328 



NA TURJi 



[Feb. 5, 1885 



many days of perfect calm ; the summer was, however, more 

 stormy than the winter. The winds came chiefly from the 

 west — those from a due westerly direction being most common 

 — and also from west-south-west or north-west. The westerly 

 and south-westerly winds were during the winter the warmest, 

 which is ascribed to the circumstance that they passed over 

 mountains some 6000 feet in height, which rendered them 

 " Fbhn-like." The barometer readings were never attended by 

 violent storms ; these occurred without exception when the glass 

 stood at " fair." There was no aurora australis, nor were there 

 any thunderstorms. 



Explorations of the island were undertaken on several occa- 

 sions, and many of the peaks in the neighbourhood of Royal 

 Bay were climbed. The slate rocks were very difficult of ascent. 

 The enormous glaciers in the mountains of the interior prevented, 

 unfortunately, any thorough exploration of this part. The 

 mountains often sloped abruptly int:> the sea, and the highest 

 points were about ten miles from the station and covered with 

 eternal snow. The roar of avalanches was continually heard. 

 The fauna was very poor. That such a dreary climate should 

 boast of a very extensive fauna or flora was hardly to be expected ; 

 nevertheless, the mosses were very fine. Dr. H. Will, the botanist, 

 collected about thirty varieties. They show what a climate where 

 the sun is nearly always absent can produce in the way of plants 

 which are able to resist rapid changes of temperature, but the 

 fauna is one which may at once be said to belong to more Ant- 

 arctic regions than Terra del Fuego, the Kerguelen Islands, and 

 more northerly places. It is a repetition of the same types, 

 with originality in .details alone. 



CARTOGRAPHICAL WORK IN RUSSIA 

 \VTE learn from a recent issue of the Izvestia of the Russian 

 Geographical Society that the following geodetical and 

 cartographical work was done during the year 1SS3 by the officers 

 of the Russian General Staff. The first-class triangulation for 

 connecting the line of Warsaw and Grodno with that of the 

 Vistula was continued ; the secondary network of triangulation 

 was extended in Lithuania and Poland ; and the heights of 262 

 places were determined by careful levellings. The most useful 

 work of exact level'ings on the Russian railways, undertaken 

 several years since, was continued in West and South- West 

 Russia, leading to a precise measurement of the differences of 

 level between the Baltic and the Black Seas, and the final results 

 are now being calculated. The Russian survey was continued 

 on the scales of 1400 and 1750 feet to an inch, in Poland, 

 Lithuania, Bessarabia, and Finland ; and a most welcome fea- 

 ture of it is that great attention was given to the measurements of 

 heights, so that a map with level-lines only, 35 to 70 feet apart 

 from one another, may be published. In the Caucasus very 

 accurate measurements of the latitudes and longitudes of Tiflis, 

 Baku, and Shemakla were made, as also pendulum observations 

 in Trans-Caucasia. Of trigonometrical measurements, the tri- 

 angulation of the Trans-Caspian region was continued as far as the 

 Persian frontier, and that of Akhal-Tekke, was also calculated. 

 An interesting feature of this last was the measurement of two 

 geodetical bases on strings — which method gives, as is known, 

 very satisfactory results— together with a much greater economy 

 of time. Detailed surveys were continued in several parts of 

 the Caucasus, those at Askabad, and between Kyzil-Arvat, 

 Bami, and the Sumbar River (two versts to an inch) being 

 especially worthy of notice. 



In Turkestan, at the Tashkend Observatory, Col. Pomeran- 

 tseff continued his observations of minor planets with the refractor 

 of the Observatory, and the measurement of stars by means of 

 the meridian-circle ; and his assistant, Capt. Zalessky, regularly 

 made measurements of occultations of stars by the moon. The 

 work of the Observatory will soon be published, and will contain 

 an elaborate paper by Dr. Schwartz, on magnetism in Turkestan. 

 Several most valuable determinations of latitudes and longitude, 

 were made by M. Putyata in the Pamir during M. Ivanoff's 

 expedition. Among many surveys which were made this year, 

 that of the northern slope of the Turkestan ridge was especially 

 interesting, no less than twenty-three unknown glaciers having 

 been discovered at the sources of the Sokh, and mapped. The 

 Shemanovsky glacier, eight miles long, and that of Ak-terek, 

 twenty-two miles long, which joins the well-known Zarafshan 

 glacier, are especially worthy of notice. A survey of the rich 

 oasis of Karshi, anil of the Bokhara dominions on the right bank 

 of the Zarafshan, is also very interesting. The map of Turkestan 



on the scale of ten versts (seven miles) to an inch, is already in 

 print, and several sheets are nearly ready. 



