150 
NATURE 
| fune 22, 1871 

about 30° above the horizon. It was of the form of a darting 
flame, parallel to the eaith’s surface from east to west. The 
lead was of dazzling whiteness, the middle bright yellow, and 
the tail violet. It ended ina train of brilliant sparks of about 
2° in length, and was visible about two minutes. The wholesky 
was of a rosy colour, and particularly in the cast. The same 
tinge was visible in the evening at half-past seven. 
A SCIENTIFIC sanitary question has arisen in India. On the 
ground of necessity, public offices have been supplied with anti- 
thermic arrangements; but the economical fit, still strong, has 
led to a government decree that it cannot afford such provision, 
and that kuskus windows and their essentials must be provided 
at the expense of the officials. This will afford an additional 
pressure on the agitation for transferring the public departments 
to the English towns, sanitaria, or tea plantations in the hills. 
Tr is stated that Assurance Companies in India have declined 
to accept the lives of the offcers of the Geological Department 
there on account of the exposure to which they are subjected. 
A UniteD Service Institution for India has been formed, and 
it is gratifying to observe that it is to be established at Simla in 
the Himalayas, in a healthy district instead of an unhealthy place. 
THE severe earthquake of the 25th of February in Chile has 
called attention to the views of Mr. Darwin and Prof. Rudolph 
Falb of Prague. Mr. Darwin was in Chile in the great earth- 
quake of February 20, 1835. It is observed that the recent 
earthquake began at the same time, 11.30 A.M. Mr. Darwin 
considered that the space from under which the volcanic matter 
was erupted in Chile was 720 miles in one line and 4oo in another, 
and that the existence was indicated by a subterranean table of 
Java of the area of the Black Sea. Prof. Falb maintained that 
the influence of the moon is the chief cause of earthquakes, and 
in a letter to NATURE of the 14th of April, 1870, he explained and 
defended his doctrine, and referred to the earthquakes of Manilla, 
the volcano of Puraco in Columbia, and convulsions in Peru. 
Tis prophecies of a great earthquake in Peru, which occasioned 
so much alarm, were not realised. The Manilla earthquake, he 
says, took place two hours and a half after the culmination of 
the moon. Itis affirmed thatthe late earthquake in Chile had 
no relation to the culmination of the moon. It is to be noted 
that the great earthquake in Honolulu in the Hawaian Islands 
took place on the night of February 19, six days before that of 
Chile. 
AN earthquake was felt at Rawul Pindee and Murree, in the 
Tlimalayas, in April. 
THE Russian Government are believed to be organising an 
expedition to New Guinea for the purposes of scientific research 
and exploration. It is, however, believed in Australia that this 
is only an indirect method of obtaining a foothold in that coun- 
try, and it is proposed that the Government of Victoria should 
send an expedition to New Guinea, in order to obtain by treaty 
certain portions of territory for purposes of settlement. Should 
this design be carried into effect, it is to be hoped that every 
facility will be given to Naturalists to accompany the expedition 
into this large and comparatively unknown country. 
