7:> Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



flowing glacier (which occupied the plain) had a surface nearly 

 equal to that of the feeding glacier (which "was situated in the moun- 

 tains). By means of several tables M. Favre showed the height 

 attained by these glaciers, their thickness, the slope of their upper 

 surface etc. at various points in the Alps, the Jura, and Swabia, and 

 deduced as the result of the comparison of these numbers : — 1. that 

 the Phone glacier passed over several of the chains of the Jura, 

 and that the ice covering these, far from being an obstacle to the 

 extension of the glaciers of the Alps, actually reinforced them, and 

 served them as relays, the glaciers of the Jura having carried far 

 on the Alpine erratic blocks ; 2. that the slopes of the upper surface 

 were variable, and were null, or nearly so, over considerable spaces. 

 At the Calanda, near Coire, there are erratics which seem to 

 be at a higher level than that attained by the glacier. This may be 

 explained by the formation in the glacier of a sort of eddy, which 

 would elevate the ice to a certain amount over a limited space. 



During their greatest extension the Swiss glaciers came into contact 

 with those of central Prance near Lyons ; they united with those 

 of the Jura, the Black Porest, and the Austrian and Italian Alps; 

 they stretched from the plain of the Po to that of the Danube ; and, 

 further, for distances of 50 or 100 kilometres they nearly ap- 

 proached horizontality. Hence they resembled the glaciers of the 

 interior of Greenland and Spitzbergen, so far as can be judged 

 from the descriptions. 



2. " Evidences of Theriodonts in Permian deposits elsewhere 

 than in South Africa." By Prof. B. Owen, C.B., P.B.S., P.G.S. 



XL Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



N REPLY TO FATHER SECCHI 

 PLACEMENT OF THE STELLAR LINES. 

 D.C.L.j LL.D., F.R.S. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 



Gentlemen, 

 "fa/JTAY I ask you to insert in the next Number of the Philoso- 

 •**■*• phical Magazine the following translation of a letter which I 

 have addressed to MM. les Secretaires Perpetuels of the Academie 

 des Sciences in reply to the letter from lather Secchi, of which a 

 translation appeared in the Supplementary Number of your Maga- 

 zine for June ? 



Yours &c, 

 June 7, 1876. William Huggins. 



I hesitate to occupy the time of the Academy with a few words 

 in reply to a letter from Pather Secchi, read on April 3, especially 

 because Mr. Christie, of Greenwich, has communicated to the Boyal 

 Astronomical Society a summary of the results recently observed at 



