POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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Roebling had given her husband during the 

 construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, which 

 he characterizes as " honorable to the indi- 

 vidual woman, to the energetic nation to 

 which she belongs, and to the better half 

 of the human race." In the Statistical Sec- 

 tion was presented the final report of the 

 Anthropometric Committee, which has been 

 for several years engaged in collecting evi- 

 dence as to the stature and other physical 

 characteristics of the inhabitants of the Brit- 

 ish Isles. The evening lectures were on 

 " Recent Researches on the Distance of the 

 Sun," by Professor R. S. Ball ; " Galvani 

 and Animal Electricity," by Professor Mc- 

 Kendrick, of Glasgow ; and " Telephones," 

 by Sir F. Bramwell. The next meeting of 

 the Association will be held in Montreal, 

 and the meeting for 1885 in Aberdeen. 



The Study of our Sidereal System. — 



In his address before the American Associ- 

 ation, on " The German Survey of the North- 

 ern Heavens," Professor William A. Rogers 

 defined the present condition of knowledge 

 regarding the proper motions of the stars 

 and of the solar system in space. Struve 

 concluded several years ago that the solar 

 system was moving in a direction toward 

 a point in the constellation Hercules, and 

 Madler has indicated Alcyone in the Pleia- 

 des as the probable center of the greater sys- 

 tem of which it forms a part ; but, " Biot 

 in 1812, Bessel in 1818, and Airy in 1860, 

 reached the conclusion that the certa'mty of 

 the movement of the solar system toward 

 a given point in the heavens could not be 

 afiSrmed. ... It must always be kept in 

 mind that the quantities with which we 

 must deal in this investigation are exceed- 

 ingly minute, and that the accidental errors 

 of observation are at any time liable to 

 lead to illusory results. ... It can not be 

 affirmed that there is a sidereal system in 

 the sense in which we speak of the solar 

 system. . . . Admitting that the solar sys- 

 tem is moving through space, can we at the 

 present moment even determine whether 

 that motion is rectilinear or curved, to say 

 nothing of the laws which govern it ? " The 

 questions connected with these points, if 

 solved at all, must be solved by a critical 

 study of observations of precision accumu- 

 lated at widely separated epochs of time. 



The first step in the solution has been taken 

 in the systematic survey of the northern 

 heavens undertaken by the \^A8tronomische'\ 

 Gesellschaft, and in the survey of the south- 

 ern heavens at Cordova by Dr. Gould. " The 

 year 1876 is the epoch about which are 

 grouped the data which, combined with simi- 

 lar data for an epoch not earlier than 1950, 

 will go far toward clearing up the doubts 

 which now rest upon the question of the 

 direction and the amount of the solar mo- 

 tion in space; and it can not be doubted 

 that our knowledge of the laws which con- 

 nect the sidereal with the solar system will 

 be largely increased through this investiga- 

 tion." 



Ideas about Fossils. — Professor August 

 Quenstedt gives in his " Petrefacten Kunde " 

 a review of the hypotheses that have been 

 advanced at different times concerning the 

 nature and origin of fossils, and of the slow 

 processes by which the true theory of the 

 subject has been reached. The views of 

 the ancients were crude enough, but among 

 them were some more intelligent and nearer 

 to the truth than any that were held during 

 the middle ages. The crude speculations 

 of the latter period survived down to an 

 age of greater scientific enlightenment ; and 

 the time is not extremely remote when be- 

 lemnites were regarded as thunderbolts, and 

 other fossils were looked upon as sports of 

 Nature, or as efforts of Nature to prepare in 

 the bosom of the earth the material forms 

 of bodies preliminary to their receiving the 

 breath of life. At a later period the belief 

 arose that the fossils were once actually liv- 

 ing creatures, and had been destroyed by 

 the flood; and, as recently as 1828, Buck- 

 land supported such a view in his " Reli- 

 quae Diluvianae." This author was one of 

 the earliest cave-hunters, and believed that 

 the bones found in the caves were those 

 which had been washed into them by the 

 Noachian deluge. With such views having 

 held a footing in our own century, we have 

 little right to be amused at those who, in 

 the age of Scheuchzer and Leibnitz, thought 

 the bones of the gigantic salamander {Sola- 

 mandra gigantca) were the remains of an 

 old human sinner destroyed in the flood. 

 Even Leibnitz had no doubt that the re- 

 mains of a mammoth which were found 



