SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 280 



middle of March, commonly known ashore as the ' New York 

 blizzard.' Its terrific violence at sea, however, and the wide area 

 which it covered, make it one of the most notable storms of the 

 century in the North Atlantic. Special efforts are being made to 

 collect all the data possible from vessels north of the 20th parallel 

 and west of the 50th meridian at any time from the nth to the 

 15th of March, and the co-operation of masters of vessels and 

 foreign hydrographic offices has been earnestly requested. The 

 ■data at hand are already very complete for the greater portion of 

 the area in question, but additional information is specially desired 

 from vessels about and to the south-eastward of the Bermudas at 

 any time during the dates mentioned above, and, indeed, from ves- 

 sels anywhere within the limits already stated. 



— The logs from the great raft abandoned off the coast of New 

 England a few months ago have drifted in a direction about east 

 by south, and the greater part of them are now in the region be- 

 tween the 33d and 3Sth parallels and the 30th and 50th meridians. 

 The reports lately received at the Hydrographic Office would 

 seem to show that the general drift of the logs has been about 

 ■east by south, and that most of them are now west-south-west from 

 the Azores. Very few, if any, have drifted north of the 40th par- 

 allel. A great deal of timber has been reported farther north, to 

 the westward of the 20th meridian, but, from the descriptions given, 

 •does not seem to be a part of the great raft. 



— Dr. David T. Day of the United States Geological Survey has 

 'been requested to make a collection of American pottery for the 

 National Museum. The collection of Sevres pottery presented 

 by the French Government is an exceedingly fine one, as is also 

 that of Japanese ceramics ; and the department of Indian pottery 

 is not approached elsewhere in the world. But the museum pos- 

 sesses very little modern American pottery, and it is now proposed 

 to fill up this gap. 



— The funeral of Prof. Roland D. Irving, late of the United 

 "States Geological Survey, took place at Tarrytown, N.Y., Saturday, 

 June 2. Professor Irving, although only forty-one years of age, 

 -had long been connected with the survey, and had done a great 

 ■amount of very valuable geological work. At the time of his death 

 he was engaged in examining the copper-bearing rocks of the Lake 

 Superior region, in regard to which he had published a monograph 

 ■in 1883. Another monograph by him, on the ' Penokee-Gogebic 

 Iron-Bearing Series,' has been announced. In collaboration with 

 Mr. C. R. van Hise, he has printed a bulletin on ' Secondary En- 

 largement of Mineral Fragment in Certain Rocks,' and, with Mr. 

 T. C. Chamberlin, 'Observations on the Junction between the East- 

 ern Sandstone and the Keweenaw Series on Keweenaw Point, Lake 

 ■Superior.' He had also made many contributions to the scientific 

 journals. 



^The third number of the American Joti?-nal of Psychology 

 ■{Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University) maintains the high expec- 

 tations of which the preceding numbers gave promise. There are 

 'five original memoirs touching upon several of the fields of this 

 ■rapidly growing science, and the usual number of book-notices and 

 notes. The first article is by Mr. Julius Nelson, and gives an ac- 

 ■count of his dreams in a manner that gives food for reflection. He 

 has had the patience to record all his dreams for several years, and, 

 as the manner of recording soon becomes regular and constant, the 

 ■record can be regarded as a relative index of the amount dreamed. 

