 11,866 horses are used to operate them. The horses, together with their harness, expensive lands and stables, feed and grains, make the operating expenses, by including interest, $5,104,596.79 per annum. ‘The average life of the street-car horse in New York is less than three years.”’ The paper quotes an opinion of Gen. W. Sewell of .New Jersey, a practical railroad engineer, who prophesies that, within ten years, the cable system will supersede horse-cars on every considerable street line. The great advantage of the system is its appli- cability to very steep grades. The paper states, in respect to the most vital question to capitalists, that the cost of the plant in the cable system is shown to be about $70,000 per mile of roadway. We have heard it recently stated, in other quarters, at $120,000; but perhaps one estimate applies to single and the other Lo double tracks. This makes it, at best, some- 378 what expensive as an experiment; and that is the light in which it is regarded by many horse-railroad man- agers at present. Improved method of spraying trees for pro- 2 tection against insects. BY C. V. RILEY OF WASHINGTON, D.C. THE paper gave a summary of results obtained from experiments made during the past two years at the U. S. department of agriculture. An ordinary barrel is used as a reservoir, in which is inserted a force-pump with automatic stirrer. A long rubber hése extends from the pump, and is attached to the spraying apparatus. The nozzle has been called the cyclone or eddy nozzle; its action carries out new principles of spraying. It is a shallow, circular, metal chamber, with two flat sides, in the centre of one of which is a small circular outlet. The fluid is forced into this chamber tangentially, producing rapid rotation, and a spray which is easily regulated from a mist scarcely visible to a strong shower. This nozzle is adjusted to the end of a bamboo rod (of varying length, according to requirement), through which the rubber hose has been passed; or several nozzles may be attached, in different positions, to the sides of a stiff metal tube, sufficiently slender to be handled by the operator, and thrust among the branches of the tree. By these means, trees from twenty to thirty feet high can be rapidly sprayed without the use of a ladder. The substances used are either London purple, one-half pound, and flour, one pound, in from forty to fifty gallons of water; or Paris green, one pound, to the same amount of flour and water; or petroleum emulsions made as Profes- sor Riley indicated at the last meeting of the associ- ation. Enhancement of values in agriculture by rea- son of non-agricultural population. BY J. R. DODGE OF WASHINGTON, D.C. Tur paper begins by showing that national indus- try is prosperous in proportion to its diversity. The productions of agriculture would be unsalable if all the people were agricultural producers. A civilized nation, with the smallest proportion of non-agricultu- ral workers in it, will be low in the scale of prosperity : with the largest proportion of non-agriculturists con- sistent with proper food-supply, the nation will be most prosperous. To a great extent, this is true also of the subdivisions of this country. It may be illus- trated by the statistics of geographical sections that embrace groups of states, or by comparison of indi- vidual states. The author is even prepared to show, that, in a partly agricultural community, the increased employment of labor in industries that are non-agri- cultural stimulates improvement, compels higher culture, and makes the products of land, and the land itself, more valuable. Such is the theory. In sup- port of it, the author adduces striking facts, obtained by compilation from U.S. census returns of 1880. The states and territories are grouped for this com- parison in four classes, which are thus designated: SCIENCE. ‘ [Vor. II., No. 32. first class, having less than 30 per cent of agricultural workers; second, having over 30 and less than 50 per cent; third, having 50 and less than 70 per cent; fourth, having over 70 per cent, z.e., being almost ex- clusively agricultural states, Ba ses Soe Value |= 22 Classes. |.°° @| Acres. Value. per jos SSE acre. |° 5% oad 52a Zz es First class. .| 15 77,250,742 |$2,985,641,197 | $40.91 | 16.59 Second class .| 13 112,521,257 3 430,915,767 22.21 | 40.12 Third class .| 18 | 237,873,040] $,218,108,970 18.03 | 58 85 Fourth class . 6 | 108,636,796 562,430,842 5,28 | 77.46 In the first class are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in the east, and some of the mining states and territories of the west, diverse in many sara, yet alike in the fact of a large non-agricultural population. This class has only one-sixth of the population in agriculture. The fourth class consists of North and South Carolina,: Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It has nearly four-fifths engaged in agriculture, on lands worth only an average of $5.28 per acre. The states having only two-fifths in agriculture have farm-lands valued at $22.21 per acre, while those having nearly three- fifths in agriculture have lands valued at $13.03. These figures speak for themselves, and scarcely need comment from the author. When individual states are compared, the results are equally marked. The author compares pairs of states, — Virginia and Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Ohio, Iowa and Dlinois, —as follows (for convenience we place these comparisons in tabular form) : — 2 a = S > < o = 4 > Items of comparison. 2 @ E . : a Bho Sle egbpase | ie |) S Be | NS Sais Per cent of penieulcural workers . . 51.41] 20.68} 61.67) 39.97) 57.46) 43.65 Value of farm lands per Che) Ay is $10.89)$49.30)/$13.92)$45.97|$22.92/$31.87 Wages of agricultural. laborers per annum . | 180.00} 431.00) 199.00) 394.00} 1 |467.00 Similar computations give figures for the State of New York not widely different from those for Penn- sylvania. The average value of farm-lands per acre in New Jersey is greater than in any other state, viz., $65.16: this is owing to a position between two great city markets, with proximity and easy access to both. Her percentage of agricultural workers is only 14.92; their average annual wages are $501. It will be seen that the wages of agricultural labor are sub- ject to the same law. If computed for the first table in this paper, the wages per month of the agricultural 1 The annual wages of agricultural labor in Minnesota are $376. SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] laborer would be found, for the first class of states, fully $25; for the second, nearly $25; for the third, less than $20; for the fourth, about $13.50. An application of the same test to the value of annual production for each man engaged in agricul- ture brings equally interesting results in the follow- ing table: — Sas _No. engaged Value Value | 2 2 Classes. in of products of | per | 222 agriculture. | agriculture. | capita.| °5 = SEa eae First class . 1,060,681 484,780,797 $457 16.51 Second class 1,566,875 616,850,959 394 40.12 Third class . 3,017,971 786,681,420 261 58.85 Fourth class 2,024,966 325,099,388 161 77.46 The states with teks than 30 per cent in farm- bor realize nearly three times as much per man as those which have over 70 per cent in farm-work. In other words, one man in the first class realizes as much as the three men who are competing with each other, having little outlet for surplus production. Three brothers in Alabama, laboring through the year, get as much for their aggregate produce as one farmer receives in Pennsylvania, simply because that farmer has a brother engaged in manufacture and another in mining. It is because in one case there is a market for one product only, thousands of miles away: in the other, there are markets at every door. It appears evident that the proportion between agricultural and non-agricultural population is a measure of the values of the land, of the production, and of the labor of the farm. These values are rapid- ly enhanced by the increase of non-agriculturists. This is the lesson of the most authentic statistics of our own and of other countries. Sei i lle 1a SCIENCE. Sn eee ee ee, 379 A new system for the treatment of sewer-gas. BY T. E. JEFFERSON, HUDSON, WIS. In this paper, which was well illustrated by dia- grams, special reference was made to a series of im- portant inventions which of late have attracted much attention both in this country and Europe. This system chiefly consists in making sewers approxi- mately air-tight by sealing the sewer inlets so as to admit sewage, but exclude the air; making pipe con- nections between sewers and buildings, and different heating-apparatus arranged to admit the in-flow of atmosphere and the products of combustion into the sewer, and, at the same time, prevent the back-flow of gas; when by the connection of a powerful suction apparatus with the sewer, near its outlet, the removal of sewer-gas and smoke from furnaces and fires, and the thorough ventilation of buildings, is positively effected and regulated as desired. By employing mechanical force for creating draught for fires, the large percentage of heat heretofore re- quired for this purpose is retained, effecting a corre- sponding saving in the consumption of fuel. The main portion of these important discoveries, including the removal of sewer-gas, and the positive means of yentilating buildings and carrying the vi- tiated atmosphere and poisonous vapors away from contact with the inhabitants, was recently made by Hon. John Comstock of Hudson, Wis., and first in- troduced in one of the districts of the city of Paris, France, during the present year, where its great utility and practical success are fully demonstrated. List of other papers. THE following papers were also read in this sec- tion: Building associations, by Edgar Frisby; and Health foods, by 7, S. Haight. WEEKLY SUMMARY OF THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. MATHEMATICS. Hyperelliptic functions. — M. E. Wiltheiss starts out from a memoir of Prof. Kronecker’s which ap- peared in the Monatsberichte of the Berlin academy for the year 1866, in which a method was developed for obtaining the parameters tT of those theta-func- tions, which, for a certain definite transformation, remain unaltered. Prof. Kronecker started out from a purely algebraical stand-point, and solved the equa- tions which connect the original and the transformed parameters ti and 7’z. Corresponding to the trans- formation of the theta-functions, there is a transfor- mation referring to the integrals belonging to these functions, Noting this fact, the author of the present paper has arrived at these singular values of the 7x in another manner, and his results bring into evidence acertain property which is analogous to the complex multiplication of elliptic functions. The author con- fines his attention solely to the theta-functions of two variables. — (Math. ann., xxi.) 1. €. {214 Curvature of surfaces. — M. Rud. Sturm has given here a very interesting theorem analogous to Gauss’ well-known theorem concerning the measure of curvature at a point on.a surface. Gauss’ theorem, stated briefly, is, that if a curve p enclosing an area F is drawn around a point P of a surface, and if a cor- responding curve p’ enclosing an area F” is traced out on a sphere of radius unity by the extremities of radii drawn parallel to the normals to the given sur- face at each point of p, then the limit value of the ratios of F’ and F will be equal to the inverse product of the radii of curvature R,, Re, of the given surface in the point P. M. Sturm’s theorem is, that if the curve p is cut out of the given surface by a sphere whose centre is at P, then the mean curvature, viz., 4 Ry a5 x -), is equal to the limit value of the ratios of the two a6 p and p’. — (Math. ann., Xxijem..0. [215 ee a0 Ree 380 ENGINEERING. Pressure on valves.— Professor S. W. Robinson presented to the American society of mechanical engineers, at its meeting in New York, November, 1882, a paper on the theoretical and the experimental determinations of the mean pressure on steam-valves exposed to pressure both above and below. He finds that a line can be determined, circumscribing an area which he calls the equilibrium area of the valve. This area being multiplied by the maximum pressure gives the total mean pressure acting to hold the valve to its seat. The extent of this area is determined by experiment; and a theory of the case is constructed, which is given at length, with the practical formulas derived by means of it for use in designing. —(Van Nostrand’s mag., July.) 8. H. T. [216 The performance of the Worthington pump- ing-engine.— Messrs. Shedd and Ward present to the water-commissioners of the city of Buffalo a re- port upon the performance of a Worthington pump- ing-engine, recently built for the city. The delivery was 28.8% greater than was demanded under the contract with the makers, amounting to above 19,- 000,000 gallons per day; and the ‘duty’ was some- thing above 70,000,000 pounds of water raised one foot high per thousand pounds of steam used. This was above the duty demanded by the city. — (Ibid.) R. H. T. [217 CHEMISTRY. (Organic.) Reconversion of nitro-glycerine into glycer- ine.— Great difficulty having been experienced in destroying the dynamite recently captured in Eng- Jand, Prof. C. L: Bloxam has tried several methods for decomposing its nitro-glycerine constituent. 1. Nitro- glycerine was shaken with methylated alcohol, and the solution was mixed with an alcoholic solution of KHS. Considerable rise-in temperature resulted, the liquid became red, a large quantity of sulphur sep- arated, and the nitro-glycerine was entirely decom- posed. 2. Nitro-glycerine was. shaken with a strong aqueous solution of commercial KS. The same changes were observed as in 1; but the rise in tem- perature was not so great, and the liquid became opaque very suddenly when the decomposition was completed. 8. The ordinary yellow solution of ammo- nium sulphide was mixed with the nitro-glycerine, and the mixture evaporated to dryness on the steam- bath, when bubbles of gas were evolved, due to the decomposition of the ammonium nitrite. The pasty mass was treated with alcohol to extract the glycer- ine. 4. Calcium sulphide, made by boiling flowers of sulphur with slaked lime, was used. Reduction: took place as above, but more slowly, and more agita- tion was required. This last is the cheapest process. — (Chem. news, April 13.) The reducing action of alkaline sulphides on nitro- glycerine was pointed out some time since, and A. H. Elliott, F.C.S., showed in the School of mines quarterly, Sept. 15, 1882, that the method admitted of quantitative application. — Cc. B. M. [218 SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 32. ! METALLURGY. Water-gas as a fuel.— Mr. W. A. Goodyear be- lieves that the fuel of the future in cities, for all do- mestic as well as for most manufacturing and metal- lurgical purposes, will be gas of some kind. The ease and cheapness of its distribution, the cleanliness and economy of its use, will, in his opinion, cause at no distant day a revolution in the present use of fuel. As a contribution to that end, he describes an apparatus of his own devising for the manufacture of water-gas, by means of which, he claims, this gas can be made in any desired quantity; and, while leaving a handsome profit to the manufacturers, it can be supplied at a cost that will render its general use more economical than that of any kind of solid fuel. —(Trans. Amer. inst. min. eng., Boston meet- ing.) M. E. W. [219 The recovery of the volatile constituents of coal. — The attention at present paid to the utiliza- tion of products heretofore wasted is well illustrated in an account of the Jameson process of coking coal, given before the London society of arts, April 26. The coking-ovens of England are estimated to have a capacity of some 20,000,000 tons a year; and only a slight and inexpensive alteration in the plant would, it is said, recover oil and ammonia to the yalue of $16,000,000, and good heating-gas to the value of $12,500,000. From the experiments of Sir J. B. Lawes, it has been estimated, that, if all the ammonia from all the raw coal burned in England were utilized in agriculture, 250,000,000 dollars’ worth of bread- stuff would be added to the yearly produce. The use of raw coal is characterized asa relic of barbar- ism. — (Iron, May 4.) R. H. R. [220 GEOLOGY. Stratified drift in Delaware.—F. D. Chester describes the relations of the gneissic rocks of Dela- ware, with their rolling, hilly, and local soils, to the unconfurmably overlying cretaceous clays extending to the south-east, with stratified gravels derived from the gneiss. These gravels and similarly derived deposits extend even over the top of Polly Drum- mond’s hill, the highest land in the state, two hun- dred and fifty feet above the cretaceous plain, and three hundred and thirty feet above the sea, Large dolerite bowlders of undetermined origin, sometimes twenty-five feet in circumference, lie on this hill; and a little farther south there are two hills of un- stratified detritus and bowlders, which are thought to have been dropped from ice floating in the sea, that deposited the stratified gravels during the submer- gence of the Champlain period. As the highest point in Delaware was then covered, this measure gives a minimum yalue of three hundred and thirty feet — for the submergence. — (Amer. journ. sc., xxy. 1883, 436.) W. M. D. [221 Meteorites, Concretions in meteoric iron.— Professor J. Lawrence Smith gives a connected statement regard-_ ing the concretions found from time to time in the interior of various meteoric irons. Six kinds — SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] of simple nodules occur, composed respectively of pyrrhotite (troilite), schreibersite, graphite, daubré- elite, chromite, and lawrencite. Others consist of several minerals aggregated together. Smith holds, from the study of these concretions, that the contain- ing ‘iron was at one time in a plastic state from the effect of heat.” —( Amer. journ. sc., June.) M. E. W. [222 MINERALOGY. Scovillite.— Under this name, Messrs. G. J. Brush and S. L. Penfield have described a new phos- phate from the Scoville ore-bed, Salisbury, Conn. It occurs as a thin crust of a pinkish or brownish color, coating iron and manganese ores. Hardness, 3.5; specific gravity, 4. Before the blowpipe the mineral is infusible, and, with borax and salt of phosphorus, gives beautiful rose-colored beads (didymium) in both oxidizing and reducing flames. It is readily soluble in dilute acids. Chemical analysis yielded P.O; (24.94) . (Y,Er),O, (8.51). (La,Di),O, (55.17) . FezO3 (0.25) . HO (7.37) . CO, (3.59) =99.83 % The pres- ence of carbon di-oxide is regarded as due to an admixture of lanthanite, —(La,Di), (CO,), 9H.O; and, deducting the constituents corresponding to the above formula, there is left 82.79 % of a phosphate, which, calculated up to 100 %, gives P.O; (30.12). (Y,Er).O, (10.28) . (La. Di),O; (55.75) . FeO; (0.30). H,O (3.57) =100 %. This corresponds closely with the formula R,(PO,), H,O, where R=(Y, Er, La, and Di). The new mineral is therefore a normal phosphate of the above metals, plus one molecule of water. — (Amer. journ. sc., June.) 8. L. P. [223 Ulimannite.— Crystals of this mineral from Mon- tenarba, Sardinia, have been crystallographically in- vestigated by C. Klein. The crystals were embedded in calcite, and were obtained by dissolving the calcite in dilute acetic acid: they were of cubical habit, pos- sessed a perfect cubical cleavage, and showed on the eubie faces the striations so common in pyrite, and characteristic of the parallel or pyritohedral hemihe- drons. Besides the cube, the faces of the rhombic dodecahedron and pentagonal dodecahedron, x~ O», were observed. The chemical analysis was made by P. Jannasch, and yielded S (14.02) . Sb (57.43). As (trace) . Ni (27.82) . Co (0.65) . Fe (0.03) = 99.95 %, corresponding closely with the formula Ni Sb S. Gravity, 6.84. The mineral is therefore closely re- lated to pyrite, crystallizing like it in parallel hemi- hedrons, and having an analogous composition in that the nickel and antimony are isomorphous with iron and sulphur. — (Jakrb. min., 1883, 180.) s. L. p. [224 GEOGRAPHY. (Africa.) French missionary-work in eastern Africa. — The French missionaries sent from Algeria have successfully established a station at Tabora in charge of Pere Hautcoeur. Their missions at Ujiji and Usanzé are progressing favorably. That at Uganda, owing chiefly to the petty persecution experienced from king M’tesa, has been abandoned, and the party have taken refuge on the southern shores of Lake Tanganyika. Six new missionaries have been de- SCIENCE. 381 spatched from Algiers to re-enforce the staff at sta- tions in Central Africa. The station at M’rogoro, less than six months old, already presents the aspect of civilization, stone buildings replacing thatched huts; and the adjacent land, until lately covered with for- ests and jungle, has been cleared, and planted with coffee-bushes, which appear likely to succeed. Other establishments are equally flourishing. — (Comptes rendus soc. géogr., no. 11.) W. H. D. [225 BOTANY. Protogyny of grasses.— Bailey gives as an ex- ample, Spartina juncea. — (Bull. Torrey club, July.) Write (226 Pollination of prickly pear.— Dr. Kunzé sees, in the irritable stamens of Opuntia vulgaris, a pro- vision for securing close fertilization by insect aid. In fair weather each flower opens on two successive days. Hive-bees, flies, and humble-bees were seen to visit the flowers for nectar, in obtaining which they grasp clusters of stamens, which, when released, fly up against the pistil, from which they slowly re- cede to their former position. Although the legs of the insects were covered with masses of pollen after visiting a flower, they were not seen to creep over the stigmas: ergo, the pollen grains are supposed to be thrown between the stigmas after the sudden movement following the retreat of an insect. It is hardly necessary to add, however, that crossing is well effected by the insects in question, the mo- tion of the stamens insuring a thorough dusting of their bodies with pollen, — (Bull. Torrey club, July.) Ww. T. [227 Mimicry.— Bailey notes the resemblance of a spider to the involucral scales of the swamp thistle, on which it lies in wait for insects which visit the flowers. — (Bot. yazette, Aug.) W. T. [228 ZOOLOGY. Mollusks. Pleurotomidae of Senegambia— Baron von Malizan reviews the Pleurotomidae of this region, especially of the Island of Goree. He obtained thirty-six species and varieties, of which about one- third are new. Only four were known to Adanson, who first monographed this fauna. About fifteen per cent are European forms, which are smaller and rarer than those of the same species in the Mediter- ranean. — (Jahrb. mal. ges., vii. ii.) W.H.D. [229 Mollusca of the Caucasus. — Bottger offers an important paper on the land-shells of the Caucasus, supplementary to others printed in preceding years, Rich material has been brought together by Gen. Komaroff and Hans Leder. The Limacidae afford several new forms: the new section Gigantolamax is proposed under Amalia, and Paralimax under Li- max. A new genus of Testacellidae, Selenochlamys, is proposed for a form resembling Daudebardia ex- ternally, but without an internal shell, and with the respiratory orifice at the right anterior part of the very small clypeus. No known mollusk closely resembles this remarkable slug, which was found 382 near Kutais. A large number of new species and varieties are described. — (Jahrb. mal. ges., vii. ii.) W. H. D. [230 Monograph of Ringicula.— L. Morlet has pub- lished a second supplement to his valuable mono- graph of Ringicula, in which four new recent and as many new fossil forms are made known, and a synop- sis, after Seguenza, of the tertiary Italian species, is added. — (Journ. de conchyl., xxii. 3.) w. H. D. [231 Worms, New worm with remarkable nervous system. — The Willem Barents on her third voyage captured a worm, which A. A. W. Hubrecht describes under the name of Pseudonematon nervosum. He gives a general account of its structure, and promises a fuller monograph. The animal is about sixty-five milli- metres long, one and three-quarters millimetres thick, tapering behind. The digestive tract runs straight through from end to end. On the ventral side, about forty-five millimetres from the head, is a disk, probably a sucker. No traces of sexual, excre- tory, or sensory organs were found. The epidermis is thin. The-muscles form three layers, —a thick external longitudinal, a middle transverse or circu- Jar, and an internal longitudinal layer, — variously de- veloped in different parts of the body. The nervous system is very remarkable: it forms a continuous layer completely around the body, and lies immedi- ately inside the layer of circular muscular fibres. It consists, 1°, of a fine network of delicate filaments, appearing as if felted, barely tinged by the staining reagents; and, 2°, of scattered nuclej belonging partly to connective tissue, partly to ganglion-cells. The layer forms a continuous tube from the head, where there is no ganglionic enlargement, back through the body to the caudal region, where the layer is present dorsally only. Hubrecht further discusses the phylogeny of the nervous system in continuation of his previous paper (Quart. journ. micr. s¢., Xx. 431). He points out, that, 1°, in its lowest form (Medusae), the nervous system is diffuse, and there are no nerve-fibres prop- erly so called; 2°, in a little more advanced stage it tends to form a layer spread out under and parallel with the ectoderm; the general histological character is the same as under 1°, —a felted network of fine fibrillae, which spring from the ganglion-cells (Acti- niae, Psuedonematon); 3°, the diffuse layer is still present, but certain tracts are more developed, mal- ing the primitive nerve-cords (Chaetognathi, Chiton, ete.); 4°, the diffuse part is gradually lost, and the cords are retained. These conclusions are confirmed by citations from numerous recent researches. Dr. Hubrecht has, we think, suecessfully established two very important generalizations, — first, that in the lower animals there prevails a uniform type of nervous tissue, ganglion-cell and nerve-fibre being incompletely differentiated, and the nerve-fibres being in the form of a network; secondly, that the nerves were developed by concentration of the diffuse tissue along certain pathways. His paper is certainly one of much value and originality. Systematically the SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 82. position of Pseudonematon is uncertain, but it proba- bly belongs somewhere near the nematods and plat- helminths. —(Verh. acad. wetensch. Amst., xxii. 3d art.) C.S. M. [232 VERTEBRATES. Development of the diaphragm and pexicar- dium. — Our knowledge of the changes which lead to the partitioning-off of the anterior end of the body-cavity in vertebrates to form the pericardial and pleural cavities has heretofore remained obscure, Uskow has investigated the subject under Wal- deyer’s direction, at Strassburg, and publishes an important memoir. The essay opens with a review of the previous literature. The research was car- ried out principally on rabbits, but also extended to other mammalia, and classes of vertebrates. At nine days (in rabbit embryos) the omphalo-mesaraic veins enter the body from the sides, along the lower wall of the body-eavity, into which they bulge up. The part of the body-cavity in front is cylindrical; behind, fissure-like. ‘The two cylindrical halves meet anteriorly, and unite below the heart, forming the primitive pericardial division of the coelom. The posterior wall of this cavity is pierced by the sinus venosus, and receives the name of septum transver- sum: it isa thin membrane, which separates the pericardial space from the fore-gut of the embryo. In the next stage, the pericardial space has enlarged, the most important effect of which is to drive the septum transversum backwards until it lies together with the omphalo-mesaraie veins, so producing the membrane which supports the great veins, and di- vides off the ventral portion of the pericardial space from the dorsal portion and the general body-cavity, or paired coelom. This membrane then forms part of the wall of the pericardial cavity; but it also forms the primitive diaphragm, the dorsal portion of the original pericardial space becoming, in con- junction with the anterior end of the coelom, the pleural cavity. The pericardial wall consists, according to its devel- opment, of three parts: 1°. part of the original wall of the coelom (this includes that portion which remains permanently attached in mammals to the anterior thoracic wall); 2°. the septum transversum, which becomes the pleuro-pericardiac membrane; 3°. the principal part derived from the body-wall, its separation being consequent upon the enlarge- ment of the pleural cavities. The part from the septum is originally continuous with the diaphragm. The diaphragm is at first a connective tissue struc- ture. The’muscle grows in later from the dorsal side, appearing first in embryos (rabbits) of nine milli- metres length. It probably is derived from the muscle plates, but that was not determined with certainty. The primitive diaphragm arises in its ventral part from a papillary growth of the septum transversum; in its dorsal part, laterally from the tissue carrying the Jarge omphalo-mesaraic veins; medianly, from the outgrowth of the septum trans- versum known as the massa transversa. From the comparative study of other types, the fol- lowing grades of development of the diaphragm SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.] were ascertained. 1. The ventral and dorsal por- tions of the diaphragm are completely developed: they completely divide the coelom, and have muscles. The pericardium, except two thin lamellae, is entirely separated from the diaphragm (rabbit). 2. Same as 1, save that a part of the diaphragm remains united with the pericardium (man). ‘ Same as 2, but the diaphragm contains no muscles; and its ventral part is completely fused with the pericardium (hen). 4. Same as 3, but the dorsal part is not completely de- veloped, remaining in a primitive condition (lizard) or in an early stage (frog). Here might properly be reckoned certain imperfect developments in man. 5. Same as 4, but the diaphragm, or its ventral part, forms a united whole with the pericardium, remain- ing at the stage of the septum transversum (Myxi- noids, —Ammocoetes). 6. The teleosts stand apart, in that, although, as seen in the salmon, there is a certain separation of the diaphragm from the peri- ecardium, even more than in birds, yet the dorsal portion of the diaphragm is completely wanting. The paper contains numerous details. The au- thor’s. nomenclature is confusing, and we have found it very difficult to follow his account. — (Arch. mikr. anat., xxii. 143.) c. Ss. M. [233 ANTHROPOLOGY. Mutilations of the teeth.— Ethnographers who have minutely described mutilations of the teeth in other parts of the world have said nothing of a similar practice among the natives of the two Amer- icas. The practice is not common in the western world; and it is a little singular that people who deform to an extraordinary degree their lips, noses, cheeks, and ears, respect the integrity of their teeth. The historians of this practice overlook the abrasions noticed by Vancouver among the Indians of Trini- dad Bay, and by Petitot among the Tchiglits at the mouth of the Mackenzie and of the Anderson. Fi- nally, no notice is taken of dental mutilations for- merly in use in Mexico and Yucatan, upon which Sahagun, Landa, and Mota Padilla have furnished information. M. Hamy has gathered from the last- named writers their allusions to these subjects, and prepared an illustrated monograph. The drawings indicate both filing and perforations. — (Bull. soc. anthrop. Paris, y. 879.) J. W. P. [234 Imperial Chinese tombs.— Among the moun- tains east of Peking are the imperial tombs. The Great Wall forms the northern boundary of an en- closure five miles square. Besides this, a wide tract outside the boundary-wall belongs to the mausolea, and is forbidden ground, wherein man is not permitted to build dwellings or to bury his dead. Shun-chih (1644-62) and four of his successors sleep here, with the heavens, the hills, and the streams around them. The earlier Manchu princes are buried at Movkden. The tombs are all alike in essential features, built on a southern slope, with a stream in front. In ap- proaching the tomb, the explorer passes first two lofty stone pillars, that serve as a gateway to figures of men and animals in pairs, facing one another on SCIENCE. 383 opposite sides. An ornamental archway opens upon a curved marble bridge of several arches, with finely carved balustrade. After crossing the stream, the traveller passes guard-houses and the sacrificial hall on the right and left, and comes upon a small build- ing, in the centre of which stands, supported upon the back of a huge marble tortoise, the memorial tablet, on which is written an account of the deeds of the departed. Halls of entertainment flank this building; and farther on in a direct line are the chapel of the dead, the bright pavilion, and, last of all, the earth-palace, or tumulus, within which the coffin lies. When the body is laid in this earth-palace, the door is shut. Behind the door, inside, is a round hole in the stone floor; and, when the door is shut, a large ball of stone follows it, and, falling into the hole, prevents the stone door ever opening again. The emperor is then said ‘to be at peace forevermore.’ Mr. F. 8. A. Bourne, who gives the information above quoted, entered this enclosure with great difliculty. A minute account of the appearance and function of the two rows of sphinx-like figures adds much interest to the author’s narrative. The mausoleum prepared for the present empress’s regent is just com- pleted, and cost about £1,500,000. — (Proc. roy. geogr. soc., Vv. 23.) J. W. P. [235 EARLY INSTITUTIONS. Malagasy place-names. — We have a long article upon local names in Madagascar by the Rev. James Sibree, jun. The object of the writer is to show how the names of places illustrate the mental habits of the people and their powers of observation. Many names of villages include Malagasy equivalents for the Anglo-Saxon words tun, ham, buryh. Personal names are very common. Villages are named after distinguished chiefs. The article will interest some of our readers.— (Journ. roy. 7 + . - Vie - a 391 It is to be noted, that the New-Haven region, in Connecticut, is the southern extremity of the Connecticut valley. The mean trend of this valley in Connecticut is about S. 15° W., and, in southern Connecticut, S. 18° W. Now, the nu- merous scratches over the eastern portion of the New-Haven region average in direction S$. 16° W. ; but along its western border, where the rapidly rising slopes give the region rather an abrupt limit 150 to 350 feet high, the scratches have an average course of S. 33° W., the extreme being S. 27° W., and S. 55° W.; and §. 33° W. is the almost uniform trend over the undulating surface of the country for six to nine miles west. It is, as far as I can see, impossible that the valley stream should have had on its west side so wide a divergence from the direction of the Connecticut valley: all the features of the region oppose it. The scratches are well exposed over the metamor- phie rocks in many places; and large and per- fect examples of roches moutonnées here occur. Again: over the higher lands of western Connecticut (and of New England generally, according to the observations of Prof. Edward Hitcheock, Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, and others), the direction of the scratches is south-eastward. To have produced them, if icebergs were the agent, the submergence should have exceeded 2,500 feet, and this would have given a chance for the full play of the oceanic currents ; and yet the above direction does not correspond with that of either of the great currents. IT. Distribution of the drift. Bowlders of trap, from 50 to 1,000 tons in weight, are numerous in the New-Haven region, especially along its western border. All are Connecticut - valley travellers; for the trap ridges of the valley —400 to 1,300 feet in height — are the only possible source. They were gathered up by the ice from these trap ridges, and were carried 15 to 60 miles down the valley. It is mechanically impossible that the larger bowlders should have been taken up, or gathered in any way, by floating ice ; either shore-ice, where the water was but 1,000 feet deep and less, or by that of icebergs, where the depth was greater. It is well known, that the distance of drift transportation is in general less than 20 miles. Hills of but 100 feet often have their long trails. A moving glacier would easily gather and carry along the material from hills, high or low, wherever loose or detachable masses of rock or gravel existed to be gathered ; while floating ice would be very poor at gathering, and hence ineflicient in distributing. 392 III. Relative level of the land and seu. I have examined carefully along southern New England for proofs of the quaternary submergence which the iceberg theory assumes to have existed in the glacial era. I thought at one time that I saw evidence about New Haven of a submergence of 45 to 50 feet. But the terrace that afforded the evidence was situated six miles back from Long Island Sound, adjoining the rivers; and on further examination I found that the deposits had precisely the structure of those along the river- valleys farther north, and that, in fact, they were nothing but fluvial formations. The highest terraces on or near the shores of the sound, in the vicinity of New Haven, have a height above mean tide of 23 to 26 feet; and on Milford bay, nine miles west, a similarly situ- ated terrace has a height of 30 to 33 feet. Along the hills facing the waters, and the southern extremity of the valleys, no traces of any higher level exist. Twenty- five to thirty-five feet is the greatest amount of submer- gence the facts sustain. Sea- border deposits exist at a higher level on the coast of Maine and on the shores of the St. Lawrence, and show what was the position of the shore-line in those regions. But the level along southern New England is not proved by the facts there gathered, neither is it established by the demands of the iceberg theory. In conclusion, if icebergs, or floating masses of ice, were not capable of covering with scratches great continuous areas, and would have had a chance for little rock-abrasion on account of the covering of detritus; if they could not have made, in their hitching and swinging way of action, when touching bottom, scratches over great areas, that had the even course and parallelism characterizing those of drift regions, or could not have ploughed out the deep furrows ; if they could pot have gath- ered the great bowlders for transportation ; and if the sea along the sound did not cover the land, in any part of the era of ice, to a greater depth than 30 or 35 feet, — the iceberg theory of the drift may be reasonably pro- nounced unsatisfactory for southern New Eng- SCIENCE. . [Vou. IL., No. 33. land; and similar facts show that it is equally unsatisfactory for the rest of New England. James D. Dana. THE MAGNETOPHONE.1 The experiments of Bell,? Preece,® Merca- dier,* and others on the radiophone, suggested to me the possibility of interrupting, or at least periodically modifying, the lines of foree proceeding from the poles of a magnet, by means of a disc of sheet iron, perforated with a series of equidistant holes, and rotated so that the holes should pass directly in front of the magnetic pole. It is well known that an armature, placed on the poles of a permanent magnet, diminishes the strength of the external field of force by furnishing supe- rior facilities for the forma- tion of polarized chains of particles from pole to pole. This is the case eyen when the armature does not touch the poles, but is in close proximity to them. If a piece of sheet iron be placed over the poles of a magnet without touching, and the magnetic curves be developed on paper aboye the iron, they will be found to exhibit less intense and less sharply defined mag- netic action than when the sheet iron is removed. If, however, a small hole be drilled directly over each magnetic pole, the screen- ing action of the sheet iron is modified in much the same way as when a hole is made in a screen opaque to light; for the developed curves show distinctly the outline of the holes. If, therefore, the sheet iron in the form of a circular plate, pierced with a number of holes, be rapidly rotated between the pole of a magnet and a small induction bobbin, the action of the magnet on the core of the bobbin will be periodi- cally modified because of the passing holes ; and hence induced currents will flow through a circuit including the bobbin. A dise of sheet iron was pierced with two circles of quarter- 1 Read at the Minneapolis meeting of the American associa- tion for the advancement of science. 2 Proceedings Amer. assoc, adv. sci., xxix. 115. misc. col., xxv. 143. 8 Proééedings Royal society, xxxi. 406, 4 Journ. phys. x. 33. . Smithsonian _- (eile as a a bb Re SEPTEMBER 21, 1883.] inch holes concentric with the disk, the number of holes in the two circles being thirty-two and sixty-four respectively. On one side of the disk was placed a horse-shoe magnet with its poles very near the rows of holes; on the other side were arranged two corresponding induc- tion bobbins. The circuit was complefed through a telephone and either bobbin at pleas- ure. Upon rotating the disk rapidly, a clear musical sound was pro- duced in the telephone, the pitch rising with the rapidity of rota- tion. Moreover the bobbin opposite the circle of sixty-four holes gave the octave above the other, and each gave a note of the same pitch as was produced by blowing a stream of air through the corresponding holes. Hence, as a beam of light, focused upon a circle of equi-dis- tant holes in an opaque disk, is rendered periodically intermittent by the rotation of the disk, and produces a musical tone when falling upon the proper receiving-apparatus ; so the lines of force proceeding from a magnet may be rendered periodically intermittent in their action onan induction bobbin by a similar metallic disk, set in rapid rotation; and the induced currents, arising from the periodic change of magnetism in the core of the bobbin, produce a musical tone in a telephone, the pitch depending in both cases only upon the num- ber of holes passing in unit time. EFFECT OF SCREEN OF SHEET IRON. The experiment was modified by so placing the poles of the magnet that the same circle of holes passed them in succession. By the proper connections, the currents from the two bobbins were made to pass either in the same SCIENCE. MAGNETIC CURVES OVER HORSE-SHOE MAGNET. 393 or in opposite directions through the telephone. In the latter case, an almost perfect neutraliza- tion of currents took place, so that the sound was scarcely audible. Non-magnetic metallic disks produce similar musical notes by the periodic modification of the magnetic field by means of the distortion or bending of the lines of force. The solid parts of the conducting disk deflect the lines of force in the direction of the rotation; but upon the passage of a hole, they fall back toward their normal position. A periodic movement of the lines of force will, therefore, take place when the disk rotates. Disks of zine and copper produce a clear musical sound, somewhat less intense than that given by iron under the same con- ditions. Any discontinuity in the rotating disk recurring periodically will produce cor- responding induction currents in the bob- bins. Thus, V-shaped notches round the circumference of the disk are quite as efli- cient as the holes in effecting the requisite modification of the magnetic field. Moreover, it is not necessary that the holes extend en- tirely through the disk. Two disks of zinc, of the same diameter and thickness, were placed together on the same rotating spindle, one pierced with a circle of holes, and the other not. The combination proved as eflicient in produ- cing the sound as the single perforated disk. EFFECT OF HOLES THROUGH THE IRON SCREEN. A sheet of tinfoil, with a circle of small holes, was pasted on the continuous zine disk. The perforations, extending only the thickness of the tinfoil into the compound disk, constituted a suflicient discontinuity to produce a clear, 394 SCIENCE. [Vox. IIL., No. 33. though somewhat faint, musicalsound. About clearly defined, but not so loud as with the the same result was given by a disk consisting of the same sheet of tinfoil pasted on card- board. Any periodic variation from uniformity in the disk appears to produce corresponding varia- tions in the magnetic field when the disk is rotated. Depressions made with a punch, at regular intervals, in a zine disk, rendered it a sound-generator when rotated in this appara- tus. Since the pitch of the note obtained depends only on the number of holes passing the pole of the magnet in a second, it is easy to construct a piece of apparatus to illustrate musical inter- vals. an 164. Sums. For the three years April 1, 1880 to April 1, 1883, the total amount is 463.6 inches, averaging 154.5 inches each year. — W. U. [252 GEOGRAPHY. (Arctic.) North-west America. — Reports from the island of Kadiak, Alaska, state that the spring has been un- usually late, and on the 6th of June summer seemed to have just set in. During the preceding three months, the rainfall had averaged eleven inches per month. Salmon-canneries had been established at Karluk, on the island of Kadiak, and at Seal bay, Afognak island. On Cook’s inlet, a cannery had been established at the Kassilax river. Exploring parties were examining the shores of the inlet for minerals. One party was ascending the Sushitno river, where Doroschin reported gold many years ago. Another party had sailed for Kamishak bay, Aliaska peninsula. An experiment in sheep-raising has been going on, on the island of Kadiak, for three years. Success seemed certain, as the wool improved in quantity and quality, and was free from burrs and impurities. In adding to the number, an epidemic disease was introduced; and of the flock of three hundred, only about thirty survived. —— Rey. S. Hall Young has been making a study of the religious be- lief of the T’linkit Indians of the Alexander archi- pelago, which will shortly be made public. —— The U. S. revenue-steamer Corwin left Sitka on her Arctic cruise, June 16.——At Juneau City, the largest shipment of gold-dust ever made was sent by the June steamer. The troubles among the miners here have caused many to depart. It appears that oe I.” © SCIENCE. 409 the rock containing the gold is of a loosely crystalline or granular nature, which weathers to a gravel. The lighter portions of this wash away in the rains; but the gold settles down into the remainder, which be- comes much richer than the original rock in equal quantities. This gravel is said to exist on the upper parts of the auriferous mountain-belt. Prospectors claim this gravel as placers, and desire to work it under the law governing placer-mining. The com- panies who have taken up-quartz-claims desire to have it regarded as quartz or vein mineral: hence the conflict, which was to have been settled by the officers of the U.S. S. Corwin. The decision has not been made public. Prospectors have gone to explore the country about Yakutat bay, where the Indians have hitherto been hostile. Re- ports-as to its richness in gold have long been preva- ‘lent; but so many have met their death from the natives, that hitherto no one has dared attempt ex- ploration. The party consists of five men, with six months’ provisions, and was transported by the U.S. S. Adams. The prestige of the naval vessel, it is hoped, will afford them protection. —— The schooner Alaska has sailed from San Francisco, for Golovine sound, Alaska, taking with her a small stern-wheel steamer and a complete mining equip- ment and some twenty-five miners. The mines are situated on the Fish river, which forms part of the water-communication between Grantley harbor and Golovine sound. It is stated that the ore is a very rich argentiferous galena. The parties engaged in the enterprise have been several years investigating the deposit, and feel sufficiently encouraged to begin a regular prosecution of the business. In this vicin- ity, graphite is known to occur in a sienitic rock, in considerable quantities. This will be the most northern mine actually worked in the western hem- isphere. — W. H. D. [253 (South America.) Bove’s new expedition.—Lieut. Bove pro- poses a new expedition to complete studies begun during his last journey in the southern part of the Argentine republic. He proposes to investigate the present physical and economic condition of the coun- try, with a view to closer commercial relations with Italy. He will take up the exploration of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, especially the basin of Santa Cruz, the canals of western Patagonia, and the habit- able country extending from the Ona to the Cioniu Chonos. The inhabitants are totally unknown. The explorer has placed himself at the disposition of the Argentine government for the purpose of placing light-houses on Staten island and other points need- ful for navigation, an arrangement which will facili- tate the prosecution of his other investigations. For transportation he will depend partly on the English missionary board, who have promised co-operation, and will afterward equip for exploration one of the small vessels always obtainable for such purposes either at the Falkland islands or Punta Arenas, The journey will occupy a year, and cost about five thou- sand dollars. — (Revue géogr. June, 1883.) W. H. D. [254 410 BOTANY. Ellis’ North American fungi.— Dr, Farlow, who edited the third and, in part, the eleventh century of this collection, contributes valuable notes on some of the Peronosporeae and Uredineae so far distributed, with some pertinent remarks on the nomenclature of the latter group. Though desirous of retaining the earliest specific names wherever practicable, the writer does not believe, with Winter, in applying the name given to the Aecidium of a Puccinia or other teleutosporic form to the species, when its several stages are grouped under the generic name of the latter form. ‘‘ For practical reasons, if for no other, the custom of substituting an aecidial specific name, for aname given to a Uredo or teleutosporie form, should by all means be avoided. Of all the Uredi- neae described by older writers, probably none are more difficult to determine satisfactorily at the pres- ent day than the species of Aecidium, so called. Origi- nal specimens of that genus are, as a rule, not so well preserved as those of other genera of the order; and, if one usually gets little satisfaction from examina- tion of what is left of the original types, he is scarce- ly better off on reading the older descriptions. It was not unfrequently the habit of older mycologists, to describe as varieties of one Aecidium forms found on the most diverse plants; and most certainly it is going too far to substitute for the name of a Pucci- nia, let us say, which has passed current for many years, the name given by an old authority, like Per- soon or Link, to what he considered a variety of an ill- defined Aecidium. It cannot be said that any want of respect to the older writers is shown by abandon- ing their aecidial names in such cases.’? With respect to the Uredo name, however, the case is held to be somewhat different. ‘‘ As a matter of fact, the types of the earlier-described Uredo forms are } much better preserved than Aecidia, and examinations of older herbaria frequently enable one to determine With accuracy what form was meant by an older author. Furthermore, the Uredo and teleutosporic forms frequently are found together in the same sorus, or in close proximity; and examinations of authentic specimens often show the relation of an old-described Uredo to a more recently described teleutosporic form. The most important considera- - tion, however, is the following. Many of the forms now recognized as teleutosporic have one-celled spores, and were originally described as forms of Uredo; and, in such cases, one must go back to the original specific names.’? He adds, however, “If I have advocated retaining the older Uredo name in cases where we know with certainty what was meant by the earlier mycologists, I have by no means intended encvuraging the use of names about which there is doubt, either from the absence of typical specimens, or confusion of several species by older writers. Rather than favor that method —if one may say so—of forcing priority, I should prefer to give up the substitution of all old Uredo names, ex- cept, possibly, in the case of species now referred to Uromyces.”” The use of the parenthesis for the or- iginal authority for the species, though somewhat SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 38. cumbrous and generally discarded by phenogamic botanists, is, on the whole, advocated, especially since the genera of fungi are often not very definitely fixed. ‘‘A species of Fries, for instance, may, dur- ing five years, be dragged through no one knows how many new genera; and it is with a mildly malicious satisfaction that one sees those modern writers who adopt minute generic subdivision, forced by the pre- vailing custom to add the ‘(Fr.)’ as a slight tribute to the past.” Besides the characters of eight species, previously nondescript, the notes also contain much critical m- formation concerning the synonymy of many of the species, and the geographical distribution of others. An interesting fact is the preponderance, among our Peronosporae, of species germinating by the produc- tion of zodspores, though this would appear to better adapt them to an insular climate than to ours, which is a continental one, subject to extremes of heat and moisture. — (Proc. Amer. acad., May 9, 1883.) W. . [255 ZOOLOGY. Crustacea, Parasite of the salmon.— Carl F. Gissler in an anonymous article, in the American naturalist for August, describes and figures, as a new species of Caligus, a parasite of the salmon of Puget sound. The species is probably Lepeophtheirus salmonis, which infests the salmon upon both sides of the North Atlantic. —s. 1. s. [256 Brachyura and Anomura off the coast of New England.—In a preliminary report on the Brachyura and Anomura dredged in deep water off the south coast of New England by the U. 5S. fish commission in 1880-82, S. I. Smith enumerates thirty-one species taken in sixty-five to six hun- dred and forty fathoms, and gives full descriptions and figures of the new forms discovered. The report, although only a supplement to a notice of the crus- tacea dredged in the same region in 1880, describes three new genera and seven new species. Of the thirty-one species enumerated, only four were known from the south coast of New England previous to 1880, and more than half of the whole number were new to science; and yet none of the species belong to the abyssal fauna proper, and nearly all of them were taken most abundantly in less than two hundred fathoms. . The dredgings off Martha’s Vineyard in 1882 revealed the total, or almost total, disappearance of several of the larger species of crustacea, which were exceedingly abundant, in the same region, in 1880 and 1881. The disappearance of these species was apparently connected directly with the disappear- ance of the tile-fish (Lopholatilus) from the same region; and on this account complete tables are given of the specimens examined from all the dredgings in the region in question. Five species, which were ex- ceedingly abundant in 1880 and 1881, were not found, or found only very rarely, in 1882; and five others, taken several times in 1880 and 1881, were not taken at all in 1882. These species were specially charac- teristic of the narrow belt of comparatively warm a ig SEPTEMBER 21, 1883.] water, — in sixty to one hundred and sixty fathoms, —which has a more southern fauna than the colder waters either side. Professor Verrill has suggested that there was a great destruction of life in this belt in the winter of 1881-82, caused by a severe storm agitating the bottom-water, and forcing outward the cold water that occupies the great area of shallow sea along the coast, thus causing a sudden lowering of the temperature along the warm belt. Among the forms described are two new genera of Galatheidx, in one of which there are no appendages on any of the first five abdominal somites of the adult male. But the most interesting forms are two genera of hermit-crabs, — Parapagurus and Sympa- gurus,—in which the branchiae present types of structure intermediate between the phyllobranchiae of ordinary paguroids, and the trichobranchiae of the Astacidae, etc. — (Proc. nat. mus., vi., June, 1883.) 8. 1. 8. [257 VERTEBRATES. Development of muscle fibres and their union with nerves. — Although very numerous researches have been made on the differentiation of striped muscles, and on the termination of their motor nerve- fibres, yet the multifarious observations have often been too incomplete to lead to any but conflicting and unsatisfactory theories. An important contribu- tion toward reducing this unfortunate and excessive confusion to order is made by L. Bremer, who has studied the post-embryonic changes in lizards, frogs, and mice. The nucleus of the muscle-fibre, together with the protoplasm surrounding it, constitutes the so-called muscle-corpuscle; the corpuscle is much more prominent in young than in old muscles, for its protoplasm is gradually differentiated into muscu- lar substance; a small number of corpuscles enters into the formation of each fibre; the substance of the muscle forms a network, which was first partially recognized by Heitzmann (Wien. sitzuwngsber. xvii. abth. 3, 1878); the meshes of this network appear polygonal in transverse, rectangular in longitudinal sections; the network is a modification of the proto- plasmatic network of the corpuscles, and is so arranged that there are alternating rows, both transverse and longitudinal, of fine knots and large knots (correspond- ing to the fine and broad striae); the fine knots are connected by fine threads, and the large knots by coarse threads; hence there is a fine and a coarse net. The post-embryonic multiplication of fibres takes place by means of the structures described by Margo (Wien. sitzungsber. xxxvi. 229) under the name of *sarcoplasten ;’ there are lines or chains of muscle- corpuscles, united by the protoplasm net, and derived by proliferation from the corpuscles of the original fibres; the sarcoplast gradually separates from the parent fibre, undergoing muscular differentiation meanwhile, and also becoming connected with the nerve. The growth of the fibre is initiated by a multiplication of the corpuscles; the sarcolemma is not present at first, but appears later, being probably formed by the fused cell membranes of the corpus- cles, to which appears to be added a coat of connec- tive tissue, and also around the motor plate between SCIENCE. 411 the two sarcolemmic coats, an extension of Henle’s sheath of the nerve. The motor nerve plates are formed as follows: , When the sarcoplast begins to change to muscle, the nerve grows towards it until the two meet and unite. In lizards only a single nerve-fibre, in the frog and mouse several together, thus approach the future muscle. At the point of contact, the muscle-cor- puscles change, so that an accumulation of proto- plasm and a proliferation of nuclei occur there. These accumulations were first described by Kihne under the name of ‘muskelspindeln’ (Virchow’s arch., 1863, 116), and are mentioned by many subse- quent writers: Bremer now shows that they are young ‘end-plates.’? Into these the ramifications of the nerve penetrate, after the medullary sheath has been lost. The details of the process, of course, vary in different animals, as do also the final forms of the motor plates. Besides the motor terminations, there are others, which the author believes to be probably those of the sensory nerves. The fibres running to them are either small and medullated, or naked and end in ramifications upon the muscle, without any conspic- uous collection of nuclei and protoplasm at the place of junction. The smaller nerve endings occur on the same fibres with the motor plates, and probably both exist on every fibre. The smaller endings, Bremer designates as ‘enddolden’ in contradistine- tion to the ‘endplatten.’ (Sach’s paper on the sensory nerves of muscles is not cited by Bremer.) Hensen has advanced the view that the connection between the nerves and the peripheral cells exists from the first in the embryo, and that, as the cells divide, so do the nerves. Bremer’s observations show that with muscles this is not the case. More- over, Kleinenberg’s theory of the evolution of muscle and nerve must be at least modified, if not set aside. (That the union of the nerve-filament with the pe- ripheral organ is secondary, is shown also by His, ScreNCcE, i. 956.) — (Arch. mikr. anat. xxii. 318.) c. S. M. [258 ANTHROPOLOGY. Folk-lore in the Panj*b.— Mrs. F. A. Steel is collecting the folk-stories among the natives in the Panjib. No. 18 is a charming shepherd-tale common among the cattle-drover’s children in the forests of the Gujranwalé. It is about Little Ankle- Bone. Once upon a time a little shepherd was eaten by a wolf, that hung the ankle-bone of his victim to a tree. Some robbers, dividing their spoil, were startled by the falling of the bone, which became a little lad, and did many wonderful things, taming all the beasts of the field, and fowls of the air. He changes a pond into milk, by the side, of which he sits under an oak-tree, playing his shepherd’s pipe, while all the animals come to listen, and to drink out of his marble basins. The series will be continued. — (Indian antiquary, xii. 105.) J. W. P. [259 Lorillard City. — After his researches at Chichen- Itza, M. Charnay made an excursion into the country of the Lacandones, —a fierce, indomitable tribe, of whom it is most desirable to have more information, 412 M. Charnay found the ruins of an ancient city, which he named after his generous patron. In his explora- tions here, he was assisted by a young Englishman, “Mr. Alfred Maudslay, with whom he shares the honor of discovery. The town is about 17° N., on the left bank of the Usumacinta, on the boundaries of Guatemala and the two Mexican provinces of Chiapas and Tabasco. The ruins resemble those of Palenque in the material, arrangement of interiors, decorations, and glyphs. The. great stone slabs of Palenque carved with inscriptions and bas-reliefs, are replaced here by lintels covered with superb sculpture (cf. i. 1008.) — (Proc. roy. geogr. soc., Vv. 44.) J. W. P. [260 Shaking towers.—Col. Lovett, in his journey through northern Persia, visited the shrines of some dervishes, near which is a minar, curious for possess- ing the same property that makes the shaking towers of Ispahan famous. When shaken by a man stand- ing on the top, it oscillates sufficiently to cause a brick placed on the edge of the cornice to fall. It is about thirty-five feet high, and six feet diameter at the base, tapering gently upwards. This property of vibrating is attributed at Bostam, as it is at Ispahan, to miraculous interposition of the local saint. It is, of course, due to the elasticity of the bricks and cement used, the latter becoming more elastic with age. —(Proc. roy. geogr. soc., v. 80.) J. W. P. [261 Explorations in Guatemala.— Mr. A. P. Mauds- lay, mentioned in M. Charnay’s researches, has pub- lished separately some of his own personal explora- tions, with a map and ground-plans. Starting from Livingstone, Guatemala, he first visited Quirigua, whose ruins consist of raised mounds and terraces, usually faced with stone, and near to these, carved monoliths. The latterare of two kinds: high upright stones, ornamented with human figures and tables of hieroglyphics; and low broad stones, in the shape of some animal. The first named measure three to five feet across, and 12 to 25 feet out of the ground. On both back and front, the principal ornament is a human figure in relief, decked out in the barbaric splendor usual throughout Central America, Mr. Maudslay suggests that the inevitable human face on the thorax may explain the function of the great num- ber of masks from this quarter. The second class of carvings is very interesting. One specimen, weigh- ing about eighteen tons, represents a turtle having a human head, with projecting ears richly ornamented. In place of the tail is the life-sized figure of a woman sitting cross-legged, and holding a manikin sceptre in her hand. The whole surface of the block is pro- fusely ornamented. Nowhere in the neighborhood are there traces of houses. The exploration at Qui- rigua led to an attempt to fix the site of Chaciyal, mentioned by Cortez. Leaving this spot, Mr. Maudslay visited Copan, where the sculptures impressed him as being above those of Quirigua in execution. From Copan our traveller wandered next to Tikal, north-east of Lake Peten, only once before visited by a foreigner, Ber- nouilli. All the houses here are built of stone, and SCIENCE. [Vou, IL, No. 33. coated with plaster. Inside, the walls are seven to eight feet high, and the stone roof forms a narrow gable. The rooms within are very narrow, resem- bling long passages. The town was laid out in a rect- angular form, the slopes terraced with sustaining walls. The houses are often built on raised founda- tions, stone-faced in the same manner, The most imposing buildings are the five temples raised on pyramidal foundations, in front of which are steep stairways leading up to the doors of the temples. There is no trace of any idol or object of worship in these buildings, but carved slabs and circular altars are found in the plaza. The next point of interest was a ruined town on the Usumacinta. On the top of a steep bank 60 feet high stands the first row of houses, and the townis built on a succession of stone- faced terraces reaching more than 250 feet in height. Instead of the long, narrow interiors as at Tikal, the houses are broken into a number of recesses by but- tresses supporting the roof at intervals, and stone is used instead of sapote-wood for lintels. One of the houses at Usumacinta is minutely described by Mr. Maudslay. In nearly all the houses, around the idols, stand earthen pots partly filled with some resinous substance, which the Lacandon Indians probably placed there, showing that the old faith has not died out. At this point Mr. Maudslay met M. Charnay. This very important paper closes with a short sketch of the Lacandones. — (Proc. roy. geog. s0C.. v. 185.) 0. T. M. ' 262 NOTES AND NEWS. News of a serious character has been received from the Greely relief expedition. The Proteus and Yantie sailed from St. Johns, Newfoundland, June 29. They arrived safely at Disco on the 6th and 12th of July respectively. The Proteus with Lieut. Garlington and the relief party, with sup- plies, ete., sailed from Disco for Cory island, arriving on the 16th. On the 21st she started for Smith sound, and reached a point in latitude 78° 52’, lon- gitude 74° 25’ W., a few miles north and west of Cape Sabine, where she was beset and crushed in the pack. The party succeeded in saving boats and provisions sufficient to sustain them during their re- treat, and made their way across Smith sound and along the eastern shore to Cape York, and reached Upernavik on the 24th of August, all well. Records had been left at Littleton island which apprised the Yantic, on her arrival, of the disaster. A search was immediately instituted, and on reaching Uper- navik, Sept. 2, it was found that the Proteus party, after suffering severe hardships, and traversing six hundred miles of the Arctic sea, had arrived in safety. No news was obtained of the Greely party, no supplies had been landed for them, and their situ- ation must be considered as graye. Some rumors had reached the Danish settlements by parties of Eskimo, which, however, are not to be considered as of any weight; and there is yet no reason for sup- posing that any ill fortune, further than the loss of anticipated supplies, has befallen Lieut. Greely and RN Sk ao SEPTEMBER 21, 1883.] his companions. The failure to land supplies was probably due to the conditions of the ice at Littleton island, but nothing can be stated with certainty in advance of more explicit information. The Yantic, with the rescued party, arrived at St. Johns, Sept. 13. — At a meeting of the Scottish meteorological soci- ety, July 26, the following scheme, according to Nature, was adopted, looking to the establishment of a zodlogical station in the Firth of Forth: — It is proposed to enclose the Granton quarry, which has an area at high water of about ten acres, and depths varying to sixty feet, so as to regulate the in- flow and outflow of the tide in such a manner, that, while ad- mitting abundance of sea-water at each tide, fish and other ani- mals will be prevented from escaping out of the enclosure. This will be done by means of stakes and wire, with other kinds of netting. The quarry will then be stocked with all kinds of fish and marine inver- tebrates. When it is desired to separate fish or other animals for special study, this will be done by floating or fixed wire and wood cages. A barge about sixty-four feet by twenty-seven feet, of great stability, will be moored in the enclosure; upon this will be built a house with laborato- ries, workrooms, and a library ; it will also be furnished with a small windmill to pump up sea-water into a tank on the roof. The water in this tank will be conveyed by pipes to the various tiled tables, glass jars, and aquaria of the estab- lishment. A small cottage will be built on the shore for the accommodation of the keeper and engineer, with one or two spare rooms. A steam pinnace for dredging and making obser- yations in the Firth of Forth and the North sea will be at- tached to the station. A naturalist will be appointed whose duty will be to make continuous observations and experiments, assisted by the engineer and keeper. There will be ample accommodation for four other naturalists to work at the station, and carry on investigations; and, so far.as the accommodation will permit, British and foreign naturalists will be invited to make use of the station free of charge. : Towards the carrying-out of this scheme, the Duke of Buccleuch has liberally granted a lease of the quarry at a nominal rent, with permission to erect a cottage on the shore. A gentleman who takes a warm interest in the progress of research in Scotland SCIENCE. 413 has offered 1,0001. to construct the barge, and fit it up with laboratories and workrooms. Mr. J. Y. Buchanan has promised to fit up one of the rooms on the barge as a chemical laboratory suited to the re- quirements of the station; Mr. Thomas Stevenson, the society’s honorary secretary, has agreed to give his professional services in enclosing the quarry gratuitously; and Mr. John Anderson has under- taken to provide the station with a salmon and trout hatehery. Mr. John Murray will furnish the labora- tories with apparatus, and place his large zodlogical library at the service of workers. A number of gen- tlemen have promised to sup- port the undertaking when once commenced; and it is expected that within a few months the station will be pre- sented with a steam-pinnace and with funds for the erec- tion of a cottage on the shore, —the only desiderata to com- plete the scheme. The society granted three hundred pounds for the first year, and two hundred and fifty pounds each for the two suc- ceeding years, toward the ex- penses of the station. Itis ex- pected that by the beginning of November the proper work of the station will be begun. AlJ- ready several distinguished naturalists have signified their intention to avail themselves of the altogether unique facili- ties which will be afforded by this zoélogical station for the successful prosecution of bio- logical research. —In a report on the mineral resources of the United States, during 1882 and the first half of 1883, shortly to be published by the U. S. geological survey, Mr. Albert Williams, jun., has compiled a series of special statistics, of which the follow- ing totals will be of interest to our readers, Omitting the local consump- tion, there were mined 43,130,863 tons of Pennsylva- nia anthracite, and 87,965,038 tons of other qualities of coal, including a small amount of anthracite won outside of Pennsylvania; the respective colliery val- ues being $97,044,442 and $109,953,797. Of iron, 1,350,000 tons were mined, worth $44,775,000; while there were consumed in all the iron and steel works, including furnaces, 5,610,000 tons of anthracite and 9,740,000 tons of bituminous coal, 5,130,000 tons of coke, 145,750,000 bushels of charcoal, and 5,800,000 tons of limestone. The product of gold is estimated at $48,750,000, and of silver at $70,200,000. In other words, the mint value of the precious-metal product 414 was $88,048,239 less than the colliery value of the coal produced during the same eighteen months. Of crude petroleum, 41,415,163 barrels, valued at $35,010,476, were produced, — a diminishing product with an increasing value; while 149,646,252 pounds of copper were mined, valued in New York at $24,- 538,091, — an increasing product with a diminishing value. The lead product was 202,890 tons, worth in New York $18,924,550; and of zinc, 51,765 tons, valued at $5,311,620. 175,472 flasks, or 5,873,508 pounds, of mercury were produced, worth in San Francisco $2,100,750. Of nickel, the product in 1882 was 281,- 616 pounds, worth $209,777, but the reduction-works closed in 1883; while of cobalt, ore and matte, the product for 1852 was valued at $15,000. Of other metals, there were mined in 1882, 3,500 tons of manganese, with a spot value of $52,500; 2,500 tons of chromium, worth in Baltimore $100,000; and 60 tons of antimony, worth about $12,000. It is stated that a trifling amount of tin ore has been mined, and the production of metallic tin on a small scale begun. The estimated value of the building-stone quarried in 1882 is $21,000,000; grindstones, $700,000; soap- stone, $90,000 (6,000 tons); brick and tile made, $34,000,000; whiteware, $5,000,000; lime, $21,700,000 (31,000,000 bbls.); cements, $3,672,750 (3,250,000 bbls.); pumice quarried, $1,750 (70 tons); phos- phates dug, $1,992,462 (332,077 tons); marl, $540,000 (1,080,000 tons) ; mica, $250,000 (75,000 lbs.) ; barytes, $160,000 (20,000 tons); asbestus, $36,000 (1,200 tons) ; and asphaltum, $10,500 (3,000 tons): There were further produced in 18582 and 1883, 9,618,569 barrels (2,693,196,520 lbs.) of salt, valued at 36,450,210; 2,- 100,750 pounds of borax, worth $562,903; and in 1882, of sodic carbonate, over 1,600,000 pounds; and of copperas, 15,000,000, worth $112,500. The value of precious stones found in 1882 was, before cutting between $10,000 and $15,000; after cutting, between $50,000 and $60,000. And there were mined 500 tons of corundum, valued at $6,250; 75,000 tons of quartz; and in 1882 and 1883, 687,500 pounds of graphite, worth 355,000. : The total value of the metals produced in the United States, during 1882, is estimated at $219,756,- 004; and of the non-metallic mineral substances, $234,156,402: making the total mineral product $453,912,406. No data seem to have been obtained regarding many of the minor mineral products, while in the majority of cases the figures appear to be ap- proximations only. These defects can doubtless be remedied, in the future, by the adoption of better laws and methods for the collection of our mineral statistics. — Hachette publishes a book of travel by Edmond Cotteau, entitled ‘De Paris au Japon @ travers la Siberie’ It is well illustrated, and, apart from the illustrations, is especially valuable as indicating how unchanged and identical the civilization of old Rus- sia, as seen in Moscow and similar cities, has been transplanted, as it were bodily, to successive and nu- SCIENCE. RR ae i i Sy le Tey [Vou. IL, No. 33. merous localities stretching from the Ural to the Pacific, and to the borders of the Arctic Sea. —A dainty and unique little book is published by Charles F. Lummis of Chillicothe, O. It is a minia- ture quarto, 6.57.5 cm. in size, made of twelve leaves cut from the thin paper-like layers of birch bark. Appropriate woodcuts cover the slightly thicker outer pages, while the interior is given to ‘ Birch- bark poems, vol. ii.,? by the publisher. We cannot say much for the eight little ‘poems,’ of which only the first, on ‘ silver-birches,’ has any special appro- priateness; but the setting is excellent and attractive, and reflects well the taste and skill of the author. —The Manchester guardian of July 18 gives the following report of M. Pasteur’s speech at Déle on July 14, when his fellow-townsmen placed a memo- rial tablet in the wall of the house in which he was born. The tablet says simply, “‘ Here was born Louis Pasteur, Dec. 27, 1822.”? M. Pasteur’s remarks were as follows: “I am deeply touched by the honor which the town of Déle has conferred upon me; but permit me, while expressing my gratitude, to depre- cate this excess of glory. In rendering to me the homage which is usually rendered only to the illus- trious dead you encroach too hastily upon the judg- . ment of posterity. Willit ratify your decision? And ought not you, Mr. Mayor, to have prudently warned the municipal council against so hasty a resolution ? But, having protested against this outburst of an ad- miration which I do not merit, permit me to say that I am touched to the bottom of my heart. Your sym- pathy has united in this commemorative tablet two great things which have been at once the passion and the charm of my life, — love of science, and reverence for the paternal home. —O my father and my mother! O my dear departed, who so modestly lived in this little house! it is to you that I owe all. Your en- thusiasms, my brave mother, you transmitted them tome. If I have always associated the greatness of science with the greatness of the country, it was be- cause I have been full of the sentiments with which you inspired me. And you, my dear father, whose life was as rude as your rude trade, you showed me what patience and sustained effort could accomplish. It is to you that I owe the tenacity of my daily work. Not only had you the persevering qualities which made life useful, but you had an admiration for great men and great things. ‘Look above, learn there, seek to rise always,’ — this was your teaching. I see you again after your day’s labor, reading some story of battle from a book of contemporary history which recalled to you the glorious epoch which you had witnessed. In teaching me to read, it was your care to teach me the greatness of France. Be blessed both of you, my dear parents, for what you were; and let me transfer to you the homage which is to- day bestowed upon this house. — Gentlemen, I thank you for giving me the opportunity of saying aloud what I have thought for sixty years. I thank you for this celebration and for your reception; and I thank the town of Déle, which does not forget any of its children, and which has borne me in such re- membrance.”? M, Pasteur’s father was a tanner, aa Owvarciw 9 <4 for NCE. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1883. THE NATIONAL OBSERVATORY. WE call the naval observatory at Washing- ton ‘ national,’ not because we would ignore its recognized official title, but because we wish to emphasize the facts, so often lost sight of, that it is the property of the nation, that it is the only observatory of the first class which the nation possesses, and that its opera- tions should be equally available for every department of the government. Such an in- stitution is a national one, by whatever name it may be called; and the question of its direction and supervision is one of interest to every government office having need of such astronomical observations as can be made only at a fixed observatory. The general principle that it should be under purely scientific control is one that has generally been conceded in the abstract, but has not always been acted upon. Sears Cook Walker, who, thirty-five years ago, was perhaps the most eminent astronomer of America, propounded this principle in a pub- lished letter; but Maury was then near the zenith of his power, and little notice was taken of the opinion of the subordinate. From that time to this, the superintendency has remained in the hands of line-oflicers of the navy. The officers of our navy are of too high a charac- ter, and have too much self-respect, to pretend to a knowledge which they do not possess: we may therefore inquire how it happens that they claim the exclusive direction of an estab- lishment most of whose operations are outside the line of their professional qualifications. Secretary Chandler has never given official utterance to his views; but he is understood to have said that he did not feel authorized to deviate from a precedent which had been sanctioned by forty years of usage. Precedent is, in one form or another, the basis of the principal argument on which the present sys- No. 34. — 1883. tem is sustained: we shall therefore inquire whether it has any real validity. In order that such a supposed precedent may afford any sound reason for its continu- ance, the system must have resulted from the matured judgment of his predecessors, whose acts the new secretary followed. Unless this was the case, unless he was doing what they would have done under the same circumstances, the argument could have had no legitimate weight. Now, if one looks more closely at the case, he will see that there is a great deal of precedent on the other side. With one ex- ception, not a superintendent had ever been appointed before his time who was not a profes- sional astronomer, or had not some standing in the scientific world. Maury, Gilliss, Davis, and Rodgers were all recognized as having, in some form, qualifications arising from emi- nence in science or from a familiarity with scientific affairs ; and it was this consideration which prompted their selection, and not merely the fact that they were naval officers. We might therefore claim that Secretary Chandler himself had deviated from precedent in ap- pointing superintendents on the sole ground of naval rank. Indeed, we believe that Sec- retary Chandler was the first who ever gave any real hearing to what the astronomers of the country had to say on the subject. On all previous occasions, vacancies in the super- intendency had been filled so quickly, that they never had had time to give an organized ex- pression to their views at the critical moment, even supposing they had been disposed to find fault with the selection, which certainly was not always the case. A plaintiff whose suit had been postponed from time to time for forty years might well feel dissatisfied, if, when finally heard, the decision of the judge should be, that the defendant had remained so long in possession, that he must now keep possession, no matter what the merits of the case. It should not be forgotten that the theory that the 416 observatory needs nothing but an administra- tive officer, whose sole duty it shall be to take charge of the building and grounds, preserve order, and conduct the correspondence, leaving the scientific work to the professors and lieu- tenants, was never heard of, except when no other argument was available, and is now not likely to be supported even by the line-officers themselves. The tersest form in which the case is put by these officers is this : ‘‘ The system has been tried for forty years, and has worked well; let us leave well-enough alone.’’ But has there been any system? Certainly not, unless a total absence of system can be called a system. And in what way has it worked well? ‘This depends on the standard by which we measure it. We may admit that in the eyes of the con- servative public every thing which does not lead to utter destruction, or against which nothing is heard, is looked upon. as working well. We once heard a popular superintendent highly praised, because, having the professors completely in his power, he did not embarrass them by vexatious interference, but had the forbearance to let them go on with their work without hindrance. Last spring, when the question had given rise to a lively diseus- sion among scientific men generally, one of the most eminent foreign astronomers who has landed on our shores paid us a visit. He was, of course, restrained from any public expres- sion of opinion on the subject, but could respond frankly to all inquiries. When asked for his views, he said in substance that individ- ual astronomers had done important works, and made great discoveries at the naval ob- servatory. But, he added, when we look fur- ther, and inquire what the observatory itself has done by organized work, we find a great want. There has been no unity, no continuous plan of work, and few of the results which might have been gained by organized action. He might have stated the case yet more strongly. The published observations of the thirty-five years are of every possible character, from the refined discussions of the accomplished astronomer to the vain efforts of the tyro working in the dark, SCIENCE. (Vou. IL, No. 34. and the confused records of careless men who did not know what to do, and cared for nothing except to draw their pay, — all put in without discrimination. The astronomer of the future who shall try to make use of the results will be surprised by the kaleidoscopic character of the impression made upon him as he turns from volume to volume. Here a new series of observations suddenly begins. He will follow them through a few months or a few years, and find them as suddenly broken off, right in the middle, perhaps, and just when they might have led to some useful result. New systems of observation and new methods of calculation will be found coming in from time to time without any apparent reason. Every effort he may make to discover a method in the madness will be vain. To find an explanation, he will have to inquire into the personnel of the observers. By careful re- search he will then find, as a curious coinci- dence, that, when these changes occurred, some observer had died or left the observa- tory, or there had been a change of observers at the instruments. And this is the so-called ‘system,’ to the perpetuation of which the country is asked to dedicate the new observa- tory, to be built at a cost of half a million dol- lars. The attitude of the naval officers, under these circumstances, is of much interest, because it depends very largely on them to determine whether this confusion shall continue indefi- nitely, or whether some permanent plan of work shall be adopted. If the indications of their views and intentions which haye reached us since the discussion began are cor- rectly interpreted, they have resolved on a course which cannot but prove equally dis- astrous to naval and national science. Com mon report credits them with a determination to ‘hold the fort’ at all hazards, and to vig- orously contest every effort that may be made to place the observatory under scientific con- trol. There are even indications that the dismissal of some or all the civilian astron- omers is desired, in order that none but naval officers may be left to do the work. ZZ, SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] Such a prospect naturally leads us to con- sider the relations of the navy to science. Scientific organizations have shown on every oceasion their high appreciation of the efforts of naval officers to secure a scientific training for themselves, and to advance knowledge by their own efforts. Every thing they have done has met with generous recognition from their civilian co-laborers, and they are received upon terms of perfect equality in every enterprise in which they have taken part. There is no scientific position which would be denied them on the ground that they were naval officers, and therefore to be regarded as inferiors. To maintain this cordial relationship, nothing more is necessary than that the officers should admit the equality, and make no claims except those which are founded upon merit. When they begin to claim precedence and control on the ground of naval rank, they assume a posi- tion in which they will meet with the combined opposition of their scientific co-laborers, and render all co-operation impossible. The application of these considerations to the present case is very simple. Naval officers will not find, in scientific quarters, the slight- est opposition to their doing any work at the observatory which will either advance science, or lead to their own professional improvement. [t is, indeed, a mooted question, whether the work can really be well performed by any but a permanent staff of trained assistants, and it must be admitted that the observations made by naval officers in the early years of the estab- lishment were not a success. But the officers may justly claim that what they did then is no test of what they can do now, when a better training has been secured, and a scien- tifie spirit has been infused into the service. There is no such question raised on the scien- tific side as, Shall you or shall we do the work? Shall you or shall we superintend it? What is, then, the ground taken by the general scien- tific sentiment of the country? Of course, in answering a question of this kind, differences of individual views will be found, and no an- swer can be given which all will accept without modification. But we are persuaded that there SCIENCE, 417 will be no difficulty in reaching some7conclu- sions which will correctly represent the aver- age common sense of the great mass of those who are interested in the subject. We state them as follows : — Give the naval officers every possible chance, and let them do every thing which they shall prove themselves able to do. Let the super- intendent be the man, who, in the opinion of the astronomers of the country, is best fitted for the place, whether naval officer or civilian. But let the questions, what shall the ob- servatory do, how shall it be done, and is what is done good, be decided exclusively by the highest scientific authority, acting, not privately, and upon the motion of the super- intendent, but officially, with the weight and’ responsibility of legal.appointment. Let this authority represent, not merely the navy de- partment or nayal science, but the science of the whole country, and let the superintendent, whoever he may be, be responsible for execut- ing its decisions. The shape it would natu- rally take would be that of a board of control, composed of the leading astronomers of the country. We state these points, not as forming a definite plan, or even laying a basis for such a plan, but only as indicating the spirit in which we hold that the case should be considered by the two parties. What we ask is as much for the intellectual benefit of the navy itself as for the good of science, and we earnestly hope that naval officers will meet our views in the spirit in which they are put forth. THE NATIONAL RAILWAY EXPOSI- TION.A— V. Tue postal-car shown by the Harrison postal- bag rack company of Fond du Lac, Wis., appears to be conveniently arranged, and pos- sesses many ingenious but simple devices for facilitating the conveyance and sorting of letters and newspapers. ‘The sorting-tables are not fixed, but are hinged by means of hooks on movable stanchions ; and each table, measuring about forty-two inches by eighteen inches, can be detached and stowed away, so that any num- 1 Concluded from No. 26, 418 ber can be utilized, and the remaining space left clear. The mail matter can also be sorted directly into bags, which are hung open mouthed, at their four corners, on cast-iron brackets, and these can also be folded out of the way when not required. ‘The letter-boxes are provided with clips, into which labels can be inserted, showing the destination of the letters sorted into each particular box. The Pullman palace-car company had a very large exhibit of sleeping and dining cars, includ- ing an emigrant sleeping-car, which will doubt- less prove a great luxury to settlers journeying to the far west. The berths are arranged as in an ordinary sleep- ing-car, but consist merely of slats of ash, the bedding and mattress (if any) being provid- ed by the emigrants themselves. A new style of sleeping - car, -the second of its kind ever built, was shown by the Paige sleeping-car com- pany. The top berth does not fold up against the roof of the car, but is a species of rectan- gular hammock, hung at the ends from partitions be- tween the sections. These partitions, in the day-time, are lowered into a space between the backs of the seats. The lower berth is not made on the seat, but on a similar canvas hammock. A screw lever dump-car on Van Wormer’s patent is shown by the U. S. car company of Boston, Mass. The centre support on the trucks is a species of ball-and-socket joint, combined with seements of two-toothed wheels, — one segment being bolted to the top of the truck-bolster, and the other to the under side of the bottom framing of the car; the effect being, that, when the caris tipped, it rolls on the trucks, the fulerum on which it rolls being brought directly under the centre of gravity of the car and its load, which, of course, shifts as the car is tipped. When the load is dumped, the position of the centre of gravity tends to SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 34. ‘restore the car to its normal position: the arrangement, therefore, assists the man in charge both in dumping, and in restoring the car to its running position. The rockers, with the central ball and’ socket and segmental cogs or teeth on either side, are shown in our illus- tration. When the car is to be dumped, the side-supports are withdrawn by means of levers on the end-platforms, and the car is tipped to either side by means of a worm actuated by a hand-wheel. As the bottom of the car is solid, it can be made stronger than a hopper-bottom car, and can be used for freight, which requires a flat floor, and cannot be loaded in a hopper- bottom car. It is stated that one man can unload forty thousand pounds of coal, sand, ballast, or iron ore, in two minutes by means of a dump-ear, two hours being re- quired to shovel out the same load. The Suspension car-truck manufac- turing company of New York exhib- ited several trucks made on their prin- ciple, suited for freight, passenger, and horse cars, and showed a model truck which tray- ersed an abnormal- ly rough piece of track with a very smooth and easy motion. The car is connected to the truck by means of links, which swing in a yver- tical plane parallel with the track, instead of at right angles to it, as in the swing-beam truck ; while the axle-boxes are connected to the trucks by means of links, which permit inde- pendent side-motion te each axle. The nor- mal position of all the links is vertical, and they become inclined as the truck enters a curve, and therefore ‘tend to restore it to a central position when the truck enters a piece of straight track again. ‘ The principle 6f the truck is entirely novel, and, though really simple, is best understood by a few minutes’ examination of a model. Two brackets; resembling the letter A reversed, are attached to the nnder side of the car. At the ite POSTAL-CAR RACKS, Basi SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] apex (now the lowest point) of the A are at- tached vertical links, the other end of which are attached to the truck at B, B, in our diagram. As the truck enters a curve, one of these links becomes _in- clined for- ward, and the other back- ward. Asthe wheel @ strikes a- gainst the outer rail of the curve, it is thrown to- wards the in- side of the eurve (as- suming the position shown by the dotted lines in the figure), and the suspension-links force that side of the truck forward, while the wheel D comes backwards ; and therefore the action of the links tends to,make the axles radiate to the curve. No centre-pin is used; and there- fore, when a car is heavily bumped in switch- ing, it merely swings backward on the links until they become sufficiently inclined to drag the truck after the car. It should be noted that the pin Z, which connects the links to the truck, is a loose fit in the links, and therefore allows of the necessary radial motion. The top ends of the links, being attached to the truck, are always approximately a fixed distance above the rails ; and therefore, when they are in- clined, the car itself is lifted, and the weight of the car, hence, tends con- SUSPENSION CAR-TRUCK. stantly to keep the links vertical, and maintain the truck in its noimal position, with the axles SCIENCE. 419 at right angles to the axis of the car, so that it runs steadily on a straight line. The truck appears to be very highly thought of by the mas- ter car-build- ers, whose convention was held in Chicago dur- ing the expo- sition ; and it is possible that if may come into ex- tended use, the experi- ence of the Boston and Albany, Con- necticut Riv- er, and other roads which have used it, being strong- ly in its fa- vor. The Cliff and Righter company of Oswego, N.Y., exhibited a car-spring which gives an equal amount of elasticity, with a less amount of metal than the ordinary elliptic spring. Each half-spring consists of a solid steel bar of oval section, properly tapered towards the ends. Springs as usually made, of four, five, or more plates, resemble a set of somewhat elastic girders, the depth of each of which is the thickness of the plate; and the strength End Elevation. DIAGRAM SHOWING ACTION OF SUSPENSION CAR-TRUCK. of a spring is the sum of the strength of each individual plate or girder, modified by the fric- 420 tion between the plates. It is obvious, that, were the plates to firmly adhere together, the strength of the spring would either be very largely increased, or the same strength might be attained by the use of a less number of plates ; and the latter course has been car- ried to its limit by the patentee of the Cliff spring. A spring made of one plate must be of good steel, as, when loaded, the difference in the alteration of the lengths of its upper and lower surfaces is considerable, demanding a highly elastic steel. In the spring we illustrate, four springs are arranged side by side, — a plan which unites the advantages of a plate spring and a solid spring. Should one spring break, the other three will probably carry the load, while four springs side by side weigh no more than a spring of the same total strength, composed of a single bar of the same thickness, but of four times the width. A set of these springs for a passenger-car weighs nine hundred and twenty-eight pounds, while a set of the Penn- sylvania railroad standard springs for the same purpose weighs sixteen hundred and thirty- two pounds, a difference of seven hundred and four pounds in favor of the solid spring. These springs have been lately introduced, and are being tried on the Boston and Albany and other railways. The difficulties of tem- pering and making a spring of one solid bar are considerable; but it is to be hoped they may be surmounted, as the weight of cars is a serious evil, ‘* which has increased, is increas- ing, and ought to be diminished.”’ Mr. S. P. Tallman of New York exhibits a safety-drawbar for cars. Two pieces of timber are bolted between the middle sills of a car, and others are bolted to the under side of these timbers and the middle sills, forming a solid mass of timber, which receives both the buff- ing and drawing strains, the drawbar running through the timber, and being provided with springs at both ends. The spring nearest the draw-head takes the buffing-strain, and the spring at the end of the drawbar serves as a draw-spring. The disposition of the timbers enables them to be SCIENCE. ELLIPTIC CAR-SPRING. DRAWBAR. [Vou IL, No. 34. secured by more than the usual number of bolts, and the arrangement appears to be strong and simple, and not so liable to fail- ure as the ordinary draught timber. Numerous refrigerator- cars were ex- hibited; and doubtless im- provements will be much facilitated by the opportuni- ties thus given to secure infor- mation, though it is to be regretted that the management of the exposition did not take steps to secure an efficient competitive trial of the cars under practical conditions. Beer, fruit, vegetables, etc., might have been placed in the cars, and locked up for a few days, when a careful examination of the contents would have given some indication of the rela- tive merits of the cars. The use of continuous brakes on passenger- trains has been found to be so advantageous, that their adoption on freight-trains is merely a question of time, Several forms of continu- ous -brakes, applicable to freight-trains, were ‘exhibited ; the Westinghouse brake company showing a cheaper form of their well-known automatic brake, the reservoir being made of cast iron, and bolted to the cylinder. The triple valve, however, and other parts, differ little, ex- cept in size, from the brake used on passenger equipment. A cheaper form of brake, which requires no special pump or other fittings on the engine, or even a continuous brake con- nection through the train, is operated by the action of the ordinary hand-brake on the ten- der. The consequent compression of the draw- heads in the train is made by the peculiar mechanism of this, brake-gear to apply the — brake-shoes to the wheels of the ears. This form of brake is peculiarly applicable to freight-service, as it allows of cars not fitted with the brake being run in the train without interfering with the use of the brake on the cars equipped. This class of brake can hardly be termed ‘automatic’ in the fullest sense of the term, insomuch as it does not work, should the train part in two. On the other hand, failure on any one car cannot impair the efficiency of the brake on the rest of the train. ari: SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] The American brake company of St. Louis, Mo., exhibited full-sized working-models of a brake of this class. Between the floor-sills, and at the inner end of the drawbar, is hung a bell-crank lever, B, which carries in one of its jawed ends the push- bar A, and, in the other, double-pull rods carry- ing a spiral spring transmitting the strain to bell-crank levers, D,D, suspended from the sills by hangers, C,C. The bell-cranks D,D, are connected to the brake-beams; and conse- quently compression on the draw-head acting on the lever A causes the brake-shoes to be pressed on the wheels, the amount of pressure being regulated by its transmission through the spiral spring. But, since a brake simply “made ais above described would not admit of a train being backed, a device is attached which re- moves the objection, and, fur- ther, only allows the brake to be applied when the car is moving at a speed above six miles per hour. The push-bar A can only come in possible contact with the draw-head by the centrifu- gal force of governor-balls at- tached to the axle. These balls, Z,EZ, are attached by means of links to a movable ‘disk, #, encircling the axle. One end of a lever, G, bears against the disk, and the other end is connected by means of rods, ete., to the push-piece A. When the car is running at speed, the governor-balls draw the disk towards them, leaving the lever G free to follow it, and permitting the push-bar A to drop behind the draw-bar, when the brake is ready for ac- tion, going on directly the draw-gear is put in compression. When the speed falls below six miles an hour, the centrifugal force of the governor-weights becomes so feeble, that a ‘Spring (not shown in the illustration) restores the disk to its former position, lifting the push- piece A clear of the draw-head. The brakes can be released at any time by the engineer putting on steam, and giving a pull to his train; and the train can be backed from a state of rest without the brakes going on, the push-piece A lying on the draw-head, but being unable to fall behind it. The engineer can apply the brake, when pushing the train, by momentarily applying the brake on the engine or tender, thereby putting the draw-gear in tension, and letting SCIENCE. 421 the lever A fall behind the draw-head. When steam is again put on, the consequent com- pression applies the brake. This brake has been in use for some time on the St. Louis and San Francisco and many other railroads, and appears to give very satis- factory results; the wear being very small, while the first cost is low enough to allow of its extensive application to freight- -cars. The brake exhibited by the Tallman auto- matic car-brake company of New York also acts by the compression of the draw-heads, which force together two friction-wheels, one of which is keyed on the axle, and the other is geared to a drum winding up the brake-chain. A ratchet-wheel, which can be shifted by hand, prevents the brake from acting when the train is backed. AUTOMATIC BRAKE. The Waldumer electric brake company of Chicago exhibited a working-model of a very promising form of continuous brake, which is just emérging from the experimental stage. The weak point of all continuous brakes has been the conveyance of the operating force — compressed air, vacuum, hydraulic power, ete. —along the length of a train, the pipes and couplings being generally expensive, and formed partly of perishable substances, while chains are unsatisfactory from -every point of view. Many brakes that work well and promptly on a short train become slow and irregular in their action, when applied to a train of thirty or more vehicles. ‘The instan- taneous action of electricity, and the simplicity of the means used for its transmission, make it probable that an electric brake would be especially suited for long freight-trains. The 422 brake is automatic, the fracture of wire or draw-gear ringing bells on engine and caboose, and warning both engineer and conductor that the train has parted, each being then at liberty to apply the brake or not, on his portion of the train, as he may deem best. Owing to the system of circuiting, the brake may be out of order on one car without affecting the rest of the train. The street-car starter and brake exhibited by Charles T. Brown & Co., Chicago, is an ingenious device for storing the momentum which is destroyed by the usual form of brake, and utilizing it for restarting the car. The motion is not checked by friction, but by the axle, which, through suitable gearing, winds up a spiral spring, the power of which is ayail- able to again put the car in motion. The mechanical details appear well worked out, and the car can be run in either direction, and stopped or started on either up or down grades. The heavy pull necessary to start a car is very severe on horses, and this invention would appear to be useful in saving much wear and tear of horse-flesh. D. H. O’ Neate Nuate. A HEARING OF BIRDS’ EARSA—I. Tue ‘ musical class’ of vertebrates enjoy the sense of audition to a high degree. Otherwise birds would cease to sing. They are the only animals besides man whose emotions are habit- ually aroused, stimulated, and to some extent controlled, by the appreciation of harmonic vibrations of the atmosphere. Most birds ex- press their sexual passions in song, sometimes of the most ravishing quality to human ears, as that of the nightingale, skylark, or blue-bird ; and it cannot be supposed that they do not themselves experience the effect of music in an eminent degree of pleasurable mental perturba- tions. The capability of musical expression resides chiefly in the male sex; the receptive capacity of musical affections appears to be better developed in the female. There is, how- ever, no anatomical difference in their ears. Quickness of ear is extraordinary in some birds, as those of the genus Mimus (mocking-birds) , which correctly render any notes they may chance to hear, with greater readiness and ac- curacy than is usually within human compass ; 1 Complementary to the article entitled ‘The nature of the human temporal bone,’ Journal of otology, January, 1882. Some portions of that article may perhaps be made clearer by the pres- ent one, especially those relating to the parts of a temporal bone as elements of mandibular and hyoidean arches. Figs. 1-4 are borrowed from Prof. W. K. Parker’s admirable essay on the de- velopment of the fowl’s skull, in Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., art. Birds; Besta are from Prof. 1. Ibsen’s beautiful memoir, as cited in the text. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 34. . ‘and it may be reasonably doubted whether any other animals than some of the world’s greatest musical composers have a higher experience of acoustic possibilities than many birds possess. Birds’ ears have neyertheless a simple ana- tomical construction, in comparison with those of mammals. The auditory organ is decidedly of the reptilian type; and the arrangement of the parts is, on the whole, quite like that of reptiles. Thus, the cochlea, which in mam- mals makes from one and a half to five whorls (two and a half in man), is simply a strap-like prolongation from the vestibule, lacking modio- lus, lamina spiralis, ete.; the stapes is the only perfected ossiculum auditts ; the incus is scarcely recognizable as such, and inseparable from the stapes; the malleus is immense, but outside the ear, furnishing the articulation of the lower jaw, of the zygomatic arch, and of the pterygo-palatal bar; the tympanic bone is rep- resented at most by a few specks of ossifica- tion. There is ordinarily no external ear; the whole tympanic cavity is exposed on removal of the membrane, which lies very superficial ; the eustachian tubes unite before opening into the pharynx ; the periotic bone, constituting the otocrane or skull of the ear, is less compact and precise than the ‘ petrous portion’ of the mammalian temporal bone, its three bony ele- ments being more distinct; no mastoid por- tion is recognizable as such, but pneumatic cells of diploé are numberless, and there is direct passage of air from the ear into the hol- low of the lower jaw; one of the semicircular canals invades the occipital bone. Other pe- culiarities will appear as we proceed with our description, in which comparisons will be chiefly made with the human ear. Most birds have no external ear, in the sense of a fleshy conch or auricle. In bald- headed birds, the meatus externus appears as a roundish orifice at the lower back corner of the head, just above and behind the articulation of the lower jaw. In nearly all birds, the opening is hidden by an overlying packet of feathers, collectively termed the awriculars or ear-coverts, on simply raising and reflecting which the meatus is exposed. The auriculars are peculiarly modified feathers, haying loos- ened barbs, doubtless to lessen interference with the passage of sound. In a few birds the border of the meatus develops a slight tegu- mentary fold, partially occluding the orifice. In various owls, as ofthe genera Strix, Aluco, Asio, Nyctala, but not even throughout this group of birds, an immense tegumentary oper- culum, or ear-covyer, is developed, which flap shuts down upon the ear-opening like the lid . SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] of abox. It hinges upon the anterior border of the meatus, and shuts backward. In some cases the operculum is about as long as the whole skull is deep, and half as wide as long —say, two inches long by an inch wide. On raising such an ear-flap and turning it forward, enormous external bony ear-parts, covered with ‘integument, are displayed. Such expanse of the outer ear results from extension of oc- cipital and squamosal bones into a thin shell bounding the meatus externus above, be- hind, and below. In the best-marked cases of the kind, especially in Nyctala, the parts are exaggerated un- symmetrically on right and left sides, and the whole cranium is dis- torted. This inflation of the cranium does not affect the inner ear-parts, or the es- sential organ of hear- ing. It should be add- ed, in passing, that the so-called ‘ears’ of various owls, as the ‘ long-eared’ owl, Asio otus, and ‘ short- eared’ owl, Asio ac- cipitrinus, are simply tufts of feathers on top of the head, over the eyes; these topknots having nothing what- SCIENCE. 423 which floors the skull from ear to ear, un- derlying the basi-occipital and basi-sphenoid, also usually contributes to the inferior boundary of the meatus. On removing the quadrate (malleus), the general tympanic depression is seen to be more or less directly continuous with the alisphenoid, and so to conduct into the orbital cavity; the boundary of the meatus being best marked be- hind and below by the expansive thin-edged shell of the tympanic wing of the exoccipi- tal. ‘To the brim in- dicated is attached the membrana tympani; the’ ear-drum being thus from the configu- ration of the parts quite superficial, in- stead of being at the bottom of a long cylin- drical tube, asin man. There is, in fact, in birds, no ‘ meatus au- ditorius externus,’ in the sense of a special bony tube; some slight specks of ossification, when any, about the tympanic membrane itself, being all there is of a tympanic bone (* external auditory process’ of human anatomy). Such shallowness, openness, and super- ficiality of the parts, ever to do with the ears. Their proper name is plumicorns. Aside from any such irregularities, the outer ear, or meatus auditorius externus, is a considerable, shal- Fie. 1.— Ripe chick’s skullin profile, X 8diameters. (After Par- ker.) px, premaxillary; ain, ali-nasal cartilage; en, septo- nasal; 2, nasal bone; /, lachrymal; pe, perpendicular plate of ethmoid; ps, presphenoidal region; as, alisphenoid; /, frontal ; P, parietal; sg, squamosal; so, superoccipital; eo, exoccipital; oc, occipital condyle; sf, the cross-like object, the stapes, whose foot fits fenestra ovalis ; g, quadrate; pg, Perens qi, uadrato-jugal; j, jugal; pa, palatine; mz, maxillary; 2, optic ‘oramen ; 5, foramen ovale, for inferior divisions of the fifth nerve. Inthe mandible: —d, se ; Su, 8urangular; a, angu- lar; ar, articular; éap, internal angular process; pap, posterior angular process. brings the cavity of the tympanum or mid- dle ear into full view on removal of the tym- panic membrane. On looking into this cavi- ty, as may readily be done in clean, dry low, roundish depres- . sion, in the situation shown in fig. 1, where the reference line 5 crosses it, and where the cross- like object (stapes) marked st is seen lying in it. Its ordinary boundaries are, the enormous mal- deus or quadrate bone, q, in front; the ex- panded rim of the sguamosal, sq, above; the tympanic wing of the exoccipital (a produc- tion of the lateral condylar plate of the occipi- tal, teo in fig. 2), behind and below. A bone unknown in human anatomy, the basi-temporal, skulls of any size, many objects of interest may be studied without further dissection. We observe in the first place a large (inconstant) number of paewmatic fo- vamina leading in various directions, conveying air from the middle ear-passage into the air-cells of bones of the skull, including the lower jaw. The most special of these is a neat gristly or bony air-tube into the lower mandible. The mouth of the eustachian tube is a large orifice at the lower anterior part of the cavity. This tube, 424 as usual, continues an air-passage to the phar- ynx, opening at the back of the hard palate by amedian orifice in common with its fellow. In sizable skulls, as of a raven, hawk, or eagle, a bristle or even a wooden toothpick readily tray- erses the conduit which runs between the basi- sphenoid and the underlying basi-temporal. This whole passageway, from outer ear to tympanic cavity, and thence through eustachian tube to pharynx, represents the persistently patulous part of the first post-oral visceral cleft of the embryo, only occluded by the mem- brana tympani. Near the eustachian orifice are observed two definite openings. The anterior and superior of these is the fenestra ovalis, fitted, as usual; with the foot of the stapes, as seen in fig. 1, closed by membrane, which further occludes this opening into the vestibular cavity. The other is the fenestra rotunda, similarly leading into the cochlear cavity. The two are generally close together, separated merely by a bony bridge or bar. The former lies always in the obliterated suture between the proétic and opisthotic ele- ments of the petrosal bone, the latter wholly in the opisthotic; both are thus as in man. Close examination at a point somewhere about the fenestra ovalis will discover a minute fora- men, corresponding to the human ‘ stylo-mas- toid foramen’ inasmuch as it represents the orifice of exit of the seventh cranial nerve (‘ portio. dura”) from the petrosal bone, here in the cavity of the middle ear, there being none such upon the outside of the skull. Thus, in the dry skull of a bird, the hard parts of the tympanic cayity, including the eustachian tube, ean readily be inspected from the outside ; even the limits of the proGtic and opisthotic ‘bones can be determined by the site of the fenestra oyalis, and the ossicula auditus be seen in situ. To see these things in the human or any ordi- nary mammalian ear, requires special prepara- tions, as they lie in a tympanum which is itself at the bottom of a contracted tube. Details of mere size and shape aside, the above general de- scription of the passageways will apply pretty well to any bird, and should suffice for recogni- tion of the parts; though the number and variety of the irregular pneumatic openings (comparable to those of the human mastoid cells) may be puzzling at first sight. (To be continued.) ON THE KINETIC THEORY OF THE SPE- CIFIC HEAT OF SOLIDS. In a paper entitled ‘ Kinetic considerations as to the nature of the atomic motions which SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 34 probably originate radiations,’? the writer has given reasons in support of the hypothesis that different chemical atoms are all composed of the same kind of ultimate atoms, which are in every respect equal and similar. Reasons were also given, tending to show that the vibrations of these ultimate atoms originate luminiferous and thermal radiations. And further, suppos- ing radiations to originate in the vibrations of equal and similar ultimate atoms which are set in vibration by the collision of moving mole- cules, an attempt was made to prove that two unlike masses of gas which are in thermal equilibrium by radiation will also be so whem mixed ; i.e., when the equilibrium depends up- on the collisions of the molecules rather than upon radiation. - The object of the present paper is to consider the probable physical state of solid bodies, es- pecially as to the amount of energy distributed among the different degrees of freedom possi- ble in such bodies, and to show that the same hypothesis of equal ultimate atoms would cause solids which are in thermal equilibrium by ra- diation to be also in thermal equilibrium when brought into contact, i.e., when the equilibrium depends upon the collisions of the molecules. Let us notice, in the first place, what is ap- parently the mechanical significance of Dulong and Petit’s law, which may be stated thus =: the amount of heat which must be imparted to a chemical atom of a simple solid body to increase its temperature one degree is approxi- mately the same for all the elements. Neu- mann has further shown, that, for compound solids, those of similar chemical composition require approximately the same amount of heat per chemical atom, but the amount is less than for simple solids. There are, however, a very few unexplained exceptions to these laws, which are due possibly to uncertainty as to atomic weights. , The mechanical explanation of these experi- mental laws seems to be contained in the statement, that, in simple solids, cohesion and chemism are one and inglistinguishable ; or, to express it otherwise, we may say that the mole- cules of simple solids are monatomic, the cohe- sion being, of course, much greater in some solids than in others. That this is a correct conception of the rela-~ tions of the atoms of a simple solid, is made * probable by various facts, among which this may be mentioned, — mercury and cadmium, which are known to be monatomic as gases, as solids fulfil Dulong and Petit’s law, and are therefore in the same physico-chemical state 1 ScIENCE, ii. 76. Ss ce; ? at : 7 ~~ - SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] as other simple solids. Another fact is that already mentioned, viz., the specific heat of compound solids per atom is less than that of simple solids; and to this it may be added, that the specific heat of simple solids is less when the volume is made smaller by hammer- ing, compression, or cooling, which facts will be considered more at length later. It is shown in the kinetic theory of gases, that, when molecules of unlike gases are mixed, the mean progressive energy of each molecule is the same, whatever its weight. Now, when a gas is in contact with a solid, will the collisions of the gaseous molecules with those of the solid cause the latter to have the same mean progressive energy of vibration as those of the gas? That will depend largely upon the duration of the collision. If the time occupied by a collision is so brief that only a small portion of a vibration of the solid mole- cule is described during the collision, then the laws of impulsive forces may be applied, ac- cording to which the effect of the finite forces acting during the interval may be neglected. In ease the collision is brief, the distribution of the mean kinetic energy between the mole- cules of the gas and solid will be very nearly the same as between different gases, and the mean kinetic energy of a simple solid mole- cule will differ little from that of a gas at the same temperature. In cases, however, in which the modulus of elasticity of the solids considered is so great as to make the period of vibration of the mole- cules also brief, their mean kinetic energy would be materially smaller than in the previous ease ; and. if a solid could be found whose mole- cules were immovably fixed, no vibratory energy whatever could be imparted to its molecules. Now, Dulong and Petit’s law seems to show that all simple solids, even those having the highest modulus of elasticity, have an elas- ticity so small, compared with that brought into action between molecules at the instant of free collision, that the distribution of kinetic energy is approximately the same as if the body were gaseous and monatomic. But since the laws of perfect elasticity require that the mean potential energy shall be equal to the’ kinetic, it follows that the specific heat of a simple solid should be approximately twice that of a monatomic gas at the same tempera- ture and of the same atomic weight. The actual specific heats of mercury and cadmium gas would be of great interest in this connection, were they known, even though they could only be determined at temperatures far remoyed from those of their solids. SCIENCE. 425 The foregoing statement has been based upon the assumption that any degree of free- dom which suffers partial constraint, as do the degrees of freedom of translation of a gaseous molecule when it becomes solid, will have for that reason less kinetic energy imparted to it during molecular collision. This subject has been treated somewhat at length in previous papers upon the kinetic theory; but in this connection it may be useful to make a quota- tion from Thomson and Tait: ‘‘If a set of material points are struck independently by impulses, each given in amount, more kinetic energy is generated if the points are perfectly free to move, each independently of all the others, than if they are connected in any way.” This mechanical theorem not only has spe- cial application to the partial constraints intro- duced into the freedom of motion of molecules when they change from a gaseous to a solid state, but it applies, also, to the additional con- straints introduced into the degrees of freedom of solid atoms when those atoms become more closely bound together by chemism into groups, i.e., into molecules. Evidently, the bonds of union between the atoms of a compound solid molecule are such that these degrees of free- dom are considerably more constrained than those which unite the atoms of different mole- cules; so that, in compound solids, the forces of cohesion and chemism are different, and quite distinguishable the one from the other. Now, what, according to the mechanical theo- rem aboye quoted, is the effect of introducing the additional constraints required in order to group a simple solid, or mixture of simple sol- ids, into molecules, and thus make it a com- pound solid? The effect will be to diminish the mean kinetic energy of the system as de- rived from the impacts of the molecules of any gas surrounding it. This is, in fact, what occurs, as appears from the experimental truth previously mentioned, — that the specific heat per atom of compound solids is less than that for simple solids. How much the specific heat per atom is diminished should depend upon the intensity of the chemical attraction, which certainly must be much greater than the cohe- sion between atoms of simple solids, to cause such marked deviations of specific heat per atom as compound solids exhibit. This result, when combined with that arrived at in connec- tion with the discussion of Berthelot’s law, in my paper upon ‘ An extension of the theorem of the virial,’ etc., to the effect that the heat evolved in chemical decomposition is greater 1 Nat. phil., art. 315. 426 the greater the attractive force, enables us to enunciate the following law, the truth of which I am at present unable to verify for want of sufficient experimental data: those solids, other things being equal, which evolve the greater amounts of heat of chemical decompo- sition in changing from simple mixtures to compound solids, are those which have less specific heat per atom. The phrase, ‘ other things being equal,’ in the above statement, refers to the fact that similar compounds which are chemically similar are in strictness com- parable. Many other circumstances, more- over, besides want of chemical similarity, may, in special cases, mask the experimental results ; yet the truth of the law should be clearly recog- nizable in any general comparison of specific heats with the heat of formation of compound solids. .Similar principles evidently apply to the eases in which simple solids ate permanently decreased in yolume by hammering or com- pression ; for then greater cohesive forces are brought into action, and the specific heat is diminished. It remains to be shown, in con- clusion, that thermal equilibrium, which has been established by collisions of gaseous and solid molecules, will continue to exist when its continuance depends upon radiations between equal and similar ultimate atoms which are set in vibration by molecular collisions ; or, to state it differently, it remains to be shown that the ultimate atoms of a gas and a solid in contact, each have the same mean vibratory energy with respect to each of their degrees of freedom with respect to each other. ‘This appears to be a direct consequence of the laws of constrained motion which have been consid- ered in this and previous papers. It is only necessary that the impacts of a pair of solid molecules with each other should be such as to mutually impart and receive the same mean amounts of energy as would those of a gas- eous and a solid molecule at the same tempera- ture, to cause it to be a matter of indifference whether a given solid molecule is struck by another solid molecule or by a gaseous mole- cule; and, when so struck, each ultimate atom will receive its proper proportion of energy, whether it form part of a solid or of a gaseous molecule. It is my intention to return to this subject hereafter, and to treat the vibrations of ulti- mate atoms more at length, in the hope of being able to show, more precisely than has been done so far, how the characteristic differ- ences in the spectra of solids and gases arise. H. T. Eppy, Ph.D. SCIENCE. [Vou. If., No. 34. CLIMATE IN THE CURE OF CONSUMP- TION. —I. Tue prevalence of phthisis pulmonalis is such a well-attested fact, that to adduce statis- tics to prove it would seem to be labor thrown away. Since the eradication of small-pox in consequence of the introduction of vaccination, phthisis heads ‘the list as the prime cause of the large mortality. The insurance companies recognize the fact, and the statistics of the New-York mutual life-insurance company show, that between the ages of twenty and thirty years the mortality from phthisis is thirty- three per cent of the whole mortality. The U.S. census for 1870 shows that in the state of Maine the mortality from consumption was fifty per cent for the same ages. Equally well known is the belief in climate as a cure for the disease. There are certain well-recognized climatic conditions known to be favorable to the prophylaxis and cure of the disease. This knowledge is largely empirical, based upon trial and observation ; but there is, underlying it, a substratum of conviction, that is justified, on the one hand, by careful clinical observations, and, on the other, by facts ascer- tained by carefully conducted experiments. The writer proposes, in the thoughts to be presented, to make these various elements his tests in searching out a desirable climate in the United States for the cure of phthisis. He offers, as his data for forming an opinion, carefully compiled tables, furnished by the Sig- nal-service bureau, U.S.A.; and he wishes to emphasize the fact, at the outset of his re- marks, that a climate may become desirable quite as much by comparison as on account of its intrinsic properties ; that even though it may ‘not possess in itself all desirable qualities, yetit — may contain so many as to be, by comparison with others, the climate par excellence. With this thought in view, the writer has prepared ta- bles embracing all the chiefresorts in this coun- try for phthisical invalids, — tables embracing a range of the whole country, from Jacksonville to St. Paul, and from Boston to Los Angeles. He has given the data for Augusta, Ga., as the best substitute for Aiken, §.C., at which place there is no signal-station ; and in doing so he thinks that he is presenting data which will fairly ‘represent the climatic conditions of Aiken. He wishes to gratefully acknowledge his in- debtedness to the chief signal-officer, U.S.A., to the observers at each of the stations in- cluded in the tables, and especially to Sergeant F. M. Neal of the Denver station, for their kindness in furnishing him with the data from which the tables are compiled. Serreamper 28, 1883.] SCIENCE. 427 TABLE I I: II. Iu. Iv. v. | VI VIL. Sratron. | i at Se Me yeti? ea ee Mean 10 yrs.) Mean 4 yrs. | Mean 4 yrs. | Mean 10 yrs. | Mean 10 yrs. 1 “Mtesw 5 yrs. the barometer above sea- Relative Absolute | Prevailing level. Elevation. | Barometer. | humidity. | humidity, | Precipitation, Temperature.| wind. ; ) F eh } Augusta, Ga. . 183 30.140 69.2 4.56 48.98 64.2) | N. | Jacksonville, Fla. 43 | 30.080 69.0 5.38 55.94 ote |! OWE Boston, Mass. . . ° -, 142 | 29.840 68.5 2.66 49.47 48°.5 Ww Newport, R.1. 34 29.950 74.3 3.07 50.20 00°.3 S.W. -New York, N.Y. 164 29.857 70.2 8.02 42.70 51°.3 N.W. Philadelphia, Penn. 52 30.084 68.8 3.17 41.89 53°.2 S.W. Chicago, Ill. 661 29.317 69.2 2.77 33.47 49°.3 S.W. St. Paul, Minn. $11 29.133 67.3 22 | 29.59 | 43°.9 8.E. Denver, Col. . . . . 5,294 24.778 45.8 1.81 | 14.77 | 49°.1 8. Santa Fé, N. Mex. . 7,046 23.263 414 1.61 / Wz || 48°.5 E. | | Salt Lake, Utah . . . 4,548 25.044 40.3 | 1.76 17.52 | 51°.8 NW. Los Angeles, Cal. . 330 29.647 65.8 3.77 18.97 ) 59°.8 W. Elevation. work at sea-level, the heart makes 72 beats a The effect of a rise in elevation is to dimin- ish the atmospheric pressure. The method of measuring this effect is by means of the mer- curial barometer. Disregarding the variations attributable to changes in temperature, humid- ity, and latitude, it can be broadly stated that the barometer will fall one inch fora rise of 857 feet above sea-level, two inches for a rise of 1,743 feet, three inches for a rise of 2,661 feet, etc. ; or, for the purposes of a rough cal- culation, it may be said that the barometric de- pression is one inch for every thousand feet of elevation. This depression would indicate a diminution in atmospheric pressure of one- sixth in weight for an elevation of 5,000 feet; or, to state this fact in another way, the atmos- pherie pressure at sea-level being 15 lbs. to the square inch, at 5,000 feet it would be one- sixth less, or 124 lbs. To illustrate: if the pressure on the entire surface of the body of aman of middle size be 35,560 lbs. at sea- level, at 5,000 feet it would be 29,635 lbs., a diminution of nearly three tons. The question for us to consider is, what effect this diminution of pressure has upon the vital functions with reference to the cure of phthisis. 1. Effect on circulation. —The heart is a muscular organ, habituated to expend a certain amount of force, which may be roughly esti- mated as 75,000 kilogrammetres, or 542,475 foot-pounds, per diem. To accomplish this minute, or 103,680 beats a day. Allowing, now, an increase of two beats a minute for every thousand feet of elevation, at 5,000 feet there will be an increase of 10 beats a minute, or 14,400 beats a day,—an increase in work equal to about 74,744 foot-pounds in a day. This in itself would prove that such an ele- vation is to be avoided in those cases where an enfeebled heart is struggling to overcome the disadvantages produced by organic lesions. What effect does this increase of heart-work have upon the circulation? ‘The rapidity of cir- culation is influenced by the force and rapidity of the heart’s beat, and by the diminution of the peripheral resistance. At an elevation of 5,000 feet, each of these causes would be at work. To just what extent they work, in producing given results, it is impossible to say; but, allowing that the peripheral re- sistance and the force of the heart’s beats remain the same at 5,000 feet as at sea-level, an increase in frequency of ten beats per minute would indicate, that, on account of this one factor, the blood would make 29,622 ad- ditional circulations through the System per diem. What effect would this have upon the disease in question? It is a frequent remark that both waste and repair are more rapid at high altitudes than at sea-level. Experience amongst physicians shows that cases of fibrinous pneumonia are more acute and more rapid in their results at 428 high altitudes than at sea-level. My own ex- perience is, that resolution in such cases is more rapid, and that the chest ‘clears up’ sooner. May not this be explained on the ground of the increased rapidity of circulation? We know that the clearing-up is brought about by the expectoration of the morbid products of the exudation, and further, and chiefly, by their absorption into the circulation. If this be true of an acute trouble, is it not also appli- cable to a chronic asthenic one? Further, the increase of rapidity in the cir- culation means that the same blood is brought more frequently to the lungs to be oxygenated, —an increase in the number of times, which we have seen to be equal to 29,622 additional times, per diem. This would indicate an in- crease in the activity of the metamorphosis of tissue, and therefore an increased vital force. This is clinically perceptible in the exhilaration that invalids experience on coming to higher altitudes, and by the increase in appetite de- pendent upon the demand for material to meet the additional metamorphosis. There is the other side, however, which must be alluded to. An increase in the rapid- ity of the circulation means an increased flow or tendency of blood to the diseased parts, in- volving, as it does, a greater activity of these parts. This is temporarily noticeable in every case of phthisis pulmonalis coming to higher altitudes, and is evidenced by an increased expectoration. This, as we have said, may be beneficial by assisting to remove the mor- bid products; but in enfeebled cases, where the ravages of the disease are great, it may be highly injurious in assisting the already great breaking-down of the tissues. Again: there is an increased demand for oxygen dependent on all of these causes, and, in cases where the amount of lung-tissue involved is so great as to cause a considerable embarrassment of the respiration, this additional strain is not desir- able. 2. Effect on respiration. —We must now study another effect produced upon the system by an increase in elevation, and that is, the effect produced upon the respiration. Here, too, we shall have to speak of gross results, and leave minutiae unexplained. Experience shows that the respirations are deepened and fuller, and that they are, at first, at least, increased in number. This can be explained somewhat in the fol- lowing way. The nervous action, the effect upon the respiratory centre, ete., is so compli- cated, that, despite its importance, we shall leave it without attempting its solution; and SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 34. we shall only attempt an explanation of the quasi physical or mechanical results. The lungs are elastic bags suspended in a closed cavity. During inspirations the respi- ratory muscles draw the ribs upwards, enlarge the cavity, and produce a partial vacuum, in consequence of which the air rushes in to fill up this vacuum, and the lungs are inflated. It is evident that in inspiration the respira- tory muscles, in raising the chest-walls, displace a certain amount of air, and overcome a cer- tain resistance due to atmospheric pressure, and that these muscles, accustomed to exert a given amount of force to overcome this resist- ance (which may be roughly measured by the difference between the positive pressure on the outside and the negative pressure on the in- side of the chest-walls), would continue to ex- ert this force, even though the resistance were diminished. As a result of this, we should expect either a greater expansion of the chest from the same expenditure of force, or an in- crease in the number of inspirations. The beneficial results of a greater depth of inspiration will be more clearly seen if we con- trast it with the bad results of diminished res- piration. Ruehle, in Ziemssen’s Cyclopaedia, says, — “The diminished respiration in the upper parts of the lungs, and the exaggerated respiration in the lower parts resulting from this cause, serve to explain the very general fact that pulmonary consumption almost always begins at the apices of the lungs. But there is probably another cause in the peculiar position of these parts. They project from three to four centi- metres above the clavicles; and this projecting por- tion, being situated outside the chest, is subjected to the pressure of the external air. The supraclavicular region sinks in during deep inspiration, and conse- quently the inspiratory expansion of the apices is Jess than that of other parts of the lungs.” It is evident, if Ruehle be right, that a dimi- nution of atmospheric pressure means a greater expansion of the apices, due to a diminution of atmospheric pressure bearing on those parts, and also a greater expansion of the entire chest. There is, however, a theory often advanced, that the greater depth of respiration is due to the fact, that, in consequence of the diminu- tion of the amount of oxygen dependent upon the decreased atmospheric pressure, an indi- vidual will have to breathe more frequently and deeper to gain the amount of oxygen neces- sary for aerating the blood. The theory, it seems to us, is misunderstood, and the ques- tion needs investigation. f We haye shown that there is an increased demand for oxygen dependent upon an in- creased tendency of the blood to the lungs. eee ee ke ae ¥ - SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] It is known, also, that the transpiration of gases through tubes, which the bronchi really are, is hindered by a diminution of pressure, and that in consequence of this, in a given time, under the same conditions of expansion, etc., less air will enter the lungs at 5,000 feet elevation than at sea-level. This is another cause why the respirations should be either deeper or more frequent. It is further known that the osmose of gases through a thin septum, as in the lungs, is less rapid “the less the pressure, or, in other words, that the rapidity of the osmose of gases is de- pendent upon the pressure to which they are subjected. This being so, as the density of the oxygen and carbonic acid in the blood is nearly constant, if the density of these gases in the air be diminished, there will be an effect produced upon the rapidity of their osmose. In the case of oxygen, it is claimed that an individual will get less of it at-5,000 feet ele- vation than the system requires, and that, un- less the conditions of respiration be changed, there will be a ‘starvation of oxygen,’ i.e., an asphyxia. In consequence of all this, it has been claimed that a greater depth and fre- quency of respiration is demanded to meet this want. In regard to the osmose of oxygen, we know, that, even though there be a hindrance due to the diminished density of the gas in the air, there is still, on the other hand, an increased rapidity of the circulation, which would favor osmose ; and it may be assumed that the effects of these two conditions counterbalance one another. In regard to a starvation of oxygen being produced by a diminution in the amount of the gas at a higher elevation, the rationale is some- what as follows: there exists in the atmos- phere, under all pressures, 23 parts by weight of oxygen. Atsea-level, there are 130.4 grains of the gas in every cubic foot, while, at 5,000 feet, this amount will be diminished one-sixth, so that there will only be 108.6 grains to the eubic foot. The question then is, whether a density of 108.6 grains to the cubic foot of air will produce a starvation of the gas in the human economy. It has been estimated that the tension of the oxygen of the venous blood of the dog is 2.9%, or 22 mm., of mercury. It has been further estimated that the tension of the oxy- gen of the pulmonary air-cells is at least 10% of the atmospheric pressure, which, at 5,000 feet, would amount to 63.3 mm. of mercury ; so that it is evident, that, even under this diminution of pressure, the difference between SCIENCE. 429 the density of the oxygen in the inspired air and in that of the venous blood brought to the lungs is sufficiently great to admit of a free osmose. Further than this, we know that the amount of tidal air passing in and out of the chest of an average man is 500 cc., or 31 cubic inches- Allowing 17 respirations to the minute, this will make 510 litres, or 18 cubic feet, of oxy- gen inspired per horam. At 5,000 feet this air would contain 1 955 grains of oxygen. Now, the absolute absor ption of oxygen at sea-level is only five per cent of that contained in the air, and the amount that is absolutely needed each hour, at sea-level, is only 117 grains.. As the absolute demand for oxygen is only 117 grains each hour, and as the actual amount contained in the inspired air at an altitude of 5,000 feet is, for the same time, 1,955 grains, it is evident that here, again, the supply is greatly in excess of the demand, and that the term ‘ starvation of oxygen,’ as explanatory of the increased depth and 1 rapidity of the inspira- tions at high altitudes, is a misnomer. But in addition to the absorption of oxygen there is the elimination of carbonic acid to be accounted for. It is evident, that, as the ten- sion of the gas in the venous blood coming to the lungs is nearly constant, any diminution of its tension in the air will favor its osmose from the blood to the air, and that the effect produced upon the osmose of this gas by rise of elevation is the reverse of the effect upon the osmose of oxygen. In concluding this part of our subject, we wish to emphasize the fact that we think that the benefit to be derived from simple elevation, in cases of phthisis pulmonalis, is to be attrib- uted largely to the greater depth of the in- spirations, and consequently to the greater distension and activity of all parts of the lungs (the diseased apices as well as the healthy bases), and to the increased elimina- tion of morbid products brought about by the increased rapidity of the circulation. 3. Ozone.—In addition to the foregoing reasons for favoring a high altitude in the cure of phthisis, we wish to consider, further, the influence of elevation upon the ozone of the atmosphere. The assertion is generally made, that, as ‘we ascend heights, the amount of the ozone rap- idly increases ; ”» and yet there does not seem to have been any direct experimentation on this point. If there be more free ozone, it may be due, not to any increased production over that of lower levels, but rather to a di- minished consumption. Further than this, the 430 starch and iodide test is so dependent upon other elements than the simple presence of ozone, that it is not thoroughly reliable. It is also open to the error of reacting to substances other than ozone. Still, admitting the state- ment that there is more nascent ozone at high elevations, the explanation of its action in the eure of phthisis is still to be sought. Some rather visionary theorists, as it seems to the writer, claim that it finds a direct admission to the diseased spots in the lungs, and, by its poorer oxidizing, it burns up im loco the mor- bid products. We should rather attribute its influence to the fact, that, where ozone exists free, there is no decomposing matter to be oxidized. It seems to us to be indicative of the existence of pure air, rather than a direct agent in destroying the morbid products in the lungs. 4. Immunity from phthisis. — Another ar- gument in favor of elevation in the cure of phthisis is, that at certain heights there exists an immunity from the disease. The disease is not endemic at such elevations. This is in the nature of negative evidence ; but it is certainly valuable as an element of prophylaxis, and we think that it can be ap- plied as an argument in favor of cure. Ruehle (op. cit.) says, ‘‘ A height of at least 1,800 or 2,000 feet seems to be requisite for this pur- pose. Phthisis is rare on the Hartz, Styrian (in Purzgau), and Swiss mountains.’”? Jac- coud (Flint’s Practice of medicine, p. 296) ‘< states that the observations for fifteen con-— secutive years warrants him in asserting, that, in Alpine situations elevated 4,000 feet, tuber- culosis is unknown; and especially is this true of villages at an elevation of 5,500 feet.” Dr. Irwin reports for Fort Defiance (6,500 feet), north-western New Mexico, ‘‘ During a service of some seven years in New Mexico and Arizona, I never saw or heard of a case of tuberculous disease amongst the native in- habitants of those territories.’ And Dr. Denison, in his work entitled ‘Rocky Moun- tain health resorts,’ writes, ‘‘ After having quite thoroughly canvassed the subject among physicians of Colorado, I place the altitude of approximate immunity of this state at 6,000 feet.”’ Taking a mean of all these quotations, we may safely assert, that, broadly speaking, an altitude of from 5,000 to 6,000 feet affords an approximate immunity from this disease. 5. An aseptic atmosphere. — Lastly, we will speak of the influence of elevation in the cure of phthisis in producing an aseptic at- mosphere. In these days of germ-theories SCIENCE. - sirable elevation. [Vou. II., No. 34. and of Koch’s experiments, we cannot but give emphasis to this element of antisepsis as an element of prophylaxis and cure of phthisis. Professor Tyndall’s experiments show the abundance of germs floating in the air at sea- level, and an entire absence of such germs at the altitude of the ‘ Belle Alp’ hotel (7,000 feet). Whether a lower elevation will furnish this aseptic atmosphere has not been proven experimentally ; but it would seem to be rea- sonable to argue that an elevation correspond- ing to that of immunity from phthisis would furnish such an atmosphere. Résumé. — There are other elements, such as humidity of the air, temperature, precipi- tation, etc., more or less dependent upon ele- vation, which we shall have occasion to speak of more at length. But, to make a résumé of our study to this point, we can say that a rise in elevation increases the heart-beat and the rapidity of the circulation, thereby hastening the absorption of the morbid products in phthi- sis, and increasing the metamorphosis of tissue, and hence the vital force; that it likewise produces greater depth of respirations, and a more healthy action of the diseased portions of the lungs; that it gives a purer air, and affords an approximate immunity from the disease; and, finally, that it affords an asep- tic atmosphere, in which the Bacillus tubercu- losis does not exist. The extent of elevation desirable for the production of this effect can be stated to be at least 5,000 feet. Having arrived at these conclusions, it re- mains for us to apply them to our subject. By consulting table I., columns i. and ii., it will be seen, that, of all the resorts for the cure of phthisis in this country, the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains alone furnished the de- The distance between Den- ver and Santa Fé is in the neighborhood of 375 miles in extent. Throughout this whole extent, pleasant locations for invalids are to be found at elevations varying from 5,000 to 6,000 feet. (To be continued.) HISTOLOGY OF INSECTS. INSPIRED by Weissmann’s well-known researches on the post-embryonice development of insects, Vial- lanes has studied the structure and changes of various tissues, principally in Musca vomitoria, but also in other insects during their metamorphoses. His results occupy nearly an entire volume,! and make an important addition to knowledge, the more welcome because the author deals chiefly with those tissues which have heretofore been least worked 1 Vol. xiv. sér. vi. of Ann. se. nat., zool. SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] upon. The long memoir embodies a large number of valuable data, the outcome of work which we believe to be thorough and careful. The collation of the literature is good, but not complete, some omissions being important. We are unable to give here more than the chief general conclusions. The skin of the larvae studied consists of a single layer of large flattened cells, covered externally by the hard chitinous cuticula (containing lime in Stratiomys), which is smooth in Musca and Eristalis, but divided in Stratiomys into fields corresponding to the cells. Below the cells, and lying directly against them, is a thin anhistic membrane, which is comparable to the basal membrane in crustacea and adult insects. The peripheral nervous system is of great interest. Between the integuments and the muscles of the larvae are found peripheral ganglia, which do not belong either to the ventral chain or to the stomato- gastricsystem. No analogous observation has hither- to been made upon insects. The peripheral ganglia of the larva of Tipula are very remarkable from their regular disposition and their symmetry: there is a pair in each segment. Those of Musca are irregularly scattered between the skin and the muscles, “Analogous ganglia are found in Eristalis, but are localized in the plexus, whence spring the nerves of the special sense-organs in the anterior region of the body. In the description of the pe- ripheral nerves the authoradds little to what was previously known. The sensory nerves end in two ways,—either by a connection with sensory hairs of the epidermis, or with free terminations. In the former case the axis- cylinder dilates, at the base of the sensory hair, into a bi-polar ganglion cell. The sensory hair is a conical hollow process of the cuticula. It is secreted by a special, large, slightly modified epidermal cell, the protoplasm of which fills the cavity of the hair, and lines its base. The distal prolongation of the bi-polar cells unites with the protoplasm of the hair- cell, and does not run directly to the hair. This apparatus appears to subserve touch, smell, ete. The free terminations are found beneath the epider- mis, as thread-like prolongations of a very rich dermal plexus, formed by very numerous multi-polar anas- tomosing nervous cells, (Besides the description of similar structures in other animals cited by Viallanes, cf. Canini and Gaule, ScrENCE, ii. 279.) Involuntary striated muscles. The larval heart is histologically comparable to a vertebrate capillary, being formed of flat cells soldered border to border, In the protoplasm of these cells, muscular fibres are formed, so that the cells are at once comparable to the endothelium and muscularis of the capillary. Within each single cell the fibrilla begins and ends with a thin disk or stria; therefore the space between the two disks is the unit of the fibril. In young larvae the heart is a simple tube without lateral openings. The striated muscles of the digestive tube are probably histologically identical with those of the heart, i.e., modified single cells; but Viallanes was unable to make out the cell-limits. In the walls SCIENCE. 431 of the stomach of Tipula is an intramuscular gan- glionated nerve-plexus, which probably innervates the muscles; but the final terminations were not seen. This is regarded as confirmatory of Ranvier’s law (Leg. @anat. génér., 1880, 463). In regard to the voluntary muscles the following conclusions are drawn: the fibrillae of insects are homologous with those of vertebrates, although the latter are indivisible, while in insects certain fibrillae (of the wing-muscles) may be decomposed into fi- briculae. In insects, as in vertebrates, the fibrillae are united into ‘ colonettes,’ or little clusters, being closely cemented together by a homogeneous and continuous substance, into which neither protoplasm nor nuclei ever penetrate. In vertebrates a large number of colonettes are united within a com- mon envelope, the sarcolemma, to form the fibre or primitive bundle. In insect larvae this disposition is maintained, but in the wing-muscles the sarcolemma is absent; the primitive bundle then consists of a few colonettes (Musca), or even of one colonette only (ef. Ciaccio, ScrencE, i. 247, whose paper is not cited). In the leg-muscles there is but a single colonette in each fibre, and the sarcolemma is scarcely developed. As regards the motor plates the follow- ing points are noted : 1°. In the larva of Stratiomys chamaeleon, each of the fibres, constructed on the vertebrate type, has seyeral Doyére’s cones, to the summit of each of which runs an axis-cylinder ac- companied by a nucleated sheath. Before innervat- ing the muscle, the nerves form a plexus; in the cone the axis-cylinder forms a terminal arborization by successive dichotomous branchings inside the sareolemma; the fundamental substance contains neither granular matter nor nuclei. 2°. In Tipula there is a similar arrangement, but only one cone to each fibre; the terminal arborization is much more extended, and bears nuclei; and the basal substance of the cone is granular, and nucleated as in the terminal plates of Amniota. 3°. In the caudal mus- cles of Eristalis and the leg-muscles of Dytiscus, each fibre of which contains only a single colonette, the motor nerves form no arborization, but break up into their constituent fibrils as-soon as they reach the sarcolemma. The second part of the memoir deals with the very remarkable changes in the larval tissues at pupation. The corpuscles of the blood of the larva are embryonic cells analogous to the leucocytes of vertebrates, and are found in the same form in the pupae. The muscular fibres of the larva disappear at the commencement of pupal life, and in two ways: — First, by ‘ évolution régressive :’ the nuclei of the muscle become spherical, and each surrounded by a coat of protoplasm, thus becoming, a muscle-cor- puscle, which proliferates, and gives rise to a great number of rose-colored granules, which multiply until the muscular substance entirely disappears, as if it supplied nutriment to the granules; these last finally separate, and spread themselves through the body cayity. Second, by degeneration: the nuclei keep becoming rarer until they all disappear, and meanwhile the contractile substance disappears as if 432 dissolved away on the outside. In consequence of these processes, the body cavity is charged with a quantity of matter resembling the vitelline elements of birds. The cells of the so-called fat-body produce, during the first days of pupal life, numerous granules, which enlarge, and are ultimately set free by the rupture of the cell-membrane. These granules arise independently of the nucleus, but closely resemble small cells. The cells of the tracheae and salivary glands do not disappear at the time of metamorphosis, as has been thought, but, on the contrary, they pro- liferate by endogenous cell-formation, the parent cell being first enlarged; the parent nucleus is finally discharged; the embryonic cells thus generated sep- arate, and fall into the general body cavity. The kérnchenkugel produced by pupal histolysis, and described by Weissmann, are of two kinds, and do not arise from the disintegrated matter, as supposed; but the smaller are derived from the muscle-corpuscles, the larger from cells of the fat-body. The epidermis of the larval head and thorax dries up and falls off. It is not immediately replaced by the definite cell- Jayer, but first by a thin cuticle, which Viallanes considers to be probably the thickened basement membrane of the larva. Part third treats of the histogenesis of the tissues of ‘the imago. The skin-of the head and thorax is developed from Weissmann’s imaginal disks. In the description of these, Viallanes follows Ganin in general, but he thinks that the mesoderm of the disks is formed at the expense of some of the embry- onic cells in the body cavity. Other points are also brought forward, among which we note espécially that the wing of the pupa contains at first numerous tracheae, which disappear before the end of the stage. In the abdomen, also, there are imaginal disks, four in each segment, and formed by local thicken- ings of the epidermis; all other parts of the epidermis or hypoderm degenerate, and are resorbed. The disks form two layers, the outer making the new epidermis, and the inner the mesoderm; the disks grow at their borders until they everywhere meet, and form a continuous tissue. The method of re- generation is the same as in the thorax, except that the disks are developed later: the difference assumed by Weissmann and Ganin is not real. The author compares the imaginal disks with the plates in Pilidium. The internal muscular mass of the thorax is derived from a single anlage, composed of little cells embedded in a small amount of homogeneous basal substance. This anlage then separates into six cords, corre- sponding to the definite muscles; these grow by peripheral accretion; the muscular substance is then differentiated around the cells, which are disposed with great regularity in the midst of the colonettes, becoming, in fact, the muscle-corpuscles (the neces- sity of omitting a fuller account is much regretted. — Rep.). The muscles of the legs are derived from the ‘mesoderm of the imaginal disks; the general process of their histogenesis, despite many interesting differ- ences, is the same as that of the wing-muscles. The author makes an excellent comparison between the SCIENCE. -exoderm cell. [Vou. IL, No. 34. unicellular muscles (heart, stomach) and the pleuri- cellular (wings, legs), or, as we might name them, the mesenchymal and myothelial muscles. Nearly a fifth of the entire memoir is devoted to the development of the eye. The brief résumé ‘(p. 302-305) is the most succinct and perfect account of the structure of the compound eye with which we are acquainted. In the first section the structure of the developed eye of the pupa, before it becomes pigmented, is described. The following is the au- thor’s table of the parts of the visual apparatus: — {couche & facettes. it . 5 ouche des cellules cristalliniennes. Guiliconip areas Couche des rétinules ou rétine. | Limitante postérieure de l’@il composé. Couche des fibres post-rétiniennes. ( Limitante antérieure de la lame ganglion- naire. Couche des cellules ganglionnaires. Couche des fibres en palissade. Limitante moyenne de la lame ganglion- naire. Couche des fibres nuclées. Limitante postérieure de la lame ganglion- naire. Couche des fibres préganglionnaires. Névrilemme. Couche des cellules en chapelets. -4 Croissant du noyan central. \yentail du noyau central. corce grise du ganglion optique. Lame ganglionnaire Ganglion optique Concerning the development of the eye, we give the following conclusions. In the larva, before met- amorphosis, the eye is represented by three parts, — the imaginal disk of the eye proper, the neural stem, and the optic ganglion. The disk of the eye com- prises the same three layers as the other imaginal disks. Before the metamorphosis of the larva, the superficial cells of the exodermic layer become en- larged and elongated, and acquire a strong affinity for coloring-matters; they are the optogenic cells. This change begins in the centre, and spreads to- wards the periphery of the disk. The mesoderm of the disk of the eye, unlike the other two layers, is different from the corresponding portion of other disks, since it is composed of fine nerve-fibrillae mingled with nuclei; by teasing, it can be shown that each fibril is connected with the inner end of an The nervous stem unites the disk of the eye with the optic ganglion, and is composed of the nerve-fibrils mingled with nuclei. The optic ganglion is constituted by the outer portion of the brain; its nucleus consists of white, its cortex of gray, matter; in the lateral portion of the cortex, is the complex anlage of the lame ganglionnaire, in which all the principal constituent parts of the definite lame ganglionnaire can be recognized. At the moment of metamorphosis the following phe- nomena occur: the provisory layer of the disk of the eye disappears, the exoderm enlarges, its borders unite with the neighboring disks, its cuticle becomes the faceted cornea, and its optogenic cells each form, by the known process, an elementary eye. The anlage of the lame ganglionnaire emigrates from the optic ganglion, then enlarges, and spreads out so as to intervene between the ganglion and the eye. The SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] details of the differentiation of the lame are care- fully described. I cannot conclude this notice without referring to the admirable manner in which this valuable memoir is written, and the great clearness with which the facts and conclusions are presented. CHARLES §, Minot. EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE THE GERMICIDE VALUE OF CERTAIN THERAPEUTIC AGENTS. In the American journal of medical sciences for April, Dr. Sternberg gives an account of his study of this important question. The objects of the author were, — To ascertain the exact value, as germicides, of some of the agents most frequently employed in medical and surgical practice, with a view to the destruction of pathogenic micro-organisms, hypothetical or de- monstrated. To compare this value, established by laboratory experiments, with the results of clinical experience, for the purpose of ascertaining what support, if any, the germ-theory of disease receives from modern therapeutics. Assuming that the active agent in infective mate- rial is a living micro-organism, or ‘germ,’ disinfec- tion will be accomplished by those chemical agents only, which have the power of destroying the vitality of this organism. We require to know: — a. What is the absolute germicide power of various disinfecting agents, in order to select the best with a view to economy and efficiency; b. Are all disease-germs destroyed by these agents in the same proportion? and, if not, c. What agents are the most available for special Kinds of infective material ? In therapeutics we should know, in addition to this: — d. What is the minimum quantity of each of these agents which will restrict the multiplication of each specific disease-germ in a suitable culture-medium ? — this with reference to medication, with a view to ac- ecomplishing a like result within the body of an in- fected individual. Evidently, any thing like a complete answer to these questions is quite impossible in the present state of knowledge, and we must content ourselves with such partial or approximate answers as can be obtained by laboratory experiments upon the comparatively small number of pathogenic organisms which abound in organic liquids undergoing putrefaction. The experiments were conducted by using small sealed flasks containing bouillon free from micro- organisms. The smallest quantity of a fluid contain- ing such organisms introduced into one of the flasks would cause it to ‘break down’ within twenty-four hours, it being exposed during this time to a temper- ature of 100° F. To test the germicide power of a chemical reagent, living bacteria are subjected to its action in a known proportion for a given time, and are subsequently used SCIENCE. 433 to inoculate sterilized bouillon in one of the flasks. Failure to multiply in this fluid, when exposed for twenty-four hours or more to a temperature of 100° F., is evidence that reproductive power — vitality —has been destroyed by the reagent used. On the other hand, failure to disinfect, i.e., to destroy the vitality of the bacterial organisms used as a test, is shown by the ‘ breaking-down’ of the culture-fluid. Standard solutions of the reagents to be tested are prepared with distillled water. The germs are ex- posed, in small glass tubes, to the action of these agents for two hours. The tubesare sterilized in the flame of an alcohol-lamp immediately before each ex- periment; they are open, and covered by a bell-glass during the time of exposure. At the end of the time of exposure, a small quan- tity of the fluid from one of the tubes is introduced into a flask containing sterilized bouillon, and this is exposed to a temperature of 100° F. for twenty-four hours. The micro-organisms which have been used in the ex- periments herein reported, to test the germicide power of the reagents named, were obtained from the fol- lowing sources : — a. A micrococeus from gonorrhoeal pus. b. A micrococcus from pus obtained from an acute abscess (whitlow) at the moment that it was opened by a deep incision. This micrococcus is morphologi- cally identical with the preceding. c. A pathogenic micrococeus, having distinct mor- phological characters obtained from the blood of a septicaemic rabbit. d. Bacterium termo, and other bacterial organisms (micrococci and bacilli) from ‘ broken-down ’ beef-tea which had been freely exposed to the air. In the following table, which is arranged according to the germicide value of the agents named, all ex- periments are given in which the micrococcus from pus was used as a test. Mercurie bichloride (0.005 per Pas efficient in the pro- portion of one purt in - 20,000 Potassium permanganate (0.12 per cent); efticient in the proportion of one partin . 833 Iodine (0.2 per cent), efficient in the’ proportion of one partin . « 500 Creosote (0.5 per pent): efficient in the proportion of one partin . . 200 Sulphurie acid (0.5 per ce ent), ‘effici ient in the propértion. of one partin . F 200 Carbolic’ acid (1 per cent), efic iont in 1 the. proportion of one partin . . 100 Hydrocblorie acid (1 per cent), efficient in the proportion of one part in : 100 Zinc chloride (4 per cent) efficient in the proportion of one partin . . 50 Tine. ferri chloridi a per cent), efficient in the proportion ofone partin . 25 Salicylic acid dissolved by sodium porate | ( per cent), efficient in the proportion of one partin . ° 25 Caustic potash (10 per cent), efficient in the proportion of one partin . . 10 Citric acid (12 per cent), ‘eflicient in the proportion of one partin . 8 Chloral hydrate (20 per cent), efficient in the ¢ proportion of onepartin. . . + rePLQTy Uris 5 The following-named reagents, as far as the experi- 434 ments go, are not shown to have any germicide value; viz., — é Per cent. Fowler’s solution failed in the proportion of . 3, ier) eae Sodium hyposulphite failed in the proportion of. a . 32 ‘Sodium sulphite, exsiccata, failed in the proportion of ° 10 Ferric sulphate er cai solution) failed in the propor- tion of . - . : 16 Potassium serie Ealedh in the aannantion we . 5 . 8 Liq. zinci chloridi failed in the proportion of . 8 Boracic acid (saturated solution) failed in the propor tion of 4 Zine sulphate failed in the proportion of — - 20 Sodium borate Renlanae Gost failed in the arate tion of . . : Sodium salicylate Failed in the propor tion of ca Having ascertained the germicide value of certain reagents for a single micro-organism, the question arises as to whether we are justified in assuming that other organisms of the same class, and especially pathogenic bacteria, will be destroyed by the same reagents in like proportion, or, in other words, wheth- er we can generalize from the data obtained. It is evident, that, if each of the reagents named gives iden- tical results with several distinct species of bacteria, we shall be justified in assuming that the value ob- tained will be constant for other organisms, known or unknown, of the same class; whereas, if marked ‘differences are found as to the vital resistance of different bacterial organisms to these reagents, no generalization will be possible, and the value for each distinct organism of the class can only be fixed by experiment. To solve this question, experiments have been made as follows: — a. Upon the micrococcus of pus. ‘ b. Upon the micrococcus of septicaemia in the rab- bit. c. Upon bacterium termo, in its active motile stage, as found in afresh culture. d. Upon the bacteria in broken-down beef-tea which had been freely exposed to the air, and in which all active development had ceased. The results show, that, in general, those reagents which destroyed the vitality of the micrococcus from pus are destructive to organisms of the same class, and that their relative value as germicides is not changed when a different micro-organism is used as the test of this value. Moreover, the reagents which were found to be practically valueless as germicides in the first series of experiments—e.g., ferric sul- phate, sodium sulphite, and hyposulphite, boracic acid, etc. — proved to be equally without value when the test was extended to other micro-organisms of the same class. But the reagents found to possess decided germicide power have, in some cases, a dif- ferent value for different organisms: in other words, the vital resistance of ditferent bacterial organisms to the reagents in question is not in all cases the same. Thus, sulphuric acid failed to destroy B. termo and the micrococcus from pus in the proportion of 0.25 %; but one-fourth of this amount (0.06 %) destroyed the vitality of the septic micrococcus. Caustic potash destroyed the septic micrococcus in the proportion of 2 %, but failed to kill the micrococ- cus of pus in four times this amount (8 %). The value, as a germicide, of the solution of ferric sul- SCIENCE. [Vot. II., No. 34 phate and sulphuric acid in water, which has beem extensively recommended by sanitarians as a disin—_ fectant, evidently depends upon the sulphurie acid which the solution contains, To insure the destrue- tion of all bacterial organisms and of the reproduc tive spores of those speciés which multiply by spores: as well as by transverse fission, such a solution should be used in sufficient quantity to subject the material to be disinfected to the action of the acid in the pro- portion of at least five per cent for a period of two hours. The quantity of carbolic acid used to accomplish the same result should not be less than five per cent, for it is necessary to keep on the safe side; ana we do not know, at present, whether all of the path— ogenic bacteria, hypothetical or demonstrated, form: spores or otherwise. In the case of the anthrax ba- cillus and of Koch’s bacillus of tuberculosis, this has been proved to be true; and we have ample experi-— mental evidence to show that these reproductive bodies possess very great resistance to heat and to- those chemical reagents which destroy bacterial or— ganisms in their ordinary condition of rapid growth and multiplication by fission. Evidently, therapeutic value—assuming the cor~ rectness of the germ-theory—cannot be gauged by germicide power alone, for it is possible that a re— agent which possesses this power in but slight degree, or not at all, may nevertheless be capable of restrict— ing the development of pathogenic organisms, and thus limiting their power for mischief. The following table shows the percentage required to destroy vitality, and also that required to prevent - the development of the micrococeus of pus: — perceniers pei r capable 0: eaz eats Aa aceRtoy tenes vitality. development. Mercurie bichloride 4 S 0.005 0.003 Iodine . : c 3 : c 0.2 0.025 Sulphuric acid sles . 0.25 0.12 Carbolic acid . 5 0.8 0.2 Salicylic acid and satire asiaeae Dike 0.5 Alcohol . J 6 2 2 5 40 “tM Ferric sulphate : : . . ( Failed in 0.5 Boracic acid. - = ° - saturated 0.5 Sodium biborate l solution. 0.5 An inspection of the table shows that the potent germicides in our list restrict multiplication in quan-— tities considerably less than are required to destroy vitality. In the case of iodine the difference is eightfold; in that of carbolic acid, fourfold; in that. of sulphuric acid, twofold, etc. We also see that the agents at the bottom of the list, —ferric sulphate, boracic acid, and sodium bibo- rate, —in the proportion of five-tenths per cent, pre- vent the multiplication of bacterial organisms, and are consequently antiseptic agents of value, although in | saturated solution they fail to kill these organisms, In the case of ferric sulphate, and also of zine sul-~ phate and zine chloride, this power to prevent the development of micro-organisms seems to be due to SEPTEMBER 28, 1888.] precipitation of the organic material in the nutritive medium rather than to any direct action upon the living organisms, which, as we have seen, are not killed by a far greater quantity of the reagent. The conclusions at which Dr. Sternberg arrives, are, that the vital resistance of bacterial organisms to chemical reagents differs, within certain limits, for different species. And certain species show special ‘susceptibility to the germicide action of particular reagents; e.g., the septic micrococcus to alcohol, and B. termo to boracic acid. There is, therefore, reason for supposing that dif- ferent pathogenic organisms may differ in like manner, as to susceptibility to the action of various reagents administered medicinally with a view to their de- struction. Nevertheless, the comparative germicide value of the reagents tested is the same for the sey- eral test-organisms, and, allowing certain limits for specific peculiarities, it is safe to generalize from the experimental data obtained in the practical use of these reagents as disinfectants. But it must be re- membered that the resisting power of reproductive spores is far greater than that of bacterial organisms in active growth (multiplication by fission), and the data obtained for the latter cannot be extended to in- elude the former. The antiseptic value of the reagents tested depends upon their power to prevent the multiplication of putrefactive bacteria; and this is not necessarily con- nected with germicide potency, for some reagents which fail to kill these micro-organisms are, never- theless, valuable antiseptics, e.g:. ferric sulphate and boracie acid. Clinieal experience has demonstrated the value of all the potent germicide reagents tested in one or more of the diseases which there is the most reason to believe are due to the presence of pathogenic micro-organisms in the primae viae, in the blood, or in the tissues; e.g., intermittent-fever, typhoid-fever, dysentery, erysipelas, syphilis, etc. The ‘germ-the- ory’ as to the causation of these diseases receives, therefore, very strong support from modern thera- peutics: but the experiments do not justify the belief that anyone of the reagents tested can be admin- istered as a specific in germ-diseases generally. This also accords with the results of clinical experience, and makes it possible to believe that the specific, self- limited diseases are also ‘ germ’ diseases. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. The practical value of soil-analysis. In Bulletin lvi. of the New York agricultural ex- periment-station, Dr. Sturtevant gives the reasons for which the station declines to make soil-analyses ‘for the purposes of the individual farmer;’ summarizing them in the statement that such ayalyses “can offer no solution of the problem of what fertilizer, and how much, to apply.” Were this statement made in a somewhat less gen- eral and absolute manner, I should have no fault to find with it; for in the case of the long-cultivated fields of the state of New York, which have been sub- ject to indefinitely varied culture-conditions and the use of fertilizers, the cases in which chemical analysis SCIENCE. 