Jdly 0, iss:?.] 



SCIENCE. 



29 



— Tbe Coinision del mapa geologico tie Espana 

 has just published, for the Exposicion'de inineria at 

 Madrid, a brief account of the historj- of the survey 

 from its beginning, aliout the year 1S31, under D. 

 Angel Vallejo, down to the present time. Two maps 

 show the condition of the work in March, 1S73, at 

 tbe beginning of the present system of the survey, and 

 in March of the present year, showing how great an 

 amount of work has been done in the last ten years. 

 Eighteen provinces are finished ; viz., Oviedo, Mar 

 drid, S.intander, C.istellon, Albacele, Murcia, Tc- 

 ruel, Cadiz, Zaragoza, Cuenca, Cdcercs, Valladolid, 

 Huesca, Avila, Salamanca, Guadalajara, Barcelona, 

 and Valencia. More or less has been published con- 

 cerning twenty-three other provinces, but their full 

 descriptive memoirs are still to appear ; viz., Corufia, 

 Lugo, Orense, Pontevedra, .Segovia, I'alencia, 15a- 

 leares, Alicante, Burgos, Logroflo, Soria, Alava, Gui- 

 piizcoa. Vizcaya, Tarragona. Iluclva, Toledo, Badajoz, 

 Cordoba, Ciudad-Keal, Granada, Navarre, and Al- 

 meria. Seven provinces are entirely unpublished or 

 under study ; namely, Leon, L^rida, Zamora, Malaga, 

 Gerona, Jadn, and Sevilla. A rough draught of the 

 final map, on the scale of 1 : 400,0(X), is shown in the 

 exposition, upon which all the work done up to date 

 is entered. 



— The Belgian photographic association has orga- 

 nized an international exhibition of photography to 

 be held, during the month of August, 3SS3, in the 

 palais des beaux-arts at Brussels. 



— The sixth international congress of orientalists 

 will be held at Leyden, Sept. 10. 



— The international congress of societies for the 

 prevention of cruelty to animals will be held at 

 Vienna in September. A number of local societies, 

 among thoin those of Berlin, Cologne, Munich, 

 Dresden, and Hanover, besides sever.al Spanish 

 Italian, and Russian, have expressed their intention 

 to be represented. 



— The British association for the advancement of 

 science meets this year at Southport, Sept. 10. 



— Dr. William Lee read before the Philosophical 

 society of Washington, June 2, a paper on medical 

 lilstory as Illustrated by medals ; Prof. Theo. Gill 

 discussed analogues in zoogeography. The society 

 then adjourned till October. 



The Mathematical section of tlie society adjourned 

 for the summer on June 6. At the last two meet- 

 ing.*, Mr. G. W. Hill discussed the planetary pertur- 

 bations of the moon, Mr. (J. K. Gilbert explained the 

 construction of graphic tables for use in connection 

 with his new nuahod of determining heights from 

 barometric data, and Mr. E. B. Elliott gave an Im- 

 proved system of.elcctrical units. 



— An excursion to northern Xorway and Spitzber- 

 gen is ))rojected for some of the students at the Paris 

 Ecole des mines. Tno French naturalists will ai- 

 company the party, which will charier a steamer 

 directed by a competent arctic navigator for the pur- 

 pose. 



— Professor Fries has proposed tlie colonization of 

 Greenland by Lapps, on the liypothesis that in the 

 interior, in summer, abundant reindeer-pasture can 



be found. How the reindeer are to get at it does not 

 seem to Lave been considered, nor liow tliey are to 

 be subsisted during their travels over the continental 

 Ice-slieet. 



— Mr. Oliver W. Huntington, assistant in the 

 chemical laboratory of Harvard college, lias edited a 

 book of five-place logarithms, which will finally form 

 part of a set of tables mostly for use in chemical cal- 

 culations, but is now published in separate form. 

 The logarithm tables are well arranged, and very 

 clearly printed. The book is published by Moses 

 King, Cambridge. 



— The museum at Oxford, Eng., lias lately bought 

 the unique collection of Silurian fossils of Dr. Grin- 

 drad of Malvern. 



— It Is rare to find, at the present time, a scientific 

 memoir in Latin. Aloysius Molina, a student at 

 Pisa, has, however, recurred to the ancient custom, 

 and has published a memoir, • De hnmlnis inamma- 

 liumque cute,' in volume v. of the Alii tlella socieKt 

 Toscana. The opening sentence sufficiently describes 

 the paper: " Expectans dum Ranvierus in Inccm 

 perfecte proferat concluslones omnes suarnm inves- 

 tigationum de intima structura cutis, prodesse exis- 

 timo breviter quae praeclpua facta sunt resiunere, 

 nonnullas conslderationes addens, quas ipse feci dum 

 per duos annos ad Anatomicam .Scientlam meum 

 adhlberi sludium in Laboratorlo Anatomiae Com- 

 parativae hujus unlversitatis." The 'nonnullas 

 conslderationes, quas ipse feci ' one finds not very 

 numerous, the chief value of the paper being as a 

 summary. A good bibliography is appended. 



— Much progress has been made at the Lick obser- 

 vatory during the past year. The dome for the 

 twelve-inch equatorial has been entirely completed 

 in a very thorough manner. It is, without any doubt, 

 the most convenient and complete dome of tbe size 

 in the country. The four-inch transit-house, and 

 the buildings for the photohellogr.aph, are in capital 

 working order. They were utilized last December 

 in a very successful observation of the transit of 

 Venus. The walls of the main building are half 

 done, and the cellar for the dome of the (hirly-six- 

 inch equatorial is excavated. Many of the original 

 arrangements of the buildings and grounds were 

 only provisional, and these are being repl.aced by 

 others more substantial and permanent. A brick 

 reservoir containing 83,000 gallons of water (deri%-ed 

 from three springs) has been built during the season; 

 another of 20,000 gallons (spring-water), and another 

 of 83,000 gallons (rain-water), will shortly be begun. 

 The roads have been extended. The house for the 

 meridian circle (Repsold) will be begun in a few 

 weeks, as well as a house for the astronomers, and 

 buildings to contain the appliances for heating and 

 ligiiting the buildings and moving the dome. The 

 end of this season will show great progress. 



— The division of entomology of the U. S. depart- 

 ment of agriculture has begun the publication of a 

 series of bulletins for the purpose of placing before 

 the public, current matter that would either lose 

 much of its value if kept for tlie annual report, or 

 find uo space in the limited pages of that volume. 