In the Omsk military district we notice several determinations 

 of latitudes and longitudes, as also the survey of the Kirghiz 

 Steppe, on a scale of five versts to an inch. In Eastern Siberia 

 the chief work was the further extension of the triangulation of 

 Trans-Baikalia — a most necessary work, on account of the 

 scarcity of determined points to fix the surveys in that region — 

 and many local surveys, those in the Ussuri region and on the 

 Pacific coast being especially interesting. The astronomically 

 determined points, very few on the whole, have received only 

 seven additions. 



The Hydrographical Department has pursued its work on the 

 Baltic, the Black, and the Caspian Seas, as also on some lakes 

 in the interior of Russia and Finland ; the most interesting of 

 them being several detailed maps of the Lake of Onega, and 

 the Lakes Payanne and Pielis, in Finland ; the triangulation and 

 surveys on the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea ; and the 

 survey of the Gulf Mortvyi Kultuk of the Caspian. 



Among the publications of the General Staff we notice the 

 thirty-ninth volume of its Memoirs, which contains the following 

 papers : — On the triangulation of Bessarabia, by Col. Lebedeff ; 

 on the difference between the longitudes of Tashkend and Vernyi, 

 by Col. Pomerantseff ; on astronomical determinations made 

 in Trans-Baikalia (fifty-two places), by Capt. Polanovsky ; in the 

 Altay region and in West Siberia (thirteen places), by Col. 

 Miroshnitchenko ; in the Trans-Caspian region (with a map), 

 by Col. Gladysheff ; and in North- West Mongolia, by Lieut. 

 Rafailoff; on levellings on Russian railways ; on the determina- 

 tion of time by means of the meridian-circle, by M. Gladysheff; 

 on the Trans-Caspian triangulation (ninety-two places), by Capt. 

 Pervas, in which it is stated that Askabad is 827 feet, and 

 Mount Riza, on the Persian frontier, 9741 feet, above the sea- 

 level ; and finally, a description by Col. Alexandroff of the route 

 from Kungrad to the Gulf of Mortvyi Kultuk, the distance being 

 300 miles, of which about 90 miles are without water. 



The Annual Report of the Hydrographical Department con- 

 tains seven small maps showing the exact results of the surveys 

 made on the Russian coasts up to 1882 ; and a paper by M. 

 Goloviznin gives at the same time a sketch of the hydro- 

 graphical work done by the Russian fleet since its first formation 

 in 1696. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



In the Journal of Botany for January Mr. H. N. Ridley- 

 describes and figures the extremely rare Juncus tenuis, a plant 

 entirely lost to Britain since 1795 or 1796, when it was gathered 

 by G. Don in Clova, till 18S3, when it was rediscovered by Mr. 

 '1 owndrow in Herefordshire. Mr. W. H. Beeby records another 

 interesting addition to the British flora in a new Sparganium, 

 which he names S. negleclum, nearly allied to ^. ramosum, and 

 probably a sub-species of it, found in ponds in several parts of 

 Surrey. 



The Hst part of the Btlgique Horticole that has reached us, 

 that for May and June 1884, contains but little that is original, 

 the substantial articles being taken from French, German, or 

 English journals. The coloured plates of new or little-known 

 plants, with accompanying descriptions, are of their usual ex- 

 cellence, and there are many short paragraphs of interest to 

 horticulturists. 



,),'.' /// S 



A Ml ACADEMIES 

 Iain don 



Royal Society, January 29. — "On some Physical Proper 

 ties of Ice and on the Motion of Glaciers, with special reference 

 to the late Canon Moseley's Objections to Gravitation Theories." 

 By Coutts Trotter, M.A., Felbw of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge. Communicated by Prof. Stokes, Sec. R. S. 



Canon Moseley's theory of glacier motion, put forward in 

 1855, has never been accepted by persons conversant with 

 glaciers. In 1869, however, he put forward a somewhat 

 formidable objection to the current gravitation theories of 

 glacier motion. 



The gist of the objection is that the resistance of ice to 

 shearing is many times greater than the shearing force which 

 can be produced in a descending glacier by gravity ; and that 

 therefore the shearing which the measurements of Forbes and 



