Miscellaneous Intelligence. 331 
the photographs made in these two ways ought before this time 
to ha n compared, and the capabilities of each method for 
securing the highest degree of accuracy determined. We fear 
that the experiments have not been made, and that, if not made 
very soon, the efficiency of all the American photographic obser- 
vations of the transit will be sadly impaired. 
3. Voleanie Eruption on Hawaii.—Sandwich Island papers of 
August 21 and 28, announce that the summit crater of Mt. Loa is 
again in eruption. A brilliant light is seen at the summit from 
all sides of the island, and ejections of columns of lava to a height 
of several hundred feet take place; but a flow of lava down the 
mountain is not reported. 
4. Tidal wave at the Sandwich Islands.—An unusual tidal 
wave took place at these islands on August 23, at 12 o’clock noon, 
it Honolulu from 12 to 14° there were five distinct waves of 
diminishing height, ranging from 12 to 15 minutes. Captain 
Williams of the British ketch Ino, reports that on August 18, in 
18° 55’ N.and 159° W., the sea for twenty-four hours was violently 
breaking and boiling as if on a bar or reef.— Honolulu Gazetie. 
_5. A General Index to the Contents of Fourteen Popular Trea- 
tues on Natural Philosophy, for the use of Students, Teachers 
and Artizans, by a Massachusetts Teacher. 108 pp., 8vo, Ne 
York, 1872 (Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co.).—This index will 
Wwe were most grateful to be liberated. There are at present 180 
men employed in the work of excavation, somewhere outside the 
Varies but as they are breaking new ground of consid- 
erable depth, much has to be cleared away before any thing can 
be discovered. In the general aspect of the old city no changes 
are, of course, observable ; but everywhere I marked the judicious 
bee 
Commendatore Fiorelli, in preserving the ruins, and rendering a 
Visit one of instruction as well as of enjoyment. The bodies, or 
orms of bodies, in the museum, held together or filled up by plas- 
ter of Paris, after the ingenious design of the Commendatore 
Fiorelli, had a more than usual interest forme. Their discover 
and preparation is an old story now, for I was present at their dis- 
interment and preparation “a long time ago,” and sent a detailed 
report of all to the Atheneum, but Lrepeat they had an especial 
terest for me now, for they were a lively and painful representa- 
tion of the sufferings lately inflicted by the same agency. To one 
of the bodies still adheres a portion of its dress, and in April last 
