208 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 7. 



last four years, and increasing rapidly, have been 

 formed. A newly discovered shell-heap in Ipswich 

 has been opened, and every specimen of value saved ; 

 giving the only single shell-heap contents, as yet 

 systematically preserved, from this county. In the 

 early spring some 75 hardy western catalpa-trees, 

 from five to eight feet high, were distributed gratui- 

 tously to persons in the county who would give the 

 tree a fair trial, and report results. 



— The meteorological bureau of Ohio proposes to 

 establish a system of weather-signals to be displayed 

 on railway trains, making use, of course, of the pre- 

 dictions furnished by the U. S. signal service. Ar- 

 rangements have already been made with one road 

 leading out of Columbus ; and a system of signalling 

 will be put in operation as soon as the best form of 

 signals can be determined upon. 



— The chief publications on natural science issued 

 in Bengal the past year were catechisms of sanitation 

 and hygiene for use in the schools in Bengal, and 

 text-books of algebra, arithmetic, and physical geog- 

 raphy. Baboo Kasi Charan Gupta published tlie first 

 volume of a Bengalese translation of an English work 

 upon surgery. 



— The lecture of Major J. W. Powell, upon In- 

 dian mythology, which was announced in the pro- 

 gramme of the Washington Saturday scientific course 

 for the 10th inst., was not delivered, owing to the ill- 

 ness of the lecturer. Mr. G. K. Gilbert, who acted 

 as substitute, spoke upon the Ancient lakes of the 

 Great Basin. 



— Geographers and meteorologists will regret to 

 learn that the bill making appropriations for the Sig- 

 nal-service of the U. S. army, which passed the last 

 Congress, requires the parties at Point Barrow and 

 Lady Franklin Bay to be recalled, if possible, from 

 the field. It appears that the bill would have been 

 mandatory were it not for the doubt as to whether 

 Lady Franklin Bay can be reached next summer; and, 

 in any case, we may expect the Point Barrow party 

 to be withdrawn. An attempt will be made, however, 

 to utilize the relief expedition to the last locality, by 

 observations with the pendulum, etc., during the stay 

 of the vessel. It is to be hoped, at least, that the ob- 

 servations will iiot be interrupted before the end of 

 September; since several of the international parties 

 did not get well at work before that time in 1SS2, and 

 the observations for one co-ojierative year will not 

 be complete if any of the parties are interrupted in 

 their work at an earlier date in 1883. 



— The report of the Board of commissioners of the 

 Second geological survey of Pennsylvania to the legis- 

 lature, Jan. 1, 1883, contains a colored map showing 

 the progress of the survey up to Dec. 31, 1882. There 

 remains unsurveyed a large part of Huntingdon and 

 Centre counties, a small part of Clinton, and parts 

 of Schuylkill, Carbon, Berks, Bucks, Montgomery, 

 and Clearfield counties. In the anthracite region a 



number of underground maps have been prepared. 

 Twenty such are finished, and with them a number 

 of accompanying sections. The appropriation for 

 the anthracite work is not sufiicient ; and they esti- 

 mate the cost of completing it at SjiSOjOOO, and the 

 time necessary at three years. 



The Chester and Delaware county reports (C4 and 

 5), the Warren county report (I 4), and the Lehigh 

 and Northampton report (D 3), will be issued shortly, 

 as soon as the rest of the illustrations are printed. 



It is to be hoped that the legislature will provide 

 the necessary funds for the completion of the valua- 

 ble work of this survey, and that a general index 

 will be prepared, rendering the work of the survey 

 more accessible than it is at present, owing to the 

 large number of volumes, and the somewhat imper- 

 fect tables of contents or indexes attached to each vol- 

 ume. We also hope for some contributions from the 

 survey to American paleontology, in addition to Les- 

 quereux's memoirs on the fossil floras, and are sorry 

 to see no mention of any such work. 



— At a meeting of the Ohio state forestry associa- 

 tion, March 10, it was decided to call a general state 

 convention in the interests of forestry, to be held in 

 Cincinnati, April 26 and 27. Communications, both 

 scientific and practical, are solicited by the secretary, 

 Adolph Leu6, Camp Washington, Cincinnati, O. 



— The census oflBce has recently published a bulle- 

 tin concerning the timber resources of West Virginia 

 (No. 25 of the Forestry series). The forests consist 

 chiefly of broad-leaved trees, the narrow-leaved trees 

 (white pine and spruce) being confined chiefly to the 

 higher mountains. The white pine covers about 310 

 square miles, which are estimated to contain 990,000,- 

 000 feet of merchantable lumber. The broad-leaved 

 forests consist in the main of white and chestnut 

 oaks, black walnut (which is wide-spread, but most 

 abundant in the south-west), yellow poplar, and 

 cherry (which is abundant in Greenbriar, Nicholas, 

 and Webster counties, and the country adjoining 

 them). 



The lumber product of the state during the census 

 year was valued at $2,431,857. Along the Ohio and 

 its principal branches, especially in the north-west- 

 ern part of the state, all the valuable timber has been 

 cut. 



The bulletin is accompanied by a map, showing, in 

 colors, the different classes of forests, and the area 

 from which the valuable timber has been removed. 



— Mr. James C. Pilling, of the Bureau of ethnolo- 

 gy at Washington, has published in a separate pam- 

 phlet his Catalogue of Ihiguistic manuscripts in the 

 library of the Bureau of ethnology, which first ap- 

 peared in Major Powell's first annual report. The 

 vocabularies of Schoolcraft, Gibbs, Gallatin, Hale, 

 and the Smithsonian institution, have been used for 

 many years in gathering Indian linguistic luaterial. 

 Some of these have been published; others had been 



