May 3, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



339 



knots in fourteen hours; and in the passage between IMartinique 

 and Santa Lucia, four knots in one hour, and eight in four hours. 

 Both the last two observations were by bearings. 



— The International Congress of Anthropology and Archaeology 

 will hold its tenth meeting at Paris. When the congress ad- 

 journed at Lisbon, in i88o, no arrangements were made for future 

 sessions. Notwithstanding numerous endeavors to bring about a 

 new meeting, the congress did not assemble for eight years. In 

 July, 1888, a number of French anthropologists, who considered 

 the great International Exhibition a good opportunity of re-organiz- 

 ing the congress, proposed to the permanent committee of the 

 congress to arrange for a meeting in the present year. A com- 

 mittee was appointed, the president of which is the eminent anthro- 

 pologist, A. de Quatrefages, and invitations have been sent out. 

 The congress will hold its tenth meeting at Paris from Aug. 19 

 to Aug. 26. The following questions are proposed as subjects 

 of discussion by the committee : (i) the erosion and filling of 

 valleys and caverns in reference to the antiquity of man ; (2) the 

 periodicity of glacial phenomena ; (3) art and industry of the caves 

 and of the alluvium ; value of paleontological and archseological 

 classifications applied to the quaternary epoch ; (4) chronological 

 relations between the stone, bronze, and iron ages ; (5) relations 

 between the civilization of Hallstadt and other Danubian stations, 

 and those of Mycenas, Tiryns, Issalik, and of the Caucasus ; (6) 

 critical examination of quaternary crania and bones found during 

 the past fifteen years ; ethnical elements of the various stone, 

 bronze, and iron ages of central and western Europe ; (7) ethno- 

 graphical survivals, which may throw light upon the early inhabit- 

 ants of central and western Europe ; (8) how far do archjeological 

 and ethnographical analogies justify the hypothesis of affinities or 

 prehistoric migrations .' 



— At the meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, April 

 23, Mr. John C. Henderson read a paper on the proposed Tehuan- 

 tepec Ship Railway. Mr. Henderson's paper was followed by an 

 interesting discussion, which is reported in The Railroad Gazette. 

 Gen. Andrews said that canals had played a conspicuous part in 

 past history, and even now they have not fallen into disuse, and in 

 countries of a lower grade of civilization, such as China, they are 

 the chief arteries of commerce. It is estimated that the tralTic on the 

 canals of China equals, or perhaps exceeds, the combined commerce of 

 all the rest of the world. But progressive nations are abandoning 

 canals, and substituting railroads. Experience proves that railroads 

 can work cheaper than canals. If New York State should fill up 

 her Erie Canal, and build a four-track railroad, she could haul 

 freight over it cheaper than the canal-boat can carry it. Estimates 

 which he regards as incontrovertible show that a ship can be 

 hauled by a locomotive over a ship-railroad, or, as he prefers to 

 designate it, a ship-tramway, with the expenditure of only one-half 

 the amount of coal which the same ship must burn to propel her- 

 self through the water of a canal. The most frequent objection 

 urged against the practicability of the scheme is that it would rack 

 the ship ; but Gen. Andrews explained that the weight is so dis- 

 tributed among the numerous supports that no one need sustain 

 a greater weight than a man presses upon his foot in walking. 

 The gradients of the route will be very slight, not exceeding two 

 inches in four hundred feet, the entire length of a vessel. He had 

 made observations, during a voyage aboard the steamer " Britan- 

 nic," to measure the amount of strain to which she was exposed in 

 a sea of no very great roughness, and found by stretching cords 

 that the steamer was bent sixteen inches by the vi^aves, but without 

 the slightest injury : hence he infers that the stress on a vessel in 

 crossing the isthmus would be inappreciable and harmless. A 

 powerful argument, he holds, in favor of the Tehuantepec route, is 

 that it is the nearest to this country, and is in the region of winds, 

 so that sailing-vessels could use it ; whereas Panama is almost a 

 dead calm, and even Nicaragua is not to be depended on by sail- 

 ing-vessels. The result of opening either of the southern routes, 

 therefore, would prove to be, as the Suez Canal has already proven, 

 that the route would be monopolized by British steamers, and that 

 the American flag would not be seen. President Newberry said 

 that the proposed scheme appears to be practicable, but that it is 

 so novel as to seem to require the test of experience before we can 



be certain that all practical difficulties will be successfully met. 