435 alone would point with any degree of certainty to the true cause of failure to produce profitable crops would be exceptional; and the station would be likely to be overrun with requests for an indefinite amount of comparatively useless routine work. But when Dr. Sturtevant broadly adds his denial “that analyses of soils can give us definite informa- tion concerning their productiveness,’’ he seems to go beyond the limits justified by the record, and beyond what the context following would appear to show he intended to say. If the clause above quoted were to read, instead, ‘‘ while denying that analyses of cul- tivated soils can giye us definite information regarding their present productiveness,’’ I should agree with him so far as the great majority of cases is concerned, —so much so, that it is only exceptionally that I under- take the analysis of a cultivated soil, but usually go back to its virgin ancestor for information as to its general character; and from this, and the usually sim- ple history of its cultivation, pretty definite inferences as to the prominent wants even of a cultivated soil can in very many cases be deduced, as is proved by the practical results. Dr. Sturtevant’s own statement as to the frequency and consequent practical impor- tance of such inquiries would seem to justify the tak- ing of some pains to approach its solution, before proclaiming an absolute non possumus. As for virgin soils, which over wide areas have been subject to uniform or uniformly variable conditions, it is apriori reasonably presumable, and I think expe- rience confirms the inference, that, otherthings being equal, the amount of available plant-food, and there- fore the durability of a given soil under the usual culture, without replacement, is sensibly proportional to the plant-food percentages shown by the usual method of analysis. Whether or not other things are really equal can only be ascertained by intelligent examination in the field as well as in the laboratory; and soil-specimens taken by non-experts rarely fulfil this condition. While, therefore, believing that Dr. Sturtevant’s action in this matter is well advised under the cir- cumstances, I nevertheless believe that my contrary practice in regions but sparsely or recently settled is at least equally well justified, and that the impor- tance of affording the settler at least an approximate insight into the present and ultimate durability of his soil, and its general character and adaptations, is so great as to justify a considerable public expenditure, upon a well-considered plan carefully carried out by competent persons both in the field and in the labo- ratory, even with our present limited knowledge of the chemistry of soils — which, I cannot but remark, is not likely to be increased very rapidly if the com- position of soils serving for culture-experiments con- tinues to be ignored, as has so largely been thé case heretofore. The prime importance of the presence of acertain minimum percentage of lime, for exam- ple, is manifestly so great, that no experimenter can afford to be ignorant of the presence or absence of a proper supply of that substance in his soil ; and the cases in which analysis shows the extreme scarcity or extreme abundance of lime, phosphates, or potash, in virgin soils and subsoils, are far more. frequent than the contemners of soil-analysis suppose. In the former case the practical value of the indication is too obvious to be overlooked, and is amply attested by the results following the application, e.g., of phos- phate fertilizers in such cases. We might not be able to detect the addition thus made to the phosphates of the soil by the most careful analysis; but the fact that the soil is naturally poor in phosphates will re- main a fruitful truth forever after. 436 ' I trust that the record which will be shown in the census report of cotton production, now in press, will form a convincing illustration of the legitimate uses of soil-analysis. E, W. Hine arp. University of California, Sept. 1, 1883. Do humming-birds fly backwards ? The Duke of Argyll, in his Reign of law (p. 145), Jays it down in italics, that ‘no bird can ever fly back- wards.’ He mentions the humming-bird as appear- ing to do so, but maintains, that, in reality, the bird falls, rather than flies, when, for instance, he comes out of a tubular flower. But this morning, while watch- ing the motions of a humming-bird (Trochilus colu- bris), it occurred to me to test this dictum of the duke; and, unless my eyes were altogether at fault, the bird did actually fly backwards. He was probing one after another the blossoms of a Petunia-bed, and more than once, when the flower happened to be low down, he plainly rose, rather than fell, as he backed out of and away from it. I stood within a yard or two of him, and do not believe that I was deceived. It may not be amiss to add that the Duke of Ar- gyll’s objections seem to be purely theoretical, since the ‘Reign of law’ was published in 1866, and it was ' not till 1879 that the author came to America and saw his first living humming-bird. BRADFORD TORREY. Boston, Sept. 14, 1883. Wright's ice-dam at Cincinnati. I notice on p. 320 of Screncg, vol. ii. no. 31, an inaccurate report of what I said at the Minneapolis meeting, which does injustice both to Mr. Wright and to myself, and which I would beg to have cor- rected. The reporter makes me speak slightingly of Mr. Wright’s discovery of the ice-dam at Cincinnati, as not sufficing to explain our Pennsylvania terraces. On the contrary, I expressed my admiration for the discovery as furnishing precisely the explanation we need for the local-drift terraces of the Monongahela, and the rolled-northern-drift terraces of the lower Alleghany, Beaver, and upper Ohio rivers. The reporter probably mixed this up with what I said afterwards respecting the rolled-drift terraces of eastern Pennsylvania, which only reach a height of 800’ A. T., in Northumberland county, and require some explanation, perhaps, quite unconnected with that which Mr. Wright certainly furnishes in a most satisfactory manner for the 800’ to 1,100’ A. T. ter- races of the Ohio River basin. J. P. LESLEY. Second geological survey of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Sept. 15, 1883. Erratic pebbles in the Licking valley. While engaged in tracing the outcrop of ‘Clinton ore’ in eastern Kentucky, in the fall of 1882, I became interested in the pebbles, which in certain localities, and up to a certain height, were very abundant in the surface-soil. Most abundant were rounded quartz pebbles, prob- ably from the millstone grit. Somewhat less abun- dant were fragments of chert, showing little or no wear derived from the sub-carboniferous limestone. Still less abundant, though by no means rare, were some from the carboniferous, often containing char- acteristic fossils. They were confined, so far as I could determine, to the valley of the Licking and its larger tributaries. Vertically, they range from the river-bottoms to the top of the table, formed by the upper Silurian rocks, which borders on the Devonian SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 34. escarpment; so that these tables are quite uniformly covered with the material. The distribution of the material is such as could only have been made while the valley was tempora- rily occupied by a lake. I was therefore led, though with some hesitation, to suppose that the glacier must have crossed the Ohio at Cincinnati, damming the river. I was not at the time aware of the labors of Mr. Wright in tracing the glacier across the Ohio. Having now the certainty that there was a dam at the required point, I think I may have no hesitation in saying, that, during a portion of the glacial period, the valley of the Licking was occupied by a lake which overflowed laterally, and whose bottom became littered with materials brought from the mountains of eastern Kentucky by floating ice. They are most abundant where the ice may be supposed to have had freest ac- cess. Terraces which might have been expected are want- ing in the region in which my observations were made, Possibly they may be found in other parts of the valley, especially above; their absence in the region in question being due to the fact that only small por- tions of the region would have reached above the lake-level, which, by their disintegration, could fur- nish the material for terraces. The overflow was probably to southward, but I could not search for it. Could it be traced, the amount of erosion might give some data for an estimate of time. G. H. Squizr. Trempealeau, Wis., Sept. 14, 1883. Depth of ice during the glacial age. In the issue of Science for Sept. 7, reporting my paper at Minneapolis, I am made to say, that, during the glacial period, the ice was indeed ‘‘ 600 feet over New England, and very likely of equal depth over the area to the west.’’ I said 6,000 feet over New Eng- land. The evidences of glaciation are distinct upon the Green Mountains to a height of nearly 5,000 feet. The lower summits of the White Mountains, like Car- rigain (which is 4,300 feet above the sea), are covered with transported bowlders; and there can be little question that some found by Professor Charles Hitch- cock, within a few hundred feet of the summit of Mount Washington, were transported thither by gla- cial agency. Such is the evidence for New England. For the region north of Pennsylvania and the Ohio River, direct evidence of such a great depth of ice is naturally wanting ; but, according to Ramsay, glacial scratches are numerous upon the summit of Catskill Mountains in New York, at an elevation of 2,850 feet above the sea. In southern Ohio there are numerous places where the ice, within a mile or two of its farthest extension, surmounted elevations which are about 500 feet higher than the plains to the north of them. I see no reason why it should not have been as deep over the bed of Lake Erie as over the region to the north of the White Mountains, though there are there no glaciometers like Mount Washington to measure the height of the frozen mass. G. FREDERICK WRIGHT. Oberlin, O., Sept. 18, 1883. The ‘stony girdle’ of the earth. In your issue of Sept. 7, just received, youare kind enough to insert a synopsis of the two abstracts of pa- pers which I sent to the Minneapolis meeting. Allow me the space necessary to make a correction and some brief explanations. Weare required to furnish these ‘abstracts’ to suit a printed form of small note size, which is apt to lead to small chirography: hence I suppose the mistake in reading and printing the title. lad aaa SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] It should read, ‘stony girdle,’ and was in inverted commas to show that the name did not originate with me. My special object was to call attention to its being, in a great measure, the same belt which forms the prime-vertical when the pole of the land-centre at Mount Rosa is brought to the zenith. The unfavor- able comments to which you allude have force as a general rule ; namely, that closet geology is not com- parable to observations in the field. Yet all general- izations may be called closet geology, as being the. result of a large number of facts collected in the field, and compared subsequently. As it would, however, be presumptuous in any one to offer generalizations who had not had somewhat extended opportunities for observation, I may be permitted to mention, as some justification, those I have enjoyed. In North America my observations, partly in special work, partly during travel, have ranged from Rainy Lake, north of Lake Superior, to Saltillo, in Mex- ico, and from the Atlantic states to the head waters of the Gila, in Arizona. In the eastern continent, I travelled from the north of Scotland to Cairo in Egypt, ascending Etna, and spending the vacations of three summers, during college-life, in Switzerland among its mountains, ranging subsequently from western France to the Crimea. In 1824 I saw the *Perte du Rhéne,’ where that river disappeared for miles, and then re-appeared,— a phenomenon no lon- ger to be seen, as the superincumbent rocks, some years later, caved in, and converted the subterranean nto a subaerial bed for that fine stream. In 1829 I visited the scene of the catastrophe at New Madrid; and while granting a local subsidence for the immediate cause, as claimed in the able paper by Dr. Macfarlane, of which you give an abstract, I am compelled to believe that the remote cause was due to a seismic movement, felt, as Mallet states, at least two hundred miles from New Madrid, and, in- deed, affecting large and more distant areas about that time, as mentioned in Key to geology, p. 77. These opportunities, in connection with the speci- mens and notes of reference brought home, permit a review of general geology, which I thought might enable me to present to the student of geography and geology some broad principles and truths into which the details subsequently obtained by him might be appropriately fitted: hence the paper read at the Bos- ton meeting, showing that the eastern trend of each * continent was distant one-fifth of the circumference of the globe from its adjoining continental trend; also that each continent presented a central focus, from which a cirele with radius of 36° would embrace the land proper, — sometimes excluding a peninsula, such as Hindostan, sometimes including adjacent islands, as those of Madeira, Canary, and Cape Verd, as be- longing to the main continent, Africa. The Mon- treal papers were designed to show the important seismic fissurings radiating from the pole of the land-centre; also the relation between solar and ter- restrial dynamics, where seismic phenomena are transmitted along great circles coinciding with the sun’s apparent path, or along belts of the earth’s crust which are secondaries to the ecliptic, The occurrences of the last few weeks seem to corroborate the generalization offered, inasmuch as Ischia is on the 30° fissure from Rosa, at no great distance; while Java and the Straits of Sunda, as well as Guayaquil, more recently disturbed, are on or close to the prime-vertical. If these generalizations belong rather in the cate- gory of instruction for the student than of contribu- tions to science, perhaps my twenty-five years of natural-science teaching may present some excuse. SCIENCE. 437 Certainly, my great aim and desire are to arrive at important scientific truths, especially general laws in the dynamics of our globe. RicHARD OWEN. Mr. Morse’s papers at Minneapolis. A number of errors have been made in the report of my papers which were read at the Minneapolis meeting. In the paper on an apparatus for warming and ventilating apartments, the statement that the tem- perature of a hall was raised 40° above the outside temperature is incorrect. I said that the air, as it entered the room from the heater, had been raised 40° above the outside air. In the paper on the methods of arrow-release, I spoke of the English method, which was probably that of the Saxon, and said that American archers followed the English. The Japanese never use thumb-rings, to my knowledge. The Koreans, Chi- nese, Manchu Tartars, and Persians use the thumb- ring. aS more serious mistake occurs in the report of my paper on the indoor games of the Japanese. I said very distinctly, that, in the game of chess, pieces cap- tured could be used by the capturer against his oppo- nent. In comparing the Japanese games with ours, I made no allusion to seven-up or whist. With every one I regard whist as next to chess in character as a highly intellectual game. You will confer a great favor by publishing these corrections. Epw. 8. MorRsE. Salem, Mass., Sept. 16, 1883. Evidences of glacial man. In Scrence, no. 32, p. 384, the statement is made, respecting Miss Babbitt’s Minnesota finds, that ‘‘ thus far, at best, the glacial workman is known only by his chips.”” What better evidence, I would inquire, is needed, if those chips are of artificial origin ? Is not this sufficient? Are not shavings and saw- dust as good evidence of men working in wood, to- day, as are the planes and saws they use? From the very nature of the case, it is unreasonable to find as abundant and easily recognized evidence of man in drift-deposits as upon the surface-soils; yet this is what some of those present at the Minneapolis meet- ing of the American association for the advancement of science seemed to require. In the case of the ‘paleolithic’ implements of the Delaware River valley, other evidence than the chipped stones has been found. The human tooth, lately described in detail in the Proceedings of the Boston society of natural history, is, of itself, evi- dence of man’s presence at the time the gravels, in which it occurred, were laid down. Other human re- mains have also been found. A word, too, with reference to the implements. These are nearly all as unmistakably artificial as the most finished arrow-head. Objects of identical char- acter are found among ¢he relics of the recent In- dians, and are not questioned. Why, then, should a similar class of objects, found in gravel-deposits that antedate the superincumbent surface-soils, be ques- tioned ? ¥ There is no doubt overshadowing the existence of man in the Delaware valley as long ago as the close of the glacial period: his presence, then, is not merely ‘a theory advanced by Dr. Abbott,’ as you suggest, but a fact susceptible of actual demonstration. Professor Mason, in his address (in the same issue), asks, “‘ What is the real import of such discoveries as those of Dr. Abbott and Professor Whitney in es- tablishing the great antiquity and early rudeness of 438 the American savage?’ Speaking for myself, I would suggest that his question contains its answer. My discoveries have established the glacial age of man on the Atlantic seaboard of America, and.at that time his culture was that stage known as ‘ paleolithic.’ Cuas. C. ABsBort, M.D. Trenton, N.J., Sept. 18, 1883. : THE ALPHABET. The alphabet, an account of the origin and develop- ment of letters. By Isaac Taytor, M.A., LL.D. 2 vols. London, Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1883. 164358; 398 p. 8°. Mr. Tayror has produced an admirable work on the interesting subject of alphabetic writing. It abounds in wealth of collected material, down to the very latest discoveries (some of them of the utmost importance). By lavish and well-chosen illustration it puts this material before the apprehension of the reader or student with the most desirable clear- ness; and its digest and criticism of former opinions is made with impartiality and inde- pendence of judgment, while the author adds abundantly of new views, and arguments to support them. No other existing work of a like character can bear any comparison with it; and it deserves to have, as it doubtless will attain, a wide circulation and popularity. In the main, these yolumes are filled with the history of our own alphabet and its rela- tives, or of the ancient Phoenician with its de- scendants and probable ancestor, since other systems of alphabetic writing are compar- atively insignificant in number and in im- portance. The Chinese characters are not alphabetic, although one or two derivatives from them (as the Japanese kata-kuna) have that character. The cuneiform mode of writ- ing ended its career in an alphabetic system, the Persian; but all the peoples using cunei- form passed over, more than two thousand years ago, to the side of the Phoenician. There have been other hieroglyphic schemes, in the old world and the new, that made advances, _ HO one can say just how far, toward alphabet- ism; but they are long since perished without descendants. All these, together with such theoretic basis as he chooses to lay for the sci- ence, Mr. Taylor despatches in the first’ chap- ter (seventy pages) of his first volume ; the rest is devoted to our alphabet: the various kindred Semitic forms of it being treated in the former volume, and the Indo-European forms, with the few outside stragglers, in the latter, under the divisions of Greek, deriva- tives of Greek (Italian, Coptic, Slavonic, Albanian, Runic, Ogham), Iranian, and In- dian. The method is not to be condemned, SCIENCE. [Vox. IL, No. 34. : although we might have desired a more ample theoretical introduction. The fundamental principle of alphabetic history is distinct, and briefly statable: all writing begins necessarily with the depiction of scenes and objects, or is purely pictorial; it everywhere tends to pass over into a depiction of the names of objects ; and, when it has fully reached that condition, it has become alphabetic. There can be no such thing as an alphabet not starting from a pictorial stage, any more than a spoken lan- guage without an initial imitative root-stage. But while in language we can only get baak by inference to such a state of things, because the beginnings of language are so remote from us, in writing we find the pictorial stage abun- dantly represented. Whether that stage is discoverable in the actual history of our own alphabet, is a ques- tion not yet absolutely settled. Every step by which our familiar letters go back to the primitive Semitic alphabet, usually called by us Phoenician, is traced out with the utmost distinctness. The Phoenician is purely, though defectively, alphabetic. It must, then, have come from a pictorial original. Three such systems of writing are found in its neighbor- hood, — Egyptian, cuneiform (the perhaps suf- ficient, though rather scanty, evidences of whose hieroglyphic origin are given by our author), and the recently discovered and still obscure Hittite. Did it come demonstrably from one of these, or has it an ancestor now lost to us? As is well known, De Rougé’s work, published less than ten years ago, at- tempted to show its derivation from Egyptian, from hieratic characters, of known hieroglyphic originals; and his view is widely, though by no means universally, accepted. Mr. Taylor is a firm believer in it, and sets it forth with much clearness and force. We find ourselves unable fully to share his conviction. De Rougé endeavored to prove more than was reasonable, and found it so easy to prove all he undertook, that his very success casts a shade of unrealityy over the whole comparison. We may allow that. his identifications are both possible, and, as a whole, plausible quite be- yond any others yet made. Yet whereas the - derivation of the Greek or of the Arabic alphabet, for example, is.past all doubt, and he would rightly be passed by as a time-waster who should attempt to re-open the question, no reproach can attach to the scholar who, uncon- vinced by De Rougé, should try to find an- other and better solution of the problem, as some are actually doing. Mr. Taylor over- states the desirableness of acquiescing in the SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] ; best solution hitherto discovered ; the right to doubt an inference not yet made certain is a precious and indefeasible one. It would be highly gratifying to regard the derivation of Phoenician from Egyptian as not less certain than that of English from Phoenician, since then we should have followed up the history to its very beginning ; for the character of the Egyptian as a wholly original mode of writ- ing, carrying on its face the evidence of its steps of development from the initial stage, is beyond dispute. Considering that Mr. Tay- lor holds the hieroglyphics to be the antecedent phase of Phoenician letters, we wish that he had made his exposition of the system some- what fuller, and especially that he had told in more detail how he regards the alphabetic value of certain of the hieroglyphs as having been arrived at: the point is by no means so clear as were to be wished. It would take far too much space to go through the book and notice all the points of special interest in it; but attention may be called toa few. Mr. Taylor has a new and well-supported theory as to the Mediterranean alphabet from which the Germanic runes were taken: he holds it to have been the Greek of the Euxine colonies and Thrace, transmitted in peaceful intercourse along the commercial route of the Dnieper, some centuries before the Chris- tian era. His discussion of the Ogham crypto- grams is less satisfactory. The Glagolitic (an early Slavonic) alphabet receives from him a suggested explanation which has met with general favor. The earliest Semitic mon- uments—the sarcophagus of Sidon, the Mo- abite stele, the recently discovered Siloam inscription — are fully treated, the last being given in facsimile. Some of the most origi- nal parts of the author’s work lie in the dis- cussion of the South Semitic alphabets and their derivatives. It is to them that he traces the immense group of the alphabets of India by a theory which wears a more plausible and acceptable aspect than any other yet suggest- ed; it must, of course, stand the test of time, and of examination by other experts, before it can be admitted as final. Even in so old and well-worked departments as the varieties of Semitic and Greek writing and their mu- tual relations, Mr. Taylor brings to light much that is new and interesting, laying under contribution the most recent finds, and com- bining them with independence of judgment and sound sense. There is nowhere any effort at brilliancy or show of profundity: sober, earnest work is the keynote of the treatise, which in this respect compares favorably with SCIENCE. 439 certain other recent publications, French and German, on the same subject. In conclusion, we may notice adversely a point or two. The now accepted explanation of Pehlevi, as needing to be read out of its Semitic signs into Iranian words, should not be credited to ‘ the sagacity of Professor Haug’ (ii. 239). That explanation was distinctly offered by the veteran Westergaard, in the preface to his Zendavesta, in 1854, when Haug was fresh from the university ; and in the lat- ter’s earliest article ‘on the Pehlevi language and the Bundepesh,’ published in the same year, there is to be found no hint of the doctrine. It. is hardly correct to ascribe the success of right methods in paleography in any meas- ure to Darwinism (ii. 363). That every suc- cessive phase of a historical institution is the outgrowth of a preceding phase, and differs little from it, is a truth long coming to clear recognition and fruitful application in every department of historic research, prior to and in complete independence of any doctrine of evolution in the natural world. Only error and confusion have come of the attempts made to connect Darwinism and philologic science. On the other hand, Mr. Taylor appears to make a too mechanical application of the doctrine of historical development in denying altogether the possibility of an element of free inven- tion in alphabetic growth. Man is capable of devising something a little different from, or like and additional to, what he has already won and knows how to use. One who has a language can invent another, regarded by him as an improvement on the former: the thing has happened repeatedly, and is no vio- lation of the law of gradual and unconscious growth of human speech. So, notwithstanding the law of alphabetic development, a man who practises various modes of writing can devise a new one, for cryptographic or tachygraphic purposes, or other. And a community that is receiving and adapting an alphabetic system from another community may, in like manner, well enough add a sign or two of its own device: hence the question whether our X is an out-and-out invention of the Greeks, or a differentiated K, is one of paleographie prob- abilities, not to be settled in favor of the lat- ter alternative by denying the possibility of the former; and so in other like cases. The number of interesting questions to which this work furnishes a trustworthy reply is surprising; and, while sparing of notes, it yet gives references suflicient to set upon the right track any one desirous of investigating more fully the matters with which it deals. 440 THE FOSSIL FLORA OF GREENLAND. Die fossile flora der polarldnder. Von Dr. OSWALD Heer. Vol. vii. Ziirich, Wurster, 1883. 275p., 62 pl. 4°. Tuis volume contains, 1°, the flora of the upper cretaceous schists of Patoot ; 2°, the ter- tiary flora of Greenland; 3°, a short memoir on insects’ remains found*‘in connection with the plants (ef. Scmnor, i. 1095); 4°, general re- marks on the affinities of the plants in relation to their geological age and the climatic circum- stances indicated by their characters; 5°, a memoir by Steenstrup on the geology of the localities where remains of plants and coal- deposits haye been found; 6°, the marine fauna, with descriptions of the species of in- vertebrate animals found especially in connec- tion with the plants of Patoot. This last locality represents the upper mem- ber of the cretaceous of Greenland ; the lowest being that of Kome, the middle that of Atane. The flora of Patoot has a predominance of conifers: and ferns, no Cyeadeae, and few monocotyledons, about one-half of the plants being dicotyledons. The table of distribution, which represents the whole cretaceous flora of Greenland, enumerates 335 species, —88 for Kome, 177 for Atane, and 118 for Patoot. From the characters of the plants, the schists of Kome are referable to the Neocomian. Atane, whose flora is related to that of the ' Dakota group of Kansas, represents the Ceno- manian, while Patoot is apparently Senonian. Most of its species are related to those of . Atane, only a few being identified with eocene species from Sezanne and with some miocene types. The plants of the tertiaries of Green- land have been procured from twenty different localities. Their description is also followed by a table of distribution. Of the 282 species enumerated, 33 are known from the tertiary of North America, 10 of them from the Lar- amie group. The greater number are identi- fied with species found in the lower miocene of Europe, the Aquitanian group, whose flora is widely represented in most of the states, from Hungary to England and France, and from Italy to North Germany. This tertiary flora of Greenland has been predominant, and has preserved its characters for many thou- sands of years; for the lower strata, where its remains have been found, are separated from the upper, which have the same kinds of plants, by thousands of feet of basaltic masses the deposits of which haye been continuous for long periods of time. In the general remarks considering the SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 34. climatie conditions which have governed the vegetation as indicated by the characters of the flora, Heer says, that in 1868, from data derived from the determination of 105 species of plants, he had estimated the mean tem- perature at 9° C.; but now the tertiary flora of Greenland, known by a larger number of plants of various types, —among them a palm, species of Laurus, Magnolia, Diospyros, Sa- pindus, Zizyphus, ete., whose analogues are now found in Virginia, the Carolinas, ete., — indicates by its constituents a mean tempera- ture of 10° to 11°. The few mollusks and star-fishes, mostly found at Patoot, have been determined by the French paleontologist, de Loriol. He con- siders them to be related to some of those described by Meek from the Fox Hill group. Steenstrup’s memoir on the geology of the localities where the plants have been found is precise and detailed. It is illustrated by a number of good sections. The work is accompanied by a map of the western coast of Greenland between 69° 15” and 72° 30’ north latitude. THE CHESAPEAKE OYSTER-BEDS. Report on the oyster-beds of the James River, Virginia (ete.). Coast-survey report for 1881. Appen- dix, no. 11. By Francis Winstow, U.S.N. Washington, Government, 1882. 87 p., 22 pl., 3maps. 4°. Amone the various investigations of the: U.S. coast survey since its organization, the bear- ing of which is not confined to their geodetic, topographic, or hydrographic relations, the present publication is conspicuous. By direction of the late superintendent Pat- terson in 1878, an investigation of the oyster- reefs or natural beds of the Chesapeake and vicinity was entered upon by Lieut. Winslow with the coast-survey schooner Palinurus. The intention was to determine the limits of the beds, their hydrographic features, the nature of the natural and artificial changes which they undergo, and the present distribution of living oysters upon them. It was proposed to thor- oughly investigate a limited area, subsequent extension of the work to all the Chesapeake beds to be left for future decision. Under the term ‘ Chesapeake ’ we include here not only the beds in the waters of the bay specifically so called, but those in the extensions of salt water from the bay into the various inlets, arms, rivers, etc., adjacent to and continuous with it. Originally the oyster beds or ‘ rocks,’ as / SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] they are not inappropriately termed by the fishermen, were patches of suitable ground upon which these bivalves had lived for ages, and, dying, left their shells to be overgrown by successive generations. Matted together by this living cement, the successive layers of dead shells and associated débris gradually rose toward the surface, covered with dis- torted, misshapen bivalves in masses like those of the Floridian *‘ coon oysters.’ These beds were separated pretty sharply from the ad- jacent muddy bottoms, a differentiation which the vertical increase tended to intensify. Horizontal increase doubtless took place, but very slowly. From an economical stand-point the oysters upon these beds were inferior on account of their inconvenient shape and exces- sive crowding. Among the various conflicting statements drawn out by investigations into the oyster-industry, one fact seems to be generally admitted by fishermen and by ex- perts; namely, that a moderate amount of dredging over the original ‘ oyster-rocks ’ was beneficial. This dredging extended the area of the beds, 1°, by dragging the dead shells and ‘ cultch’ over upon adjacent muddy bot- toms, and placing it where new spat could settle and grow; and, 2°, by distributing the living oysters more sparsely over the ground, so that they had a chance to grow into regular and even shape and relatively larger size. It is recognized by dealers, — even when the dredg- ing has been carried on, as at present is the case in the Chesapeake, to a disastrous extent, —that the few remaining oysters which are obtained are of larger size and finer flavor than common. Since the trade in oysters began, the beds have undergone great changes in area and pro- ductiveness, until, at present, in two years, on certain beds, the product has diminished in the ratio of six to one, the market-price has nearly doubled, while the demand is constantly increasing. If it were not for supplies re- ceived from other sources, the oyster-eaters of cities about the Chesapeake would have to pay nearly European prices for their favorite shell-fish. It is true that there are numerous laws on the statute-books of Maryland and Virginia ; that police steam-launches and men have been enlisted and a sort of war enacted, in time of peace, by state authorities, — all ostensibly in protection of the oyster-beds. Actually the laws are a dead letter ; dredging is boldly car- ried on in close time before the eyes of the ‘oyster police,’ without the offenders being molested; and the only occasion for active SCIENCE. 441 measures arises when a Virginia dredger tres- passes in Maryland waters, or vice versa. Gore is then apparently in demand, but, in spite of vehement protestations, turns out almost as scarce as oysters. It was upon this state of things that Lieut. Winslow entered, when he undertook this work without previous experience, or any knowledge of the biological queStions involved, except such as might be gleaned from the valuable little work of Moebius on the North Sea fisheries of Europe. Many of the observations which he was directed to take, are, in the present state of our knowledge, productive of no definite result, though eventually they may prove very useful. Thus, observations of the specific gravity and temperature of the water at the bottom and surface, when the total depth was only a few feet, may be said to be almost absolutely fruitless. It is well known that our common oyster flourishes in water which varies at different seasons from the freezing-point to 80° F., and that similar differ- ences of specific gravity must occur between the extremes of its geographical range. Con- sequently the differences, in summer, of frac- tions of degrees of temperature in the water over oyster-beds, are of no consequence what- ever. What these changes of temperature may signify, when taken in connection with the act of spawning or the development of the embryo, is quite another question, purely bio- logical, and which can be properly treated only by a biological expert of high rank and long experience. The result of these superfluous observations and detailed description of each individual bed, even condensed as they are, as far as possible, by the author, is to overload the text with details of no interest, and thus to obscure to the reader the value of the investigation, the really interesting facts, and the merits of the investigator, which are neither few nor small. They will amply repay any one who has patience to wade through the mass of details, and pick out those of present value, of which there are many. Space forbids any attempt to summarize them. A large area of the beds was delineated, and the approximate number of marketable oysters upon them determined. Profiles of the beds were obtained in numerous instances, and the character of the subsoil, or bottom under the beds. determined as were the conditions of sedimentation. Nearly all the beds examined are described in detail. Valu- able biological data were obtained through the efforts of Dr. W. K. Brooks and Mr. H. J. Rice, most of which have been already made 442 public in other ways. Much information on the general topic was obtained by questioning the fishermen, whose replies, though biassed by self-interest, may be set off against one another, and a residuum of useful facts ob- tained. FIG. 1.—LOWER SIDE OF TILE EXPOSED JULY 9-AUG, 2. (TWO-THIRDS NATURAL SIZE.) To our judgement, apart from the survey and delimitation of many oyster-beds, the most important results of this investigation are, 1°, the determination of the approximate quantity of oysters to the square yard over a great portion of the beds; and, 2°, the data in regard to the rapidity of growth of the young mol- lusks as indicated by the tile-collectors, and the proportion of mortality among them from causes not yet fully explained. The deter- mination of the small mollusk Astyris, as an enemy of the infant oyster, though not con- clusive, is of interest, and, if finally confirmed, important. The determination of the number of oysters, though as a matter of course approximate only, is important as giving a point of com- parison by which future decrease may be measured by repeating the investigation in similar fashion. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No, 34. There is no doubt that in a comparatively. limited time the majority of the Chesapeake beds will be practically destroyed, so far as producing oysters for a market is concerned. _Some forty thousand people will have to seek employment in a different field. Probably, under the circumstances, this is the best thing that could happen; for it is doubtful if any less drastic medicine would have the slightest effect on the population residing in the vicinity of the oyster-beds, who, in the face of all the facts, have persisted in setting themselves like flint against any modification or check . on their career of destruction. ‘The present observations on the growth and surviving per- centage of young oysters on the tile-collectors would have been much fuller and more yalu- able, had not the oystermen cut the buoys adrift, stolen the thermometers and lines, and destroyed such collectors as they could reach unseen, with the stupid notion that some reser- vation of Neds, or limitation of. fishing, was to result from the investigation. ‘Twenty-four bundles of tiles were set and buoyed between July 1 and 14, and by Aug. 1 all but one were FIG. 2.—LOWER SIDE OF TILE EXPOSED JULY 9-AUG,. 28. (TWO-THIRDS NATURAL SIZE.) removed or destroyed. Fig. 1 represents a portion of one of these tiles, which was placed in position July 9. On July 19, when first SEPTEMBER 28, 1§83.] examined, there were a few oysters upon it, but so small that a microscope was necessary to regognize them. On Aug. 2 it was again examined, and the tile of which a portion is figured was removed from the bundle. There were then from 26 to 348 young oysters on a tile ; the total number upon the whole bundle was 1,506. The third examination was made Aug. 23, when it was found the oysters had increased very much in size and numbers. On the tiles remaining, there were 1,334 oysters. nearly the same as that of Saturn. He also re- ports the existence, upon the planet’s disk, of spots and changes of color, too faint, however, to admit of delineation by means of a telescope of only eight inches aperture. In fact, to have seen them at all with such an instrument is a most remarkable evi- dence of the wonderful clearness of the Italian sky. The writer of this notice also made a series of observations upon the same object, in May and June, with the twenty-three inch equatorial of the Prince- ton observatory. Markings upon the planet’s disk were unmistakably visible as belts resembling those of Jupiter and Saturn. The equatorial diameter determined by the writer’s measures is 47.280, and the polar, 3”.974, giving an ellipticity of 4. Madler, in 1843, obtained 47.304 and 3”.869 for the two diameters, and an ellipticity of +). There can no longer be any doubt that the planet has a rapid rotation nearly in the plane of the satellite-orbits. — Cc. A. Y. [264 MATHEMATICS. Perimeter of the ellipse.— Mr. Thomas Muir, referring to arecent article by M. Mansion, infers that the following formula, which he has known for some time, for calculating approximately the perimeter of an ellipse, has not yet been published. Denoting as usual by a and b the semi-axes of the ellipse, the expression for the perimeter is or, the perimeter of an ellipse is approximately equal to the perimeter of a circle whose radius is the semi- cubic mean between the semi-axes of the ellipse. — (Mess. math., xii. no. 10.) T. c. [265 Calculus of variations.— The general problem of the calculus of variations is to find the variation of an n-tuple integral of a function of n independ- ent variables, and of depending also upon a number of arbitrary functions of these variables, together with the differential coefficients of the functions. M. Picart in his paper, which he entitles Theorie nou- velle du calcul des variations, confines his attention to a triple integral containing only one arbitrary SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] function, and golves several of the more fundamen- tal problems connected with the determination under various conditions of the variation of the integral. In particular, he shows how the problem of relative maxi- ma orminima can be conducted to that of absolute maxima or minima. — (Nouv. ann. math., Feb.) T. c. (266 PHYSICS. (Photography.) Photographing Reichenbach’s flames.— The question of the actual existence of these flames, sur- rounding the poles of powerful magnets, has again been brought up for discussion in scientific circles. Numerous persons have claimed to be able to see them, and some even to be able to distinguish be- tween the poles and the color of the flames. Rei- chenbach himself attempted to photograph them by the daguerrotype process, but was apparently dis- satisfied with the results he obtained. Mr. William Brooks has taken the matter up, and thinks he has obtained actual impressions of the flames, by means of photography, on sensitive dry plates prepared especially for the purpose. In total darkness a per- forated blackened card was placed one-eighth of an inch above the poles of a permanent horseshoe- magnet, and a sensitive plate placed an eighth of an inch above the card. With five minutes exposure he obtained a result; and this was repeated many times, the most remarkable thing being, that sometimes he obtained a positive and sometimes a negative image, under precisely the same conditions. Another curious effect obtained was, that some printed matter, which was under the wash of Indian ink used to blacken the card, was perfectly readable when the plate was developed. This latter result, however, was obtained on only one occasion. He also suc- ceeded in obtaining prints through a glass plate on which were painted figures in black varnish. This was contrary to the experience of Reichenbach, who considered that the rays were not transmitted through glass. —w. H. P. [267 Hydrokinone.— Of this new developer, first in- troduced by Capt. Abney, Mr. Charles Ehrmann says, “The best results I have obtained with ten grains of hydrokinone to eight ounces of water, and caustic ammonia (1 to 7) added gradually as the develop- ment progressed. ‘The negatives are of a non-actinic color, similar in tone to one slightly intensified with uranium and prussiate of potash; therefore the devel- opment need not be carried on very far, thus preserv- ing all finer modulations. An injudicious amount of alkali will produce green fog.’? —(Phot. times, July.) Of this same developer, Mr. Edwin Banks claims that it is much more powerful than pyro, and that it will bring out a fully developed picture with at least half the exposure that is necessary when pyro is em- ployed. At first sight this seems strange, when it is observed how much more powerfully the latter absorbs oxygen; but the explanation probably lies in the fact that hydrokinone is more gradual in its action, and has a greater selective power, than pyro. With a collodio-bromide film, for instance, which is not so SCIENCE. 445 much protected from chemical action as one of gela- tine, pyrogallic acts with such energy when mixed with an alkali, that the whole film is reduced imme- diately, and no image, or only a faint one enveloped in fog, appears: hence a powerful restrainer must be used to keep this action within bounds. A soluble bromide, which is the salt commonly used, has this effect, but, unfortunately, at the same time partially undoes the work which the light has done, rendering it necessary to give a longer exposure. But with hy- drokinone no restrainer is necessary, unless a great error in exposure has been made. It does its work rapidly and cleanly, in this respect resembling ferrous oxalate. It does not discolor during development so much as pyro, and consequently does not stain the film so much, whilst full printing vigor is very easily obtained without having to resort to intensification. The color and general appearance of the negative are more like those of a wet plate, since the shadows remain quite clear, and free from fog. It seems almost impossible to fog a plate with it. One grain of hydrokinone to the ounce is strong enough for most purposes. With some samples of hard gelatine it is advisable to use two; but with most kinds and with collodion, one grain is sufficient. Two or three drops of a saturated solution of washing-soda to the ounce of the hydrokinone solution rapidly develops the image, and the addition of a few drops more to complete development is all that is needed. A soluble bromide acts very powerfully as a retarder and restrainer. With a mere trace added, develop- ment is very much slower. —(Brit. journ. phot., July 6.) W. H. P. [268 ENGINEERING. Sources of error in spirit-levelling. — Precise levelling in this country has been done by the U.S. lake survey, which has determined the elevation of all the great lakes with a probable error of less than one foot; by the coast and geodetic survey, which is carrying a line of leyels across the continent from Chesapeake Bay to San Francisco; and by the Mis- sissippi River commission, which has a line from the Gulf as far north as central Iowa, to be connected with Lake Michigan, and thence with the sea-level at New . York. Mr. J. B. Johnson has been connected with some nine hundred miles of this work, and discusses the sources of error. He first classifies errors into com- pensating and cumulative. Then he treats them as, 1°, errors of observation, in the instrument or in the rod; 2°, errors from instrumental adjustment ; 3°, errors from unstable supports ; 4°, atmospheric errors, from wind, from tremulousness of the air caused by difference of temperature, and from variable refrac- tion. He concludes, that, with good instruments and proper care, thirty miles of line should be duplicated a month with one Y-level and a target-rod, and all discrepancies brought within five-hundredths of a foot into the square root of the distance in miles; or with the U.S. precise levels and speaking-rods, read- ing three horizontal wires, one instrument should bring the discrepancies within two-hundredths of a foot into the square root of the distance in miles. 446 The Mississippi River levels have been well within this limit. — (Journ. assoc. eng. soc., March.) Cc. E. @. [269 GEOLOGY. Lithology. Gold in limestone. — According to Prof. C. A. Schaeffer, gold occurs in a ferruginous cretaceous lime- stone from Williamson county, Tex. This rock lies near the surface, and fifty-two samples procured in situ by him ayeraged $15.20. Twenty contained no gold, while thirty-two assayed from $1.00 up to $231.50 perton. He regards the gold as having originally existed in the limestone in pyrite, which has since been removed and the gold locally concentrated. — (Trans. Amer. inst. min. eng., Boston meeting.) M. E. W. [270 The Ottendorf basalt.— Rudolf Scharizer dis- cusses the occurrence, microscopic and chemical com- ' position, of this Silesian (Austria) basalt, its alteration, and contact phenomena with the grauwake-sand- stone. The paper is quite full of chemical analyses. Olivine, somewhat serpentinized, is the predominat- ing mineral, enclosed in a ground-mass of augite, Magnetite, biotite, anorthite, nepheline, etc. The chemical analysis indicates that the rock is closely allied to the peridotites, if it does not belong to them. —(Jahrb. geol? reich., xxxii. 471.) The same journal contains an extended paper by Messrs. Tellergand John, on the geological and litho- logical characters of the dioritic rocks of Klausen in the South Tyrol, a series of very diverse rocks in- eluding gabbros or norites. — (Ibid., 589.) M. E. w. [271 METEOROLOGY. The rain-storm in Ontario on July 10.— The Canadian meteorological service has made a special investigation of this storm, which caused such un- usual destruction in the vicinity of London, Ontario. Observations from over one hundred observers were received and studied. The isobaric curves show only such undulations as generally accompany showers and thunder-storms in the summer season; and there was nothing in the maps to warrant the expectation of any storm, beyond the ‘local showers’ which were officially predicted, and which occurred in other parts of Ontario. The fluctuations in barometric pressure were hardly appreciable, and there was but little wind. Indeed, the only peculiarity of the storm was the unaccountable and unexpected precipitation, which exceeded four inches where the maximum occurred. This amount was recorded in an elliptical area of country, extending in a direction about north- west and south-east, and covering a territory of about twenty by fifty miles. The devastation at London was due to the fact that the two branches of the Thames River, which there unite, approach from nearly contrary directions, the river flowing away nearly at right angles tothe branches, The question is therefore raised, whether it would not be advisable to divert one of the branches, that it may meet the other at an acute angle, and thus lessen the prob- ability of a repetition of the catastrophe. The need SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 34. of an increased number of rainfall observers is pointed out, that means may be afforded for exten- sive study into the little-known subject of the course and causes of local rains. —(Can. weath. rev., July.) W. U. [272 GEOGRAPHY. (Alpina.) Ascent of Indrapura, Sumatra.— An account is recently published of the persevering and first suc- cessful attempt of Veth and Van Hasselt, several years ago (1877), to ascend this highest of the Suma- tran voleanoes. They had to choose a way through the dense forest of the lower slopes, and over the sharp, loose rocks nearer the summit; and sudden heavy rains caused them much delay, so that eight days were spent in reaching the highest point, although the rim of the crater was gained a day ear- lier. Elephant-tracks were not found above 1,500 met., rhinoceros-tracks not above 2,600 ; but wild goats had been on the very summit. Above 2,500 met., large trees were absent; and above 3,000 only a few plants had found place to grow on the naked yol- canic rocks. The barometer read 482.4 mm., and the thermometer, 8° C., corresponding to a height of about 38,700 metres. The surrounding country had the appearance of a uniform forest wilderness, occa- sionally broken by volcanic peaks and ranges, and showing a cultivated region by its lighter color in the distance near the coast. A deep crater lay within the sharp, ragged walls ; several streams ran down to a pool at the bottom, a thousand metres below the rim, whence sulphurous vapors and clouds of steam rose into the great caldron. The volcano was in eruption in 1842, when described by Junghuhn. The descent was accomplished without serious difficulties. — (Deutsche geogr. blatter, vi. 1883, 130.) w.M.D. [273 (South America.) Bolivian rivers.—On the occasion of Dr. E. R. Heath’s account of his exploration of the Beni and other rivers flowing from the Andes north-eastward to the Amazon system, Mr. C. R. Markham, secretary of the Royal geographical society, gave a general description of the region, part of which he had visited in 1853. The mountains in which the rivers ‘rise are part of the eastern range of the Andes, rising into great peaks like Illimani and Illampu, to a height exceeding 21,000 feet, with fossiliferous silu- rian rocks up to their summits. To the west is the great interior plateau of the Titicaca basin; to the east, the rivers descend, bearing gold gravels to the great plains, covered with unbroken forest. This eastern region has been very little explored; and the india-rubber and cinchona bark gathered about the upper streams are carried westward over the moun- tains to the Pacific ports, rather than down the rivers to the Amazon and the Atlantic. Markham sketches ies the history of exploration here from the time of the » Inca expedition in the fifteenth century to the expe- ditions of Maldonado down the Amarumayu in 1866, and Heath down the Beni in 1880; these being the only travellers who have followed the rivers down to their junction. Dr. Heath mapped the whole course SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] of the Beni with great care, taking astronomical observations, and measuring the width, depth, and velocity of the water. On reaching the Madeira, as the river is called below the junction of the Beni and Mamoré, he ascended the latter to Exaltacion, and then followed Yacuma, and crossed the country be- yond its source to Reyes again on the Beni, where his return was celebrated by a public reception and a special mass. The people here were greatly excited over his report on the number of rubber-trees in the country he had passed through; and’ from 185 men engaged in collecting 104,000 pounds of rubber in 1880, the number increased to 644 in four months, and must now reach one or two thousand. From Reyes he ascended the Beni to La Paz. His report is very brief, and contains little beyond an itinerary ; rapids and rocks are occasionally mentioned, and a few lakes were passed, but there is no material given toward a physical description of the country.—( Proc. roy. geogr. soc., V. 1883, 313, map. [Dr. Heath’s paper is also given in the Bull. Amer. geogr. soc., 1882, no. 3.]) W. M. D. [274 BOTANY. American smuts. — Farlow, in some notes on Us- tilagineae, gives the first account of American Entylo- mata, his list including eight species, one only of which appears under another genus in earlier lists. Four of these are, for the present, described as new, though two may prove to be identical with species growing on the same host genera, in other countries. One is doubtfully considered to be a form of a Euro- pean species; the balance occur also in the old world. Two American species of Cornu’s new genus Doas- sansia— D. Farlowii Cornu and D. epilobii Farlow — are recorded; the former in the ovaries of Potamoge- ton, the latter.in leaves of Epilobium. — (Bot. gazette, Aug.) Ww. T. (275 Pertilization of Leptospermum.—In a fourth paper on the indigenous plants of Sydney, E. Havi- land considers the structure of the reproductive organs of this genus and its mode of fertilization. Cross-fer- tilization is regarded as probably the rule, brought about, 1°, by the difference in the times of maturing of the anthers and stigma; and, 2°, by changes in their relative positions. — (Zinn. soc. N. S. Wales; meeting June 27.) [276 ZOOLOGY. Mollusks, Astarte triquetra Conrad. — This minute and peculiar shell, recently rediscovered by Mr. Hemp- . hill in Florida, but described by Conrad more than thirty years ago, proves to be a new form, Callicistro- nia, perhaps related to Tivela, with a small sinus in the pallial line, two large cardinal teeth in one valve, and one in the other. It isviviparous. More than fifty young ones were found in a single specimen, re- ealling the habit of Psephis. —w. nH. D. [277 Anatomy of Urocyclus.— Dr. Paul Fischer has examined the soft parts of Urocyclus longicauda F. from Madagascar. The digestive tract resembles that of Parmacella and Limax. There is a large mucus- vesicle analogous to the vestibular prostate in Parma- cella, Tennentia, and Ariophanta. Otherwise the SCIENCE. 447 reproductive organs resemble those of Helicarion, and a slug described in detail by Keferstein under the name of Parmarion in 1866, and which proves to be a true Urocyclus. This genus is African, while Parmarion is of Asiatic and East-Indian distribution. Urocyelus has an oxygnathous arcuate jaw, a rha- chidian, thirty-nine lateral and thirteen uncinal teeth in one hundred and twenty-five rows. Dendrolimax of Heynemann appears to differ from Urocyclus merely in the absence of the mucus-vesicle, and will fall into synonymy. — (Journ. de conchyl., xxii. 4.) W. H. D. {278 VERTEBRATES. Reptiles. Nerve-endings in the caudal skin of tad- poles.— The epidermis of the skin of tadpoles has two layers of cells. In the deeper cells, on the tail, appear peculiar bodies, first seen by Eberth (Arch. mikros. anat., ii. 90) and Leydig (Fortschr. naturf. ges. Halle, 1879, taf. ix, fig. 32). The latter compared the bodies in question with the nettles of lasso-cells, giving to the cells containing the bodies the strange name of ‘byssuszellen.’ Pfitzner (Morph. jahrb. vii. 727) showed that these bodies are united with nerve- filaments, every one of the cells being so supplied. The nerves of the skin had been studied by Eberth (l.c.) and Hensen (Virchow’s arch., xxxi. 51; Arch. mikros. anat., iv.,11). Caniniand Gaule have studied the subject afresh, rectifying and supplementing the previous writers. The bodies in the basal epidermal cells appear as thick rods curved into bizarre and varying shapes. Each is connected with a nerve-fila- ment (sometimes, but not always, as maintained by Pfitzner, two filaments run to one cell), The filaments descend through the gelatinous corium (cutis), to unite just below with a thick nucleated network of threads, which, from their reactions, are regarded as nervous tissue, and distinct from the cojacent plexus of connective-tissue corpuscles. This network, again, is connected with a deeper-lying, coarser plexus, cor- responding to Ranvier’s plexus fondamentale. These peculiar end-organs are not found, except in the tail: they are probably sensory, but Gaule hesitates to deny Leydig’s interpretation. — (Arch. anat. physiol., physiol. abth., 1888, 149.) c. s. M. [279 Birds, Xenicidae, a new family. — On dissection of a specimen of Xenicus longipes and one of Acanthositta chloris, Mr. Forbes found the syrinx to be strictly mesomyodian. On account of this, the long tenth primary and the non-bilaminate tarsus, the birds are removed from the vicinity of Sitta as a family, Xen- icidae, of non-oscinine Passeres in the vicinity of the Pittidae. —(Proc. zodl. soc. Lond., 1882, 569.) J. Ad, {280 Anatomy of the todies. — After a‘careful exami- nation of the structure of this group, Mr. Forbes con- cludes that the todies are an isolated form of anomal- ogonatous birds, with no clear affinity to any living group. He therefore proposes to raise them to the group Todiformes, equivalent to the Passeri, or Pici- formes.—( Proc. zodl. soc. Lond., 1882, 443.) J. A. J. (281 448 Illinois birds. — Nehrling continues his annotated list of Illinois birds in the full and learned manner so distinctive of German work. The present instal- ment contains thirty-nine species, from the bobolink to the great horned owl inclusive.—(Journ. f. ornith., xxxi. 84.) J. A.J. [282 Mammals, The os intermedium of the foot. — Dr. Karl Bar- deleben gives a résumé of his observations upon the bones of the foot. A well-developed intermedium is present in many species of marsupials, but not in all. Its presence in a given species does not always imply its existence in closely allied species. For example: it oceurs in Chironectes variegatus, but not in C. palmatus. ‘The bone varies in size from one centi- metre to a fraction of a millimetre. It does not ex- ist in marsupials of which the hand has undergone regressive alterations, e.g., Halmaturus Bennetti, H. giganteus, ete. The separation of an intermedi- um is indicated in the monotremes, many edentates, as well as in the genera Elephas, Hippopotamus, and Tapirus, by a fissure, more or less deep, in the as- tragalus. Dr. Bardeleben suggests the name ‘os trigonum’ for the bone in question. — (Zool. anz., no. 139.) ¥F. W. T. ; [283 Odontoblasts and dentine.— R. R. Andrews has studied the development of teeth in pig embryos, and publishes the remarkable conclusion that the odontoblasts entirely disappear, forming the matrix of the dentine, and have nothing to do with the den- tinal fibrils, which he claims arise from deeper lay- ers, probably from nerve-fibres. (We are not prepared to agree with these views.) —(N. E£. journal of den- tistry, ii. 193.) Cc. S. M. [284 (Man.) Measurements of the depth of sleep. — Two of Vierordt’s pupils, Monninghoff and Piesbergen, have made the depth of sleep the subject of an investiga- tion. They worked upon the principle that the depth of sleep is proportional to the strength of the sensory stimulus necessary to awaken the sleeper, that is, to call forth some decisive sign of awakened consciousness. As a sensory stimulus they made use of the auditory sensation produced by dropping a lead ball from a given height. The strength of the stimulus was reckoned, in accordance with some re- cent investigations of Vierordt, as increasing, not directly as the height, but as the 0.59 power of the height. For a perfectly healthy man, the curve which they give shows that for the first hour the slumber is very light; after 1 hour and 15 minutes, the depth of sleep increases rapidly, and reaches its maximum point at 1 hour and 45 minutes; the curve » then falls quickly to about 2 hours 15 minutes, and afterwards more gradually. At about 4 hours 30 minutes, there is a second small rise which reaches its maximum at 5 hours 30 minutes, after which the curve again gradually approaches the base line until the time of awakening. Experiments made upon persons not perfectly healthy, or after having made some exertion, gave curves of a different form.— (Zeitsch. f. biol., xix. 114.) Ww. u. H. [285 SCIENCE. [Vor. IL, No. 34 ANTHROPOLOGY. Notes on Mitla.—In July, 1881, Mr. Louis H. Aymé visited the ruins of Mitla, which lie in Oaxaca directly south of Vera Cruz. Mitla is not so grand, so magnificent, as Uxmal; but it has a beauty of its own, as it nestles quietly at the foot of the mighty mountains, the ruins of grim ‘ Fortin’ standing sharp against the evening sky; and, as the sun sinks, one might fancy he heard the weird chant of the priests, the lament of the mourners for the dead who rest in Lyobaa, the Centre of Rest. Appended to M. Aymé’s itinerary is a translation by Mr. S. Salisbury, jun., of the description of Mitla, by Francisco de Burgoa, written in 1674. Then follows a report of the various buildings constituting the north and south groups, which for detailed statement and brevity is a model archeological document. Mr. Aymé is able to correct some of the errors of his predecessors. It is gratify- ing to quote the following: ‘‘ The buildings are care- fully looked after by the government, and have an intelligent guardian in the person of Don Felix Juero.”? Comparing the present account with Bur- goa’s, Mr. Aymé concludes that in 1644 the ruins were practically as they are to-day. — (Proc. Amer. antiq. soc., li. 82.) J. W. P. [286 The Olmecas and the Tultecas. — Mr. Philipp J. J. Valentini gives some very cogent reasons for think- ing that the sanguine hopes of the decipherers of Amer- ican hieroglyphics will never meet the realization of those who unrayelled the sacred languages of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Except for the wonderful similar- ity which early Mexican civilization bears to that of the ancient nations of the eastern hemisphere, only a frac- tion of the workers could have been induced to under- take the labor. The right way to treat these matters is to moderate our expectations. With such motive, the author then endeavors to fix the main epochs, and to inquire who were the Olmecas and the Tultecas. ‘The former search results in fixing the dates of all we know concerning Mexican history between the years 232 and 1521 of the Christian. era. Mexican history begins with the record of a race of giants, the Qui- name, or Quinametin, who are claimed to have been a people of Maya origin, found by the Nahuatls on the Atoyac River, when they were migrating south- ward. When the name of the Olmecas appears in the early Mexican records of the Nahoas, we must not hesitate to recognize in them that people east of Anahuae who spread along the Atlantic slopes and south through Yucatan, Tabasco, and the whole of Guatemala, and whom we designate to-day by the collective name of Maya. No nation, empire, or language of Tultecas ever existed. The Tultee exo- dus is shown to refer to the migrations of the Colhuas who shared with the Mexicans the rule of the up- lands. Their journey to Culiacan was not from the Pueblos, but from the borders of the Gulf of Mexico. — (Proc. Amer. antig. soc., ii. 1938-230.) J. w.P. [287 Worth-eastern Borneo and the Sulu Islands, — Although north-eastern Borneo is close to the Sulu group, there is a great difference in the people. The Sulus are Malays, with a considerable infusion of Arab and Chinese blood. The Bajaws,or sea-gypsies, SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] lead a nomadic life in their boats, each boat contain- ing an entire household. The Sulus are divided into coast Sulus and the Orang Gumber, living among the hills, and they are much above the Bajaws in char- acter. The latter are stronger in physique, but timid and treacherous. On the coast-line of Borneo is an extraordinary mixture. At Melapi, sixty miles up the Kina Batangan, are Sundyaks, Malays, Javanese, Sulus, Bajaws, Bugis, Chinese, Arabs, Klings, and many others ; while of the Buludupies, the indige- nous inhabitants, there are hardly any of pure blood SCIENCE. 449 left. These indigenes are an interesting people, their ancestry showing distinct signs of a Caucasian type. The rest of north-eastern Borneo is inhabited by tribes of the race styled Eriaans, Dusuns, or Sun- dyaks, who are of Dyak blood, with perhaps an infu- sion of Chinese. The Chinese language, dress, etc., are entirely lost, however. Slavery of aclan or feudal type is universal, and the Mohammedan religion pre- vails. The Sundyaks are divided into many tribes, some of which are gaining in power. Cf. i, 552,— (Proc. roy. geogr. soc., v. 90.) J. W. P. {288 INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. Dudley observatory, Albany, N.Y. Comet b, 1888 ( Brooks). — By means of observations secured at the Dudley observatory on Sept. 5, 9, and 18, I derived on the 19th the following parabolic elements, marked I, The remarkable similarity of these elements to those given by Schulhof and Bos- sert for the Pons comet of 1812 pointed unmistakably to their identity. The elliptic elements of the Pons comet (here marked II.) are transcribed from the memoir of Schulhof and Bossert (p. 150), except that they are reduced to the mean ecliptic and equinox of 1883.0, and a value of 7, derived from observations of the present apparition, is substituted. I. I. 7T=1884, Jan., 25.788 (G.M.T.). | 7’=1884, Jan:, 25.696 (G.M.T.). Nod Ser lat a See ane . 254° 9/8 C Ser ‘ MOOG es eu aaye Node to perihelion . 199 14 .4| Node to peribelion . 199 12.9 Inclination . + 74 47.1| Inclination . - 74 03.3 Log. g. *. 9.87944 | Log. g. . . . 9.88930 Eccentricity . 0.95527 The value of 7 in II. was determined by approxi- mation from the observation of Sept. 5. The re- maining observations do not indicate any important change in its value. The following ephemeris results from elements II. The geocentric positions are re- ferred to the mean equinox of 1883.0. Greenwich, 12 hours. a & Log. a \Light. 1 ma, Seat Pal (ied Ud Sept. 2. . . .. . «| 16 36 87] 65 03.0 | 0.8725 .03 Soe NOLS rhe bt sa. oR pace, 2 19 | 64 13.9 | 0.3648 | .03 rar 10's 29 06 | 63 23.0 | 0.3569 04 eee . 26 53) 62 381.1 | 0.8487 | .04 Ss: 18. | 25 37/61 38.3 | 0.3400 04 32. 25 15) 60 45.2 | 0.3310 +05 01) 28 25 45 | 59 52.4 | 0.8215 -05 SL 27 «+O1) 58 59.6 | 0.8115 06 Oct. 4. 29 06 | 58 07.5 | 0.3009 06 ie. 31 57 | 57 16.5 | 0.2897 07 a 35 32 | 56 26.5 | 0.2779 08 Cate 39 52) 55 37.6 | 0.2653 08 1 20°, 44 56) 54 49.9 | 0.2518 09 8 OE o 50 47 | 54 03.8 | 0.2377 10 28. 57 25 | 58 17.8 | 0.2226 | .12 Nov. M1). 17 04 53/52 33.3 | 0.2065 | .14 le et? =F = 18 15 | 51 49.6 | 0.1893 | .16 et 22 34/51 06.0 | 0.1708 | .19 cat Ear a 32 56/50 22.4 | 0.1512 22 ConlT y le 44 26 | 49 37.0 | 0.1302 26 alee. 3 . 57 14 | 48 49.4 | 0.1077 32 id 5 18 11 27] 47 57.1 | 0.0836 38 Oo 2D va 27 16 | 46 58.1 | 0.0580 46 Dee . . . 44 50 | 45 43.2 | 0.0300 a7 In the light scale, .19 corresponds to that of dis- covery in 1812, and 1.00 to the time when the comet was reported as visible to the naked eye in the appari- tion of 1812. The places of the above ephemeris represent the observations already made within about 30” in each co-ordinate, and with a very uniform minus value of ‘c-o’ throughout. This seems to be the fault of the elliptic elements. Any considerable change in the time of perihelion passage diminishes the discrepancy in one co-ordinate at the expense of the other. It is remarkable that the present comet should have been picked up when its light ratio was six times as small as it was at discovery, in 1812. It was then regarded as a faint object. Were it not for the over- whelming testimony from other sources, one might ’ doubt, on the ground of brightness, the identity be- tween the present comet and that of 1812. The fol- lowing rough ephemeris may be of interest : — ! | | | a & wom a : & |Light. | / | j 1888. | A.m. oo | 1984. h. m. ® Dec. 3.) 18 45)+ 45.7) 6 Feb. 1.) 0 34/—283 2.3 “13 «| 1987) +417) 1.0 |! “ 11 .| 1 02)—37.2 | 1.5 “© 93 .| 20 41|+ 33.9) 18 || ‘ 21 .| 1 23|—43.7 | 1.0 1884. Jan. 2 .| 21-58) + 22.1) 3.5 ||Mar.2 .| 1 43/—48.5 .6 «Jo2) 23 01) + 2:5] 41 |) © 12 .| 2 02)/—58.0 | 4 © 92 ,| 23 53|—15.2} 3.0 || “ 22 ‘| 2 26|/—56.2 |) 4 The identity of the Pons comet of 1812 with comet b, 1883, was announced in an ‘associated press’ de- spatch from the Dudley observatory on the evening of Sept. 19. Lewis Boss. Sept. 21, 1883. Massachusetts institute of technology, Boston, Mass. Extension of the course in biology. — Advantage is at once to be taken of the extension inthe building accommodations, and the improvement in the finan-* cial resources of the institute, to greatly enlarge the space heretofore given to biological work, and to in- crease the instructing staff of this department of the school. The removal of the physical laboratory to the new building on Clarendon Street affords the long-desired opportunity for the expansion of the biological labora- tory, heretofore confined to a single small room in the 450 low brick annex. The large north room (90x28 ft.) on the first floor of the main institute building (the Rogers Building), with its admirable light and its many facilities, will be devoted to the purposes of the natural-history course, and will be fitted up with ap- propriate apparatus and instruments. Within a short time, it is also anticipated that a room in the base- ment (being one of those now occupied by the chemical or by the metallurgical department) will be available for use in dissections and in the coarser work of a biological laboratory. Dr. W. T. Sedgwick, a graduate of the Sheffield scientific school, and recently connected with the biological department of the Johns Hopkins univer- sity, having been appointed assistant professor of biology, will assume charge of the biological labora- tory at the opening of the next school year, and will give the instruction in physiology, botany, and general biology, now provided for in the regular courses of the institute, especially in the so-called natural-history course, as well as take charge of the work of special students in these branches. The instruction given in geology by Professor Niles, and in zodlogy and paleontology by Professor Hyatt, will be continued. Mr. W. O. Crosby has been ap- pointed assistant professor of mineralogy and lith- ology, and will hereafter give, throughout the school year, the instruction which has heretofore been confined to a single term. The advantages of the extension of the chemical and physical laboratories, abundantly provided for in the new building of the institute, will be enjoyed by the students of the natu- ral-history course, in common with those of the other. regular courses. In view of the foregoing enlargement of facilities and opportunities for study and research in the branches especially embraced in this course, it is rec- ommended to students looking forward either to be- coming naturalists, or to the subsequent study and practice of medicine. NOTES AND NEWS. The comet recently detected by W. R. Brooks at Phelps, N.Y., has become an object of unusual in- terest since its identification with the comet of 1812, the return of which has been anticipated about this time. Mr. Brooks first noticed the comet as a suspicious object on the night of Sept. 1, and di- rected the attention of astronomers to it, after a second observation. During the first half of Septem- ber it was repeatedly observed at various places; but its great distance and consequently slow movement made it difficult to obtain trustworthy approxima- tions to its orbit, and thus delayed the recognition of its character. Its identity with the comet of 1812 was' first announced, so far as we are informed at present, by the Rev. George M. Searle of New York, in a letter published on Sept. 18. A communication from him to Harvard college observatory, with which he was formerly connected, was received there on the morning of Sept. 20, and contained a statement of the process by which he reached the interesting SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 34. conclusion previously announced. This consisted in determining, from the positions of the Brooks comet, the corresponding points of intersection with Encke’s orbit of 1812; the result for the time of perihelion passage being 1884, Jan., 25.17, and the longitude of the perihelion being closely accordant with that given by Encke. Professor Boss of the Dudley observatory, as will be seen on an earlier page, arrived independently at the same conclusion by computing parabolic elements from observations of Sept. 5, 9, and 18, which exhib- ited a close similarity with those of the orbit of 1812. The circular which he has issued upon the subject states that he communicated his result to the associated press on the evening of Sept. 19. The communication of Father Searle to Harvard college observatory, already mentioned, induced Mr. Chandler to examine the question, with the aid of the most recent observations. The result was to furnish further confirmation of the asserted identity; and the positions obtained at the observatory as late as Sept. 22 make it still more evident. The difference between the observed place and that resulting from the orbit of 1812, as corrected by the recent publica- tion of Schulhof and Bossert, but with the time of perihelion passage assumed as 1884, Jan., 25.780, is as follows : — Diff. R.A. — 08.1. “Decl. + 66”. This agreement is entirely within the uncertainty of the orbit of 1812, from the old observations. The comet has also exhibited phenomena of great interest in regard to the development of its structure by its approach to the sun. When first observed this year, it was a very faint and small nebulous object, but the appearance of a stellar nucleus was noted at Harvard college observatory by Mr. Wendell on Sept. 3. The nucleus was afterwards less distinct. This may have been due to unfavorable conditions of ob- servation, or it may possibly indicate a preliminary series of changes like those which the comet has just exhibited. On Sept. 21, as seen at Harvard college observatory, the comet was still very faint. A slight condensation at one place could be seen with the large equatorial, but this could hardly be called stellar. The next night, Sept. 22, the appearance of the comet had so completely changed that it was difficult fo believe it the same object previously seen. It now re- sembled a star nearly as bright as one of the eighth magnitude. Very little nebulosity could be detected about it, but some was seen early in the evening, while the comet was sufficiently high in the sky. During the evening it appeared to be gaining percep- tibly in brightness. The next night, Sept. 25, it was seen at times between clouds, and was found to have again changed its appearance. It was now eyen brighter than before (although still slightly inferior to a star of the eighth magnitude), but it had lost its stellar appearance, and had become blurred, re- gaining the ordinary character of a cometic nucleus. Traces of the development of a tail were also percep- tible. Therapidity of this series of changes is very unusual, if not unexampled. (O—C.) SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] The comet will doubtless become visible to the na- ked eye, and will prove an interesting object, although it cannot at present be confidently expected to rival the fine comets of recent years in apparent dimen- sions and brilliancy. — Nordenskiold has returned from his exploration of the interior of Greenland, without fully effecting his purpose. From the contradictory reports that have been published by the daily press, we gather that he entered the interior from Auleitsivik Bay, near Disco Island, and himself penetrated to the distance of nearly ninety miles, when the snow be- came too soft for sledges. His Laplanders pushed much farther on snow-shoes, or about half way across the continent, if they took a direct easterly course, of which we are not assured. On the east coast his vessel subsequently pushed as far northward as Cape Dan, but was prevented from making its way farther northward by the ice. — The first of the authoritative publications of the International fisheries exhibition contains an excel- lent account, by G. Brown Goode, of the fishery in- dustries of the United States, both historical and statistical, including all the marine products that are derived from the animal and vegetable life of the seas, as well as a careful though condensed account of the labors of the federal fish commission. — Professor Simon Neweomb, U.S. Navy, superin- tendent of the American ephemeris and Nautical almanac, Washington, and Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, director of the National observatory at Cor- doba, Argentine Republic, have been elected corre- sponding members of the Berlin Akademie der wis- senschaften. —According to Nature, the balloon of the Paris observatory has been in working order for some weeks. Its capacity being only sixty cubic metres, it was found difficult to use it, except in calm weath- er. The motions of the registering apparatus are an obstacle to correct readings. The experiments, con- ducted by Admiral Mouchez, are stated to be only preliminary to further aerostatical experiments. The subject is quite new, scientific ballooning being only in its infancy; and it is only by gradual investigation that the extent of the services it can render to sci- ence can be ascertained. — Professor P. Denza discusses in the Comptes ren- dus the question of the connection between eclipses and terrestrial magnetism. From the time of the total solar eclipse of Dec. 22, 1870, regular observa- tions of magnetic declination have been made at the observatory of Moncalieri during the progress of all eclipses of the sun, as well as some eclipses of the moon. The needle has been observed at intervals of only a few minutes on such occasions; and the entire series of observations extends through twenty eclipses, the last being the Egyptian solar eclipse of May 17, 1882. His discussion indicates no connection be- tween the amount of magnetic disturbance and the magnitude of solar eclipses; and in general it may be regarded as established from his investigation, that the passage of the moon between the earth and the sun in eclipses of the latter, and the passage of the SCIENCE. moon through the shadow of the earth in eclipses of the former, have no influence whatever upon terres- trial magnetism. — The Iilustriste zeitung reports that the fossil re- mains of several iguanodons have been found at Ber- nipart, in Belgium. The skeleton of one of these fossil monsters has been carefully put together, and removed to the Natural history museum at Brussels, where a special case has been made for it, and placed in the courtyard, no convenient space being found inside. The same journal reports the discovery of the remains of animals of the bronze age, made during the extension of the fortifications of Spandau. Among other things were the bones of a species of dog, the leg-bone of a gigantic horse, and the bones of a small species of pig, somewhat like the present Indian one. The remains have been examined by Professor Nehring, who also discovered the remains of a small-limbed goat and of a sheep. — Mr. Winslow Upton, of the U.S. signal office at Washington, has been elected professor of astronomy at Brown university, Providence, R.I. It is under- stood that his acceptance of the position is conditional upon the erection of an astronomical observatory which the college authorities have under considera- tion. — Professor Piazzi Smyth has published his views upon the subject of a prime meridian for the whole world. They furnish an excellent illustration of the fact that a man’s peculiar opinions on any one sub- ject may warp his judgment upon matters wholly removed from it. He advocates the adoption of the meridian of the Great pyramid, because it ‘‘ passes over solid, habitable, and for ages inhabited, land through nearly the whole of its course from north to south. Its line is capable, therefore, of being laid out along almost all that distance by trigonometrical measurement, and marked by masonried station-sig- nals.” Among other equally cogent arguments are the statements that the pyramid ‘‘dates from before all human written history, all known architecture, all living architecture;’’ that ‘‘its meridian divides the lands and numbers of the people of the earth much more nearly than any other;’’ and that it passes not very far from Jerusalem, near which the prime meridian of the world ought to be located by Christian people. The last idea is developed more fully by M. du Caillaud, who has addressed a letter to the president of the Paris geographical society, urging the adop- tion of the meridian of Bethlehem, thus harmoniz- ing the longitude reckoning with the customary minethod of numbering the years from the birth of Christ. — At Wabash college, Crawfordsville, Ind., a new laboratory is in process of erection, which is to be de- voted entirely to biological work. One room, 50x 100 feet, with balcony and side-aisles, will contain the general collection of many thousand specimens; a second room will contain the herbarium of twenty thousand species; and a third will be devoted to other collections. Special students are directed to the fact that the collection of crinoids from the Keokuk = ae 1S 452 beds in the vicinity is complete, and that botanical material is on hand in great abundance for consulta- tion. There will be three laboratories provided with every needed appliance, —one for general botanical work, the second for zodlogical work, the third for special work with compound microscopes. The last laboratory, in particular, is to be devoted exclusively to original research. — Frederick A. Fernald, in criticising, in the Sep- tember Century, Mr. A. Melville Bell’s paper in Scrmncr for June 1, objects to the forms of the visi- ble-speech letters which Mr, Bell would employ as symbols for the six consonant sounds in our lan- guage which have no proper letters to represent them, and suggests the discarding from their pres- ent use in our alphabet of the duplicated symbols q, x, and c, and using them instead for the sounds represented by ny, zh, and ch. “Perhaps it will be decided to replace w and y by vowels, as in Franklin’s scheme; if so, these, with one Anglo-Saxon letter, alredy lookt upon with favor, would make up the six lacking consonants.”’ To this suggestion it may be objected, that the use of familiar letters in an un- familiar sense would be a source of constant confu- sion. For example, we should have to read cat and coke as chat and choke, pleaxure as pleasure, roux as rouge, sig as sing, etc. The alterations of spelling, 4oo, would be seriously numerous; as in siks for six, egzist for exist, kueen for queen, kuite for quite, ete. The use of the Anglo-Saxon P and 6 for the two sounds of th would certainly be an improvement on present practice; but the writing of w (in way) and y (in yea) as vowels would be altogether wrong, as these sounds are demonstrably not vowels, but consonants. Wh, also, is a true consonant, — the non-vocal correspondent of w,— and has not, as al- leged, the sound of hoo. If wh had this sound, the sentence, ‘‘I saw the man whet the knife,” would not be—as it is—unmistakably distinct from “TI saw the man who ate the knife.’ Ch (in chair) is not, as alleged, a simple consonant, but a compound consisting of a shut position of the tongue (t), fol- lowed by a hiss (sh) ; and either the silent position or the hiss may be prolonged ad libitum. «“ Byen such a man, 80 woe-begone,” etc. Give due lingering emphasis to the word ‘such,’ in the above quotation, and the compound character of the ch — misunderstood by many writers — will be apparent. The letter ¢ should consistently stand for sh, not ch, in Mr. Fernald’s proposition; but, if a better method of completing our alphabet cannot be adopted, by all means rather let the A B C remain as it is. —Le Temps has published the following direc- tions by Pasteur to those exposed to the contagion of cholera. The precautions to be taken, indicated to the mem- bers of the French cholera commission, all relate to the case when it is necessary to guard against the excessive causes of contagion. 1°. Do not use the potable water of the locality, when the commission enters on its investigations, SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 34. without having first boiled the water, and, after it has cooled, shaken it for some minutes (two or three minutes are sufficient) in a bottle half full and corked. One may use the waters of the locality, provided one draws them at a spring, in vessels which have been purified by exposing them to a temperature of 150° C., or, better, toa higher heat. One can adyan- tageously employ natural mineral waters. 2°. Use wine which has been heated in bottles some 50° to 60°, and drink from glasses likewise purified. 3°. Only make use of food thoroughly boiled, or of fruits well washed with water which has been boiled, and which has been kept in the same vessels in which it was boiled, or which has been transferred from these vessels to others disinfected by heat. 4°, The bread used should be cut in thin slices, and kept at a temperature of 150° C. for twenty minutes or more. 5°, All vessels used for food should be exposed to a temperature of 150° C. or more. 6°. Bed linen and towels should be plunged in boil- ing water, and dried. 7°. Water for washing should be boiled, and have added to it, after cooling, one five-hundredth part of thymic acid (one litre of dilute alcohol for two grams of acid) and one-fiftieth part of phenie acid (one litre of water for twenty grams of acid). 8°. Wash the hands and body often during the day with the boiled water to which the thymic or phenic acid has been added. 9°. It is only in case one has to handle the bodies of those who have died from cholera, or the clothes and linen soiled with their discharges, that it is neces- sary to cover the mouth and nostrils with a mask, formed of two pieces of fine wire gauze, with wad- ding between, one centimetre thick, The mask should be exposed to a temperature of 150° each time before it is used. —The Wisconsin agricultural experiment-station was organized by the board of regents of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin, in June, 1883. The work of the station is. in charge of W. A. Henry, agriculture ; William Trelease, botany and horticulture; H. P. Armsby, agricultural chemistry. The bulletins of the station will be sent to all interested. The first number contains an account of experiments at the station in feeding skim-milk to calves and pigs. — Mr. C. F. Mabery has resigned his position at Harvard college, and accepted the chair of chemistry at the recently organized Case school of applied science at Cleveland, O. — The British association for the advancement of science will meet next year in Montreal, on Aug. 27. —WNext year’s meeting of the Swiss naturalists will be held at Lucerne. — The jury which will examine the electric light- ing machinery offered for competition at the Cincin- nati industrial exposition has begun its work. It is hoped that the comparative tests will be the most satisfactory yet obtained. Awards of five hundred and three hundred dollars will be made for the best SEPTEMBER 28, 1883.] and second best systems of electric lighting, both incandescent and are. — We learn from Symons’ meteorological magazine for August, that the government has granted Professor Lemstrém a sum of 37,000 marks for the continua- tion of his auroral experiments in Finnish Lapland. These investigations will include the electrical cur- rent which produces the aurora, terrestrial currents, and magnetic perturbations. —Professor Henry F. Osborn of Princeton has published in the July number of the Quarterly jour- nal of microscopical science, in a more extended form and with the accompaniment of a lithographic plate, the results of his researches on the foetal envelopes of marsupials. The interest and importance of these investigations are already known, at least to the em- bryologists among our readers, for Professor Osborn’s conclusions were first published in ScrENCr. — The thirty-eighth volume of the Mémoires du dépdt de la guerre, recently printed by the Russian general staff under the editorship of Rylke. and of which only one hundred and fifty copies are issued, contains, among other things, an account of the astronomical and trigonometrical work in eastern Siberia, by Bolsheff, Polianoffski, and Kramereff; a memoir of Kulberg on the Russian geodetic opera- tions in Armenia; a report by Lebedeff on triangula- tion, topographic and astronomical work in Bulgaria; a list of astronomical stations in the Khirgiz steppes by Bondorf; and Stebnitzki’s report on the results of his experiments with a reversible pendulum, Of this important work, absolutely necessary for those seri- ously interested in the study of the geography of Russia and adjacent countries, there is probably not a copy in America, —Mr. Miles Rock, assistant astronomer at the U.S. naval observatory, has accepted the appointment of chief astronomer and engineer commissioner on the international boundary commission of Guatemala, to locate the boundary between that country and Mexico. He will sail from New York Oct. 1, and expects to be absent about a year. — Professor H. M. Paul, late of the Imperial uni- versity of Tokio, has returned to this country, and accepted a position in Washington under the Transit of Venus commission. — The Comptes rendus of Aug. 13 gives some ex- tracts from a letter of M. A. Richard to M. de Lesseps, on the cultivation of date-palms. M. Richard states that these palms grow best on a soil saturated with salt, as has been proved at Alicant and elsewhere. The land around Elche, in Valencia, is irrigated from the Vinalopo, which is extremely salt, rising, as it does, in Mount Pinoso, the rocks of which contain much salt and sulphate of lime. This water, having been used for centuries for watering the palm-plan- tations, has at last formed a crust, which has to be broken with a pick-axe to admit the water below. The town of Alicant has planted its beautiful boule- yard along the shore with date-palms, and, as fresh water is very precious there, the trees are regularly watered with sea-water. All the plantations recently made along the shore from Huertas to Rio Monegro SCIENCE. 4538 have their roots literally in the sea-water, being planted at but a few feet from the sea. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Baillon, H. Traité de botanique médicale phanérogamique fasc.i. Paris, Hachette. (To be completed in two fascicules.) 2,301 fig. 8°. Belfield, W.T. On the relations of micro-organisms to dis- ease. Chicago, 1883. 12°. Bergstedt, N. H. Bornholms flora. deli. Phanerogamae. Nexoe, 1883. 8°. Berlin. Kénigliche museum. Amerika’s nord-west-kiiste: neueste ergebnisse ethnologischen reise. (Ed. by Bastian.) Ber- lin, Asher, 1883. 4+13(+13) p., 18 pl. Bert, P. Histoire naturelle. Anatomie et physiologie ani- males. Paris, asson, 1883. 8+382 p., 270 fig. 18°. Black, William George. Folk-medicine; a chapter in the history of culture. London, Stock, 1883. (Publ. Folk-lore soc. 12.) (10)+228 p. 8°. Borzi, A. Studi algologici. gia delle alghe. fase. i. Chlorophyceae. p., illustr. 4°. Buffalo microscopical club. Eighth annual meeting. Sec- retary’s annual report; president’s annual address; list of offi- cers and members. Buffalo, Baker, Jones, & Co., pr., 1883. 2+ lj7p. 8. Chabaud, N. Des accidents observés dans les appareils & air comprimé employés aux travaux sous-marins et particuliére- ment de ceux dus & une décompression trop brusque. Paris, impr., Davy, 1883. 55 p. 8°. Chalon, J. Résumé de cosmographie. Gilon, 1883. 128 p., illustr. 12°. Cocconi, G. Flora della provincia di Bologna. Bologna, 1883. 602p. 16°. Coleopterorum novitates, recueil spécialement consacré a Vétude des coléoptéres. tomei., livr. i. Rennes, impr. Ober- thiir, 1833. 32p. 8°. - Crié, L. Nouveaux éléments de botanique, contenant l’organo- graphie, l’anatomie, la morphologie, la physiologie, la botanique rurale et des notions de géographie botanique et de botanique fos- sile. Paris, 1883. 1160 p., 1,332 fig. 12°. Dejernon, R. Les vignes et les vins de l’Algérie. tome i. Toulouse, 1883. 319 p. 8°. Derosne, ©. La photographie pour tous, traité élémentaire’ des nouveaux procédés. Paris, Gauthiers-Villars, 1883. 106 p. 8. Devos, A. De quelques moyens pratiques pour reconnaitre les plantes pendant les herborisations. inant, Delplace-Le- moine, 1883. 38p. 8. D’Ovidio, ©. Le proprieti fondamentali delle superficie di 2. ordine, studiate sulla equazione generale di 2. grado, in co-ordi- Saggio di ricerche sulla biolo- Messina, 1883, 119 Verviers, impr. nate cartesiane. Torino, 1883. 182p. 8°. Du Bois, A. J. The strains in framed structures. New York, 1883. illustr. 4°. Duincke, 0. Beitrige zur kenntniss des bernsteinéls. Inaug. diss.. Kénigsberg, Grdfe & Unzer, 1883. 31p. 8°. Edinburgh, Duke of. Notes on the sea-fisheries and fish- ing population of the United Kingdom, arising from infor- mation gained during three years’ command of the naval reserves. London, 1883. 64p. 8°. Engel, T, Geognostischer wegweiser durch Wiirttem- berg. Anleitung zum erkennen der schichten und zum sammeln der petrefakten. Stuttgart, 1883. 1613826 p., illustr. 8°. Flitigge, C. Fermente und mikroparasiten. Leipzig, 1883. 308 p., 69 fig. 8°. Flynn, P. J. Hydraulic tables for the calculation of the discharge through sewers, pipes, and conduits; based on Kut- ter’s formula. New York, Van Nostrand, 1883. (Van Nostrand’s se. ser. 67.) 135 p. 32°. Forsyth, A. RK. Memoir on the theta-functions, particu- larly those of two variables. London, 1883. S0p. 4°. Forwerg, M. Fruchtformen. Systematische und verglei, chende darstellung in natiirlichen gréssen. T)resden, 1883. f°. Gegenbaur, ©. Lehrbuch der anatomie des menschen. Leipzig, 1888. 508 fig. 8°. Goode, G. Brown. The fishery industries of the United States. (Great intern. fish. exhib. — Papers of the conferences.) London, Clowes, 1883. 84p.,2tab. 8°. Gottsche, ©. Die sedimentiir-geschiebe des provinz Schleswig-Holstein. Als manuscript gedruckt, Yokohama, Dr. Lécy u. Salabelle, 1883. 6+66 p.,2 maps. 8°, Gradle, H. Bacteria and the germ-theory of disease: eight lectures at the Chicago medical college. Chicago, Keener, 1883. 4+219 p. 8°. bs es -, oo We 34. Pee” 454 Graff, E. V. de, and Smith, M. K. Development lessons for the senses on size, form, place, plants, and insects. New York, Zovell, 1883. 31llp. 12°. Groot, J.J. M. de. Jaarlijksche feesten en gebruiken van de Emoy-Chineezen. Hene yergelijkende bijdrage tot de kennis yan onze Chineesche medeburgers of Java, met uitgebreide monographién van godheden, die te Emoy worden yereerd. 2deelen. Batavia, 1883. 8°. Haeckel, Ernst. Indische reisebriefe. Berlin, Paete/, 1883. 13+356 p. 16°. Hahn, F. G. Insel-studien. Versuch einer auf orographische und geologische verhiltnisse gegriindeten eintheilung der inseln. Leipzig, 1883. 208 p., illustr. 8°. Helmholtz, Hermann. Wissenschaftliche abhandlungen. 2v. Leipzig, Barth, 1882-83. 8+938 p., portr., 3 pl.; 7+1021 p., Spl. 8°. Hoefer, F. Histoire de la botanique, de la minéralogie et de la géologie, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’aé nos jours. Paris, Hachette. 416p. 18°. Hoffmann, ©. K. Die bildung des mesoderms, die anlage der chorda dorsalis und die entwickelung des canalis neurenteri- cus bei vogelembryonen. Amsterdam, 1883. 109p., 5 pl. 4°. Hofmann, E. Der schmetterlingsfreund. 23colorirte tafeln mit 286 abbildungen und begleitendem text. Stuttgart, 1883. 8°. Holst, E. Synthetische methoden in der metr. geometrie, mit anwendungen. Christiania, 1883. 123 p. 8°. Jametel, M. L’encre de Chine, son histoire et sa fabrica- tion d’aprés des documents chinois traduits. Paris, 1883. 125 p., illustr. 12°. Kindberg, N. C. Die arten der laubmoose (Bryineae) Schwedens und Norwegens. Stockholm, 1883. 167p. 8. Klebs, G. Ueber die organisation einiger flagellaten-grup- en und ihre beziehungen zu algen und infusorien. Leipzig, 1883. 1380 p., illustr. 8°. Knop, W. Ackererde und culturpflanze. Leipzig, 1883. 139p. 8. Koltz, J.P. J. Traité de la pisciculture pratique. Procédés de multiplication et d’incubation naturelle et artificielle des pois- sons d’eau douce. Paris, 1883. iUlustr. 12°. Kratzer, H. Chemische unterrichtsbriefe. Fiir das selbst- studium erwachsener. Mit besonderer beriichsichtung der neues- ten fortschritte der chemie. (In circa 60 briefen.) brief i—yviii. Leipzig, Leopold & Bar, 1883. 144p. 8°. Krimmel, 0. Die kegelschnitte in elementar-geometrischer behandlung. Tiibingen, Laupp, 1888. 8+115p. 8°. Larison, C. W. The tenting school: a description of the tours taken and of the field work done by the class in geography in the Academy of science and art at Ringos, N.J., during the year 1882. Ringos, Larison, 1883. 8+292 p., illustr. 12°. Le Docte, A. Contréle chimique de la fabrication du sucre. Tableaux numériques supprimant les caleuls des analyses. fasc. j., ii. Bruxelles, impr. Guyot, 1883. 144p. 4°. Lubbock, J. Chapters on popular natural history. Lon- don, 1883. 226p. 12°. Liittig, E. Die bewegung einer starren gleichmdssig mit masse belegten geraden auf cylinder-flacken, speciell auf einem parabolischen cylinder, unter dem einfluss der schwere und yon anfangsstossen. Inaug. diss. Jena, 1883. 39p. 8°. Macfadzean, J. The parallel roads of Glenroy, their ori- gin, and relation to the glacial period and the deluge. Hdin- burgh, 1883. 8°. Maingie, J. Receuil de problémes de géométrie 4 usage des écoles moyennes et des écoles normales. Namur, Wesmael- Charlier, 1883. 23p. 18°. Mach, E. Die mechanik in ihrer entwickelung. Leipzig, 1883. 493 p., illustr. 8°. Masi, ©. Unripetitore di planimetria e stereometria elemen- tari teorico-pratiche. Montegiorgio, 18838. 141p.,22pl. 12°. Meyer, W.F. Apolaritat und rationale curven. Hine sys- tematische yoruntersuchung zu einer allgemeinen theorie der linearen riume. Tiibingen, 1883. 8°. Minneapolis. Handbook of Minneapolis, prepared for the 32d annual meeting of the American association for the advance- ment of science, held in Minneapolis, Minn., Aug. 15-22, 1883. Minneapolis, 7ribune, pr., 1883. 4+126p., illustr., map. 8°. Mohn, H. Meteorology of the Norwegian North-Atlantic expedition, 1876-78. Christiania, 1883. 150p.,3pl.,map. 4°. Mougeot, A.,Manoury, Ch.,et Roumeguere, C. Les algnes des eaux douces de France. Distribution systématique, figures des genres, exsiccata. cent.i. Toulouse, 1883. 4°. Miiller, F. von. Systematic census of Australian plants, with chronologic, literary, and geographic annotations. p. i. Vasculares. Melbourne, 1882. 152p. 4°. Muller, H. The fertilization of flowers. Translated and edited by D’Arcy W. Thompson. With a preface by Ch. Dar- wn ae complete bibliography of the subject. London, 1883. illustr. 8°. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 84. Neumann, F. LEinleitung in die theoretische phyaike He- rausgegeben von ©. Pape. Leipzig, 1883. 301 p., 111 fig. 8°. New-York state experiment-station. First annual report of the board of control for the year 1882. Albany, State, 1883. 2+156 p. 8°. Newcomb, 8. G. Astronomical papers prepared for the use of the American ephemeris and Nautical almanac. Yol. i. Washington, 1883. 501p. 4°. O’Brine, D. The practical laboratory guide in chemistry. Columbus, O., Smythe, 1883. 10+183p. 8°. . Ontario.— Entomological society. General index to the thirteen annual reports; compiled by E. Baynes-Reed, sec.-treas. Toronto, Robinson, pr., 1883. 35p. 8°. Owen, R. Essays on the condrio-hypophysical tract, and on the aspects of the body in vertebrate and invertebrate animals. London, Taylor, 1883. 48p. 8°. Pein, A. Aufgaben dersphiarischen astronomie, gelést durch planimetrische konstruktionen und mit hiilfe der ebenen trigono- metrie. Leipzig, Tewbner, 1883. 8+48p. 4°. Pigorini, P. Cenni sul progresso degli studii fisici negli ultimi tempi. Parma, 1883. 72p. 4°. Poncelet. Turbine and water-pressure engine and pump. Prefaced by a short treatise on the impulsive action of inelastic fluids, by W. Donaldson. London, 1883. plates. 4°. © Practical naturalist, The. Edited by H. 8. Ward and H. J. Riley naee i., nos. 1-8, Jan.-Aug. Manchester, Heywood, 1883. p- . Publications des membres actuels de la Société de physique et (histoire naturelles de Genéve et de la section geneyoise de la Société helvétique des sciences naturelles. Genéve, Soc. de phys., 1883. 4+121p. 8°. Reitlechner, C. Die bestandtheile des weines. Wien, 1883. illustr. 8°. Richthofen, F. v. Aufgaben und methoden der heutigen geographie. Leipzig, 1883. 72p. 8°. Ricordi, E. I movimenti infinitesimi nella generale determi- nazione di misura projettiva. Viterbo, 1882. 68p. 8°. Rohlfs, Gerhard. Meine mission nach Abessinien, auf befehl sr. maj. des deutschen kaisers im winter 1880-81 unternommen. Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1883. 20+348p. 20pl.,map. 16°. Salverda, M. Handleiding bij de beoefening van de kennis der natuur, ten dienste van onderwijzers en aankomende on- derwijzers. 2deelen. (I. Beschrijvende natuurwetenschappen. —II. Experimentecle natuurwetenschappen, bewerkt door H. Wefers Bettink.) Groningen, 1888. 587, 344 p. 8°. Schlegel, V. Theorie der homogen zusammengesetzten raumgebilde. Leipzig, 1883. 9 pl. 4°. Schneider, A. Das ei und seine befruchtung. Breslau, 1883. 92p,illustr. 4°. Selenka, E. Studien iiber entwicklungsgeschichte der thiere. hefti. Keimblatter und primitivorgane der maus. Wiesbaden, 1883. 23p,illustr. 4°. Stanford’s compendium of geography and travel, based on Hellwald’s ‘ Die erde und ihre vélken.’ North America; edited and enlarged by F. V. Hayden and A. R. C. Selwyn. London, Stanford, 1883. 16+652 p., 25 maps and pl., illustr. 8°. Stebler, F. G. Die besten futterpflanzen. Abbildungen und beschreibungen derselben, nebst ausfiihrlichen angaben be- treffend deren kultur, Gkonomischen werth, samengewinnung, -yerunreinigungen, -verfalschungen, ete. theil i. Bern, 1883. 104p. 4°. Sternberg, G. M. Photo-micrographs, and how to make them; illustrated by 47 photographs of microscopic objects : photo-micrographs reproduced by the heliotype process. Bos- ton, James R. Osgood & Co., 1883. 8°. Thompson, Sylvanus P. Philipp Reis: inventor of the tele- phone. A biographical sketch, with documentary testimony, translations of the original papers of the inventor, and contem- porary publications. London, Spon, 1883. 9+182 p., 3 pl., illustr. 16°. Thring, E. ‘Theory and practice of teaching. Cambr. univ. press, 1888. 270 p. 8°. Vallot, J. Recherches physico-chimiques sur la terre végé- tale et ses rapports avec la distribution géographique des plantes. Paris, Lechevalier, 18838. 16+344p. 8°. Ville, J. Propriétés générales des phénols. Chamerot, 1883. 84p. 4°. Weismann, A. Die entstehung der sexualzellen bei den hydromedusen. Jena, 1883. 13+295 p., illustr. 4°, Welsh, Alfred H. Essentials of geometry. Chicago, Griggs, 1883. 10+267p., illustr. 8°. Wisconsin agricultural experiment-station. Bulletin no. 1: Sweet skim-milk; its value as food for pigs and calves. Madison, Hrp. stat., 1883. I1p. 8°. Zittel, K., et Schimper, P. Traduit par Ch. Barrois. tome i. 800 p., 563 fig. 8°. London, Paris, impr., Traité de paléontologie. Paléozoologie. Paris, 1883. Oe eae aS ee oer NCE, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1883. NATIONAL TRAITS IN SCIENCE. TuHere are at present three principal currents of scientific work, — German, English, and French. The scientific writings of each nation- ality are characteristic, and, taken as a whole, offer in each case distinctive qualities. Ger- man influence is now predominant oyer the _ scientific world, as French influence was upper- most during the earlier part of this century ; but the sway of Germany over western thought is far more potent and wide-spread than was ever that of France. As students once gath- ered in Paris, so they now flock to Germany ; and thence back to their own lands they carry the notions of German science, and labor to extend, imitate, andrivalthem. Thus German ideas have been spread abroad, and established in foreign countries. This has set a common ~ standard for scientific work, which is accepted in most European countries. German influ- ence is evident by its effects in Switzerland, Russia, Italy, Poland, Belgium, England, and Ameriea, and in degrees indicated by the order given: in France, Spain, and Portugal, it is hardly noticeable. Holland and the Scan- _ dinavian countries have for many years achieved so much and so excellent work, that their scien- tifie development may be said to have accom- panied rather than to have followed that of Germany. German science has unquestionably distine- tive qualities. Its pursuit is a special and hon- ored calling, attractive to the highest talent: its productions have the stamp of professional work. ‘The German scientific man is first and principally an investigator: he is obliged to be so, otherwise he loses in the race. He wins his position in the hierarchy of learning by the original researches he carries out. To suc- ceed under these circumstances, a man must ‘discover something which is a real addition to No. 35.— 1888. knowledge; and to do this, he must be thor- oughly familiar with all that has been previously accomplished in his field. Moreover, to ad- vance beyond his peers, the investigator must utilize every possible extraneous advantage ; more especially must he have a mastery over the methods to be employed, and be familiar with all novelties and refinements therein. It cannot be gainsaid that these requirements are more fully answered in Germany than any- where else. It is certain, that, excepting of course a small minority, German scientific pub- lications always contain something really new, and unknown before: each article is a scientific progress, which, however slight, still brings an actual increment to our store of information. Another result of this professional thoroughness is equally striking and characteristic. Being fully posted as to the status of his department, the German often displays a singularly just and- keen appreciation of what problems are for the moment best worth studying, as being open for solution, and leading to something farther, or else filling a gap left. He is thus enabled to render his work efficient. It is sad to think how much scientific work is wasted because the labor is not wisely directed. ; In German scientific writings the excellence of the matter usually contrasts vividly with’ the defective style and presentation., Indeed, the Germans, despite the superiority of their modern literature, are awkward writers, and too often slovenly in literary composition. Conciseness and clearness are good qualities, which may assuredly be attained by the ex- penditure of thought and pains; but these the German investigator seems unwilling, in many cases, to bestow upon his pen-work, but follows the easier plan of great diffuseness. Besides this, another defect is not uncommon, —the ill-considered arrangement of the matter. This occurs in all degrees, from a well-nigh inecredi- ble confusion, to be sometimes found even in elaborate and important essays, to a slightly 456 illogical order. In this regard, a curious and not infrequent variety of this fault deserves mention. According to the headings of the _ chapters or sections, the division of topics is perfect ; but under each head the matters are tumbled together as if a clerk was contented to stuff his papers in anyhow, if only he crammed them into the right pigeon-hole. Speaking broadly, the German mind lacks conspicuously the habits of clearness and order. There have been celebrated exceptions, but they were individual. The nation regards it- self as having a decidedly philosophical bent, meaning a facility at taking broad and pro- found views of the known. We venture to contradict this opinion, doing it advisedly. Their profundity is mysticism, their breadth vagueness, yet a good philosopher must think clearly. It is a remarkable but little heeded fact, that Germany has not contributed her share to the generalizations of science: she has produced no Linné, Darwin, Lyell, Lavoisier, or Descartes, each of whom bequeathed to posterity a new realm of knowledge, although she has given to the world grand results by the accumulated achievements of her investi- gators. The German’s imperfect sense of hu- mor is another obstacle which besets him on every path. He is cut off from the percep- tion of some absurdity, like that of Kant’s neumenon, for instance. One cannot explain this to him: it were easier to explain a shad- ow to the sun, who always sees the lighted side. To state the whole epigrammatically, German science is the professional investiga- tion of detail, slowly attaining generaliza- tions. . English science is the opposite of this, — amateurish rather than professional. Some might call it insular, yet we should hardly join them in so doing. In fact, the professional investigator has hardly been a recognized char- acter in the English social organization: until recently he was barely acknowledged, even by the universities, which sought instructors who knew and could teach, who might investigate and discover in a subsidiary, and, as it were, unofficial way. A large number of English SCIENCE. ae” I) oR Ing ee Yas €* [Vox. IL, No. 35. scientific men were disconnected from the uni- versities and colleges after their own student years, and were half or wholly amateurs; and their writings show the effects of this separa- tion, not always, to be sure, but in many cases with painful evidence, by a lack of thorough- ness, an imperfect acquaintance with other investigations, and a failure to grasp the essen- tial part of the problem : in brief, such writings appear behindhand and superficial. Yet amid these poorer productions are to be found a right goodly number of the best scientific arti- cles we possess in any language. Of late years the proportion of the good has steadily increased, and investigation is now more cor- rectly appreciated than ever before. Indeed, there is no more encouraging event in the recent progress of science than the sudden elevation of the standard of original research in England. The English are trained writers : their scientific articles excel the German in literary merit, being seldom slovenly either in arrangement or style, and rarely wearisome from sheer diffuseness. Very noteworthy is the fertility in generalizations of the English: this is with them the outcome of individual endowments, a single master attaining a broad conclusion, —a process of individual effort quite unlike the German democratic method of generalizing by the accumulations of many. Is it too much to say that the English and Scotch are the Greeks of modern philosophy? French science is decidedly provincial: it is apart, having only an imperfect, uncertain ac- quaintance with the great world outside, and its international interests of original research. The French have lagged far behind the great movements of recent years. Consider only how backward they have been in the comprehension and acceptance of the Darwinian theory; and remember, too, that it were wiser to take out the mainspring from a watch than to eliminate evolution from biology. French scientific arti- cles are well written, the matter is admirably classified, it is all very clear. The keen, artis- tic sense of the nation displays itself here ; but it also deludes them into presenting a rounded survey of a greater field than is demanded by - \ ey Lee “OcTOBER 5, 1883.] SCIENCE. 457 ‘the actual discoveries they report. To satisfy CLIMATE IN THE CURE OF CONSUMP- this yearning for artistic completeness, elabo- TION.A—Il. rate and tedious disquisitions, and hackneyed Humidity principles, and facts long known, are interpo- lated ; and even worse may be, when the imagi- nation helps to create the completeness. Most ‘scientific men harbor a little distrust of French work. This sentiment is further fostered by the almost systematic neglect of German re- search on the part of the French. Such a frank exhibition of rancor makes one suspect the impartiality of the French in science gen- erally: indeed, we believe that science has never been so depressed in France as at pres- ent. Italy is above her; but Italy, with all her innate ability, is striving to learn from ‘Germany, and has already risen high, and will rise higher. We trust and believe that the present phase of French science which abounds in inefficient work will soon end, and the people terminate their present voluntary isolation. The French stay at home: they used to travel ‘abroad much. Let us hope that they will soon resume their ancient habit, and, above all, that they will re-establish mental intercourse with foreigners. There are savants in France who are esteemed throughout the scientific world : ‘may their number rapidly increase ! America’s contributions to pure science are ‘by no means very extensive, or often very im- portant: compared with the great volume of ‘German production, they seem almost insig- vnificant. search, for we have bestowed upon it neither the proper esteem nor office. There are, we : "suppose, at least six thousand ‘ professors’ i the United States: are one hundred and fifty of them active investigators? The time seems ‘remote when eyery American professor will be expected to be also an investigator ; but among us is a little band of men who have before them the model of Germany, and who are working earnestly for the intellectual elevation of their country. ‘Their first object is necessarily to render research more important in public esti- mation, and so to smooth the way for a corps -of professional investigators. Every thought- ful person must wish success to the attempt. We have never duly fostered re-° Tuere is a unanimity of opinion amongst authorities in regard to the relation of moist- ure to the production of phthisis. The sey- enth annual report of the registrar-general of Scotland showed that the death-rate from phthisis diminished in proportion to the dry- ness of the location. Dr. H. I. Bowditch of Boston has shown that phthisis is prevalent in damp soils in the United States. ‘It is also common in Holland, and other countries liable to damp fogs and an atmosphere saturated with moisture’’ (Reynold’s System of medi- cine, ili. 548). Ruehle, in Ziemssen, says, ‘*Tt appears that moist air favors consump- tion.’’ Dr. Austin Flint says, ‘‘ It may be stated that the prevalence of the disease is less in climates either uniformly warm and dry or uniformly cold and dry.’? And Dr. C. T. Williams writes, ‘‘ As to the desirability of moist climates for consumptive patients, the evidence is decidedly against their use in the treatment of ordinary chronic phthisis.’’ If we attempt to explain why it is that phthisis is more prevalent in moist climates than in dry, we might assign as a cause the prevalence of germs, or the impurity of the air, containing the effluvia of decay, or per- haps the greater susceptibility of the system to cold in moist climates; or it may be that the air, being so near saturation, cannot take up the requisite amount of the aqueous vapor exhaled from the lungs. Causa latet vis est nota may adequately express the state of our knowledge in regard to this point. A moist climate is acknowledged to be a breeder of phthisis; and, aw contraire, a dry climate is known to afford a certain exemption from the disease. This is shown, by the fact that the disease is rare in Iceland, in the island of Morstrand, on the steppes of Kirghis, and in the interior of Egypt; in all of which places the element of elevation is wanting. It may, then, be conceded, that dryness of the air is an important element in the prophylaxis and cure of phthisis. The method of determining the’ humidity of the air is that introduced by Regnault, known ~ as the wet- and dry-bulb test. It can easily be seen that the results obtained will depend on the exposure of the thermometers, and on the accuracy of the readings. Moreover, the amount of moisture that the air is capable of 1 Concluded from No. 34. 458 holding varies with the atmospheric pressure and temperature. While it seems to us that a table showing the relative humidity, ie., the percentage of saturation of the air, would be sufficiently accurate as a basis of comparison, yet, as it might be objected that such a table would be subject to error, we have appended another table, giving the absolute moisture, or the number of grains of vapor to the cubic foot of air. This second table we have computed from Glaisher’s tables. Consulting these tables (table I., columns iii. and iy.), it is seen that Denver and Santa Fé afford a very low relative and absolute amount of atmospheric moisture,—a rela- tive amount, which, as between Denver and Jacksonville, is as 1 to 3, and, as between Denver and Los Angeles, is as | to 2. This proves, that, on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, we have, in addition to the favorable element of elevation, a second, that of dry air, as an element of climatic influ- ence in the cure of phthisis. Precipitation. Closely related to the foregoing, is a consid- eration of the mean annual precipitation, or the mean annual amount (in inches) of rain and melted snow. Its bearing on our subject is apparent in several ways. 1. Of the precipitation, a certain part is lost by evaporation, and tends to increase the humidity of the air. This amount will depend upon the amount of moisture in the air, or its degree of saturation, and also upon the amount of the precipitation left upon the surface of the ground to be evaporated. It is evident that the greater the porosity of the soil, the greater will be its absorptive power, and the less the evaporation from it. Such a porous soil is found on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Loose, sandy, and gravelly, it eagerly drinks up all the rainfall; and such a thing as mud is rarely seen. 2. It is well known that pulmonary troubles are most prevalent during ‘thaws,’ in those places where the snow lies upon the ground in winter. Now, in the district of the Rocky Mountains under consideration, there is, in the first place, only a slight amount of snowfall, so that sleighing is exceptional, and, in addi- tion, the warm sun soon melts the snow, and the thirsty, porous soil drinks it up; so that the annual ‘ spring thaw’ of our Eastern States is a res incognita in this country. The writer remembers very distinctly several snowfalls of SCIENCE. _ beneficial for consumptive patients. . [Vou. IL, No. 35. fourteen to twenty-two inches on a level, of which there was not a vestige left in ten days ; and during that time the air was not chill and raw, and there was but little slush. 3. Further than this, the amount of the precipitation has a bearing upon our subject, as indicating approximately the ability of the invalid to lead an out-of-door life. We shall defer our discussion of this point toa later part of this paper. Turning, now, to the tables, we see (table I., column y.) that in Denver the mean annual precipitation for a period of ten years is only 14.77 inches in rain and melted snow, — an amount which is only one-fourth of that at Jacksonville, and which, with Santa Fé, gives the smallest showing in our range. We can therefore add this element of cli- mate to the other two of eleyation and dry air as a point in favor of the Rocky Mountains in the cure of phthisis. Temperature. The writer in Reynold’s System (op. cit.) says of this matter of the relation of the tem- perature of climate to the cure of phthisis, ‘* It was formerly supposed that warm climates were . . But it will be invariably observed that unaccustomed warmth is injurious. .. . Whatis really required, is a cool, temperate climate, free from great alterations of temperature.’’? Dr. Austin Flint (op. cit.) calls attention to the fact, that ‘‘ the disease is oftener developed during the spring months and the hot months of summer,’’ when either there is a great deal of moisture in the air, or the debilitating effects of heat are pres- ent as factors. On the other hand, Ruehle says that the temperature has ‘‘ nothing to do with the prevalence of consumption.”’ It is Known that the effect of heat is to raise the body temperature, to lessen the number of respirations, to quicken the pulse, to lessen the digestive powers and the appetite, to di- minish the excretion of urea because of the diminishing of the ingesta, and to depress the nervous system, especially if the heat be ac- companied with excessive moisture. It seems, then, that it can be stated as a fair inference from the foregoing, that a dry, temperate cli- mate is to be sought by the phthisical invalid. The Rocky Mountains furnish a dry climate. The table (table I., column vi.) shows that the mean temperature is nearly a mean between the extremes in ourrange. The question will, however, be presented in a better form far- ther on. ; ‘% rt gr oe OcroBer ‘5, 1883.] Winds. The points of importance in regard to the winds are their velocity and direction. It is well known that they are regulated somewhat by changes in atmospheric pressure and tem- perature. Velocity. —It is known that a cold wind abstracts body-heat, and in proportion to its velocity. By consulting our tables (table I1., part ii.) it will be seen that the mean daily velocity of the winds at Denver is less than it is in the Eastern States ; and that as a conse- quence, while the mean temperature is nearly the same, the chilling effect will be much less. On the other hand, as it has a considerably greater velocity, and as there are fewer calms than at either Augusta or Los Angeles, it has a proportionately greater purifying power in bringing fresh ozone, and in blowing away the products of decomposition. Direction. — Of more importance than the velocity, is the direction of the winds. The favorable and unfavorable directions vary for different places, according to their geographi- eal location. The east and north winds are known to be the trying ones along the Atlantic coast ; and our table shows that the north-east wind is the prevailing one at both Augusta and Jacksonville. The west wind, blowing from the Pacific Ocean, and bringing fogs, is the trying one on the California shore; and the table shows that this is the prevailing one at Los Angeles. The south wind is the salu- brious one for the eastern slope of the Rocky SCIENCE. 459 Mountains, in Colorado; and our table shows that this is the wind that blows there most frequently. We can therefore add this element to the others, —of elevation, dryness of air, small amount of precipitation, and mean tempera- ture, —as favorable to the Rocky Mountains as a place for phthisical patients to resort. Clear, fair, and cloudy days. We now come to the consideration of our last general point, that is, to an investigation of the number of clear, fair, and cloudy days ; or, in other words, to a consideration of the amount of sunshine. As to the direct effect upon health produced by light and sunshine, we are still in igno- rance. Whether the blood is made to course more rapidly, and the nerves transmit impulses more readily, under the influence of the solar ray, is not known. It is well known that the actinic rays have a powerful chemical effect upon vegetation ; but whether or not they have a like influence upon the human economy is unknown, Without attempting to refine, there are cer- “tain broad and positive effects in the cure of phthisis attributable to sunshine. The expe- rience of the profession is fittingly expressed by the words of Dr. Austin Flint: ‘*I would rank exercise and out-of-door life far above any known remedies for the cure of the dis- ease.”’ TABLE II.— Winns. DIRECTION. . PREVAILING || VELociry. Sex arons MEAN FOR THREE YEARS. A fig N. | N.E.| E. | S.E./ 8. | sw. WY = NW. Calm. | Mean daily. | Mean 5 years. Augusta, Ga, . ° » 2 . 4 57 | 154 68 118 86 109 4 / 120 ) 304 | 79 miles. N.E. Jacksonville, Fla. . > ° . . | 77 | 282 120; 116} 102 ' 180 83 76 60 | ps a N.E Boston, Mass. . . . . . . 70 59 88 72 85 | 155 | 286) 186 60 Co w. Newport, R.I. . 118 80 51 73 | 112 299 | 183 | 164 28 236 =“ S.W. New York, N.Y. . . . . -| 76) 186 54 98 83 | 175 | 188 | 290 14 207 , ** | N.W. Philadelphia, Penn. 123 | 157 92 40 | 102; 162} 179] 208 9 256 8.W. Chicago, Il. / 147 122 85 99 142 . 239} 151 114 30 203 8.W. St. Paul, Minn. . . 3 ° 3 95 37 91] 223 72} 122} 129] 223 70 mh oe 8.E. Denver, Col. 150 95 78 150 | 307/ 67 76| 155| 12 145 “ 8. Santa Fé, N. Mex. . 139} 109] 157} 100) 78) 142| 59] 119 | go1 || 152 E. Salt Lake, Utah erect. v . * 81 64 56 | 252 39 33 49 | 269) 249 135 “* N.W Los Angeles, Cal. . 104} 155 80 58 55 | 208) 274 53 142 i 1038" +* Ww | 460 In the table which we present (table III.), and which is a mean of daily observations for a period of five years, a cloudy day is one in which the heavens are from seven-tenths to entirely obscured by clouds; a fair day is one in which the heavens are from four to seven- tenths clouded; all else are classed as clear days. From this it will be seen, that for our purposes clear and fair days may be classed as one, and may be put into juxtaposition with the cloudy days. Consulting these tables, it will be seen, that in Denver the mean number of cloudy days in a year is only one-half of what it is in either Augusta or Jacksonville, that it is less than a half of what it is in St. Paul, and that it is slightly less than what it is in Los Angeles. TABLE III. MEAN FOR 5 YEARS. STATION. Clear. | Fair. | Cloudy. PATE UIBHA NCL afin Men feeulait het (ie) el ehite 123 150 92 Jacksonville, Fla. . ...... 126 152 87 iyo INEREKIG ooo 6 5 a alo 105 145 115 ING WpOrt, MEY lene teuL meee ols tale mek 108 140 11 Newework; NY. (1 2). HS 101 155 109 Philadelphia, Penn... <9.) 2.) a). 114 139 112 Chicagonlit yh phen iyitn s See clei lihet 4h | est Of StebaulssMunmne es ceecee ct: b/s hope teks 103 158 104 Menvery Colecy.cprl haus vie jsial cuttehcsbers 1i7 142 46 Santa és INe Mex. ey.) jen by sel 174 148 41 Salt Lake,Utah ......4.-. 141 1381 93. ospAmeeler, Calemuc tl iciiep eset 164 148 51 To put this fact in another way, it is seen, that in Denver there is only about one-eighth of the entire year when an invalid would be kept in the house on account of the weather ; in Jacksonville and Augusta he would be con- fined to the house, for the same reason, one- quarter of the year; in St. Paul he would be kept in-doors between a third and a quarter of the time ; while in Boston he would have to be housed a good third of the time. Admitting, then, the force of Dr. Flint’s statement, our tables show that there is no place in this whole country, where it is possible for the invalid to enjoy so much fresh air and - sunshine, as in the Rocky Mountains. For three hundred and twenty days out of every three hundred and sixty-five it is possible to roam at large, and to breathe! in health. We feel, that, so far, our tables have shown that the Rocky Mountains furnish climatic con- ditions of elevation, humidity, precipitation, SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 35- temperature, winds, and sunshine, which rec- ommend them as a resort for phthisical inva- lids superior to any thing to be found in this. country. Observations by seasons. Having arrived at these general conclusions, the writer wishes to call attention very briefly to their accuracy and importance as applied to the different seasons of the year. He wishes to lay stress upon the evidence which goes to- show that Colorado and New Mexico furnish favorable resorts for phthisical invalids during the winter and spring, —the very seasons that are most trying in the east, the seasons that. they are obliged to avoid, and to seek new abodes at the resorts. The elemeats of eleya- tion and barometric pressure will remain near- ly constant the year round. But how is it in regard to the humidity of the air in Colorado during the winter and spring? The writer has. selected at random, and-without reference to whether the showings would be fayorable or unfavorable for a given place, the year 1880: as his basis for comparison. By referring to table IV., part i., it will be seen, that both the relative and absolute humidity for Denver during the winter and spring is absolutely, and by comparison, very small; that, as comparedi with Augusta and Jacksonville, it makes a wonderful showing in these respects ; and that. the ratio of the absolute humidity as between Denver and Los Angeles is as 1 to 3 for these seasons. When we turn to our tables (table IV., part ii.), we learn that the amount of precipitation at Denver for these seasons was almost nil; that the mean: monthly precipitation at Den- ver for the given time was only a small fraction of an inch in rain and melted snow. Carry out, now, the comparison between Denver and! Augusta, Jacksonyille and Los Angeles, and see the tremendous difference in this particular between these places, — a showing immensely in favor of Denver. It will be seen that our “general conclusions are very much strength- ened by this particular application, and that we have brought strong additional evidence in favor of Colorado as a resort for persons affected with phthisis pulmonalis. When we turn to our tables to learn in re- gard to the winds at these places for the given seasons, we see that the conclusions previously reached in regard to Denver, in this particular, still hold true (table V.). Temperature. — We come now to our last observation, and to a brief discussion of what some may consider the weak point in regard ae) a ee ee all ——, ste Ocroser 5, 1888.] SCIENCE. 461 , TABLE Iv. 1880. | 1880. RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE HUMIDITY. i PRECIPITATION. STATION. j “ ¢ . Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter. & g | 8 | s =I } £ =| 2 c| R.H.| G. Vt | RH. | G.V. | RH. | GV. || R.H. |°G.V. & 2 4 5 ——| ies be Augusta, Ga. “68 4.7 64 72 || 74 4.9 2 3.2 5.0 4.2 2.8 3.9 Jacksonville, Fla. -| 6 | 55 | 6 8.0 |} 75 56 || 7 | 30 || 35 | 59 | 95 | 3.5 | | } Boston, Mass, 61 | 25 70 5.4 67 3.0 69 15 || 26 | 35 | 26 | 88 Newport, RI... «| 71 2.7 76 5.0 75 3.5 78 19 |} 39 | 50 | 34 | 36 New York, N.Y. 65 2.9 79 5.5 70 3.8 65 2.0 25 | 42 | 25 |) 2.8 Philadelphia, Penn. . S0i he 27 66 6.1 68 | -3.0 72 21 21 as | 16° | me Chicago,T. . 63 2.9 7o | 59 66 2.3 69 1.8 41 | 37 | 24 | 24 St.Paul, Minn... 62 2.9 69 5.1 |} 66 2.9 71 = 21 4.0 | 28 1.5 Denver, Col. rita ees as | 33 || 55 | 28 |} ot | of || o5 | 18 | 20 | 02 Santa Fé, N. Mex. 35 1.2 36 2.6 50 2.5 50 - | o2| 17 | ov | 06 Salt Lake, Utah 41 15 25 1.5 33 | 16 50 | (18 16:] 08 | 0.7 11 Los Angeles,Cal. . .| 4 3.6 13 48 63 3.8 68 2.9 HpSah 061-4038) if SS if if 1 Relative humidity. to Colorado as a resort for invalids. It has been seen that most authorities favor a cold climate; but they add the proviso that it should be free from change. By consulting table VI., part ii., it will be seen that the mean monthly range of temperature is larger for Denver than for almost any other point in our scale. It will be seen, further, that the minima (table VI., part i.) of temperature are very * Grains vapor. nearly the lowest in the scale, — not so low, to be sure, as the minima at St. Paul, but de- cidedly lower than at Augusta, Jacksonville, and Los Angeles. This state of affairs de- mands an explanation. We have seen that the air of Colorado | is both dry and rare, —two conditions that favor rapid radiation. We have seen, further, that — the soil is of a porous, sandy nature, —a kind ~ TABLE V.— Winps, 1880. DIRECTION. | VELOCITY, MEAN DAILY. STATION, aa ai | Spring. |Summer.| Autumn.) Winter. Spring. | Summer: Autumn. | Winter. Aneonte, Gass eh. | CPA PA | S.E, 8.E. N.E. N.W. 102 7 67 | 101 Jacksonville, Fla. . . 5 . 5 4 N.E S.W. N.E. N.E. ) 226 162 157 ) 189 Boston, Mass. S.W. 8.W. Ww. N.W. | 257 184 223 H 281 MeeagparhsRTs Oy. 143)! hen nehPneeey Mew sel LESIVS 8.W. S.W. SW. 243 168 232 266 New YorksN.Y.. 0. 0 So) Dona }osiw. | Naw waw. || od7 177 192 222 Philadelpbia, Penn. . . «es 8.W. SW. | NW. S.W. 294 218 228 178 OHICARO, Toei eh ele | Ws | BW. | BW. |” BL, 182 | = 188 a | 198 RtreaniyMinn, sos bie el ns 8.E. SE. | NW, Se. |}. 210 180 189 193 DROS Shs ss oe te Ee |B. 8. 8. || 156 us | 15 | dar SantaFé,NiMex. ....- «)- =} BW..| NE. | NE. |New. 167 134 wo | 148 SaltLake,Utah . . . 8.E. N.W. | SE. 8.E.. }}, 122 130 102 108 TpsAngeleny Cala) Oat - vice. | We) payee. We] W. w. NE. |} 187 131 78 112 462 SCIENCE. \ [Vor. IL, No. 35. TABLE VI.— TEMPERATURE, 1880. SPRING. SUMMER, AUTUMN. || WINTER. SPRING. SuMMER AUTUMN WINTER — coon | Sleleleielel4lelelsieleielsie\s Augusta, Ga. . -| 90 30 99 60 91 28 81 7 AT 66 32 81 45 63 54 61 Jacksonville, Fla. -| 95 42 || 100 69 91 39 78 19 43 71 || 29 82 39 69 45 59 Boston, Mass. . «| 92 12 |} 101 47 93 | 3 59 |—5 58 47 48 69 52 61 52 33 Newport, RI. . -| 84 14 88 49 87 15 61 1 44 47 33 69 42 53 48 36 New York, N.Y. . «| 94 16 92 48 91 14 65 |—6 54 51 36 72 45 53 52 36 Philadelphia, Penn. ./| 96 20 95 51 91 10 67 | —5 56 54 37 73 49 55 53 37 Chicago, Ill. . ° | 85 19 95 52 || 85 1 63 | —15 47 51 42 72 53 48 | 57 31 St. Paul, Minn. . 2 |) OL 0) — 1% 98 AT 90 | —18 59 | —27 59 46 43 69 62 42 67 21 Denver, Col.. * -| 89 | —10 | 96 39 89 | —13 59 | —11 66 48 48 69 60 44 72 29 Santa Fé, N. Mex. «| 80 0 88 33 80 | —11 56 |—3 67 47 45 66 59 48 61 27 Salt Lake, Utah . : 78 5 95 40 88 3 49 2 51 45 51 68 51 49 44 31 Los Angeles, Cal. E |) 197, 36 87 50 91 3d 80 30 45 56 38 64 47 61 46 54 that will easily absorb heat, and as easily give it off. Furthermore, there is but little yerdure or shade, — another condition, too, which will fayor both absorption and radiation of heat. In consequence of these conditions, the soil and air are, on the one hand, rapidly heated in the morning, and they are equally rapidly cooled at night. The nights are always cool in Colorado, — a condition that renders the summer months enjoyable and invigorating. But the question, after all, is, whether this ‘diurnal change of temperature is injurious to Colorado as a resort for invalids. We claim that it is not, and for this reason: it makes but little difference to the invalid how cold the nights are, for at that time he should be in- doors, where he can regulate the temperature ; but it is of importance that it should be warm at mid-day, so that he can take his exercise regularly and comfortably. We have seen, that so far as conditions of sunshine, humid- ity. and rain and snow fall are concerned, the invalid can lead an out-of-door life a greater percentage of the time in Colorado than anywhere else in this country; and we claim that he will never find these factors counterbalanced by the element of tempera- ture. An experience of several years war- rants the writer in asserting that an invalid can, with perfect comfort and safety, spend several hours in the saddle nearly every day of the three hundred and sixty-five. One has but to read ‘H. H.’s’ writings to learn how attractive out-of-door life is in Colorado, even in mid-winter; and we can positively assert that we have known of picnics being held day after day, in the open air, in the very heart of the winter, and that there are days and weeks in mid-winter when one can sit with doors and windows open. As proof of what we say, we append the mid-day temperature at Denver for each month of the year for three years. In conclusion, the writer would state, that while his personal experience in regard to a desirable climate for the cure of phthisis has been such as to convince him of the great superiority of the climate of the Rocky Moun- TABLE VII.— DENVER, MEAN MONTHLY TEMPERATURE, 1 P.M. YEAR. | dan. | Feb. | March.| April. | May. | June. | July. | Aug. | Sept. | Oct. Nov. | Dec. 1880. * 5 = “ 5 45°.7 37°.6 44°.3 56°.7 67°.2 78°.5 79°.9 79°.6 | 71°.3 56°.8 30°.3 35°.8 1881. > ; ci -| 33.5 36 .4 46.1 62 .2 69 82.5 84 .6 81.3 70 69.7 42.8 AT 6 1882, c 5 . E, .| 87 46 .2 52.3 55 .5 59.3 73 81.6 81.4 73.9 69 4 46 .5 43 .2 # . . . OcTOBER 5, 1883.] tains over any other in this country, yet in this article he has tried to put aside any per- sonal bias, and he desires to carry conviction only in so far as he has been able to adduce facts, and to interpret them rationally and logi- cally. He would state, further, that, if the reader should take exception to any interpre- tation given to the facts, the tables still stand as the best and most reliable data of these facts attainable, and they are not to be con- troverted. Sami. Auc. Fisk, M.D. Denver, Col. REARING OYSTERS FROM ARTIFICIAL- LY FERTILIZED EGGS AT STOCK- TON, MD. In order to test the feasibility of such an un- dertaking on a considerable scale, a pond three and ahalf feet deep was excavated on the prem- ises of Messrs. George V. Shepard and H. H. Pierce, not far from Stockton, near the shore of Chincoteague Bay, and connected with the latter by a trench ten-feet long, two feet wide, and three and a half feet deep. Before the water was let into the trench connecting the pond with the bay, a wooden diaphragm — made in the form of a box three feet deep, and two anda half feet wide, and two inches thick, and lined on the inside with gunny-cloth; the sides of the box being perforated with numer- ‘ous auger-holes, and filled with clean sharp sand, so as to form a filter — was placed in the trench vertically and transversely, and so se- cured that no water, except such as had first filtered through the diaphragm, could gain ac- ess to the pond. In this way the natural fry from the bay was effectually excluded from our artificial enclosure from the very, start, so that the results of our experiment might not be vitiated. In the construction of this simple apparatus we depended entirely upon the rise and fall of the tide to partially renew the water in the pond in the intervals between the tides. The tidal rise and fall of the water in the en- closure was from four to six inches, or from six to eight inches less than the rise and fall of the tide in the open bay. Into the enclosure, cov- ering about fifty square yards, artificially fertil- ized spawn was poured at odd dates, from July 7 to the first week of August. The spawn was taken from the adults much in the same way as from fishes ; the right valve of the adult animals being removed, and the ducts of the reproductive organs stroked with a pipette to force out the eggs and milt from the females and males. The products mixed together in water were then allowed to stand SCIENCE. 463 in pails for a few hours, until the eggs had de- veloped as far as the swimming stage. The spawn so prepared was then distributed over different parts of the pond, and left to take care of itself. The collectors used were simply oyster-shells strung upon galvanized wire; strings of shells being suspended to stakes driven into the bot- tom of the pond at intervals corresponding to the dates when fresh lots of spawn were intro- duced, each stake being marked with the date when it was put in place. The suspended oyster-shells were introduced so as to afford the young fry clean surfaces to which it could attach itself. On the 22d of August Mr. Pierce found that some of the shells hanging to the stakes had spat attached, ranging from one-fourth to three-fourths of an inch in di- ameter, and which had undoubtedly been de- rived from some of the brood placed in the pond by us. Some specimens of these young oysters are now in my possession, attached to the petforated oyster-shells used as collectors. To our great surprise, we found that the water in the pond maintained about the same specific gravity as that in the bay, or 1.0175 to 1.018, and that the temperature of the water was also the same as in the open bay. The microscopic vegetable food upon which the oys- ter feeds was found to multiply rapidly in the enclosure, inasmuch as it was confined by the gate or diaphragm, so that it could not escape. The water in the pond was also found to remain sweet, and free from putrefactive odors. It will accordingly be seen, that all the conditions of success had been established, as was fully proved by the result. While it is too soon to affirm that artificial breeding may be profitably available on an extensive scale in practical oyster-culture, our experiment has demonstrated a number of very important. facts. These are: 1. Oyster-spat may be reared from artificially fertilized eggs ; 2. The spat will grow just as fast in such enclosures as in the open water; 3. Food is rapidly generated in such enclosures; 4. The density of the water in the ponds is not mate- rially affected by rains, or leaching from the banks; 5. Ponds are readily excavated in salt- marsh lands, and can in all probability be used for fattening and growing Ostrea virginica for market just as successfully as Ostrea edulis and angulata are grown by a similar method on the coasts of France. Pond-culture, where there are salt-marshes adjoining arms of the sea the waters of which have a density below 1.020, can doubtless be carried on profitably in connection with the intelligent use of simple, , . 464 cheap collecting-apparatus placed in both open and confined waters to catch a ‘set’ of spat, which can then be transferred to ponds or open beds. The methods of spawn-taking and pond- culture introduced by the writer are inexpen- sive and very simple, and can be understood and conducted by any person of ordinary in- telligence, and are fully described in papers already published, or in course of publication, by the U.S. fish-commission, under the au- spices of which he has been enabled to carry out his investigations. The experimental dif ficulties have been overcome. It remains for practical men to ayail themselves of whatever of value has been determined by these experi- ments. There are thousands of acres of salt- marsh land along the eastern coast of the United States, which, with proper preparation, might be made to yield a living to a large number of persons, and which is now not pro- ductive of any thing except mosquitoes and malaria. Pond-culture has one other decided adyan- tage over culture in the open water; namely, that it is possible to effectually exclude from the artificial enclosures certain enemies of the oyster, such as whelks and star-fishes. J. A. RyprEr. THE EXPLOSION OF THE RIVERDALE. Tue boiler of the steamer Riverdale exploded on the 28th of August, a few minutes after the boat had left her wharf at New York, and started for her destination on the Hudson River above the city. Several lives were lost, and the boat itself was sunk in sixty feet of water. The boiler was raised, and placed upon the wharf near the Delamater iron-works ; and the boat, a worthless wreck, was towed to the New- Jersey side of the river. The steamer had two‘ flue-boilers’ 25 feet (7.6 m.) long, 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m.) in diameter, containing four ‘direct’ flues 14 inches (0.36 m.) in diameter, two of 9 inches (0.23 m.) diameter, and five ‘return’ flues of 114 inches (0.28 m.) diameter. ‘The shell was of no. 3 iron, and the area of heating- surface was 676 square feet (63 sq.m.). The iron was of good quality, and was in good condition throughout, except along the bot- tom, where it gave way. The form, propor- tions, and workmanship of the boiler were good. The builders, Messrs. Fletcher & Har- rison of New York, were among the most repu- table constructors of engines and boilers in that city, and were noted for doing good work. On examination, it was found that the bot- SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 35. tom was corroded along its whole length, and had been patched in a number of places where the iron had become dangerously thin, and that in some places the sheets were reduced to one-fourth their original thickness. The shell had been repeatedly patched, and five ‘soft patches * were found on the girth-seams. The rupture seems to have started in the thin parts of the bottom, and to have followed the weakened girth-seams quite around, and di- vided the mass into two parts of nearly equal size, tearing the middle sheet out of the shell entirely. A coroner’s jury made an inspection, exam- ined such witnesses as could be found and such experts as could be induced to testify, and rendered a verdict to the effect that the boiler ruptured in consequence of the weakness of the sheets on the bottom of the shell, which were unable to sustain the working pressure allowed by the U.S. inspector; which weak- ness had been produced by corrosion on the interior, due to the action of the feed-water. It was further asserted, that the boiler was tested in June up to a pressure of 62 pounds (5 atmos. abs.), and burst ten weeks later under a pressure of but 32 pounds (3 atmos.), in consequence of the neglect of the inspector to observe its condition at the time of testing it. The engine-driver and the inspector were censured by a vote which was not unanimous. The jury expressed the opinion that the pres- ent law is not sufficiently explicit and manda- tory, and that the use of the test by hydrostatic pressure is insufficient to detect and reveal such defects as here existed. The inspector acknowledged that he did not try the strength of the boiler with the hammer, as is now usual in all thorough examinations by competent engineers, but merely looked it over; and that at previous inspections he had not entered the boiler, but had only looked in at the manhole. The evidence of the most superficial and inefficient ‘ inspection ’ was con- elusive ; and the fact that proper inspection would have revealed the dangerous condition of the boiler was equally well proven. The so-called ‘inspection’ was a farce; and the inspector, in a spirit of indifference or indo- lence, took the chances of an explosion. The exploded boiler weighed 27,000 pounds (12,247 kilos), and contained 25,000 pounds (11,340 kilos) of water. The explosion was not remarkably violent, but was what old engi- neers are accustomed to call a ‘burst’ rather than an explosion. The consequences were, however, sufficiently serious. The energy producing the effects seen in the case of a OcToBER 5, 1883.] true explosion may be imagined, when the amount of heat-energy stored up in such a boiler is calculated. The quantity of heat transformed into mechanical energy by a mass of water and of steam of such magnitude, set free, and expanding down to the pressure and temperature of the atmosphere, from the press- ure and temperature at which it existed in the boiler of the Riverdale, would amount to above 1,500,000,000 foot-pounds (over 200,- 000,000 kilogrammetres). This would be suf- ficient to throw the boiler and its contents, were the heat all utilized, as in a perfect steam- engine, five miles high. This may give some faint idea of the enormous forces at work, and the tremendous energy stored in a steam-boiler, even where the pressure of the steam is very low, as it was in this case. It will be concluded, from what has been above stated, that a steam-boiler of the most ordinary and least dangerous type has stored within it an inconceivable amount of available energy in the form of heat, which may be at any moment transformed, in part, into mechanical energy with terribly destructive results, both to life and property ; that this powerful agent for good or for evil can only be safely utilized when the utmost care, intelligence, and skill, are employed in its application, and in the pres- ervation of the vessel in which it is enclosed ; that the present code of law relating to the care, management, and inspection of steam- boilers, is entirely inadequate to insure safety ; that the inspection of steam-boilers, as at pres- ent practised by the employees of the govern- ment, is not only liable to be inefficient, but is likely to prove worse than none, as it gives to the owner, and perhaps often to the man in charge, of the boiler, a feeling of security which is entirely without basis in fact, and which may therefore cause the neglect of that watch- fulness which might otherwise prevent acci- dent; that simple pressure produced by the test-pump, as. now provided for by the law, is not a sufliciently effective method of detecting weakness in the boiler, or to be relied upon to the exclusion of other better and well-known methods of test. The fact that the hydrostatic test is not con- clusive as to the safety of a boiler has long been well known and admitted among intelli- gent engineers. The steam ferryboat West- field met with precisely such an accident a dozen years ago; and it was shown at the coroner’s inquest, at which the writer assisted that offi- cial in the examination of his expert witnesses, that the boiler had been inspected, and had been tested, but a few weeks before, by the SCIENCE. 465 U.S. inspector, who applied a pressure con- siderably in excess of that at which the explo- sion took place. ‘The cause of the accident, by which a large number of people lost their lives, was precisely that which caused the explosion of the Riverdale’s boiler, and the method of rupture was the same. In either case, proper methods of inspection would have saved the lives of the sufferers. It is undoubtedly true, that many of the in- spectors are conscientious, experienced, skil- ful, and painstaking men, and do their duty. in spite of the defects of the existing law; but it is also true that now and then a care- less or incompetent inspector will neglect the simplest details of his work, and that we must expect occasional repetition of this sad expe- rience, until the law is intelligently framed, and so administered that the passing of a defective boiler by the inspector shall become as nearly as possible an impossibility. ‘ Roserr H. Taursron. Hoboken, Sept. 23, 1883. THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MICROS- COPISTS. THe sixth annual meeting was held this year in Chicago, Aug. 7-11. The usual number of members was present, and the meeting was full of interest from the beginning to theend. The forenoon session of Tuesday was given to organization, and the report of the president on the official action of the execu- tive officers for the year. At the afternoon session, papers were read as follows. Microscopical examina- tion of seminal stains on cloth, by F. M. Hamlin, After pointing out the defects of Koblanck’s method, that usually given in the manuals, he explained his own, which he had found eminently successful. It is’ in brief as follows. ‘‘1. If the stain to be examined is upon any thin cotton, linen, silk, or woollen fabric, cut out a piece about one-eighth inch square, lay it upon a slide previously moistened with a drop of water, and let it soak for half an hour or so;.. . then with a pair of needles unravel or fray out the threads at the corners, put on the glass cover, press it down firmly, and submit to the microscope. 2. If the fabric is of such a thickness or nature that it cannot be examined as above, fold it through the centre of the stain, and with a sharp knife shave off the projecting edge thus made, catching upon a slide moistened with water the particles removed. After soaking a few minutes, say five to ten, the powdery mass will sink down through the water, and rest upon the slide. The cover-glass may now be put on, and the preparation examined.”’ . College microscopical societies, by Sarah F. Whit- ing. The author discussed, first, the question ‘ What use can a microscopical society subserve?’ second, ‘ How can it be made a success?’ Such a society, in its range of topics, can take in almost all the physica! 466 and social sciences; and an enthusiasm created in it will help many of the departments of college-work. The society welcomes the incoming classes, and affords an opportunity for a change to those accus- tomed to years of dry drill in the mathematics and languages of the preparatory schools. It opens their eyes to the perfections of nature, awakens in them a curiosity, and stimulates interest in all the scientific studies of the college course. There are interesting subjects of microscopical investigation, carried on in society, which do not come under any department of college instruction. The live college microscopi- cal society will not only awaken interest in students and teachers, but will attract the attention of the authorities who control the funds, and the commu- nity generally. The conditions of success in such a society are just what they are in every other scientific society the object of which is not alone investigation, ‘but instruction of its members and others. There must be desirable members, those who are willing to work: all must have something to do. ‘The fresh- men, by their exclaiming, fan the flame of enthusiasm, and, before they can do any thing alone with the microscope, can serve the society on the lamp com- mittee”? There should bea class in microscopical technology, apparatus, a library, and especially the current scientific journals. Cataloguing, labelling, and storing microscopical preparations, by Simon H. Gage. This paper pointed out the advantages of properly cataloguing, etc., one’s microscopical preparations, and then gave in detail the course found to be successful by the author. ‘‘ The catalogue should indicate all that is known of a speci- men at the time of its preparation, and all the process- es by which it is treated. It is only by the possession of such a complete knowledge of the entire history of a preparation that one is able to judge with cer- tainty of the comparative excellence of methods.” The card method is advocated. ‘‘The cards are postal-card size, and- each preparation has its own card. ... These may be arranged alphabetically; and, as new preparations are made, new cards may _be added in their proper order, while those of destroyed or discarded preparations may be removed without in any way marring the catalogue. Finally, the cards may be kept in a neat box which occupies but little more space than a manuscript book.”? The cabinet should allow the slides to be flat, exclude dust and light. Each slide should have a separate compartment, numbered to agree with the slide. The floor of the compartment should be beveled at the end, so as to facilitate removal; and the drawers of the cabinet should be independent, but so close together that slides will not fall out when tipped; and each should be numbered with Roman letters. The president, Albert McCalla, delivered his an- nual address, Tuesday evening, in Weber music- hall. His theme was ‘ Verification of microscopical observation.’ Referring to the scientific spirit and a common bond of the society’s organization, he said, “Tn this intensely practical age of ours, we are in danger of forgetting that the true aim of science is simply the pursuit of truth, and that the mighty SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 35. benefits, the invaluable and almost countless gifts, of wealth and ease and safety, which result from scien- tific discovery, and which so greatly bless the world to-day, will result most surely when science has an eye single to the search for simple truth, — truth that to the Seti world seems often abstract and un- important. ... We are not all botanists, not all zoologists, nor r all students of lithology; yet we have a well-defined common ground. We are all deeply interested in the physics of the microscope and in the methods of its use; and, in order to be skilled in that department of investigation we have severally chosen, we must be more or less fully practical in microscopical work in many fields.’’ To prove that “fonly as theories are submitted to repeated and varied forms of verification is error eliminated and final truth obtained,” numerous facts were cited from the history of scientific progress; after which, the means of verification of microscopical observation were discussed. These are repetition of observation, use of the camera lucida, photomicrography, media and reagents, improved lenses and apparatus, and a better knowledge of optics. Wednesday forenoon was devoted to papers on bacteria. T. J. Burrill read a paper on preparing and mounting bacteria. He stated that the elements of successful staining are as follows: ‘‘1. The organ- isms should be decidedly and conspicuously stained; 2. The general mass of embedding-material should be left unstained, or so different in color that the organism can be distinctly seen; 8. There should be no granular or other precipitations from the staining-material; 4. The color should be suitable for the purposes required, and permanent if the object is to be mounted; 5. The process should be as simple as possible, and free from manipulative difficulties. .. . Except for a few special results, aniline dyes are by far the most serviceable in stain- ing bacteria. However, no one staining-material, nor any single method of procedure, can be made to answer well the requirements for all kinds of bacteria.”” Dr. H. J. Detmers presented some conclusions reached by himself while studying the diseases of cat- tle in Texas. Bacteria he regarded as unquestionably the cause of certain fevers. Under certain conditions, all bacteria become pathogenetic; but these condi- tions are not yet fully understood. Dr. George E. Fell read a paper on the clinical ad- vantages Of ozone, and its effects on the micro-organ- isms of infusions. After giving the favorable results of the use of ozone by Dr. F. W. Bartlett in scat- let-fever, diphtheria, whooping-cough, typhoid-fever, etc., he gave in tabular form the results of a series of experiments by himself, — experiments in which bacteria, and other forms indigenous in infusions, were subjected to the influence of air charged with ozone. Following the discussion on the three preceding papers, Dr. G. E. Blackham presented the report of committee on oculars. The report recommends nam- ing oculars, like objectives, by their equivalent focal lengths in English inches. For the tubes of oculars - ae s OcTOBER 5, 1883.] the standard medium size, 1.25 inch is recommended, with the alternatives of 1 inch and 1.35 inch for those who wish smaller or larger tubes; also for the upper tube of the ocular .75 inch, and, for sub-stage tube, 1.50 inch. The purpose of the society is to secure uniform- ity in these sizes, so that apparatus of different makers shall be interchangeable, as objectives have been since the adoption of the ‘ society screw.’ The first paper in the afternoon was a critical study of the action of a diamond in ruling lines on glass, by Prof. William A. Rogers. The author stated his the- ory relating to the method which Nobert may possibly have employed in the production of his plates briefly thus: “‘The lines composing Nobert’s finest bands are produced by a single crystal of the ruling-diamond, whose ruling qualities improve with use. .. . When a diamond is ground to a knife-edge, this edge is still made up of separate crystals, though we may not be able to see them; and a perfect line is obtained only when the ruling is done by a single crystal. When a good knife-edge has been obtained, the preparation for ruling consists in finding a good crystal. Occa- sionally excellent ruling-erystals are obtained by splitting a diamond in the direction of one or more of the twenty-four cleavage planes which are found in a perfectly formed crystal. A ruling-point formed in this way is, however, very easily broken, and soon wears out. Experience has shown that the best re- sults are obtained by choosing a crystal having one glazed surface, and splitting off the opposite face. By grinding this split face, a knife-edge is formed against the natural face of the diamond, which will remain in good condition for a long time. When a ruling- erystal has been found which will produce moderately heavy lines of the finest quality, it is at first generally too sharp for ruling lines finer than 20,000 or 30,000 to the inch, even with the lightest possible pressure of the surface of the glass. But gradually the edges of this cutting-crystal wear away by use, until at last this particular crystal takes the form of a true knife- edge which is parallel with the line of motion of the ruling-slide> in other words, when a diamond has been so adjusted as to yield lines of the best character, its ruling-qualities improve with use. If Nobert had any so-called ‘ secret,’ I believe this to have been its substance. “The problem of fine ruling consists of two parts, — first, in tracing lines of varying degrees of fineness; and, second, in making the interlinear spaces equal. The latter part of the problem is purely mechanical, and presents no difficulties which cannot be over- come by mechanical skill. It will be the aim of the present paper to describe the more marked character- istics of lines of good quality ruled upon glass... . A perfect line is densely black, with at least one edge sharply defined. Both edges are perfectly smooth. Add to these characteristics a rich black gloss, and you have a picture of the coarser lines of a perfect Nobert plate. In the study of the action of a dia- mond in producing a breaking fracture in glass, the microscope seems to be of little service; but we can call it to our aid in the study of its action in ruling smooth lines, One would naturally suppose that a line SCIENCE. 467 of the best quality would be produced by the stop- page of the light under which it is viewed by the opaque groove which is cut by the ruling-diamond. Without doubt, this is the way in which lines are gen- erally formed; but it is not the only way in which they can be produced. An examination under the microscope will reveal the fact, that in some instances, at least, a portion of the glass is actually removed from the groove cut by the diamond; and that the minute particles of glass thus removed are sometimes laid up in windrows beside the real line, as a plough turns up a furrow of soil. . . . The particles of glass removed take four characteristic forms: (a) They appear as chips scattered over the surface of the glass; (b) They appear as particles so minute, that when laid upon a windrow, and forming an apparent line, they cannot be separated under the microscope; (c) They take the form of filaments when the glass is suffi- ciently tough for them to be maintained unbroken; (d) They take acircularform. ... It must not, however, be supposed that lines of the best quality always pre- sent the appearance described above.’ These char- acteristic results were illustrated by plates, with the fragments and fibres in place. The author also re- ferred to Mr. Fasoldt’s claim, that he has succeeded in ruling lines one million to the inch, He thinks the limit just a trifle too high; but, if reduced one- half, he is by no means sure but that it may be reached. Following this was a paper by A. H. Chester, de- scribing a new method of dry mounting, in which the cover-glass is easily remoyablé. The object is fastened to the slide in the usual way, and a tin cell built up about it sufficiently high for the cover to clear the object; then a ring of larger bore is cemented on, making a flange to receive cover. The latter ring, having been punched out of tin foil by a gun-wad punch, and put in place with the smaller hole uppermost, makes a groove above the cover, into which a spring-brass ring is put, holding the cover in place. The advantages of this method are many, — the objects may be easily viewed uncovered; dust or moisture accumulating in the cell may be removed; the mounting is quickly done, ete. In the evening session, Mr. W. H. Walmsley read a paper giving the latest and best results and methods, by himself and others, in the art of photomicrog- raphy. ‘The photographs in illustration were exhib- ited by L. D. McIntosh by means of his solar micro- scope with ether oxygen light. Following this was a short paper by D. S. Kellicott, giving an account of certain stalked infusoria found in the crayfish. Two species, believed to be peculiar to the gill-chambers, were described. One of these is new to science, and was named Cothurnia variabilis. The well-marked varieties seem to be due to situa- tion; i.e., those on the hairs of the lining-membrane are relatively longer, with a spine at the upper edge of the aperture of the lorica, but without a spine on the ventricose front of the same, while a stouter variety, situated on the membrane itself, has a spine in front, but none on the edge of the aperture. A third variety occurs on the gills: it also has a spine 468 on the ventricose part of the shell, but the aperture is horizontal instead of vertical. They are so abun- dant as to encumber the gills of the host, rendering them brown to the eye. An Epistylis from the same host was named E. Niagarae: it is close to E. bala- nhorum, a marine form. The same writer, at another session, described Cothurnia lata n. s., found on Di- aptomus, and also gave a general account of two inter- nal parasites of the crayfish. The first paper Thursday morning was on the effects of division of the vagi on the muscles of the heart, by A. M. Bleile. The object of the paper was the demonstration of nutritive or trophic nerves for the heart, and was a continuation of work re- ported in the Proceedings of the society last year. Following this, T. S. Up de Graff described certain fresh-water worms. One, a rotifer, is new: it was named Brachionus Gleasonii. Independent of the spines, its length is 0.145 inch, the front of the car- apace without spines. The posterior edge bears five curved spines: there is one, also, on the dorsal part of the shell, —a peculiar feature. The remainder of the session was occupied by short papers, by Francis Wolle, on fresh-water algae, and one by John Kruttschnitt on ferns and their development. In the afternoon the session was opened bya re- port upon a standard centimetre, prepared by the U.S. bureau of weights and measures, by W. A. Rogers. The lines of the centimetre are ruled on a plate of platinum-iridium soldered to brass with silver. The report describes the plate, and compares its divisions with a standard. ‘The original basis of this unit is a metre upon copper, prepared for Professor Rogers by Professor Tresca of the Conservatoire des arts et métiers at Paris. The report concludes thus: — 1. That the centimetre A, measured by the middle defining line, is exactly a hundredth part of the metre des archives reduced to sixty degrees Fahren- heit. It can therefore be safely adopted as the unit in all measures with low-power objectives. 2. That the second millimetre of the scale is ex- actly a thousandth part of the metre des archives when at the same temperature. The centimetre is now the property of the society; it having been tendered to it by the national com- mittee on micrometry, and accepted and adopted as a standard or basis for future studies and discussions in micrometry. The scale is in the hands of Dr. George HE. Fell. A committee was appointed for securing copies on glass. The rules for its control and use will soon be published. After this report, Dr. George E. Blackham read a ‘communication on the relation of aperture to ampli- fication in the selection of a series of microscopic ob- jectives. The author showed that amplification is not the only element which enters into the problem of rendering visible minute details, but the aperture of the objective forms another element. Working, then, on the general lines laid down, he had selected as a set of powers, sufficient for all the work of any microscopist, the following: — SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 35. One 4-inch objectiye of 0,10 n.a.= 12° an angle, nearly. Weep ence “ “© 0.26 n.a. 2 30° « “ “ “ ; “ “ “ 94 n.a. = 140° “ “ “ 7 “ “ “ 1.42 n.a. “The first two to be dry-working objectives, with- out cover-correction; the third to be dry-working, with cover-correction; and the fourth to be a homogene- ous immersion objective, with cover-correction; and all to be of the highest possible grade of workman- ship. The stand should have a tube of such length that standard distance of ten inches from the front surface of objective to diaphragm of eye-piece can be obtained on it, and to be furnished with six eye- pieces; viz., 2-inch, 1-inch, and ?-inch Huyghenian, and 34-inch, }-inch, and +-inch solid.’ In the evening the annual soirée took place, in con- nection with the State microscopical society of Illi- nois, at the Calumet club-house. There were two hundred and fifty microscopes on the tables. A great variety of objects were shown to a party of five hun- dred guests of the club. There were, a number of reports and papers to be disposed of on Friday, the society adjourning at five P.M. The first paper was by Dr. W. T. Belfield, on the detection of adulteration in lard. Photographs rep- resenting crystals of pure and adulterated lard were exhibited. Those of the former are long, thin plates, with beveled ends, while the crystals of tal- low are plume-shaped, resembling somewhat an os- trich feather. Dr. V. 8. Clevinger presented a paper on the pa- thology of the brain. Dr. Thomas Taylor’s paper, on internal parasites in the domestic fowl, was read. The parasites referred to were a mite from the lungs, another mite in the cellular tissue, and an encysted nematoid from the crop. A paper on the termination of the nerves in the kid- neys was presented by M. L. Holbrook. The author’s method may be stated thus: ‘‘The fresh kidneys, as well as those preserved in chromic-acid solutions, were frozen in the freezing-microtome of Dr. Taylor, and the sections allowed to remain in the gold so- lution for varying periods of time, from forty min- utes to several days. When removed, they were carefully washed in distilled water, and placed in a strong formic acid of a specific gravity of a hundred and twenty degrees for from five to eight minutes, or in a twenty-five-per-cent solution of the same for hours and even days. Sometimes I obtained very good specimens by placing the sections first in a dilute twenty-five-per-cent solution of formic acid for twen- ty-four hours, and afterward staining them with chloride of gold until they reached the color desired. . . . The nerves supplying the kidneys are mainly of the non-medullated variety. They accompany the larger arteries of this organ, either in bundles, or in flat, expanded layers; and the latter features I found more common than the former. Sometimes an artery would be found encircled by a network of non-me- dullated nerves in a bewildering number. Hundreds of such nucleated bundles of fibres could be traced ee ee OcroBER 5, 1883.| around, above, and below an artery, freely branching, bifureating, and supplying all the neighboring forma- tions with a large number of delicate fibrillae. .. . The bundles of nerve-fibres give off delicate ramules to the afferent vessels by which they enter the tuft; and here they produce a delicate plexus spun around its capillaries. It was impossible to decide where the ultimate fibrillae branch in the capillaries of the tuft. . . . Sometimes I obtained specimens in which it seemed as if the ultimate fibrillae branched beneath the covering, flat epithelia in the delicate connective tissue between the conyolutions of the capillaries. - . . In perfect specimens there is no difficulty in Vorlaten 1. Lavigi. * ws 'KRAKATOWA 1.\) - Volcano % < 2623 ‘ 60 » "OS" East of Greenwich Henghts wr feet, Depths wr j satisfying one’s self of the fact that every tubule is encircled by a plexus of non-medullated nerve-fibres, coursing either in the immediate vicinity of the tu- bule, in the interstitial connective tissue, or within the dense layer subjacent to the epithelia, known as the membrana propria, or even with the layer along the feet of the epithelia themselves.” Short papers were read by Dr. Salmon Hudson, on the yeast-plant; by J. M. Mansfield, on division of labor among microscopists; by Dr. L. M. Eastman, on egg-like bodies in the liver of the rabbit; by Dr. George E. Fell, on a peculiarity in the structure of the human spermatozoon. Dr. Lester Curtis made some observations on vessels of the spinal cord of SCIENCE. 106" 469 the cat; and Dr. F. M. Hamlin, on mounting fo- raminifera. New apparatus was described as follows: new microscope-stand with concentric movements, by J. D. Cox; new modification of the Spitzka micro- tome, by V. S. Clevinger; and a new binocular arrangement, by Edward Bausch. The next annual meeting will be held at Rochester, N.Y., in August, 1884. The officers for the present year are: president, Hon. Jacob D. Cox; vice-presidents, William A. Rogers, T. J. Burrill; secretary, D. S. Kellicott; treas- urer, George E. Fell; executive committee, Albert H. Chester, William Humphreys, and H, A. Johnson. = ) BATAVIA fangerang RE evo nc Y OF BATAVIA ly, Pe sue, Pe ff i ry 8 \oe 106"S0" THE JAVA UPHEAVAL.} THE details which have reached us during the past week, of the terrible seismical manifestation at Java, prove it to be one of the most disastrous on record. Probably, moreover, it is the greatest phenomenon in physical geography which has occurred during at least the historical period, in the same space of time. The accompanying sketch-map will afford some idea -of the extent and nature of the change which has taken place, and the character of the sea-bed and the land in the region affected. The voleanie island of Krakatoa lies about the 1 Taken from Nature, Sept. 6. 