Sharpless.] 78 [April 6, 
when he touched it he saw that it was changed into a toad, which sprang 
upon his face and squatted there, and would not go away. When any one 
tried to take it off, it spat out poison and seemed about to spring in the 
face, so that at length nobody dared to meddle with it. Now this toad the 
ungrateful son was compelled to feed, lest it should feed on his flesh ; and 
with this companion he moved wearily about from place to place, and had 
no rest anywhere in this world.’’ This very story is found in Etienne de 
Bourbon, 163, Bromyard, F. 22, Pelbartus, Serm. de Temp. Hiem., 22, B, 
not to mention other works of the same class, which aré mentioned in 
Oesterley’s notes to Pauli, 437, and in Douhet, Dictionnaire des Légendes, 
col. 805, n, 158. Until quite recently Grimm’s version was the only popu- 
lar one known, but a version from Lower Brittany has lately been pub- 
lished by F. M. Luzel, Lévendes chrétiennes de la Basse- Bretagne, Paris, 
1881, vol. ii, p. 179, Le Mils ingrat. There are probably other popular ver- 
sions which have not yet been collected, the class of legends or legendary 
and religious stories having been greatly neglected by collectors of popu- 
lar literature. ‘There is no need of insisting upon the importance of the 
exempla in the diffusion of stories, but we may mention in conclusion two 
cases of wholesale absorption of Oriental stories into collections of exempla 
or similar works, The first case is that of the Disedplina clericalis of Petrus 
Alfonsi, which has been taken up into the Libro de Hnxemplos mentioned 
above ; the second is the Seven Wise Masters, a compend of which is found 
in the Scala Coeli of a Dominican monk, Joannes Junior, who lived in the 
middle of the XIV century, and wrote a work of the same general de- 
scription as Bromyard’s and Etienne de Bourbon’s.* Separate stories 
from both of the above Oriental collections are frequently encountered 
among the popular tales of Hurope, and their wide diffusion is doubtless 
due to their absorption into the above collections. 
The Latitude of Haverford Oollege Observatory. By Isaac Sharpless. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, April 6, 1883.) 
The latitude of Harverford College Observatory was determined in the 
year 1854, by Prof. Jos. G. Harlan, by the use of a transit instrument in 
the prime vertical. Imperfect records of his results and none at all of 
his computations remain, but from them he deduced a value of 40° 0/ 86.5//, 
Inthe spring of 1881, a zenith instrument was placed in position in the 
observatory. The telescope has an aperture of 1% inches, and with its 
standards revolves about a vertical axis. It is provided with micrometer 
and levels. 
*This compend of Joannes Junior is of great importance in the study of the 
Western branch of the Seven Wise Masters, and has been reprinted by K, Go- 
deke in the Orient und Occident, ill, pp. 3888-423, Liber de septem Sapientibus. 
