54 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The meteorology of to-day is in a state of development similar to 

 that of medicine. Within the recent past, this science too has made 

 wonderful progress, and is rich in promise for the near future. The 

 meteorological predictions prove of great service to the agricultural 

 interests in the United States. The whole system is excellently or- 

 ganized and very extensive ; the official publications embrace the 

 " probabilities " and the so-called " weather-maps." 



While meteorology is concerned with the rapid changes that take 

 place in the atmosphere, the science of geology is devoted chiefly to 

 the study of the slow changes ever going on in the crust of our globe. 

 If the geological formation of a district be but known in its essential 

 features, a geologist is often able to predict the finding of coal-beds, 

 ore-deposits, etc., basing his prognostication on the occurrence of cer- 

 tain fossils, the order in which the strata are placed, analogous forma- 

 tions in other districts, and so on. 



Finally, we must just refer to one class of shall we say predic- 

 tions ? that are based on illusions. To cite but one example of this 

 type, Nostradamus predicted that in this year, 1886, the world would 

 come to an end, because Good Friday this year happens on St. 

 George's day, and Easter coincides with St. Mark's day i. e., the 25th 

 of April, the very latest date on which Easter can happen. At the 

 present time a prophecy of this kind is only commented on as a matter 

 of curiosity, whereas the year 1000, for which the coming-to-an-end of 

 the world had also been predicted, witnessed a general preparation for 

 the event. 



-*- 



SKETCH OF OSWALD HEER. 



" TN September last," wrote the Marquis Gaston de Saporta, in July, 

 -L 1884, " Switzerland, and we might say Europe so universal was 

 the man's fame lost in Oswald Heer one of the most fertile of natu- 

 ralists, one of the most devoted to work, the one to whom the still new 

 science of fossil plants is indebted for its greatest progress. Not only 

 in his own country, but far beyond, as far as explorers have been able 

 to penetrate, from Portugal to the depth of Siberia, from Sumatra to 

 Spitzbergen, from Nebraska to Devonshire, in Saxony, in Austria, in 

 Russia, everywhere, in short, where fossil plants have been discovered 

 during the last thirty years, the name of Oswald Heer has been inva- 

 riably united with the publication of the plants, the determination of 

 their age, and with the definition of all the circumstances that can aid 

 in identifying them and in attaching a meaning to the several wholes 

 of which they originally constituted a part. Paleontology, geography, 

 the laws that preside over the present distribution of plants and their 

 migrations in times anterior to ours, and the delicate considerations 

 which appertain to the filiation of species, to the order of succession of 