470 middle of the north part of the passage between Java and Sumatra, a passage which has formed an impor- tant commercial route. The strait is about seventy miles long and sixty broad at the south-west end, narrowing to thirteen miles at the north-east end. The island, seven miles long by five broad, lay about thirty miles from the coast of Java; and northwards the strait contracts like a funnel, the two coasts in that direction approaching very near to each other. A few weeks ago, as we intimated at the time, the voleano on the island began to manifest renewed activity. The whole region is volcanic; Java itself having at least sixteen active volcanoes, while many others can only be regarded as quiescent, not extinct. Various parts of the island have been frequently devastated by volcanic outbursts, one of the most disastrous of these having proceeded from a volcano which was regarded as having been long extinct. The present outburst in Krakatoa seems to have reached a crisis on the night of Aug. 26. The deto- nations were heard as far as Soerakarta; and ashes fell at Cheribon, about 250 miles eastwards on the north coast of Java. The whole sky over western Java was darkened with ashes; and, when investiga- tion became possible, it was found that the most wide-spread disaster had occurred. The greater part, of the district of North Bantam has been destroyed, partly by the ashes which fell, and partly by an enor- mous wave generated by the wide-spread voleanic dis- turbance in the bed of the strait. The town of Anjer, and other towns on the coast, haye been overwhelmed and swept away; and the loss of life is estimated at 100,000. The island of Krakatoa itself, estimated to contain 8,000,000,000 cubie yards of material, seems to have been shattered, and sunk beneath the waters; while sixteen volcanic craters haye appeared above the sea between the site of that island and Sibisi Island, where the sea is comparatively shallow. The Soengepan volcano has split into five; and it is stated that an extensive plain of ‘voleanic stone’ has been formed in the sea, near Lampong, Sumatra, probably at a part of the coast dotted with small islands. A vessel near the site of the eruption had its deck covered with ashes eighteen inches deep, and passed masses of pumice-stone seven feet in depth. The wave reached the coast of Jaya on the morning of the 27th, and, thirty metres high, swept the coast between Merak and Tijiringin, totally destroying Anjer, Merak, and Tjiringin. Five miles of the coast of Sumatra seem to have been swept by the wave, and many lives lost. At Taujong Priok, fifty-eight miles distant from Krakatoa, a sea seven feet and a half higher than the ordinary highest level suddenly rushed in, and overwhelmed the place. Immediately afterwards it as suddenly sank ten feet and a half below the high-water mark, the effect being most destructive. We shall probably hear more of this wave, as doubt- less it was a branch of it which made its way across the Pacific, and that with such rapidity that on the 27th it reached San Francisco harbor, and continued to come in at intervals of twenty minutes, rising to a height of one foot for several days. The great wave generated on May 10, 1877, by the earthquake at SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 35. Iquique, on the coast of Peru, spread over the Pacific as far north as the Sandwich Islands, and south to New Zealand and Australia; while that at Arica, om Aug. 13 and 14, 1869, extended right across the Pacifie to Yokohama (Nature, vol.i. p. 54). It is misleading to speak of such waves as tidal: they are evidently due to powerful, extensive, and sudden disturbances of the ocean-bed, and are frequently felt in the Pacific when no earthquake has been experienced anywhere, though doubtless due to commotions somewhere in the depths of ocean. So far, these are all the facts that are known in connection with this last stupen- dous outburst of volcanic energy. It has altered the entire physical geography of the region, and the con- dition of the ocean-bed. The existing charts of the strait, with their careful soundings, are useless for purposes of navigation; and, when quiescence is re— stored, a new series of soundings will be necessary. Doubtless the results of the outbreak will receive minute attention at the hands of the Dutch goyern— ment; and, when all the data are collected, they will form valuable material for the study of the physical geographer. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Humblebees vs. field-mice. In Scrence of Sept. 7 the vice-president of section: F (biology), in his address of Aug. 16, referring to- the aid given by humblebees in fertilizing Trifolium pratense, is reported as saying, ‘‘ Bumblebees pre— fer to raise their colonies in old nests of meadow- mice. I mentioned in my last report, that it had been suggested that we should not keep many cats, nor allow hawks, foxes, or dogs to catch these mice; for they make nests which are quite necessary for the bumblebees, which help fertilize our red clover, and thereby largely increase the yield of seed.” I would beg leave to differ from the author of the suggestion referred to, on the ground, that, if carried out, the effect produced would be apt to be quite the contrary of that intended. As field-mice prey upon the nests and combs of the humblebees, acting as a great check to their increase in numbers, the greater the precautions taken to prevent the killing of the mice, the greater would be the tendency towards the extermination of the humblebee, and therefore the less would be the yield of seed, resulting from the lack of aid rendered by these insects in fertilizing the red clover. In support of my objection, I would refer to Dar— win’s Origin of species, sixth edition, third chapter, where, under the head of ‘‘ Complex relations of all animals and plants to each other in the struggle for existence,’ he says, ‘‘The number of humble- bees in any district depends in a great measure on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and Col. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humblebees, believes that ‘more than two-thirds of them are thus destroyed all over England.’ ”’ E, Nugent. Pottstown, Penn., Sept. 15, 1883. The influence of winds upon tree-growth. I observe that in the vicinity of Cambridge and Boston, wherever the common New-England elms. stand in a moderately isolated site, and one exposed to the wind, they lean, in a large majority of cases, trunk and all, to the south-east. This is true, also, Sa . P ‘ 4 OcroBeER 5, 1883.] to a less extent, of maples; but the oak, ash, poplar, and pine stand sturdily erect. I believe the leaning of the elastic-fibred elms is due to the prevailing winds, which are from the west and north-west, these winds being also the strongest and coldest. At the office of the U. S. signal-service in Boston, obser- vations are taken three times a day. In 1882, out of 1,095 observations taken, 298 showed the wind to be in the west, and 225 showed it to bein the north- west: in other words, about half (or forty-seven per cent) of the observations showed the wind to be somewhere between west and north-west. For the other five years the record is as follows: — 1877. | 1878. 1879. | 1880. 1881. ! / / 247 W. 229 W. 273 W. 301 W. 278 W. much for the prevailing direction of the wind. re seems to be no other cause than this, to which ‘We can assign the phenomenon of growth in ques- tion. All the many exceptions to the rule are to be explained, doubtless, by local causes, — shelter, neighborhood of other trees, and other more occult conditions of fibre. The works on forestry and bot- any seem not to notice the fact of asymmetry in tree- growth. It is only a repetition, on a larger scale, of the graceful deviation from monotonous symmetry which characterizes a]l leaf and branch structure. W. S. KenneEDyY. Importance of lime-juice in the pemmican fo arctic expeditions. ; The recent failure to relieve the party under Lieut. W. Greely at Lady Franklin Bay leads us to recur to the repeated difficulties which have marked the history of former arctic expeditions, We have re-examined the accounts of the English expedition of the Alert and the Discovery, under Nares and Ste- phenson, which left England, May 29, 1875. It was the first English arctic expedition which had orders to endeavor to reach the North Pole. It had the advantage of the advice of experienced arctic navi- gators, its commander Nares having been a member of several such expeditions. Thus it surprises the reader, that more thorough recautions were not made against the scurvy. The ondon quarterly review for January, 1877, has the fullest account of the ravages committed by that dis- ease with the sledge-parties sent out by Nares. Of the sledge-party under Commander Parr it says,— “Of seventeen of the finest men of the navy, who composed the original party, but five were (on return) able to walk along- side. One was dead, and the remainder in the last extremity of illness.” , It gives a minute account of the prostration by scurvy of the two other sledge-parties, —one under Commander Beaumont, and one under Commander Aldrich. Concerning the latter, the Review says, — Tq quote from the journal of Commander Aldrich, who led the western division, would be to repeat the same dreadful de- tails. The party broke down, and were supported by the same pak and brought back alive —that is all one can say — by the elp of God and the same determined courage. Surely, nothing finer was ever recorded than this advance of three sledges, — one to the north, another to the east, a third to the west, —laden down with sick and dying men, in obedience to an order to do their best, each in their separate direction. It is the old story,—too common in English annals, —the organization broke down, and individual heroism stepped in to save the honor of the day. But at what a cost!” SCIENCE. 471 All this was because the parties had no lime-juice. And Capt. Nares, ‘‘ with a chivalry and candor which do him honor, whether he has failed in judgment or not, declared that such was the fact, and that the omission was made by his orders and on his respon- sibility.’? He said, — * Acting on my lights and experience at the time, I followed the example of such men as M‘Clintock, Richards, Michan, and McClure, of the Investigator, and started off our sledges with as nearly as possible the same rations as had proved fairly success- ful on all previous occasions; that is, without lime-juice for issue as a ration, a small quantity for use as a medicine being carried by the sledges, which were not expected to be able to obtain game. . . . Up to the middle of May the lime-juice remains as solid as arock. No sledge-party employed in the arctic regions in the cold month of April has ever been able to issue a regular ration of lime-juice. In addition to the extra weight to be dragged, that its carriage would entail, there is the even more serious consideration of the time necessary in order to melt suf- ficient snow.” He added, — “ Of course, hereafter, lime-juice in some shape or other must be carried in all sledging-journeys; and we earnestly trust that some means will be found to make it in a lozenge, for, as a fluid, there is, and will always be, extreme difficulty in using it in cold weather, unless arctic travelling is considerably curtailed.” The Quarterly review, in quoting these manly re- marks of Capt. Nares at Guildhall, says, — “Even if it should be found that Sir George failed in judg- ment in this matter, be has in our opinion shown the finer form of fitness for command, in his readiness to assume the responsi- bility of his acts.” His frankness and manliness in assuming the whole blame to himself have evidently, in great meas- ure, disarmed criticism. But this brings us to the main object in this letter; and that is, to recur to the remedies which this story has suggested. If lozenges of lime-juice in a shape for arctic exploration haye not been manufactured, they certainly can at least now be found at the drug- gists in a shape to be used as troches for colds. But the efficient remedy is to have pemmican made which is permeated with lime-juice, as recommended in the ‘ Report of the surgeon-general of the navy for 1880’ (see p. 356). Gen. P. S. Wales said, — “The indispensable necessity of lime-juice in the sledging- parties, and the difficulties of carrying it, and preparing it for use, induced me to suggest the propriety of combining the juice and pemmican in the proportion of one ounce to the pound of the latter. The pemmican is greatly improved in taste and flavor, and will, believe, be more assimilable. This is an important modification, as there are persons who cannot eat the ordinary article.” The article was prepared as proposed, and tried in Washington, and pronounced to be very palatable. Gen. pees H. Thomas, in preparing for one of his battles, issued a general order, enjoining upon his whole army strict attention to minutiae, saying that “the loss of a battle might be due to one missing linehpin.”’ In recurring to this recommendation from the office of the surgeon-general of the navy, we have thought that it may be considered opportune, when the minds of many are now turned upon the arctic expeditions. We think that recommendation was followed, so far as the preparations of the Jeannette and the Rodgers were concerned; but, alas! they never’got so far as to turn their attention to fitting out explorations with sledge-parties. BENJAMIN ALYORD. Rensselaeria from the Hamilton group of Penn- sylvania. Will you kindly afford me a small space to correct. an error in your report of the discussion which fol- lowed the reading of my paper at Minneapolis? On p. 327 of your issue for Sept. 7 occur the following sentences: — 472 “The differences between them [the fossils exhib- ited and the Oriskany species of Rensselaeria] were slight, though well marked. Professor Hall described some of these differences, and Mr. Claypole acknowl- edged that a certain V-shaped groove was wanting in his specimens. Professor Hall thought that possibly the fossils should be referred to Amphigenia, which had many similarities to Rensselaeria.”’ The V-shaped groove in question is one of the generic marks of Amphigenia; and its absence, there- fore, was urged by me as excluding the fossils from that genus, and inferentially as a strong argument in favor of placing them in Rensselaeria. As the above-mentioned error places me (and I think Professor Hall also) in false positions, and involves a grave mistake in paleontology, I am in- duced to ask your insertion of this correction, which I have submitted to Professor Hall for his approval. I ought to add that the suggestion of Amphigenia by Professor Hall was only the result of a momen- tary impression on the first sight of the fossil, and one which he immediately withdrew, on observing the absence of the V-shaped groove above alluded to. E. W. CLAYPOLE. Aurora. The auroral display here to-night was unusually brilliant. I observed it first at 7.04 p.m. At this time a low but rather brilliant arch of light spanned the north-eastern horizon, the crest of the arch hay- ing an altitude of about 20°. During the next three minutes, the lights rapidly took on the ‘streamer’ form, gradually shooting upward to a little beyond the zenith, and at this time stretching from east, 10° south, around to west, 15° north, on the horizon. During about two minutes, the waving-curtain aspect was very pronounced in the north-east, after which only striated patches flamed out here and there, moving alternately west and east. These patches all converged toward the zenith, but left with one the impression of being pendulous and very near. The atmosphere appeared very clear, the moon full and bright, the twilight still strong; and there was light enough yet to enable one to read a newspaper, but with difficulty. The streamers, however, lay in sharp contrast against the blue sky, even where the twilight was strongest. At 7.15 the lights began to die rapidly away, and at 7.50 none were to be seen; but at S, and again at 8.18, there were distinct but small curtains to be seen in the north-west. At 8.20 there began a magnifi- cent display. Three large curtains formed one above the other, the lowest about 20° above the horizon in the north-west. They drifted gently toward the zenith, swaying and folding just enough, it seemed, to suit the almost imperceptible breeze which was stirring. The lights could be easily seen within 7° of the moon; and yet it cast its shadow on the carpet in a room 13 by 14, where two kerosene-lamps were burn- ing, one of them a no. 1, and the othera no. 2, burner. At 9.10 scarcely a trace of the aurora could be seen. A little later, a very faint diffuse light covered the northern sky to an altitude of about 25°. This soon became striped, and afterwards appeared to move bodily toward the zenith. At 10.20 the lower sky had become a deep blue; and just above it, at an alti- tude of 30°, a broad arch of bright but uniform light formed across the sky; and above this, extending past the zenith, were similar but much fainter bands. Five minutes later, the bright band unfolded a curtain which dropped in exquisite folds toward the horizon. This lasted less than two minutes, the whole belt of light becoming striated, but leaving a clear space next SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 35. to the horizon; then followed about five minutes dur- ing which the illuminated portion of the sky seemed to be throbbing, and sending out waves of subdued light, which spread southward over the blue vault, dy- ing away before the zenith was reached. This move- ment soon became more violent; and between 19.40 and 10.45 the lights had more the appearance of flames bursting rapidly from the sky, and spreading to the zenith, where they often turned abruptly toward each other, and met. This appearance con- tinued growing gradually less marked until 12.15 A.M., when there was scarcely a trace of auroral display. At 12.40 a faint arch of diffuse light could be seen in the north, like that already described. F. H. Kine. River Falls, Wis., Sept. 16, 1883. THOMPSON’S PHILIPP REIS. Philipp Reis: inventor of the telephone. A biographi- cal sketch, with documentary testimony, trans- lations of the original papers of the inventor, and contemporary publications. By SyLVANUS Tuomeson, B.A., D.Sc., professor of exp mental physics in University college, Bristol. © London, #. § F. N. Spon, 1883. 9+182 p., 3pl. 16°. Tue rapid development of the literature of the telephone, and the wide-spread interest in matters relating to it, have rendered the most important details of its history familiar to the general reading public, as well as to the scien- tifie world. The account of the life and labors of Philipp Reis, by Prof. S. P. Thompson, while repeating many of these well-known de- tails, contains some interesting notices of the - life and personal characteristics of the invent- or, and of the various steps by which he brought his instruments to their final stage. Following the brief biographical sketch, are descriptions of the various forms of apparatus devised by Reis, with numerous illustrations ; a statement of what the author terms the inventor’s claim ; copies of Reis’s own publications respecting his invention, and of certain contemporary ac- counts of it and its operation; with the testi- mony of persons who witnessed his experiments. An appendix discusses the variable resistance of imperfect. contacts, a comparison of Reis’s receiver with later instruments, the doctrine of undulatory currents, with some additional notes and references relating to Reis’s inven- tion. Had the efforts of the author been directed to the presentation of these things as matters of history merely, the book might be regarded as a valuable and interesting summary of facts relating to an important invention, and would demand but a brief notice here; but a cursory examination of it is sufficient to show that the author has failed to maintain that judicial atti- tude of mind which is indispensable to the just niet aii es _ , sae Ls OcroBeER 5, 1883.] and impartial record of historic verities. His book is throughout a labored special pleading, with the attempt to prove that Reis’s invention not only anticipated, but actually embodied, the essential features of the present telephonic ap- paratus. Space will not permit the considera- tion of all the points which might be criticised, nor is it necessary. A few of the most impor- tant are sufficient to illustrate the spirit which pervades the work, and to show how the facts of history are perverted in the endeavor to maintain a false and illogical position. It has been generally accepted as true, that Reis designed his transmitter to act as a con- tact-breaker, which should open and close the circuit once for each vibration produced by the sound to be transmitted. The support for this view is found not only in the repeated state- ments of Reis himself, but also in the con- struction of the apparatus. Reis says, in his own description of his transmitter (p. 56), “each sound-wave effects an opening and a closing of the current; ’’ and again, in his let- ter to Mr. Ladd (p. 84), ‘‘ If a person sing at the station A, in the tube (2) the vibrations of air will pass into the box and move the mem- brane above ; thereby the platina foot (c) of the movable angle will be lifted up and will thus open the stream at every condensation of air in the box. The stream will be re-established at every rarefaction. For this manner the steel axis at station B will be magnetic once for every full vibration.’’ With these and other most distinct state- ments of Reis, as to the intention and action of his apparatus, before him, Professor Thomp- son, nevertheless, asserts that it was never designed to break the circuit. Thus, on p. 14 he says, ‘‘ Theoretically, the last was no more perfect than the first, and they all embody the same fundamental idea: they only differ in the mechanical means of carrying out to a greater or less degree of perfection the one common principle of imitating the mechanism of the human ear, and applying that mechanism to affect or control a current of electricity by vary- ing the degree of contact at a loose joint in the cireuit.”” And again (p. 132), ‘* Now this operation of varying the degree of pressure in order to vary the resistance of the interruptor or contact-regulator, was distinctly contem- plated by Reis.’’ Further, the author main- tains that the combination of an adjusting-screw with a spring shows that Reis intended the platinum contact-piece to have a following » motion, so as to make a contact with varying pressure. He says on p. 133, ‘* By employ- ing these following-springs, he introduced, in SCIENCE. * jis present, and works against a spring ; 473 fact the element of elasticity into his inter- ruptor ; and clearly he introduced it for the very purpose of avoiding abrupt breaking of the contact.’’ If we examine the illustrations of the different forms of the transmitting apparatus, we shall see that this device was employed for a very different pur- pose. In the ear- liest form, repre- sented in fig. 1, the screw presses the spring away from the membrane, and, when the latter re- cedes in its vibra- tion, the spring carrying the plati- num point is pre- vented by the screw from following it, —an arrangement that tends to pre- vent, and was de- signed to prevent, a following contact, and insures a breaking of the circuit when the distance of the point is properly adjusted. The same is the case with the form of transmitter illustrated in fig. 2. In the form represented in fig. 3, the screw but the screw passes through a stout and firm piece of metal, and presses the spring which carries the contact-piece forward, that is, toward the membrane, thus giving it a rigid support. The spring serves merely to push back the con- Fie. 1. Fig. 2. tact-piece when the screw is reversed, a very simple and common mechanical device for giv- ing motion in opposition to the thrust of a screw. In the lever form, seen in figs. 4 and 5, the 474 screw is arranged in a similar manner, so as to regulate the distance of the contact-piece from the end of the leyer most remote from the membrane. Inall these instruments the screw acting upon the spring is expressly contrived to facilitate such an adjustment as will insure Fie. 3. the breaking of contact under the impact of the sound-waves. Its function is related to the tension and elasticity of the membrane, to make a pressure so light in any case, that the vibrations should be able, without fail, to sepa- rate the contact-pieces. To say, as Professor Thompson repeatedly does, that Reis employed his mechanism with the express intention of producing a variable current by the change of contact-resistance, and that he consciously and purposely utilized this principle, —at that time hardly recognized any- where, and of which the practical application was not discovered till several years later, —is a gross misrepresentation, and an utter perver- sion of the facts. Reis did not know, and could not know, that the strength of a current could be controlled by the varying pressure of the conducting-surfaces between which it passes. Nowhere in his writings, — whether in his description of the instruments, or in the pro- spectus issued with them, or in his letter to Mr. Ladd, —nor in the article of Professor Bottger and the report of Von Legat, is there the remotest suggestion that the transmitter acted, or was intended to act, otherwise than by breaking the cireuit. Nor is any thing of the kind to be found in any of the publications of the day, relating to this matter. With the knowledge which we now possess, of the vary- ing resistance of pressure-contacts, it is indeed easy, by a slight modification, to cause the contact-pieces to vary the current by change of pressure, and thus reproduce the vibration-form with approximate accuracy. But to do this, it is necessary to prevent them from separating so as to break contact and interrupt the current. Such a modification, however slight it may be, SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 35. totally changes the function of the contact- pieces, and amounts to a radical transformation of the apparatus. It is the very thing Reis studiously sought to prevent. That Reis speaks of the form of acoustical vibrations, and their graphical representation by a curve, is no proof that he supposed his. transmitter to act otherwise than by break- ing the circuit. Yet Professor Thompson says (p. 165), ‘‘ It is certain that Reis did not in any of his writings explicitly name an undulatory current: but it is equally certain that, whether he mentioned it or not, he both used one and intended to use one.’’ Reis nowhere claims that his appa- ratus realized the normal vibration-form, even in the case of a simple tone; and there is no evidence in all his writings to show that he had ever considered the mo- tions at the receiver to be the same as those of the original sound, except so far as there was a correspondence in period or rate of these motions with those at the transmitter. The idea of causing the motions in the receiver to have the same yibration-form as those in the transmitter originated with Bell, as did the method of securing this correspondence, which is indispensable to the reproduction of spoken words, by the use of an undulatory current. Says Sir William Thomson (Tel. journ. and electr. rév., v. 293), ‘‘ Mr. Graham Bell con- . ceived /the idea —the wholly novel and origi- nal idea — of giving continuity to the shocks, and of producing currents which would be im simple proportion to the motion of the air pro- VcOAEsSSFIILESTEUIATISITIOIIA duced by the voice, and of reproducing that effect at the remote end of a telegraphic wire.’’ The author of this book will scarcely have the hardihood to assert that his illustrious country- man, one of the greatest masters in electrical science, uttered these words in ignorance of a thing so well known as Reis’s telephone. ea SCIENCE. 475 OcToOBER 5, 1883.] As a further support to his position, the speech. A further proof of this is found in author lays great stress upon the statement that Reis’s apparatus could and did transmit spoken words so as to be understood. As to the fact of speech having been transmitted oc- casionally, it is doubtless true that some words were recognized, but imperfectly, and with difficulty ; and it is true, also, that when im- perfectly meeting the conditions set upon it by the inventor, the apparatus, when applied to transmit spoken words, will, with skilful han- dling, sometimes ‘ deviate into sense’ so far, that an oceasional word or short phrase can be made out with effort, by attentive listening with the ear close to it. Professor Béttger, who took an enthusiastic interest in the matter, says that the operators could communicate words with each other, but adds, ‘ only such, however, as they had already heard frequent- ly.’ Of the other ex- perimenters and wit- the addition of the telegraphic signal-appara- tus to the later forms of the instrument, to enable the experimenters to communicate with each other. Professor Thompson’s argument that the Morse signal-apparatus, if intended for verbal communication, should have been reversed, meets the facts but half way ; for the complete telephonic installation required a transmitter and a receiver at each end of the wire, so that the Morse signals could be sent in either direction with the same facility as the telephonic. Moreover, as if to prevent any possible question as to its use, Reis himself expressly says that the Morse apparatus is for the purpose of enabling the operators to com- d cr 4 ia K | hd nesses whose testimony is given in the book, some were able to under- stand portions of what was said; others failed. Every one familiar with telephonic experiments knows how easy it is to recognize these familiar phrases by the mere in- tonation, and how dif- ferent this is from un- derstanding words not previously known. Is it any thing surprising, that the words of a fa- miliar song should ap- pear to be recognized when the air is heard? Granted that the spoken words were some- times reproduced so as to be understood, it must also be admitted that the apparatus ac- complished this so imperfectly as to be of no practical value. To make it practically efli- cient required a modification that was in it- self a radical change and a distinct invention. That this was also Reis’s opinion, will be seen from the extracts given in a subsequent para- graph. There is good evidence, in the later writings and advertisements of Reis, that he had come _ to the conclusion that the faithful reproduction of the complex motions which occur in articu- late speech was impossible, and that he had silently abandoned the idea of reproducing Fie. 5. municate with each other; and, in the prospec- tus issued with the instruments, he describes a special alphabet, which he had devised to enable words to be spelled out. If these could be transmitted telephonically, why take this un- necessary trouble? This very provision is a most emphatic testimony that Reis, at this time, had become convinced that the apparatus as a transmitter of speech was a failure, and that, his original idea having proved impracti- cable, he had contented himself with sending musical tones. In respect to this point, the letter of Reis, written by himself in English to Mr. Ladd, and given at p. 81, is most significant. He says, ‘“Tunes and sounds of any kind are only brought to our conception by the condensations 476 and rarefactions of air or any other medium in which we may find ourselves.’’? And again, on p- 82, ‘‘these were ‘the principles wich (sic) guided me in my invention. They were sufti- cient to induce me to try the reproduction of tunes at any distance.’’ And again, on the same page, ‘‘ The apparatus consists of two separated parts; one for the singing-station A, and the other for the hearing-station B.’’ Also in the same letter, p. 84, ‘‘ If a person sing at the station A, in the tube («) the vi- brations will pass into the box and move the membrane aboye.’’ Respecting the word ‘¢unes,’ used by Reis, the author remarks, in a foot-note to p. 81, ‘‘ This word, as the con- text and ending of the paragraph shows, should have been written tones. The letter, written in English by Reis himself, is wonderfully free from inaccuracies of composition ; the slip here noted being a most pardonable one since the plural of the German ton is ténen, the very pronunciation of which would account for the confusion in the mind of one unaccustomed to write in English.’” The resemblance of tonen to tunes is not so remarkably close that it would be likely to mislead one whose knowledge of English is such as Reis shows himself in this letter to possess. The author does not attempt the explanation of the words ‘singing’ and ‘sing’ in the same letter. It is surprising that he should have allowed these words to pass unnoticed, for it was vital to his argument to prove that Reis mistook them for ‘ speaking’ and ‘speak.’ The resemblance is about as close as in the other case, but in neither is the explanation likely to be admitted by the un- prejudiced reader. j In taking himself back to the time of Reis’s telephone, the author has failed to identify him- self with the conditions of that time, and to leave behind him the subsequent acquisitions of science. He makes statements and claims which could only find their justification in a world very differently furnished with facts from this one. As anillustration of the mental dis- position resulting from this, the following sen- tence from the author’s preface may serve: ‘‘The testimony now adduced as to the aim of Philipp Reis’s invention, and the measure of success which he himself attained, is such, in the author’s opinion, and in the opinion, he trusts, of all right-thinking persons, to place beyond cayil the rightfulness of the claim which Reis himself put forward of being the inventor of the Telephone.’’ But did any one ever dis- pute this claim during his life? and has the author forgotten that no possible basis for a rival claim existed until more than two years SCIENCE. [Vou. Il., No. 35. after Reis’s death?—unless we except the suggestions of Bourseul, in 1854, which, while they certainly did anticipate the general idea of Reis’s invention, were never carried to the stage of experiment, and were never set up in opposition to him, unless it has been done recently. The author can hardly have been ignorant of these suggestions ; but, if not, he has carefully refrained from mentioning them. Reis never claimed that no new principle could ever be discovered which would enable the ends he sought to be attained in a different way, and more perfectly. His first article upon the subject ends with these words: ‘‘ There may probably remain much more yet to be done for the utilization of the telephone in practice. For physics, however, it has already sufficient interest in that it has opened out a new field of labor.’? And Von Legat closes his report with this remark: ‘‘ There remains no doubt, that, before expecting a practical utilization with serviceable results, that which has been spoken of will require still considerable im- provement, and, in particular, mechanical sci- ence must complete the apparatus to be used.’”’ The chief aim of the book is clearly this, — to endeavor, in direct opposition to the facts, to establish the untenable proposition that the Reis transmitter was designedly contrived by him to vary the contact-resistance by pressure, giving it a microphonic action, failure to ac- complish which is fatal to its success in con- veying spoken words. Professor Thompson has not always been of this opinion, and in another place he has given a correct account of the relation of Reis’s invention to that of Bell. In his ‘ Elementary lessons in electricity and magnetism,’ published in 1881, we find, on pp. 405 and 406, these words, —‘‘ The first attempt to transmit sounds electrically was made in 1852 [misprint for 1862] by Reis, who succeeded in conveying musical tones by an imperfect telephone. The transmitting part of Reis’s telephone consisted of a battery and a contact-breaker, the latter being formed of a stretched membrane, capable of taking up sonorous vibrations, and having attached to it a thin strip of platinum, which, as it vibrated, beat to and fro against the tip of a platinum wire, so making and breaking contact... . Reis also transmitted speech with this instru- ment, but very imperfectly, for the tones of speech cannot be transmitted by abrupt inter- ruptions of the current. . . . In 1876 Graham Bell invented the articulating telephone. In this instrument the speaker talks to an elastic disk of thin sheet-iron, which vibrates, and transmits its every movement electrically to a OcrToBER 5, 1§83.] similar disk in a similar telephone at a distant station, causing it to vibrate in an identical man- ner, and therefore to emit identical sounds.’’ Here we have Reis spoken of as inventing ‘ an imperfect telephone,’ while Bell invented ‘ the articulating telephone.’ Reis’s instrument was a ‘contact-breaker,’ and conveyed ‘ musical tones.’ Reis’s instrument transmitted speech ‘very imperfectly,’ and there is not the slight- est suggestion of microphonic action in the transmitter. Yet two years later we have statements diametrically opposed to these. The least that can be said of such varying and contradictory evidence is, that it totally destroys the credibility of the witness, and nullifies his claim to be accepted as a scientific authority, unless good reason is shown for the different opinion. The documents quoted in the book give no substantial reason for this change of ground, as they add very little of any importance to what was already generally known. The motive for the later opinions may be more intelligibly traced in the following items, which will be found in the Telegraphic journal and electrical review, vol. xii. p. 72, Jan., 1883, and p. 317, April 14, 1883, in the list of English patents : — ‘*‘ 2578. Telephonic instruments. SytvanusP.THompson. Dated May 31. 6d. This invention relates to tele- phonic instruments, and chiefly to improve- ments in receivers of a well-known form or type, invented by Phillip Reis.’’ ‘* 3803. Im- provements in telephonic apparatus. Sytva- nus P. Tuompson. Dated August 9. 6d. Relates to telephonic transmitters based upon the principle discovered by Philipp Reis in 1861, namely that of employing current-regu- lators actuated, either directly or indirectly, by the sound-waves produced by the voice. By the term ‘current-regulator,’ the inventor means a device similar to that employed by Reis, wherein a loose contact between two parts of a circuit (in which are included a battery and a telephonic receiver) offers greater or less resistance to the flow of the electric current, the degree of intimacy of contact between the conducting-pieces being altered by the vibra- tions of the voice.’’ For a contrast of colors, we may put side by side with these sentences the following, from the preface to the book now under considera- tion: ‘*To set forth the history of this long- neglected inventor and of his instrument, and to establish upon its own merits, without special pleading, and without partiality, the nature of that much-misunderstood and much-abused invention, has been the aim of the writer. . . . He has nothing to gain by making Reis’s in- SCIENCE. 477 vention appear either better or worse than it really was.’ Further comment upon the value of such tes- timony as is contained in this book is surperflu- ous. What Reis accomplished, and what he failed to do, are now familiar matters of his- tory. His well-earned fame can only suffer from such misstatement of facts, and the un- just exaggeration of his actual achievements. OBLIGATIONS OF MATHEMATICS TO PHILOSOPHY, AND TO QUESTIONS OF COMMON LIFE1—I. SINCE our last meeting, we have been deprived of three of our most distinguished members. The loss by the death of Professor Henry John Stephen Smith is a very grievous one to those who knew and admired and loved him, to his university, and to mathematical science, which he cultivated with such ardor and success. I need hardly recall that the branch of mathematics to which he had specially devoted him- self was that most interesting and difficult one, the theory of numbers. The immense range of this sub- ject, connected with and ramifying into so many others, is nowhere so well seen as in the series of re- ports on the progress thereof, brought up, unfortu- nately, only to the year 1865, contributed by him to the reports of the association; but it will still better appear, when to these are united (as will be done in the collected works in course of publication by the Clarendon Press) his other mathematical writings, many of them containing his own further develop- ments of theories referred to in the reports. There have been recently or are being published many such collected editions, — Abel, Cauchy, Clifford, Gauss, Green, Jacobi, Lagrange, Maxwell, Riemann, Steiner. Among these, the works of Henry Smith will occupy a worthy position. More recently, Gen. Sir Edward Sabine, K.C.B., for twenty-one years general secretary of the associa- tion, and a trustee, president of the meeting at Bel- fast in the year 1852, and for many years treasurer, and afterwards president of the Royal society, has been taken from us at an age exceeding the ordinary age of man. Born October, 1788, he entered the Royal artillery in 1803, and commanded batteries at the siege of Fort Erie in 1814; made magnetic and other observations in Ross and Parry’s north-polar exploration in 1818-19, and in a series of other voy- ages. He contributed to the association reports on magnetic forces in 1836, 1837, and 1838, and about forty papers to the Philosophical transactions ; origi- nated the system of magnetic observatories, and other- wise signally promoted the science of terrestrial magnetism. There is yet a very great loss, — another late presi- 1 Inaugural address by ArnTHuR Caytey, M.A., D.C.L LL.D., F.R.S., Sadlerian professor of pure mathematics in the University of Cambridge, president of the British association for the advancement of science, for the Southport meeting. From advance proofs kindly furnished by the editors of Nature. 478 dent and trustee of the association ; one who has done for it so much, and has so often attended the meet- ings; whose presence among us at this meeting we might have hoped for, — the president of the Royal society, William Spottiswoode. It is unnecessary to say any thing of his various merits. The place of his burial, the crowd of sorrowing friends who were pres- ent in the Abbey, bear witness to the esteem in which he was beld. I take the opportunity of mentioning the comple- tion of a work promoted by the association, — the determination, by Mr. James Glaisher, of the least factors of the missing three out of the first nine million numbers. The volume containing the sixth million is now published. I wish to speak to you to-night upon mathematics. I am quite aware of the difficulty arising from the abstract nature of my subject; and if, as I fear, many or some of you, recalling the presidential ad- dresses at former meetings, — for instance, the résumé and survey which we had at York of the progress, during the half-century of the lifetime of the associa- tion, of a whole circle of sciences (biology, paleontol- ogy, geology, astronomy, chemistry) so much more familiar to you, and in which there was so much to tell of the fairy-tales of science; or, at Southampton, the discourse of my friend, who hasin such kind terms introduced me to you, on the wondrous practical appli- cations of science to electric lighting, telegraphy, the ’ St. Gothard Tunnel and the Suez Canal, gun-cotton, and a host of other purposes, and with the grand concluding speculation on the conservation of solar energy :—if, I say, recalling these or any earlier ad- dresses, you should wish that you were now about to haye, from a different president, a discourse on a dif- ferent subject, I can very well sympathize with you in the feeling. But, be this as it may, I think it is more respectful to you that I should speak to you upon, and do my best to interest you in, the subject which has occu- pied me, and in which I am myself most interested. And, in another point of view, I think it is right that the address of a president should be on his own subject, and that different subjects should be thus brought in turn before the meetings. So much the worse, it may be, for a particular meeting; but the meeting is the individual, which, on evolution princi- ples, must be sacrificed for the development of the race. Mathematics connect themselves, on the one side, with common life and the physical sciences; on the other side, with philosophy in regard to our notions of space and time, and in the questions which have arisen as to the universality and necessity of the truths of mathematics, and the foundation of our knowledge of them. I would remark here, that the connection (if it exists) of arithmetic and algebra with the notion of time is far less obvious than that of geometry with the notion of space. As to the former side: I am not making before you a defence of mathematics; but, if I were, I should desire to do it in such manner as in the ‘ Republic’ Socrates was required to defend justice, — quite irre- SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 35. spectively of the worldly advantages which may ac- company a life of virtue and justice, —and to show, that, independently of all these, justice was a thing desirable in itself and for its own sake, not by speaking to you of the utility of mathematics in any of the questions of common life or of physical sci- ence. Still less would I speak of this utility before, I trust, a friendly audience, interested or willing to appreciate an interest in mathematics in itself and for its own sake. I would, on the contrary, rather consider the obligations of mathematics to these dif- ferent subjects as the sources of mathematical theo- ries, now as remote from them, and in as different a region of thought, — for instance, geometry from the measurement of land, or the theory of numbers from arithmetic, —as a river at its mouth is from its mountain source. On the other side: the general opinion has been, and is, that it is indeed by experience that we arrive at the truths of mathematics, but that experience is not their proper foundation. The mind itself contrib- utes something. This is involved in the Platonic theory of reminiscence. Looking at two things— trees or stones or any thing else — which seem to us more or less equal, we arrive at the idea of equality; but we must have had this idea of equality before the time when, first seeingt he two things, we were led to regard them as coming up more or less perfectly to this idea of equality; and the like as regards our idea of the beautiful, and in other cases. The same view is expressed in the answer of Leib- nitz, the ‘nisi intellectus ipse,’ to the scholastic dic- tum, ‘Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu’ (‘There is nothing in the intellect which was not first in sensation’ — ‘except [said Leibnitz] the intel- lect itself’). And so again, in the ‘Critick of pure reason,’ Kant’s view is, that while there is no doubt but that "all our cognition begins with experience, we are nevertheless in possession of cognitions @ priori, independent, not of this or that experience, but absolutely so of all experience, and in particular that the axioms of mathematics furnish an example of such cognitions a priori. Kant holds, further, that space is no empirical conception which has been derived from external experiences, but that, in order that sensations may be referred to some- thing external, the representation of space must al- ready lie at the foundation, and that the external experience is itself first only possible by this repre- sentation of space. And, in like manner, time is no empirical conception which can be deduced from an experience, but it is a necessary representation lying at the foundation of all intuitions. And so in regard to mathematics, Sir W. R. Hamil- ton, in an introductory lecture on astronomy (1836), observes, ‘‘ These purely mathematical sciences of algebra and geometry are sciences of the pure reason, deriving no weight and no assistance from experi- ment, and isolated, or at least isolable, from all out- ward and accidental phenomena, The idea of order, with its subordinate ideas of number and figure, we must not, indeed, call innate ideas, if that phrase be defined to imply that all men must possess them with OcToBER 5, 1883.] equal clearness and fulness: they are, however, ideas which seem to be so ‘far born with us that the posses- sion of them in any conceivable degree is only the development of our original powers, the unfolding of our proper humanity.” The general question of the ideas of space and time, the axioms and definitions of geometry, the axioms relating to number, and the nature of mathematical reasoning, are fully and ably discussed in Whewell’s “Philosophy of the inductive sciences ”’ (1840), which may be regarded as containing an exposition of the whole theory. But it is maintained by John Stuart Mill that the truths of mathematics, in particular those of geome- try, rest on experience; and, as regards geometry, the same view is on very different grounds maintained by the mathematician Riemann. It is not so easy as at first sight it appears, to make out how far the views taken by Mill in his ‘System of logic ratiocinative and inductive’ (ninth edi- tion, 1879) are absolutely contradictory to those which have been spoken of. Theyprofessto beso. There are most definite assertions (supported by argument): for instance, p. 263, ‘‘It remains to inquire what is the ground of our belief in axioms, what is the evidence on which they rest. I answer, they are experimental truths, generalizations from experience. The propo- sition ‘ Two straight lines cannot enclose a space,’ or, in other words, two straight lines which have once met cannot meet again, is an induction from the evi- dence of oursenses.’’ But I cannot help considering a previous argument (p. 259) as very materially modi- fying this absolute contradiction. After inquiring, ““Why are mathematics by almost all philosophers . .. considered to be independent of the evidence of experience and observation, and characterized as systems of necessary truth ?’’ Mill proceeds (I quote the whole passage) as follows: ‘‘The answer I con- ceive to be, that this character of necessity ascribed to the truths of mathematics, and even (with some reservations to be hereafter made) the peculiar cer- tainty ascribed to them, is a delusion, in order to sustain which it is necessary to suppose that those truths relate to and express the properties of purely imaginary objects. It is acknowledged that the con- clusions of geometry are derived, partly at least, from the so-called definitions, and that these definitions are assumed to be correct representations, as far as they go, of the objects with which geometry is con- versant. Now, we have pointed out, that, from a definition as such, no proposition, unless it be one concerning the meaning of a word, can ever follow, and that what apparently follows from a definition follows in reality from an implied assumption that there exists a real thing conformable thereto. This assumption, in the case of the definitions of geometry, is not strictly true. There exist no real things exactly conformable to the definitions. There exist no real points without magnitude, no lines without breadth, nor perfectly straight, no circles with all their radii exactly equal, nor squares with all their angles per- fectly right. It will be said that the assumption does not extend to the actual, but only to the possible, ex- — SCIENCE. 479 istence of such things. I answer, that, according to every test we have of possibility, they are not even possible. Their existence, so far as we can form any judgment, would seem to be inconsistent with the physical constitution of our planet at least, if not of the universal [sic]. To get rid of this difficulty, and at the same time to save the credit of the supposed system of necessary truths, it is customary to say that the points, lines, circles, and squares which are the subjects of geometry exist in our conceptions merely, and are parts of our minds; which minds, by working on their own materials, construct an a priori science, the evidence of which is purely mental, and has nothing to do with outward experience. By howsoever high authority this doctrine has been sanctioned, it appears to me psychologically incor- rect. The points, lines, and squares which any one has in his mind are (as I apprehend) simply copies of the points, lines, and squares, which he has known in his experience. Our idea of a point I apprehend to be simply our idea of the minimum visibile, the small portion of surface which we can see. We can reason about a line as if it had no breadth, because we have a power which we can exercise over the operations of our minds, — the power, when a percep- tion is present to our senses, or a conception to our intellects, of attending to a part only of that percep- tion or conception, instead of the whole. But we cannot conceive a line without breadth; we can form no mental picture of such a line: all the lines which we have in our mind are lines possessing breadth. If any one doubt this, we may refer him to his own ex- perience. I much question if any one who fancies that he can conceive of a mathematical line thinks so from the evidence of his own consciousness. I suspect it is rather because he supposes, that, unless such a perception be possible, mathematics could not exist as a science, —a supposition which there will be no difficulty in showing to be groundless.”’ I think it may be at once conceded that the truths of geometry are truths precisely because they relate to and express the properties of what Mill calls ‘purely imaginary objects.’ That these objects do not exist in Mill’s sense, that they do not exist in nature, may also be granted. That they are ‘not even possible,’ if this means not possible in an ex- isting nature, may also be granted. That we cannot ‘conceive’ them depends on the meaning which we attach to the word ‘conceive.’ I would myself say that the purely imaginary objects are the only reali- ties, the évrwe évra, in regard to which the correspond- ing physical objects are as the shadows in the cave; and it is only by means of them that we are able to deny the existence of a corresponding physical ob- ject. If there is no conception of straightness, then it is meaningless to deny the existence of a perfectly straight line. But, at any rate, the objects of geometrical truth are the so-called imaginary objects of Mill; and the truths of geometry are only true, and a fortiori are only necessarily true, in regard to these so-called imaginary objects. And these objects, points, lines, circles, etc., in the mathematical sense of the terms, 480 have a likeness to, and are represented more or less imperfectly, — and, from a geometer’s point of view, no matter how imperfectly, — by corresponding phys- ical points, lines, circles, ete. I shall have to re- turn to geometry, and will then speak of Riemann; but I will first refer to another passage of the ‘ Logic.’ Speaking of the truths of arithmetic, Mill says (p. 297) that even here there is one hypothetical element: “Tn all propositions concerning numbers, a condition is implied without which none of them would be true; and that condition is an assumption which may be false. The condition is, that 1=1; that all the numbers are numbers of the same or of equal units.” Here, at least, the assumption may be absolutely true: one shilling—one shilling in purchasing-power, although they may not be absolutely of the same weight and fineness. But it is hardly necessary: one coin+-one coin=two coins, even if the one be a shilling and the other a half-crown. In fact, what- ever difficulty be raisable as to geometry, it seems to me that no similar difficulty applies to arithmetic. Mathematician or not, we haye each of us, in its most abstract form, the idea of a number, We can each of us appreciate the truth of a proposition in regard to numbers; and we cannot but see that a truth in regard to numbers is something different in kind from an experimental truth generalized from experience, Compare, for instance, the proposition that the sun, having already risen so many times, will rise to-morrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and so on, and the proposition that even and odd numbers succeed each other alternately ad injini- tum: the latter, at least, seems to have the charac- ters of universality and necessity. Or, again, suppose a proposition observed to hold good for a long series of numbers, — one thousand numbers, two thousand numbers, as the case may be: this is not only no proof, but it is absolutely no evidence, that the propo- sition is a true proposition, holding good for all num- bers whatever. There are, in the theory of numbers, very remarkable instances of propositions observed to hold good for very long series of numbers, and which are nevertheless untrue. I pass in review certain mathematical theories. In arithmetic and algebra, or, say, in analysis, the numbers or magnitudes which we represent by sym- bols are, in the first instance, ordinary (that is, posi- tive) numbers or magnitudes. We have also in analysis, and in analytical geometry, negative magni- tudes. There has been, in regard to these, plenty of philosophical discussion, and I might refer to Kant’s paper, ‘ Ueber die negativen gréssen in die weltweis- heit’ (1763); but the notion of a negative magni- tude has become quite a familiar one, and has extended itself into common phraseology. I may re- mark that it is used in a very refined manner in book-keeping by double entry. But it is far otherwise with the notion which is really the fundamental one (and I cannot too strong- ly emphasize the assertion), underlying and pervading the whole of modern analysis and geometry, — that of imaginary magnitude in analysis, and of imagi- nary space (or space as a locus in quo of imaginary SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 35. points and figures) in geometry. I use in each case the word ‘imaginary’ asincluding real. This has not been, so far as I am aware, a subject of philosophical discussion or inquiry. As regards the older meta~- physical writers, this would be quite accounted for by saying that they knew nothing, and were not bound to know any thing, about it. But at present, and considering the prominent position which the notion occupies, — say, even, that the conclusion were: that the notion belongs to mere technical mathemat- ics, or has reference to nonentities in regard to which no science is possible, —still it seems to me, that, as a subject of philosophical discussion, the notion ought not to be thus ignored. It should at least be shown that there is a right to ignore it. Although in logical order I should perhaps now speak of the notion just referred to, it will be con- venient to speak first of some other quasi-geometri- cal notions, — those of more-than-three-dimensional space, and of non-Euclidian two- and three-dimen- sional space, and also of the generalized notion of dis- tance. It is in connection with these, that Riemann considered that our notion of space is founded on experience, or, rather, that it is only by experience that we know that our space is Euclidian space. “It is well known that Euclid’s twelfth axiom, even in Playfair’s form of it, has been considered as need- ing demonstration, and that Lobatschewsky con- structed a perfectly consistent theory, wherein this axiom was assumed not to hold good, or, say, a system of non-Euclidian plane geometry. There is a like system of non-Euclidian solid geometry. My own view is, that Euclid’s twelfth axiom, in Playfair’s form of it, does not need demonstration, but is part of our notion of space, of the physical space of our experience, — the space, that is, with which we be- come acquainted by experience, but which is the rep- resentation lying at the foundation of all external ex- perience. Riemann’s view, before referred to, may, I think, be said to be, that, having in intellectu a more general notion of space (in fact, a notion of non-Eu- clidian space), we learn by experience that space (the physical space of our experience) is —if not exactly, at least to the highest degree of approximation — Euclidian space. But suppose the physical space of our experience to be thus only approximately Euclidian space: what is the consequence which follows? Not that the propositions of geometry are only approximately true, but that they remain absolutely true in regard to that Euclidian space which has been so long regarded as being the physical space of our experience, It is interesting to consider two different ways in which, without any modification at all of our notion of space, we can arrive at a system of non-Euclidian (plane or two-dimensional) geometry ; and the doing so will, I think, throw some light on the whole ques- tion. First, imagine the earth a perfectly smooth sphere; understand by a plane the surface of the earth, and, by a line, the apparently straight line (in fact, an are of great circle) drawn on the surface. What experi- ence would in the first instance teach would be Eu- OcTOBER 5, 1883.] clidian geometry: there would be intersecting lines, which, produced a few miles or so, would seem to go on diverging, and apparently parallel lines, which would exhibit no tendency to approach each other; and the inhabitants might very well conceive that they had by experience established the axiom that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and the axiom as to parallel lines. A more extended expe- rience and more accurate measurements would teach them that the axioms were each of them false; and that any two lines, if produced far enough each way, would meet in two points: they would, in fact, arrive at a spherical geometry, accurately representing the properties of the two-dimensional space of their ex- perience. But their original Euclidian geometry would not the less be a true system; only it would apply to an ideal space, not the space of their expe- rience. Secondly, consider an ordinary, indefinitely ex- tended plane; and let us modify only the notion of distance. We measure distance, say, bya yard meas- ure ora foot rule, any thing which is short enough to make the fractions of it of no consequence (in mathe- matical language, by an infinitesimal element of length). Imagine, then, the length of this rule con- stantly changing (as it might do by an alteration of temperature), but under the condition that its actual length shail depend only on its situation on the plane, and on its direction; viz., if for a given situation and direction it has a certain length, then whenever it comes back to the same situation and direction it must have the same length. The distance along a given straight or curved line between any two points could then be measured in the ordinary manner with this rule, and would have a perfectly determinate value; it could be measured over and over again, and would always be the same: but of course it would be the distance, not in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but in quite a different acceptation. Or in a somewhat different way: if the rate of progress from a given point in a given direction be conceived as depending only on the configuration of the ground, and the distance along a given path between any two points thereof be measured by the time required for traversing it, then in this way, also, the distance would have a perfectly determinate value; but it would be a distance, not in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but in quite a different acceptation; and, correspond- ing to the new notion of distance, we should have a new non-Euclidian system of plane geometry. All theorems involving the notion of distance would be altered. We may proceed farther. Suppose that as the rule moves away from a fixed central point of the plane it becomes shorter and shorter: if this shortening take ’ place with sufficient rapidity, it may very well be that a distance which in the ordinary sense of the word is finite will in the new sense be infinite. No number of repetitions of the length of the ever-shortening rule will be sufficient to cover it. There will be surround- ing the central point a certain finite area, such that (in the new acceptation of the term ‘ distance’) each point of the boundary thereof will be at an infinite SCIENCE. “Epa 481 distance from the central point. The points outside this area you cannot by any means arrive at with your rule: they will form a terra incognita, or, rather, an unknowable land (in mathematical language, an imaginary or impossible space); and the plane space of the theory will be that within the finite area, that is, it will be finite instead of infinite. We thus, with a proper law of shortening, arrive at a system of non-Euclidian geometry which is essen- tially that of Lobatschewsky ; but, in so obtaining it, we put out of sight its relation to spherical geometry. The three geometries (spherical, Euclidian, and Lo- batschewsky’s) should be regarded as members of a system : viz., they are the geometries of a plane (two- dimensional) space of constant positive curvature, zero curvature, and constant negative curvature, re- spectively ; or, again, they are the plane geometries corresponding to three different notions of distance. In this point of view, they are Klein’s elliptic, para- bolic, and hyperbolic geometries respectively. Nextas regards solid geometry : we can, by a mod- ification of the notion of distance (such as has just been explained in regard to Lobatschewsky’s system), pass from our present system to a non-Euclidian sys- tem. For the other mode of passing to a non-Euclidi- an system, it would be necessary to regard our space as a flat three-dimensional space existing in a space of four dimensions (i.e., as the analogue of a plane existing in ordinary space), and to substitute for such flat three-dimensional space a curved three-di- mensional space, say, of constant positive or negative curvature. In regarding the physical space of our experience as possibly non-Euclidian, Riemann’s idea seems to be that of modifying the notion of distance, not that of treating it as a locus in four-dimensional space, I have just come to speak of four-dimensional space. What meaning do we attach to it? or can we attach to it any meaning? It may be at once ad- mitted that we cannot conceive of a fourth dimen- sion of space; that space as we conceive of it, and the physical space of our experience, are alike three- dimensional. But we can, I think, conceive of space as being two- or even one-dimensional; we can im- agine rational beings living in a one-dimensional space (a line) or in a two-dimensional space (a sur- face), and conceiving of space accordingly, and to whom, therefore, a two-dimensional space or (as the case may be) a three-dimensional space would be as inconceivable as a four-dimensional space is to us. And very curious speculative questions arise. Sup- pose the one-dimensional space a right line, and that it afterwards becomes a curved line: would there be any indication of the change? or, if originally a curved line, would there be any thing to suggest to them that it was not a right line? Probably not; for a one-dimensional geometry hardly exists. But let the space be two-dimensional, and imagine it origi- nally a plane, and afterwards bent (converted, that is, into some form of developable surface), or con- verted into a curved surface; or imagine it originally a developable or curved surface. In the former case there should be an indication of the change, for the 482 geometry originally applicable to_the space of their experience (our own Euclidian geometry) would cease to be applicable; but the change could not be apprehended by them as a bending or deformation of the plane, for this would imply the notion of a three- dimensional space in which this bending or defor- mation could take place. In the latter case their geometry would be that appropriate to the develop- able or curved surface which is their space; viz., this would be their Euclidian geometry. Would they ever have arrived at our own more simple system ? But take the case where the two-dimensional space is a plane, and imagine the beings of such a space familiar with our own Euclidian plane geometry: if, a third dimension being still inconceivable by them, they were by their geometry or otherwise led to the notion of it, there would be nothing to prevent them from forming a science such as our own science of three-dimensional geometry. Evidently, all the foregoing questions present them- selves in regard to ourselves, and to three-dimension- al space as we conceive of it, and as the physical space of our experience. And I need hardly say that the first step is the difficulty, and that, granting a fourth dimension, we may assume as many more dimensions as we please. But, whatever answer be given to them, we have, as a branch of mathematics, poten- tially if not actually, an analytical geometry of n- dimensional space. I shall have to speak again upon this. Coming now to the fundamental notion already re- ferred to, —that of imaginary magnitude in analysis, and imaginary space in geometry; 1 connect this with two great discoveries in mathematics, made in the first half of the seventeenth century, — Harriot’s representation of an equation in the form f(x)= 0, and the consequent notion of the roots of an equa- tion as derived from the linear factors of f(x) (Har- riot, 1560-1621: his ‘Algebra,’ published after his death, has the date 1631); and Descartes’ method of co-ordinates, as given in the ‘Géometrie’ forming a short supplement to his ‘Traité de la méthode,’ ete. (Leyden, 1637). I show how by these we are led analytically to the notion of imaginary points in geometry. For in- stance: we arrive at the theorem that a straight line and circle in the same plane intersect always in two points, real or imaginary. The conclusion as to the two points of intersection cannot be contradicted by experience. Take a sheet of paper and draw on it the straight line and circle, and try. But you might Say, or at least be strongly tempted to say, that it is meaningless. The question, of course, arises, What is the meaning of an imaginary point? and, further, In what manner can the notion be arrived at geometri- cally ? There is a well-known construction in perspective for drawing lines through the intersection of two lines which are so nearly parallel as not to meet within the limits of the sheet of paper. You have two given lines which do not meet, and you draw a third line, which, when the lines are all of them produced, is found to pass through the intersection of the given SCIENCE. [Vox. IL, No. 35. lines. If, instead of lines, we have two cireular arcs not meeting each other, then we can, by means of these ares, construct a line; and if, on completing the circles, it is found that the circles intersect each other in two real points, then it will be found that the line passes through these two points: if the circles appear not to intersect, then the line will appear not to inter- sect either of the circles. But the geometrical con- struction being in each case the same, we say that in the second case, also, the line passes through the two intersections of the circles. Of course, it may be said in reply, that the conclu- sion is a very natural one, provided we assume the existence of imaginary points; and that, this assump- tion not being made, then, if the circles do not inter- sect, it is meaningless to assert that the line passes through their points of intersection. The difficulty is not got over by the analytical method before referred to, for this introduces difficulties of its own. Is there, in a plane, a point the co-ordinates of which have given imaginary values? As a matter of fact, we do consider, in plane geometry, imaginary points introduced into the theory analytically or geometrically, as above. The like ‘considerations apply to solid geometry; and we thus arrive at the notion of imaginary space as a locus in quo of imaginary points and figures. I have used the word ‘imaginary’ rather than ‘ com- plex,’ and I repeat that the word has been used as in- cluding real. But, this once understood, the word becomes in many cases superfluous, and the use of it would even be misleading. Thus: ‘a problem has so many solutions.’ This means so many imaginary (including real) solutions. But if it were said that the problem had ‘so many imaginary solutions,’ the word ‘imaginary’ would here be understood to be used in opposition to real, I give this explanation the better to point out how wide the application of the notion of the imaginary is; viz. (unless expressly or by implication excluded), it is a notion implied and presupposed in all the conclusions of modern analysis and geometry. It is, as I have said, the fun- damental notion underlying and pervading the whole of these branches of mathematical science. , I consider the question of the geometrical repre- sentation of an imaginary variable. We represent the imaginary variable x + iy by means of a point in a plane, the co-ordinates of which are (a, y). This idea, due to Gauss, dates from about the year 1831. We thus picture to ourselves the succession of values of the imaginary variable «+ iy by means of the motion of the representative point: for instance, the succession of values corresponding to the motion of the point along a closed curve to its original position. The value X +iY of the function can, of course, be represented by means of a point (taken for greater convenience in a different plane), the co-ordinates of which are X, Y. u We may consider, in general, two points, moving each in its own plane; so that the position of one of them determines the position of the other, and con- sequently the motion of the one determines the mo- tion of the other, For instance: the two points may OcToBER 5, 1883.] be the tracing-point and the pencil of a pentagraph. You may with the first point draw any figure you please: there will be a corresponding figure drawn by the second point, —for a good pentagraph, a copy on a seale different, it may be; for a badly adjusted pentagraph, a distorted copy; but the one figure will always be a sort of copy of the first, so that to each point of the one figure there will correspond a point in the other figure. In the case above referred to, where one point rep- resents the value c+iy of the imaginary variable, and the other the value ¥+iY of some function, 9 («+iy), of that variable, there is a remarkable relation be- tween the two figures: this is the relation of ortho- morphie projection, the same which presents itself between a portion of the earth’s surface and the rep- resentation thereof by a map on the stereographic projection or on Mercator’s projection; viz., any in- definitely small area of the one figure is represented in the other figure by an indefinitely small area of the same shape. There will possibly be for differ- ent parts of the figure great variations of scale, but the shape will be unaltered. If for the one area the boundary is a circle, then for the other area the boundary will be a circle: if for one it is an equilat- eral triangle, then for the other it{}will be an equi- lateral triangle. I have been speaking of an imaginary variable (at+iy), and of a function, ¢(a+iy)=X+7Y, of that variable; but the theory may equally well be stated in regard to a plane curve: in fact, the at+iy and the X¥+iY are two imaginary variables connected by an equation. Say their values are u and »v, con- nected by an equation, F (u, v) = 0: then, regard- ing u, v, as the co-ordinates of a point in plano, this will be a point on the curve represented by the equa- tion. The curve, in the widest sense of the expres- sion, is the whole series of points, real or imaginary, SCIENCE. one ef a ie * eee 483 the co-ordinates of which satisfy the equation; and these are exhibited by the foregoing corresponding figures in two planes. But, in the ordinary sense, the curve is the series of real points, with co-ordinates u, v, which satisfy the equation. In geometry itis the curve, whether defined by means of its equation or in any other manner, which is the subject for contemplation and study. But we also use the curve as a representation of its equation; that is, of the relation existing between two magni- tudes, 2, y, which are taken as the co-ordinates of a point on the curve. Such employment of a curye for all sorts of purposes—the fluctuations of the barometer, the Cambridge boat-races, or the funds — is familiar to most of you. Itis in like manner con- venient in analysis, for exhibiting the relations be- tween any three magnitudes, «, y, z, to regard them as the co-ordinates of a point in space; and, on the like ground, we should at least wish to regard any four or more magnitudes as the co-ordinates of a point in space of a corresponding number of dimen- sions. Starting with the hypothesis of such a space, and of points therein, each determined by.means of its co-ordinates, it is found possible to establish a system of n-dimensional geometry analogous in every respect to our two- and three-dimensional geometries, and to a very considerable extent serving to exhibit the relations of the variables. It is to be borne in mind that the space, whatever its dimensionality may be, must always be regarded as an imaginary or complex space, such as the two- or three-dimensional space of ordinary geometry. The advantages of the representation would otherwise altogether fail to be obtained. I omit some farther developments in regard to geometry, and all that I have written as to the con- nection of mathematics with the notion of time. (To be continued.) INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. STATE INSTITUTIONS. Tllinois state laboratory of natural history, Normal, Ill. Experiments with diseased caterpillars. — Prof. S. A. Forbes is making a special study of ‘ schlaffsucht,’ or some very similar disease, among our native cat- erpillars. He has so far proven that the disease is characterized by an enormous development of bac- teria in the alimentary canal, the same forms appear- ing in the blood before death; that it is contagious by way of the food ingested; that the characteristic bacteria may be easily and rapidly cultivated in ster- ilized beef-broth; and that caterpillars whose food has been moistened with this infected broth, speedily show the bacteria in the alimentary canal, and, later, in the blood, and soon all die of the disease, Other caterpillars of the same lot, receiving the same treat- ment, except that the food is moistened with distilled water instead of the infected broth, remain unaf- fected. These bacteria are likewise cultivable in vegetable infusions, but multiply there less freely. Every step of the investigation is fortified by stained and mounted preparations, which are being submitted to cryptogamists. It has already been determined that the bacterium infesting a brood of Datana ministra in his breeding-cages is identical with the Micrococcus bombycis of the silk-worm; the form, measurements, modes of aggregation, and behavior to reagents, of the two, being the same. Datana Angusii, feeding upon walnut, vas also occa- sionally infested by this M. bombycis, but much more commonly by a spherical species, probably un- described. In the cabbage-worm (Pieris rapae) occurs still another species of Micrococcus, very minute (5 4 in diameter), globular, and usually either single or in pairs. This is far the most virulent of the insect affections, which is being studied by Forbes, — the 484 most like a plague. In its earlier stages it can usu- ally be recognized by the light tint of the larvae, an ashy green, so different from the ordinary color that one may pick out the diseased worms at ‘a glance. These soon become torpid, and commonly die ina few hours. After death, decomposition is peculiarly sudden and rapid. A pale individual, picked out in the evening while still active, at eight o’clock the following morning was dead, blackened, and almost deliquescent, the whole body being reduced to a semi- fluid condition. This Micrococcus multiplies rapidly in beef-broth, rendering the fluid turbid. The cultures of these Micrococci are made by the most rigorous use of the modern methods of ‘pure culture.’ Only M. bombycis has thus far been successfully used by Forbes for the infection of healthy larvae; but experiments with the other species are now in progress. Measures are also being taken to learn the length of life of these bacteria when kept in her- metically-sealed tubes, with the expectation that this will furnish a means of preserving and transporting them for ‘practical use, if this should prove to be worth while. : Forbes is also experimenting with the various fer- ment-germs appearing spontaneously in organic in- fusions, and has noted the occasional appearance of large numbers of Saccharomyces in the intestines of unhealthy larvae, and of those whose food has been treated with fermenting vegetable infusions. NOTES AND NEWS. WE deeply regret to announce the death of Dr. Hermann Miiller, on Aug. 25. Next to Darwin, Miller has done the most to advance our knowledge of the mutual relations between plants and animals in one of its many phases. Some notice of his life and work will be given in a future number. —The boundary-line between Guatemala and Mexico, which, as we announced last week, Mr. Miles Rock has been commissioned to locate, is about two hundred miles in length; and one or two years will be required to finish the work, Astronomical sta- tions will be established along the line, and topo- graphical and profile maps will be made to extend as far as time and means will permit. If possible, the longitude of Guatemala City will be determined telegraphically by connecting with some point on the coast occupied by the U. S. hydrographic party under Lieut.-Commander Davis. Mr. Rock has also been commissioned by the Smithsonian institution to collect notes on anthro- pology in the country over which his survey extends, and to photograph whatever archeological ruins he may meet with during the progress of the survey. He sailed from New York on Oct. 1, in the steamer Acapulco. —The annual report of the librarian of the public library of Cincinnati for the year ending June, 1883, has just been issued. The total number of volumes and pamphlets in the library is 149,750. ‘“‘The ay- erage number of books loaned daily for home use SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 35. has been 680. The average number delivered for use in the reading-room has been 379 per day.’? In tables showing the number of books issued for home use and for consultation are given percentages for various classes. Fiction heads the list with 81.4% in books for home use, and 28.3% in the reading- ~ room. Science and arts are represented by only 2.9% for home use, but rise to 24.8% for books consulted at the library. The number of volumes of fiction circulated during the year was 167,678, and of sci- ence and arts only 5,928. In the consulting-room, however, 39,539 volumes of fiction were issued, and 33,916 volumes in science and arts. Though these figures show a marked preponderance in the cireu- lation of fiction over science and arts, as indeed they do over every other class, the preponderance is per- haps more apparent than real. As the librarian says in his report, these percentages are often mislead- ing. “They lead the public to believe that a much larger than a true proportion of the work of a library is in the distribution of books calculated to entertain rather than to instruct. Probably not more than one-sixth of the time devoted to a volume of history or of science is devoted to a novel by the average reader; and yet in these figures volumes of history and science count equally with volumes of fiction and juvenile literature.” In a table ‘showing the number and the classes of books used during each month of the year,’ we find some interesting figures. More books were used dur- ing the months of January and March than during any other two months of the year. In philology there was nearly a regular increase from month to month from July to January, and a decrease to June. In history, from 1,387 volumes in December, there was an increase to 1,818 in January, decrease to 1,885 in February, and increase again to 1,586 and 1,581 in March and April respectively. In geog- raphy and travels, March takes the lead with 1,006. In science and arts the increase is regular from July (2,558) to January (4,656), when the decrease com- mences; and in June we have 2,838. In the totals we find that nearly 40% of the books were used during the months of December, January, February, and March; while only about 28% were used during June, July, August, and September. — The latest news from the French deep-sea explora- tions on the Talisman is comprised in a letter from M. Alph. Milne-Edwards, at Teneriffe. Every thing had worked in a satisfactory manner. Many sound- ings had been made off the coast of Morocco, and interesting profiles of the bottom thereby developed. Bottom and water specimens were simultaneously obtained, and the work was even carried on at night by the aid of electric lights. Considerable zodlogical collections had been made, and the professor was especially devoting himself to the study of their dis- tribution in depth. The character of the fauna already enabled a tolerable estimation of the depth to be made from an examination of the animals con- tained in any particular haul of the dredge. By the use of extremely large nets, better luck. had been secured in the capture of deep-sea fishes than had OcroBER 5, 1883.] previously attended their efforts, and a large number of specimens had been obtained. On leaving the Canaries, the expedition would proceed to the Cape Verde Islands, and thence along the so little known African coast. —Mr. H. J. Johnston-Levis publishes the accom- panying map of Ischia (scale 1 : 80,000) in Nature, with some further account of the recent earthquake. In company with Prof. P. Franco of Naples, he trav- elled over the whole island without detecting any sign of volcanic action. If isoseismal lines are drawn over the injured districts, we find, he says, “that they assume the form of elongated ellipsoids, whose major axes run nearly east and west.’’ In the =. eenween., on" @ 7s. ae first isoseismal area, a, a, destruction was total; in the second, b, b, many ‘houses are fallen, and the rest will require rebuilding; in the third, c, c, they were se- verely fissured; the fourth, in which houses were only very slightly fissured, not only includes the whole island, but must extend into the sea some distance. “From a careful examination of observed azimuths and angles of emergence, all point to a plate-shaped focus, whose strike extends in a line from Fontana, just west of Menella, to near the beach at Lacco. The plane of this fissure is probably roughly perpen- dicular to the surface, but may slightly dip towards the east, as the isoseismals are slightly nearer on the eastern side of the seismic vertical, which, as a neces- sity, is not represented by a point, but a line on the Mah SCIENCE. Renan acno™ ~ 0 surface. The rupturing of this plate-like fissure was apparently greatest at a point nearly midway between its extremities.’’ The ancient eruptive centres and craters are marked on the map in dotted circles, — Ensign S. J. Brown, U.S. navy, has been elected professor of mathematics in the navy, and assigned to duty at the Naval observatory in Washington, — Thouar writes from La Paz, under date of May 31 last, that in his search for Crevaux he had ar- rived by the way of Tacna, across the Cordilleras, on the 28th. The Bolivian government, by Sig. A. Quijarro, minister of foreign affairs, had shown great interest in the plans, and desire to assist to the extent of its power. An expeditionary corps had been equipped, and directed to march on Teyo, the Toba capital, which it is designed to oceupy while part of the force descends the right bank of the Pilcomayo to Ascension. This expedition should have left Caiza in the month of June last, while, on the 8d, Thouar intended to start for Caripari, vid Oruro, Potosi, Sucre, and Tarija. i — Endeavors have been made during the past ses- sion of the English parliament to obtain such amend- ments of the Factory acts as would protect not only the overworked and overheated workers in the bake- houses, but those desperate men who face certain death by poisoning in the manufacture of white lead. No act of parliament, however, will be of any real use until some improved process makes safety as 486 cheap as danger. Lately, with this object in view, Prof. C. Gardner has perfected an invention through which, by electrical energy and the cheap produc- tion of carbonic acid, applied through a special apparatus, in combination. with the necessary acid yapor at the proper temperature, the formation of white lead of the purest color and best quality is rapidly and cheaply carried out in closed chambers; the lead resting upon shelves, which are lifted out when converted, and emptied, without any dust being raised, into a combination of machinery closed in, from which it comes forth as white paint ground ready for the market, or, if required, as dry powder. In either case the dangerous operations of the ‘ white bed,’ and washing and stoving, are completely done away with, and no opportunity is given for the dust to enter the air, or touch the persons of the workers. —Mr. G. Brown Goode, U. S. commissioner to the fisheries exhibition, sailed from London for the United States on the 19th ult. — The summer station of the U.S. fish-commission at Wood’s Holl, Mass., will remain open until about the 20th of this month, at which time the commis- sioner will return to Washington. —Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, U.S.A., who was engaged in making collections in Louisiana, has been released from duty on account of ill health. —Mr. Robert Ridgway has left his duties at the national museum for the present on account of ill health, and is recruiting in New York. ._—Dr. Charles Rau has in preparation a mono- graphic work upon prehistoric fishing-implements. ‘It will be published as one of the Smithsonian Con- tributions to knowledge. — Professor Lester F. Ward has returned from the west. He reports having thoroughly explored about seventeen hundred miles of the Missouri River. —The very prevalent idea that aniline dyes have poisonous properties has inspired the German chem- ist, Dr. Grandhomme, to investigate the subject as illustrated in the coal-tar color-works of Messrs. Lucius and Briining at H6chst-on-the-Main. No- where else could these researches have been con- ducted in so satisfactory a manner, as the Hochst color-works employ six hundred and seventy-two men in the actual manufacture of the colors, exclusive of their large staff of mechanics and laboratory assist- ants. One regulation provides that no workman shall enter any other department than his own; so that the works offer an excellent field for accurate observation. - The following results were obtained by Dr. Grandhomme from personal observation, and the tables of accident and illness kept in the works. Nitrobenzol is known to be poisonous, yet symptoms of nitrobenzol-poisoning only appeared in the cases of illness reported in that deparfment during four years. Aniline is unquestionably poisonous; yet, out of one hundred and seventy-one cases of illness in that department, only eighteen were due to aniline: none were fatal, and the average duration of the illness was one and one-half days. Magentas made by the arsenic process, and duly purified, are recog- nized as poisons; but the symptoms recorded are SCIENCE. |Vou. IL., No. 35. those produced by arsenic, which, in some inferior magentas, exists in the proportion of even eight per cent. No illness caused by pure magenta was re- corded at Héchst, and aniline no more exists in the finished magenta than manure exists in wheat. In the department where blue colors were made, only one case of aniline-poisoning was recorded; none in the violet and green departments. A special disease appeared in the eosine department, causing extreme perspirations from the pores of the hands, but not among the men employed in packing the finished colors. No special disease was noted in the naphthol and alizarine departments. The use of alcohol was found to reduce the power of the constitution to bear the action of aniline: so no alcoholic drinks were allowed in the Héchst works, and no men addicted to drinking admitted. —In Namaqua-land, South Africa, no rain has fallen since Aug. 15, 1881, and plants, animals, and men are dying of drought and starvation. Wheat and seeds have been sent by the Cape Colony, and a relief committee has been formed. — Tillo has determined the total length of naviga- ble rivers in European Russia, which is only 72,000 kilometres for that vast territory, a deficiency due to the dryness of the climate. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Bacharach, M. Abriss der geschichte der potentialtheorie. Gottingen, Vandenbroeck & Ruprecht, 1883. 3+78p. 8°. Birnbaum, K. Die priifung der nahrungsmittel und ge- brauchs:gegenstinde im grossherzogthum Baden und die resul- tate einiger in der mit dem chemischen laboratorium des poly- technikums in Karlsruhe verbundenen priifungs station ausge- subchen untersuchungen. Karlsruhe, Braun, 1883. 8+119 p., 1pl. 8°. : Brass, A. Biologische studien. theil i.: Die organisation der thierischen zelle. hefti. Halle, Strien, 1883. 8+80p.,4pl. 8°. Claus, C. Fragment einer monographie des platins und der platinaumetalle, 1865-83, Leipzig, Voss, 18838. 5+92p. 8°. Handworterbuch der chemie. Herausgegeben yen Prof. Dr. Ladenburg unter mitwirkung von Dr. Berend, Dr. Bieder- mann, Prof. Dr. Drechsel, ete. band i. Breslau, Zrewendt, 1883. 8+712p., illustr. 8°. Hopkins, Louisa Parsons. Handbook of the earth: natural methods in geography. Boston, Lee & Shepard, 1883. 78 p. 24°. Kaempfer, D. Ucber die messung electrischer kriifte mit- telst des electriechen flugrads. (Inaug. diss.) Berlin, /riedldn- der, 1883. 36p. 8°. Lowe, 0. Ueber die reguliiren und Poinsot’schen’ korper und ihre inbalts bestimmung vermittelst determinanten. Miin- chen, Rieger, 1883. 28p.,1pl. 8°. Merkmal, das verlorene, des winkel-begriffes eine folge der fortschreitenden bewegung auf dem gebiete der geometrischen formenlehre nach wesentlichen ideen und neuen gesichtspunk- ten. ‘Teschen, Cotula, 1883. 23 p. 8°. Petzoldt, K. Petrographische studier an basaltgesteinen der Rhén. (Inaug. diss.) Halle, Zawsch, 18838. 48 p. 8°. Samuels, E. A. Our northern and eastern birds. New York, Worthington, 1883. 600 p., illustr. 8°. Schmitz, F. Die vegetation des meeres, 1888)" 21"p." 8°. Smoke abatement committee, 1882, report of. With re- ports of the jurors of the exhibition at South Kensington, and of the testing engineer, to which are added the official reports on the Manchester exhibition. London, Smith, Hider, & Co., 1883. 14+193 p., 76 pl. 4°. : Taugermann, J.D. Licht, harmonie und kraft. Eine natur- wissenschaftlich-philosophische studie. Leipzig, J/utze, 1883. 7p. 8. Tischner, A. The sun changes its position in space, there- fore it cannot be regarded as being ‘in a condition of rest.” Leipzig, Fork, 1883. 37p. 12°. Bonn, Strauss, ar Neer. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1883. HERMANN MULLER. Tue sad news has just reached this country of the death of Professor Miiller, at Prad, on the 25th of August. Since the death of Mr. Darwin, Dr. Miiller has occupied the position of most prominence among students of the mutual relations be- tween flowers and insects, —a study which, in the last decade, has contributed as much as any branch of biology to the substantiation of the main points of adaptive evolution. Miiller was born at Mihlberg, Sept. 23, 1829, and was a younger brother of the well-known Brazilian naturalist, Fritz Miller, much of whose work has passed through his hands before its pub- lication. Between 1848 and 1852 he studied at the universi- ties of Halle and Berlin, devoting himself to natural history. In the latter year he passed the Oberlehrer examinations, and served his novitiate in the Berlin realschule. In 1854 he received his first appointment as teacher in the school at Schwerin, and the following year took the natural sciences in the realschule at Lippstadt, where he remained as teacher and director until his death. Previously to the attainment of his degree, Dr. Miiller had shown considerable zeal in natural history explorations, which were con- tinued, in 1855, in the vicinity of Krain, where he did some especially interesting work on the 1 The portrait on this page is engraved from a photograph by Ophoven of Lippstadt, kindly furnished by Prof, William Tre- lease of the University of Wisconsin. No. 36.— 1883. blind insects found in the caves at this place, the results of his studies appearing in the Stet- tiner entomologische zeitschrift for 1856-67. After settling at Lippstadt, he gave particular attention to botany and entomology, working up, in particular, the local phenogamic flora, and later the mosses of Westphalia, sets of which were distributed by him between 1864 and 1866. ; About this time the classical work of Dar- win on the fertilization of orchids by insects directed his attention to the pollination of flowers, —a subject, which, neglected since the time of Sprengel, was then attract- ing several biologists. His familiarity with Westpha- lian plants and insects fitted him especially for work of this nature; and his first contributions? showed that he was also possessed of the requisite powers of observation and interpretation. From this time on, his leisure was given to field- work in this specialty, many of his summers be- ing spent in the Alps. While Delpino, Hilde- brand, and others were not slow to follow in the steps of Mr. Darwin, showing, both from the structure of flowers and the results of many careful experiments, how they must a priori be fertilized, Miller observed, in addi- tion, how their pollination is actually effected ; and our knowledge of the degree to which the reciprocal adaptations of flowers and _ their visitors extends may be set down as in large part the result of his labors. In the past ten years, numerous papers from 2 Beobachtungen an Westfilischen orchideen ( Verhandl. naturh. ver. Preuss. Rheinl. u. Westfdlens, 1868) and Anwen- dung der Darwinsche lehre auf bienen (ibid., 1872). 488 his pen have appeared in the Botanische zeitung, Bienen zeitung, Kosmos, Nature, etc., while, as editor of the department of Justs’ Jahresbericht, relating to pollination and dissemination, he has contributed reviews of all of the more important publications bear- ing on his specialty. Beside these, he pub- lished two books, — Befruchtung der blumen durch insekten, und die gegenseitigen anpas- sungen beider (which appeared in 1873, served ‘as the basis of a very instructive series of arti- cles in Nature, and was largely drawn upon by Lubbock in the preparation of his little work on British wild-flowers, and which, sup- plemented by the more recent observations of its author, has lately been translated into English) ; and Alpenblumen, ihre befruchtung durch insekten und ihre anpassungen an die- selben (a volume of equal size, published in 1881, and, like its predecessor, filled with instructive facts). From the first, Dr. Miller was a pronounced evolutionist, perhaps erring in too exclusive contemplation of a limited part .of the eyi- dence of derivation; and, like many others of the German school, inclined to push evolution- ary logic to its ultimate if undemonstrable conclusion of materialism. As a teacher he was most excellent, having the faculty, not only of imparting ideas to his pupils, but of inspiring their enthusiasm. In his specialty he was a careful observer. noting and accounting for many minute structural peculiarities in both flowers and insects, which, so long as their utility remained undiscovered, were explicable only by the theory of types in nature. So far as observation is concerned, his work is above criticism. As a rule, too, his inferences are correctly drawn, though the limitation of his studies to a small part of the world has at times rendered his enthusiasm over the biological significance of some sup- posed new adaptation, subject to the criticism of specialists previously familiar with the struc- ture, if not with its meaning. As a friend, Dr. Miller was always cordial, eyer ready with encouragement and assistance for younger workers in the line of his specialty. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 36. He had, however, little patience with inac- curacy in observation, and, both publicly and in private, criticised errors with vigor; but, though his criticisms were sometimes severe, they were seldom unkind, and never unjust. By his death, biological science loses not only one of its most enthusiastic and able devotees, . but also one, who, by the independent and thorough nature of his work, may be styled not inappropriately an epoch-maker. THE USE OF THE SPECTROSCOPE IN METEOROLOGY. In April last it was thought desirable to add to the regular meteorological observation made at the Shattuck observatory, Dartmouth col- lege, the hygrometric indications of the spec- troscope. The observations were made in accordance with the directions of J. Rand Capron in his ‘ Plea for the rain-band.’ The instruments used were two direct vision spec- troscopes: one a 34-inch ‘ yest-pocket’ in- strument of Hofmann’s; the other 10 inches in length, and capable of separating the D lines with direct sunlight. The observations made in this way were found to be interesting, but unsatisfactory. The difficulty which an ob- server must always find in estimating confi- dently the degree of intensity of the absorption lines and bands with the widely varying lights of fair and cloudy weather, makes the arrange- ment of some method of measurement very desirable. After a few trials in other direc- tions, the device described below was decided upon, and has proved satisfactory. It was thought that the absorption lines of aqueous vapor, seen with a spectroscope of rather high power, are better adapted to delicate measure- ment than the broad band seen with a low power. ‘The small spectroscope used shows the dark band on the red side of the D line with great clearness ; but the absorption lines are only visible when particularly strong. With the larger instrument, however, the spec- trum is so elongated that the general darken- ing near D is hardly noticeable ; while the two moisture lines to be found there are yery prominent. The apparatus illustrated is de- signed to measure the variation in intensity of the darker line of this pair (the a of the D group of Janssen’s map). The only methods of measurement of the intensity of absorption lines, known to the writer, are those of Janssen and Gouy. The OcToBER 12, 1883.] former, in 1871, in his work in mapping the atmosphere lines, used for comparison black lines of various widths, ruled on white paper, and viewed through vessels filled with dark- ened water.’ Gouy made some measure- ments of solar lines by photometric methods ; isolating a narrow strip of the spectrum adja- cent to the line, and comparing its light with that of a strip of equal width containing the line. From these data he calculated the in- tensity of the line, not in photometric, but in linear units.2 The method adopted by the writer is entirely different from either of these ; and, as far as known, is new. FIG. 1. What was desired was the production of an artificial absorption spectrum, the intensity of whose lines could be varied at will, until one of the lines thus produced should be sen- sibly the same as the line to be measured. Fig. 1 is a section of the attachment to the spectroscope made for this purpose. The dark lines required are diffraction fringes pro- duced at the focus of the positive eye-piece, which are therefore seen projected on the spectrum. They are produced by placing a silk fibre a little beyond the focus of the eye- piece. In the figure, the piece @ slides in the tube, bearing with it a single silk fibre placed vertically and just in the middle of the field of view of the eye-piece. The fibre is maintained vertical by means of a pro- jeeting pin sliding in a longi- SCIENCE. 489 the lines appear to separate somewhat, grow- ing constantly fainter until they disappear. The fainter diffraction fringes produced are invisible in the rather weak light of the spec- trum. Whole revolutions of the screw } are read off on the graduation at the side of the slot, and fractions (tenths) are read from the piece itself, which is graduated as a microme- ter screw. The lines thus produced resemble closely the D group, particularly when both are strong, when a very sharp eye is required to distinguish the spurious lines from the genu- ine. As the movement of the eye from side to side would modify the appearance of the inter- ference lines, making one darker than the other, the spectrum must be viewed through a narrow vertical opening, making such motion impossible. For this purpose a piece of black paper. (not shown in the figure), provided with a vertical slit of perhaps 0.7 mm. width, must be placed on the eye-lens at k. Even with this, a little care is necessary in the position of the eye, that the pair of lines shall always be equal. The slight darkening of the spectrum between the two lines, which occurs, is in this case not objectionable, as it imitates pretty closely the general absorption in the space be- tween D and the a line of the D group. The instrument, as figured, is provided with ‘a tangent screw at e, by which the whole tube containing the eye-piece can be moyed hori- zontally, thus shifting the field of view so that any line of the spectrum can be brought to the side of the comparison lines. The instrument is mounted on a wooden base, grooved at the top to receive.it. At the back side is a large knob by which the instrument is held when taking an observation. When directed to any tudinal slot in the tube, as shown at s in fig. 2. The sliding motion is given to it by means of the piece b, which turns freely, but cannot slide, being retained by the screw d fitting in a groove made entirely around the piece. Two openings are made in the tube, on opposite sides, so that b can be turned directly with the fingers. One of these windows is shown at n in fig. 2. By turning in one direc- tion, the silk fibre may be put nearly in the foeus: by turning back, it can be made invisi- ble. When near the focus, the fibre appears as a pair of dark parallel lines and quite close together. As it is drawn away from the focus, 1 Ann. phys. chim., xxiii. 274. 2 Comptes rendus, \xxxix. 1033 and xci. 383. part of the sky, the altitude can be determined by means of the graduated circle and hanging weight shown in the figure. Another device, much simpler, and of use, 490 it is believed, for general observation when less accuracy is required, is shown in fig. 3. A collar represented in section at @ is inserted into the tube of the spectroscope, and fastened permanently so that its front side shall be just in the focus of the eye-piece. From the lower front edge to the upper back edge, a silk fibre passes, drawing back as it rises. The fibre will evidently appear in the field of view, as represented at 6, as lines of diminishing intensity. A set of horizontal, equidistant spider-lines are attached to the front edge, hence justin focus. The line whose intensity is to a ee) be measured is made to appear parallel and near e De ne to one of the interference lines ; and its intensity is expressed by the number of the spider-line at which the intensities correspond, counting downwards. And here it may be mentioned that such a seale of intensities (or, indeed, the scale afforded by the micrometer screw read- ings in the preceding apparatus) is not a scale of equal parts, a change of a unit in case of a line of high intensity being more than in case of a low intensity. This is, however, believed not to be a serious disadvantage in practice. The advantages of any practicable method of measurement over a mere estimation are eyident enough. When estimated by the eye, it is believed to be impracticable to distinguish more than five grades of strength, while by this method quite fine shades of intensity can be measured ; and what is, perhaps, of equal importance, measurements made against dark and light sky are apparently identical, a change in the brilliancy of the background affecting the appearance equally of the ab- sorption and interference lines. Evidently an unaided estimation would very likely be at fault in such a case. As to the accuracy actually attained in practice, it is found, in looking over the record of about a month past, that the whole range of the readings made at one observation, in ordi- narily favorable weather, averages 0.5 of a revolution of the micrometer serew; and, as from four to twelve or more readings are always taken, according to the amount of yariation noted, the probable error of the mean may be considered as about 0.03, as computation has shown in a number of cases. Now, as the whole range of the instrument used is from 1.0 to 5.7, it is evident that many grades of in- tensity are capable of appreciation. It is to be remembered, that these readings are purposely made in various quarters of the sky, so that SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 36. discrepancies in readings are partly due to want of uniformity in the hygrometric state of the atmosphere. It should be stated, also, that such accuracy is not attainable below 2.0, as the value of a unit is then considerably less than above that value. The regular record made at the observatory is as follows: The ordinary meteorological record is made three times daily. With the spectroscope, at least three sets of readings are taken, comprising measurements of the in- tensity of the moisture line at the horizon, at altitudes of 10°, 20°, 30°, and 90°. Im all cases, the readings are taken in all quarters of the sky where there is sufficient light. A set of readings is also taken by setting the microm- eter at 2.0, giving a faint line just visible in dark weather, and then measuring the altitude at which the moisture line is of the same strength. Such readings of altitude rarely vary more than 2° to 4° in settled weather. The strength of line and of the ‘ rain-band ’ is also estimated by the eye at each observa- tion. At the same time the readings of the wet and dry bulb hygrometer are taken, as well as of a Regnault’s condensing hygrometer. The wet and dry bulb hygrometer can be ventilated by means of a bellows, as suggested by Mr. H. A. Hazen, in a recent number of ScreNncr. Notes are made of the direction and velocity of the wind, of the clouds, and condition of the air. One of the most interesting of the powers of the spectroscope thus used is its ability to detect relatively moist tracts in the atmos- phere. While in settled weather entire uni- formity at all points of the horizon is generally noted, in unsettled weather considerable differ- ences are often observed. An excellent ex- ample of this power of the instrument occurred on May 26. During the morning when the observations were made, the air was very clear and dry, the moisture line therefore weak. At 6 4.mM., measurements made entirely around the horizon showed that the line be- came invisible very uniformly at an altitude of 10°, except for about 45° of the north-eastern horizon, where the altitude of disappearance was 20°, while the intensity of the line at the horizon here was about double that elsewhere. There was no wind blowing, and no clouds — of any kind were visible except a few wisps of cirrus cloud high in the east. These facts were all noted in the record at the time. At seyen o'clock, when the next readings were taken, to my surprise this moist tract was found to be nearly filled up with a bank of stratus cloud, with no other clouds visible. At the same iyo e A ee OcrToBER 12, 1883.] time a similar moist region, of 15° altitude and perhaps 35° length, was discovered in the south- east; and this in turn was found fifteen min- utes later to be partly filled with cloud. After an hour or so they had all disappeared. The appearance was as though a body of air heavily charged with moisture, having become heated, was seen rising bodily at six o’clock, while at seven the consequent cooling had condensed in part its moisture. One of the most striking facts noted is the suddenness with which a hygrometric change occurs, as indicated by the spectroscope. During the fine weather of June 50 and July 1, the spectroscope had indicated unusually dry air with almost absolute uniformity. Dur- ing July 1, as the diagram shows, there had been a very slight increase in the moisture present, as indicated by an observation at six p.M. Fifteen minutes later, happening to glance through the spectroscope, I was greatly surprised to see how much blacker the line looked. A new set of readings was taken, giving a much higher amount of moisture, as indicated by the sudden rise in the curve. The sky was almost entirely free from clouds, with a light breeze from the south - west. Measurements were made in both cases all along the western half of the horizon, the eastern being too dark at that hour. At seven o’clock a moderately dense bank of stratus clouds had risen in the west to an altitude of 15° or 20°. The record at seven and seyen- thirty showed little further hygrometric change. The sky was soon entirely overcast with clouds. This hygrometrie change was not a mere mo- mentary one, connected with cloud-formation ; but the later record showed it to be the begin- ning of a period of moist air and showery weather. The hygrometer, it will be noted in the diagram, gave little sign of change for some hours. Other sudden changes of equally striking character have been observed. ‘That, as has been suggested by Capron and others, the physical state of the suspended water, the size of the aqueous particles, may have an influ- ence in its light-absorbing power, and so ex- plain in part such changes, is very possible ; but the evidence that such is the case appears to be far from conclusive. It is believed that a series of spectroscopic observations, continued for a considerable period of time at different stations, would give much light on a number of important questions in meteorology, particularly in the study of the formation of showers and storms. The instrument is apparently admirably adapt- ed to do this work, by its ability to trace SCIENCE. 491 accurately the motions of masses of vapor in the upper atmosphere. _ The discussion of the more important questions which arise in carry- ature of air. Moisture line. July 1, P.M. 3 i Oe I RE July 2, A.M. a 8 AQ wy 2 4 ETS ing on this investigation is deferred until a larger mass of figures and facts have been accumulated. _C. §. Coox. NOTES ON SASSAFRAS-LEAVES. Tuenre are three distinct forms of sassafras- leaves. The simplest is ovate, varying to oval and obovate. A second form is three- lobed, the incisions running from near the middle of the upper half of the leaf’s edge to the centre of the blade. The third form: is midway between the entire and three-lobed sorts, and has but one side-lobe ; the opposite half of the leaf being entire. It is as if one- half of a three- lobed leaf were joined by the midrib to the opposite half of an entire one of the same size. This form may be very ap- propriately called the ‘ mitten.’ In the study of these three forms, branches of sassafras have been gathered from a large number of places through the- - surrounding country. Some have been obtained from the woods, and others from the open field. Branches were cut from the largest trees and from the smallest, from vigorous trees and those of slow growth. Ten hundred and fifty leaves were examined: and of these, five hun- dred and thirteen were entire; four hundred OcTOBER 12, 1§83.] and fifty-eight, three-lobed ; and seventy-nine, ‘mitten form.’ The first leaves of spring were invariably entire, and a lobed leaf was rarely found until the fourth leaf was passed in counting from the base of the branch toward the tip. No regular order was discovered. In one case the arrange- ment was as follows: three entire, four three- lobed, one ‘mitten,’ one three-lobed, one ‘mitten,’ one three-lobed, one ‘ mitten,’ one three-lobed ; on another branch, four entire, one ‘ mitten,’ five three-lobed, one ‘ mitten,’ three three-lobed, three ‘mittens.’ The leaves on short spurs of old trees were nearly all small and entire; when the branches were somewhat longer, and the leaves larger, there were one or more three-lobed or ‘ mitten’ leaves in the middle of the stem. A number of branches taken from slow-growing trees gave the following aggregate: entire leaves, seventy ; ‘ mittens,’ six; three-lobed leaves, three. A vigorous young sprout gave twenty- seven three-lobed leaves, one ‘mitten’ near the middle of the stem, and no entire leaves. Another had two entire blades at the base, and twelve three-lobed leaves above. A number of these rapidly-growing young trees together gave twenty-seven entire leaves, fourteen * mit- tens,’ and eighty-one three-lobed leaves. The entire and smaller leaves are in the majority on slowly-growing trees ; while, on the young sprouts, larger three-lobed leaves pre- dominate. The‘ mitten’ form is mostly found with the entire leaves. This form of leaf is probably about equally divided between the ‘ right-handed’ and ‘ left-handed ;’ though, of the number found (seventy-nine), those with the ‘thumb ’ to the left, when held with under side upward, exceeded the other sort by half. About every thirteenth leaf is a ‘ mitten,’ —a form not found mentioned in the botanical de- scription of the sassafras. There seems to be no order in the arrange- ment of the three forms upon the branch. Leaves from the buds were examined, and all of the three forms were found. Each kind is distinct, from a very early state; and there is no indication that one ever passes into the oth- er. No intermediate forms have been found. The venation of the three forms is very much the same. There is a midrib running length- wise through the leaf, and a strong lateral vein on each side, which runs from near the base to beyond the middle of the leaf. Smaller veins form the framework of the middle and upper parts of the leaf. The portion of par- enchyma absent in a lobed leaf is midway between the strong lateral veins. This is SCIENCE. 493 very clearly shown in a ‘ mitten,’ where one side is lobed, and the other entire. It would seem as if the lobing is a failure to fill up the framework, and apparently due to a too vigorous growth of the veins, and a lack of a sufficient amount of the soft, filling tissue. In the formation of leaves the sassafras is certainly * at loose ends,’ but in this it is not alone. Fig. 1 shows an entire sassafras-leaf; fig. 2, a three-lobed leaf; and fig. 3, a ‘ mitten.’ Fig. 4 shows the young leaves of the three forms. All the illustrations are drawn from nature. Byron D. Hatsrep. New York, July 2, 1883. THE UNITS OF MASS AND FORCE. Ty the original definition of the gram it was regarded as a weight, and therefore a force, being the weight at the level of the sea, and at the latitude of 45°, of one cubic centimetre of water at its maximum density. It was thus virtually defined as a force. But as we shall soon see, although defined as a unit of force, it has become in practice a unit of mass. In the C. G. S. system of units this change is accepted, and the definition is modified accord- ingly ; that is, one cubic centimetre of water is taken as the unit of mass, and this mass is called the gram without reference to its weight. In volume i., Cours de physique, M. Jamin criticises this change. The high standing and_ character of this great work, as well as the emi- nence of its author, entitle his views to respect- ful consideration, especially as the question involves the fundamental elementary concep- tions of physics in a way to render it of inter- est to the general student. We set out with the proposition that what we commonly consider units of weight, such as the kilogram and pound, practically become units of mass in all the ordinary affairs of life. The reason is, that in practice bodies are weighed by balancing them against pieces of metal, and not by means of a spring balance. A pound weight is indeed heavier the farther north we go; but then, whatever we weigh with it is heavier in the same ratio. Accord- ingly, if by means of a weight we weigh a pound of tea at the equator, at. the poles it will still weigh the same as a pound weight, although in reality heavier than at the equator. This is obviously a great practical and com- mercial convenience ; because the quantity or mass of the tea is the important question to those who deal in it, while its gravitating force is of secondary importance. Were a perfect 494 . spring balance used which measured absolute weight, the dealer who should purchase tea at one latitude, and sell it at another, would be subject to a gain or loss, depending upon the difference in the force of gravity. It is not, however, on merely commercial grounds that the change rests. For scientific purposes a unit is used as a term of comparison between different quantities of the same kind, and must be so defined and chosen as to fulfil this function with the greatest convenience. Now, a unit of force which shall furnish a di- rect and convenient standard of comparison between forces or weights at different places is entirely impracticable. At any one place the weight of a given mass of metal may be taken as a convenient unit; but this unit will change when we go to any other place, owing to the difference in the force of gravity. Indeed, every student of physics knows that the meas- ure of the force of gravity at any one place is one of the most delicate and difficult prob- lems in physics. In the definition which re- fers to the latitude of 45° it is assumed that the force of gravity is the same at all points on this parallel. We now know that this is not the case, and that if we adopt such a unit we shall have to define the exact spot on the earth’s surface which is taken as the standard. Reference to such a standard would be imprac- ticable. Hence a unit of force must be sub- sidiary to the unit of mass. The most conyen- ient way of fixing it is to take the unit of mass as known, and to determine the force of gravity at the place of observation. The combination of the two gives a standard by which weight may be expressed in force. To be more ex- plicit: if we have a piece of metal the mass of which we know to be one gram, and if we deter- mine the force of gravity at the place to be n, then the gravitating force of that piece of metal will be known to be n units of force. In prac- tice this must be the method used in physies, if an accurate measure of forces is really re- quired. Let us now consider M. Jamin’s objections. He says that the mass of a body is not suscep- tible of direct determination ; for to measure it we must commence by determining its weight in a balance, and afterwards dividing by the number which expresses the acceleration of gravity at the latitude of 45° and at the level of the sea. Jt is difticult to attribute this re- mark to any thing but inadvertence, since the division by g at 45° is necessary only on the French system. If we measure it by means of a balance having grams as weights, the result- ing weight is at once the mass on the C. G.S. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No, 36. system, no matter where the weighing is made, and therefore needs no division whatever. He then adds, ‘‘ Suppose, on the contrary, that we have to measure a force : we determine it directly by means of weights at the place of observation. Afterwards we «apply to these weights the corrections relative to the latitude and the altitude, to have an expression of the force as the function of a normal gram. We must remark that we cannot avoid these correc- tions to taking mass as the fundamental unit ; because it is always weights that we measure, and the course followed in the experiments is necessitated by the nature of things.’’ This is quite true, but it does not prove that one sys- tem affords any more convenient unit of force than the other. Snion Newcoms. STANDARD RAILWAY TIME. Tue problem of simplifying the system of time standards used by the railways of this country seems to be near solution. The rep- resentatives of various railway-lines, who are to-day in session at Chicago, will receive the report of the secretary, Mr. W. F. Allen, and, it is expected, will take final action. For some years past, committees of various scientific bodies, as the American metrological society, the American association for the advancement of science, and the American society of civil en- gineers, have called attention to the urgent need of reform in the standards of time in use, and suggested plans for action. The railways,which are naturally most interested in the movement, have recently taken hold of the matter in ear- nest. The plan which has met with the most favor is that in which five standards of time, differing by consecutive hours, are proposed for the whole territory occupied by the United States and Canada. These are based upon the meridians from Greenwich, but receive other names for purposes of convenience. It is proposed by the railways that in Canada the standard shall be known as intercolonial time, and shall coincide with the local time on the meridian four hours, or 60°, west of Greenwich. In the United States the standards will be known as eastern, central, mountain, and Pa- cific time, and coincide with the local times on the meridians five, six, seven, and eight hours, or 75°, 90°, 105°, 120°, respectively, west of Greenwich. The advantage of this system is, that the standards will differ from the true local times of the various parts of the country by amounts not greater than thirty minutes, if the divisions are made rigidly according to longitude, and no one will be inconvenienced ~~ ae se OcToBER 12, 1883.] thereby. The great difficulty, however, of the _ plan, lies in the selection of the places where the changes of one hour are to be made; and as some of these, especially that between east- ern and central time, must pass through coun- try well settled, no matter how much freedom is allowed in selecting the points of change, it has seemed to many that the inconvenience would be great. Railway interests require that the changes be made at the termini of sections of the road, which are often large cities. At these points there will be two times, — one for eastern, one for western roads, differ- ing by an hour. In dealing with this practical difficulty, the railways have shown a desire to conform as nearly as possible to the theoretical system, but have adopted the principles that ** changes from one standard to another should be made at well-known points of departure,’’ and that ‘‘ these changes should be made at the termini of roads, where changes now occur, except on the transcontinental lines and in a few other unavoidable cases, where they can be made at the ends of divisions.”’ At the railway-time conventions held in St. Louis and New-York City in April last, the following resolutions were adopted : — 1°. That all roads now using Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Toronto, Ham- iltlon, or Washington time as standard, or standards based upon meridians east of those points, or adjacent thereto, shall be governed by the seventy-fifth meridian or ‘ eastern time’ (four minutes slower than New-York time). 2°. That all roads now using Columbus, Savannah, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Louisville, In- dianapolis, Chicago, Jefferson City, St. Paul, or Kansas City time, or standards based upon meridians adjacent thereto, shall be run by the ninetieth meridian time, to be called ‘ cen- tral time’ (one hour slower than ‘ eastern time,’ and nine minutes slower than Chicago time). 3°. That west of the above-named section the roads shall be run by the one hundred and fifth and the one hundred and twentieth merid- jan times respectively (two and three hours slower than ‘ eastern time ’). 4°. That all changes from one hour standard to another shall be made at the termini of roads or at the ends of divisions. Another resolution provided that the secre- tary should prepare a pamphlet containing an explanation of the subject, with accompany- ing maps, and endeavor to secure the acquies- cence of all parties to the proposed plan, that the next convention might take final action. The report of the secretary contains a fine railway-map, with the standards proposed for SCIENCE. 495 each road designated by different colors. It is the intention to use the eastern standard from Maine and the eastern coast to Detroit, Mich., and Bristol, Tenn. ; but all the Ohio and Georgia railways will use the central stand- ard, as well as those in Pennsylvania west of Pittsburg. The western railways whose termini are in Buffalo, Salamanca, and Char- lotte, are allowed to use the central standard as far east as those points. The important places where the change of one hour from eastern to central time occurs, are Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburg, Charlotte, and Augusta. The change from central to mountain time is made at Bismarck, North Platte, Wallace, Coolidge, and others ; from mountain to Pacific time, at Ogden, Yuma,‘and others. The secretary, Mr. Allen, has received assur- ances from the great majority of roads, that the system is approved. At the beginning of this month, railways operating 70,000 miles of road had responded favorably ; and replies were coming in daily, none in the United States having refused assent. The roads cen- tring in Boston gave assent, provided satis- factory arrangements could be made with the Cambridge observatory, upon which they de- pend for their time-signals. Of this there can be no doubt, as it may be assumed that every observatory in the country will contribute its part in the movement which inaugurates such a needed reform. The eastern standard differs from Boston time by sixteen minutes. It seems almost certain, then, that the con- vention now in session will authorize the pro- posed change, and appoint a time when the plan shall be put into practical operation. On that date the observatories will make the change in their signals which the railways use, and the system will at once be under trial. The next question will be, whether the cities will adopt the railway system for their use. Of this there can be little doubt; and, in cases where two standards differing by an hour come together, it will be necessary to adopt one of the two for the city standard. The state of Connecticut, which several years ago hastily adopted New-York time for the stand- ard, will have the small change of four min- utes to authorize. All these adjustments may be left to the future. They will be made or not, as the popular interests demand. Of the wisdom of the action of the railway man- agers there can be no doubt. Without dis- cussing the relative merits of the plan adopted, and others which have been suggested, it is certain that the present confused arrangement should be abolished. The new plan is simple 496 and practicable ; and its adoption is an impor- tant reform, which is deserving of hearty sup- port and encouragement. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Phalansterium digitatum Stein. THERE is no published evidence that the infusorial colony here referred to has been seen by any observer except its German discoverer. It is stated not to occur in English waters; and this uncommon animal- cule had not been taken in America, until the writer recently found it in considerable profusion, attached to the leaflets of Myriophyllum from a millpond near this city. The colonies and the enclosed zodids dif- fer from their German relatives in no essential char- acter, the only perceptible divergence being in the somewhat smaller size of the American Infusorium. The tubular colonies, which take an irregular digit- like form, and branch somewhat dichotomously, are in great part built up of granular digestive rejecta- menta remarkable for their coarseness. The distal extremity of each tubule is slightly inflated, each zooid sitting singly in the hollow thus formed, except after haying undergone the reproductive process, when two or more may be present, the flagellum alone extending beyond the aperture. . The conical collar, embracing the flagellum for some distance above its point of origin, is often thickened by an outward flow of the body-sarcode, but whether a regular circulation takes place in the collar substance could not be determined. Although the zodids are apparently entirely free from all connection with the walls of the zoocytium, they have the power of suddenly darting back into the tubules for a distance equal to two or three times their length. They seem to exercise this accomplish- ment at pleasure, but especially when any unwelcome object comes in contact with the flagellum. I have seen a large animalcule glide across the front of a colony, and each zodid in regular succession, as its flagellum was touched, shoot back into the tube, re- maining there some minutes before cautiously reap- proaching the aperture. k ; I have several times witnessed the reproductive process, and have verified the statement that it takes place by transverse fission. An interesting fact in this connection is, that the only other species of the genus reproduces itself by dividing longitudinally, a method directly the opposite of that which obtains with the present form. The two posteriorly located contractile vesicles pul- sate at intervals of about thirty seconds. Dr. ALFRED C. STOKES. Trenton, N.J. Solar constant. I enclose a translation of a portion of a letter to me from Dr. Josef Pernter of the Austrian meteorologi- cal service. Dr. Pernter writes: — “ Speaking of radiation, I remember to haye read several times in SclENCE, under the ‘letters to the editor,’ various things con- cerning the solar constant, — lately, a letter from John LeConte, but which, like former communications, appears to make the subject a little unclear. «The solar constant isa quantity of heat, and the number which is the expression for the solar constant must mean calores. If, for example, Violle says the solar constant is 2.54, then it must be 2.54 calores. But since the solar radiation is a summation, during time, extending over space, the duration and the surface certainly come into the question. The minute has been taken as the unit of time, and the square centimetre as the unit of apace. me That the solar constant is 2.54 calores, means, therefore, that SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 36. the sun’s rays bring to the outside of our atmosphere, in each minute, 2.54 heat-units upon each square centimetre. What be- comes of these heat-units, or calores, does not belong at all to the conception of the solar constant. “ The new solar constant of Langley, 2.84, signifies, consequent- ly, that the amount of heat furnished per minute per square centi- metre by solar radiation is 2.84 calores. But this number, 2.84 calores, must be comprehended. Lately the term ‘calore’ has been used in two significations, — the large calore, or the amount of heat that raises one kilogram of water 1°; and the small calore, or the amount of heat which raises a gram of water 1°. The lat- ter, or small calore, is applied to the solar constant. Expressed in large calores, the solar constant of Langley would not be 2.84, but .00284 calores; that is, 1,000 times smaller. “ After these explanations, one can immediately say how many great or small calores fall upon the square metre per minute from the solar radiation; viz., 10,000 times as many as on the square centimetre.” FRANK WALDO. Deutsche seewarte, Hamburg, Germany, Sept. 16, 1883. Dissemination of Phlox. I have had for some time past, on my table, some capsules of Phlox Drummondii, which is so com- monly cultivated in gardens. The capsules were picked while still green, and had dried gradually. Several times I have been puzzled at finding small seeds and parts of the capsule of a plant on the table, and could not think where they came from ; but, a day or so since, I heard a sharp pop, and, looking up, saw that one of the capsules had burst, and sent the seed several feet away. Since then it has often oc- curred. This is an evident means for the dissemina- tion of the seed. The most of the capsules I have examined have perfected only one seed, instead of three; and the sudden opening of the capsules have sent the seeds flying far and wide. Jos. F. JAMES. Cincinnati, O. > The Iroquois institutions and language. The very courteous and complimentary manner in which my work on the Iroquois book of rites has been noticed in a recent number of this journal has made me reluctant to take exception to any portion of the review. On further consideration, however, I must beg to be allowed, in the interests of both science and history, to refer to one or two of the remarks of my friendly critic. He expresses the opinion that ‘ the sceptical reader’ may be inclined to regard the por- tion of the work which relates to ‘ the league and its founders’ rather as ‘ classic historical romance’ than as history; and this on the sole ground (as I under- stand his suggestion) that the Iroquois cannot be supposed to have been capable, five hundred years ago, of the intellectual efforts implied in this narra- tive. This suggestion, it will be seen, opens up the entire question of the comparative mental capacity of civilized and uncivilized, or rather unlettered, races. The question is one altogether too large to be fully discussed in this place. Butas regards the particular subject now referred to, I may remark that the exist- ence of the league itself, with all its judicious and statesmanlike regulations, is a fact of which there can be no possible question, Any one can see this remarkable constitution in full and vigorous opera- tion among the three thousand Iroquois on their Cana- dian reservation. There is ample evidence to show that this league existed in its present form when the people who maintained it first became known to European explorers. It is clear, therefore, that whatever intellectual power was needed for its for- mation was possessed by the Iroquois before they ac- quired any tincture of foreign civilization. But why should their capacity for forming such a government be questioned? The Iroquois tribes, when OcroBeR 12, 1883.] first known to Europeans, and doubtless for centu- ries before that time, were in a social stage at least as far advanced as that of our German ancestors in the days of Tacitus. We know that these barbarians, if we choose so to style them, had evolved a regular system of government, combining very ingeniously the methods of democracy and aristocraey, and com- prising the germs of the English constitution. On this point the often-cited passage of Montesquieu will bear to be requoted and emphasized. ‘‘ In perusing,” writes the great legist, ‘‘ the admirable treatise of Tacitus ‘On the customs of the Germans,’ we find it is from that nation the English have borrowed the idea of their political government. This beautiful system was invented first in the woods.’? Will any one reply that the German barbarians, being of the Aryan stock, must be supposed capable of intellectual achievements which barbarians of the Indian race could not be expected to compass? TI think the able and liberal-minded reviewer will agree with me, that reasoning of this ‘high priori’ sort, which assumes the very point in question, would be any thing but logical or satisfactory. he reviewer is kind enough to say that many of the chapters in my volume ‘indicate immense re- search, and are of great value both ethnologically and philologically.’”? I can assure him that equal diligence was exercised in preparing the chapters on the league and its founders, and I know of no reason why they should be deemed less accurate or less valu- able. In these, moreover, as well as for the other portions of the work, I have been careful to indicate the sources of my information. Nothing will be easier than forany one who has doubts as to its correctness to repeat my inquiries, and to satisfy himself on that point. But Iam happy to say that the communica- tions which reach me from many quarters seem to show that no such doubts are likely to be entertained ; at least, by any well-informed persons. Writers of the highest authority on American and Indian his- tory receive the statements of the book as entirely authentic, and speak of it in terms too flattering for ine to repeat. Let me conclude by expressing the pleasure with which I have learned from this review that the valu- able work of the excellent and indefatigable mission- ary-linguist, the late Father Marcoux, on the Iroquois language, is about to be published by the Bureau of ethnology. The idioms of the Huron-I[roquois group stand, perhaps, at the head of the best-known Indian languages as subjects of philosophical study. It is doubtfulif even the Quichua or the Aztec equals them in comprehensive force, or in subtlety of distinctions. More than two centuries ago the learned missionary Brebeuf was struck with the resemblance of the Huron to the Greek; and in our own day Professor Max Miller, after a careful study of the Mohawk tongue, has expressed the opinion that the people who wrought out such a language ‘ were powerful reasoners and accurate classifiers.’ The works of M. Marcoux, in conjunction with those of his dis- tinguished pupil and successor, M. Cuoq, will afford ample means for the study of one, and perhaps the finest, of this remarkable group of languages. In connection with this subject, it is proper to refer to the doubt expressed by the reviewer as to the correctness of the linguistic works of the French missionaries. It is suggested that they have made mistakes in grammar, and in particular that they have not been able to distinguish between the femi- nine and the indeterminate inflections. Now, it must be remembered that the intelligent and well-educated missionaries, whose competency is thus questioned, ‘SCIENCE. 497 have for many years spoken and written the Iroquois language almost as familiarly as their native speech, and have published many books in that language for the use of their converts. Their predecessors, whose experience they have inherited, had been engaged in the same work for more than two hundred years. To suppose them so grossly ignorant of the grammar of the language as is now suggested is much the same as supposing a professor of Latin in an English or American college to be unable to distinguish between the genitive and the accusative cases in that language, If the work of Marcoux is so erroneous, it is clearly unfit to be published in a national series like that of the Ethnological bureau. In justice both to the mis- sionaries and the bureau, I am glad to be able to show, by the best possible evidence, that the suspected errors do not exist. The Iroquois must be supposed to know their own language. ‘The text of their Book of rites, fortunately, presents a test which is conelu- sive. In preparing the translation of this text, with the aid of the best native interpreters, I had ocea- sion, as the appended glossary shows, to make con- stant use of the publications of M. Cuoq on the Iroquois tongue, and found them invariably correct. In particular, I may mention, the indeterminate form frequently occurs, employed precisely as indi- cated by him, The bureau may therefore safely add the work of M. Marcoux to the other valuable publications which have done so much credit. to the scholarship of their authors and to the liberality of the government. H. HAR. THOMSON AND TAIT’S NATURAL * PHILOSOPHY. —I. A treatise on natural philosophy. By Sir WriLiaAM Tuomson LL.D., D.C.L, F.R.S., and P. G. Tart, M.A. Vol.i., partii., new edition. Cam- bridge, University press, 1883. 25+4527 p. 8°. Tus first edition of vol. i. (23+727 p.) of this work was published by the delegates of the Clarendon press at Oxford, 1867. The authors then intended, as appears from their preface, to complete the work in four volumes. The remaining three volumes have, however, never appeared, much to the regret of all students of mathematical physics; and the authors state that the ‘‘ intention of proceeding with the other volumes is now definitely abandoned.”’ In 1879 a new and enlarged edition was published of a portion of vol. i., entitled part i. (17+508 p.), including that part of the first edition contained in the first 336 pages ; and now we have the remainder of vol. i., en- titled part ii., which has been enlarged by im- portant additions from 390 to 527 pages. At p. 22 will be found a schedule of the alterations and additions in part i., and, at p- 24, those of part ii. ** The most important part of the labor of editing part ii. has been borne by Mr. G. H. Darwin,’’ whose remark- able papers in the Philosophical transactions upon the mathematical physics of the earth, 498 past and present, have placed him in the front rank of the cultivators of that science. His contributions to part ii. are duly accredited to him in the above-mentioned schedule. The original object of this treatise is stated to be twofold ; viz., ‘‘ to give a tolerably com- plete account of what is now known of natural philosophy, in language adapted to the non- mathematical reader, and to furnish to those who have the privilege which high mathematical acquirements confer, a connected outline of the analytical processes by which the greater part of that knowledge has been extended into regions as yet unexplored by experiment.”’ From the nature of the case, the success of the authors in the attainment of their first object was small, compared with the second; for in order to give an intelligible account, to one un- accustomed to mathematical reasoning, of the general tenor and results of such reasoning, requires not only capacities such as few mathe- maticians have had in our day, except Clifford, but requires, also, an amount of space incom- patible with the second and principal object which the authors had in view. In order, however, better to reach the non-mathematical reader, the authors published a work entitled ‘Elements of natural philosophy, part i.,’ which was only an abridgment of “this ‘ trea- tise,’ made by simply omitting all the advanced mathematical developments. The second and principal object, however, of the authors, was one in which they, perhaps, were better fitted to succeed than any who could be selected. Their object was a large one, and its attainment was undertaken in a large way. It involved the presentation of the general subject of kinematics, or the geometry of motion considered apart from the forces causing it, including the exposition and use of generalized co- -ordinates and the considera- tion of harmonic motion, which ‘‘ naturally leads to Fourier’s theorem, one of the most important of all analytical results as regards usefulness in physical science,’’ and including, also, the higher parts of the analytical discus- sion of curves and surfaces in space, of three ‘dimensions. Next it required an extended development of dynamical laws and principles founded on Newton’s Principia, comprising the dynamics of a particle and of a rigid body, and the whole of what is now termed kinetics worked oyer and ‘‘ developed from the grand basis of the conservation of energy.’’ The scope of the work demanded, also, the estab- lishment of the principal formulae of spherical harmonies, a branch of analysis whose charac- ter we shall explain more at length hereafter. SCIENCE. {Vou. IL, No. 36. All these and other subjects, which are usu- ally regarded as but distantly related to the subject in hand, form a necessary part of a work whose object is as wide as that proposed by the authors. But it is hardly too much to say, that every important theory treated has received at their hands, not only elucidation, but additions of importance. In order to make this paper as useful as may be, it has seemed best, in what follows, to content ourselves with the attempt to give an account to mathematical readers of the more important developments contained in the work, and not to engage in the task of trying to make an elucidation of its contents suitable for the general reader. When we come to consider in particular the contents of part iil., it is found to be upon the general subject of statics; though many subjects, such as elasticity, the tides, ete., not usually treated in works on that subject, are here included. It consists of three chapters, the first of which is but five pages in length, and is merely introductory. It states and illus- trates the utter impossibility of submitting the exact conditions of any physical question to mathematical investigation by reason of our ignorance of the nature of matter and molecular forces, but shows that approximate solutions obtained by neglecting forces which do not af- fect the conclusions sought to be established, and by regarding bodies as rigid which are nearly so, lead to practically the same results, as to the equilibrium and motion of bodies, as we should be led to by the solution of the infi- nitely more transcendent problem which has regard to ail the forces acting. Tn case, however, we consider the bending or other deformations of bodies regarded as elastic, we make a second approximation to the exact treatment of physical questions ; and, by introducing modifications of elasticity due to changes of temperature, we should make a_ third approximation, which might be carried one step farther by taking account of conduc- tion of heat, and farther still by considering the modifications of ordinary conduction due to thermo-electric currents, etc. In view of all this, the authors say, ‘‘ The object of the pres- ent division of this volume (i.e., part ii.) is to deal with the first and second of these ap- proximations. In it we shall suppose all solids either rigid (i.e., unchangeable in form and volume) or elastic; but, in the latter case, we shall assume the law connecting a compression or a distortion with the force which causes it, to have a particular form deduced from ex- periment. . . . We shall also suppose fluids, 7 +5 a’ alte - ge Mia elated Ole OcroBEr 12, 1883.] whether liquids or gases, to be either compres- sible or incompressible, according to certain known laws; and we shall omit considerations of fluid friction, although we admit the consid- eration of friction between solids.’’ The next chapter (y.) comprises pp. 6 to 100, and its especial object is set forth in the introductory section (454), as follows: ** We naturally divide statics into two parts, —the equilibrium of a particle, and that of a rigid or elastic body or system of particles, whether solid or fluid. In a very few sections we shall dispose of the first of these parts, and the rest of this chapter will be devoted to a digression on the important subject of attraction.’’ In other words, this chapter is devoted, with the exception of a couple of pages, to an extended treatment of attraction according to the law of the inverse square of the distance as applied to gravitation, electricity, and magnetism. After a brief investigation of the usual for- mulae for the attraction of the spherical shell, circular disk, thin cylinder, circular arc, ete., the main subject of the chapter is reached, which is the modern mathematical theory of potential; which theory is the principal means now employed in the discussion of questions relating to the distribution of attracting matter, and the forces caused by it., This theory, due as it is to the analytical discoveries of Laplace, Green, Gauss, and others, might, nevertheless, have long remained comparatively barren of fruitful results in physics, had it not been for the genius of Faraday, who, though unskilled in the use of analysis, had a most powerful grasp of geometric and physical relations. In the words of another,? ‘‘ Faraday, in his mind’s eye, saw lines of force traversing all space, where mathematicians saw centres of force at- tracting at a distance; Faraday saw a medium where they saw nothing but a distance ; Fara- day sought the seat of the phenomena in real actions going on in the medium, they were sat- isfied that they found it in a power of action at a distance.’’ He conceived of lines of gravi- tational force as holding the planets in their orbits. These lines radiated through all space from the attracting body as a nucleus, regard- less of the existence or non-existence of bodies upon which the attraction could be exerted. Furthermore, Faraday thought of each attract- ing body as surrounded at different distances by successive level surfaces, — like that of the ocean, for example, or the upper limit of the atmosphere; which surfaces cut the lines of force everywhere at right angles. This was not only true of gravitating matter, but each + Preface of Maxwelli’s Electricity and magnetism. SCIENCE. 499 electrified body also had its system of lines of electrical force, and its corresponding system of level surfaces; and each magnet had its magnetic system as well. The geometry of these lines and surfaces is the basis of Fara- day’s reasoning in his ‘ Experimental re- searches,’ and is the geometric truth hiden in the analytic discoveries clustering around Laplace’s, Poisson’s, and Green’s theorems. That we may call these relations more clear- ly before the mind, consider for a moment the so-called ‘ equation of continuity ’ of an incom- pressible fluid ; which equation is divined from the geometric truth, that the quantity of such a fluid, which flows into any assumed closed surface, taken entirely within it, is equal to that flowing out, or that the total flow is nil. This is precisely expressed by the equation /FaS=0, (1) in which d S is the area of the element of the assumed closed surface, F’ is the normal flow per square unit at that element, and the limits of integration are so taken that it extends over the entire surface. There is also another form of the equation of continuity, expressing the kinematic truth, that, in an incompressible fluid, the variations of the component veloci- ties in the directions 2, y, z, balance ; i.e., their algebraic sum is nil, which may be written thus : — du , dv , dw dx T dy * dz = =0, (2) in which u,v, w, are the component velocities in the directions x, y, z, respectively. Now, it is not difficult to picture to the mind the motions occurring within the mass of an incompressible fluid ; such as water, for exam- ple. In whatever way it may be moving, we can think of stream-lines along which the dif- ferent parts of it flow. A number of these lines, side by side, can be taken to form a stream, and can be thought of as bounded by a kind of tubular surface ; which surface might be regarded as the boundary of the stream, which isolates it from surrounding streams. If the stream has the same velocity at every point along the tube, then its cross-section must be uniform; but, where the velocity is less, the cross-section is proportionately increased, and vice versa. This follows from the fact that the same quantity must pass each cross-section per unit of time. A tube in which a unit of volume passes a given cross-section per unit of time is called a unit-tube. Now, the forces of attraction in free space, caused by any dis- tribution of matter, electricity, or magnetism, o 500 follow precisely the same laws as the velocities and flow of incompressible fluids ; for, consider for the moment the lines of force starting from the surface of some attracting body (a magnet, for example). They gradually diverge as the distance increases, and curve away into space. Each one of these lines may be taken as the representative of a definite amount of attraction, whichis the same at all points along it; and if a tubular surface be supposed to exist, includ- ing everywhere certain of these lines which lie beside each other, and no others, the total amount of force acting across every cross-sec- tion of the tube is the same: hence equations (1) and (2) apply as well to forces of attrac- tion as to velocities of an incompressible fluid, provided F’, uw, v, w, be taken to be the compo- nent forces along the normal and along 2, y, 2, respectively, and provided that none’ of the at- tracting matter be contained within the closed surface considered in equation (1), or at the point considered in equation (2). In order to the farther development of these equations, let us compute the work which would be obtained in carrying a unit of attracted material from one given position to another. found from the usual expression V=— f(uda + vdy + wdz), (8) in which u,v, w, being component. forces, the limits of the integration are the co-ordinates of the two given points; but what path is taken between these points is of no consequence, because the amount of work depends alone upon their difference of level: es es SS (4) in which the right-hand numbers are partial differential coefficients. V is evidently a func- tion of the co-ordinates such that its value de- pends upon position, and not upon the kind of co-ordinates employed. The point which fixes the lower limit of the integral in (3) is usually taken at infinity ; and the value of V taken be- tween it and the point fixing the upper limit is called the potential of the latter point. By help of (3), we may put equation (1) in the form ay enor Sq IS =% (5) in which dw is the element of the normal to the closed surface considered. And by substituting in (2) the values given in (4), we have, BV dx? GEN YOU GR ee dy? na dz? 9, (6) which is Laplace’s equation, and is often + SCIENCE. The worl is. le eet 4.) [Vou. IL, No. 36. written in the abbreviated form, V* V = 0. Poisson showed, that, when the point at which the potential is to be computed is within the mass of the attracting matter, the right-hand member of (6) should no longer be nil, but 4p instead, in which p is the density of the matter at that point. Similarly, the right-hand member of (5) becomes 47m when an amount of matter m is included within the closed sur- face considered. Equation (6) states that V must be such a function of the co-ordinates, that, if we take its three partial second differential coefficients and add them, their sum is nil. What possible algebraic forms are there which fulfil this con- dition? They are, of course, to be found by attempting to solve the differential equation (6). But it is to be seen beforehand, from the manner in which that equation was es- tablished, that it must have an infinite num- ber of solutions ; forsV must be such a function as to be capable of expressing the work to be obtained from a unit of attracted matter when brought from infinity into the presence of attracting matter, whatever its distribution in space. The function V must therefore, in general, be different for every different dis- tribution of attracting matter. The integration of equation (6), and the discussion of its various solutions, constitute the branch of mathematics called spherical - harmonic analysis; and to it the authors have devoted pp. 171 to 219, in part i. The for- mulae there obtained are employed, whenever required in the present chapter, to express the potential, or the attraction of matter dis- tributed according to laws not conveniently to be treated by less elementary methods. As the study of spherical harmonics has been. comparatively neglected in this country, a short digression, explaining some of their properties, may be useful. From the nature of attraction, it being to- ward fixed centres, it appears that polar co- ordinates would be more suitable to express its relations than rectangular co-ordinates ; and, in fact, equation (6) is usually transformed to polar co-ordinates in space before integration, which co-ordinates may be taken to be the radius vector, the latitude, and the longitude of the point at which the potential is com- puted. It may be shown that there are two general forms of solution of this polar differential equa- tion, — one in ascending powers of the radius vector; and the other in ascending powers of its reciprocal, with coefficients depending upon sines or cosines of the angular co-ordinates. OcTOBER 12, 1883.] As these series may be broken off at any point by the vanishing of the arbitrary numerical co- efficients introduced during integration, these solutions may be in terms of the radius vector of any degree, positive or negative. It is then found that a most important and simple class of solutions, called zonal harmonics, is those which are independent of the longi- tude, and consequently contain but two varia- bles, — the radius vector and the latitude. If in any harmonic we assume some special value of the radius vector for consideration, we evidently confine our attention to a spheri- cal surface ; and the expression is then spoken of as a surface harmonic, in distinction from that in which the radius vector is a variable, in which case it is called a solid harmonic. On the surface of a sphere of given radius, it is possible to suppose the values of a surface- harmonic to be laid off graphically along the radii to each point, toward or away from the centre, according to their sign. This will give a picture to the mind of the distribution of the surface-harmonic. Now, in a zonal harmonic of the first posi- tive degree (which varies as the sine of the latitude) the surface-distribution is all positive on one side of the equator, and all negative on the other. A simple zonal harmonic of the second degree has a distribution like that in- cluded between a nearly spherical ellipsoid of revolution about the polar axis and a sphere when the two intersect along two parallels of latitude. The ellipsoid may be prolate or ob- late. The number of zones depends, in any ease, upon the degree of the zonal harmonic, and is such that the number of parallels of lati- tude at which the distribution changes sign is the same as the degree; and they are symmet- rically situated about the equator, so that in the odd degrees the equator is itself such a parallel. There are other solutions, called sectorial harmonies, in which the surface-distribution changes sign at equidistant meridians, and other solutions still, which are a combination of these two, called tesseral harmonies, in which the sign of the distribution changes, checker- board fashion, at parallels and meridians. The sectorial harmonics are, however, in reality, nothing more than the combination of a num- ber of zonal harmonics of the same degree, whose poles are situated at equal distances along the equator; and the tesseral harmonics are combinations of the sectorial with the zonal harmonics. Indeed, the most general harmonic is one by means of which any sur- face-distribution whatever may be expressed by SCIENCE. 501 properly determining the constant coefficients, and is merely a combination of zonal harmon- ics superposed one upon another, with poles situated in some irregular manner upon the surface of the sphere. This brings us to the fundamental theorem stated in section 537, upon which the special importance and useful- ness of these functions rest, —‘‘ A spherical harmonic distribution of density (i.e., matter) on a spherical surface produces a similar and similarly placed spherical harmonic distribution of potential over every concentric spherical surface through space, external and internal ; and so, also, consequently, of radial component force. . . . The potential is, of course, a solid harmonic through space, both external and in- ternal ; and is of positive degree in the internal, and of negative degree in the external space,’’ as is evidently necessary, if the series express- ing the potential in these two cases are to con- verge. When we come to treat in the same equation the potentials of a given point due to two different bodies, or systems of bodies, a remarkable relation is found to exist between them, called, from its discoverer, Green’s théo- rem, which, though somewhat complicated when expressed in rectangular co-ordinates, has been put by Maxwell in a simple form, which may be written (7) in which the subscripts refer to the first and second systems respectively, and the integra- tions are to be extended so as to include the total masses m, and m, respectively of the two systems. lLaplace’s and Poisson’s equa- tions are, of course, particular cases of Green’s theorem. Thomson has effected an important extension of Green’s theorem, given on pp. 167 to 171, part i. Constant references are made to these theorems, not only as to their direct application, as we have presented it, but in their application to the inverse question of determining what the distribution of matter must be to produce a given distribution of potential. The most extended and important applica- tion of the theories of attraction and potential treated in this chapter is that of ellipsoids and ellipsoidal shells, —a subject which is closely connected with that of the figure of the earth, and one which has engaged the prolonged at- tention of many of the most powerful mathe- matical intellects of the past. A full account of the course of discovery in this field is found in Todhunter’s History of the theories of at- traction and figure of the earth, 2 vols. Ten pages of new matter (pp. 40-50) have SV,dm, = f Vidm,, 502 been inserted in this edition, embracing modern investigations of importance on this subject. (To be continued.) OBLIGATIONS OF MATHEMATICS TO PHILOSOPHY, AND TO QUESTIONS OF COMMON LIFE.1—Iyl. \ I sap that I would speak to you, not of the utility of the mathematics in any of the questions of com- mon life or of physical science, but rather of the obligations of mathematies to these different sub- jects. The consideration which thus presents itself is, in a great measure, that of the history of the de- velopment of the different branches of mathematical science in connection with the older physical sci- ences, — astronomy and mechanics. The mathemati- cal theory is, in the first instance, suggested by some question of common life or of physical science, is pursued and studied quite independently thereof, and perhaps, after a long interval, comes in contact with it, or with quite a different question. Geometry and algebra must, I think, be considered as each of them originating in connection with objects or ques- tions of common life, — geometry, notwithstanding its name, hardly in the measurement of land, but rather from the contemplation of such forms as the straight line, the circle, the ball, the top (or sugar- loaf). The Greek geometers appropriated for the geo- metrical forms corresponding to the last two of these the words o¢aipu and K@voc, our sphere and cone; and they extended the word ‘cone’ to mean the complete figure obtained by producing the straight lines of the surface both ways indefinitely. And so algebra would seem to haye arisen from the sort of easy puzzles in regard to numbers which may be made, either in the picturesque forms of the Bija-Ganita, with its maiden with the beautiful locks, and its swarms of bees amid the fragant blossoms, and the one queen-bee left humming around the lJotus-flower; or in the more prosaic form in which a student has presented to him in a modern text-book a problem leading to a simple equation. The Greek geometry may be regarded as beginning with Plato (B.C. 430-347). The notions of geometri- cal analysis, loci, and the conic sections, are attributed to him; and there are in his ‘ Dialogues’ many very interesting allusions to mathematical questions, — in particular the passage in the ‘Theaetetus’ where he affirms the incommensurability of the sides of certain squares. But the earliest extant writings are those of Euclid (B.C. 285). There is hardly any thing in mathematics more beautiful than his wondrous fifth book; and he has also, in the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth books, fully and ably developed the first principles of the theory of numbers, including the theory of incommensurables. We have next Apol- lonius (about B.C. 247) and Archimedes (B.C. 287— 212), both geometers of the highest merit, and the latter of them the founder of the science of statics 1 Address of Professor CAYLEY before the British association. Concluded from No. 35. SCIENCE. [Vou. IT., No. 36. (including therein hydrostatics). His dictum about the lever, his ‘Efpyxa,’ and the story of the defence of Syracuse, are well known. Following these we have a worthy series of names, including the astrono- mers Hipparchus (B.C. 150) and Ptolemy (A.D. 125), and ending, say, with Pappus (A.D. 400), but con- tinued by their Arabian commentators, and the Ital- ian and other European geometers of the sixteenth century and Jater, who pursued the Greek geometry.' The Greek arithmetic was, from the want of a proper notation, singularly cumbrous and difficult; and it was, for astronomical purposes, superseded by the sexagesimal arithmetic, attributed to Ptolemy, but probably known before his time. The use of the present so-called Arabic figures became general among Arabian writers on arithmetic and astronomy about the middle of the tenth century, but it was not introduced into Europe until about two centuries later. Algebra, among the Greeks, is represented almost exclusively by the treatise of Diophantus (A.D, 150), —in fact, a work on the theory of num- bers, containing questions relating to square and cube numbers, and other properties of numbers, with their solutions, This has no historical connection with the later algebra introduced into Italy from the east by Leonardi Bonaeci of Pisa (A.D. 1202-1208), and successfully cultivated in the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries by Lucas Paciolus, or de Burgo,: Tartaglia, Cardan, and Ferrari. Later.on, we have Vieta (1540-1603), Harriot, already referred to, Wal- lis, and others. Astronomy is, of course, intimately connected with geometry. The most simple facts of observation of the heavenly bodies can only be stated in geometri- cal language; for instance, that the stars describe circles about the Pole-star, or that the different posi- tions of the sun among the fixed stars in the course of the year form a circle. For astronomical calcula- tions it was found necessary to determine the are of a circle by means of its chord. The notion is as old as Hipparchus, a work of whom is referred to as consisting of twelve books on the chords of circular ares. We have (A.D. 125) Ptolemy’s ‘ Almagest,’ the first book of which contains a table of ares and chords, with the method of construction; and among other theorems on the subject, he gives there the theorem, afterwards inserted in Euclid (book vi. prop. D), relating to the rectangle contained by the diagonals of a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle. The Arabians made the improvement of using, in place of the chord of an arc, the sine, or half-chord of double the arc, and so brought the theory into the form in which it is used in modern trigonometry. The before- . mentioned theorem of Ptolemy, —or, rather, a par- ticular case of it,— translated into the notation of sines, gives the expression for the sine of the sum” of two arcs in terms of the sines and cosines of the component arcs, and it is thus the fundamental theorem on the subject. We have in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a series of mathematicians, who, with wonderful enthusiasm and perseverance, calculated tables of the trigonometrical or cireu- lar functions, — Purbach, Miller or Regiomontanus, OcToBER 12, 1882.] Copernicus, Reinhold, Maurolycus, Vieta, and many others. The tabulations of the functions tangent and secant are due to Reinhold and Maurolycus re- spectively. Logarithms were invented, not exclusively with reference to the calculation of trigonometrical tables, but in order to facilitate numerical calculations gen- erally. The invention is due to John Napier of Mer- chiston, who died in 1618, at sixty-seven years of age. The notion was based upon refined mathematical rea- soning on the comparison of the spaces described by two points ; the one moving with a uniform velocity, the other with a velocity varying according to a given law. It is to be observed that Napier’s logarithms were nearly, but not exactly, those which are now called, sometimes Napierian, but more usually hy- perbolic logarithms, those to the base e; and that the change to the base 10 (the great step by which the invention was perfected for the object in view) was indicated by Napier, but actually made by Henry Briggs, afterwards Savilian professor at Oxford (d. 1630). But it is the hyperbolic logarithm which is mathematically important. The direct function e*, or exp. x, which has for its inverse the hyperbolic log- arithm, presented itself, ‘but not in a prominent way. Tables were calculated of the logarithms of numbers, and of those of the trigonometrical functions. The circular function and the logarithm were thus invented each fora practical purpose, separately, and- without any proper connection with each other. The functions are connected through the theory of im- aginaries, and form together a group of the utmost importance throughout mathematics: but this is math- .ematical theory ; the obligation of mathematies is for the discovery of the functions. ‘ Forms of spirals presented themselves in Greek architecture, and the curves were considered mathe- matically by Archimedes. The Greek geometers in- vented some other curves more or less interesting, but recondite enough in their origin. A curve which might have presented itself to anybody, that described by a point in the circumference of a rolling carriage- wheel, was first noticed by Mersenne in 1615, and is the curve afterwards considered by Roberval, Pascal, and others, under the name of the roulette, other- wise the cycloid. Pascal (1623-62) wrote, at the age of seventeen, his ‘ Essais pour les coniques’ in seven short pages, full of new views on these curves, and in which he gives, in a paragraph of eight lines, his theory of the inscribed hexagon. 4 Kepler (1571-1630), by his empirical determination of the laws of planetary motion, brought into con- nection with astronomy one of the forms of conic, the ellipse, and established a foundation for the theo- ty of gravitation. Contemporary with him for most of his life, we have Galileo (1564-1642), the founder of the science of dynamics; and closely following upon Galileo, we have Isaac Newton (1643-1727). The ‘ Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica,’ known as the ‘ Principia,’ was first published in 1687. The physical, statical, or dynamical questions which presented themselves before the publication of the ‘Principia’ were of no particular mathemati- SCIENCE. 503 cal difficulty ; but it is quite otl.erwise with the crowd of interesting questions arising out of the theory of gravitation, and which, in becoming the subject of mathematical investigation, have contributed very much to the advance of mathematics. We have the problem of two bodies, or, what is the same thing, that of the motion of a particle about a fixed centre of force, for any law of foree; we have also the problem (mathematically very interesting) of the motion of a body attracted to two or more fixed cen- tres of force ; then, next preceding that of the actual solar system, the problem of three bodies. This has ever been and is far beyond the power of mathemat- ics ; and it is in the lunar and planetary theories re- placed by what is mathematically a different problem, —that of the motion of a body under the action of a principal central force and a disturbing force, —or, in one mode of treatment, by the problem of disturbed elliptic motion. I would remark that we have here an instance in which an astronomical fact, the ob- served slow variation of the orbit of a planet, has directly suggested a mathematical method, applied to other dynamical problems, and which is the basis of very extensive modern investigations in regard to systems of differential equations. Again: immedi- ately arising out of the theory of gravitation, we have the problem of finding the attraction of a solid body of any given form upon a particle, solved by Newton in the case of a homogeneous sphere, but which is far more difficult in the next succeeding cases of the spheroid of revolution (very ably treated by Maclau- rin), and of the ellipsoid of three unequal axes. There is, perhaps, no problem of mathematics which has been treated by so great a variety of methods, or has given rise to so much interesting investigation, as this last problem of the attraction of an ellipsoid upon an interior or exterior point. It was a dynam- ical problem, that of vibrating strings, by which Lagrange was led to the theory of the representation of a function as the sum of a series of multiple sines and cosines ; and connected with this we have the expansions in terms of Legendre’s functions Pn, sug- gested to him by the question, just referred to, of the attraction of an ellipsoid. The subsequent investiga- tions of Laplace, on the attractions of bodies differing slightly from the sphere, led to the functions of two variables called Laplace’s functions. I have been speaking of ellipsoids ; but the general theory is that of attractions, which has become a very wide branch of modern mathematics. Associated with it, we have in particular the names of Gauss, Lejeune-Dirichlet, and Green ; and I must not omit to mention that the theory is now one relating to n-dimensional space. Another great problem of celestial mechan- ics, that of the motion of the earth about its centre of gravity (in the most simple case, that of a body not acted upon by any forces), is a very interesting one in the mathematical point of view. I may mention a few other instances where a prac- tical or physical question has connected itself with the development of mathematical theory. I have spoken of two map projections, —the stereographic, dating from Ptolemy; and Mercator’s projection, in- 504 vented by Edward Wright about the year 1600. Each of these, as a particular case of the orthomorphie pro- jection, belongs to the theory of the geometrical rep- resentation of an imaginary variable. I have spoken also of perspective, and (in an omitted paragraph) of the representation of solid figures employed in Monge’s descriptive geometry. Monge, it is well known, is the author of the geometrical theory of the curvature of surfaces, and of curves of curvature. He was led to this theory by a problem of earthwork, — from a given area, covered with earth of uniform thickness, to carry the earth and distribute it over an equal given area with the least amount of cartage. For the solution of the corresponding problem in solid geometry, he had to consider the intersecting normals of a surface, and so arrived at the curves of curvature (see his ‘Mémoire sur les déblais et les remblais,’ Mém. de Vacad., 1781). The normals of a surface are, again, a particular case of a doubly infi- nite system of lines, and are so connected with the modern theories of congruences and complexes. The undulatory theory of light led to Fresnel’s wave-surface, —a surface of the fourth order, by far the most interesting one which had then presented it- self. A geometrical property of this surface, that of having tangent planes, each touching it along a plane curve (in fact, a circle), gave to Sir W. R. Hamilton the theory of conical refraction. The wave-surface is now regarded in geometry as a particular case of Kummer’s quartic surface, with sixteen conical points and sixteen singular tangent planes. My imperfect acquaintance, as well with the mathe- matics as the physics, prevents me from speaking of the benefits which the theory of partial differential equations has received from the hydrodynamical the- ory of vortex motion, and fromthe great physical theories of electricity, magnetism, and energy. It is difficult to give an idea of the vast extent of modern mathematics. This word ‘extent’ is not the right one: I mean extent crowded with beautiful de- tail, —not an extent of mere uniformity, such as an objectless plain, but of a tract of beautiful country seen at first in the distance, but which will bear to be rambled through, and studied in every detail of hillside and valley, stream, rock, wood, and flower. But as for any thing else, so for a mathematical the- ory, —beauty can be perceived, but not explained. As for mere extent, I might illustrate this by speak- ing of the dates at which some of the great ex- tensions have been made in several branches of mathematical science. And, in fact, in the address as written, I speak at considerable length of the extensions in geometry since the time of Descartes, and in other specified subjects since the commencement of the century. These subjects are the general theory of the function of an imaginary variable; the leading known func- tions, viz., the elliptic and single theta-functions and the Abelian and multiple theta-functions; the theory of equations and the theory of numbers. I refer also to some theories outside of ordinary mathematics, — the multiple algebra, or linear associative algebra, of the late Benjamin Peirce; the theory of Argand, War- SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 36. ren, and Peacock, in regard to imaginaries in plane geometry; Sir W. R. Hamilton’s quaternions; Clif- ford’s biquaternions; the theories developed in Grass- mann’s ‘ Ausdehnungslelre,’ with recent extensions thereof to non-Euclidian space by Mr._Homersham Cox; also Boole’s ‘Mathematical logic,’ and a work connected with logic, but primarily mathematieal and of the highest importance, Shubert’s ‘ Abzihlende geometrie’ (1878). Iremark that all this in regard to theories outside of ordinary mathematics is still on the text of the vast extent of modern mathematics. In conclusion, I would say that mathematics have steadily advanced from the time of the Greek geome- ters. Nothing is lost or wasted. The achievements of Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius, are as admir- able now as they were in their own days. Descartes’ method of co-ordinates is a possession forever. But mathematics has never been cultivated more zealous- ly and diligently, or with greater success, than in this century, —in the last half of it, or at the present time. The advances made have been enormous. The actual field is boundless, the future full of hope. In regard to pure mathematics we may most confidently say, — on ‘Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.” THE ENDOWMENT OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH. Ir has become the custom for the presidents of the various sections of this association to open the pro- ceedings of the departments with the chairmanship of which they are charged by formal addresses. In ~ reflecting on the topics which it might be desirable for me to bring under your notice, as your president, on the present occasion, it has occurred to me that I might use this opportunity most fitly by departing somewhat from the prevailing custom of reviewing _ the progress of science in some special direction dur- ing the past year, and that, instead of placing before you a summary of the results recently obtained by the investigations of biologists in this or that line of inquiry, I might ask your attention, and that of the external public (who are wont to give some kindly . consideration to the opinions expressed on these oc- casions) to a matter which is even more directly con- nected with the avowed object of our association; namely, ‘the advancement of science.’ I propose to place before you a few observations upon the pro- vision which exists in this country for the advance- ment of that branch of science to which section D is dedicated; namely, biology. I am aware that it is usual for those who speak of men of science and their pursuits to ignore altogether such sordid topics as the one which I have chosen to bring forward. A certain pride, on the one hand, and a willing acquiescence, on the other hand, usually prevent those who are professionally concerned with 1 An address to the biological section of the British associa- tion. By Prof. E. Ray Lankester, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., presi- dent of the section. From advance copy kindly furnished by the editor of Nature. ao OctonER 12, 1883.] scientific pursuits from exposing to the public the pecuniary destitution, and the consequent crippling and languor, of scientific research in this country. Those Englishmen who take an interest in the prog- ress of science are apt to suppose, that, in some way which they have never clearly understood, the pur- suit of scientific truth is not only its own reward, but also a sufficient source of food, drink, and clothing. Whilst they are interested and amused by the re- markable discoveries of scientific men, they are astonished whenever a proposal is mentioned to assign salaries to a few such persons, sufficient to enable them to live decently whilst devoting their time and strength to investigation. The public are becoming more and more anxious to have the opinion or report of scientific men upon matters of commer- cial importance, or in relation to the public health: and yet, in ninty-nine cases out of a hundred, they expect to have that opinion for the asking, although accustomed to pay other professional men handsomely for similar service. There is, it appears, in the pub- lic mind, a vague belief that men who occupy their time with the endeavor to add to knowledge in this or that branch of science are mysteriously supported by the state exchequer, and are thus fair game for attacking with all sorts of demands for gratuitous service; or, on the other hand, the notion at work - appears sometimes to be, that the making of new knowledge — in fact, scientific discovery —is an agreeable pastime, in which some ingenious gentle- men, whose business in other directions takes up their best hours, find relaxation after dinner or on the spare hours of Sunday. Such mistaken views ought to be dispelled with all possible celerity and determination. It isin part owing to the fact that the real state of the case is not widely and persist- ently made known to the public, that no attempt is made in this country to raise scientific research, and especially biological research, from the condition of destitution and neglect under which it suffers, —a condition which is far below that of these same inter- ests in France and Germany, and even in Holland, Belgium, Italy, and Russia, and is discreditable to England in proportion as she is richer than other states. It appears to me, that, in placing this matter before you, I may remove myself from any suggestion of self-interest by at once stating that the great defect to which I shall draw your attention is, not that the few existing public positions which are open in this eountry to men who intend to devote their chief en- ergies to biological research are endowed with insuffi- cient salaries, but that there is not any thing like a sufficiently large number of those posts, and that there is in that respect, from a national point of view, a pecuniary starvation of biology, a withholding of money, which (to use another metaphor) is no less the sinews of the war of science against ignorance than of other less glorious campaigns. Surely, men engaged in the scientific profession may advocate the claim of science to maintenance and needful pecun- iary provision. It seems to me that we should, if necessary, swallow, rather than be controlled by, that SCIENCE. 505 pride which tempts us to paint the scientific career as one far above and independent of pecuniary consid- erations: whereas all the while we know that knowl- edge is languishing, that able men are drawn off from scientific research into other careers, that important discoveries are approached and their final grasp relin- quished, that great men depart, and leave no disciples or successors, simply for want of that which is largely given in other countries, —of that which is most abundant in this country, and is so lavishly expended on arniies and navies, on the development of commer- cial resources, on a hundred injurious or meaningless charities, — viz., money. I have no doubt that I have the sympathy of all my hearers in wishing for more extensive provision in this country for the prosecution of scientific re- search, and especially of biological research. I need hardly remind this audience of the almost romantic history of some of the great discoveries which have been made in reference to the nature and history of living things during the past century. The micro- scope, which was a drawing-room toy a hundred years ago, has, in the hands of devoted and gifted students of nature, been the means of giving us knowledge which, on the one hand, has saved thousands of surgical patients from terrible pain and death, and, on the other hand, has laid the foundation of that new philosophy with which the name of Darwin will forever be associated. When Ehrenberg, and, later, Dujardin, described and figured the various forms of Monas, Vibrio, Spirillum, and Bacterium, which their microscopes revealed to them, no one could predict that fifty years later these organisms would be recognized as the cause of that dangerous suppu- ration of wounds which so often defeated the benefi- cent efforts of the surgeon, and made an operation in a hospital-ward as dangerous to the patient as residence in a plague-stricken city. Yet this is the result which the assiduous studies of the biologists, provided with laboratories and maintenance by con- tinental ‘states, have in due time brought to light. Theodore Schwann, professor at Liége, first showed that these bacteria are the cause of the putrefaction of organic substances; and subsequently, the French chemist Pasteur, professor in the Ecole normale of Paris, confirmed and extended Schwann’s di-covery, so as to establish the belief that all putrefactive changes are due to such minute organisms, and that, if these organisms can be kept at bay, no putrefaction ean occur in any given substance. It was reserved for our countryman, Joseph Lister, to apply this result to the treatment of wounds, and, by his famous antiseptic method, to destroy by means of special poisons the putrefactive organisms which necessarily find their way into the neighborhood of a wound, or of the surgeon’s knife and dressings, and to ward off by similar means the access of such organisms tothe wounded surface. The amount of death, not to speak of the suffering short of death, which the knowledge of bacteria gained by the mi- croscope has thus averted, is incaleulable. Yet, further, the discoveries of Ehrenberg, Schwann, and Pasteur, are bearing fruit of a similar kind in 506 other directions. It seems in the highest degrce probable that the terrible scourge known as tubereu- lar consumption, or phthisis, is due to a parasitic bac- terium (Bacillus) discovered two years since by Koch of Berlin as the immediate result of investigations which he was commissioned to carry on at the public expense, in the specially erected laboratory of public health, by the German imperial government. The diseases known as erysipelas and glanders (or farcy) have similarly, within the past few months in Ger- man state-supported laboratories, been shown to be due to the attacks of special kinds of bacteria. At present this knowledge has not led to a successful method of combating those diseases, but we can hardly doubt that it will ultimately do so. We are warranted in this belief by the fact that the disease known as ‘splenic fever’ in cattle, and ‘malignant pustule,’ or anthrax, in man, has likewise been shown to be due to the action of a special kind of bacterium, and that this knowledge has, in the hands of MM. Toussaint and Pasteur, led to a treatment, in relation to this disease, similar to that of vaccination in rela- tion to small-pox. By cultivation a modified growth of the anthrax parasite is obtained, which is then used in order to inoculate cattle and sheep with a ' mild form of the disease, such inoculation having the result of rendering the cattle and sheep free from the attacks of the severe form of disease, just as vac- cination or innoculation with cow-pox protects man from the attack of the deadly small-pox. One other case I may call to mind, in which knowledge of the presence of bacteria as the cause of disease has led to successful curative treatment. A not uncommon affliction is inflammation of the bladder, accompanied by ammoniacal decomposition of the urine. Micro- scopical investigation has shown that this ammonia- cal decomposition is entirely due to the activity of a bacterium. Fortunately, this bacterium is at once killed by weak solutions of quinine, which can be injected into the bladder without causing any injury or irritation. This example appears to have great importance; because it is the fact that many kinds of bacteria are not killed by solutions of quinine, but require other and much more irritant poisons to de- stroy their life, which could not be injected into the bladder without causing disastrous effects. Since some bacteria are killed by one poison, and some by another, it becomes a matter of the keenest interest to find out all such poisons; and possibly among them may be some which can be applied so as to kill the bacteria which produce phthisis, erysipelas, glanders, anthrax, and other scourges of humanity, whilst not acting injuriously upon the body of the victim in which these infinitesimal parasites are doing their deadly work. Insuch waysas this, biology has turned the toy ‘ magnifying-glass’ of the last century into a saver of life and health. No less has the same agency revolfitionized the thoughts of men in every branch of philosophy and speculation. The knowledge of the growth of the chick from the egg, and of other organisms from similarly constituted beginnings, has been slowly and continuously gained by prodigious labor, extending SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 36. over generation after generation of students who have occupied the laboratories, and lived on the sti- pends, provided by the governments of European states, —not English, but chiefly German. It is this history of the development of the individual animal and plant from a simple homogeneous beginning to a complex heterogeneous adult, which has furnished the starting-point for the wide-reaching doctrine of evolution. It is this knowledge, coupled with the knowledge of the myriad details of structure of all kinds of animals and plants, which the faithful oceu- pants of laboratories, and the guardians of biological collections, have, in the past hundred years, labori- ously searched out, and recorded. It is this which enabled Darwin to propound, to test, and to firmly establish his theory of the origin of species by natu- ral selection, and finally to bring the origin, develop- ment, and progress of man also into the area of physical science. I have said enough, in referring only to two very diverse examples of the far-reaching consequences flowing from the discoveries of single- minded investigators in biological science, to remind my hearers that in the domain of biology, as in other sciences, the results attained by those who have labored simply to extend our knowledge of the struc- ture and properties of living things, in the faith that . every increase of knowledge will ultimately bring its blessing to humanity, have, in fact, led with astonish- ing rapidity to conclusions affecting most profoundly both the bodily and the mental welfare of the com- munity. We who know the beneficent results which must flow more and more from the labors of those who are able to create new knowledge of living things, or, in other words, are able to aid in the growth of biological science, must feel something more than regret, — even indignation, — that England should do so small a proportion of the laborious investigation which is necessary, and is being carried on for our profit by other nationalities. It must not be sup- posed, because we have had our Harvey and our Darwin, our Hunter and our Lister, that therefore we have done, and are doing, all that is needful in the increase of biological science. The position of this country in relation to the progress of science is not to be decided by the citation of great names. We require to look more fully into the matter than this. The question is, not whether England has pro- duced some great discoverers, or as many as any other nationality, but whether we might not, with advan- tage to our own community and that of the civilized world generally, do far more in the field of scientific investigation than we do. It may be laid down as a general proposition, to which I know of no important exception, that scien- tific discovery has only been made by one of two classes of men; namely, (1) those whose time could be devoted to it in virtue of their possessing inherited fortunes; (2) those whose time could be devoted to it in virtue of their possessing a stipend or endow- ment especially assigned to them for that purpose. Now, it is a very remarkable fact that in England, far more than in any other country, the possessors of whe < Jere. a 4 OcTOBER 12, 1883.] private fortunes haye devoted themselves-to scien- tific investigation. Not only have we, in all parts of the country, numerous dilettanti,! who, especially in various branches of biology, do valuable work in con- tinually adding to knowledge, quietly pursuing their favorite study without seeking to reach to any great eminence, but it is the fact that many of the greatest names of English discoverers in science are those of men who held no professional position designed to maintain an investigator, but owed their opportunity simply to the fact that they enjoyed a more or less ample income by inheritance. Thus, Harvey pos- sessed a private fortune, Darwin also, and Lyell. + Such, also, is true of some of the English naturalists, who more recently have most successfully devoted their energies to research. Those who wish to de- fend the present neglect of the government and of public institutions to provide means for the carrying on of scientific researeh in this country are accus- tomed to declare as a justification for this neglect, that we do very well without such provision, inas- much as the cultivation of science here flourishes in the hands of those who are in a position of pecuniary independence. Thereply to this is obvious. If those few of our countrymen who by accident are placed in an independent position show such ability in the prosecution of scientific research, how much more would be effected in the same direction, were the machinery;provided to enable those also who are not accidentally favored by fortune to enter upon the same kind of work! The number of wealthy men who have distinguished themselves in scientific re- search in England is simply evidence that there is a natural ability and liking for such work in the Eng- lish character, and is a distinct encouragement to those who have it in their power to do so, to offer the opportunity of devoting themselves to research to a larger number of the members of the community. It is impossible to doubt that there are hundreds of ‘men amongst us who have as great capacity for scien- tific discovery as those whom fortune has favored with leisure and opportunity. It cannot be doubted, that, were the means provided to enable even a pro- portion of such men to give themselves up to scientific investigation, great discoveries, of no less importance to the world than those relative to the causes of dis- ease, and the development of living things from the egg, — which I have cited, — would be made asa direct consequence of their activity; whereas now we must wait until, in due course of time, these discoveries shall be made for us in the laboratories of Germany, France, or Russia. It should further be pointed out, that it is altogeth- er a mistake to suppose that the existence amongst us of a few very eminent men is any evidence that we are contributing largely to the hard work of care- ful study and observation, which really forms the material upon which the conclusions of eminent dis- coverers are based. You will find in every depart- 1 I use this word in its best and truest sense, and would refer those who have been accustomed to associate with it some im- plication of contempt to the wise and appreciative remarks of Goethe on ‘ dilcttanti.” SCIENCE. DOT ment of biological knowledge, that the hard work of investigation is being carried on by the well-trained army of Germar observers. Whether you ask the zodlogist, the botanist, the physiologist, or the an- thropologist, you will get the same answer: it is to German sources that he looks for new information; it is in German workshops that discoveries, each small in itself, but gradually leading up to great con- clusions, are daily being made. To a very large ex- tent, the business of those’ who are occupied with teaching or applying biological science in this coun- try consists in making known what has been done in German laboratories. Our English students flock to Germany to learn the methods of scientific research ; and to such a state of weakness is English science re- duced, for want of proper nurture and support, that, even on some of the rare occasions when a capable investigator of biological problems has been required for the public service, it has been necessary to obtain the assistance of a foreigner trained in the laborato- ries of Germany. Let me now briefly explain what are the arrange- ments, in number and in kind, which exist in other countries, for the purpose of promoting the advance- ment of biological science, which are wanting in this country. In the German empire, with a population of 45,- 000,000, there are twenty-one universitjes. These universities are very different from any thing which goes by the name in this country. Amongst its other arrangements, devoted to the study and teaching of all branches of learning and science, each university has five institutes, or establishments, devoted to the prosecution of researches in biological science. These are respectively the physiological, the zodlogical, the anatomical, the pathological, and the botanical. In one of these universities of average size, each of the institutes named consists of a spacious building con- taining many rooms fitted as workshops, provided with instruments, a museum, and, in the last in- stance, with an experimental garden. All this is provided and maintained by the state. At the head of each institute is the university professor respec- tively of physiology, of zodlogy, of anatomy, of pa- thology, or of botany. He is paid a stipend by the state, which, in the smallest university, is as low as £120, but may be in others as much as £700, and averages, say, £400 a year. Considering the relative expenditure of the professional classes in the two countries, this average may be taken as equal to £800 a yearin England. Besides the professor, each in- stitute has attached to it, with salaries paid by the state, two qualified assistants, who, in course of time, will succeed to independent positions. A liberal al- lowance is also made to each institute, by the state, for the purchase of instruments, material for study, and for the pay of servants; so that the total expendi- ture on professor, assistants, laboratory service, and 1 From the fact that the salaries of judges, civil servants, mil- itary and naval officers, parsons, and schoolmasters, as also the fees of physicians and lawyers, are in Germany even less than half what is paid to their representatives in England, I think that we are justified in making this estimate. 508 maintenance, averages £800 a year for each institute, reaching as much as £2,000 or £3,000 a year in the larger universities. It is the business of the pro- fessor, in conjunction with his assistants and the advanced students, who are admitted to work in the laboratories free of charge, to carry on investiga- tions, to create new knowledge in the several domains of physiology, zodlogy, anatomy, pathology, and bot- any. It is for this that the professor receives his sti- pend, and it is on his success in this field of labor that his promotion to a more important or better paid post in another university depends. In addition to and irrespective of this part of his duties, each professor is charged with the delivery of courses of lectures, and of elementary instruction to the general students of the university; and for this he is allowed to charge a certain fee to each student, which he re- ceives himself. The total of such fees may, in the case of a largely attended university and a popular subject, form avery important addition to the profes- sorial income; but it is distinctly to be understood that such payment by fees is only an addition to the professor's income, quite independent of his stipend, and of his regular occupation in the laboratory: it is paid from a separatesource, and for a separate object. There are thus in the German empire more than 100 such institutes devoted to the prosecution of biologi- cal discovery, carried on at an annual cost to the state of about £80,000, equal to about £160,000 in Eng- land, providing posts of graduated value for 300 inves- tigators, some of small value, sufficient to carry the young student through the earlier portion of his ca- reer, whilst he is being trained and acting as the as- sistant of more experienced men; others forming the sufficient but not too valuable prizes which are the rewards of continuous and successful labor. In addition to these university institutes, there are in Germany such special laboratories of research, with duly salaried staff of investigators, as the Im- perial sanitary institute of Berlin, and the large museums of Berlin, Bremen, and other large towns, corresponding to our own British museum of natural history. ’ Moreover, we must be careful to note, in making any comparison with the arrangements existing in England, that there are, in addition to the universi- ties in Germany, a number of other educational in- stitutions, at least equal in number, which are known as polytechnic schools, technical colleges, and agri- cultural colleges. These furnish posts of emolument to a limited number of biological students, who give courses of instruction to their pupils; but they have not the same arrangements for research as the uni- versities, and are closely similar to those colleges which have been founded of late years in the pro- vincial towns of England, such as Bristol, Notting- ham, and Leeds. The latter are sometimes quoted by sanguine persons, who are satisfied with the neglect- ed condition of scientific training and research in this country, as really sufficient and adequate repre- sentatives of the German universities. As a matter of fact, the excellent English colleges in question do not present any thing at all comparable to the ar- SCIENCE. [Vou. I1., No. 36. rangements of a German university, and are, in re- spect of the amount of money which is expended upon them, the number of their teaching-staff, and the efficiency of their laboratories, inferior not merely to the smallest German university, but inferior to many of the technical schools of that country. Passing from Germany, I would now ask your at- tention fora moment to an institution which is sup- ported by the French government, and which — quite irrespective of the French university system, which is not, on the whole, superior to our own — constitutes one of the most effective arrangements, in any Euro- pean state, for the production of new knowledge. The institution to which I allude is the Collége de France in Paris, —co-existing there with the Sor- bonne, the Ecole de médecine, the Ecole normale, the Jardin des plantes, and other state-supported in- stitutions, —in which opportunity is provided for those Frenchmen who have the requisite talent to pursue scientific discovery in the department of biol- ogy, and in other branches of science. I particular- ly mention the Collége de France, because it appears to me that the foundation of such a college in Lon- don would be one of the simplest and most direct. steps that could be taken towards filling, in some de- gree, the void from which English science suffers. The Collége de France is divided into a literary and a scientific faculty. Hach faculty consists of some twenty professors. Each professor in the scientific faculty is provided with a laboratory and assistants (as many as four assistants in some cases), and with a considerable allowance for the expenses of the instru- ments and materials required in research. The per- sonal stipend of each professor is £400, which has been increased by an additional £100 a year in some cases from the government department charged with the promotion of higher studies. The professors in this institution, as in the German universities, when a vacancy occurs, have the right of nomivating their future colleague, their recommendation being accept- ed by the government. The professors are not ex- pected to give any elementary instruction, but are directed to carry on original investigations, in prose- cuting which, they may afsociate with themselves pupils who are sufficiently advanced to join in such work; and it is further the duty of each professor to give a course of forty lectures in each year, upon the results of the researches in which he is engaged. There are at present, among the professors of the Col- lége de France, four of the most distinguished among contemporary students of biological science, — Pro- fessor Brown-Sequard, Professor Marey, Professor Balbiani, and Professor Ranvier. Every one who is acquainted with the progress of discovery in physi- ology, minute anatomy, and embryology, will admit that the opportunities afforded to these men have not been wasted. They have, as the result of the posi- tion in which they have been placed, produced abun- dant and most valuable work, and have, in addition, trained younger men to carry on the same line of ac- tivity. It was here, too, in the Collége de France, that the great genius of Claude Bernard found the neces- sary conditions for its development. — i te ' a Sed” gall al J . OcTOBER 12, 1883.] Let us now see how many and what kind of insti- tutions there are in England devised so as to promote the making of new knowledge in biological science. Most persons are apt to be deceived in this matter by the fact that the terms ‘ university,’ ‘ professor- ship,’ and ‘ college’ are used very freely in England in reference to institutions which have no pecuniary resources whatever, and whieh, instead of corre- sponding to the German arrangements which go by these names, are empty titles, neither backed by adequate subsidy of the state nor by endowment from private sources. In England, with its 25,000,000 inhabitants, there are only four universities which possess endowments and professoriates; viz., Oxford, Cambridge, Dur- ham, and the Victoria (Owens college). Besides these, which are variously and specially organized each in its own way, there are the London colleges (University and King’s), the Normal school of science at South Kensington, and various provincial colleges, which are, to a small and varying extent, in possession of funds which could be or are used to promote scientific research. Amongst all these variously arranged institutions, there is an extraor- dinarily small amount of provision for biological research. In London there is one professorship only, that at the Normal school of science, which is main- tained by a stipend paid by the state, and has a laboratory and salaried assistants similarly main- tained, in connection with it. The only other posts in London which are provided with stipends intended to enable their holders to pursue researches in the domain of biological science, are the two chairs of physiology and of zodlogy at University college, which, through the munificence of a private indi- vidual,! have been endowed to the extent of £300 a year each. To these should be added, in our caleu- lation, certain posts in connection with the British museum of natural history and the Royal gardens at Kew, maintained by the state; though it must be remembered that a large part of the expenditure in those institutions is necessarily taken up in the preservation of great national collections, and is not applicable to the subyention of investigators. We may, however, reckon about six posts, great and small, in the British museum, and four at Kew, as coming into the category which we have in view. In London, then, we may reckon approximately some fourteen or fifteen subsidized posts for biological research. In Oxford there fall under this category the professorship of anatomy and his assistant, that of physiology, that of zodlogy, that of botany. The Oxford professorships are well supported by endow- ment, averaging £700 or £800 a year; but they are inadequately provided with assistants, as compared with corresponding German positions. Whilst Ox- ford has thus five posts, Cambridge has at present the same number, though the stipends are of less average value. In regard to Durham, it does not appear that the biological professorships (which have their seat in the Newcastle college of science) are 4 Mr. Jodrell. a SCIENCE. 509 supported by stipends derived from endowment: they fall under another category, to which allusion will be made below, of purely teaching positions, supported by the fees paid for such teaching by pupils. The Victoria university (Owens college, Manchester) supports its professors of physiology, anatomy, zoology, botany, and pathology, by means partly of endowment, partly of pupils’ fees. By the provision of adequate laboratories, and of salaries © for assistants to each professor, and of student-fellow- ships, Owens college gives direct support to orginal investigation. We may reckon five major and eight minor posts as dedicated to biological research in this college. Altogether, then, we have fifteen posi- tions in London and twenty-three in the provinces (taking assistantships and professorships and curator- ships together), —a total of thirty-eight in all Eng- land, with its 25,000,000 inhabitants, as against the three hundred in Germany, with 45,000,000 inhabit- ants. In proportion to its population (leaving aside the consideration of its greater wealth), England has only about one-fourth of the provision for the advancement of biological research which exists in Germany. It would not be fair to reckon in this comparison the various biological professorships in small col- leges recently created, and paid to a small extent by stipends derived from endowments in the provincial towns of England: for the holders of these chairs are called upon to teach a variety of subjects; for instance, zodlogy, botany, and geology combined. And not only is the devotion of the energies of their teaching-staff to scientific discovery not contem- plated in the arrangement of these institutions, but, as a matter of fact, the large demands made on the professors in the way of teaching must deprive them of the time necessary for any serious investigation. Such posts, in the fact that neither time, assistants, nor proper laboratories are provided to enable their holders to engage in scientific research, are school- masterships rather than professorships, as the word is used in German universities. One result of the exceedingly small provision of positions in England, similar to those furnished by the German university system, and of the irregular, uncertain character of many of those which do exist, is, that there is an insufficient supply of young men willing to enter upon the career of zodlogist, botan- ist, physiologist, or pathologist, as a profession. The number of posts is too small to create a profession, i.e., an avenue of success; and consequently, whereas in Germany there is always a large body of new men ready to fill up the vacancies as they occur in the professorial organization, in England it very natu- rally does not appear to our university students as a reasonable thing to enter upon research as a profes- sion, when the chances of employment are so few, and far between. . Before stating, as I propose to do, what appears to me a reasonable and proper method of removing, to some extent, the defect in our national life due to the want of provision for scientific research, I will endeavor to meet some of the objections which are , 510 usually raised to such views as those which I am advocating. The endowment of research by the state, or from public funds of any kind, is opposed on yarious grounds. One is, that such action on the part of the government is well enough in continental states, but is contrary to the spirit of English state- eraft, which leaves scientific as well as other enter- prise to the individual initiative of the people. This objection is based on error, both as to fact and theory. It is well enough to leave to individual effort the conduct of such enterprises as are remunerative to the parties who conduct them; but it is a mistake to speak of scientific research as an ‘enterprise’ at all. The mistake arises from the extraordinary pertinacity with which so-called ‘invention’ is con- founded with the discovery of scientific truth. New knowledge in biological or other branches of science cannot be sold: it has no marketable value. Koch could not have sold the discovery of the bacterium of phthisis for as much as sixpence, had he wished to do so. Accordingly, we find that there is not, and never has been, any tendency among the citi- zens of this country to provide for themselves insti- tutions for the manufacture of an article of so little pecuniary value to the individual who turns it out as is new knowledge. On the other hand, as a matter of fact, the providing of means for the manu- facture of that article is not only not foreign to English statecraft, but is largely, though not largely enough, undertaken by the English state. The Royal observatories, the British museum, the Royal gardens at Kew, the Geological survey, the govern- ment grant of £4,000 a year to the Royal society, the £300 or £400 a year (not a large sum) expended through the medical officer of the privy council upon the experimental investigation of disease, are ample evidence that such providing of means for creating new knowledge forms part of the natural and recog- nized responsibilities of the British government. Such a responsibility clearly is recognized in this country, and does fall, according to the present arrangement of things, upon the central government. What we have to regretis, that those who temporarily hold the reins of government fail to perceive the lamentable inadequacy of the mode in which this responsibility is met. A second objection which is made to the endow- ment of research by public funds, or by other means, such as voluntary contributions, is this: it is stated that men engaged in scientific research ought to teach, and thus gain their livelihood. It is argued, in fact, that there is no need whatever to provide stipends or laboratories for researchers, since they have only to stand up and teach in order to make income sufficient to keep them and their families, and to provide them- selves with laboratories. This is a very plausible statement, because it is the fact that some investigat- ors have also been excellent lecturers, and have been able to make an income by teaching, whilst carrying on a limited amount of scientific investigation. But neither by teaching in the form of popular lectures, nor by teaching university or professional students who desire, as a result, to pass some examination- SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 36. test, is it possible, where there is a fair field and no favor, for a man to gain a reasonable income, and at the same time to leave himself time and energy to carry on original investigations in science. In some universities, such as those of Scotland, the privilege of conferring degrees of pecuniary value to their possessors becomes a source of income to the professors of the university. They are, in fact, able to make considerable incomes, independently of en- dowment, by compelling the candidates for degrees to pay a fee to each professor in the faculty for the right of attending his lectures, and of presentation to the degree: consequently teaching here appears to be producing an income which may support a researcher. In reality, it is the acquisition of the university de- gree, and not necessarily the teaching, for which the pupil pays his fee. Where the teacher is unprotected by any compulsory regulations (such as that which requires attendance on his lectures, and fee-payment on the part of the pupils), it is impossible for him to obtain such an income, by teaching for one hour a day, as will enable him to devote the rest of the day to unremunerative study and investigation, for the fol- lowing reason. Other teachers, equally satisfactory as teachers, will enter into competition with him, without having the same intention of teaching for one hour only, and of carrying on researches for the rest of the day. They will contemplate teaching for six hours a day, and they will accordingly offer to those who require to be taught, either six hours’ teaching for the same fee which the researcher charges for one, or one hour for a sixth part of that fee: consequently the unprotected researcher will find his lecture-room deserted. Pupils will naturally go to the equally good teacher who gives more teach- ing for the same fee, or the same teaching for a less cost. And no one can say that this is not as it should be. The university pupil requires a certain course of instruction, which he ought to be able to buy at the cheapest rate. It does not seem to be doing justice to the pupil, to compel him to form one of a class consisting of some hundreds of hearers, where he can obtain but little personal supervision or attention from the teacher, whereas, if he had the free dis- posal of his fee, he might obtain six times the amount of attention from another teacher. This arrangement does not seem to be justifiable, even for the purpose of providing the university professor with an income, and leisure to pursue scientific re- search. The student’s fee should pay for a given amount of teaching at the market value; and he has just cause of complaint, if, by compulsory enact- ments, he is taxed to provide the country with scien- tific investigation. : Teaching must, in all fairness, ultimately be paid for as teaching; and scientific research must be pro- vided for out of other funds than those extracted from the pockets of needy students, who have a rea- sonable right to demand, in return for their fees, a full modicum of instruction and direction in study. In the German universities, the professor receives a stipend ‘which provides for him as an investigator, He also gives lectures, for which he charges a fee; ee ft oe ae «4 ‘te F OcToBER 12, 1883.] but no student is compelled to attend those lectures as a condition of obtaining his degree. Accordingly, independent teachers can and do compete with the professor in providing for the students’ requirements in the matter of instruction. As a consequence, the fees charged for teaching are exceedingly small, and the student can feel assured that he is obtaining his money’s worth for his money. He is not compelled to -pay any fee to any teacher as a condition of his promotion to the university degree. In a German university, if the professor in a given Subject is in- competent, or the class overcrowded, the student can take his fee to a private teacher, and get better teach- ing. All that is required of the candidate, as a con- dition of his promotion to the doctor’s degree, is that he shall satisfy the examination-tests imposed by the faculty, and produce an original thesis. Unless there be some such compelling influence as that obtaining in the Scotch universities, enabling the would-be researcher to gather to him pupils and fees without fear of competition, it seems impossible that he should gain an income by teaching, whilst re- serving to himself time and energy for the pursuit of scientific inquiry. It is thus seen that the necessity of endowment, in some form or another, to make provision for scientific research, is a reality, in spite of the suggestion that teaching affords a means whereby the researcher may readily provide for him- self. The simple fact is, that a teacher can only make a sufficient income by teaching, on the con- dition that he devotes his whole time and energy to that occupation. Whilst I feel called upon to emphatically distin- guish the two functions, — viz., that of creating new knowledge, and that of distributing existing knowledge, —and to maintain that it is only by arbitrary and undesirable arrangements not likely to be tolerated, or, at any rate, extended, at the present day, that the latter can be made to serve as the support of the former, I must be careful to point out that I agree most cordially with those who hold that it is an ex- cellent thing for a man who is engaged in the one to give a certain amount of time to the other. It is a matter of experience, that the best teachers of a sub- ject are, ceteris paribus, those who are actually en- gaged in the advancement of that subject, and who have shown such a thorough understanding of that subject as is necessary for making new knowledge in connection with it. It is also, in most cases, a good thing for the man engaged in research to have a cer- tain small amount of change of occupation, and to be called upon to take such a survey of the subject in connection with which his researches are made, as is involved in the delivery of a course of lectures, and other details of teaching. Though it is not a thing to be contemplated, that the researcher shall sell his instruction at a price sufficiently high to enable him to live by teaching, yet it is a good thing to make teaching an additional and subsidiary part of his life’s work. This end is effected in Germany by making it a duty of the professor (already supported by a stipend) to give some five or six lectures a week during the academical session, for which he is paid SCIENCE. 511 by the fees of his hearers. The fees are low, but are sufficient to be an inducement; and, inasmuch as the attendance of the students is not compulsory, the professor is stimulated to produce good and effective lectures at a reasonable charge, so as to attract pupils who would seek instruction from some one else, if the lectures were not good, or the fees too high. In- deed, in Germany this system works so much to the advantage of the students, that the private teachers of the universities at one time obtained the creation of a regulation forbidding the professors to reduce their fees below a certain minimum; since, with so low a fee as some professors were charging, it was impossible for a private teacher to compete. This state of things may be compared with much advan- tage with the condition of British universities. In these we hear, from one direction, complaints of the high fees charged, and of the ineffective teaching given by the professoriate; and in other universities, where no adequate fees are allowed to the professors as a stimulus to them to offer useful and efficient teaching, we find that the teaching has passed entire- ly out of their hands into those of college tutors and lecturers. The fact is, that a satisfactory relation between teaching and research is one which will not naturally and spontaneously arrange itself. It can hardly be said to exist in any British university or college, but the method has been thought out and carried into practice in Germany. It consists in giv- ing a competent researcher a stipend, and a laboratory for his research work, and then requiring him to do a small amount of teaching, remunerated by fees proportionate to his ability and the pains which he may take in his teaching. If you pay him a fixed sum‘as a teacher, or artificially insure the attendance of his class, instead of letting this part of his income vary simply and directly with the attractiveness of his teaching, you will find as the result that (with rare exceptions) he will not give effective and useful teaching. He will naturally tend to do the minimum required of him in a perfunctory way. On the other hand, if you leave him without stipend as a research- er, dependent on the fees of pupils for an income, he will give all his time and energies to teaching: he will cease to do any research, and become, pro tanto, an inferior teacher. A third objection which is sometimes made to the proposition that scientific research must be supported and paid for as such, is the following: it is believed by many persons that a man who oceupies his best energies in scientific research can always, if he choose, make an income by writing popular books or news- paper articles in his spare hours; and, accordingly, it is gravely maintained that there is no need to provide stipends, and the means of carrying on their work, for researchers. To do so, according to this view, would be to encourage them in an exclusive reticence, and to remove from them the inducement to address the public on the subject of their researches, by which the publie would lose valuable instruction. This view has been seriously urged, or I should not here notice it. Any one who is acquainted with the sale of scientific books, and the profits which either 512 author or publisher makes by them, knows that the suggestion which I have quoted is ludicrous. The writing of a good book is not a thing to be done in leisure moments; and such as have been the result of original research have cost their authors often years of labor, apart from the mere writing. Mr. Darwin’s books, no doubt, have had a large sale; but that is due to the fact, apart from the exceptional genius of the man who wrote them, that they represent some thirty or more years of hard work, during which he was silent. There is not a sufficiently large public interested in the progress of science to enable a researcher to gain an income by writing books, however great his literary facility. A schoolbook or classbook may now and then add more or less to the income of a scientific investigator; but he who be- comes the popular exponent of scientific ideas, except in a very moderate and limited degree, must abandon the work of creating new knowledge. The profes- sional littérateur of science is as much removed by his occupation from all opportunity of serious investiga- tion as is the professional teacher who has to con- sume all his time in teaching. Any other profession —such as the bar, medicine, or the chureh—is more likely to leave one of its followers time and Means for scientific research than is that of either the popular writer or the successful teacher. We have, then, seen that there is no escape from the necessity of providing stipends and laboratories for the purpose of creating new knowledge, as is done in continental states, if we are agreed that more of this new knowledge is needed, and is among the prod- ucts which a civilized community is bound to turn out, both for its own benefit and for that of the com- munity of states, which give to and take from one another in such matters. There are some who would finally attack our con- tention by denying that new knowledge is a good thing, and by refusing to recognize any obligation, on the part of England, to contribute her share to that common stock of increasing knowledge by which she necessarily profits. Among such persons are those who would prohibit altogether the pursuit of experi- mental physiology in England, and yet would not and do not hesitate to ayail Ghemeclves of the services of medical men whose power of rendering those services depends on the fact that they have learned the results obtained by the experiments of physiologists in other countries or in former times. In reference to this strange contempt and even hatred of science, which undoubtedly has an existence among some persons of consideration even at the present day, I shall haye a few words to say before concluding this address. I haye now to ask you to listen to what seems to me to be the demand which we should make, as members of a British association for the advancement of science, in respect of adequate provision for the creation of new knowledge in the field of biology in England. Taking England alone, as distinct from Scotland and Ireland, we require, in order to be approximately on a level with Germany, forty new biological insti- tutes, distributed among the five branches of physi- ology, zodlogy, anatomy, pathology, and botany, — SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 36. forty, in addition to the fifteen which we may reckon (taking one place with another) as already existing. The average cost of the buildings required would be about £4,000 for each, giving a total initial expendi- ture of £160,000; the average cost of stipends for the director, assistants, and maintenance, we may calcu- late at £1,500 annually for each, or £60,000 for the forty, — equal to a capital sum of £2,000,000. These institutes should be distributed in groups of five — eight groups in all—throughout the country. One such group would be placed in London (which is at present almost totally destitute of such arrange- ments), one in Bristol, one in Birmingham, one in Nottingham, one in Leeds, one in Newcastle, one in Ipswich, one in Cardiff, one in Plymouth, —in fact, one in each of the great towns of the kingdom where there is at present, or where there might be with ad- vantage, a centre of professional education and high- er study. The first and the most liberally arranged of these biological institutes —embracing its five branches, each with its special laboratory and staff —should be in London. If we can haye nothing else, surely we may demand, with some hope that our request will eventually obtain compliance, the for- mation in London of a College of scientific research similar to that of Paris (the Collége de France). It is one of the misfortunes and disgraces of London, that, alone amongst the capitals of Europe, with the exception of Constantinople, it is destitute of any in- stitution corresponding to the universities and colleges of research which exist elsewhere. Either in connection with a properly organized teaching university, or as an independent institution, it seems to me a primary need of the day that the government should establish in London laboratories for scientific research. Two hundred and fifty years ago Sir Thomas Gresham founded an institution for scientific research in the city of London. The prop- erty which he left for this purpose is now estimated to be worth three millions sterling. This property was deliberately appropriated to other uses, by the Corporation of the city of London and the Mercers’ company, about a hundred years since, with the con- sent of both Houses of Parliament. By this outra- geous act of spoliation these corporations, who were the trustees of Gresham, have incurred the curse which he quaintly inserted in his will in the hope of restraining them from attempts to divert his property from the uses to which he destined it. ‘Gresham’s curse’ runs as follows: ‘‘ And that I do require and charge the said Corporations and cnief governors thereof, with circumspect Diligence and without long Delay, to procure and see to be done and obtained, as they will answer the same before Almighty God; (for if they or any of them should neglect the obtain- ing of such Licenses or Warrants, which I trust cannot be difficult, nor so chargeable, but that the overplus of my Rents and Profits of the Premisses hereinbefore to them disposed, will soon recompense the same; because to soe good Purpose in the Commonwealth, no Prince nor Council in any Age, will deny or defeat the same. And if conveniently by my Will or other Convenience, I might assure it, I would not leave it OcToBER 12, 1883.] to be done after my death, then the same shall revert to my heirs, whereas I do mean the same to the Commonwealth, and then THE DEFAULT THEREOF SHALL BE TO THE REPROACH AND CONDEMNATION OF THE SAID CORPORATIONS AFORE Gop’’). I confess that I find it difficult to see how the present representatives of the corporations who perverted Gresham’s trust are to escape from justly deserving the curse pronounced against those corporations, unless they conscientiously take steps to restore Gre- sham’s money to its proper uses. Let us hope that Gresham’s curse may be realized in no more deadly form than that of an act of parliament repealing the former one which sanctioned the perversion of Gre- sham’s money. Such a sequel to the report of the commission which has recently inquired into the pro- ceedings of the corporation and companies of the city of London is not unlikely. F Whilst we should, I think, especially press upon public attention the need for an institute of scientific research in London, and indicate the source from which its funds may be fitly derived, we must also urge the foundation of other institutes in the provy- inces, upon the scale already sketched; because it is only by the existence of numerous posts, and of a series of such posts, —some of greater and some of less value, the latter more numerous than the former, —that any thing like a professional career for scien- tific workers can be constructed. It is especially necessary to constitute what I have termed ‘ assist- antships,’ that is, junior posts, in which younger men assist, and are trained by, more experienced men. Even in the few institutions which do already exist, additional provision of this kind is what is wanted more than any thing else, so that there may be a progressive career open to the young student, and a Sufficient field of trained investigators from which to select in filling up the vacancies in more valuable positions. I am well aware that it will be said that the scheme which I have proposed to you is gigantic and almost alarming in respect of the amount of money which it demands. One hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year for biology alone must seem, not to my hear- ers, but to those who regard biology as an amusing speculation, —that is to say, who know little or noth- ing about it, —an extravagant suggestion. Unfortu- nately, it is also true that such persons are very numerous, — in fact, constitute an overwhelming majority of the community; but they are becoming less numerous every day. The time will come, it seems possible, when there will be more than one member of the government who will understand and appreciate the value of scientific research. There are already a few members of the House of Commons who are fully alive to its significance and importance. We may have to wait for the expenditure of such a sum as I have named, and possibly it may be derived ultimately from local rather than imperial sources, though I do not see why it should be; yet I think it is a good thing to realize now that this is what we ought to expend in order to be on a level with Ger- many. This apparently extravagant and unheard of SCIENCE. 513 appropriation of public money is actually made every year in Germany. I think it is well to put the matter before you in this definite manner; because I have reason to believe that even those whom we might expect to be well informed in regard to such matters are not so, and, as a consequence, there is not that keen sense of the inferiority and inadequacy of English arrangements in these matters which one would gladly see actuat- ing the conduct of English statesmen. For instance: only a few years ago, when speaking at Nottingham, the present prime-minister, who has taken an active part in re-arranging our universities, and has, it is well known, much interest in science and learning, stated that £27,000, the capital sum expended on the Nottingham college of science, was a very important contribution to the support of learning in this country, amounting, as he said he was able to state from the perusal of official documents, to as much as one-third of what was spent in Germany during the past year upon her numerous universities, which were so often held up to England as an example of a well-supported academical system. Now, I do not think that Mr. Gladstone can ever have had the opportunity of con- sidering the actual facts with regard to German uni- versities: for he was in this instance misled by the official return of expenditure on a single university, namely, that of Strasburg; the total annual expendi- ture on the twenty-one German universities being, in reality, about £800,000, by the side of which a capital sum of £27,000 looks very small indeed. I cannot but believe, that if the facts were known to public men, in reference to the expenditure incurred by foreign states in support of scientific inquiry, they would be willing to do something in this country of a sufficient and statesmanlike character. As it is, the conces- sions which have been made in this direction appear to me to be in some instances not based upon a really comprehensive knowledge of the situation. Thus, the tentative grant of £4,000 a year from the treasury to the Royal society of London appears to me not to be a well-devised experiment in the promotion of scien- tific research by means of grants of money; because it is on too smallascale to produce any definite effect, and because the money cannot be relied upon from year to year as a permanent source of support to any serious undertaking. The Royal society most laboriously and conscien- tiously does its best to use this money to the satisfac- tion of the country, but the task thus assigned to it is one of almost insurmountable difficulty. In fact, no such miniature experiments are needed. The experi- ment has been made on a large scale in Germany, and satisfactory results have been obtained. The reason- able course to pursue is to benefit by the experience, as to details and methods of administration, obtained in the course of the last sixty years in Germany, and to apply that experience to our own case. It is quite clear that ‘the voluntary principle’ can do little towards the adequate endowment of scientific research. Ancient endowments belonging tothe coun- try must be applied thereto, or else local or imperial taxes must be the source of the necessary support. 514 Seeing that the results of research are distinctly of imperial and not of local value, it would seem ap- propriate that a portion of the imperial revenue should be devoted to their achievement. In fact, as I have before mentioned, the principle of such an applica- tion of public money has long been admitted, and is in operation. Whilst voluntary donations on the part of private persons can do little to constitute a fund which shall provide the requisite endowment for the scheme of biological institutes which I have sketched (not to mention those required for other branches of science), yet those who are interested in the progress of scien- tific investigation may, by individual effort, do some- thing, however little, towards placing research in a more advantageous position in this country. Sup- posing it were possible, as 1am sanguine enough to believe that it is, to collect in the course of a year or two, from private sources, a sum of £20,000 for the maintenance of a biological laboratory and staff: it would be necessary, in expending so limited a sum, to aim at the provision of something which would be likely to produce the largest and most obvious results in return for the outlay, and to benefit the largest number of scientific observers in this department. I believe that it is the general opinion among biolo- gists, that there could be no more generally useful institution thus set in operation than a biological laboratory upon the seacoast, which, besides its own permanent staff of officers, would throw open its resources to such naturalists as might from time ‘to time be able to devote themselves to researches with- in its precincts. There is no such laboratory on the whole of the long line of British coast. At Naples there is Dr. Dohrn’s celebrated and invaluable labora- tory, which is frequented by naturalists from all parts of the world; at Trieste, the Austrian government supports such a laboratory; at Concarneau, Roscoff, and Villefranche, the Freich government has such institutions; at Beaufort, in North Carolina, the Johns Hopkins university has its marine laboratory: and at Newport Professor Alexander Agassiz has ar- ranged a very perfect institution also for the study of marine life. In spite of the great interest which Eng- lish naturalists have always taken in the exploration of the sea and marine organisms; in spite of the fact that the success, and even the existence, of our fisher- ies industries, to a large extent depend upon our gain- ing the knowledge which a well-organized laboratory of marine biology would help us to gain, — there is actually no such institution in existence. : This is not the occasion on which to explain pre- cisely how, and to what extent, a laboratory of marine zoology might be of national importance. I hope to see that matter brought before the section during the course of our meeting. But I may point out now, that though it appears to me that the great need for biological institutes, to which I have drawn your at- tention, can not be met by private munificence, and must, in the end, be arranged for by the continued action of the government in carrying out a policy to which it has for many years been committed, and which has been approved by conservatives and liberals SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 36. alike, yet such a special institution as a laboratory of marine biology, serving as a temporary workshop to any and all of our numerous students of the im- portant problems connected with the life of marine plants and animals, might very well be undertaken from private funds. Should it be possible, on the occasion of this meeting of the British association in Southport, to obtain some promise of assistance towards the realization of this project, I think we shall be able to congratulate ourselves on having done something, though small, perhaps, in amount, towards making better provision for biological research, and therefore something towards the advancement of science. In conclusion, let me say, that, in advocating to-day the claim of biological science to a far greater meas- ure of support than it receives at present from the public funds, I have endeavored to press that claim chiefly on the ground of the obvious utility to the community of that kind of knowledge which is called biology. Ihave endeavored to meet the opposition of those who object to the interference of the state, wherever it may be possible to attain the end in view without such interference, but who profess themselves willing to see public money expended in promoting objects which are of real importance to the country, and which cannot be trusted to the voluntary enter- prise arising from the operation of the laws of self- preservation, and the struggle for wealth. There are, however, it seems to me, further reasons for desiring a thorough and practical recognition by the state of . the value of scientific research. There are not want- ing persons of some cultivation, who have perceived and fully realized the value of that knowledge which is called science, and of its methods, and yet are anxious to restrain rather than to aid the growth of that knowledge. They find in science something inimical to their own interests, and accordingly either condemn it as dangerous and untrustworthy, or en- courage themselves to treat it with contempt by assert- ing, that, ‘after all, science counts for very little,’ —a statement which is unhappily true in one sense, though totally untrue when it is intended to signify that the progress of science is not a matter which profoundly influences every factor in the well-being of the community. Amongst such people there is a positive hatred of science, which finds expression in their exclusion of it, even at this day, from the ordi- nary curriculum of public-school education, and in the baseless, though oft-repeated calumny, that sci- ence is hostile to art, and is responsible for all that is harsh, ugly, and repulsive in modern life. Tosuch opponents of the advancement of science it is of little use to offer explanations and arguments. But we may, when we reflect on their instinctive hostility, and the misrepresentations of science and the scien- tific spirit which it leads them to disseminate, con- sole ourselves by bringing to mind what science really is, and what truly is the nature of that calling in which a man who makes new knowledge is en- gaged. They mock at the botanist as a pedant, and the zoologist as a monomaniac; they execrate the physi- gee ha OcroBER 12, 1883.] ologist as a monster of cruelty, and brand the geolo- gist as a blasphemer; chemistry is held responsible for the abomination of aniline dyes and the pollution of rivers, and physies for the dirt and misery of great factory towns. By these unbelievers, science is de- clared responsible for individual eccentricities of char- acter, as well as for the sins of the commercial utilizers of new knowledge. The pursuit of science is said to produce a dearth of imagination, incapability of en- joying the beauty either of nature or of art, scorn of literary culture, arrogance, irreverence, vanity, and the ambition of personal glorification. Such are the charges, from time to time, made by those who dislike science; and for such reasons they would withhold, and persuade others to withhold, the fair measure of support for scientific research which this country owes to the community of civilized states. Not in reply to these misrepresentations, but by way of contrast, I would here state what science seems to be to those who are on the other side, and how, therefore, it seems to them wrong to delay in doing all that the wealth and power of the state can do to promote its progress. Science is not a name applicable to any one branch of knowledge, but includes all knowledge which is of a certain order or scale of completeness. All knowl- edge which is deep enough to touch the causes of things is science: all inquiry into the causes of things is scientific inquiry. It is not only co-extensive with the area of human knowledge, but no branch of it can advance far, without reacting upon other branches: no department of science can be neglected, without sooner or later causing a check to other departments. No man can truly say this branch of science is useful, and shall be cultivated, whilst this is worthless, and shall be let alone: for all are necessary; and one grows by the aid of another, and in turn furnishes methods and results assisting in the progress of that from which it lately borrowed. We desire the increase and the support and the acceptance of science, not only because it has a cer- tain material value, and enables men to battle with the forces of nature, and to turn them to account so as to increase both the intensity and the extension of healthy human life: that is a good reason, and for some persons, it may be, the only reason. But there is something to be said beyond this. The pursuit of scientific discovery, the making of new knowledge, gratifies an appetite, which, from whatever cause it may arise, is deeply seated in man’s nature, and, indeed, is the most distinctive of his prop- erties. Man owes this intense desire to know the nature of things, smothered though it often be by other cravings which he shares with the brutes, to an inherited race-perception, stronger than the reason- ing faculty of the individual. When once aroused, and in a measure gratified, this desire becomes a guiding passion. The instinctive tendency to search out the causes of things, gradually strengthening as generation after generation of men have stumbled and struggled in ignorance, has at last become an active and widely extending force: it has given rise to a new faith. SCIENCE. 515 To obey this instinct —that is, to aid in the pro- duction of new knowledge —is the keenest and the purest pleasure of which man is capable, greater than that derived from the exercise of his animal facul- ties in proportion as man’s mind is something greater and further developed than the mind of brutes. It is in itself an unmixed good, the one thing which commends itself as still ‘ worth while’ when all other employments and delights prove themselves stale and unprofitable. Arrogant and foolish as those men have appeared, who, in times of persecution, and in the midst of a contemptuous society, have, with an ardor propor- tioned to the prevailing neglect, pursued some special line of scientific inquiry, it is nevertheless true that in itself, apart frem special social conditions, science must develop, in a community which honors and de- sires it before all things, qualities and characteristics which are the highest, the most human of human attributes. These are, firstly, the fearless love and unflinching acceptance of truth; hopeful patience; that true humility which is content not to know what cannot be known, yet labors and waits; love of Na- ture, who is not less, but more worshipped by those who know her best; love of the human brotherhood, for whom and with whom the growth of science is desired and effected. No one can trace the limits of science, nor the possibilities of happiness, both of mind and body, which it may bring in the future to mankind. Bound- less though the prospect is, yet the minutest contri- bution to the onward growth has its absolute and unassailable value, — once made, it can never be lost: its effect is forever in the history of man. Arts perish, and the noblest works which artists give to the world. Art, though the source of great and noble delights, cannot create nor perpetuate: it embodies only that which already exists in human experience, whilst the results of its highest flights are doomed to decay and sterility. A vain regret, a constant effort.to emulate or to imitate the past, is the fitting and laudable characteristic of art at the present day. There is, indeed, no truth in the popu- lar partition of human affairs between science and art as between two antagonistic or even comparable interests; but the contrast which they present in points such as those just mentioned is forcible. Sci- ence is essentially creative: new knowledge — the experience and understanding of things which were previously non-existent for man’s intelligence —is its constant achievement. And these creations never perish: the new is built on, and incorporates, the old; there is no turning back to recover what has lapsed through age; the oldest discovery is even fresher than the new, yielding in ever-increasing number new results, in which it is itself reproduced and per- petuated, as the parent in the child. This, then, is the faith which has taken shape in proportion as the innate desire of man for more knowledge has asserted itself: namely, that there is no greater good than the increase of science; that through it all other good will follow. Good-as sci- ence is in itself, the desire and search for it is even 516 better, raising men above vile things and worthless competitions, to a fuller life and keener enjoyments. Through it we believe that man will be saved from misery and degradation, not merely acquiring new material powers, but learning to use and to guide his life with understanding. Through science he will be freed from the fetters of superstition. Through faith in science he will acquire a new and enduring delight in the exercise of his capacities: he will gain a zest and interest in life such as the present phase of cul- ture fails to supply. In opposition to the view that the pursuit of science can obtain a strong hold upon human life, it may be argued, that on no reasonable ground can it appear a necessary or advantageous thing to the in- dividual man to concern himself With the growth and progress of that which is merely likely to benefit the distant posterity of the human race. Our reply is, let those who contend for the reasonableness of human motives develop, if they can, any theory of human conduct in which reasonable self-interest shall be man’s guide. We do not contend for any such theory. By reasoning we may explain and trace the development of human nature, but we cannot change it by anysuch process. It is demonstrably unreason- able for the individual man, guided by self-interest, to share the dangers and privations of his brother- man; and yet, in common with many lower animals, he has an inherited quality which makes it a pleas- ure to him to do so. It is unreasonable for the mother to protect her offspring, and yet it is the natu- ral and inherited quality of mothers to derive pleasure from doing so. It is unreasonable for the half- starved poor to aid their wholly-starving brethren; and yet such compassion is natural and pleasurable to those who show it, and is the constant rule of life. Unreasonable though these things are, from the point of view of individual self-interest, yet they are done because to do them is pleasurable, to leave them un- done a pain. The race has, as it were, in these re- spects, befooled the individual, and, in the course of evolution, has planted in him, in its own interests, an irrational capacity for taking pleasure in doing that which no reasoning in regard to self-interest _ As with these lower and more widely. could justify. distributed instincts, shared by man with some lower social animals, so is it with this higher and more pe- culiar instinct; —the tendency to pursue new knowl- edge. Whether reasonable or not, it has, by the laws of heredity and selection, become part of us, and.ex- ists. Its operation is beneficial to the race. Its grati- fication is a source of keen pleasure to the individual, —an end in itself. We maysafely count upon it asa factor in human nature. Itis in our power to culti- vate and develop it, or, on the other hand, to starve and distort it for a while, though to do so is to waste time in opposing the irresistible. As day by day the old-fashioned stimulus to the - higher life loses the dread control which it once exer- cised over the thoughts of men, the pursuit of wealth, and the indulgence in fruitless gratifications of sense, become to an increasing number the chief concerns of their mental life. Such occupations fail to satisfy SCIENCE. (Vou. IL, No. 36. the deep desires of humanity: they become weari- some and meaningless, so that we hear men question- ing whether life be worth living. When the dreams and aspirations of the youthful world have lost their old significance, and their strong power to raise men’s lives, it will be well for that community which has organized in time a following of and a reverence for an ideal good, which may serve to lift the national mind above the level of sensuality, and to insure a belief in the hopefulness and worth of life. The faith in science can fill this place. The progress of science is an ideal good, sufficient to exert this great influence. It is for this reason, more than any other (as it seems to those who hold this faith), that the progress and diffusion of scientific research, its encourage- ment and reverential nurture, should be a chief busi- ness of the community, whether collectively or indi- vidually, at the present day. NOTES AND NEWS. PurRSUANT to the invitation already noted in Scrence, a number of gentlemen met in the library of the American museum of natural history in New-York City, on the 26th to 28th of September, and founded the American ornithologists’ union. ‘The member- ship consists of active, foreign, corresponding, and associate members. The active membership is lim- ited to fifty residents of the United States and Can- ada; the foreign, to twenty-five non-residents of the United States and Canada; the corresponding, to one hundred residents of any country; the associate being composed of any number of residents of the United States and Canada. The officers of the union for the current year are, Mr. J. A. Allen, president; Dr. El- liott Coues and Mr. Robert Ridgway, vice-presidents; Dr. C. Hart Merriam, secretary and treasurer; Messrs. S. F. Baird, George N. Lawrence, H. W. Henshaw, and Montagu Chamberlain, councillors, — these nine officers constituting the council of the union. Dr. Coues presided over the convention, and continued in the chair in the absence of the president. Mr. Allen and Professor Baird, who were unable to be present, were added to the list of founders. After the dis-_ cussion and adoption of a constitution, submitted by the committee of organization, and the election of officers, a large number of members were elected, raising the active and foreign membership nearly to the limit. The work of the union for the present year was laid out by the formation of committees, appointed by the chair, on the subjects of classifica- tion and nomenclature, of the distribution and migra- tion of birds, of avian anatomy, of odlogy, and on’ the question of the eligibility or ineligibility of the European sparrow in America. The first-named com- mittee, besides revising the current lists of North- American birds, is expected to consider the subject of zodlogical nomenclature at large; and its labors may result in the formation of a code of nomenclature applicable to other departments of zodlogy, as well as to ornithology. It consists of Messrs. Ridgway, Allen, Brewster, Henshaw, and Coues. . OcTroBER 12, 1883.] — Mr. Charles F. Parker, the curator in charge of the Academy of natural sciences of Philadelphia, died Sept. 7, after an illness of several months. Mr. Parker became a member of the academy in 1865, and was elected a curator in 1875. Shortly after- ward he was appointed by the council curator in charge,— a position which he filled with singular effi- ciency until last March, when he was compelled to avail himself of leave of absence, granted by the council in the hope that he would soon be able to return. Mr. Parker had paid special attention to the botany of New Jersey; and, both in the completeness of his herbarium and the accuracy of his knowledge of it, he had few. if any, equals. Even before his connection with the academy, he was well known to the leading botanists of America, and his collec- tion was frequently referred to by specialists for illustrative material. The many students who have visited the academy during his term of office will remember the alacrity with which he rendered them assistance in their investigations. Although he may be succeeded by one having a more general knowl- edge of natural history in its several departments, or a more profound knowledge of a specialty, the academy will probably not be able to secure the ser- vices of any one person able and willing to perform the same work so economically and efficiently. — We copy from the daily press the following tele- gram from Lieut. Ray, commanding the Point-Barrow expedition, concerning whose safety there were rea- sonable grounds for anxiety :— “San Francisco, Oct. 7, 1883. —I report my safe arrival here to-day with party. Also brought down Lieut. Schwatka and party from St. Michaels. All work accomplished as ordered by chief signal- officer. Pendulum observation not made. Leo reached Ooglaamie Aug. 22; was driven away by ice the same night; returned on the 24th; again driven away and damaged on the 25th; returned on the 27th, when party and stores were embarked; sailed on the 29th, vessel leaking badly; put into Unalaska, where she was beached and repaired.’’ ’ — A large and exceptionally fine collection of fossil plants from the Fort-Union group (Laramie) is now on its way to Washington, collected in the valley of the Yellowstone River, within thirty miles of Glen- dive, Montana, by Mr. Lester F. Ward, assisted by Mr. Richard Foster. Mention has already been made (SCIENCE, i. 559) of a small but interesting collection from this locality, which was partially elaborated last spring. The same stations were revisited and thor- oughly worked. The expedition was very successful, and the collection is one of the largest and best ever made in the country. Fifty-seven boxes of fossils, aggregating nearly four tons in gross weight, were obtained. The material was carefully assorted, and searcely any but cabinet specimens were taken. In the very large number of genera and species repre- sented, there can scarcely fail to be some new to science. The localities examined embrace several dis- tinet horizons within the group, each possessing a special facies. Nearly all the old forms described by Dr. Newberry appear in abundance, — Populus, Pla- SCIENCE. alt tanus, Viburnum, Rhamnites, Tilia, ete., — bul varied by additional species; while such new genera as Tra- pa, Rhamnus, Ilex, Eleodendron, Asarum, Ficus, ete., are present, often in great profusion, and beautifully preserved. Special pains were taken to secure as large and complete a representation as possible of those forms whose affinities are less obvious or wholly un- known. Mr. Ward intends to commence work on this collection as soon as it arrives. — The 18th of August, 1883, was the hundredth anniversary of the successful attempt of the brothers Montgolfier to cause their hot-air balloon to rise. On that day a monument commemorative of the event was unveiled at Annonay, where the Montgol- fiers lived and worked. Joseph, the older, is repre- sented as holding the balloon, while his younger brother, Etienne, fills it with heated air by means of a lighted torch. For the three days the streets of An- nonay were filled with the crowds gathered to honor the memory of the great inventors. In the addresses stress was laid upon the aids which the use of the balloon may be to the sciences, especially meteorol- ogy, and in military operations. Joseph Montgolfier was born at Vidalon-les-Annonay, Aug. 26, 1740, and Etienne at the same place, the 7th of January, 1745. The younger brother died Aug. 2, 1799, at Serriére: and Joseph, after a stroke of paralysis in 1809, died at Balaruc-les-Bains on the 26th of June, 1810, —A notable event of the present season’s field- 518 work has been the descent of the Missouri River in a ‘Mackinaw’ (asort of flat boat) from Fort Benton to Bismarek by a party of geologists, consisting of Dr. C. A. White, Mr. J. B. Marcou, and Mr. Lester F. Ward, with one assistant, for the express purpose of geological and paleontological study. The distance, according to steamboat schedule, is 1,059 miles; and thirty days (Aug. 22 to Sept. 20) were consumed inthe journey. A large part of the territory passed through is occupied by Indian reservations; and there is no white population between Benton and Poplar Creek Agency, the first post-office, — a distance of 567 miles. The river is very low at this season of the year; and the current was correspondingly slug- gish, though still quite rapid enough in some places. Progress was farther impeded by shoals, bars, and head winds; and considerable time was, of course, occupied in climbing and examining the adjacent bluffs and mountains. The geology of this region, as all know, is very interesting; and the trip is believed to have thrown much light upon some of its leading problems. The results of the expedition will, of course, be officially made known in due time by the several parties par- ticipating, who have brought with them ample data, both in the form of notes and specimens. —Mr. G. Brown Goode arrived in Washington: on the 2d inst. from London. — Representatives of nearly all the branches of the western surveys haye returned to Washington. Dr. C. A. White reports having explored a great number of miles of the upper Missouri in a row-boat, being engaged in extending and confirming his previous observations of the formations. — The winter session of the Philosophical society of Washington opens on the 13th inst. A considera- ble number of communications on widely different topics are in readiness. Biological papers are not numerous. The Biological society will probably be- gin its session on the 19th inst. It is possible that negotiations for the formation of a Washington acad- emy of sciences will be opened for a second time this winter, but with what success it is impossible at present to say. It seems to be generally considered that an academy would be desirable, but there is little agreement relative to the proper basis of union be- tween the existing societies. —Prof. K. A. Zittel of Munich is visiting this country, and will probably be in Washington early in this month. — At the first autumn meeting of the Boston so- ciety of natural history, Oct. 3, Mr. F. W. Putnam gaye an account of the great serpent-mound in Adams county, O., and of some other ancient works in Wis- consin and Ohio examined during the past sum- mer. — The Appalachian mountain-club commenced its Boston meetings on the 10th, when papers were read on the Route Salvan, by Selah Howell; on a trip over Osceola, the Twin Mountain range, and Gar- field, by W. L. Hooper; and on an exploration of the Traveller Mountain, and the head waters of Mattaga- mon River, by G. Hi. Witherle. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 36. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Aymard, J. La poudre a canon; le télégraphe; les mon- tagnes et les voleans; les tremblements de terre, les pétrifica- tions. Paris, Zefort, 1883. 107 p. 12°. _ Barrois, Tf. Catalogue des crustacés podophtalmaires et des échinodermes recueillis & Concarneau durant les mois d’aoft- septembre, 1880. Lille, impr. Danel, 1883. 68 p., pl., map. 8°. Berquin. Les merveilles du firmament, ou le systéme de la nature dévoilé & la jeunesse. Limoges, Ardant, 1883. 119 p. 8°. Bonnet, E. Petite flora parisienne, contenant la description des familles, genres, espéces et variétés de toutes les plantes spontanées ou cultivées en grand dans la région parisienne, ayee des clefs dichotomique conduisant rapidement aux noms des plantes; augmentée d’un vocabulaire. Paris, Savy, 1883. 12+ 528 p. 18° Brass, A. Biglogische studien. ‘Theil i.: Die organisation der thierischen zelle. 8°. Broca, P. Memoires d’anthropologie. Paris, Reinwald, 1883. 800p. 8. Chatenet, E. du. Pompéi et Herculanum, découverte et description de ces deux villes romaines. Limoges, Ardant, 1883. 120 p. 12°. Cole, E. M. Geological rambles in Yorkshire: a popular handbook of magnesian limestone, new red sandstone, etc. London, Simpkin, 1883. 112 p. 8°. Costatin, J. Etude comparée des tiges aériennes et souter- raines des dicotylédones. Paris, Masson, 1883. 177 p.,8pl. 8°. D’Anvers, U. Flowerless plants. London, Philip, 1883. (Se. ladders.) 84p. 12°. De Long, Emma. The voyage of the Jeannette; the ship and ice journals of George W. De Long. Edited by his wife. 2 vols. Boston, Houghton, Miglin, & Co., 1883. 22+911 p., 2 portr., 5 maps, 14 pl., illustr. 8°. Dubois, A. La science populaire. Au bord d’une mare, entretiens sur Vhistoire naturelle. Limoges, Ardant, 1883. 304 p. 4°. — Les animaux dans les bois. Limoges, Ardant, 1883. 192 p. 8°. / — Les oiseaux et les insectes. Limoges, Ardant, 1883. 191p. 8°. — Les végétaux dans les bois. Limoges, Ardant, 1883. 192 p. ‘8°. Duclau, 8. La science populaire; la chaleur et ses effets. Limoges, Ardant, 1883. 120 p. 12°. Exposition internationale d’électricité, Paris, 1881. reports. 2yols. Paris, Masson, 1883. 484; 4144p. 8°. Frenzel, J. Ueber bau und thitigkeit des verdauungskanals der larve der Tenebrio moliter mit beriicksichtung anderer ar- thropoden. Inaug. diss. Géttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1882. 50p. 8°. 5 Govin, M., and Moireau, M. Notions de cosmographie. Paris, Bertaux, 1883. 3836p. 18°. Gresley, W.S. A glossary of terms used in coal-mining. London, Spon, 1883. 306 p., illustr. 8°. Heaford, A.8. Strains on braced iron arches and arched iron bridges. London, Spon, 1883. illustr. 8°. Illinois — Geological survey. Vol. 7. Geology and paleon- tology, by A. H. Worthen. Paleontology, by A. H. Worthen, QO. St. John, and 8. A. Miller; with an addenda (sic) by C. Wachsmuth and W. H. Barris. (Springfield), State, 1883. (4)+ 373 p., 31 pl, 1. 8°. Kutscher, E. wechsel der pflanze. Jury Die verwendung der gertsiiure im stoff- Inaug. diss. Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1883. 36 p.,2pl. 8°. Lackemann, W. Euler's interpolirte producte. Inang. diss. G6ttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1882. 43p. 8°. Lange, E. Goethe’s farbenlehre yom standpuncte der wis- senschaftstheorie und aesthetik. Inaug. diss. G6ttingen, Van- denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1882. 38p. 8°. Leydig, F. Untersuchungen zur anatomie und histologie der thiere. 8°. Mouillefert, P. Vignes phylloxerées; faits ¢tablissant Vefficacité et la haute valeur du sulfocarbonate de potassium pour combattre le phylloxera, ete. Paris, Narbonne, 1883. 48 je Sa Munro, J. Electricity and its uses. London, Zract society, 1883. illustr. 8°. Pichler, M. von. L’indicateur du travail et du fonctionne- ment des machines & piston, & vapeur, A eau, A gaz, ete., et son diagramme. ‘Traduit par R. Seguela. Paris, Baudry, 1883. 5+98 p., 46 fig. 8°. ae Ce NR: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1883. PRECISION OF OBSERVATION AS A > BRANCH OF INSTRUCTION. We sometimes find the philosopher envying the physicist because the results sought by the latter can be expressed exactly. In so doing, he doubtless overlooks the fact that all quanti- tative work has to be regarded as giving mere- ly an approximation to the truth. Numerous and refined as are the precautions adopted, the careful experimenter must admit that his measurements contain errors whose sources are more or less hidden. Success will lie, not in ignoring this, but in recognizing it, and studi- ously avoiding any unwarranted claim to accu- racy. His investigation may establish some law beyond a reasonable doubt. This law may be expressible in exact terms; but, so far as the direct quantitative results are concerned, he must give up, once for all, the popular notion of exactness. He must admit that the work merely shows it to be reasonable to as- sume the truth to lie somewhere between two limits, respectively greater and less than the ‘one magnitude which he names. Desiring that these limits shall fall as near together as practicable, he will study the observations for internal evidence of the precision attained ; but any appearance of accuracy greater than might reasonably be expected will often cause him more uneasiness than would a greater ap- parent error. Until the extent of the error is recognized, and found to be in harmony with experience derived from other similar observa- tions, a cautious observer will not be confident of the result reached. As the scientific professions are currently taught, it is possible to get a fair training (as-a chemist, engineer, or electrician, for example) without properly appreciating the practical limitations to precision. He may instinctively acquire correct notions of the No. 37.— 1883. performances of the instruments he most ‘sfre- quently uses; but let a new operation, with a different instrument, be required, and he will too often develop the wildest notions as to the great accuracy attainable by the use of suffi- cient care. Whatis needed in our professional courses is systematic instruction in the general science of planning, conducting, and discuss- ing observations, accompanied with adequate practice. This should be given as early as the student is fitted to profit by it, in order that the subsequent practical training in special branches may have a firm foundation. The field for such instruction is ample. A good routine observer is one who, being in- formed of the accuracy desired at each step, is able to take just care enough to attain it, without wasting time and energy in uselessly perfecting certain parts of the work. Our professional observer must add to this the good judgment which is able to discover the relative accuracy required in different parts of a complex observation, and to decide how ac- curate to aim to make a single performance of the whole. In general, he will seek to avoid errors which usually occur in a single direc- tion; but he will not always take the greatest care to avoid errors which are as liable to be negative as positive. Life is short. Time, to most, is money; and the ability to repeat an observation will often depend upon the ability to do it quickly. Moreover, in many cases, mere lapse of time allows additional errors to enter. Having avoided the larger errors, he will therefore seek to eliminate. the effect of the smaller by repeatedly per- forming the work. Recognizing, then, the importance of reasonable speed, he will allow rough measures of certain quantities, pro- vided the final error of the complex operation is not thereby appreciably affected. All this calls for a clear understanding of the causes of error, and an ability to reason out their effect upon the result. The knowledge of the 520 differential calculus jequired is indeed ele- mentary; butit must be a tool which can be applied *S readily, for instance, as the knowl- edge Sf the properties of logarithms. All the PTiciples are covered by the customary courses in physics and mathematics ; but additional spe- cial practice in their employment is very de- sirable. In the planning of observations, the theory of maxima and minima gives important aid ; but this theory has so many other applications, that we can hardly ask of the regular course in differential calculus such attention to this one point as would insure the required facility. In the absence of such a course of instruction as is recommended in this paper, the matter is left to slow acquisition through practical ex- perience. Knowledge is often thus bought at a high cost. A general understanding of instruments of precision, so necessary to successful plan- ning of observations, is also within the field of instruction proposed. Instrumental errors should be treated systematically: their pre- liminary adjustment to zero, their elimination from the mean of pairs of observations properly taken to that end, their determination in such manner that corrections may be duly applied, and the cost in time of variously managing them, should come to be understood through suitable practice. Here, particularly, each professional course is liable to inculcate its own narrow view. : An examination of the proceedings of the leading learned societies will convince one of the importance of good method in the discus- sion of results. It will also develop the fact that there exist numerous valuable, analytical, and graphical processes, which at present are not likely to be brought to the attention of the professional student. The theory of probabilities as applied to observation would naturally be treated in the course proposed. If it were previously given to the student as a branch of pure mathematics, the attention could here be riveted upon its which calls for the exercise of much It furnishes an use, practical good judgment. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 37. important means of studying the precision attained, but just here is a great abuse. Its results, demonstrated for a very large number, are applied to very limited series of measure- ments. Again: its assumption of equal prob- ability for equal positive and negative errors is allowed, in face of the fact that a preponder- ance of error in one direction is unavoidable. The rising generation of experimenters in every field of applied science should therefore be taught the many limitations which surround its application, and they should learn to avoid that indiscriminate use of its principles which has led to so many unfounded claims to ac- curacy. We have outlined a subject the successful teaching of which requires qualifications not to be found in every scientific professor, and the successful study of which requires a con- centration of the attention not likely to be given to it as a subordinate part of some other course. Already the appearance of treatises on probabilities, errors of observation, and least squares, has enabled writers on astron- omy, geodesy, physics, and engineering, to devote their attention to special applications, and has saved the waste of space which would otherwise be given to the general theory. Similarly, we should avoid that distraction of the student’s attention from the main subject of a professional course which results from the necessity of frequently pausing to give additional information about the subject of this article. Although the first object of establishing a course of instruction in any branch of applied science is to put the students into possession of the best methods already reached by workers in that field, the end attained is often some- thing more. The instructor’s attention is speedily called to conspicuous omissions, and his energies are consequently bent upon sup- plying the defect by demonstrating and testing some theorem or method which meets the want. Thus the schools come to the aid of the professions. Are they yet doing their whole duty in regard to the science and art of observation ? > - pie rm a OcroBER 19, 1883.] A SYSTEM OF LOCAL WARNINGS AGAINST TORNADOES. I nave lately examined with some care the excellent compilation by Sergeant Finley of the signal-service, ‘ Characteristics of six hun- dred tornadoes,’ with reference to the question of devising a simple apparatus for saving hu- man life. Saving property seems to be out of the ques- tion, as no structure can withstand the force of the tornado-wind. Life may be saved by recourse to underground shelters, cellars, etc., such as actually have been built in many places for this end. Two facts may be quoted from the work named, —1°. Three hundred and forty-seven out of three hundred and ninety-three torna- does (that is eighty-eight per cent) originated between the west and the south-south-west points; 2°. The average velocity of progres- sion was about one mile in two minutes. From what we already know of the atmos- pheric conditions necessary to the production of tornadoes, it seems probable that in the future it may be practicable for the general weather service in Washington to send out warnings a day in advance to large regions of country within which tornadoes are likely to occur. These warnings would necessarily be of a very general nature. They would simply state that the conditions were such on two sides of a large region (like the state of Wisconsin, for example) as to make it probable that tornadoes would occur somewhere inside that region within twenty-four hours. The local weather services of states like Ohio and Iowa could, perhaps, make these predictions a little more specific; but there is no prospect whatever that warnings of any particular tor- nado can be given in the immediate future. It can be said, that, within a district five hun- dred miles square, tornadoes are likely to occur within twenty-four hours, and such a warn- ing would be of value; but it does not seem to be probable that it can be said that a par- ticular thirty miles square of this region is in particular danger. Under these circum- stances, it is of interest and importance to in- quire whether some efficient method of local warnings cannot be devised. If five minutes’ warning could have been given at any of the late tornadoes, many lives might have been saved. If each household could be warned by the continuous ringing of a bell, for example, that a wind of destructive force (say, seventy miles per hour and upwards) was approaching, and that five minutes were available in which : % Sa if / ee Ye eee: aoe 7 - — SCIENCE: 521 to seek shelter, this wcould be well worth do- ing. % A wind of seventy miles an».hour is suflicient to blow down chimneys and to unteoaf houses, unless they are well built. Ordinary trees: will not stand under it. The pressure on a squanre foot is in the neighborhood of fifty pounds. ~ There might be occasions where seventy miles would be the maximum wind-velocity ; and the person who had taken refuge in the cellar might be inclined, after the gust had blown over, to find fault with the indicator which had predicted a tornado, when only a violent gale occurred. But such storms do not occur as often as once a year; and it would seem that one could afford to be frightened as frequently as this for the sake of immunity from an occasional tornado, which might be following in the track of such a violent gale. I have found that it is practicable to erect, at a moderate expense (less than five hundred dollars), an apparatus which would give from three to five minutes’ warning to all the inhabit- ants of a small town, by the firing of a cannon, for instance ; and in addition, and without any increased expense, this apparatus could ring a bell in every house. The additional expense to each house would be less than ten dollars, the cost of maintenance would be less than a hundred dollars a year, and the work could be done by any intelligent person. The sys- tem, for a small town, would be something like the following: suppose a circle described about the town with a radius of from two to two and one-half miles. The only serious danger from tornadoes is to be feared from the part of this circle between the west point and the south-south-west point. Along the cir- cumference of this circle, between the south- south-west and west points, run a line of single telegraph-wire on twenty posts to the mile, and from the west point bring the wire into the town, letting it end at the telegraph-oftice. It is grounded at each end of the line, and at the telegraph-office it is connected with a bat- tery, which sends a constant current over the line. Within the town, connection is made in various houses with magnets. Each magnet holds a detent, which prevents a bell from be- ing rung by the action of a cheap clock-work governed by a coiled spring. If the cireuit is broken anywhere in the line, each bell begins to ring, and continues to sound till its spring is run down; for four or five minutes, for ex- ample. A cannon could be fired by a simple device, which would warn persons in the fields, etc., to seek shelter. In a large town the circuit might end in one of the engine-houses 522 artment, atts ring a bell bi soll for the man on watch This aimee eS simultaneously through BD ie Use: -wircuits as desirable. uns en to indicate the way in which the ‘eis to be broken by the wind. The cir- i of telegraph-poles from the south-south- west to the west points would contain about fifty poles. On every one of these the wire would run first to an insulator, then to an iron hori- zontal axis screwed into the side of the post. On this axis a piece of board one foot square ‘can revolve freely. An iron rod projects be- low this board, and from the lower end of it a small wire goes to a pin in the telegraph-pole. This pin is connected by wire to a second in- sulator. From this the line goes to the next pole, and so on. ‘The circuit ordinarily passes to the first insulator, thence to the iron rod, thenee down the iron rod to the thin wire, through the pin and to the second insulator, and so to the next telegraph-pole. The thin wire is a necessary part of the circuit. It is so made that it will break when the pressure of the wind on the square board is fifty pounds. The apparatus for each post is tested practi- cally before itis set up. This can be done at any time in a simple manner. Whenever any single one of these boards is subjected to the pressure of fifty pounds, its wire will be rup- _ tured, and the circuit ‘will be broken, thus sending the necessary warning along the whole line. I have made one such indicator, which is connected with a small bell in this observatory. The wire is arranged so that it breaks at a wind-velocity of about ten miles per hour, and it works in a perfectly successful manner. The extension of the system for the protec- tion of a small town is a simple matter. For a large city a more expensive system would have to be provided, as the wires between poles should be carried underground to pro- tect them from the chance of disturbance, I need not enlarge on the details of the scheme, since they can be worked out by any one who is at all familiar with electrical con- structions. I believe that I have considered all the practical difficulties, and that there are none of any importance. It is a very simple matter to provide for the inspection of the line, bells, etc., so as not to interfere with the working of the system, and so that false alarms will not be given. The point I wish to emphasize is, that a prac- tical and cheap system of local warnings can be had, and that it ought to be considered by those who live in districts subject to tornadoes. of the fire-dep SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 37. The particular manner in which the aboye- described device is to be employed is a question to be settled by the particular circumstances of each case. I have only described the simplest and cheapest form, but this has been proved by trial to be efficient. I may just mention, that, by employing a spring balance to hold the board in position, it is possible to provide an indicator which will break the circuit at any desired velocity of wind. To any one who has seen the effects of a tornado, or even to one who has simply read that in this year alone several hundreds of — lives have been lost from their violence, it will appear that the question of erecting systems for local warnings ought to be seriously consid- ered by persons living in exposed regions. Epwarp S. Horpen. THE WILD TRIBES OF LUZON. Wuen the Malays took possession of the Philippines, they either found there, or were soon joined by, Japanese, Chinese, Siamese, Javanese, and Dyaks from Borneo and Celebes, all waging war against the Papuans, who had gone there from the south-east, if they were not aborigines. Under these circumstances, we should expect to find the present natives a very mixed race, who have received different names, according to the predominating charac- ters in each locality. There is no unanimity of opinion among those who have studied the people in their own homes, and I think it im- possible wholly to unravel the tangled skein of races. The following is what, from my obser- vation and reading, I think a fair approxima- tion to the truth. The name of Jgorrote has been applied to almost every wild tribe except the Negritos. I agree with Dr. Semper that it should be re- stricted to those of northern Luzon, who are hybrids of Japanese and Chinese with the Indians, differing somewhat in features and customs, according to the principal admixture. In the Igorrote the stature is small, with — well-developed form, indicating great strength with little symmetry; color very dark; eyes oblique ; hair long, and, in the women, combed in Chinese fashion; nose flat, lips thick, mouth large, and cheeks wide. Houses mere huts, on the ground or raised on posts, shaped like a beehive, with furniture of the rudest deserip- tion, — arms, hatchets, lances, daggers, bows and arrows, frequently poisoned, of bamboo, and shields. Their presence would be ac- counted for as the descendants of the army of OcToBER 19, 1883.] the Chinese pirate, Li Mahon, whose fleet was destroyed after his attack on Manila in 1574. The fugitives escaped to the mountains; and for more than three centuries these wild hy- brids between Chinese and Indian have defied the power of Spain. They have many dialects, hut the Igorrote proper is spoken by over ten iit. Niet 3 aan) wr j Mh SCIENCE. aquiline nose. 523 habit northern Ilocos. They are of finer shape, lighter color, with less oblique eyes, and more In their habits, music, and love for porcelain vases, they resemble the Japanese, and have probably descended from the union of crews of junks, driven to Luzon by the northern monsoon, and the neighboring tribes. IGORROTES OF LUZON. thousand people. ‘They are not wholly savage, except in the remote mountainous districts. Their customs are simple and patriarchal. It is only of late years that they have consented to bury their dead, instead of exposing them to decay in the air. The name of Tinguians has been given to the hybrids of Japanese and Indians who in- They number over nine thousand: in twenty villages. Their dress and arms are much like those of the Igorrotes, but they have borrowed from their enemies the Gaddans the custom of preserving as trophies the heads of those killed in battle. They are said to mummify their dead by heat. The Gaddans and Jfuagos, numbering about 524 ten thousand, resemble in-their appearance and customs the Dyaks of Borneo. Many dwell in the provinces of the Camarines, where they have preserved their independence. They haye traditions of great antiquity, and speak the Vicol dialect as well as their own. They were evidently here before the Mahometan Malays, by whom they have been driven to SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 37. The above-mentioned races are what the Spanish writers call the infidels, and may or may not be Igorrotes. Samurit KNeeLanp. THE WEATHER IN AUGUST, 1888. Tue monthly review of the U. S. signal- service shows that in August there were two GADDAN OF LUZON. the mountains. They are hostile to all for- eigners. Their mode of life is patriarchal, the head of a family recognizing no superior au- thority. From the resemblance of the skulls of some of these wild tribes to those of the people of Sunda, Borneo, and Celebes, and the occurrence of similar ones in the long dis- used cayerns, it seems undeniable that there is among them a considerable Dyalx mixture, and that from a very remote period. features of special note. ‘These are, 1°, the low temperatures which prevailed over nearly the whole country ; 2°, the small rainfall, which was below the average in nearly every district. Other important features were a few destruc- tive storms, and the opening of the hurricane season, as will be referred to below. The pressure has been above the normal, except on the Atlantic coast; the greatest excess, 0.08 inch, occurring in the upper Mis- OcTOBER 19, 1883.] sissippi and Missouri valleys, where, also, the lowest temperature departures were recorded. Six barometric depressions were charted in their progress, and a seventh begun, as the month closed. Of these, one only visited the southern states: this developed in Mississippi, passed off the Virginia coast, and across the Atlantic to the Irish coast, being a severe storm all along its passage. Of the other depressions, SCIENCE. 525 on the upper lakes on the 22d, and remarkably heavy rains on the North Carolina coast on the 16th. The storms on the Atlantic were espe- cially prominent, and the general character of the weather on the ocean during the whole month was stormy. Five depressions were traced nearly across the Atlantic, two of which were genuine hurricanes. ‘The first moved north-westward at a considerable distance from GADDAN WOMAN. one developed in the Rocky Mountains, and was traced to the British coast, and another entered the country in the extreme south-west, moved south-easterly to the North Carolina coast, and in the ocean probably united with a tropical hurricane which was then moving up the Atlantic. None of the storms were traced from the Pacific coast over the Rocky Moun- tains. The storms left no disastrous effects in the United States; but there were violent gales the Atlantic coast, between the 19th and 24th, when it curved to the north-eastward near the Bermudas. Reaching the Banks on the 26th, it caused great damage to the fishing-fleet, the reports showing a loss of eighty lives and one hundred dories, while many fishing-vessels were swamped ordisabled. Vessels on the Atlantic report severe gales during its further passage, but its severity decreased as it approached the Irish coast on the 29th. The lowest pressure Mr] oe ony 526 2 SCIENCE. [Von Il., No. 87. \W.8.HAZEN, Siganl Officer. Observntian e (or the Signal Service, Rp are taken at7AM.3PMeil Z and Bvt.Maj, Gea). 0:3 Army SECAETARY OF WAR. Chiof Si; u x * h ) © Ww o KE ) > a o u = e a a E) a Brig, MONTHLY MEAN ISOBARS, ISOTHERMS, AND WIND-DIRECTIONS, AUGUST, 1883. REPRINTED IN[REDUCED FORM BY PERMISSION OF THE CHIEF SIGNAL-OFFICER. OcTOBER 19, 1883.] noted was 28.9 inches. The second hurricane came from the West Indies about the 24th, and reached the Banks on the 29th, only three days after the passage of the former hurricane, re- peating the disasters to the fishing-vessels. Its violence was great as it.continued across the Atlantic, and approached the British coasts early in September. As this storm passed up the Atlantic, very high tides were experienced on the coast, much damage being thereby in- flicted on the New Jersey shore on the 29th. Very few icebergs were reported during the month. The average temperatures were aboye the normal only in Florida, the Rio Grande valley, and in the middle and southern portions of the Rocky Mountain region, the departures being within a degree, except at Salt Lake City (2°). In other districts the departures ranged from 0°.1, in the eastern Gulf states, to 4°.4, in the upper Mississippi valley. Yuma, Arizona, reports a mean temperature of 91°, and a maxi- mum of 111°. Frosts were reported from the northern states, especially at the end of the month. Average precipitation for August, 1883. | Average for August. Signal-service observa- | Comparison of Districts. - tions. August, — 1883, with the average He cue For 1883. for several years. Inches. Inches. Inches. New England .. 4.33 1.53 2.80 deficiency. Middle Atlantic states. 4.95 3.20 1.75 deficiency. South Atlantic states . 6.43 7.51- | 0.72 deficiency. Florida peninsula . 7.67 5.69 1.98 deficiency. Eastern gulf . 6.33 4.39 1.94 deficiency. Western gulf . 4.27 1.62 2.65 deficiency. Teunessee. . . . 3.92 3.51 0.41 deficiency. Obio valley .. , 3.70 1.94 1.76 deficiency. Lower lakes . 2.91 2.30 0.61 deficiency. Upper lakes 3.12 1.25 1.87 deficiency. Extreme north-west . . 2.50 2.70 0.20 excess. ae =e Pers 3.40 1.87 1.53 deficiency. rivalley . . 2.81 2.52 0.29 deficiency. Northern slope . 1.39 1.83 0.44 excess. Middle slope 1.42 3.65 2.23 excess. Southern slope . 2.99 1.95 1.04 deficiency. ‘Southern plateau 3.16 2.26 0.90 deficiency. North Pacific coast. 0.78 0.08 0.70 deficiency. Middle Pacific coast 0.02 0.00 0.02 deficiency. South Pacific coast. 0.22 0.07 0.15 deficiency. Mt. Washington, N. a «| 7.67 6.06 1.61 deficiency. Pike’s Peak, Col. . . «| 4.81 2.22 | 2.59 deficiency. Salt Lake City, Utah | 0.88 0.62 0.26 deficiency. Brownsville, Tex... .| 5.94 1.97 3.97 deficiency. / The rainfall record can be best shown by the above table, which shows the unusual defi- ciency of the month in almost every section, which especially affected the crops in the south. Remarkably heavy rains were recorded in a few instancés, —10.38 inches at Griffin, Ga., in eight hours ; and 8.14 inches at Kittyhawk, N.C., in four hours. In the cotton region the rainfall was much less than in August of last SCIENCE. 527 year, the amount at New Orleans being 2.70 inches, against §.38 inches a year ago. Local storms were not numerous, but were quite severe, especially in Iowa, on the 7th and 8th. -On the 21st there was a veritable tor- nado in Minnesota, which devastated the town of Rochester, causing a loss of over thirty lives, and much damage to property. Seven auroral displays occurred, but none were of especial note. The following electr ical phenomenon is reported from Pike’s ; Peak : — ‘*The observer on the summit of Pike’s Peak, Col., reported that during a sleet and thunder storm, on the evening of the 4th, the anemometer cups revolved in circles of electric light. After a flash of lightning, the light en- circling the cups became dim, but would soon regain its former brilliancy. The observer states, that, by holding up his hands, electrie sparks would form on the ends of his fingers, and that his hair and clothing were full of them. A peculiar crackling noise was heard about the anemometer cups; and at the corners of the office building there were continuous sparks of bright light.’’ Earthquake-shocks occurred at Oakland, Cal., Carson City, Nev., St. Thomas, W.I. At the last-named place a tidal wave occurred on the 27th, and at San Francisco on the 27th and 28th. Earthquake waves, whose height was one foot, and time between crests forty minutes, were recorded on the Saucelito tide-gauge. It is supposed they were caused by the earth- quake in Java on the 27th. A dense smoke, due to forest-fires in Oregon and Washington, Idaho and Montana territo- ries, prevailed during a greater part of the month, and extended on the Pacific coast as far south as Cape Mendocino, and thence east- ward to eastern Montana, Dakota, and Min- nesota. The accompanying chart exhibits the mean pressure, temperature, and wind-direction, for the month. THE INVENTION AND SPREAD OF BRONZE. AT the thirteenth session of the German anthro- pological congress, held at Trier early in August, Professor Rudolph Virchow, the president, gave an address, the substance of which we quote from the Frankfurter zeitung of Aug. 11. In beginning the president remarked, that, in the choice of Trier as the place of assembly for this year’s congress, it was considered that the city and its surroundings were especially suited by their situa- tion for the solution of the often-broached question of celts. The speaker then reviewed in a general way the present condition of anthropological re- search, paying especial attention to the first appear- ance of bronze in Europe. The question, when did the metal first come into use in our part of the world, is certainly one of the most important which an- thropological science has to consider, and in order to provide the necessary material for its solution, wherever individual investigators or scientific so- cieties are active, the territorial relations should be first examined, and, without drawing general con- clusions, the localities or the strata in which the discoveries are made should be determined; for, how- ever many investigations have already been under- taken in this branch of anthropology, the boundary where the stone age ceases and the metal age begins has not yet been definitely decided for any locality. A difficulty which arises in answering the question, does this or that settlement, this or that discovery, belong to the stone or bronze age, must not be passed in silence, since neglect of it has frequently led to mistakes. The difficulty is, that at one time, when metal was already common, stone implements were used both by poorer people, who were not able to obtain the expensive tools, and for ritualistie pur- poses. A circumstance which next comes into con- sideration, and which renders difficult in no little degree the determination of the epoch to which certain discoveries belong, is that the river-sand, silt, ete., in which the objects were found, often change their positions. Passing to a general consideration of the bronze age, the speaker said that the answer to the question, where did the invention of this alloy originate, is one of the most important problems for anthropo- logical research. There are two widely differing views on this subject: 1°, that of investigators who assume that bronze was invented at different times - and in different places, independently of each other; and, 2°, that of those who assert that the invention was made at one place, and thence the use of the metal spread. In opposition to the first-mentioned as- sumption, is the fact that the bronze objects scattered over many regions show in their composition a con- siderable agreement, and, almost without exception, are composed of a mixture of nine parts copper and one part tin, as are by far the majority of those which are found in the countries lying between the Caucasus and Portugal. Even if the moisture of the earth and atmospheric influences affect the various components of the alloy in various ways, and a part of the copper is destroyed or altered, the bronze objects, as a whole, are affected in the same way; and the ap- pearance of a very similar composition, in regions far removed from each other, points with convincing foree to the conclusion that the invention of this mixture was made in one place, and its use was thence spread. Further, as to how bronze was in- troduced into Europe, we find also various opinions not very harmonious with each other. Some inves- tizators naturally claim that it was through the Phoenicians, of whom we know that in ancient time they carried on a trade extending over the whole - Mediterranean, and that while Cyprus, one of the SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 37. chief centres for copper ore, —from this island cop- per (Latin, euprum) received its name,—lay in their immediate neighborhood, they passed in their voyages the Pillars of Hercules, and visited the ‘ tin- island’ (Great Britain). From the Phoenician trade- stations on the coast of the Mediterranean, among which the Massilian colony (Marseilles) played an important part, trade-roads into the interior were probably built. Many investigators suppose the spread of bronze was through commercial activity. Whether this view is true, is not easy to determine; since trade-settlements, which, as a rule, exert no, or at most only a transient, influence over the majority of the colonies and customs with which they come in contact, as soon as they cease to exist, can seldom be traced. The speaker, in his researches in Sicily, where, as is well known, the Carthaginians, also a people of Phoenician origin, were for a long time settled, could find no traces which indicated ‘this settlement. Further, it is also well known that the trade supremacy which Pisa on the Mediterranean, and Genoa on the Black Sea, once exercised, has left on the coasts bordering these seas no traces worth mentioning. But, supposing that bronze was scattered by the commerce of the Phoenicians, it by no means proves that they were the inventors of this alloy. The speaker, on the whole, was much more inclined, with reservation of his decision, to place this inven- tion farther to the east, in central Asia. Besides the view just mentioned, which considers the commercial activity of the Phoenicians as the agent by which that advance in culture signalized by the use of metal implements was brought about, there is a theory lately advanced by Hochstetter, which deserves mention because it completely aban- dons the views formerly held. Hochstetter bases his assumptions on the discoveries in the graves at Hallstadt (first described by Sacken), and on certain discoveries at Watsch (Carniola), which show an in- teresting similarity to the former.! From these data, Hochstetter traces the identity of bronze manufac- ture in Hallstadt and upper Italy, and comes to the conclusion that this manufacture originated with the Aryans, and that the use of bronze for weapons and vessels had been common among this people a long time before the Aryan races wandered from their Asiatic home to Europe; while, at the same time, he denies the Etruscan origin of the findings at Hall- stadt, Watsch, and Este, and assumes that the bronzes found in Italy, so far as they were not brought there by the Aryans inhabiting Italy, were imported from Greece. Against these conclusions, surprising by their noy- elty, Virehow asserts, that in case the Aryans, in their wanderings to the west, had taken bronze with them, we must expect to find traces of its use on the highways, which they presumably followed in their 1A situla dug up at Watsch exhibits the same decoration as those found at Hallstadt, and contains, among other things, a rep- resentation of warriors, who are equipped with four different kinds of helmets, such as may be reconstructed from the discoy- eries at Hallstadt. Objects corresponding to the Watsch bronzes were found also in Este (North Italy). OcTOBER 19, 1883.] , advance ; for example, in the yalley of the Donau. Especially in regard to the Caucasus, his investigations in the region convinced him that no people already sufficiently civilized to employ metals could have passed over this range; and, on account of the geo- graphical relations, we must assume that the Aryan peoples first divided in central Asia, and separated widely along the northern coast of the Aral and Cas- pian seas, and then proceeded through modern Rus- sia, where the characteristic bronzes are not found, or westward through Asia Minor. Once in Greece, it is highly probable that Italy was their next step. A fact brought forward by Hochstetter in support of his theory — viz., the lack of ribbed bronzes, Mestea dicordoni— has proved a mistake. A point of attack is presented by the same investigator, in his assertion that the discoveries at Hallstadt do not date back of the second millenary before the Christian era, and immediately preceded the Roman civilization; and that, at the time of the subjugation of Noricum by Rome, the manufacture of bronze already existed. At the close of his address, Virchow merely touched upon other anthropological questions, and pointed out that philology and archeology alone were not in condition to relieve the darkness which still con- cealed the invention and spread of bronze; and that somatic anthropology, i.e., the investigation of the physical constitution of the peoples under consider- ation, as seen from the bones preserved to us, may here have a final word to say, and may, perhaps, answer the important question, whether the cultiva- tion of central Europe is to be traced to the influ- ence of two different families, or to only one, the Aryan. THE VEGETATION OF THE CARBO- NIFEROUS AGE. Moca of the second decade of my life was spent in the practical pursuit of geology in the field; and throughout most of that period I enjoyed almost daily intercourse with William Smith, the father of Eng- lish geology. But, in later years, circumstances re- stricted my studies to the paleontological side of the science : hence I was anxious that the council of the British association should place in this chair some one more familiar than myself with the later developments’ of geographical geology. But my friend, Professor Bonney, failing to recognize the force of my objections, intimated to me that I might render some service to the association by placing be- fore you a sketch of the present state of our knowl- edge of the vegetation of the carboniferous age. This being a subject respecting which I have formed some definite opinions, l am going to act upon the suggestion. To some this may savor of *shop-talk;’ but such is often the only talk which a man can indulge in intelligently: and to close his 1 Opening address before the section of geology of the British association for the advancement of science. By Prof. W. C. Wririamson, LL.D., F.R.S., president of the section. From advance sheets kindly furnished by the editor of Nature. 7 SCIENCE. 529 mouth on his special themes may compel him either to talk nonsense or to be silent. Whilst undertaking this task, I am alive to the difficulties which surround it, especially those arising from the wide differences of opinion amongst paleo- botanists omsome fundamental points. On some of the most important of these there is a substantial agreement between the English and German paleon- tologists. The dissentients are chiefly, though not entirely, to be found amongst those of France, who have, in my humble opinion, been unduly influenced by what is in itself a noble motive ; viz., a strong rev- erence for the views of their illustrious teacher, the late Adolphe Brongniart. Such a tendency speaks well for their hearts; though it may, in these days of rapid scientific progress, seriously mislead their heads. I shall, however, endeavor to put before you faith- fully the views entertained by my dis‘inguished French friends, M. Renault, M, Grand-Eury, and the Marquis of Saporta, giving, at the same time, what I deem to be good reasons for not agreeing with them. I believe that many of our disagreements arise from geological differences between the French carbonifer- ous strata and those in our own islands. There are some important types of carboniferous plants that appear to be much better represented amongst us than in France: hence we have, I believe, more abundant material than the French paleontologists possess, for arriving at sound conclusions respecting these plants. We have rich sources, supplying specimens in which the internal organization is preserved, in eastern Lancashire and western Yorkshire, Arran, Burnt- island, and other scattered localities: France has equally rich localities at Autun and at St. Etienne. But some important difference exists between these localities. The French objects are preserved in an impracticable siliceous matrix, extremely trouble- some to work, except.in specimens of small size: ours, on the other hand, are chiefly embedded in a caleareous material, which, whilst it preserves the objects in an exquisite manner, does not prevent our dissecting examples of considerable magnitude. But, besides this, we are much richer in huge Lepidoden- droid and Sigillarian trees, with their Stigmarian roots, than the French are: hence we have a vast mass of material illustrating the history of these types of vegetation, in which they seem to be serious- ly deficient. This fact alone appears to me sufficient to account for many of the wide differences of opin- ion that exist between us, respecting these trees. My second difficulty springs out of the imperfect state of our knowledge of the subject. One prominent cause of this imperfection lies in the state in whieh our specimens are found. They are not only too fre- quently fragmentary, but most of those fragments only present the external forms of the objects. Now, mere external forms of fossil plants are somewhat like similarities of sound in the comparative study of lan- guages: they are too often unsafe guides. On the other hand, microscopie internal organizations in the former subjects are like grammatical indentities in the latter one: they indicate deep affinities that promise to guide the student safely to philosophical 530 conclusions. But the common state in which our fossil plants are preserved presents a source of error that is positive as well as negative. Most of those from our coal-measures consist of inorganic shale, sandstone, or ironstone, invested by a very thin layer of structureless coal. ‘The surface of the inorganic substance is moulded into some special form, depend- ent upon structural peculiarities of the living plants; which structures were sometimes external, some- times internal, and sometimes intermediate ones. Upon this inorganic cast we find the thin film of structureless coal, which, though of organic origin, is practically as inorganic as the clay or sandstone which it invests ; but its surface displays specific sculpturings, which are apt to be regarded as always representing the outermost surface of the plant when liying, whereas this is not always the case. That the coaly film is a relic of the carbonaceous substance of the living plant is unquestionable ; but the thinnest of these films are often the sole remaining represen- tatives of structures that must originally have been many inches, and in some instances even many feet, in thickness. In such cases most of the organic ma- terial has been dissipated, and what little remains has often been consolidated in such a way that it is merely moulded upon the sculptured inorganic sub- stance which it covers, and hence affords no infor- mation respecting the exterior of the fossil when a living organism. It is, in my opinion, from speci- mens like these, that the smooth bark of the Calamite has been credited with a fluted surface, and the Trigonocarpons with a merely triangular exterior and a misleading name, as it long caused the inorganic casts known as Sternbergiae to be deemed a strange form of plant, that had no representative amongst living types. In other cases the outermost surface of the bark is brought into close contact with the surface of the vascular cylinder. I have a Stigmaria in which the bases of the rootlets appear to be planted directly upon that cylinder, the whole of the thick intermediate bark having disappeared. In other ex- amples, that vascular zone has also gone. Thus the innermost and outermost surfaces of a cylinder, origi- nally many inches apart, are, through the disappear- ance of the intermediate structures, brought into close approximation. In such cases, leaves and other external appendages appear to spring directly from what is merely an inorganic cast of the interior of the pith. I believe that many of our Calamites are in this condition. Such examples have suggested the erroneous idea that the characteristic longitudi- nal flutings belong to the exterior of the bark. Fungi. — Entering upon a more detailed review of our knowledge of the carboniferous plants, and com- mencing at the bottom of the scale, we come to the lowly group of the fungi, which are unquestionably represented by the Peronosporites antiquarius! of Worthington Smith. There seems little reason for doubting that this is one of the phycomycetous fungi, possibly somewhat allied to the Saprolegnieae; but since we have, as yet, no evidence respecting its fructi- fication, these closer relationships must for the present 1 Memoir xi. p. 299. SCIENCE. [Vou. Il,, No. 37. remain undetermined. So far as I know, this is the only fungus satisfactorily proved to exist in the car- boniferous rocks, unless the Excipulites Neesii of Goeppert, and one or two allied forms, belong to the fungoid group. The Polyporites Bowmanni is un- questionably a scale of a holoptychian fish. Algae. —Numerous objects supposed to belong to this family have been discovered in much older rocks than carboniferous ones. The subject is a thorny one. That marine plants of some kind must have existed simultaneously with the molluscous and other plant-eating animals of paleozoic times, is obviously indisputable; but what those plants were is another question. The widest differences of opinion exist in reference to many of them. A considerable num- ber of those recognized by: Schimper, Saporta, and other paleobotanists, are declared by Nathorst to be merely inorganic tracks of marine animals; and, in the case of many of these, I have little doubt that the Swedish geologist is right. Others have been shown to be imperfectly preserved fragments of plants of much higher organization than algae, branches of conifers even being included amongst them. I have, as yet, seen none of carboniferous age that could be indisputably identified with the family of algae, though there are many that look like and may probably be such. The microscope alone can settle this question, though even this instrument fails to secure unity of opinion in the case of Daw- son’s Prototaxites; and no other of the supposed sea- weeds hitherto discovered have been sufficiently well preserved to bear the microscopic test: hence I think that their existence in carboniferous rocks can only beregarded as an unproven probability. Mere super- ficial resemblances do not satisfy the severe demands of modern science, and probabilities are an insufii- cient foundation upon which to build evolutionary theories. Seeing what extremely delicate cell-structures are preserved in the carboniferous beds, it cannot appear other than strange that the few imperfect fungoid relics just referred to constitute the only terrestrial cellular eryptogams that have been discovered in the carboniferous strata. The Darwinian doctrine would suggest that these lower forms of plant-life ought to have abounded in that primeval age; and that they were capable of being preserved is proved by the numerous specimens met with in tertiary deposits. Why we do not find such in the paleozoic beds is still an unsolved problem. Vascular cryptogams.— The vascular cryptogams, next to be considered, burst upon us almost sudden- ly, and in rich profusion, during the Devonian age. They are equally silent in the Devonian and carbonif- erous Strata as to their ancestral descent. Ferns. — The older taxonomic literature of paleo- zoic fern-life is, with few exceptions, of little scien- tific value. Hooker and others have uttered in yain wise protests against the system that has been pur- sued. Small fragments have had generic and specific names assigned to them, with supreme indifference to the study of morphological variability amongst living types. The undifferentiated tip of a terminal OcroBER 19, 1883.] pinnule has had its special name, whilst the more developed structures forming the lower part of a frond haye supplied two or three more species. Then the distinet forms of the fertile fronds may have furnished additional ones, whilst a further cause of confusion is seen in the wide difference existing between a young, half-developed seedling and the same plant at an advanced stage of its growth. Any one who has watched the development of a young Polypodium aureum can appreciate this difference. Yet, in the early stages of paleontological research, observers could scarcely have acted otherwise than as they did, in assigning names to these fragments, if only for temporary working purposes. Our error lies in misunderstanding the true value of such names. At present the study of fossil ferns is afford- ing some promise of a newer and healthier condition. We are slowly learning a little about the fructifica- tion of some species, and the internal organization of others. Facts of these kinds, cautiously inter- preted, are surer guides than mere external contours, Unfortunately, such facts are, as yet, but few in number; and, when we have them, we are too often unable to identify our detached sporangia, stems, and petioles, with the fronds of the plants to which they primarily belonged. That all the carboniferous plants included in the genera Pecopteris, Neuropteris, and Sphenopteris, are ferns, appears to be most probable; but what the true affinities of the objects included in these ill-defined genera may be, is very doubtful. Here and there we ob- tain glimpses of a more definite kind. That the Deyo- nian Palaeopteris hibernicais an hymenophyllous form appears to be almost certain; and, on corresponding grounds, we may concludethat the carboniferous forms, Sphenopteris trichomanoides, S. Humboldtii,! and Hymenophyllum Weissii,? belong to the same group. The fructification of the two latter leaves little room for doubting their position, whilst the foliage of some other species of Sphenopteris is suggestive of similar conclusions; but, until their fructification is discov- ered, this cannot bedetermined. An elegant form of Sphenopteris (S. tenella, Brong.; S. lanceolata of Gut- bier), recently described by Mr. Kidson of Stirling, abundantly justifies caution in dealing with these Sphenopterides. This plant possesses a true sphe- nopteroid foliage, but its fructification is that of a marattiaceous danaid. The sporangia are elongated vertically, and have the round terminal aperture of both the recent and fossil Danaiae, — a group of plants far removed from the hymenophyllaceous type of sphenopterid already referred to. Whether or not this Sphenopteris was really marat- tiaceous in other features than in its fruetification, is uncertain; but I think that we have indisputably got stems and petioles of Marattiaceae from the carbo- niferous strata. My friend M. Renault, and I, without being aware of the fact, simultaneously studied the Medullosa elegans of Colta. This plant was long regarded as the stem of a true monocotyledon, — a decision the accuracy of which was doubted first by Brongniart, and afterwards by Binney. M. Renault’s 1 Schimper, vol. 1. p. 408. 2 Jbid., p. 415, 7 “Sa y/? LJ SCIENCE. 531 memoir, and my part vii., appeared almost simulta- neously. We then found that we had alike deter- mined the supposed monocotyledon to be not only a fern, but to belong to the peculiarly aberrant group of the Marattiaceae. As yet we know nothing of its foliage and fructification. M. Grand-Eury has figured! a remarkable series of ferns from the coal-measures of the basin of the Loire, the sporangia of which exhibit marked resem- blanees to those of the Marattiaceae. This is espe- cially the case with his specimens of Asterotheca and Scolecopteris,? as also with his Peeopteris Marattiae- theea, P. Angiotheca, and P. Danaeaetheca; but there is some doubt as to the dehiscence of the sporangia of these plants: hence their marattiaceous character is not absolutely established. That the coal-measures contain the remains of ar- borescent ferns has long been known, especially from their abundance at Autun. In Lancashire I have only met with the stems or petioles of one species preserving their internal organization. The Rev. H. H. Higgins obtained stems that appear to have been tree-ferns from Ravenhead, in Lancashire; and it is probable that most of the plants included in the gen- era Psaronius, Caulopteris, and Protopteris, are also tree-ferns. There yet remains another remarkable group of ferns, the sporangia of which are known tous through the researches of M. Renault. In these the fertile pinnules are more or less completely transmuted into small clusters of oblong sporangia. In one case, M. Renault believes that he has identified these organs with a stem or petiole of a type not uncommon at Oldham and Halifax, belonging to Corda’s genus Zygopteris. Renault has combined this with some others to constitute his group of Botryopteridées, an altogether extinct and generalized type. This review shows, that whilst forms identifiable with the Hyme- nophyllaceae and Marattiaceae existed in the carbonif- erous epoch, and we find here and there traces of affinities with some other more recent types, most of the earboniferous ferns are generalized primeval forms, which only become differentiated into later ones in the slow progress of time. Equisetaceae and Asterophylliteae (Brongniart), Calamariae (Endlicher), Equisetineae (Schimper). — Confusion culminates in the history of this variously named group: hence the subject is a most difficult one to treat in a concise way. The confusion began when Brongniart separated the plants contained in the group into two divisions, one of which (Equisé- tacés) he identified with the living equisetums, and the other (Astérophyllitées) he regarded as being gymnospermous dicotyledons. To Schimper belongs the merit, as I believe it to be, of steadily resisting this division; nevertheless, paleobotanists are still 1 Flore carbonifére du Départment de la Loire et du centre de la France. 2 Loc. cit., tab. viii., figs. 1-5. * Psaronius Renaultii, Memoir vii., p.10; and Memoir xii., pl. iv., fig. 16. hese and other similar references are to my series of memoirs on the organization of the fossil plants of the coal- measures, published in the Philosophical transactions. 582 separated into two schools on the subject. Dawson, Renault, Grand-Eury, and Saporta adhere to the Brongniartian idea; whilst the British and German paleontologists have always adopted the opposite view, rejecting the idea that any of these plants were other than cryptogams. A fundamental feature of the entire group is in the fact that their foliar appendages, however mor- phologically and physiologically modified, are arranged in nodal verticils. This appears to be the only char- acteristic which the plants possess in common. Calamites and Calamodendron.— In his ‘ Prodrome’ (1828), and in his later ‘ Végétaux fossiles,’? Bron- gniart adopted the former of these generic names as previously employed by Suckow, Schlotheim, Stern- berg, and Artis. It was only in his ‘ Tableau des genres de végétaux fossiles’ (Dictionnaire universel d’his- toire naturelle, 1849) that he divided the genus, intro- ducing the second name to represent what he believed to be the gymnospermous division of the group. A long series of investigations, extending over many years, has convinced me that no such gymnospermous » type exists.! The same conclusion has more recently been arrived at by Vom c. M. D. Stur,? after studying many continental examples in which structure is preserved. What I regard as an error appears to have had an intelligible origin, — the fertile source of similar errors in other groups. Nearly all the Calamitean fossils found in shales and sandstones consist of an inorganic, superficially fluted substance, coated over with a thin film of structureless coal (see * Histoire des végétaux fossiles,’ vol. i. pl. 22); the latter being exactly moulded upon and following the outlines of the inorganic fluted cast that underlies it. Brongniart, and those who adopt his views, believe that the external surface of this coal-film exactly represents the corresponding exter- nal surface of the original plant: hence the conclu- sion was arrived at, that the plant had a very large central fistular cavity, surrounded by a very thin layer of cellular and vascular tissues, as in some living equisetums. On the other hand, Brongniart also obtained some specimens of what he primarily be- lieved to be Calamites, in which the central pith was surrounded by a thick layer of woody tissue arranged in radiating laminated wedges, separated by medul- lary rays. The exogenous structure of this woody zone was too obvious to escape his practised eye. But, not supposing it possible that any eryptogam could possess a cambium-layer and an exogenous mode of development, Brongniart came to the con- clusion that the thin-walled specimens found in the shales and sandstones were true Equisetaceae, those with the thick, woody cylinders being mere ex- ogens of another type. His conclusion that they were gymnosperms was a purely hypothetical one, since justified by no one feature of their organiza- tion. My researches, based upon a vast number of speci- mens of all sizes, from minute twigs little more than the thirtieth of an inch in diameter to thick stems 1 Memoirs i., ix., and xii. * Zur morphologie der calamarien. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 87. at least thirteen inches across, led me to the conclu- sion that we have but one type of calamite, and that the differences which misled Brongniart are merely due to variations in the mode of their preservation. It became clear to me that the outer surface of the coaly film in the specimens preserved in the shales and sandstones did not represent the outer surface of the living plant, but was only a fractional remnant of the carbon of that plant, which had undergone a complete metamorphosis. The greater part of what originally existed had disappeared, probably in a gas- eous state; and the little that remained, displaying no organic structure, had been moulded upon the under- lying inorganic cast of the medullary cavity. This cast is always fluted longitudinally, and constructed transversely at intervals of varying lengths. Both these features were due to impressions made by the organism upon the inorganic sand or mud filling the medullary cavity whilst it was in a plastie state, and which subsequently became more or less hardened; the longitudinal grooves being caused by the pressure of the inner angles of the numerous longitudinally vascular wedges, and the transverse ones partly by the remains of a cellular nodal diaphragm which crossed the fistular medullary cavity, and partly by a ‘centripetal encroachment of the vascular zone at each of the same points.” My cabinets contain an enormous number of sec- tions of these plants, in which the minutest details of their organization are exquisitely preserved. These specimens, as already observed, show their structure in every stage of their growth, —from the minutest twigs, to stems more than a foot in diameter. Yet. these various examples are all, without a solitary ex- ception, constructed upon one common plan. That plan is an extremely complicated one, —far too com- plex to make it in the slightest degree probable that it could co-exist in two such very different orders of plants as the Equisetaceae and the Gymnospermae. Yet, though very complex, it is, even in many of its minuter details, unmistakably the plan upon which © the living equisetums are constructed. The resem- blances are too clear, as well as too remarkable, in my mind, to leave room for any doubt on this point. The great differences are only such as necessarily resulted from the gradual attainment of the arbores- cent form so unlike the lowly herbaceous one of their living representatives. On the other hand, no living gymnosperm possesses an organization that in any solitary feature resembles that of the so-called Cala- modendra. The two haye absolutely nothing in common: hence the conclusion that these Calamo- dendra were gymnospermous plants is as arbitrary an assumption as could possibly be forced upon science, ~ —an assumption that no arguments derived from the merely external aspects of structureless specimens could ever induce me to accept. These Calamites exhibit a remarkable morphologi- cal characteristic, which presents itself to us here for the first time, but which we shall find reeurs in other paleozoic forms. Some of our French botani- 1 Memoirs i, and ix. + See Memoir i., pl. xxiy., fig. 10; and pl. xxvi., fig. 24. OcToBER 19, 1883. ] cal friends group the various structures contained in plants into several ‘ appareils,’ + distinguished by the functions which those structures have to perform. Amongst others, we find the ‘appareil de soutiens,’ embracing thosé hard, woody tissues which may be regarded as the supporting skeleton of the plant, and the ‘appareil conducteur,’ which M. van Tieghem describes as composed of two tissues,— ‘“‘le tissu eriblé qui transporte essentiellement les matiétres in- solubles, et le tissu vasculaire qui conduit l'eau et les substances dissoutes.’’ Without discussing the scien- tific limits of this definition, it suffices for my pres- ent purpose. In nearly all flowering plants these two ‘appareils’ are more or less blended, The support- ing wood-cells are intermingled in varying degrees with the sap-conducting vessels. It is so, even in the lower gymnosperms; and in the higher ones these wood-cells almost entirely replace the vessels. It is altogether otherwise with the fossil ceryptogams. The vascular cylinder in the interior of the Calamites, for example, consists wholly of barred vessels, a slight modification of the scalariform type so common in all eryptogams, No trace of the ‘appareil de soutiens’ is to be found amongst them. The vessels are, in the most definite sense, the ‘appareils conducteurs’ of these plants. No such absolutely undifferentiated unity of tissue is to be found in any living plants other than cryptogams. But these Calamites, when living, towered high intotheair. My friend and colleague, Professor Boyd Dawkins, recently assisted me in measuring one found in the roof of the Moorside colliery, near Ash- ton-under-Lyne, by Mr. George Wild, the very intelli- gent manager of that and some neighboring collieries. The flattened specimen ran obliquely along the roof, each of its two extremities passing out of sight, bury- ing themselves in the opposite sides of the mine. Yet the portion whieh we measured was thirty feet long; its diameter being six inches at one end, and four inches and a half at the other. The mean length of its internodes at its broader end was three inches, and at its narrower one an inch and a half. What the real thickness of this specimen was when all its tissues were present, we have no means of judging; but the true diameter of the cylinder represented by the fossil when uncompressed has been only four inches at one end of the thirty feet, and: two inches and a half at the other. Whatever its entire diam- eter when living, the vascular cylinder of this stem must have been at once tall and slender, and conse- quently must have required some ‘appareil de sou- tien’ such as its exogenous vascular zone did not supply. This was provided in a very early stage of growth by the introduction of a second cambium- layer into the bark; which, though reminding us of the cork-cambium in ordinary exogenous stems, pro- duced, not cork, but prosenchymatous cells.2_ In its youngest state, the bark of the Calamites was a very loose cellular parenchyma; but in the older stems much of this parenchyma became enclosed in the pro- senchymatous tissue referred to, and which appears 1 Van Tieghem, Traité de botanique, p. 679. » Memoir ix., pl. xx., figs. 14, 15, 18, 19, and 20. SCIENCE. 533 to have constituted the greater portion of the ma- tured bark. The sustaining skeleton of the plant, therefore, was a hollow cylinder, developed centrifu- gally on the inner side of an enclosing cambium- zone. That this cambium-zone must have had some protective periderm external to it, is obvious; but I have not yet discovered what it was like. We shall find a similar cortical provision for supporting lofty eryptogamous stems in the Lepidodendra and Sigil- lariae. The carboniferous rocks have furnished a large number of plants having their foliage arranged in verticils, and which have had a variety of generic names assigned to them. Such are Asterophyllites, Sphenophyllum, Annularia, Bechera, Hippurites, and Schizoneura. Of these genera, Sphenophyllum is distinguished by the small number of its wedge- shaped leaves ; and the structure of its stems has been described by M. Renault. Annularia is a peculiar form, in which the leaves forming each verticil, in- stead of being all planted at the same angle upon the central stem, are flattened obliquely nearly in the plane of the stem itself. Asterophyllites differs from Sphenophyllum chiefly in the larger number and in the linear form of its leaves. Some stems of this type have virtually the same structure! as those of Sphenophyllum,—a structure which differs widely from that of the Calamites, and of whfch, consequent- ly, these plants cannot constitute the leaf-bearing branches. But there is little doubt that true cala- mitean branches have been included in the genus Asterophyllites. I have specimens, for which I am indebted to Dr. Dawson, which I should unhesitat- ingly have designated Asterophyllites but for my friend’s positive statement that he detached them from stems of acalamite. Of the internal organiza- tion of the stems of the other genera named, we know nothing. It is a remarkable fact, that notwithstanding the number of young calamitean shoots that we haye ob- tained from Oldham and Halifax, in which the strue- ture is preserved, we have not met with one with the leaves attached. This is apparently due to the fact that most of the specimens are decorticated ones. We have a sufficient number of corticated specimens to show us what the bark was, but such specimens are notcommon. ‘They clearly prove, however, that their bark had a smooth, and not a furrowed, exter- nal surface. There yet remains for consideration the numerous reproductive strobili, generally regarded as belonging to plants of this class, Equisetinae. We find some of these strobili associated with stems and foliage of known types, as in Sphenophyllum;? but we know nothing of the internal organization of these sphe- nophylloid strobili. We have strobili connected with stems and foliage of Annularia,* but we are equally ignorant of the organization of these. So far as that 1 Memoir, part v., pl. i.-v.; and part ix., pl. xxi., fig. 82. * Lesquereux, Coal flora of Pennsylvania, pl. ii., fig. 687. ’ Ueber die fruchtiihren yon Annularia sphenophylloides. Von T. Sterzel. Zeitschr. d. deutschen geolog. gesellschaft., Jahrg. 1882. O84 organization can be ascertained from Sterzel’s speci- men, it seems to have alternating sterile and fertile bracts, with the sporangia of the latter arranged in fours, as in Calamostachys.! On the other hand, we are now very familiar with the structure of the Cala- mostachys Binneana, the prevalent strobilus in the caleareous nodules found in the lower coal-measures of Lancashire and Yorkshire. It has evidently been a sessile spike, the axial structures of which were trimerous2 (rarely tetramerous), having a cellular medulla in its centre. Its appendages were exact multiples of those numbers. Of the plant to which it belonged we know nothing. On the other hand, we have examples supposed to be of the same genus, as C. paniculata ® and C. polystachya,* united to stems with asterophyllitean leaves; but whether or not these fruits have the organization of C. Binneana, we are unable to say. \ We are also acquainted with the structure of the two fruits belonging to the genera Bruckmannia® and Volkmannia.* This latter term has long been very vaguely applied. There still remain the genera Stachannularia, Palaeostachya, Macrostachya, Cingularia, Huttonia, and Calamitina, all of which have the phyllomes of their strobili fertile and sterile, arranged in verticils, ‘and some of them display asterophyllitean foliage. But these plants are only known from structureless impressions. That all these curious spore-bearing organisms have close affinities with the large group of the equisetums cannot be regarded as certain; but several of them undoubtedly have peculiarities of structure suggestive of relations with the Calamites. This is especially observable in the longitudinal canals found in the central axis of each type, appar- ently identical with what I have designated the in- ternodal canals of the Calamites.’7 The position and structure of their vascular bundles suggest the same relationship, whilst in many the position of the spo- rangia and sporangiophores is eminently equiseti- form. Renault’s Bruckmannia Grand-Euryi and B. Decaisnei, and a strobilus which I described in 1870,§ exhibit these calamitean affinities very distinctly. One strobilus which I described in 1880° must not be overlooked. As is well known, all the living forms of esquisetaceous plants are isosporous. We only discover heterosporous vascular cryptogams amongst the Lycopodiaceae and the Rhizocarpae. My strobi- lus is identical, in every detailed feature of its organ- ization, with the common Calamostachys Binneana, 1 M. Renault has described a strobilus under the name of An- nularia longifolia, but which appears to me yery distinct from that genus. 2 Tt is an interesting fact, that transverse sections of the strobili of Lycopodium alpinum exhibit a similar trimerous arrange- ment, though differing widely in the positions of its sporangia. 8 Weiss, Abhandlungen zur geologischen specialkarte yon Preussen und Thiirinaischen Staaten, taf. xiii., fig 1. 4 Idem, taf. xvi., figs. 1, 2. 5 Renault, Annales de sciences naturelles, bot., tome iii., pl. iii. 6 Idem, pl. ii. 7 Memoiri. 8 Memoirs of the literary and philosophical society of Man- chester, 3d series, vol. iv. p. 248. 8 Memoir xi,, pl. liy., figs. 23, 24. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 37. excepting that it is heterosporous ; having microspores in its upper, and macrospores in its lower part, —a state of things suggestive of some link between the Equisetinae and the heterosporous Lycopodiaceae. Lycopodiaceae.— This branch of my subject sug- gests memories of a long conflict, which, though it is virtually over, still leaves here and there the ground- swell of astormy past. At the meeting of the Brit- ish association at Liverpool, in 1870, I first announced that a thick, secondary, exogenous growth of vascu- lar tissue existed in the stems of many carboniferous cryptogamic plants, especially in the calamitean and lepidodendroid forms. But at that time the ideas of M. Brongniart were so entirely in the ascendant, that my notions were rejected by every botanist pres- ent. Though the illustrious French paleontologist knew that such growths existed in Sigillariae and in what he designated Calamodendra, he concluded, that, de facto, such plants could not be cryptogams. Time, however, works wonders. Evidence has gradually accumulated, proving, that, with the conspicuous exception of the ferns, nearly every carboniferous eryptogam was capable of developing such zones of secondary growth. The exceptional position of the ferns still appears to be as true as it was when I first proclaimed their exceptional character at Liverpool. At that time I was under the impression that the secondary wood was only developed in such plants as attained to arboreal dimensions; but I soon after- wards discovered that it occurred equally in many small plants like Sphenophyllum, Asterophyllites, and _ other diminutive types. After thirteen years of persevering demonstration, these views, at first so strongly opposed, have found almost universal acceptance; nevertheless, there still remain some few who believe them to be erroneous ones. In the later stages of this discussion the botanical relations subsisting between Lepidoden- dron, Sigillaria, and Stigmaria, have been the chief themes of debate. In this country we regard the conclusion, that Stigmaria is not only a root, but the root alike of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, as settled beyond all dispute. Nevertheless, M. Renault and M. Grand-Eury believe that it is frequently a leaf- bearing rhizome, from which aerial stems are sent upwards. Jam satisfied that there is not.a shadow of foundation for such a belief. The same authors, along with their distinguished countryman the Mar- quis de Saporta, believe with Brongniart that it is possible to separate Sigillaria widely from Lepido- dendron. They leave the latter plant amongst the lycopods, and elevate the former to the rank of a gymnospermous exogen. I have in vain demon- strated the existence of a large series of specimens of the same species of plant, young states of which display all the essential features of structure which they believe to characterize Lepidodendron; whilst, in its progress to maturity, every stage in the devel- opment of the secondary wood, regarded by them as characteristic of a Sigillaria, can be followed step by step.1 Nay, more. My cabinet contains speci- mens of young dichotomously branching twigs, on 1 Memoir xi., plates xlvii.-lii. OcToBER 19, 1883.] which one of the two diverging branches has only the centripetal cylinder of the Lepidodendron, whilst the other has begun to develop the secondary wood of the Sigillaria.! The distinguished botanist of the Institut, Ph. van Tieghem, has recently paid some attention to the conclusions adopted by his three countrymen in this controversy, and has made an important advance upon those conclusions, in what I believe to be the right direction. He recognizes the lycopodiaceous character of the Sigillariae, and their close relations to the Lepidodendra ;? and he also accepts my demon- stration of the unipolar, and consequently lycopo- diaceous, character of the fibro-vascular bundle of the stigmarian rootlet,—a peculiarity of structure of which M. Renault has hitherto denied the existence. But along with these recognitions of the accuracy of my conclusions, he gives fresh currency to several of the old errors relating to parts of the subject to which he has not yet given personal attention. Thus he considers that the Sigillariae, though closely allied to the Lepidodendra, are distinguished from them by possessing the power of developing the centrifugal or exogenous zone of vascular tissue already referred to. He characterizes the Lepidodendra as having ‘un seul bois centripete,’ notwithstanding the absolute demonstrations to the contrary contained in my Me- moir xi. Dealing with the root of Sigillaria, which in Great Britain, at least, is the well-known Stigmaria fi- coides, following Renault, he designates it a ‘rhizome,’ limiting the term ‘root’ to what we designate the rootlets. He says, ‘‘Le rhizome des sigillaires a la méme structure que la tige aérienne, avec des bois primaires tantét isolés & la périphérie de la moelle, tant6t confluents au centre et en un ax plein; seule- ment les fasceaux libéro-ligneux secondaires y sont séparés par de plus larges rayons,”’ etc. Now, Stigmaria, being a root, and not a rhizome, contains no representative of the primary wood of the stem. This latter is, as even M. Brongniart so correctly pointed out long ago, the representative of the medullary sheath; and the fibro-vascular bundles which it gives off are all foliar ones, as is the case with the bundles given off by this sheath in all ex- ogenous plants. But in the Lepidodendra and Sigil- lariae, as in all living exogens, it is not prolonged into the root. In the latter, as might be expected a priori, we only find the secondary or exogenous vascular zone. Having probably the largest collection of sections of Stigmariae in the world, I speak un- hesitatingly on these points. M. van Tieghem further says, ‘La tige aérienne part d’un rhizome rameux trés-développé nommé Stigmaria, sur lequel s’insérent & la fois de petites feuilles et des racines parfois dichotomées.’’ I have yet to see a solitary fact justi- fying the statement that leaves are intermingled with the rootlets of Stigmaria. The statement rests upon an entire misinterpretation of sections of the fibro- vascular bundles supplying those rootlets, and an ignorance of the nature and positions of the rootlets themselves. More than forty years have elapsed since John Eddowes Bowman first demonstrated that 1 Memoir xi., pl. xlix., fig. 8. 2 Traité de botanique, p. 304. SCIENCE. 535 the Stigmariae were true roots; and every subsequent British student has confirmed Bowman’s accurate determination. M. Lesquereux informs me that his American ex- periences have convinced him that Sigillaria is lyco- podiaceous. Dr. Dawson has now progressed so far in the same direction as to believe that there exists a series of sigillarian forms which link the Lepido- dendra on the one hand with the gymnospermous exogens on the other. As an evolutionist, I am pre- pared to accept the possibility that such links may exist. They certainly do, so far as the union of Lepidodendron with Sigillaria is concerned. I have not yet seen any from the higher part of the chain that are absolutely satisfactory to me, but Dr. Daw- son thinks that he has found such. I may add, that Schimper and the younger German school have always associated Sigillaria with the Lycopodiaceae; but there are yet other points under discussion connected with these fossil lycopods. M. Renault affirms that some forms of Halonia are subterranean rhizomes, and the late Mr. Binney believed that Haloniae’ were the roots of Lepido- dendron. I am not acquainted with a solitary fact justifying either of these suppositions, and unhesi- » tatingly reject them. We haye the clearest evi- dence that some Haloniae, at least, are true terminal, and, as I believe, strobilus-bearing, branches of vari- ous lepidodendroid plants; and I see no reason whatever for separating Halonia regularis from those whose fruit-bearing character is absolutely deter- mined. Its branches, like the others, are covered throughout their entire circumference, and in the most regularly symmetrical manner, with leaf-scars, —a feature wholly incompatible with the idea of the plant being either a root or a rhizome. M. Renault has been partly led astray in this matter by misinter- preting a figure of a specimen published by the late Mr. Binney. That specimen being now in the mu- seum of Owens college, we are able to demonstrate that it has none of the features which M. Renault assigns to it. The large, round or oval, distichously arranged sears of Ulodendron have long stimulated discussion as to their nature. This, too, is now a well-under- stood matter. Lindley and Hutton long ago sug- gested that they were scars whence cones had been detached, —a conclusion which was subsequently sustained by Dr. Dawson and Schimper,! and which structural evidence led me also to support. The matter was set at rest by Mr. d’ Arey Thompson’s dis- covery of specimens with the strobili in situ. Only a small central part of the conspicuous cicatrix char- acterizing the genus represented the area of organic union of the cone to the stem. The greater part of that cicatrix has been covered with foliage, which, owing to the shortness of the cone-bearing branch, was compressed by the base of the cone. The large size of many of these biserial cicatrices on old stems has been due to the considerable growth of the stem subsequently to the fall of the cone. Our knowledge of the terminal branches of the 1 Memoir ii., p. 222. 536 large-ribbed Sigillariae is still very imperfect. Paleon- tologists who have urged the separation of the Sigil- lariae from the Lepidodendra have attached weight to the difference between the longitudinally ridged and furrowed external bark of the former plants, along which ridges the leaf-scars are disposed in vertical lines, and the diagonally arranged scars of Lepido- dendron. They have also dwelt upon the alleged absence of branches from the sigillarian stems. I think that their mistake, so far as the branching is concerned, has arisen from their expectation that the branches must necessarily have had the same vertically grooved appearance and longitudinal ar- rangement of the leaf-scars as they observed in the more aged trunks: hence they have probably seen the branches of Sigillariae without recognizing them. Personally, I believe this to have been the case. I further entertain the belief, that the transition from the vertical phyllotaxis, or leaf-arrangement, of the sigillarian leaf-scars, to the diagonal one of the Lepi- dodendra, will ultimately be found to be effected through the subgenus Fayularia, in many of which the diagonal arrangement becomes quite as conspicu- ous as the vertical one. This is the case even in Brongniart’s classic specimen of Sigillaria elegans, long the only fragment of that genus known, which preserved its internal structure. The fact is, the shape of the leaf-scars, as well as their proximity to each other, underwent great changes as lepidoden- droid and sigillarian stems advanced from youth to age. Thus Presl’s genus Bergeria was based on forms of lepidodendroid sears which we now find on the terminal branches of unmistakable lepido- dendra.! The phyllotaxis of Sigillaria, of the type of S. oceulata, passes by imperceptible gradations into that of Favularia. In many young branches the leaves were densely crowded together; but the ex- ogenous development of the interior of the stem, and its consequent growth both in length and thickness, pushed these scars apart at the same time that it in- creased their size and altered their shape. We see precisely the same effects produced upon the large. fruit-scars of Ulodendron by the same causes. The carboniferous lycopods were mostly arborescent; but some few dwarf forms, apparently like the modern Selaginellae, have been found in the Saarbriicken coal-fields. Many, if not all, the arborescent forms produced secondary wood by means of a cambium- layer, as they increased in age. In the case of some of them,? this was done in a very rudimentary man- ner; nevertheless, sufficiently so to demonstrate what is essential to the matter, viz., the existence of a cambium-layer producing ‘ centrifugal growth of sec- ondary vascular tissue.’ As already pointed out in the case of the Calamites, the vascular axis of these Lepidodendra was purely an ‘appareil conducteur,’ unmixed with any wood- cells: hence the ‘appareil de soutien’ had to be sup- plied elsewhere. ‘This was done as in the Calamites: a thick, persistent, hypodermal zone of meristem* ' See Memoir xii., pl. xxxiv. 2 KE. g. L. Harcourtii, Memoir ix., pl. xlix., fig. 11. % Memoir ix., pl. xxv., figs. 93, 94, 98, 99, 100, and 101. SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 37. developed a layer of “prismatic prosenchyma of enor- mous thickness,! which incased the softer structures in a strong cylinder of self-supporting tissue. We have positive evidence that the fructification of many of these plants was in the form of heterosporous strobili. Whether or not such was the case with all the Lepidostrobi, we are yet unable to determine; but the incalculable myriads of their macrospores, seen in so many coals, afford clear evidence that the heterosporous types must have preponderated vastly over all others. : Gymnosperms. — Our knowledge of this part of the carboniferous vegetation has made great progress dur- ing the last thirty years. This progress began with my own discovery? that all our British Dadoxylons possessed what is termed a discoid pith, such as we see in the white jasmine, some of the American hickories, and several other plants. At the same time, I demonstrated that most of our objects hitherto known as Artisias and Sternbergias were merely inorganic casts of these discoid medullary cavities. Further knowledge of this genus seems to suggest that it was not only the oldest of the true conifers in point of time, but also one of the lowest of the conif- erous types. Cycads. —The combined labors of Grand-Eury, Brongniart, and Renault, have revealed the unexpect- ed predominance in some localities of a primitive but varied type of cycadean vegetation. Observers have long been-familiar with certain seeds known as Trig- onocarpons and Cardiocarpons, and with large leaves to which the name of Noeggerathia was given by Sternberg. All these seeds and leayes have been tossed from family to family at the caprice of difter- ent classifiers, but, in all cases, without much knowl- edge on which to base their determinations. The rich mass of material disinterred by M. Grand-Eury at St. Etienne, and studied by Brongniart and M. Renault, has thrown a flood of light upon some of these objects, which now prove to be primeval types of cycadean vegetation. Mr. Peach’s discovery of a specimen demonstrating that the Antholithes Pitcairniae® of Lindley and Hutton was not only, as these authors anticipated, ‘the inflorescence of some plant,’ but that its seeds were the well-known Cardiocarpons, was the first link in an important chain of new evidence. ‘Then fol- lowed the rich discoveries at St. Etienne, where a profusion of seeds, displaying wonderfully their inter- nal organization, was brought to light by the energy of M. Grand-Eury; which seeds M. Brongniart soon pronounced to be cycadean. At the same time I was obtaining many similar seeds from Oldham and Burntisland, in which, also, the minute organiza- 1 Memoir xi., pl. xlviii., fig. 4.77’; Memoir ii., pl. xxix., fig. 42k; Memoir iii., pl. xliii., fig. 17. 