252 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 277 



field of discolored water, in patches, each patch being about one 

 hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide. The water had 

 an appearance similar to that over a shoal That night the sea 

 was remarkably phosphorescent, and the ship was evidently passing 

 through the same liind of water. 



— Capt. H. Parsell of the R. M. S. 'Britannic,' reports, that on 

 April 12, at about 8 h. 17 m. 43 s., a.m., he observed a comet bear- 

 ing east (true). The altitude of the nucleus was 15° 20' 20" ; eye, 

 33 feet ; latitude 4" 24' north; longitude, 68° 14' west. He con- 

 tinued to observe it every night until he arrived at Oueenstown. 

 What was also probably the same comet is reported by Capt. E. 

 W. Owens of the British steamship 'Iowa' as having been ob- 

 served April 9 at 3 o'clock a.m. He was in latitude 40° 30' north, 

 longitude 36° west. The comet was seen bearing east, with its 

 tail in a southerly direction. Its altitude was 15". Local time was 

 used, 



— The proposed transfer of the Coast Survey from the Treasuiy 

 Department to the Navy will probably be provided for at the pres- 

 ent session of Congress. The Senate committee has already made 

 a favorable report ; and the sub-committee of the House Com- 

 mittee on Naval Affairs, to whom the subject has been referred, is 

 understood to be favorable to it. 



— The Senate, on Monday, passed a bill appropriating §17,500 

 for making the west end of the Smithsonian Institution building 

 fire-proof. A citizen of the United States, who has long resided 

 abroad, proposes to give to the Smithsonian Institution a large col- 

 lection of armor from the middle ages, — some of it connected with 

 most famous historical names, — including horse-armor, helmets, 

 swords, and all the paraphernalia of ancient warfare. These ob- 

 jects, numbering about five thousand, have been collected at great 

 expense, and the collection is one of the most valuable of the kind 

 in the world. The condition of the presentation is that the Smith- 

 sonian Institution furnish a fire-proof building for its protection. 



— Prof. Alexander Graham Bell will sail for Europe June 3. He 

 has been invited to appear before the British Royal Commission 

 now engaged in making an inquiry into the best methods of car- 

 ing for and educating deaf-mutes. It may be remembered that 

 several years ago Professor Bell presented a paper, at a meeting of 

 the National Academy of Sciences, on the formation, through the 

 intermarriage of deaf-mutes, of a deaf variety of the human race, 

 and gave some important statistics to show that a much larger per- 

 centage of the children of deaf parents are deaf than of those whose 

 parents possess the sense of hearing. This paper attracted wide 

 attention, and gave rise to very interesting discussions both here 

 and abroad. The Royal Commission has requested Professor Bell 

 especially to give to it the results of his subsequent investigations 

 and studies upon this branch of the subject, and he has devoted 

 much time to the preparation of facts and figures in regard to it. 

 He will also give the commission the result of his studies of other 

 divisions of the subject. 



— The summer session of the Chautauqua College meets at 

 Chautauqua July 6. The college has two departments, — the sum- 

 mer session, at which only special work is done ; and the corre- 

 spondence department, which has a full college course, and works 

 during the college term. The present session of the latter is just 

 closing with four hundred and twenty students. 



— At the meeting of the American Philosophical Society, May 4, 

 Prof. C. V. Riley, the entomologist, called attention to some grave 

 errors in the published minutes of the earlier meetings of the soci- 

 ety. He remarked that the public, as well as the most competent 

 authors, had always believed that the Hessian-fly — that pest of 

 wheat-culture — was introduced during the Revolution by Hessian 

 troops. Dr. H. A. Hagen of Cambridge has argued against this 

 belief, and, further, that the species was not imported from Europe; 

 one of his most potent arguments being that based on the early 

 minutes of the Philosophical Society, which, as communicated to 

 him (Hagenj by one of the secretaries, Mr. H. Phillips, jun., and as 

 published, make mention of the Hessian-fly in 1768, or before any 

 Hessian troops landed. The statement of the secretary, as also the 

 published minutes, turn out to be absolutely erroneous on these 

 points, as, upon consulting the original records. Professor Riley 



found no mention of the Hessian-fly prior to 1791. In all previous 

 cases ' the fly,' or ' the fly in wheat,' or ' the fly-weevil,' are the terms 

 used ; and it is susceptible of positive proof that these terms referred 

 to totally distinct insects, belongmg to a different order, and still 

 called the weevil, viz., Sitophilus granaria and S. oryzic. It is a 

 most interesting illustration of grave and misleading error, result- 

 ing from carelessness in what appear to be trifles. 



