POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



425 



cise means for measuring the diameters of 

 planets or determining tlaeir magnitude. 

 Nothing is more ingenious than liis expla- 

 nation of the scintillation of stars, based 

 upon the remarkable properties Fresnel found 

 to be possessed by rays of light. Arago 

 ought truly to be considered as the founder 

 of a branch of astronomy physical astron- 

 omy that has since been remarkably ex- 

 tended, for it was he who pointed out the 

 importance that would accrue from the appli- 

 cation of photography to the study of celes- 

 tial bodies. He was not able to see the day, 

 however, when chemistry would enter into 

 the domain of astronomy, and we should be 

 able to discover their constitution ; spectrum 

 analysis has been discovered, in fact, only 

 since the death of Arago." Arago is be- 

 sides credited with having conceived the 

 idea of drawing a unit of measurement from 

 the light rays an idea which has been re- 

 alized by Mr. Michelson, of the American 

 Bureau of Weights and Measures. 



Value of the Nasal Index. In Mr. H. H. 



Risley's examination of the characteristics of 

 the natives of northern India, the nose, in- 

 stead of being vaguely described as broad or 

 narrow, is accurately measured, and the pro- 

 portion of the greatest width to the greatest 

 length (from above downward), or the "nasal 

 index" (which must not be confounded with 

 the nasal index as defined by Broca upon 

 the skull), gives a figure by which the main 

 elements of the composition of this feature 

 in any individual may be accurately de- 

 scribed. The average of mean nasal indices 

 of a large number of individuals of any race, 

 tribe, or caste offers means of comparison 

 which bring out most interesting results. 

 By this character alone the Dravidian tribes 

 of India are easily separable from the Aryan. 

 Even more striking is the curiously close cor- 

 respondence between the gradations of racial 

 type exhibited by the nasal index and certain 

 of the social data ascertained by independent 

 inquiry. 



Public Reservations in Massachusetts. 



The Trustees of Public Reservations of 

 Massachusetts received no new trusts dur- 

 ing 1893, but they are able to record two 

 movements instituted by the State Legisla- 

 ture, at their suggestion, for the better con- 



servation of certain scenery. A bill was 

 passed providing for the acquisition by the 

 people of Provincetown of all the occupied 

 parts of the province lands at the extremity 

 of Cape Cod, and the permanent reservation 

 of all the remaining portion (about two 

 thousand acres) in the charge of the State 

 Commissioners of Harbors and Lands. An- 

 other act creates a permanent Metropolitan 

 Park Commission, Avith the power of emi- 

 nent domain and authority to spend one 

 million dollars in buying lands, as well as 

 to accept gifts of land or of money to buy 

 them with, lying within the metropolitan 

 district. This commission has already re- 

 ceived twelve thousand five hundred dollars 

 * 



from Mrs. Elish Atkins and her son toward 

 the purchase of the " Beaver Brook reser- 

 vation," in which are included Beaver Brook 

 Falls, celebrated by Lowell in one of his 

 early poems, and the famous " Great Oaks," 

 which the board of trustees had failed to 

 acquire for want of the power of eminent 

 domain. 



Importance of Ocean Currents. The 



very bulk of the ocean, Captain W. J. L. 

 Wharton remarks, in his geographical ad- 

 dress before the British Association, as 

 compared with that of the visible land, 

 gives it an importance possessed by no 

 other feature on the surface of our planet. 

 Mr. John Murray has shown that its cubical 

 extent is probably about fourteen times 

 that of the dry land. The most obvious 

 feature of the ocean is the constant hori- 

 zontal movement of its surface waters. It 

 may now be safely held that the prime mo- 

 tor of the surface currents is the wind not 

 the wind that may blow, and even persist- 

 ently l)low, over the portion of water that is 

 moving, more or less rapidly, in any one 

 direction, but the great winds that blow pre- 

 dominently from some general quarter over 

 vast areas. These, combined with deflec- 

 tions from the land, settle the main surface 

 circulation. The trade winds are the prime 

 motors. They cause a surface drift of no 

 great velocity over large areas in the same 

 general direction as that in which they blow. 

 The westerly winds that prevail in higher 

 northern and southern latitudes are next in 

 order in producing great currents. From 

 the shape of the land they in some cases 