THE Friend of India states that from the report on the general 
state of the weather in the North-West Provinces and Oudh 
during March, it appears that the direction of the wind, as in 
the preceding two months, was for nearly the whole month from 
the north-west in the N.W. portion of the provinces, and west 
elsewhere. During the first half of the month a tendency to 
change to the east was occasionally perceptible, and this was 
especially the case during the time of the barometric depression 
from the 13th to the 20th. The month as a whole was much 
drier than usual, 

: 
MR. BENTHAM’S ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 
TO BHE LINNEAN SOCIETY 
(Continued from page 114) 
[XN geographical biology Denmark proper is of no great im- 
portance except as a connecting link, on the one hand, be- 
tween the Scandinavian peninsula and Central Europe, and, on 
the other, as the separating barrier between the Baltic and the 
North Seas. Low and flat, without any great variety in its 
physical features, it is unfavourable for the production or main- 
tenance of endemic erganisms, and forms an inseparable portion 
of the region of Central Europe. But the Arctic possessions in- 
cluded in the kingdom, Greenland, Iceland, and the Farce 
Islands, are of great interest ; and Denmark itself is remarkable 
for the number of eminent naturalists, zoologists as well as 
botanists, produced by so small a state. Its reputation in this 
respect, established by the great names mentioned in my review 
of Transactions in my Address of 1865, is being well kept up by 
Bergh, Krabbe, Liitken, Mérch, Reinhardt, Schiddte, Steen- 
strup, and others in zoology; whilst Lange, CE&rsted, and 
Warming are among the few who now devote themselves more 
or less to systematic botany. Their general zoological collection, 
when I last visited it, many years since, was not extensive, 
although rich in northern animals, and very well arranged under 
the direction of Steenstrup, and the insects in the Storm Gade 
Museum were very numerous; whilst at the University was 
deposited the typical collection of Fabricius. The Herbarium 
at the Botanic Garden, valuable for the types of Vahl and 
other early botanists, has been in modern times enriched by 
the extensive Mexican collection of Liebmann, the Brazilian 
ones of Lund and others; whilst (Ersted’s Central-American 
and Warming’s Brazilian plants are also at Copenhagen, but 
whether public or private property I know not. The botanical 
and zoological gardens ere of no great importance, but the 
biological publications are kept up with some spirit, especially 
the Transacticns of the Royal Society of Science, Schiddte’s 
continuation of Kréyer’s ‘‘ Tidsskrift,” and the ‘* Videnskabelige 
Meddelelser” of the Natural History Society; and some of 
the authors have adopted a practice strongly recommended 
to those who write in languages not understood by the great 
mass of modern naturalists, that of giving short résumés of 
their papers in French. On the most important contributions 
to systematic zoology since those mentioned in my address of 
1865, I have received the following memoranda :—Prof. Rein- 
hardt, in publishing in the Transactions of the Royal Danish 
Academy (1869) nine pesthumous plates, executed under the 
direction of the late Pref. Eschricht, illustrating the structure of 
various cetacea, has accompanied them with short explanations. 
Prof. Reinhardt has further published, in the ‘‘ Videnskabelige 
Meddelelser ” for 1870, a list of the birds inhabiting the Campos 
district of central Brazil; notes on the di-tribution, habits, and 
synonymy are copiously added ; and the introductory remarks on 
the geographical distribution, &c,, are very suggestive, and ought 
to be translated for the benefit of the friends of ornithology in 
England and elsewhere. The same ‘‘ Videnskabelige Med- 
delelser”’ contains an essay by Dr. Liitken on the limits and 
classification of ganoid fishes, chiefly from a paleontological point 
of view, accompanied by a synopsis of the present condition, in 
systematical and geological respects, of that important branch of. 
paleichthyology. In Mollusca, Dr. Bergh has published, in 
Kroyer’s ‘‘ Tidsskrift” for 18€9, one of his elaborate, anatomical, 
and systematic monographs of the tribe Phillidese, wif, many 
plates, of which a detailed notice is given in the ‘ Zoological 
Record,” vol. vi. p. 559. In insects, Prof. Schiédte, in the same 
journal for 1869, has given an elaborate essay containing new facts 
and views on the morphology and system of the Rhynchota, 
analysed in the ‘‘ Zoological Record,” vol. vi. p. 475. To 
Dr. Krabbe we owe the description of 123 species of tapeworms 
found in birds, an elaborate monograph accompanied by ten 
plates, and print:d in the Transactions of the Royal Danish 
Society for 1869, with a French 7ésxmé. (Noticed in ‘ Zoologi- 
cal Record,” vol. vi. p. 633.) In Echinoderms, Dr. Liitken’s 
valuable essays on various genera and species of Ophiuridze, re- 
cent and fossil, with a Latin synopsis of Ophiuride and Eury- 
alidze, and a general French réswmé, forming the third part of 
his ‘* Additamenta ad Historiam Ophiuridarum,” in the Transac- 
tions of the Royal Danish Society for 1869, have been analysed 
in the ‘‘Zoological Record,” vol. vi. pp. 369, 462, &c. No 