2 On the structure and affinities of the plants hitherto known as Sternbergias. Memoirs of the literary and philosophical society of Manchester, 1851. M. Renault, in his Structure comparée de quelques tiges de la flore carbonifére, p. 285, has erroneously at- tributed this discovery to Mr. Dawes, including my illustration from the jasmine and juglans. Mr. Dawes’ explanation was @ very different one. * Fossil flora. p, 82. OcTOBER 19, 1883.] tion was preserved. Dawson, Newberry, and Les- quereux have also shown that many species of similar seeds, though with no traces of internal structure, occur in the coal-measures of North America. Equally important was the further discovery by M. Grand-Eury, that the Antholithes, with their cardi- ocarpoid seeds, were but one form of the monocli- nous catkin-like inflorescences of the Noeggerathiae, now better known by Unger’s name of Cordaites. These investigations suggest some important con- clusions. 1°. The vast number and variety of these cyeadean séeds, as well as the enormous size of some of them, are remarkable, showing the existence of an abundant and important carboniferous vegetation, of most of which no trace has yet been discovered other than these isolated seeds. 2°. Most of the seeds exhibit the morphological peculiarity of having a large cavity (the ‘cavité pollinique’ of Brongniart) between the upper end of the nucelle and its invest- ing episperm, and immediately below the micropile of the seed. That this cavity was destined to have the pollen-grains drawn into it, and be thus brought into direct connection with the apex of the nucelle, is shown by the various examples in which such grains are still found in that cavity.) 3°. M. Grand-Eury has shown that some of his forms of Cordaites pos- sessed the discoid or Sternbergiar pith which I had previously found in Dadoxylon. And, lastly, these Cordaites prove that a diclinous form of vegetation existed at this early period in the history of the flow- ering plants, but whether in a monoecious or a dioe- cious form we have as yet no means of determining. Their reproductive structures differ widely from the true cones borne by most cycads at the present day. Conifers. —It has long been remarked that few real cones of conifers have hitherto been found in the carboniferous rocks, and I doubt if any such have yet been met with. Large quantities of the woody _ Stems now known as Dadoxylons have been found, both in Europe and America. These stems present a true coniferous structure, both in the pith, medul- lary, sheath-wood, and bark.2 The wood presents one very peculiar feature: its foliar bundles, though in most other respects exactly like those of ordinary conifers, are given off, not singly, but in pairs.? I have only found this arrangement of double foliar bundles in the Chinese gingko (Salisburia adianti- folia).* This fact is not unimportant when connected with another one. Sir Joseph Hooker long ago ex- pressed his opinion that the well-known Trigono- carpons® of the coal-measures were the seeds of a conifer allied to this Salisburia. The abundance of the fragments of Dadoxylon, combined with the readiness with which cones and seeds are preserved in a fossil state, makes it probable that the fruits belong- ing to these woody stems would be so preserved; but of cones we find no trace, and, as‘ we discover no * Memoir viii., pl. ii., figs. 70 and 72. Brongniart, Recherches sur les graines fossiles silicifices, pl. xvi., figs. 1, 2; pl. xx., fig. 2. ? Dr, Dawson finds the discoid pith in one of the living Cana- dian conifers. * Memoir viii., pl. Iviii., tig. 48; and pl. ix., figs. 44-46. * Memoir xii., pl. xxxili., figs. 28, 29. * Memoir viii., figs. 94-115. a SCIENCE. 537 other plant in the carboniferous strata to which the Trigonocarpons could with any probability have be- longed, these facts afford grounds for associating them with the Dadoxylons. These combined reasons —viz., the structure of the stems with their character- istic foliar bundles, and the gingko-like character of the seeds — suggest the probability that these Dadoxy- lons, the earliest of known conifers, belonged to the Taxineae, the lowest of these coniferous types, and of which the living Salisburia may perhaps be re- garded as the least advanced form. Thus far our attention has been directed only to plants whose affinities have been ascertained with such a degree of probability as to make them avail- able witnesses, so far as they go, when the question of vegetable evolution is sub judice. But there re- main others, and probably equally important ones, respecting which we have yet much to learn. In most cases we have only met with detached portions of these plants, such as stems or reproductive struc- tures, which we are unable to connect with their other organs. ‘The minute tissues of these plants are pre- served in an exquisite degree of perfection: hence we are able to affirm, that, whatever they may be, they differ widely from every type that we are acquainted with amongst living ones. The exogenous stems or branches from Oldham and Halifax which I described under the name of Astromyelon,! and of which amuch fuller description will be found in my forthcoming Memoir xii., belong to a plant of this description. The remarkable conformation of its bark obviously indicates a plant of more or less aquatic habits, since it closely resembles those of Myriophyllum, Marsilea, and a number of other aquatic plants belonging to va- rious classes. But its general features suggest nearer affinities to the latter genus than to any other. An- other very characteristic stem is the Heterangium Grievii,? only found in any quantity at- Burntisland, but of which we have recently obtained one or two small specimens at Halifax. ‘This plant displays an abundant supply of primary, isolated, vascular bun- dies, surrounded by a very feeble development of secondary vascular tissue. Still more remarkable is the Lyginodendron Oldhamium,? a stem not wncom- mon at Oldham, and not unfrequently found at Halifax. Unlike the Heterangium, its primary vas- cular elements are feeble, but its tendency to develop secondary zylem is very characteristic of the plant. An equally peculiar feature is seen in the outermost layer of its cellular bark, which is penetrated by in- numerable longitudinal laminae of prosenchymatous tissue, which is arranged in precisely the same way as is the hard bast in the lime and similar trees, affording another example of the introduction into the outer bark of the ‘ appareil de soutien.’ As might have been anticipated from this addition to the bark, this plant attained arborescent dimensions, very large ' Memoir ix., in which I only described decorticated speci- mens. Messrs. Cash and Heik described a specimen in which the peculiar bark was preserved under the name of Astromyelon Williamsonis. See Proceedings of the Yorkshire polytechnic so- ciety, vol. vii. part iv., 1881. * Memoir iil. ® Ibid. 5388 fragments of sandstone casts of the exterior surface of the bark! being very abundant in most of the lead- ing English coal-fields. Corda also figured it? from Radnitz, confounding it, however, with his lepido- dendroid Sagenaria fusiformis, with which it has no true affinity. Of the smaller plants of which we know the structure, but not the systematic position, I may mention the beautiful little Kaloxylons.2 We have also obtained a remarkable series of small spherical bodies, to which I have given the provis- ional generic name of Sporocarpon.? Their external wall is multicellular: hence they cannot be spores. Becoming filled with free cells, which display various stages of development as they advance to maturity, we may infer that they are reproductive structures. Dr. Dawson informs me that he has recently obtained some similar bodies, also containing cells, from the Devonian beds of North and South America. Except in calling attention to some slight resemblance exist- ing between my objects and the sporangiocarps of Pilularia,® I have formed no opinion respecting their nature. Dr. Dawson has pointed out that his speci- mens, also, are suggestive of relations with the Rhizo- carpae. Iam unwilling to close this address without mak- ing a brief reference to the bearing of our subject up- on the question of evolution. Various attempts have been made to construct a genealogical tree of the vegetable kingdom. That the cryptogams and the gymnosperms made their appearance, and continued to flourish on this earth, long prior to the appearance of the monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous flow- ering plants, is, at all events, a conclusion justi- fied by our present knowledge, so far as it goes. Every one of the supposed palms, aroids, and other monocotyledons, has now been ejected from the lists of carboniferous plants, and the Devonian rocks are equally devoid of them. The generic relations of the carboniferous vegetation to the higher flowering plants found in the newer strata have no light thrown upon them by these paleozoic forms. These latter do afford us a few plausible hints respecting some of their cryptogamic and gymnospermous descendants, and we know that the immediate ancestors of many of them flourished during the Devonian age; but here our knowledge practically ceases. Of their still older genealogies, scarcely any records remain. When the registries disappeared, not only had the grandest forms of cryptogamic life that ever lived attained théir highest development, but’ even the yet more lordly gymnosperms had become a widely diffused and flourishing race. If there is any truth in the doctrine of evolution, and especially if long periods of time were necessary for a world-wide development of lower into higher races, a terrestrial vegetation must have existed during a vast succession of epochs, ere the noble lycopods began their prolonged career. Long prior to the carboniferous age they had not only made this beginning, but during that age they had diffused themselves over the entire earth. We find 2 Flora der vorvelt, tab. 6, fig. 4. 4 Memoirs ix., x. 1 Memoir iy., pl. xxvii. 5 Memoir vii. 5 Memoir ix., p. 348. SCIENCE. (Vou. IL, No. 37.. them equally in the old world and in the new. We discover them from amid the ice-clad rocks of Bear Island and Spitzbergen to Brazil and New South Wales. Unless we are prepared to concede that they were simultaneously developed at these remote cen- tres, we must recognize the incalculable amount of time requisite to spread them thus from their birth- place, wherever that may have been, to the ends of the earth. Whatever may have been the case with the southern hemisphere, we have also clear evidence that in the northern one much of this wide distribu- tion must have been accomplished prior to the Deyo- pian age. What has become of this pre-Devonian flora? Some contend that the lower cellular forms of plant-life were not preserved, because their delicate tissues were incapable of preservation. But why should this be the case? Such plants are abundant- ly preserved in tertiary strata: why not equally in paleozoic ones? The explanation must surely be sought, not in their incapability of being preserved, but in the operation of other causes. But the carboniferous rocks throw another impediment in the way of constructors of these genealogical trees. Whilst carboniferous plants are found at hundreds of separate localities, widely distributed over the globe, the number of spots at which these plants are found displaying any internal structure is extremely few. It would be difficult to enumerate a score of such spots; yet each of those favored localities has re- vealed to us forms of plant-life of which the ordina- ry plant-bearing shales and sandstones of the same localities show no traces. It seems, therefore, that, whilst there was a general resemblance in the more conspicuous forms of carboniferous vegetation from the arctic circle to the extremities of the southern hemisphere, each locality had special forms that flourished in it either exclusively, or at least abun- dantly, whilst rare elsewhere. It would be easy, did time allow, to give many proofs of the truth of this | statement. Ourexperiences at Oldham and Halifax, at Arran and Burntisland, at St. Etienne and Autun, tell us that such is the case. If these few spots which admit of being searched by the aid of the microscope have recently revealed so many hitherto unknown treasures, is it not fair to conclude that corresponding novelties would have been furnished by all the other plant-producing localities, if these plants had been preserved in a state capable of being similarly inves- tigated? Ihave no doubt about this matter: hence I conclude that there is a vast variety of carbonif- erous plants of which we have as yet seen no traces, but every one of which must have played some part, however humble, in the development of the plant races of later ages. We can only hope that time will bring these now hidden witnesses into the hands of future paleontologists. Meanwhile, though far from wishing to check the construction of any legitimate hypothesis calculated to aid scientifie inquiry, I would remind every too ambitious student that there is a haste that retards rather than promotes progress, that arouses opposition rather than produces conyic- tion, and that injures the cause of science by dis- crediting its advocates. OcTOBER 19, 1883.] LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Greenland geology. In the seventh volume of Heer’s Flora fossilis arctica, just issued, my distinguished colleagues, Pro- fessor Heer of Zurich, and Herr K. F. V. Steenstrup of Copenhagen, seem to be at cross purposes with me, regarding the positions and Eskimo names of the localities where the collections of fossil plants discov- ered by'us were obtained; Mr. Steenstrup giving the spot one name, and I another, while, owing to this misapprehension, the exact latitude of at least one place is differently entered in our respective papers. For instance: we apply the name of ‘ Kudlisaet’ (Kit- ludsat) to spots at considerable distances from each other, and do not quite understand the same place by the word ‘ Unartok.’ Heer, who has, however, never been in Greenland, notes (p. 203) that “nach Steen- strup fillt Ujarasuksumitok von R. Brown (Flora foss. arct., ii. p. 452) mit Unartok zusammen und der Name beruht auf missverstindniss.”” Again: Steenstrup, in the admirable memoir appended to Heer’s work, mentions that ‘Brown zufolge l. c. [Philosophical transactions, 1869, p. 445, and Trans- actions of the geological society of Glasyow, vol. v. p. 36], war es hier [at Unartok], dass er und Whymper im jahr 1867 versteinerungen sammelten. Meines erachtens riiht der name Browns ‘ Uiarasuksumi- tok’ von dem umstande her, dass der Grénlander ihn missverstanden und geglaubt hat, dass er gefragt wirde, woher er (der Groénlander) wiire, worauf er eine antwort gab, die ungefihr bedeutet ‘Ich bin aus Ujaragsugsuk’’’ (p. 247). I do not doubt fora moment that Mr. Steenstrup may be right; and his general accuracy forbids me to assert that he is wrong. My acquaintance with Danish was in 1867 (as it is still) trifling, while of Eskimo I was all but igno- rant. And even with the greatest care, it is always difficult to arrive at the exact designation of localities in Greenland. However, Mr. Tegner, who accom- panied us, was familiar with Eskimo, and of course, as a Dane, with Danish; and the names attached to my map and paper referred to were arrived at, after repeated cross-questioning of our native boatmen, and of Paulus, the intelligent Eskimo. catechist at Ounartok (Unartok), who wrote them down in a note-book, at present before me. Curiously enough, in a note in the hand-writing of the late Chevalier Olrick, so many years governor of North Greenland, the place is called ‘ Ujarasaksumitok,’ which natu- rally led me to believe that this was a synonyme of Ujaragsugsuk, under which name it is also desig- nated by Dr. Rink, in my edition of Danish Green- land (p. 349). ‘Ritenbenks Kolbroff’ I regarded as the same place as Unartok, for there coal was being mined; while Steenstrup seems to consider it the same as Kudlisaet. The latter spot, after a series of very careful, and, I am certain, accurate, meridian altitudes, I place in Lat. 70° 5’ 35” N., while Nares puts the Ritenbenk coal-mine, so called (Kudlisaet), in Lat, 70° 3’ 4”, which convinces me that this spot is what I took to be Unartok. At my Kudlisaet there was, in 1867, no coal being dug. Anyhow, in the ‘Geological notes on the Noursoak Peninsula, Disco Island, ete.’ (Trans. geol. soc. Glasgow, vol. v. p. 55), I have so fully described these localities, that no future explorer can mistake them. But as many may see Heer’s work who may not be able to con- sult my humbler brochure, I ask permission to make these explanations in the columns of a scientific journal, which, as the mouthpiece of American geologists, takes cognizance of far-away Greenland also. Moreover, as one might suppose, from Mr. i a: i SCIENCE. 539 Steenstrup’s (inadvertently, no doubt) mentioning that Nares and I differed two minutes and thirty-one seconds (2’ 31”) in our latitudes of ‘Ritenbenks Kohlenbruch,’ that there was some inexcusable roughness in the use of the sextant and artificial horizon, while in reality we observed at two totally different places, the matter is, though not of great scientific or geographical importance, in a manner personal to myself, if not to Sir George Nares, ROBERT Brown. Streatham, London, Eng., Sept. 24, 1883. Human proportion. In a review of my lecture on ‘Human proportion in art and anthropometry’ (Screncr, ii. 354), the accuracy of certain statements contained therein is questioned, Permit me space for a brief reply. The critic says that the implement in the hand of the Egyptian figure is a crux ansata, the symbol of eternity, and not ‘a key.’ But M. Charles Blane, whose description I was quoting, says ‘la person- nage tient une clef de la main droite ;’ and the expres- sion is warranted, as it is, in its symbolical sense, spoken of by Egyptologists as ‘a key.’ His next assertion is, that the Doryphorus of Poly- kleitus was not, as I stated, ‘a beautiful youth in the act of throwing a spear,’ but a spear-bearer of the body-guard of the Persian king. The latter function- ary, however, wore a long robe, termed the ‘ candys,’ extending from the neck to the mid-leg, and could not have been selected for a model, which neces- sarily required a naked figure. Pliny (Hist. nat., xxxiv. 8) says, ‘Idem et Doryphorum viriliter puerum fecit,’ etec.; and many other allusions in classical writers confirm this view. The last and most surprising criticism is the state- ment that my assertion that prior to the time of Phidias, the face, hands, feet, ete., were carved in marble, and were fastened to a wooden block, is “a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the archaic Soava, or wooden statues, which in Greece preceded those made of stone or metal.’? Now, the Soavoy was simply a wooden statue. (Cf. Pausanias, Vii., 17, 2, rocdde qv ag’ Gy 72 Edava, ete.) It was suc. ceeded by a more elaborate invention, known as an acrolith, from dkpoc and Aifoc, stone-ends. Pausanias describes one of them (ix. 4): ‘“‘The statue of the goddess [the Plataean Athena of Phidias] is made of wood, and is gilt, except the face, and the ends of the hands and feet, which are of Pentelican stone.’? See also Quatremére de Quincy, Monuments et ouvrages d’art antiques, vol. ii., Restitution de la Minerve en or et ivoire de Phidias au Parthenon, pp. 63-123; also Miiller, Handbuch d. archaeol. d. kunst, § 84. Dr. William Smith states the case concisely (Dict. Gr. and Rom. mythol., vol. iii. p. 250): “Up to his [Phidias’s] time, colossal statues, when not of bronze, were acroliths ; that is, only the face, hands, and feet were of marble, the body being of wood, which was concealed by real drapery.”” RoBert FLETCHER. Washington, Oct. 8, 1883. [The most common of all the Egyptian symbols is an emblem in the form of ‘a handled eross,’ symbol- ical of ‘life;’ but both the nature of the object rep- resented, and the reason of the symbolism, are equally unknown. To call it ‘a key’ is certainly wrong, as the Egyptians had none ; and by archeologists it is usually designated by the conventional term ‘ cruz ansata.’s That the word ‘Doryphoros,’ ex vi termini, cannot mean ‘a youth in the act of throwing a spear,’ as Mr. - 40 Fletcher says, but simply a ‘spear-bearer,’ is what our criticism was intended to convey. Although it may be true enough that ‘prior to the time of Phidias, colossal statues, when not of bronze, were acroliths, our criticism was directed to the author’s broad assertion, which entirely ignored the existence of Sdava.] ‘ WRITER OF THE NOTICE OF ‘HUMAN PROPORTION.’ Geology of Philadelphia. Will Professor Henry Carvill Lewis state where the term ‘hydro-mica-slate’ is used by H. D. Rogers, or in that portion of the report on Chester county writ- ten by the undersigned? The word occurs seven times in the Lancaster county report; but in every case except the italics on p- 10, which the reference on the ninth line below shows to be a misprint, it is used in the sense de- fined in my criticism, and not as an equivalent for hydro-mica-schist. As his defence of the use of the other terms alluded to does not meet the objections, no further remark is necessary. PERSIFOR FRAZER. Sept. 28, 1883. The chinch-bug in New York. We have the chinch-bug (Blissus leucopterus Say) in New York in formidable numbers. — Its appear- ance with us is of great interest, as hitherto the only record of its occurrence is that of Dr. Fitch, who, several years ago, saw three individuals of it upon willows in the spring. I had never before met with it in our state. Dr. Harris, you will remember, mentions having seen one example in Massachusetts. By'some manner it has been introduced here, and I can think of no way so probable as that it has been brought in a freight-car from the west. The locality of its occurrence is in St. Lawrence county, the most western of our northern counties. As it was for some time thought that the insect could not live north of 40° of latitude, this seems a strange locality for its first appearance. : , Its operations were first noticed in a field of timo- thy-grass last summer, but the depredator was not then discovered. This summer the infested area had largely extended, and, npon a more thorough search being made, it was found in myriads — could be scooped up, it is stated, by handfuls — among the roots of the living grass bordering the killed area. In the fields infested, the timothy, June, and ‘wire grass’ are completely killed, so that they are suc- ceeded the following season by thistles, weeds, and patches of clover. So far, it has not attacked wheat or corn, of which, however, very little is grown in St. Lawrence county. I have just visited the infested locality, and I find it to be a very serious attack. It is rapidly extending to other than the two farms upon which it was ob- served last year, and it in all probability exists in many places where it has not yet been detected. Great alarm is felt throughout the district invaded, as the timothy-grass is the foundation of the grazing interests of that region. Clover, owing to the sever- ity of the winters, cannot be grown to any extent. The most threatening feature of the attack is, that it has continued to increase, notwithstanding that this year and the preceding have both been unusu- ally wet in northern New York. Garden-crops were killed by the heavy and continued rains; grass is ly- ing in the meadows, which could not be secured ; and so cold has the season been, that fields of dats are still unharvested. All writers have concurred in stat- ing that the chinch-bug could not endure cold and SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 37. wet seasons, and that heavy rains were invariably fatal to it. It really seems as if the new-comer was destined to be a permanent institution in the state. The farmers are aroused to the importance of do- ing what they can to arrest and repel the invasion. I have recommended that it be fought with that valu- able insecticide, kerosene-oil, emulsified and diluted; and, if generally used the ensuing spring, I have great faith in its proving efficient. J. A. LINTNER. Oflice of the state entomologist Albany, Oct. 9, 1583, Ziphius on the New-Jersey coast. A telegram was received at the Smithsonian institu- tion on the 3d inst. from the keeper of the life-saving station at Barnegat City, N.J., announcing the strand- ing of a large cetacean at that place. Professor Baird immediately despatched the writer and a prep- arator from fhe museum to take charge of the speci- men. On arriving at Barnegat City, I immediately perceived that we had to do with an example of an aged female of an interesting ziphioid whale; and, when the skull was cut out, it became evident that the animal was of the genus Ziphius. The specimen measures 19 feet 4 inches in length, and was appar- ently of a light stone-gray color, darkest on the belly. This disposition of color is unusual in cetaceans. The species is probably Z. cavisortris. Mr. Palmer and myself succeeded in making a plaster mould of half the exterior, and in cutting out the complete skeleton. The genus Ziphius has not, I believe, been hitherto recorded as occurring in the north-western Atlantic. Freprrick W. TRUE, Curator of mammals. U. 8. national museum, Oct. 11, 1833. THE DE LONG RECORDS The voyage of the Jeannette. The ship and ice jour- nals of George W. De Long, Lieut.-commander U.S.N., and commander of the polar expedition of 1879-81. Edited by his wife, Emma [JANE Wotton] Dr Lone. 2vols. Boston, Houghton, Mifjlin, § Co., 1883. 12+911 p., illustr. 8°. Tue voyage of the Jeannette, owing to its connection with a great newspaper, has become, in its general features, familiar to all. The courage, endurance, and patience with which the members of the party met pain, peril, pri- vation, and even death, will always remain a conspicuous example of manly quality. This expedition, however, was unique in several of its features, which should be taken into account in any judgment rendered upon its results. It was not an expedition for scientific research in the arctic regions. It was not scientifically planned. It had, so far as can be learned from the documents, no programme. Of its members, but two, a civilian and a seaman, had had any experience of an arctic winter; none had made any serious study of the physi- cal conditions of the polar area; and, without 1 For the woodcuts illustrating this article, the editor is in- debted to the publishers of the work, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, Co. or<, OcToBER 19, 1883.] disrespect, it may be said, that, with the possi- ble exception of two civilians, there was no one on board whose scientific acquirements rose above the daily needs of the intelligent practice of his profession. The object of the expedition, as far as may be surmised from the circumstances made public, seems to have been to determine what would be the result of a set-to between the arctic pack, cold and starvation on the one hand, and a shipful of inexperience and ‘ pure grit’ on the other. The result is now known; and the innocent confidence with which both promoter and ex- plorer undertook the task is one of the extraor- dinary features of this melancholy history. Under the circumstances, it is well that Mrs. De Long has made public her husband’s records of SCIENCE. 541 the course of the expedition, showed no serious deficiencies. On the whole, then, well provided, and with much popular approbation and sym- pathy, the expedition departed on the 8th of July, 1879, from San Francisco. i a aside and furnish entertaining reading for the unbotanical. We can scarcely blame them for thus neglecting the great outside world, when the small world of the classroom required all their time and strength; and yet we cannot help feeling that it would have been better for the botanists, as well as for botany itself, had they compelled themselves to find time for those lighter works which have, in other countries, been at once the recreation of the scientific man and the pleasure of the general reader. In the work before us we have an example of what may be done in the way of putting the main facts of biological botany before the un- botanical in plain and easy English, and in such a way as to be attractive and interesting. We wish its English author were an American ; but, that being an impossibility, it is most gratifying that the Messrs. Holt have brought out so neat an American edition. ; It is, of course, to be expected that there is nothing new botanically in,such a book; so that those who are fairly well equipped with a knowledge of recent botanical literature need not take it up in the hope of gleaning any new facts. It is only what its titlepage indicates, an aggregation of popular papers on some of the phenomena of botany. They are not pro- found, nor are they so arranged as to present themselyes as a series of connected lessons. They are rather like lightly drawn sketches, — now of this interesting view of a portion of the plant-world, and now of that. Thus we have a chapter on microscopic plants, another on plant structure and growth, one on the ferti- lization of flowers, followed by others on pred- atory plants, remarkable flowers and leaves, and about a fern. Then we have the follk-lore of plants, plants and animals, mosses and lichens, ete. So the chapters (fourteen in all) run on through the book, there being a de- lightful alternation of the structural with those which deal with sentimental or poetical con- siderations. Considering the nature of the book, the errors are remarkably few. Here and there, A pre an ied b OcTOBER 19, 1883.] however, are statements which ought to be changed in a second edition. The Zygnemae - are erroneously described as producing zo- ospores (p. 5),—a statement true enough of their relatives the Confervae, but not of any of the Zygnemae. Of roots it is said positive- ly (in italies, p. 29) that ‘ they are never green,’ which, to say the least, is a strong statement. On p. 34 we find that ‘‘in some plants the calyx or corolla is entirely wanting, in which case the floral covering is called the perianth,’’ which is certainly not in accordance with ordinary usage. On the same page the stigma is curious- ly described as ‘ the surface of the style.’ The Equiseta are not leafless, as they are said to be on p. 164. Their leaves are small, it is true ; but certainly the whorls of united leaves at each joint are evident enough to even the casual observer. ‘The formation of the zygo- SCIENCE. 545 spore in Mucor is not correctly given on p. 184, where it is described as resulting from the union of two aerial hyphae. On p. 192, in deseribing the fly fungus, the reader is given the impression that a mycelium upon a surface (as a window-pane) attacks its hapless vic- tim, the fly, which, when dead, is said to be ‘* standing upon a mat of delicate silk threads spread upon the glass.’’ Fig. 21 (repeated in fig. 143) is erroneous in showing the hyphae of the potato fungus to be septated. Fig. 104 is said to show the antheridia of a moss; but certainly no such organs are visible in the cut given. In spite of the slips noted above, and others which we may well pass over, the little book is a pleasant one to read, and we feel sure that it will receive a hearty welcome from plant- lovers everywhere. WEEKLY SUMMARY OF THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. ASTRONOMY. Saturn’s rings. —Enoke’s division in the outer ring of Saturn has been examined by M. Schiaparelli, who finds that the position and lack of symmetry are the same as previously noticed, but the line is broader, and more diffused than in 1881. He thinks the phenomenon is variable, and accounts for it by supposing the middle of the ring to be thinner, and by the change of orbit of the particles composing it. He also examined carefully the region about the inner bright ring and the dark ring. At times O. Struve’s division was seen very distinctly, and on other occasions very faintly. More observations are necessary to determine whether the phenomenon is variable. — (Observ., Aug. ; Astr. nachr., 2,521.) M. Men, [289 The great comet of 1882.— Mr. Maxwell Hall shows the possible identity of the great comet of 1882, the comets of 1880, 1843, and 1668, with a comet which appeared B.C. 370, and which was said to have separated into two parts. The orbits of all are nearly identical. Taking a period not greatly different from that given by Prof. Frisby for the comet of 1882, he identifies the comets of B.C. 370 and A.D. 1843 with one which was seen in 1106. No comet is recorded for A.D. 368. The comets of 1880 and 1882 may pos- sibly be identical with two which appeared in 1131 and 1132, and with the second part of the comet of B.C. 370. If this is the case, this comet also prob- ably separated into two parts at its unrecorded ap- pearance in A.D. 381 or 382. We already have an instance of this separation in Biela’s comet; and the comet of 1882 gave evidence, to a certain extent, that a process of disintegration was going on. —(Observ., Aug.) M. MeN. [290 f . ... Te Cn em / PHYSICS. Electricity. Atmospheric electricity.— Dr. L. J. Blake has found that no convection of electricity takes place by the rising vapor from a charged liquid surface, to which he gave a potential due to from four to five hundred Daniells cells. The plate placed in the track of the vapors was, in the different experiments, either colder than the vapor, or of the same temperature. By connecting the liquid with the electrometer, he finds a small negative charge, increasing during the fifteen minutes which each experiment lasted, but not suffi- ciently to justify the statement that electricity is gen- erated by evaporation. In all the work, the lamp was removed before connecting with the electrometer; and the whole apparatus was within a metallic covering connected with the earth. Distilled water, sea-water from the North Sea, alcohol, dilute sulphuric acid, mercury, and solutions of a number of different salts, were tried. — (Ann. phys. chem., xix. 518.) [291 ENGINEERING. A new current-meter.— Mr. L. d’Auria pro- poses an apparatus for determining the mean velocity at any vertical in a stream, which apparatus consists of ascow, or pontoon, to be moored in the desired place; a pole with a pulley near each,end, carrying an endless cord; a light ball; and a species of net, or grillage. The pole is thrust to the bottom alongside the scow, at the point where the velocity is to be gauged; and the ball is lightly attached to the cord by a string, so as to be disengaged by a moderate pull when it reaches the pulley at the bottom. The time of the disengaging pull is noted, and also the time of the appearance of the ball at the surface. As the 546 floating grillage has previously been moored over this place, the ball is caught at the point of rising, and the horizontal distance of this point from the pole measured. Ience are known, upon measuring the depth, the two co-ordinates of the point at the surface from the bottom of the pole. The author proposes to weight the ball until it shall be one-half the heavi- ness of water. He deduces some equations to prove that the ball rises with a practically uniform velocity, and observes, that for a depth of 30 feet, from which such a ball would rise in about 11 seconds, and a mean velocity of current of 4 feet per second, the ball would travel horizontally about 44 feet.— (Amer. eng., Aug, 24.) ©. E.G. [292 CHEMISTRY. (Physical.) Determination of vapor density.—Br. Paw- lewsky proposes a modification of Dumas’ method in which he uses a globe of 20-30 cubic centimetres vol- ume. After heating, the globe is closed by a rubber ‘cap, which is fitted to a cylindrical tube of glass sealed at one end.. The volume is therefore constant for different determinations, and the observations may be taken in a room of nearly constant tempera- ture. In the formula of Dumas, — _ 0.0012932. V. Bo I m= (i+ at) 760 ° (I.) where m is equal to the weight of air, the product 0.0012932 . V = K& would be constant. The value (1 + at) = Nis constant, and may be obtained from a table. If, then, the constant, KH, is divided by 760, a new constant, D, results, and (I.) becomes Lite By De = Fey a Ne (11) In a determination at any temperature, é,, and any pressure, B’o, if the weight of air in the apparatus is represented by n, its weight is shown in the formula _ 0.0012932 V (1+<«t’) By iia (1 + at) 760 es in which « represents the coefficient of expansion of the apparatus. If the temperature is constant, and the same apparatus is used in different determina- tions, the product 0.00129382 V (1+x«¢#’), and the whole denominator, become constant. Representing the denominator by R, and the product 0.0012932 V (IIL) M (1+ «¥t’) by M, the fraction ip C is constant, and. formula (III.) will take the form SM Bos C= an = The volume of air may therefore be obtained by multiplying the constant, C, by B’ reduced to B’o; and when the weight, a, of the vapor, and that of the air, n, under the same conditions, are known, the vapor density may be found by the formula a D=, CBG (1V.) (V.) The apparatus may be heated in a beaker of medium size, containing: water, oil, or paraffine. For a com- SCIENCE. [Vot. Il., No. 37 plete description of the apparatus, reference must be made to the original article. A series of determi- nations are given, which indicate a high degree of accuracy. — (Berichte deutsch. chem. gesellsch., xvi. 1293.) c.F.M. [293 GEOLOGY. Evidences of modern geological changes in Alaska.— Mr. T. Meehan exhibited a piece of wood taken from a prostrate tree which had been covered with glacial drift on a peninsula of Tlood’s Bay, Alaska, formed by the junction of Glacier Bay and Lynn Channel. The trunk, which lay under a block of granite estimated to measure 2,214 cubic feet, was quite sound, and exbibited no evidence of great age since it became covered. The shores are strewn with rocks and stones of various kinds, as usual in cases of glacial deposits. All the surroundings indicated that there had been a sudden subsidence of the land, accompanied by a flow of water with icebergs and huge bowlders, which crushed and tore off the trees, The whole surface was afterwards covered to a great. depth with drift. Since that time, there must have been an elevation of the land bringing the remains of trees to their original surface, but with a deep deposit above them. A study of the existing vegetation might afford an approximation to the time when these events occurred. The living forest indicated clearly that it could not have been, at the farthest, more than a few hundred years since the elevation occurred. The trees in the immediate vicinity, in- deed, were not more than fifty years old; but unless the original parent trees, which furnished the seed for the uplifted land, were near by, it might take some years for the seed to scatter from bearing trees, grow to maturity, again seed, and, in this way, be spread to where we now find them. But, as original forests were evidently not far distant, two or three hundred years ought to cover all the time required. The Indians of the region have a tradition of a terrible flood about seven or eight generations ago, from which only a few of the natives had escaped in a large canoe. The probable identity of the sunken trees with the present species, and the freshness of the wood, indicate no very great date backwards at. which the original subsidence occurred. In connection with the subject of the comparative- ly recent occurrence of great geological changes, as indicated by botanical evidence, Mr. Meehan referred to an exposure of the remains of a large forest near the Muir glacier, — one of five huge ice-fields which form the head of Glacier Bay between Lat. 59° and 60°. This glacier is at least two miles widevat the mouth, and has an average depth of ice, at this spot, of perhaps five hundred feet. At the present time there is not a vestige of arboreal vegetation to be seen in the neighborhood. The river which flows under the glacier rushes out ina mighty torrent afew miles above the mouth, and has cut its way through mountains of drift, the gorge being many hundred feet in width, and the sides from two hundred to five hundred feet high. The torrent, though the bed is now comparatively level, carries with it an im- mense quantity_of heavy stones, some of which must OcroBER 19, 1883.] have contained six or eight cubic feet. Along the sides of this gorge were the exposed trunks referred to, all standing perfectly erect, and cut off at about the same level. Some were but a few feet high, and others as much as fifteen, the difference arising from the slope of the ground on which the trees grew. The trunks were of mature trees in the main, and were evidently Abies Sitkensis, with a few of either Thuja gigantea or Juniperus, perhaps J. occidentalis. These trees must have been filled in tightly by drift to a height of fifteen feet before being cut off: other- wise the trunks now standing would have been split down on the side opposite to that which received the blow. The facts seemed to indicate that the many feet of drift which had buried part of the trees in the first instance were the work of a single season, and that the subsequent total destruction of every vestige of these great forests was the work of another one, soon following. As in the case of the facts noted in Hood's Bay, the conclusion was justified, that the total destruction of the forests, the covering of their site by hundreds of feet of drift, and the subsequent exposal of their remains, were all the work of a few hundred years, —(Acad. nat. sc. Philad.; meeting Aug. 28.) [294 MINERALOGY. Stibnite from Japan.— Within the last few months most remarkable specimens of stibnite from Mount Kosang, in southern Japan, have been received in America. For great size and beauty, as well as complexity of form, they rival all specimens of the same species from other localities, while the crystals have arrived at a degree of perfection rarely met with in metallic minerals. The crystals have been care- fully studied and fully described by E. S. Dana. Their great complexity of form is of the highest sci- entific interest. There had previously been identified on stibnite forty-five crystal planes. Of these, thirty have been observed on the Japanese crystals, and, in addition, forty new ones. The habit of the crystals is quite constant, being prismatic, elongated in the direction of the vertical axis, single crystals obtain- ing often a length of over twenty inches and a width of two inches. The prismatic planes are deeply striated. The crystals are usually terminated by a few polished pyramidal faces, They are usually quite simple in form; very complicated, large crystals oceurring only occasionally, while the more compli- cated ones are usually small, The planes in the zone between the brachypinacoid (010) and unit macro- dome (101) are those which ordinarily terminate the erystal. Another remarkable zone is between the brachypinacoid (010) and macrodome (203), consist- ing of ten planes, all but one of which are new, and as many as nine of which have been observed on a single crystal. A bending in the direction of the macrodiagonal axis is a feature of the crystals, and seems to be characteristic of the species. In the Japanese crystals this bending seems to be confined to the termination. A corkscrew-like twist has been observed in slender crystals. The lustre of the crys- tals is very remarkable, and is to be compared to highly polished steel, while the perfect brachy- K ; 4 a ; 7 SCIENCE. 547 pinacoidal cleavage yields a cleavage-surface of re- markable beauty. — (Amer. journ. sc., Sept., 1883.) 8. 1. PR. [295 GEOGRAPHY. ( Asia.) Railways in the Caspian region. — General Chernaieff, the governor of Turkestan, has recently gone over the route from Kungrad to the Caspian in person, and finds it well suited for vehicles. Even a railway between the delta of the Oxus and the Gulf © Mertvi-kuttuk has been talked of. The connection of Tiflis and Baku by rail is completed, and the jour- ney can now be made between the Black and Caspian seas in thirty hours without change. — (Comptes ren- dus soc. gévgr., June.) WwW. H. D. [296 Prjevalski's travels. — This indefatigable explor- er has just started for Kiachta, on the Siberian bor- der of China, in order to continue his researches in central Asia. On this occasion be will endeavor'to penetrate the north-west part of Thibet, without giving up his original idea of reaching Lassa, or at least as far as Batang or Tziamdo. He will have a well-armed escort of some twenty men, fully equipped for two years’ service. The publication of the third volume of his travels has just been finished. During these he has travelled 23,530 kilometres; topographi- cally sketched over 12,000 kilometres along his line of travel, in countries previously quite unknown; de- termined the altitude of 212 points, and the latitude of 48 localities; and has collected ten or twelve thou- sand specimens of animals and plants belonging to over two thousand species. — (Comptes rendus soc. géogr., June.) W. H. D. [297 (Africa.) Notes. —C. Doelter has ascended the Rio Grande as far as Futa Djallun, but was prevented from going farther east by a war among the natives. He believes that the Rio Grande has been incorrectly mapped, and doubts its alleged identity with the Tomani River. —— The English have annexed the Guinea coast from the right bank of the Mannah River toward the Liberian boundary-line,—a distance of eight leagues in a north-westerly direction; and the Portuguese government has ceded to England the fort of St. John de Ajuda, situated on the Dahomey coast. Ajuda, or Whydah, is situated a short distance from the coast, on a shallow lagoon. The port is a poor one, like all those on the Guinea coast; and there are very few white residents. It is said that the cession was contingent on the recognition, by England, of the acquired rights of Portugal on the Congo. —— Robert Flegel, during the past season, has discovered the source of the Binué, an afiluent from the east of the lower Niger, and also of the Logué, which discharges into Lake Chad. In this way he has been able to trace the watershed between the two basins, through a previously unexplored dis- trict. —— Hore has arrived at Ujijion Lake Tangan- yika, and proposes to establish a regular postal service on the lake, between the missionary and other sta- tions. —— Dr, Baxter has attempted an exploration of the country of the Massai adjacent to Mpuapua, 948 These people are extremely hostile to strangers, and his success, therefore, is problematical. The Mahdi, or false prophet, who has been menacing Khartum, is reported to have captured the traveller, G. Roth, who was sent out by the Geographical society of St. Gall, Switzerland, to explore the upper Nile. Yunker has succeeded in passing from the basin of the Nile to that of the Congo, and continues his explorations, while one of his party has returned with the collections made in the Niam-Niam country. ——Paul Soleillet writes from Ankober of his safe arrival at Shoa, the success of his journey, and his favorable reception by King Menelik IT., who governs all the population of Obok Shaffa and adjacent region with a firm rule. Menelik is favorable to trade with foreigners; and it is announced that he has been named by King John of Abyssinia as his successor, in default of direct heirs, to that kingdom. Soleillet has formed valuable collections, and has discovered wild coffee forming a dense undergrowth in the forest along the river Guébé, and indefinitely beyond. He reports the product of the wild plant to be of excel- lent quality. ——The abbé Trihidez, almoner of the army of occupation in Tunis, is reported to haye dis- covered at Susa some Phoenician stelae engraved in a rather artistic manner, and in a good state of pres- ervation. These records have been pronounced to be of great interest by such eminent specialists as Renan and Berger. ——M. Alphonse Aubry has forwarded to the Ministry of public instruction at Paris, reports on the geology of the English colony of Aden, which is situated in the horseshoe-shaped crater of an ex- tinct voleano, and on the French colony of Obok on the opposite shore of the Gulf of Aden. —— Gold has been found on the Kaap River in the Transvaal. Nuggets of half a pound in weight are reported. ary Oil has been ‘struck’ in Natal, near Dundee, and also large deposits of magnetic iron. A company has been formed at Pietermaritzberg to investigate these minerals. — W. H. D. [298 BOTANY. Thermotropism.— Julius Wortmann has recently shown that radiant heat falling upon a growing organ can cause curvatures either toward or away from the source of energy, and that the phenomena are in general much like those produced by light. His experiments are interesting, but are, as yet, incom- plete, leaving some questions which seem to us very important wholly unanswered. It is pretty clear, however, that hereafter we must add the words ‘posi- tive thermotropism’ and ‘negative thermotropism’ to the already long list of new terms. — (Bol. zeit., 1883, no. 29.) @.L. G. [299 On the growth of the epicotyl of Phaseolus multiflorus.— In a series of experiments published in 1878, Wiesner detected two maxima of growth characterizing the younger internodes of many plants, whereas Sachs (and more lately Wortmann) had recognized only one maximum. To satisfy himself of the correctness of his former observations, Wies- ner has repeated and extended the experiments. His results, derived from more than one hundred SCIENCE. [Vor. Il., No. 87. cases, show that in the plant named there are two distinct maxima of growth. The measurements were made with Grisebach’s auxanometer. — (Bot. zeit., 1883, no. 27.) G. L. G. [300 VERTEBRATES. Reptiles. Organ of Jacobson in Ophidia.— Born re- garded the cellular columns which form the greater part of the thickness of the roof of Jacobson’s organ as “die zellige ausftillungsmasse einfacher driisen von birnformiger configuration. Sie dicht an ein- ander gedrangt die ganze schleimhaut durchsetzen,” while Leydig believed them to be largely of gangli- onic nature. E. Ramsay Wright agrees with Leydig. He has studied the organ in Eutaenia (embryo and adult). In conelusion, he says, ‘‘From the above data I conclude that the cellular columns in the roof of Jacobson’s organ are outgrowths of the nuclear stratum of its neuro-epithelium, the polygonal form of which has been determined by the meshes of the capillary plexus, through which the outgrowths have taken place, and that in the course of development more and more of the cells of the nuclear stratum have been pushed outside the boundary formed by the capillary plexus, till eventually little but the superficial stratum is left inside that boundary.’? — (Zool. anz., vi. 389.) Cc. S. M. [SOL Mammals, The species of hogs.— M. Forsyth Major is con- vinced, from his study of the genus Sus, that the six- teen or seventeen species now recognized must be reduced to four; namely, Sus vittatus Mill. and Schleg., S. verrucosus M. and S., S. barbatus M. and S., and S. scrofa Linné. — (Zool. anz., vi. (140), 1883, 295.) F. w. T. [so2 Digestion of meats and milk. — Jessen has carried out a series of experiments to determine the time necessary for the digestion of equal quantities of different meats and of milk. Three different methods were employed in the investigation: 1. Arti- ficial digestion; 2. Introduction of the meats into the stomach of a living dog by means of a fistula; 3. Upon a healthy man, allowing him to swallow the foods used, and ascertaining the time of digestion by means of the stomach-pump. The results ob- tained by the different methods are, on the whole, uniform, as far as the relative time necessary for di- gestion in each case is concerned, and may be stated as follows: raw beef and mutton are digested most quickly; for half-boiled beef and raw veal, a longer time is necessary; thoroughly boiled and half-roasted beef, raw pork, and sour cow’s-milk follow next; fresh cow’s milk, skimmed milk, and goat’s milk are still less easily digested; while the longest time is required for thoroughly roasted meats and boiled milk, — (Zeitsch. f. biol., xix. 129.) Ww. H. H. [803 ANTHROPOLOGY. Iron in the mounds.— F. W. Putnam has had occasion to review some of the statements of the older writers on American archeology, — notably, Mr. OcToBER 19, 1883.] Atwater and Dr. Hildreth, — with reference to the occurrence of iron implements in the mounds. From these statements, such inferences as the following have been drawn: — The mound-builders understood working iron; they had intercourse with civilized peoples; the mounds were built since the arrival of the whites, or these iron objects belong to intrusive burials. Now, Mr. Putnam demolishes all these deductions at a single blow, by showing that none of the objects are iron. In other words, Mr. Atwater’s ‘‘ handle of eithera small sword or a large knife’’ was an antler, in one end of which a hole had been bored, and around this part was a band of silver. The blade was evidently of native, cold-hammered copper. Dr, Hildreth’s silver-plated ear-ornament is duplicated in some of our museums by a kind of plating, first described by Mr. Putnam. In this discussion, some light is thrown upon the spool-shaped copper objects that haye. been so longa puzzle to archeologists, by the finding of pieces of ‘leather’ between the plates, very closely resembling the skin from the ear of a Peruvian mummy. Important discoveries made dur- ing the last year, in mounds in Ohio, by Dr. C. L. Metz and Mr, Putnam, have brought to light a num- ber of copper ornaments, some of which are covered, or plated, with thin layers of silver. The investiga- tion shows us quite conclusively that we are no longer safe in our archeological deductions, except in the hands of a skilful guide. — (Proc. Amer. antiq. 80c., ii. 349.) 0. T. M. [304 Aztec music.— Mr. H. T. Cresson has been study- ing the musical instruments of the ancient Mexicans, The huehuetl, or large drum of the great temple, at the ancient pueblo of Tenochtitlan, was covered with the skins of serpents, and when beaten could be heard at a distance of several miles. Clay balls were placed inside of their grotesque clay images, also within the handles attached to their earthenware vessels, which are generally hollow. Some of these rattles in the Poinsett collection resemble the head of Crotalus horridus, and give forth a rattling sound. In this connection Mr. Cresson makes a very sugges- tive observation which we do not remember to have seen before: ‘‘It may therefore be supposed that these children of nature noticed and strove to repro- duce sounds, which, however harsh and unmusical to us, to them were pleasing, because they recalled fa- miliar objects.’? The author thinks he can recognize the Mexican Hyladae, macaws, parrots, and other bird-calls. A musical vase is spoken of. Mr. Bar- ber’s assertion that the fourth and seventh are want- ting from the diatonic scale is denied, since, in the Poinsett collection, there exist Aztec flageolets capa- ble of producing not only the fourth and seventh of the diatonic scale, but also the entire chromatic scale. This subject is elaborated at great length. Mr. Cresson thinks that the musicians of our day have arrived at a somewhat hasty decision in regard to the music of these ancient people, and its confinement within the narrow limits of a pentatonic scale. — (Proc. acad. nat. sc. Philad., 86.) J. w. P. [805 = - ae ee . e - SCIENCE. 549 NOTES AND NEWS. THE resolution of the American association, offer- ing all the privileges of membership for next year’s meeting to the members of the British associa- tion, was received by the latter with much enthu- siasm; and the council of the British association, with which such matters lie, will, it is said, extend a similar invitation to the American association. The Canadian authorities have arranged for such members of the British association as may desire, to take the longer excursions planned for them before their meeting on Aug. 27, and thus allow tliem to attend the meeting of the American association in Philadelphia, Sept. 3, without losing their excur- sions. Itis hoped that at least five hundred mem- bers of the British association, including many leading scientific men, will attend the Montreal meeting; while there seems to be a very general wish, more especially on the part of the younger scientific men, to attend the Philadelphia meeting as well. — The following is the list of grants of money, which, according to Nature, the British association has granted for scientific purposes for the coming year; amounting, in all, to seven thousand dollars. When may we hope for even the beginning of such a list from the American association, with its two thousand members ? A, — Mathematics and physics. Brown, Prof. Crum, Meteorological observations on Ben Nevis " . £30 Foster, Prof. G. Carey, Electrical standards + eee Schuster, Prof., Meteoric dust . P pee) Abney, Capt., Standard of white light - - 20 Scott, Mr. R. H., Synoptic charts of the Indian Ocean . . 50 Stewart, Prof. Balfour, Meteorological observa- tory near Chepstow. 25 Shoolbred, Mr, J. N., Reduction of tidal ob- servations ° . « 9120 Darwin, Prof. G. H., Harmonic analysis of tidal observations . < : ‘ » 45 B. — Chemistry. Odling, Prof., aN apa poe the ultra-violet spark spectra e : - 3 ~ tank C. — Geology. Etheridge, Mr. R., Earthquake Serepr ir of Japan . vb) Williamson, Prof. W. C., Fossil ‘plants of Hali- fax A . re Sorby, Dr. H. C., British fossil polyzoa . ~ 10 Prestwich, Prof., Erratic blocks . 4 10 Etheridge, Mr. ah Fossil Phyllopoda of the paleozoic rocks ° . 15 Hull, Prof. E., Circulation of underground waters . . ° ‘ vin 16 Evans, Dr. J., Geological record s eb Green, Prof. ih: H., Raygill fissure. s 15 Prestwich, Prof., International geological map of Europe. E 5 - . ° 7920 590 D. — Biology. Newton, Prof., Zodlogical bibliography. . wo Selater, P. L., Natural history of Timor Laut . 5 Lankester, Prof. Ray, Table at the zodlogical station’at Naples . 5 é 5 3 Bye itetd) Harrison, J. Park, Facial characteristics of i races in the British Isles 5 * F 10 Tooker, Sir J., Exploring Kilimandjaro and the adjoining mountains of equatorial Africa . 500 Cordeaux, Mr. J., Migration of birds. ‘ dhs AO) Foster, Dr. M., Coagulation of the blood . Dt) Stainton, Mr. H. T., Record of zodlogical litera- ture ‘ a a c 5 3 - 100 FE. — Geography. Godwin-Austen, Lieut.-Col., Exploration of New Guinea . 5 : “ é ° . 100 F. — Economic Science and Statistics. Brabrook, Mr. E. W., Preparation of the final report of the anthropometric committee . 10 G. — Mechanics. Bramwell, Sir F., Patent legislation . 0 : 5 —Lieut. Ray returned to San Francisco, Oct. 7, by the schooner Leo. He left that port on July 18, 1881, under instructions from the signal-service bu- reau to establish a permanent signal-station at Point Barrow, and to remain there until the summer of 1884, unless otherwise ordered. The order for the party to return created great surprise, as the work was successfully carried on. Lieut. Ray stated, that, apart from the scientific importance of the sta- tion, it was a necessity, as a refuge for the crews of whaling-vessels. Every year, in the Arctic Ocean, there are, on an average, forty vessels, worth, with their cargoes, four million dollars, and employing sixteen hundred men. Out of eighty-seven vessels, fifty have been lost within a hundred miles of Point Barrow, in one year alone. In1877 twelve were lost, with all on board. The crews would not abandon their vessels, knowing there was nothing on the shore. Had the station then existed, it is probable that all their lives would have been saved. Since the station was established, two years ago, over fifty lives have been saved. Lieut. Ray states, that all the party lived comfortably, and enjoyed good health, thie cli- mate being particularly beneficial to those suffering from malaria. Besides their regular provisions, the party had seal, walrus, and white whale meat; the last being the best, as it was sweeter and more nutritious. Lieut. Ray expressed regret at his recall. —Lieut. Schwatka, who, with his party, was picked up by Lieut. Ray at St. Michael's, speaking of his trip up the Yukon River, Alaska, says they started from Fort Vancouver, W.T., on May 21, and travelled twenty-eight hundred miles overland, reaching the head waters of the river, where they constructed a raft of logs to navigate the stream to its mouth. They procured a crew of six Indians, and proceeded down the gradually increasing stream within two hundred and fifty miles of Fort Chilcat, where rapids were encountered. Down these the SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 37. Indians refused to go, and attempted to force the raft ashore. Schwatka succeeded in suppressing the mutiny, and the rapids were run. The voyage on the raft was eighteen hundred and twenty-nine miles. From the mouth of the Yukon they pro- ceeded to St. Michael’s, where they boarded the Leo for this port. Signal-service officer Leavitt, who has been stationed at St. Michael’s, and who also came down on the Leo, says he has ascended the Yukon to Fort Selkirk two thousand miles from its mouth. He describes the river as being one of the largest in the world, discharging fifty per cent more water than the Mississippi, and as being in places seven miles in breadth. — Professor Oswald Teer, of the university and federal polytechnic school of Zurich, the celebrated Swiss paleontologist, died at Lausanne, Canton de Vaud, the 27th of September. Heer has done more for fossil botany and fossil insects than any one else during the last forty years, and his death will leave a place in science which it will be difficult to fill. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Bernheim, G. Incombustibilisation des théatres et bati- ments. Nice, impr. Gauthier, 1883. 16p. 4°. Berthelot, M. P. E. Explosive materials: series of lec- tures delivered before the College de France, Paris; to which is added a short historical sketch of gunpowder. Translated from the German of Kar] Braun by J. P. Wisser, and a bibliography of works on explosives. New York, Van Nostrand, 1883. (Van Nostrand’s sc. ser., no. 70.) 24°. Bourassé, J.J. Histoire naturelle des oiseaux, des reptiles et des poissons. Tours, Jame, 1883. (Bibl. jeun. chrét.) 288 p., illustr. 12°. Briggs, R. Steam-heating: an exposition of the American practice of warming buildings by steam. New York, Van Nos- trand, 1883. (Van Nostrand’s sc, ser., no. 68.) 108 p., illustr. 24°. Brooks, W.K. The law of heredity: a study of the cause of variation and the origin of living organisms. Baltimore, Mur- phy, 1883. 2+336p.,2pl.,illustr. 16°. Browne, W.R. The student’s mechanics: an introduction to the study of force and motion. London, Griffin, 1883. 16+ 210 p., illustr. 16°. Campagne, E. Les mines, or, argent, fer, cuivre, plomb, étain, zinc, mercure, et platine. Rouen, Megard, 1883. (Bibl. mor. jeun.) 190p.,illustr. 8°. . Carriére, E. A. Etude générale du genre pommier, et par- ticuligrement des pommiers microcarpes oun pommiers d’orne- ment, pommiers & flenrs doubles, etc. Mesnie, impr. Firmin- Didot, 18838. 179p. 18°. Foye, J. C. Chemical problems, with brief statements of the principles involved. New York, Van Nostrand, 1883. (Van Nostrand’s sc. ser., no. 69.) 24°. Freeman, E. A. English towns and districts: a series of addresses und sketches. London, Macmillan, 1883. 13+455 p., Jl pl.,map. 8°. Gladstone, J: H., and Tribe, A. secondary batteries of Planté and Faure. 1883. (Nature series.) 11459 p. 8°. Gomme, G.L. Folk-lore relics of early village life. don, Stock, 18838. 8+246p. f°. Grant, B. . F.G.S., who, including many additional species found I somewhat recently, but eliminating all those about which there was any uncertajnty, said, ‘‘ We still r OcroBeER 26, 1883.] have forty-nine species left, of which thirty are still living and nineteen are extinet”’ (p. 135). Though the number of the species has thus been almost doubled, and the presence of the eave-bear remains undoubted, it continues to be the fact that no trace of the hyena has been found in the forest-bed. and 10 suspicion exists as to his probable presence amongst the eliminated uncertain species. It should be added, that no relic or indication of hyena was met with in the ‘fourth bed’ of Brixham Windmill-hill Cavern, believed to be the equivalent of the Kent’s Hole breccia. Iam not unmindfui of the fact that my evidence is negative only, and that raising a structure on it may be building on a sandy foundation. Nevertheless, it appears to me, as it did ten years ago, strong enough to bear the following inferences: — 1. That the hyena did not reach Britain until its last continental period. — 2. That the men who made the paleolithic nodule- tools found in the oldest known deposit in Kent’s Cavern arrived during the previous great submer- gence, or, What is more probable, — indeed, what alone seems possible, unless they were navigators, — during the first continental period. In short, I have little or no doubt that the earliest Devonians we have sighted were either of glacial, or, more probably, of pre-gla- cial age. It cannot be necessary to add, that while the dis- covery of remains of hyena in the forest-bed of Cromer, or any other contemporary deposit, would be utterly fatal to my argument, it would Jeave in- tact all other evidence in support of the doctrine of British glacial or pre-glacial man. Some of my friends accepted the foregoing infer- ences in 1873; while others, whose judgment I value, declined them. Since that date no adverse fact or thought has presented itself to me; but through the researches and discoveries of others in comparatively distant parts of our island, and especially in East Anglia, the belief in British pre-glacial man appears to have risen above the stage of ridicule, and to have a decided prospect of general scientific acceptance at no distant time. I must, before closing, devote a few words to a class of workers who are ‘ more plague than profit.’ The exuberant enthusiasm of some would-be pio- neers in the question of human antiquity results occasionally in supposed ‘ discoveries,’ having an amusing side; and not unfrequently some of the pio- neers, though utter strangers, are so good as to send me descriptions of their ‘ finds,’ and of theit views respecting them. The following case may be taken as a sample: in 1881 a gentleman of whom I had never heard wrote, stating that he was one of those who felt deeply interested in the antiquity of man, and that he had read all the books he could command on the subject. He was aware that it had been said by one paleontologist to be ‘‘ unreasonable to suppose that man had lived during the eocene and miocene periods,’? but he had an indistinct recollection that another eminent man had somewhere said that *f man had probably existed in England during a tropical SCIENCE. 569 carboniferous flora and fauna.” Te then went on to say, ‘I have got that which I cannot but look upon as a fossil human skull. I have endeavored to examine it from every conceivable stand-point, and it seems to stand the test. The angles seem perfect; the contour, the same, but smaller in size than the average human head: but that, in my opinion, is only what should be expected, if we assume that man lived during the carboniferous period, in spite of what Herodotus says about the body of Orestes.’? Finally he requested to be allowed to send me the specimen. | On its arrival, it proved, of course, to be merely a stone; and noth- ing but a strong ‘ uns:ientific use of the imagination ’ could lead any one to believe that it had ever been a skull, human or infraluiman. It may be added, that a few years ago a gentleman brought me what he called, and believed to be, ‘ three human skulls, and as many elephants’ teeth,’ found from time to time during his researches in a lime- stone-quarry. They proved to be nothing more than six oddly-shaped lumps of Devonian limestone. So far as Britain is concerned, cave-hunting is a science of Devonshire birth. The limestone-caverns of Oreston, near Plymouth, were examined with some care, in the interests of paleontology, as early as 1816, and subsequently as they were successively discoy- ered. The two most famous caverns of the same county — one on the northern, the other on the south- ern, shore of Torbay —have been anthropological as well as paleontological studies, and, as we have seen, have had the Jion’s share in enlarging our estimate of human antiquity. The researches have, no doubt, absorbed a great amount of time and labor, and demanded the exercise of much care and patience; but they have been replete with interest of a high order, which would be greatly enhanced if I could feel sure that your time has not been wasted, nor your patience exhausted, in listening to this address re- specting them. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Tree-growth. Tue ‘influence of winds upon tree-growth,’ causing the asymmetry to which Mr. Kennedy calls attention in Science for Oct. 5, is noticeable to a remarkable degree among conifers in the mountains of the west- ern half of the United States. The stunted, ground- hugging evergreens, which advance a little way above the limit of ordinary timber-growth on lofty moun- tains, are pressed to the earth by the steady gules as much as by overbearing snows, if not more. Evi- dence of this is found in the fact, that, where a cleft or little hollow oceurs at or inadvance of timber-line, the trees will stand straight and shapely within it as high as its rim (although in such nooks the snows lie longest and most deeply), above which they will be deformed, or unable to grow at all. This bending of the trees, the whole skirt of a forest, away from the edge of a precipice, or on a hilltop over which the wind sucks through the funnel of a cafion, is so common as to be seen every day by one travelling through the Rockies or the Sierra Nevada. It is particularly true in the Sierra San Joan, where the radiation of the vast adjacent sage-plains produces an 570 extraordinary suction upward, toward the chilly crests of that lofty range. I remember noticing it nowhere more strongly than on the coast of Sonoma county, Cal., swept by a constant indraught from the Pacific. This was the locality of my article in Harper's magazine for January, 1883, styled ‘In a redwood logging-camp.’ In that article (p. 194), afteh speak- ing of the stiff, erect trunks of the Sequoia, as seen inland, I say, ‘‘In windy places, like the exposed sea-front, all the boughs are twisted into a single plane landward, and great picturesqueness results.” As you look at these trees from a distance, you can- not resist the impression (however quiet the sea and the air) that a furious gale is at that moment strain- ing every branch to leeward, as a March day does the garments of pedestrians, or the flags of the ship- ping in a harbor. The seashore parks of Victoria or Vancouver, and of San Francisco, give other ex- amples of this same appearance. A conspicuous in- stance of this same thing is to be seen in the Salinas valley, which extends for over a hundred miles south- ward from Monterey. There a high point of view shows that every tree and bush (save large clusters) in the whole valley leans toward the south-east (ap- proximately), urged by the terrific wind that never ceases to rush up the long valley from the sea to the hills. It is needless, however, to seek examples so far away. M. Hamy gives a brief review of the Toltec art, especially in clay, and then proceeds to enlarge upon the discoveries of M. Char- nay, illustrating his remarks by means of specimens in the Lorillard collection. The first period of Toltec ceramic art is termed pastillage ; the second, more advanced, may be called poussage. Tula, Teotihua- can, and Cholula contain the most imposing vestiges of Toltee grandeur. The remains of what was the first capital of the Taltecs are situated nineteen leagues north of Mexico, at the confluence of the Rio Grande de Tula and a small river from the mountains of Texas. M. Charnay visited the ruins of this place, and photographed the most important. The descrip- tions of the other two capitals are passed over briefly by M. Hamy; but of Cholula, fortunately, we have the very minute observations of Bandelier, to be pub- lished by the Archeological institute. — (Assoc. sc. France, Conférence 25 Mars, 1882.) J.w.p. [825 The perforated humerus. — Professor Henry W. Haynes, in exhibiting a perforated Indian humerus found at Concord, Mass., brings together some im- portant references to the same phenomenon observed elsewhere. Mr. Henry Gilman found 50% in the Michigan mounds; at Grenelle, Paris, M. Martin found 28 % ; in the Furfooz race of the caves of Bel- giumy.M.-Dupont found 30%; in the Dolmen of Argenteuil, near Paris, M. Leguay found 25 % ; while Dr. Pruner Bey ascertained the average at Vaureal, near by, to be 26 %. He also reported that it is com- mon in skeletons of the Guanches. In the eave of Orrouy, belonging to the bronze age, the average was ascertained by Dr. Broca to be 25%. Among two thousand skeletons of the polished stone age, diseoy- ered by the Baron de Baye in Champagne, he reports it as very frequent. Prof. Ward also speaks of the broken state in which long bones are found, attribut- ingittodesign. With regard to percentages on small numbers, a very singular experience was that of the writer of this note last year. Wishing to know what races and nationalities supplied the criminals of his city, he consulted the census and the police records, The former reported one Persian in the community; the latter, five Persians, arrested and convicted. Star- tled by the fact that five hundred per cent of the Per- sians were criminals, he was about to warn the government against allowing any more to land. A few moments’ study, however, set the matter right. The poor Persian on the census-roll had been ‘sent down’ five times during one year, for sixty days each time, on account of vagraney. — (Proc. Amer. antiq. 80c., ii. 80.) 0. T. M. [826 580 SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 38. INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. National museum. Publications. —The publications of the museum are issued under two titles, —‘ Bulletins’ and ‘ Pro- ceedings.’ The bulletins consist of monographs of groups of animals, plants, or minerals; papers upon the fauna, flora, and minerals of different regions of the globe; and similar works. The proceedings ’ contain shorter communications descriptive of new species, etc., or relating to novel phenomena. All papers are based on material in the museum. Five volumes of the proceedings, and twenty-two bulle- tins, have already been published, aggregating 7,396 octavo pages. The sixth volume of the proceedings, and several bulletins, are now in course of publica- tion. The bulletins which will appear within a short period are the following: — A bibliography of the writings of Professor Spencer Fullerton Baird, by G. Brown Goode, A.M.; Avi- fauna columbiana, by Elliott Coues and D. Webster Prentiss, M.D.; A contribution to the natural history of Bermuda, edited by G. Brown Goode, A.M.; A manual of herpetology, by Henry C. Yarrow, M.D.; Official catalogue of the collections exhibited by the U.S. national museum at the London fisheries exhi- bition, 1883. : The exhibition-halls. —Two very important objects are about to be placed on exhibition in the museum. The first of these is a group of orangs, mounted by Mr. William T. Hornaday. The group represents a fight in the treetop, in which are concerned two adult male orangs, and as spectators a female and baby, and a young male. The setting has beer worked out with great care, especially as regards the nests of the orangs, the foliage, vines, orchids, etc. All the specimens were shot by Mr. Hornaday in Borneo, and are mounted from his notes upon the living and fresh specimens. The second object of interest is an antique Roman mosaic derived from Carthage. It was exhibited at the Centennial exhibition in the Tunisian section, and was afterward presented to the museum by Sir Richard Wood, British consul-general at Tunis. The mosaic represents a lion of life-size, seizing an animal resembling a horse orass. It is believed to date from the first century B.C. Additions to the collections. —The museum has re- cently secured a very valuable collection of archeo- logical objects from Missouri, comprising twenty-five specimens. Included among them are a digging- implement of peculiar shape, and about a foot long, and two hourglass-shaped ceremonial objects of pink quartz about four inches long. Among the re- cent accessions to the department of birds is a nest of Opornis agilis, with eggs, —the first specimen of which there is authentic record. The department of reptiles is at present negotiating for a specimen of the yery rare North-American serpent, Ophthalmidium longissimum. The department of mammals has re- ceived a valuable accession in the form of partially complete skeletons of eleven sperm whales. They represent the. remains of a small school of these cetaceans, which stranded near Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the winter of 1882-83. Bureau of ethnology. Pueblo of Tallyhogan.—Mr. James Stevenson reports that careful investigations in the vicinity of the abandoned pueblo of Tallyhogan, in the ancient province of Tusayan, Arizona territory, disclose the fact that the sand-dunes on the north and east of the village were used by the former inhabitants as burial-places. A very little digging exposed the re- mains of the interred, which were usually placed in a hole in a doubled-up, mummy-like attitude. In many cases vases and bowls, which probably contained food, were inhumed with the dead, and in some instances trinkets were found. A number of old specimens were secured, among them being small images of human beings (previously unknown to collectors in this region), curious in workmanship, and ancient in ornamentation. NOTES AND NEWS. Mr. G. K. GILBERT has recently given some rather disturbing suggestions to the people of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake weekly tribune, Sept. 20) concerning the probability of destructive earthquakes there. He describes the slow and still continuing growth of the ranges in the Great Basin by repeated dislocation along great fractures, the earth’s crust on one side being elevated and tilted into mountain attitude by an upthrust that produces compression and distor- tion in the rocky mass, until the strain can no longer be borne, and something must give way. Suddenly and violently there is a slipping of one wall of the fissure on the other, far enough to relieve the strain, and this is felt as an earthquake; then follows a long period of quiet, during which the strain is gradually reimposed. Such a shock occurred in Owen’s yal- ley, along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, in 1872, when a fault-scarp five to twenty feet high and forty miles long was produced. A scarp thirty or forty feet high is known along the western foot of the Wahsatch range, south of Salt Lake, and other scarps of similar origin have been found at the bases of many of the Basin ranges. The cate of their for- mation is not known; but it must be comparatively recent, because they are still so little worn away, Wherever they are fresh, and consequently of modern uplift, there is probable safety from earthquakes for ages to come, because a long time is needed for the accumulation of another strain sufficient to cause a slipping of one wall of the fissure on the other. Con- versely, when they are old and worn down, the break- ing strain may even now be almost reached, and an earthquake may be expected at any time. This is the case at Salt Lake; for, continuous as are the fault- scarps along the base of the Wahsatch, they are ab- sent near this city. From the Warm Springs to OCTOBER 26, 1883.] Emigration Caiion they have not been found, and the rational explanation of their absence is that a very long time has elapsed since their last renewal. In this period the earth-strain has been slowly in- creasing. Some day it will overcome the friction, lift the mountains a few feet, and re-enact on a fearful seale the catastrophe of Owen’s valley. — The president of the International committee Dr. H. Wild, by request of the governments con- cerned, has announced that the observations of the parties at the cireumpolar observing stations were to cease, as was originally planned, in September, 1883, and the different expeditions will return as shortly thereafter as practicable. — Violent solfataric disturbances were experienced in Iceland between the 12th and 21st of last March. — The English government has decided to establish an astronomical and meteorological observatory at Hong Kong, and has appointed Dr. William Doberck director of the institution. Dr. Doberck has accepted the position, and removed to Hong Kong. He may be addressed through the Crown agents for the Colo- nies, Downing street, London. —In the Journal of chemical industry of June 29, Mr. G. W. Wigner, F.C.S., F.T.C., gives an ac- count of the damage done to delicate substances by the material in which they are packed, suitability being too often sacrificed to strength, lightness, or mere ornament. As president of the society of pub- lie analysts, Mr. Wigner has had many opportunities of studying the subject. Oysters, he writes, have been imported into Eng- land in barrels made of wood containing a very large proportion of tannin, with results which can be bet- ter understood than appreciated. The iron contained in the liquor has produced a very noticeable propor- tion of ink, and the oysters themselves have become converted into a poor but certainly novel kind of leather. Tinned fish and tinned acid fruits have been packed in vessels in which lead predominated over tin to a yery marked extent. He alluded to the loss in cargoes of essences and scents by the impos- sibility of making the stoppers of glass bottles abso- lutely air-tight, and the damage done to other parts of the cargo by those essences. Mr. Wigner then proceeds to describe the effects of evaporation in the hold of a ship: bilge-water can never be quite excluded, and change of temperature must produce evaporation; the dew thus produced settles on the top of the packing-cases, and in time corrodes the metal, or is absorbed, as the case may be, and, if the voyage be long enough, damages the goods. Canned goods, he writes, seldom remain good for a second season, even if apparently well packed: the tin, some of the iron, and the lead contained in the tin, are dissolved, and the contents of the can become contaminated with these metallic substances. : The greater part of Mr. Wigner’s article is devoted to the effects produced on tea by the wood in which it is packed. The Chinese formerly used ‘toon’ wood only; but the forests have been so much cut down that the supply is ranning short, and in Assam, wood for packing-cases is cut at random. In one SCIENCE. 581 instance, a consignment of Assam tea had a distinc- tive odor of its own, resembling a new and exces- sively rank kid glove; some hundreds of chests being thus damaged. The inner lead coating of tea-chests used by the Chinese is much purer, and less liable to damage by acid, than the lighter lining used by the dealers in upper India. — Professor Angelo Heilprin was elected one of tl curators of the Academy of natural sciences of Phila- delphia on Oct. 2, to supply the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Charles F. Parker. At a meeting of the council, held Oct. 5, Professor Heilprin was appointed actuary to the curators or curator in charge. He has commenced the arrangement. of a department of the museum to be devoted exclusively to the nat- ural history of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The geology and mineralogy, together with the fauna and flora, of the two states, will be represented as com- pletely as possible, and will form a colleetiqn which cannot fail to be of special interest to local stu- dents. — The papers read at the meeting of the Biological society of Washington, Oct. 19, were by Dr. Theo- dore Gill, The ichthyological results of the explora- tions of the U.S. fish-commission steamer Albatross in 1883; Dr. C. A. White, Character and function of the epiglottis of the bull-snake (Pityophis); Professor Lester F. Ward, Note on an interesting botanical relic of the District of Columbia; Dr. C. V. Riley, Manna in the United States. ; — The Philosophical society of Washington, on Oct. 13, held its first session after the summer yaca- tion. Since June it has lost three members by death, —Surgeon-Gen. C. H. Crane, who was one of its vice-presidents; Admiral B. F. Sands, one of the origina tounders of the society; and Dr. Josiah Cur- tis. ‘The papers of the evening were by Mr. William b. Taylor, on the Rings of Saturn; by Dr. Swan M. Burnett, on the Character of the focal lines in astig- matism; and by Mr. H. A. Hazen, on Thermometer- exposure. —A scientific session of the National academy of sciences will be held in New Haven, at Yale college, commencing on Tuesday, Noy. 13. —Mr. F. W. Putnam, of the Peabody museum, Cambridge, announces his readiness to give lectures on American archeology, based upon the course de- livered last year before the Lowell institute. His sub- jects cover such matters as the sheli-heaps, caves, mounds and earthworks, stone graves, pueblos, and ancient arts and religious rites of our country, as well as general sketches of the archeology of North America, Mexico and Central America, South Amer- ica, and Peru. —At the meeting of the Engineers’’club of Phila- delphia, Oct. 6, Mr. Edward Thiange presented an illustrated description of a method of earthwork com- putation, by means of diagrams constructed from the proposition, ‘ The areas of similar figures are to each other as the squares of their homologous sides,’ An idea may be had of their nature and uses by the fol- lowing directions: to get the average volume in cubic yards of a station (in embankment), to the cen- a82 tre-fill at each end add the constant height of the ‘grade triangle’ (which is formed by the road-bed and the side-slopes produced); at the resultant heights on the diagram, measure, with the scale of cubic yards, the lengths of the ordinates terminated by the slope-lines at each station respectively; their sum, diminished by the ‘ grade prism,’ is the average quan- tity for the station of one hundred feet. —A paper upon Economy in highway bridges, by Prof. J. A. L. Waddell, was read. Its objects are to determine the most economical depth and number of panels for spans from forty to two hundred feet; the lengths at which it is better to change from pony truss to thorough bridge, and from single to double intersection; the exact dead loads, and the amounts of lumber and iron for each case. — Mr. Lester F. Ward has published in the U.S. fish-commission bulletin a list of the marsh and aquatic ‘plants of the northern United States, which will be useful to those interested in aquaria and fish-ponds. The list numbers a hundred and eichty- one species, sixty-one of which are strictly aquatic, the balance being found in marshy places. Three species are said by Dr. Hessel to be injurious to carp- ponds; viz., Nuphar advena, Nuphar sagittaefolium, and Bidens Beckii. The species recommended espe- cially for carp-ponds are of the strictly aquatic gen- era, Utricularia and Potamogeton. Of the Composi- tae, only three species, all Bidens, are given as being marsh-loving, or aquatic. — The director of the Imperial Japanese govern- ment laboratory at Yokohama, Dr. A. J. C. Geerts, died there Aug. 30, aged forty. / — We have just received intelligence of the death of the distinguished French paleontologist, Dr. Joa- chim Barrande. ; RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Bacharach, M. Abriss der geschichte der potentialtheorie. Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1888. 3+78p. 8°. Bericht, oflizicller, iiber die.im k6niglichen glaspalaste zu Miinchen 1882 stattgehabte internationale elektricitiits-ausstel- lung, verbunden mit elektrotechnischen versuchen. Red. W. v. Beetz, O. y. Miller, E. Pfeiffer. Leipzig, 1883. 2444-154 p., illustr. +. Bernstein, H. A. Dagboek van de laatste reis van Ternate naar Nieuw-Guinea, Salawati en Batanta 1864-65, uitgavet door S. C. van Musschenbroek. Met aanteekeningen, bijlagen en kaart. ’s Gravenhage, 1883. 258 p.,map. 8°. Biehringer. Schematische darstellung elektrodynamischer maschinen. 2 chromolithogrische wandtafelm. Niirnberg, 1883. fe Blakesley, T. H. Electricity at the board of trade. Lon- don, Zow, 1888. 24p. 8°. Block, J. Origines de Velectricité, de la lumiére, de la cha- leur, et de la matiere. Nancy, 1888. illustr. 8°. Brown, J.C. Finland: its forests and forest management. London, Simpkin, 1883. 306p. 8°. Chastaingt, G. Catalogue des plantes vasculaires des en- virons de La Chatre (Indre). Chateauroux, 1883. 199 p. 8°. Cracau, J.R.B. Ob und wann? Hin versuch zur beant- wortung der frage nach der méglichkeit und dem zeitpunkte des weltunterganges. Braunschweig, Graf, 1888. 33 p. 8°. Dahl, F. Analytische bearbeitung der spinnen Norddeutsch- lands. Kiel, 1883. 100 p., illustr. 8°. D’Arzano, A. Les habitants de la mer et la flore marine. Limoges, 1883. 120p. 12°. Dietrich, R. Die darstellung der wurzeln der algebraischen gleichungen durch unendliche reihen, Tnaug. diss. Jena, Deis- tung, 1888. 44p. 8. SCIENCE. [Vou. IIL., No. 38. Dubois, A. Croquis alpins, avec une notice sur Ja flore alpestre, par Ff, Crépin. Bruxelles, 1883, 519 p., illustr. 8°, Elektrotechnische rundschau. Illustrirte zeitschrift zur verbreitung niitzlicher kenntnisse aus dem gebiete der ange- wandten elektricitiitslehre. Red. Stein. heft i. Halle, 1883, illustr. Fabri, R. Impressioni della esposizione di clettricita a Parigi; con aggiunte che si riferiscono al primo Congresso inter- nazionale degli clettricisti. Santagata, Weltria, 1882. 140 p. 16°. Fleck, H. Ueber die chemie in ihrer bedeutung fiir die ge- sundheitspflege. Berlin, 1883, 8°. Gaffron, E. Beitriige zur anatomie und histologie yon Pe- ripatus. Inaug. diss. Breslau, K6/ler, 1883. 32p. 8°. Galle, A. Berechnung der proximiitiiten yon asteroiden- bahnen. Inaug. diss. Breslau, Kdh/er, 1888. 60 p. 8°. _ Glaischer, J. Factor table for the sixth million: contain- ing the least factor of every number not divisible by 2, 3, or 5, between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000. London, Taylor, 1883. 4°. Gustave, I’., et Héribaud-Joseph, F. Flore d’Au- vergne, contenant la description de toutes les plantes vasculaires qui croissent spontgnément dans les département du Puy de Dome et du Cantal "des clefs analytiques et un vocabulaire des termes employés. Clermond-Ferrand, 1888. 624 p, 16°. Hauck, W. Ph. Die grundlehren der elektricitiit mit beson- derer riicksicht auf ihre anwendungen in der praxis. Wien, 1883. 293 p., illustr. $°. _ Hauftmann, C. Bedeutung der keimbliittertheorie fiir die individualitiitslehre und den generations-wechsel. Inaug. diss. Jena, Deistung, 1883. 41p. 8°. Henneguy, Ch. Les lichens utiles. illustr. 8°. Hess, E. LEinleitung in die lehre von der kugelteilung mit besonderer berucksicht ihrer anwendung auf die theorie der gleichflachigen und der gleicheckigen polyeder. Leipzig, Teub- ner, 1883. 10+475 p., 16 pl. 8°. Hjelt, H. Grunddragen af allmiinna organiska kemin. Helsingfors, 1883. 160 p. 8°. Kallenbach, E. Polynoé cirrata O. Fr. Milr. Bin beitrag zur kenntniss der fauna der Kieler Bucht. Inaug. diss. Jena, Deistung, 1883. 38 p.,1pl, 8°. Kauffmann, G. Ueber den g-naphtolaldehyl und seine derivate die g-naphtolearbonsiure und das g-naphtoleumarin. Inaug. diss. Breslau, KéAler, 1882. 37 p. 8°. Kramer, J. Die elektrische eisenbahn beziiglich ihres baues und betriebes. Wien, 1883. (Elektro-techn. bibl. xvii.) illustr. 8°. Kremser, V. Die bahn der 2 cometen yon 1879. Inaug. diss. Breslau, Aéh/e7, 1883. 4838p. 8°. Kuntze, 0. Phytogeogenesis. Die vorweltliche entwicke- lung der erdkruste und der pflanzen in grundziigen dargestellt. Leipzig, 1883. 240 p. 8°. Lankester, E. The cholera: What is it? and How to pre- vent it. London, Routledge, 1883. 8°. Lista, R. Mis esploraciones y descubrimientos en la Pata- gonia 1877-80. Buenos Aires, 1883. 218 p., illustr. 8°. Love, G.H. Etude sur la constitution moléculaire des corps, sur les lois des volumes moléculaires, des chaleurs spécifiques et des dilatations. Précédée dune introduction sur la Rétiniuon de la loi et celle de laforce. Paris, 1883. 2pl. 8°. M., M. K. The birds we see, and the story of their lives. N.Y., Welson & sons, 1883. 3+93p., illustr. 16°. Mace, E. Les Lyeopodiacées utiles. Paris, 1888. 80p. 4° Macgregor, J.L.L. The organization and valuation of the forests on the continental system in theory and practice. Lon- don, 1883. 318 p. 8°. Manson, P. The Filaria sanguinis hominis, and certain new forms of parasitic disease in India, China, and warm countries. London, Lewis, 1883. illustr. 8°. Microscopical science, studies in. vol.i. London, Bailliere. Netto, Ladislau. Apercu sur la théorie de lévolution. Con- férence faite 4 Buenos-Ayres le 25 Oct. 1882. Rio de Janeiro, imp. Messager du Brésil, 1883. 6+22p. 8°. Neumann, C. Hydrodynamische untersuchungen, nebst einer anhang tiber die probleme der elektrostatik und der mag- netischen induction. Leipzig, Teubner, 18838. 40+820 p. 8° Oldbricht, C. Beitriige zur kenntniss der einwirkung yon trocknem ammoniakgas auf geschmolzenes chlorzink, chlor- cadmium und chlornickel. Inaug. diss. Breslau, Kéhler, 1883. 33'p. 8% Paetel, F. Catalog der conchyliensammlung yon F. Paetel. Berlin, Paetel, 1883. 3+271p. 8°. Peters, C.F. W. Die fixsterne. lustr. 8°. Paris, 1883. 120 p., Ed. by A. C. Cole. Leipzig, 1883. 169 p., il- | ee re Nar. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1883. OSWALD HEER. Oswatp Herr, whose death in his seventy- fifth year we announced a fortnight since, was born in Gla- Switzer- land, Aug. 31, 1809. In 1828 he went to Halle to study theology and natural histo- ry. Te began his career as a pastor at Gla- rus; and cer- tain habits and manners of a clergyman clung to him throughout life, and traces of them may even be seen in his special paleontological writings. He soon gave up the ministry, and devoted himself exclu- sively to natu- ral history; and we next find him set- tled in Zurich, whiere, in1835, he founded the botanic gar- den, and be- came its director. In the following year he was attached to the university as professor of botany and entomology, — the two studies which divided his time throughout his life. Later, about 1855, he transferred his alle- No. 39. — 1883. rus, 3 giance to the Polytechnicum, an institution of world-wide fame, where he remained the rest of his life. In 1845 he founded and became president of the Zurich society of agriculture and horticulture. And for twenty years he was a Rath- sherr. or mem- ber of the Grand council of Zurich. It was not until 1840 that he turned his attention to paleontology, studying first of all the fossil insects of Oen- ingen. This task he under- took at the in- stance of his friend Escher von der Linth. Knowing him from his child- hood, Escher quickly per- ceived that a mind so deli- cately adjust- ed to observa- tion, which no detail escaped, was well pre- pared for the difficult work of determining and classifying the numerous plants and in- sects of Oeningen. It was a yirgin field. Yielding to the solicitations of his friend, Heer bravely undertook the suggested work ; and with scarcely an interruption, notwith- standing a constitution always delicate, he 084 brought out the remarkable and numerous memoirs which haye given him a place among the first paleontologists of our time. Soon after his return to Switzerland, Heer associated himself with Froebel (since re- nowned for his reforms in pedagogy) in the publication of a magazine under the title of ‘ Mittheilungen aus dem gebiete der theoretischen erdkunde,’ of which only four numbers were ever issued. In the first of these, in 1834, Heer printed two memoirs on the geographi- eal distribution of insects and plants in the Swiss Alps, drawing his material mainly from his native canton, — memoirs which show, especially the longer one on insects, that he must have gathered his facts through patient, diligent observations of many years. These two memoirs appear to have been his earliest essays. He afterwards expanded the first into a long and better known memoir on the Swiss Coleoptera. These studies on geograph- ical distribution formed an excellent basis for the paleontological work to which he was shortly to devote himself, one great value of which lies in his careful studies of the relations which the extinct insects and plants investi- gated bear to living forms in the same or other parts of the world. From this time on, not a year has passed without some sign of activity from this indefatigable student; and his last volume was only last month reviewed in our columns. At first the memoirs concerned mainly the transformations or distribution of Swiss Coleoptera, and the distribution of alpine plants; but from 1847, when his first memoir on the tertiary beetles of Europe ap- peared, his attention was directed almost ex- clusively to fossil insects and plants, especially those of the tertiary epoch; and it is here he has won his renown. ‘The volume upon ter- tiary insects, issued between 1847 and 1853, opened a new world to science, and will for- ever remain the classic work on fossil insects. He brought to it a painstaking and faithful investigation, which in many cases will bear the closest scrutiny at the present time, not- withstanding the advance of entomology in the generation since elapsed. Finding that SCIENCE. Prag ais pee ls RN ne | [Vou. IL., No. 39. the determination of fossil insects must de- pend largely upon a study of their wings, he made a special investigation of the neuration in living types, and proposed for the first time a uniform nomenclature for all orders of in- sects. From its burial in a memoir on fossil beetles. this scheme received little attention ; but it remains to-day the most philosophical presentation of the subject. Although his earlier paleontological papers were mainly devoted to inseets, his attention was from the first attracted to the plants asso- ciated with them. And, the mass of inseets from Oeningen disposed of, his memoirs now became more and more largely paleobotanical. To these he gaye a living interest, from his discussions of the probable physical condition and climate of tertiary time, drawn from the data furnished by the plants. He was a strong believer in a miocene Atlantis. His first essay, dealing with ancient climates, was published in Giebel’s Zeitschrift in 1859, and was after- wards expanded into a volume, which passed immediately through a much enlarged second edition (in French) by the assistance of his. friend Gaudin. Then followed that remarka- ble series of illustrated quarto memoirs, pub- lished in various countries and languages in London, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Zurich, etc., in which the collections of various goy- ernment expeditions are described and figured, and which he afterwards collected into the yol- umes which compose his ‘ Flora fossilis arc- tica’ (7 vols.), companion volumes to his ‘Flora tertiaria Helvetiae’ (8 vols.) and ‘Flora fossilis Helvetiae.’ His studies upon past climates were also carried into wider geo- logic fields, and resulted in his ‘ Urwelt der Schweiz,’ a living picture of the past of his native country, clothed in popular language- His imagination was here brought into play, and occasionally expressed itself in verse. This volume, issued in 1865, was translated into French by Gaudin (1875), and into Eng-_ lish by Heywood (2 vols. 1876). To each of these editions he added supplementary matter, 1 This last was also enriched by contributions from several naturalists, notably Matheron and Saporta. ——— se Te eC NovemsBer 2, 1883.] and himself published a considerably enlarged German edition in 1878. Heer, who, as we have said, was instigated to his paleontological studies by Escher, was glad to acknowledge his debt to his friend, whose most illustrious pupil he was. Rarely have such cordial relations existed between two men. He always spoke of Escher in terms of warm friendship and admiration, and always seemed to be asking, Did you ever know his equal? And, indeed, Escher merited his praise. Without personal fortune, and very often obliged by illness not only to suspend his courses, but even to make expensive journeys to Madeira, Italy, etc., to regain his strength, Heer would have been greatly embarrassed but for his friend. Escher possessed a fair fortune, especially in the latter part of his life ; and, being childless, he constantly sought op- portunity to assist Heer, and, so far as possi- ble, without his knowledge. Escher urged his gratuities with such delicacy and kindness that he seemed to be the one under obligation when his dear friend would accept his offer- ings. Escher recognized the worth of his protégé, appreciated the value of the services he was rendering to science, and welcomed with a beaming face every fresh memoir from Tleer’s pen. Heer was a man of very retiring habits, being rarely seen in public, even on the street. His delicate health forbidding his travelling or making personal explorations, he liyed in his study, where he received fossils from all parts of the world. Here he accumulated specimens from the arctic regions, from every country of Europe, from Asia, and from America. Here in the midst of cabinets, and with books piled up on every side, he passed all~his time, yet always receiving his geological friends with manifest pleasure. Many a scientific man came here to visit the illustrious paleontologist, — Leopold yon Buch, Sir Charles Lyell, von Tlauer, Geinitz, Fraas, Oppel, Sismonda, Ram- say, Falconer, Pictet, Studer, Merian, Agassiz, de Zigno, Mojsisovics, Gumbel, Schimper, Zit- tel, Schmidt, Abich, etc. While he was asso- SCIENCE. works a wider circulation. 585 ciated with Heer in the Polytechnicum, Jules Marcou was a visitor almost daily, and relates how, with a pleased and contented smile, Heer always greeted him after his fashion, grasping his hand in both of his. Reclining on-a sofa (for Heer could only work a brief time without seeking rest), he would gladly converse for an hour or two upon geological topics and the ~ numerous problems still requiring solution. We have said he undertook no explorations ; yet, in the winter of 1854-55, he visited Ma- deira for his health, in company with Ziegler and Hartwig. Several memoirs resulted from that visit ; and in 1861, with his friends Escher and Merian, he visited Paris, London, the Isle of Wight, and Holland. An unusual excep- tion was his accompanying his friend Marcou on short journeys to Oeningen, Schambelen, Diirnsten and Utznach, and Hohe Rhonen, — fayorable localities for fossil plants and in- sects. Heer worked quite alone, unaided by others ; and he never worked in collaboration with other men, unless we may except the late C. T. Gaudin of Lausanne, who translated seyeral of his important works, and in one at least, that on the climate of the tertiary epoch, may be said to have been a collaborator. Heer so walled him. Indeed, it is possible, that had Gaudin not died in the flower of his age, eigh- teen years ago, he would have worked still further in concert with Heer, and given his Heer also found an assistant, as excellent as devoted, in his’ daughter, especially during the last twelve years of his life, many of which, after the dis- ease which attacked him in 1872, he passed upon his bed. She was ever ready to place before him specimens, books, plates, descrip- tions, manuscripts. Always by his side, all his wishes were cared for by her in the most as- siduous and intelligent manner. A man more lovable, more sympathetic, a life more laborious and pure, one could searce- ly imagine. As a man, he possessed the same irresistible attraction to all who came under his influence as that which characterized the late Lady Lyell. 586 The portrait given here has been photo- engraved from a photograph taken in 1864 by Heer’s brother, kindly lent for the purpose by Professor Jules Marcou. The signature is taken from a letter addressed to the writer, under date of Aug. 13, 1885. A HEARING OF BIRDS’ EARS.1—IIL. Srecrion of bone is required for further ex- amination of the ear parts. There being no mastoid affair to be considered as such, we may proceed directly to the ‘ petrous part of the temporal’ (the periotic or petrosal bone) ; the otocrane, or otic capsule, enclosing the essential organ of audition just as the eyeball does that of vision, or the ethmoid bone that of olfaction. None of this bone is ordinarily recognizable on the outside of the skull ; though in the embryo that part which is in especial relation with the posterior semicircular canal appears to a slight extent upon the occiput. The foundation of the bone is laid very early in cartilage; traces of the cochlea and canals being visible in the chick at the fifth, day of incubation,.if not sooner, in the primitive car- tilaginous basis cranii, — the parachordal plate of cartilage on each side of the notochord. On longitudinally bisecting the adult slxull, or otherwise gaining access to the brain-cavity, the whole cerebral surface of the petrosal bone is brought into view, as in fig. 4, po, op, ep. In a skull of any size,-as that of an eagle (from which my description will be mainly derived), there is no difficulty in making out the parts, although the periphery of the petrosal is com- pletely consolidated with surrounding bones. The petrosal or periotic bone consists of three distinct bones, which in some animals may remain long or permanently separate, or be consolidated with surrounding bones and not with one another. To see them it is usually necessary to examine a young skull, like that figured. These are the pro-otic, po; the opis- thotic, op ; the epiotic, ep. In the present case of the adult eagle, they are Absolutely fused with one another, as well as with contiguous bones. The consolidated petrosal appears as an irregular protuberance upon the inner yall of the brain-cavity, much as the human pe- trous bone protrudes between posterior and middle cerebral fossae. It appears to be much more extensive than it really is, because the superior semicircular canal, too large to be accommodated in the petrosal, invades the occipital bone, —the track of the canal being 1 Concluded from No. 38. SCIENCE. [Vou, IL, No. 39. sculptured in bas-relief, —as at asc, fig. 4. Behind this semicircular trace, the deep groove of a venous sinus (sc) is engraved upon the bone, throwing the track of the canal into still stronger relief. The top of the petrosal and contiguous occipital surface floors a fossa which lodges the enormous optic lobes (corpora bigemina) of the brain; in the eagle partly di- vided from the general cavity for the cerebral hemisphere by a bony tentorium, like that which in some mammals separates the cerebellar from the cerebral fossae. On the vertical face of the petrosal, or on the corresponding occipital sur- face, is a large smooth-lipped orifice leading to a tongue-like excavation which lodges the floccu- lus of the cerebellum, and would therefore seem to correspond to that slight chink of the human petrous bone, near the meatus internus, which lodges a process of the dura mater. In front, between the petrosal and the alisphenoid (or in the apposed border of one or the other of these bones), is a considerable foramen, —the exit of the second and third divisions of the trifacial (figs. 1 and 4, the hole marked 5). Below the petrosal, between opisthotic and exoccipital, near the foramen magnum, is aforamen (which may be subdivided into foramina) represent- ing the human foramen lacerum posterius, for transmission of the pneumogastrie, ete. (fig. 4, the hole marked S). Thus, as always, the bony auditory capsule lies between the exits of the third division of the trifacial and the pneumogastric. The general space under de- scription is continued to the margin of the foramen magnum by the exoccipital bone (fig. 4, eo). Now, on the vertical face of the petrosal itself, and in the pro-otie part, far behind the foramen marked 5 in fig. 4, con- siderably above that marked 8, will be seen the large smooth-lipped orifice of the meatus auditorius internus, marked 7 in the figure. Here enter, as usual, both portio dura and portio mollis of the old seventh pair of cranial nerves. At the bottom of the meatus are at least two openings, small, but separate from each other. A bristle passed through the upper (anterior) one of these traces the course of portio dura (the facial nerve) through the fallopian aqueduct (‘nerviduct,’ it would be better called), and emerges in the tympanic cavity near the eustachian orifice. This ori- fice of exit of the facial is virtually a ‘ stylo- mastoid ’ foramen, though within the tympanic ; for the nerve burrows through no more bone in reaching the surface of the skull. passed through the other one of the two forami- na at the bottom of the meatus practically traces the course of the portio mollis, or auditory nerve, A bristle _ NoveMBER 2, 1883.] _ 4 \ and can also be made to come out into the tympanum, either through the vestibular or cochlear opening (fenestra ovalis or fenestra rotunda). In the dry skull, either passage is easily made without breaking down, and ap- parently without meeting any bony obstacle. If, now, the whole periotic mass be cut away from the rest of the skull with a fine saw, and then divided in any direction, the bony labyrinth and essen- tial organ of hearing can be studied. It is best to make the section in some def- inite plane with re- gard to the axes of the skull,—the ver- tical longitudinal, or vertical transverse, or horizontal, — as the disposition and rela- tions of the contained structures are then more readily made out. Four or five par- allel cuts will make as many thin flat slices of bone, affording eight or ten surfaces forexamination. The whole course of the labyrinthine struc- tures can be seen in sections, which, put together in the mind’s eye, or held ih hand a little apart, and visibly threaded with bristles, afford the required picture very nicely. At first sight, the unpractised eye will recognize nothing but confusion, —a_ bewil- dering maze of bone. All this cancellated structure or net-work, however, is pneumat- ic; the open-work tis- sue of bone contain- ing air derived from the tympanum, and having nothing to do with the auditory cavities proper. Parts of the bony labyrinth will soon be recognized by their smooth, firm walls and definite courses, as distinguished from the irregular interstices * 3 diameters. {2 a> f f ND LM Rt ee SCIENCE. Fie. 4.— Ripe chick’s skull, longitudinal section, viewed inside, (After Parker.) In the mandible are seen, — mk, remains of meckelian rod; d, dentary bone; sp, splenial; a, angular ; su, surangular; a7, articular; iap, internal articular process; pap, posterior articular process: in the skull, —pn, the original prenasal cartilage, upon which is moulded the premaxillary, pr, with its nasal process, npx, and dentary process, dpx; sn, septo-nasal cartilage, in which is seen mn, nasal nerve; tb, nasal turbinal; eth, ethmoid; pe, perpendic- ular plate of ethmoid; io/, inter-orbital foramen: ps, pre- sphenoidal region; 2, optic foramen; as, alisphenoid, with 5, foramen for divisions of the fifth nerve; 7, frontal; p, parietal ; 80, super-occipital ; asc, superior semicircular canal; sc, asinus (venous) canal; ep, epiotic; eo, exoccipital; op, opisthotic; po, pro-otic, with 7, meatus auditorius internus, for entrance of seventh nerve; 8, foramen for vagus nerve; bo, basi-occipital ; bt, basi-temporal; ic, canal by which carotid artery enters brain-cavity ; ap, basi-pterygoid process; ap to rbs, rostrum of the skull, being the parasphenoid bone underflooring the basi-sphenoid and future perpendicular plate of ethmoid. a87 of bone-tissue. They are, as usual, a central vestibular cavity, with its utricular recess ; three semicircular canals; and the cochlear cavity, projecting downward like a beak (see figs. 5 and 6, the membranous labyrinth, to which the incasing bony cavities closely con- form). According as the sections have been made, numerous cross-cuts of the canals will be seen here and there as circular orifices ; the canals themselves lying curled like worms in the petro- sal and occipital sub- stance, their ends con- verging to the central vestibular cavity. As compared with those of man, the parts are of great size in a bird : in the eagle, for exam- ple, the whole affair is as large as the end of one’s thumb, the whole length of the superior canal is an inch or more, and its calibre, I should judge, is absolutely about as great as in man. The cochlea, though not compara- tively diminutive, is in an undeveloped state, as far as com- plexity of structure is concerned, — ligulate or strap-shaped, a lit- tle curved on itself, but making no whorl. This is substantially as in all Sauropsida (birds and reptiles), for the cochlea does not coil into a helix until we reach Mam- malia. The tongue- , like affair is simply as if a part of the first whorl of a mammal’s cochlea very incom- pletely divided into scala vestibuli and scala tympani by ecar- tilaginous structures representing a modiolus and its lamina, proceeding from the bony bar or bridge between fenestra ovalis and fenestra rotunda. These are the external (@) and in- 588 ternal (6) cartilaginous prisms shown in figs. 8 and 9. The cochlea ends with.a saccular part, termed the ‘lagena.’ Details of the soft parts — membranous, vascular, and nervous —vwill readily’: be made out from Professor Ibsen’s beautiful figures, here reproduced (figs. 5, 6, 8, 9), with ample explanatory text. The vestibule hardly requires special de- scription, after examination of figs. 5 and 6. In the eagle, if its irregularities of contour were smoothed out, it would about hold a pea. Its utricular recess (y) is well developed. In the language of human anatomy, the three semicircular canals are the anterior or superior vertical, the posterior or inferior ver- tical, and the external or horizontal; and the planes of their respective loops are approxi- ‘ mately perpendicular to one another in the SCIENCE, ; [Vou. IL, No. 39. tal one, e, which tilts down backward. ‘The verticality of the planes of d and f is preserved. The canals in birds might be better known as the superior (d) and inferior (f) vertical, and horizontal (e) ; though it is not probable, viewing the great variation in the axes of this part of the skull, that any terms descriptive of direction will apply perfectly to all birds. Whatever its inclination backward, there ‘is no mistaking d, which is much the longest of the three, looping high over the rest, exec) ;. the petrosal, and partly bedded in the o ’ with the upper limb bas-relieved upon tue inner surface of the skull (fig. 4, asc). The one marked f loops lowest of all, though little, if any of it, reaches farther back than d; it is the second in size, and quite circular (rather more than a semicircle). Its upper limb joins Fies. 5, 6. —Membranous labyrinth of Haliactus albicilla, x 2. a, b, cochlea; 0, its saccular extremity (or lagena); c, vestibule; g, its utricle; @, anterior or superior vertical semicircular canal; e, external or horizontal semicircular canal; 7, posterior or inferior vertical semicircular canal; 2, membranous canal leading into aqueduct of the vestibule; %, vascular membrane covering the scala vestibuli. Opposite fhis, at 7,are seen the edges of the cartilaginous prisms in the fenestra rotunda: from the edges of these cartilages proceeds the delicate membrane closing the opening of the cochlea (not shown in the figure). Fre. 7.— Part of the superior vertical semicircular canal, showing its ampulla, nerve of ampulla, artery, and connective tissue of the perilymph, x 3. a, that part of the vestibule (alveus) next to the ampulla; }, the dilatation of the ampulla at its vestibular Opening; ¢, where it passes into the canal proper; d, the canal, furnished with connective tissue of the perilymph along its concaye border and sides, a8 appears clearly at the sections e and f; g, nerve of the ampulla; h, artery of the connective tissue, running beneath it, remote from the wall of the duct. Fie. 8.—Cochlea, x 3. a, external, 0, internal, cartilaginous prism; c, membranous zone; d, saccular extremity of the cochlea, or lagena; e, vascular membrane; 7, auditory nerve, its middle fascicle penetrating the internal cartilaginous prism, to reach the membranous zone by its terminal filaments; g, auditory nerve, its posterior fascicle running to the most posterior part of the lagena; jh, filament to ampulla of posterior or inferior vertical semicircular canal. Fie. 9.— Section of the cochlea. a, vestibular surface of external cartilaginous prism, extending into d@, the lagena; e, section of the membranous zone; e, Huschke’s process of the fenestra, which, with the margins of the cartilaginous prisms, affords attach- ment to the blind sac, 7, occluding the fenestra of the cochlea; g, spongy vascular membrane of the scala vestibuli; h, auditory lamellae of Treviranus; 2, canals in posterior wall of the lagena, by which the nervous filaments enter its cavity. (From Ibsen’s Anatomiske undersdgelser over Orets labyrinth. three planes of any cubical figure. In birds, these terms do not apply so ‘well to the situa- tion of the canals with reference to the axes of the body, nor to the direction of their loops ; neither is their mutual perpendicularity so nearly exhibited. The whole set is tilted over backward to some extent, so that the anterior (though still superior) canal, d, in figs. 5 and 6, loops back beyond either of the others ; its anterior limb is also straightened out. The posterior (though still inferior) eanal, f, loops behind and below the horizon- Kjobenhayn, 1881, p. 17, pl. 1, figs. 13-17.) the lower limb of d as in man, and the two open by one orifice in the vestibule; but, as far as the bony tubes are concerned, it is not simple union, for the two limbs, before form- ing a common tube, twine half around each other (like two fingers of one hand crossed). The loop of f reaches very near the back of the skull (outside). The horizontal canal, e, is the smallest, and, as it were, set within the loop of f; its plane, the opposite of that of f- The bony cavities of e and f intercommunicate where they cross, at or near the point of their ’ j and c. the contained membranous canals intercom- NovEMBER 2, 1883.] greatest convexity, farthest away from the vestibule. This decussation of e and /f, like the twining inosculation of f and d, is well known. It may not be so generally under- stood that there is (in the eagle; I do not know whether or not in birds generally) a third extra-yestibular communication of the bony canals. My sections show this perfectly. ‘The great loop of d, sweeping past the decus- sation of e and f, is thrown into a cavity com- mon to all three. Bristles threaded through « * the three canals can all be seen in’ c_, fit~erossing one another through this curious extra-vestibular chamber. I call it the trivia, or ‘three-way place.’ It is just where, in fig. 6, the three membranous canals _eussate, — midway between the letters e, f, It does not, of course, follow, that municate here, and it appears from Ibsen’s figures that they do not. The ampullar dilata- tions of the ends of the canals are well marked. The anatomy of associate soft parts is explained to some extent under fig. 7. The endolymph may contain ofoliths simi- lar to those great concretions called ‘ ear- stones’ in fishes. The equilibrating function of the labyrinth and its fluid appears to have been determined mainly from experiments: upon birds. The apparatus may be likened to the glass tubes filled with water and a bubble of air, by a combination of which a surveyor, for example, is enabled to adjust his theodolite true ; for a bird somehow knows how the liquid stands in these self-registering levelling tubes, and adjusts itself accordingly. Observations made upon pigeons show, that, ‘‘ when the membranous canals are divided, very remark- able disturbances of equilibrium ensue, which vary in character according to the seat of the lesion. When the horizontal canals are di- vided, rapid movements of the head from side to side in a horizontal plane take place, along with oscillation of the eyeballs, and the animal ‘tends to spin round on a vertical axis. When the posterior or inferior vertical canals are di- vided, the head is moved rapidly backwards and forwards, and the animal tends to exe- cute a backward somersault, head over heels. When the superior vertical canals are divided, the head is moved rapidly forwards and back- wards, and the animal tends to execute a for- ward somersault, heels over head. Combined section of the various canals causes the most bizarre contortions of the head and body.’? — - (Ferrier, Funct. of the brain, 1876, p. 57.) : Injury of the canals does not cause loss of hearing, nor does loss of equilibrium follow de- SCIENCE. ure from their own music. 589 struction of the cochlea. Two diverse though intimately connected functions are thus pre- sided over by the acoustic nerve, — audition and equilibration. ‘ The wonderful and endlessly varied songs of birds may acquire for us a new significance, now that we understand the mechanism by which these engaging creatures derive pleas- Though no two things can well be conceived more different than an anatomical disquisition and a bird- song, either may be made to subserve the pur- pose of a truer appreciation of the other; and there may be physiological aspects of even a ‘ Christmas carol.’ Exniorr Cours. Washington, Christmas, 1882. WHIRLWINDS, CYCLONES, AND TORNA- DOES3A—I, Tue general circulation wf the winds is at times interrupted by local and temporary dis- turbances of very varied size and strength, to which the general name of ‘ storms’ is given. Their most constant features are, a more or less pronounced inward spiral whirling of the air near the ground, feeding an up-draught at the centre, and an outflow above ; and a progressive motion from place to place, along a tolerably well-defined track. Clouds, and generally rain as well, accompany the larger storms. It is our object to explain how these disturb- ances arise, to examine the causes and methods of their peculiar action, and to study their dis- tribution in time and place. With this end in view, the small dust-whirlwinds that commonly arise in the hot dry air of deserts will be first considered. Next will come the great hurri- canes and typhoons of the tropical seas, and the less violent rotary storms of our own lati- tudes, all of which may be grouped together as cyclones. The tornadoes and water-spouts, showing a peculiar concentration of power over a very limited area, will be discussed last. The dry whirlwinds in fiat desert regions suddenly interrupt the calmness of the air, and begin turning, catching up dust and sand, and carrying them upwards through the spiral vortex to a height of many hundred feet. They are therefore not at all like those whirls formed about our street-corners at the meeting of opposing currents of blustering wind, or the eddies of greater strength seen in windy moun- tain regions ; for they arise in a time of quiet, and begin their motion without apparent cause. Hence’ we must, at the outset, inquire into the 1 Based on a series of lectures delivered at the Lowell insti- tute, Boston, in January, 1883. 590 condition of the atmosphere when it lies at rest, examining it especially with regard to the kind of equilibrium that then exists, and the changes necessary to produce a tendency to motion. When the air is at rest, it is normally densest and warmest next to the earth’s surface, and becomes thinner and cooler at successive alti- tudes above it. It is denser below because the earth’s attraction pulls it down, and com- presses the lower layers by the weight of the upper ones. It is warmer below, mainly be- cause the air gets nearly all of its heat by contact with, or radiation from, the warm earth, and not directly from the sun’s rays, which pass through it with but little obstruction. The average rate of upward cooling, determined by many observations on mountains and in bal- loons, is about one degree F. for every three hundred feet of ascent. In this restful con- dition let us take a block of the dry air (the effect of the presence of water-vapor will be considered with the storms at sea) from the earth’s surface, where the temperature is, say, 60° (fig. 1), and lift it up three hundred feet, : to where the temperature is g -] one degree less, or 59°. The 584 block of lower air expands as i it rises, because it is pressed M on by less .atmospheric 300 FEET weight, —less, at least, by ' the weight of three hundred i feet of air; and, in thus ex- ieee panding, it is cooled mechan- 60 ically. It has been shown inna that this mechanical cooling of an ascending mass of dry air amounts to one degree F. in a hundred and eighty-three feet of ascent, whatever its initial temperature; so that in this special ease the block is cooled by 1.6°, and its tem- perature is reduced to 58.4°. Now, let us compare it, when thus expanded and cooled, with an equal-sized block of air beside it, whose temperature is 59°. Evidently, of these two blocks of the same volume, and at the same pressure, the cooler will be the heavier. The block brought up from the surface, and now at a temperature of 58.4°, will weigh more than the air at 59° beside it, and hence it will tend to sink; and it must sink all the way down to its original level before it finds any air as heavy as itself. In this imaginary experiment we have disturbed the arrangement of the nor- mal, quiet atmosphere ; and the disturbed mass returns to its original position as soon as freed from the constraining force. Such an atmos- phere is therefore in a condition of stable equi- librium, like a rod hung by its upper end, which SCIENCE. TO te eR i ne [Vou. IL, No. 39, is opposed to any change in its position, and, when displaced, tends to return to its original attitude. Evidently, when a whirlwind springs up in, the calm air of a desert, as is so often the case, the atmosphere cannot possess this normal sta- bility : for then there would be no temptation to any such disturbance; the air would prefer to stand as itis. Before the whirlwind can arise, there must have been a change to a condition of unstable equilibrium, in which the air, like a rod balanced on its lower end, is ready to move on small provocation; and we have now to look for the cause of this change. To be guided properly in the search, the conditions necessary and antecedent to the formation of the whirls must be examined. They are, that the whirls occur generally in level, barren, warm regions, in quiet air, and only in the day- time after the sun has risen high enough to warm the sandy ground, and the air next to it, to a rather high temperature. As the first and second of these conditions may be present at night as well as by day, it must, without doubt, be the heat from the sun that disturbs the quiet equilibrium into which the air tends to settle, and, by warming the lower layers, causes a departure from the ordinary stable condition of rest. Let a case be supposed: the sun has warmed the lower air of the first example to a tempera- ture of 90° (fig. 2), while the air three hundred feet above the desert sands 4 has, in virtue of its diather- i mance, risen only to 70°; so that there is now a difference ; of twenty degrees between ‘ these two layers. If we here 500 FEET repeat the experiment of car- i rying a block of surface-air ‘ to a height of three hundred : feet, it is again mechanically [20] cooled 1.6°, so that its tem- Tee perature is reduced to 88.4°; and now, comparing it with an equal volume of adjoining air at 70°, the latter is evidently the heavier, and therefore the block of air brought up from the surface, instead of tending to sink, as in the first case, tends strongly to rise farther, and continue the motion given to it. In other words, the air is now in a condition of unstable equi- librium: it is ready to upset and re-arrange itself. The lower layer may be compared to a film of oil balanced beneath a quiet sheet of water: a little disturbance would cause the two liquids to change places, and the oil would rise through the water, draining itself upwards. NOVEMBER 2, 1883.] In such a condition as this, the desert-whirls may begin. It is clearly not necessary, in order to produce this result, that the vertical decrease of temperature should be as much as twenty degrees in three hundred feet, as in the case just assumed. In order to pass from the stable equilibrium, through the indifferent to the unstable equilibrium, it is sufficient, in dry air, that the vertical decrease should be greater than 1.6° in three hundred feet, or greater than one degree in one,hundred and eighty-three feet. Moreover, it is important to notice, that, ac- cording to this theoretical explanation, the condition of indifferent equilibrium is passed before the surface-air is, as Franklin (1753) and Belt (1859) have said, specifically lighter than that above it. This would require a tem- perature difference of at least 5.6° F. in three hundred feet. It is sufficient that the surface- air shall be potentially lighter, though ab- solutely (before any motion takes place) heavier, than the higher layers, as Reye first showed (1864); or, in other words, stable equilibrium is lost, and indifferent equilibrium reached, when the surface-air is just enough warmer than any layer above it to make up for the ehange of temperatures produced in equal- izing their densities. Any further excess of surface-warmth brings about theoretic unstable equilibrium. On the other hand, whirlwinds of decided activity will not be formed until the difference of temperature is much in excess of the narrow limits just given, the strength of the up-current increasing with its excess of warmth. Motion of the atmosphere caused by small dif- ferences of temperature would be very gentle, and would be perceived only in the ‘ boiling’ of the air, often seen in summer-time over the brow of a hill. It must be, then, the sun’s heat, as was sup- posed, that destroys the normal stable equilibri- um of our atmosphere ; and to a disturbance of this kind we can refer more or less directly all storms, and, indeed, all winds that blow about the earth. Without the heat that is constantly showered down on us, we should soon gravi- tate into a lifeless condition of stable equilib- rium, chemical, organic, and physical, and there remain in endless death. But the sun allows no such inactivity on its attendant planets: it keeps them alive and at work. (To be continued.) THE FRENCH ECLIPSE EXPEDITION. P. J. JANSSEN, the leader of the French expedition which visited Caroline Island to observe the solar eclipse of May 6, has made a report to the French SCIENCE. 591 academy of sciences, which is published in full in the Bulletin hebdomaduaire de U Association scientifique, no. 181. It contains, first, an interesting account of the voyage to Caroline Island, and a brief deserip- tion of the island, with the difficulties encountered in landing the instruments; then follows a statement of the instrumental outfit and the plan of observations, The search for intra-mercurial planets was assigned to Messrs. Palisa and Trouvelot. The former used an equatorial of 0.16 m. aperture, having a short focus and large field: the latter was provided with an equa- torial of the same size, which had a finder of 0.08 m. aperture, thus giving the observer two telescopes, The finder had a field of 4°.5, and was used in exam- ining the region in the vicinity of the sun, while the larger instrument was intended to give the position of any strange object that might be noted by means of its position-circles. In order to avoid the neces- sity of reading the circles, an attachment was made to both right ascension and declination circles, by which fine marks could be made upon the circles and verniers by the observer’s assistants, and the corre- sponding readings determined at leisure. The finder was also furnished with a reticule containing cross- threads, and a position-circle for use in noting the appearance of the corona, to the drawing of which Mr. Trouvelot gave a portion of the time of the total phase. The search for intra-mercurial planets was also con- ducted by the aid of photographic apparatus, which Mr. Janssen thus describes: — “ At my order, Mr. Gautier had prepared an equa- torial mounting with an hour-axis two metres long, carrying a strong and large platform, upon which were fastened the following photographic apparatus: a large camera having a lens of eight inches (0.21 m.), made by Darlot, giving a field of 20° to 25° (plate of 0.40m. by 0.50 m.), and designed for photographing the corona and the region about the sun with refer- ence to the stars there found; a second camera, with a Darlot lens of six inches (0.16 m.), giving a field of 26° to 35° (plate of 0.30in. by 0.40m.), for the same purpose; and a very fine apparatus by Steinheil, for studying the corona. A second mounting carried several cameras with lenses of four inches (0.10 m.), giving a great amount of light, and designed to deter- mine by very sensitive plates what are the limits of the corona, — an apparatus of great light-power, the exposure lasting during the whole of totality.” For spectrum analysis the following apparatus was employed: ‘‘a [reflecting] telescope of 0.50 m. aper- ture, having a very short focus (1.60 m.), and supplied with a direct-vision spectroscope of ten prisms; the slit of the spectroscope could be placed at different position-angles, and rapidly opened or closed, at the pleasure of the observer. An excellent finder, sup- plied with a reticule, was placed near the spectroscope, and distant from it by such an amount, that, when one eye had fixed upon some point of the corona in the finder, the other could obtain the spectroscopic analysis of this point.” There was also attached to this telescope a biquartz polariscope by Prazmowski, and a spectroscope for showing Respighi’s rings. A 592 spare mirror of 0.40 m. diameter was carried as a reserve, but was not brought into use, as, by great care, the first was kept uninjured, in spite of the fre- quent rains and the moisture of the climate. Mr. Janssen gives the following condensed report of his own observations, drawn up immediately after the observations, in accordance with the plan by which all the observers of the party were governed : — ““My observations were of two classes, — optical and photographic. The optical observations were principally designed to determine whether the coronal Spectrum consists of a continuous spectrum as a background with bright lines, or if the Fraunhofer lines exist there generally (an investigation made especially with regard to the question of extra-solar cosmie substances). In 1871 J had announced, that, besides the hydrogen lines, I had established in the spectrum of the corona the presence of the D line and of several others. ‘‘Tn the present eclipse I proposed especially to solve this question. By means of the optical arrange- ments above described, I have been able to determine that the basis of the coronal spectrum is composed of the complete Fraunhofer spectrum. The prin- cipal lines of the solar spectrum, especially D, 0, Z, ete., were detected so surely that there can be no possible doubt of this fact. JI recognized, perhaps, a hundred lines. ““T recognized this composition of the spectrum, particularly in the lower or most brilliant portions of the corona, but not to an equal degree at the same distance from the moon’s limb. ‘The details of this will be given and discussed at a future time. “T studied also the rings of Respighi. The rings did not appear uniform about the moon’s limb, but presented peculiarities of structure which will be especially discussed in their relation to the question of the Fraunhofer lines. - ‘T studied also polarization, but devoted to it only afew moments, using the excellent biquartz polari- scope of Prazmowski. The polarization was very well defined, and possessed characteristics already recognized. “Before the observations, I made a preliminary examination of the corona with the naked eye, and with an excellent telescope by Prazmowski. This examination was for the purpose of guiding mein the subsequent observations. “ All these studies — study of the shape, spectrum analysis, Respighi’s rings, polarization — were com- bined with the view of solving the question of extra- solar cosmic substances. We think that the discovery of the complete Fraunhofer spectrum in that of the corona considerably advances this question. “* Photography. — Two great instruments, contain- ing eight cameras, had been prepared for studying the question of intra-mercurial planets, and that of the shape and extension of the corona. With regard to heavenly bodies in the vicinity of the sun, these pho- tographs will require a minute examination; but, with respect to the corona, it can be said that the great power of several of the lenses used [that of eight inches (0.21 m.) and that of six inches (0.16m.)], and SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 39. also the length of exposure, permitted us to prove that the corona has an extension very much greater than that shown by optical examination, either with the naked eye or in my telescope. ‘ “‘Several of our large photographs of the corona have great distinctness, They show important details of structure which ought to be discussed. The shape of the corona was absolutely fixed during the whole duration of totality.” The reports of Messrs. Tacchini, Palisa, and Trou- velot are not given, but are alluded to in the diseus- sion of the results of the observations, which next follows. Mr. Janssen regards it quite improbable that any intra-mercurial planets exist, on account of the negative testimony given by Mr. Palisa, combined with that of Professor Holden of the American party. Mr. Trouvelot’s conclusion is less decisive, but the observer wished to re-examine the region of the sky before coming to a final conclusion.! The author adds, ‘‘ When we consider that the bodies discovered by Professor Watson in 1878 can be identified, within the limits of error to which the method employed by that astronomer is liable, with two stars in Cancer,” we arrive at the conclusion that it is to-day extremely improbable that there exists one or more planetary bodies of any importance between Mercury and the sun. Our photographs, although not yet completely examined, seem to lead to the same conclusion.” The duration of totality was found by Mr. Trouve- lot to be 5m 24s,1, by Mr. Tacchini to be 5m 238. On the subject of the corona, Mr. Janssen thus writes : — “ The corona. — Mr. Tacchini’s report shows that this skilful astronomer made remarkable obserya- tions at Caroline Island, especially with regard to the analogy between the composition of the spectrum of certain parts of the corona and the spectrum of comets. It was part of my plan to examine this correspondence, as is shown by a note drawn up by me long before the eclipse, and which I read to my colleagues when we compared our respective reports. It is a matter which ought to be verified with the greatest care in future eclipses. However, I leave to Mr. Tacchini the task of developing his observations. “Tt will be seen from my report, that the principal object of my observations was to decide one point of the composition of the spectrum of the corona which 1 Mr. Trouvelot observed, near the close of totality, a star which he describes as ‘ bright, and of a pronounced red color;’ but, by some misunderstanding, its position was not recorded by f the special attachments to the circles aboye described. Its posi- tion, therefore, cannot be determined, nor the question of its iden- ~ tification be positively settled. The observer announces (Comptes vendus, Sept. 17) that he has re-examined the region, and finds no star of the corresponding magnitude and color in the vicinity of the approximate position which he was able to assign to it. « Although,” he adds, “ the absence of a red star as bright as that which I observed in the eclipse seems quite naturally to lead to the conclusion that the body in question is no other than an intra-mercurial planet, yet as the most necessary elements, such as the position and a disk or a sensible phase, are wanting in my observation, I think I ought to suspend, for the present, my conclusions upon the probable nature of the body.” 2 First pointed ont by Dr. C. H. F. Peters (Astron. nachr., nos. 2253 and 2254). NovEMBER 2, 1883.] has always seemed to me very important; viz., wheth- er the light of the corona contains an important proportion of solar light. The result surpassed my expectation in this matter. The Fraunhofer spec- trum, so complete as I witnessed it at Caroline Island, proves, that, without denying that a certain part is due to diffraction, there exists in the corona, and especially in certain parts of the corona, an enormous quantity of reflected light; and as we know, besides, that the coronal atmosphere is very thin, it must be that in these regions cosmic matter exists in the con- dition of solid corpuscles, in order to explain this abundance of reflected solar light. “The more we advance, the more we perceive the complex nature of the regions in the immediate vicin- ity of the sun; and it is only by persistent and very yaried observations, and an exhaustive discussion of these observations, that we can arrive at an exact knowledge of these regions. The great eclipse of 1883 has allowed us to take a step forward. ** Photography of the corona. —The result of the studies of the photographs will be given later; for they require a thorough examination, since they record many most interesting phen®émena. I will simply say at present, that these photographs show a corona more extended than that given by telescopic examination, and that the phenomenon appeared well defined and steady during the duration of totality. “ Luminous intensity of the corona.—I1 had pre- pared a photometric measure, by photography, of the luminous intensity of the corona. This experiment showed that at Caroline Island the illumination given by the corona was greater than that of the full moon. The exact numbers will be given later. It should be noted, that this ts the first time that an exact measure of the luminous intensity of this phenomenon has been made.” The remainder of the report gives an account of the return journey of the members of the expedition. They visited the voleano of Kilauea on the island of Hawaii, and passed a night in the crater on the edge of the lava lake. Mr. Janssen made some experiments, which, he states, ‘show some curious coincidences between these voleanic phenomena and those of the solar surface. I was able, also, to obtain the spectrum of the flames which issue from the lava, and to estab- lish in them the presence of sodium, hydrogen, and the carburetted compounds.” Wisc’: . THE HIMALAYAS. _My predecessor, Sir Richard Temple, selected for the subject of his address to this section last year, *The central plateau of Asia.’ Following him ina measure over some of the same .ground, I have selected the mountain region south of the Central Asian highlands, viz., the Himalayas, and more par- ticularly the western portion of that range, as the subject of this paper. I propose considering this 1 Abstract of an address by Lieut.-Col. H. H. Gopwrn-Aus- TEN, F.R.S., F.G.8., F.R.G.S8., ete., president of the section of geography of the British association. SCIENCE. 593 mountain chain with reference to its physical fea- tures, past and present, and consequently with refer- ence to its geological history, so far as that relates ‘to later tertiary times; i.e., the period immediately preceding the present distribution of seas, land, rivers, and lakes. It is not, however, my intention to enter very deeply into the purely geological branch of the subject. The Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world, comprise, strictly speaking, only the snowy range seen from the plains of India, bordering upon the course of the Ganges; but we might, I think, use the térm in an extended sense, so as to include that which we may call the north-western Himalaya, north of the Punjab, and also the eastern Himalaya, bordering on Assam. The orography of this moun- tain mass has been recently ably handled by Messrs. Medlicott and Blanford ;+ and I follow them in all their main divisions and nomenclature, which are, based upon a thorough understanding of the rocks of the country. Some line must be selected where the term ‘ Himalaya’ must cease to be used, and this ean- not be better defined than by the valley of the Indus from Attock to Bunji. On this line we find the great bending-round of all the ranges. To the mountains north of the Indus, on its east and west course, the name ‘ Himalaya’ should certainly never be applied. For this north-west, trans-Indus part of the Asian chain we have the well-known name ‘ Mustagh,’ so far as the head of the Gilgit valley; the * Hindu Kush’ being an excellent term now in common use for its extension to the Afghan country. The observations made by many of the assistants of the Indian geological survey, more especially by Stoliezka, and more recently by Lydekker, in the Himalayas, combined with those made by myself in the same region, have, when considered in conjunc- tion with the ascertained strike of the granitoid or gneissic rocks, led me to separate the. great Central Asian chain into the following five principal divisions, with some minor subdivisions : — 1. The main or Central )4. Outer or lower Him- Asian axis, Kuenlun. | alaya. 2. Trans-Himalaya. | 5. Sub-Himalaya. 3. Himalaya. ! In our present ignorance as to the composition of the chain eastward from the Sutlej, we cannot at- tempt to lay down there any axis-lines of original elevation; but the separation of the line of highest peaks into one range, and the water-parting into another, is an acceptable solution of the physical fea- tures, as at present known, of this part of the chain. I think, however, that when this ground is examined, it will resolve itself into a series of parallel ridges, more or less close, and oblique to the line of greatest altitude as defined by the line of high peaks, crossing diagonally even the main drainage-line of the Sanspu; just as we see the Ladak axis crossing the Indus near Hanlé, or the Pir Panjal that of the Jhelum. Sir Henry Strachey’s conception of the general structure was the soundest and most scientific first propounded. 1 A manual of the geology of India, 1879, p. 9. 594 He considered it to be made up of a series of parallel ranges running in an oblique line to the general direc- tion of the whole mass, the great peaks being on ter- minal butt-ends of the successive parallel ranges; the watershed following the lowest parts of the ridges, and the drainage crossing the highest, in deep gorges directly transverse to the main lines of elevation. We can, in a measure, exemplify the structure of the Himalaya by that of the bones of the right hand, with fingers much elongated and stretched wide apart, of which the wrist and back may represent the broader belt of granitic rocks of the eastern area; the thumb and fingers, the more or less continuous ridges of the north-west, some less prolonged than others to the north-west, such as the Chor axis, which may be rep- resented by the thumb, terminating on the southern margin near the Sutlej. The left hand placed oppo- site will represent the same features to the west of the Indus. We will even carry this simile farther, and, as a rough illustration, suppose the intervals or long basins between the fingers to be filled with sedi- mentary deposits, and the fingers then to be brought closer together, producing a crushing and crumpling of the strata. At the same time, an elevation or depression, first of one or more of the fingers, then of another or of the whole hand, has taken place, and you are presented with very much what has gone on, upon a grand scale, over this vast area. As these changes of level haye not taken place along the whole range from east to west in an equal extent, but upon certain transyerse or diagonal lines, undu- lations more or less great have been the result; and some formations have attained a higher position in some places than in others, producing, very early in the history of these mountains, a transverse system of drainage-lines, leading through the long axial ridges. The last efforts of these rising, sinking, and lateral crushing, and, as I believe, very slowly acting forces, are to be seen at the southern face of these moun- tains, in the tertiary strata that make up the sub- Himalayan axis (Sivalik), —a topographical feature which is most striking by reason of its persistence and uniformity for some 1,600 miles. From Assam on the east, to the Punjab on the west, bending round and extending to Scinde, this fringing line of parallel ridges isfound at the base of the Himalayas; some- times higher, sometimes wider, often forming ellipti- cal valleys. Only in one part of the belt, east of the Teesta, are they absent altogether for a distance of fifty miles. These formations are of vast thickness, and, in the Punjab, cover an area of 13,000 square miles. The whole of this material has been derived from the adjacent Himalayas, and has travelled down valleys that haye been excavated in pre-tertiary times. This points to a slow subsidence of the whole south- ern side of the mountain mass, deposition generally. keeping pace with it, broken off by recurring long intervals of re-elevation. The next most interesting feature connected with the former distribution of land and sea is that these sub-Himalayan formations are fresh-water, or tor- rential, showing that since nummulitic or eocene SCIENCE. a 3 ee lee BA Se (Mm | he [Vou. IL, No, 39. times the sea has never washed the base of the Him- alayas. In fact, there is no evidence of this from the gorge where the Ganges leaves the mountains up to the base of the Garo Hills. I believe that from As- sam to Scinde there once existed a great river, receiv- ing its tributaries from the Himalayas, partly a land of lakes and marshes, the home of that wonderful mammalian and reptilian fauna which Cautley and Falconer were the first to bring to light. The south- ern boundary of this long alluvial plain was formed by the present peninsula of India, and probably of the extension of the Garo and Khasi Hills westward to the Rajmahal Hills. Depression has been consid- erable in the neighborhood of Calcutta, nearly five hundred feet. At three hundred and eighty feet, beds of peat were passed through in boring; and the lowest beds contained fresh-water*shells. The beds, also, were of such a grayelly nature as to indicate the neighborhood of hills, now buried beneath the Gan- gesalluvium. This is precisely the appearance of the country above Calcutta, on approaching the present yalley of the Brahmaputra. The western termination of the Garo Hills sinks into these later alluvial depos- its; and along’the southern face of the range, up to Sylhet, the waters of the marshes during the rainy season wash the nummulitic rocks like an inland sea, and point to the very recent depression of all this area. The isolated granite hilltops jutting up out of the marshy country from Dhoobri to Gwalpara, and on to Tezpur, all testify to the same continuous depression here. It is exactly north of this that we find the Si- valik formations, absent at the base of the Himalayas. This gradual depression of the delta of the Gan- ges, the relative higher level of the water parting and shifting of the Punjab rivers westward, appear to be only the Jast phase of that post-pliocene disturbance which broke up the Assam sub-Himalayan lacustrine system draining into the Arabian Sea. Zodlogical evidence, which I cannot here find space to quote, is also in favor of this former connection of the now separated waters of the Ganges and Indus basins, and the hill-tracts of the Garo and Khasi Hills with penin- sular India. ; Within the mountains in the old rock basins — and these are analogous to the valleys of the Alps — are pliocene and post-pliocene beds of great thick- ness, but of fresh-water origin; the remnants of which are to be seen in Kashmir and Scardo at in- tervals, along the valley of the Indus, and that large, now elevated, accumulation at the head of the Sutlej River in Hundes, —all in the more sheltered por- tions of the valley basins, untouched by the denuding action during the glacial period. The extent and displacement of the upper pliocene beds in north Italy and here are very similar. Often abutting hori- zontally against the mountains, they are in other places found tilted at considerable angles on the margin of their original extension, When we ex- amine their contents, we find that the fauna of that time, in Asia as well as Europe, was more African in character, and included the hippopotamus, croc- odiles, and tortoises; of which, the common croco- dile, the gavial or long-snouted species, and an Emys, NovEMBER 2, 1883.] have survived the many geological changes, and still inhabit the rivers and low grounds of India to-day. The fresh-water shells are the same now as then. Many species of antelope lived in the neighboring plains and uplands. The elephant was there in the zenith of its existence, for no less than thirteen species have been found fossil in northern India. If we now turn to Europe to compare formations of similar age, Lombardy and the valley of the Po, with the southern side of the Alps, present to us somewhat similar physical features. A large area of about'the size of the north-west Punjab, once a part of the miocene sea, is occupied by a remnant of rocks of that age, considerably elevated and tilted, but not to such an extent as those of the Himalayas. Near Turin these dip towards the mountains; and a very short examination shows the undoubted glacial character of some of the beds; and, as the whole formation is marine, their large sharply angular material, much of which is jurassic limestone, was probably transported from the adjacent mountains by the agency of ice in a narrow sea.! After the great crushing and alteration of the previous out- lines of the. whole country, another sea filled the basin of the Po, and pliocene deposits were laid down in a sinking area extending to the base of the moun- tains all round the new bay or gulf. Re-elevation again set in, and with it, or soon after it, the advent of another and the last glacial period. Before the last great elevation of the alpine chain, the whole line of seacoast, therefore, ran even high up the long deep valleys of Maggiore, Como, Garda, ete. Then came the gradual but uneven elevation of the whole area, including the miocene hills south of the Po; and lacustrine and estuary conditions prevailed over much of the plain country. The lapse of time was probably enormous; and, as the land rose and the sea retired, the climate gradually became cooler, and ushered in the glacial period. With the change and the increased volume of the mountain torrents, the destruction of the upraised marine plio- cene beds commenced, and finally culminated in the extreme extension of the glaciers, even into the plains. The denudation of this formation has been enormous along the base of the Alps, and only mere remnants are to be found. Their preservation is due to their being in position where the great denuding force, the ice, has been unable to touch them: in other in- stances the early deposition of moraine matter upon them has acted liked a shield, and prevented their entire destruction, The scattered remnants of the pliocene formation south of the Alps show well how soon a great for- mation may be completely destroyed by denuding forces. 1 No trace has been observed of this glacial period in the miocene of India. The most lofty portions of the chain had not then attained a greater elevation, probably, than 14,000 to 18,000 feet, and the outer axis-lines far less. However, in the tertiary beds (middle eocene?) of the Indus walley, below Leh, such conditions are indicated by Lydekker (Memoirs of geological survey of India, vol, xxii. p. 104, which I have received since this address was sent to press). SCIENCE. 595 It is an established fact, that the great valleys of the Alps and Himalaya existed much in their present form during miocene times; and they may owe their excavation partly to the glacial action of that period, when these mountain slopes rose from the plain or margin of the ancient sea, far in front of the present line of slope, and were far higher than now. It is not improbable, that, during the earlier exten- sion of the glaciers into the Maggiore basin, the sea still had access to it. This would have greatly aided in the removal of the marine deposits, and then the deeper erosion of its bed near the Borromean Islands, so well put forward by Sir Andrew Ramsay. When we see the gigantic scouring which glaciers have effected in the hardest rocks on the sides and bottoms of valleys, when we know for certain the enormous thickness they reached in the Alps, I do not doubt for a moment their capability of deepening a rock basin very considerably, or their power to move for- ward over and against slopes so low as 2° to 39.1 Passing from the glacial action displayed in the outer Alps to that in the Himalaya, we find ample evidence of a period of great extension of such conditions, first in the erratics of the Attock plain and the Potwar, lying fifty to sixty miles from the gorge of the Indus at Torbela. We have again the fact that in Baltistan, in the Indus valley, glaciers have twice descended far beyond their present limits, first down to Scardo itself, and then to some thirty miles below their present limits; while the glaciers of Nanga Purbet, towering above the Indus some 22,000 feet, must have descended into the bed of that river. In fact, examples of the former extension of glaciers are wide-spread along the chain of the Himalayas from west to east. True moraines and moraine- mounds, at 16,000 feet on the north side of the Baralasa Pass, attest the presence of glaciers on the elevated plain of Rukshu, where now the snow-line is over 20,000 feet. Drew gives much valuable in- formation regarding their former size. On the east, in Sikkim, Sir Joseph Hooker has described moraines of great height (700 feet) and extent. Still farther south and east, in the Naga Hills, a short period of greater cold is indicated by the moraine detritus under the loftiest portion of the Burrail range, in latitude 25° 30’. Whatever may have been the length of the glacial period in the Alps, — and it was very considerable, — in the Himalayas it cannot have been so long and so general, although to a certain extent contem- poraneous. In the Alps, glaciation meets the eye on every side; and the mountains, up to a distinct level, owe their form and outline to its great and universal extension. In the Himalayas it is difficult to trace polished sur- faces or striae markings, even in the neighborhood of the largest glaciers that are now advancing in 1 There appears to be too great an advocacy, on the one hand, of ice-action having done all the work of denudation; while, on the other, some writers consider this to have been extremely limited. It is the combination of the two forces, I think, that effects 80 much, and in so different a manner and degree. 596 full activity. Although of such great length, these Himalayan glaciers could neyer have reached the enormous thickness which the earlier alpine glaciers attained. Two periods of glacial extension are clearly de- fined, separated by a milder interval of climate. During the earlier glacial period the Indus valley was filled with those extensive lacustrine and fluviatile deposits, mixed with large angular débris, such as we see at Scardo, which may be coeval with the extreme extension of the alpine erratics, so far as the miocene hills south of Turin. The second period followed after a long interval of denudation of the same beds, and would correspond with the last extension of the great moraines of Ivrea, Maggiore, Como, etc., followed by a final re- treat to nearly present smaller dimensions. Nowhere on the south of the Himalaya do we find valleys presenting any features similar to those of the southern Alps, particularly on the Italian lakes, which are, I believe, the result, in the first place, of marine denudation, succeeded by that of depression, and finally powerful ice-action. This attempt to bring before you some of the great changes in the geography of Europe and Asia must now be brought to anend. Jam only sorry it is not in more able hands than mine to treat it in the manner it deserves, and in better and more eloquent language; but it is a talent given to but few men (sometimes to a Lyell ora Darwin) to explain clearly and in an interesting form the great and gradual changes the surface of the earth has passed through. The study of those changes must create in our minds humble admiration of the great Creator’s sublime work, and it is in such a spirit that I now submit for your consideration the subject of this address. FRENCH GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORA- TIONS.1 Since the last re-union of our societies, we have seen the complete success of the French expedition to observe the transit of Venus. This phenomenon, important for astronomy, which requires a unity of measurement of the celestial spaces, should also be of interest to geography, for the unity sought is the correct distance of the sun from the earth. We already know the distance of the moon from the earth, about ninety-six thousand leagues, of which I can easily form an idea, as it is the distance I have traversed by land and sea since 1854, the time that [I commenced my isthmus travels. ‘“‘ The French expe- dition sent to foreign parts to observe the transit of Venus has obtained a great and well-earned success, of which they are justly entitled to be proud.” So says one of the most eminent French savants, Mr. Dumas, who has largely contributed to that success. It now remains, and it is not the least difficult part of the task, to compare the results obtained, in order to submit to a delicate analysis the infinitesimal differences, which correspond to errors of hundreds 1 Address by FERDINAND DE LxEsseEps before the geographi- cal congress at Douai. Translated from Cosmos-les-mondes, vi. 91, 121. SCIENCE. ‘fertile plains. [Vou. IL, No. 89. of kilometres, in the distance sought. Savants have, it is true, more than a century to make use of the observations of 1882; for the phenomenon will not take place again till the year 2004. At the extreme east of Europe we find in process. of execution a work whereby modern science shall again assert her superiority by a success which the ancients gave up. Through the initiative of Gen. Tir, the Isthmus of Corinth is at this moment being cut, which will shorten by about two hundred and fifty kilometres, on an average, the voyage between the eastern and western parts of the north of the Mediterranean. In the course of the present year, the two plains at the side of the Gulf of Aegina and the Bay of Corinth will be cut away, and workmen will attack the solid.mass of forty-seven metres, which it is desired to cut away to eight metres below the level of the sea. It is, in minimo, the cut of the Isthmus of Panama, the length of which is seyenty- three kilometres instead of six kilometres; that is, double the distance between the garden of the Tuille- ries and the Are de Triomphe in the Etoile at Paris. Some distance north of Corinth, there is unfolding another episode of the struggle between these two rival powers, the earth and man, There the work has begun which will transform a marshy lake into In a few years, broad Lake Copais will suffer the fate of Lake Fucino, Lake Fessara, Lake de Harlem, and the marsh of Pinsk. There is still a fourth isthmus to cut. The king of Siam has authorized a survey for a maritime canal on his territory, between the Indian Ocean and the seas of China and Cochin China, The object is to escape the dangerous Strait of Malacca, and gain six hundred. leagues from Europe to the extreme east. In Arabia, Mr. Charles Huber, who two years ago: successfully accomplished a mission for the minister of public instruction, has resumed the journey he made so fortunately; but he wishes to proceed farther than at that time he was able. At present he is at Palmyra, copying rare inscriptions; and, this com- pleted, he will set out for Hall, for the Nedjed, and perhaps farther if circumstances favor his energy and firm will. The Arabian peninsula is one of the fields. of study where French science has a long standing: and very honorable record. Wecan but hope that Mr. Huber may show himself worthy of his predecessors. In the extreme east, Cochin China and Tonquim have been most recently explored by the French, and I should like to recount the discoveries of Dr. Néis- and Lieut. Saptans at the sources of the Donnai. The former is at present en route for the region which he has already visited. Ethnography and anthropology, which are his special objects of study, will no doubt. acquire new information, full and exact, from Dr. Néis’s present journey. The study of the ancient. civilizations and of epigraphy engages the attention of Capt. Aymonier, who has just finished a fruitful exploration at Cambodia. The parcels recently sent to the museum of the Trocadero testify to the im- portance of the results gathered by Mr. Aymonier, who is one of the most distinguished, perhaps the most distinguished, representatives. of Indo-Chinese n 4 , 4 NovEMBER 2, 1§83.] students. Tonquin is known to us only by its delta, which has been an object for fine work by French hydrographic engineers. Beyond, to the right and left of the Red River, surveyed first by Mr. Dupuis, and afterward by Mr. de Kergaradee, we know noth- ing, or almost nothing, with certainty. Last year, in the face of dangers to which his companion Mr. Courtin succumbed, Mr. Villeroy-d’Augis made an examination which has given us the first rough sketch of the course of the Black River. The mineral resources of Tonquin, on the coast at least, have been ascertained by Mr. Fuchs in a recent voyage; and this distinguished engineer seized the opportu- nity to gather the first materials of the geological constitution of that part of Anam, as well as the rest of Indo-China. The events which are taking place at Tonquin we cannot examine; but they will lead, doubtless, to a state of things which will render journeys practicable. Mr. Harmand, who was con- spicuous at the beginning of his career for his impor- tant explorations, will doubtless lend his co-operation to the French explorers who are about to set out for these parts of Asia. If we turn our eyes toward Africa, we see several Frenchmen engaged in the contest which will defi- nitely free this continent to science in opening it to civilization. For all Algeria the time of exploration, properly so called, is past. The country surveyed by geodesians is open to military topographers, who will give us a representation of it as beautiful and as cor- rect as the map of France. At the instigation of our colleague, Col. Perrier, chief of the geographical service of the army, the surveys are being followed up, and the publication of the work will soon begin, to be continued without interruption. ; For the extreme south of Orange, geography had only a series of isolated guide-books, with a few de- scriptions carefully made, but limited. Wars have drawn to this territory a troop of surveyors, whose campaigns have resulted in a survey, based on a tri- angulation, of all the country between Mecheria, the terminus of the Orange railroad, and the great oasis of Figuig. Icertainly do not err in asserting, that the officers who have accomplished this difficult and dan- gerous work, Capt. de Castries and Lieuts. Brosselad and Delcroix, deserve well of geography. In France the events in Tunis haye been watched with much interest. Geography will gather the first fruits from these events. Here, again, we were re- duced to information confined to the surroundings of Tunis, and certain points of the regency, and very estimable itineraries, but whose loose threads cireum- seribe vast regions left blank on the charts or timo- rously sketched. Following our exploring column, skilful surveyors have continued to fill up these gaps. Their records have been completed, and arranged methodically by officers attached to the geographical service of the army. If I am correctly informed, this service now possesses the materials for a large map, on which Tunis will appear in a decidedly new light, with the arrangement of its valleys, the character and projection of its prominence, and the precise position of its centres of population. , SCIENCE. 97 The minister of public instruction, on his part, has organized an expedition for the scientific exploration of Tunis. Already, from an archeological stand- point, important discoveries have been made on this ground, where exist the relics of several great civiliza- tions. The learned work of Mr. Charles Tissot, the correspondent of the institute, formerly ambassador to London, will be, as far as concerns the Roman epoch, a fine and substantial introduction to the in= vestigations undertaken. Our protectorate will re- vive the Tunis of the past, while it creates a Tunis of the future. Here is the opportunity to mention the scheme in regard to the interior African sea, ren- dered practicable by the perseverance, disinterest- edness, and knowledge of Commander Roudaire. Other surveys, executed during this campaign by the engineers whom Capt. Henry leads, fill up the gaps in the previous works, complete the information regard- ing the banks of the Senegal or its tributaries, and prepare the route towards Bammakoo for the next expedition. This time a larger party must be sent out than on preceding expeditions, and they ought to advance farther. After haying, while the road was making, remoyed, without striking a blow, the chief of Moorgoola, who was hostile to us, and after taking by assault the village of Daba, where advance was opposed, the column finally arrived at Bamma- koo, Feb. 1; and, on the 7th, Col. Borgnis-Desbordes laid the first stone of the fort. From this first jour- ney, under the direction of Capt. Bonnier, the sur- yeyors, who included some experienced officers (Capt. Vallitre, for instance), haye brought back very com~ plete results, extending over the ground between Kita and Bammakoo, and in the surrounding countries, Fooladoogo, Gangara, and Bélédoogoo, They have also contributed largely to the geography of a coun- try lately only touched by a few explorers. I do not know that you wil] agree with me; but I see, in these three expeditions of Col. Borgnis-Des- bordes, a very interesting moral side.. Let’ us imagine a handful of men setting out from Calais, to reach, in a certain time, the neighborhood of Vienna or Budapest: let that be the distance. You know the difficulties that were encountered. After a long journey in barges on the Senegal, it was necessary, under a burning sky, to make weary marches across districts covered with high grass or with thorny plants, and across calcined plains. They must scalé steep acclivities, pass through innumerable swamps, slimy and malarious. They must venture through narrow paths on the sides of cliffs into defiles, — veritable Thermopylae, where a few might stop anarmy. After the departure, fever attacked the column, and each day claimed its victim. Nevertheless their courage did not fail. At times they were compélled to fight, and to the ravages of fever was added the fire of an enemy who could not be disregarded. Sometimes they stopped; but then they were obliged to work without relaxation in building a fort, for the season was adyancing. Three times in succession our sol- diers, under such circumstances, have penetrated to the heart of the western Soodan, led by a man har- dened by bravery. He was commissioned to push to 598 the Niger the line of stations which should establish our claims. He advanced straight to his object: the difficulties of detail discouraged him no more than the unforeseen disconcerted him, or than danger frightened him. Thus supported by officers worthy of their leader, and by soldiers full of devotion, he has accomplished his whole task. ‘The little phalanx re-embarked on the Senegal, ragged, worn out, ema- ciated, and reduced more than a third; but they had nobly and simply performed a grand deed. Before leaving the Senegal, I would not forget to mention the efforts of Dr. Bayol to contribute to the geographical knowledge of these countries. You may already see, on the map of Africa, very carefully prepared by Capt. Lannoix for the geographical ser- vice of the army, the line of travel which, in his pre- ceding journey, Dr. Bayol followed between Timbo and Medina, in a country still unknown. At present he has just traversed more than three hundred and sixty kilometres in a country, also left blank, or nearly so, onthe maps. Lieut. Quiquandon, his companion, gives us a suryey of the line of march, which, retreat- ing from the Niger, will join the line of march of the Austrian traveller, Lenz, on his return from Tim- buctoo. This is an important paper for geography. Mr. Bayol has arranged so that, up to Ségala, the states through which he has passed have accepted the protectorate of France. Besides the treaties to this effect, he brings back collections which will con- tribute largely to the geological and zodlogical de- scription of this zone of the African continent. If, now, we turn farther south, as it were symmet- rically with the Senegal and the Niger, we shall come to the Ogowé and the Kongo. Here, too, we find a man firmly resolved to secure for France a country worthy of her on the banks of the Kongo. Here Mr. de Brazza (for you all have recognized to whom I refer) is at work. As I speak to you now, he must be en route for the great river, the inhabitants of whose banks will, without doubt, gladly welcome back an explorer who was always full of justice and humanity toward them. It is said that’ difficulties exist between Mr. de Brazza and Mr. Stanley. The situation has, I think, been much exaggerated. Let us not forget that the origin of the enterprise to which Mr. Stanley devotes his energy is due to his Majesty the king of Belgium, and was formed for the purpose of sparing the travellers of all nations a part of the dangers of their enterprises. The generous founder of the International African association will certainly do all in his power to establish kindly rela- tions between two of the most illustrious pioneers of civilization and of science. Besides, Mr. de Brazza would not falsify by his acts the words which he uttered at the last banquet of the Société de géo- graphie, when he received from the hands of his fellow-explorers the French colors: ‘‘ There, where I shall be commissioned,” he said, ‘‘to carry the colors you present to me, they will be a sign of peace, of liberty, of science, and of commerce; they will be kind and compassionate with the weak and courteous, but firm with the strong.’’ Let us, then, be patient. Let us not expect, that, under the present circum- SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 39. stances in equatorial Africa, evolution and progress can be very rapid. Let us also not forget that we owe all respect to the claims of our friends the Portu- guese to certain regions bordering the Kongo. I would not neglect to invoke your sympathies for the calm courage with which, in western Africa, on the route of the great lakes, Mr. Bloyet accomplished the mission placed upon him by the French commit- tee of the International association. The travellers of several nations could tell us what protection they have received, what support, what counsels, they have obtained, from Mr. Bloyet. It is his courage which assists in the noble task of making the French name loved and respected by the natives of these hostilely inclined countries. Still nearer the lakes are our Catholic missionaries, some of whom have already given to geography useful data of the countries in which they are engaged. The same is being done, also, by French evangelical missionaries farther south, in the region of the Lessooto. One of them, Mr. Kurger, is busily at work, perfecting a map of the country. We hear little from Mr. Victor Giraud, who is proceeding in the direction of the great Lake Banguelo, south of which Livingstone died. Our best. wishes accompany the young explorer, whose character, knowledge, and equipment warrant us in expecting much of him. ; Before leaving Africa, I wish to mention one who has already proved himself a distinguished traveller. I refer to Mr. Georges Rexoil. He is engaged at the south in the large peninsula of the Comalis, which he has explored at the north with so great success. If he succeeds in penetrating into this unknown and formidable region, he will certainly garner a new scientific harvest not less rich than the preceding. Allow me to approach America, and briefly speak to you of the cutting of the American isthmus be- tween Colon and Panama. Two years haye been spent in preparing the field of battle. The entire line is occupied by our workmen and machines. The director, Mr. Dingler, engineer-in-chief, who has just set to work our corps, has returned to Paris to report both his plans and his preparations to inaugurate the canal in 1888. In the course of this year, till July of the year following, he will each month remove from the cut a million cubic metres of débris, and from that date two million cubic metres a month, making twenty-four million a year. The enterprise will be finished during the following four years. I intend to visit this magnificent work early in 1884, and I hope that delegates from our geographical so- cieties will accompany me. I must not leaye Central America without respectfully referring to the suc- cessful perseverance with which one of the most de- voted missionaries sent out by the minister of public instruction, Mr. Désiré Charnay, has explored the ruins of Yucatan. His researches and discoveries, together with his inferences, certainly throw unexpected light on the former obscurity of the American civilizations. The feeling of sadness which we all experienced, on learning the terrible ending of the expedition of Dr. Crevaux, is still with us. Since then, only vague rumors have reached Hurope in regard to this Pe" is ‘ s ‘ 5 7 Xo - c . 