708 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 435 



solar outbursts in 1872, which were each ac- 

 companied by sharp fluctuations in the mag- 

 netic tracings at Kew and Stonyhurst. Since 

 the experiments began, volcanic explosions 

 have produced such ether waves, which have 

 been simultaneously recorded over the conti- 

 nents of Europe and America. 



Mrs. Eliza McMillan and Mr. Wm. Nor- 

 throp McMillan, the donors to the academy 

 of a home, as noted elsewhere, were elected 

 patrons of the academy. 



William Teelease, 

 Recording Secretary. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE FIRST USE OP THE WORD 'BAROMETER.' 



To THE Editor op Science: I quite agree 

 with Dr. Bolton's conclusion that Robert 

 Boyle introduced the word ' barometer ' into 

 our language about the year 1665 (Science, 

 p. 548). Although Dr. Bolton finds that the 

 first use of the word by Boyle was in the 

 Philosophical Transactions of 1666, yet he sus- 

 pects him to be the author of an anonymous 

 communication to that journal the previous 

 year, in which the ' suspended Cylinder of 

 Quicksilver ' was called a ' Barometer or 

 Baroscope.' Eor conclusive proof that Boyle 

 really used these terms in the year 1665, I 

 would cite a work that appears to have es- 

 caped Dr. Bolton's notice, viz., ' The General 

 History of the Air * * * by the Hon. Eobert 

 Boyle, Esq.,' published in London in 1692, 

 which contains ' A short Account of the 

 Statical Baroscope, imparted by Mr. Boyle, 

 March 24, 1665.' In this letter to Mr. H. Old- 

 enburgh, Boyle describes the instrument as 

 some large and light glass bubbles, counter- 

 poised in a pair of scales, and placed near 

 a ' Mercurial Baroscope ' (also called a ' Ba- 

 rometer ' in the same letter), from which 

 he might learn the present weight of the at- 

 mosphere. The same work contains probably 

 the earliest systematic register of thermom- 

 eter, barometer, hygrometer, wind and weather 

 in England, viz., that kept by J. Locke, the 

 philosopher, at Oxford and at London, be- 

 tween 1666 and 168.3, with interruptions. The 

 reading of the mercurial barometer, desig- 



nated at first ' baroscope,' was recorded in 

 inches and tenths, but in another register, 

 kept at Townley, in Lancashire, during a 

 portion of the years 1670 and 1671, it was 

 recorded to hundredths of an inch. 



Professor G. Hellmann, the eminent German 

 meteorological bibliographer and historian, 

 although cognizant of Boyle's ' General His- 

 tory of the Air,' seems to be unaware of the 

 letter quoted, since he also states in the in- 

 troduction to No. 7 of his * Neudrucke von 

 Schriften und Karten iiber Meteorologie und 

 Erdmagnetismus ' that the word ' barometer ' 

 was first used by Robert Boyle in 1666, 

 whereas it is certain, from what I have shown, 

 that Boyle had already employed it the year 

 before. A. Lawrence Eotch. 



Blue Hill Observatory, 

 April 13, 1903. 



SHORTER ARTICLES. 

 A preliminary account of the exploratiom 



OF THE potter CREEK CAVE, SHASTA COUNTY, 

 CALIFORNIA. 



The Potter Greek cave lies in a belt of 

 gray Carboniferous limestone, about a mile 

 southeast of the United States Fishery Sta- 

 tion on the McCloud River at Baird, Shasta 

 County. The mouth of the cave is situated 

 in a, bluff on the north side of Potter Creek, 

 at an elevation of 1,500 feet above sea level, 

 and about 725 feet above the McCloud. 



The existence of bones in the cave was first 

 discovered in 1878 by Mr. J. A. Richardson, 

 who found there the skull of a large extinct 

 bear afterwards described by Professor Cope 

 as Arctotherium simum.* This specimen is 

 now in the Cope collection at the American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York. 



The cave was rediscovered by Mr. E. L. 

 Furlong, of the University of California, in 

 July of the past year. Mr. Furlong pene- 

 trated the deposit on the floor of the raain 

 chamber, with the result that a large number 

 of bones representing a Quaternary fauna 

 were found in a series of stratified deposits 

 of pebbly clay, cave breccia, stalagmite and 

 volcanic ash. On Mr. Furlong's return to 



* Cope, Am. Nat., XIII., p. 791; XXV., pp. 997- 

 999, PI. XXI. 



