October 12, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



179 



NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The University of Texas at Austin has instituted a school of 

 geology, which is conducted by Robert T. Hill. It is intended to 

 arrange two classes, — one for those who desire a general knowl- 

 edge of geology, and the other for those who wish to become prac- 

 tical geological investigators and teachers. A circular has been 

 issued in which the programme of the school is fully set forth. 



— The rapid development of Southern California has brought 

 Lower California into prominence, and recent explorations have 

 shown that it is not at all that desert land which it has long been 

 supposed to be. In a book by Charles Nordhoff, ' Peninsular Cali- 

 fornia,' recently published by Harper & Brothers, the merits of the 

 northern section of the territory are set forth. This district be- 

 longs to the Mexican International Company of Hartford, Conn., 

 which attempts to found colonies there, and to promote agriculture. 

 Nordhoff 's volume is accompanied by interesting illustrations, 

 showing the character of the vegetation of that region, and views of 

 beautiful orchards and wooded mountains. In an appendix mete- 

 orological data are given, and the timber region and recent gold 

 discoveries are described. 



— Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, Cambridge, Mass., will shortly pub- 

 lish an extensive treatise on the ' Butterflies of the Eastern United 

 States and Canada, with Special Reference to New England.' 

 The preparation of this work was first announced by the author in 

 1869, in the American Naturalist and other journals of the day. 

 it has thus been twenty years in progress, and represents eight 

 years of undivided attention to its elaboration. In this long time 

 the author has not only availed himself of the personal aid of a 

 host of willing friends and correspondents, who have confided to 

 him their voluminous field-notes and numerous specimens, but he 

 has carefully gleaned every fact of value from the natural-history 

 journals and other publications, and supplemented all by his thirty- 

 five years' experience in the field. No systematic work on butter- 

 flies has ever appeared in any language comparable with it in the 

 complete elaboration of a single limited'fauna, in attention to every 

 stage of life, thorough and excellent illustration of every period of 

 the butterfly's existence, and in careful detail of all structural fea- 

 tures. It contains 17 plates of butterflies, 6 of eggs, ii of cater- 

 pillars, 2 of the nests of caterpillars, 3 of chrysalids, 3 of parasites, 

 33 of structural details in all stages of life, 19 maps and groups of 

 maps to illustrate the geographical distribution of the butterflies, 

 and 3 portraits of early naturalists of this country, — in all, about 

 2,000 figures on 96 plates, of which 40 or more are colored ; the 

 butterflies in a style of chromolithography never surpassed, if it has 

 ever been equalled in similar illustrations, whether in Europe or 

 America. The printing of the plates was begun three years ago, 

 and is now nearly completed. The work will be issued in twelve 

 monthly parts, to be sold at five dollars per part, or fifty dollars on 

 or before Jan. i, 1889, for the complete work. 



— A prize of one hundred and fifty dollars will be awarded by 

 the American Economic Association for the best essay on ' The 

 Evil Effects of Unrestricted Immigration.' This prize is offered by 

 America, the new Chicago weekly ; and the essay will be known 

 as the 'America Prize Essay.' Any person is eligible to competi- 

 tion, provided his article does not exceed twenty-five thousand 

 words, and is received by the secretary of the association before 

 April 30, 1889. Each essay must be type-written, signed by a 

 fictitious name, and accompanied by a sealed envelope containing 

 the name assumed as well as the address of the author. For further 

 information, address the secretary. Prof. R. T. Ely, Johns Hopkins 

 University, Baltimore, Md. 



