156 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 5. 



Solothiini. Of the last, Jules Thurmanti, the author 

 of the classification of the remarkable orography of 

 the .Jura mountains, says, " La coupe de M. Merian 

 fut pour moi un vif trait de lumiere, qui me donna 

 sur le cliamp la clef du de'dale ou inon imagination 

 avait souvent cherch^ un fil conducteur." The Black 

 Forest was also carefully studied by Merian. Finally, 

 in company with his friend, the late Escher von der 

 Linth, he solved that vexed problem, the geological 

 age of the celebrated formation of St. Cassian in the 

 Alps. Merian was a great friend of Agassiz, who 

 published his fossils in his Poissons fossiles, Echino- 

 dermes de la Suisse and Monographie des myes ; and 

 he was among the first to accept the theory of glaciers 

 and a ' glacial epoch.' 



— Those who have profited by Troschel's valuable 

 work, Das gebiss der schnecken, will be glad to know 

 that it is not to be left incomplete by the author's 

 death. The publishers, at the suggestion of Profes- 

 sor von Martens, have made arrangements with Herr 

 Schako of Berlin to carry the work on at least to the 

 end of the Rhiphidoglossa, and perhaps through the 

 Docoglossa. Time will determine wlrether a still 

 farther extension of its scope will be practicable. 

 Professor Troschel left no unpublished manuscript, 

 but a certain number of unfigured preparations; 

 while the whole series previously figured are in good 

 condition, mounted on microscopic slides, and form 

 a large and valuable collection, now at Berlin. 



— The American academy of arts and sciences held 

 an adjourned stated meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 

 14. Louis Pasteur was elected as foreign honorary 

 member in place of the late Charles R. Darwin, and 

 Matthew Arnold as foreign honorary member in 

 place of the late Arthur P. Stanley. The following 

 papers were presented: Quantitative researches in 

 photography, by William H. Pickering; Photography 

 as a means of determining the light and color of the 

 stars, by Edward C. Pickering and William H. Pick- 

 ering; On the historical hydrography of the west 

 coast of North America, by Justin Winsor. 



— The Philosophical society of Washington, at its 

 meeting Feb. 24, listened to papers by Prof. J. W. 

 ■Chickering, on the Thermal belts of North Carolina; 

 by Mr. G. K. Gilbert, on The response of terres- 

 trial climate to secular variations in solar radiation ; 

 and by Capt. C. E. Dutton, on The geology of the 

 Hawaiian islands. 



— The National academy of sciences will liold its 

 annual meeting in Washington, April 17 and suc- 

 ceeding days, and, on the last day of the session, 

 witness the unveiling of the statue of Professor 

 Henry, by Story, upon the Smithsonian grounds. 



— At a meeting of the section of chemistry and 

 physics of the Ohio mechanics' institute, Marcli 1, 

 papers were presented on the Discovery of a method 

 for iridium-plating, by Prof. William L. Dudley; 

 Studies in chemical dynamics (abstract from Ost- 



wald); the Pliosphides of platinum, and a Chemi- 

 cal theory of odors, by Prof. F. W. Clarke. The 

 latter provoked considerable discussion. 



At a meeting of the section of meclianics and 

 engineering, Feb. 27, Mr. J. G. Danks read a paper 

 on the History of the mechanical puddling-furnace. 



— Those of our readers who happen to live at a 

 little distance from the lieart of a city must frequently 

 have noticed a lack of accord between the readings 

 of their own standard thermometers and the pub- 

 lished observations of the signal-service observer of 

 their locality. The reason of the discord is plain; 

 viz., the perturbing action of the heat whicli the city 

 emits: and, however gratifying it may be to the out- 

 sider to find himself superior to the government ob- 

 servers, it is very little to the credit of the weather 

 bureau that this particular source of error was not 

 long since recognized and avoided. From the scien- 

 tific point of view, it is simjily lamentable that many 

 an old suburban fogy, operating, i^erhaps, with a 

 shilling thermometer, is to-day getting better obser- 

 vations of minimum temperatures — observations 

 which, poor and incomplete as they are, are really 

 more accurate, and which would in the future be 

 more useful if they could only be preserved and pub- 

 lished — than the U. S. signal-service observers can 

 obtain within the city, in spite of their training and 

 prestige, and of their perfected instruments and ap- 

 pliances. 



The remarks of Professor Whitney on this subject, 

 as applied to observations made at Ijondon, are so 

 pertinent and convincing, and they bear so directly 

 upon our own city of Boston, that we quote them 

 Irere as a just expression of scientific opinion. In his 

 'Climatic changes of later geological times' (p. 228), 

 while criticising certain conclusions of Glaisher, Pro- 

 fessor Whitney says, — , 



" It is a well-known fact, that cities are considerably wal-mei- 

 than the more thinly inhabited country, otherwise under similar 

 climatic conditions. Statistics prove this to be true; and there 

 could be no doubt that such would be the effect of .an immense 

 aggregation of population within a limited space, even if there 

 were no statistics bearing on this question. Many millions of 

 tons of coal arc burned in and about London during every year; 

 and the whole mass of brick of which the city is built is heated 

 during the entire winter, and more or less in the summer, many 

 degrees above the natural temperature. There can be no ques- 

 tion that conditions such as are here indicated vitiate all obser- 

 vations made in or near large cities, with ,1 view to the determi- 

 nation of any possible secular variation of the temperature." It 

 is to be regretted that " most of the longer records of temperature 

 come from observatories situated either within or very near to 

 cities where the conditions have not remained the same, but have 

 been rapidly changing, and in such a way, we have good reason 

 to believe, as to produce a decided effect on the temperature." 



— Dr. G. Steinmann, privat decent at the Deutsch- 

 land university of Strassburg, writes from the Straits 

 of Magellan, under date of Dec. 23, that he has ex- 

 plored the whole Brunswick peninsula (Tierra del 

 Fuego), and that at Mount Tarn, Port Famine, he 



