IV NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



to l-8th cf an inch beyond the visual focus in the case of a 4-inch 

 picture ; and that when the adjustment is made, beautiful pictures 

 are obtained of the sun four inches in diameter, which still bear magni- 

 fying with a lens of low power, and show considerable detail on the 

 sun's surfaces besides the spots, which are well defined. Mr. De la 

 Rue, by combining two pictures obtained by the Photoheliograph at 

 an interval of three days, has produced a stereoscopic image of our 

 luminary, which presents to the mind an idea of sphericity. Under 

 Mr. De la Rue's direction, Mr. Beckley is making special experiments, 

 having for their object the determination of the kind of sensitive 

 surface best suited for obtaining perfect pictures ; for it has been 

 found that the plates are more liable to stains of the various kinds, 

 known to photographers, under the circumstance of exposure to intense 

 sun-light, than they could be if employed in taking ordinary pictures 

 in the camera. Now that the photographic apparatus has been 

 brought to a' workable state, Mr. De la Rue and Mr. Carrington, 

 joint Secretaries of the Astronomical Society, propose to devote their 

 attention to the best means of registering and reducing the results 

 obtained by the instrument." 



The customary review of the recent progress of science having 

 been omitted from the annual address by the president, the deficiency 

 was supplied, in part, by addresses from the presiding officers of the 

 sections, on assuming their respective chairs. 



Prof. Owen, in assuming the chair of the section on Zoology, etc., 

 noticed the progress of Natural Science in Australia and the United 

 States, as follows : 



" But it is in the younger countries where we see an advance more 

 evident. Australia and Van Diemen's Laud, now that wealth per- 

 mits time and luxury, have attended to science, and in most of the 

 journals of those countries we have original observers, and by-and-by 

 we shall have the results of the study of the remarkable productions 

 of these lands made where they live and grow. New Zealand also 

 has its scientific journal. It is, however, in the New World where the 

 greatest activity at present prevails. She has already, with credit to 

 herself, sent out scientific expeditions of a general character, and 

 those of Wilkes and Rae and Kane are well known, and huge works 

 have sprung from each. But the boundings of territory now claimed 

 by the American people have given rise to surveys and exploratory 

 expeditions at home, and these are proceeding in all directions to fix 

 the boundary lines, and the best railway routes to the Pacific. Natu- 

 ralists and draftsmen accompany each expedition, the results of 

 which are published in reports to Congress, in which they are assisted 

 by the Smithsonian Institution of "Washington. But the work of the 

 greatest magnitude and importance to America is, ' Contributions to 

 the Natural History of the United States,' by Agassiz, advertised to 

 be completed in ten large volumes. Two volumes for the first year, 