3 NoveMBER 2, 1883.] tragedy in the heart of South America. Mr. Thouar, a young French traveller, is now facing dangers of every description, in his attempt to discover the re- mains of our unfortunate countrymen. Gathering information, and supported by good will on all sides, he is making slow but regular advance. We can _ only hope that he will attain his object; while we do not ignore the dangers to which he so generously exposes himself in trying to penetrate, accompanied only by an interpreter, a country inhabited by In- dians who overthrew the mission of Dr. Crevaux. Our warmest hopes for success go with him in his noble undertaking. At the extreme south of America, at Tierra del Fuego, a French mission, established a year ago, has been commissioned, in accordance with the interna- tional programme, to make meteorological and mag- netic observations. We look forward to the next return of the guard-ships, whose work, accomplished under the direction of Mr. Martial, commander of the Romanche, will form a valuable contribution to the physical geography of these parts. Finally, after a successful expedition to the north- ern latitudes, in the polar seas, which, since the voy- age of the Recherche, have scarcely seen the French flag, one of our countrymen, Mr. Charles Rabot, is at present continuing in Russian Lapland the inves- tigations which he began in Sweden. The region which he includes still offers a vast field for geo- - graphical and geological study. Such, my dear colleagues, are the chief means by which the advance of French geography, in its most active and most persistent form is disclosed. I might still speak to you at length, but we must not deserve the reproach of weaving for ourselves crowns; and, in the noble titles I have just recalled to you, we should see rather the obligations they place upon us than the satisfaction which they bring to our proper national pride. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Marriage laws of the Omahas and cognate tribes. Tse Dakotas or Sioux still have mother-right in some of their tribes, and I cannot say how far the following statements apply to them; but the Omahbas, Ponkas, Kansas, Osages, and others have father-right, and are governed by the principles here given, with one exception, —the Kansas have re- cently disregarded their laws, and have begun to marry in the gens. The Omaha tribe is divided into ten gentes or clans, each gens having its special place in the tribal circle. In the figure the numerals denote the gentes, and the letters the sub-gentes. Suppose that I belong to 1, the Elk gens, which is also my father’s gens: I cannot marry any female of that gens. If my mother belongs to 2, a buffalo gens, I cannot marry any woman of that gens, Suppose that my father’s mother belonged to 3 a, my mother’s mother to 4 a, my father’s father’s mother to 5a, my mother’s father’s mother to 6 a, my father’s mother’s mother to 7, and my mother’s mother’s mother to 8 a: I cannot marry any women of 3a,4a,5a,6a, 7, or 8a, if I know of their re- SCIENCE. 599 lationship to me; but I can marry any women of the other sub-gentes, 3 b, 3 ec, 3d, 4b, 4c, 4d, 5b, 5e,5d,6b, 6c, 6d, 8b, 8c, or 8d, as they are not my full kindred. THE FIVE 8 ISHTA-SANDA GENTES. I can also marry any women of 9 or 10, if they are not forbidden to me for other reasons; that is, if they are not my affinities, such as the wives (real or possible) of those whom I call my fathers, mother’s brothers, grandfathers, sons, sister’s sons, or grandsons. Principles considered. —1. Marriage in the father’s gens forbidden. 2. Marriage in the mother’s gens forbidden. 3. The regulation of the sub-gens. 4. Potential or possible marriages must always be kept in mind, and kinship terms are based upon them. J. OweN Dorsey. Washington, D.C. Francis Galton’s proposed ‘Family registers.’ Mr. Francis Galton is now planning to push his inquiries into the laws of heredity upon a more ex- tensive and systematic scale than ever before. The success of his early work, ‘ Hereditary genius,’ led him to observations in a wider field, which extended over several years, and were collected in his very valuable book, ‘Inquiries into the human faculty,’ which appeared last spring. His new proposal in- volyes the collection of a large number of family biological histories, to extend over three or four generations, and to be obtained by circulating an ex- haustive schedule of printed questions. The writer has just received a copy of the latter, together with a prospectus of the general plan, which Mr. Galton will call ‘Family registers.’ The revised schedules will shortly be ready for distribution. In the mean time an abstract of the prospectus and schedule may be given. : Mr. Galton foresees the difficulties which he will encounter; and, appreciating that the obtaining of ac- curate family histories of health and disease among laymen is almost out of the question, his prospec- tus appeals principally to the medical profession. Among doctors, all inherited disease is a disease, and not necessarily an hereditary disgrace, as most of the laity are apt to regard it. In this class, also, the scientific interest attached to inherited imperfec- tions of physique or mind often overbears every other feeling. At all events, although the anonymous will be strictly maintained, Mr. Galton seems to expect that few non-professional persons will be ready even 600 to put upon paper the rather searching register of re- lies. ‘ The narrowest scope of inquiry, to be of any value, must embrace three generations; but the results will be far more reliable when they cover four. The latter would relate to at least thirty-six persons, which Mr. Galton reckons as follows; ‘‘ On the side of the con- tributor there are his two parents, four grand-parents, an average of three uncles and aunts on each of the two sides, three brothers or sisters, and himself: this makes sixteen persons. There is another set of six- ’ teen for the relatives of his wife in the same degrees. Lastly, I allow an average of four children.’”’ A sin- gle family register of this size, therefore, at least involves the filling-out of nearly thirty-six of the schedules, which will be no light task, even with the most favorable opportunities of obtaining informa- tion. The persons whom Mr. Galton anticipates will assist him the most are young physicians, married and with children. In case the grand-parents are liv- ing, their field of information-will naturally be very wide. Partly as an inducement to men of this class to undertake such a task, partly as a pecuniary re- turn for the time which it must necessarily occupy, a series of prizes will be offered, amounting, altogether, to £500, including, probably, ten prizes of £25 each, and others not to exceed £50 nor fall short of £5. The returns are ‘to be sent with mottoes, but no sig- nature; the name and address to be enclosed in a sep- arate envelope bearing the motto. The merit of the returns will be estimated by the clearness and ex- haustiveness of statement, the number of generations treated of, and the appendix (see beyond). The returns asked for are in abstract as follows: 1. A separate and full biological history of each member of the family in the direct line of ascent; 2. A very brief statement of the main biological facts in the lives of members of the collateral lines of ascent, that is, of the uncles and aunts, great-uncles and great-aunts, etc.; 3, A full description of the main sources of information for 1 and 2; 4. An ap- pendix which will include an analysis of the medical history of the family, showing the peculiarities which haye, aud have not, been transmitted, and their iden- tical or changed form. All communications to be addressed to Francis Galton, 42 Rutland Gate, Lon- don (S. W.), England. Mr. Galton has reduced the collection of statistics to a fine art, having arranged this schedule with the greatest ingenuity. The near and remote relation- ships are indicated by simple symbols; and, by means of horizontal and transverse columns, the required facts can be condensed into an astonishingly small space.. Each schedule is intended to cover six peri- ods in the life of the person described, from childhood to late in life, and at each of these periods to give a statement of, A, conditions of life; B, personal de- scription; C, medical life-history. Under A are such topics as town or country residence, and sanitary influences generally. Under B are descriptions of feature and physique, of habits of work and mus- cular force and quickness, keenness of sight and dexterity, artistic and allied capacities, peculiarities of character and temperament. Under C are dis- eases, accidents, malformations, age at death, etc. Other facts solicited are, order of birth, age at mar- riage, number and sex of children. All this is upon one side of a double sheet, and relates to one person in the direct line of ascent. Upon the reverse of the sheet, similar inquiries are made in the collateral lines, or among the brothers and sisters of the person described. Mr. Galton believes that the interest in each family ~ SCIENCE. [Vou. I1., No. 39 register will increase rapidly as the investigation goes on, and family histories will result of far more ac- curacy than could be collected in any less methodical system. The scheme is so much more comprehensive than any thing which has preceded it, that it certainly promises us a much deeper insight into the laws of heredity than we have at present. The moral value of this, and, in fact, of much of the life-work of this author, lies in the dissemination of the stern truth, which is as old as the Mosaic law, that the character of the next generation depends, perhaps, less than we are apt to think upon the education and training we prepare for them, and more upon the life-conduet of the present and the preceding generations. Henry F, OSBORN. MAUDSLEY’S BODY AND WILL. Body and will: being an essay concerning will in its metaphysical, physiological, and pathological as- pects. By Henry Maupstey, M.D. London, Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1883. 8+333 p. 8°. ConsmDERED with respect to its announced purpose, this book is one of the most unfortu- nate and disappointing that we have ever seen bearing the name of an able man on the title- page. The purpose, as set forth on the titlepage and in the preface, seems indeed a noble one- Of will, in its pathological aspect at least, Dr. Maudsley has, one would suppose, the best possible right to speak. And we all haye so much to learn about all its aspects, that we come to the book, even after previous experi- ence of the author’s eccentricities, with hope of getting some real instruction. That the freedom of the will is to be discussed, we learn without fear: for, old as the topic is, an in- genious man may have something new to say about it; and a straightforward statement of the doctrine of determinism, made from the physiological point of view, may well be useful and instructive, even if it should fail to be new. But, with much more interest than he feels in the promised wrangle over the freedom of the will, the student of psychology looks forward to what is promised in the preface, where Dr. Maudsley tells us that he has long been en-~ gaged in dealing with ‘‘ concrete minds, that must be observed, studied, and managed ;’” that he has been trying to find out ‘* why indi- viduals feel, think, and do as they do, how they may be actuated to feel, think, and do differently, and in what way best to deal with them so as to do one’s duty to one’s self and them.’’ In consequence, he says, ‘‘ I have no choice but to leave the barren heights of spec- ulation for the plains on which men live and move and have their being.’’ He desires, then, ‘¢to bring home to mental philosophers the necessity of taking serious account of a class of facts and thoughts which, though they are vs al NoveMBeER 2, 1883.] not philosophy, may claim not to be ignored by philosophy.’’ All this means, if it means any thing, that we may expect from Dr. Mauds- ley some results of his experience with the laws of human will, some concrete psychology, —such, for instance, as, in case of certain phe- nomena of sensation and memory, Mr. Galton has given us, in the book that we lately re- viewed on ‘Human faculty.’ Mr. Galton’s work has been confined mainly to the lower phenomena of mind. How great the gain, if we can get scientific research to give us cor- respondingly fruitful results about the higher phenomena of mind! We hope, of course, for nothing final, or as yet very exact, in this field : but Dr. Maudsley will surely offer us some- thing; and his announcement is just such as a sober observer of a special class of facts might be expected to make, in case he had found out something well worth telling. As for the author’s denunciation of speculation, we need not be haters of philosophy to overlook or pardon that. The most enthusiastic student of general philosophy ought to admit freely the vast importance to him, also, of just such conerete study of mind as Dr. Maudsley an- nounces; and if Dr. Maudsley has found the heights of speculation barren, then surely he will keep off them, and will tell us what he has to tell so much the better. We reserve, then, our own right to study general philosophy if we find it fruitful; and we just now follow him eagerly to the green paStures of concrete psychology, where he is to give us the result of special study. We are doomed to bitter disappointment. The book consists of three parts. ‘The first, on ‘Will in its metaphysical aspects,’ fills nine- ty-eight pages, and contains a restatement of - the bare commonplaces of modern thought on the relation of mind and organism, a like re- statement of the oldest and most common- place of the deterministic arguments, a barren criticism of the oldest and most commonplace arguments for free will, and finally, scattered throughout this discussion in all sorts of weari- some digressions, a string of purely speculative reflections, so confused, so full of contradic- tion, so ill expressed, that they would be unworthy to pass as the thesis of a fairly in- structed student of philosophy in his second year’s work. The second part of the book (pp. 99-232, with four pages of notes) opens far more prom- isingly, with a good chapter on the ‘ Physio- logical basis of will.’ But thereafter, at once the discussion sinks back into its native con- fusion. We are to learn about the * physio- SCIENCE. 601 logical, sociological, and evolutional relations’ of the will; and we have a series of the com- monplaces of recent discussion, together with another mass of confused speculations, as full as before of digressions. Mr. Spencer, who is not named, is yet several times referred to very severely as a dangerous speculator ; but the most obscure expressions of Mr. Spencer’s worst mo- ments are bright sunlight to the gloom of these long and tedious sentences, and his speculations are surely as likely to be good as his rival’s. The third part, at last, on ‘ Will in its patho- logical relations,’ leads us into the light once more. Here, at least, we have a few concrete instances brought together, and generaliza- tions made from facts, and plainly stated. But how little we learn! The space left is short; and the author’s lucid interval ends with the beginning of the last chapter, which he enti- tles* What will be the end thereof ?’ and which he devotes to speculations on the way in which human life will degenerate before its final cessa- tion on this planet. And so, of the whole, only about one hundred pages, or less than one-third of the book, may be considered as having any real relation to the implied promise of the preface. The rest is simply the ‘ barren speculation’ which we were to avoid, or else it is repetition in obscure language of what has many times been said in clear language. But we must illustrate, for we are aware that a man of Dr. Manudsley’s reputation might be expected to do better than we have here represented him as doing. First, then, as to the ‘barren speculation.’ Surely, if a man desires to lef questions alone, he can very easily do so. Yet Dr. Maudsley goes out of his way, in the first part, to write a chapter on the ‘ Authority of consciousness.’ He goes out of his way, we say; for, in so far as con- cerns his problem of the freedom of the will, the authority of consciousness might have been very briefly and specially treated. But, once having determined to take up the question generally, Dr. Maudsley runs on in this wise. Self-consciousness, he first tells us, is no more immediate knowledge than is the knowledge of external objects through the senses; since the latter knowledge consists of states of con- sciousness, as well as does the former. This, of course, is Kant’s famous ‘ Refutation of ideal- ism’ in a nutshell. But now, both of these kinds of knowledge being knowledge of facts that are in consciousness, we ask what the truth of this consciousness is, or how we shall test its truth. We learn something about this matter farther on, on p. 41, where we find that 602 ‘* there is no rule to distinguish between true and false but the common judgment of man- kind,”’ that (p. 42) ‘*the truth of one age is the fable of the next,’’ and that ‘* the common mind of the race in me’’? —‘‘* common sense, which is more sensible than any individual in all cases (save in the exceptional case of a pre-eminently gifted person of genius)’ —is the warrant to which we appeal for the truth of all our beliefs. This would look yery much as if, in case one is not a pre-eminently gifted person of genius, one must be unable to know whether either he himself or the external world exists, unless he first discover that ‘ the com- mon judgment of mankind’ agrees with him that both do exist. This is a curious reversal of the familiar fashion of reasoning ; since the ‘mankind’ to whom one is to appeal, surely belongs to the external world, to whose ex- istence its ‘common judgment’ is to testify. Yet we must be doing Dr. Maudsley wrong. One must not take every statement so exactly. His real theory is expressed on p. 45. Here it is: ‘‘ Every thing which we know is ‘a syn- thesis of object and subject. . . . Neither mat- ter in itself nor mind in itself are words that have any meaning. . . . The hypothesis of an external world is a good working hypothesis within all human experience: but to ask whether the external world exists apart from all human experience is about as sensible a question as to ask whether the shadow belongs to the sun or to the man’s body; for what an extraordinarily perverse and futile ingenuity it is to attempt to think any thing outside human consciousness. . . . To say there is an absolute [the italics are ours], and to call it. the unknowable, is it a whit more philosophical than it would be for a bluebottle-fly to call its extra-relational the unbuzzable?’’ P. 46 goes on to say, ‘‘ A separation of subject and ob- ject cannot ever be the starting-point of a phi- losophy that is not a self-foolery.’’ P. 47 adds, that what Berkeley called an idea ‘‘ is a synthe- sis, the ego and non-ego necessary correlate.”’ All this is perfectly clear by itself, much clearer than the text in which it is embedded; and the sense of it is, of course, pure phenomenism, such as Schopenhauer expressed in his ‘ kein objekt ohne subjekt.’ Matter is for conscious- ness, and consciousness is of objects. Spen- cer’s unknowable is nonsense, —a product of perverse ingenuity, worthy of bluebottle-flies. One must not attempt to think of any thing outside of human cousciousness; and so we have a doctrine. No, not at all. Dr. Maudsley does not mean this. P. 51 is not far from p. 47; and yet, on SCIENCE. with in this intolerable way ? [Vou. IL, No. 89. p. 51, the author assures us that ‘‘ the external world as it is in itself may not be in the least like what we conceive it through our modes of perception and forms of thought.’’ On pp. 52 and 53, Dr. Maudsley outdoes this contra- diction by bringing the two contradictories face to face on the same open page, and aflirm- ing them both at once with childlike simplicity. ‘* 7 don’t want to think the thing in itself. . . . If it is out of me, it does not exist for me, can- not possibly be more than a nonsensical word in any expression of me; and for me to think it out of me, as it is in itself, would be annihi- lation of myself.’? But all this, says Dr. Maudsley, teaches him that there is a great deal outside of his perception, ‘a real world external to me,’ of which, however, he can say nothing. So Spencer’s rejected unknow- able returns : the mind is necessarily obliged to think what it cannot possibly think, to believe in what it perceives to be nonsense, and to assert in one sentence that ‘ self and the world cannot be thought apart,’ and, in the next sen- tence, that the real external world is so far be- yond self that self is wholly unable to make any assertion, save that it exists. Now, this is not a collection of statements found in various authors, and brought together by Dr. Maudsley for the sake of illustrating the ‘ barrenness’ of the subject. On the con- trary, these are his own views. He himself chooses to write a chapter on this topic. He is bringing home to the philosophers something that they need to know. He is dealing with ‘¢ doctrines arrived at by the positive methods of observation and induction.’’ If not, what does the preface mean? and what has the in- nocent reader done, that he should be trifled But if in reality Dr. Maudsley is expounding doctrines arrived at by the methods of observation and indue- tion, these doctrines ought not to change nature with every new paragraph. ‘These statements are deliberate and repeated, they are made with much show of earnestness ; and yet they are a series of contradictions, and leave the reader feeling as if some one had been trying to make a fool of him. As for this doctrine, that it is ‘* nerverse and futile to think of any thing out- side of human consciousness ’’ (p. 45), how does Dr. Maudsley venture thus solemnly to propound it and enlarge upon it, when else- where, and not far off, he repeatedly insists upon the view that human consciousness is in- explicable, save on the basis of an wnconscious mental life, which can never be exhaustively known at all? Is the relation of author and reader one that involves no responsibilities ? Z. « 4%, ae ren ny a + *: t NOVEMBER 2, 1883.] Were not this confusion of statement typi- eal, we should not insist upon it. But through- out the book one finds, if not always such flat contradictions, still a certain slipperiness and uncertainty about nearly every general doctrine that the author chooses to express, on all but the most conerete matters of fact. If he says a thing, you know not when or how soon he will withdraw it, wholly, or bit by bit. He thinks, for instance, that the belief in the vanity of all things, or pessimism, is : * malady of self-consciousness,’ a sign of men- tal decay ; but he adds, that the ‘ central truth of all religions ’ is a conviction of the utter van- ity of all things, and himself seems in great measure a pessimist. Pure Christianity teaches the noblest virtues, — those, for instance, of self-sacrifice ; but the only test of virtue is the experience and common sense of mankind ; and these teach us that pure Christianity, put in practice without stint, would render society impossible, since society depends upon con- flicts and selfishness even now. The noblest virtues are therefore those that are rejected when the only test of virtue is applied. And so we are led on. The same tendency appears in the very style of the book. -When the author has a definite opinion, he likes to conceal it from you under manifold cloaks of language. He dislikes Spencer’s doctrine, that organic evolution is ‘ progressive adaptation to the environment.’ This, he says, is too vague and one-sided a statement. His own statement avoids all vagueness by saying that (p. 137) ‘‘an organ- ism and its medium, when they have reached a certain fitness of one to the other and hit upon the happy concurrence of conditions, combine, so to speak, to make a new start, the initial step of a more complex organism ; ’’ that is, the organism evolves by evolution, and the evolution is caused by just those condi- tions that bring it to pass. Our author ex- pands this thought, which he intends as an important complement to the doctrine of natu- ral selection, over quite a number of pages. But that, in the famous words of the Duchess in Alice’s Adventures, is not half so bad as our author can do if he tries. Religion he de- fines (on p. 208) as ‘ the deep fusing feeling of human solidarity.” Certain beliefs com- mon among men are described (p. 198) as ‘* the imaginative interpretations of an instinct springing into consciousness from the upward striving impulse which, immanent in man as part and crown of organic nature, ever throbs in his heart as the inspiration of hope.’? Thus our author knows of an instinct that springs SCIENCE. 603 from an impulse, which impulse is immanent in a crown, and at the same time strives up- wards, and throbs in a heart as an inspiration. All this means, not mere carelessness of style, but a more serious error, else we should not have mentioned it here. It means haziness of thought; it means that our author can write many words in succession without know- ing, in any adequate way, what they mean. Our author’s fashion of discussing things of which he is ignorant receives a crowning illus- tration in his last chapter; and, remote as the topic is from the main subject, we must mention this illustration here, because such matters are important to any student who is seeking a trustworthy guide. In this last chapter Dr. Maudsley has much to say of certain modern tendencies that he considers unhealthy. Of these, one is the excessive display of grief for the dead, which he thinks is growing among us. ‘‘ Nobody of the least note dies but we are told with clamor of grief . . . that the most amiable . . . the best of men has been taken from us.’’ But nobody, says Dr. Maudsley, is worth all this. ‘+ Con- trast this modern incontinence of emotion with the calm, chaste, and manly simplicity of Homer ; as we observe it, for example, in his description of the death of Achillés.’’ Then follows a page of blank verse, which, of course, is offered to us as somebody’s trans- lation of the cited passage from Homer. Now, Dr. Maudsley was not obliged to say any thing about Homer, much less to quote him. He has gone out of his way to tell us, with an air of easily carried learning, what ‘ we see’ in Homer. When a man thus pretends to quote the father of song, whose poems are at hand in all sorts of translations in any library, and to quote him especially for the sake of illus- trating a certain important point, a reader supposes, of course, that the quotation will at least be a fairly accurate expression of some- thing that Homer said. But, in fact, nothing resembling the passage quoted is to be found anywhere in Homer. These verses are not even so much as a remote imitation of any thing Homeric that bears upon Achilles. We ourselves are unable to identify them, but their tone is distinctly very modern; and we have little doubt that their author is now alive, or has very recently died.’ But this is not all. To complete the blunder, Dr. Maudsley, in 11A classical friend, to whom we submitted Dr. Maudsley’s quotation after we had written the above, assures us that the pas- sage nearest to this one in ancient poetry is the death of Achilles as described in Quintus Smyrnaeus III., and that Quintus’s de- scxiption itself differs in 80 many important points from that of Dr. Maudsley’s Homer as to make the latter not even a fair imita- tion of any ancient model. 604 this reference to Homer, has unwittingly chosen the worst possible illustration for his purpose, quite apart from his supposed quotation: for Homer does indeed tell us, in one passage (in ‘the last book of the Odyssey), about the death of Achilles; but that passage informs us of a seventeen-days mourning of gods and men oyer the hero, with funeral ceremonies of ex- traordinary splendor, that would have done the dead man’s heart good if he could only have been there to see. Nobody doubts Ho- mer’s simplicity, but Dr. Maudsley wholly, misapprehends what it means. How he could have been so deceived in his quotation, we can- not guess; but such gratuitous blunders show us what to expect of a man that can make them. If we have little space left to refer to our author’s discussion of matters that he is emi- nently competent to diseuss, that is not our fault. On the pathology of the will we receive instruction in the brief space before spoken of. Of heredity of mental disease we here find some illustrations, but we learn nothing new about the obscure subject of the actual laws that govern heredity. As to mental disease and its phenomena, Dr. Maudsley insists with consid- erable emphasis upon his view that the will, and in particular the most developed activity of the will, as seen in the moral consciousness of the civilized man, is the least stable, because the highest and latest element of man’s mind, and must therefore show the signs of decay and disease soonest. This, he assures us, is actually the case. He illustrates his position by means of a good many instances of certain forms of mental disease. The view is not ab- solutely novel, and Dr. Maudsley has described most of the facts before. But all this is well worth telling, and would have made a useful essay if the rest of the book had reached the fire instead of the printer. As itis, this part of the book is the only one from which a stu- dent of such psychology as Dr. Mandsley so well describes in his preface can learn any thing of importance that is in any sense novel. Our task in reading and reviewing has been no pleasant one. With Dr. Maudsley we hope for a psychology of ‘ concrete minds,’ that may teach us ‘‘ why individuals feel, think, and do as they do, how they may be actuated to think, feel, and do differently, and in what way best to deal, with them so as to do one’s duty to one’s self and them *? We see in the humblest experimental researches conscientiously con- ducted, in every observation of the mental pathologist, in every advance in nervous physi- ology, in every new discovery in animal psy- SCIENCE. \ [Vou. IL, No. 39. chology, and, let us freely add, in every fruitful philosophic research into the deeper problems of thought, in all these things, not only aids, but necessary conditions of the approach to the great end thus defined. But we also see in vague rambling disquisitions de omnibus rebus, such as neatly fill this book ; in efforts at phi- losophy by a man who is confessedly and very manifestly unable to understand philosophic terms, who ignores the history of thought, and who insists upon writing pages of contradictory statements, —in all this we see, not advance, but serious injury. And when not only the book is such as it is, but also the author is a man whose position and previous services command respect, and who is therefore able to call the attention of busy students to whatever he may choose to publish upon the subject, — then we say that such conduct is a serious breach of the privileges of authorship, and we wish to raise a decided protest against it. For the rest we haye no quarrel with the author’s determin- ism, nor with his materialistic basis for mental science, so long as he confines both the doc- trines to their only proper sphere ; that is, em- ploys them as regulative principles in discussing and explaining the facts of experience. We quarrel only with his confused and purposeless fashion of discussion. NOTES AND NEWS. — THE report of the committee of the Geodetic association was presented at a general meeting of the conference, Oct. 28, at Rome, and was adopted after an animated debate. The report favors the universal adoption of the Greenwich meridian, and also recommends, as the point of departure of the ‘universal hour and cosmopolitan dates, the mean noon of Greenwich. The conference hopes, that, if the whole world agrees to the unification of longi- tudes and hours by accepting the Greenwich meridian, England will advance the unification of weights and measures by joining the metrical convention of 1875. The government of Italy will be requested to officially communicate the foregoing action of the conference to all nations. —In the October number of the Harvard univer- sity bulletin, further instalments are given of the geographical index to the maps in Pelermann’s mit- theilungen, by Mr. Bliss, and of Mr. Winsor’s ‘ Bib- liography of Ptolemy’s geography,’ containing im- portant notes on early American cartography. Mr. Winsor also commences an account, of which six pages are printed in the present number, of the Kohl collection of early maps in the Department of state at Washington, prefacing it with a brief account of Dr. Kohl’s labors. In the official portion of the bulletin, we find the following appointments gazetted: Arthur Searle as _ NovEMBER 2, 1883.] assistant professor of astronomy ; Robert H. Harri- son, Harold Whiting, Charles E. Faxon, and Edward Burgess, instructors in anatomy, physics, botany, and entomology, severally; O. W. Huntington, assistant in chemistry, G. T. Hartshorn in organic chemistry, and G. W. Perkins in biology; and Dr. C, S. Minot, lecturer in embryology. The establishment of ten fellowships in the Lawrence scientific school, with an annual income of five hundred dollars each, is recommended by the corporation. — The subjects to be presented at the Society of arts of the Massachusetts institute of technology the coming season will embrace a wide range of scientific and practical topics, arrangements haying already been made as follows: — Oct. 11, Professor Edward S. Morse of Salem spoke on Japanese pottery; Oct. 25, Professor William H. Brewer of New Haven read a paper.on the evo- lution and breeds of domestic animals, as illustrated in swine; Noy. 8, Mr. Thomas Gaffield of Boston will read a paper on glass and glass-making. At the subsequent meetings, the arrangements for which have not yet been definitely made, Dr. Charles S. Minot of the Harvard medical school will probably speak on some biological sub- ject; Capt. D. A. Lyle, U.S.A., on the rise, progress, and methods of the U.S. life-saving service; Mr. Chauncey Smith of Boston, on the influence of inventions; Mr. R. B. Forbes, on the rigging of ships; and Major C. W. Ray- mond of the U.S. engineers will speak on Bos- ton harbor, Various mechanical contrivances of interest will also be exhibited. ; —A very valuable work on German meteor- ological bibliography has been prepared by Dr. Hellman. It contains a bibliography proper, limited to German authors, and also historical notices upon meteorological observations, and _ the progress of the science in that country. —A free course of popular lectures upon zodlogy, specially intended for teachers and students, will be given by the Cincinnati society of natural history on Friday evenings, commencing to-day. The follow- ing is the programme: Oct. 19, Introduction, The study of zodlogy, by Prof. J. Mickleborough; Oct. 26, The human skeleton as compared with that of other animals, by Prof. J. Mickleborough; Nov. 2, The trochilidae, or humming-birds, by Charles Dury; Noy. 9, Fish fauna of Cincinnati, by Dr. D.S. Young; Noy. 16, Comparative anatomy of the molluseca, by Prof. A. G. Wetherby; Noy. 23, The mollusea from an evolutionary stand-point, by Prof. A. G. Weth- erby; Nov. 30, Some curious insects, by Charles Dury; Dee. 7, Practical manipulation of the micro- scope, by Dr. J. H. Hunt. When this is completed, a second course of equal length will be given on geology and mineralogy, the special topics of which will be announced later. — Active movements are making to supply, as far as possible, the losses sustained by the Indiana state university in its recent fire. When the first meeting of the board of trustees was held, about a week after the fire, Monroe county was prepared to guarantee SCIENCE. 605 fifty thousand dollars; and this, with over twenty- seven thousand dollars’ insurance, gave the officials great confidence. No definite action, however, was taken, until a recent meeting of the trustees at In- dianapolis, when it was decided to purchase a larger tract of land, just east of the city of Bloomington, much more favorably located than before, and to erect at once two fire-proof buildings, one of which can be used for the present for the literary depart- ment, and the other for the scientific department, museum, and library. Later, another building will be added, to which the literary department will be trans- ferred, when the scientific department will occupy one of those now to be built, and the other will be given wholly to the museum and library. For the present the university will occupy the old building, which was saved. It is reported that the trustees have in view the purchase of some valuable collections and a good library. : —A correspondent of La Nature gives a sketch, which we reproduce, of a group of French soldiers, as they appeared when resting on their marches in Algeria, when they were obliged to stop on marshy land, and had nothing upon which to rest. The soldiers seated themselves each on the knees of the one behind, and were arranged in a circle, so that there was no end man. The correspondent vouches for having often seen the operation. La Nature recommends the collegians to try the experiment in equilibrium when they return from their vacations, —advice which it would hardly do to transmit to Americans. —Trouvelot has made an examination of the sky near the place of the sun at the May eclipse, for the purpose of rediscovering, if possible, the red star which he saw at that time, and suspected to be an intra-mercurial planet. In the re-examination, he used a telescope of the same aperture and power as at the eclipse. He found again, without trouble, his two ‘white stars,’ and identified them as forty-one Arietis ande Arietis. As to ‘the brilliant star of a pronounced red,’ he says he could not find it, and that it is certain that no star of that magnitude and color now exists near the position assigned, nor even within a distance much greater than it is permissible to attribute to the probable error. / 606 At the same time, seeing he failed to obtain a determi- nation of its position, or to notice any disk or phase, he considers it only right to reserve any conclusion as to the probable nature of the object (Comptes rendus, Sept. 17). Astronomers generally will be dis- posed to believe, with those who observed the eclipse at the same station with M. Trouvelot, that his limits of probable error were, under the peculiar cireum- stances, some of which are mentioned in his original report, much larger than he seems disposed to admit, and quite extensive enough to include the star a Arietis, which was not far from the place he assigns, and in magnitude and color corresponds well with his description. — The department of entomology, of the New-York state museum of natural history, issues a circular (no. 1) giving directions for ‘arresting the chinch-bug invasion’ of northern New York, with good figures of the insect enlarged and of natural size. — Wood sections and vegetable tissue was the subject discussed by Mr. J. F. Whiteaves at the meeting of the Ottawa microscopical society, Oct. 16. Mr. Whiteaves was elected president, and Dr. R. J. Wicksteed secretary, for the ensuing year. — Among the prizes given to American exhibiters at the International fisheries exhibition just closed, at London, gold medals were awarded to G. Brown Goode, for work on ichthyology; D. S. Jordan, for work on ichthyology; Alexander Agassiz, for work on ichthyology; J. E. Hilgard, for optical densimeter; Capt. C. Sigsbee, U.S.N., for deep-sea sounding ap- paratus; W. L. Bailee, U.S.N., for deep-sea ther- mometer ¢ silver medals to -G. Brown Goode, for publications relating to the fisheries; Marshall McDonald, for universal hatching-jar; Lieut. Z. L. Tanner, US.N., for deep-sea sounding apparatus; W. G. Farlow, for collection of marine algae; J. H. Emerton, for model of squid and octopus; T. H. Bean, for works on ichthyology; Marshall McDonald, for map showing shad fisheries: and diplomas to J. E. Hilgard, for salinometer; Capt. C. Sigsbee, U.S.N.,. for parallel ruler. ; The United States receives 48 gold medals, 18 of which go to the fish-ecommission, mostly on collective exhibits, 47 silver medals, 29 bronze medals, 24 diplo- mas, and 7 special prizes. Other gold medals are to the national museum, for collective exhibit of fishes; signal-service, for most complete collection of appa- ratus for weather prediction; and lighthouse board. — The French government has just issued a geo- logical map of Algeria in five sheets, scale of 1:800,- 000, with two explanatory memoirs. This work is only preliminary; and appropriations haye been made to organize a geological survey, which will make a careful and detailed geological map, first on the scale of 1:400,000, and then on a larger one, say 1:80,000, or even 1:40,000. The directors are A. Pomel, J. Pouyanne, and J. Tissot. —Col. A. Parnell, R.A., states (Journ. sc., Sep- tember), that, as recorded by official returns, the number of persons killed by thunderbolts in Russia (not including Poland and Finland), in the five years from 1870 to 1874, was 2,270, of whom no less than SCIENCE. [Vou. Il., No. 39, 2,161 were dwellers in the country; and that during this period, in the same area, 4,192 fires were occa- sioned by thunderbolts, 4,099 of them being in the country. — The speeches of Sir Lyon Playfair and Sir Charles Dilke, during the recent debate in the House of com- mons on the vaccination question, haye been pub- lished by Messrs. Jarrold & Sons in pamphlet form, under the title of ‘Facts about vaccination.’ It is hoped that this little publication may prove a useful antidote to the present mischievous and ignorant agitation against Jenner’s great discovery. The Cloth- workers’ company, one of the old London guilds, has devoted a fund at its disposal for the encouragement of research to offering a prize of a thousand pounds for the discovery of a method of procuring lymph that would obviate the present objections. — At a recent meeting of the Société d’encourage- ment pour l’industrie nationale, M. G. Meyer of Paris submitted specimens of paper specially manu- factured to resist fire. It was stated by him that the papers and documents shown had been for four hours in a retort in a pottery furnace; and it is further af- firmed, that those present were unable to distinguish, either by appearance or texture, the papers so treated from others which had not undergone the ordeal of fire. ‘‘From experiments made with a specimen of wall-paper sent us,’’ says a writer in Jron, ‘‘ we are enabled to say, that, although the appearance of the paper does change, the fire-resisting properties claimed for it are undoubted: the paper certainly does not ignite,’’ The paper can be made of a quality suitable for deeds and other important documents, or of a quality suitable for wall-paper, theatrical deco- rations, or, in fact, for any purpose for which paper is used. Mr. Meyer has also invented an incombus- tible ink and incombustible colors, Artists using those colors may preserve their works to a certain extent. The invention would appear to be of the greatest value to theatrical managers. By using thick cardboard of Mr. Meyer’s material, together with his paints, they are able to render their scenery uninflammable. At the same time, for documents of importance, — deeds, wills, and agreements, — the in- vention should come into universal use. — The catalogue of the Miller manual labor school was issued recently, bearing date of June, 1883. It is a neat pamphlet of some thirty pages, printed by the boys of the school. The school is situated in Albemarle county, Va., and was founded by fhe late Samuel Miller of Campbell county, who left prop- erty to the value of more than one million of dollars, to be expended in the erection of buildings, and the endowment of a school in which the students are to be instructed in the branches of a ‘ good, plain, sound, English education,’ in ancient and modern languages, and in the useful arts. The school is now in opera- tion, and a considerable number of students are in attendance, who are not only taught, but are fed and clothed, at the expense of the fund, which yields an income of sixty or seventy thousand dollars a year. Every student works in the shop, in the printing- — office, on the farm, or in the garden. The workshop a PS ee NoveMBER 2, 1883. ] is built from the plans of Mr. M. P. Higgins of Worcester, and a class of twenty-five boys is making good progress. The farm comprises eight hundred and fifty acres, of which a hundred and twenty are fine, rich bottom-lands in the valley of Mechum’s River. The farm last year yielded an income of four thousand dollars. Boys are received at from nine to fourteen years of age, and are kept until eighteen. — The White Mountain club of Portland held their autumn meeting, Oct. 17. The president (Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill) narrated his labors in identifying a mountain seen from Portland, and hitherto taken for the Imp. He finds it is a part of Carter range: the true Imp is scarcely visible. Still another ‘Imp’ is seen from Copp’s house, near the Glen and Gorham road, where it is pointed out by stage-drivers, etc., as the south-west side of the true Imp. Cline’s map correctly locates this as another peak. — The collections of plants made by the late Presi- dent Chadbourne, comprising thirty-four distinct lots, and containing among them some of interest and value, are offered for sale by his executor, A. Schenck, 30 Union Square, New York. — Herr Hugo Zoller, who visited the Isthmus of Panama and the South-American states as corre- spondent of the Cologne gazette, has published his experiences in two books, the first called ‘Der Pana- makanal,’ in which he contradicts the too favorable reports spread in the European papers as to Mr. Les- seps’ work on the canal, and says his company has too little capital to accomplish the undertaking. He gives a map of the district, and fully expects to see the water-way a fact, and not an idea, within ten years, but not through Mr. Lesseps’ means. The sec- ond book concerns Brazil, and is called ‘ Die deutsch- en im brazilianischen urwald.’ —T. W. Blakiston contributes to the Japan gazette of Sept. 8 an account of a voyage across the North Pacific, in the ship Undaunted, from Yedo to Victoria, V.I., between May 20 and June 21, 1883. Temperatures, winds, etc., were carefully noted, and the author came to the conclusion that the Kuro siwo at that season disappears between latitudes 37° and 39°, and west from east longitude 154°. Eastward from this point nothing was seen of warm water referable to that current. — Ina paper recently read before the Geographical society of the Pacific, some remarkable statements were made in regard to the Mahlemuts of Norton Sound, Alaska. Among other things, if correctly re- ported, the author stated that ‘their customs and part of their language resemble the Chinese greatly.’ The Mahlemuts are an ordinary small tribe of west- ern Eskimo, who have been studied by a number of ethnologists, and in no respect differ’from the other Eskimo tribes of the region. Such wild statements, _ especially when made before a scientific society, are almost invariably reproduced in European journals, and for that reason should be noticed and corrected. —J. G. Swan, who has been investigating the Queen Charlotte Islands, returned to Victoria, Sept. 27. He discovered a fine deep-water fish, which is new to the food-supply of the coast, and is said to SCIENCE. 607 occur in large numbers. He also reports finding a good harbor hitherto unknown. — The volume of Washington astronomical and meteorological observations for 1879 has just been received at the naval observatory from the govern- ment printing-office, and will be distributed to cor- respondents immediately. — A third edition, enlarged and improved, of Pae- tel’s useful catalogue of mollusks, is announced. Though by no means available for text-book pur- poses, and with the usual allowance of errors, this publication cannot fail to be useful to all who have a large collection of shells to arrange, if it were only to furnish a workable foundation. — The Iowa academy of sciences met at Ames on Sept. 27. Prof. C. E. Bessey of Ames read papers on the hybridization of Spirogyra majuscula and S. pro- tecta; the effect of frost on leaf-cells, and on certain insect-catching glands on a grass. The glands re- ferred to in the last paper are located on the blossom stems of Sporobolis, and secrete a viscous fluid, in which insects are entrapped. Their utility in these plants seems difficult to understand. In reply to a question by Professor Stalker, whether they could protect the blossoms from injurious insects, Professor Osborn said he thought they might possibly give pro- tection from Cecidomyiae. Professor Herrick of Grinnell described a water-still for obtaining a con- stant supply of distilled water in laboratories, and offered some observations on the Grinnell tornado, tending to show that at that point the tornado formed a loop in its course. Prof. H. Osborn of Ames offered some additions to the list of Iowa in- sects, in Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, and Neuroptera; notes on Mallophaga, taken in Iowa; and a paper on an epidemic disease attacking Caloptenus differentialis. This last is a disease similar in nature to that caused by Entomophthora muscae in the com- mon house-fly, and very fatal to these locusts. It is caused by a species apparently new, and shortly to be described by Professor Bessey in the American natu- ralist. — The third and fourth parts of volume xiy. of the Archiv fiir anthropologie contain three original papers, as follows: on Hypertrichosis, by Dr. Ranke; on the eyes of the Fuegians, by Dr. Seggel; and on copper in ancient times, by Dr. Reyer. Reviews of the anthro- pological literature in Russia are prepared by Dr. Stieda; in Scandinavian literature, by Miss Julia Mes- torf; in American literature, by Dr. Emil Schmidt. The last named covers twenty-three closely printed quarto pages, and embraces about every paper of im- portance published in our country during the last year, relating to anthropology. The bibliography occupies 161 pages, and many of the titles are accom- panied by a brief note stating the purpose of the pub- lication. It is a thorough piece of work, and is distributed as follows: archeology and priscan history (urgeschichte), by J. H. Miiller, 41 pages; anatomy, by Dr. Pausch, 6 pages; ethnology and travels, by Dr. Albrecht Penck, 90 pages; zodlogy in relation to anthropology, by Dr. George Boehm, 23 pages. Students in all branches of science know how diffi- 608 cult it is to find the thing they are seeking. Between those piled up and stowed in great collections and those hid away in private museums, much time is wasted. Now, the anthropologists of Germany long ago felt the necessity of publishing the catalogues of the specimens in their great museums; and already have appeared five of these in former numbers of the Archiv. The current number devotes 36 pages to the Senckenberg museums in Frankfort-a.-M., with tables of measurements and descriptions; and 25 pages to the anthropological collection in the Grossherzogli- chen naturalien-cabinets im alten schlosse, in Darm- stadt, also with measurements and descriptions. Comparisons, of course, are always odious; but it cannot fail to strike our American anthropologists that the especial merit of the German system, that is, co-operation, is wanting with us. It may also be mentioned that none of the foreign anthropological societies seem to know any thing about the work in progress at the surgeon-general’s office at Washington. — There have been issued by the government, under the direction of Gen. W. B. Hazen, chief signal-officer, the meteorological and physical observations on the east coast of British America, by Orray Taft Sherman, as no. 11 of the ‘ professional papers.’ Nos. 8 and 12 consist of papers on the ‘ Motions of fluids and solids’ and ‘ Popular essays on the movements of the atmos- phere,’ by Prof. W. Ferrel; the first edited, with notes, by Mr. Frank Waldo. No. 9 contains clfarts and tables showing the geographical distribution of rain- fall in the United States. — The new British patent law will go into effect Jan. 1, 1884. The patent fee is reduced to about a hundred dollars for all fees, including agents’ ordi- nary charges. Provisional protection is extended to nine months. Annual taxes are substituted for the stamp-duties now charged, although no change has been made in the total amount. The new provisions apply to applications now in the office. No change has been made in regard to examinations. The pat- ent is issued to any applicant who chooses to pay the fees, and without formal examination, A system of comparison of the patent claim with the claim for which provisional protection has been granted, is, however, established, — a commendable innovation, and one which might well be supplemented by the system of complete examination practised in the United States. The duration of the patent is to be fourteen years in all cases, irrespective of the expira- tion of earlier foreign patents on the same device. The publication in Great Britain of the foreign speci- fication of the invention does not, under the new law, invalidate the British patent. The new law will evidently greatly favor the inventor, and the change will be likely to prove to be very greatly to: the advantage of that country as well. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Bodlander, G. Das optische drehungsvermégen isomorpher mischungen aus den dithionaten des bleis und des strontiums. Inaug: diss. Breslau, Kéfler, 18838. 34p. 8°. Edwards, Emory. Modern American locomotive engines; their design, construction, and management: a practical work SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 39. for practical men. 12°, Houston, EdwinJ. ‘The elements of chemistry; for the use of schools, academies, and colleges. Philadelphia, Eldredge, 1883. 444p. 12°, Johonnot, J. A natural history reader, for school and home. New York, Appleton, 18+414 p., illustr. 12°. ; peter ee Handwérterbuch der chemie, band i. il- ustr. 8°. Planteau, H. Développement de la colonne yertébrale. Paris, 1883. 116 p., illustr. 4°. Pouy, F. Les anciennes vues d’optique. Amiens, impr. Jeunet, 1883. 39p. 8°. Dee Coad Rochebrune, A. T.de. De l'emploi des mollusques chez les peuples anciens et modernes. i. Amerique. livr.i. Paris, Leroux, 18838. 23p. 8°. ‘ Rohde, E. Beitriige zur kenntniss der anatomie der nema- toden. Inaug. diss. Breslau, Kéhler, 1888. 26p. 8°. Routledge, R. Discoveries and inventions of the 19th cen- tury. London, 1883, 8°. Ruhnke, C. Die einwirkung von alkyljodiiren auf triazo- benzoesiiure, Inaug. diss. Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1882. 86 p.. 8°. Schuver, J. M. 95p.,map. 4°. Siebenmann, F. Die fadenpilze Aspergillus flavus, niger und fumigatus; Eurotium repens (und Aspergillus glaucus) und ihre beziehungen zur Otomycosis Aspergillina. edicinisch- botanische studien auf grund experimenteller untersuchungen. Mit vorwort von Dr. Alb. Burckhardt-Merian. 8°. Smith, Adolphe. Pneumatic drainage: a description of the Berlin method. New York, Spon, 1883. 50p.,6pl. 8°. Societa crittogamologica italiana. Memorie. vol. i. Varese, tip. Malnati, 1888. 10+516p. 8°. Staude, O. Geometrische deutung der additionstheoreme der hyperelliptischen integrale und functionen erster ordnung im system der confocalen flachen zweiten grades. Habilitations- schrift. Breslau, Kéhler, 1883. 71p. 8°. Stewart, A. Nether Lochaber. Natural history, legends, and folk-lore of the West Highlands. Edinburgh, 1883. 424 p. 8°. ; Streintz, H. Die physikalischen grundlagen der mechanik. Leipzig, Teubner, 1883. 12+142p. 8°. : Studer, Th. Die fauna der pfahlbauten des Bieler Sees. Bern, 1888. 100p.,5pl. 8°. Swinburne, J. Practical electrical units popularly ex- plained. London, Spon, 1883. 62p., illustr. 12°. Tresca, Cours de mécanique appliquée. division i. 1883. 3827p. 4°. Van Tricht, V. Les enregistreurs en météorologie. De- scription d’un nouveau météorographe électrique. Bruxelles, 1883. 75p. 8°. Waechter, F. Die anwendung der elektricitiit fiir militar- ische zwecke. Wien, 1883. 256p., illustr. 8°. Wahnschaffe, M. Verzeichness der im gebiete des Aller- vereins zwischen Helmstedt und Magdeburg aufgefundenen kafer. Neuhaldensleben, Zyraud, 1883. 5+455 p. . Wainwright, 8. Scientific sophisms: a review of current theories concerning atoms, apes, and men. New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1883. (Standard lib., no. 97). 302p. 12°. Waitz, K. Ueber den einfluss der galvanischen polarisa- tion auf die aenderung der weibung. MHabilitationsschrift. Tiibingen, Fues, 1883. 39p. 8°. . Walter, H., und Dunikowski, E. yon. Das petroleum- gebiet der galizischen Westkatpathen. Wien, fanz, 1883, 4+ 100 p.,2pl.,1 map. 8°. : Ward, G. Mason. A compend of chemistry. Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1888. ll1p. 8°. Wenghoffer, L. Lehrbuch der anorganischen, reinen, und technischen chemie, auf grundlage der neuesten forschungen und der fortschritte der technik, wesentlich fiir studirende auf uni- versitiiten und technische lehranstalten, etc. abth.i. Stuttgart, Wittwer, 1888. 302 p., illustr. 8°. Willgrod, H. Fliicken, welche sich durch ihre kriimmungs- linien in unendliche kleine quadrate theilen lassen. Inaug. diss. Gttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1882. 50p. 8°. Wilke; A. Die volkswirthschaftliche bedeutung der elek- tricitat und das elektromonopol. (Elektrische zeitfragen, no, 1.) Philadelphia, Baird, 1883. 388 p., illustr. Reisen im oberen Nilgebiet. Gotha, 1883. Paris, Zeitschrift, internationale fiir die elektrische ausstellung in Wien 1883. Red.: J. Kramer und Dr. Ernst Lecher. Wochen- schrift fiir die gesammt-interessen der internationalen elektro- technischen ausstellung 1883. Erscheint in 24nummern. 16. p., illustr. 4°. Ziegler, J. M. Ein geographischer text zur geologischen karte der erde. atlas. 8°. oe le NCE. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1883. THE LICK TRUST. Tr will be remembered that a certain portion of the large estate of Mr. Lick was to be de- Rota to the uses of science. A specific sum of seven hundred thousand dollars was to be expended in the purchase of the most powerful : telescope attainable, and in the construction of an observatory on Mount Hamilton; and the unexpended balance of this sum was to consti- tute a permanent fund for the maintenance of the observatory. Many specific bequests were made for other purposes not scientific; and after all these specific sums had been paid, it was provided that the sum remaining over should be divided between the Society of pio- neers of California and the California academy { of sciences. Science is interested, also, in this last bequest. It will be remembered that many changes of trustees, and also of the form of the gift, were made in the early years of the trust; and that vexatious suits were entered by supposed heirs of Mr. Lick, which were successively decided by the courts. At pres- ent a definite construction of the deed of trust has been made by the supreme court of Cali- fornia, from which there is naturally no appeal ; and the trustees are acting under this construe- tion. . During the period of years over which the _ preliminary litigation extended, a great shrink- age in the values of real estate took place in . California, as well as elsewhere in the United States. At the end of these litigations, the trustees found themselves in control of much valuable property, which could be sold only at a great loss. If it had been sold at that time, ; there would have been no money left to divide “between the pioneers and the academy; and not only this, but some of the specific bequests _ would have remained unfulfilled: it was there- fore the policy of the trustees to manage the No. 40. —1883. estate carefully, and to sell only to advantage. In this way only, would the residuary legatees receive any considerable sum. ‘The estate has certainly been well managed : for from Dee. 1, 1876, to Oct. 1, 1883, the aggregate net profits have been $455,458, or over $66,000 per year. There was no surplus to divide in 1876 ; while, at. the present time, some $192,000 remains over, free of all specific bequests. It therefore would appear that the trustees have deserved well of science for their careful administration of the trust. Their policy has clearly been wise, when looked at without prejudice: but it has not been acceptable to the residuary legatees, since they have not yet received any immedi- ate benefit; nor can they, under the decision | of the court, until the whole estate is settled, and all specific bequests are fulfilled. This is no doubt annoying to the academy of sciences, which has so many useful purposes which could be served by an increased income. It is specially annoying to the pioneers, who all came to California in 1849-50, and who, therefore, are all men in middle life. When the French countess heard of the Montgolfiers’ balloon ascension, she exclaimed that these men would certainly invent the art of never dying; but she added pensively, ‘ It will be when I am dead.’ This is the very natural attitude of the pioneers; and it is this that has led to a recent savage attack on the trustees, reports of which haye appeared in the San Francisco and other papers. These attacks have been directed against the whole action of the trustees, without discrimination. It is, however, clear, that the actions of the trustees must be considered in two ways. Most of their official acts have been done un- der specifie directions of the courts of law. These acts are much complained of by the residuary legatees: but it is obvious that such complaints are idle ; for, if the trustees had not obeyed the orders of the courts, they would 610 have been long since expelled from their re- sponsible positions. The remaining acts com- plained of have been done in pursuance of the general policy just outlined. It seems equally clear that these complaints, though natural, are unjust. The residuary legatees have now $192,000 to divide. It is not long since they had nothing. Science is certainly grateful to the trustees, since their economical policy has already sayed a large sum which will event- ually go to making the California academy of sciences more powerful and useful than it now is. With regard to the other bequest in which science is interested, — namely, the Lick ob- servatory, — there is every reason to be ex- tremely grateful to the trustees for their wise administration of the trust. Their economy has certainly been remarka- ple. They have expended on the observatory to Oct. 1, 1883, $154,527.98; and they have remaining $545,472.02. This $155,000 has done the following things:. the top of a bleak mountain four thousand feet above the sea, and twenty-seven miles from a town, has been levelled off so as to give a sufficient area for the buildings (forty thousand tons of rock have been remoyed for this purpose alone) ; brick enough to complete the whole of the buildings has been made on the side of the mountain, and delivered at the top, at a total cost less than the price of hauling the same amount from the nearest town; a handsome and well-built main building is now nearly fin- ished (the large dome alone remains ; a small _ dome, containing a yery perfect twelve-inch equatorial by Clark, has been in use since November, 1881) ; a four-inch transit instru- ment, in a conyenient house, is in complete working-order ; a photoheliograph in a perma- nent house has been in use since December, 1882; the house for the meridian circle is begun; the meridian circle is half paid for, and a payment has been made on the large telescope. This is the work which is to be seen on the mountain-top proper. Just below this are the houses for the workmen, shops, stables, ete., all in good condition, and a very com- SCIENCE. : [Vou. IL, No. 40. plete system of water-supply in full working- order. It will appear to any competent person that this work has been done thoroughly, and that— it has been done economically. At the same rate of expenditure, at least $300,000 will remain as a permanent fund for the support of the observatory. It therefore appears that the trustees haye deserved well of science in their administra-_ tion of their trust, not only in regard to the California academy of sciences, but also in relation to the Lick observatory ; and it should — be the desire of all interested in the adminis- — tration of this trust to strengthen the hands — of the trustees in the continuance of their wise policy. 6 WHIRLWINDS, CYCLONES, AND TOR- NADOES. —Il. Tue further growth of the desert-whirl may be briefly described. The air standing quietly — on a flat, dry surface allows the lower strata to— be quickly warmed to a high temperature. If the air were in motion, no part of it would re- main long enough close to the ground to be greatly warmed ; if the surface were not flat, the lower air would flow up the slopes as soon — as it was a little heated, and not wait to ac- quire a high temperature ; if the surface were — wet, much of the sun’s heat would be occupied in evaporating the water (as will be explained — below), and would so be lost to the lower air: it is therefore only in calm weather, on a desert plain, that the sun can succeed in warm-_ ing the lower air to excess, and so produce a very unstable equilibrium, and a strong up-— draught when the upsetting begins. The longer the delay before the overturning, the more heat-energy is accumulated, and the more yio- lent the motion when it begins. The lower air rises at some point against the oppression of the upper layers. The surrounding warm air flows in from all sides toward this central point, and follows the leader. Soon the mo- tion becomes general and lively, dust and sand are blown along toward the centre, lifted and carried aloft with the ascending air in its rapidly rising current, and then the whirling column becomes visible. When thus established, the increased velocity and the rota- ry motion of the air near the centre are con- stant characteristics of the upsetting. ‘Thirty 1 Continued from No. 39, a ea | Oe dn Tiak Be ee S.-C e NoveMBER 9, 1883.] or forty feet to one side, the wind may not be strong enough to brush along the sand, and a few hundred feet away it may not be percepti- ble; but at the centre it makes a distinct rush- ing or roaring sound, and carries light objects upwards, sometimes to a height of several thou- sand feet. This increase of velocity of the sur- face indraught toward the point of its upward escape is a general feature of the motion of a mass of free particles along a path of varying width: the narrower the path, the faster the motion. The same increase is seen in the growing velocity of a stream running out of a lake, so beautifully shown where the Rhone Fie. 3 flows from Lake Geneva, or, more simply and prosaically, in the running of water from a tub by the escape-pipe. In the case of a desert- whirl, the central wind is held by friction with the surface sands much below the velocity it might attain; for it must be remembered that these whirls are supplied by a comparatively thin layer of superheated air next to tie ground, often not more than four or five feet thick. The restraint of friction on such a layer will be very considerable, and its motion ean seldom reach a disastrous strength. It is probable that in the desert sand-storms, which are described as overwhelming caravans, there is a much thicker mass of air in ac- tivity, and the conditions of motion approach SCIENCE. 611 those of the tornado, as will be shown far- ther on. The second characteristic feature of the wind’s motion gives name to the storm. A whirl must neces ssarily be formed when the air moves inwards from all sides towards a centre, for the indraughts will surely fail to follow pre- cisely radial lines. Their aim will be a little inexact; and, as they pass to one side or the other of the centre, a turning must begin in a direction determined by the strongest current. This, once begun, is maintained by the centrifu- gal force that arises from it; and the size of the central whirl will then depend on the bal- (Taken from Amer. journ. sc., 1851.) ance between the centripetal and centrifugal forees. In ascending at the centre, the wind follows an upward spiral course, like the thread of a screw of steep pitch, with a diameter of five to twenty feet. The direction of turning is indifferently one way or the other, accord- ing to the side on w hich the indraught happens to ] pass the centre. ‘The height to which the whirling column rises will be determined by its mixture with the adjoining air, and consequent cooling until its temperature is that of indiffer- ent equilibrium ; and at this elevation the cur- rent will turn and spread laterally to make room for that which follows. Such a whirl will continue as long as its cause lasts; that is, as long as it is supplied with warm air at the base. 612 Manifestly it must stop in the afternoon, as the sun’s heat decreases; and it can never occur at night, for then the surface-air is, as a rule, cooler than that above, and the atmospheric equilibrium is correspondingly stable. Further, the whirl will remain at one place, unless, as is often the case, it is carried along by a general motion of the upper air. There is a very strong point of evidence, if any is needed, in favor of the view that heat applied to the lower layers of the air will pro- duce a whirlwind. This is the fact of their pro- Fie. 4. (Taken from Abhandl. geselisch. wiss. Gott.) duction over fires. Much interest was excited in this question in connection with the arti- ficial causing of rain, some forty years ago, in this country ; and observations were carefully made of the whirls formed over burning woods and eanebrakes, showing them to be very sim- ilar in form and action to those naturally aris- ing on dry plains (fig. 3). Similar whirls have been seen over volcanoes (fig. 4) ; and on a calm day the smoke ascending from a factory chimney may be seen to have a slow rotary motion. Heat is therefore an amply suflicient cause of such disturbances. No other excite- ment is needed, and electricity has no essential part to play. In recognizing this, we see the chief difference between the older and newer theories of storms. SCIENCE. nor rain. [Vou. IL, No. 40. Sand-whirls are common in all desert or dry regions, where they often have the name of spirits or deyils, from the fantastic and apparently evil way in which they flit across the burning sands. They have neither clouds When well and frequently devel- oped, they. may grow to dangerous strength, and lift much dust and sand into the upper air, where it is blown long distances before falling. In this way they serve as important geologic agents. Vessels west of the Sahara, or east of - China, are thus often powdered over with fine dust slowly settling down after a‘long flight from its desert source. The smaller water-spouts, doubtless, belong near here in our scheme of classification ; but as they are usually aided by vapor-force, and approach the character of tornadoes, their con- sideration is best deferred till later. Finally, before going on to the larger storms, - one point of much importance must be empha- sized. The change from the stable equilibrium of night and early morning to the unstable of noon is effected entirely by the sun’s heat, which warms the lower air, and causes it to ex- pand. In expanding, it lifts all the upper air that rests on it; and this is no small piece of work, for the air that is lifted weighs about a ton over every square foot. When a point of escape is found, the heavy upper air sinks again, as the expanded air is drained off (up- wards) at the centre. It is this gravitative force of the sinking air-mass thal causes the dust-whirlwind, in re-arranging the disturbed equilibrium of the atmosphere; but gravity would have no chance to show its strength, if the air had not been lifted by foree from the sun. The winds of a dust-storm, therefore, depend on grayitative force brought into play by the sun’s heat. All storms and all winds haye more or less closely this relation to solar energy and terrestrial gravity. (To be continued.) THE INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EX- HIBITION.— FOURTH PAPER. On the Ist of October, at noon, the number of visitors to the exhibition passed the much desired limit of two millions; and, although the rainy season had set in, the daily ayerage of attendance was still increasing. The finan- cial success of the enterprise was more than certain two months ago; and the receipts of each day since have been swelling the surplus fund, the disposal of which is now a fruitful subject of discussion in England. Although the organization is a private one, the character . ‘ie = ? / _ NOVEMBER 9, 1883.] | ] of the men in control of it, and the recognition granted by the Queen and the Prince of Wales, render it certain that the profits will be devoted to some public enterprise. In the midst of multifarious minor propositions, two plans are receiving serious support. One of these is that first brought forward by Professor Ray Lankester, in his address upon ‘ The (possible) scientific results of the exhibition,’ and relates to the establishment of a laboratory of marine zoélogy in Great Britain, for the joint ad- vantage of fisheries and science. Professor Lankester’s original memorial was signed by sixteen leading men of science, and has since had the indorsement of the British association. The rival scheme relates to the establishment of an orphanage for fishermen’s children ; and this, as may be imagined, is much more popu- lar among the people and their newspaper exponents. One influential trade-journal ex- presses itself in energetic fashion in a para- graph which I cannot refrain from quoting, since it shows how little the opinion of a large class of Englishmen has been acted upon by the leaven of scientific thought. Speaking of the meeting of the British association, the editorial proceeds : — “The conductors of the daily prints, always very amiable to the promoters of these useless gatherings, fool the savants to the top of their bent by reporting the ‘papers’ and discussions at an absurd length, thus making the credulous ‘scientists’ believe that the public takes a lively interest in their proceedings, . .. It is [the president’s] grim task to write an ‘address’ usually so wildly mystifying as to drive his hearers and readers to the verge of idiocy. By common consent, this year’s presidential address was not only more bewildering than any previously deliv- ered, but absolutely incomprehensible ; and it is charitably hoped that the Southport meeting is the beginning of the end. But these dreamy gentlemen are sufficiently wide awake to their own interests. . . . This they are, of course, entitled to do; and, if they can squeeze any money out of the public or out of the government, to aid them in the pursuit of their ‘fads,’ we shall have nothing to say. When, however, they go to the length of proposing to get a portion of the fisheries exhibition surplus into their hands for the purpose of establishing ‘a marine zo6- logical station on the English coast,’ we take leave to denounce such a proceeding as both audacious and preposterous,”’ etc. In the mean time the executive committee makes no promises, except in the proposition to expend the sum necessary to bring over a Cape-Ann schooner, with a selected crew of fishermen, to demonstrate the American meth- ods of fishing with purse seine, deep-sea trawl- lines, and dories, on those parts of the British coasts in which their use may be practicable. If any precedent is required for devoting a part of the proceeds to scientific ends, they SCIENCE. 613 haye only to look to the Edinburgh exhibition of 1882, the surplus of which to the amount of nearly eight thousand dollars has been given to establish a marine laboratory near Edin- burgh, under the direction of Mr. John Mur- ray of the Challenger, and others. It is to be hoped that the demands of science will be remembered. Charities of all descriptions flourish luxuriantly in England, but the work- ers in science seem to feel that their needs are often seriously neglected. The amount of the surplus is variously esti- mated at from forty thousand to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The management is not satisfied with the present success, how- ever, and has leased the grounds for three years more from the commissioners of the exhibition of 1851, who, it will be remem- bered, bought with the surplus of that great enterprise those tracts of land now so valuable, on which all the museums and schools of science and art in South Kensington are now placed. Three great international exhibitions, similar in plan to the fisheries exhibition, are to follow, year by year; and by the end of 1886 the buildings will have more than paid for themselves, and a substantial sum will have accumulated, to be used, perhaps, in continu- ing the exhibition and museum movement which England has found to be so valuable to its intellectual and industrial welfare. The character of these exhibitions has not yet been determined upon. That of 1884 would doubtless have been devoted to horticulture, floriculture, and forestry, had not Scotland pre-occupied the field with a similar undertak- ing, and already secured the patronage of royalty. Edinburgh will therefore have its ‘international exhibition of objects relating to practical and scientific forestry and forest products’ next year; and London will follow in 1885 with a forestry exhibition, which can- not fail to be of world-wide importance. The London fisheries exhibition of 1883 gained much through the experiences of similar exhi- bitions in Norwich in 1881, and Edinburgh in 1882. The subject of the London exhibition of 1884 is not announced, but it is very possi- ble that it will have to do with food-products. Another programme, hinted at by the Prince of Wales in his speech at the close of the ex- hibition, provides for a hygienic exhibition in 1884, one of the progress of invention in 1885, and in 1886 an exhibition of colonial products. The literature of the exhibition is one of its most important features. Almost every sub- ject connected with marine zodlogy and the technology of fishing has been discussed in at \\ i \ \ \\ AMERICAN SECTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION IN LONDON, = ou adage Sabet be? ell = “i NOVEMBER 9, 1883.] least one special essay. ‘The papers published by several foreign governments have been of great importance, particularly the treatises by Grimm, upon the fishes and fisheries of Russia, and by Apostolides, upon those of Greece. Those issued officially by the exhibition have been numerous, ‘and, if the truth must be told, by no means of equal merit. None, however, are without value ; and several, especially those by Huxley, Levi, Hubrecht, Lankester, and Day, are important contributions to science. The official catalogue, edited by Mr. A. J. R. Trendell of the South Kensington museum, well known in America as the secretary of the British commission to our exhibition in 1876 at Philadelphia, is in itself a contribu- tion to knowledge, and a model for the guidance of future exhibition administrations. Each section is introduced by an essay by some recognized authority, and signed. Much serious work bas been done by the English periodicals in recording the teachings of the ex- hibition. Nature, under the head of * Zodlogy at the fisheries exhibition,’ has had a review of the vertebrates by Professor Giglioli, and of the invertebrates by Professor Ray Lankes- ter; also a paper on the present state of fish- cultnre as illustrated at the exhibition, by Mr. Earll. Mr. Howard Saunders in the Ibis, and by Mr. J. E. Harting in the Zoédlogist. Mr. Gwynn Jeffreys described the molluscan collections in the Annals and magazine of natural history. Mr. Dunell, Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier, Mr. Senior, and others have reviewed the technological features in the Field, and Mr. Fell Woods, the oyster-collections in Land and water; while Engineering has had an elaborate series of illustrated papers upon the vessels and scien- tifie instruments, devoting several numbers to describing the U. S. steamer Albatross and its equipment, and to American devices for the exploration of the depths of the sea. An official review, elaborately illustrated, of the exhibition and its teachings, is being pre- pared for the British government by Hon. Spencer Walpole, governor of the Isle of Man, well known as the colleague of Huxley and Buckland in the various fishery commissions from time to time instituted by Parliament. Nearly every European government has sent hither specialists to report upon special sub- jects. Among the most eminent of these men of science have been Dr. Steindachner of Vienna, Dr. Sauvage of Paris, Dr. Mébius of Kiel, Professor Benecke of Kénigsberg, Professor Hubrecht and Dr. Van Bemmelen of Utrecht, Professor Giglioli of Florence, Dr. Bs »< 1 J ‘ Te ” . - SCIENCE. The birds have been considered by 615 yon Grimm of St. Petersburg, Dr. Malmgren of Finland, Professor Torell of Stockholm, Dr. Buch of Christiania, Mr. E. P. Ramsay of Sydney, Capt. Comerma of the Spanish navy, and Col. Sola of Madrid. ‘The reports yet to be published will perhaps swell the literature of the exhibition to double its present bulk, and will be of interest to investigators in every department. The exhibition was formally closed on the dist of October by the Prince of Wales, who in his speech upon this occasion made certain very fitting allusions to the work of his father, Prince Albert, in the promotion of interna- tional exhibitions. G. Brown Goopre. CRUISE OF THE ALBA- TROSS.} We left Wood’s Holl at 4.10 p.m., Sept. 29, for an offshore dredging-trip. The weath- er was clear and pleasant, with light southerly winds and smooth sea. At 9.02 a.m. the following day, we sounded in 1,542 fathoms, — bottom, globigerina ooze ; latitude 39° 29’ north, longitude 70° 58’ 40” west, —and at 9.58 put over the beam-trawl, veering to 1,900 fathoms of rope. It was up again at 1.03 p.m., the net containing a large number of specimens. [Station 2,095. ] The trawl was cast again at 2.44 p.m, in 1,451 fathoms, latitude 39° 22’ 20” north, lon- gitude 70° 52’ 20” west. The bottom specimen brought up in the Sigsbee cup was the same as that of the former cast: but the trawl con- tained a granite stone weighing a hundred and seventy pounds, several small stones, small pieces of cinder, and lumps of hard clay ; there were also several small specimens of what appeared to be oxidized iron. The haul was very successful, being particularly rich in foraminifera. [Station 2,096. ] As soon as the trawl was up, a set of serial temperatures and specific gravities was taken tol ,000 fathoms, A temperature of 66° was found at 25 fathoms, 654° at 60 fathoms, and 574° at 40 fathoms. These strata of cold and warm water are the rule rather thgn the ex- ception, in this locality; but, thinking that possibly the observation at 40 fathoms had been read incorrectly, it was verified, using another instrument, which registered 554°. At 8.22 p.m. we started ahead south £ west > A FOUR-DAYS’ 1 Report to Prof. 8. F. Barrp, U.8. commissioner of fish and fisheries, by Lient.-Commander Z. L. TANNER, U.8.N., com- manding U.S. fish-commission steamer, Albatross, kindly placed at our service by Professor Baird. Some of the appendices are abbreviated to save repetition. 616 (magnetic), running on that course till 5.50 A.m., Oct. 1, when we sounded in 1,917 fath- oms, — latitude 37° 56’ 20” north, longitude 70° 57’ 30” west; bottom, globigerina ooze, — and at 6.18 put the beam-trawl over, veering to 2,600 fathoms. It was on the bottom at 8.04; and at 9.04 we began heaying in, land- ing it on the deck at 10.42 a.m., having made a successful haul. [Station 2,097. ] At 2.08 p.m. the beam-trawl was lowered again in 2,221 fathoms, latitude 37° 40’ 307 north, longitude 70° 37’ 30” west. It was down, with 3,000 fathoms of rope out, at 4.05 Boston ¢ p.M., dragged till 5.14 p.m., and was landed, after a successful haul, at 7.24 p.m. [Station 2,098. ] At 7.54 p.m. started ahead south-south-east (magnetic), ran till 3.26 a.m., and lay to until daylight (about 5.30 a.m.), when we sounded in 2,949 fathoms, — bottom, globige- rina ooze; latitude 37° 12’ 20” north, longi- tude 69° 39’ west,—near the centre of the Gulf Stream. The sinker, sixty-four pounds weight, was thirty-four minutes in reaching the bottom; and the specimen-cup came up in thirty-six minutes. The thermometer regis- tered at some intermediate depth not far from the surface, having capsized in some way in its descent. [Station 2,099.] The net of SCIENCE. till 3.08, and was landed at 4.25 p.m. (Vou. IL, No. 40. the beam-trawl was examined with great care, and every foreign substance removed, so that there should be no doubt as to whether speci- mens found were taken during the haul, or were in the net when it went down. At 7.14 a.m. the trawl was put over, reach- ing the bottom at 10.134, having veered 4,100 fathoms of rope. At 0.54 p.m. began heaving up, and at 5.18 p.m. it was landed on deck. It was a successful haul in every respect. The moderate breeze of the morning in- creased to a strong wind with heayy swell before the trawl was up, making it doubtful whether we should succeed in landing it. A set of serial temperatures and specific eravities was attempted after fin- ishing the haul; but the strong current, high wind, rugged sea, and threatening weather forced us to give it up after having veered 300 fathoms of rope. The method adopted to regulate the drift was at least original. The current of the stream was so strong that the trawl would not take the bottom; and, to effect this object, an officer was sta- tioned on the forecastle with a dredging quadrant, constantly ob- serving the angle of the dredge- rope, the engines being moyed with sufficient speed to maintain it within certain prescribed limits. At 4.30 p.m., moderate gale from south-west; hove to under fore storm-staysail, head to the southward, drifting rapidly with the stream about north-east by east. At midnight it was blow- ing a moderate gale with heavy sea, barometer 29.76, the air exceedingly sul- try, and incessant flashes of lightning in every direction. At 1.40 a.m., 3d inst., started ahead, course north, and ran under moderate ~ speed till 11.05 a.m., when, wind and sea hay- ing moderated, we sounded in 1,628 fathoms, globigerina ooze, — latitude 39° 22’ north, lon- gitude 68° 34’ 30” west, —and at 12.13 p.m. put the beam-trawl over, veering to 2,500 fathoms. There was still a fresh breeze from north-west, with heavy swell and very strong stream. The trawl was down at 1.59, dragged There were some interesting specimens, but most of the things were washed out of the net on the way up. [Station 2,100. ] _ NoveEMBER 9, 1883.] At 4.31 p.m. we sounded in 1,686 fathoms, globigerina ooze, — latitude 39° 18’ 30” north, longitude 68° 24° west, —and at 5.15 p.m. put the trawl over, veering to 2,650 fathoms. It was on the bottom at 7.10, began heaving up at 8.15, and landed it on deck at 9.39 p.m. The heavy swell and strong stream combined washed a large proportion of the specimens from the net, but several new or rare species were secured. [Station 2,101. ] A course was laid to the northward as soon as the haul was finished, and the speed regis- tered so as to strike the 100-fathom line in longitude 67° 50’ west, at daylight, when we proposed setting a trawl-line for tile-fish. We were on the ground at the proper time; but the weather was so boisterous that it was not considered prudent to lower a boat. It was too rough even for dredging ; and, as our coal- supply was nearly exhausted, we started for port. We encountered strong head-winds during the day, finally anchoring in Tarpaulin Cove at 10.40 p.m., where we remained till 6 a.m. on the 5th, when we got underway, and arrived at Wood’s Holl at 6.40, making fast to our moorings. SCIENCE. Dredging and trawling record. 617 List of fishes obtained. BY ENSIGN R. H. MINER, U.S.N. Station 2,095. — Bathysaurus Agassizii, Stomias fe- rox, Macrurus asper, Coryphaenoides carapinus, Ha- losaurus macrochir, Haloporphyrus viola, Cyclothone lusea, and one new species. Station 2,096, — Eurypharynx, Haloporphyrus viola, Macrurus asper, Synaphobranchus pinnatus, Halo- saurus macrochir, Coryphaenoides carapinus. Station 2,097. — Berycid (new species), Macrurus asper, Cyclothone lusea, Scopelus. Station 2,098. — Macrurus asper. Station 2,099. — Cyclothone lusca, Scopelus, Bery- cid (new species), two new species. Station 2,100. —Cyclothone lusea, Scopelus, Forci- pichthys. Station 2,101.— Berycid (new species), Euryphar- ynx, Cyclothone lusca, Argyropelecus Olfersii, Ster- noptyx diaphana, Scopelus, two new species. Register of invertebrates captured. BY J. The results obtained were good, notwithstanding the sea was quite rough much of the time. The sur- face-nets were in use when practicable, anda number of fine specimens were taken in them. As hereto- fore, schools of squid were seen in the water, illumi- nated by the arc-light. One of the crew captured E. BENEDICT. Tempera-| 2 : Loca.ity. sae E E WIND Drirt. Pe ae 3 Tae , 4 z o Ret = 5 | < io Alien A a= Bie. élailezel. 3 a a fee a ae z 25 ol ee -Je|s| 3 3 S iliSh|t skeet aes 5 ga EE 5 #15 ta A] = 5 = = = | @ =| H fi ain|ia a i (=) Ss a a a Ks a = = sal Se Se 1883. Sept.30. .|2,095| 39° 29’ 00” | 70° 58” 40” 9.02 a.m. | 714) 694) .. | 1,342! Glob. oz. | 8.S.W. tf l= Se 27.0 | Beam. “ 30. .|2,096/ 39 22 20 70 52 20 2.07 p.m. | 70 | 69 | 874) 1,451] “ “ a BS. Saas “ Oct. 1. .|2,097] 37 56 20 70 57 30 5:30 a.m. | 73} 724) 11,917) “ | S.W.. 8 | SEW..| 1.5 Mi “ 1. ./ 2,098} 37 40 30 70 37 30 Mosc. |78 | 72h cerpaezny fT NW... 4 | W.x8.,] 2.0 “ is ,%. .|2,009| 37 12 20 69 39 00 SaAcae! | 71 | 'S2°| ea ecaao, es ons 6 | S.S.W.| 2.0 “ “3. .| 2,100] 39 22 00 68 34 30 11.05 a.m. | 63 | 69 | 874, 1,628| “ “ | W.N.W.,| 3] E. . .|] 2.0 “ “ $3. .|2,101| 39 18 30 68 24 00 4,31 p.m. | 61 | 67 | 37| 1,686] “ “ | W.S. 3 | 8. 2.0 “ = —---——'"-- +. _ a —— ay Meteorological record. = a ————— a -—- — = = Wet SurF’cE 4 | ! BAROMETER. AIR. aie | WATER. Winp | 4 3 Besse Pi srignces x 3 | s = ah es z 3 z Dare. eI E 5 g 5 g g g STATE OF WEATHER. S 5 5 & | 8 |f2)8|/S) 8/87/38 3 3 gf 4 a */|Bil e/a] els 2 eR = = ioe Ca We | ei; 8 |oa = = = | | ae E g|s|2/5 | A a ee ; 30.32 30.18 | 71 | 56 | 69 | 56 | 64 | 57 | Passing clouds . @ .| E., N.W., 8.. 1-3 | Smooth. 30.18 29.92 | 72 | 64 | 72 | 64) 70 | 60 Y ~~ es a = Bey 8.8. We. > 2-4 se 30.06 29.86 | 80 | 66 | 78 | 65 | 75 | 71 is (Vou. IIL., No. 40. all novel; but, for the most part, it is very well put, and worth saying. But when we inquire of any of these evolutionary design arguments, not how they defend themselves against the charge of atheism, but how they demon- strate theism, we are disappointed. Mr. Hicks, as we saw in reviewing him, is very definite on this point as to what he attempts, and as to what he does not attempt; but his definiteness only serves to show his weakness. He declares that order, as such, is proof of intelligence, but adds that the proof is solely inductive. Men are orderly because they are intelli- gent: hence nature, if orderly, must be somehow associated with intelligence. We answered this in- duction by asking whether all brilliantly colored odjects must needs be visited by insects merely be- cause the colors of flowers depend upon their relations to the habits of insects. But with Mr. Stanley we hardly have room for so definite a criticism; for, though his argument in favor of theism, in so far as he suggests one at all, seems to be inductive, it seems also most carefully to shun any such definite statement as should make it definitely answerable. The vast machine needs, it would seeni, a controlling intelligence, which does not interfere with it, and yet does somehow direct it. The ‘practically infinite series of second causes’ is not enough by itself, and we must somehow get outside of it to find a designer; and, when we ask how the designer is related to the series of second causes, we get the charmingly inno- cent answer, that he is ‘immanently behind phenom- ena,’ —an expression that seems to us either mere words, or else an excellent Irish bull. Perhaps Mr. Stanley can explain this phrase for us; but mean- while, as one casts about for an interpretation, one is reminded strongly of Brer Fox, in the wonderful tar-baby story, as he ‘lay low’ in the bushes, wateh- ing his creation the tar-baby while it slowly intrapped Brer Rabbit. Possibly Brer Fox was ‘immanently behind’ that tar-baby. But our criticism is only of bad arguments and of obscure expressions, not of the view itself that the order of the universe implies an intelligence. The latter we hold as positively as Mr. Hicks or Mr. Stanley, only we insist that the question is not in the least one of inductive science. The ‘design’ argument in all its accustomed forms is bad, because it is an inductive argument, applied as true empirical science never applies any inductive argu- ments; viz., to matters wholly beyond the limits of phenomenal existence. The whole question is one of philosophy. Notas a result of induction, but as an implied premise of the inductive, or of some other rational thinking process, must this doctrine of intelli- gence in nature be established, if at all; and therefore only a critical philosophy, that examines the assump- tions lying at the basis of the thinking processes, has any business with the question. Empirical science, as such, has simply once for all ‘no need of that hypothesis.’ ; —A fire broke out last week in the cellar of the building containing the geological collections at Am- herst college. Fortunately it was discovered early, and put out by the students before any serious damage NovemBer 9, 1883.] was done. It will be recollected that the college lost the fine mineralogical cabinet of Prof. C. M. Shepard last year by fire; and the fear of a repetition of that disaster caused a too hasty removal of many objects from the lower floor, labels and specimens becoming sadly mixed. The wind was very high; and, had the fire gained greater headway, nothing could have saved the museum, or the observatory attached. — Charles Leslie McKay of the U.S. signal-service, stationed at Nushegak, Alaska, was drowned in Bris- tol Bay last April, while engaged in collecting fishes for the U.S. nationalmuseum. Mr. McKay had done considerable work in ichthyology, his most impor- tant publication being a ‘ Review of the Centrarchi- dae,’ in the Proceedings of the U. S. national museum for 1881. — At its meeting, Oct. 27, the Philosophical society of Washington listened to a communication by Dr. T. N. Gill on the ichthyological results of the voyage of the Albatross, and to one by Prof. A. Graham Bell on fallacies concerning the deaf. Dr. Gill de- scribed two anomalous fishes, one of which required the institution of a new order. Professor Bell’s paper was the subject of a lively debate. — Those who have followed the discussions in Sct- ENCE on the St. David’s rocks will be interested-in a new phase of the controversy, introduced by a paper before the British association by Prof. J. F. Blake. The rocks below the Cambrian conglomerate have been described by Dr. Hicks as bedded rocks belong- ing to three distinct periods. The same rocks have been recently asserted by Dr. Geikie to be partly Cam- brian, and partly intrusive. Professor Blake contends that they are pre-Cambrian in age, but form a very complete volcanic series, which may well be desig- nated the Dimetian. The basis of the series is the Dimetian granite, serving as the core. This is sur- rounded by the more acid rocks, as the quartz felsites and the felspar porphyries (the so-called Arvoni- an); and the more outlying portions consist of very varying materials, chiefly rough ashes or agglom- erate breccias, — on the east side finely-bedded ‘ halle- flintas,’ and on the north side many basic laya-flows. These are the so-called ‘Pebidian.’ The arrange- ment of these rocks shows the characteristic irregu- larity of voleanic rocks; and, though many portions are bedded, they have no dominant strike over the whole district. The Cambrian series, commencing with the conglomerates, is quite independent, and hangs together’asa whole. Inno case canacontinu- ous passage be proved from the one series to the other: the junction is in most cases a faulted one; and, at the places where this is not so, the conglomerate lies on different beds of the volcanic series. —At the meeting of the Boston society of natural history, Noy. 7, Prof. H. W. Haynes spoke of the agricultural implements of the New-England Indians, Prof. W. O. Crosby read a paper on the origin and relations of continents and ocean-basins, and Dr. M. E. Wadsworth gave brief notes on the lithology of the island of Jura, Scotland. — Mr. George Shoemaker, a very industrious and promising young naturalist connected with the Nation- SCIENCE. 635 al museum, died in Washington on the 12th of Octo- ber. — Herr Jacobson, who has spent four years on the north-west coast of America in making ethnological collections for the Berlin museum, has recently re- turned, and will sail for Europe. —Dr. Leonhard Stejneger has arrived in San Fran- cisco, en route for Washington. He has spent a year in Bering Island in the study of its fauna, and in collecting remains of the extinct arctic sea-cow. — The Hydrographic office has published a mono- graph (no. 4.), by Lieut. Southerland, upon the two August hurricanes. It contains abstracts from the logs of forty vessels which were near the path of one or both of these storms, a chart of the course of each storm, a diagram of the tracks of two barques which were near the path of the second hurricane, and sail- ing-directions for managing vessels when near similar dangerous cyclones. The projected paths resemble those previously published by the signal-office in the Weather review for August (SCIENCE, no. 37), but differ somewhat in detail. The latter were based upon the reports of more vessels than those enumer- ated by Lieut. Southerland. Some of the ships men- tioned are common to the two reports; but doubtless a more accurate representation of the paths of the hurricanes could have been obtained, had all the data been combined in one report. —Mr. J. B. Fell, C.E., gave a paper on the con- struction and working of alpine railways, at the recent meeting of the British association, which is thus reported in Nature. There are three alpine rail- ways in existence at the present time, —the Mont Cenis and St. Gothard railways, which have been made with long summit tunnels, and with ordinary gradients; and the Brenner railway, that has been made with similar gradients, but without a long tun- nel. The important question has now arisen, and has been taken into serious consideration by the Sovern- ments and local authorities interested, as to how far it may be possible to make other trans-alpine railways, some of which are urgently needed, at a cost that would render them financially practicable; and, to accomplish this object, it has been proposed to effect a reduction of one-half or more of the cost, by carrying these railways over the mountain-passes by means of steep gradients and the use of the centre rail system, as it was adopted on the Mont Cenis railway. Upon these improved summit railways the same weight and number of trains could be run that are now running on the Mont Cenis tunnel railway; and, with the pro- tection of avalanche galleries and covered ways, the regularity of the service would be maintained at all seasons of the year. The extra cost of working- expenses caused by working over a higher level than that of a tunnel line would, if capitalized and added to the cost of construction, still leave a clear net say- ing of more than one-half in the cost of construction, as compared with the cost of a tunnel railway. The result of the experiences of the last twenty-five years seems to point to the conclusion that a method of constructing alpine railways with long, non-paying tunnels, is a thing of the past. The future belongs 636 to the best system that can be devised for overcoming the difficulties of trans-alpine railways rather by add- ing to the powers of the locomotive-engine, and by other mechanical appliances for reducing the cost of traction on steep inclines, which methods are capable of indefinite improvement, than by burying in gigan- tic tunnels enormous sums of unproductive capital, that, when once expended, are irrecoverably lost. — We learn from Nature that the electric railway from Portrush to the Giant’s Causeway was opened Sept. 28 by Earl Spencer; and among others pres- ent, were Sir William Thomson, Sir William Siemens, and Sir Krederick Bramwell. It is over six miles long, and has cost £45,000. The line, after passing through the principal street of Portrush, follows-the seaside road, a portion of a footpath six feet broad being reserved for the railway. The gauge is only three feet; and the gradients are very steep, —in places as much as one in thirty-five; and in parts of its course the curves are sharper than might have been desirable had the route which it takes been ehosen by the engineers. The force to work it is generated by a waterfall in the river Bush, with an available head of twenty-four feet, the electric current being conveyed by an underground eable to thé end of the tramway. The water-power passing through turbine water-wheels, which utilize the whole force of the fall, is said to amount to ninety horse.. —At the meeting of the Engineers’ club of Phila- delphia, Oct. 20, Mr. John Haug exhibited and de- scribed very complete sets of drawings for two vessels designed by him, —the one a tug-boat for the Phila- _delphia board of health, and the other a barge for the transportation of freight and passenger cars. Mr. J. H. Harden read a paper, prepared for publication as part of the Report of the second geological survey of Pennsylvania, relating to the ‘‘ Early mining opera- tions in Berks and Cliester counties, includin® the present condition of the Jones mine.’? Prof. L.M. Haupt presented notes on conventional colors for drawing. : BT eFore the Biological society of Washington, at its meeting, Nov. 2, the communications were: Dr. George M. Sternberg, U.S.A., Micrococci; Dr. E. M. Schaeffer, Further remarks on manna, with ex- hibition of specimens; Dr. T. H. Bean, Arrested asymmetry in a flounder, with exhibition of spéci- mens; Professor Lester F. Ward, Mesozoic dicoty- ledons. at A — The autumn meeting of the Society of. mechan- ical engineers, which has just closed in New York, has been unusually well attended, and some important lines of discussion have been drawn out. Consider- able interest was shown in the proposed re-appoint- ment of a board to supervise the work with the Watertown testing-machine: —The Massachusetts agricultural experiment-sta- tion at the Agricultural college in Amherst, Mass., was established by an act of the legislature approved on the 12th of May, 1882. Its management is vested in a board of control, consisting of the governor of the State, two members of the state board of agriculture, two members of the board of trustees of the Massa- SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No, 40. chusetts agricultural college, one member of the Massachusetts society for promoting agriculture, and the president of the Massachusetts agricultural col- lege. The present officers of the station are all members of the college faculty, and are Prof. OC. A. Goessmann, director and chemist; Prof. M. Miles, superintendent of field and stock experiments; and Prof. S. T. Maynard, superintendent of horticultural experiments, microscopist, and draughtsman. The station proposes to publish monthly bulletins, of which two have already appeared. ‘The first contains an account of the organization of the station, and a general statement of its purposes, and also analyses of ten samples of fodders. The second and third bulletins contain analyses of four samples of fodders and of fifty-six of fertilizers and fertilizing materials. — An extended review of the results of the German census of 1881 is given by Ch. Grad in the Revue scientifique, 1883, 109. RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. Bachmann, 0. Unsere modernen mikroskope und deren siimmtliche hilfs. und neben- -apparate fiir wissenschaftliche forschungen. Miinchen, Oldenburg, 1883. 15+344p., illustr. 8°. Burr, W.H. The elasticity and resistance of the materials of engineering. New York, Wiley, 1883. 15+753p. 8°. Campagne, E. Les météores. Rouen, Mégard, 1883. 189 p-, illustr. 8°. : Denza, F. Lameteorologia e le sue pitt recenti applicazioni. Torino, Speir ani, 1883. 364p. 8°. Fallet, C Les mers polaires. illustr. 8°. Gérardin, L. Les bétes, éléments de zoologie théorique etappliquée. Paris, J/asson, 1883. 2+418 p., illustr. 18°. Landolt, H., and Bornstein, R. Physikalisch-chemische tabellen. Berlin, Springer, 1883. 12+249p. 8°. MacCord, C. W. Kinematics: a treatise on the modifica- tion of motion, as affected by the forms and modes of connection of the moving parts of machines; illustrated by diagrams of mechanical. movements, as practically constructed; for the use of draughtsmen, machinists, and students of mechanical engi- neering. New York, Wiley, 1883. 9+335 p. 8°. Malte-Brun, Lectures géographiques: ’Hurope, descrip- tion générale. Limoges, Barbou, 1883, 141 p. 12°. Ollivier-Beauregard. En Asie, Kachmir et Tibet, étude @ethnographie ancienne et moderne. Paris, Maisonneuve, 1883. 144 p. 8°. Petit, H. Notes sur l’habitat des coléopttres de France. Chalons-sur-Marne, J/a7tin, 1883. 66p. 8°. Physik, die, im dienste der wissenschaft, der kunst und des praktischen lebens. Red. G. Krebs, unter mitwirkung von J. yan Bebber, C. Grahwinkel, E. Hartwig. lief. i. Stuttgart, Znke, 1888, 112 p.,illustr. 8°. Reusch, H. H. Die fossilien fiihrenden krystallinischen schiefer von Bergen in Norwegen. free Er The quantities M,, M,... Mn are arbitrary con- stants; and a), ete., roots of a certain algebraical equation. — (Comptes rendus, March 19.) T, c. [410 ay, x)da,. 718 ENGINEERING. Effect of frost upon fire-plug casings. — Mr. Allen J. Fuller referred to a general impression that the freezing of the earth around fire-hydrants has a tendency to gripe fast to the frost-jacket, and lift it with the expanding or heaving earth, which he de- nied for the following reasons. 1°. The frozen earth slides on the surface of the frost-jacket, because its expansion is greater than that of iron. 2°. As the expansion of the earth must be in proportion to the intensity of the cold, so will it be greater above than below a given point: therefore the first foot of frozen ground will have a greater upward movement than that which is below it, and the second foot greater than the third, ete. Thus it will be seen that the earth below a given point rises more slowly than that above, and its friction is opposed to the one above. 38°. If this is true of feet, it is true of inches and of portions of an inch: therefore there is a re- tardation movement throughout. 4°. The upward movement of the ground: the freezing being greatest towards the surface, and such movement involving a more complete fracture of the earth surrounding the frost-jacket, it follows that the friction is less at this point than that below it, and in consequence there is less power to move upward than downward. Of course, the above does not apply to any construction that the frost can get beneath. Mr. Frederic Graff noted and described the form of wooden casing which had been successfully used in the early practice of the Philadelphia water-depart- ment. In response to the theory advanced in regard to the action of frost in raising the casings of fire-plugs, and to the statement that if the base of a structure ex- tended below the frost-line it would not be lifted, Prof. Haupt remarked, that he thought the theory was in part sustained by the fact observed by some of the district surveyors, and verified by the accurate measurements they were obliged to make, that fences moved bodily to the south and east in consequence of the action of the sun and frost upon the ground on opposite sides of them. He thought, also, that the deductions concerning the immobility of structures resting below the frost-line were not fully sustained by the facts; as in the north-west, where ice forms rapidly, he had heard of numerous instances of piles driven for bridges, and extending some distance below the frost-line, having been raised as much as five to six inches in a single night; and he conceived the ac- tion in this case to be similar in kind to that of piles driven entirely through solid ground, the only dif- ference being in the amount of the resistance offered by friction and weight of pile. The water, in freezing around the pile, acts upon it as a griper or vice; and the expansion of the various strata or laminae of water, as they become converted into ice, acts as a lever to force up the pile. Mr. Howard Murphy did not consider the case cited by Prof. Haupt as parallel, as the so-called piles, being driven through water and soft mud, were probably columns resting upon their bases, and depending but little upon the frictional resistance of the mate- SCIENCE. " *. [Vou. IIL., No. 43. rial through which they passed. Therefore the “ex: pansive force upward of the freezing water would be opposed by little more than the weight of the pile; whereas in a fire-hydrant casing, or other deeply planted post, the presumably well-rammed material around the whole length under ground would offer such proportional frictional resistance as to cause the freezing earth to slide up the post rather than to lift it. If the ice could be supposed to act downwards upon the piles in question, it is hardly likely that it would have forced them farther home. — (Eng. club Philad.; meeting Nov. 3.) [411 An enormous steam ferryboat.— The Solano, on the Central Pacific railroad ferry, between San Francisco and Oakland, Cal., was built by the Harlan & Hollingsworth company of Wilmington, Del. The boat is 494 feet long on deck, 406 on the water- line, 116 feet beam, 63 feet draught, loaded. The tonnage is given as 3,540. The engines are two in number, beam-engines working independently, hay- ing cylinders 62} inches in diameter, and of 11 feet stroke of piston. These engines are each rated at 2,000-horse power. The boilers are 8 in number, of steel, have 19,630 square feet of heating-surface, or about 1,500-horse power according to a usual rating (12 square feet to the horse-power). ‘The wheels are 30 feet in diameter, and are fitted with 24 buckets. There are four lines of rails on the deck; and 48 freight or 24 passenger cars can be carried at once. — (Mechanics, July 28.) RB. u. T. [412 Surface-condensers for marine engines.— Cadet engineer J. M. Whitham, U.S.N., compares the performance of surface-condensers of marine engines with the results of a formula for required area of surface constructed by him, and deduces a constant for usual application. He obtains the expression, — 2. = Se Rs ck in which S = square feet of condensing-surface, W = pounds of steam condensed per hour, ZI = latent heat of steam of temperature, T, T, = temperature of exhaust-steam, T. = temperature of feed, ¢ = mean temperature of circulating water, c = coefficient variable with efficiency of surface, k = conductivity of the metal (556.8 for brass, 642.5 for copper). He finds the usual value of ¢ to be 0.148. He finds that this figure may be increased ten per cent where independent circulating pumps are used. The com- mon value of ¢ & is taken as 82.2252. An inspection of the table of areas in use indicates that the smallest areas are very nearly as efficient, as a rule, as the greatest. — (Proc. naval inst., ix. 303.) BR. H. T. [413 Protection of iron from rust.— As it has been observed that iron embedded in lime-mortar is hin- dered from rusting, Riegelmann of Hanau uses a paint containing caustic alkaline earth (baryta, stron- tia, ete.), so that the iron may be protected as it is by lime. The Neueste erfindung states that 4 mixture L sS= {ao> + log.e , eS NOVEMBER 30, 1883.] of ten per cent of burnt magnesia, or even baryta or strontia, mixed cold with ordinary linseed-oil paint, and enough mineral oil to envelop the alkaline earth, will protect iron by its permanent alkaline action, the free acid of the paint being neutralized. —( Build. news, Sept. 14.) c. E. G. (414 Asphalt mortar.— A composition of coal-tar, clay, asphalt, resin, litharge, and sand, an artificial asphalt, has been used for some years with perfect success on the Berlin-Stettin railway for wall-copings, water-tables, and similar places requiring a water- proof coating. It is applied cold, like ordinary cem- ent. The space to be covered is thoroughly dried and cleaned, and then primed with hot roofing-var- nish, the basis of which is also tar. The mortar is then spread cold with the trowel, to a thickness of three-eighths of aninch. If the areais large, another coat of varnish is given, and rough sand strewn on. The material is tenacious, impregnable to rain or frost: a piece exposed four years to the drainage of a slope thirty-three feet high is perfectly sound, and has required no repairs. — (Centr.-blatt. bauverw.) C. E. G. 415 AGRICULTURE. : Relative value of soluble and reverted phos- phoric acid. — Experiments by Voelcker gave no re- sult, the differences between the unmanured plots being greater than those between manured and un- manured plots. Wildt, in experiments in five differ- ent places, found in one case that the soluble form gave the greatest increase, in three cases no effect could be observed from the phosphoric acid in any form, and in one case the results were contradictory. — (Biedermann’s centr.-blatt., xii. 514.) H.P.A. [416 Influence of quality of seed upon the crop. — One of the most important conditions of a successful vegetation experiment is uniformity in the seed used. With this in mind, Hellriegel has investigated the effect of variations in the absolute weight, and in the specific gravity of seeds upon the growth of the resulting plants. He finds, that, of seeds (of barley) having the same specific gravity, the heavier seeds produced at first more vigorous plants than the lighter. As the plants continued to grow in good soil, the differences gradually diminisbed, until, at the time of harvest, they had entirely disappeared. When the plants grew in poor soil, the effect of differ- ences in the seed was more lasting, and even affected the total weight of the crop. Differences of specific gravity in seeds of the same weight produced no rec- ognizable effect upon the crop. The stage of ripeness of the seeds affected the development of the plants in the same direction as it did the absolute weight of the seeds; the riper seeds being heavier, and pro- ducing the most vigorous plants, and the differences being most manifest on a poor soil. Essentially the same results were obtained in experiments with po- tatoes. The attempt was also made to raise potatoes of greater or of less specific gravity, by selection; the heaviest or lightest being continually selected for seed. The experiment was continued through three seasons, with a negative result. — (Ibid., xii. 530.) H. P. A [417 SCIENCE. 119 MINERALOGY.§ ~~ Albite.— This mineral usually occurs somewhat impure, owing to the presence of small quantities of potassium and calcium. C, Baerwald claims to have found for the first time a perfectly pure albite from Kasbék, Caucasia, in which no trace of potassium or calcium could be detected, and which yielded, on analysis, SiO, (68.75). Al.O, (19.73). NasO (12.29) = 100.77; gravity, 2.618. This albite is regarded as of special interest in relation to Tschermak’s theory, that the soda-lime felspars are all isomorphous mixtures. of a pure soda felspar (albite, Na. Al,Si;O,,) with a pure lime felspar (anorthite, CaAl,Si,O;), giving a continuous series between the two extremities which vary in physical properties. Pure albite not being known, an idea of its properties was arrived at by caleulation, and the author regards it of interest to compare the albite from Kasbék with the theoreti- cally pure albite of Tschermak. ; FOUND ON ALBITE FROM KAsBER. Gravinvar seas, 6 svahin 2.618 Angle of base on brachypinnacoid, 86° 22’, CALCULATED BY ‘TSCHERMAK. 2.624 greater than 86° 29° When examined with crossed nicols and sodium light, the extinction upon a basal section was found to be 2° 174’ on either side of the twinning-plane; and, with a section parallel to the brachypinnacoid, the extinction took place at an inclination of 18° 233’, These values vary considerably from those arrived at by Schuster, respectively 4° 30’ and 19°; but the author regards his values as especially correct, being obtained by experiment on pure material, and not by calculation. — (Zeitschr. kryst., viii. 48.) 8. L. P. [418 GEOGRAPHY. (Arctic.) Population of the Chukchi peninsula. —Dr. Aurel Krause gives a résumé of the exploration of this district from the middle of the seventeenth cen- tury, and a discussion of the ethnic relations of its people, largely from the observations of himself and brother during their late travels. To this is added a small ethnological map, showing the distribution of the various stocks on either side of Bering Strait; and a valuable vocabulary, chiefly of Chukchi words, but containing also some words of the Asiatic Eskimo, and some recognized as jargon. — (Deutsche geogr. bldtier, vi. 3.) Ww. H. D. [419 Hydrography of the Siberian Sea. — Otto Pet- tersson contributes to the second volume of the ‘ Sci- entific results of the Vega expedition ’ a study of this subject, illustrated by charts of the Kara Sea, and of that part of the Arctic Ocean between Novaia Zemlia and Bering Strait which has been named the Norden- skiéld Sea. An important part of the paper consists in the discussion of the movements of the ice in the Kara Sea, which, the author concludes, depend less on wind and weather than on the varying amount of warm surface-water which enters the Kara basin in different years. This warm water depends largely upon the discharge of the great Siberian rivers, and differs according to the time when the ice in them 720 breaks up in different years. As a complement to this investigation, may be mentioned a paper on Nor- denskidld’s explorations, printed by Fr. Schmidt of the St. Petersburg academy of sciences, in which the author endeavors to clear up some doubtful points in the observations made on the Vega voyage, by com- bining with them the results of explorations by Sau- nikoff, Hedenstrom Anjou, and others. — w. H. D. [420 New charts of north-east Siberia.— The Hy- -drographic office of the navy department has issued a chart of Plover Bay, derived from Russian surveys by Maksitovich, and one of the Anadyr River estuary, founded on the surveys of the Telegraph expedition in 1865, with corrections by Russian officers on the ship Haidemak, in 1875. Following an error of the Russian hydrographic office, the title of ‘Port Provi- dence’ is given to the whole of Plover Bay, and the latter name to the smaller and included port, in direct reversal of the custom of American and other navi- gators for the last thirty years. — W. H. D. [421 Graah’s investigations of 1829-30 in Green- land. — Apropos of Nordenskidld’s Greenland expe- dition, a very full account of Graah’s voyage, and a deserved tribute to his qualities as an explorer, ap- pears in the last number of the Deutsche geograph- ische blitter. This is doubly useful, as the account of the journey originally published has long been out of print, and difficult to obtain. The same num- ber contains a statement and criticism of the hy- pothesis offered by Nordenskiéld in regard to the interior of Greenland, from the pen of Prof. Bor- gen, whose views have been sufiiciently confirmed by the results of the voyage, so far as yet. made pub- lic. — W. H. D. [422 (Africa.) The Portuguese in Africa.—In support of the tights claimed by Portugal on the Kongo, and else- where in the interior of Africa, a memorandum was issued, some time since, by the geographical society of Lisbon, in which it was claimed for Portuguese ex- plorers that they had revealed to science precise and exclusive information in regard to the orography and hydrology of the Dark Continent. The plea of this memorandum has been traversed by President Wau- ters, of the Royal Belgian geographical society, in a very lively and interesting article. Without express- ing an opinion as to the merits of parties now strug- gling for supremacy on the Kongo, attention may be called to the manner in which the author shows how the characteristics of the hydrology of the interior of Africa on ancient charts were derived. Two centu- ries before the Christian era, Eratosthenes, from in- formation obtained on the Ethiopian expedition of Ptolemy Philadelphus, described with tolerable accu- racy the chief features of the river-system of Abys- sinia, and placed the source of the principal branch of the Nile in a lake situated to the southward of that country. Ptolemy and the Arabian geographers added other lakes and branches, the details of which appear to have been based chiefly on rumor and im- agination. In 1444 certain Abyssinian monks visited Rome on an ecclesiastical errand; and, from infor- SCIENCE. [Vou. Il., No, 43. mation derived from them, Brother Mauro corrected the geography of that part of the Nile basin comprised in the Abyssinian watershed, the remainder finding its source on a vast marsh located in the centre of the continent. This appeared on his celebrated Mappe-monde in 1458. According to the author and Father Briicker, the curious network of lakes and rivers found on the globes of Martin Behaim and medieval geographers, which suggest so curiously the lakes and rivers now known to exist, were all derived from the sources above mentioned. In many cases the names of the lakes and towns can be recognized; and in suppressing synonymes, and replacing Abyssinian rivers (which appear spread over central Africa on such maps) where they belong, the central region of the conti- nent becomes almost a blank. It was reseryed for the celebrated De Lisle, in the early part of the last century, to sweep from the charts every thing not due to actual observation, leaving to Livingstone and his successors the occupation of the blank thus made by delineating the physical features recognized in these modern and only authenticated explorations. — (Bull. soc. Belg. géogr., ii. 1883.) W. H. D. [423 BOTANY. Synonymy of higher cryptogams.— The ‘No- menclator der gefiisskryptogamen,’ by Carl Salomon, gives the genera and species of the higher erypto- gams, together with their synonymes, and the geo- graphical distribution of the species, —a work which is much needed by students in this department of botany. — Ww. G. F. [424 Ohio fungi.— The third part of the ‘ Mycological flora of the Miami valley,’ by A. P. Morgan, has ap- peared, and includes the species of Agaricini from Coprinus to Leuzites. The paper is accompanied by colored plates of two new species, —Coprinus squamo- sus and Hygrophorus Laurae.—(Journ. Cine. soc. nat. hist.) Ww. G. F. [425 Phycologia Mediterranea.—In this volume of about five hundred large octavo pages, Prof. F. Ar- dissone of Milan describes the Florideae of the Italian coast, followed by the Bangiaceae and Dictyotaceae, under the heading Incertae sedis. From the con- text, however, one understands that the writer con- siders the two last-named orders to be nearly related to the Florideae. The descriptions and synonymy are given in full in Latin, and there are many notes in Italian on the microscopic structure and deyelop- ment. The antheridia of Spyridia are said to be unknown. They have, however, been deseribed and figured in American specimens of S. filamentosa, which also occurs in Italy. — Ww. G. F. [426 Pollination of Asclepias.— Dr. Taylor speaks of the temporary capture of flies by A. purpurascens, and of the removal of pollinia by them on their es- cape, and suggests that North-American botanists examine the insects caught on our asclepiads for the peculiar pollen-masses (Sc. gossip, Sept. ). Like Apocynum, the milkweeds have long been known to catch insects not adapted to fertilize their flowers; and irritable movements have several times A eet rs NOVEMBER 30, 1883.] been ascribed to their pollinia or stamens (e.g., Kirby and Spence, ‘ Entomology,’ 7th ed., 167; Willdenow, ‘Principles of botany,’ 321; Potts, Proc. Philad. acad., 1878, 293). In reality the insects are captured by a purely mechanical action of the fine V-cleft in the saddle of the pollen-mass, which seems especially adapted to hold the tarsal hairs of insects, especially certain Hymenoptera. The pollinia have been frequently noticed on in- sects. Bee-keepers often complain that their bees become so weighted with them as to be unable to re- gain the hive. Potts (Proc. Philad. acad., 1879, 207) mentions one bee which bore the remains of thirty pollinia; and Bennett (Pop. sc. review, 1873, 343) speaks of a butterfly which had eight entire masses, and the bases of eleven others, on one of its feet. Cu- rious mistakes have also been made in descriptive entomology through a failure to recognize these bodies when they have been met with on insects. Savigny, in his great work on Egyptian insects (‘ Hymenoptera,’ pl. 11), figures one as an appendage of the maxillary palpus of a Larrid; and his figure is copied by West- wood (‘ Modern classif.,’ ii. 197), who says (p. 201) that ‘it may possibly be the effect of disease.’ Reakirt (Proc. ent. soc. Philad., ii. 357) described them as natural appendages of the tarsi of a butterfly, giving: them the name of eupronychia. If I am not mis- taken, a species of Mantispa bas also been character- ized by the presence of these pollen-masses; but I am unable to refer to the description. Among the numerous modern accounts of the pol- lination of the genus, none is more thorough than that given by Delpino, in his *‘ Fecondazione nelle piante antocarpee,’ 1867. — w. T. (427 ZOOLOGY. Rare forms of microscopic life.—Dr. A. C. Stokes recently described and exhibited specimens of a new species of Acineta, a stalked, loricate infuso- rium, At the sanre time he called attention to an example of the blue Stentor (Stentor ceruleus Ehren- berg) which he thought had not been mentioned heretofore as found in America. He also announced that he had recently collected the beautiful rotifer, Stepanoceros Eichhornii, which, though abundant in Europe, appears not to have been previously found in this country. Specimens of Salpingoeca urceolata were also shown, which in no way differed from marine specimens. All the above forms of minute life were found in Watson’s Creek, a small fresh-water stream in Mercer county, N.J.—(Trenton nat. hist. soc.; November meeting, 1883.) [428 Mollusks. Pulmonata of central Asia.— FE. von Martens publishes a valuable contribution to our knowledge of central Asiatic Mollusca. The region treated of is between the frontiers of China and the Caspian, for which material has been gathered by Prjevalski, Potanin, and Regel. Besides descriptions of new forms, it contains a review of the fauna, with a tabular exhibit of the distribution of the different species. The central Asiatic Helices are broadly divisible into two groups: the one, characterized by SCIENCE. 721 reddish and yellowish tints of coloration, and related to the Fruticicola of Europe, is more northern in its distribution; the other, allied to Xerophila, inhabits the Thian-Shan region, and is distinguished in general by sharper sculpture and a whitish color. Several forms common to the pleistocene and to the boreal region are found here, while several sections of the Helices not found in the pleistocene are also absent from central Asia. The fauna is more nearly related to that of the post-tertiary, or northern American, than to the existing fauna of middle Eu- rope. The fresh-water snails are European, but Unio is conspicuous by its absence. A supplement by Schacko gives anatomical details of several species. —(Mém. acad. St. Péterbourg, (7), xxx. no. 11.) W.-H. D. [429 Mediterranean oysters.— The Marquis de Gre- gorio has undertaken a special study of the Méditer- ranean oysters, recent and fossil. Two short papers printed at Palermo give some preliminary results; among other things determining the existence in a living state, on branches of red coral, of the true Ostrea cochlear of Poli, believed to have become ex- tinet: We recall, however, the identification of this species some time since, by Dr. Jeffreys and others, from specimens attached to a telegraph-cable which had been recovered from great depths for repairs. — W. H. D. {430 Mollusks at the fisheries exhibition.— Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys prints some notes on the Mollusca exhibited. Leaving out oysters, which were well represented from Great Britain, the United States, and Franee, the collections are not remarkable. Brit- ish Columbia showed a fine example, in spirit, of Cryptochiton Stelleri. This species, by the way, though rare in European collections, is abundant in proper localities from Santa Barbara, Cal., north and west to the extreme limit of the Aleutian Islands. It is eaten raw by the natives of Alaska. Norway showed a small collection of fine specimens of her mol- lusks, as did the museum of Gothenberg, Sweden. The most important and interesting collection was that of the Vega, dredged in the Arctic seas from Nor- way to Bering Strait by Baron Nordenskiold. Among these was a Pleurotoma (from the description, closely resembling P. circinata Dall, of the Aleutian Islands), which Dr. Jeffreys believes to be larger than any other known species, and to which he has applied the name of P. insignis. —(Ann. mag. nat. hist., Aug., 1883.) W. H. D. {431 Worms. Notes on worms.—C, Vignier has published a preliminary notice of his researches on-the annelid Exegone gemmifera in the Comptes rendus (xevi. 729), and promises a full memoir. —— W. H. Caldwell gives, in the proceedings of the Royal society of London (xxxiv. 371), a preliminary note on the structure and development of Phoronis. ——A third preliminary publication is that on the development of Borlasia vivipara, in the Bulletin scientifique du département du Nord (vy. 462), by W. Salensky. ——In the journal of the Linnaean society of London (xvii. 78), Dr. T. S. Cobbold describes Ligula Mansoni, n. sp. Twelve 722 specimens were found, in a Chinese, lying in the sub- peritoneal fascia about the iliac fossae, and behind the kidneys ; a single one being found lying free in the right pleural cavity. They were twelve to four- teen inches long, and an eighth of an inch broad, andcome near Ligula simplicissima. ——H. Gries- bach has given a preliminary report of his observa- tions on the connective tissue of cestods, as studied in Solenophorus. His article appeared in the Biol. centralbl. (iii. 268). ——J. Poirier found in the in- testines of Palonia frontalis, from Java, three new Amphistomidae, for which he establishes two new genera, — Homalogaster and Gastrothylax. Three species are described and figured (Bull. soc. philom. Paris, (7), vii. 74). ——J. Chatin reports a few ob- servations on the histological alterations occasioned in man by trichinosis (Zbid., 107). —— The larvae of Gordius occur both in fishes and in many insect- larvae. In opposition to Villot, von Linstow main- tains that the insects are the real hosts, and the parasites are present in fishes only accidentally, from their feeding on infested insects. —(Zool. anz., vi. 373.) C. S. M. [432 VERTEBRATES. Direct irritability of the anterior columns of the spinal cord.— Mendelssohn, in the present pa- per, states that he has repeated all of the experiments of Fick upon the irritability of the anterior columns, and obtained similar results. In his own experiments, special efforts were made to prevent any escape of current on stimulating. The spinal cord was laid bare in its whole extent, and isolated from the sur- rounding parts by caoutchoue. The anterior and posterior columns of the cord were stimulated just below the brachial plexus, which had been previously divided; and the movements of the gastrocnemius muscle which resulted were registered upon a myo- graph. In some cases the anterior portion of the cord was completely separated from the posterior by a section running from the origin of the sciatic to the cervical cord. It was found in all cases that the reaction of the anterior columns was,.shorter than that of the posterior columns; that is, the time be- tween stimulation of the cord and contraction of the gastrocnemius was less in the first case than in the second, the difference in time varying from 0.01 to 0.025 of a second. Assuming that the contraction resulting from stimulation of the posterior columns is reflex, then that resulting from stimulation of the anterior columns must be direct.— (Arch. anat. physiol., 1888, 281.) Ww. H. [433 Fishes, Sudden increase of a rare sunfish. — Professor A, C. Apgar recently referred to the results of a fish- ing-excursion in central New Jersey. He found that the hitherto rare species of sunfish (Mesogonistius chaetodon) was remarkably abundant, and in a short time gathered seventy-five specimens. Where here- tofore the common spotted sunfish (Enneacanthus simulans) and the still more abundant ‘ pumpkin- seeds’ (Lepomis gibbosus) have been the characteris- tic species, these now appear to be largely crowded SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 43. out by the small banded sunfish, which but a short time ago was only to be found in scanty numbers and in very limited localities. — (Trenton nat. hist. soc.; November meeting, 1885.) (434 Birds. Anatomy of Biziura.—From the dissection of two males of B. lobata, Mr. Forbes finds that this duck forms an exception in that its trachea is simple, and devoid of a bulla, and that a subgular pouch, comparable to that of the bustards, exists. The ambiens tendon perforates the patella, as in Pha- lacrocorax and the Hesperornis of Marsh. —( Proc. zool. soc. Lond., 1882, 455.) go. A. J. [435 © Does the Carolina wren mimic ?—Dr. C. C. Abbott read a short paper on the habits of the Caro- lina, or mocking-wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus). He had carefully studied a pair of these birds fora year, seeing the male bird at least three times each week, from September to September. In all that time he had never heard the male bird utter a note © not distinctively its own. Prof. Austin C., Apgar remarked that he had been familiar with the song of this wren for years, but had not heard it mimic; yet in all works on ornithology that refer to this species it is called the mocking-wren; and the habit is more or less referred to by Wilson, Audubon, and by Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, in their ‘History of North- American birds.’ — (Trenton nat. hist. soc. ; meeting Sept. 19.) ; [436 The tongues of Tenuirostres.—In this paper, Gadow describes the modifications of the tongue which adapt it for sucking. The basal portion of the tube is formed by the rolling-up of the tongue, while the tip is formed by the rolling-up of the divided por- tion. In the Melaphagidae the end is broken up dichotomously into several tubes, and only the exter- nal borders of the tubes are lacinated. In the Hecta- riniinae the end is formed of only two tubes, and the internal edge is lacinated. In the hummers the tongue is double to near the base. Some peculiari- ties of the serpi- and mylo-hyoid muscles are men- tioned. We notice that the author gives the anterior cornua of the hyoid apparatus as obsolete, though he describes the os entoglossum as double. From this we infer that he has forgotten that the ossa entoglossa are the anterior cornua.—(Proc. zodl. soc., 1883, 62:) og. AL J. [437 Mammals. Innervation of the movements of the iris. — In the reflex narrowing of the pupil, which takes place when the eye is exposed to light, it has been generally accepted that the afferent fibres concerned in the act follow the same general course as that taken by the rest of the fibres of the optic nerye, passing along the optic tracts to a centre somewhere in the neighborhood of the corpora quadrigemina. Bech- terew has shown that this is not the case. Section of the optic tracts in various places, from the chiasma to the corpora geniculata, causes no dilatation of the pupil, and does not interfere with the reflex nar- rowing of the pupil when exposed to light. Injury of the corpora geniculata and of the corpora quadri- ae Novemner 30, 1883.] SCIENCE. 723 gemina, so long as the lesion in the latter case does ‘The pathological reflex paralysis of the iris, which not extend so deep as to involve the origin of the occurs in certain diseases, in which the iris does not oculo-motor nerves, gives the same result. Lesions respond to stimulation of the eye by light or to pain- of the gray matter of the lateral and posterior walls ful stimuli of the body, is owing, he thinks, to an of the third ventricle, on the other hand, cause a affection of the gray matter of the third ventricle. _ widening of the pupil, and a loss of the ‘direct’ light —(Pfliiger’s archiv, xxxi. 60.) W. H. H. {438 reflex in the eye of the same side. If, however, the eye on the uninjured side is exposed to the light, a ANTHROPOLOGY. narrowing of the pupil of both eyes takes place, Languages and ethnology.—In a recent com- appearing to show that the lesion has involved only munication, Gustay Oppert proposes to divide lan- the afferent fibres, and not the reflex centre. The guages, according to the mental propensity towards author’s view of the path of the fibres is, that they concreteness or abstractness possessed by the various leave the optic nerve at the chiasma, pass directly races, and exhibited in their speech, into concrete and into the gray matter of the walls of the third ven- abstract languages. The concrete division is again tricle, and end finally each in the nucleus of the oc- separated into the heterologous (having special words ulo-motor nerve of its own side. The fibres do not when persons of different sex address each other), cross anywhere in their. course, since lesions of either and homologous (males and females use the same side affect only the corresponding eye; and a sagittal words as if addressing their own sex). The abstract section of the floor of the ventricle or of the chiasma division is separated into digeneous and trigeneous. is without effect. The nuclei of the oculo-motor In the former all things are either masculine or nerves he considers as the true centres for the reflex; feminine: in the latter there are three genders. and the commissural fibres connecting these nuclei Each division is again subdivided into three classes, explain the occurrence of the indirect reflex, that is, as follows: 1°. Elder and younger relatives have the narrowing of one pupil when the pupil of the special terms, sex denoted by the words ‘male’ and other eye is exposed to light. The dilatation of ‘female,’ or by modulation; 2°. Having special terms the pupils which follows painful stimulation of any for elder brother and elder sister, but one in common portion of the periphery of the body cannot be owing for younger brother and younger sister; 3°. Having to stimulation of fibres running in the sympathetic; four distinct terms for each variety of kinship. since, in the first place, the widening isnot maximal, Representing the concrete and abstract by C and A, as it is when the sympathetic is directly stimulated, their classes by a and (, and their groups by 1, 2, and, in the second place, this reflex is entirely de- - and 3, and the monosyllabic, incorporative, euphon- stroyed whena deep section is made behind, or in the _ ic, euphonie inflectional, alliteral, agglutinative, ag- posterior part of, the corpora quadrigemina. Heex- glutinative inflectional, dissyllabic inflectional, inflee- plains the action of painful stimuli as an inhibition tional synthetical, and inflectional analytical, by L, of the normal light reflex contraction of the pupil. IL, IL, IV., V., VI., VII., VII, [X., and X., any HETEROLOGOUS a. HomoLogous 8. Di PHYSIOLOGIC. = c = "i Se ae GENEOUS | ese i i 2 3 1 2 3 a | eae se = 2 z tad |( Old I.| Monosyl. . . . - - : - = = ss - = =z es Chinese? Egyp- = = tian. } | (Corean | | ( Many } | J Transgan- Il. | Incorp. . | American Algonquin. Sid oe getic, - - - = - - - - Basque. HE Kiranti, ‘Tibetan. ; ; Mandingo ghee x are Ilf.| Euphonic. . . pik i, aati Torineae ee ae IV. | Eupb. inflect. . far hand hea = Ase Por = aera is byes Hauesss. V.| Alliteral . . .| - - | - - es = Kongo, ete.) - = = = = =~) - - : 7 tas | Narrinyeri. = hs -- = = = = 2 x = = = VI. | Agglut. ; | { Tungu- | dusgadten, oot = Malayan. { Monge: aes we = = | | | l lian. | | | Japanese, | (rape ( Hindustani, VIL. | Agglut. inflect. . | Rg Se | ire S| = ee - = 4urkish, eag- Bengali, | | Dravidian, Singhalese. ] (ete. VIII. | Dissyl. inflect. . ap a = is Spates aa ates Semitic. | : [Sanskrit TX. | Inflect. synthet. = a a ie as = ie We = - o } Greck, | | Latin, ete. | : | (Italian, . X. | Inflect. analyt. . | - <= my) Pls ke | aa eo ot Lapis ; German, | a] English, ete. ! 1 C2?) ae és je Jy eles eee | 724 language may be indicated, as in chemistry, by a sym- bol; as, C8111. = Corean, Tibetan, ete. — (Journ. an- throp. inst., xiii. 832-52.) 0. T. M. [439 Muskoki strategy.— The following method of Indian stratagem is told for the first time by Mr. H. S. Halbert. When a small party of Muskokis wished to attack a Choctaw village, they would ar- range themselves in ambush at convenient intervals to within three hundred yards of the village. The bravest man would now crawl up as near the vil- lage as practicable, dig a pit and place himself in it, where he would wait until daybreak. The first SCIENCE. [Vou. II., No. 48, Choctaw whom he then saw stirring about near his ambuscade he would shoot down, spring forward, and scalp him in the twinkling of an eye. He would then flee toward the second ambuseader. If he was pur- sued, which was generally the case, the pursuer re- ceived the fire of this ambuscader, The two warriors then fled to the third man in ambush. If the pursu- ers still followed, they received the fire of this man. The three now ran to the fourth ambushed warrior, where the same scene was enacted; and so on until the place of the last man was reached. — (Amer. an- tig., V. 277.) J. W. P. [440 INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Paleontology. — Mr. Lester F. Ward, paleobotanist of the survey, is at work preparing a catalogue of fossil plants, with their geological relations, which will probably be published during the coming spring. Fifty-one boxes of Fort Union fossil plants, collected by Mr. Ward near Glendive, Montana, last July, have been received at the office of the survey. A paleontological report on the paleozoic fossils of the Eureka district of Nevada, by Mr. Charles D. Walcott, is almost ready for the press. The number of paleozoic fossils from this district exceeds four hundred species. During the month of October a large number of Potsdam fossils from Saratoga, N.Y., and some Tren- ton fossils from Trenton Falls, N.Y., were added to the collections in the hands of Mr. Walcott, who has charge of the department of paleozoic paleontology. One of the papers in the fourth annual report of the survey is ‘A review of the North-American fossil Ostreidae,’ by Dr. C. A. White. It will be illustrated by forty-eight full-page plates of figures, giving figures of all the leading species of fossil forms of oysters, and of the leading varieties of Ostrea virginica, for comparison. For it, also, Pro- fessor Angelo Heilprin furnishes a revised catalogue of the tertiary oysters; and Mr. John A. Ryder adds a concise life-history of the common oyster, illustrat- ing its anatomy, and giving the results of his recent experiments in the artificial propagation of oysters, Chemistry. — A laboratory, to be in charge of Prof. F. W. Clarke, is being organized in connection with the survey. Heretofore the chemical work of the survey has been done at various laboratories scattered through the country, and at the field-laboratories at Denver, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco. A labo- ratory for physical experiments will probably be es- tablished in connection with the chemical division. West- Virginia forests. — During September and Oc- tober, Col. George W. Shutt examined the southern and eastern portions of West Virginia with especial reference to the distribution of timber, its economic value, and the facilities of transportation to market vid. the streams of the region. He travelled over a thousand miles by wagon, and two hundred on horse- back, and expresses the opinion that nearly one-half of the state is covered with a virgin forest, the value of which, if rendered marketable, would amount to billions of dollars. Geology. —In making an excavation a few weeks ago for a building on Connecticut Avenue, in the north-western section of Washington, D.C., the interesting discovery was made of the remains of a subterranean forest. The fact was mentioned at the meeting of the Biological society of Washington, Nov. 2, by Professor Lester F. Ward; and, from the excel- lent preservation of the wood, the opinion was ex- pressed that it was simply a collection of drift-wood that had been washed into a ravine in comparatively recent time. Mr. W. J. McGee of the Geological suryey, who has been working up the geological structure of the District of Columbia for some time, had also examined the locality in question, and was of the opinion that the deposit was of quaternary or prequaternary age. A few days after the meeting of the Biological society, above mentioned, he, with Professor Ward, Mr. G. K. Gilbert, and Mr. J. B. Mar- cou, re-examined the buried forest; and Mr. McGee’s opinion was confirmed, —the stratum was found to underlie the quaternary gravels of the district. The oceurrence is of interest, since the slightly altered wood undoubtedly represents the end of the long interval extending from the cretaceous to the begin- ning of the quaternary, during which the lignite beds and iron-ore deposits, so common in the region, were formed. Publications. — The survey has just issued a mis- cellaneous work, one of a series of statistical papers, which is distinct from the Monographs and Bulle- tins, but, like them, is for sale at cost price (fifty cents in this case). The title of this work is, ‘ Mineral resources of the United States,’ by Albert Williams, jun., chief of division of mining statistics and tech- nology. In its 813 pages it gives the statistics of our mineral production for the year ending June, 1883, and also a mass of inforniation in relation to the production of coal, petroleum, iron, copper, lead, and zine. It also treats of building-stones, clays, fertili- NoveMBER 30, 1883.] zers, etc., and gives lists of the useful minerals of the United States, with localities, and concludes with extracts from the new tariff relating to import duties upon chemical products, metals, mineral products, ete. It will therefore be seen that the work is of practical value; and this fact is also indicated by the demand for it, which comes largely from miners and mine-owners, particularly from the west. Bulletin no. 2 of the survey is also by Albert Williams, jun. Its title is, ‘Gold and silver conver- sion-tables, giving the coining values of Troy ounces of fine metal, and the weights of fine metal repre- sented by given sums of United States money.’ It is a pamphlet of eight pages, and is of especial value to assayers and bullion-dealers. The third annual report is printed, and waiting for a few of the illustrations. The fourth annual report, with the exception of the index, is in type. Both these reports will probably be issued early dur- ing the forthcoming year. Dutton’s ‘Tertiary history of the Grand Cafion district, with atlas’ (volume ii. of the Monographs of the survey) has been distributed to European institu- tions, and will now be distributed to American insti- tutions. Volume iii. of the Monographs, ‘Geology of the Comstock lode and Washoe district,’ with atlas, by George F. Becker, is being delivered to the survey by the government printer, and will soon be ready for distribution. The Monographs of the survey are not for gra- tuitous distribution. They can only be distributed through a fair exchange for books needed in the library of the survey. Copies over and above the number needed for such exchange are for sale. The price of volume ii. is $10.12, and of volume iii., $11. NOTES AND NEWS. THOSE who are interested in our leading article this week will be pleased to learn, that, in his will, Barrande bequeathed his collections, library, and un- distributed copies of his publications, to the museum at Prague. He further provided for the continuation of his work by a bequest of ten thousand florins to the museum, which, by its acceptance, pledges itself to fulfil his wishes. Drs. Krejéi, Fric, Kotiska, Prach- ensky, and Bellot were appointed by him a commis- sion to see that his designs are carried out; and Drs. Waagen and Novak, well-known paleontologists, des- ignated to execute the work, —the former to com- plete the ‘colonies,’ gasteropods, and echinoderms; the latter, the bryozoans and corals, The museum proposes to establish a Barrande fund for supporting further studies on the Silurian forma- tion of Bohemia; and any gifts that may come from America for that purpose would, we are assured, be deemed particularly valuable. The editor of Sctence will be pleased to forward to the museum at Prague any contributions that American naturalists may desire to make, and to acknowledge the same in these columns. ’ a SCIENCE. 725 —Sir Charles William Siemens died in London, Noy. 20. He was born at Leuthe, in Hanover, in 1823, From 1844 he resided in England. In 1858 he established, with his brother, the firm which has be- come famous through the telegraph-cables they have made. For ten years (1853-63) Dr. Siemens was engaged on the regenerative gas-furnace, and since that time his methods of manufacturing steel have met with the greatest success. — Information has been received from Sunda Straits, giving details of the hydrographical and topograph- ical changes due to the great Java earthquake. These seem to be less extensive than heretofore reported by the press. Commander P. F, Harrington, U.S.N., reports the hills and trees in the vicinity of St. Nich- olas Point covered with ashes, but otherwise un- changed. The soundings here remain the same. The sea has rushed through the valleys of Thwartway Island, tearing away the vegetation, and leaving the low land bare; and, from a distance, these breaks in the forest give it the appearance of five islands, but there is no change in the shore-line or soundings, The same is true of Anjer, where the base of the lighthouse at Fourth Point, and the buoys of the sub- marine cable, are the only monuments of that populous town. The plains have been swept by the sea, and show only uprooted palms, and ghastly relics of the inhabitants. Krakatoa volcano appeared active; but on a nearer approach it was found that the appear- ance resulted from ashes, ete., falling down the pre- cipitous cliffs, and carried off by the wind. The north-western part of Krakatoa Island has disappeared. ‘The immense mass which is missing seems to have formerly been the choked-up crater; and its material has probably modified the sea-bottom northward from its place. No bottom could be found in the vacant spot with twenty fathoms of line. Prior to the eruption, Verlaten and Lang islands were coy- ered with verdure. Their contour has been but slightly changed, but they are covered with scoria, A small island has formed eastward from Verlaten. The Polish Hat has disappeared, and where it stood is more than twenty fathoms water. A new rock, about twenty feet in height, has risen in eight fath- oms, near the southern point of Lang Island. The channel south from Bezee Island has been closed to navigation by reefs and islets not yet surveyed. From the northern end of the island a reef extends in a north-westerly direction, apparently connecting with other islands to the westward. The whole coast of Java between Second and Fourth points has been swept clean by the sea, but there is no essential change in the shore-line and soundings. Masses of floating pumice are wedged in Lampong Bay, and interrupt communication with Telok Be- tong. The lighthouse at Java Head remains undis- turbed, as does that at Flat Point. Other dangers may be developed on a careful survey, but the main gate of the Straits of Sunda seems unimpeded. —Mr. W. F. Denning of Bristol, Eng., noting the fact that accounts of large meteors form a frequent subject of correspondence in the columns of scientific journals, but that it is not often the case that the 7126 descriptions of these phenomena are sufficiently ex- act to be valuable for purposes of calculation, suggests, in a letter to the editor of Natwre, the proper methods of useful observation of these bodies. Rough esti- mates of the direction and position of flight are of little utility; and the vague statements often made occasion an endless source of difficulty in the satis- factory reduction of results. The observers of large meteors should attend scrupulously to that most es- sential detail, the direction of flight, and express it by some method of uniformity. In place of the custom- ary vague and variable methods of description of the apparent paths of these bodies, Mr. Denning suggests that observers uniformly give the right ascension and declination of the beginning and end points of the visible paths, — elements which admit of ready deter- mination by projecting the observed flights upon a star-chart or celestial globe, and reading them off. This system would render the after-comparison of observations a work of greater facility and precision. Though the direction of flight is the all-important element to be determined by meteor-observers, some minor points — as the time of appearance, brightness, and approximate duration — should be recorded when- ever feasible: also whether the body is accompanied by phosphoric streaks or spark-trains. If this were done more systematically, the observations of fire- balls would acquire additional value, and quite pos- sibly might develop some new facts either as to their appearance or origin. —Mr. Thomas Gaffield read 2 ines on glass\ and glass-making, illustrated by specimens, at a meeting of the Society of arts eb the Massachusetts institute of technology, Nov. 22. — At the meeting of the Portland, Me., society of natural history, Nov. 19, the president, Dr. Wood, gave account of the unearthing of bones of some unknown animal from a peat-bed on Ragged Island, Casco Bay, by Capt. Thomas Skolfield in 1835 Highty-five feet in length of vertebral bones were taken out and thrown away. The head and tail were not uncovered, and the animal was estimated to be a hundred and ten feet long. No ribs were found, and no marks of rib attachment appeared on any of the vertebrae, which were hard and smooth. Only four bones were saved: two were given to the Port- land society, but were burned in 1854; the other two have been lost sight of, but were said to haye been taken to the Philadelphia academy in.1856 or 1857, by a Mr. Coolidge. Of the two given to the society, the large one was unquestionably a vertebra: its length was from fourteen to sixteen inches; its diam- eter, nine or ten inches on the articular faces, and eight midway. The other bone was limpet-shaped, four or five inches in diameter and height. The shape and size of these bones are well remembered by mem- bers of the society, and Capt. Skolfield; and the story of the last is well vouched by many others. Two unsuccessful attempts have been made by the society to unearth more bones. Another trial will be made next season. —On the retirement of Mr. R. Hering from the presidency of the Engineers’ club of Philadelphia, at SCIENCE. [Vou. Il, No. 43. the close of its fifth year, he gave a summary of recent progress (Proc. eng. club Philad., iii.). The work of the late U. S. board appointed to test iron, steel, and other metals, was referred to: and it was stated that there was at least some possibility that its work may be in time resumed. The chief of ordnance recom- mends that an appropriation of ten thousand dollars be made by Congress for the purpose, as urged by the convention of the societies of civil, mechanical, and mining engineers. The differentiation of the profes- sion into the several branches, — civil, mechanical, mining, —and the subdivision of these into special- ties, were considered as marking the tendency of re- cent change. Inventions are coming forward with increasing number and rapidity, but it is becoming each day more evident that they are all the products of growth and of gradual development. No new thing comes into use at once fully perfected. Of accomplished work, the East-river bridge, with its span of 1,595 feet, suspended 135 feet above the water: our Kinzua viaduct at Bradford, 2,052 feet long, spanning a valley 302 feet below it; the Henderson bridge over the Ohio, of 525 feet span; and the great bridge to be built over the Firth of Forth, — are among the most marvellous. The great canals in progress, or proposed, —that in Florida, opening the Kiekpo- chee Lake; the interoceanic canal through the Isth- mus of Panama; the great Sirhund canal in India, 500 miles long; the Corinth canal in Greece: and the Manchester ship-canal, — are evidences that the days of canals are but just commencing. The United States boast to-day 116,000 miles of railroad, and are building over 30 miles per day, and earning $550 per mile. Locomotives for the Pennsylvania railroad are built weighing over 60 tons, and make 90 miles in 80 minutes. Electricity is a competitor, which, how- ever, is not likely at once to displace steam on the rail. Heatand steam supplied from a central station, as at New York, where the New-York steam com- pany are preparing to work 16,000-horse power of Babcock & Wilcox boilers, 2,000-horse power of which are constantly at work, is a promising illustration of advance. Electricity similarly distributed,—as by the Edison company and the Brush company, —and the telephone, are the latest of these achievements of the profession. Sanitary engineering, although the most essential of all, seems to be the last to come in, and is but now beginning to take its place. — Since the article in this number on erystals in the bark of forest-trees was in page, the writer has seen a recent work, Anatomie der Baumrinden, Ber- lin,#1882, Dr. Joseph Moeller, in which the subject is fully treated and richly illustrated. —Microscopists will regret to learn of the death of Mr. Robert B. Tolles at Boston, on the 17th, at the age of sixty-one. No one has done more than he to raise the standard of excellence of American objectives for the microscope; and his ingenuity in devising special methods to overcome particular diffi- culties is known to all who have tested his powers. He has been in feeble health for several years, but continued to work with astonishing vigor and perti- nacity. iti . oy Oe ae > * SCIENCE FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1883. : JOACHIM BARRANDE. Il., HIS SCIENTIFIC WORK. Tue influence of Barrande upon science in this country and throughout Europe has been of the first importance ; and he has done much for the reputation of many of our investigators by his careful attention to their works, and his respectful quotations. He recognized the work especially of Dr. E. Emmons, and gave him the credit of being the discoverer of the pri- mordial fauna, which Emmons had previously published as being in the Taconic system. Barrande thus ranged himself, during the cele- brated Taconic controversy, on the side of Dr. Emmons, and his principal supporter in this country, Professor Jules Marcou. One of M. Barrande’s most remarkable discoveriés related to what he has called ‘ colonies.” According to him, certain characteristie fossils appeared sporadically in the faunas preceding those to which they properly belonged ; and he deduced from this the result that two faunas haying some identical species, but existing in different parts of the world, were not necessarily contem- poraneous because of this fact, but might, in- deed, be very distinct in age. These views are strongly supported by Professor Jules Marcou in this country, who states that he has dis- covered similar colonies in the rocks of the Taconic, underlying the Potsdam at Swanton and Phillipsburg; and is opposed principally by English atthors upon the grounds that the evidence was stratigraphically defective. Bar- rande’s reply to this, which he was preparing at thé time of his death, has not yet been pub- lished. The theory has the support of the geologists of Vienna, especially Haidinger, director of the Imperial museum, whom Bar- rande quotes upon the titlepage of each of his books upon the ‘ colonies.’ From 1846 to the present time, the smaller No. 44.—1883. publications of this voluminous and accurate writer must have reached nearly a hundred. Of these, between seventy and eighty were made to learned bodies, and from sixteen to twenty were pamphlets and books of octavo size : some of these were abridgments of his larger vol- umes. In the latter series, his études, extracts, etc,, he published over three thousand pages and twenty-nine plates. Of these, his ‘ Cephal- opodes, études générales,’ was the most impor- tant to the general student. His grand work, the publication of which was begun in 1852, and is not yet finished, has already reached, as we have said, the number of twenty-two quarto volumes. These treat of the Trilobites and Crustacea, 1,582 pages, 84 plates ; Cepha- lopoda, 3,600 pages, 544 plates; Brachio- poda, 226 pages, 153 plates; Acephala, 342 pages, 361 plates ; and he announces as having already completed over 100 plates of the Gas- teropoda, which have not yet appeared. This makes the enormous number of 5,750 pages of text in quarto, and 1,148 plates already issued, which we estimate as containing about eighteen thousand figures of fossils of the finest exe- cution. Barrande published large editions of his smaller works, which he distributed with a free hand to many institutions and scientific men ; but of his larger works, the edition, probably on account of the expense, was limited to two hundred and fifty copies. The larger number of these he also gave away to scientific insti- tutions and to individual geologists, and it is estimated that he did not receive in return as much as the actual cost of three of the large volumes. The Gasteropoda, Echinodermata, Bryozoa, and miscellaneous fossils still remain unpub- lished; though over a hundred plates of the Gasteropoda were completed, and the text was being printed, at the time of his death. The number of species described amount to thirty-six hundred. When we reflect that each ee, eee. ey ey | 728 of these had to be studied, and handled oyer and over again many times, before reaching. the final stages of classification, description, and illustration, we are amazed at the industry and capacity required to do all this scientific work single-handed. Barrande, unlike other volumi- nous authors, had no collaborators. With the exception of an amanuensis, dranghtsmen, mechanical preparators, and mere collectors, he did all of this vast work. A careful and comprehensive system was followed in every volume, and in the descriptions of each species ; so that, when one has mastered the intricacies of this, he can at once find every thing relating to the history, literature, structure, relations in time, and geographical distribution, of any species or group. Finally, in the cephalopods, the parts and in- ternal structures for which this fossil type is remarkable, as well as the embryo shells and their characteristics, are-followed out in the same way. We will speak more at length of this type, partly because it was the favorite and most fruitful field of research of this eminent author, and was selected by him as the strong- hold from which to attack the theory of eyo- lution, and partly because we have no space to do justice to other departments, where he, however, made important discoveries ; as, for example, among the trilobites. With infinite labor he succeeded in getting series showing the stages of growth of some species among these ancient Crustacea, and taught us that it was possible to study their development even in the Silurian period. Barrande’s efforts have been frequently referred to as if he were one .of what we might call the numismatic school of geologists, who study animal fossils as if they were medals, useful principally to verify the date and place of formations. On the con- trary, his technical labors had a distinctly ideal purpose, — the investigation of the evidences for and against the theory of evolution. His education and consequent psychological con- dition placed him in opposition, and, in spite of his honest efforts to treat the subject fairly, controlled his classifications, and warped his judgment. The Cuyierian form of anthropo- SCIENCE. ' v 3 ? (Vou. IL, No. 44, morphology was his faith; and he failed, as have most great executive men, in realizing the dangers of his own mental training, and the need of correcting the personal equation. The facts, however, were strong enough even to meet his requirements in some of the groups he studied ; yet he ended by admitting that evolution must, in part at least, be true. He believed that the different types were mirac- ulously created, but that the smaller series which he had traced might have been eyolved within certain well-defined limits, fixed accord- ing to the plans of an infinite intelligence, which it was hopeless to try to understand. He was also deficient in that sort of zodlogical knowledge which is acquired only by research among existing animals, and a familiarity with their modes of development, anatomy, and habits. This explains the apparent inconsis- tencies which show themselves in his text :— the continual admission of transition forms be- tween different species and smaller groups, and yet the perpetual denial of the probable former existence of any such transitions between what he considered distinct types, whenever he could not actually find. them; his comparisons be- tween the Silurian and recent Nautili, which he supposed to be very similar, when in reality only their adults are similar, the young shells and their developmental stages being widely different ; his singular opinion that species like these Silurian Nautili and other forms, which seemed to him out of place and also inexplicable on account of their structure, had been set in the geological record as intentional exceptions, to teach man the divine origin of this apparently modified chaos of gradations. Barrande under- stood, and gave a fair statement of, the ordi- nary views of evolutionary embtyologists on p. 74 of his ‘ Etudes générales, Cephalopodes,’ and represented a naturalist of this stamp inyes- tigating the embryos of the fossil Nautiloidea. After finding all the forms of the group from the Silurian to the present time with the same type of apex or young, he would then neces-— sarily draw from this embryo a picture of the lost prototypical ancestor of all the Nautiloi-— In his next steps he would find the © dea. i ele ate al id ele aR SS a DECEMBER 7, 1883.] adults of transition forms from Nautiloidea to Ammonoidea, and set down his convictions that the Ammonoidea must have been derived from Nautilus through these transition forms, the gradations being Nautilini, Goniatites, Ammonites. Barrande then pictures this same naturalist as attempting to verify his appar- ently well-founded conclusions by opening a species of Goniatite with the anticipation of discovering within, at the apex, or young shell, an identical form and structure to that which he had been accustomed to find in the Nauti- loidea, and his consequent confusion, and the overthrow of his theory, upon the exposure of a different form. Barrande’s argument deals fairly with every point; and his facts are crush- ing refutations of the usual direct, simple modes pursued by embryologists in handling the question of the evolution of types. Bar- rande’s work had no orators or lecturers to translate it; and the hypothesis of the embry- ologists, and even eyolution itself, escaped an attack, which, if supported by powerful in- fluences, might have shaken the popular faith in the new school of thought. Hyatt has denied that there were such great and essential differences between the embryos of the Nautiloidea and those of the Ammonoi- dea; and they certainly seem to have been more alike than was supposed by M. Barrande. The fact, however, remains, that Barrande saw clearly that the embryos of these two nearly allied groups, which are united by most authors into one order, were, even in the Silurian, more easily separable from each other than some of the adult forms. When we can add to this, his discovery and thorough demonstration of the distinctness of the different types of fossils in the Silurian, and their sudden mode of appear- ance, we see clearly that he succeeded in doing the work which has thrown the greatest light upon the most obscure and interesting periods of the world’s history, and which has furnished a temperate and healthy opposition to the theory of evolution. His faults of logic were unavoidable, with his mathematical and Cuvie- rian education, and strong feelings-of loyalty to his masters in science ; but these are only SCIENCE. 729 slight scratches upon the face of the vast monu- ment erected by his labors, his discoveries, his eighty-three years of unblemished moral and faithful life, and his personal sacrifices for the advancement of science and the truth. WHIRLWINDS, CYCLONES, AND TOR- : NADOES.1— VY. Cycronic circulation has thus far been de- scribed as if it were effected in radial lines in to and out from the centre ; but here, as in the whirlwind, perfect radial motion is impossible. A horizontal rotary motion would soon be es- tablished near the centre by the inequality of the inblowing winds. It is found, however, that all storms yet studied turn from right to left in the northern hemisphere, and from left to Such constancy right in the southern (fig. 9). points to something more regular than the accidental strength of the winds,—to some cause that shallalways turn the indraughts to the right of the centre as they run in towards it in the northern hem- isphere, and to the left in the southern hemi- sphere ; and this cause is found in the rota- tion of the earth on its axis. There is a force aris- ing from the earth’s rotation that tends to deflect all motions in the northern hemi-~ sphere to the right, and in the southern to the left; and this deflecting force varies with the latitude, being nothing atthe equator, and greatest at the poles. It may be found that this statement differs from that generally made: namely, that moving bodies are de- flected only when moving north or south, and not at all when moving east or west: for it is thus that Hadley (1735) and Dove (1835) ex- plained the oblique motion of trade-winds, and that Herschel and, others explained the rotation of storms. But this is both incorrect and in- complete; for a body moving éastward is deflected as well as when moving northward, and the actual deflective force is greater than that accounted for in Hadley’s explanation. 1 Continued from No. 43. 730 It is this deflective force, acting on winds from all sides, as was first shown by Tr racy * (1843), that combines with the centripetal tendency of the surface-winds to give rise to the inward spiral blowing of the storm (fig. 10),—a constant feature of all cyclones. Fic. 10. In all hurricanes, the winds greatly increase in strength as they near the centre of the storm, -and at the same time their path becomes more nearly circular. A. cause of this was briefly stated for the whirlwinds: but it now must be more fully analyzed ; and it will bebest to begin the attempt by resolving the motion of the wind at any point of its spiral track into two rec- tangular components (fig. 11),—one, along a radius toward the centre, P &, the centripetal compo- nent; the other, . tangential, P 7. Only the first of these comes directly from the convectional circu- lation, already described as depending on the central never produce winds of dey- astating strength. The sec- ond, or tangential, arises first from the deflective force of the earth’s turning. The higher the latitude, the less the friction at the bottom of the atmosphere, and the greater the distance from which the wind is derived, then the greater its right-handed de- parture from a radial path. Hence in a large storm at sea, where the friction is small, and the indraught has its source several hundred or even a thousand miles away from the centre of low pressure, the deflective tangential com- ponent becomes very considerable, and may, near the centre, outrank the centripetal. 1 See Science, i. 98. Fic. 11. SCIENCE. circular or * warmth ; and this one would - [Vo. , No. 44. But there is another and even more impor- tant cause of growth in the circular element of the wind’s motion ; namely, the increase of its rotary velocity as the radius of rotation decreases, in accordance with the law of the ‘preservation of areas,’ already mentioned. Let us suppose, that, when at a distance of five hundred miles from the centre, the inblowing wind has been turned to the right of its radial path by the earth’s deflective force so as to have the moderate tangential or rotary velocity of one mile an, hour; and, disregarding the further effects of deflection, let us consider the consequences of gradually drawing this mass of air towards the centre. The product of its radius and its rotary velocity must remain con- stant; and hence, as the radius is diminished, the velocity must increase, one quantity vary- ing inversely as the other. The wind has no visible, material connection with the storm- centre; but it is slowly moving around that centre, under the control of central forces, de- rived from differences of temperature and press- ure, that drive it inwards, or, in other words, shorten its radius of rotation : and consequent- ly, when, in the case supposed, the radius has been diminished to five miles, the velocity must have been accelerated to one hundred miles an hour, — a violent hurricane-wind. The recog- nition of this important factor of the storm’s streneth is due to Ferrel (1856). The theo- retical increase of velocity thus provided is never fully realized, for much motion is over- come by friction; but enough is preserved, especially in tropical storms, to give them the ereatest share of their destructive strength. The total tangential component of the wind at any point must therefore be considered as the sum of the deflective and accelerative forces, minus the loss by friction. Near the storm- centre, where the velocity of the wind is very ereat, this tangential component is much greater than the centripetal, and the spiral path be- comes almost circular; while the reverse rela- tion holds for the outer part of the storm. It will be easily understood, that a consider- able centrifugal force will be developed by the rapid central rotations, as well as by the earth’s detlective foree; and, as a consequence, the centripetal force will be partly neutralized, and the winds will be held out from the centre. This must increase the depression already pro- duced there by expansion and overflow ; and, as a matter of fact, the low pressure of a storm- centre, especially in tropical latitudes, is chiefly the -effect of this dynamic, and not of the ear- lier named static cause. But so long as the wind maintains its rapid motion, the additional “ae? aoe oe hod oy ark eh ‘ DECEMBER 7, 1883.] depression is powerless to draw it towards the centre, Only when its velocity is decreased by friction does the barometric gradient, just be- fore produced by the centrifugal force, urge the wind inwards to the middle of the storm. ‘The additional gradient, therefore, represents potential energy, derived from the actual energy of the rotating winds, and all ready- to be transformed into actual energy again, as soon as friction has destroyed some of the velocity of rotation. The general interaction of the storm-forces may now be thus summarized: in obedience to a centripetal tendency, produced by differ- ences of temperature or of pressure, or both, the air moves along the surface to the region of low pressure. On its way, the deflective force "arising from the earth’s rotation turns it con- tinually to one side, and so gives it a more and more nearly circular path ; and, in addition to this, its rotary velocity increases as much as its radius of rotation decreases: the tangen- tial component of its spiral motion must there- fore continually increase. With the increase of this component, and the decrease of the radius of rotation, the centrifugal force (v?