782 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. U., No. 4r,. 



the same year, machines were introduced ; so tliat an 

 opening was made just tliree years to a day from the 

 first time tliat tlie point of the drill, driven by com- 

 pressed air, was forced into the gneiss of the Arlberg. 

 The laying of the road is to be completed in six 

 months, so that business may be conducted about the 

 middle of May. 



The St. Gothard tunnel is 14,900 metres long. The 

 boring in Airolo and Goschenen began in 1873. After 

 seven and a half years' work, the last layer of rocks 

 was broken through Feb. 29, ISSO; and June 1, after 

 nine years and a quarter consumed in its construction, 

 the road was opened to commerce. The Mount Cenis 

 tunnel (12,323 metres long) was built in fourteen 

 years and a quarter. 



With the completion of the Arlberg tunnel by the 

 union of the Adriatic Sea and Europe's granary, 

 Hungary, a further connection is established with the 

 heart of the continent. The Arlberg road, therefore, 

 has not only for Austria-Hungary, but more espe- 

 cially for Switzerland, great commercial and political 

 significance. 



— Dr. H. Newell Martin, of Johns Hopkins univer- 

 sity, gave, in November, four lectures on the minds of 

 animals, before the Peabody institute of Baltimore, 

 covering the subjects of instinct and reason, the emo- 

 tions and moral sense, in animals. 



— La Nature presents an illustration of the new 

 form of equatorially mounted telescope, lately set up 

 at the observatory of Paris, in which the tube of the 

 instrument is bent at right angles ; one portion of it 

 constituting the polar axis of its mounting, and the 

 other moving thus in the plane of the equator. The 

 rays of light from any celestial object are brought to 

 the eye of the observer after reflection from two mir- 

 rors, the loss of light from which is said to be inap- 

 preciable. This form of mounting does away with 

 the customary dome covering the equatorial ; and the 

 observatory may be said to consist of two parts, — the 

 movable one, covering the oliject-glass end of the tele- 

 scope; and the fixed part, that in which the observer 

 sits and makes his observations, completely protected 

 against tlie weather. The new instrument is the 

 most powerful one at the Paris observatory, and was 

 built by MM. Eichens and Gauthier, and the broth- 

 ers Henry. The form of construction is due to M. 

 Loewy, and it has been built through the liberality 

 of M. Bischoffsheim. 



— In a late number of Naturen, Dr. Geelmuyden 

 has a paper entitled ' Om Islaeudernes gamle kalen- 

 dere,' or the ancient calendars of the Icelanders, the 

 chief peculiarity of which lay In the regarding of 

 the week as the unit of measurement of time. There 

 ■was also a year of fifty-two weeks, or three hundred 

 and sixty-four days, as also twelve months of thirty 

 days each; the last of these coming in the summer, 

 and having the Sumar-auke, or summer addition of 

 the four extra days. Tlie half-years were called mis- 

 seri, and were more frequently employed as a meas- 

 urement of time than the full year itself. About the 

 year 1000, when Christianity was introduced into 

 Iceland, the calendar of that nation was modified into 

 a near approximation to the Julian calendar; and 



early in the year 1700 the new style of reckoning was 

 adopted in Iceland, at the same time with Norway 

 and Denmark. 



— The following persons, formerly connected with 

 Johns Hopkins university, have received recent ap- 

 pointments: Edward Barnes, professor of the higher 

 mathematics in the Rose polytechnic institiite, Terre 

 Haute, Ind. ; William C. Day, professor of chemistry 

 and physics in St. John's college, Annapolis; George 

 S. Ely. professor of mathematics in Buchtel college, 

 Ohio; Kakichi Mitsukuri, professor of zoiilogy in the 

 University of Tokio, Japan; William A. Noyes, pro- 

 fessor of chemistry in the University of Tennessee; 

 and William T. Sedgwick, assistant professor of biol- 

 ogy in the Massachusetts institute of technology, 

 Boston. It is also stated by the Nation that Dr. 

 C. S. Hastings has received the appointment to the 

 chair of physics in the Sheffield scientific school of 

 Tale college. New Haven. 



— Dr. John Kae writes in the Athenaeum, "In the 

 Athenaeum of the 2Sth of July there is an extract 

 from a letter of Capt. H. P. Dawson, to the following 

 effect: ' On inquiry, I find that all the far-off Indians 

 describe stone pyramids or altars on the tops of some 

 of the hills far to the north and east of this, . . . 

 composed of blocks of roughly hewn stone of a size 

 such that the men of these days cannot lift. . . . 

 The Indians look uijon these remains with great dread, 

 and will not go near them.' I do sincerely hope that 

 Capt. Dawson may discover something new on these 

 reported monuments of 'roughly hewn stone;' but 

 I fear they will be found to be the well-known work of 

 the Eskimo, who, where the country is hilly and rocky, 

 delight in putting up stones of very considerable size 

 — although not larger than a few men can lift — in all 

 sorts of picturesque forms, especially in the neigh- 

 borhood of a favorite camping-place. An excellent 

 illustration of these Eskimo constructions may be 

 seen in the narrative of Sir George Back (facing 

 p. 37S), describing his descent of the Great Fish Kiver 

 in 1834. The Indians, unless they are in great num- 

 bers, have a very wholesome and wide-spread fear of 

 the Eskimo, and therefore have a ' great dread of going 

 near these remains,' thinking they might meet the 

 peojjle who built them." 



— Professor William Trelease, of the University of 

 Wisconsin, will give four lectures in January, upon 

 the fertilization of flowers, before the Johns Hopkins 

 university. ■ 



— It is stated in Nature that the meeting of the 

 Linnean society of London for Dec. G was to be ex- 

 clusively devoted to the reading of a posthumous 

 essay on instinct, by the late Mr. Darwin. The 

 essay was said to be full of important and hitherto 

 tmpublished matter with regard to the facts of ani- 

 mal instinct considered in the light of the theory of 

 natural selection; and, as the existence of the essay 

 has only now been divulged, this meeting of the 

 Linnean society must have been of an unusually in- 

 teresting character. 



— Prof. S. P.Langley, of Allegheny observatory,will 

 give six illustrated lectures next February, on the sun 

 and stars, before the Peabody institute of Baltimore. 



