Astrenomy. 601 



water of the glacial sea penetrated into the basin of the Caspian, 

 which still had a slight connexion with the Black Sea, so that only 

 a small number of animals could arrive there from the glacial sea. 

 Hence we find that the primitive forms of the Caspian are fresh- 

 water animals {e. g. Dreissena polymorpha), and then that the 

 emigrants from the glacial sea which reached it are marine ani- 

 mals for the most part inhabiting great depths. Hence, also, we 

 recognize that the Caspian in its fauna presents more affinities with 

 the glacial than with the Black Sea, which, again, has become 

 richer in animals under the influence of the MediteiTanean. 



The Caspian has not only received species from the glacial sea, 

 but has also furnished it with some— as, for example, a species of 

 sturgeon, which seems to be Acipenser nithemis, and lives in the 

 rivers of Siberia. I regard the Sturgeons as belonging to the 

 ancient Aralo-Caspian basin, and as having emigrated, as has been 

 said, into the glacial sea, and perhaps even to America, where, as 

 is well known, the nearest relatives of the Scaphirhynchi of the 

 xlral exist. On the other hand we may presume that the place of 

 origin of the Acipenseridae was the Indian Ocean, and that they 

 were derived from the Selachia, with which, especially when 

 young, they have many points in common (e. g. their teeth).— 

 Zeitschr. wiss. Zool., xxv, 322, 1875, condensed from Ann. Mag. 

 JVat. Hist., IV, xvii, 176, Feb. 1876. 



IV. Astronomy. 



1. II passaggio di Venere ml Sole, oaservato a 3IuddapuT nei 

 Bengcdw, Relazione di P. Tacchini. Palermo, 1875.— The party 

 of observers under P. Tacchini were provided with five telescopes 

 two of which had spectroscopes. In this volume we have the 

 results of their observations. P. Tacchini concludes, that the 

 spectroscope can be employed to advantage in transits; that the 

 solar diameter is smaller in the spectroscope than in an ordinary 

 telescope; that the atmosphere of Venus so appears in the spectro- 

 scope as to show that it has a large quantity of vapor like the 

 earth's atmosphere, 



2. Planets recently discovered.— In the August number of the 

 Journal for 1875, p. 158, was given a table of the recently dis- 

 covered small planets. We here continue it, repeating some of the 

 planets whose elements were then not well determined. In that 

 table the names Siwa and Polana were interchanged, also the 

 value of <p for Aethra should have been 22° instead oi' 2°. The 

 elements below so far as (147) are obtained from the Berlin As- 

 tronomische Jahrbuch for 1878. 



The name of (139), the planet discovered by Prof Watson while 

 at Peking, is Jue-wa, written in Chinese by two characters, but in 

 western languages to be written without a hyphen, as in the table. 



