Feb. 4, 1 8 75 J 



NATURE 



27: 



the 1,300/. which had been placed in his hands by M. Bishof- 

 sheim for certain purposes liad attracted much notice, and the end 

 of the difficulty has created quite a sensation. 



The Observatory of Paris is to give a series of soirics on the 

 first Monday of each month. Instruments will be placed at the 

 disposal of visitors for observing celestial phenomena, and the 

 most important inventions will be exhibited and explained. 



The method of electing the President of the French Academy 

 of Sciences is very peculiar. In the beginning of January each 

 year a member is nominated Vice-president for the year, and 

 becomes President the following year without being re-elected. 

 The ap]iointment is made alternately in the classes of Physical 

 Science and Mathematics. It being the turn this year of the 

 latter section, Admiral Paris has b'jen elected Vice-president and 

 will he President for 1S76. The President actually in office is 

 iVI. Fremy, the celebrated chemist. M. Paris was bom at Brest 

 in 1S06, and his first voyage was on board the Astrolabe, in which 

 he circumnavigated the globe, under Dumont d'Urville, in 1S26. 

 He lost his left hand at Pondicheny in I S3 7, when visiting a 

 factory. He has written many books on steam navigation, and 

 is a member of the Navigation Section of the Academy. He 

 was created an admiral in 185S. 



There exist in the largest French provincial towns local 

 Academies, the proceedings of which seldom attract atten- 

 tion beyond their immediate vicinity ; but they never lose 

 an opportunity of following the lead of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris. The Paris Academy having appointed 

 M. Bertrand successor to M. Elie de Beaunfont, as per- 

 petual secretary, the Academyj of Toulouse shortly afterwards 

 sent to M. Bertrand a brevet of membership to fill the place 

 vacated by the demise of his predecessor. As JI. Elie de Beau- 

 mont was a member of the Academies of Lyons, Bordeaux, 

 Marseilles, &c., M. Bertrand has a very good chance to acquire 

 without moving all the academical honouis which belonged to 

 his predecessor, except in the cities where he was himself 

 previously a local academician. 



The annual conference for regulating the operations of the 

 Mint in connection with international coinage was held recent y 

 at the French Foreign Oflice, Paris. Except Greece, repre- 

 sentatives of all the other nations who are parties to the inter- 

 national convention for the inter-circulation of decimal coins, 

 were present. The system extends now to France, Italy, Bel- 

 gium, Switzerland, and Greece. No measures of importance 

 were passel, but it is supposed that some useless restrictions on 

 coinage will be abolished in 1876. 



The KSlnischc Zeitung of Jan. 19 contains a letter 

 from the celebrated African traveller. Dr. G. Schweinfurth, 

 from which we learn that, by order of the Khedive of 

 Egypt, Herr Rohlfs has distributed among a number of eminent 

 personages, scientific societies, and men of science, one hun- 

 dred albums, magnificently got up, and containing a collection 

 of fifty large photographs of the Libyan Desert, by Remele, 

 of Gastendonlc, near Aldekerk. Remele accompanied Herr 

 Rohlfs' expedition of last winter into the deserts of Africa, and 

 has, for the first time, photographed landscapes of the district 

 mentioned in a highly artistic manrer. Whoever knows the 

 different characteristics of the African climate compared to 

 the European one, will understand that considerable skill was 

 required to produce real works of art under such altered con- 

 ditions. It is to be regretted that the handsome collection can- 

 not be obtained by purchase : only a few favoured ones can 

 derive from it that enjoyment that every lover of nature would 

 naturally experience from photographs so highly interesting. 



We learn from the Koliiiscke Zeitung that on January 20 

 the first meeting of the Italian division of the International 



Commission for the Measuring of the Meridian took place at 

 the Military Topographical Oflice at Naples. The members 

 are General de Vecchi (president). General Ricci, Major Ferrero 

 (secretary), the astronomers De Gasparis (Naples), Respigi 

 (Rome), Santini (Padua), Schiapparelli (Milan), and Professors 

 Betocchi, Schiavoni, and Oberholtzer. The meeting, in making 

 out the programme for 1S75, continued the work begun at the 

 autumn meeting at Dresden. 



In reference to the proposed Channel Tunnel between France 

 and England, we may refer our readers to Nature, vol. i., 

 pp. 160, 303, 631, and vol. x., p. iSi, where the scientific bear- 

 ings of the subject are pretty fully discussed. While on this 

 matter we may state, on the authority of La Natuye, that there 

 has been in existence for some time in Spain an Inter-continental 

 Railway Company, whose object is to connect Europe and 

 Africa by a tunnel underneath the Straits of Gibraltar, the 

 maximum depth of which is 8 19 metres. 



Dr. Coues has published, in the Proceedings of the Philadel- 

 phia Academy, a synopsis of an elaborate work by him upon the 

 mice of North America, based upon the many thousands of spe- 

 cimens in the Smithsonian Institution. In this he considerably 

 reduces the alleged number of species, although describing some 

 that he considers new. 



Dr. Regel, in an appendix to the second fascicule of his 

 " Descriptiones plantarum novarum et minus cognitarum in 

 regionibus Turkistanicis, etc., collectis," defends his theory of the 

 descent of the grape-vine of the Old World, in its numerous 

 varieties, from / Itis labrmca and V. vulpiiia, two New World 

 species, the former extending to Japan. V. parvifolia and lanata 

 of Roxburgh, Indian species, he identifies with the foregoing, 

 and thus traces out the relationship of the grapes of the Old and 

 New Worlds. Although Dr. Regel can see his way to this 

 extreme of variation, he still holds fast to the opinion that "the 

 specific limits of any species whatsoever were called into exist- 

 ence (or defined) with the appearance of the first individual ot 

 that species, and that there is no gradual evolution from the 

 lower to the higher organisms. 



A SECOND EDITION of Hooker's "Synopsis Filicum " has 

 just appeared. It will be remembered that the late Sir William 

 Hooker left the original work unfinished, and that it was taken 

 up and completed by Mr. J. G. Baker. The second edition has 

 also been prepared by the same gentleman. A period of about 

 six years has elapsed since the first publication, and the edition 

 before us contains four hundred additional species. The idea of 

 a species as developed in this work is very broad and compre- 

 hensive ; hence this number represents nearly as many distinct 

 new forms, very few coming under the denomination of "critical 

 species." The total number of species admitted now exceeds 

 2,600. The additional species are given in an appendix occu- 

 pying seventy-seven pages. In the body of the work a number 

 of bad species have been reduced to their respective types, and 

 their places taken by new species. A relatively large proportion 

 of the new species are tree-ferns — Cyathea, 25 ; Hemitelia, 11; 

 Alscphila, 25 ; and Dicksonia, 13 ; and there are no fewer than 

 sixty new species each of the new genera Polypodium and 

 Nephrodium, in the extended sense given to them in this work. 

 Asplenium is represented by about fifty new species. Onlj' one 

 new genus is given, Diplora, an asplenioid form from Solomon 

 Islands, bringing the total up to seventy-six. Whether the 

 generic and specific limits adopted in this work be accepted or 

 rejected, the book is indispensable to all pteridologists. We 

 may mention that the complete index has been issued in a 

 separate form, which will be very useful to all lovers of ferns 

 and horticulturists generally. 



An account has reached us of the Memorial Meeting of the 

 Boston Society of Natural Plistory, on the 7tli of October, 1S74, 

 held to mark the death of Dr. Jeffries Wyraan in September 