 This he regards as the important point rather than the particular 

 •content of the dream, and his object is to find with what other 

 physiological function this variation in the dream-quantities keeps 

 pace. He finds it in the changes connected with the sexual func- 

 tion, showing a cycle (in both sexes) of a month, with coinciding 

 maxima and minima of intensity. Mr. E. C. Sanford describes 

 ■some very careful tests of the relative legibility of the small letters 

 •of the alphabet, ascertaining the order of legibility both by the dis- 

 tances at which they can be read and by the times it takes to read 

 them, and deducing from his results some important reforms in 

 the shapes of a few of the letters. As a contribution to animal 

 psychology, Mr. Edwards tells of the habits of a colony of crows 

 in their winter roost near Baltimore. The most astonishing point 

 -about these roosts is their size, the most modest estimates count- 

 ing a quarter of a million crows. With surprising regularity they 



return to the roost at sunset in endless streams, and^ leave again 

 early in the morning. The value of the article is increased by the 

 full account of the literature of the topic. Dr. William Noyes con- 

 tributes an interesting description of a case of paranoia expressing 

 itself in connection with a marked artistic talent. About these 

 artistic expressions is clustered a system of symbolism of an elabo- 

 rated type. The article is well illustrated, and the case described 

 in many respects typical. The final article is by Mr. C. F. Hodge, 

 and gives the results of a very promising series of experiments. A 

 group of ganglion cells were electrically stimulated for several 

 hours, and the changes in the cells under a high power of the 

 microscope looked for. A diminution in the size of the nucleus, 

 measured and tabulated, is the most marked change ; and the im- 

 portance of the observation lies in its opening up [a new field of 

 research, from which much can be expected. Prominent among 

 the book-notices are those on hypnotism. No less than forty-four 

 titles occur in this review, and, though this enormous activity in- 

 cludes much that will not stand the lest of science, it none the less 

 indicates the scope of the subject and the interest it everywhere 

 arouses. The other departments contain notices of articles bear- 

 ing on the nervous system, on experimental, abnormal, and anthro- 

 pological psychology, — all of value to specialists in these fields. 



— We learn from Nature that some months ago a large consign- 

 ment of salmon ova was despatched from Denmark to Buenos 

 Ayres, vid Hamburg, for the stocking of certain lakes and rivers in 

 the Argentine Republic. The experi[nent has proved very success- 

 ful, the ova arriving in excellent condition, and further consign- 

 ments are to be made. 



— According to Nature a marine zoological station, on the plan 

 of the one at Naples, is shortly to be established at Ostend. The 

 proposal is supported by four Belgian universities. 



— The opening of the Transcaspian Railway to'Samarcand recent- 

 ly is an important event in politics and an interesting one in his- 

 tory ; but Russian writers have gone a little too far in describing it 

 as a work of great engineering magnitude. On the contrary, with 

 the exception of the bridge over the Oxus, according to Engineer- 

 ing, there is not a bit of hard engineering along the whole line. 

 From one end to the other, a distance of over nine hundred miles, 

 it traverses a more or less sandy plain, and possesses fewer engi- 

 neering features of interest than a thousand other railways else- 

 where on the globe. And yet, for all this, while from a technical 

 point of view the Transcaspian Railway is a mere trifle, the under- 

 taking, in regard to its audacious conception and successful accom- 

 plishment, must long remain a credit to Russian engineering. 

 Eight years ago any one who would have prophesied that in the 

 present year of grace trains would be running to Samarcand would 

 have been considered fit for Bedlam. Universal ridicule was 

 poured by the Russian press upon General Annenkoff when he 

 first broached his scheme, and the English press was scarcely less 

 complimentary to Mr. Charles Marvin when he published an ac- 

 count of it in his pamphlet, ' The Russian Railway to Herat and 

 India.' 



— According to Engijteering, the Russian Government has al- 

 ready comimenced the cutting of the Perekop Canal. This great 

 work is intended to provide communication between the Sea of 

 Azov and Odessa without circumnavigating the Crimea. It will be 

 1 1 1 versts, or 74 miles, long, and take about four and a half years 

 to construct; its completion being timed for the autumn of 1891. 

 When finished it will prove of considerable strategical and com- 

 mercial importance. By means of it men-of-war will be able to 

 proceed from Odessa or Otchakoff to the Sea of Azov without ex- 

 posing themselves to capture in passing round the Crimean Penin- 

 sula, and a short cut will be provided for the transport of coal 

 from the Azov port of Mariopol to the Black Sea ports of Odessa, 

 Kherson, and Otchakoff. Both during the Crimean and the last 

 Turkish war the Russians felt the need of rapid intercourse be- 

 tween the interior of Russia and the ports of the Black Sea. The 

 new canal will enable them to concentrate their Don, Volga, and 

 Azov resources with great facility at the Odessa extremity of the 

 Czar's dominions, and will naturally render them more powerful in 

 controlling the mouth of the Danube. In time of peace the canal 



