Jury 3, 1902] 
which is thus made readily available. Mr. Rhees’s 
volumes will doubtless become for the future historian a 
storehouse of information great and small, and for the 
official a book of reference of permanent value. , 
In the voluminous reports of congressional proceedings 
which are here reprinted, many things will be found 
which are of special interest to English readers. There 
are numerous allusions to our own institutions, such as 
the Royal Society and the British Museum. Among other 
matters of the kind we note, in the proceedings of the 
thirty-third congress (1853-55), a letter of Prof. Agassiz, 
in which he mentions that Smithson’s magnificent bequest 
of 105,000/. sterling was originally intended for our own 
Royal Society, but that certain scientific papers which 
that gentleman offered for publication in the Phzlosophical 
Transactions wére declined, “‘ upon which he changed 
his will and made his bequest to the United States.” One 
can scarcely, however, grudge the loss to our own country 
in view of the liberal spirit and the enlightened policy 
which have always ruled the affairs of “ the Smithsonian,” 
and have done so much to advance the cause of 
science. 
That policy has not been maintained without many a 
struggle. It took, to begin with, eight years to decide 
what form the establishment for “increase and diffusion 
of knowledge” was to take. Schemes for “a library, a 
botanical garden, an observatory, a chemical laboratory, 
a popular publishing house, a lecture lyceum, an art 
museum,” all fought together and killed each other, 
and when this consummation was reached and the 
Smithsonian Institution was erected upon the battlefield, 
the ghosts of two at least of the old schemes—the library 
and the college—continued to haunt the proceedings of 
congress and cause endless trouble. It was in the course 
of one of these after-battles—a battle with those who 
desired to divert the funds of the Institution from scientific 
work to the foundation of a great library—that a letter 
from Prof. Benjamin Peirce was read which makes 
honourable mention of the scientific work both of the 
foundation and the founder, an extract from which may 
serve as an appropriate conclusion to this notice :— 
“The valuable contributions to knowledge which have 
already been made by the Smithsonian Institution are a 
living proof that vast libraries are not necessary to the 
development of new thoughts. If you will compare 
these memoirs with the scientific productions of the same 
period in Europe you may find them, perchance, inferior 
in erudition, but not in profoundness and originality of 
thought. Do you believe that Smithson, who was 
himself engaged in chemical investigations, could have 
intended a library by his words ‘an institution for the 
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men’? If 
you will examine his nine memoirs to the Royal 
Society, of which he was an active member, and his 
eighteen other contributions to science, you will not find 
one of them which required a library for its production. 
Each was the natural growth of a deeply thinking mind. 
Smithson was emphatically a maker, not a collector of 
books ; and, in the scientific circle to which he belonged, 
the ordinary use of language would have totally pre- 
cluded the interpretation which some men of quite a 
different cast of mind have presumed to impose upon his 
words” (p. 557). : Teall 
ARCTIC MAGNETIC OBSERVATIONS, 
SYSTEMATIC series of observations on terrestrial 
magnetism, atmospheric electricity and aurora 
was commenced by Prof. Birkeland and his assistants in 
1899-1900, and a report upon some of the results was 
published last year. The first observations were made at 
1 “Expédition Norvégienne de 1899-1900 pour J'étude des aurores 
boréales. Résultats des recherches magnétiques.” Par Kr. Birkeland. 
Pp. 80; with 12 plates. (Christiania, 1gor.) 
NO. 1705, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
227 
Bossekop (Finmarken), in the north of Norway. For 
magnetic observation, — self-recording _ photographic 
apparatus was employed of the Eschenhagen pattern, 
the drums carrying the paper being capable of rotation 
at two speeds, the faster supplying a very open time 
scale. Fast runs were made simultaneously on certain 
prearranged days at Bossekop and Potsdam. A com- 
parison of the records showed the simultaneous, or 
practically simultaneous, occurrence on several occasions 
of small regular magnetic waves at the two stations. 
Similar previous comparisons by Eschenhagen and 
others have led to similar results, but the comparatively 
great distance—some 2000 kilometres—between the two- 
stations in the present case makes the results of special 
interest. 
Only a portion of the report mentioned in the foot-note 
is devoted to the work at Bossekop. A considerable 
part is occupied with the description of experiments with 
electric discharges in vacuum tubes, in which Prof. 
Birkeland has succeeded in producing phenomena 
having a close resemblance to some of the more 
prominent features of aurora. Reference is also made to 
work by Prof. J. J. Thomson and other recent investiga- 
tors in vacuum-tube discharges. There is also a discus- 
sion of the bearing of the observations and experiments 
on Prof. Birkeland’s theory of the cause of aurora and 
magnetic storms. This he believes to be electric cur- 
rents in the upper atmosphere, the ultimate source of 
which he ascribes to kathode rays or other electrical 
emanations from the sun. The observations and experi- 
ments are illustrated in the text and in various plates at 
the end of the book. 
This work is to be regarded only as introductory to a 
larger scheme in which Prof. Birkeland is about to em- 
bark, and in which he desires the cooperation of magnetic 
and meteorological observatories. The further scheme is 
described in two circulars which have recently been 
widely distributed. 
The Norwegian Government is to maintain four 
stations in operation from August 1, 1902, to June 30, 
1903. They are situated at Bossekop-and in Iceland, 
Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. At each of the stations 
there will be continuous photographic registration of the 
horizontal and vertical components of magnetic force and 
of the declination. The instruments are of the latest 
Eschenhagen pattern, similar to those supplied to the 
German and British Antarctic expeditions, with arrange- 
ments for running at ordinary or at rapid rates. Rapid 
runs are to be made on certain specified days and times, 
mainly during the ‘term’ hours on the Ist and 15th of 
each month, according to the scheme agreed on between 
the British and German Antarctic expeditions. 
In addition there are to be rapid runs from 9 to 
11 p.m., G.M.T., on December 2 to 8, 1902, January 2 
to 8 and February 3 to 9, 1903. Prof. Birkeland is 
anxious that as many magnetic observatories as possible 
should participate in this scheme of rapid registration. 
He also asks for the cooperation of meteorologists in 
observing cirrus clouds, and especially in recording the 
direction of cirrus bands when such exist. This informa- 
tion is more particularly desired during the days of 
special magnetic observations referred to above. Prof. 
Birkeland thinks it probable that high cirrus may be 
influenced by the electric currents which he believes to 
exist in the upper atmosphere, and to which, as already 
stated, he ascribes a principal, if not an exclusive, part 
in the production of aurora and magnetic disturbances. 
One of the principal objects of having four stations in 
Arctic regions is to obtain data from which calculations 
can be made as to the direction, altitude and intensity 
of atmospheric electric currents, if such exist. Prof. 
Birkeland hopes to obtain quantitative results sufficiently 
definite to put his theory to the test. The completeness. 
of the test will, however, be much enhanced by the 
