192 BULLETIN OF THE 



the meteoric stones may form but a small part of the entire 

 aggregate of the earth's aerolithic acquisitions. There is also 

 much reason to believe that aerolithic action was vastly more 

 elBcient in the remote past than at present. The quantity of 

 aerolithic matter capable of furnishing such acquisitions must 

 have been perpetually diminishing, unless it is infinite ; and if it 

 is scattered through infinite space, it is reasonable to suppose that 

 the number and quantity of the stars is also infinite. Unless this 

 infinity is of a lower order than that w^hich represents the quan- 

 tity of aerolithic matter, the latter must have been perpetually in 

 process of exhaustion, 



Kemarks were made by Mr. Harkness on the similarity of the 

 spectra of comets and heated meteoric stones ; by Mr. Powell 

 on the want of any geological indications of meteoric accumu- 

 lations ; by Mr. Hall on the marked eccentricity of the orbit 

 of the inner satellite of Mars, while the orbit of the outer satel- 

 lite is nearly circular ; and by Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Alvord. 



Mr. E. B. Elliott made a communication on a proposed in- 

 strument which he called 



the telephote, 



in which, alluding to the fact that the public mind at the present 

 time was much exercised on the subject of the telephone, an 

 instrument for the transmission of sound to a distance, he sug- 

 gested that by the passage of intermittent electrical currents 

 through rarefied vapor by means of the apparatus known as the 

 Gassiot or Geissler tubes, the vibrations of the plate may be 

 made visible, and thus might be applied with advantage for the 

 benefit of deaf mutes, conveying an intelligent impression of 

 music, and perhaps speech, to the eye. 



Mr, Thomas Antisell made a communication on 



temperatures op the pacific ocean, 



exhibiting charts by which were represented for particular por- 

 tions of each year the temperature of the water as noted during 

 fifty trips of one of the Pacific mail steamers between San Fran- 

 cisco and Yokohama. On the Asiatic side the minimum temper- 

 ature was 60° in March ; the maximum 84° in July. On the 

 American side the minimum and maximum in the same months 