+7) must increase rapidly, and soon come to equal and counterbalance the original centripetal force, and at the same time greatly increase the barometric gradients. At this point the wind would blow in a circular path, were it not that friction with the sea or ground is continually consuming some of its velocity, and thus de- creasing its centrifugal force, and allowing the potential energy of the steep barometric gradi- ent to produce centripetal motion. This de- creases its radius, and at once gives it new life, again to be partly destroyed and renewed as before. Absolutely circular motion can there- fore never be attained, although it is approached very closely near the centre. At sea, where friction is small, and in tropical latitudes, where the strength of the storm is great, the wind is unable to reach the storm-centre ; for, when the distance from the centre is reduced to only five or ten miles, the centrifugal force is so great, and the wind’s course is so nearly circular, that it is carried aloft by the up-draught before it can enter noticeably farther: the cen- tral area is therefore left unprovided with vio- lent winds, and is generally a comparative calm, known as the ‘eye of the storm,’ of which there will be more to say later. The general form of the storm-wind’s spiral can be deduced from the preceding considerations. The angle between the tangential component and the actual path of the wind, which is called the inclination (fig. 11.), will vary with the ok Wy ds SCIENCE. 731 relation of the circular and centripetal elements of the wind’s motion; the tangent of the incli- nation will equal the radial divided by the tan- gential component: hence in the outer part of the storm the inclination will be large, and the wind will blow almost directly toward the storm-centre ; but nearer the centre the incli- nation will become smaller and smaller, and the wind will blow in a more and more nearly cireular path. It will also be understood, that the upper winds, less influenced by friction, will near the centre have a greater velocity and a less inclination than the lower ones. Moreover, the inward gradient which they pro- duce will be effective and important in urging along the slower surface-winds, in a manner better illustrated in a tornado, where this.action will be more fully described. (To be continued.) ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TEETH IN THE LAMPREY. Tue teeth in the myxinoid fishes are quite different from those of other vertebrates, and have hitherto been supposed to belong in an entirely different category. Nothing has been known with regard to their development, except a brief statement as to their mode of sueces- sion in Petromyzon by Professor Owen, in his ‘ Odontography.’ : The teeth of the lamprey are horny, and of simple conical shape, disposed concentrically in the dome-shaped mouth. Besides these, there are horny lingual and palatal teeth. The kindness of my friend Professor Benecke of K6nigsberg, who sent me a number of lam- preys at the end of their metamorphosis from Ammocoetes, has enabled me to follow out the development of these horny teeth with unex- pected results; for, as far as the essential part of the process is concerned, it differs but slight- ly from the normal course of true dental devel- opment. There is first formed a low conical papilla of somewhat reticulate tissue, belonging to the mesoblast (m.p.), and continuous with the dermis, which in this, as in other verte- brates, is of mesoblastic origin. Over this papilla the epiblast which lines the cavity of the mouth becomes extremely thick, and con- sists of very numerous layers of cells. All of these layers can be continuously traced into the other epiblast of the mouth, as well as that of the external skin. In the stage here figured there may be seen, immediately overlying the mesoblastic papilla, a layer of epiblastie cells irregularly columnar and polygonal in shape (e.0.). These cells are the homologue of the 732 enamel-organ of the other. vertebrates, and originate in the same way. So far, at least, the lamprey does not show an essentially dif- ferent type of tooth-development from that known in other groups. The cells of the ‘ enamel-organ ’ are rapidly proliferating, and have thrown off from their outer surface a conical cap of cells (2d t.), which are flattened, and which show an incip- ient formation of pigment among them. ‘This hollow cone of cells is the rudiment of the youngest tooth, which in the stage here de- scribed is the second of the series. Outside of the rudimentary tooth is a cone of polygo- nal epiblastic cells, several layers deep (7.e.) ; and this is again followed by the first tooth, now almost completely cornified and pigmented, so that traces of cel- lular structure are but faintly discerni- ble (dst %.). The tip of this tooth has just penetrated the skin of the mouth, and is elsewhere coy- ered by the many- layered epiblast (e. Wesee, therefore, that the essential parts of the typical vertebrate tooth are here present ; name- ly, the mesoblastie papilla, and the over-lying epiblastic enamel-organ. But the ordinary type of dental development is here greatly modi- fied. The papilla is never ossified; and the enamel-organ secretes no enamel, but func- tions as a sort of tooth-gland, throwing o successive hollow cones of flattened and cor- nified epiblastic cells. The actual tooth of the lamprey is therefore not the homologue of the entire tooth of a selachian, but simply of the enamel-cap. It is not difficult, however, to understand how the process seen in Petromyzon could be derived from that in the selachian. In consequence of this change, another dif- ference arises: as the papilla never ossifies or becomes protruded, it is no longer necessary that for every new tooth a new enamel-organ should be formed by budding from the old one ; so each enamel-organ is converted into a per- manent tooth-gland, functional throughout the life of the animal. Section through inner side of lip of metamorphosing lamprey. é.m., epiblast of mouth; Zs¢ ¢., oldest tooth; 2d z., youngest tooth; ¢.0., enamelorgan; i.e., intermediate epiblast-cells be- tween successive teeth; m.p., mesoblastic papilla. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 44. This view of the peculiarities of dental deyel- opment in Petromyzon implies, of courge, that this group of fishes was derived from ancestors possessed of teeth of the ordinary or selachian type. Further, as it is now very generally admitted that teeth are only modified placoid® seales, it follows that the lampreys are de- _scended, ultimately at least, from forms pro- vided with placoid scales. Such a conclusion, however, does not by any means commit us to the view that the myxi- noids are degenerate descendants of some gna- _ thostomatous group, as this is no more implied in the possession of ordinary caleareous teeth than in the presence of the horny teeth which the group has long been known to possess. W. B. Scorsrs Morphological laboratory, Princeton, N.J., Noy. 3, 1883 NORDENSKIOLD ON THE INLAND ICE OF GREENLAND. In a series of letters to Mr. Oscar Dickson, Baron Nordenskiold has given a detailed report of the lead- ing incidents and results of his recent expedition, though it will still be some time ere we can learn what are the full gains to science. The leading novelty of the expedition was, of course, the journey into the interior of Greenland. After landing Dr. Nathorst and his party at Waigatz Sound, Nordenskidld went back te Egedesminde, which he reached on June 29. The following day he left for Auleitsivik Fjord, from which the expedi- tion was to start. He then proceeds: — On July 1 the Sophia anchored in the bay. We found here a splendid harbor with clay bottom, some seven fathoms deep, surrounded by gneiss rocks from six hundred to a thousand feet in height, the sides of which are in some places covered with low but close shrubs, or clothed with some species of willow, mosses, and lichen, which, when we arrived, were ornamented with a quantity of magnificent blossoms. From one of the slopes a torrent descended, the temperature of which was 12.3° C. The weather was fine, the sky cloudless, and the air very dry. July 1 to 3 were employed in making preparations for the ice-journey, while the naturalists made excursions to various places in order to collect objects relating to the conditions of the country. On the night of the 3d every thing was ready for a start; and, after some difficulty in reaching the spot where the baggage was, we were fairly off. The spot from which we set out on the journey was only five kilometres from the actual shore, and situated below a little lake into which a number of glacier rivers fell. We proceeded up the river in a Berton boat, purchased in England. On the night of the 4th we camped for the first time on the ice. The expedition consisted of nine men besides myself. After a great deal of hard work in getting the sledges over the ice, which was here very 1 From Nature, Noy. land 8. ‘ DECEMBER 7, 1883.] rough, we found, on the morning of the 5th, that it was impossible to proceed eastwards, but were com- pelled to return to the border of the ice, and then continue to the north or north-east until finding smoother ice. This first part of the ice was furrowed by deep crevasses and ravines, causing us much trou- ble. We covered, however, a good distance that day, and pitched our tent near a land-ridge in the ice, two hundred and forty metres above the sea.) On July 6 I sent the Lapp Lars forward to reconnoitre; and he reported that it was still impossible to proceed east- wards, but, if we marched for a day or so to the north, we would find the country accessible to the east. As I feared, however, the impossibility of dragging the sledges with the weight on them over the rough ice, I selected provisions, etc., for forty-five days, and left the rest in a depot in the ice. We now resumed the march. It was very interesting to witness the great ease with which the Lapps proceeded among the ice-ravines, how easily they traced a road dis- SCIENCE. 7133 a cirele by Pistor and Martin, a small.sextant (in case of the former being damaged), a mercury horizon, three aneroid barometers, thermometers, magnets (for the study of the clay deposit in the snow), a topographical board, a photographie apparatus, blow- pipes, flasks, nautical tables, ete. The sledges, ‘ kal- kar,’ six in number, were of the same kind as those on which Swedish peasant women bring their wares to market. The harness was made so strong that it would hold a man, in case of his falling into a cre- vasse. In addition to these things, we had a Manila rope specially spun for the expedition at the Alpine purveyor’s in Paris. The food supplied per day may perhaps interest explorers. It was, — breakfast, cof- fee, bread, butter, and cheese (no meat or bacon); dinner, forty-two cubie centimetres Swedish corn brandy (brénvin), bread, ham or corned beef, with sar- dines; supper, preserved meat, Swedish or Australian. Sometimes preserved soup was served with dried vegetables. Five men were teetotalers, but there THE HEIGHTS ARE GIVEN PROVISIONALLY IN METRES. covered, and with what precision they selected the least difficult track. The Lapp Lars carried, instead of an alpenstock, a wooden club, with which he had slain more than twenty-five brown bears, full of marks from their teeth; and his eyes sparkled at the thought of encoun- tering a white one. On the night of the 6th we held our third camp on the ice; and now several officers and men from the Sophia, who had accompanied us thus far, left us. Besides the most advantageous requisites for such a journey, we had with us a cook- ing-apparatus for petroleum: and here I beg to say that I found this kind of oil far more suitable than train or vegetable oils, which I had used on my for- mer expeditions; and I recommend the same most warmly to arctic explorers. Of scientific instru- ments [ may mention compasses, two chronometers, 1 The altitudes were ascertained by comparing three aneroid barometers, while observation was simultaneously made at Ege- desminde with a splendid sea-barometer I had left there for that purpose. As the figures have, however, not yet been verified, they may be slightly altered. ‘They seem, on the whole, too low. SWEDISH MILE = 6.64 ENGLISH MILES. was no need of supplying them with extra rations. For cooking, 0.7 litres of spirits were consumed per day. Our whole baggage weighed a ton,—a weight which might easily have been drawn across a smooth snow or ice field, but which was very difficult of transporting over the rough and cut-up surface we had to traverse. Our daily march between July 7 and 9 was therefore not great, viz., five kilometres a day. In addition to the crevasses and ravines, we encountered innumerable rivers, swift, and with steep banks, which were difficult of crossing, which was generally accomplished by laying three alpen- stocks across them. If I had not selected these of the toughest wood obtainable, we should often have had to make délours of many kilometres. On these days we found, on several occasions, large bones of reindeer on the snow; and it was but a natural and pardonable conclusion to arrive at, that they were those of animals who had fallen in their wandering over the ‘Sahara of the arctic regions.’ But that good signs are not always true ones we soon discovered. 734 During the entire journey, we had great difficulty in finding suitable camping-places. Thus, either the ice was so rough that there was not a square large énough for our tent, or else the surface was so cov- ered with cavities, which I will fully describe later on, that it was necessary to pitch it over some hun- dred smaller and a dozen larger round hollows, one to three feet deep, filled with water, or else to raise it on a snow-drift so loose and impregnated with water that one’s feet became wet, even in the tent. An ex- ception to this was the place where we camped on July 9; viz., camping-place no. 6. We encountered here a small ice-plain, surrounded by little rivers, and almost free from cavities, some thirty metres square. All the rivers flowed into a small lake near us, the water from which rushed with a loud roar through a short but strong current into an enormous abyss in the ice-plateau. The river rushed close to our tent, through a deep hollow, the sides of which were formed of magnificent perpendicular banks of ice. I had the spot photographed; but neither picture nor de- scription can give the faintest idea of the impres- sive scene, viz., a perfectly hewn aqueduct, as if cut by human hand in the finest marble, without flaw or blemish. Even the Lapps and the sailors stood on the bank, lost in admiration. At first we had followed the plan of bringing the baggage forward in two relays; but, finding this very fatiguing, I decided to bring all with us at once. I found this to answer better. On July 10 we covered thus nine and a half, onthe 11th ten, and on the 12th eleven, kilometres. The road was now much better than before, although stiff enough. An excep- tion to this was, however, formed by the part we traversed on the 11th, when we proceeded alongside a big river, the southern bank of which formed a comparatively smooth ice-plain, or rather ice-road, with valleys, hills, cavities, or crevasses, some five to ten kilometres in width, and five kilometres in length. This plain was in several places beautifully colored with ‘red’ snow, especially along the banks of the river. It was the only spot on the whole inland ice where we found ‘red’ snow or ice in any quantity. Even yellow-brown ice was seen in some places; but, on the other hand, ice colored grayish-brown or gray- ish-green, partly by kryokonite, and partly by organ- isms, was so common that they generally gave color’ to the ice-landscape. Even on July 12, between camps nos. 7 and 8, we found blades of grass, leaves of the dwarf-birch, wil- lows, crackberry, and pyrola, with those of other Greenland flora, on the snow. At first we believed they had been carried’ hither from the interior; but that this was not the case was demonstrated by the circumstance that none was found east of camp no. 9. The only animals we discovered on the ice were, besides the few birds seen on our return-journey, a small worm which lives on the various ice algae, and thus really belongs to the fauna of the inland ice, and two storm-driven birds from the shore. I had particularly requested each man to be on the lookout for stones on the ice; but, after a journey of about half a kilometre from the ice-border, no stone was SCIENCE. [Vou LL, No, 44. found on the surface, not even one as large as a pin’s point. But the quantity of clay-dust (‘kryokonite’) deposited on the ice was very great, —I believe, sev- eral hundred tons per square kilometre. We now ascended very rapidly, as will be seen from the subjoined statement of our camps:— 3d camp, 300 metres above the sea, “ec 4th 355 “ ee 5th “ee 374 oe ad 6th “ 382 a “ ith 451 kt “ Sth “ 546 fe F. insula ria 2 s The 9th camp lay on the west side of an ice-ridge close by a small, shallow lake, the water from which gathered, as usual, into a big river, which disappeared in an abyss with azure-colored sides. From this spot we had a fine view of the country to thé west, and saw even the sea shining furth between the lofty peaks on the coast; but, when we reached east of this ice-ridge, the country was seen no more, and the hori- zon was formed of ice only. } * Through an optical illusion, dependent on the mi- rage of the ice-horizon, it appeared to us as if we were proceeding on the bottom of a shallow, saucer-shaped cavity. It was thus impossible to decide whether we walked up or down hill; and this formed a constant source of discussion between us, which could only be decided by the heaviness of the sledges in the har- ness. The Lapps, who seemed to consider it their sole business that we should not be lost on the ice, came to me in great anxiety, and stated that they had no more landmarks, and would not be responsible for our return. I satisfied them, however, with the as- surance that I would find the way back by means of a compass and solar measurements. In spite of this, the Lapps easily traced our route and our old camps with an accuracy quite marvellous. During our outward journey, I determined the site of each camp astronomically; and thus the distances which, when the determinations have been calculated, will be given on the map to be drawn of the journey, will be absolutely correct. But the distances covered by the Lapps have been made according to their own judgment. The kilometres we covered every day, including the numerous détours, were ascertained by two pedometers. . Up to the 9th camp we were favored by the finest weather, generally with a slight south-east wind, cloudless sky, and a temperature in the shade, three feet above the ice, of 2° to 8° C., and in the sun of even 20°C. The centre of the sun’s disk sank in this spot for the first time below the horizon on July 1a, and the upper rim, if allowance is made for refrac tion, on July 21. After the middle of July, when at an elevation of four thousand to seven thousand feet, the nights became very cold, the thermometer sinking to 15° and 18° below freezing-point of Celsius. The constant sunshine by day and night, reflected from every object around, soon began to affect our eyes, — more so, perhaps, because We had neglected to adopt snow-spectacles at the outset of our journey; and snow-blindness became manifest, with its at- ‘ =. DECEMBER 7, 1883.] tendant cutting pains. Fortunately Dr. Berlin soon arrested this malady, which has brought so many journeys in the arctic regions to a close, by distribut- ing snow-spectacles, and by inoculating a solution of zine vitriol in the blood-stained eyes. Another malady —if not so dangerous, at all events quite as painful— was caused by the sunshine in the dry, transparent, and thin air on the skin of the face. It produced a vivid redness and a perspiration, with large burning blisters, which, shrivelling up, caused the skin of the nose, ears, and cheeks, to fall off in large patches. This was repeated several times, and the pain increased by the effect of the cold morning SCIENCE. © 135 noon of July 13, with a heavy wind from south-east. It continued all the night, and the next morning turned into a snow-storm. Weall got very wet, but consoled ourselves with the thought that the storm coming from south-east argued well for an ice-free interior. When it cleared a Jittle, we strained our eyes to trace any mountains which would break the ice-horizon around us, which everywhere was as level as that of the sea, The desire soon ‘to be there’ was as fervent as that of the searchers of the Eldo- rado of yore; and the sailors and the Lapps had no shadow of doubt as to the existence of an ice-free interior; and at noon, before reaching camp no. 12, Fissure in Greenland’s inland ice, seen by Nordenskiéld on his visit in 1876. From asketch by Dr. Berggren, published in Za Nature. air on the newly-formed skin. Any similar effect the sun has not in the tropics. With the exception of these complaints, none of us suffered any illness. On July 18 we covered thirteen, on the 14th ten, and the 15th fourteen, kilometres (9th to 12th camps). At first the road gradually rose; and we then came to a plain, which I, in error, believed was the crest of the inland ice. The aneroids, however, showed that we were still ascending: thus the 9th camp lies 753, the 10th 877, the 11th S84, and the 12th 965, metres above the sea. Our road was still erossed by swift and strong rivers; but the ice became more smooth, while the kryokonite cavities became more and more troublesome. This was made more unpleasant by rain, which began to fall on the after- everybody fancied he could distinguish mountains far away to the east. They appeared to remain perfectly stationary as the clouds drifted past them, —a sure sign, we thought, of its not being a mass of clouds. They were scanned with telesedpes, drawn, discussed, and at last saluted with a ringing cheer; but we soon came to the conclusion that they were unfortunately no mountains, but merely the dark reflection of some Jakes farther to the east in the ice- desert. In my report of the expedition of 1870, I drew at- tention to a clayey mud which is found in circular cavities, from one to three feet in depth, on the sur- face of the inland ice, not only near the shore, but even as far inland as we reached on that oceasion: 736 My companion on that occasion, Professor Berggren, discovered that this substance formed the substratum of a peculiar ice-flora, consisting of a quantity of dif- ferent microscopical plants (algae), of which some are even distributed beyond the clay on the ice itself, and which, in spite of their insignificance, play, be- yond doubt, a very important part in nature’s econo- my, from the fact that their dark color far more readily absorbs the sun’s heat than the bluish-white ice, and thereby they contribute to the destruction of the ice-sheet, and prevent its extension. Un- doubtedly we have in no small degree to thank these organisms for the melting-away of the layer of ice which once covered the Scandinavian peninsula. I examined the appearance of this substance in its re- lation to geology, and demonstrated, — 1. That it cannot have been washed down from the mountain ridges at the sides of the glaciers; as it was found evenly distributed at a far higher elevation than that of the ridges on the border of the glaciers, as well as in equal quantity on the top of the ice- knolls as on their sides or in the hollows between them. 2, That neither had it been distributed over the surface of the ice by running water, nor been pressed up from the hypothetical bottom ‘ground’ moraine. 3. That the clay must therefore be a sediment from the air, the chief constituent of which is probably terrestrial dust spread by the wind over the surface of the ice. ; 4. That cosmic elements exist in this substance, as it contained molecules of metallic iron which could be drawn out by the magnet, and which, under the blowpipe, gave a reaction of cobalt and nickel. Under these circumstances, the remarkable dust which I have named ‘kryokonite,’ i.e., ice-dust, ob- tained a great scientific interest; particularly as the cosmic element, viz., the matter, deposited from space, was yery considerable. Even later students who have visited the inland ice have observed this dust, but in places surrounded by mountains, from which it might with more probability have been washed down. They have, therefore, and without haying examined Professor Berggren’s and my cwn researches of 1870, paid little attention to the same; while the samples brought home by Dr. N. O. Holst from South Greenland in 1880 were not very exten- sive. But now Dr. Berlin brings home from a great vari- ety of places ice algae, which, I feel convinced, will contribute fresh materials to our knowledge of the flora of the ice and snow. For my own part, I have re-examined my first researches of the lkryokonite, and they are fully corroborated. Everywhere where the snow from last winter has melted away, a fine dust, gray in color, and, when wet, black or dark brown, is distributed over the inland ice ina layer which I should estimate at from 0.1 to 1 millimetre in thickness, if it was evenly distributed over the en- tire surface of the ice. It appears in the same quan- tity in the vicinity of the ice-border surrounded by mountains as a hundred kilometres inland; but in the former locality it is mixed with a very fine sand, gray SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 44. in color, which may be separated from the kryokv- nite. Farther inland this disappears, however, com- pletely. Gravel or real sand I have never, in spite of searching for them, discovered in the kryokonite. The kryokonite always contains very fine granular atoms, which are attracted by the magnet, and which, as may be demonstrated by grating in an agate mor- tar and by analysis under the blowpipe, consist of a gray metallic element; viz., nickel iron. In general, the dust is spread equally over the entire surface of the ice. Thus it was found everywhere where the snow from the previous year had melted away; while, to judge by appearances, there seemed to be little dif- ference between the quantity found near the coast, and in the interior. The dust does not, however, form a continuous layer of clay, but has, by the melt- ing of the ice, collected in cavities filled with water, which are found all over the surface. These are round, sometimes semicircular, one to three feet in depth, with a diameter of from a couple of millime- tres to one metre or more. At the bottom a layer of kryokonite one to four millimetres in thickness is deposited, which has often, by organisms and by the wind, been formed into little balls; and everywhere where the original surface of the ice has not been changed by water-currents, the cavities are found so close to each other that it would be very difficult to find a spot on the ice as large as the crown of a hat free from them. In the night, at a few degrees be- low freezing-point, new ice forms on these hollows; but they do not freeze to the bottom, even under the severest frost, and the sheet which covers them is neyer strong enough to support a man, more particu- larly if the hole is, as was the case during half our journey, covered with a few inches of newly-fallen snow. The kryokonite cavities were perhaps more danger- ous to our expedition than any thing else we were ex- posed to. We passed, of course, a number of crevasses without bottom as far as the eye could penetrate, and wide enough to swallow up a man; but they were ‘open,’ i.e., free from a cover of snow, and could with proper caution be avoided; and the danger of these could further be minimized by the sending of the two-men sledges in front, and, if one of the men fell into the crevasse, he was supported by the run- ners and the alpenstock, which always enabled him to get up on the ice again. But this was far from being the case with the kryokonite hollows. These lie, with a diameter just large enough to hold the foot, as close to one another as the stumps of the trees in a felled forest; and it was therefore impossible not to stumble into them at every moment, which was the more an- noying as it happened just when the foot was stretched for a step forward, and the traveller was precipitated to the ground with his foot fastened in a hole three feet in depth. The worst part of our journey was four days outward and three days of the return; and it is not too much to say that each oue of us, during these seven days, fell a hundred times into these cavi- ties, viz., for all of us, seven thousand times. I am only surprised that no bones were broken, —an acci- dent which would not only have brought my explo- DECEMBER 7, 1883.] ' ration to an abrupt close, but "might have had the most di-astrous consequences, as it would have been utterly impossible to have carried a man in that state back to the coast. One advantage the kryokonite cavities had, however; viz., of offering us the purest drinking-water imaginable, of which we fully availed ourselves without the least bad consequences, in spite of our perspiring state. On July 16 we covered thirteen, on the 17th eigh- teen and a half, and on the 18th seventeen and a half, kilometres. The country, or more correctly the ice, now gradually rose from 965 to 1,213 metres. The distances enumerated show that the ice beeame more smooth; but the road was still impeded by the kry- okonite cavities, whereas the rivers, which even here were rich in water, became shallower but stronger, thus easier of crossing. Our road was, besides, often cut off by immense snow-covered crevasses, which, noweyer, did not cause much trouble. On the night of the 18th, when arrived at camp no. 14, the Lapp Anders came to me and asked if he might be permitted to ‘have arun;’ viz., to make a reconnaissance on ‘skidor,’! to see if there was no land to the east. This granted, he started off with- out awaiting supper. He came back after six hours’ absence, and reported that he had reached twenty- seven kilometres farther east; that the ice became smoother, but was still rising; but there was no sign of land. If his statement was true, he had, after a laborious day’s journey, in six hours covered about sixty kilometres! At first I considered his estimate exaggerated, but it proved to be perfectly correct. It took us, thus, two whole days to reach as far as he had got, as shown by the track in the snow. I par- ticularly mention this occurrence in order to show that the Lapps really did cover the estimated dis- tance of their journey eastward, of which more below. During these days we. passed several lakes, some of which had the appearance of not flowing away in the winter, as we found here large ice-blocks several feet in diameter, screwed up on the shore; which cir- cumstance I could only explain by assuming that a large quantity of water still remained here when the pools about became covered with new ice. The lakes are mostly cireular, and their shores formed a snow ‘bog’ which was almost impassable with the heavy sledges. 7 On July 19 we covered seventeen and a half, on the 20th sixteen and a half, on the 2Ist seven, and on the 22d seven and a half, kilometres (15th to 18th camp). The ice rose between them from 1,213 to 1,492 metres, The distances enumerated fully show the nature of the ice. It was at first excellent, particu- larly in the morning, when the new snow was covered with a layer of hard ice; but on the latter days we had great difficulty in proceeding, as a sleet fell with a south-east wind in the night, between the 20th 1 The Swedish ‘skidor’ and Norweglan ‘ski’ are long strips of pine wood, slightly bent at the top, polished, and as elastic as if they were of the finest steel, with a strap for the feetin the centre, on which the Lapps and Scandinavians run on the snow with remarkable agility at a tremendous pace. SCIENCE. 137 and the 2Ist. The new snow, as well as that lying- from the previous year, became a perfect snow-bog, in which the sledges constantly stuck, so that it required at times four men to get them out. We all got wet, and had great difficulty in finding a spot on the ice dry enough to pitch the tent. On the 22d we had to pitch it in the wet snow, where the feet im- mediately became saturated on putting them outside the India-rubber mattresses. A little later on in the year, when the surface of the snow is again covered with ice, or earlier, before the thaw sets in, the sur- face would no doubt be excellent to journey on. When we, therefore, on July 21, were compelled to pitch the tent in wet snow, as no dry spot could be discovered, and it was impossible to drag the sledges farther, I sent the Lapp, Lars Tuorda, forward on ‘skidor’ to find a dry road. He came back, and stated that the ice everywhere was covered with water and snow. For the first time in his life he was at a loss what to suggest. It being utterly im- possible to get the sledges farther, I had no choice. I decided to turn back. I wished, however, to let the Lapps go forward some distance to the east to see the country as far as possible. At first I considered it advisable to let their journey only last twenty-four hours; but as both Anders and Lars insisted that they were most eager to find the ‘Promised Land,’ and said they could do nothing towards discovering it in that short period, I granted them leave to run eastwards for four days and nights, and then return. On leaving, I gave them the following written orders : — “Instructions for Lars and Anders’s ‘skid’ run on the inland ice of Greenland; viz., — “Lars and Anders have orders to proceed on skidor eastwards, but are allowed to alter the course, if they may deem it advisable, to north or south. ““At the end of every third mile the barometer shall be read, and the direction run noted. “ SCIENCE. 801 nitrate, and the resulting precipitate decomposed by means of hydrogen sulphide. Glutamin crystallizes from aqueous solution in fine, white, anhydrous needles, soluble in hot water and dilute aleohol. It is readily decomposed by acids or alkalies into glutaminie acid and ammonia, the decomposition taking place gradually, even in the cold or on simple boiling with water. Consequently ammonia cannot be determined in vegetable extracts containing glutamin, either by Schlésing’s method or by boiling with magnesia. —(Ibid., xxix. 295.) m. P. A. {517 GEOLOGY. Correlation of Cambrian rocks. — Mr. Charles D. Walcott, .of the U. S. geological survey, has recently reviewed the great Cambrian sections of North America. He defines the Cambrian as the formation characterized by the ‘first fauna’ of Bar- rande. In New York, on one side of Lake Champlain, near Chazy, the formation is constituted by the Potsdam and calciferous; and the biologic transi- tion to the Silurian, as represented by the Chazy, is abrupt. In Nevada there is a gradual passage from the Potsdam fauna to the Silurian; and beneath the Pot-dam are rocks containing the Olenellus fauna. In northern Arizona the section exhibited by the Grand Cafion of the Colorado shows at bottom the Grand Caiion and Chu-ar groups, which contain barely fos- sils enough to characterize them as early Cambrian. These were greatly eroded before the deposition of the Tonto with a profuse fauna equivalent to that of the Potsdam. The Silurian is absent. and the Devonian rests on the Tonto. In Wisconsin the Potsdam is underlain unconformably by the fauna- less Keweenawan, and overlain conformably by the Silurian. In Vermont the Potsdam rests on the Georgian group containing the Olenellus fauna, In Tennessee the upper Cambrian is represented by the Knox shale, and the lower by the Chilhowee sandstone and the Ocoee conglomerate. In New Brunswick the St. John’s group, and in Massachu- setts the Braintree argillites, exhibit the Paradoxides fauna. At the Straits of Belle Isle the section is not continuous, but appears comparable with that of Ne- vada. The anomalous relations reported at Point Levis, in Canada, are attributed to error in the inter- pretation of the stratigraphy. The Tonto group of Arizona and the Knox group of Tennessee are recognized by Mr. Walcott as the equivalents of the Potsdam of New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The Olenellus horizon of Nevada is correlated with the Georgian group of Vermont. The Grand Cafion and Chuar groups of Arizona are pro- visionally correlated with the Keweenawan of Wis- consin, and are regarded as older than the Georgian. The St. John’s group of New Brunswick is held to be older than the Georgian, and probably younger than the Keweenawan and Chuar. The Chilhowee and Ocoee groups of Tennessee are provisionally assigned to the horizons of the Georgian and St. John’s. 802 The paper marshals the stratigraphic evidence only, leaving the paleontologic to form the subject of a future communication. —(Phil. soc. Washing- ton; meeting Nov. 24, 1883.) {518 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. Influence of climate on vegetation in Alaska. — In his remarks on glaciers in Alaska, Mr. Thomas Meehan remarked, that, on the top of what are known as ‘totem-poles ’ in some of the Indian villages, trees of very large size would often be seen growing. These poles are thick logs of hemlock or spruce, set up before the doors of Indian lodges, carved all over with queer characters representing living creatures of every description. These inscriptions are sup- posed to be genealogies, or to tell of some famous event in the family history. The poles are not erected by Indians now, and it is difficult to get any connected accounts of what they really tell. Ata very old In- dian village, called Kaigan, there are a large number of these poles, with few, or, in some cases, no cary- ings on them, among many which are wholly coy- ered; and these all had one or more trees of Abies sitkensis growing on them. One tree must have been about twenty years old, and was half as tall as the pole on which it was growing. The pole may have been twenty feet high. The roots of the tree had descended the whole length of the poles, and had gone into the ground from which the larger trees now derived nourishment. In one case the root had grown so large as to split the thick pole on one side from the top to the bottom; and this root projected along the whole length, about two inches beyond the outer circumference of the pole. Only in an atmos- phere surcharged with moisture could a seed sprout on the top of a pole twenty feet from the ground, and continue for years to grow almost or quite as well as if it were surrounded by soil. He had seen a bush of Lanicera involucrata which was of im- mense size as compared with what he had seen in Colorado and elsewhere. The plant was at the back of an Indian lodge, and beside a pathway, cut against the hillside. The stems near the ground were as thick as his arm, and the whole plant was covered with very large blackberries. Stopping in admiration to look at and admire the specimen brought numbers of Indians to see what was the subject; and these smiled indulgently on being made to understand that only the sight of a huge bush had attracted the travellers’ attention. — (Acad. nat. sc. Philad. ; meeting Nov. 6.) [519 BOTANY. (fossil.) Australian coal flora.— A memoir prepared with great care by Rev. J. E. Tenison-Woods is valuable to science, not only for the clear and detailed descrip- tion of the fossil plants, but for the discussion upon the geological distribution of the coal-bearing meas- ures of Australia. The first notice in regard to the Australian fossil flora was given by Prof. Morris in 1845. In 1847 McCoy gave an elaborate paper on the flora and fauna SCIENCE. Vou. IL, No, 46, of the rocks associated with the coal of Australia, and came to the conclusion that a wide geological interval probably occurred between the consolidation of the fossiliferous beds underlying the coal, and the deposits of the coal-measures, as he found no real connection between them, and as they were referable to widely different geological systems. In 1848 Rey. Mr. Clarke dissented from the above conclusions, maintaining that there is no break what- ever between the various beds containing the remains of plants described. His assertion was based upon his own discoveries, and the researches of Jukes and Dana. After recording the long discussion between McCoy and Clarke, the progress made on the subject by Daintree, Feistmantel, etc., the author gives a clear exposition of the Australian coal-formations, as far as they are known at the present time, considering not only the remains of plants and animals found in connection with the strata, but the composition of the measures, and the localities where the strata have been examined. He gives the formations in the fol- lowing series: — 1. Upper Devonian, with three species of plants. 2. Lower carboniferous, six species, among them three of Lepidodendron. 3. Permian®(?), five species, among them two of Glossopteris. 4, Newer coal, trias (?) (Newcastle), fourteen spe- cies; of these, seven of Glossopteris, of which Gloss- opteris Browniana is most common, and also found in No. 8. 5. Rhaetic. 6. Upper lias (?), with two species. 7. Jurassic, with twenty-two species. In recording the plants and their distribution, the author describes ninety-three species: twenty-seven are new. The plates are photographs of specimens. The remains of plants are very indistinctly and in- sufficiently represented. — (Proc. Linn. soc. N. S. Wales, viii. 37.) L. L. [520 ZOOLOGY. Reconstruction of objects from microscopic sections. — Born gives an elaborate description of his method of modelling, which is really very simple as well as ingenious. The sections are made with great care, all of the same thickness: they are next drawn with the camera, and the outlines transferred to wax plates, the thickness of which is chosen so as to correspond in relation to the thickness of the sections, as do the outlines to the superficial dimensions of the sections; or, in other words, each wax plate is cut out so as to represent the actual section equally magni- fied in all three dimensions. — (Arch. mikrosk. anat., xxii. 584.) oc. s. M. [S21 Preservation of soft tissues. —Dr. Benjamin Sharp called attention to Prof. Semper’s mode of pre- paring dried specimens of soft animals, and exhibited a couple of snails as illustrations of the admirable re- sults of the process, The tissues are first hardened by being steeped in chromic acid, which is after- wards thoroughly washed out in water. The speci- 4 eee . DECEMBER 21, 1883.] men is then allowed to remain in absolute alcohol until the water is perfectly extracted, when it is placed in turpentine for three or four days. It may then be dried and mounted. Specimens prepared in this way retain their characters in a very satisfactory degree, and are strong and flexible, the examples shown resembling kid. If the surface be treated, after dry- ing, witha solution of sugar and glycerine, the natural colors will be restored; but the specimens must then be kept in hermetically sealed glass cases to preserve them from the dust. The objection to this mode of treating large specimens is the expense of the abso- lute alcohol: otherwise there is no reason why the largest animals should not be preserved by this pro- cess. — (Acad. nat. sc. Philad.; meeting Nov. 21, 1883. ) [522 Preservation of protozoa and small larvae. — Hermann Fol recommends an alcoholic solution of ferric perchloride to kill small animals without injury to the tissues. It is diluted with water down to two per cent, and then poured into the vessel holding the animals. These then sink to the bottom. The water is poured off, and seventy per cent alcohol substituted. Change the alcohol, and add to the sec- “ond dose of it a few drops of sulphuric acid: other- wise the iron may remain in the tissues, and cause them to overstain with coloring-reagents. The alco- holic washing should be thorough. Even larger animals (medusae, Doliolum, ete.) may be perfectly preserved by this method. The tissues may be sub- sequently stained by adding a few drops of gallic acid (one-per-cent solution) to the alcohol containing the specimens. The nuclei are stained dark, the proto- plasm light brown, in twenty-four hours. Fol also describes some new injection masses, which offer the advantage that they may be read- ily kept without spoiling. — (Zeitschr. wiss. zool., xxxviii. 491.) c.s. M. [523 Fossils of Pachino.— The Marquis de Gregorio has published a brochure of twenty-five pages on the fossils of this locality. They comprise cretaceous forms of the horizon of Hippurites cornucopiae, and tertiary species of the horizon of Carcharodon mega- lodon Ag. The work is in octavo, and illustrated by six excellent phototypic plates representing corals, echinoderms, and a few mollusks. Simpulorbites, a new genus of Foraminifera allied to Orbitolites; Escharopsia, a new genus of Polyzoa; and Proteo- bulla, a form represented by casts, recalling Buc- cinulus, but with three strong horizontal plaits on the column, — are described and figured. — w. H. p. [524 Mollusks, Spicula amoris of British Helices. — Charles Ashford contributes an interesting and comprehen- sive paper on the ‘darts’ found in connection with the reproductive apparatus in certain Helices. The dart is contained in a short ventricose pouch opening into the lower part of the vaginal tube, a little above the common yestibule, on the right side of the neck. There is usually one: if two are present, the second sac is on the opposite side of the tube from the first. The sac may be simple, or bilobate. At the bottom SCIENCE. 803 of the cavity of the sac is a conical papilla, which serves as a basis for the dart, which is attached to it byits posteriorend. The apparatus is a development of adult life, and especially of pairing-time, but is indifferently present or wanting in species otherwise closely allied, The dart itself is a tubular shaft of carbonate of lime, tapering to a solid, transparent, sharp point, enlarging at or toward the base, where it assumes the form of a subconical cup. The sides of the shaft are sometimes furnished with blade-like longitudinal buttresses, which serve to strengthen it. They are rapidly formed, may be secreted in six days, and differ in form in different species. They are sup- posed to serve the purpose of inducing, by puncture, the excitement preparatory to pairing. They are too fragile to do more than prick the tough skin of these mollusks, but sometimes penetrate the apertures of the body, and are found within. A new weapon is formed after the loss of the old one. It is best ex- tracted for study by boiling the sac in caustic potash. — (Journ. conch., July, 1883.) w. HD. (525 Shell-structure of Chonetes.— John Young, in the course of an examination of C. Laguessiana Kon., finds on the ribs a series of wide-set tubular openings, perhaps bases of spines, which do not extend to the interior of the shell; also a row of very minute close-set pores, placed along the central line of each rib, but which disappear after descending a very short distance into the shell-substance; a series of raised tubercles, which appear on the interior surface of the valves arranged between each pair of ribs in single rows, and which send rather distant tubules obliquely outward and backward as far as the middle layer of the shell; lastly, in the thickened cardinal edge of the ventral valve, corresponding to the spines with which it is ornamented, a series of tubes which open with round orifices on the interior, and which converge toward a point near the apex of the beak, but at the surface are continuous with the hollow of the tubular spines which point away from the beak in a direction nearly at right angles with their pre- vious course. In a note on this communication, Mr. Thomas Davidson mentions that in Chonetes plebeia, tenuicostata, sarcinulata, and the Devonian C. armata, Mr. Young finds no trace of the external perforations described above in C. Laguessiana, al- though small perforations or tubtiles extended nearly to the middle shell-layer from the interior of the valves, slanting toward the beaks. In Productus (with a doubtful exception in the case of P. mesolo- bus), also, Mr. Young finds the perforations extend- ing only part way from the interior, and never visiblé on the unabraded external surface of the shell. The same fact has been determined by him for the genera Strophomena and Streptorhynchus, — (Geol. mag., Aug., 1883.) Ww. H. D. [526 VERTEBRATES. Mammals, Aortic insufficiency and arterial pressure.— Both Rosenbach and Cohnheim have stated that sud- den insufficiency of the aortic valves, produced arti- ficially, has no effect on arterial pressure. Goddard, S04 on the other hand, from experiments made upon rab- bits, says, that after perforation of the aortic valves, there isan important fall of pressure. De Jager has re- peated these experiments, using both dogs and rabbits. Upon dogs he finds that perforation of the valves has little or no effect on arterial pressure; whereas, with rabbits, a considerable and permanent fall of pressure is the result. It appears from these experiments that the compensatory power of the heart-muscle is greater in the dog than in the rabbit, although de Jager thinks that the results may be partly explained by the fact that the injury to the valves in the case of the rabbits was generally more extensive than in the case of the dogs. — (Pfliiger’s archiv, xxxi. 215.) W. H. H. [527 Structure of the placenta.—Ereolani has re- newed the advocacy of his views on the mammalian placenta, according to which, after conception, the mucosa of the uterus falls off, and a new cellular de- cidual layer is formed, and after delivery the mucosa is re-formed. ports some new observations, par- ticularly on the dormouse and on woman, by which he endeavors to strengthen his position. He writes in the form of letters addressed to Prof. Kolliker at Wirzburg. Dr. H. O. Marcy, in the New York medi- cal journal (July 28- Aug. 4), gives an account of these letters, but adds nothing original. The diffi- culty as to Ercolani’s views is threefold: he leaves in obscurity the exact histolytical and histogenetical changes in, 1°, the assumed shedding of the mucosa; 2°, the appearance of the new-formed decidua; 3°, the regeneration of the mucosa. For the present, Kolli- ker’s view, that the maternal decidua is the meta- morphosed mucosa, has at least an equal claim for acceptance with Ercolani’s theory. — (Rendic. accad. sc. ist. Bologna, Jan. 28, 1883.) c.S. M. [528 Touch-corpuscles and other nerve-endings in man and apes. — W. -Wolff has investigated the cor- puscles of touch in Cercopithecus, the chimpanzee, and man. The corpuscles are essentially the same in all. They have an oval form, and are distinguished by having the connective-tissue envelope thrown into folds parallel with their long axis, the folds being delicate and close together. The content of the cap- sule is a granular, coherent fluid. According to Wolff, the supposed nerve-filaments seen in gold prepara- tions are really precspitates formed in the folds of the capsule. The author questions whether the nerves have any terminations in epithelium. His principal objection is, that, if the cornea of small animals is macerated for several hours in weak gold solutions, the epithe- lium falls off as a distinct membrane. Now, as gold fixes the nerves, if any filaments ran to the membrane, they would hold it down, and the epithelium would not separate. The author confuses fixing the optical form of the nerves and fixing their coherency. There is no reason against, but, on the contrary, many rea- sons for, assuming a maceration of the nerve-filaments in weak solutions of gold. In view of the very nu- merous positive observations of nerve-endings in epi- thelia, Wolff’s argumentation is weak, and it appears unnecessary to follow his further deductions; viz., SCIENCE. a - that since glands are modified epithelia, and epithelia have no nerve-endings proper, therefore the gland- cells have no nerve-endings. Such attempts to set aside a vast body of evidence on account of a few im- perfect observations ought not to be countenanced. — (Arch. anat. physiol., anat. abth., 1883, 128.) c.s. M. [529 The action of digitaline on the heart and _ blood-vessels. — The authors of this paper, Donald- son and Stevens, have made a careful and thorough study of the action of digitaline on the heart and blood-vessels, and have arrived at results differing from those usually accepted. by previous investigators is summarized by them as follows: ‘‘ Investigations on the frog’s heart show an increase of work; investigations on the arterioles have led to contradictory results, with the weight of evidence in favor of a constriction.’’ In their own work they made use of frogs and terrapins. The heart was completely isolated from the rest of the body, and kept alive by defibrinated blood supplied to it from the venous side; while the outflow of blood from the ventricles, in the method used, could easily be determined at any time, and the relative amount of work done by the heart, when pure blood or blood containing digitaline was fed to it, estimated. The conditions under which the heart worked were made, as far as possible, the same as those existing during life. The result of these experiments was that digi- taline causes a decrease in the work done by the heart. On the other hand, digitaline injected into the living animal in moderate doses increases the blood-press- ure. This increase of blood-pressure cannot be caused by the heart: it must result, therefore, from a*con- striction of the arterioles. Experiments were made in which the arterial system was supplied with normal salt solution at a constant pressure, and the outflow collected from the large veins emptying into the heart. The heart was thus excluded from the prob- lem. It was then found, that, when digitaline was added to the circulating liquid, there was a diminution in the outflow from the veins; and this diminution could only be caused by a constriction of the arterioles. The result of their work, then, is that digitaline causes a decrease in the work done by the heart, but increases mean blood-pressure by constricting the arterioles. — (Journ. of physiol., iv. 165.) Ww. H. H. [530 (Man.) Cilia in the human kidney. — That a large por- tion of the renal tubules in cold-blooded vertebrates is ciliated has been known for some time. It has also been known, from the observations of Bowman and others, that the neck of the Malpighian capsule in mammals is ciliated. A. H. Tuttle found, from the examination of a large number of sections of human kidneys, that the convoluted tubule is very exten- sively, if not generally, ciliated. Where the flat lining- cells of the capsule approach the neck, they become cuboidal and ciliated also. The cilia in the kidney are from 3.5 to 5 mw long, very fine, numerous, and closely set. Confirmatory observations were made on the kidney of a kitten, The cilia are probably pres- [Vou. I, No. 46. 7 The evidence obtained © aa DECEMBER 21, 1883.] ent in all mammalia, and serve to propel the urine outwards or towards the ureter. — (Stud. biol. lab. Johns Hopk. univ., ii. 453.) Cc. Ss. M. {531 ANTHROPOLOGY. Man’s place in nature. — One hears now and then the assertion that man is not the highest animal. In proof of this assertion, it is urged that this animal is far more specialized in one direction, and that animal in another. Mr. Lockington takes the ground that specialization is not in itself any proof of advance. Now, the real progress is not to be sought in the specialized offshoots of any series, but in the growing stem from which itis parted, The highest specializa- tion is that based upon perfection of the greatest num- ber of parts, not upon the great development of one part at the expense of others. ‘‘ We need not ask mor- phologists or embryologists whether man is the high- est animal: we have the proof of it every hour before our eyes. His powers of mind are the resultant of his structure, and have enabled him to conquer all other beings in the struggle of life. That animal is highest which possesses the widest range of faculties. This man undoubtedly does. No other animal has the power, by voice or pen, to exaggerate or depreciate its own importance; no other animal can use the powers of nature as he; no other can produce works which are proportionately comparable to his: and if, there- fore, morphology or embryology contradict the facts of life, then are those sciences unsafe guides, as they certainly are only partial ones.’’ — (Amer. naturalist, Oct.) J. w. P. [532 Notation of kinship.—In the study of kinship many schemes of graphic representation have been devised. A perfect system should exhibit three ideas: It should, 1. Identify each place in the series; 2.Clas- ~ sify kindred for each people; 3. Exhibit affinity or marriage, as well as kinship. Mr. Francis Galton presents us with a new scheme, identifying the mem- bers of the series and sex, in which arithmetical no- tation takes the place of letters or pictographs, — (Nature, Sept. 6.) 3. w. P [533 Curare. — M. Couty has made extended observa- tions and experiments on the curare poison, and bas given the benefit of his studies in a course of lectures in the museum of Rio Janeiro. The investigation closes with a modest confession of ignorance. ‘‘ The curare,”’ says M. Couty, ‘* demands fresh physiologi- cal studies to comprehend the nature of its relation to the muscles and the nerves, and also the real sig- nificance of the various phenomena of excitement and paralysis which it occasions, before we should attempt to comprehend the intimate mechanism of its intoxicating influence.’’? — (Rev. scient., 1882, 587, ete.) J. w. P. [534 Color-words in the Rig Veda. — Geiger wrote, “The men of that time [of the Rig Veda] did not and could not call any thing blue.’ Mr. Edward W. Hop- kins reviews the deductions of Geiger, and not only questions the facts adduced by him, but also doubts whether his application of the statements be admis- sible, even if proved to be facts. The use of color- SCIENCE. 805 words is not unlike that in other poetic literatures. Mr. Hopkins concludes: 1°. Non-mention of the col- ors green and blue is not proved for the Rig Veda literature; 2°. That the sky is not called blue, nor the fields green, rests on reasons which have nothing to do with the development of the retina; 3°. We can- not admit that either color-words or color-perception of those who composed the Rig Veda were inexact or imperfect; for the cause of the apparently inexact employment of words liesin the variable and uncer- tain color of the objects to which the color-terms are applied. If the Vedic literature fail to support the theory of the late development of the color-sense, one of the strongest of the negative proofs is withdrawn; and even the absence of certain colors in Homer may be deemed, perhaps, of less significance than has been claimed when we consider that the Niebelungenlied exhibits, twenty centuries later, the same absence 0 corresponding colors, and a like ratio in the greater use of terms denoting red and yellow. — (Amer. journ. phil., iv. 166.) J. Ww. P. [535 The Yuma linguistic stock.— In the year 1877 Mr. A. S. Gatschet brought together in two papers all that was then known with reference to the Yuma stock of languages spoken around the mouth of the Colorado of the west. Recently he has come into possession, through the Bureau of ethnology and pri- vate correspondence, of new and important material, and has been compelled to publish an appendix to his former papers. This consists of information respect- ing the names and characteristics of the tribes be- longing to this stem; comparative vocabularies of the Yavapai, Ni Mai, and the Seri; the Yavapai vocabula- ry of Dr. W. H. Corbusier; and the Tonto vocabulary of Dr. John B. White, — (Zeitschr. ethnol., xv. 123.) J. W. P. [536 The tempering of bronze. — No doubt, native copper attracted the attention of primitive man be- fore any of its alloys; but the difficulty of working it for a long time prevented its general use. How the metal came to be associated with tin in various forms is entirely unknown to us. Arms and implements of bronze in Egypt, Greece, and Gaul, present a con- stant proportion of tin, — twelve per cent. The bronze of cannons is eight to eleven per cent; of bells, twenty to thirty per cent. Recently, at Réalon (Hautes-Alpes), a peddler’s pack of bronze objects has been unearthed, showing eighteen per cent of tin. The founders of prehistoric times seem to have had three methods of procedure : — 1°. The alloy was poured into a mould of stone or metal in two pieces, The ridge formed by the Lie tion was afterwards hammered down. 2°, A model of wood was pressed upon a layer of sand in a box, to obtain a negative of one side: a corresponding operation gave a mould of the other side. The two boxes fitted together completed. the moulgj. There were still seams requiring to be ham- mered. 3°. A model of wax was surrounded with soft clay. The clay was then heated to harden it and to melt 806 the wax. The metal was introduced at the opening left for the escape of the wax. Soldering was unknown to the men of the bronze age: mending was done by riveting. The art of sof- tening bronze was known to the ancients. Proclus says (Works and Days, line 1842) that ‘fin ancient times men used bronze in cultivating the ground just as they use iron now; but that copper being soft in its nature, they hardened it by immersion.” Eusta- thius also says (Iliad, book I., line 236) that they tempered the bronze when using it in place of iron, The chemist Darcet, at the end of the last century, showed: 1. That pure copper, heated to redness and plunged into cold water, is neither hardened nor softened; 2. Bronzes haying only tin alloy, and that less than thirty per cent, heated and cooled in air, become weak and brittle; 3. The same bronzes, heated and cooled in water, are softened, and become very tractable. It is nearly certain that the men of the bronze age tempered their implements in taking them from the mould. Those destined to stand a blow were left in this state. Arms and tools needing more temper were heated over, and cooled in the air. Another prehistoric art, rediscovered by the en- gineers of Alexandria, and recently again brought to light from the orient, is rendering bronze flexible. This property of flexibility is certainly possessed by some very ancient specimens. The engineer Philo, who lived in the century before our. era, describes, in his ‘Treatise on artillery,’ the fabrication of springs of bronze needed in some of his machinery. The author from whom the foregoing notes are taken, A. de Rochas, will soon publish, through Masson at Paris, a volume on the origin of industry, and the first application of the sciences. — (Rev. scient., Sept. 22.) J. Ww. P. [537 Seamy side of the Vedas. — Max Miiller tells us in his recent work, ‘India, what it can teach us,’ that in the Vedas we have a nearer approach to a beginning, and an intelligible beginning, than in the wild invocations of Hottentots and Bushmen. Mr. Andrew Lang holds the mirror up to this assertion by showing that a highly civilized people are farther from the beginning in their religion than races which have not evolved nor accepted society. Again: there is nothing particularly wild in some of the invoca- tions of the Bushmen (Cape monthly, July, 1874), nor of the Papuans (Journ. anthrop. inst., Feb., 1881). Compare the prayer of Odysseus to the Phaeacian king. And, finally, the faith of Vedic worshippers was very near akin, in the wildness of its details and its mythology, to the faith of Bushmen and Hotten- tots. traces, the practice enduring in symbols and substi- tutes which point back to something ‘nearer the beginning.’ The ninetieth hymn of the tenth book of the Rig Veda tells how all things were made out of the limbs of a giant, Purusha. A similar legend is found among Scandinavians, Iroquois, Egyptians, Greeks, and Tinneh. It would be easy to show that Vishnu, in the shape of a boar bringing up the world from the waters, is equivalent to the North American SCIENCE. In the Rig Veda human sacrifice has left its” , tile i. an é [Vou. IL, No. 46. coyotes and muskrats performing the same feat. The origin of species from Purusha is matched only by the metamorphoses and amatory pursuits of Zeus, Kronos, Demeter, and Nemesis. Indeed, we seem to have a nearer approach to a beginning in the Vedie hymns, in those very portions in which they resemble the primitive philosophy of Bushmen and Navajos. The gods in the Vedic religion are deified nature; and we frequently see gods in animal form fighting with animals, afraid of enemies, behaving like the half anthropomorphic, half theriomorphie deities of the Australians, Hottentots, and Bushmen. The gods are begotten of heaven and earth, and are not necessarily immortal. The birth of Indra is very similar to that of Heitsi-Eibib, the supreme god of the Hottentots; and some of his feats have parallels in Scandinavian, Thlinkit, Murri, and Californian myths. Speaking of the other Vedie gods, Mr. Lang quotes the language of Racine respecting the deities of the Greeks: ‘‘ Burning was too good for most of them. . . . If any one wishes to see at a glance how much savage thought persisted till the:age of the Brahmanas, let him compare the myths of the con- stellations (Sacr. books of the east, xii. 282) with the similar myths in Brough Smyth’s ‘Aborigines of Victoria.’ Except upon the hypothesis that the Aryans came civilized into the world, they must have descended from savage ancestors. That they retained savage practices, such as human sacrifices, and much worse things, is universally admitted. Why should they not haye retained savage ideas in religion and mythology, especially as of savage ideas Aryan mythology and religion are full to the brim ?”” —J. W. P. [538 Anthropology at Berlin.—The organ of the Berlin society of anthropology has just completed its fifteenth year, and contains matter of interest not only to the local but also to the general student. ‘Part iv. opens with a paper by Ernst Botticher on the analogies of the Hissarlik finds. Dr. Schliemann’s ‘owl-faced’ vases are characterized as canopus vases, and thus connected in type with the various art pro- ductions of Egypt, in which the bird-face predomi- nates. The ornamentation of funereal urns with a bird-face, — be it that of a falcon, owl, or sparrow, — and the occurrence of the same custom from the Bal- tic to the Nile banks, are worthy of remark. Until historic evidence clears up the subject, the learned must move their opinions back-and forward in the alternation of independent evolution and social con- tact. —— Prof. Arzruni reviews the jadeite and ne- phrite discussion, quoting and criticising the writings of Meyer, Damour, Janettaz and Michel, Fischer, Beck, and y. Muschketow. The author carefully excludes from the discussion minerals which have been confounded with those above named, and also mentions the fact that they have different character- istics in different localities. In Europe, up to this time, neither jadeite nor nephrite has been found in situ. Prof. Arzruni closes his paper with the cita- tion of those localities in each continent which have furnished the minerals or their products. ——M, Kulischer speaks of the handling of children and DECEMBER 21, 1883.] youth upon the lower culture steps. He broaches a very ingenious theory, which seeks to include infan- ticide and all sorts of torture and ordeals in a com- mon category of helping the survival of the fittest. In savagery, intimates the author, two children are as many as the parents can raise: they knock the surplus on the head. They subject their sons and daughters to frequent vigils, fastings, fatigues, and pains, mourning for them meanwhile as dead. In- deed, many die under the treatment, but the fittest survive. Very many scraps of information, gathered here and there, are brought within the range of the author's theory. In this connection, one should not fail to consult Ploss: ‘Das kind in brauch und sitte der volker.. ——Mr. Aurelius Krause read a paper upon the relationships existing among the peoples of the Chukehi peninsula, Are the coast Chukchi and the reindeer Chukchi the same people? —— In speaking of the ‘ footsteps of Buda,’ —a gigantic track found in the ruins of the most hallowed shrine of Buddhism at Gaya, in southern Bihar, —M. Griin- wedel calls to mind, that in every part of the world are to be found, in solid rock, impressions made by the feet of gods and heroes. ——Gen. von Erckert sends to the society from Petroosk measurements of the weight, length of body, and length of limbs, taken from Russian peoples, — Wotjaks, Great Rus- sians, Little Russians, Volga Tartars, Meshtsheraks, Poles, Bashkirs, Tscheremis, and Jews. — (Zeitschr. J. ethnol., xv. pt. 4.) J. Ww. P. [539 The London anthropological institute.— The unlimited resources of British anthropologists lead one always to expect something good from the journal of the institute. The first paper in the current num- ber is by F. Bonney, on some customs of the aborigines of the River Darling, New South Wales. Mr. Bonney resided on a sheep-range from 1865 to 1880, and there- fore knew the Bungyarlee and Parkungi tribes ‘ before they were spoilt by civilization.’ The aboriginal population, owing to periodic droughts of great severity, could never have exceeded 100 on an area of 2,000 Om, Epidemics also have told upon the peo- ple. There is a typical similarity among all Australian aborigines; but, to a close observer, each tribe has its own peculiarities. The oft-repeated statement that they are the lowest type of humanity is a libel. Mr. Bonney describes their parturition customs, system- SCIENCE. 807 atic infanticide, child-rearing, initiation of youth, class-marriage, courtesy, charms, sucking-cure, dis- eases, blood-cure, burials, and mourning. —— Mr. Tremlett writes of stone circles in Brittany, by which . is meant two concentric rings of rude stone masonry, covered by a mound. One, called Nignol, was un- doubtedly a cremation mound; since, exterior to the outer circle, cinerary urns were found, as well as be- tween the walls. The inner circle consisted almost entirely of ashes and charcoal. Two others were simi- larly constructed, — one at Coét-a-touse, the other at Kerbascat. —— The subject of group-marriage is re- viewed by Mr. C. S. Wake, and an attempt made to show its origin. The author assumes two fundamen- tal rights, — the individual, or sexual; and the tribal, or self-protective. The origin of the Australian four- ciass division is to be sought in the separation of the original marrying group into two grades, a parent and a child grade. Major H. W. Fielden exhibited a series of South African stone implements. The Rey. James Sibree, following up the investigations of Col. Garrick Mallery, U.S.A., reports a number of gestures from Madagascar as a contribution to the study of comparative sign-language. —— Mr. A. W. Howitt reports some Australian beliefs, commencing with a delightful paragraph or two on synonymy, which we should like to quote. The superstitions described relate to the physical universe, the human individual here and hereafter, and Ghost-land. —— On the 19th of June a special meeting was held at the Piceadilly hall, by invitation of Mr. C. Ribeiro, who exhibited five Botocudo Indians and a collection of implements. —— Mr. A. H. Keane read a paper on the Botocudos. Their home is the province of Espiritu Santu, in Brazil; their name, probably from the Por- tuguese botoque (a barrel-plug), alluding to. their labrets. The Tembeitera, or lip ornament, and the immense ear-plugs, give rise to an extended notice of the geographical distribution of these objects. The Botocudos are of Guarani stock physically, although of non-Guarani speech. Their physical characteris- ties are elaborately set forth by Mr. Keane, and extended references made to their culture, sexual relations, dwellings, industries, tribal organization, burials, religion, and language. — (Journ. anthrop. inst., Xiili. no. ii.) J. W. P. [540 INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Geology. — Mr. J. S. Diller, an assistant of Capt. C. E. Dutton, who has charge of the investigation of the voleanic rocks in the division of the Pacific, made a geological reconnaissance of the Cascade Range, during the early part of the season, in exploring the eastern side of the range; going as far north as the Dalles, and thence to Portland, finally coming down on the west side to Red Bluff, California. He and. his party travelled some twenty-five hundred miles. They were unable to do any topographical work on account of the smoke, which also interfered with the work of Mr. Gilbert Thompson (chief topographer of the California division) in the neighborhood of Mount Shasta. Paleontology. — During the past season Mr. Charles D. Walcott received at the office, for the use of the National museum collections, a series of 808 typical specimens, representing seventy-eight species described by Mr. U. P. James, from the Hudson River group in southern Ohio. These are the gift of Mr. James, and have been recorded. Mr. Walcott has also received, from Cornell university, for study and illustration, the type specimens used by Prof. C. F. Hartt, in Dawson’s ‘ Acadian geology,’ in his de- scriptions of the fossils of St. John, N.B. All the species described by Professor Hartt will therefore now be illustrated for the first time. Prof. O. C, Marsh, in charge of vertebrate pale- ontology for the survey, has had parties working in” Wyoming during the past season, and also in the Jurassic of Colorado, and reports to the director that they have made large additions to the collections, and very important discoveries, the results of which will be reported later. Chemistry. —The chemical division of the survey will hereafter occupy the laboratory of the U.S. national museum, where work will be begun at once on material that has been accumulating in the hands of the chief chemist, Prof. F. W. Clarke. Professor Clarke has been appointed honorary cura- ~ tor of mineralogy in the U.S. national museum. At the New Haven laboratory, Dr. Carl Barus and Dr. William Hallock are conducting thermo-electric in- vestigations. They find that thermo-electric couples containing nickel behave anomalously at tempera- tures above 400° C., but that couples of platinum, with palladium or iridium, are available for the meas- surement of high temperatures. With such couples, temperatures as high as 1200° may be measured as exactly as with the air-thermometer. Fresh-water shells from the paleozoic rocks of Ne- vada, —The bed of calcareo-argillaceous strata con- taining this unusual fauna is situated near the base of the great lower belt of carboniferous limestone of the Eureka mining district, Nevada. The argil- laceous layers pass into calcareous strata above, that contain a few plates of crinoidal columns, and frag- ments of brachiopods, and besides these a fauna of forty or more species that is purely marine, and closely related to that of the lower carboniferous fauna of the Mississippi valiey. Although there is now a large collection of material from the band containing the fresh-water shells that was collected subsequent to the geologic field-work, during which the specimens now to be mentioned were collected, it will not be studied until after the publication of the report on the Eureka district. This brief notice is to call attention to the occurrence of fresh-water shells in the paleozoic rocks, and also to state that more is to be presented when the paleon- tologic collections shall have been thoroughly worked over and studied. The first species discovered was a Physa, —a form of the genus so characteristic that there is no need of making any other generic reference; judging, of course, from the shell, and not presupposing that any variation existed in the animalinhabitingit. For this species I have proposed the name Physa prisea (fig. 2). The second is a species so Ampullaria-like that a reference is made to that genus (fig. 3). The oper- SCIENCE. ai [Vor. IL, No. 46, culum is shelly, calcareous, concentric (fig. 3a). If not generically identical with Ampullaria, it certainly belongs to the group in a closely allied genus. The name Ampullaria? Powelli is proposed for it. The third species is a pulmonate shell that appears to be ‘ closely related to Auricula, and for which the name Zaptychius carbo- naria (nov. gen. et sp.) is proposed. A small lamelli- branchiate shell that may be a Nu- cula, Corbicula, or Cyrena, probably one of the two lat- ter, is associated with the above, and also fragments of twigs and small cones that may be Fie. 1.—Zaptychius carbonaria x 5. Fie. 2.— Physa prisca x 2. Fre. 8. — Ampullaria? Powelli x e-Co- 2. Fie. 8a.—Operculum of A.? referred to the O Powelli. niferae. The land- . shells thus far de- seribed from the paleozoic series are all referable to the sub-order Geophila or terrestrial pulmonates, and comprise six species; viz., Pupa vetusta, P. Bigsbyi Dawson, P. vermilionensis, Dawsonella Meeki Brad- ley, Zonites (Conulus) priscus Carpenter, Anthraco- pupa ohioensis Whitfield (from the horizon of the coal-measures), and one species (Strophites grandaeva Dawson) from the erian plant-beds of St. John, N.B. To these we now add two species of the Limnophila (Physa prisca and Zaptychius carbonaria), and one species of an operculated fresh-water shell (Ampul- laria? Powelli). It may be said of these species, as Principal Dawson has said of Pupa vetusta, they are remarkable not only for their great antiquity, but also because they are separated by such a vast inter- val of time from other known species of their race. Cuaries D. WALcoT?T. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. Williams college, Williamstown, Mass, The natwral-history department. — Through the lib- erality of friends, the college has secured a permanent table, with the necessary facilities for its use, in the museum of the U.S. fish-commission at Wood’s Holl, The table will be occupied every summer by the de- partment. The college has also leased for a series of years a table at Professor Dohrn’s international zo0- logical station,at Naples, from the use of which it is hoped that permanent benefits will inure to this de- partment. The conditions of the gift of the late Dr. William J. Walker make provision for a scientific expedition every fourth year. < NOTES AND NEWS. Tne extensive collections of American Coleoptera made by the late Dr. J. L. LeConte, containing an immense number of original types, become the prop- DECEMBER 21, 1883.] erty of the Museum of comparative zodlogy at Cam- . bridge, Mass. — We reproduce by photo-engraving, from The pho- tographic news, a cut prepared from nature by the Lux- otype process of the English firm of Brown, Barnes, & Bell. It should be mentioned that considerable clearness has been lost in the reproduction on account of the fineness of the stipple in the original, and the acknowledged hasty printing of the News. The pho- tographic news has given during the last few months a number of separate imprints from plates made by processes similar to that of Mr. Ives of Philadelphia; that of Sara Bernhardt, in the issue for Nov. 23, being possibly the most satisfactory. Any one interested in the advances in the methods of making relief-plates SCIENCE. 809 for printing with type will find much in this series of articles of great interest. The portraitof Dr. LeConte, in this number of ScreNcE, was made by the Ives pro- cess, no hand-work having been used in the prepara- tion of the plate from a photograph. — While we are prosecuting our researches among the mounds, shell-heaps, and pueblos, of our own ter- ritory, we must not forget the thorough work going on in India under the patronage of the British goy- ernment. For about ten years, an archeological sur- yey of the ancient cave and rock-hewn temples of western India has been in operation, and, previously to the present year, three handsome quartos, profusely illustrated, have been published. The third volume treated more especially of the cave-temples of India. 810 During the present year, volumes iv. and v. have been issued, and complete the report of the survey, extend- ing from 1876 to 1880. These volumes are about the size of the Smithsonian contributions, and are printed on fine paper, and elegantly bound. In volume iy. are forty heliotype plates and twenty-five woodcuts, and in volume v., sixty-one plates and eighteen wood- euts. It is not necessary here to enter into a minute description of these temples, since that has been done by Mr. Fergusson and Mr. Burgess, in their ‘Cave-tem- ples of India,’ published in 1880. The method pur- sued is purely technical, ‘‘ enabling the architect and the student to form a tolerably correct idea of the style and character of the plans and ornamentation. The facsimiles and translations of the inscriptions will afford fresh materials of. a trustworthy charac- ter for the epigraphist and philologist.’? The princi- pal group of rock-temples of western India is the magnificent series at Elura, consisting of splendid representatives of the three classes, Baudha, Brah- manical, and Jaina cave-temples. The village of Elura is in the Nizam’s territory, about fourteen miles west of Aurangabid. Of this group, M. Bau- drillart says, ‘‘ All commentary grows pale before these magnificent ruins. Here the development of the plastic arts and of public religious luxury amongst the Hindus receives the most striking attestation ‘in the magnificence of these temples, in the infinite diversity of their details, and the minute variety of their carvings.” : nit — The Ottawa field-naturalists’ club held the first soirée of their winter coutse on Thursday, Dec. 6, when the president, Dr. H. B. Small, delivered his inaugural address. After remarks on the past opera- tions of the club, and suggestions as to its future management, he gave an excellent summary of past and present systems of the classification of the ani- mal kingdom. The necessity of a knowledge of this character was strongly urged, in order that a just conception might be obtained of the relations of the different members of our fauna, and narrowness be avoided by those pursuing special studies. In his opinion, many persons who commenced the study of natural history abandoned it after a short time solely because, through ignorance of the relations of various objects, they failed to become imbued with that love of nature which the more carefully educated student possesses. An interesting dfscussion ensued on the address, in which several members shared. His excel- lenecy the Marquis of Lansdowne, governor-general of Canada, has consented to become patron of the club. — At the annual meeting of the Boston zoélogical society, held Dec. 4, 1883, the following officers were elected for 1884: president, F. C. Bowditch; vice- president, F. H. Brackett; secretary, R. Hayward; treasurer, A. OC. Anthony; librarian, H. Savage. —In the Iowa weather bulletin for November, at- tention is called to ‘‘ The most beautiful phenomena oftheentiremonth. . . the varying and brilliant tints of sunset during the last five days of the month.” These brilliant sunsets seem to have been noticed over the whole country. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 46. The prediction is made, that ‘‘the winter now beginning will probably be a moderate or mild win- ter for Iowa and the adjacent parts of the north- west. The observations of the past ten years make the aboye probability very high, and, taking into ac- count the entire series of forty years’ observations, the chances for this winter proving a severe one are less than one in twenty.” — One of the most excellent of the familiar British museum catalogues is that lately published of the Batrachia, Gradientia, and Apoda, in the British museum, by Mr. George A. Boulenger. This work ' a “a is called a ‘ second edition’ of the catalogue of the same animals, published in 1850, by Mr. John Edward Gray; but it is a second edition only in name, as very little of Gray’s work remains in it. The material studied by Boulenger (comprising ninety-seven of the one hundred and thirty-three species recognized, in- stead of forty-three) is far greater than that at Gray’s disposal, and the character of the work done by the younger author is far higher. The classification adopted by Boulenger agrees in many respects with that of Professor Cope; but some of the families and genera adopted by the latter are here given lower rank. The commonly accepted rules of zodlogical nomenclature are carefully followed by Mr. Boulenger, who evidently does not consider his own whims or prejudices, or even the traditions of the British museum, as forming a law higher than the law of priority. Among the changes of current nomenclature con- sidered necessary by Mr. Boulenger, we may note the substitution of the generic name ‘Molge Merrem’ for the later ‘ Diemyctylus’ or ‘ Notophthalmus,’ for our common red or green newt or ‘ evet;’ of ‘ Cryp- tobranchus Leuckart’ for the ‘ hellbender,’ instead of the later ‘ Menopoma;’ and of the name ‘ Necturus maculatus Raf.’ for the ‘mud-puppy,’ instead of ‘ Menobranchus ’ or ‘ Necturus lateralis.’ An instructive discussion is given of the geograph- ical distribution of the Batrachia, the geographical divisions with that group coinciding very closely with those recognized in the distribution of the fresh- water fishes. ; — The Society of naturalists of the eastern United States will hold its second meeting at Columbia col- lege, New-York City, Dec. 27, at ten A.M. —Gen. Richard D. Cutts, first assistant superin- tendent of the U.S. coast-survey, died at Washing- ton, Dec. 13, at the age of sixty-six. Gen. Cutts. was born in Washington, and was connected with the coast-survey the greater part of his life. During the war he served on the statf of Gen. Halleck. — On the 25th and 26th of October, there fell at Hilo, Hawaii, 17;\/) inches of rain in twenty-two hours, by rain-gauge. — The December number of Van Nostrand’s engi- neering magazine contains an announcement, that, as the publication of the magazine has continually entailed a loss, the magazine will not be continued after the coming year, unless an increased support. should justify it. That a magazine of such great. merit should succeed is most heartily to be wished. ieee cee ee Bee, Ta Fi: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1883, THE CHIEF SIGNAL-OFFICER’S REPORT. Tue report proper of the chief signal-officer of the army for the year ending June 30, 1883, has been published in advance of the complete volume, which will contain the usual appen- dices. When compared with those of previous years, it presents a marked and most gratifying contrast. The useless and tiresome repetition of much that has appeared regularly since the organization of the service is no longer in- dulged in; and, in fact, the present report is brief, fresh, and vigorous. It is pleasant to see, that, among the various topics discussed, the first place is given to ‘ Instruction in meteorology.’ Although somewhat crippled by lack of sufficient appropriation, this work has not been allowed to retrograde; and the encouraging fact is noted, that, out of a hundred and seventy-two enlistments made during the past two years, fifty-three were college gradu- - ates. Gen. Hazen argues ably and pointedly against the inadequate provision made by the last Congress. The separation of the signal- service from the army proper, as far as its support from the general appropriation goes, undoubtedly left the service in a worse condi- tion, even, than was intended by those who sought to reduce its expenditures. The-result has been, that a number of stations have neces- ‘sarily been closed, and much important work of the weather bureau has been suspended. It is certainly to be hoped that it may receive more generous treatment at the hands of the present Congress. ' An interesting résumé of the scientific work of the weather bureau is given, which indicates a commendable activity in that direction. One of the most important announcements is, that a new standard of thermometry has been adopted ‘* which no longer agrees with that of the Yale No. 47,— 1883. ‘ ° college observatory, but approaches more near- ly to that of the International bureau of weights and measures.’’ Another is, that steps have been taken to inaugurate in the immediate future a series of elaborate observations upon atmospheric electricity. The continuation of the publication of ‘ Professional papers’ by members of the scientific corps is noted, one of the» most important of which is that on ‘ Movements of the atmosphere,’ by Professor Ferrel. It is gratifying to observe throughout the report, that scientific meteorology is receiv- ing a recognition to a degree much greater than formerly. A brief history of the unfortunate Greely expedition is presented, and the statement made that it is intended to apply for an appro- priation to enable another relief expedition to be sent out in 1884. The report covers twenty-two pages, instead of three or four times that number, as was the case in previous years; but, as a report of progress for the year, it is much more yaluable than its predecessors. A similarly judicious treatment of the appendices and meteorological summaries, which will follow this report, would bring the whole into a much more useful and manageable form, and would not be the least important of the many reforms introduced into the service by its present chief, ROMALEA MICROPTERA. Snoutp the return of spring be early, and the winter just passed an open one, a rambler in the meadows of southern Louisiana is very likely, during the middle of February, or per- haps even earlier, to have his attention drawn to curious little colonies of red and black grasshoppers. These are the young of Romalea microptera. Until this summer I never saw a living adult specimen of this handsome insect, and my ex- amination of it had been contined to a few individuals in alcohol. No sooner, however, had I thoroughly examined one of these little 812 red and black colonists. than it struck me that they must be the young of the great black grasshopper I had seen in spirit. This was subsequently confirmed for me through the kindness of Mr. L. O. Howard, of the Agricul-. tural departnent at Washington. One day last March, during the first part of the month, while on one of my collecting excursions in this country, my way lay through an extensive eypress-swamp. ‘The only good footing was along a low, straight embankment, that had been made by the earth thrown out to dig a canal, to which it now formed the bank on one side. It was composed of a dry, black soil, upon which the new spring grass and the ear- lier plants had just commenced to make their appearance. It was here that I first came across a family, or brood rather (for no old ones are to be found at this time of the year), of the young grasshoppers in question. They ex- tended obliquely across my path in nearly a straight line, about half a yard in length, and from three or four to a dozen or more indi- viduals in width. Where small dry twigs oc- curred, or blades of grass, in their course, they completely covered them, and were so. packed together that in some parts of the group they crowded each other a good deal, When first discovered, little or no activity among them was apparent; but no sooner did I commence to lay in a store of specimens than the sur- vivors of my attack immediately began to hop off in all directions, obliging me yery soon to make single eaptures.. At this stage of their growth, these insects are about of the same size, having an average length of a centimetre their general color being a deep, shiny black. This is set off by fine “lines of brilliant ver- milion, occurring at different. places on the body. One strip extends mesiad, the entire length of the dorsal aspect, from a point be- tween the antennae to the posterior extremity of the abdomen; another bounds, on either side for a short distance, the hinder margin of the prothorax; while the same is found behind the whole length of each of the hind- femora. The lower and posterior angle of the epicranium is also bordered by the same color as is its inferior margin in front, and a line that extends down from the eye on either side to join it. Finally we observe that each abdominal ring is emarginated in the same way, along the ridges of the pleurite portions, below the spiracles. At this age the antennae are half as long as the body. A tew weeks later, when they are abont double the size I have just described, we begin to observe in these collections, which are ap- SCIENCE. . {(Vou. IL., No. 47. parently all of the same crop, some specimens considerably larger than the general run. These may be females, but this I cannot posi- tively assert: though, as the insect grows, these larger ones maintain their size over the oth- ers; and later in the year we find them to be females, notwithstanding the sexes at these times seem to be pretty equally divided in numbers. In the middle of June, a field in the vicinity of New Orleans, where the grass.had grown to be about waist-high, was cov vered in one or two places of no gre at extent with these erass- hoppers. They now ranged from four to five centimetres in length, and could be seen at sev- eral hundred feet distance. Other varieties of plants were covered with them; but I found none on the ground, unless they were acci- dentally knocked down, or jumped down when one failed in his efforts to capture them. At these times they are yery sluggish, emitting no sound or note that I ever he: ard, and do not scem to be feeding on the vereta- tion upon which they congregate. T heir col- ors are now somewhat changed; and, though the black is as deep and shiny as ever, the red gradually fades to a brilliant orange, and a small pair of dull black wings commences to make its appearance. In the country about New Orleans, Roma- lea seems to attain its full growth some time in the early part of July. This is denoted by the general appearance and habits of the insect: certain parts of his exoskeleton have become firm and hard, and all his structures and organs bear evidence of maturity. They are no longer found in groups in the meadows and forests, but dispersed, and occurring in all sorts of localities. Hundreds of them are found invading the cow-paths and roadways: others climb on fences and trees. Many still are yet observed, though now usually singly, on high grass and piant-stalks ; and these we may easily discern at a long distance in the open fields. Even our houses are not altogether exempt, at this season, from this black-mailed vagrant. Many are killed by being trodden upon, or accidentally crushed in other ways ; for they are slow to get out of one’s road, and disinclined to jump much, —a feat in which the males, from their lighter weight, far exceed the larger and heavier females. It is about this time of the year that we first begin to notice any thing approaching an affaire @ amour on the part of this now truly handsome insect. We now see many couples apparently regardless of those who behold their awkward and highly fantastic addresses. ‘The DECEMBER 28, 1883.] only sound that I have ever heard this grass- hopper give vent to, is now indulged in by the male. It consists simply of a series of pecul- iar hisses (this word expresses it better than any thing else), and is only heard when we seize and handle one of them, or during their mating. The sound seems to be produced largely by the wings; for these members are elevated at this time, as I have shown them in -my plate, where the male exhibits his beautiful hind-wings, — a relief to his otherwise sombre tints that is only to be experienced on such occasions. Iam of the impression that Romalea does not confine itself to any particular diet, but is rather a general feeder, choosing such plants as happen to fall in its way. Some of them, that I kept alive for several days in a large box, fed upon almost any thing in the shape of vege- table growth that I offered them. This view seems to be sustained by the report of Mr. L. O. Howard, who saw them in August in immense numbers in the rice-fields about the city of Savannah ; ‘ yet they seemed to do little damage to the rice.’ } This observer tells us in the same report, that they are known in that locality among the people as the ‘ lubber grasshopper,’ whereas, throughout this section of the country, they are called by every one the ‘ devyil-horse.’ Per- haps, if at one of their grand councils they had a choice in the matter, it would be hard for them to decide which was the prettier name, and no doubt they would vote unanimously to select some other one. It has never been my fortune to find exam- ples of the black variety of the female in south- ern Louisiana, as observed by entomologists elsewhere.” On the 28th of last July, while engaged in looking for a specimen of the prothonotary war- bler, which I had just brought down with my cane-gun from a magnolia under which I stood, my attention was attracted by a large female Romalea, with part of her abdomen buried in the ground, and evidently in the act of deposit- ing her eggs. A chapter in the history of this insect at once flashed across my mind; and, in my undue eagerness, I removed her at once from the little excavation she was in on the ground ; but the most careful search afterwards was not rewarded by the discovery of a single egg. However, the satisfaction was afforded me, at the subsequent post mortem of the specimen in question, of finding her ovaries containing upwards of fifty bright-yellow, spin- dle-shaped eggs, each about a centimetre long. 4 Report commiss. agric., 18S'-82, p. 138. 2 Ibid., p. 138. SCIENCE. 813 This circumstance convinced me that Roma- lea microptera deposits its eggs in the ground ; and from that time I did not allow an oppor- tunity to slip in searching for them. My interest in this matter was only increased by receiving a letter, a few days afterwards, from Mr. Howard, in which he informed me that it was not known where this grasshopper laid its eggs. I am sorry to say that I have not had the opportunity to examine the reports made by Glover upon this insect, in the report of the Department of agriculture for 1872, kindly called to my attention by my correspond- ent, nor the mention made of it in Ashmead's ‘ Orange insects,’ also referred to by him.? My search was, however, afterward reward- ed; for on the 15th of August, while passing through a long, flat meadow a few miles from New Orleans, [ came, at one end of it, to a lit- tle low mound about ten yards in extent, com- posed of a dry black earth, that was cracked and fissured in many directions by a sun that streams cown here almost as mercilessly as in the tropics. Many tall weeds and grasses surrounded this miniature hillock; and others grew upon it. Romalea had made this elevation its head- quarters, and it was at the same time a rendez- vous for many couples who had apparently postponed their honeymoons. The importance of the occasion was evident; for there was not a male on the ground, to say nothing of the majority who were perched up in the weeds, but was strutting about in the most business- like manner, or trying to do so on their perches in the latter. Whatever part of the entertain- ment these sable gentlemen entered into, they constantly kept up a very audible buzzing racket with their wings, which they elevated and lowered at few seconds’ intervals, show- ing the inferior carmine pair each time they did so, with telling effect. At these times they assume the position in which I have drawn one in the plate, walking about in a stilted manner, but bearing, withal, a dignified mien, rattling their wings, and paying their court to the quieter and more sedate opposite sex. Some of the females kept apart, and bore the appearance of being dejected, tired of the gayeties of the season, and otherwise bored by the proceedings that were going on everywhere about them. It was the sight of these satiated dames that soon brought the thought to my 11 have since ascertained that Mr. Charles R. Dodge, of the Agricoltural department of Washington, has raised the young of Romalea from cgys that were laid by specimens he kept in continement. He published his observations in the Rural Caro- hinian (April, 1874, p. 363, vol. v., no. vii.), Charleston, 8.C.; and subsequently in the “ield and forest (ii. 1877, p. 160), Wash- ington, D.C. 814 mind, that perhaps they laid their eggs here too; and acting immediately upon this, as well as the suggestive fissures in their camp- ing-ground caused by the sun, I proceeded to investigate those likely places in which they might deposit their ovicular treasures. These rents presented every stage of being filled in from one cause or another; and I had hardly commenced to scratch out the earth from one that was partially in this condition, than I came across masses of their eggs. They were not easily observed at first, as I turned them out with the stick I used in searching for them, from the fact that they resembled lumps of earth, as this substance adhered to their entire surface, either dusted over, or in little fragments, which latter rendered the resem- blance still more deceptive. My plate repre- sents one of these masses, that has been well cleaned off, in the lower right-hand corner (marked A). I have four before me that were collected at the time of my observations, and one of these is that figured in the plate. The first of these masses that I pick up con- tains about thirty-five eggs, of a like size and shape to those removed from the body of a female several weeks before. ‘They are in one rather irregular layer, being placed roughly parallel to each other, and entirely incased by the pellets of earth that have adhered to the mass. No true ege-pod was observed to en- close them ; but, judging from the way in which the eggs of other large grasshoppers are laid, no doubt further observations will prove its existence. The eggs of this lot are all sound, and in an apparently safe condition till the time of hatching, as they were several inches below the surface of the ground. In the next collec- tion the mass is of a circular form, with the ego's arranged pretty much as we found them in the first lot. Here, however, they are quite distinct, being simply dusted over with a little earth; and I find several of them have been opened at the sides, and their contents re- moved, apparently by ants or other insects. The two remaining masses are essentially of the same description as those we have just de- scribed. One is a little different in shape, being oblong instead of circular. This form may have been forced upon it from the narrowness of the fissure in which the eggs of this lot were laid. Of these four deposits, we may say that they contain an average of thirty eggs apiece ; and this statement, no doubt, will be very near the correct one for the usual number found in such masses. Examining one of these eggs under a two- inch objective, we find it composed of an outer SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 47, coat, brown in color, fibrous in texture, and about 0.1 of a millimetre in thickness. The little fibres are placed side by side, and vertical to the surface of the egg. This coat fractures off in small pieces quite easily, and, in so doing, exposes the thin membranous and transparent inner coat, which allows one to see through it the amber-colored contents of the ege proper, which are of a viscid character and of about the consistency of old olive-oil. This was the only occasion upon which I ~ ever succeeded in finding any of the eggs of. this grasshopper ; and I am unable at the pres- ent writing to say how many times they de- posit during a season, or how often Romalea moults during the same period. It was my intention, when I commenced this paper, to enter to some extent upon the anat- omy of this insect ; but the idea was eventually abandoned from the fact that the anatomy of locusts and grasshoppers has been very ably and extensively worked up by many entomolo- gists : so, to enter upon this subject at allin the present case would entail a minute study of details and comparisons that would result in carrying’ my paper much beyond its intended limits. Then, too, so far as the external ap- pearance of Romalea is concerned, I have made every effort to convey a correct idea in my plate, both of the male and the female; and this work has been most carefully and beauti- fully reproduced by my engravers, Messrs. T. Sinclair and Son of Philadelphia, — a firm to whom our scientific men are under so many obligations for faithful reproductions of their work. This sketch, in its present form, then, is offered to the readers of Scrmncr as a con- tribution to the life-history of Romalea microp- tera; and it is hoped that in it at least a few facts will be discovered that will prove of interest to entomologists. : R. W. SHurerpr, Captain Medical corps, U.S.A. RESOLUTIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL GEODETIC COMMISSION IN RELATION TO THE UNIFICATION OF LONGI- TUDES AND OF TIME. Tue seventh general conference of the In- ternational geodetic association held at Rome, and at which representatives of Great Britain, together with the directors of the principal astronomical and nautical almanacs and a delegate from the Coast and geodetic survey of the United States, have taken part, after having deliberated upon the unification of longitude by the adoption of a single initial pth 1A8 lair & Son, Lith. Phils Sin RW. Shofelat. del MICROPTERA ROMALBA he rie all Oe OAs Qe jee Ta Ae ARREARS EW le DECEMBER 28, 1883.] meridian, and upon the unification of time by the adoption of a universal time, has agreed upon the following resolutions : — 1°. The unification of longitude and of time is desirable as much in the interest of the sci- ences as in that of navigation, of commerce, and of international communications. The scientific and practical utility of this reform far outweighs the sacrifice of labor and the difficulties of re-arrangement which it would entail. It should, then, be recommended to the governments of all the interested states to be organized and confirmed by an international convention, to the end that hereafter one and the same system of longitudes should be em- ployed in all institutes and geodetic bureaus, for general geographic and hydrographic charts, as well as in astronomical and nautical alma- nacs, with the exception of those made to pre- serve a local meridian; as, for instance, the almanacs for transits, or those which are needed to indicate the local time, such as the estab- lishment of the port, ete. 2°. Notwithstanding the great advantages which the general introduction of the decimal division of a quarter of the circle in the ex- pressions of the geographical and geodetic. co-ordinates and in the corresponding time- expressions is destined to realize for the sciences and their applications, it is proper, through considerations eminently practical, to pass it by in considering the great measure of unification proposed in the first resolution. However, with a view to give satisfaction at the same time to very serious scientific con- siderations, the conference recommends, on this occasion, the extension, by the multiplication and perfection of the necessary tables, of the application of the decimal division of the quadrant; at least, for the great operations of numerical calculations for which it presents in- contestable advantages, even if it is wished to preserve the old sexagesimal division for the observations, for charts, navigation, ete. 3°. The conference proposes to governments to select for the initial meridian that of Green- wich, defined by a point midway between the two pillars of the meridian instrument of the observatory of Greenwich ; for the reason that that meridian fulfils, as a point of departure for longitudes, all the conditions wished for by science, and because, being at present the best known of all, it offers the most chances of being generally accepted. 4°. It is suitable to count the longitudes, starting from the meridian of Greenwich, in the sole direction from west to east. 5°. The conference recognizes for certain SCIENCE. 815 scientific wants, and for the internal service in the great administrations of routes of com- munication, —such as the railways, steamship- lines, telegraphic and post routes, —the utility of adopting a universal time, along with local or national time, which will continue necessa- rily to be employed in civil life. 6°. The conference recommends as the point of departure of universal time and of cosmo- politan dates the mean noon of Greenwich, which coincides with the instant of midnight or with the commencement of the civil day, under the meridian situated twelve hours, or a hundred and eighty degrees, from Green- wich. It is agreed to count the universal time from 0 hour to 24 hours. 7°. Itis desirable that the states which, with a view to adhere to the unification of longi- tudes and of time, find it necessary to change their meridians, should introduce the new sys- tem of longitudes and of hours as soon as possible. It is equally advisable that the new system should be introduced without delay in teach- ing. 8°. The conference hopes, that, if the entire world agrees upon the unification of longitudes and of hours by accepting the meridian of Greenwich as the point of departure, Great Britain would find in this fact an additional motive to make, on its part, a new step in favor of the unification of weights and meas- ures by adhering to the Convention du métre of the 20th of May, 1875. 9°. These resolutions will be brought to the knowledge of the governments, and recom- mended to their favorable consideration, with an expression of a hope that an international convention — such as the government of the United States has proposed — for confirming the unification of longitudes and of time should ~ be decided upon as soon as possible. ORIGIN OF THE MESODERM. Tue origin and composition of the mesoderm has been the subject of perhaps more discus- sion than any other single point in. the whole range of embryology. Observers have given the most conflicting statements, for the most part due to incomplete observations ; but now we are at last in a position to eliminate many of the false descriptions and to harmonize fairly well those we must regard as correct. The first important advance was accom- plished by His, who made the fundamental dis- covery that the mesoderm is not homogeneous, 816 but double, in its origin. The ectoderm, ento- derm, and part of the mesoderm, he distin- guished under the common name of‘ archiblast,’ from that portion of the mesoderm which is related to the connective-tissue group (connec- tive tissue proper and endothelia), and which he supposed to grow from the yolk (in the chick) into the archiblastic tissue or cells, which, from the first, are constituent elements of the embryo. His maintained that the parablast- cells were derived from the white elements of the yolk, but in that respect he is believed to be in error; nevertheless to His belongs the great honor of having first insisted upon the duplex development of the middle germ-layer. This knowledge is the key to the solution of one of the fundamental problems of animal morphology. The researches of Professor His have been confined to vertebrates. that his views would have been modified in many details, if he had included the lower types, also, in his investigations. The discoveries of others, however, have gradually made it clear that among invertebrates, also, the twofold composition of the mesoderm exists. The path to this generalization may be said to have opened out upon the announcement by Alex- ander Agassiz that in echinoderms the lining of the body-cavity and water-vascular system is derived from the entoderm. Selenka and others have since shown that the rest of the mesoderm is derived from scattered and isolated cells, which are thrown off from the other layers into the space between the ectoderm and ento- derm. It was thus clearly shown that in this class of animals the mesoderm primitively consists of two epithelial evaginations and of scattered and independent cells of amoeboid character. The fundamental importance and the far-reaching significance of this discovery were unfortunately not appreciated at the time. For several years past I have been accumu- lating materials for a work on ‘ Comparative histology,’ and have meanwhile directed my at- tention chiefly to the classification and genesis of tissues. These preliminary studies led me to various conclusions, among which was the conviction that amoeboid cells were the primi- tive representatives of the mesoderm, and that from them was derived a large part of the mesodermic tissues. This view I published in 1879 ;* but the article has, so faras I am aware, been entirely overlooked by subsequent writers, and I therefore venture to call especial atten- tion to it now, as the opinion I then advocated _2 Minot: Preliminary notice of certain laws of histological differentiation. Proc. Boston soc. nat. hist. xx. 207. SCIENCE. One cannot but feel. (Vou. LI., No. 47. has since become a current embryological gen- eralization. To the cells I gaye the name of ‘ mesamoeboids.’ The investigations of Hatschek, whose bril- liant discoveries have not yet received their deserved recognition, have revealed that in Bryozoa, Mollusea, Annelida, and Amphioxus, the mesoderm arises, 1, from cells, such as we have seen may be classed under the head of mesamoeboids ; 2, from two paired masses of cells, his ‘ mesodermstreifen,’ whose origin from the entoderm is rendered probable in all. cases, and certain in some, by known charac- teristics. These stripes either have from the first, or soon acquire, a distinctly epithelial structure. Hatschek appears to have recog- nized the bearing of his observations nearly as we conceive it now; and to him, I think, we should accord the honor of having first clearly and definitely recognized the dual histogenesis of the mesoderm. 'F. M. Balfour, in his writings, particularly in his ‘ Treatise on comparative embryology,’ made the next important step by pointing out that the vertebrate mesoderm probably arose as a pair of diverticula from the gastrula cavity ; and he gave a new meaning to, and justification of, this theory, by insisting upon the homology between the blastopore of the Ichthyopsida and the primitive streak of the Amniota; for from the walls of the former, as well as from the sub- stance of the latter, the paired outgrowths of the middle layer arise. The deficiency in Bal- four’s presentation of the subject lies in his failure to recognize the importance of the mes- amoeboids. . ; The brothers Hertwig have published a series of contributions to the solution of the problem, and have embodied their general results in an article entitled the ‘Coelomtheorie.” As we haye shown, their predecessors had pretty well established the necessity of regarding the meso- derm as consisting of two parts, — jirst, the paired epithelial portion derived from the en- toderm, forming the lining of the body-cavity, and giving origin to the peritoneum, muscle- plates, genital glands, ete. ; secondly, scattered cells, giving origin to the connective tissue, the endothelia, vessels of the circulation, the blood, and lymph. ‘These conclusions, how- ever, had never been systematically collated and coherently presented. The brothers Hert- wig performed this task with characteristic ability and success. Guided by their own im- portant original researches on several animal types, and utilizing the results of others, they succeeded in demonstrating the prevalence of the same composition of the mesoderm in the ’ three or four rows of small cells. Png 1 ~ a ‘DECEMBER 28, 1883.] majority of animals. Their own most impor- tant addition to our knowledge appears: to me to be their analysis of the morphology of mus- cular tissue, by which they removed the most important difficulty against the final acceptance of the generalization. While we thus recognize the great services rendered by the brothers Hertwig, we are impelled also to express our regret that they have not been more generous in their acknowledgment of the achievements of previous investigators ; for their theory was mainly the result of a judicious combination of what had been before published. To them belongs the merit of ripening the fruit which was already formed. To the mesamoeboid portion of the meso- derm the Hertwigs gave the very appropriate name of ‘mesenchyma.’ For the epithelial por- tion no satisfactory name has yet come into use : therefore I venture to propose ‘ mesothelium.’ In applying this generalization which we have been considering 1o vertebrates, difficul- ties and objections were encountered. To set these aside, Professor Oscar Hertwig has pub- lished two special researches, the second of which appeared recently, and is reproduced in abstract below. In this review, only a few salient points of the history of this most important of recent embryological discoveries are given ; but I can- not close without a strong expression of my regret at being unable to notice many valuable contributions to the subject, — a pleasure which ~ the limited space at my disposal compels me to unwillingly forego. In continuation of the extended researches on the origin of the mesoderm previously given to the world by his brother and himself, Oscar Hertwig now pub- lishes the results of his investigations on the de- velopment of the middle layer in the frog, adding a discussion of its origin in other vertebrates. The early stages in the frog are described with great minuteness, and with far less concision and directness than we should have anticipated in any of Professor Hertwig’s writings. The essential points brought forward are the fol- lowing. In the first stage, while the blastopore still appears as a round white spot, the primitive darm (urdarm) has the well-known form, Its inferior and lateral boundaries are the cells of the entoderm; but along the dorsal line the cells offer a different histo- logical character, being pigmented, and consisting of In Triton, however, there is asingle row of high cylinder cells. This dorsal band includes the anlaye of the notochord, and is named by Hertwig ‘ chorda-entoblast.’? Around the blastopore the mesoderm is already present, forming a paired extension running forward as a lateral mass SCIENCE. 817 on either side, and a median division lying below the blastopore. Around the edges of the blastopore all the layers are united: throughout the remainder of its extent the mesoderm is separated by a narrow space from both earch and entoderm. The mesoderm and the chorda-entoblast are both histologically simi- lar to the ectoderm; and Hertwig, on that account, believes they are both derived from the outer germ- layer. (This conclusion we think is founded upon an insufficient basis. ) In the next stage the blastopore remains merely as a white point, and the medullary folds and median dorsal furrow appear. The notochord is developed under the dorsal furrow as a thickening of the median portion of the chorda-entoblast, which butts against the ectoderm, so that the mesoderm is excluded from the axial line. Ultimately the lateral portion of the chorda-entoblast enters into the formation of the in- testinal wall; but in Triton the whole of this peculiar band is changed into the chorda, which, being formed by an invagination, exhibits a slit in transverse sec- tions of early stages. No such slit is seen in frogs. There is a fold formed at the lateral junction of the chorda-entoblast with the rest of the entoblast; and along that fold the entoderm is fused, without demar- eation, with the mesoderm. Around the blastopore the three layers still present essentially the same ar- rangement as before; the mesoderm has grown out around the whole ovum, except a small area on the ventral side, where the ectoderm and entoderm (yolk) are in immediate contact. In the next stage, when the whole length of the broad medullary groove is clearly marked out, and indeed in later stages also, the absolute independence of the notochord of the mesoderm, and its devel- opment out of and gradual separation from the chorda-entoblast, are to be clearly recognized (see the accompanying figure). In the region of the blasto- pore, where the mesoblast is continuous with the other layers, there are two projecting lips, on one side formed by the entoderm proper, on the other by the chorda-entoblast. These lips enclose a fissure be- tween them, which is a small evagination of the en- teric cavity into the mesoderm. ue Tass Lees Frontal section through a frog ovum in which the medullary ridges have begun to appear, nt, entoderm; enc, chorda-cn- toblast; ch, notochord; me, mesoderm; ec, ectoderm; NV, ner- yous system In a later stage the anus is developed behind the blastopore as a simple ectodermal invagination, the bottom wall of which breaks through. No such re- lations between the germ-layers have been found here, or elsewhere, as around the blastopore. The points, then, of special importance, brought out by Hertwig, are, 1°, the existence of the median dorsal 818 band of cells, the chorda-entoblast, entering into the formation of the entodermic wall, but resembling in character the ectodermal cells ; 2°, the develop- ment of the mesoderm as a paired outgrowth from the blastopore. In part second of his paper, Hertwig reviews the published investigations on the embryol- ogy of other classes of vertebrates. He accepts the homology of the primitive streak in Amniota with the blastopore. He is fairly successful in proving the same relations of the germ-layers to exist in all ver- tebrates. He also discusses the various objections advanced against the coelomtheorie, according to which the mesoderm is an epithelial Jayer, bounding the body-cavity. He draws from his observations and arguments the following conclusions: 1. The mesoblast grows as a continuous mass from acknowl- edged epithelial layers; 2. In all vertebrates there early appears a fissure in the mesoderm, limited pa- rietally and viscerally by epithelium, as can be espe- cially well seen in elasmobranch embryos; 3. From this epithelium are derived true epithelial membranes in the adult, from which are developed the perito- neum, kidneys, sexual glands, ete.; 4. The primitive mode of oriyin of the mesoderm is probably that de- scribed by Kowaleysky and Hatschek in Amphioxus, —an invagination of an epithelial membrane (en- toderm); 5. In the true vertebrates the mesoderm grows out as a solid mass, in which the fissure ap- pears later. This must be regarded as a secondary modification, for we frequently find hollow organs making their first appearance as solid anlagen; e.g., the central nervous system of teleosts, many sense- organs, and most glands. These considerations lead collectively to the final conclusion that the meso- dermic plates are morphologically epithelial evagina- tions homologous with those of the invertebrates. CHARLES SED@WICK Minot. ACOUSTIC ROTATION APPARATUS. In a recent number of the Zeitschrift fiir instru- mentenkunde, Dr. V. Dvorak gives an account of the various forms of apparatus which E have been devised to show attrac- tion or repulsion due to sound- waves, or to gain a continuous rotation. Such experiments require a good volume of sound for suc- cess. That this may be obtained, not only should the tuning-fork be in accord with the resonator- box on which it is placed (the most convenient form of sound- ing-body for the purpose), but al- so the elastic system, consisting of tuning-fork and box, should be capable of vibrating in unison with the fork and the air in the resonator. The three sounds are ealled the fork, the air, and the InTorder to get the last, the resonator wood tone. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 47. should be stuffed with cotton-wool, and a piece of cork put between the prongs of the fork ; then, by rapping on the top of the fork, the whole system is vibrated very much as it would be by the up-and- down motions of the lower part of the fork when free. By cutting away the walls of the resonator to make them thinner, the system may readily be brought to the right pitch. In most of the resona- tors in common use the wood tone is too low, owing to the wood being already too thin. The fork used by Dr. Dyorik was G, having 392 vibrations per second. It weighed 265 grams. Asa resonator, an ordinary pine box was used, about 13.5 cm. long, 11 em. broad, and 10.5 em. high. In one side a round hole was cut, » Jarge enough to make the air tone of the right pitch. The wood was S§ mm. thick. From the top and bot- tom it was shaved off for the purpose ex- plained above. The dimensions of the box were entirely acciden- tal, but proved to be good. By using an electro- magnet to keep the fork in continuous vibration, the results are naturally more sure. The form of magnet which has proved satisfactory is shown in fig. 1.. His the magnet, with a core made of iron plates. This magnet is placed between the prongs of the fork, and is held by the wooden arm a ¢, to the lower end of which is fas- tened the resonator K. At b the arm is bound toa firm support, so that the system of fork and resonator is perfectly free. The resonator-wheel (fig. 2) is the first form of ro- tating apparatus described. It consists, asshown in the illustration, of four glass resonators on the four arms of a wheel. For a fork of 392 vibrations, the spheres should be about 44 mm. in diameter, with openings 4 mm. across. Rotation was obtained with the fork 40 em. away. As a modification of this wheel, a rotating resonator (fig. 3) may be made of a flat cylindrical pasteboard box, having a number of side-openings, each ending in a short piece of tubing of size to make the resonator respond to the fork, When suspended by a silk thread, h, such a resonator Fig. 2. Fie. 3. ‘ es _ : ; DECEMBER 28, 1883.] can be easily put in rotation ; iis a needle to rest in a hole in a piece of lead, to prevent oscillation. The dimensions given are: a b, 70 mm.; bc, 36 mm.; d/, 19mm. The tubing openings were 8 mm. long and *6 mm. in diameter. The sound-radiometer (fig. 4) is readily made. In cardboard about 8 mm. thick, holes are punched at intervals of 6 mm. with the punch of the form shown at A. When prepared in this way, the card- board will be repelled if presented to the resonator with the small ends of the holes toward it, and at- tracted when reversed. To make these effects more marked, the punch and die shown at B and C may be used on moistened cardboard to form conical holes with cylindrical ends. The conical holes alone show no effects. By arranging the pieces of pasteboard as in D, or better as in E, a rapid rotation may be obtained. The apparatus shown in fig. 5 is called a sound-wind-mill. A Helm- holtz resonator, a b, is placed before the opening of the box-resonator. Out of the smaller end, a, a stream of air will be blown when the fork is vi- brated, and its existence shown by the rotation of the windmill, h k. The dimensions of the Helm- holtz resonator for G are : diameter, 80 mm. ; the opening at b,16 mm. ; ata,2mm. This last is very important. It seems odd that the resonator with two openings may be replaced by such as shown at R with only one. The opening may face in any di- rection, provided the. windmiii is swably placed, and still the mill will turn. When the opening is turned toward the resonator-box, the distance between the resonators may be as great as halfa metre. The di- mensions and form of the ballareimportant. A suit- able one may be made by grinding off the top of a glass globe 50 mm, in diameter, and covering the opening with a very thin metal plate in which there is a hole SCIENCE. Fig. 4. 819 3.5 mm. across. The puffs of air coming from the opening ! are vortex-rings, which may easily be shown by filling the ball with smoke. By putting one of the wings of the sound-radiome- ter before the box-resonator with the larger ends of the holes facing it and at a distance of 2 em. from it, the mill may be made to rotate by the puffs of air com- ing through the holes, which should be numerous. AURORAL EXPERIMENTS IN LAPLAND. Mr.*J. RAND CAPRON gives a brief account (The observatory, Sept.) of Professor Lemstriém’s experi- ments, quite similar to that which has already appeared in E Science. He thinks that Professor Lemstrém’s conclu- sion, that the height of auro- \ ras ‘‘has been generally over- i" estimated may probably open a lively discussion, as un- doubtedly his dictum will that ‘measurements of an aurora on a long base must be erroneous, as the observers never see the same aurora,’’’ He thinks, too, that the relation Professor Lemstrém believes himself to have proved, between movements of atmospheric electricity and the ‘variations of the magnetic elements,’ may be only apparent. Mr. Capron believes that the experiments described did “‘ collect and make apparent to the eyea true auroral glow, its spectroscopic character being at the same time tested and defined by experienced ob- servers.’’ He adds, ‘‘ Yet one cannot help feeling something of regret that, if only for further assur- ance, the wave-length of some one line seen was not (as far as we are aware) absolutely determined, on some occasions at least, and that the observations appear to rest only ona small instrument presumably without scale.” Mr. Capron’s article is important mainly for call- ing-renewed attention to the phosphorescence, or fluorescence, theory of the principal (yellow-green) line of the aurora spectrum. This theory, first proposed by Angstr6m, was advocated in the Phi- losophical magazine for April, 1875, by Mr. Capron, who is inclined to attribute the line to phospho- rescence, apparently on the following grounds; 19, The ‘phosphorescent appearance’ of the aurora; 2°. The fact that phosphorescence is capable of giy- ing quite sharply defined spectral lines, as shown by his observations with a phosphorescent yac- uum tube; 3°. The fact that the auroral line belongs to ‘the principal region of phosphores- cent light;’ 4°. ‘The observed circumstance that the electric discharge has a phosphorescent after- glow.’ Mr. Capron observed, moreover, that the auroral line lies in the region of a certain bright band in the spectrum of a phosphoretted hydrogen flame, though somewhat nearer the red end of the spectrum than is 820 the brightest part of this band, as shown in the accom- panying figure. “Tn this diagram (of a normal spectrum), curve a [which Mr, Capron calls the phosphorescence curve] is deduced from the spectrum of phosphoretted hydro- gen, curve b from Professor Angstrém’s spectrum of the violet pole of air-vacuum tubes; a u is the princi- pal auroral line.’’ This figure is apparently intended to represent the facts under ordinary laboratory con- ditions; but Mr. Capron states, that according to Le- coq de Boisbaudran, when the flame of phosphoretted hydrogen is artificially cooled, the bands of the spec- trum become intensified, and in such a way that the brightest portion of each band is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Mr. Capron appears to think, that, under the intense cold of the auroral re- gions, one of these bands might become the line a u. E. H. HAut. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Secular increase of the earth’s mass. Tue thoughtful and suggestive researches of Hbel- men and T. Sterry Hunt, on the chemical and geo- logical relations of the earth’s atmosphere," have led me to some further deductions, which seem to in- crease the interest in this field of inquiry. The gen- eral tendeney of these studies is to show that the chemical transformations in progress upon the earth involve the fixation of a larger volume of atmos- pheric constituents than could probably have ever existed in the atmosphere at one time, and that they must consequently have arrived from interplanetary space. U : 1. The carbonates. —It is generally agreed, as first shown by Hunt, that the carbonates of Jime and magnesia have arisen chiefly through the interactions between carbon dioxide of the atmosphere, the decom- posing silicates of the earth’s crust, and the chloride of calcium of the ocean. The carbon dioxide has therefore been contributed by the atmosphere. To _ what does this contribution amount? We may as- sume, without material error, that the carbonates here in question are all calcium carbonate, with a specific gravity of 2.72. Then, the mean pressure of the at- mosphere being about 14.7 pounds avoirdupois on a square inch, a little calewlation shows that an amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere sufficient to double its pressure would yield only 8.627 metres of limestone. An amount sufficient to cause a pressure of 80 atmospheres would suffice for the formation of limestones equal to only a fortieth (.02265) of the hundred thousand feet which, for this purpose, may be assumed as the thickness of the stratified rocks, But a pressure of 80 atmospheres at a temperature I See a memoir by T. Sterry Hunt in Amer. journ. sc., May, 1880, where references are given to numerous other publications. SCIENCE. (VoL. IL, No. 47. of 30° GC. produces liquefaction of carbon dioxide. The actual proportion of limestones and dolomites in the earth’s crust is about one-eighth, as I have shown by recent studies. This amount would yield, by the liberation of all its carbon dioxide, a pressure of 441.6 atmospheres. If we consider the limestones and dol- omites formed since the period of the coal-measures, the proportion required to yield, on the liberation of its carbon dioxide, a pressure of 80 atmospheres, would be only a twenty - second (.04469) of all the post-carboniferous strata. The actual proportion is about one-eighth, as for the whole stratified crust; and this would yield sufficient carbon dioxide to cause a pressure of 223.8 atmospheres. It is not credible that such amounts of carbon dioxide have eyer existed in the atmosphere at one time. Dur- ing the larger part of the aeons of car- bonate formation, animal life has existed in great abundance upon the earth; and this would have been impossible with 200 to 400 atmospheres of carbon di- oxide present. As the proportion of this gas in the existing atmosphere is only 44 parts in 10,000 by weight, 200 atmospheres of the gas would be 444,000 times the present proportion. It is scarcely more credible that the pressure of 200 to 400 atmospheres would have been compatible with either vegetable or animal organization, so similar as it was fundamen- tally to modern organization. As this large amount of carbon dioxide cannot be supposed derived from the earth’s crust, it must have been derived from in- terplanetary space. This would imply an addition to the earth’s mass of .0008806, which is about sy, part of the present mass. 2. The kaolinization of felspars. — Hunt has shown that the kaolinization of a layer of 51.66 metres of orthoclase, or its equivalent of quartzo-felspathic rocks, would result in 23.7 metres of kaoline, and would use up 10,333 kilograms of carbon dioxide per square metre of surface. This is the weight of the atmosphere. Now, the whole amount of felspathic decomposition during the sedimentary ages must much exceed 500 metres in vertical thickness of kao- linie deposits. But 500 metres of kaoline represent 21.1 atmospheres of carbon dioxide; and, assuming the mass of the atmosphere at ysp)a0n in relation to the earth, the carbon dioxide fixed in the processes of kaolinization would be .0000175826 of the total mass of the earth. 3. Decay of hornblende, pyroxene, and olivine. — Ac- cording to Hunt, the decay of 104 metres of such | minerals, or their equivalents in hornblendie and py- roxenic rocks, would yield carbon dioxide equal to 1 atmosphere: hence, if the earth’s erystalline rocks haye afforded 500 metres of hornblende and pyroxene, they must have fixed 48.387 atmospheres of carbon dioxide. This, in relation to the earth’s mass, is -0000403209. 4. Conversion of ferrous into ferric oxide. As Ebel- men states, the conversion of 21,357 kilograms of fer- rous oxide into 23,750 kilograms of ferric oxide would consume the whole of the 2,876 kilograms of oxygen in the atmosphere (more exactly, 1.007 atmospheres) covering a square metre. If, then, we suppose the existence over the earth of 1,000 metres of sediments derived from the decay of crystalline rocks contain- ing only one per cent of ferrous oxide, weighing, according to Hunt, 25,000 kilograms, this is 1.052 times the amount requisite to fix the oxygen in 1.007 atmospheres; that is, 10 metres of ferric oxide represent the fixation of 1.059 atmospheres of DECEMBER 28, 1883.] oxygen. This, in relation to the earth’s mass, is 5. Unoxidized carbon.— This occurs not only in coal-beds, but in pyroschists and petroleum. We find that the oxidation of a layer of carbon 0.7123 metre in thickness would use up all the oxygen in the at- mosphere. A layer 2.252 metres thick, and having a specific gravity of 1.25, if converted into carbon di- oxide, would exert a pressure of one atmosphere. This would amount to 2,267,000 tons of 2,240 pounds each on a square mile. Mr. J. L. Mott calculates that the amount of unoxidized carbon per square mile cannot be less, and is probably many times greater, than 3,000,000 tons. If we adopt this determination, it will imply a depth of 0.982 metre, and the propor- tion of the earth’s mass will be .00000036318. This is the amount of carbon dioxide which must be de- composed to yield a layer of carbon over the earth only a trifle over three feet in thickness, while it is probable that the carbonaceous deposits of the earth’s crust exceed this. Now, it will hardly be maintained that the uncombinea carbon of the earth’s crust was derived from any other source than the atmosphere, and mostly through the agency of vegetation. The earth’s atmosphere must therefore have contained all this amount of carbon dioxide. With the fixation of the carbon, the freed oxygen, it may be said, might have been employed, as far as it would go, in the formation of ferric oxide, whose demands upon the atmosphere have just been computed; but, as it would only satisfy z\5 of those demands, it is hardly neces- sary to consider the question. 6. Meteoric contribulions. —If, as commonly as- sumed, 400,000,000 meteors enter our atmosphere daily, an average weight of ten grains each would amount to a yearly addition of 93,170 tons. This, in 100,000,000 years, would amount to .000000001542 of the earth’s mass, and would form a film .292, or nearly #, of an inch thick, having a density of 2.5.1 Gathering together these various contributions to the earth’s mass during 100,000,000 years, we have the following : — 1. CO, represented by the carbonates . 0003896 2. CO, fixed in kaolinization of felspars 0000175826 8. CO, fixed in decay of hornblendie and au- giticrocks. . . . . +. + « + « 0000403209 4. O fixed in conversion of ferrous oxide . -0000008825 5. OO, represented by uncombined carbon -00000036318 - 6, Meteoric contributions . -000000001542 Aggregate -000439750722 This is an addition of zy, to the earth’s mass; and, in the present state of knowledge, it does not appear on what grounds assent can be withheld from the result, or some result of similar purport. It must be left with the astronomer to determine what relation this increase may sustain to the moon’s ac- celeration in its orbit and to other phenomena. It may be noted, however, that the remote secular reces- sion and retardation of the moon, which G, H. Darwin ‘has recently brought to view, would have been delayed by the cause here considered, and the time required for the attainment of the moon’s present relations would have been prolonged, but to what extent re- mains to be determined. The evidences disclosed by these recent researches, f the slow accession of gaseous and solid matters to the earth, possess a profound interest. It would al- most seem that the earth’s atmosphere is only so much of the intercosmical mixture of gases and vapors as the earth’s mass is capable of condensing around it, 1 The value given for this film in a note, p. 14, in my ‘ World- life,’ should be multiplied by 365}. ‘ SCIENCE. 821 and that the proportions of these gases are determined separately, each by its own weight and elasticity and by its relative abundance in space; so that, as any one becomes diminished by fixation in the planetary crust, new supplies arrive to keep the ratio constant. As under this view it is apparent that an atmosphere should be accumulated around the moon, even after the saturation of the pores of its rocks, it may be said that the moon’s mass and volume are such that her atmosphere would possess only y\;, or, according to Neison, xs, the density of the earth’s atmosphere; and this degree of tenuity might reduce the lunar atmospheric refraction to the small value actually observed. ALEXANDER WINCHELL. ‘Regulation of electromotive force. In one of the articles — the first, I think — recently published in Scrence (ii. 642) upon the subject of the electric light on the U. S. fish-commission steamer Albatross, the writer tells us that the brillianey of the Edison incandescent lamps is kept constant, when other lamps upon the circuit are lighted or extinguished, by placing an adjustable resistance in the circuit of the field-magnets of the dynamo-electric machine, ‘ whereby the internal and external resist- ances are balanced.’ The importance of the subject scarcely seems to warrant any more space being devoted to it than already has been. But the point that I bring up is not an immaterial one, such as whether the engine is on the port or the starboard side of the vessel: it is a question which involves interesting and important physical principles. The reason an adjustable resistance is required in the field-circuit of an Edison dynamo, in order to maintain a steady incandescence of the lamps, results from the fact that the armature has some resistance, This resistance is quite small, to be sure, but it has a considerable effect, nevertheless. In order that a multiple are system should be per- fect, so that the dynamo or generator would require no adjustment or regulation when lamps were turned on or off the circuit, it would be necessary that this generator should have absolutely no resistance: for, if it were possible to reduce the internal resistance to zero, then there would be no fall of potential within the machine itself; that is, the fall of potential would all be in the external circuit, and the difference of potential between the poles of the generator would be equal to the total electromotive force of the cir- cuit. In that case, all that is necessary is to keep the electromotive force constant; and then it follows, that any number of the lamps in the system may be lighted or put out without producing any fluctuation ‘whatever in the light of the other lamps, because the incandescence of a given lamp depends only upon the electromotive force with which it is supplied. Now, we know that the electromotive force gener- ated by a dynamo is constant, provided that the speed of rotation of its armature, and the intensity of the field-magnetism, are kept constant. The arma- ture is maintained at a constant speed because it is driven by a steam-engine furnished with a governor, the function of which is to secure a constant speed ;+ and the field-magnets have a constant strength be- eause the current which excites them is constant, since this current, like the current in the lamps, is produced by an electromotive force, which, by hy- pothesis, is constant. Let us now consider the case where the resistance of the armature is not zero (to which, of course, it 1 The speed would remain constant, but the power required would increase with the number of lamps in circuit. 822 never could be reduced), but is some small fraction of an ohm (say, .2 ohm), and suppose that there is a single lamp of 140 ohms’ resistance in circuit, and that the electromotive force is 100 volts: then 140 , ; 140.2 * 100 = 994 volts will be the fall of potential in the lamps, and only + volt in the armature. But suppose that there are 70 lamps of the same re- sistance (140 ohms) in circuit, instead of a single one: then the external resistance will be reduced to 140 70 = 2 ohms, and the fall of potential in the lamps 2 will only be 9.9 * 100 = 90+} volts, and 9;4 volts in the armature. Thus we see, that, when the number of lamps in cir- cuit is increased from 1 to 70, the difference of poten- tial available in the lamps is decreased from 99% to 90+? volts, a reduction of almost one-tenth; in conse- quence of which the candle-power of the lamps would be lowered at least one-third, and probably one-half. Of course, variations in the brightuess of the lamps of one-third, or one-tenth, or even one-twentieth, would not be permissible: therefore, in order to maintain the required steadiness of the light, it is necessary to raise the electromotive force of the dynamo as more lamps are put on, and to lower it as lamps are taken off. This is done by increasing or diminishing the strength of current in the circuit of the field-magnets by means of a resistance-box interposed in the circuit. This regulation of the electromotive force of dynamos by controlling the resistance of the field-circuit may be, and in fact has been, made automatic; but up to the present time it has more generally been done by hand. In what has gone before, I have said nothing about the resistance of the conductors which con- vey the current from the dynamo to the lamps. The effect of the resistance of any conductor which is common to two or more lamps — one of the main con- ductors, for example —is precisely the same as the effect of the resistance of the armature, which has been discussed above; but when a conductor supplies only a single lamp, then it does not have this effect. Of course there is a loss or fall of potential due to the resistance of the individual conducting-wires of each lamp; and of course the fall of potential in the lamp itself, and consequently its brightness, are there- by reduced. But this resistance does not introduce any irregularity: its effect in diminishing the light of the lamps is constant. Let us suppose that a conductor having a resist- ance of 140 ohms feeds a single lamp of 1.4 ohms’ resistance: then the loss in this conductor will be 1% of the useful fall of potential. But suppose that we now put 10 more lamps in circuit: then the loss in the conductors will be increased to over 10%; and assuming the useful fall of potential to be 100 volts, with a single lamp in circuit, it will only be about 90 volts with 11 lamps. The candle-power of the first lamp would drop at least 25% or 30% when the other 10 lamps were added. Thus it is, that, in a multiple are system of electric lighting, any resistance which is common to a number of lamps, whether in the armature or the conductors, causes fluctuations in the light of the lamps when other lamps are put on or off; whereas the resistance of the individual con- ductors of each lamp produces a loss of potential which is a constant fraction of the total potential, but does not introduce any unsteadiness. F, B. CRockErR. SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 47. Osteology of the cormorant. With respect to Mr. Jeffries’ criticism (Screncr, ii. 739) of my paper on cormorants, I beg to say that the occipital style of the cormorant is not an ossifica- tion in the tendon of any muscle ; that he is entirely wrong in his view of the homologies of what I call a - patella; and that, furthermore, I find myselémisquot- ed more than once. R. W. SHUFELDT. A dog plans and executes with reference to the future. Six weeks ago Prof. J. B. Thayer of this place re- turned from Ree Heights, Dakota, bringing with . him one of a litter of eight pups raised by a slut of the setter breed. The story which he relates to me of this pup’s mother is, it appears to me, worthy of record. The good mother appears to have discharged her arduous duties as only a mother can, and arrived with her eight babes at the time when they should be weaned. At this juncture, judging from the events reported to have followed, she seems to have con- ceived the idea that too many dogs were occupying the same claim, and that a distribution was desirable. Accordingly, she started one morning with three of her pups, and was observed by Miss Rosa Cheney, now of this place, running in the road toward their claim at a rate which made it impossible for the pups to keep pace with her. The dwelling where she lived, and another shanty on the adjoining corner of an- other claim, are situated one mile and three-fourths from the dog’s home. The mother reached the claims in advance of her babes, but no sooner had they ar- rived than she hurried on at her best pace. Miss Cheney reports that ‘‘ the puppies came up all out of breath, and apparently too tired to continue; but the smallest of the three followed on.’? Another claim was reached three-fourths of a mile beyond; and here Miss Cheney observed the mother stop until her panting babe came up, when she immediately set off again. A quarter of a mile beyond the last claim, the mother was observed to make a third halt as before, and then to pass on beyond the range of vision, towards Ree Heights, with the puppy still following her. Two days later the persistent mother, with her more persistent babe, was observed coming back; and Miss Cheney tells me that the little puppy appeared almost dead from fatigue. Some days later the dog led off two more of her pups, and succeeded in leaving them both; but in the mean time the two puppies left the first day were re- turned. A pup was also left at Professor Thayer’s claim, but was returned, and exchanged for another. Both Professor Thayer and Miss Cheney assure me that other efforts of the same kind were made by this dog, but with what results they are unable to say. After the puppies had been distributed, they were not forgotten; for the old dog used often to go and play with them. Professor Thayer mentions one in- stance of her coming and playing with the puppy left at his claim until it was very tired, when she lay down by the side of it; but, after it had gone to sleep, she quietly walked to the opposite side of the house, and then hurried away in the opposite direction from home for a distance of about forty rods, when she turned and went directly there, thus showing quite clearly that the thought of distributing her puppies was still uppermost in her mind. What events may have awakened this desire on the part of the mother, or what reasons she had for her acts, we do not know; but in her own mind I have no doubt the case was urgent and the way clear, if DECEMBER 28, 1883.] not also just. It would appear, not only that this dog must have thought her plan through, but that she must also have held it definitely in mind for several days while she executed it, thus indicating quite un- equivocally, it seems to me, that one animal at least, ranked lower than man, possesses the power of look- ing into the future and of executing plans deliberately laid with reference thereto; ‘‘ man is the only animal which has the power of looking into the future,’’ to the contrary notwithstanding. F. H. Kine. River Falls, Pierce county, Wis. Method for making electrical signals. When I first became connected with the Alabama agricultural and mechanical college, the recitation signals were made by means of electric bells, one in Fie. 1. each professor’s room. These were rung separately by pressing in succession as many push-buttons as there were bells. In order to complete the system, it was necessary to have one wire for each bell, and a return-wire running through the whole length of the system; and therefore only one bell could be rung at once. In the circuit there were twelve bells, about one-half mile of wire, and twelve one-gallon cells of Watson’s battery. One of the cadets of the college was delegated to sound the signals at the end of each fifty minutes, which was the length of the recitation hours. Sometimes he would ring too soon, and at other times several minutes too late. This was fre- quently annoying, particularly when an interesting Fie, 2. and important lecture was in progress, In the at- tempt to obviate this difficulty, the plan that I am about to describe was suggested to my mind. We have an excellent compensated clock that can SCIENCE. 823 be made to strike twice any multiple of five minutes. After adjusting this clock so as to make it strike every fifty minutes, 1 insulated it on a square of plate glass. I then made an oblong opening in the side of the wood- work about one inch long. This slit was made on a line with the ball of the striker, Through this hole I passed a copper wire, and fastened it securely to the hammer of the gong. In the end of the wire outside of the clock I made a loop, as shown at A, Fig. 1. A second wire, A B C, was attached to the first, as shown in the figure. A loop at B fits in a slit in the upright D, and a pin is inserted at B to hold the wire in position and at the same time allow the ends A and C to work up and down when the hammer of the clock strikes. The bottle C £ is partly filled with mercury. From this mercury-cup a wire, 2 W’, runs to one pole of the battery. The other pole con- nects at A with the wire W, after passing through all the bells of the system. S is a weight to counterbalance the arm BC. It will be readily seen that the outward stroke of the hammer will throw the end of wire A B C into the mercury, thus completing the circuit, and causing all the bells to ring. The blow of the hammer against the gong of the clock will raise the end C, and break connection. All but one of the bells must be single stroke: otherwise it will be impossible to obtain satisfactory results. By using one bell, with attachment for breaking and closing the circuit, the ringing will continue as long as the wire at Cis in contact with the mercury. The above system has been in operation for one year, and has given satisfactory results. It has occurred to me that our large bell, weigh- ing nearly two thousand pounds, can be made to strike the hours for the benefit of the town by placing it in the system just deseribed, with the following adjust- ment. Procure a soft iron horseshoe magnet six or eight inches long, and secure it at M on the iron rod ADC, Fig.2. This becomes magnetized when the clock completes the circuit. The armature XY Y is attracted, and the ball X strikes the bell. The elas- ticity at # raises the ball immediately from contact, and allows a clear and distinct ring. The tension- spring T raises the armature from the magnet, and the current ceases to flow. If it is desirable at any time to ring the bell in the ordinary way by means of the rope R, the adjustment of the system may be sustained by making the supporting rod A DC’ secure to the bell-shaft at A, and thus permitting the mag- net and fixtures to swing with the bell. P. H. MELL, Jun. Auburn, Ala. GEIKIE’S GEOLOGY. Text-book of geology. By ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, LL.D., F.R.S., director-general of the Geological survey of Great Britain and Ireland, ete. With illustrations. London, Macmillan §, Co., 1882. Mriep: 32. Trext-BooKs in science once held a rather low place in the estimation of scientific men. Labor of this sort was long relegated to the book-makers, who, copying statements and il- lustrations one from another, gave the student more of the errors of by-gone days than of the knowledge of their own. But in our own time all this has been greatly bettered. Now a man 824 of science is likely to look forward to text- book making as a source of honor as well as of remuneration; as a task that may not only help others on their way, but aid himself to a broader and more careful view of his own field of labor. The text-books of Lyell, Jukes, and Dana in geology are among the admirable works of these great authorities, and were doubtless helpful to them in their careers, as they have been vastly advantageous to those who have been trained by them. From a purely literary point of view, text-book mak- ing has no mean yalue to their makers. To collect the stores of learning of a science, to take that which has general value from the mass of details, to secure a due proportion and perspective to the parts of the work, — this is a task indeed. Mr. Geikie has proven himself strong enough for this burden. His store of facts is far larger than has hitherto been gathered in any one book on geology. ‘They show a large general reading, not only in the vast geological litera- ture of his own island, in the making of which he has had a large share, but in the work done in other lands, —a praise that can be given to few of his countrymen. In his list of authorities he gives more names of scientific men of other countries than of British geolo- gists; and this although he professedly desires to take his illustrations as far as possible from his own ground. Besides the peculiarly large amount of well- gathered fact that marks this work, we may note among its peculiarities the considerably wider range in the method of treatment of the subject. In his first book he gives twenty-four pages to the cosmical relations of the earth, and under this heading presents the fullest and most satisfactory statement of the general condition and history of the earth as a member of the solar system that has yet been given in a popular treatise. With the same freedom of treatment, he does not hesitate to give a much fuller dis- cussion of mineral veins than has hitherto found its way into any text-book. So, too, with those portions of the text that treat of river-action, volcanic phenomena, and the other leading manifestations of the geological forces. The author evidently feels a sense of freedom in making his book that is to be commended eyen if it gives him in the end near a thousand pages of text. ‘The paleontological part of the work is care- fully done, but it is in the nature of the subject that it should be less commendable than the other parts of the book. There is a radical difficulty in treating paleontology, especially SCIENCE. “a OO [Vou. IL; No. 47. in its department of historical geology, in any text-book fashion. Even within the ample limits given by a thousand pages of print it comes down to a list of specific names that can only conyey a meaning to the masters of the science; while the first principle of a text- book should be, that any statement should have a free comprehensibility within itself, without recourse to libraries or collections. Page after page of specific names hinders rather than helps the beginner. This is the only criticism that can be made- on the historic geology of the book, and it is one that lies against all the text-books that have thus undertaken to treat a subject that is so essentially unfit for this use. The essays on the divisions of the rock series are admirable. Especially to be commended is that on the old dispute concerning Cambrian and Silurian. It is pleasant to find a successor of Murchison in the directorship of the British survey who can do even-handed justice to the famous dead who fought this great battle over the division of the lower paleozoic section. At several other points in the series of rocks we find an excellent spirit of discrimination ap- plied to the problems of stratigraphic geology. We note the following. In discussing the rela- tions of Permian to carboniferous rocks, the author notes the important fact, that, while in Europe there are discordances and sharp con- trasts between the Permian and the carbonifer- ous series, there is no such trenchant line ‘in America. In the same spirit the indistincetness of the line between the triassic and the Jurassic series in North America is carefully pointed out. We find, also, that the doubt concerning the position of the Flysch series of the Alps is well presented; the ground being taken that the lower part of this series is upper cretaceous, the higher portions, eocene. ‘This is the best brief presentation of this important problem that is known to the present writer. The only important exception that we can take to this admirable presentation of the stratigraphic problems concerns the author’s general treat- ment of the triassic period. He notes that the European triassic series, with its reddish sand-* stones and shales, with connected gypseous and rock-salt beds, is essentially local in char- acter, and that this aspect of the series cannot be expected in foreign lands. ‘To this no ~ objection can be taken; but he fails to assert the equally important fact, that reddish sand- stones and shales have a singularly wide distri- bution in other lands. This general character of the trias constitutes it one of the most puzzling portions of the geological section, and DECEMBER 28, 1883.] : it should be given its due prominence in any general account of the series. The last eighteen pages of the book are given to the chapter on physiographic geology. _This matter belongs in close relation to the earlier chapters of the book, and seems some- what isolated in its position. It is not so com- pletely treated as the other parts of the book ; but it is, nevertheless, a fair condensation of the most material points of the subject. The illustrations of this subject are rather limited, but a Biegram of the Colorado Canyon by Mr. Holmes (p. 923) gives a peculiar value to the set of diagrams. It is hardly fair to quarrel with the title of so good a book, but it would have been better to have given it the name of a manual rather than a text-book. It is not fitted for the ordi- nary use of schools; being far too rich in matter, and calling for too much collateral knowledge for classroom work. It belongs in association with Dana’s classic manual of geol- ogy. For American students it cannot replace that admirable book ; but, taken along with the American work, it will give the student a very complete encyclopaedia of geologie science. The book is fairly well made. The type is bolder-faced than in Dana’s manual; so that the total amount of matter is about the same in the two books, despite the somewhat larger page of Geikie’s volume. An admirable fea- ture of the book is the free use of footnotes referring to authorities, which is a distinct ad- vantage the book has for the student. The figures are well chosen, and finely serve their purpose; though there are not quite half so many as in Dana’s work. The index is voluminous and well made. HAECKEL’S CEYLON. Indische reisebriefe. Vou Ernst Haecken. Berlin, Paetel, 1883. 134356 p. 16°. A visit to Ceylon. By Ernst HAeckev. Translated by Clara Bell. Boston, Cassino, 1883. 8+337 pile: Iy his ‘ Voyage of the Beagle,’ Darwin has shown that an acquaintance with nature does not in the least detract from the interest of a traveiler’s adventures. Haeckel, in his new book on Ceylon, has still further given evi- dence that a love for nature’s treasures adds an indescribable charm to one’s wanderings in a strange land. In the ‘ Indische reisebriefe ’ we find a charming account of a_ scientific pleasure-excursion which the author made dur- ing the six months following October, 1881. The journey included a brief stay at Bombay, SCIENCE. 825 and a much longer series of travels through Ceylon, covering a space of four months. Upon reading the book, the first impression we get is, that Haeckel must be a most pleasant travelling-companion, so delighted is he with every thing. He starts, he tells us, on a trip he has been longing for all his life, and evi- dently with the expectation and intention of having a delightful excursion. Nor will he allow any thing to frustrate his intention. It makes no difference where he is, or who are his companions: his good nature is unbounded. Every one, he seems to think, treats him with more than kindness; the roads he travels are models of comfort ; and even the elements con- spire in his favor. The country he passes through calls forth the whole wealth of the German language to find adjectives sufficient to express his boundless admiration. Officials give him every assistance ; private homes open to him with the kindest hospitality ; and even the natives take great interest in him, and are ever ready to give him aid which is at least kindly intended. When he establishes his lab- oratory at Belligam, he is supplied with ser- vants, to whose excellency he can only do justice by naming one Socrates, and a second Gany- mede. Belligam, the name of the town where he established his laboratory, means ‘ sand- village.’ This name, however, does not suit Haeckel’s general delight ; and he calls it Bella gemma, considering it as ‘a choice jewel in na- ture’s casket.’ An ordinary trip in the tropics is thus, by good nature and enthusiasm, trans- formed into a glowing journey through fairy- land. “Indeed, one almost imagines, as he reads, that he has found an American advertise- ment of a pleasure-excursion. So full of pleas- ure and good fortune is the whole trip, that the reader soon grows weary, and wishes that some slight accident might happen, to break the monotony. It is certainly a relief to find the admission that the fauna of the island is dis- appointing ; and we are quite reconciled to the fact, that the scientific laboratory was not quite so successful as had been hoped. Haeckel’s style in this book, as indeed in all his writings, is a most happy one. He gives what may be called a confidential description of nature where it is most lovable. The reader gets the impression that it is being given him in person by the author, for the purpose of en- joying once more the pleasures of the journey, and haying a quiet laugh at the people. He can- not keep himself out of his descriptions, — in- deed he does not try to do so; and what we see on every page is not a picture of Ceylon, but a picture of a man. making a journey through 826 Ceylon. He begins by telling us that he is get- ting to be an old man, and it is now or never with him as regards a journey in the tropics ; but when, in the next breath, he informs us that his advanced years number eight and forty, we are quite amused at his premature old age. When he tells us, in the first chapter, how the Berlin academy refused to give him any aid on account’of the challenge he had thrown to it on evolutionary speculations, we laugh with him. Wesee his amusement as he writes upon seeing wild apes for the first time : ‘‘ Comparing them with the dirty and naked begging priests at our feet, they seemed to me a highly respect- able ancestry for them.’’ His German nation- ality, too, is ever apparent. Now we see it when he describes his German companions, or more frequently when he delights in his allu- sions to ‘ the indispensable black tail-coat and white necktie’ of old England, or to the English ‘chimney-pot’ (eylinderhut), which he consid- ers, ‘of all head-coverings, the most hideous and insufficient.’ He enjoys telling of English gluttony as compared with German temper- ance, of the Englishman’s love for money with his exorbitant prices, and finally ends with the terse statement, ‘ Unsonst ist in Indien nur der tod.’ But even his admiration for Germany does not prevent him from giving tribute to the faculty which England has exhibited as a colonizing power. The scientific results of the Ceylon jour- ney are not apparent. He travelled quite extensively through the island, continually swelling his collections, and finally estab- lished a rough laboratory at Belligam, where he worked hard for six weeks, filling his large cases with specimens from land and sea. But beyond the statement that the fauna of Ceylon agrees closely with that of the Philippine and Fiji group, the zodlogist gets little scientific knowledge. His account of the botany of the island is more extensive; but even this is largely made up of artistic descrip- tions of the magnificent vegetation which so vividly impresses. a traveller in the tropics. That the journey was made by Haeckel is, how- ever, sufficient proof that it was more than a pleasure-excursion. He brought back large cases of specimens, of which he says little, but which will, in years to come, undoubtedly be a source of much yaluable information to the scientific world. The book is not intended to be a scientific production, but rather a pleasant account of a naturalist’s travels ; and as such if is a success. A book of travels is usually dry and uninterest- ing after the first few chapters; for, however SCIENCE. (Vou. IL, No. 42. interesting new places may be to the traveller, to keep up a novelty in description soon be- comes an impossibility. Haeckel has not en- tirely overcome this difficulty, but he introduces variety in the shape of personal anecdotes and observations. He is successful, too, in select- ing most interesting points for description ; and this, together with his boundless love for nature, which is so evident in every line, makes the closing chapters of his book much less weari- some than is usual with books of like nature. He reserves his account of the people until — toward the end, and thus gives a series of bright chapters as the close of his stay at Belligam ; and, by the continual introduction of people and incidents, he succeeds in keeping the reader’s attention better than is customary. But, in spite of all, the last chapters of the book will invariably be glanced over in a hurried and cursory manner. The translation by Clara Bell is on the whole good, though she has evidently been hard pressed to find expressions which will translate Haeckel's superfluity of adjectives. In some cases she seems to have been unable to find English expressions which give any idea of the German. One hardly gets the idea from the phrase ‘ worthy and fair reader,’ which is con- veyed by the German, ‘ Du, geneigter leser, und noch mehr, vererhte leserin.’ Though she has not followed the German yery closely in her translation, yet she has succeeded in con- veying to the English reader a tolerably good idea of Haeckel’s flowing, free, and confidential style. The wonderful suecess of Haeckel’s writings has proved that his method of writing and dealing with scientific subjects is a most attractive one; and this edition of his visit to Ceylon, partly on account of the freedom of the translation, but more largely because of the nature of the subject treated, will give to the English reader a better idea of his style of writing than any other of his translated works. REMSEN’S THEORETICAL CHEMISTRY. Principles of theoretical chemistry with special refer- ence to the constitution of chemical compounds. By Ira Remsen. Revised edition. Philadelphia, Henry C. Lea’s Son § Co., 1883. 242 p. 12°. Iy preparing this new edition of his little book upon ‘ Theoretical chemistry,’ Professor Remsen has extended quite materially the second part, which treats of the constitution of chemical compounds, and which forms its most distinetive and attractive feature. Many of the alterations, however, will hardly be re- garded as improvements by those who believe 2 DECEMBER 28, 1883.] that a clear and definite presentation of chemi- eal theories is quite essential to their proper comprehension. While it is manifestly highly important that the student should not only be acquainted with the facts upon which chemical theories rest, but should also appreciate fully the nature of conclusions reached by inductive reasoning, still a constant reiteration of the doubts, uncertainties, or conflicting evidence, which surround the various hypotheses, seems to us ill advised in an elementary text-book. Although structural chemistry in a certain sense is independent of the valence hypothesis, still this hypothesis was one of the earliest and most natural inductions resulting from the study of the constitution of chemical com- pounds, and is so interwoven with the present theories, that any attempt to exclude it rigor- ously from a discussion of the subject merely adds an unnecessary complication. We con- fess that we do not think the ordinary student will read with much interest the pages devoted to structural formulae, or * proofs’ of their cor- rectness, if he chances to see beforehand the opening sentence of the retrospect which fol- lows (p. 232). ““ A study of the preceding chapters on constitution will show that no absolute meaning is to be attached to the word. Constitutional formulas are those which suggest certain reactions, and recall analogies. The formula CH; —OH does not mean that hydroxyl (OH) is necessarily present in the compound, or that CH, is present, but that the different parts of the compound bear such relations to each other that when the compound is decomposed, it acts as if the parts were united as the formula indicates. The formula suggests possibilities ; it may not represent realities.” If the author be correct, and ‘‘ it cannot be denied that we are now in a period of chemis- try which may fairly be called one of formula worship’’ (p. 100), it is very certain that formula worship has been of vastly greater ser- vice to chemistry than agnosticism is ever likely to be. We fail to see that any advantage is gained by the introduction of new conventional signs in place of those already in common use, to represent the linkage of the carbon atoms in the olefinet and acetylen series (pp. 202, 206) ; nor can we understand why the double linkage of the nitrogen atoms, which the author ap- SCIENCE. 827 parently accepts, since he uses the old sign (=) in his formulae for the azo- and the diazo- compounds (p. 222), stands upon any more trustworthy experimental basis. Furthermore, we cannot help expressing our surprise that the author should have ventured the statement, “Of the substitution products of benzene, which contain three substituting groups, more than three varieties have been observed’’ (p. 208), which seems a bit of rashness hardly con- sistent with the caution elsewhere displayed. THE CORNELL MATHEMATICAL LIBRARY. Cornell university library. Special lists, No.1. Math- ematics. Ithaca, N.Y., 1883. 92p. 8°. Turis classified list of works, with index, in- cludes some twenty-five hundred titles relating to mathematics, and such allied subjects as astronomy, engineering, and physics. ‘These books form what is known, from the name of the donor, as the ‘ Kelly mathematical collection. ’ An examination of the list shows that it con- sists of books actually purchased within the past few years, with good judgment, and a con- scientious endeavor to cover, so far as practica- ble, the immense field of mathematical research, past and present, as evenly as possible. It comprises, besides many rare and valuable works not readily accessible to American stu- dents, the collected works of the great masters of analysis, and the more important mathemati- cal journals. The mathematical capabilities of American youth are quite equal to those of Germany or England ; but the facilities offered them by our universities for the study of this grandest of sciences are in general far behind those found abroad. When the professors and teachers of mathematics in this country shall themselves become lifelong cultivators of mathematical pursuits, and shall have the same average proficiency as those abroad, there will be no difficulty in accomplishing results in the mathe- matical training of college students fully equal to any attained elsewhere. But such professors and such students cannot be without libraries such as this is the beginning of. We can but express our deep satisfaction with this good work in the interest of sound learning. WEEKLY SUMMARY OF THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. MATHEMATICS. Kummer's surface. — Professor Cayley, in a brief note ‘on the sixteen-nodal quartic surface,’ remarks, - that Riemann’s theory of the bitangents of a plane quartic leads at once to a very simple form of the equation of the sixteen-nodal quartic surface; viz., 828 if £, 7, ¢, denote linear functions of the co-ordinates (w, y, 2, w), such that identically Toe Var ar bar if ary iS y= aa by fez + fs 1997 i kho=0 (where af = bg = ch =1), then the quartic surface, Vet + Vyn + yzo = 0, is a sixteen-nodal surface. Prof. Cayley has previously given the equation of this surface under the form Vc(X = w) + fy (Y —w) + yz(Z—w) = 0, where X = a (yyy — 8’ Bz), ete., anda + P+ y=0, etc.; the other relations being obtained by cyclical interchange of the letters, and by advancing the accents. The object of the present paper is the direct identification of these two forms of the equation of the surface. — (Journ. reine ang. math., xciv.) T. C. [541 Elliptic functions. — M. Hermite has given a simple and direct demonstration of an interesting relation discovered by Prof. Cayley. The relation is as follows: if u, v, r, s, are four quantities connected by the relation u +» +r+s = 0, then we have — —k? snusnv snr sns + enu env enr ens — 1 ke j2dnu dnv dnr dns = Sie This remarkable relation is shown by M. Hermite to be easily derived by means of certain formulas which he has long used in his course in the Sor- bonne. The formulas are those which give the decomposition into simple factors of the three quan- tities sna sn(@ + a),cnw%en(e+a),dnadn(x+ a). The decomposition of the first of these products is a known fundamental relation between Jacobi’s Z- functions: the decomposition of the other two prod-~ ucts is,given by M. Hermite; and by aid of them Prof. Cayley’s formula is proved. —(Acta math., i.) aE (Op [542 ENGINEERING. The two-cylinder compound engine. — Pro- fessor 8. W. Robinson furnishes Van Nostrand’s magazine a paper on the working of steam in this engine in its various forms, and traces the method of distribution in the two cylinders and the effect of such methods on the theoretical efficiency: He gives the general method of representing the action of steam graphically, and shows how diagrams made from the two cylinders are combined. The effect of the re- ceiver is exhibited, and the result of the introduction of various conditions, as clearance, etc. — (Van Nos- trand’s mag., Oct.) RB. H. T. [543 Spherical steam-engines.