616 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 21. 



are summed up by that inventor as " strong, duc- 

 tile, and sound materials, strong, quick-burning 

 powder, short guns, long projectiles, and rapid rota- 

 tion." Lieut. Birnie's conversion-tables for metric 

 measures are included in this volume. They are 

 substantially the same as those issued by the Messrs. 

 Wiley, together with Noble's British tables, and other 

 matter from Thurston's Materials of engineering. 

 Capts. Mijchaelis and Greer discuss the deviations of 

 projectiles mathematically. The report is supplied 

 to libraries and scientific departments by the chief 

 of ordnance. 



— De Candolle's ' Origine des plantes cultiv^es ' has 

 received a searching review at the hands of Professor 

 Asa Gray and Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull in the 

 American journal of science. The book itself is 

 as valuable to anthropology as it is to botany, and 

 it was fitting that a competent representative of 

 each of these sciences should be associated in its 

 examination. The reviewers, however, in this case, 

 seem to have had a definite object ulterior to that 

 of merely appreciating this last great contribution of 

 the venerable phytologist. The claims of America 

 as the original source of a large number of the best- 

 known vegetable products of the globe required to 

 be defended; and they deliberately assumed and per- 

 formed this task, showing in a large number of cases 

 that De CandoUe had either ignored or had not duly 

 weighed the evidence that exists in favor of their 

 American origin. Tlie comprehensive and critical 

 learning displayed in these articles, relative to the 

 mention of these plants in the early history of Amer- 

 ican discovery, is only equalled by the shrewdness 

 and force with whicli it is marslialled in support of 

 the views wliich the writers feel called upon to set 

 forth and sustain. 



— ' Pi'ogress in meteorology, 1S79-S1.' This useful 

 contribution to the English literature of meteorology 

 has been published by the Smithsonian institution 

 under the editorship of Professor Cleveland Abbe of 

 the army signal-oflBce. It consists, as the author ex- 

 pressly states, of extracts, mostly from the Vienna 

 Zeltschrift for the years 1879, 1880, and 1881 ; and this 

 accounts for the notices from the German of two 

 papers originally published in this country. Bio- 

 graphical notices of eminent meteorologists who died 

 in the interval covered by this pamphlet, a concise 

 description of the work contemplated by the Polar 

 commission, and an account of the meteorological 

 work in hand and proposed by nearly all the different 

 governments, are given. Under well-arranged heads, 

 such as bibliography, methods, apparatus, etc., chemi- 

 cal and pliysical pi'operties of the atmosphere, solar 

 radiation and terrestrial temperature, movements of 

 the atmosphere, barometric pressure, electricity, mag- 

 netism, and optical phenomena, will be found abun- 

 dant material for study, and of tlie later scientific 

 investigations in the protean subject of meteorology. 



— The Worcester county, Mass., free school of in- 

 dustrial science is now completing its fifteenth year. 

 It offers free instruction to students, who, at the time 

 they enter, are residents of the county. There Is 

 a further endowment by the state for twenty free 

 scholarships for students elected by the board of 

 education. The school is by no means a local insti- 

 tution, a large number of the boys coming from out- 

 side Massacliusetts. At present there is great need 

 of an increase in the accommodations of the chemi- 

 cal and engineering departments. The friends of the 

 institution are bestirring themselves, and have issued 

 a pamphlet stating the results of the school's work 

 up to this time, and the urgent need there is for 

 further room, that the growth of tlie institution may 

 not be cramped. The mechanical department, possi- 

 bly the most thriving, has received, witliin the last 

 two or three years, greatly increased facilities, but is 

 pressed to the utmost to fulfil the demands upon it. 



— At the meeting of the Engineers' club of Phila- 

 delphia, May 19, Mr. C. G. Darrach exhibited two pro- 

 files from Tiffin, O., to Lake Station, on the southern 

 bend of Lake Michigan. The surveys were made for 

 the Baltimore and Ohio short line to Chicago, — one 

 vid Napoleon, and the otlier m& Defiance, O. About 

 240 miles of surveys were run, and the profile and 

 maps plotted in sixty working-days, with a party of 

 eight men. 



At the meeting of June 2, Mr. Carl Hering read a 

 short article on electrical units and formulae; Prof. 

 L. M. Haupt exhibited a drawing of the Phoenixville 

 bridge, which was built by Mr. Moncure Robinson, 

 C.E., in 1836, for the Philadelphia and Reading Rail- 

 road, over the Schuylkill. It is an instructive and 

 enduring monument of successful construction of cut- 

 stone masonry. There are four segmental arches 72 

 feet clear span, and 16|- feet rise; radius of arch, 

 47J feet; voussoirs, 2 feet 9 inches thick. One end 

 abuts against a rocky bluff, whilst the otlier is sup- 

 ported by a lieavy abutment with an eartlien filling. 

 It is believed to be one of the lightest and cheapest 

 bridges of its kind in this country, having cost but 

 §48,000. The secretary exhibited samples of Japan- 

 ese paper, which he had obtained through Mr. J. A. 

 L. Waddell. Many Japanese papers are of excellent 

 quality, and could probably be used with great advan- 

 tage in engineering practice. 



— Van Nostrand has published, as one of the ex- 

 cellent ' Science series,' a book of logaritlims to four 

 places, of logarithmic and natural functions. The 

 tables seem to be very well arranged, especially those 

 of the natural functions. 



— Dr. Ralph Copeland, editor of Copernicus, writes 

 to that journal in the latter part of February last, 

 from La Paz, Bolivia, 12,050 feet above the level of 

 the sea, — 



"For the first time for ten days, the sky is tolerably 

 clear, and remarkably dark, although the moon is al- 



