’ 
. rosity towards science. 
Opera, and distributed skilfully in several favourable 
sites of a large park having a surface of 80 acres. 
The smaller meridian circle by Gauthier is in its place, 
nd can be used for daily determinations. The large meri- 
dian circle by Briinner will be finished in the first month of 
1882. The object glass has 8 inches diameter, and has 
been focussed to a distance of 10 feet. The smaller 
equatorial with an object-glass of 14 inches, and focussed 
to 27 feet, has been made by Eichens, and will be ready 
for observations at the same time as the larger meridian 
circle. The larger equatorial will have an object-glass of 
28 inches, and willbe focussed to 52 feet. The glasses 
have been made by Feil; Henry Brothers are polishing 
them. The instrument will be constructed by Eichens 
and Gauthier. The work is proceeding favourably, but 
it is impossible to state when it will be completed. 
M. Loewy, sub-director of the Paris Observatory, has 
designed an apparatus for preventing the perturbations 
produced by the flexion of the axis when observations are 
taken at a large angular distance from the zenith. The 
building will have a diameter of sixty-four feet, with a 
rotating roof of copper, worked by hand-machinery, as 
designed by Gardiner. 
The Bischofisheim observatory will not be confined to 
astronomical observations. The donor having been 
taught by Leverrier in astronomy has felt it a duty to 
extend his donation to magnetical and meteorological ob- 
servations, too often neglected in French observatories. 
A magnetical pavilion has been built with extensive cellars, 
for continuous self-registering apparatus. The registration 
takes place by photography as in Kew, and is made with 
instruments by Adie, the maker of the Kew set of 
registers. As in Kew, a “rez-de-chaussée” has been built 
for direct force and direction observations. The instru- 
ments have been made by Brunner. 
The installation of the meteorological instruments has 
been made under the direct supervision of M. Mascart, the 
director of the French Meteorological Office. A constant 
staff has been selected by M. Bischoffsheim, and is now on 
duty. The direction has been given to M. Perrotin, formerly 
assistant astronomer to M. Tisserand when he was 
director of Toulouse Observatory. The assistant astrono- 
mer is M. Carvallo, formerly a pupil in the Polytechnic 
School, and who has taken his astronomical honours in 
the special school established by Rear-Admiral Mouchez 
at the Paris Observatory. M. Puiseux, formerly pupil of 
the Polytechnic School, will have the control of mag- 
netical and meteorological observations. 
Two houses have been built—one for the administra- | 
“tion and the other for the direction. 
this staircase has been fitted up entirely for boarding 
foreign astronomers who are desirous of making observa- 
tions in this magnificent astronomical “ caravanserai.’’ 
M. and Mdme. Struve and M. Tachini have promised al- 
ready to spend some time there next winter. 
It should be noted that it was probably in a tour made 
in England with Leverrier, when the great astronomer 
was made an honorary doctor of Cambridge University, 
that M. Bischoffsheim meditated on the opportunity of 
establishing an observatory entirely of his own. Up to 
that time he had spent his time in the observation of 
stars which shine in a less elevated sphere than the 
heayenly skies. But Leverrier’s conversation and inti- 
macy led him to appreciate other unfading beauties. 
The Bureau des Longitudes has agreed to take posses- 
The first floor of | 
sion of the observatory, which will be handed over to | 
it with a sufficient endowment to keep it decently. It 
is estimated that the money spent in purchasing the 
estate, &c., will exceed 120,000/., and that the endowment 
will be more than 2000/. a year. This handsome dona- 
tion must be noted as being a revolution in French gene- 
Up to this time our neighbours 
confined themselves to bequeathing legacies and lavishing 
posthumous generosities. 
[ Dec. 20, 1881 
FOSSIL FLORA OF SUMATRA? 
THs is a paper of some twenty pages and six plates. 
Herr Verbeek sent in 1874 a small collection of 
fossil plants from Sumatra to Switzerland, which were 
described by Heer, and in the following year the second 
collection, now described, was received, no others having 
been found ia the interval. The plates contain twenty- 
two figures, most of them representing fragments of 
simple ovate leaves, supposed, with two exceptions, to be 
allied to existing species of the Indian mainland or 
archipelago. The mollusca in the overlying strata point 
to an Eocene age. The exceptions are a Eucalyptus 
and a small leaflet ascribed to Cassia, and now repre- 
sented, it is here supposed, by C. /evigata of tropical 
America, but the determination rests on slender grounds. 
The majority of them, in fact, though doubtless the best 
that could be made from such material, must neces- 
sarily be almost mere guesses. The value of such guesses 
may be inferred from a similar work by the same author 
on the fossil flora of Madeira. 
In this case several of the commonest indigenous plants 
of Madeira were referred to extra-Madeiran plants. For 
instance, the terminal leaflets of Rudus discolor were re- 
ferred to Corylus australis, and various leaflets of Rubus 
grandiflora are figured as Corylus australis, Ulmus sube- 
vosa,and Psoraleadentata,; the so-called Pistacea Pheacum 
is the common myrtle, the //ex Hartingi is the Madeira 
Vaccinium, and the figures of AZyrica Faya belong to 
Ardisia excelsa. In this case the mistakes are the more 
singular, as Prof. Heer had actually sojourned in Madeira, 
and the plants are the commonest on the island. If with 
even exceptionally favourable circumstances such mistakes 
can be made, generalisers should surely be cautious in 
building theories upon the ages of formations, &c., when 
they have been determined upon the evidence of fossil 
plants. It is unfortunate that on evidence as trivial, and 
even more questionable, we read in Lyell of the MIOCENE ~ 
outbursts of Mull, of Iceland, and Greenland, of the 
MIOCENE deposits of Bovey Tracy, &c. 
It is important, however, that fossil plants should be 
figured and described, for if the generic and specific 
names, except when based on ample material, are 
regarded merely as an individual opinion, the determina- 
tions become of use. Whatever is unsatisfactory in the 
work is inherent to the subject, for few possess the zeal and 
untiring industry of Heer. If he would only make clear to 
his readers the reasons which enable him in his own mind 
to determine the genus to which an ordinary type of leaf, 
with neither top nor base, belongs, and would be less 
positive where nothing positive is possible, his works 
would acquire a scientific value which some justly think 
they hardly at present possess. J. S. G. 
THE VOYAGE OF THE “VEGA”? 
Il. 
PHazON NORDENSKJOLD frequently refers to what 
Mr. Leslie renders “self-dead” animals, meaning 
! animals that have died a natural death, in distinction to 
those that have been killed by hunters or by other animals. 
The rarity of such ‘‘self-dead’’ animals is remarkable, 
especially along the north coast of Asia, where there are 
few hunters and fishers, and where immense numbers of 
animals must die. While sailing along the Taimur coast, 
large numbers of dead fish (Gadus folaris) were seen lying 
on a block of ice, and strewed along the bottom of the 
sea, which Baron Nordenskidld notices as being very 
unusual, 
* By Dr. Oswald Heer (Neue Denkschriften der schweizerischen Gesell- 
schaft, vol. xxviii. Ziirich, 1881) " ‘ S 
2"“The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe; with a Historical 
Review of previous Journeys along the North Coast of the Old World.” 
By A. E. Nordenskjéld. Translated by Alexander Leslie. Five steel 
portraits, numerous inaps and illustrations. ‘Two vols. (London: Macmillan 
and Co., 1881.) Continued from p. 183. 
