Apbil 20, 1883.] 



SCIENCE. 



319 



discharged liis duties, and served his liing Osorkon II., 

 of the twenty-second dynasty, whose monuments are 

 very rare." — "Several fragments, with portions of 

 the cartouche of Osorlion II." were also found, and 

 " a hawk in red granite more than a metre high, bear- 

 ing between his claws one of the cartouches of 

 Ramses II., the presumed builder of Pithom." — 

 (Academy, March 10.) 



One ruin in Egypt has been fully explored. M. 

 Naville, with sufficient funds at liand, has, in less 

 than two months, ' completed the examination of 

 Pithom.' The result has been the identification of 

 the site, and the determination of some geographical 

 and historical problems. Inscriptions in Greek and 

 Latin prove Pithom to have been Hero, ' the store- 

 house,' and Heroopolis, 'the store-city.' M. Na- 



ville says, " It was Ramses H. who was the founder 

 of the city. He built the storehouse and the temple, 

 but did not finish what he had begun. In the line 

 of the Dromos we find great blocks of granite and 

 of a hard calcareous stone, which had evidently been 

 brought there to make some large tablets or statues, 

 which have been left with marks of the sculptor 

 only. The temple was small, and (the city being 

 chiefly a storehouse and a fortress) had no reason 

 to have many works of art." The Egyptian ex- 

 ploration fund, through the liberality of Sir Erasmus 

 Wilson, has reaped the reward of employing a cool- 

 headed Egyptologist of the first rank, and placing 

 sufficient funds at his command to do bis work 

 quickly and thoroughly. — (Academy, March 17.) 

 H. o. [687 



INTELLIQENCE FROM AMERIQAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 



PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. 



Harvard nniversity, Camtoidge, Mass. 

 The chemical Idboraioi-y. — During his journey in 

 Europe last year, the director added very materially 

 to the means both of instruction and of research at 

 the laboratory. A dynamo-electrical machine, with 

 an adequate motor, has been placed in the basement 

 of the building. The apparatus required for investi- 

 gations in the new branch of the science, called ther- 

 mo-chemistry, has been procured. Several hundred 

 valuable specimens have been added to the mineral 

 cabinet, and placed on exhibition in the cases; and a 

 favorable opportunity enabled the director to procure, 

 at small cost, several thousand characteristic min- 

 eral specimens for the use of students. It has been 

 very difficult, hitherto, to procure suitable specimens 

 in sufficient number* and variety for the large class in 

 mineralogy ; and this want having been thus supplied, 

 the laboratory teaching in this subject will be made 

 more effective. 



MEseam of comparative zoologyi Camljridge, Mass. 



The Schary collection of fossils. — The most valua- 

 ble accession received during the past year is the 

 collection of Silurian fossils of Bohemia, brought to- 

 gether by the late .1. M. von Schary, which has been 

 purchased from his heirs. This collection is of the 

 greatest value to American paleontologists, as it will 

 give them the means of comparing the types of the 

 great collections which have formed the basis of the 

 works of Barrande and of Hall. Some idea of the mag- 

 nitude of this collection may be formed from the fact 

 that it contains over a himdred thousand specimens. 

 Of these, probably two-thirds of the collection — no 

 less than 1,231 species, representing 157 genera — are 

 identified. 



The Schary collection, taken in connection with 

 those brought together from American localities, now 

 makes the museum collection of paleozoic fossil in- 

 vertebrates one of the finest in existence. 



Peabody museum of American arolieology, Cambridge, Mass. 



Shellheaps on the coast of Maine. — The material 

 obtained during last summer's explorations of shell- 

 heaps on the Damariscotta River and Muscongus 

 Sound, is of special interest. At the heap on Keene's 

 Point, considerable pottery was found, and an unusual 

 number of stone implements. In addition to the 

 ordinary implements made of bone, a harpoon-point 



was obtained, having two barbs and a perforation, 

 showing that it was attached to a shaft by a string. 

 In another heap, on Hodgdon's Island, Mr. Gamage 

 found a similar perforated point with a single barb. 

 These are believed to be the first specimens of this 

 character from the Atlantic shellheaps ; and they are of 

 special interest, from their close resemblance to points 

 from the North-western Coast. Most of the stone 

 implements were rudely chipped forms; but one 

 polished stone celt was found at some depth in the 

 heap at Keene's Point. This deposit consists princi- 

 pally of clam-shells; although the valves of oysters, 

 quahaugs, and scallops, were found, as well as the 

 shells of Buccinura and Natica. Many broken bones 

 of animals were abundant. The most common were 

 those of the deer, moose, and bear ; but those of the 

 fox, otter, skunk, beaver, seal, and several other spe- 

 cies of mammals, are noted ; also the bones of several 

 species of large birds, those of a turtle, and several 

 species of fishes, as the codfish, flounder, devil-fish, 

 and sturgeon. Human bones were obtained from a 

 shellheap on Fort Island; and portions of a human 

 skeleton dug out of the great oyster-heap at New- 

 castle were secured. A spear-point of bone was found 

 by Mr. Phelps, about one foot below the surface, in the 

 Keene's Point heap; and above it, just under the sod, 

 he found an iron point of nearly the same size and 

 shape, which was probably made out of a piece of 

 hoop iron in imitation of the earlier bone implements. 

 An iron spear and an iron axe of very old form were 

 also found in the shells near the surface of the 

 deposit, which, with a small clay pipe of a kind made 

 in England about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, found also by Mr. Phelps ten inches deep in the 

 shells, show that this particular deposit was added to 

 by the Indians after contact with the whites, though 

 there can be no doubt that it was commenced long 

 before that time. 



State university of Kansas, Lawrence. 

 ^ Weather report for March. — The temperature, 

 rainfall, cloudiness, and wind-velocity were below 

 the March averages. An occurrence unprecedented 

 in Kansas was the continuous cloudiness of the last 

 eight days of the month, during seven of which the 

 wind did not change from a north-east direction. 



Mean temperature, 40.90°, which is 0.90° below the 

 average March temperature of the fifteen preceding 

 years." The highest temperature was 69°, on the 17th 

 and22d; the lowest was 16°, on the 19th; monthly 

 range, .53°: mean temperature at 7 a.m., 34.84°; at 



