268 
F.R.S.; A. R. Wallace ; with power to add to their number, 
and to confer with other scientific bodies. 
THE United States exploring ship Portsmouth, which has 
been busily engaged in preparing for her cruise to the Pacific, 
has finally left for her destination. The scientific corps of the 
expedition is to consist of Messrs. Byer and Beardsley, from the 
Hydrographic Office, Washington, Paymaster Horace P. Tuttle 
as astronomer, and Dr. Streets as naturalist. The Portsmouth 
will carry three steam launches for cruising around shoal places. 
Tue Tyneside Naturalists Field Club have struck out a new 
line of work for similar societies throughout the country. They 
propose to obtain a complete record of all remarkable trees at 
present growing in the district embraced by the club, whether 
from their age, dimensions, or historic associations. Seventy 
or eighty such trees have already been catalogued from infor- 
mation supplied by the members of the club; and it is pro- 
posed that the record shall be as full and complete as possible, 
both in respect to letterpress and illustrations. The letterpress 
is to consist of the fullest particulars obtainable as to measure- 
ments and history, and it is recommended by the Committee 
appointed on the subject that the illustrations be photographs 
taken by some permanent process, either Swan’s ‘‘ carbon” or 
the ‘‘ Woodbury ;” the expenses to be paid out of the general 
funds of the Club, the catalogue to be supplied to members of 
the Club for a small subscription, to the general public at a 
higher rate. It is obvious that such an illustrated catalogue 
will become very useful in after years, especially if the observa- 
tions are repeated on the same trees at intervals. Though the 
Woolhope Club has already published in its Reports photo- 
graphs of a few remarkable trees, we do not recollect that any- 
thing of this kind has been hitherto attempted in a systematic 
way. 
Tue Academy of Natural Sciences at Stockholm has recently 
purchased one of the finest cryptogamic herbaria in existence, 
the great collection of European mosses formed by Milde. 
THE Royal Commission of Scientific Instruction and the 
Advancement of Science holds its first meeting of this session 
to day. 
THERE are at present five candidates for the vacant Profes- 
sorship of Geology at Cambridge—the Rey. T. G. Bonney, 
M.A., Fellow of St. John’s College ; Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins, 
M.A., F.R.S., of Jesus College, Oxford, and Director of the 
Owens College Museum, Manchester; the Rev. Osmond Fisher, 
M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College; Mr. McK. 
Hughes, Member of the Geological Survey; and Mr. A. H 
Green, M.A., late Fellow of Caius College. 
A CORRESPONDENT writes, with regard to hurricanes in the 
Mauritius (vol. vii. p. 250), that itis desirable applications should 
be made to the French Minister of Marine, as it is possible log- 
books of men-of-war may be preserved, which will fill up the 
lacunze in the last century, In the beginning of this century 
our Admiralty records may supply additional information. 
Dr. E. L. Moss, of the Royal Naval Hospital, Esquimalt, 
Vancouver’s Island, writes us that on the nightof Saturday, Dec. 
14, an earthquake wave passed through the district at 9.33. A 
rumbling noise and a quick vibration, causing the windows to 
rattle, preceded the shock a few seconds. The waves then 
passed from E.N.E. to W.S.W., causing the wooden house in 
which he sat to creak and strain like a ship at sea, and leaving 
an index of their direction in the oscillations of a swinging lamp. 
He could not detect any accompanying marine wave. The ship’s 
lights were reflected from the surface of the harbour in perfectly 
unbroken lines. The night was clear, the thermometer at 2)"; 
and there was no trace of aurora, From the Daily British Colom 
nist we learn that the shock appears to have been more severely 
NATURE 
felt on the mainland than on the island. At Olympia and 
Seattle the shock was very severe, and was accompanied by a 
slight tidal wave. At Clinton the ground was cracked, and the 
shock was felt at all the towns on the Fraser. 
toria has not experienced so severe a shock of earthquake, 
Dr. DuDLEY, of Bogoti, South America, writes that on the 
morning of Dec. 17 last, at 42 20" A.M., a smart shock of earth- 
quake was felt at that place, which lasted about 20 seconds, It 
appeared to move ina §.W. direction. It was sufficiently strong 
to awaken the inhabitants from their sleep with some alarm, 
THE Times of India reports a very destructive earthquake 
which occurred in Sinde on the evening of December 15 last. 
A succession of shocks took place about 9 o’clock at Shekarpore 
and other places, followed by a slight shock at about half-past 
10. In the town of Lehree, in Eastern Catchi and Zehri, accord- 
ing to one report 200, according to another 500 persons were 
killed from the fall of houses and walls. The direction of the 
earthquake was from east to west, with a slightly undulating 
motion. 
AccoRDING to a telegram in the 77es from Constantinople, 
February 4, the island of Samos had been visited with succes- 
sive shocks of earthquake during the previous four days, gradu- 
ally increasing in violence. Houses have been déstroyed, and 
the affrighted inhabitants of the island are wandering about the 
open country. 
A CORRESPONDENT sends us the following :—‘*‘ A correspon- 
dent in Salvador, in Central America, under date of December 8, 
writes to the Panama Record as follows :—‘ The volcano which 
is some six leagues distant from the town of Santana, has dried 
up a lake which for 500 years or so existed at the base ‘of the 
craters ; but although vast quantities of steam are ejected, and 
the trees lining the inside of the crater are scorched up and 
withered, as also are those to a limited distance near the top on 
the outside, no ejection of lava has yet taken place. The yol- 
cano of Isaleo, which was active until quite recently, now shows 
no sign of life ; and the supposition is that some strata which 
cut off the communication between the two volcanoes have burst 
through or fallen in, and so changed the channel of the fire. The 
Government of Salvador intends sending up an exploring party 
to examine and report on the subject. At the date of the above 
letter, no change had taken place in the volcano, 
Mr. HARDING, senior wrangler at Cambridge, has been de- 
clared first Smith’s prizeman ; while the second prize has gone 
to Mr, Nanson, the second wrangler. 
WE have received a paper by Prof. Theodor von Oppolzer on 
the comet discovered by Pogson on December 2, following the 
telegraphic hint of Prof. Klinkerfues. Prof. Oppolzer enters 
into an elaborate series of calculations to prove that the observed 
comet was intimately connected with the star-shower of Novem- 
ber 27, and that in all probability it was one of the heads of 
Biela’s comet. 
A REPORT, coming of course from America, has been going 
the round of the papers that Prof. Tyndall has been coining 
money by thousands from his lectures in the United States. 
Dr. Bence Jones writes to Les M/ondes of January 30, giving the 
facts of the case, as told by Prof. Tyndall himself. His ex- 
penses in America, partly caused by the death of ‘poor Mil- 
lard,” his assistant, have been very high. There still remains, 
however, Prof. Tyndall says, 2,000/. This sum he intends to 
[ Feb. 6, 1873 
cE EEE 
Since 1864 Vic- 
devote, in consultation with Prof. Henry of Washington, to the 
promotion of some worthy purpose in America, . 
WE are glad to see that a new edition of Chambers’s /nforma- 
tion for the People is about to be issued. The first edition was 
issued in 1833, and the last in 1857, since which, science in all 
