I876J 



NATURE 



87 



! of the eclipse of 1239, it was suggested that this pheno- 



w might deserve further examination, in connection with 



. clip=e of 1241, which had been already calculated by 



Lii. The present memoir contains a very careful and com- 



discussion of the two eclipses, employing Leverrier's tables 



A- sun, and Hansen's lunar tables, except that the last 



; for the terms involving the square of the time, given by 



in in "Darlegung der theoretischen Berechnung der in 



londtafeln angewandten Storungen," Part 2, are substituted 



' values adopted in the tables. The position of the belt 



dity in the eclipse of 1241, in its passage across Germany, 



y well defined by the statements of contemporary writers, 



chiefly from the great work of Pertz, " Monumenta Ger- 



; Historica;" Prof. Schiaparelli had been similarly success- 



1 lajing down the actual track of totality across Italy in the 



■„' of 1239, from the Records in Muratori's collection of 



1 writers. In both cases totality is assumed to have taken 



. when there is distinct mei)tion of stars having appeared, 



; is about the only criterion that has value at these distant 



We shall probably revert to the subject of Prof. 



;eloiai's able memoir. 



NOTES 



ManV geologists who have visited the Philadelphia Exhibition 

 nd seen the geological collections there have been impressed 

 ■ith the importance of having as nearly complete a collection as 

 ossible on exhibition, of geological specimens, maps, and sec 

 ons, in accordance with a previously arranged plan. The Inter- 

 alional Exhibition to be held at Paris in 1878 will furnish 

 ich an occasion, and it is proposed to invite to that end 

 overnmental geological surveys, learned societies and private 

 idividuals throughouti the world, to send to Paris such collec 

 ons as will make the geological department of that exhibition 

 5 complete as possible. In order to take advantage of the col- 

 ctlons which may thus be brought together, it is moreover 

 roposei to convoke an International Geological Congress, to 

 e held at Paris at some time during the Exhibition of 1878, and 

 ) make that Congiess an occasion for considering many disputed 

 roblems in geology. In accordance with this plan it is proposed 

 lat the Geological department of the International Exhibition 

 f 1878 shall embrace : — i. Collections of crystalline rocks, both 

 rystalline schists and massive or eruptive rocks, including the 

 3-called contact-formations and the results of the local alteration 

 f uncrystalline sediments by eruptive masses. 2, Collections 

 ilastrating the fauna and the flora of the Palseozoic and more 

 ecent periods. 3. Collections of geological maps, and also of 

 ections and models, especially such as serve to illustrate the 

 iws of mountain structure. In pursuance of the above plan 

 fie American Association for the Advancement of Science 

 iiiin(T its annual meeting at Buffalo, appointed a Com- 

 to carry out this scheme, to which were added the 



...-i of Prof. Huxley, Dr. Otto Torell, and Dr. E. H, von 

 iaun.hauer. Prof. James Hall was elected chairman, and Dr. T. 

 iteiry Hunt, secretary. It was then resolved to prepare a cir- 

 ulai to be printed in English, French, and German, and 

 listributed to geologists throughout the world, asking their 

 o-operation in this great work of an International Geological 

 ixhibition and an International Geological Congress to be held 

 ,t Paris in 1878 ; the precise date of the Congress to be sub- 

 equently fixlrd. All those interested in this project are invited 

 o communicate with any one of the following members of the 

 "ommittee :— Prof. T. H. Huxley, London, England ; Dr. Otto 

 Torell, Stockholm, Sweden ; Dr. E. H. von Baumhauer, Har- 

 em, Holland ; Dr. F. Sterry Hunt, Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 



At a recent meeting of the Literary aiid Philosophical 

 Society of Manchester, Prof. Osborne Reynolds, in justly 



animadverting on the large type sensation headings in which 

 some newspapers announced what, in their perversity or 

 ignorance, they called the " failure " of the Arctic expedi- 

 tion, showed that in truth the expedition had been one of 

 the finest achievements ever accomplished. Looked at boldly, 

 it comes to this. Since Hudson's time, more than 200 years 

 ago, Arctic navigators had succeeded in penetrating about 

 sixty or seventy miles of the 540 to \>t passed before the Pole 

 could be reached. Whereas Capt. Nares has, in one year, 

 carried the British flag some sixty miles nearer, so that nearly one 

 half, and this by far the most difiicult half, of the entire results of 

 all expeditions since Hudson's time has been accomplished by 

 the last. And this is not all. Capt. Nares seems to have pur- 

 sued the journey to its end, at least by that route ; and in coming 

 back can say that he did not leave a single uncertainty behind 

 him. So far, therefore, from having been a failure, this has 

 been the most successful expedition ever sent out. 



It is expected that the French Government will ask our Ad- 

 miralty to establish an Arctic department in the Exhibition of 

 1878, in whic'.i all the relics of English Arctic exploration will 

 be collected and exhibited, as well as all the Parliamentary 

 papers and publications relating to the subject. 



M. Chevheul was entertained at dinner the other day at the 

 Cafe Corazza, in the Palais Koyal, by eighty savants in celebra- 

 tion of the fiftieth anniversary of his professorship and member- 

 ship of the Academy of Sciences. M. Chevreul, now the oldest 

 member of the Academy of Sciences, is ninety years old, and 

 enjoys perfect health and mental vigour. The most notable 

 instances of academical longevity have been Fontanelle, one of 

 the perpetual secretaries, who died in 1742, aged close on 100 

 years ; M. Biot, who lived ninety-two years, and preserved to 

 the end of his days his mental powers; M. Mathieu, who died 

 March 5, 1875, was also a nouogenarian, and the Annuaire du 

 Bureau des Longitudes for 1875 was edited by him. He had 

 succeeded in 181 7 Messier, an astronomer, who was an Acade- 

 mician during more than forty years, so that the same seat had 

 only t'.vo occupants in a whole century. 



A SERIES of lectures is now being given by eminent men of 

 science, explanatory of the instruments in the Loan Collection of 

 Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington. The lectures are 

 free, and working men are invited to attend. The lectures at 

 present arranged for are as follows :— Saturday, November 25, 

 Prof, W. Leith Adams, F.R.S., on "Extinct Animals," as re- 

 presented by magic lantern slides and specimens in the loan 

 collection. Saturday, December 2, J. S. Gardner on " The Col- 

 lection of Fossil Leaves." Saturday, December 9, J. Norman 

 Lockyer, F.R.S., on "The Spectroscopes in the Collection." 

 Saturday, December 16, Prof. Huxley, F.R.S., on "The Syste- 

 matic Teaching of Biology." The lectures will be delivered in 

 the Lecture Theatre of the South Kensington Museum at eight 

 o'clock P.M. 



Prof. Hughes read a paper before the Cambridge Philo- 

 sophical Society last Monday, in which he criticised the 

 evidence offered to support the view that man existed on 

 the. earth during or before the glacial period. He first re- 

 viewed several of the older cases which had been put^forward, 

 and tried to show that the evidence was always incomplete, or 

 that its trustworthy charactex disappeared on closer examination. 

 Coming to the two more recent and important instances of human 

 remains or implements being found beneath glacial beds or in 

 beds older than the glacial. Prof. Hughes gave his opinions from 

 personal inspection and acquaintance with the localities. The 

 human fibula found under glacial till in Victoria Cave, Settle, 

 with Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros leptorhinus, &c., had been 

 regarded as decisive. Mr, Tiddeman (Nature, vol. xiv, p. 