— The collection of papyri of Archduke Rainer has been the 

 subject of careful researches. J. Wiesner has made a microscopical 

 and chemical inquiry, while J. Karabacek studied it from an his- 

 torical point of view. The results of their inquiries shed an entirely 

 new and unexpected light upon the history of the manufacture of 

 paper. It is shown that the art of making paper of linen was first 

 carried to Samarkand by Chinese captives in A.D. 751, when the 

 governor of Samarkand made war upon the princes of Ferghana 

 and Shash, who were tributaries of China. Wiesner as well as 

 Karabacek shows that cotton paper, which was generally assumed 



to have been the first paper manufactured, never existed. In 

 Samarkand the manufacture of paper from linen rags was invented 

 by Persians, and this invention gave a great stimulus to the manu- 

 facture. Samarkand papers were famous all over the Orient and 

 Occident until the eleventh century. Later on, factories were estab- 

 lished in Bagdad and Egypt, and it was then that paper took the 

 place of the ancient papyrus. The researches of Wiesner show 

 that these early papers were white, and that they were filled and 

 sized by means of starch. It is of great interest that Wiesner's 

 conclusions as to the methods of manufacture of the early papers 

 have been fully confirmed by the recent discovery of an ancient 

 Arabian manuscript describing the manufacture of paper in detail. 

 Cotton was never used for making papers in those early days. 



— The Natttrwissenschaftliche Rundschau gives an abstract of 

 an interesting lecture of Ch. Andre, who has made a series of ex- 

 periments on magnetic disturbances. It is well known that mag- 

 netic disturbances originate on the whole earth simultaneously, and 

 that they are caused by the action of the sun. Ch. Andr6 found 

 that they originate when a place of disturbance on the sun passes 

 its apparent centre. He says, " If by a continuous series of observa- 

 tions the successive situations of regions of activity on the sun are 

 determined, which either appear as spots or /acuta, or only as 



f acuta, it will be seen that every great magnetic disturbance coin- 

 cides with the passing of this region through the apparent centre 

 of the sun. Those among these regions which remain for several 

 revolutions of the sun on the same spot, cause a magnetic disturb- 

 ance every time they pass the centre of the sun, while no disturb- 

 ances are observed when no such region is on that spot of the sun's 

 surface lying between his centre and that of the earth." This phe- 

 nomenon occurs so regularly, that Andre was enabled to predict a 

 disturbance as soon as a spot appeared on the eastern limb of the 

 sun. 



— The ' Fifth Annual Report of the Ohio Meteorological Bu- 

 reau ' contains, besides the usual summaries, a few interesting 

 phenologic tables, the first being a statement on the migration of 

 birds as observed at Wauseon, Fulton County, in 1887, by Thomas 

 Mikesell. It contains the dates of arrival and departure of seventy- 

 five species of birds, with notes on the frequency of their occur- 

 rence. The next table gives phenological observations on forest 

 and other trees, the date of the opening of buds, the time when 

 the trees are in leaf and in blossom, and the ripening of the 

 fruit. The change of foliage and the falling-off of the leaves are 

 also noted. Besides this, we find tables giving the dates of the 

 blooming of plants. Work of this kind is highly welcome to the 

 student of biology, as well as to the geographer. There are at 

 present forty-one stations in operation, reporting to the Ohio Me- 

 teorological Bureau. 



— In the signature of the Proceedings of the United States Na- 

 tional Museum just issued, Mr. George F. Kunz gives an interest- 

 ing account of the meteoric iron which fell in Johnson County, 

 Ark., on March 27, 1886. The report is remarkable on account of 

 the great care bestowed by the writer upon ascertaining the history 

 of the fall as observed by eye-witnesses. A thorough description 

 of the iron is given. Its upper side is ridged and deeply indented, 

 being in many places almost tin-white, while the lower side is flat 

 and covered with large, shallow pittings. The writer concludes, 

 that, after entering our atmosphere, the iron travelled with the 

 ridged surface forward, the iron burning so rapidly as to be 

 torn off, leaving part of the surface bright. The flame thus 

 passed over the sides, and, the indented edge being downward, the 

 flame was driven upward as the iron advanced. The flat side not 

 being so much exposed, the iron was not so completely consumed, 

 hence a crust and large but shallow pittings. These conditions 

 would perhaps have been entirely different had the mass been 

 round or thicker, for it evidently moved as straight as possible with- 

 out rotating at all. That it was found in the earth with the flat 

 side down, was due perhaps to the fact that it turned after losing 

 its highest velocity. 



— The fifth annual convention of the Iowa Assembly of the 

 Agassiz Association was successfully held at Mount Pleasant, Aug. 

 21, 22, and 33. Representatives from fourteen chapters were pres- 

 ent, making the largest representation in the history of the assembly. 



