nae 
NATURE 
and Mr. Olmsted, and recommended to the legislature 
of 1880 the passage of an Act to provide for acquiring 
title to the necessary lands by the exercise of the right of 
eminent domain, leaving it to a future legislature to con- 
summate the purchase by appropriating the amount for 
the payment of the awards, if the sum should seem a 
reasonable price forthe property. Such an Act passed the 
Assembly, but was defeated in the Senate, although the 
movement was supported by petitions signed by the most 
distinguished men of this and other countries. The report 
of the State Survey, with its complete descriptions, illustra- 
tions, and maps, then became the basis of a systematic 
effort on the part of a few determined friends of the Falls 
to educate and arouse public opinion to save the scenery 
of Niagara. Early in 1883 this movement ripened into 
the organisation of an association to promote legislation 
for preserving the scenery of the Falls of Niagara, Mr. 
Howard Potter of New York being president, and Hon. 
J. Hampden Robb, chairman of the executive committee. 
Through the efforts of this Niagara Falls association 
an Act was passed, in 1883, providing for a commission, 
entitled “The commissioners of the state reservation at 
Niagara,” and giving them power to proceed through the 
courts to condemn the lands needed. _Ex-Lieut.-Goy. 
William Dorsheimer is the president of this board ; and 
the other members are President Anderson of Rochester 
University, Hon. J. Hampden Robb, Hon. Sherman S. 
Rogers, and Andrew H. Green. With some modifica- 
tions made necessary by changed conditions, they 
adopted the plan proposed by the State Survey. The 
lands selected were then surveyed, and their value ap- 
praised by a commission of very high character, appointed 
by the court, the total value of the lands being 
$1,433,429.50. The report of the commissioners of the 
reservation was made to the present legislature, and a Bill 
to appropriate this sum was introduced. The Niagara 
Falls association worked in every part of the state to 
arouse public opinion to the importance of making this 
appropriation, and the commissioners laboured most 
earnestly among the legislators and the people. The 
battle was a hard one against ignorance and narrow- 
minded selfishness; but the victory is complete. The 
legislature, by more than a two-thirds majority, has 
appropriated the $1,433,429.50, and the governor has 
approved the Act. 
After six years of almost continuous effort on the part 
of the active friends of this enlightened project, it is 
secured by alaw which declares that the lands are pur- 
chased by the state in order that they may be “ restored 
to, and preserved in, a s/a/e of nature,” and that every 
part of them shall be for ever free of access to all 
mankind. 
NOTES 
WE understand that on the receipt by the Science and Art 
Department from the Foreign Office of a despatch from Her 
Majesty’s Ministerat Washington forwarding communications con- 
cerning the proposed change in the time for beginning the astro- 
nomical day, as recommended by the recent International 
Meridian Conference at Washington, the Lords of the Committee 
of Council on Education requested the following Committee to 
advise them as to what steps should be taken in the matter. 
Prof. J. C. Adams, F.R.S., the Astronomer-Royal, Capt. Sir 
F, Evans, K.C.B., R.N., the Hydrographer of the Navy, 
Gen. Strachey, R.E., C.S.I., F.R.S., Dr. Hind, F.R.S., and 
Col. Donnelly, R.E. In accordance with their recommendations 
copies of the Report of the Delegates to the International Prime 
Meridian Conference at Washington, together with the resolu- 
tions adopted by that body, have been sent to various depart- 
ments of the State, and to the following Societies, &c. : Society 
of Telegraphic Engineers, Royal Astronomical Society, Royal 
Society, Submarine Telegraph Company, Eastern Telegraph 
Company (Limited), Eastern and South African Telegraph 
Company (Limited), Eastern Extension, Australasia and China 
Telegraph Company (Limited), Railway Clearing House. They 
have been informed that these resolutions of the Prime Meridian 
Conference appear to my Lords of the Committee of Council to 
be such as commend themselves for adoption. But before in- 
forming the American Government to that effect their Lordships 
would be glad to receive the opinion of the various societies on 
the subject. 
THE annual meeting for the election of Fellows of the Royal 
Society was held at Burlington House on Thursday, June 4, the 
President in the chair. The following were elected :—Major 
A. W. Baird, R.E., Philip Herbert Carpenter, D.Sc., Sir 
Andrew Clark, Bart., M.D., Andrew Ainslie Common, 
F.R.A.S., Staff-Commander Ettrick William Creak, R.N., 
Prof. Edward Divers, Henry Hicks, M.D., William Mitchison 
Hicks, M.A., Francis R. Japp, Ph. D., Arthur Milnes Marshall, 
M.D., Prof. Henry Newell Martin, D.Sc., Cornelius O’Sullivan, 
Prof. John Perry, Prof. Sydney Ringer, Sidney Howard Vines, 
D.Sc. 
THE Davis lectures upon zoological subjects will be given in 
the Lecture Room in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, Regent’s 
Park, on Thursdays, at 5 p.m. The first was given on Thurs- 
day, June 4, the subject being ‘‘ Rhinoceroses and their Extinct 
Allies,” by Prof. Flower, LL.D., V.P.R.S. The others are :— 
Thursday, June 11, ‘“‘Apes and Lemurs,” by Dr. St. George 
Mivart, F.R.S. ; Thursday, June 18, ‘‘ The Structure of the 
Swan,” by Prof. W. K. Parker, F.R.S. ; Thursday, June 25, 
“‘The Domestic Cat,” by J. E. Harting, F.L.S.; Thursday, 
July 2, ‘‘ Recent Advances in Zoology,” by Prof. F. Jeffrey 
Bell, M.A. ; Thursday, July 9, ‘‘The Ancestors of Birds,” by 
F. E. Beddard, M.A. ; Thursday, July 16, ‘‘ The Animals of 
New Guinea,” by P. L. Sclater, F.R.S. 
IN the second edition of his work, ‘‘ Sur]’Origine du Monde,” 
M. Faye has promulgated the following hypothesis regarding 
the relations between the geological epochs and the stages of the 
terrestrial cosmogony. The history of the earth he divides into 
six stadia. The first is that in which the earth was a glowing 
ball. The second he calls the Antezote period, in which total dark- 
ness supervened on the extinction of the earth’s glow. The third 
is the Primary period, during which there was a feeble illumina- 
tion from the sun, which was then just coming into existence. 
During the Secondary peried the sunlight went on increasing as 
the sun itself grew larger and assumed its proper shape. In the 
fifth stadium, which is that of the Zertzary period, there was 
complete solar illumination, and the sun soon attained the maxi- 
mum of its activity; while in the last stadium, that of the 
Quaternary period, there has been a slight diminution of the 
solar activity (rather surmised than demonstrated), accompanied 
by the diappearance of every cosmogonic influence and the 
establishment of perfect stability in almost all directions. 
Oscillations in the earth’s crust and feeble volcanic manifesta- 
tions are almost the only instances of cosmogonic change still 
observable. 
WE have received from MM. Fol et Sarasin a copy of a paper 
by them on the depth to which the light of the sun will pene- 
trate into the sea. It will be remembered that in November 
last they recounted the results of their experiments on the same 
subject in the Lake of Geneva. The present paper describes 
similar experiments made in the Mediterranean off the zoologi- 
cal station and harbour of Villefranche. By means of photo- 
graphic plates they have proved that in the month of March, in 
the middle of a sunny day, the rays of the sun do not penetrate 
beyond 400 metres below the surface of the Mediterranean. 
| This is established by seven separate experiments, at varying 
[Yume 11, 1885 
