December 31, 1886.J 



SCIENCE. 



629 



average appropriation for many years past. The 

 report also speaks of the advance toward com- 

 pletion of the resurvey of New York bay and 

 harbor, to the studies of ice formation and move- 

 ment in Delaware river and bay, to the observa- 

 tion of currents in the Gulf Stream, and to the 

 near approach of the transcontinental triangula- 

 tions, which will form a geodetic connection 

 between the work on the Atlantic and that on 

 the Pacific. 



— The remarkable regularity in the recurrence 

 of climatic conditions, as well as the small varia- 

 tion in the weather on a subtropical island, is 

 illustrated in the following table of maximum and 

 minimum temperatures in the svimmer months 

 of 1885 and 1886, at Nassau, Bahamas, clipped 

 from a paper published there. 



Thunder-storms seem unpleasantly frequent. In 

 1885 there was lightning with rain every two days 

 from May to September, with a violent storm 

 about once a week ; in 1886, lightning and rain 

 were as frequent, but severe storms were reduced 

 to only once a fortnight. The general absence 

 of lightning-rods makes these storms a rather 

 dangerous element in the summer weather of 

 Nassau. 



— An interesting case is reported to have oc- 

 curred at Rising Sun, Ind. According to the 

 accounts, a man named Seward, a farm-laborer, 

 aged twenty-eight years, became sick about six 

 months ago. At first there was nothing especially 

 noteworthy about his sickness except that he was 

 easily tired. Although a man of unusual strength, 

 two hours of labor completely prostrated him. 

 This increased, until, after two months, he was 

 totally unfit for work, and at the same time his 

 skin became changed m color. 1 n health a blonde, 

 with gray eyes, his face became ash-color, and 

 then darker and darker, until, at the time of his 

 death, it was like that of a negro. The neck, 

 shoulders, hands, fore-arms, and afterwards other 

 portions of the body, became similarly affected. 

 The disease above referred to was undoubtedly 

 what is known as Addison's disease. In 1855 Dr. 



Thomas Addison first described it. He regarded 

 it as connected with disease of the supra-renal 

 capsules, and since his day there has been but 

 little more learned about its causation than Addi- 

 son himself knew. The deposit of pigment in 

 the lowest layers of the epithelium is the outward 

 manifestation of the affection, though why it 

 should be so dejjosited is not known. The disease 

 occurs in adult life, very seldom in childhood or 

 in old age. Males and laborers ai-e usually the 

 patients. Although it may last for many years, 

 it is almost invariably fatal. Dr. Greenhow has 

 devoted especial attention to this disease, and 

 treats of it in the ' Croonian lectures on Addison's 

 disease,' published in the Lancet in 1875. In vol. 

 iii. of ' System of medicine by American authors.' 

 is an article on the subject, written by Professor 

 Osier, to which we would refer those who desire 

 more particulars of this remarkable disease. 



— The next number of the Proceedings of the 

 Ameiican society for psychical research is to be 

 issued as soon as sufficient material is collected. 

 The council is anxious to obtain, so far as may be 

 possible, the co-operatitm of all members and as- 

 sociate members of the society, in the preparation 

 of this number. All members are therefore ear- 

 nestly requested to report any experiences or ob- 

 servations which they may have collected on any 

 subjects falling within the range of the society's 

 work. Edw. G. Gardiner, 12 Otis Place, Boston, 

 Mass., is the secretary. 



— A curious feature of the weather, described 

 in the Ohio meteorological bureau report for Sep- 

 tember last, is the damage caused by the light- 

 ning in a violent storm on the 23d of the month. 

 The rain was very heavy at certain stations, Sid- 

 ney reporting 5.57 inches in tv^enty-four hours. 

 At New Bremen the storm began at 8 p.m. on the 

 22d, with high wind and hail-stones. From 2 to 

 3 A.M. on the next morning there was a continu- 

 ous blaze of lightning. As the storm moved east- 

 ward, it entered a region of oil-wells, where der- 

 ricks and tanks were strack, and large quantities 

 of oil set on fire. At Lima the lightning struck a 

 derrick, and ran thence by a pipe-line to a tank 

 thu'ty rods distant, where it fired a thousand bar- 

 rels of oil. Old oil-men said they had never ex- 

 perienced such storms in the Peorsylvania oil- 

 fields, and were anxious to know if they were 

 common in Ohio. The Ohio monthly report now 

 occupies fifty-eight pages, and presents the rec- 

 ords of thirty -seven stations in much detail. 



— The northei-n portion of the Sierra Nevada, 

 as recently summarized by Diller in bulletin 33 of 

 the U. S. geological survey, may be briefly de- 

 scribed as an old lowdand made up of granite 



