THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



671 



about GOO tons displacement, The 

 tlalitee, has been chartered at San 

 Francisco. The scientific personnel at 

 present consists of Mr. J. F. Pratt, 

 commander; Dr. J. Hobart Egbert, 

 surgeon and magnetic observer; Mr. J. 

 P. Ault, magnetic observer, and Mr. 

 P. C. Whitney, magnetic observer and 

 watch officer. The sailing master is 

 Captain J. T. Hayes. 



Trial trips were made early in 

 August under the direction of Dr. 

 Bauer, and the ship set sail on Septem- 

 ber 1 for the Hawaiian Islands. After 

 its return, it will depart early in 1906 

 for a more lengthy cruise, embracing 

 nearly the entire circuit of the North 

 Pacific Ocean. The total length of the 

 course marked out is about 70,000 

 knots. It is not supposed that great 

 irregularity in the distribution of the 

 earth's magnetism will be found 

 over the deep waters of the Pacific, 

 but distortions are likely to occur 

 along the coast and in the neighbor- 

 hood of islands. Thus, as Dr. Bauer 

 has pointed out, with the aid of the 

 results of the detailed magnetic sur- 

 vey of the United States and Alaska, 

 opportunity will be afforded of study- 

 ing, the effect of the configuration 

 of land and water on the distribution 

 of the magnetic forces. The first cir- 

 cuit, passing as it does along the Amer- 

 ican and Asiatic coasts, will yield es- 

 pecially interesting results in this re- 

 spect. Along the Aleutian Islands 

 marked local disturbances will prob- 

 ably be disclosed, as reports are re- 

 ceived frequently from mariners in this 

 region regarding the unsatisfactory 

 behavior of the compass. 



ELI SEE RECLUS. 

 M. Elisee Reclus, who died near 

 Bruges, on July 4, in his seventy-sixth 

 year, was an eminent geographer and 

 an interesting personality. He was 

 the son of a protestant pastor, one of 

 a family of twelve children, several of 

 whom have become eminent. The 

 revolutionary spirit which he showed 



all through his life may have been re- 

 sponsible for his geographical work, for 

 it was after he was expelled from 

 France in 1851 that he spent six years 

 in continuous travel. Reclus returned 

 to Paris in 1857 and wrote numerous 

 geographical articles and books, in- 

 cluding the volumes that have been 

 translated into English under the title 

 : The Earth.' During the siege of 

 Paris, he took the side of the com- 



Elisee Reclus. 



munists, though among them he was 

 conservative. He was, however, again 

 banished from France, and did not re- 

 turn until the general amnesty of 1879. 

 In Switzerland he began his great 

 ' Nouvelle geographie universelle,' the 

 nineteen volumes of which were com- 

 pleted in 1894. He left at the time 

 of his death an unpublished work in 

 four volumes treating history as in- 

 fluenced by geographical conditions. 

 During the later years of his life he 

 was a professor in the University libre 

 of Brussels. We reproduce here a por- 

 trait from La Nature. Reclus is said 

 to have been a man of the most intense 

 human sympathy, always ready to 

 sacrifice himself for his communistic 

 and anarchistic convictions. Yet he 

 found time to accomplish a vast 



