4S8 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 4, 1S77 



was hove to for twenty-seven hours. This is believed to be a 

 cyclone which recently started from the American coast and 

 which thus vanished in the ocean. 



The geological survey of Brazil, which has been in progress 

 for several years under the direction of Prof. C F. Ilartt, 

 formerly of Vassar and Cornell Universities, United States, 

 was lately for a short tiine threatened with suspension, but the 

 proposal was countermanded and increased strength given to 

 the commission after an investigation of all the circumstances. 

 The temporary stoppage of operations was used advantageously 

 by Prof, llartt in placing the collections made by him in good 

 order, and his parties have again entered the field in pro. 

 secution of their objects. Amontj the more important results so 

 far accomplished by the survey has been the discovery of the 

 existence in Brazil of the Silurian, Devonian, carboniferous, 

 triassic, Jurassic, cretaceous, and post- tertiary formations, all of 

 them furnishing well-characterised fossils in great variety, and of 

 which large numbers have been collected by the commission for 

 its investigation, and for purposes of distribution in Brazil and 

 of exchange with foreign establishments. So far no well- 

 defined tertiary has been found to exist in Brazil. The survey 

 h:js also been very successful in its ethnological researches, 

 especially among the kitchen-middens o*^ Santa Catharina, 

 Parana, Sao Paulo, Baliia, and the Amazonas, the results of 

 which have been announced in part, although much of interest 

 yet remains to be published. The researches in the coral reefs 

 have been made the occasion of securing numbers of marine 

 animals, all of which add to the resources of the survey. In 

 connection with other operations, numerous photographs of 

 scenery, of geological stracture, and of the native races, have 

 been taken. 



The death of Dr. Abraham Sager, an eminent anatomist 

 and physiologist of the United States, took place on the 

 6th of August last. Dr. Sager, in 1837, was placed in charge 

 of the botanical and zoological departments of the Michigan 

 Geological Survey, and embraced this and subsequent oppor- I 

 tunities to make large collections, which are now the property 

 of the Michigan University. His investigations into the em- 

 bryology and development of the tailed batrachians have added 

 much to our knowledge of those forms. 



The bust of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, F.R.S., first 

 president of the Zoological Society of London, has been placed 

 In the new lion house of the Society's Gardens. 



The following foreign works have been sent us by Messrs. 

 Williams and Norgate : — "Die kinetische Theorie der Gase," 

 by Dr. Oskar Emil Meyer (Breslau) ; " Christian Gottfried 

 Ehrenberg," by Johannes Ilanstein (Bonn); " Phenomenes 

 physiques de la Phoiiation," by J. Gadarret (Paris); " Er- 

 gebnisse physikalischer Forschung," by Dr. C. Bohn (Leipzig) ; 

 " Physiologische Methodik," by Dr. Richard Gschiedlen (Braun- 

 schweig) ; "Synofsis Rubarum Germanise," by Dr. W. O. 

 Focke (Bremen) ; " Lehrbuch der Analysis," by Rudolph Lip- 

 schitz : vol. \. (Bonn). 



Dr. F. a. Forel, of Geneva, an energetic advocate of the 

 doctrine of evolution, in an article published in the August 

 number of the Archives dis Scimces physiques ct nalurcUes, pro- 

 poses the application of natural selection for successfully healing 

 certain diseases of silkworms, and also for rendering the Euro- 

 pean species of vines proof against the attacks of phylloxera. 

 In the first matter experiments have already been made to a cer- 

 tain extent, and have been crowned with perfect success ; in the 

 case of vines the experiments are still to be made. The Sep- 

 tember number of the same journal, which is unusually bulky, is 

 entirely devoted to a detailed biography of Auguste de la Rive, 



who died on November 23, 1873, ^t 'he age of seventy-two 

 years. 



We have received a letter from Dr. Emil Bessels with refer- 

 ence to the Polaris observations (Nature, vol. xvi. p. 358), and 

 have much satisfaction in learning that it is proposed to revise 

 the averages of the barometrical and thermometrical observations 

 of the Pularis Arctic Expedition, these having been somewhat 

 hastily prepared and published from a desire to have the report 

 out before the expedition to the North Polar regions sailed 

 from England. 



A TELEGRAM from New York, September 30, states that the 

 American Consul at ^St. John's (Newfoundland) has purchased 

 from a seaman who was wrecked in Hudson's Bay, two spoons 

 supposed to be relics of the Franklin Expedition, one of them 

 being marked "J. G. F." It is said that Esquimaux living in 

 the neighbourhood of Repulse Bay got them from a native chief, 

 at whose camp the original owner, a white man, had died of 

 scurvy. This statement does not seem quite consistent with 

 the known facts as to the fate of the Franklin Expedition ; more- 

 over, we are not aware that "J. G. F." are Franklin's initials. 



The Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England 

 has received as a present from the Hon. Charles P. F. Berkeley, 

 the skeleton of a crocodile 15 feet 9 inches in length, which was 

 shot by that gentleman last win'.er near Hagar SilsiUs, in Egypt. 



The Swiss Btindesrath announces that the construction of the 

 St. Gothard Tunnel is proceeding with increasing rapidity, and 

 will probably be completed within three years. 



The seventh number (1877) of the Bulletin of the Belgian 

 Academy of Sciences, contains a valuable paper, by M. C. 

 Lagrange, "On the Influence of the Form of Bodies on their 

 Attraction." This question, very incidentally treated by Briick, 

 is thoroughly discussed by M. Lagrange, who arrives at some 

 important conclusions. Discussing the attraction exercised by a 

 body of irregular forms on a point situated at different distances 

 from the centre of inertia of the body, and in different positions 

 relatively to its axis of maximum and minimum inertia, the 

 author proves that the attraction is directed to the centre of 

 inertia only when the point is situated on one of the principal 

 axes of inertia of the body ; and that, at equal distances the 

 attraction reaches its maximum when the point is on the axis of 

 minimum inertia, and inversely, this maximum exceeding, and 

 the minimum being less than, the attraction which would have 

 been exercised were the whole mass of the body concentrated in 

 its centre. Further, the author discusses the attraction exercised 

 on a moving point, and arrives at the conclusion that the point, 

 while attracted to the centre, will also receive an angular motion 

 around the latter. Finally, he discusses the reciprocal attraction 

 of two free bodies of irregular form, and, after having shown 

 when the attraction will reach a maximum and a minimum, he 

 proves also that the attraction will communicate to both bodies 

 a rotatory motion, tending to bring into coincidence their axes 

 of minimum inertia. In the two last paragraphs of his paper, 

 M. Lagrange briefly notices the applications the principles he 

 establishes may ha\ e in explaining the rotatory motion of the 

 sun, as well as in accounting for crystallisation, further researches, 

 not yet published, having enabled the author to account for 

 the formation of diliferent crystalline systems in a way which 

 makes the whole question a problem of rational mechanics. 

 The memoir is spoken of in very hi^h terms by MM. Van der 



Mensbrugghe, Catalan, and De Tilly, who analysed it by order 



ot the Academy. 



No. VIXI. oi\.\ie Bulletin of the United States National Museum 

 consists of an " Index to the names which have been applied to 

 the subdivisions of the class Brachiopoda," by Mr. W. H. Dall. 



