EDITORIAL NOTES. 
451 
Brazilian and Indian life, and aspects of nature under the equator, printed in 
good style and on fair paper, all for thirty cents. 
OTHER PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 
The Protective System; What it costs the farmer : 
By Graham McAdam, 
N. Y. The Valley Naturalist, Oct., 1880; published by H. Skaer, St. Louis 
monthly, $1.50 per annum. 
The Specialist and Intelligencer, Oct., 1880: 
Edited by Chas. W. Dulles, M. D., Phila., Pa., monthly, $1.50 per annum, 
published by Presley Blakiston. 
the original Greek, by Thomas M. Johnson, Osceola, Mo. 
A Translation of three treatises of Plotinus from 
An examination of 
the Double-Star Measures of the Bedford Catalogue, by S. W. Burnham. 
Geological Report upon the Mineral Lands of Major R. H. Melton, by Prof. G. 
C. Broadhead. 
PDIMORAE NOEs: 
THE thirteenth annual meeting of the 
Kansas City Academy of Science will be 
held at Topeka, Thursday and Friday, No- 
vember I1th and 12th, 1880. The business 
meeting will be held at 3 o’clock p. m., of 
the 11th at the office of Dr. A. H. Thomp- 
son, No. 237 Kansas avenue, and the other 
meetings at the Senate chamber of the State 
House. The railroad ticket agents at Topeka 
will sell return tickets at reduced rates to 
persons in attendance who have paid full fare 
in coming. The usual reduction in hotel 
rates is expected. President Fairchild will 
deliver one of the two popular evening lec- 
tures; the other being given by Prof. Love- 
well, of Washburn College. The present 
indications are for a session of unusual in- 
terest. 
THE Bessemer method of dephosphorizing 
pig iron, in the opinion of some of the ablest 
metallurgic experts of the day, bids fair to 
supersede the laborious and unhealthy pro- 
cess of puddling and to materially cheapen 
finished iron, 
ProF. SWIFT, astronomer of the Warner 
Observatory, at Rochester, N. Y., discovered 
another large comet on the evening of Octo- 
ber roth. The fact was noted in the asso- 
ciated press dispatches, but some important 
and interesting details which could not be 
telegraphed are herewith given. The new 
celestial visitor is in the Constellation of 
Pegasus, right ascension, 21 hours, 30 min- 
utes, declination north 17 degrees, 30 min- 
utes. Its rate of motion is quite slow, being 
in a northwesterly direction, so that it is ap- 
proaching the sun. Ithas a very strong con- 
densation on one side of the center, in addi- 
tion to a star-like nucleus, which indicates 
that it is throwing off an extended tail. From 
the fact of its extraordinary size, we are war- 
ranted in presuming that it will be very bril- 
liant, and the additional fact that it is coming 
almost directly toward the earth, gives good 
promise that it will be one of the most re- 
markable comets of the present century. This 
is the fifth comet which Prof. Swift has dis- 
covered, and the increased facilities which 
Mr. H. H. Warner, the popular and wealthy 
medicine man, has given him, by erecting a 
magnificent observatory for his benefit, prom- 
ise much more for the future. There is a 
possibility that further developments may 
prove this to be the great comet of 1812, 
