— Miscelianeous Intelligence. 483 
been obtained by Mr. Proctor; and as composing, with other 
stars of the same vast eddy, attendant bodies bei a 1ying in its 
j paeney penrags space the general “ drift” - star-family, of which 
the s self forms a part. On this assumption, aérolites and 
mete pi moving with hyperbolic velocities are bodies from more 
distant spaces than the star-fami the sun, or wanna from 
the regions of more distant star- drifts, whence they ys possibly, 
been projected, with sufficient initial velocities to esca pe from 
their spheres of vaetrnotion by the stars Cmesiestek: and ais 
origin is, in this case, entirely different from that of comets, and 
of meteoric showers. If, as rofessor Schiaparelli observes, this 
in aig mine me comets, with velocities which seldom greatly 
8 5 oe communicated to them by the sun’s attrac- 
tion, nets ad ices. toward it from spaces not more distant 
than those of the parent noni sap" “ star-stream,” whose drift, or 
motion of translation in space, is found to be in general nearly 
similar to the proper ales of the sun.—Ldid, 
IV. MiIsceLLANEOUS ScrentTiric INTELLIGENCE. 
The National Academy of Sciences held its annual sessi 
at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, ~ is —_ 15th 
18th, 1873, when the following papers were prese 
The determination of singular points of Curves and Surfaces Re the method of 
quarternions; Benjamin 
The of the Coast Survey ; B, Peirce. 
Silt analysis of Soils and Clays ; E. W. 
On the meteoric iron found in 1871, near Shingle Springs, Eldorado County, 
ental and graphic results of distilling certain hydrocarbons by heat, 
with and without the aid of vacuum and steam; C. F. Chandler and B. Silliman. 
en ee ee anticlinal ; J. S. Newberry. 
the need of mo: investigations and tables of the celestial motions ; 
dene ee 
On the Atmospheric circulation; A. J. _ ikof. 
surveys JE Hi of lerigitade ‘between: Europe and America, by the U. S. Coast 
hone in two tly discovered minor Planets; J. C. Watson. 
On the of ers aol mt Torey’ peaks in Colorado Territory, and some 
with the determination of barometric “f 
