300 



NATURE 



\yan. 26, 



on the Pacific Coast," will be resumed. The following papers 

 will be read and discussed, as far as time permits : — "On the 

 Position and Prospects of Electricity as applied to Engineering," 

 by Mr. William Geipel, of Edinburgh ; " Third Report of the 

 Research Committee on Friction : Experiments on the Friction 

 of a Collar Bearing." 



The 1888 Conference of the Camera Club, the central insti- 

 tute for amateur photographers, will be held in the theatre of 

 the Society of Arts on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 13 and 

 14, under the presidency of Capt. W. de W. Abney, F. R.S. 



The eighth annual general meeting of the Essex Field Club 

 will take placeat the Public Hall, Loughton, Essex, on Saturday 

 evening, January 28, at seven o'clock. Mr. T. Vincent Holmes 

 will deliver the annual Presidential address, taking as his subject 

 " The Subterranean Geology of South-Eastern England." 



A PUBLIC Conference on the Sanitary Registration of 

 Buildings Bill will be held at the Society of Arts, John Street, 

 Adelphi, on Saturday, February 4. The chair will be taken at 

 4 o'clock by Sir Joseph Fayrer, F. R.S. 



A National Hydrcgraphical, Meteorological, and Climato- 

 logical Congress is to be held at Madrid in February. 



The American Society of Naturalists held its annual meeting 

 in the Peabody Museum, New Haven, on December 27 and 

 the two following days. Science explains that this Society, 

 composed of professors and specialists, leaving to other scientific 

 associations the function of presenting and discussing results, 

 devotes itself to the publication of new methods, improved 

 apparatus, and aids to science-teaching. The work of the 

 Society falls into two sections — biology and geology — and a day 

 of each meeting is devoted to each of these topics, while the 

 third day is given over to a general discussion on some attractive 

 subject. The attendance at the recent meeting was large, and, 

 according to Science, the proceedings were both interesting and 

 profitable. 



The Monthly Weather Revieiv, published by the Chief Signal 

 Officer of the United States for October 1887, contains a discus- 

 sion of the movements of high barometer areas over the North 

 Atlantic Ocean for the year 1885. Fifty-two well-defined areas 

 passed off the coast, of which seven traversed the ocean to 

 Europe, and three moved north-easterly, to the vicinity of 

 Iceland, The average time occupied by the fifty-two anti- 

 cyclones in advancing from the 90th meridian to the coast was 

 about one day and a half, this rate of progression being con- 

 siderably greater than the average velocity of cyclonic areas over 

 that region. These areas of high pressure have an important 

 influence on the paths of storms. During October 1887 the 

 paths of sixteen depressions are also traced ; four advanced east, 

 ward over Newfoundland, one of which traversed the ocean from 

 coast to coast. 



The Meteorological Council have published the observations 

 taken at stations of the second order during the year 1883 (218 

 pp. large 4to). Observations taken twice a day are printed in 

 extenso for thirty stations, and monthly and annual summaries 

 and extremes for forty- four stations. The positions of the stations 

 are shown upon a key-map, but the map also shows that con- 

 siderable districts in the west of Scotland and Ireland, and even 

 on the east coast, for instance between Dundee and Seaham, 

 are still unrepresented. The barometer observations (reduced to 

 mean sea-level) are given to the nearest '01 inch, instead of the 

 ■CX3I inch as heretofore. There is also a useful summary of the 

 hours of bright sunshine for the stations which are furnished with 

 sunshine-recorders, but the yearly values are not calculated. 



We have received a sheet on which are three photographs of 

 the total eclipse of thesun, August 19, 1887, taken at Yomeiji-yama 



(long. i38°59'23"E.,lat. 37° 37' 13" N., alt. 115 metres), Echigo, 

 Japan, by M. Sugiyama, the observer of the Tokio Observatory, 

 under the direction of I. Arai, the Director of the Tokio Obser- 

 vatory and the chief of the Expedition. The photographs were 

 taken in the following order : L.M.T. 3h. 40m. 36 •5s. (im. 8s. 

 after beginning of totality); L.M.T. 3h. 41m. 25"4s. (im. 57s. 

 after beginning of totality) ; L.M.T. 3h. 42m. 6 "as. (34s. before 

 end of totality). In sending us these photographs, Mr. I. Arai 

 writes to us :— " While bad weather prevented nearly all the 

 observations at other stations in our country, I was very fortu- 

 nate, my station being entirely fiee from clouds, at least during 

 the totality-. But I regret to inform you that, as we were not 

 equipped with complete instruments, and the telescope used was 

 only of small size and not sufficient for photographic purposes, 

 the result was not very satisfactory, because some of the coronal 

 rays, extending outside of the field of the telescope, do not appear 

 in the photographs, I did not, however, like to make the least 

 modification, neither in size, nor in shape, believing that it would 

 be best to leave the actual phenomena just as represented by the 

 photographic apparatus." 



Severe earthquakes are reported from Ontario and Quebec 

 on January 11, but no damage was done. Shocks are also 

 reported from Columbia (South Carolina), Siimmerville, and 

 Charlestown. According to a telegram sent from New York 

 on January 23, three 'shocks had occurred at Newburyport, in 

 Massaclmsetts. 



Messrs. Macmillan have arranged to publish in their 

 "Student's Series" a new biological text-book, "Lessons in 

 Elementary Biology," by Prof. T. Jeffery Parker, of the Otago 

 University, New Zealand. The book will be written on a modi- 

 fication of the "type" system, the earlier chapters consisting of 

 detailed accounts of the morphology, physiology, and life-history 

 of selected examples of the lower organisms. Briefer accounts of 

 important types of the higher animals and plants will be given, 

 but, as the work is intended for the study and not for the labora- 

 tory, it will not be necessarily limited to readily accessible forms, 

 and the plan will sometimes be adopted of omitting certain 

 points of structure, development, &c., which from their com- 

 plexity or aberrant character are unsuited to an elementary 

 work. The book will be written throughout in such a way as 

 to bring clearly before the student the fundamental principles 

 and generalizations of biology, and will be fully illustrated. It 

 is hoped that it may serve to supplement the lecture-notes of a 

 student attending an ordinary junior University course of bio- 

 logy, and, in the case of one working independently, to supply 

 the connected narrative which is not readily obtained in suitable 

 form either in a laboratory manual or in the ordinary text-books 

 of zoology and botany. 



The "Zoological Record " fori886 has just been issued. For 

 sixteen years the annual volume of this most useful work was 

 issued by the "Zoological Record" Association, which was 

 aided by grants from various sources. At the close of 1886 the 

 Association failed to obtain the renewal of some of these grants ; 

 and, being unwilling to carry on the publication of the "Record" 

 any longer, it came to an agreement with the Zoological Society, 

 by which the task was undertaken. The Council of the Zoo- 

 logical Society appointed a Select Committee to superintend the 

 new enterprise, and Mr. F, E. Beddard was made editor. In 

 the preface to the present volume Mr. Beddard explains that the 

 only change he has made is the introduction of a section devoted 

 to general subjects. This includes text-books and works of a 

 general nature, many of which are again recorded imder the 

 several groups with which they are more especially concerned. 



Under the title "A Year's Insect-Hunting at Gibraltar," 

 there appears in the January number of the Entomologist' s 

 Monthly Magazine, a valuable paper by Mr. James J. Walker, 