 The smaller ship-railroad from the Bay of Fundy to the Gut of 

 Canso is being rapidly constructed, and will probably be in opera- 

 tion by about September, 1S90. The results will be watched with 

 interest, and, if successful, the larger work at Tehuantepec will un- 

 doubtedly soon follow. 



— It is stated, that, notwithstanding the threatened opposition 

 of the English Government, the Channel Tunnel Company will 

 proceed with the bill which it proposes to bring before Parliament, 

 and take a division upon next session. It is said that since last 

 year the promoters have received great encouragement to proceed, 

 particularly from a large number of persons connected with the 

 manufacturing and commercial centres of England and Scotland. 

 They have also in many cases been promised the support of several 

 members of Parliament. The following from Iroti (London) gives 

 the present status of the tunnel : " The machinery which was used for 

 boring the tunnel is still in the heading, and is periodically set in 

 motion to keep it in order ; but no attempt is made to advance the 

 heading, the length of which measures about 2. 100 yards. It is now 

 two years since the works were stopped ; and the tunnel is said to 

 be so far impervious to water, that, on an average, not more than 

 400 gallons has found its way into the entire heading in the course 

 of twenty-four hours. The boring operations for coal near the 

 mouth of the tunnel still continue, and a depth of about 1,000 feet 

 has now been attained. The character of the strata is such as to 

 encourage the continuation of the operations in the hope of ulti- 

 mately finding coal. While the prosecution of the borings for coal 

 ought to be encouraged in every way, the same cannot be recom- 

 mended for the tunnel-works. In the present state of public opin- 

 ion, the money spent that way will only be wasted." 



— An alarming illustration of the facility with which steel cor- 

 rodes under certain conditions, the Engineer says, has just been 

 observed at Portsmouth, England. H. M. S. " Nile " was launched 

 at Pembroke on the 27th of March last, since which time, as there 

 is no dock accommodation at the Welsh yard, she had been afloat 

 in her launching trim without there being any opportunity afforded 

 of examining and protecting the under-water parts of the hufl. 

 When she was placed in No. 13 dock at Portsmouth for the pur- 

 pose of removing the launching gear, and changing her temporary 

 propellers, it was discovered that the red lead with which her bot- 

 tom was coated had extensively peeled off, and that serious cor- 

 rosion of the plating all along the water-line on both sides had 

 taken place. The starboard side amidships was very much pitted, 

 though, as a rule, the pitting and scoring were tolerably uniform. 

 The rivet-heads were greatly corroded, and in many instances they 

 appeared to be completely eaten away. The same is said to be 

 the case with some of our new steel war-vessels, the steel being 

 extensively pitted, especially along the water-line. 



— Although West Indian hurricanes may be encountered during 

 any month of the year, yet there is such a marked increase in their 

 number and violence during July, August, September, and Octo- 

 ber, that these four months constitute what is called the hurricane 

 season. In regard to the hurricane regions, the United States 

 Hydrographic Office says that they include the tropics north of the 

 loth parallel, the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and a broad belt 

 curving north-westward from about St. Thomas, and following the 

 Gulf Stream towards the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The 

 earliest indications are unusually high barometer, with cool, dry, 

 fresh winds, and very transparent atmosphere ; a long, low ocean- 

 swell from the direction of the distant storm ; light, feathery plumes 

 of cirrus clouds, radiating from a point on the horizon where a 

 whitish arc indicates the bearing of the centre. Unmistakable 

 signs are the following : As the cirrus-veil spreads overhead, with 

 halos about the sun and moon, the barometer begins to fall, slowly 

 but steadily, and the ocean-swell increases ; the air becomes heavy, 

 hot, and moist ; dark red and violet tints are seen at dawn and 

 twilight ; the heavy cloud-bank of the hurricane soon appears on 

 the horizon, like a distant mountain-range; the barometer falls 

 more rapidly, and the wind freshens, with occasional squalls of fine, 

 misty rain. As regards the general size and velocity of progression, 

 the storm area is smaller in the tropics than farther north, the 



