164 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



aceous matters. The author shows, by numerous experiments, that 

 explosions of a violent kind can be produced by forcibly bringing into 

 contact at a high temperature, nitre, and substances of an inflammable 

 character. It also contains several new experiments on the combustion 

 of gunpowder under different circumstances. 



6. The sixth memoir is On the Ancient Monuments of the State of New 

 York, by E. G. Squier, and may be regarded as a continuation of the 

 memoir by Squier and Davis, on the ancient monuments of the Missis- 

 sippi valle}^. The expense of the explorations which form the basis of 

 this memoir was two hundred dollars, one half of which was defrayed 

 by the members of the Historical Society of New York, and the re- 

 mainder by this Institution. 



7. Another memoir is by Professor Secchi, a young Italian of much 

 ingenuity and learning, a member of Georgetown College. It consists 

 of a new mathematical investigation of the reciprocal action of two 

 galvanic currents on each other, and of the action of a current on the 

 pole of a magnet. It begins with the assumption that the force be- 

 tween the elements of the currents and the magnet is inversely as the 

 square of the distance, and directly as the sine of the inclination, and 

 then presents the mathematical inferences which legitimately flow from 

 these data. The deductions are of such a nature that the author has 

 been able to verify them by means of well devised experiments, and 

 the results accord as nearly with the deductions as the complex nature 

 of the subject will admit. The investigations involve the mathematical 

 theory of the galvanometer, and the experiments furnish much interest- 

 ing and useful information, aside from the principal object of the me- 

 moir, particularly on the comparative value of different kinds of galvanic 

 batteries. 



S. The next paper is by Professor Louis Agassiz, of Harvard 

 University, and is entitled The Classification of Insects upon Embryolo- 

 gical Data. It gives an account of a series of new and interesting facts 

 observed by the author relative to the metamorphosis of insects, which 

 have an important bearing on general questions in zoology, and which 

 will probably lead to the arrangement of these animals according to a 

 new system of classification, founded upon more definite principles than 

 those heretofore adopted. 



9. The next is a memoir by Dr. R. W. Gibbes, on the Mosasaurus 

 and some new allied genera of the gigantic lizards which formerly in- 

 habited our planet, and of which the remains are now found in different 

 parts of the United States, particularly in the marl beds of various 

 parts of the country. This is an interesting addition to palaeontology, 

 and has received a favorable report from the commission to whom it 

 was referred. 



Researches. 



The programme of organization contemplates the establishment of 

 researches, under the direction of suitable persons, the expense to be 

 borne in whole or in part by the Institution. In the last report it was 

 mentioned that a telescope and other apparatus had been ordered for 

 Lieutenant Gilliss in his astronomical expedition to Chili, and that, with- 