— Messrs. Heenan & Froude of Manchester, G.B., recently exhibited at the Engineering and metal trades exhibition, Lon- don, their ‘Tower’ spherical engine, driving an Edison dynamo. The steam-cylinder is a sphere hav- ing two cylindrical projections cast upon it. Each of these carries a shaft, only one of which transmits power from the engine, the other haying merely to guide the hinged piston nearestit. The pistons divide the interior of the sphere into four portions, which at times are four equal quadrants of the sphere, but which are capable of variation of volume with change SCIENCE. |Vou. IL, No. 47. of piston position; and, this being effected by the action of the steam which is let into the several spaces at proper times by the action of the rotating valves’ which are set in the cylindrical projections, the shafts are turned, and power is produced and transmitted to the mechanism of transmission. ; The engine worked silently and well, and indicated 18-horse power at 600 revolutions per minute, with steam at S0 pounds (63 atmos.). Its diameter was but 7 inches (17.8 centimetres). — (London engineer, July.) R. H. T. [544 Steel castings.— Mr. W. Parker has collected facts bearing upon the value of steel castings in marine- engine construction. He observes that forged iron shafts and other heavy parts are very unsafe, and that mild steel is taking the place of wrought iron for all such uses. About a hundred and twenty steel ships are in progress in Great Britain, constructed of low steel. The testimony of steel-makers and tests of the material show that steel castings can be made of homogeneous character and thoroughly reliable. Jessop & Co. use crucible steel for this purpose, and think that good castings can only be obtained with certainty by the crucible process. Spencer & Sons use both crucibles and the open-hearth process, and get equally good results from both. The Steel com- pany of Scotland use the Siemens furnace and process, and adopt the silicide of manganese as a flux to insure soundness. The internal stresses due to variation in rate of cooling are avoided either by very slow cooling or by annealing. Pourcel of Terre Noire, France, tempers in oil, with, as is claimed, very great adyan- tage. The tenacity is thus increased sometimes thirty ~ per cent, and the elongation at rupture remains un- reduced, while the grain of the steel is greatly im- proved. Sir Joseph Whitworth compresses his ingots of steel, while solidifying, by applying the pressure of a large hydraulic press. Messrs. Vickers & Co. make many large crank-shafts for steamships, adopting a mild steel of a tenacity of about fifty-five thousand pounds per squareinch. The castings are improved by hammering or rolling, thirty per cent. — (Scient. Amer., Oct. 20.) RB. H. T. [545 CHEMISTRY. (General, physical, and inorganic.) Bleaching.— ‘Oxygenated water,’ a common name for peroxide of hydrogen, has within the last few years attracted a good deal of attention as a bleaching and purifying agent, and has been successfully employed as a substitute for chlorine. It is now stated that Mr. P. Ebell of Pfungstadt, near Darmstadt, has succeeded in preparing economically a product, pure, stable, and of constant strength, capable of being easily transported for long distances, and kept for years without losing its bleaching-properties. Among other applications of this product, that of the decolor- ation of animal fibres is the most important, as it does not contain some of the disadvantages of other bleaching-agents. For wool or silk, it is advisable, before bleaching, to cleanse the materials thoroughly, so as to eliminate all the greasy substances and im- purities. For this purpose, Mr. Ebell recommends a ey ee Pe DECEMBER 28, 1883.] bath in a solution of five parts carbonate of ammonia to one hundred of water, this bath being followed by a soaping, and thorough washing with water. The bleaching itself is performed either by immersing the materials in the solution of oxygenated water, and leaving them there at a temperature of from 20° to 30° C., until the decoloration is complete, or the materials are impregnated, when they are wrung out and exposed in a room heated to about 20° C.: they are then left to dry. — (Engineer, July 20.) [546 Molecular volume of liquids.—In the determi- nation of the molecular volume of liquids, R. Schiff proposes to make the observations at the boiling-point of the liquid and in a special form of apparatus. The latter consists of a small flask capable of holding about one hundred grams of mercury: it is drawn out to a narrow neck which is graduated to ten di- visions, each of which corresponds to 0.01 of a cubic _ centimetre; and each of these divisions is divided into five parts, making each of the final divisions equal to 0.05 of a cubic centimetre. The volume is accurately determined by weighing the flask filled with mercury to the zero-mark. To determine the specific gravity of any liquid at its boiling-point, the flask is filled with the liquid, placed within a jacket- tube which contains a little of the same liquid, and the latter boiled until the liquid in the flask is heated to its boiling-point. By means of a capillary tube the liquid is withdrawn from the flask until it stands at the zero-mark, and the flask is corked, cleaned, allowed to cool, and weighed. The specific gravity of the liquid is referred to water at 4° C., and it may be calculated by means of the formula— ind 55 Mei K(—4)y° in which P = the corrected weight of the liquid in the flask, V; = the apparent volume which the liquid occupies at 1°. By this method the molecular volume of many of the paraffine and aromatic hydrocarbons, their halo- gen substitution products, alcohols, etc., were deter- mined, and results were obtained which agreed closely with those of other experimenters. — (Ann. chem., 220; 71.) ~o.\F: M. [547 _ AGRICULTURE. Aves guano. — A new phosphatic material under this name has lately been imported into Germany from the Aves Islands, in the Caribbean Sea, near the coast of Venezuela. Analyses of it by Miircker and by Heiden show it to contain about seventy-two per cent of calcium phosphate, four to nine per cent of calcium carbonate, seven per cent of organic mat- ter, and twenty-five hundredths of one per cent of nitrogen. The material consists of a fine powder, with more or less fragments up to the size of a pea or larger. Among the coarser portions, shells and coral fragments are often found. The extent of the deposit is said to be great. — (Biedermann’s centr.- blatt., xii. 582.) oH. P. A. [548 Comparison of nitrogenous fertilizers.— Miirck- er reports the results of pot-experiments by Albert SCIENCE. $29 on the relative value of various nitrogenous fertiliz- ers for oats. Leather, either unprepared or ferment- ed, gave as good as no increase of crop. The others ranged in the following order, the best being placed first: horn-meal, nitrate of soda, fermented dried blood, sulphate of ammonia, fermented steamed bone, steamed bone, dried blood. The horn-meal is pre- pared by treating horn-refuse with superheated steam, In previous experiments it produced almost as good an effect as nitrate of soda. It is to be observed, that several of the materials used contained other ferti- lizing ingredients than nitrogen, of whose possible effect no account seems to have been taken. An experiment in the following year with the pots ma- nured with Jeather showed no noticeable effect from the latter. — (Biedermann’s centr.-blatt., xii. 584.) Bi AL [549 Effect of fertilizers on composition of oats — In the experiments reported in the preceding abstract the composition of the oats produced by the aid of the various fertilizers was determined, Those ma- nured with leather and those without nitrogen con- tained 8.7% to 10.7 % of proteine; those manured with nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonia, 11.2 % and 11.1%; those manured with the blood or bone manures, 11.6 % to 13.6%. The proportion of crude fibre and ash was greatest in those manured with leather and those without nitrogen: the others showed only slight differences. The nitrogenous manures delayed the ripening of the grain in some cases. Mircker divides them into three groups: 1°, those which allow the grain to ripen at the normal time, their nitrogen being assimilated during the early stages of growth (nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammo- nia); 2°, those which delayed the ripening somewhat (steamed bone, and the same fermented); 3°, those which delayed the ripening considerably, and ren- dered it irregular (horn-meal, dried blood). The last decompose slowly in the soil, and furnish a con- tinuous supply of nitrogen until late in the autumn. — (Biedermann’s centr.-blatt., xii. 587.) H. P. A. [550 Nutritive value of amido-compounds.—Weiske has already shown that the asparagine which is found in various fodders, along with other amides and amido-compounds, can partially take the place of proteine in nutrition. Zuntz has repeated his ob- servations on asparagine and other amides, with the same result. —(Biedermann’s centr.-blatt., xii. 602.) H. P, A. [551 Sunflower cake as fodder.— This material has been tested as fodder for mileh-cows by Schrodt and von Peter with very favorable results. Slightly more milk was produced by its aid than’ by that of an equivalent quantity of palm-nut meal; and the pro- portion of fat in the milk was slightly increased, as has sometimes been the case in feeding palm-nut meal. No injurious effects on the health of the ani- mals were noticed. — ( Biedermann’s centr.-blatt., xii. 609.) H. P. A. [552 GEOLOGY. Lithology. : Lithology of the District of Columbia.— Ac- cording to Mr. G. P. Merrill, the prevailing rock of 830 this district is an extremely variable hornblendic, chloritic, or micaceous schist, sometimes somewhat gneissoid. This rock is used for building-purposes in its finer varieties, which are composed of quartz and biotite, with a silvery white mica, magnetite, apatite, etc. Besides the quartz and biotite, the coarser varieties frequently contain plagioclase, hornblende, chlorite, apatite, epidote, pyrite, magnetite, garnet, and rutile. The biotite is frequently more or less altered to chlorite, and contains apatite, magnetite, and sometimes infiltrated calcite. — (Proc. U.S. nat. mus., vi. 159.) M. E.W. [553 The bismuth deposits of Australia.— These deposits are found in irregular quartz veins or ‘reefs’ in gray granite, and near its junction with the sur- rounding porphyritic and schistose rocks. The veins are composed of irregular segregations of quartz, holding bismuth, both native and as a sulphide, gold, molybdenite, smoky quartz crystals, ete. These veins occur only in circumscribed patches in the granite, which has here been decomposed to a soft, friable rock, the mica and felspar being much altered. The native bismuth occurs in irregular bunches and nests throughout the quartz, or in fissures traversing the veins. These bunches vary in weight from a half-pound to fifty pounds; and the metal is particu- larly found associated with and incasing the crystals of smoky quartz. Sometimes it is in needles in the quartz. The walls of the segregations are charged with from thirty to fifty per cent of oxide of bismuth , for a distance from the vein of from eight inches to two feet. Mr. Robertson, from whose paper the above ac- count is condensed, states that the entire sale of bis- muth has for years been monopolized by a few London brokers, ‘‘ known as the ‘ Bismuth ring,’ —a close and conservative institution formed for the pur- pose of controlling the supply and price of bismuth.’’ The present consumption of the metal is about seventy tons yearly; and it-is stated that these de- posits could easily produce that at a small expense. In 1882 the market-price of bismuth was 6s. 8d. per pound in London. —(Trans. geol. soc. Glasgow, vii. 127.) M. E. Ww. [554 MINERALOGY. Halite.— B. Wittjen and H. Precht have endeav- ored to find the cause of the blue color in some vari- eties of halite, and have arrived at the conclusion that it is dependent upon some optical phenomena, possi- bly connected with the presence of minute gas inclu- sions. — (Berl. berichte, xvi. 1454.) 8. L. P. [555 Rubellan.— This micaceous mineral has been in- vestigated by M. U. Hollrung, and shown to be very various in its properties. It occurs mostly as a de- composition product of magnesian micas. It is by no means homogeneous, and cannot be classed as.a dis- tinct mineral. By means of the microscope it could be seen that crystals of the ordinary biotite form were composed of lamellae of different degrees of decom- position, showing all stages from pure mica to wholly decomposed material. — (Min. petr. mitth., v. 304.) 8. L. P. [556 SCIENCE. (Vou. IL, No. 47. Parallel growth of zinc blende and tetrahe- drite.— Specimens from Kapnik, Transylvania, have been studied by F. Becke. The minute crystals of tetrahedrite are deposited only upon the dull faces of the blende crystals, and are of a later growth. They have been deposited according to the following law: the principal axes of the two minerals are parallel, and the first or principal tetrahedron of tetrahedrite is parallel to the second tetrahedron of blende. The development of the tetrahedrite crystals is dependent upon their location on the blende, being most sym- metrical if deposited on a dodecahedron face, and flat- tened if on a cubic face. A parallel growth of these two minerals has been previously noted, but with the first tetrahedron of tetrahedrite parallel to the first tetrahedron of blende. — (Min. petr. mitth., vy. 331.) 8. L. P. [557 Iolite (cordierite).— A. von Lasaulx has described twin crystals occurring in a cordierite gneiss from Laacher See. Twins of this species are of unusual oc- currence, and have been observed with the prism # P for composition face. The author finds, in addition to twins according to the old law, compound twins, part of the individuals being united according to the old law, and part according to a new law with » P 3 for composition face. Twins united wholly accord- ing to the new law were not observed. — (Zeitschr. kryst., viii. 76.) S. L. P. [558 GEOGRAPHY. (Arctic.) Arctic land.—F. Schmidt discusses the claims of different persons, and especially Wrangell, to the dis- covery of land north of eastern Siberia. Discovery is hardly the proper word to apply to the record of re- ports by the aborigines of that region. In fact, as Pro- fessor Schmidt admits, Wrangell had his doubts as to the accuracy of the report; and his opinion was ex- pressed, sometimes with more, sometimes with less, confidence, at different times. The first civilized man to actually see what is now called Wrangell Island was Kellett, who called it Plover Island, and made a sketch of it from a long distance away, of which I have a copy, and which is stated to be characteristic by Capt. Hooper. The high land, with extensive peaks, described by Kellett, like the Pelly Mountains of the arctic coast, described by Dease and Simpson, was simply one of those peculiar atmospheric effects which occasionally deceive the most experienced are- tie travellers. The conclusion is, that no report of new arctic land is worth any thing until it has at least been very closely approached. — (Isvestia uinp. geogr. soc., May.) Ww. H. D. [559 Settlements on the Siberian coast. — Karzin gives a most valuable list of the settlements, sum- mer fishing-stations, camps of ivory-hunters, and other places, where human beings are to be found at any season of the year on the coast of north-eastern Siberia. The chronicles of the Jeannette expedition might have been less gloomy, had the commander possessed himself of some such directory before pro- ceeding on that unlucky voyage. —(Isvestia timp. geogr. soc., May.) w. i. D. [560 DECEMBER 28, 1883.] (Africa.) ® Sierra Leone. — According to recent consular re- ports, the population of this colony comprises sixty thousand five hundred souls, nearly all blacks, who speak among them more than sixty different dialects. Freetown, the capital, has a population of twenty- two thousand, chiefly of the Aku, Ebo, Timen, Susu, Maulang, Sherbru, and Krumen tribes. The Aku and Ebo people are extremely keen traders: the three following tribes furnish middlemen, who intervene between the caravan merchants and the purchasers. The last mentioned are freighters and boatmen, em- ployed largely in loading and discharging vessels. The trade amounts to about three million dollars annually, less than half of which are exports. The soil is poor and not arable; farming is hardly practi- cable; and the real importance of the colony lies in its geographical position, and easy communication with the rich interior region. Taxes and customs- duties are very high, and have injured trade by driv- ing it elsewhere. The exports are kola, palm and peanuts, palm-oil, gum-copal, rubber, ginger, and hides. — (Bull. soc. Belg. géogr., ii. 1883.) Ww. H. D. [561 Portuguese Guinea.— Barros contributes a me- moir on Portuguese Guinea, with notes on the cus- toms and manners of the natives and on their language, especially of the Mandingo, Biafada, and Balanta tribes, containing little absolutely new ex- cept some songs. The article forms an interesting summary of facts. —(Bol. soc. geog. Lisboa, no. 12, 1882.) Ww. H. D. [562 BOTANY. Cryptogams, The oospores of the grape-mould.— Prillieux states that he has received from M. Fréchou of Nérac germinating oospores of Peronospora viticola. The germinating oospores produce at once a mycelial tube similar to that known in other species of Perono- spora, in which the germination of the oospores has been seen. This is an important step in our knowl- edge of the grape-mildew, since, inasmuch as the conidia produce zoospores, it had been supposed by some that the oospores would also produce zoospores, as is the case in the related genus Cystopus. — (Bull. soc. botan.) w. G. F. [563 Swedish Algae.— Dr. C. Lagerheim describes a number of species new to Sweden, including several genera and species new to science. The species are from fresh water, as well as marine, and are illustrated by a plate. Of the genera treated most in detail may be mentioned Merismopedium. — (O/vers. svensk. akad.) w. G. F. [564 Monograph of Ulvaceae.—The sixth part of Agardh’s Till algernes systematik is devoted to the Ulvaceae. The author includes here the genera Bangia and Porphyra, as well as the green species generally placed in this order. The subject is elabo- rately prepared, and is illustrated by four colored plates giving the microscopic structure. Ulva and Enteromorpha are kept distinct, and E. erecta is credited to New York on the authority of J. Hooper. SCIENCE. 831 Monostroma pulchrum the writer suspects to be a form of M. lactuca, a boreal species of both hemi- spheres. — (Acta univ. Lund., xix.) w.G.F. [565 Phanerogams. Spines of Aurantiaceae.— Dr. Urban describes and figures specimens which show that the spines situated just above the leaf-axis of a number of mem- bers of this family, and hitherto considered as meta- morphosed axillary branches, are in reality formed by the transformation of one or two of the lowest leaves belonging to the primary axillary shoot. — (Ber. der deutschen bot. gesellsch., June 27.) w. T. [566 Orchis mascula.— Mr. Malair believes that the visits of bees to this species are for propolis, which is yielded by the papillae of the nectary. Flies also visit the flowers, which are described at length, but not very clearly nor accurately. — (Science gossip, March, April.) w. T. [567 Sterility of the Ficaria.— Mr. Neve notices that in England the plant seldom seeds, although its flowers appear well formed, and bees visit them. — (Science gossip, June.) Ww. T. [568 Pollination of willow. — Mr. Hamson states, that while amentiferous plants, dependent entirely upon the wind for fertilization, have pendulous catkins, “in the willow the catkins are upright and elastic, The humble-bee is a heavy insect, and it almost in- variably mounts to the summit of the catkin, which is borne down by its weight. On the bee taking flight, the catkin springs suddenly to its original po- sition, and thus shakes out the pollen in the male, and further distributes that which may have lodged in the scales of the female catkin.’’ Bees were no- ticed to confine their visits almost exclusively to the staminate plants. — (Science gossip, July.) w.T. [569 ZOOLOGY. Protozoa. Division of the nucleus in protozoa.—It is known that in many protozoa the number of nuclei increases with the growth of the animal; but whether the additional nuclei arise by free new formation, or by division of older nuclei, was uncertain, although Zeller had shown that the multiplication in Opalina was due to division. Gruber, in a valuable article, now shows that in Actinospaerium and Amoeba divis- ion of the nuclei occurs, having obtained examples after very long search. In the former the young nu- clei are small, and have a single large nucleolus with a clear space around it. As the nucleus enlarges, the clear margin disappears, and the nucleolus breaks up into smaller granules (nucleoli). In-one specimen various stages of division were found. Their natural succession is probably as follows: the nucleoli arrange themselves in two parallel rows across the nucleus; they then unite so as to form a homogeneous band out of each row; the rest of the nuclear substance accumulates between the two bands, which then move asunder, and meanwhile threads appear run- ning from band to band; a line of division (par- tition-wall ?) appears between the bands, In Amoeba proteus the nucleus contains a peripheral layer of 832 granules, and a large central mass to be regarded as the nucleolus. One specimen was found with nuclei in various stages of division. It appears that the nucleolus separates into two parts, between which, across the equator of the nucleus, appears a partition. Similar processes were observed in another Amoeba (sp.?). In these cases we have a form of nuclear di- vision somewhat different from any hitherto observed ; in that the nucleolus divides first, and the partition between is formed without the participation of the nuclear membrane. Biitschli has asserted that in Amoeba proteus (prin- ceps B.) the nuclei are either small and numerous, or large and few. Gruber has found them always of about the same size, and very variable in number and relative proportion to the bulk of the individual. — (Zeitschr. wiss. zool., xxxvili. 872.) ©. S. M. [570 Coelenterates. The nervous system of the Siphonophores. — According to Korotneff, who has studied the minute anatomy and histology of the Siphonophores, the Di- phyidae are the least modified, and present the most primitive or ancestral structure. In them the ecto- derm is a simple muscle-epithelium with well-devel- oped muscle-fibrillae, which lie upon muscle-septa, or outgrowths from the supporting layer. A more highly differentiated organization is found in the Apolemiadae. ‘The epithelial cells are nearly separated from the muscle-fibrillae, to-which they are united only by fine protoplasmic threads. Between the muscle-septa the epithelial cells are folded over to form an open furrow, which is floored with cells a little larger than those over the general surface of the body. In the Agalmidae the cells in this furrow are en- tirely covered up by the ordinary surface-epithelium. They are very large, are united by processes to the muscles, and they constitute a true central nervous system formed by involution of the ectoderm. The muscle-fibres of the Agalmidae are entirely separated from the epithelial cells, and the latter are flattened. Korotneff has traced the origin of the nervous system inthe embryo. Ina Forskalia larva there is no trace of nerye-cells; and the epithelio-muscular layer, the muscle-septa, and the endoderm are like the corre- sponding structures of Diphyes. As the animal grows, these ectoderm-cells, which lie between the muscle-septa, grow larger, sink down, and become covered up by the ordinary surface ecto- derm-cells. They then throw off processes to the muscle-fibres, and thus become converted into the nervous system. The nerve-cells are therefore, so far as their origin is concerned, epithelio-muscular cells, and they so far lend support to Kleinenberg’s neuro-muscle theory. Korotneff describes sensory cells in the region of the neryous system of the Agalmidae, and also in the air- bladder. These sensory cells are muscle-cells which still retain their primitive position on the surface; and they are furnished with sensory hairs, and are joined by processes to the muscle-fibrillae. In the Physophora the ectoderm has been special- SCIENCE. (Vou. I1., No. 47. \ ; ized in two ways. On the stem the cells haye the morphological characteristics of nerye-cells and the position and arrangement which characterize muscle- cells: they are neuro-epithelio-muscular cells, There are also many sensory cells arranged in longitudinal rows among the ordinary cells; but there is no in- folded nervous system upon the stem, as there is in the Agalmidae. This is to be found, however, upon the air-bladder, which is thickly covered with nerve- cells. On the upper surface of the bladder these are directly united to the surface-epithelium, while upon the lower surface they are directly united to the muscles. Hesays that there are physiological reasons (which are not stated) for believing that the upper nerve-cells are sensory, and those on the lower sur- face motor. He speaks very briefly of the diffused nervous sys- tem of Porpita; and his observations apparently agree with those recently published more at length (see SCIENCE, ii. 396) by Conn and Beyer. — (Zool. anz., 148.) Ww. K. B. [571 Worms. Systematic papers on worms.— Dr. ‘R. vy. Drasche has taken advantage of the preservation of all Diesing’s and many of Molin’s original specimens of nematods in the Vienna museum to draw up fresh and more accurate diagnoses of the species described by these authors, and also to give a good many new figures. This labor is calculated to avoid much con- fusion which might otherwise arise from the very imperfect character of the original descriptions, — (Verh. zool-bot. ges. Wien, xxxii. 117.) The same author also describes some new ascarids collected in Brazil by Natterer, and adds some notes on Ascaris ovis and A. rigida. — (Idem, 139.) G. M. R. Levinsen has published the first part of a valuable revision of northern Annulata, Gephyrea, Chaetognathi, and Balanoglossi. He attempts chiefly to describe the species, elucidate their history in sci- entific writings, and their geographical distribution. The essay contains full synoptic tables. The work was undertaken at the request of Prof. Steenstrup and Dr. Liitken. — ( Vidensk. meddel. naturh. foren. Ajobenhavn, 1882, 160.) Cc. s. M. [572 Pentastomum from an Alligator lucius. — J. Chatin has found Pentastomum, probably P. oxy- cephalum, in the liver of a caiman. This is a new locality for the parasite. He gives an excessively prolix general account of the anatomy of the animal, but contributes little that is new. The hooklets around the mouth have a stalk, and three movable claws thereon, —two at the sides near the end, the third terminal. The author denies the cellular char- acter of the epidermis: it is ‘formed merely by a mass of protoplasm in which are scattered numerous nuclei.’ (It can hardly be questioned that this is a mistake due to superficial observation. The author gravely adds his doubts as to the cellular constitution of the epidermis in arthropods generally. In this he is singu- larly unfortunate; as there is hardly any fact in insect histology more easily verified, even by inexperienced ' students, than the existence of epidermal—so-called hypodermal— cells. The error of describing an epi- DEcEMBER 28, 1883.] thelium as a sheet of protoplasm with scattered nuclei has been committed over and over again by persons not trained in histology.) The description of the course of the nerves rectifies previous accounts. — (Ann. sc. nat. zoél., xiv. art. 2.) C. 8S. M. [573 Crustaceans. Isopoda of the Blake dredgings. — In a report on the Isopoda dredged on the east coast of the United States in 1880, by the U. S. coast-survey steamer Blake, under the direction of Alexander Agassiz, Oscar Harger says that the collection, although small, is remarkable for the large proportion of interesting forms; since nearly all the species are either new, or not hitherto known upon our coast, or known only from single specimens. Nine species, all belonging to Cirolanidae and Aegidae, are enumerated, and most of them fully described and figured on four excellent photo-lithographic plates from the author’s drawings. — (Bull. mus. comp. zodl., xi., no. 4, Sept., 1883.) s.1. 8. [574 Development of Panopeus. —E. A. Birge de- scribes and figures the post-embryonal and some ‘of the later embryonal stages of Panopeus Sayi and the sec- ond zoea stage of P. depressus. He describes four distinct zoea stages after the casting of the embryonic cuticle (or ‘larval skin,’ as Prof. Birge calls it) and a ‘first megalops stage,’ and discusses the metamor- phoses undergone by the body and appendages in the change from each stage to the next. After describ- ing the ‘first megalops stage,’ Prof. Birge says, ‘Subsequent changes in the megalops affect the pro- portions of the carapax, which becomes broader pro- portionally, and that of the abdomen, which becomes smaller, and is permanently flexed under the sternum. The appendages undergo many changes, gradually approximating them to the adult form. ‘The last stage is reached after several — at least four—moult- ings.” Unfortunately none of these remarkable later megalops stages are described or figured, as they cer- tainly deserve to be if actually observed. During several seasons’ observations the writer has found no evidence of more than one megalops stage in this or allied species; and, with the exception of Bate’s doubtful observations on Carcinus, there are appar- ently no well authenticated cases of several megalops stages in any species of Brachyura. The numerous figures illustrating the paper are rude and inaccurate. — (Stud. biol. lab. Johns Hopk. univ., ii., no. 4, July, 1883.) 5s. I. 8. [575 Insects. Sucking-apparatus in butterflies. —P. Kirbach describes the structure of the maxillae and pharynx in the Lepidoptera precisely as described by Burgess in the American naturalist for May, 1880, and more at length in a memoir on the anatomy of the milk- weed butterfly in the Anniv. memoirs Bost. soc. nat. hist., 1881. Kirbach makes no reference to either of these papers, though both were recorded in the very journal containing his article, as well as in Carus’s Zool. Jjahresbericht by Bertkau, in the Arch. f. natur- gesch., and in the Zoélogical record. However, it is satisfactory to haye observations independently con- SCIENCE. 833 firmed; and Kirbach gives almost a verbal and pic- torial repetition of the above-quoted papers. Thus the suspensory muscles of the pharynx receive the identical names given them by Burgess. Kirbach believes the proboscis is extended by muscular con- traction, and rolled up by elasticity, but gives no proof of his view. This is the opposite of what the mus- cular arrangement seemed to Burgess to indicate; although he added that “it is more probable we fail to see, or to correctly interpret, some proper muscular mechanism for both movements of the proboscis.” Unfortunately, Kirbach does not help us here. Kirbach describes, for the first time, the syringe- like mechanism of the salivary duct, by which saliva is injected into the proboscis. This arrangement was overlooked by Burgess. — (Zool. anz., vi. 553.) FE. B. {576 Wheat-stem maggot or bulb-worm. — The larva of Meromyza americana Fitch has been very de- structive this year to wheat and rye in Fulton county, Ill. Important additions to the published observa- tions of Fitch, Riley, and Lintner, have been made by S. A. Forbes, who gives descriptions and figures of all stages of this insect. The egg is now figured for the first time, and a winter brood has been ob- served. — (Prairie farmer, Aug. 4.) J. H.C. [577 VERTEBRATES. Histology of the nervous centres.— (©. Golgi has investigated the morphology ef ganglion-cells. His conclusions are in some respects very different from those of previous investigators, and, if confirmed, will mark an important advance in our knowledge of the subject. On this account we give a longer abstract than usual for special papers. The origin of the nervous fibres depends on certain constant laws, uniform for the different centres, de- spite certain secondary differences in the morphology and distribution of the histological elements. The ganglion-cells may in general be distinguished from the other cells by their form, the appearance of their nuclei, and the mode of origin of their prolongations; but they are especially characterized by the presence of the single nervous (Deiter’s) process, which alone enters into connection with the nerve-fibres to make part of, or constitute them. The protoplasmatic processes have nothing to do with the origin of the nerve-fibres, directly or indirectly: they are in rela- tion with the connective-tissue corpuscles (exactly how is not shown, so this may be questioned). As each cell has only one Deiter’s process, it follows that they are all really unipolar. The sensory and motor cells cannot be distinguished definitely by their form or size from one another; but, as regards Dei- ter’s process, two forms are distinguished, — the first is supposed to go with the motor cells, the second with the sensory. The established view that the process is continued without branching into the axis-cylin- der is discarded; for Golgi maintains that it gives off a more or less considerable number of filaments on its way. In the first form, the process, although giv- ing off filaments, still maintains its individuality, and ean be followed to the points where it enters the 834 medullary sheath as the axis-cylinder. Correspond- ing nerve-fibres are found, which preserve their indi- yiduality, notwithstanding the filaments they give off from the axis-cylinder, which can be followed to the ganglion-cells. The structures are supposed to belong to the sensory system. In the motor system the individuality of the process or of the fibre is lost in the gray substance, completely breaking up into filaments which enter into the formation of a diffuse network. It would appear, then, that the motor process breaks up into filaments, forming a net- work, from which spring the other filaments, which unite to form the motor axis-cylinder. The network really receives filaments also from the sensory pro- cess and fibres; so that it may be regarded as a fun- damental neryous plexus, both sensory and motor, by means of which each fibre communicates, not with a single cell, but with large groups. The ten- dency is towards extended, not restricted, communi- cations; and there is no anatomical basis for the assumption of the isolated transmission of peripheral nervous impulses to hypothetical limited cellular in- dividualities. This investigation, therefore, lends no support to the theory of cerebral localization. Deiter’s process is characterized from its origin by its greater homogeneousness, its hyaline aspect and smooth surface, while the protoplasmatie processes are granular. Golgi has also studied the histology of the cortex cerebri, especially to compare the anterior with the occipital convolutions. Meynert’s plates, and divis- ion of the cortex into five layers, he thinks, do not agree with the reality. Golgi distinguishes three forms of ganglion-cells, — pyramidal, fusiform, and globular (or polygonal with rounded angles). He distinguishes three layers of about equal thickness. The superficial layer is formed almost exclusively by rather small pyramidal cells; the middle layer has, for the most part, larger pyramidal cells; while in the deep layer the fusiform cells prevail, and the globular cells, which occur throughout the cortex, are here most abundant. The largest pyramidal cells extend through the whole thickness of the cortex. Such is _the organization of the gyrus centralis anterior (fron- talis ascendens). The organization of the superior occipital convolution is similar, except that the deep layer contains the globular cells almost exclusively. There are no anatomical features to indicate that the anterior conyolutions are motor, the occipital sensory, as Hitzig and others have maintained. ‘“‘ The specific functions of the different cerebral zones do not depend on the organization of these zones them- selves, but on the specific character of the peripheral organs which are connected with the fibres entering or leaving the zones in question.” — (Arch. ital. biol. ili. 285.) ©. S. M. [578 Birds, Development of the heart. — Assaky maintains, 1°, that the heart arises in the chick as a double tube, as may be seen before the differentiation of the third protovertebra; 2°, the myocardium is constituted from the first by a network of anastomosing cells; the muscular fibres arise by endocellular generation ; SCIENCE. [Vou. IL, No. 47. 3°, the muscle-cells are derived from amoeboid cells [i.e., are mesenchymal]. — (Comptes rendus, xcvii. 183.) c. Ss. M. [579 Plumages of the stone-chat.— Messrs. Butler, Fielding, and Reid seem finally to have solved the variations in plumage of this interesting bird. Ac- cording to them, there are nine different stages easily recognizable. We note with satisfaction that the theory of hybridization seems to be done away with. — (Ibis, 1883, 331.) go. A. J. [580 Mammals, The influence of quinine upon heat-dissipa- tion and heat-production.—In a late article by Wood and Reichert (Journ. of physiol., iii. 321), the authors make the statement that quinine increases both heat-production and heat-dissipation, though, on the average, the percentage of increase of heat- dissipation largely exceeds that of heat-production. A desire to test the accuracy of these results has led Arntz to make a similar series of experiments. To measure the relative amount of heat-dissipation from the skin, he made use of a porous wooden cap, lined with felt, which could be applied to any part of the body. The temperature within the space thus en- closed was registered by a delicate thermometer. Any increase in the loss of heat through the skin would be shown, therefore, by the thermometer. Experiments were made upon men and rabbits in a normal healthy condition, the general results of which show that no increase in heat-dissipation fol- lows the injection of quinine. To explain the con- tradiction existing between his own and Wood’s results, he supposes that the doses used by the latter were too large for the animal (dog) experimented upon; and the increase in heat-dissipation was prob- ably owing to the animal’s struggles and attempts to yomit. Two experiments that he made upon dogs, using the same dose as that given by Wood, tend to support this explanation. To determine the effect of quinine upon heat-production, spirometric observa- tions were made upon normal rabbits, and rabbits suffering from septic fever, the amount of oxygen absorbed being taken as an indication of the oxida- tions going on in the body. In normal rabbits, qui- nine was found to have no effect upon the amount of oxygen consumed; while, in febrile animals, it caused a diminution in the oxygen-consumption. The au- thor’s conclusion, with regard to the anti-pyretice action of quinine, is, that it acts in the first place in- directly by destroying the organisms which give rise to the fever, and, in the second place, directly dimin- ishes the oxidations in the tissues of the body. — ( Pfliiger’s archiv, xxxi. 5381.) W. H. H. [581. Action of carbon dioxide and oxygen upon the mammalian heart. — The present paper by Klug forms an extension of some previous work of the same nature on the frog’s heart. His experiments were made upon dogs anaesthetized by means of mor- phia, and made to breathe in an atmosphere contain- ing different percentages of carbon dioxide or oxygen. With regard to the action of carbon dioxide he finds, in accordance with previous observers, that it acts as DECEMBER 28, 18S3.] a stimulus to the vaso-motor and cardio-inhibitory centres of the medulla; but, in opposition to the state- ments of Traube and Landois, he asserts that it dis- ables the intrinsic motor centres of the heart. He grounds this statement on the fact, that, after section of the vagi and the cervical cord, the heart soon ceases to beat, when the animal breathes in an atmosphere containing from twenty to forty per cent of carbon dioxide. Breathing in an atmosphere of oxygen stimulates both the inhibitory and accelerator centres of the medulla: and the author repeats for the mam- mal a statement made with reference to the frog; viz., that oxygen acts as a constant stimulus for the heart- contractions. Want of oxygen, like carbon dioxide, Stimulates the inhibitory and vaso-motor centres, and first stimulates, then depresses, the accelerator centres. —(Arch. anat. physiol., 1883, 134.) w.H.H. [582 Maturation and impregnation of the mam- malian ovum.—G. Rein has investigated these phe- nomena in rabbits and guinea-pigs. He describes minutely his manner of obtaining the desired mate- rial. In rabbits the tuba can be cut open, and exam- ined with a lens: in guinea-pigs it is better to collect the eggs by pressing out the excised tuba with a blunt instrument. They may be examined fresh in the fluid from the oviduct, and even kept so for some time, if the cover-glass is surrounded by a rim of oil, _and the slide placed in a warm box. To preserve the eggs, fix with (.1%-1%) osmie acid, place them for two or three days in Miiller’s fluid, aud mount in glycerine. The so-called corona radiata consists of the cells (changed to the spindle form) of the discus prolige- rus, It is most marked in the rabbit immediately before the bursting of the Graafian follicle, i.e., nine to eleven hours after copulation; by which time one polar globule has generally been formed. The cells of the corona present features most unusual in epi- thelia:- they are elongated, spindle or star shaped, with processes which branch often and anastomose with one another; they are probably forced apart by the liquor folliculi, which accumulates, especially during the last hours before the bursting of the fol- licle; after that event they resume their original form. As the ovum matures, the nucleus is distended, and assumes an eccentric position and oval form. The nucleolus is replaced now by a cluster of gran- ules,which then scatter themselves through the yolk, become smaller and ultimately -indistinguishable. The nucleus comes to lie close against the zona pel- lucida, and there is flattened out. The next change is the expulsion of the first polar globule, which ap- pears to be formed out of the germ-vesicle. No kary- okinetic figures were observed in connection with the process, Rein suggests that possibly the mam- malian polar globules are not complete homologues of those of the lower animals. ‘The maturation is further marked by the contraction of the yolk, first, at the point where the polar globule is ejected; sec- oud, general, so that the yolk recedes, as in other mammalia, from the zona pellucida. In three cases active protuberances on the yolk were observed (cf. Kupffer, ante, i.1132). In the mature oyum also SCIENCE. 835 appear yolk-grains larger and much darker than the other granules. In four cases a second nucleus was observed more in the centre of the egg, probably the egg-nucleus (or female pronucleus). Impregnation. takes place in the middle third of the tuba thirteen to seventeen hours after copulation. Two pronuclei (male.and female) are seen in the ovum: they travel towards one another, meet eccen- trically, make amoeboid movements, and sometimes are quite near the surface. The radiating lines could not be seen in most cases around the pronuclei. At the time of impregnation the cells of the corona have partly fallen off. Numerous spermatozoa crowd around the egg, several pass the zona; but probably only one enters the yolk. The pronuclei pass to the centre of the ovum, the amoeboid movements con- tinue; one pronucleus becomes crescent-shaped, and embraces the other: the two then probably unite. — (Arch. mikros. anat., xxii. 233.) ©. 8. M. [583 Duration of systole and diastole of heart- beat.— From a series of experiments made upon the dog, Howell and Ely have come to the conclusion that variations of arterial pressure from fifty milli- metres to a hundred and sixty millimetres of mercury have no direct effect whatever upon the duration of either systole or diastole. The experiments were carried out upon hearts completely isolated from every other organ of the body, except the lungs, after the method devised by Prof, Martin. The contrac- tions of the heart were registered by means of a Fick spring manometer connected with the cavity of the right ventricle, and the time relations of the beat were determined by comparing this curve with the simultaneous tracing of a tuning-fork vibrating fifty times a second. — (Stud. biol. lab. Johns Hopk. univ., li, 453.) Ww. H. H. [584 i ANTHROPOLOGY. Tattooing among civilized people.— Last De- cember Dr. Robert Fletcher read a paper on tattooing among civilized people, which he is now publishing. The custom presents itself from two points of view, — the medico-legal and the anthropological. Compared with the elaborate tattooing of many savage tribes, the designs which sailors, soldiers, and, above all, crimi- nals, have imprinted on their persons, are trivial or offensive in subject. or clumsy in execution. In 1869 Berchou made several reports to the French govern- ment on tattooing among sailors and criminals, and published a work entitled ‘ Histoire médicale du ta- touage.’ At the meeting in Algiers in 1881, of the French association for the advancement, of science, Magitat exhibited a chart showing the geographical distribution of tattooing, according to methods, as follows: 1. By pricking; 2. By simple incision; 3. By ulceration or burning; 4. Hypodermie tattooing; 5, Mixed tattooing. Among the distinguished observers of this practice are Cesar Lombroso of Turin, and Dr. A. Lacassagne of Lyons. Lombroso publishes a chapter on tattooing in his ‘ L’uomo deliquente,’ and Lacassagne is the author of a volume entitled ‘ Les tatouages, étude anthropologique et médico-légale.’ He gives a table showing the parts of the body oper- 836 ated upon in 878 subjects, and also one containing the details of 1,333 tracings obtained from the battalion d’ Afrique, as follows: — Patriotic and religious emblems . . . 91 Professionalemblems . . . . . . . 98 TNSerip tions) js. \Vaienct avery Ween eet ste et LE Militaryemblems .... . .. . 149 Metaphorical emblems . eaters 72 Amorous and erotic emblems . . - 280 Fantastic, historical, and miscellaneous, 344 1,333 The reader will find this one of the most entertain- ing and instructive anthropological papers which have appeared in a long time. — (Trans. anthrop. soc. Washington, ii. 40.) 3. Ww. P. [585 The Mexican pulque.— “‘ One of the first objects to claim the attention of the conquerors of Mexico,’’ says Carl Beni, ‘“‘ was the maguey-plant (Agave ameri- cana; Mexican, neuttli). Its manifold uses and prod- ucts, considered in relation to the inhabitants of that region and to their manner of living, render interest- ing the study of this vegetable, which is justly called pianta delle meraviglie.”” De Candolle thinks that the plant is of Mexican origin; but the place where it was discovered to furnish a beverage is uncertain, for traditions concerning it are intimately connected with the history of the ancient peoples who occupied the central plateaus of South America. According to the Mexican traditions, Ixquitecatl was the first to invent the method of drawing the sweet juice from the maguey, and Titlacahuan used pulque to intoxicate Quelzalcoatl and to induce him to go into exile. Another legend says, that in 1045 the juice of the plant was introduced as a drink among the royal family. Signor Beni has collected from various sources the references to the uses of this celebrated SCIENCE. [Vou. IL., No. 47. plant, and in 1876, while in Mexico, made some obser- vations on its cultivation and uses. The following is the analysis of the sap and of the fermented liquor: — Sap. Pulque. Albuminous substances . 25.40 12.57 Sugar oto Chita actor a 95.53 8.23 Salts . aie el ae vee abe 7.26 2.20 Absolute aleohol wi VieKien! te ose Aart goat 0.00 36.80 Water, gas, and waste . ‘ 871.81 940.20 5 1000.00 | 2000.00 — (Archiv. per Vantrop., xiii. 13.) J. w. P. [586 The use of mollusks.— Dr. A. T. de Roche- brune has written a second memoir upon mollusks among ancient and modern peoples, this time treat- ing of shells in the sepulechres of Ecuador and New Granada. The mounds of the United States furnish some beautiful specimens of aboriginal art in shell, and our archeologists have not been slow in taking advantage of the interest clustering about these ob- jects. The relative rarity of mollusks utilized by the ancient inhabitants of the Peruvian coast is noticed by M. Rochebrune. The farther north we go, the more pronounced this poverty becomes. Indeed, the following five species are all that the author has found from that region: — 1. Spondylus limbatus Sow, statuettes and neck- laces. . Venus multicostata Sow, spangles, necklaces. . Patella olla Brod., bangles, quippus(?) beads. . Oliva splendidula Sow, bangles, pendants. . Fasciolaria salmo Wood, pieces for clothing. Or co bo Two or three of the objects are carved with some elaborateness of design. —(Rev. d’ethnog., ii. 311.) J. W. P. [587 INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. Geological survey. Comparative paleontology of the Devonian forma- tion. — Prof. H. 8. Williams has recently been devot- ing his attention especially to this formation in west- ern New York, and, in a preliminary report to the director, makes known some interesting facts as a result of his study of the materials collected by him during the past summer. In the black shales, which in New York lie between beds containing Hamilton faunas below and those bearing Portage faunas above, he has found Lingulas indistinguishable from those of the Cleveland shales; also conodont teeth identical in form with those de-~ scribed from the same Cleveland beds, and Sporangites and Palaeoniscus scales. Species, therefore, regarded by Ohio geologists as characteristic of the Cleveland shales (Waverly), oceur together in a similar black shale in New York, which there is known to underlie the upper Devonian. Professor Williams says, how- ever, that, although the identity of the two faunas can scarcely be disputed, he is not so sure that it is an indication of synchronous deposition. The various black shales of Ohio are more nearly continuous there than in New York; and he says it is pretty clear that the intercalated sandy deposits are of a more eastern origin. At the horizon of upper Devonian the sands are purer and of lighter color as we go westward and south-westward ; and in some of the quarries of west- ern New York, sandstones very similar to the Ohio Waverly stone are met with. In these sands distinet quartz pebbles have been found, nearly as low as the point where the first member of the typical Chemung fauna is obtained, Jeading Professor Williams to sus- pect that true conglomerates may, in some geograph- ical area, have been contemporaneous with the early Chemung fauna. He says the evidences are accumu- lating in support of the hypothesis that the lower _ conglomerates are the geographical representatives of deposits of much finer character farther north, in which the Chemung faunas appear. He meets the DECEMBER 28, 1883.] argument for a high geological position of the con- glomerates (based on an assumed regular dip towards the south-west in this region) by the supposition that conglomerates must express nearness to shore, and that, running along a line from shore into deep water, it is safe to assume that for any given length of time the thickness of the deposit will diminish with the distance from the shore; and hence, if the general relation of shore to deep water continued through the upper Devonian, the dip of the strata will diminish as we ascend in the series, and the tendency of one who depended upon a general rate of dip would be to reckon the more southern deposits too high. Profes- sor Williams has good evidence that this has been done for the sands of Wyoming and Alleghany coun- ties. Professor Williams’s observations lead him to the opinion (which may be modified by further facts), that the sandstones lying at the top of the series at Por- tage Falls, barren of fossils so far as reported, are, when taken as a mass, stratigraphically identical with the lower Chemung sandstones farther south and west, and that geographical conditions had more to do with the presence or absence of the Chemung fauna than had the geological time of the deposit, after once the Chemung fauna appeared in the sea, The present staze of Professor Williams's investiga- tions leads him to the following opinion as to the - distribution of faunas at this mid-upper Devonian for the eastern area: — 1. A Hamilton fauna coming in from the east and north, and exteuding around the southern border of the old paleozoic continent into the interior sea, through Canada West, Michigan, ete., to Iowa, ete. 2. A black slate fauna, at first reaching quite to the eastern New York areas, but, with the advance of time, oscillating back and forth, each stage withdraw- ing farther and farther to the west and south. 3. A sparse Portage fauna, mainly small lamelli- branelis and pteropods and cephalopods, rather pelagic in character, common over the New York area, but whose centre or origin he is unable to trace. 4, A Chemung fauna from the south and east, push- ing northward with the withdrawal of the Hamilton fauna, mingling with it at first in eastern New York areas, but in western New York not appearing at all until the complete withdrawal of the Hamilton fauna. There are also traces of a fifth fauna over this re- gion; for, as the Chemung fauna is followed towards the western part of the state, species characteristic of the subcarboniferous of the interior begin to ap- pear, both in the nature of the varietal modifications of the species and in the rare new forms mixed with the Chemung species, leading to the suspicion that the subcarboniferous faunas of the western interior may have been contemporaneous with the Chemung faunas of New York and Pennsylvania. He says, however, that the solution of this problem must be left until a more thorough study of the western in- terior deposits and their faunas is made, and that the problems involved are too complex to make hasty generalizations safe. SCIENCE. 837 These investigations have been partly in the line of some remarks made by Professor James Hall in the ‘Paleontology of New York’ (vol. iv. part i., March, 1867, p. 257), where he speaks of the diminu- * tion of Devonian types and the augmentation of car- boniferous types in the same beds in western New York, and also expresses the opinion that the min- gling of Devonian and carboniferous aspects is due to geographical and physical conditions, and not to dif- fereuce in age or chronological sequence of the beds which contain the fossils. Professor Williams is elaborating this idea, and is dissecting the faunas and tracing them to their centres of distribution, NOTES AND NEWS. PROFESSOR SYLVESTER, who has resigned the chair of mathematics at the Johns Hopkins university, and has been appointed to the Savilian professorship of geometry at the University of Oxford, sailed for Europe on Saturday last, Dec. 22. The night before his departure from Baltimore, a farewell assembly was held at the university iu his honor. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who was present, made a brief speech. Res- olutions were read on behalf of the board of trustees and of the teachers in the university, expressing their profound regret at the departure of Professor Sylvester, and the highest appreciation of his work and of the great stimulus his presence has given to mathematical research in this country. Professor Sylvester responded in a speech of characteristic warmth and naivelé, in which, along with most enthusiastic admiration and approval of the univer- sity he has helped to inaugurate, he took the oppor- tunity of making some pointed suggestions. One of these was addressed to millionnaires, to whom he indicated several ways in which, while aiding the Johns Hopkins university, they might secure for themselves imperishable fame. Another pointed at the advisability of introducing a system of pensions or some equivalent provision for superannuated and disabled professors; and still another was a protest against the dismemberment of a university library by the establishment of specialized branches. Professor Sylvester's departure removes from the university not only the most distinguished scientific man, but the most interesting personality connected with it; and his absence will make a gap in the general life of the university no less than in his own department. It is hardly to our credit that no American college has conferred an honorary degree upon him during his residence in this country. — In his recent address to the Royal society, Presi- dent Huxley states that thirty-eight of the Chal- lenger reports have been published, forming eight quarto volumes, with 4,195 pages of letter-press, 488 lithographic plates, and other illustrations, Thirty-four of these memoirs are on zodlogical, four on physical, subjects. Nine reportsare now nearly all in type, and some of them partly printed. These will be published within three months, and will form three zodlogical volumes with 230 plates and many ‘ 838 woodcuts, and one physical volume with many dia- grams and maps: this latter volume will contain the report on the composition of ocean water; the specific gravity and temperature observations. A consider- able part of the general narrative of the cruise is now in type, and nearly all the illustrations are prepared. The narrative will extend to two volumes; and it is expected they will be ready for issue in May or June, 1884. The work connected with the remaining forty- two special reports is in most instances progressing satisfactorily. Portions of the manuscript for three of the larger memoirs have been received and put in type, and the manuscript of many others is in a forward state. For these memoirs, 386 lithographic plates have been printed off and delivered to the binders, 404 others are now on stone, and the draw- ings for many more are being prepared. It is esti- mated that the whole work connected with the report will be completed in the summer of 1887. — Professor Huxley also expresses a regret that the admirable energy of the government in taking meas- ures to make the recent advances of medical science available during the late outbreak of cholera in Egypt was not extended beyond the purely prac- tical side of the matter, or perhaps not so far as the practical side in the proper sense; for, until we know something about the causes of that terrible disease, our measures for prevention and for cure will be alike leaps in the dark. Those, he says, who have looked into the literature of cholera may perhaps be disposed to think that a new search after its cause will add but another to the innumerable wild hypotheses which have been set afloat on that topic; and yet devastating epidemics, like the pebrine of the silkworm, so similar in their fatality and their apparently capricious spread that careful investigators have not hesitated to institute a detailed comparison of the phenomena of this disease with those of cholera, have been proved by Pasteur to be the work of microscopic organisms; and hardly less fatal epidemics, such as splenic fever, have been traced to similaragencies. In both these cases, knowl- edge of the causes, and of the conditions which limit the operation of the causes, has led to the invention of effectual methods of cure. And it is assuredly, in the present state of science, something more than a permissible hypothesis, that the cause of cholera may be an organic living materies morbi, and that the discovery of the proper curative and prophylactic measures will follow upon the determination of the nature and conditions of existence of these organisms. If this reasoning is just, it is certainly to be re- gretted that the opportunity of the outbreak of cholera in Egypt was not utilized for the purposes of scientific investigation into the cause of the epidemic. There are able, zealous, and courageous young pathologists _in England who would have been willing enough to undertake the labor and the risk; and it seems a pity that England should leave to Germany and to France an enterprise which requires no less daring than arctic or African exploration, but which, if successful, would be of a thousand times more value to mankind than the most complete knowledge of the barren ice-wastes SCIENCE. [Vot. II., No. 47. of the pole or of the sweltering barbarism of the equator. It may be said that inquiries into the causa- tion of cholera have been for some years conducted in India by the government without yielding any very definite result; but this is perhaps rather an argument in favor of, than against, settling fresh minds to work upon the problem. — Professor George Davidson read papers at the meeting of the California academy of sciences, Noy. 5; on the solar eclipse of Oct. 30, 1883, and the ap- pearance of Saturn as seen at the Dearborn observa- tory under very favorable conditions. He said of the latter, ‘‘ The evening was clear and pleasant, and nearly calm. . . . The atmosphere was charged with aqueous vapor, and the dew ran down the obserya- tory almost like rain. . . . But one of the best re- vealed features... was the undoubted difference in brightness of the gauzy ring at the two ansae, The preceding part was decidedly brighter than the following ansa. . . . I should mention, that, in my limited experience in examining Saturn, I have never seen the atmospheric conditions so nearly perfect as they were that night... .I saw more than is given in the beautiful Cambridge drawing.” Professor Davidson also spoke of a brilliant meteor as follows: ‘‘On the evening of Oct. 29, at eleven o’clock, a remarkably brilliant meteor passed verti- cally downwards very near to Eridani (3 mag.). It illuminated the street, and its light cast a strong shadow. The train, about five degrees long, was persistent for three or four seconds, with an intense, vivid brightness, then faded away to a white, vapor- ous-looking streak, which assumed a wavy motion for three or four seconds, and then vanished. The color was an intense white, tinged with a purplish hue; and the brightest part of the train which was left was not at the point of disappearance, but about the middle of its length.” At a later meeting of the academy, Professor Da- vidson spoke of Trouvelot’s red star, seen during the solar eclipse of May 6, and took the ground that 6 Arietes was the star seen by Trouvelot. Full accounts of all these papers were given in the Mining and scientific press, San Francisco. — We take the following account of the awards of medals recently made by the council of the Royal so- ciety from Professor Huxley’s presidential address :— ‘The number, the variety, and the importance of Sir William Thomson’s contributions to mathematical and experimental physics are matters of common knowledge; and the fellows of the society will be more gratified than surprised to hear that the council have this year awarded him the Copley medal, — the highest honor which it is in their power to bestow. Sir William Thomson has taken a foremost place among those to whom the remarkable development of the theory of thermodynamies and of electricity in the last forty years is due. His share in the experi- mental treatment of these subjects has been no less considerable; while his constructive ability in apply- ing science to practice is manifested by the number of instruments bearing his name which are at pres- ent in use in the physical laboratory and in the tele- EL di He ip > whl? eee oe ee in i =) DECEMBER 28, 1883.] graph-office. Moreover, in propounding his views on the universal dissipation energy and on vortex mo- tion and molecular vortices, Sir William Thomson has propounded conceptions which belong to the pri- ma philosophia of physical science, and will assuredly lead the physicist of the future to attempt once more to grapple with those problems concerning the ulti- mate construction of the material world which Des- eartes and Leibnitz attempted to solve, but which have been sedulously ignored by most of their suc- cessors. t One Royal medal has been awarded to Dr. T. Archer Hirst, F.R.S., for his investigations in pure geometry, and more particularly for his researches into the correlation of two planes and into the com- plexes generated by them. The other Royal medal has been awarded to Dr. J. S. Burdon Sanderson, F.R.S., for the eminent services which he has rendered to physiology and pathology, and especially for his researches on the electrical phenomena exhibited by plants, and for his investigations into the relation of minute organisms to disease. In making this award, the council desire not merely to recognize the merit of Dr. Burdon Sanderson’s researches, especially those on the anal- ogy between the electrical changes which take place in the contractile tissues of plants and those which occur in the like tissues of animals, but to mark their sense of the important influence which Dr. Sander- son has exerted upon the study of physiology and pathology in this country. The Davy medal has this year been again awarded in duplicate; the recipients being M. Marcellin Ber- thelot, member of the Institute of France, and foreign member of the Royal society, and Professor Julius Thomsen of Copenhagen. The thermochemical re- searches of Berthelot and Thomsen have extended over many years, and have involved an immense amount of work, partly in the application of estab- lished methods to new cases, partly in devising new methods and applying them to cases in which the older methods were not applicable. Chemists had identified a vast variety of substances, and had deter- mined the exact composition of nearly all of them; but of the forees which held together the elements of each compound they knew but little. It was known that certain elements combine with one another with great evolution of heat-forming products in which they are firmly united; while other elements combine but feebly, and with little evolution of heat. But the materials for forming any general theory of the forces of chemical combination were but scanty and imper- fect. The labors of Messrs. Berthelot and Thomsen have done much towards supplying that want, and they will be of the utmost value for the advancement of chemical science. — Dr. Charles W. Dabney, director of the North Carolina agricultural experiment-station, has issued a cireular urging the necessity of a strictly scientific agricultural journal in this country, either a quar- terly or monthly. Those interested should address Dr. Dabney at Raleigh, N.C. The station at Raleigh is reported to be in a prosperous condition, SCIENCE. 839 — The next number of the Journal of the Cincinnati society of natural history will contain a biographical sketch and a steel-plate portrait of the late V. T. Chambers, the entomologist. Mr. Chambers was at one time president of the society, and at all times one of its most active members. — The Ohio mechanies’ institute of Cincinnati has inaugurated a series of popular scientific lectures on a plan pursued in former years. The lecturers and the topics for this series are as follows: Prof. T. CG, Mendenhall, ‘ The electric light ;’ Prof. C. L. Mees, ‘Molecular motion and crystallization;’ Prof. F. W. Putnam, ‘ Ancient arts of North-American nations;’ Dr. A. Springer, ‘ The cell and its functions;’ Prof, E. 8. Morse, ‘ Japan;’ Prof. Thomas French, jun., ‘Sound;’ Prof. W. L. Dudley, ‘ Water;’ Prof. T. H, Norton, ‘Recent advances in chemical technology;’ Prof. J. B. Porter, ‘Mining and metallurgy.’ The first two of these have already been given. The others will follow at intervals of about two weeks. —The course of free popular scientific’ lectures just concluded by the Cincinnati society of natural history was a great success. Eight lectures were delivered on topics connected with zodlogy by mem- bers of the society. They were given every Friday evening from Oct. 19 to Dec. 7, and were attended by as large audiences as the lecture-room would ac- commodate. The lecture committee is arranging for another course, to begin on Jan. 4; and these lec- tures will treat of topics connected with geology and mineralogy. ‘Gems,’ ‘Marbles and corals,’ * Phys- ical geography of the United States,’ and ‘Fossil botany,’ are some of the subjects. The officers of the society deserve credit for their efforts to make the institution of practical educational value. — It is proposed to hold during the year 1884. says Nature, an international exhibition, which shall also illustrate certain branches of health and education, and which will occupy tlre buildings at South Ken- sington erected for the fisheries exhibition. The object of the exhibition will be to illustrate, as viy- idly and in as practical a manner as possible, food, dress, the dwelling, the school, and the workshop, as affecting the conditions of healthful life, and also to bring into public notice many of the most recent appliances for elementary school-teaching and instrue- tion in applied science, art, and handicrafts. The in- fluence of modern sanitary knowledge and intellectual progress upon the welfare of the people of all classes and ali nations will thus be practically demonstrated, and an attempt will be made to display the most valu- able and recent advances which have been attained in these important subjects. The exhibition will be divided into two main sections, —I. Health; II. Edu- cation,—and will be further subdivided into six prinei- pal groups. In the first group it is intended specially to illustrate the food-resources of the world, and the best and most economical methods of utilizing them, For the sake of comparison, not only will specimens of food from all countries be exbibited, but the vari- ous methods of preparing, cooking, and serving food will be practically shown. The numerous processes of manufacture connected with the preparation of 840 articles of food and drink will thus be exemplified; and, so far as the perishable nature of the articles will admit, fuli illustrations will be given of the vari- ous descriptions of foods themselves. In “the second group, dress, chiefly in its relation to health, will be displayed. Illustrations of the clothing of the princi- pal peoples of the world may be expected; and a part of this exhibition, which, it is anticipated, will be held in the galleries of the Royal Albert Hall, will be devoted to the history of costume. In the third, fourth, and fifth groups will be comprised all that pertains to the healthful construction and fitting of the dwelling, the school, and the workshop, not only as respects the needful arrangements for sanitation, but also the fittings and furniture generally in their effect on the health of the inmates. The most im- proved methods of school construction will be shown; and the modes of combating and preventing the evils of unhealthy trades, occupations, and processes of manufacture, will form portions of the exhibition. The sixth group will comprise all that relates to pri- mary, technical, and art education, and will include designs and models for school-buildings, apparatus and appliances for teaching, diagrams, text-books, ete. Special attention will be directed to technical and art education, to the results of industrial teach- ing, and to the introduction of, manual and handi- craft work into schools. — The members of the polar ssiccraloee a station which Denmark maintained at Godthaab in Green- land have just returned to Copenhagen. According to Nature, the chief of the expedition, Lieut. A. Paulsen, reports, that, having left Copenhagen on May 18, 1882, in the sailing-ship Ceres, they arrived at Godthaab on June 14. On the voyage out, obser- yations of the temperature of the sea and air were made every hour. On the arrival out, the expedition had to select the most_suitable spot for the erection of the four wooden buildings brought with them, in which the magnetic and astronomical observations were to be made. A small mountain ridge near the church in the colony was chosen for this, as the pre- liminary researches in its neighborhood showed that the influence of iron strata on the magnetic current was here very small. The buildings were then erected, and the pillars raised on which the transit instrument, the great astronomical clock, and the eight different magnetical instruments, were mounted, and simultaneously the instruments for the meteoro- logical observations’ were also placed; so that the weathereock and the anemometers, as well as the thermometer hut, were situated as free as possible. On Aug. 1 the meteorological observations could be commenced, but the magnetic ones were through an accident delayed until the 7th. From that date com- plete observations were made in exact accordance with the international programme, without inter- ruption, every hour until Aug. 31 this year; and the expedition has thereby fully*accomplished its object, yiz., of obtaining a full year’s magnetical and me- teorological observations in this locality. A num- ber of other scientific researches have also. been pursued, of which those on the aurora borealis ~ SCIENCE. te Mit ie Pi a [Vou. II., No. 47. should particularly be mentioned. ‘This phenome- non was frequently observed and studied during the winter, while some exceedingly valuable statis- tics were obtained as to the altitude of the aurora borealis above the earth’s surface by measurements effected simultaneously in various places by light- signals. The measurements of atmospheric electri- city have also led to valuable results. It is stated to have been the best equipped polar expedition ever despatched from Denmark. — M. Langier, at a meeting of the Académie des sciences held on Oct. 22, described a method of disin- fecting plants for exportation, practised by himself and Dr. Koenig at Nice. Some branches of vine in- fected with phylloxera were treated with a solution of sulphocarbonate of ethyl, the eggs and phylloxera being completely destroyed. The plants submitted to the trial do not seem in general to have suffered from it. For the first trials in disinfecting leaves and twigs, gaseous hydrocyanie acid was used, as pro- posed by Dr. Koenig; and for the roots and surround- ing earth, sulphocarbonate of potassium in weak solution. ‘Their experiments, they believe, will be of great service to the flower-cultivators of the Riviera. — The distinguished French geodesist, M. Antoine @ Abbadie, writes to the editor of Nature, regarding units of angular measure, as follows:— ‘« We probably owe our degrees either to the earlier supposed. year of 360 days, or to the fact that this number has many di- visors, although such divisors afford no practical advantage. When trigonometrical functions were subsequently discovered, it was found that the natural unit is not the circle, but the quad- rant or right angle. Our system of numeration being decimal, it was then most convenient to diyide the quadrant decimally > and the circle is thus considered as composed of four, forty, four hundred, etc., parts, according to the degree of exactness re- quired, This was proposed by Briggs when preparing his loga- rithms, which are bused on decimals; but unfortunately it was- then set aside. Revived a long time after by Lagrange, it was acted upon by Laplace in his Mécanique celeste. Nowadays deci- mal divisions of the quadrant are the only ones used by French ge- odesis . In Italy two geodvsists were instructed to observe and calculate, in both the centesimal and the sexagesimal systems, the same large lot of angles. It was then found that the use of decimals gave a saying of two-sevenths of time, either in observation or in calculation. This result was unknown to Sir George Airy; but he judged rightly that the conversion of all sexagesimal angles into decimal ones would materially lighten his labors, and he actually did so when calculating all the lunar observations previously made at Greenwich.” — Prof. H. G. Van de Sande Bakhuyzen, the di- rector of the observatory at Leiden, announces the completion of a new catalogue of star-places (began by Hoek, and continued by Dr. Kam, and contained in the first sixty-six volumes of the Astronomische nachrichten). The catalogue will contain nearly five thousand stars, reduced to the epoeh 1853.0, with the data pertaining to the observations, and the usual elements for carrying forward the star positions. — The last expedition of Lessar toward the Oxus- was attended with severe hardships. He lost nearly all his animals; and to save his famished escort, almost destitute of water and provisions in the desert, he was. obliged to seek assistance from the Khivans. Worm with three years painful and centinual exploration,. the explorer thinks of returning to Europe, INDEX TO VOLUME II. : . *,* Figures in black-faced type refer to the numbered paragraphs in the ‘weekly summary;' those in ordinary type, to pages. Names of contributors are printed in small capitals. Asport, C.C. Evidences of glacial man, 487; kalmias and rhododendrons, 201; occurrence of mound-builders’ pipes in New Jersey, ill. 258; occurrence of the swallow-tailed hawk in New Jersey, 222; the intelligence of birds, 301. Abyssal mollusks, 27, 208, 453. Acid in juice of beet, 76. Aconitum lycoctonum, 691. Acoustic rotation apparatus, i//. $18. Adams’s Evolution, reviewed, 659. Aesculus glabra, flowers of, 89. Africa, French missionary work in, 225; Masai people in, 502; notes on, 298; Portuguese in, 423; South, land-hold- ing in, 73. African ex eee 92; psychology, 195. cus, 631. Agave americana, 836. cultural botany, 335; prices, history of, 353; station, New York, 687. Agriculture: its needs and opportunities, 328; values in, 378. Ainos of Japan, 134. Alaska, ethnology of, 667; geological changes in, 655, 294; vegetation in, 19. Albatross, U.S. fish-commission steamer, ill. 6, 66; four-days’ cruise of, ill. 615; electric light on, il/. 642, 671, 705. Albite, 389, 418. Alcohols, action of, on heart, 96. Alexander, Stephen, 27. Algae, and tastes and odors, 333; injurious, 23; Swedish, 564. Algebraical equations, 409. Algeria, artesian wells in, 116 ; geological map of, 606. Allegheny oil-sands, 18. ALLEN, J. A. The right whale of the North Atlantic, 134, 267. Alligator lucius, 831. Almacantar, tests with, 239. Alnwick castle antiquities, reviewed, 136. Alphabet, 438; universal, 350. Alpine railways, 635, Alps, pre-Cambrian rocks of, 322. ALyorD, B. Importance of lime-juice in the pemmican for arctic expeditions, 471. Amelia county, Va., minerals from, 338. America, autochthones of, 37; north-west, 253. American apiculturist, 147; archaeological institute, 753; archeology, lectures on, 581; association for the advancement of science, 116, 146, 151, 179, 190, 211, 227, 253, 273, 314, 340, 358, 384; at Meg olis, 181; explorations at Assos, id/. : forestry congress, 117; oriental society, 651; ornithologists’ union, 516; scholar- ship, 167; society of civil engineers, 75, 100; of mechanical engineers, 62, 267; of microscopists, 117, 465. Americanists, congress of, 667. Amido-compounds, nutritive value of, 551. Amiurus natalis, 144; nebulosus, 144; prosthistius, 144. Ammocoetes, 731. Amphinema apicatum, 773. Amphi 723. Ampullaria Powelli, 808. Anaesthesia, production of, 338. Ancient temples, restoration of, T40. Ane measure, units of, 840. drite, reproduction of, 313. Aniline dyes, 486. ‘Animal chlorophyll, 487. Annals of eietvestics, 698. Annam, 341. Annelid and coral, 94. Anomura of New England, 257. Anoplopbrya socialis, 790. Ant, leaping, 386; occident, distribution of, 493. Antase, 52. Anthomyia canicularis, 774. Anthracite fields of Pennsylvania, 385. Anthropological institute, London, 540; studies, 358. Saopology at Berlin, 539; manuals of, 49. Antimony, atomic weight of, 479. Antiquity of man in America, 779. Antrostomus vociferus, 167. Aortic insufficiency, 527. Apatites containing iodine, 242. Appalachian mountain-club, 518. Apteryx, respiratory organs of, 376. Aquilegia, 691; longissima, 691. Arago laboratory at Banyuls, il. 556. Archaeological institute of America, itl. 646, 753. Archeology, American, lectures on, 581; in India, 809; in Portugal, 764. Architeuthis, model of, at Fisheries exhi- bition, 683. Archiv fiir anthropologie, 607. Arctic expeditions, pemmican for, 471; land, 559; notes, 318, 365. Arion hortensis, slime-spinning by, 492. Americ binary, 755; rule for division in, 788. Arkansas, forest-trees of, 342. Arlberg tunnel, 781. Arrow release, 369. Artemia salina, 571. Arterial pressure, 527. Artesian wells, 1h ArntTHuR, J. C. A wee osed poisonous seaweed in the lakes of Minnesota, 333. Asaphus, 341. Asclepias, pollination of, 427. Ascospores in Saccharomyces, 347. ASHBURNER, C. A. The Dora coal-field, Virginia, 794. Asia, Pulmonata of, 429. Asparagin, chemistry of, 202. Asphalt mortar, 415. Aspidonectes spinifer, 338. Assassins, skulls of, 212. Association for advancement of science and teaching, 210. Assos, explorations at, i//. 646; meeting, report of, 712. Astarte triquetra, 277. Astronomical instruments, 202. Astronomy, biographical history of, 623; illustrative apparatus for, il. 218. Atlantic Ocean, age of, 666. Atmospheric electricity, 291. Atomic motions, nature of, 76, 123. Audibility, limit of, 42. Augite, 484. Aurantiaceae, spines of, 566. Auriculidae, shell in, 371. Aurora, 472, ill. 75. Auroral experiments in Lapland, é/. 819. Australia, bismuth of, 554. oe class systems, 69; coal flora, 520. Authors, suggestion to, 755. Automatism, conscious, 339. Auwers, on the Berliner jahrbuch, 711. Avery, on the Khasi language, 651. Aztalan, 352. Aztec music, 305. B., L. English ch, 712; teaching language to brutes, 682. B., M. Area of a plane triangle, 794. Baspirt, F. E. estiges of glacial man in central Minnesota, 369. Babylonian research, 40. Bacteria, 466. Batrp, G. W. The electric light on the U. S. fish-commission steamer Albatross, ill, 642, 671, 705. BAKER, M. Magnetic observations at Los Angeles, Cal., ill, 58. Baker, T. R. A comparison of terra- cotta lumber with other materials, 292. Ba.pacct, L. The earthquake of July 28, 1883, in the island of Ischia, il/. 396. Balfour, Francis Maitland, portrait, 299; his researches on Peripatus, i//. 306. Balloon, fall of, ild. 189; of Paris obser- vatory, 451. + Banyuls, Arege laboratory at, ill. 556. Barite, reproduction of, 313. Barley, growth of, 448. Barometric laws, 315; maxima and min- ima, 451. Barrande, Joachim, portrait, 699, 727; be- quest of, 725. Basal substance, structureless, 161. Basalt, Ottendorf, 271. Basic process at Peine works, 358. Batstoe River, fishes of, 163. Bavarian forest, 185; meteorology, 251. BEAL, W.J. Agriculture: its needs and opportunities, 328. Beavers at London fisheries exhibition, 28. Beet-juice, glutamin in, 517. Belgium, geology of, 14. Beit, A. M. A universal language and its vehicle, —a universal alphabet, 350. Bell’s Primer of visible speech, reviewed, 204. Ben Nevis, meteorological observatory on, 666; observations at, 203. BeneEpict, J. E. Invertebrates captured by the Albatross, 617. Benzotrichloride, phenols, and phenylam- ines, 50. Bering Sea, news from, 205. Berlin, anthropology at, 539. Berliner jahrbuch, 711. Beryllium, spectrum of, 243. Bessemerizin, SOR Per mattes, 333. Bicetow, H.R. The mechanism of direc- tion, 622. Binary arithmetic, experiments in, 755. Birchbark poems, 414. Bird-life, New-England, 357. Birds’ ears, ill. 422, 552, 586. Birds, Illinois, 282; intelligence of, 301; notes of, 167; of Tonkak, 99; pacinian corpuscles of, 460. Bismuth of Australia, 554; electrolysis of, 141. Biziura, anatomy of, 435. Blackham, G. E., on namihg oculars, 465. Blake, J. F., on St. David's rocks, 635. Blake dredgings, 574. Bleaching, 546. Blissus leucopterus, 540. Blood corpuscles, colorless, 353; serum, chemistry and physiology of, 31; ves- sels, 462. Boas, J. E. V., on the phylogeny of the higher Crustacea, 790. Body and will, 600. Boilers, compound engines and, 477, Bolivian rivers, 274. Bolometer, cheap, 137. solutions, 842 Bouton, H. C., and Jurren, A. A. Musi- cal sand, 718. Scealso JULIEN, A. A., and Botton, H. C. Bolton’s Catalogue of scientific and tech- nical periodicals, 92. Bombay, deaths from snake-bite in, 147. Book notices, minor, 626. Borneo, north-eastern, 288. Boss, L. Comet }, 1883 (Brooks), 449. Boston society of natural history, 518, 635; paiEer prize of, 146; zodlogical society, 10. Botanical club, 340. RB REe NLC MUS: Achenial hairs of Senecio, 67. Botany, elementary, 13, 105. Bottoms, ocean, 41. Boulenger, G. A., catalogue of, 810. Boundary-line between Guatemala and Mexico, 484. Bove’s new expedition, 254. Bowers, 8. In an Indian grave, 105; many snakes killed, 135. ek county, Ky., glacial phenomena in, Boyle’s law, apparatus for, i//. 284. Brachionus Gleasonii, 468. Brachiopoda, shell-structure of, 325. Brachyura in New England, 257. Brain-weight, 193. Branchial arches and clefts, 463. Brass, dissociation of, 178. Bravuns, D. The Ainos of Japan, 184. Peeters Logarithmic tables, reviewed, 174, Brewster, W. Singular lightning, 72. 135. i Briggs’s Steam-heating, reviewed, 686. Brine shrimps, American and European, 653. British association for the advancement of science, 477, 502, 504, 529, 549, 562, 593, 659, 666. British Columbia, fisheries of, 342 ; fungi, illustrations of, 346; Helices, 525; in- stitution of mechanical engineers, 310; patent law, 608. Bromides, ammoniacal, of zinc, 12. Brontosaurus, restoration of, i//. 209. Bronze, invention and spread of, 527; tempering of, 537. Brooks, Margarette W. Bone fish-hooks, ill. 633. Brooks, W. K. The higher Crustacea, 790. Brooks comet, 450. Brown, R. Greenland geology, 539. Building-stones, 481. Burnham’s Limestones and marbles, 1e- viewed, 203. , Burrill, T. J., on preparing and mounting bacteria, 465. Butterflies, sucking apparatus in, 576; variations in, 353. Butters, American, 291; artificial, 200. Cable-cars, 377. Cahokia, mounds of, 365. Calculus of variations, 266. Calibration of galvanometer, 777. 282. Cambodia, explorations in, 187. Cambrian rocks, 518. Cambridge entomological club, 30. CAMPBELL, J. The mound-builders iden- tified, 365. Capron, J. R., on auroral experiments in apland, é//. 819. Carbon dioxide, action of, on heat, 582. Carbonic oxide, liquefaction of, 4. Carboniferous age, vegetation of, 529. Cardinalis virginianus, 167. Caruart, H. 8. The magnetophone, or the modification of the magnetic field by the rotation of a perforated metallic disk, 250., id. 392. Carolina wren, 436. gicoline Island, double stars discovered at, 66. Carp, German, 377. See BD ¥.D. Y. Minnesota weather, CARPENTER, L. G@. November shower of meteors, 713. phylogeny of the Carpenter, W. B., on the germ-theory of disease, 666. Cartography, Russian, $3. Cartridges, compressed, 197. Carya alba, 761. Caspian Sea, 86; region, railways in, 296. Cassiterite, 482. Catalogues of physical and mathematical works, 342; of stars, errata in, 221. Caterpillar, monstrous, i//. 61. Catlinite, 169. Catskill group of Pennsylvania, 327. Caucasus, Mollusca of, 230; petroleum in, 367. Caverns, Devonshire, 562. Caytey, A. Obligations of mathematics to philosophy, and to questions of com- mon life, 477, 502. Celestite, reproduction of, 313, Cell-division, 190, Census, tenth, table of ages of, 209. Centre of gravity of mass, determination of, il/. 283. Cereals, copper in, 143. Ceylon, 825, Ch, English, 712. Challenger reports, 837. CHAMBERLIN, T. C. The terminal mo- raine west of Ohio, 317. Chambers, V. T., 253, 839. Champlain valley, 633. CHANDLER, C,H. Kalmia, 309. CHANDLER, S. C., jun. On the possible connection of the Pons-Brooks comet with a meteor stream, 683; results of tests with the Almacantar in time and latitude, 289. Charnay collection, 170, 368. Chemical elements, indexing literature of, ae 3 problems, 627; reactions, speed of, Chemistry, instruction in, at Harvard uni- versity, 91; theoretical, 826. Chesapeake oyster-beds, 2//. 440. Cheshire salt districts, 210. -Chester, A. H., on a new method of dry mounting, 465. China, meteorology in, 390; telegraph- line in, 186. Chinch-bug in New York, 540, 621. Chinese laws and customs, 237; not ho- mogeneous, 379; tombs, 235. Chitons, organization of, 398. Chlorine, hydrates of, 11. Chlorophyll, animal, 487. Cholera commission, German, 675; epi- demic, cause of, 297; in Egypt, 888; pre- cautions against, 452. Chonetes, 526, 326. Christie, W. H. M.,on the Greenwich ob- servatory, 103. Chukchi, peninsula, population of, 419. Cincinnati glacial dam at, 319, 436; indus- trial exposition, 452; society of natural history, 384, 605, 839. Cinnoline derivatives, 77. Circulation, action of respiratory move- Mments on, 496; in kidneys, 499. Cirolana concharum, host for, 373. Gat engineers, American society of, 75, CuaRKE, J. T., address of, before archae- ological institute, 646; report of the Assos meeting, 712. Class systems, Australian, 69. Classification of natural sciences, 279; of sciences, 370. CuLayPoLe, E. W. A large crustacean from the Catskill group of Pennsylva- nia, 327; notes on the potato-beetle and the Hessian fly for 1883, 387; Rensselae- ria and a fossil fish from the Hamilton group of Pennsylvania, 327; Rensselaec- ria from the Hamilton group of Pennsyl- vania, 471; the present condition of the box huckleberry, Vaccinium brachyce- rum, in Perry county, Penn., 335. Cleopatra’s Needle, 113. Climate, Colorado, 623; in cure of con- sumption, 426, 497, 682; influence of, on vegetation, 519. Coal flora, Australian, 520; volatile con- stituents of, 220. SCIENCE. — INDEX TO VOLUME II. Co-education of the sexes, 117. Colombia, 54. Color-markings of mammals, 164; changes of lungwort flowers, 319; words, 535. Colorado climate, 623, Colored population of United States, 376. Coloring-matter, animal, 452. Columbines, 394. Comet b, 1888 (Brooks), 449, 450; of 1882, 290; orbit of, 280; Pons-Brooks, 666, 683; elliptic elements of, 654, Comets, spectra of, 263. Commercial science, bureau of, 340. Complex variable, functions of, 308. Conchology, 658. Conductivity, unipolar, 136. Congress of Americanists, 667. Connecticut River, 118; waters, oyster farming in, 376. Consolidation of bulky materials, 331. Constant, solar, 44, 496. Consumption, cure of, 426, 457, 682. Contagia, study of, 212. Continental type, 321. Cooxn, C.8. The use of the spectroscope in meteorology, é//. 488. Co-operation between government and state geological surveys, 314, Core, E. D, The evidence for evolution in the history of the extinct Mammalia, 272; the structure of the skull in Diclo- nius mirabilis, a Laramie dinosaurian, 338; the trituberculate type of superior molar, and the origin of the quadrituber- culate, 338; two primitive types of Un- gulatd, 338. Copepoda, fresh-water, 29. Copper extraction process, 248; in cere- als, 143; mattes, 333; prehistoric, 351; production of world, 359; sulphates of, 10. , Cordierite, 558. Cormorant, osteology of, 789, 822. Corn, 335; butt and tip kernels of, 201; composition of, 290. Cornell university, electrical science at, 147; mathematical library, special list, reviewed, 827. Corvidae, 265. Corwin, cruise of, 752. Cothurnia variabilis, 467. Cottin, on the fall of a balloon, il/. 189. Cours, E. A hearing of birds’ ears, id. 422, 552, 586. CouLTEeR, J. M. Development of a dan- delion flower, 336; some glacial action in Indiana, 6. Cox, E. T. Cable-cars for city passenger traflic, 877. : Crevaux, death of, 151; search for, 30, 222, 485; voyages of, in Guiana, 152. Crico-thyroid muscle, function of, 165. Crocker, F. B. Regulation of electro- motive force, 821. Crosgy, W. O. Probable occurrence of the Taconian system in Cuba, 740, Crows, prehensile feet of, 265. Crustacea, phyllopod, 571; phylogeny of, 790. Cryptogams, synonymy of, 424. Crystals in bark of trees, i/l. 707, 780. Cuba, mines of, 81; Taconian system in, 740; woods of, 780. Cubics, real roots of, 158. Cumacea, 793. Cunéné, tribes of, 404. Curare, 534. Current-meter, 292. Currents of Pacific Ocean, 117. Curtoneura stabulans, 697. Cuspidine, 449. Cutaneous nerves in mammals, 35. Cutts, R. D., 810. Cyclones, il. 589, 610, 639, 701, 729, 758. Cypella, pollination of, 189. Cypress, American swamp, 38. Cystoliths, formation of, 25. Dart, W.H. First use of wire in sound- ing, 12. Damage to delicate substances by packing, te 581. Dana, J. D. Eyidence from southern SCIENCE.— INDEX TO VOLUME II. New England against the iceberg theory of the drift, 390. Dandelion flower, 336. Danish expeditions in Greenland, 150. Darwin memorial fund, 341. Darwin on instinct, 782. Date-palms, cultivation of, 453. Davidson, G., on solar eclipse of Oct. 20, 1883, 838. Dawson, J. W. Glacial deposits, 321; rbiozcarps in the paleozoic period, 326; some unsolved problems in geology, 190. and dumb, instruction of, 780. Deaths from snake-bite, 147. Decapoda, 793. Ptios of water by metalloids, 44. Deep-sea explorations, French, 484; re- search, water-bottles and thermometers for, idl. 155. Deflective effect of earth’s rotation, 135. Deformation of earth’s surface, 183. Delaland-Guerineau prize, 385. Delaware, stratified drift in, 221. DeLong records, reviewed, il/. 540. Dendroeca aestiva, 302. Denmark polar meteorological station, 840. Dentine, 284. Dentition, laws of, 464. Design arguments, 309. Deutzia scabra, 385. Developer, concentrated, 6. Devonian formation, paleontology of, 836. Devonshire caverns, 562. Diaphragm, development of, 233. Dickson expedition, 28, Diclonius mirabilis, 338. Didymoplexis, pedicels in, 125. Differential equation, 410; partial, 441. Digestion of meats and milk, 303. Digitaline, action of, on heart, 530. Ditier, J. 8. Notes on the geology of the Troad, 255. Divmock, G. The Arago laboratory at Banyuls, ill. 556. Dipterous larvae in man, 697, 494. Direction, mechaniam of, 554, 622, #//. 655; of growth in plants, 5; sense of, 739. Disease, germ-theory of, 666; germs of, 85. Dissociation of brass, 178; of salts, él. 288, District of Columbia, lithology of, 553. Division, new rule for, 788. Doves, J. R. Enhancement of values in agriculture by reason of non-agricultural population, 378. Doetsch a extraction process, 248. Dog, intelligence of, 822. Do.sear, A. E. The conditions neces- sary for the sensation of light, 214; the static telephone, 285. Domes, rotation of, 280. Domestication of horses, 130. Dora coal-field, 794. Dorsey, J. O. Marriage laws of the Omahas and cognate tribes, ili. 599; Osage war customs, 368. Double stars, list of, 66. Dowson’s gas, 445. Drainage system of Iowa, 762. Drift, iceberg theory of, 390; in Delaware, 221. Duptey, W. R. An abnormal orchid, Habenarla 7 Lene 335; origin of the flora of the central New York lake region, 336, Dudley observatory, Albany, N.Y., 449. Drofak, V., on acoustic rotation appara- tus, i//. $18. Dyer, C. B., 118. Earth, density of, 175; formations, 367; mass of, increase of, 820. Earthquake at New Madrid, Mo., in 1811, $24; at Ischia, i//. 396. Easter Island, 213. P EastMAN, J. R. Internal contacts in transits of the inferior planets, 239. Echinella articulata, 333. Eclipse expedition, French, 591; of 1882, 11; solar, of May 6, 1883, 237, 241. Eclipses and terrestrial magnetiam, 451; of Jupiter’s satellites, 40, 173. in ype entomology, 406; in England, Eppy, H. T. Kinetic considerations as to the nature of the atomic motions which probably originate radiations, 76, 123; radiant heat, 793; the kinetic theory of the specific heat of solids, 284, 424. EGpBenrt, H. V. Elliptic elements of comet Pons-Brooks, 654. Eggs, birds’, white of, 322; yolkless arti- ficial, 323. Egypt, ancient, flora of, 39. Egyptian mechanical methods, 467. Electric head-light, 509; light on the Al- batross, il/. 642, 671, 705; railway, 636; ap for steam-engines, 46; tram-car, Electric-lighting, 240; engine for, 107; fire risks of, 781; machines, 106, 452. Electrical dinners, 254; signals, él/. 823. Electricity, atmospheric, 291. Electro-magnets, 16. Electrolysis of bismuth solutions, 141. Electromotive force, regulation of, 821; thermochemical properties of, 177. Extiot, 8. L. Variations in butterflies, 353. Ellipse, perimeter of, 265. Elliptic functions, 542. Ellis’s North-American fungi, 255. Emblematic mounds, 365, 366. Emerton, J. H. The model of Archi- teuthis at the Fisheries exhibition, 683. Empholite, 450. Endowment of biological research, 504. Engineers, civil, American society of, 75, 100; mechanical, American society of, 62, 267. Engines, compound, 477; heavy, 309; of lake steamers, 139; simple and com- pound, 384; spherical steam, 544; two- cylinder compound, 543. English law, 408; sparrow, trick of, 201. Epbippiids, characters of, 65. Epidemic diseases in plants, 334. Epidermal glands of caterpillars and Ma- achius, 350; membranes, lignification of, 123. Epithelium, pulmonary, 97. Equations, algebraical, 409; differential, 410, 441; elliptic differential, 238; linear differential, 134; of equilibrium, 882; of third degree, 44. Equilibrium, function of, 458; equations of, 382. Eroding power of ice, 320. Eskimo stone pyramids, 782. Etbnology, 439; of Alaska, 667; of Yun- nan and Shan country, 500; Roumanian, 133. Euphausiacea, 791, 793. Evans, G. W. Radiometers with curved vanes, 215. r Evolution, 659; evidence for, in history of extinct Mammalia, 272. Expgrimental method in seience, 683. Extlosive, new, 196. Explosives, nature of, 667. Eye, embryology of, 91. Eyelid, human, 36. Factory acts, 485. Fairy-rings, 16. False claims, 13. Family registers, 599. Fartow, W. G. Relations of certain forms of algae to disagreeable tastes and odors, 333; the spread of epidemic dis- eases in plants, 384. Farquuaar, H. Experiments in binary arithmetic, 755, Fat, absorption of, by lymph-cells, 192; origin of, 400. Fattened animals, maintenance of, 512. Feeding-rations, 145. Fell, J. B., on alpine railways, 635. Felspars in rocks, 336. Fergusson’s Parthenon, reviewed, 740. Ferryboat, enormous, 412, K riiization, insects vs., 320; of Lepto- spermum, 276. 843 Fertilizer, sulphuric acid as, 335. Fertilizers, effect of, on oats, 550; for tobacco, 516; nitrogenous, 549. Ficaria, sterility of, 568. Field-clubs and local societies, 1. Figures, symmetrical linear, produced by reflection, id. 36. Finley’s Tornado studies, reviewed, 403. Fire risks of electric lighting, 781. Fish-commission steamer Albatross, fll. 6, 66. Fish-hooks, bone, i//. 653. Fisheries exhibition, international, 129, ill. 155, 612; beavers at, 28; mollusks at, 128,431; water-bottles and thermome- ters for deep-sea research at, ill, 155; zoblogy at, 130. Fisheries of British Columbia, 342; sal- mon, 343. Fishes of Batstoe River, 163. Fisk, 8. A. Climate in the cure of con- sumption, 426, 457. Flamsteed, 666. FLETCHER, Alice C. Observations on the laws and privileges of the gens in Indian society, 367; symbolic earth formations, 367. FLETCHER, R. Human proportion, 539. Fletcher’s Human proportion, reviewed, 354. Flexure corrections of meridian circle, 239; of broken transit, 1. Flora, fossil, of Greenland, 440; of New- York lake region, 336. Florida, reefs, keys, and peninsula of, 764. Floscularia, 88. Flow in rotary pumps, 292. Fluorite, crystals of, 148. Fluosilicates, hardening limestones with, 311. Flynn's Hydraulic tables, reviewed, 627. Fodder, sunflower cake as, 552. Folk-lore in the Panjab, 259; society, 92. FoLtweELt, W. W., address of, before American association at Minneapolis, 227. Forbes, S. A., on diseased caterpillars, 483. Forest-trees of Arkansas, 342. Forestry congress, American, 117; science of, 698. Fossil flora of Greenland, 440. Foye’s Chemical problems, reviewed, 627. Frazer, P. Lewis’s Geology of Phila- delphia, 269, 540. French association for the advancement of science, 389; eclipse expedition, 591; geographical explorations, 596; law, 408. Frispiz, E. Orbit of the great comet of 1882, 280, Fritts, C. E. New form of selenium cell, with some remarkable electrical discoveries made by its use, 283. Frog, bird-eating, 148; palate of, nerves of, 68. Frost, effect of, on fire-plug casings, 411. Fruit-insects, 174. Fuchsian functions, 506. Fulminating compound, 198. Beret: elliptic, 542; real, 329; theory of, 41. Fundamental catalogue of the Berliner Jahrbuch, 411. ' Fungi, British, 346; Iowa, 22; North American, 255; Ohio, 24, 425. Fungorum, Sylloge, 345. Fuze, time, for artillery, 9. Gage, 8. H. leona grote meso in the soft-shelled turtle, Aspidonectes spinifer, ries See also WILDER, B.G., and Gage, 8 Gaee, 8. H., on cataloguing, labelling, and storing microscopical preparations, 465. Galibis, 194. Galicia, petroleum from, 510. Gallinae, sternal processes in, 622. Galton’s Human faculty, reviewed, 79; pro- posed family registers, 599. Galvanometer, calibration of, il/, 282. Games, Japanese, 366. Gamma-dichlordibrompropionic and gam. ma-dichlorbromacrylic acids, 288. 844 Gases evolved during conversion of grass into hay, 109. Geppines, W. H. Climate in the cure of consumption, 682. Geikie’s Geology, reviewed, 823. Gelatine film, 135. Genital armature of Lepidoptera, 30. Gens in Indian society, 367. Geodetic association, international, of Europe, 656; report of committee of, 604. Geographic control of marine sediments, ili. 560; explorations, French, 596; names, 28. Geologic age of Atlantic Ocean, 666; changes in Alaska, 655, 294; commis- sion of Spain, 148; formations, syn- chronism of, 739, ill. 794, 362; map of Spain, 29; subjects, reports of commit- tees on, of American association, 314. Geologists, international congress of, 314. Geology, 828; of Belgium, 14; of Green- land, 539; of Pennsylvania, 49; of Phil- adelphia, 269, 402, 540, 652; of the Troad, 255; unsolved problems in, 190. Gephyreans, anatomy of, 93. Germ-layers of rodents, 191. Germ-theory of disease, 666. German survey of northern heavens, 229. Germicide yalue of therapeutic agents, 483. Germs of disease, 385. Geyser comparisons, 101. Gibraltar land-shells, 370. GitBerT, G. K. Drainage system and loess distribution of eastern Iowa, 762; pre-Bonneville climate, 170. Glacial action in Indiana, 6; age, ice in, 436; boundary between New Jersey and Illinois, 316; canons, 315; clays at Alton, Ill., 327; dam at Cincinnati, 319; de- posits, 321; epoch in Minnesota, 319; - man, evidences of, 437; man in Minne- sota, 369; period, Connecticut River in, 118; phenomena in Boyd county, 654. Glaciation of North America, 316. Glands, epidermal, of caterpillars, 350. Glutamin in beet-juice, 517. Glycerine, reconyersion of nitro-glycerine into, 218. Gopwin-AustEN, H. H. The Himalayas, 593. Gold in limestone, 270. GoopE, G. B. The international fisheries exhibition, 129, z//. 612. Gottsche’s Pebbles of Schleswig-Holstein, reviewed, 4438. - Gould, B. A., 451, 666. Government as a publishing-house, 31. Grain, damage to, by wetting, 181. Granites, Minnesota and New England, 324, Granton quarry, 413. Grants for scientific purposes in England, 549. Grape-mould, oospores of, 563. Grasses, protogyny of, 226. Grayitation, influence of, upon growth in plants, 5. Gravity and cell-division, 190. Gray, E. The static telephone, 286. Great Basin, field-work of division of, 633. Greely relief expedition, 72/. 412. Green’s Eureka, reviewed, 109. Greenland, colonization of, 29; Danish ex- editions in, 150; exploration of, 451; ‘ossil flora of, 440; geology, 589; Graah’s investigations in, 422; inland ice of, ill. 782. Greenwich observatory, 103. Growth in plants, 5; influence of atmos- pheric pressure on, 188. Guano, aves, 548. Guatemala, explorations in, 262. Guiana, yoyages in, 152. Guilds, history of, 469. Guinea, Portuguese, 562. Gulf Stream, explorations in region of, 153. Gun with hexagonal section of bore, 696. H., A. P. Letters in a surface film, 309. H., H. A. Sun-spot observations, 72. Habenaria hyperborea, 335. Haeckel’s Ceylon, reviewed, 825. Haemoglobin in blood of Branchiopoda, 238. Hafgy gia, 21. Harz, H. The Iroquois institutions and language, 496. Bae Iroquois book of rites, reviewed, Halite, 555. Hatt, E. H. Auroral experiments in Lapland, il/. 819. Hall, I. H., on the Arabic translation of the Bible, 651; on the temple to Zeus Labranios in Cyprus, 651. Hatz, J. Preliminary note on the micro- scopic shell-structure of the paleozoic Brachiopoda, 325. HatstepD, B. D. A combination walnut, ill. 761; notes on sassafras-leaves, Zl. 491; a strange sassafras-leaf, i//. 684. Hamilton group of Pennsylvania, 327, 399. Hamlin, F, M., on microscopical examina- tion of seminal] stains on cloth, 469. Hardness in water, estimation of, 142. Harrington’s Life of Sir W. E. Logan, reviewed, 573. Harrisse on early American cartography, 116. Hart, C. P._ Conscious automatism, 339. Hart, 8. Natural snowballs or snow- rollers, 285. Harvard university, instruction in chemis- try, 91; Lawrence scientific school, 342. Hastines, C.8. See HotpEN, E. 8., and Hastings, C. §. Hausmannite, artificial, 13. Hawaii, rainfall at, 252. Hay, conversion of grass into, 109. Haynes, H. W. Alnwick castle antiqui- ties, 136. Heart, development of, 579; and alcohols, 96; beat, influence of pressure on, 210; systole and diastole of, 584. Heat-dissipation, 581. Heating by exhaust-steam, 140. Heavens, northern, survey of, 229, Heer, Oswald, 550; portrait, 583. aoe Fossil flora of Greenland, reviewed, HEILPRIN, A. Synchronism of geological formations, é//. 794. Heilprin, Angelo, 581. Helices, British, 525. Heliostat, new, é/. 285. Hell’s observations of transit of Venus in 1769, 219. Henderson gas-furnace, 80. HENDRICKS, J. E. Deflective effect of the earth’s rotation, 185, Hernpon, C. G. Specifie gravities of seawater determined on the Albatross, Herrick, F. H. A reckless flier, 222; prairie warbler in New Hampshire, 309; trick of the English sparrow, 201. Herricks Types of animal life, revffwed, Herschel on star-gauges, 117. Hertwig, O., on the origin of the meso- derm, 7//. 817. Hessian fly, 387. Hicks, Henry. St. Dayid’s universal law, z//. 167. Hicks’s Critique of design arguments, re- viewed, 309. HinearD, E. W. The practical value of soil-analysis, 435, Himalayas, 593. Hinps; J. I. D. Sence of direction, 739. Hinricus, G. Remarks on the tracings of selfregistering instruments, and the value of the signal-service indications for Iowa, in June and July, 1883, 285. Hirudinea, nervous system of, 456. Histology of insects, 480; systematic, $8. Hirencock, ©. H. The early history of the North-American continent, 293. Hitencock, R. Water-bottles and ther- mometers for deep-sea research at the anerneonel fisheries exhibition, #7//. rocks and SCIENCE.— INDEX TO VOLUME II. Hoangnan, 754, Hoe-shaped implement, 179. Hoek, P. P. C., on oyster-culture in Hol- land, 79. Hogs, species of, 302. Holbrook, M. L., on the termination of the nerves in the kidneys, 465. HoLpEeN, E.S. Sturtevant, E. L. Agricultural botany, 335; analysis of the wild potato, 712; in- fluence of position on seed, 335; paral- lelism of structure of maize and sorghum kernels, 334; twelve months of lysimeter record at the New-York agricultural ex- periment-station, 290. Subsidence of Jand, 210. Substitutions, linear, 472. Sulphates, basic, of copper, 10. Sulphides, formation of, by pressure, 14. Sulphuric acid as fertilizer, 335; from pyrites, 79. Sulu Islands, 28s. Sun and its planets, 17. Sundews, fed and unfed, 486. Sunfish, rare, increase of, 434. Sunflower-cake as fodder, 552. Sun-spot inequalities, 696; interesting, ill. 266, 309; observations, 72. Sun-spots, 115. Superphosphates, fineness of, 447 ; rever- sion of, 446. be Superstition, from, to humbug, 637, 739. Surface-condensers for marine engines, The kame rivers of Maine, re- tal we” Pa Be ~eky ee MP SCIENCE.— INDEX TO VOLUME II. 413; conditions on planets, 10; film, letters in, 309. Surfaces, classification of, 74; curvature of, 215; of constant curvature, 174; of second degree, 280; parallel, 383. Sus, 548, Swallow-tailed hawk in New Jersey, 222. Swallows in Boston, 135, 222. Swamp cypress, 38. Swedish Algae, 564; party at Spitzber- gen, 209. Swift, reckless, 222. Swiss naturalists, meeting of, 400. Sylvester, J. J., 781, 837. Symbiosis, 395. “4 Symbolic earth formations, 367. T., W. B. Rings of Saturn, 764. Taconian system in Cuba, 740. ‘Tadpoles, nerve-endings in, 279. TANNER, Z. L. A four-days’ cruise of the Albatross, i/. 615. ‘Tarantula, restoration of limbs in, 374. Tarentula arenicola, 43. ‘Target-shooting, 473. Tarr, R. 8. Musical sand, 764. ‘Tattooing among civilized people, 585. Taxation among Romans, 354. Taxidermy, manual of, 312. Taxodium distichum, 38. Taylor’s Alphabet, reviewed, 438. Teeth, mutilations of, 234; of lamprey, ill. 731. Teleology and evolution, 634. Telephone, efficiency of, 239; static, 285. ‘Telescope, equatorially mounted, 782. ‘Temporal bones, 129. ‘Tenuirostres, tongues of, 437. ‘Terra-cotta lumber, 292. Terraces, 321. Tertiary rocks, classification of, 696. Testicularia Cyperi, 112. Testing-machine, Emery’s, 356. Tetrahedrite and zine blende, 557. Textile laboratory, 696. Thalassema millita, 147. Therapeutic agents, 433. ‘Thermochemical properties of electromo tive force, 177. Thermotropism, 299. Theta-functions, double, 2. Thibet, investigations in, 392. Tuomas, B. F. A method for the cali- bration of a galvanometer, ill. 282; a method of determining the centre of gravity of a mass, i//. 283; a new helio- stat, i//. 285; two forms of apparatus for Boyle’s law, ill. 284. Thompson’s Philipp Reis, reviewed, él. 472. Thomson and Tait’s Natural philosophy, reviewed, 497, 795. Thripidae, 578. ‘Thryothorus ludovicianus, 722. Thunderbolts, deaths by, 606. Thunder-storms, 339. Tuurston, R. H. The explosion of the Riverdale, 464. Tirrany, A. 8. The equivalent of the New-York water-lime group developed in Iowa, 323. Timber-trees, specimens from, 668. Time, standard, 755; unification of, and longitude, 814; universal, 697. Timor, ethnology of, 406. Tissues, preservation of, 522. Tobacco, fertilizers for, 516. Todies, anatomy of, 281. Tolles, R. B., 726. Toltecs, 325. ‘Tombs, Chinese, 235. ‘Tonkak, birds of, 99. ‘Tornado at Racine, 1883, 281; studies, 403, 363. Tornadoes, i//. 589, 610, 639, 701, 729, 758; formation of, 620; warnings nst, 521. TorREY, B. Do humming-birds fly back- wards? 436. Touch-corpuscles, 529. ‘Transit of Venus in 1769, 219. Transits of inferior ape 239. Tree-growth, 569; influence of winds upon, 470. ‘Trees, spraying, 378. re a natural history society, 428, 434, Trepanning, prehistoric, 168. Tricycle, water, il/. 779. Trilobite with legs, 341. ‘Trilobites from Pennsylvania, 399. ‘Troad, geology of, 255. Troglodytes, 131. Trouvelot’s red star, 605. True, F. W. Ziphius on the New Jersey coast, 540. ‘Trutat’s Elementary treatise on the micro- scope, reviewed, 313. Tryberg, eruptive rocks of, 149. ‘Tryon’s Conchology, reviewed, 658. ‘Tuberculosis, contagiousness of, 697. ‘Tudor’s Orkneys and Shetland, reviewed, ill, 743. Tultecas, 287. Tunis, coast-line of, 155. Tunnel, Arlberg, 781. Turkey, impregnation in, 105. Turritopsis, 773. Tyrtor, E. B. The natural bistory of implements, 45. ‘Tylor’s lectures at Oxford, 71. ‘Types of animal life, 688. U., W. July reports of state weather ser- vices, 399, Ullmannite, 224. Ulvaceae, monograph of, 565. Ungulata, primitive types of, 338. United States bureau of ethnology, 580; department of agriculture, 29; fish-com- mission bulletin, reviewed, 685; geologi- cal survey, 633, 724, 777, 807, 836; mag- netic gbservatory at Los Angeles, Cal., ill. 58; mineral resources, 413; national museum, 63, 119, 339, 580; naval bureau of ordnance, 58; naval institute, 28; naval observatory, 415; Psyllidae of, 337; signal-service, 343, 387, 755, 811. Units of mass and force, 493. Universal alphabet, 350. University of Michigan, 208. UPHAM, Changes in the currents of the ice of the last glacial epoch in east- ern Minnesota, 319; the nnesota val- ley in the ice age, 318; vestiges of glacial man in Minnesota, 369. Upton, W., 451. Uranus, 264, Urnatella gracilis, ill. 789. Urocyclus, anatomy of, 278. Uromyces acuminatus, 21. Ustilagineae, new, 121. Ustilago axicola, 112. Vaccination question, 606. Vaccinium brachycerum, 335. Valentin, G., 28. Values in agriculture, 378. Valves, pressure on, 216. Van Nostrand’s engineering magazine, 810. Vanessa Antiopa, 353; Lintneri, 353. Vapor density, 293; determinations, 314. Variation of horizontal intensity, 176. Variations in butterflies, 353. Vaseline, use of, 333. Vaso-dilators of lower limb, 401. Vaso-motor nerves of leg, 497. Vedas, seamy side of, 538. Vegetation of carboniferous age, 529. Velocity of sound, 45. Venom of serpents, 34. Venus, transit of, in 1769, 219. Vere, A. E. Recent explorations in the region of the Gulf Stream off the eastern coast of the United States by the U.S. fish-commission, 153. Very, F. W. An interesting sun-spot, ill, 266. Vesuvius, lava of, 254. Viallanes, on histology of insects, 430. Victoria, planet, observations of, 118. Village community, 356. Vircnow, R. The invention and spread of bronze, 527. Vireo noveboracensis, 302. Visible speech, 204; letters, 452. 849 bi organs of Solen, 397; primitive, 739. Vivisection, 551. Volatile constituents of coal, 220. Vorticella, 772. W., W. C. The American association at Minneapolis, 181; the lessons of the meeting, 211. Waagen, W., thofenia, 103. Wabash college, 451. WapswortH, M. E. Ocean waters and bottoms, 41. Watcort, C.D. Fresh-water shells from the paleozoic rocks of Nebraska, di, 808. Waldeyer, on composition of the meso- derm, 11. WaLpo, F. Solar constant, 496. Wales, pre-Cambrian rocks of, 403. Walker prize of Boston soc. nat. hist., 146. Walnut, combination, ill. 761. Wampum, 147. Ward’s Dynamic sociology, reviewed, 45, 105, 171, 222. Warder, J. A., 264. WaRDER, R. B. Suggestions for comput- ing the speed of chemical reactions, 289. Ware, W. R., address of, before Archae- ological institute, 649. Ware’s Modern perspective, reviewed, 354. Warming and ventilating apartments, 283. WarreEN, C. Prize-essays on the experi- mental method in science, 683. Washington, biological society of, 581, 636, 698; philosophical society of, 29, 518, 581, 635, 698, 754, 355, 473, 518. Water, ocean, 41; gas as fuel, 219; lime group in Iowa, 323; tricycle, ill. 779. Weather bulletin, Iowa, for May, 27; fore- casts, distribution of, by railways, 252; in May, 1883, i//. 34; in June, 1883, i. 186; in July, 1883, i//. 394; in August, 1883, il. 524; in September, 1883, ill. 671; in October, 1883, il/. 786; Minne- sota, 262; service in Japan, 253, Weather report, Kansas, for June, 90; Mis- souri, for May, 26. Weather services, state, July reports of, 399; August reports of, 559; September reports of, 681. Wess, J. B. Descriptive geometrical treatment of surfaces of the second de- gree, 280; improvements in shaping- machines, 292; regularity of flow in double-cylinder rotary pumps, 292. West, E. P. Personal observations of the Missouri mounds from Omaha to St. Louis, 366. Westcott, O. 8. Some hitherto unde- veloped properties of squares, 241. Waremenes, © Swallows in Boston, 222. Whale, right, of North Atlantic, 132, 266. Whaling-season, 317. Wheat, composition of, 290; crop, influ- ence of temperature and rainfall on, 179; growth of, 448. Wheat-stem maggot, 577. Whirlwinds, iJ. 589, 610, 639, 701, 729, 758; of sand, 340. Whispered vowels, 43. WuitE,I.C. Relation of the glacial dam at Cincinnati to the terrace in the upper Ohio and its tributaries, 319. Whiting, 8S. F., on college microscopical societies, 465. Wuitman,C.O. Theadvantages of study at the Naples zoGlogical station, portrait of Dohrn, 93. Wuittteszy, C. Metrical standard of the mound-builders, by the method of even divisors, 365. Wuper, B. G., and Gace, 8. H. On the use of vaseline to prevent the loss of alcohol from specimen jars, 333. Wier, H. W. American butters and their adulterations, 291. Williams, H. 8., 147. Williams college, 808. Wiiiiamson, W. C. The vegetation of the carboniferous age, 529, Willow, pollination of, 569. on the affinities of Rich- 850 WINCHELL, A. Secularincrease of earth’s mass, 820. WIncHELL, N. H. Clay pebbles from Princetown, Minn., 324; comparative strength of Minnesota and New-Eng- land granites, 324. Winnipeg, Silurian strata near, 169. Winslow’s Report on the oyster-beds of the Chesapeake, reviewed, i//. 440. Wire, use of, in sounding, 12. Wisconsin agricultural experiment-station, 452, Wisconsin, mounds of, 378. Woods, Cuban, 780. Wooster, L. C. The thickness of the ice in New England in glacial times, 685. Worm with remarkable neryous system, 232. Worms, notes on, 432; papers on, 572. Worthington pumping-engine, 217. Waienut, E. Life-insurance and self-in- surance, 376. Wricut, G. F. Depth of ice during the glacial age, 486; result of explorations of the glacial boundary between New Jersey and Illinois, 316; supposed glacial henomena in Boyd county, Ky., 654, Wright’s ice-dam at Cincinnati, 436. Xenicidae, 280. Yard, imperial, relation between, and metre of archives, 250. ERRATA. SCIENCE.— INDEX TO VOLUME II. Yeast fungi, 368. Youne, ©. A., address of, before Ameri- can association at Minneapolis, 228; un- usual reversal of lines in the summit of a solar prominence, 621. Yuma linguistic stock, 536. Yunnan, ethnology of, 500. Zaptychius carbonaria, 808. Zea, hybridization of, 485.° Ziegler’s Pathological anatomy, reviewed, 405. Zinc blende, parallel growth of, and tetra- hedrite, 557. Ziphius on New Jersey coast, 540. Zoological station in Firth of Forth, 413; of Holland, é//. 618. Page 61, col. 2, Sth line from bottom; for ‘ Alongshore, winds’ read ‘ Along-shore winds.’ “146, ‘ 2, 5th line from bottom, for ‘ Ayres’ read ‘ Ayers.” ‘© 199, ‘* 2, line 13, for ‘twenty-five hundred’ read ‘ six hun- dred and ninety.’ © 950, * 2, last line of first article, for ‘3.37039 inches’ read * 3.37027 inches.’ ‘« 395, in inscription of cut, for ‘ August’ read ‘ July.’ © 403, col. 1, line 28, for ‘ Tosell’ read ‘ Torell.’ « 403, “ 1, ‘“ 34, for ‘lithogical’ read ‘ lithological.’ © 403, “ 1, ‘ 48, for ‘Irving in’ read ‘Irving on.’ *© 426, “ 1, “ 11, for ‘similar’ read ‘ only.’ * 430, ‘* 1, “ 12, for ‘poorer oxidizing’ read ‘ oxidizing power.’ s© 480, “* 1, ‘ 32, for ‘Purzgau’ read ‘ Piurzgau.’ ‘© 459, “ 2, ** 25, for‘ refine’ read ‘ define.’ © 465, ‘© 2, ** 10 of second article, for ‘Koblanck’ read ‘ Koblank.’ : ‘* 466, ‘© 2, ‘ 13, for ‘ practical’ read ‘ practised.’ ‘© 467, ** 1, ‘* 88, for ‘of the surface’ read ‘on the sur- face.’ Page 467, col. “ 2, 11th line from bottom, for ‘in the crayfish’ read ‘on the crayfish.’ 468, “ 1, line 19, for ‘0.145 inch’ read ‘4, inch.’ 468, “ 2, ‘* 1, for ‘an angle’ read ‘air angle.’ 468, ‘* 2, *‘* 82, for ‘ Clevinger ’ read ‘ Clevenger.’ 469, « 2, & 5,) & « Pr “ 471, ‘* 2, ** 8, for ‘Michan’ read ‘Mecham.’ 488, ‘* 2, 4th line from bottom, for ‘5’ read *.5 .’ 523, ‘ 2, last line, for ‘ Ifuagos’ read ‘ Ifugayos.’ 540, ‘* 2,line 15 of second article, for ‘Z. cavisortris’ read ‘ Z. cavirostris.’ 556, “* 1, * 23, for ©90°’ read * 45°.” 569, ‘* 2, last line but one, for‘ San Joan’ read ‘ San Juan.” 570, ‘* 1, line 18, for ‘ or Vancouver’ read‘ on Vancouver.’ 607, ‘ 2, ‘* 9, for ‘catalogue of mollusks ’ read ‘ cata- logue of his collection of mollusks.’ 701, ‘* 2, note, for ‘No. 42’ read ‘No. 41.’ 722, “ 2, 38, for ‘Hectariniinae’ read ‘ Nectariniinae.’ 735, in inscription of cut, for ‘1876’ read ‘1870.’ 802, col. 1, line 38, for ‘ Lanicera’ read ‘ Lonicera.’ 838, ‘* 2, * 11, for ‘Dearborn’ read ‘ Davidson.” Ay COPYRIGHT IN 18835 BY THE SCIENCE COMPANY MMAdenee #% PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT CAMBRIDGE MASS. U.S.A MARCH 23, 1883. - BY MOSES KING # ENTERED AT BOSTON AS SECOND CLASS MATTER No. 7. THE PUBLISHER'S GREETING TO THE { CONTRIBUTORS AND SUBSCRIBERS. | The following lists of contributors and sub- seribers are here printed in the hope of giving pleasure to the many contributors to SCIENCE by showing them in detail the extensive and spon- taneous reception which the public has awarded their efforts to establish a weekly scientific journal which should reflect creditably on Americans and American institutions, and then of giving per- manent credit to the several hundred persons, who, by their prompt subscriptions, have shown their earnest good-will and sympathy with this laborious and responsible undertaking. The list of contributors will also show to sub- scribers that the projectors of the enterprise have exerted every effort to obtain from eminent author- | ities everywhere the news and articles which are appearing in the consecutive issues of SCIENCE. 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LIST: OF CONTRIBUTORS: INCLUDING ONLY THOSE WHOSE CONTRIBUTIONS HAVE ACTUALLY APPEARED IN THE FIRST SEVEN ISSUES OF ‘* SCIENCE.’ } Dr. C. €. Asportr, Trenton, N.J. Professor H. P. Armspy, Worcester, Mass. Professor SPENCER F. Barry, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Professor GEORGE F. BARKER, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penn. _ Mr. H. W. Brair, * Coast and Geodetic Survey Office, Washington, D.C. Dr. WAvYrER K. Brooks, : 4 Jolns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Mr; Epwarp BurRGEss, Natural History Society, Boston, Mass. Professor F. W. CLARKE, 2 University Cincinnati, Cincinnati, O. Professor J. H. Comstock, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Mr. C. S. Cook, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H. Dr. THomas CRAIG, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. _ Mr. W. O. Croszy, Natural History Society, Boston, Mass. Professor CHARLEs R. Cross, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass. Capt. Wittiam H. Datu, United-States Coast Survey, Washington, D.C, Mr. WitittaAm Morris Davis, Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, Cambridge, Mass. Dr. J. W. Dawson, McGill University, Montreal, Can. Mr. CHARLES DEANE, Massachusetts Historical Society, Cambridge, Mass. Dr. H. T. Eppy, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, O. Mr S. F. Emmons, Geological Survey, Washington, D.C. Dr. W. G. Farlow, Haryard University, Cambridge, Mass. Professor WALTER Faxon, Museum Comparative Zodlogy, Cambridge, Mass. Professor 8. A. Forres, State Entomologist, Normal, Ill. Mrs. C. L. Franklin, Baltimore, Md. Dr. F, Frankcry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Professor Encar Frispy, United-States Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C. Mr. Henry GANNETT, United-States Geological Survey, Washington, D.C. Professor J. W. Gibbs, New Haven, Conn. Mr. G. K. GILBERT, United-States Geological Survey, Washington, D.C. Dr. THEODORE GILL, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Mr. G. Brown GOopDE, Curator U. S. National Museum, Washington, D.C. Dr. Grorce L. Goopatr, Botanic Garden, Cambridge, Mass. Professor ASA Gray, Botanic Garden, Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Epwin H. Hatt, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Dr. G. StraNLEY HALL, Johus Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Dr, C. S. Hastrnes, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md, Major Dayip P. Hear, United-States Engineers, Washington, D.C, Mr. F. H. Herrick, Burlington, Vt. Dr. JoserH E. HILGARpD, Supt. U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, D.C Mr. Grorcre Anruony Hitt, Cambridge, Mass. Professor E. S. HoLpEN, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. Dr, THomas Sterry Hun, Montreal, Can. Mr. Samurt Huston, Richmond, O. Professor ALPHEUS Hyavrt, Natural History Society, Boston, Mass. Mr. J. AMoryY JEFFRIES, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. Mr. J. S. Krtxcstry, Boston, Mass. Dr. SAMUEL IXNEELAND, New-York City, N.Y. Professor 8. P. Laneiry, Alleghany, Penn. Dr. Josevru Lirpy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penn. Professor LEo LesQquEREUX, Columbus, O. Dr. H, Carvitt Lewis, y Academy Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Penn. - SCIENCE.— LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. Ae _ Dr. D. G. Lyon, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. » » . Nathaniel Thayer . Dr. CuHarves F. MABERY, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Professor JuLEs MArcov, Cambridge, Mass. Mr. J. B. Marcou, Cambridge, Mass. Dr. H. Newevt Martin, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Dr. CHARLES SEDGWICK MiNoT, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. Mr. N. Murray, Jolins Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Dr. Jonn S. Neweerry, Columbia College, New York. Dr. E. J. Nouan, Academy Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Penn. Mr. S. L. Penrievp, Yale College, New Haven, Conn. Mr. Cuantes B. Penrose, Philadelphia, 1 enn. Mr. W. H. PickerinG, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass. Major J. W. Powe t, Director U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D.C. Mr. D. J. Prarr, Albany Institute, Albany, N.Y. Mr. Freperick W. 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Charles William Eliot. . . President. Joseph Henry Thayer. Fellow. Alexander Agassiz. . . - Fellow. Edward William Hooper. . Treasurer. Stephen Salisbury ... . Overseer. James Elliot Cabot. . .~ Overseer. Francis Minot Weld . . Overseer. Solomon Lincoln Wine Overseer. Alexander McKenzie . Overseer. Richard Manning Hodges Overseer. James Freeman Clarke Overseer. Amos Adams Lawrence . Overseer. Edwin Pliny Seaver . . . . Overseer. John Osborne Sargent Overseer. Theodore Lyman . . Overseer. Henry Purkitt Kidder. Overseer. . Preacher to the University. Professor of Anatomy. Professor of Natural History. Professor of Natural Philosophy. Professor of Entomology. Dean of the Scientific School. Professor of Geology. Andrew Preston Peabody Oliver Wendell Holmes . Asa Gray . her : Joseph Lovering. Soins Hermann August Hagen . Henry Lawrence Eustis . Josiah Dwight Whitney . Ezra Abbot . ... .- Wolcott Gibbs . . . . . Calvin Bilis: -. 2. 8 Sereno Watson . = Thomas Henderson Chandler - Josiah Parsons Cooke. Adams Sherman Hill . James Mills Peirce. . . James Clarke White . . Justin Winsor che Pr Francis Humphreys Storer . George Lincoln Goodale . Charles Herbert Moore . - Charles Sprague Sargent. . . Nathaniel Southgate Shaler . Edward Charles See 7 John Trowbridge Professor of Science. Dean of Medical School. Curator of the Herbarium. Dean of the Dental School. Director of the Chemical Laboratory. Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. Professor of Mathematics. Professor of Dermatology. Librarian. Dean of the Bussey Institution. Director of the Botanic Garden. Instructor in DEE: Director of the Arnold Arboretum. Professor of Paleontology. Director of the Observatory. Professor of Physics. Professor of New-Testament Criticism. George Minot Garland Leonard Parker Kinnicutt . Charles Frederic Mabery . « Samuel Jason Mixter . Harold Whiting . Robert C. Winthrop Henry Wheatland . Samuel H. Scudder Frederick Ward Putnam Lucien Carr olf"e Joel A. Allen. Samuel Garman. . M. Edward W adsworth . Jesse W. Fewkes William C. Lane Charles Moen Rice . William Trelease Charles B. Penrose Slee. Sumner Bass Pearmain . . - Morris Loeb . Wm. Wadsworth w entw forth « Robert Berry Ennis. William Henry Aspinwall . Alfred Jerome Weston Henry Barton Jacobs . Henry Francis Sears . - Howard Lilienthal . William Charles Jennings .« Oscar Edward Perry . . - William Orison Underwood Oscar Jonas Lowman. Gerrit Elias Hambleton Weav: er, Silas Haynes Elliot . . . - John Adams Squire - George Fauntleroy Dav idson . Everett Vergnies Abbot . Frank Warren Smith. . William Sanford Barnes . Edward Kellogg Dunham John Amory Jeffries . . James Woods Babcock . - Walter Greenough Chase Frank Herbert Cunningham Jared Slocum How . Charles Eliot. . . m Charles Elliott St. John . Antoine de Reilbe McNair George Anthony Hill. . Albert Henry Tuttle... . Robert Tracy Jackson .. .- William Barnes. . . .. + James A. Fox. . 2 James M. W.Hall. . .. - Charles H. Saunders... - Lyman R. Williston . . - John Holmes. . . « « «© Charles E. Vaughan . . - Walter Wesselhoeft . . . Jobn L. Hildreth . . . * . Hiram L. Chase. . . - + « Edward.H. Hall. . ... - Alexander McKenzie. . . .- es E. O’Brien . . - «+ el Z. nay ae - David Greene Taskins John Orne, jun. ah ob Sate George Pukabiy Soo. kao George V. Leverett .. . . - Robert R. Andrews ... .- Henry Van Brunt . . - Thos. Wentworth Higginson ‘i Denman W. Ross . John M. Batchelder . . . Erasmus D. Leavitt . . . George William Gilson Farlow ‘Alonzo Bartlett : Charles Loring Jackson : William Morris Davis . Francis Greenwood Peabod y William Elwood Byerly . Walter Faxon. . . Charles Rockwell Lanman - Edward Laurens Mark William Fiske Whitney . : David Gordon L os 4 Edwin Herbert ~ Assistant Professor of German. Professor of Cryptogamic Botany. Professor of Chemistry. Instructor in Geology. Professor of Theology. Professor of Mathematics. Assistant Professor of Zoélogy. Professor of Sanskrit. Instructor in Zodlogy. Curator of the Anatomical Museum. Professor of Divinity. Instructor in Physics. George K. Snow . .« Henry Thayer & Co. . John Wilson & Son Adolph Vogl. . . E. Herbert Clement . Jobn C, Watson. . Alvan G. Clark . . . Samuel B. Rindge . Cambridge Public Library . Astronomical Observatory .« Harvard College Library Instructor in Mathematics. Lecturer on the Tenure of Land. Instructor in Political Economy. Lecturer on Embryology. Instructor in Diseases of the Nervons System. Instructor in Otology. Instructor in Auscultation. Instructor in Anatomy. Instructor in Botany. Instructor in Entomology. Assistant in Histology. ‘Assistant in Clinical Medicine. Assistant in Chemistry. Assistant in Chemistry. Assistant in Anatomy. Assistant in Physics. : Chairman Trustees Peabody Museum, Secretary Trustees Peabody Museum. ‘Trustee Peabody Museum. Curator Peabody Museum. Ass’t Curator Peabody Museum. Ornithologist Museum Comp. Zoil. Herpetologist Museum Comp. Zodl. Lithologist Museum Comp. Zool. In charge of Radiates. Chief Cataloguer of Library. Candidate for A.M. Candidate for 8.D. Candidate for Ph.D. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Senior Class. Student Junior Class. Student Junior Class. Student Junior Class. Student Junior Class. Student Junior Class. Student Sophomore Class. Student Sophomore Class. Student Freshman Class. * Student Freshman Class. : Student in Medical School. Student in Medical School. Student in Medical School. Student in Law School. : Student in Law School. Student in Law School. Student in Bussey Institution. Student in Divinity School. Resident Graduate. ~ Resident Graduate. Student Scientific School. Student Scientific School. Student Scientific School. GENERAL. Mayor of Cambridge. Ex-mayor of Cambridge. Ex-mayor of Cambridge. 15 Rarkeley Street. 5 Appian Way. AES Physician. _ Physician. Physician. Pastor of First Parish Church. Pastor of First Church of Cambri Pastor of St. Peter’s Church, Ve Cc. Dean of Episcopal Theological School. Clergyman. High School, Teacher of Physics. Lawyer. Lawyer. Dentist. Architect. Author. Historian. . ae Civil Engineer. Mechanical Engineer. President Reversible Collar Company. Manufacturing Chemists. University Press. Book-keeper, University Press. Assistant Book-keeper. Stock Broker. Astronomical Instruments. President Charles-River National Bank Cambridgeport. Garden Street. Gore Hall. Peabody Museum of ‘Archwology and Ethnology. ' * ee a, 4 Berkeley Book Se N.S. Club . ; Jules Marcou J. Rayner Edmands . John Brooks. . . . Charles Deane Charles F. Choate . Albert E. Menke Epes 8. Dixwell. 8. H. Thorndike William Brewster . . Ernest W. Longfellow J. Henry Blake. . Alexander L. Hayes Eben N. Horsford . Wiliam H. Niles . . . Francis B. Gilman . Alpheus Hyatt . . William O. Howiand . Francis Flint. . William L. Whitney . Mrs. Kate Jennings Mrs. Jared Sparks aoe) Mary A.C. Livermore . Mrs. Anna L. Miss Mary F. Peirce Miss M. FP. Neale. Ednah TD. Cheney . . .« Charles E. Faxon .. - Hrank W. Page... .- Hred H. Means ... - Publie Library. Mrs, TV. J. Allen. Nahum een gihed W. G. May Public Library. Benjamin E. Cotting . eorge G. Kennedy ugustus C, Thompson. John O. Means. Julins H. Ward. . . Nathaniel J. Bradlee C W.. Lawley, jun. . . 8. E. D. Currier . David A.Lyle .. . W.Lord .. ata Edward ©. Harris . Alfred W.Elson . . Sidney M. Hedges . . John Backup. . ais Samuel M,. Warren. Nathan D. Robinson Charles Whittier Miss L. Anna Dudley. Miss Alice W. Palmer . Miss Alice L. Boardman C.M. Warren .... Charles 8. Sargent . Robert Amory... . Edward S. Philbrick . . J. Elliot Cabot. Amos A. Lawrence . Theodore A, Dodge. Edward C, Cabot. Theodore Lyman . . C. F. Jewett B. Schlesinger . st ‘ Horatio S. Burdett. . . William H. Hill,jun.. . Samuel Cabot, jun.. . . Mrs, C. A. Kennard. Miss J. M. Scudder. John Stowell. . . . George W. Evans . . E.C.Bolles . . Edmund B. Willson Fielder Israel. . N. D. C. Hodges Samuel P. Andrews . . Daniel B. Hagar. . . . George D. Phippen 4 Henry Wheatland . George R. Emmerton . Arthur L. Goodrich Moring. . SCIENCE. — LIST Edwin C. Stevens, President. . » 42 Garden Street. . 54 Concord Avenue. 64 Brattle Sweet. Historian. 153 Brattle Street. 13 Wadsworth House. 58 Garden Street. 22 Garden Street. Naturalist. Artist. Zoovlogical Artist. Solicitor of Patents. raigie Street. ard Street. 7 Hs awthorn Street, 7 Avon Street. 229 Green Street. 8 Chauncy Street. 126 Mount Auburn Street. 11 Everett Street. 48 Quincy Street. 24 North Avenue. 12 Quincy Street. Teucher Cambridge High School. South Boston. Jamaica Plain. Forest-hill Street. Botanist, Bussey Institute. Superintend’t Adams Nervine Asylum. Dorchester. . Washington Street. Mount Ida. . Adams Street. Roxbury. . . Physician. . Physician. Clergyman and Writer. Architect. . . Norfolk House. - . Lawyer. Capt. of Ordnanee, U. 8. A. 13 Greenville Street. . . 219 Warren Street. . . 81 Fort Avenue. 21 Kenilworth Street. Books and Periodicals. Hillside. 50 Vernon Street. 50 Winthrop Street. Teacher Dearborn School. Bellevue Street. 38 Kenilworth Street. Brookline. . . Chemist. Director Arnold Arboretum. . Physician. . . Civil Engineer. Longwood. . Member of Congress. _ Publisher. Naylor & Co. Burdett, Young, & Ingalls. Richardson, Hill, & Co. Manufacturing Chemist. Charlestown. . Druggist. 4 Edgeworth Street. Salem. . Pastor First Universalist Church. - Pastor North Church. . Pastor First Church. Assistant Editor of ‘* Science.” Clerk First District Court of Essex, Principal State Normal School. Cashier National Bank. President Essex Institute. President Merchants’ National Bank. Sub-master High School. . OF SUBSCRIBERS. ie a Merchant. ‘Teacher State Normal School, College Hill. TUFTS COLLEGE. Elmer H. Capen. ... . President Tufts College. «A. Emerson Dolbear . . . Professor of Physics. A. Michael. . . Professor of Chemistry. re John P. Marshall Professor Geology and Mineralogy. ~ Benjamin G. Brown Professor of Mathematics. Charles E. Fay . Professor of English Literature. Andover. George Peabody .... .» Mary N. Plumer 9. . 2. « Margarette W. Brooks. G. W. W. Dove. Phillips Andover Academy. J. Wesley Churchill . . . . Joseph Blake. ... .- Wisk SORADEI Vs) a) (te) be Prof. of Elocution, Phillips Academy. Clergyman. Publisher. Auburndale. Lasell Seminary. Proprietor Boston Herald. Als (On IRS NR a3 8S Royal M. Pulsifer . . Francis Blake. Edwin O. Jordan. Lowell. Prescott National Bank. James B. Francis Agent Locks and Canals. Benjamin F. Shaw. . . . Manager Shaw Stocking Company. George J. Carney . . . . . ‘Treasurer Lowell Institute for Savings, Josiah L.Seward .. . - Clergyman. Frederick Blanchard Lynn. Dennis J. Crowley . D. J. Crowley Mrs. Abby F. Harris. B. C. Mudge. & Co., Shoe Manuf’r’s, Medford. M. A. Crockett. 5 Rand, Avery, & Co. ves (Ol mel a 5 4 Worcester. President Worcester National Bank. Professor. Stephen Salisbury... . . Teh lee Anna Sb 6 Go Free Public Library. Charles M. Rice. . .. . . Student. Springfield. A live newspaper. Teacher High School. News Room, 421 Main Street. Springfield Republican . J. H. Pillsbury . dt fa A.F.Jennings .. . Amherst. Amherst College Library. (Davidve sod duel Asso. Prof. of Astron. Amherst Coll. Manly Miles . ... ! 1 2 Professor. Amesbury. A. M. Goodale. Arlington. E. C. Turner. Brighton. William Jackson. Chestnut Hill. George E. Lowell. Clinton. George French ... . Editor ‘* Clinton Times.” Dedham. Public Library. Everett. Mrs. Harlan P. Hyde . . 14 Buckman Street. Fall River.’ George W. Dean. United States Coast Survey. Framingham. Miss Janet W. Williams. . . Normal School. Gloucester. George Morse. AJ ei ais A NTO AG DEVAL AW EIU A) culo AS Postmaster. Great Barrington. Hvarts Scudder... . . Clergyman. Hingham. Charles A. Lane. ' OscarE.Perry ... : E. P. Gibbs. _ George B. Hobart. _ J.S. Beal. ) . Hiram F. Mills . . . . William R. Pedrick . Miss Fannie A. Buffum a Miss Rose Hollingsworth. E.8.Converse . . . J. A. Sullivan, Sylvester K. Abbott . _ John M. Edwards. ‘rs oo. ok oe Holyoke. . » + Holyoke Machine Co. TTudson. Kingston. Lawrence. « +» Engineer Essex Company. - »« + Pedrick & Closson, Auctioneers. Linden. - « « Cor. Lynn and Salem Streets. Mattapan. Malden. + + « Ex-Mayor. . « . §.K. Abbott & Co. Marlborough. _ Marlborough Public Library. _ Edward Sawyer. . . _ George A. Mower. god A.E. Lawrence. . . _ Avery L. Rand . . : Edward P. Call . . a Edwin P. Seaver . Joseph C. Delano . . | Mrs. E. P. Tileston. J.8. Kingsley ... Alexander Macdonald Ames Free Library. "Benjamin Smith Lyman Public Library. George R. Baldwin. 4 'T. M. Osborne. Thomas Crane . 1 , hale Jonathan Brown . . _ Arthur M. Comey. Edward H. Foote . . Albert L. Russell . . Charles A. Hobbs . . : j : Mount Holyoke Seminary. ‘ Henry W. Pratt. Charles V., Woerd . . Solon F. Whitney . . A. Hosmer —. Lee Oe ‘atertown Free Public Library. Newton. . . . Civil Engineer. Newton Centre. Clergyman. Rand, Avery, & Co. Newtonville. . « Publisher ‘* Boston Advertiser.” Newton Highlands. Superintendent Boston Public Schools. New Bedford. . « + 20 Hawthorn Street. Milton. Melrose. Author and Editor. Mount Auburn. » + Marble and Granite Works. North Easton. Northampton. -/. »- Elm Street. North Woburn. Peabody. Quincy. . . Public Library Somerville. + + » 890 Broadway. . + «+ Travelling Salesman. + « + Yelegrapb-Instrument Maker. Southborough. Instructor St. Mark’s School. South Hadley. Sterling. Waltham. . . « Superintendent American Watch Co. Watertown. . « «+ Teacher Cambridge High School. . Physician. - =~ _ SCIENCE.— LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. Wellesley. Wellesley College Reading-Room. West Newton. Westfield. Attorney-at-Law. Miss E. P. Thurston. Homer B. Stevens . . . . . Williamstown. Mark Hopkins . ead ark soe Ex-President Williams College, Williams College Library. Wood’s Holl. A. F. Crowell. MAINE, Portland, Physician. Treasurer Portland Company. William Wood ..... George F.Morsee ..... Augusta. Samuel L. Boardman. . . . Editor and Publisher. Bangor. Fred. A. Eddy. Bath. G. C. Moses. Bucksport. Charles G. Atkins. Brunswick. Leslie A. Lee. . . ... Prof. of Geology, Bowdoin College. Kennebunk. Charles C. Vinal. . . . . Clergyman. Lewiston. Erlon R.Chadbourn . . . . Printer. Orono. e Charles H. Fernald . . . . Prof. State Agricultural College. Waterville. M. Lyford. William T. Jordan. NEW HAMPSHIRE. Hanover. DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. Dartmouth College Library. Dartmouth Scientific Association. Charles F. Emerson . . . Prof. of Natural Philosophy. Manchester. Frank E. Heald. . ... . Samuel N. Bell. Book-keeper. Dover. Sawyer Woollen-Mills. Exeter. Albert C. Perkins . . . «+ Principal Phillips Exeter Academy. Gonic. . » Agent Rindge’s Mill. North Conway, 8.O.Meader.... - Henry A. Parker. VERMONT. Rutland. George J. Wardwell. Henry L. Farr. C. W. Safford. South Strafford. William Foster. William Glenn. Pa St. Johnsbury. Henry Fairbanks . . . . « Clergyman. North Craftsbury. Francis Parker . . . . - Clergyman. SCIENCE. — RHODE ISLAND. Providence. Professor of Chemistry, Brown Univ. John Howard Appleton . We Librarian Brown University. Reuben A. Guild Providence Athen#um. Homeopathic Library Association. Providence Public Library. Augustine Jones : Principal Friends’ School. William F. Channing . Physician, George B. Peck . Physician. N. W. Littlefield . Lawyer. Charles Bradley . Lawyer. James Tillinghast Lawyer. Alfred Stone. . Architect. Jobn F. Hedge, jun. Electrician. Chemist. Edwin B.Calder 2. ss. James M. Southwick... . Samuel Gorham. . . Tibbitts, Shaw, & Co. Mm. C.-Durfee .-. Pc Te Theodore W. Phillips nfeee Frank E. Seagrave . er William Burney N. B. Whitaker . Frank L. Titeomb . ©. W. Vaughn . Jobn R. Bartlett. Southwick & Jencks’ Nat. Hist. Store. Huntoon & Gorham, Cigars. Booksellers and Stationers. Grocer. Secretary Providence Steam-Engine Co, 65 Westminster Street. 72 Prospect Street, 305 Westminster Street. 22 Nichols Street. Consulting Chemist. Newport. Professor Engineer. Civil Engineer. Lieut..Commander U.S. N. Raphael Pumpelly « Joseph P. Cotton Theodore F. Jewell CONNECTICUT. New Haven. YALE COLLEGE. Professor Natural Philosophy. Professor Geology. Professor Sanskrit. Professor of Mining. Professor Mathematics. Professor Mineralogy. Professor of Agriculture. Professor Mathematical Physics. Professor Chemistry. Professor Paleontology. Professor Zoology. Professor Comparative Anatomy. Professor Chemistry. Astronomer. Professor Physiological Chemistry. Assistant in Zoology. Student Yale College. Elias Loomis . Rey mater James D. Dana. . 3 William D. Whitney . William P. Trowbridge Cites Hubert A. Newton .... George J. Brush ay Nd William H. Brewer J. Willard Gibbs. Arthur W. Wright . Othniel C. Marsh . Addison E. Verrill . Sidney I. Smith. . William G. Mixter . Leonard Waldo. . . Russell H. Chittenden . . . James H. Emerton. . ... Charles LL. Scudder Yale College Observatory. Library of Sheffield Scientific School. Yale College Reading-Room. IN GENERAL. Conn. Agricultural Hizpeniment Station. Horace C. Hovey . . + Pastor Second Congregational Church. Thomas H. Pease & Son. . . Booksellers and Newsdealers. William P. Blake. Edward E. Salisbury. . . Professor. Hartford. Philologist and Author. Pres. Connecticut Mutual Life-Ins. Co. President Steam-Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co, President Travellers’ Insurance Co, Physician. Physician. Secretary, J. L. Howard & Co. J. Hammond Trumbull . Jacob L. Greene *. . J.M. Allen , James G. Batterson . . . G. Pierrepont Davis . . . H.P. Stearns. . tdci Charles P. Howard. Berlin. T. 8S. Brandegee. Bridgeport. James C, Lathrop. ae Brooklyn. 8. A. Holman Physician. Buckland. Charles H. Owen. Litchfield. Miss Emma C. Jones. Middletown. John M. Van Vleck William North Rice W. Walter Webb. Prof. of Mathematics, Wesleyan Univ. - . Prof. of Geology, Wesleyan University. New Britain. The American Electric Company. John H, Sage. Jobn Mulville. William J. Selleck. LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS Portland. Riverside. Stamford. 4 Yale Lock Manufacturing Co. M. W. Sewall. Homer IF’, Bassett . Frederick A. P. Barnard Charles F. Chandler Charles F, Clark. Francis M. Weld i Juhn Osborne Sargent Lawson Valentine . George T. Hope. . H. H. Lamport Louis Monrose John Mulville . Henry P. DuBois J. W. Selleck Uriah Welch . Henry Edwards. . Eugene G. Blackford . John H. Caswell Thomas W. Ward. . Thorndike D. Hodges Clinton Roosevelt Samuel L. M. Barlow . Henry B. Hammond Thaddeus B. John H, Hinton . Cornelius R. Agnew . George T’. Stevens . George H. Taylor . . Sidney H. Carney . Louis Elsberg George M. Searle Ogden N. Rood. . John 8. Newberry. . Nathaniel Hathaway . John K. Rees. . . . Robert P. Whitfield Daniel Draper Perey Neymann. C. H. Leete Julius Sachs . . John 8. White Jonathan D. Hyatt. Charles Nettleton Thomas A. Edison . Austin G. Day . . Leonard E. Curtis . Cornelius Van Brunt . Frederick W. Devoe . Samuel W. Simpson . EH. B. Benjamin. . .« Henry B. Parsons . George F. Swain Charles 8S. Homer, jun. Lucius Pitkin . . . Nelson H. Darton. . D. D. Williamson . . Stillwell & Gladding . George N. Lawrence . Wakeman . Waterbury. Librarian Bronson Library. NEW YORK. > New-York City. . . President Columbia College. . President Board of Health. Y . . President The Bradstreet Company. . . President Harvard Club. Ex-President Harvard Club. . President Valentine Varnish Company. - Pres’t Continental Fire-Insurance Vice-Pres’t Continental Fire-Ins. Co. Monrose & Mulyille. Monrose & Mulville. Monrose & Mulville Insurance Agency. Monrose & Mulville Insurance Ageney. Proprietor St. Nicholas Hotel. Actor Wallack’s Theatre. Fish-Dealer. . Importer of Teas. - Banker. Lawyer. Lawyer. Lawyer. Lawyer. Lawyer. . Physician. . Physician. . Physician. Physician. Physician. Physician. . . Clergyman. . . Prof. Mech. and Phys. Columbia Coll. . . Professor Geoldégy, School of Mines. Chemist, School of Mines. Director of Observatory. Curator American Museum Nat. Hist. — Meteorological Observatory. . .~ Student Columbia School of Mines. . . Dr. Sachs’ Collegiate Institute. . . Collegiate Institute. _ Principal Berkeley School. a) eebeachers . . Commissioner and Notary. Electrician. Electric Wire and Supplies. - . Secretary U.S. Electric Lighting Co. . « Machinery. Paints and Artists’ Materials. Merchant. Chemicals and Apparatus. Chemist. . ‘Treasurer Valentine Varnish Company. . Superintendent Valentine Varnish Co. . Chemist. . Analytic and Consulting Chemist. . International Chemical Company. Chemists. Drugs and Chemicals. Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor, & Co. ; Publishers. John Wiley & Sons Henry Holt&Co. . . John W. Lovell. . . D. Van Nostrand . Romyn Hitchcock . B. Westermann & Co. J. W. Bouton. . . C.C. Hine. . . Samuel Kneeland . . Henry M. Parkhurst . Asa L. Shipman’s Sons Albert Bierstadt A. R. Hart. . R.D. Servoss . Carter, Sloan, & Co. Mercantile Library. Astor Library Library of Columbia C College ;. Anglo-Swiss Cond. Milk Co. University Club . Mrs. Henry Draper . Mrs. David C. Scudder + . Publishers and Importers. - . Publishers. . . Publisher. . + Scientific Books. Editor and Microscopical Apparatus. Foreign Books. - - Rare and Costly Books. . + Insurance Editor and Publisher. . ». Author. . . Stenographer. . Stationers and Manufacturers. . Artist. Treasurer Photo-Engraving Company. Struthers, Servoss, & Co. Manufacturing Jewellers. Astor Place. ‘ . Lafayette Place. 49th Street and Madison Avenue. Of Switzerland. No. 370 Fifth Avenue. . « Madison Avenue. +» « Grammercy Park. a ee SCIENCE.— LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. ~ “Henry C. Andrews. . . PQneney s) we EB. B. Crocker. . . . . Charles F.Cox . . ‘ Walter C. Hubbard J.B. Taylor Hatfield . . James Lioyd White . . James T. Gardiner . é R.H. Lamborn... Albert 8. Bickmore - William A nINEY fore A. 3 N. A. Calkins. . . = \ Alexander Hutchins Elias Lewis, jun. A. W. Humphreys. Henry P. DuBois 5 -A.R. Hart .. . Frederick G. Schaupp d Henry H. Lamport. 8. A. Goldschmidt . . Le Conte Stevens . The Brooklyn Library Marie O. Glover. State Museum of Natural New-York State Library. Albany Institute. Dudley epee James Hall. Weare C. Little |! J.A.Lintner Samuel B. Ward Moses G. Farmer. Matthew Hale . 5 Beekman Street. + 14 Kast 25th Street. . 54 West 21st Street. - Banker. . Cotton-merchant. ~ « M49 West 34th Street. . » 609 Fifth Avenue. . « 209 West 46th Street. . » Colorado Coal and Iron Company. - . Supt. American Museum Natural Hist. 48 West 39th Street. 124 East 80th Street. Brooklyn. Physician. . . Clerk, Monrose & Mulville. . Photo-Engraving. - Teacher. Physician. Packer Institute. Montague Street. Albany. History. . . Geologist, State Museum of Nat. Law Publisher and Bookseller. State Entomologist. + . Physician. Lawyer. Ithaca. CORNELL UNIVERSI?PY. Burt G. Wilder. . . . William A. Anthony. . J.H.Comstock. .. . William R. Dudley . . Henry Shaler Williams . Simon H. Gage Cornell University i Library. H., P. Cushing. H.R. Gilbert. - . . Lewis Swift . ... Bausch & Lomb. . Corlis B. Gardner . Henry A. Ward. .. . Cyrus F. Paine . Edward H. Vredenburgh “ euverd.- SN sie : t. Dept. . Cyrus W Shaw. D. P. Penballow. John J.Brown. . . . George A.Edwards . . Walter A. Brownell . D. 8. Kello, se George H. Hudson. Miss Maria ns Le R. C. Cooley. WIS CRIONNY so. se Asaph 8. Bemis, C.H.F. Peters . . Albert H. Chester. _ John W. Doughty. Haslett McKim. . . . Professor of Physiology. Professor of Physics. . . Professor of Entomology. . + Assistant Professor of Botany. Assistant Professor of Paleontology, Professor of Physiology. Rochester. . . Book-keeper. . Professor Warner Observatory. - + Optical Company. . . Clergyman : 2 Natural Science Establishment. - . Druggist. . . Cashier Banking-House. Mountainville. . « Houghton Farm. Houghton Farm. Syracuse. . » Professor Syracuse University. Physician. . Professor High School, Plattsburg. Physician. Physician. Poughkeepsie. . Vassar College. Buffalo. . + Wholesale and Retail Crockery. Clinton. . . Observatory of Hamilton College. Newburgh. . Clergyman. Troy. ‘ Bitenssclaar Polytechnic Institute. Charles E. Hanaman . . -. ay . . Flour and Produce. Hist. Alfred Centre. HS 'C.Coon! satan iw aa J Physician. Bangall. Lewis Carman, Cazenovia. L. W. Ledyard, Community. George E. Cragin . Physician. Dobb's Ferry. RiGatlin . . 6 2 8 8 Captain United-States Army. Dunkirk. H. Raymond Rogers . . .« Physician. Geneva. E. Lewis Sturtevant. Gloversville. O. K, Chamberlin . Physician. Jamaica. R. P, Stevens. Long-Island City. Anthony Pirz .. . . .-. Professor. Lowville. ’ W. Hudson Stephens. Middletown. Anglo Swiss Condensed Milk Company. Nyack. George W. Hill. Ogdensburg. W.J.W. Finlay ... Clergyman. Oneida. C. M. Ferry. Oswego. Henry H. Straight. . . Prof. Natural Science, Normal School. Schenectady. Morris Perkins... . Profebsor Union College. Shelby. J.D. Childs . . . . -» » Clergyman. Tarrytown, Charles H. Rockwell. Watertown. J. M. Adams. Willet’s Point. Henry L. Abbot . . . . . Brigadier-General. Yonkers. E. C. Moore. NEW JERSEY, Princeton. PRINCETON COLLEGE. Arnold Guyot . . . . . . Professor of Geology. J. Stillwell Schanck . . . . Professor of Chemistry. Cyrus F. Brackett * . . Professor of Physics. George Macloskie . Professor of Natural History. Charles A. Young . . Professor of Astronomy. Charles G. Rockwood, j jun. . Professor of Mathematics. William Libbey, jun... . Assistant Professor in Natural Science. Jersey City. ' John W. Atwood . - « » Teacher. George W. C. Phillips” . « « Druggist. Beriah A. Watson. . . . . Physician. Erminnie A. Smith. L : + . iu SCIENCE. — LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. New Brunswick. Professor Rutgers College. Professor. Professor. George B. Merriman... . Peter T. Austen. F. C. Van Dyck . George H, Cook. Newark. Publisher. Weston Electric Light. Lawyer. €:.C. Hine. . Edward Weston James E. Howell Orange. Henry C. Pedder. Francis R. Upton. James D. Hague ... Mining Engineer. Vineland. J. W. Pike. Mary Treat. Caroline A, Paul. Trenton. Charles C. Abbott . . . . . Archeologist. Edward I. Green. Freehold. Samuel Lockwood . Clergyman. Hoboken. Robert H. Thurston Stevens Institute of Technology. Millville. R. M. Atwater. Somerville, Mrs. A. B. Blackwell. 1 PENNSYLVANIA. Philadelphia. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. Professor of Anatomy. Professor of Mathematics. Professor of Chemistry. Professor of Physics. Joseph Leidy. . E. Otis Kendall . Frederick A Genth .. . George FP. Barker . . . . IN GENERAL, Physician. Physician. 8. Weir Mitchell . asthe John L. LeConte .... . Frances Emily White . Physician. F. Woodbury. . Physician. Charles A. Netipenes” Geologist. Persifor Frazer . . 6 Geologist. Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia. Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania. Library Company. Mercantile Library . Martin Roche. William H. Walmsley D.R. Goodwin . . Henry C. McCook . William Sellers . Tenth Street. Nautical and Engineering College. Representative R. & J. Beck. Clergyman. Clergyman. 5 Wm. Sellers & Co., Machinists’ Tools. William 8. Auchincloss . Bates & Auchincloss, Spool Cotton. Charles B. Penrose . - . - Physicist. Edwin J. Houston. . . . . Manager, 1426 Callowhill. William Ludlow. . - + + Major of Engineers. William L. Abbott . cies 1926 Chestnut Street. Fairman Rogers. . . . . 202 South 19th Street. H, Allen ako ae A 3706 Locust Street. Isaac Lea . . 1622 Locust Street. F. V. Hayden. A. E. Outerbridge, jun. John H. Redfield. J.P. Pyle. John Bigelow. Mrs. M. Mott Davis. Altoona. Charles B. Dudley. F. N. Pease. John W. Cloud. Wilkesbarre. Irving A. Stearns . . R. Bruce Ricketts. Harrison Wright. Civil and Mining Engineer. Alleqheney. Western University of Pennsylvania. William M. Herron Physician. Easton. ThomasM.Drown .. . . Professor and Chemist. TraillGreen . . Professor. Pittsburgh. Joseph D. Weeks . . Associate Editor ‘The Iron Age.” John H, Ricketson . Founder, Machinist, and Manufacturer. West Chester. D.M.Sensenig..... Halliday Jackson. Professor. Bethlehem. Edward H. Williams, jun. . . Professor Lehigh University. Chester. Walter N. Hill. Cookport. Dr. Stewart . . Physician. Delaware Water-Gap. 8. W. Knipe . Clergyman. Drifton. Eckley B. Coxe. Germantown. Henry Carvill Lewis . . . American Acad. of Natural Sciences. ITulton. C. Alfred Smith. ITuntingdon. Joseph E. Saylor Professor Normal College. Lancaster City. Professor Franklin and Marshall Coll. Latitz. Jefferson E. Kershner .. . H. A. Brickenstein. Manayunk Post-Office. J. Addison Campbell. Mansfield Valley. Francis C. Blake . . . . . Pennsylvania Lead-Works. Meadville. City Library. Pittston. R. D. Lacoe. DELAW ARE. Newark. TDD SAW. Ol fy tell leh Wetluein le Physician. Wilmington. J.H. Kidder. . . .. . . U.S.A. Fish Com. §.8. ‘ Albatross.’ MARYLAND. Baltimore. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. Daniel C. Gilman . . . . . President Johns Hopkins University. H. Newell Martin . . . . . Professor Biology. Ira Remsen : - . . + Professor Chemistry. Henry A. Rowland. » + . . Professor Physics. Richard M. Venable . . . . Professor Constitutional Law. William K. Brooks . . . . Associate Professor Biology. William Hand Browne - . . Associate Librarian. Thomas Craig . . 2 Associate Prof. Applied Mathematics. )” Wilham T. Sedgwick . om Associate Professor Biology. William BE. Story .... Associate Professor Mathematics. Philip R. Uhler. . . . . . Associate Professor Natural History. Nicholas Murray . . . . - Johns Hopkins University. A. H. Tuttle . 5 5 S:udent. Arthur 8. Hathaway . .» + » + Graduate Student, Johns Hopkins Uniy. Andrew A. Veblen .... TEINS Student, Johns Hopkins Biss IN GENERAL. State Normal School. Peabody Institute. ‘ « W.Simon. . C Physician. W. Chew Van Bibber . + Physician. INEM shu ae Gea BMS Be Teley Gustav A. Liebig de Senge Charles I. M. Gwinn . . Attorney-General of Maryland. Thomas Turtle . , . . . . Uniled-States Engineer. William H. Numsen . . . . 18 Light Street. Edgar G. Miller. . . . . . 279 Baltimore Street. Annapolis. UNITED-STATES NAVAL ACADEMY. Naval Academy Club, J.M. Rice. . 2 William Woolsey Johnson : Professor of Mechanics. Professor of Mechanics .M. Terry . . . . . - + Professor of Physics. pi. Murdock «+ . 2... « > Department of Physics and Chemistry. rge W. Jones. St. Denis. George W. Dobbin. icholas G. Penniman. Mount Washington. Woodstock. . ater eiis «><. « =, Cléregman, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. Washington. Secretary of War. Brigadivr-General U.S.A. Judge Court of Claims. dude. Comptroller of the Treasury. . . . Secretary Smithsonian Institution. . » » Curator Smithsonian Institution. . . « Smithsonian Institution. + « Smithsonian Institution. . . Smithsonian Institution. Chemist, Smithsonian Institution. Paleontologist, Smithsonian Institution. . . . Assistant Librarian, Smithsonian Inst. .- » » Smithsonian Institution. . « Smithsonian Tostitution. . . . Smithsonian Institution. . « Smithsonian Institution. . « Commissioner, Dept. of Agriculture. . . Chief, Department of Agriculture. . . Entomologist, Dept. of Agriculture. Entomologist, Dept. of Agriculture. . . Taxidermist, National Museum. « » . President Deaf-Mute College. BAW Chickering, jun. . . Professor Deaf-Mute College. ‘Ezekiel B. Elliot . . . . . Actuary, Treasury Department. O.H.Irish. . . . . . . . Chief Bureau of Engray. and Printing. Garrick Mallery. . . . Bureau of Ethnology. .W. Henshaw. . . . Bureau of Ethnology. enry Gannett . . . . Census Bureau. bert Todd Lincoln. . . Benjamin Alvord . . . ‘William 3; Richardson . a A. Scudder . Jobn ‘Tay Knox . Spencer F. Baird G. Brown Goode Richard Rathbun heodore Gill. George P. Merrill ‘Frederick Ww. Taylor . RIVA White soe. - ‘Newton P. Scudder . E. Hayden . M-Fliot. . . Beso Tar. . / . ow as © see eee George B. Loring .A.Carman. . C.V. Riley. B. Pickman Mann - Wittiam ‘T. Hornaday M. Gallaudet . ‘dward Weston. . Gardiner G. Hubbard Bema! Shellabarger . fs. Saville... . William ay > ee “Charles J. Bel Geo . Proprietor Portland Flats. . Lawyer and Capitalist. . Lawyer. . Lawyer. - wes er and President School Board. Banker. rge W. Brown . i - Real Estate. Alexander Melville Bell . Author of Visible Speech. Alexander Graham Bell . Inventor of Telephone. ‘Sumner Tainter . . Electrician. Electrician. . Pres’t Whiskey-Distillers’ Association. . Booksellers and Periodical Dealers. . Chief, Signal Service. . Signal Service. . 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Werner Suiss. . . Cd Mm ee Se eee te Oa a iene "Asaph Hall Te aut . Astronomer, Observatory. Albert S.Flint ; : 2: 2 2 Naval Observatory. William C. Winlock . . . Observatory. Robert Fletcher. . . . . . Asst. Librarian Surgeon.Gen.’s Office. ca i Yarrow... . . Army Medical Museum. Mew .... . . . Army Medical Museum. Be jamin F. Pope... . - Surgeon-General’s Office. JW. Powell... <5. . .« Geological Survey. Clarence E. Dutton . . . . Geological Survey. James ©. Pilling . . . . . Geological Survey. G. K. Gilbert . . . . . . Geological Survey. Charles Darwin. . . . . . Geological Survey. Charles D. Walcott . . . . Geological Survey. F.Emmons ., .. . . . Geological Survey. .H.Holmes . .. . . ~ Geological Survey. wan Petroff . . . . . »« . Geological Survey. J « asi. i SCIENCE. — LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. Geological Survey. Bureau of Education. Bureau of Education. Bureau of Education. Physician. Physician. Physician. A.H. Thompson ... - John Eaton . . «es > Charles Warren. . . - R.L. Packard ... - H.R. Bigelow .. . .- D. W. Prentiss . aca, W.W.Godding .... J. W. Osborne Sere < 212 Delaware Avenue, N. W. David P. Heap . « « + « United States Engineers. T.C. Chamberlin . . . . . Box 591. : 805 G Street, N. W. 1330 19th Street. 1418 K Street. 1607 H Street. j Georgetown, D.C. Georgetown, D.C. W.C. Kerr. o) tala ee James C. W elling eae M. Covarrubias . . . . « « Henry Adams Bre.) bs Benjamin Miller. . oa Mrs. Caroline H. Dall. Signal Service . ajiite War Department. Director of th Mint : : . Treasury Department. Lighthouse Bo: - « + « « Treasury Department. Life-Saving Service Treasury Department. Chief of Engineers War Department. Surgeon-General’s Office. Nautical Almanac Office. Patent Office . ° Division of Mining Statistics = Library : Rocky- Mountain Division . National Museum < Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Department of Agriculture. Scientific Library . . ole Coast and Geodetic Survey. Bureau of Education . Naval Observatory Library Department of the Interior. Geological Survey. Geologic: al Survey. Smithsonian Institution. . United-States Patent-Office. Department of the Interior. Obser vatory. Cc. 0. Boutelle . . . U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. ns Alexander Ziwet . / . . . U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Miles Rock. .« 4 : aval Observatory. William fH. Hawkes Sher tye Frederick W. True ... - Julius Baumgarten aie W.W.Upton ..*. .- Mo Gp meligs 2. Se Libis arian, -U. 8. National Museum. Engraver. Second Comptroller, Treasury. adier-General U.S.A. George W. Hill . . . « «+ Nautical Almanac Office. - oo Edson A. Burdick . . + « + 406 Spruce Street. iP: W.W. Corcoran. . . . . Founder Corcoran Art-Gallery. 7 Thomas Taylor . . .°. . . Departmentof Agriculture. , J.C. McGuire William D. Baldwin . . . Baldwin, Hopkins, & Peyton, Patent Solicitors. we © Elliott Cones. . . . Author and Naturalist. s William E. Woodbridge. . Charles W. Smiley. 4 Jobn H.C. Coffin . . . Professor of Mathematics. di E. 8. Hutchinson. \s 4 M.8.Fallo .. . . . « ~ 1200 Eighteenth Street. “ / WEST VIRGINIA. ’ Morgantown. q I.C. White ... . - . . Professor University of West Virginia. a é VIRGINIA. od Universily of Virginia. & Williarh M. Fountaine. a Ormond Stone. Wi, Norfolk. o Newton Fitz... . . Prof. Norfolk College for Young Ladies. William J. Moore... . Physician. ty | C. 0. Boutelle . .. . . . U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. nr re 7 Lexington. . S.T. Moreland . . . . . . Washington and Lee University. A uy; Portsmouth. ba, Henry C. Jordan . . . . - Clerk. aM ¥ LY re Aa KENTUCKY. rN : ae Lexington. *. ie ee Ballard, Williamson, & Co. i ane Alfred M. Peter. ‘= Earlington. eS" John B. Atkinson. +e Danville. Loge J.C. Fales. . ... - - ~ Centre College. f Be Frankfort. Lon E. H. Taylor, jun.,Company . Distillers . Louisville. “* Miss A. V. Pollard . . Librarian of Polytechnic Society. SCIENCE. — LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. Richmond. Edward L. Nichols Professor Central University. NORTH CAROLINA. Davidson College Post-Office. J.R.Blake .. . Professor. Raleigh. North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station. TENNESSEE. Nashville. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY. Library. Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt University . Nel gen ptOMnus anette: | s James M. Safford . . . Lebanon. ike D. Minds’ fs.) gous Professor. SOUTH CAROLINA. Sumter. Benjamin Hodges. GEORGIA. Augusta. C. B. F. Lowe Georgia Chemical Works. Nacooche. Josiah Curtis. . . .. . Physician. FLORIDA. Jacksonville. A.8. Baldwin . Physician. Thomas Bassnett. Pensacola. Silas Stearns. ALABAMA. Greensboro’. Charles Jones. Moulton. Thomas M. Peters. . . Judge. Tuscaloosa. Eugene A. Smith Professor University of Alabama. LOUISIANA. New Orleans. AlcéeHortiers 3. .) . University of Louisiana, Academical Department. Secrétaire perpétuel, Athenée Loui- siane. Alfred Mercier OHIO. Cincinnati. Prof. of Chemistry, Univ. of Cincinnati. Prof. Mathematics, Univ. of Cincinnati. Demonstrator of Chemistry, Ohio Medi- cal College. Frank Wigglesworth Clarke Edward Wyllys Hyde ... Fred A. Roeder . Genel G Andrew J. Howe . . Surgeon. John M. Scudder . . Physician and Surgeon. Pharmacist. Theodore L. A. Greve W.H.Venable. .. dacobeDs Coxwl)) 5: H.8. Wayne... . Aaron F. Perry . HOY H. Vail . ay ens IGE MUSING auc oo 6 Ohio Mechanics Institute. Y. M. Mercantile Library Association. Eliot A. Kebler. Robert Clarke & Co. . Principal Chickering Institute. Dean Cincinnati College. Analytical Chemist. Attorney. Publisher. President Union National Bank. Booksellers and Publishers. Cleveland. W.J.Gordon .... President Mercantile Insurance Co. 8. H. Freeman. Arthur F. Taylor... . . Case School of Applied Science. H. 1. Dennis. J. H. A. Bone Professor of Chemistry, Case School. Secretary Herald Publishing Company. Columbus. OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY. Professor of Geology. Professor Ohio State University. ' Teacher State University. | Professor Ohio State University. IN GENERAL. Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. Tienry Snyder, jun. . Teacher Institution for Blind. William kh. Lazenby. <=> L. Lesquereux A Edward Orton... . Newton M. Anderson. . . T. C. Mendenhall . Springfield. Manager for James Leffel & Co. Editor ‘* Farm and Fireside.” ~a| Physician. F. M. Bookwalter « T. J. Kirkpatrick Linus E. Russell Akron. Charles M. Knight. . 254 Carroll Street. Cuyahoga Falls. Elisha N. Sill. Gambier. Theodore Sterling . - Professor Kenyon College. Georgetown. Physician. Mount Lookout. TECOG MIBUEC HS) ey Orie bel Cincinnati Observatory. Thomas W. Gordon . Navarre. John F. Grossklaus. North Bend. Robert B. Warder. . Oberlin. Professor of New-Testament Literature, George F. Wright. . . - Oberlin College. Portsmouth. G.8.B. Hempstead . . . Physician. Urbana. Thomas French, jun. Round-Head Post-Office. South Bass Island. Toledo. Groceries and Commission. Waynesville. P. Manchester. Joseph de Rivera. Charles W. Bond . I. H. Harris. Wyoming. George M. Maxwell . . . . Clergyman. MICHIGAN. Ann Arbor. : UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Professor of Mineralogy. Professor of Chemistry. Professor of Astronomy. hS Professor of Geology. William H. Pettee . Sac John W. Langley... .- .- Mark W. Harrington. . . Alexander Winchell . ... Charles K. Wead .. . . . Professor of Physics. Lansing. : MWyodlo EM Ag a 5 Professor of Botany, State Agricultural College. R.G. Kedzie .\. . . . .«.. Professor. ‘ Jackson. Mrs. P. B. Loomis. ' Muskegon. Frank H. Bassett. INDIANA. Bloomington. Julia R. Hughes. David S. Jordan. . .... Professor University of Indiana. Daniel Kirkwood Professor University of Indiana. Brookville. Amos W. Butler. a . Connersville. iy Robert Hessler. ‘ i eee at ria SCIENCE.— LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. . Indianapolis. Teabella King. . . . . « « Critic teacher. : Lawrenceburg. . E. Larimer. New Harmony. Richard Owen .. . . . « Geologist. _* ILLINOIS. ‘ Chicago. mS. Bastn . 2: .. - Professor. ‘Public Library. H.A.dJohnson ..... Physician. J. ©. Arthur. Sheldon W. Burnham. . . » W. Blatchford ... . Assistant Clerk U. 8. Courts. E. W. Blatchford & “Oo. -» Lead Pipe. Springfield. State Board of Health. State Geologist’s Office. Jobn H. Rauch . . A.H. Worthen . . - ‘ : Belleville. | John J. R. Patrick. Cairo. John G. D. Knight. . Englewood. E. J. Hill. ay Evanston. ‘H.S. Carhart. . . + Prof. of Physics, North-western Univ. Galesburg. Milton L. Comstock . . . . Professor Knox College. Lima. ‘Charles T.Dazey .... Poet and Dramatist. Normal. tate Laboratory of Natural History. Rockford. ‘L. A. Weyburn. WISCONSIN. Madison. ‘Library of Washburn Observatory. University of Wisconsin. Milwaukee. Public Library. ‘Lewis Sherman. . . . . . Physician. Beloit. Beloit College Library. Ripon. Ripon College Reading-Room. Trempealeau. G. H. Squier. MINNESOTA. ; Minneapolis. James A.Dodge .. . . . Professor of Chemistry, Univ. of Minn. University of Minnesota. St. Paul. -Kaward Maguire ... . Captain of Engineers U.S.A. “Hubert H. Miller . .©. . . Analytical Chemist. : Northfield. Andrew A. Veblen. ‘ IOWA. Davenport. Viles Block, Main Street. 901 West Sth Street. Ames. Professor Agricultural College. Charles E. Putnam. . . . Asa. Tiffany ..... Charles E. Bessey . . . Burlington. 2003 Madison Street. Dubuque. "Asa Horr * « sis ss - « 1811 Main Street, G _W.H.Hopkirk . ..... 4 4 Towa City. & justavus Hinrichs. NEBRASKA, David City. R. Ellsworth Call . . . . . Principal City Schools. Lincoln. Samuel Aughey. . . . . . Professor. MISSOURI. St. Louis. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. Professor Constitutional Law. Professor History. Professor Mathematics. Henry Hitchcock Marshall S.Snow . Edmund A. Engler Academy of Science. IN GENERAL. George Engelmann Physician. G.S. Walker . Physician. James H. McLean . Physician. Lawrence L. King . Robert E. MeMath . James B. Eads Samuel Marsden William H. Pulsifer George L. Joy . . Edward Mallinckrodt - William GC laeagys Jan F. V. Abbot : A.F. Dean . Public School Library. King’s Insurance Agency. Civil Engineer. Civil Engineer. Builder. President St. Louis Lead & Oil Co. Joy & Chapman, Salt-Dealers. G. Mallinckrodt & Co., Chemists. 3016 Glasgow Place. 404 Market Street. Gen. Agt. Le pt F. and M. Ins. Co. Polytechnic Building Columbia. University of State of Missouri, S. M. Tracy Professor State University. Liberty. oe of William Jewell College. -R.Eaton .. . . . Professor. Jefferson City. bs G. N. Grisham Lincoln Institute. k ' Seventy-Six Post-Office. c Miss Virginia K. Bowers. KANSAS. : Lawrence. : F. H. Snow. - L. L. Dyche. : H.S.8.Smith .... Fort Leavenworth. Professor. O. M. Carter. W. A. Glassford 2d Lieutenant Signal Corps, U. 8. A. Manhattan. ; E, A. Popense Professor, e+ COLORADO. : r Denver. 4 Sidney H. Short. . . Professor University of Denver. ae H. A. Howe. . 5 Professor University of Denver. Benjamin H. Smith - : . Surveyor-General’s Office. . William A. Peck .. .. . Surveyor-General’s Office. - Robert A. Meier A 542 California Street. United States Geological Survey. Colorado Springs. an Colorado College Library. George H. Stone. As Golden. 2a Colorado State School of Mines. ° Arthur Lakes ak Professor School of Mines. " Nepesta. John McDaniell. : Zz ARKANSAS. 4 Fayetteville. AS WA AUG. oy SP sak ve Civil Engineer. ~ Little Rock. Thomas H. H. Handbury Corps of Engineers U.S.A. Malvern. Louis Guerineau. Van Buren. Miss Juanita A. Bourland . . Main Street. SCIENCE. — LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. , ‘ TEXAS. Corsicana. J. K. Smyril. Galveston. Brevet Lieut.-Col. in charge U. 8. Corps Engineers. Samuel M. Mansfield . NEVADA. Candelaria. == W. H. Shockley. CALIFORNIA. San Francisco. Library U.S. Geological Survey. California Academy “of Science. George F. Becket : G. M. Sternberg. . U.S. Geological Survey. Physician U.8.A., Fort Mason, Ivan Petrot® .°. . 1] 2 2 Alaska Commercial Co. R. L. Floyd Captain. Berkeley. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Library of University of California. Eugene W. Hilgard . . Prof. Agriculture, University of Cal. Joseph LeConte ... . . Prof. Geology, University of California. Oakland. Thomas H. Pinkerton . . Physician and Surgeon. Aurelius H. Agard. . . . Physician. Carpenteria. a Robert Cauch .. . . . . Physician. Livermore. Philo. F. Phelps. : Los Angeles. Marcus Baker ... . . - Coast Survey. é Salinas. E.K. Abbott. . .. . . . Physician. San José. F.W.Simonds.... Professor. ALASKA TERRITORY. Silka. EH. O’C. Acker . .. . . . U.S.S. “Adams.” ARIZONA. Prescott. G.J.Fiebeger . . . . . . Lieutenant Corps of Engineers U.S.A. DAKOTA TERRITORY. Fort Yates. OSHeAIGen ef lel ie) sie Physician U.S.A. MONTANA, Bulle Cily. S. M. Pitman. Helena. ** Helena Independent,” y UTAH. Salt wake City. I.C. Russell . . . . . . . U.S. Geological Survey. W. J. McGee. . Be Wise Geological Survey. Library U.S S. Geological ‘Survey. FRANCE. Paris. Octave Uzanne . . . . . . Editor ‘‘Le Livre.” SWITZERLAND. Cham. Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co, ‘Loring W. Bailey . ... . CANADA, : Montreal. MCGILL UNIVERSITY. John William Dawson . . . Vrincipal. William Osler Ses Professor Institutes of Medicine. Henry T. Bovey. .. . Professor of Civil Engineering. IN GENERAL Thomas Sterry Hunt. . Geologist and Mineralogist. ‘Thomas B. Wheeler Physician. Exporter and Importer. ’ Secretary and ‘Treasurer British Amert can Bank Note Co. Otlawa, Ont. Division Geological Survey. Post-Office Department. . Halifax. Professor Dalhousie College. Wm. Stairs, Son, & Morrow, Hardw: Clinton, Ont. Robert C. Adams . . at George John Bowles. . . Alfred R. C. Selwyn . W. H. Harrington . James G. MacGregor. . . . Robert Morrow. . . Horatio Hale. Dartmouth. Manager Starr Manufacturing Oo. Fredericton, N.B. W.Brydone Jack . . . . . Pres. University of New Brunswick. Professor. John Forbes... .~ Grand Manan, N.B. Simeon F, Cheeney .. . Woodward’s Cove. Guelph, Ont. Ac T; Deacon... - . = Bursar Ontario Agricultural College. Kingston, Ont. : Herbert A. Baym. London, Ont. The Entomological Society of Ontario. Quebec. ; Professor Laval University: lll Me th — nk J.C.K.Laflamme. ... - St. John, N.B. John March . . .. . . . Secretary Board School Sienaveegs Toronto. GoldwinSmith. ... . Professor. Winniped, Man. J.Hoyes Panton .... Professor. CUBA. Habana. Adolfo Moliner. J.S8. Jorrin. ; BRAZIL. Rio de Janeiro. ins : J. Charles Berrini . . . . * Physician. a Orville A. Derby i PERU. Igquique. J.W. Merriam . . * . . . United-States Consul. DENMARE, Copenhagen. Japetus Steenstrup . . . . Professor. ENGLAND. Leeds. J.J.Hummel .. . . . . Yorkshire College. London. : Louis P. Casella. ‘Thomas H. Huxley . . Physiologist and Naturalist. Tewksbury. W.S. Symonds. . . + . . Clergyman. PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMENT. feet ee OT) Ore Ae MET rom: BY CHARLES S. BRAY, M.D. [From ‘‘ The Century Magazine’? for July.] I. INIQUITOUS ADULTERATION. ‘““THere has been so much adulteration of food,’’ said a New-York divine recently, ‘‘ that it is an amazement to me that there is a healthy man in America. The great want of to-day is practical religion, —a religion that will correctly label goods, that will prevent a mar telling you a watch was made in Geneva when it was made in Massachusetts, that will keep the ground glass and the sand out of the sugar, that will go into the grocery and pull out the plug of ale-adulterated sirup, that will dump in the ash-barrel the cassia-buds that are sold for cinnamon, that will sift out the Prussian-blue from the tea-leaves, that will keep out of flour the plaster of Paris and soapstone, that will separate the one quart of Ridgewood water from the one honest drop of cow’s milk, that will throw out the live ani- malculae from the sugar. Heaven knows what they put in the spices, in the butter, or the drugs; but chemical analysis and the micro- scope haye made wonderful discoveries.’’ ‘*The Youth’s Companion,’’ in a recent article on the adulteration of food, says, — ** A system of inspection is necessary to protect the public from the adulteration of food which is so common in this country; especially in the poorer quarters of our large cities, where the prices are low and the purchasers not fastidious. . . . Large quantities of unwholesome meat are sold to the poor, such as poultry which has been thrown out of the better class of markets, ‘ bob’ veal, the meat of calves killed too soon after birth, and beef that comes from animals that have been unhealthy before slaughter- ng. . . - The health of a community can be serious- ly injured by the tricks of dishonest tradesmen, and people should be careful in buying food that is offered at unusually low prices.” These strictures may, perhaps, strike the average reader as foreshadowing a crusade against the compounders and venders of adul- terated food ; but this is not our prime object. The combined power of the pulpit and press is almost inealculable, and the batteries of the latter are being levelled against this ‘‘ common enemy ’’ along the whole line. That men, induced by the hope of gain, should adulterate the staples of life, and thus add crime, and, as often follows, murder, to their account on the ‘Great ‘Ledger’’ of eternity, seems almost impossible of conception: and yet it is only too true. This criminal practice is as old as the hills; and its recent condemnation by the clergy and press is only another exemplifica- tion of the value of free speech and a free press, — two inestimable boons to Americans. Il. SPOILED FOOD. It is a fact, lamentable enough in itself, that food has a natural tendency to decay, which men have heretofore unsuccessfully at- tempted to check. Especially is this true of animal food and its after-products, such as butter, cream, milk, cheese, lard, etc. The problem of pure, fresh, healthful, cheap food, in all climates and seasons, is a field broad enough to command the attention of all phi- lanthropists. To the rich man all things seem possible ; but to the laboring classes this prob- lem of fresh and cheap food is, and ever has been, a veritable Gordian knot. . The laboring man looks forward to Sunday for a day of rest and a good dinner. The steak, oysters, chop, chicken, and such deli- cacies are procured on Saturday, and kept over for this sabbath meal. It goes without saying, that a lack of ice, a warm room, a muggy day, a poorly ventilated cellar, and a myriad of such every-day causes and cir- cumstances, conspire to spoil these viands. Even slightly salted, they lose their fresh flavor ; smoked, they are even less desirable ; immersed in pickle, or corned, they become impregnated with the deadly saltpetre ; placed in a refrigerator, they are practically frozen. lv SCIENCE. — PUBLISHER’S DEPARTMENT. ** All such food is injurious to health,’’ says a learned Cincinnati judge; yet, left alone to the influences of climate, weather, and natural surroundings, they speedily spoil. What, then, shall rich or poor do to insure the coy- eted luxury of fresh, healthful food ? The problem has been a knotty one since the advent of man upon this terrestrial planet. The ‘criminal cupidity of many dealers, on the one hand, and the hosts of natural causes of decay, and man’s inability to find a reliable, safe, and cheap food-preservative, on the other, are obstacles which have always heretofore confounded the world. Ill. FOOD-PRESERVATION. One of the largest elements of risk in gen- eral farming and in dealing in food-products is the loss on perishable goods, both from decay and deterioration, as “well as from the frequent necessity of forcing such goods upon an overstocked market at ruinously “low prices. The world has long needed some substance, at once harmless and eflicient, to maintain in their production that freshness and sweetness in provisions so essential to remunerative returns. Salted meats are distasteful to many, and repugnant and unhealthful to all, where a regular diet of such material is maintained. Once salted, a piece of beef is immediately lowered in value. Millions of dollars’ worth of poultry, lamb, veal, and mutton are annu- ally lost to the world through the lack of prac- tical means of preservation. Milk and cream cannot be kept longer than a day or two, and tons of butter every year become rancid and are sold for grease. The want of a thing always directs scientific inquiry and inyentive genius toward its discovery. It has been known for many months past, in commercial and scientific circles, that this important dis- covery had been made in a food-preservative by Prof. R. F. Humiston of Boston.