726 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol.. II., No. 43. 



descriptions of t.liese plienomena are sufficiently ex- 

 act to be valuable for purposes ot calculation, suggests, 

 in a letter to the editor of Nature, the proper raelliods 

 of useful observation of these bodies. Kougli esti- 

 mates of the direction and position of flight are of 

 little utility; and the vague statements often made 

 occasion an endless source of difficulty in the satis- 

 factory reduction of results. The observers of large 

 meteors should attend scrupulously to that most es- 

 sential detail, the direction of flight, and express it by 

 some method of uniformity. In place of the custom- 

 ary vague and variable methods of description of the 

 apparent paths of these bodies, Mr. Denning suggests 

 that observers uniformly give the right ascension and 

 declination of the beginning and end points of the 

 visible paths, — elements which admit of ready deter- 

 mination by projecting the observed flights iipon a 

 star-chart or celestial globe, and reading them off. 

 This system would render the after-comparison of 

 observations a work of greater facility and precision. 

 Though the direction of flight is the all-import.ant 

 element to be determined by meteor-observers, some 

 minor points — as the time of appearance, brightness, 

 and approximate duration — should be recorded when- 

 ever feasible : also whether the body is accompanied 

 by phosphoric streaks or spark-trains. If this were 

 done more systematically, the observations of fire- 

 balls would acquire additional value, and quite pos- 

 sibly might develop some new facts either as to their 

 appearance or origin. 



— Mr. Thomas Gaffield read a paper on glass and 

 glass-making, illustrated by specimens, at a meeting 

 of the Society of arts of the Massachusetts institute 

 of technology, Nov. 22. 



— At the meeting of the Portland, Me., society of 

 natural history, Nov. 19, the president, Dr. Wood, 

 gave account of the iinearthing of bones of some 

 unknown animal from a peat-bed on Ragged Island, 

 Casco Bay, by Capt. Thomas Skolfield in 1835. 

 Eighty-five feet in length of vertebral bones were 

 taken out and thrown away. The head and tail were 

 not uncovered, and the animal was estimated to be 

 a hundred and ten feet long. No ribs were found, 

 and no marks of rib attachment appeared on any of 

 the vertebrae, which were hard and smooth. Only 

 four bones were saved: two were given to the Port- 

 land society, but were burned in 1854; the other two 

 have been lost sight of, but were said to have been 

 taken to the Philadelphia academy in 1836 or 1837, 

 by a Mr. Coolidge. Of the two given to the society, 

 the large one was unquestionably a vertebra: its 

 length was from fourteen to sixteen inches ; its diam- 

 eter, nine or ten inches on the articular faces, and 

 eight midway. The other bone was limpet-shaped, 

 four or five inches in diameter and height. The shape 

 and size of these bones are well remembered by mem- 

 bers of the society, and Capt. Skolfield ; and the story 

 of the last is well vouched by many others. 



Two unsuccessful atteraiits have been made by the 

 society to unearth more bones. Another trial will be 

 made nest season. 



— On the retirement of Mr. 11. Hering from the 

 presidency of the Engineers' club of Philadelphia, at 



the I'lose of its fifth year, he gave a summary of recent 

 progress {Proc. en<j. club Philad., iii.). The work of 

 the late IT. S. board appointed to test iron, steel, and 

 other metals, was referred to: and it was stated that 

 there was at least some possibility that its work may 

 be in time resumed. The chief of ordnance recom- 

 mends that an appropriation of ten thousand dollars 

 be made by Congress for the purpose, as urged by the 

 convention of the societies of civil, mechanical, and 

 mining engineers. The differentiation of the profes- 

 sion into the several branches, — civil, meehauical, 

 mining, — and the subdivision of these into special- 

 ties, wore considered as marking the tendency of re- 

 cent change. Inventions are coming forward with 

 increasing number and rapidity, but it is becoming 

 each day more evident tliat they are all the |)roducts 

 of growth and ot gradu.al development. No new 

 thing comes into use at once fully perfected. Of 

 accomplished work, the East-river bridge, with its 

 span of 1,1595 feet, suspended !::)5 feet above the water: 

 our Kinzua viaduct .at Bradford, 2,052 feet long, 

 spanning a valley :102 feet below it; the Hendei'son 

 bridge over the Ohio, of 525 feet span; and the great 

 bridge to be built over the Firth of Forth, — are .among 

 the most marvellous. The great canals in progress, 

 or proposed, — that in Florida, opening the Kickpo- 

 cheeLake; the interoceanic canal through the Isth- 

 mus of Panama; the great Sirhund canal in India, 

 .500 miles long: the Corinth canal in Greece: and the 

 Manchester ship-canal, — are evidences that the days 

 of canals are but just commencing. The United 

 States boast to-day ll(i,000 miles of railro.ad, and are 

 building over 30 miles per day, and earning .§550 per 

 mile. Locomotives for the Pennsylvania railroad are 

 built weighing over 00 tons, and make 90 miles in 80 

 minutes. Electricity is a competitor, which, how- 

 ever, is not likely at once to displace steam on the 

 rail. Heat and steam supi>lied from a centr.al station, 

 as at New York, where the New- York steam com- 

 pany are preparing to work 10,000-hor.<ie power of 

 Babcock & Wilcox boilers, 2,000-horse power of which 

 are constiintly al work, is a promising illustration of 

 advance. Electricity similarly distributed, — as by 

 the Edison company .and the Brush company, — and 

 the telephone, ar(^ the latest of these achievements 

 of the profession. Sanitary engineering, although the 

 most essential of all, seems to be the last to come in, 

 and is Init now beginning to take its place. 



— Since the .article in this number on crystals in 

 the bark of forest-trees was in page, the writer has 

 seen a recent work, Anatomic der Baumrindeu, Ber- 

 lin, »1882, Dr. Joseph Moeller, in which the subject is 

 fully treated and richly illustrated. 



— Slicroscopists will regret to learn of the death 

 of -Mr. Eobert B. Tolles at Boston, on the 17th, at 

 the .age of sixty-one. No one has done more than 

 he to raise the standard of excellence of American 

 objectives for the microscope; and his ingenuity in 

 devising speci.al methods to overcome particular diffi- 

 culties is known to all who have tested his powers. 

 He has been in feeble health for several years, but 

 continued to work with astonishing vigor and perti- 

 nacitv. 



