314 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 31T 



that of southern Greenland, 5,500 (2,557 males 

 and 2,943 females). The increase of population 

 in 1885 was 86 in the northern and 31 in the 

 southern part. The slow but steady increase forms 

 a favorable contrast to the rapid decrease in the 

 English and American parts of arctic America. 

 The Danish government takes care of the natives, 

 who fully repay the outlay of the government by 

 the produce of their hunting and fisheries. The 

 English and Americans, though they claim the 

 country, leave them to the mercy of whalers and 

 traders, whose disastrous influence will destroy 

 them within a short time. 



The whalers who annually visit BafiSn Bay 

 state that the enormous mass of land-ice which, in 

 1884, extended from the shore of Baffin Land to 

 a distance of about sixty miles, did not give way 

 until the summer of 1886. The ships were unable 

 to approach the coast from Cape Bowen to Cape 

 Searle for three years. After the ice had broken 

 up, whales were found in great numbers in Cum- 

 berland Sound and near Cape Mercy, while in the 

 previous years hardly any were met with on these 

 grounds. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The U. S. coast survey lost one of its most 

 capable assistants recently by the death of Mr. 

 Carlisle Terry, jun., who died at his home in Co- 

 lumbus, Ga. Mr. Terry was a young man of great 

 promise, and his work on the Pacific coast during 

 the past winter had been most successful, being 

 highly commended by the authorities at Wash- 

 ington. 



— A halibut weighing thirty -four pounds and 

 measuring forty-one inches in length was cap- 

 tured recently in the lower Potomac, near 

 Colonial Beach. This is the first authentic case of 

 a halibut in fresh water. Hithei'to it was sup- 

 posed that the vicinity of Long Island was the 

 extreme southern limit of the habitat of this fish. 

 The specimen caught in the Potomac has been pre- 

 served in alcohol by the Smithsonian institution, 

 and a cast has been made and placed on exhibi- 

 tion in the national museum. 



— Three fine specimens of carp have been 

 caught in a net in the lower Potomac, one weigh- 

 ing over seven pounds. The fish commission have 

 preserved these fish in their large aquaria at 

 Washington. Several white-fish and bass were 

 also taken in the same locality. These are evi- 

 dences of the good results attained by the U. S. 

 fish commission in the propagation of food-fishes. 



— The gem-collection in the national museum 

 has just been enriched by the addition of the pearls 



and diamonds given to President Van Buren by 

 the Imaum of Muscat. These valuable jewels 

 have been lying in the vaults of the treasury for 

 nearly forty years, and were previously on ex- 

 hibition in the patent office ; but some of them 

 were abstracted, and they were placed in the 

 treasury vaults. There are one hundred and fifty 

 pearls and one hundred and six diamonds, the 

 latter aggregating twenty-one carats in weight. 



— Prof. C. V. Riley, the entomologist of the 

 agricultural department, has gone to California 

 to investigate various matters which have been 

 demanding the attention of his bureau for some 

 time. His special mission is to investigate the 

 Col tony cushion scale, an insect imported from 

 Australia, which is doing immense damage to 

 the citrus-orchards of California. 



— The new naval observatory, for which con- 

 gress appropriated $400,000 several years ago, is 

 to be built in the near future. Mr. Richard M. 

 Hunt of New York has been appointed architect 

 of the building. Contracts for the work on the 

 observatory will be made, and the building opera- 

 tions will shortly begin. 



— The second spring meeting of the Indiana 

 academy of sciences will be held on May 19 and 

 20, 1887, at the ' Shades of Death,' near Wave- 

 land, Montgomery county, Ind. This place is 

 situated on the banks of Sugar Creek, which 

 here passes through a deep gorge cut in the sub- 

 carboniferous sandstone. 



— The Marine laboratory of the Johns Hopkins 

 university has been opened at Nassau, New Provi- 

 dence, West Indies, under the direction of Dr. W. 

 K. Brooks. 



— The Harvard natural history society, having 

 for a number of years been in a particularly dor- 

 mant state, has recently, by the energetic work of 

 its president, Mr. Nolan, sprung into life again. 

 Under its auspices there will be a series of weekly 

 lectures, or rather talks, at the society's rooms, 

 upon the local fauna and flora. The first of the 

 course is announced for March 30, to be delivered 

 by Mr. Samuel Garman, upon the reptiles of 

 Massachusetts. Other talks will follow, on the 

 Wednesday evening of each week, by Mr. S. H, 

 Scudder on butterflies, Dr. J. S. Kingsley on 

 Crustacea, Mr. James Emerton on Spiders, Mr. 

 William Brewster on birds, and others not yet 

 announced. 



— Mr. William H. Dall of the Smithsonian in- 

 stitution has just returned from a trip to Florida, 

 embracing a trip up the Caloosahachee River, 

 where he went in search of fossils. His trip was 

 most successful. This deposit was first discovered 



