410 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 221 



(see Science, April 15), set out last week. Dr. Bell 

 will prosecute his researches in Hudson Bay, the 

 south-west shore of which will be examined by- 

 Messrs. Low and J. M. Macoun. Professor Ma- 

 coun wiQ visit the little-known interior of Van- 

 couver Island, principally for botanical purposes. 

 The surveys of Mr. Bowman in the Cariboo gold- 

 fields and the Selkirk range will add considerably 

 to our knowledge of the geography of that dis- 

 trict. Messrs. Tyrrell and Dowling will proceed 

 to Duck and Riding mountains to examine the 

 eastern outcrop of cretaceous rocks, and Messrs. 

 Lawson, Smith, and Barrow will survey the bound- 

 ary-line east of Rainy Lake. The rest of the 

 parties will prosecute mainly geological work in 

 the eastern parts of the Dominion. 



Dr. R. A. Philippi gives an interesting report, 

 in Ausland of April 11, of an ascent of the vol- 

 cano Licancaur, which is situated on the eastern 

 boundary -line of the Chilenian province Antofo- 

 gasta. Former attempts to reach the summit of 

 the mountain have been unsuccessful. Two engi- 

 neers, Mufioz and Pizarro, attempted to reach the 

 summit of the mountain, which is between eigh- 

 teen and twenty thousand feet high, in order to 

 make some trigonometrical observations. They 

 experienced, however, so severe attacks of the 

 punar (the difficulties of respiration in the rarified 

 atmosphere), that they were prevented carrying 

 out their intention. Their companion, Don Jose 

 Santelices, succeeded in reaching the summit, and 

 gives the following description : " The 16th of 

 March we reached a tambo on the north-west side 

 of the mountain. These are houses which form 

 a single room with a low stone bank : they were 

 built by the Inkas at regular intervals on their 

 roads. "While part of the company could not 

 ascend much farther on account of the rarified 

 air, the guide and myself reached the summit 

 after nine hours' climbing. We descended into 

 the crater, the bottom of which is formed by a 

 plain about thirteen hundred feet in diameter, in 

 which a beaiitif ul pond, four hundred feet long and 

 three hundred and fifty feet wide, is situated. It 

 may be about five hundred feet below the rim of 

 the crater. On its banks there are large stone 

 walls of the houses in which the Indians used to 

 live. There may be about thirty of these. There 

 was a great quantity of fuel which had been car- 

 ried there by the ancient Indians. An old road 

 of the Inkas, which led to the summit, can still 

 be recognized." Philippi remarks that these 

 houses were probably used by a gan-ison for 

 watching the approach of an enemy, and for giv- 

 ing signals by lighting the wood. Similar piles of 

 wood have been found on all mountains of that 

 district. Philippi supposes these enemies were 



the Peruvians, at the time when they made war 

 upon the brave and warlike Calchaquis, who lived 

 in the district of Salta, which belongs at the 

 present time to the Argentine Republic. J. J. 

 Tschudi was probably the first to suggest that the 

 Calchaquis retired to the oases of the Atacama 

 desert, in order to escape the oppressions of the 

 Inkas. This hypothesis is very probable, as the 

 Atacama language is spoken nowadays in some 

 parts of the province of Salta. However, it is 

 not impossible that the Peruvians used these piles 

 of wood for giving notice of the progress of their 

 conquest to Cuzco. Anyhow, the fuel found on 

 the mountains was carried there about four hun- 

 dred years ago. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The papers read at the April meeting of the 

 National academy of sciences were as follows : 

 ' On chemical integration,' T. Sterry Hunt ; ' Re- 

 sults of the investigation of the Charleston earth- 

 quake,' C. E. Dutton and Everett Hayden ; ' On 

 some phenomena of binocular vision,' Joseph 

 LeConte ; ' The vegetation of the hot springs of the 

 Yellowstone park,' W. G. Farlow ; ' On the fore- 

 limb and shoulder-girdle of Eryops, and on the 

 vertebrates of the triassic,' E. D. Cope ; ' On the 

 rainless character of the Sahara,' Elias Loomis ; 

 'The color of the sun,' and ' A new map of the 

 spectrum,' S. P. Langley ; 'Chemical constitu- 

 tion and taste,' ' On a new class of compounds 

 analogous to the phthaleins,' and ' On the de- 

 composition of diazo compounds by alcohol,' Ira 

 Remsen ; ' On the ancestry of the deaf,' and ' On 

 the notation of kinship,' A. G. Bell ; ' On the de- 

 termination of orbits of planets and comets,' J. 

 W. Gibbs ; ' On the serpentine of Syracuse, 

 N.Y.,' G. H. Williams; 'On the barometric 

 oscillation, diurnal and annual,' A. W. Greely ;: 

 ' On Floridian geology,' W. H. Dall ; ' On the 

 Taconic system of Emmons,' C. D. Walcott : ' Is 

 there a Huronian group ? ' R. D. Irving ; ' On the 

 brain of the Ceratodus, with remarks on the gen- 

 eral morphology of the vertebrate brain,' B. G. 

 Wilder ; • Outline of the ichthyological system,' 

 Theodore Gill ; • The effect of magnetization on 

 the electrical resistance of metals,' Arthur W.. 

 Wright. 



— The coast-survey telegraphic longitude parties, 

 of Assistants Smith and St. Clair have left for 

 Ogden and San Francisco. Their first work in ex- 

 tending the regular line of standard longitudes of 

 the coast survey will be to connect Salt Lake City 

 with the Franklin Square observatory in San 

 Francisco. When these points are thus connected^ 

 the chain will be complete with the Sierra Rob- 

 blero, New Mexico, near Fort Selden. Assistant 