— The thirteenth session of the Sauveur College of Languages 

 will be held at the University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt., commen- 

 cing July 9, and continuing six weeks. After the close of the last 

 session of the Sauveur Summer College of Languages in Oswego. 

 N.Y., it was resolved to hold the thirteenth session this year at Bur- 

 lington, where they spent the summers of 1884 and 1885. The want 

 of accommodations, which caused the college to leave there in 

 1885, has been supplied. Oswego treated the college in the most 

 friendly manner from the first to the last day of their stay there. 

 Yet there was missed something which Oswego, with its commercial 

 bustle and activity, could not give; namely, the quiet, rural charac- 

 ter of the former home at the foot of the Green Mountains. 



— The Prince of Monaco is about to publish the scientific results 

 of the cruises of the ' Hirondelle ' in the Atlantic Ocean in a mag- 

 nificent illustrated volume in folio. The work will be edited by the 

 prince and Jules de Guerne, zoologist of the expedition, while special- 

 ists have charge of the various departments. The prince invited 

 correspondence with scientific societies and institutes for exchan- 

 ging periodicals and marine or fresh-water specimens. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*,* Corresfiyndents am requested to be as brief as possible. Tite luriter's name i 

 in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



Title nty copies of tli^ n't -nber con'ainino Iiis communication luill be furnished 

 free to any correspondent on request. 



T/ie editor luill be ^lad to publish any queries consonant wit it the character of 

 tile journal. 



Experiments in Vision again, 



Mr. Hyslop, in his interesting letter on this subject ( Science, 

 ■No. 274, p. 217), asks for verification of his results. In my case, 

 when his two circles are combined by convergence, there is not the 

 least alternation of images, but, on the contrary, a complete combi- 

 nation and a single horizontal ellipse, whatever be the degree of in- 

 clination of the planes of the circles to one another, provided the 

 inclination to the median plane be the same. But the binocular 

 ellipse will seem inclined to one side or the other if there be the 

 least want of symmetry in the inclination of the two planes. This 

 is obviously the necessar)' result of the law of corresponding 

 points. 



I cannot think, however, that so good an observer and so skilful 

 an experimenter as Mr. Hyslop could mistake this for alternation 

 of the two images. I therefore suppose that his eyes are more in- 

 dependent of one another than mine. Joseph LeConte. 



Berkeley, Cat, May 14. 



Composite Portraiture of the Insane. 



Within the last year considerable advances have been made in 

 composite photography ; and especially Professor Stoddard, by his 

 articles in The Century, has done much to give us new types. 

 Most studies in composites have been confined, up to this time, to 

 normal individuals, and, so far as the present writer is aware, no 

 attempts have been made to secure composite types of insanity. 

 The accompanying composites were made by the Notman Photo- 

 graphic Company of Boston, from negatives taken by the writer in 

 November, 1887. The composite of general paresis is made from 

 the portraits of eight patients, — three females, and five males. 

 General paresis, being an organic brain-disease (softening of the 

 brain), furnishes an unusually good field for .the study of the decay 

 of the mental faculties ; and the patients making up this composite 

 were all in the second stage of the disease, when it was beginning 

 to destroy the finer lines of facial expression. A comparison of the 

 composite of paresis with that of melancholia — eight subjects, all 

 men — will show the characteristic differences between the two 

 diseases. The eyes of the composite of paresis have a fixed and 

 staring look, showing clearly a diminution of intelligence, and dif- 

 fering entirely from the expression of the other composite, where 



