242 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



he describes the encounter and destruction of a comet by a 

 meteoroid stream, the reader will probably be led to question his 

 judgment on other topics. 



V. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. Ml St. JElias.—ln a notice of Mr, W. H, Ball's paper on Mt. 

 St. Elias (from the Coast Survey Report for 1875) on pp. 77 and 

 78 of this volume, the remark is made that the views are evidently 

 vertically exaggerated. The author has informed us that the pro- 

 portions of the mountains are rightly given, from determinations 

 by instruments. The view of Mt. St. Elias was taken from Yakutat 

 Bay (Port Mulgrave), 53 [nautical?] miles to the southeast. The 

 southern face of the mountain, from a line about 5,000 feet above 

 its base, is " an immense rock-face, inclined at an angle of 45° to 

 the sea, and rising 8,000 to 10,000 feet without a break in its con- 

 tinuity." " The apex is pyramidal, sharp and clearly cut, leading 

 to the inference that it is precipitous on the invisible northern side. 

 The whole of the rock-face is marked by straight rigid lines of 

 bedding, which are inclined uniformly to the eastward at an angle 

 of about ten degrees." Mr. Dall concludes from its features and 

 this appearance of stratification, that the mountain is not volcanic 

 but consists, with the high range to which it belongs, mainly of 

 non-volcanic crystalline rocks. 



The height of Mt. St. Elias was determined trigonometrically by 

 measurements from four stations, that at Port Mulgrave, 69 miles 

 distant from Mt. St. Elias. and the others (off Lituya Bay, off Dry 

 Bay, and at sea to the south-southwest) over ] 00 miles distant. 

 The following are the angles of altitude from each station, and the 

 calculated height : 



Beport of 



„_„-,. „^ , „^_>,^.^^.„_. ,^..,^.„..„„ ,... ..le Coast of 



Alaska ; by W. H. Ball. Ibid; Appendix No. 11.— The first of 

 these papers contains new facts on the tides, currents, ocean and 

 land temperatures, hydrography, topography and other charac- 

 teristics of the vicinity of Alaska and some of the Aleutian Islands. 

 The Shumagin Islands, south of the extremity of the Alaska Penin- 

 sula, are described as composed of granite, various metamorphic 

 rocks and sandstones, overlaid by Tertiary beds, " of which the 

 upper beds contain fossiliferous layers of Miocene age, the lower 

 ones containing remains of warm temperate vegetation, and the 



