496 



NATURE 



\_SepL 5, 1878 



almost certain that the second was also a new star. The 

 position comes out 



0=0— 27m. i8s. 8 =: — 35' 



And 



Washington Mean Time. Apparent. 



a. S 



1878, July 29 5b. 1723. 46s. 8h. 8m. 383. + 18° 3'. 



" James C. Watson " 



Our Paris Correspondent writes that Admiral Mouchez 

 has received a letter from Prof. Watson. M. Gayot 

 has completed his calculations and finds that Prof. 

 Watson's observations are in accordance with Dr. 

 Lescarbault' s discovery, so long denied by M. Leverrier's 

 opponents. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

 The Geographical Society of Paris took possession, on 

 the 2nd instant, of their new hotel in the Boulevard St. 

 Germain, No. 134. The ceremony took place at three 

 o'clock, under the presidency of Admiral La Ronci^re 

 Le Nourry, who delivered an address explaining that it 

 was not an international congress, but merely a national 

 meeting of the several French societies, to congratulate 

 their eldest sister on the success which had crowned its 

 efforts. M. Bardoux, the Minister for Public Instruction, 

 who was seated at the right hand of the president, handed 

 the papers of Officer of the University to the architect 

 of the Society. He read a letter from M. de Ferri, the 

 French consul at Zanzibar, intimating that excellent 

 news had arrived from Abbd Debaize, the French ex- 

 plorer, now proceeding towards Tanganyika. The dele- 

 gates of various French geographical societies afterwards 

 gave addresses summarising the progress which has been 

 made in the work which each is carrying on. 



A MAP of France, for which a vote on account of 

 100,000 francs has been given by the Chambers, is being 

 prepared by the parochial authorities on the scale of i to 

 100,000, It will be hydrographic, not orographic, levels 

 being shown only by curves. Some of it will be issued 

 by the beginning of next year, and two departments figure 

 as specimens in the Exhibition. The road surveyors 

 are to make any alterations from time to time so as to 

 prevent its becoming obsolete. Names, railways, roads, 

 and boundaries will be coloured black ; water, blue ; 

 woods, green ; and footpaths, red. 



An important and interesting discovery has just been 

 made by Dr. A. Kirchhoff in the Library of the Halle 

 University. It consists of a copy of a part of the 

 original diary kept by Capt. Cook during his journey in 

 the year 1772, beginning on July 13, 1772, and ending 

 January ii, 1773. The volume was originally presented 

 to the University by one of Cook's travelling companions, 

 John Reinhold Forster, who died at Halle. Dr. Kirchhoff 

 has communicated the contents of the volume to the 

 Geographical Society of Halle, and proposes to compare 

 the contents with the original diary, should the latter still 

 exist. 



M. MAYEFF, who was sent by the Russian Government 

 for the exploration of the routes which lead through the 

 land of Hissar and Amu-daria, has now returned to Tash- 

 kend. He has explored and surveyed the routes, 78 

 miles long, from Djam, a town south-west of Samarkand, 

 to the great town Guzary; and two other routes from 

 Guzary to the passage of the Amu river at Keliff, — one of 

 them 98 miles long, and the other, through Shir-abad, 

 152 miles. The latter is the best, as there is plenty of 

 fresh water and .wood 'along the whole of the route, as 

 well as two large settlements, Derbent and Ser-ob. At 

 Keliff the Amu-daria is 1,170 feet wide, and steamers can 

 go up the river as far as this place. There remains only 

 27 miles from Keliff to the Afghanistan town Akhcha, or 



Andho, and no more than 80 miles of a very good route 

 from Akhcha to Sarypul. 



M. PrjvALSKY, who returned some time since from 

 his Central Asian travels, is now preparing for a second 

 journey to Thibet, which was postponed because of the 

 bad state of health of the indefatigable traveller, as well 

 as because of the insecure diplomatic relations between 

 Russia and China. 



We learn that the St. Petersburg Geographical Society 

 and the Society of Naturalists are preparing a scheme for 

 the scientific exploration of the little-known parts of the 

 Caucasus. 



The principal paper in Guido Cora's Cosmos, Nos. xi. 

 and xii., is a detailed account by Eugenio Parent of his 

 voyage to Spitzbergen in 1872-73, in the Swedish vessel 

 the Polhem. 



An* expedition has been organised by the proprietors 

 of the Queenslander newspaper for the purpose of 

 making a flying survey of the territory beween Blackwall 

 (Queensland) and Port Darwin, North Australia, a dis- 

 tance of 1,400 miles, with the view of determining the 

 character of the country and the practicability of con- 

 structing a trans-continfental railway. It was expected 

 that the party would be fully equipped and start from 

 Blackwall on July 12. 



It may be of interest at present to know that Globus 

 is publishing the itinerary of Dr. P. Schroder's second 

 journey in Cyprus in the spring of 1873. 



At Duisburg on Tuesday there was unveiled a memorial 

 of Gerhardt Kremer, commonly known as " Mercator," 

 and the^" author of " Mercator's Projection." Born of 

 German parents in Flanders in 15 12, he settled at Duis- 

 burg in 1552, and died there in 1594. The first stone of 

 the monument was laid in 1869, but lack of funds delayed 

 its completion. 



BREHM'S THIERLEBEN^ 



THESE three fine volumes are in continuation of those 

 reviewed in Nature (vol. xvii. p. 43), and for the most 

 part they maintain the popular and scientific character 

 of this really great popular work. A. E. Brehm con- 

 tributes all that was left of the mammalia, and gives a 

 great volume on the reptilia and amphibia. The inver- 

 tebrata have been wisely placed in the hands of Oscar 

 Schmidt, of Strassburg, the insecta having been already 

 completed by Teschenberg. A. E. Brehm' s two volumes 

 comprise nearly 1,400 pages, and they are about the 

 average size of those which have appeared, but the inver- 

 tebrata (without the insecta) are crammed into less 

 than 600 pages. This is the only gi'eat fault we have to 

 find, and it appears to be chronic in every country and 

 under every editorship. The vertebrata take up so much 

 space that the invertebrata must be " scamped ; " and the 

 "scamping" is the result not of the editors or authors, 

 but of the publishers. Formerly this unfortunate elabo- 

 ration of the idea of "first come first served," was limited 

 to human historj--, and there is a well-known " History of 

 England " which deals largely with the remote past, and 

 which coming to the not unimportant reign of George III. 

 at the close of the book, summarises it with the ejacu- 

 lation, " whom God preserve ! " We might, in a better 

 spirit, say God bless some one who will do justice to the 

 vast invertebrate sub-kingdom in a popular manner. 



Oscar Schmidt has had a task of great difficulty to per- 

 form in giving anything like a general view of inverte- 

 brate life; and when the enormous advance of knowledge, 



« Die Saugethiere, vol. iii., 1877 ; Die Kriechthiere und Lurche, vol. i., 

 1878, von A. E. Brehm ; and Die niederen Thiere, von Oscar Schmidt, 1878. 

 (Leipzig: Verlag des bibliographischen Iii5t'tuts.) 



