January 6, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



35 



dwells ou the plains east of the Oregon moun- 

 tains, but uo definite locality is given under the 

 description of F. oregonensis. 



The indefiniteness of the opening paragraph 

 whei'e the forms are stated to occur, both east 

 and west of the mountains, makes this name 

 apparently applicable to either the Puma of the 

 Rocky Mountains or the Northwest coast re- 

 gion. However, the fact that the other species 

 (macroura) is said to occur east of the mountains, 

 gives this form the benefit of whatever the use 

 of the word ' west ' was intended to imply, and, 

 furthermore, the dark color which is distinctly 

 pointed out would seem to fix the name orego- 

 nensis on the Northwest coast form.* 



Dr. Merriam, in Proceedings of the Biological 

 Society of Washington, July 15, 1897, p. 219- 

 220, proposed the name Felis hippolestes for the 

 Puma of the Koeky Mountains, and Felis hippo- 

 lestes Olympus for the Northwest coast form, ap- 

 parently overlooking the paper by Rafiuesque. 



In view of the evidence here set forth, it 

 seems that Rafinesque's name must be recog- 

 nized, and I would, therefore, suggest that the 

 proper names for the two animals should be 



Felis oregonensis (Raf.) Northwest Coast 

 Puma. 



Felis oregonensis hippolestes (Merr.) Rocky 

 Mountain Puma. 



Wither Stone. 



Academy of Natural Sciences, 

 Philadelphia, December 9, 1898. 



THE SCHMIDT- DICKERT MOON MODEL. 



The installation of the Schmidt- Dickert relief 

 model of the moon in a scientific institution de- 

 serves, perhaps, a passing notice. This seems 

 the more desirable since in so generally accu- 

 rate a work as' Webb's Celestial Objects for Com- 

 mon Telescopes,' edition of 1896, the statement 

 is made that this model is in Bonn. It has not 

 been in Bonn for fully twenty years, and for 

 most of that time has been in this country. 



While occasionally exhibitions have been made 

 of the model during this time they have been of 

 short duration and in different cities, so that, 

 for this time at least, it has been practically 

 lost to the world. Through the generosity of 



*' Oregon ' of this date, of course, included the pres- 

 ent State of Washington and much of British Colum- 

 bia. 



Mr. Lewis Reese, a citizen of Chicago, the 

 model has now come into the possession of the 

 Field Columbian Museum and has lately been 

 installed in this institution. It is now, there- 

 fore, freely available for purposes of study and 

 instruction. Since it has been so long lost from 

 view some facts regarding the model may be of 

 interest. It was constructed in 1854 by Th. 

 Dickert, Curator of the National History Mu- 

 seum in Bonn, under the direction and with 

 the cooperation of Dr. J. F. Julius Schmidt. 

 The name of the latter is of itself sufficient 

 guarantee of the accuracy and perfection of de- 

 tail exhibited by the model, especially as Dr. 

 Schmidt states that he tested with his own hand 

 the accuracy of nearly all the measurements. 

 So much labor was necessary in order to insure 

 accuracy in the details that the work of model- 

 ling and construction occupied five years. The 

 model is in the form of a hemisphere, 18 Paris 

 feet (19.2 English feet), in diameter. Its hor- 

 izontal scale bears the ratio to that of the moon 

 of 1:600,000, the vertical 1:200,000. It is made 

 up of 116 sections, each 15 degrees in length by 

 15 degrees in breadth. The consecutively joined 

 edges of these sections serve to mark upon the 

 surface of the model, parallels and meridians. 

 The different colors exhibited by different parts 

 of the moon are also depicted upon the model, 

 the prevailing color being a dull yellow, broken 

 by gray-green where the ' seas ' occur, and by 

 representations in lighter yellow of the bright 

 streaks which radiate so prominently from some 

 of the craters. The orientation which has been 

 adopted for the model is the normal one of the 

 moon, not inverted as it is when seen through 

 an astronomical telescope. The north pole 

 of the hemisphere is therefore above, the 

 south pole below ; east is to the left, and 

 west to the right. The surface details of 

 relief shown upon the model are based upon 

 the charts of Beer and Madler, but many new 

 localities were added from the observations of 

 Dr. Schmidt himself. In all over 20,000 dis- 

 tinct localities are represented, modelled pro- 

 portionally according to the relief which they 

 present upon the moon. One may, therefore, 

 study the relief with the greatest confidence 

 that the actual topography of the moon is rep- 

 resented, and is spared the confusion arising 



