184 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 109. 



of time at sea, a question which has been 

 brought under the consideration of the Council 

 by the Royal Society of Canada. The memorial- 

 ists say that the various points connected with 

 civil, nautical and astronomical time at sea 

 appear to have been fully gone into during the 

 past twelve years by various societies and au- 

 thorities in different countries, and to have 

 been eventually resolved into the simple ques- 

 tion of the desirabilitj' of advancing astronomi- 

 cal time by twelve hours so as to harmonize it 

 with civil time, for nautical time has in general 

 practice long been assimilated to civil time, and 

 is no longer a matter giving rise to difficulty or 

 discussion. It is believed by the memorialists 

 that the proposed change can be easily intro- 

 duced with decided advantage to observers, 

 and that the general principle of the unification 

 of time at sea has now an almost universal con- 

 sensus of opinion in its favor. The advance- 

 ment of astronomical time by twelve hours so 

 as to assimilate it to civil time, in order that 

 both may be in agreement and begin every- 

 where at midnight, would require the adapta- 

 tion of the ' Nautical Almanack,' to the change, 

 and as the ' Nautical Almanack ' is of necessity 

 prepared some years in advance, it is submitted 

 that a decision should be arrived at by her 

 Majesty's government with as little delay as 

 possible, in order that the change may take 

 effect at the date indicated by astronomers — 

 viz.; the first day of the new century. 



The general report on the operations of the 

 survey of India during the year ending with 

 September, 1895, according to Nature, shows 

 that in this period the aggregate area surveyed 

 on all scales amounts to 125,384 miles, exclusive 

 of 5,018 square miles embraced by traverse op- 

 erations in the central provinces and the north- 

 western provinces and Oude. In the trigono- 

 metrical surveys the Upper Burma principal 

 triangulation was carried northwards as well as 

 westwards through Manipur and Assam. In ad- 

 dition to the topographical work accomplished 

 during the year, a detachment with the Pamir 

 commission surveyed 250 square miles, and one 

 with the Chitral relief force surveyed in detail 

 450 square miles on the 1-inch scale, 215 square 

 miles on the J-inch scale, and, approximately, 

 1,900 square miles on the i-inch scale. There- 



suits of the operations of the latter surveyors is 

 that considerable knowledge of the topography 

 has been gained of an area of 3,600 square miles 

 of a country previously practically unknown, 

 and much credit is due to Captain Bythell and 

 the men who served under him for such a satis- 

 factory record of work. Two views, represent- 

 ing the Malakand Pass and the Chitral bridge 

 and fort, have been reproduced by heliogravure 

 to illustrate Captain Bythell' s report. A mass 

 of information on the forest survey operations, 

 cadastral surveys, traverse surveys, longitude 

 observations, geographical surveys and recon- 

 naissances, carried out by the survey depart- 

 ment under the direction of Colonel C. Strahan, 

 R.E., Surveyor-General of India, is included in 

 the general report. 



Mk. George F. Kunz, in his report to the 

 United States Geological Survey on the produc- 

 tions of precious stones in 1895, states that 

 among the more interesting occurrences and 

 changes in precious stones for the year 1895 

 may be mentioned : (1) the finding of a 6-carat 

 diamond at a new locality, Saukville, Ozaukee 

 County, Wis.; (2) the diligent search made for 

 monazite in North Carolina and Georgia, re- 

 sulting in the finding of a number of interesting 

 gems ; (3) continued finding of rubies near 

 Franklin, Macon County, N. C; (4) the discov- 

 ery of true blue sapphires near Utica, Fergus 

 County, Mont. ; (5) the discovery of some re- 

 markable gem tourmaline of extraordinary size 

 and wonderful perfection at the historic Paris 

 Hill locality, Oxford County, Me.; (6) the find- 

 ing of a large quantity of fine chrysoprase in 

 Tulare County, Cal.; (7) the discovery of an 

 enormous crystal of tourmaline on New York 

 Island ; (8) the interesting exhibition of South- 

 ern gems at the Cotton States and International 

 Exposition, at Atlanta, Ga., and the presenta- 

 tion of this collection to the Lea collection at 

 the United States National Museum; and (9) the 

 opening of the Golden Gate Park Museum, at 

 San Francisco, with an interesting collection of 

 gems. Among foreign occurrences may be 

 noted : (1) the increased yield of the South 

 African diamond fields and the absorption of 

 the entire yield by the gem markets of the 

 world ; (2) the occurrence of rubies of good 

 color and in some abundance in various fields 



