480 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



IV. Astronomy. 



1. Traite de la determination des orbites des cometes et des 

 planetes, par Chevalier d'Oppolzer ; edition francaise par 

 Ernest Pasquier. Vol. i. Paris: Gauthier-Vi liars. 1886. Large 

 8vo, pp. 491 and ccix. — The great work of d'Oppolzer is too well 

 known to astronomers to need comment, being decidedly the 

 most complete and satisfactory work on orbits in existence. 

 This translation by the Louvain professor (published at his own 

 charges) makes the work easily accessible to those to whom the 

 French language is more familiar than the German. It is made 

 from the second edition of the first volume of the original. The 

 translator had the advice and assistance of the author. He has 

 taken care to have the work, but more especially the tables, 

 accurately printed. There have been changes both in the text 

 and in the tables, but in the main the volume is a reproduction 

 of the original. 



This first volume is complete in itself, but it is certainly to be 

 hoped that Professor Pasquier will be sufficiently encouraged to 

 issue the second volume also. h. a. n. 



2. Publications of the Washburn Observatory of the Uni- 

 versity of Wisconsin. Vol. iv, 8vo. Madison, 1886. — This vol- 

 ume contains several smaller articles, but the greater part of it 

 is occupied with observations of the 303 southern fundamental 

 stars for the zones of the Astronomische Gesellschaft. Of 

 these in nearly every case six complete observations were ob- 

 tained. The later observations, to complete the scheme, were 

 made by Mr. Updegraff and Miss Lamb after Mr. Holden's 

 appointment as President of the University of California, and 

 are given in an appendix. h. a. jst. 



V. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society (Raleigh, N. C.) for the 

 year 1884-1885. 100 pp. 8vo. — This report opens with a sketch 

 of the botanical work of Dr. M. A. Curtis (an obituary notice of 

 whom, by Dr. Gray, was published in III, vol. v, 1873, of this 

 Journal), and also a brief notice of Prof. Kerr. Among the notes 

 in the following pages, which are mainly chemical and meteorogi- 

 cal, there are papers by Prof. Kerr on the distribution and char- 

 acter of the Eocene deposits in eastern North Carolina, and on 

 the geology of the region about Tampa, Florida. On pp. 39, 40, 

 Prof. F. P. Venable gives the results of analyses of the leaves of 

 the Topon or Ilex Cassine of North Carolina — the tree that 

 afforded, by a steeping of the leaves, the famous " Black Drink " 

 of the Southern Indians, which they used for medicinal (drastic) 

 purposes. The dried leaves, collected in winter, were found to 

 afford caffeine, 0*32 per cent. In an analysis made of leaves col- 

 lected in May and dried, - 27 per cent of caffeine was obtained, 

 of tannin 7*39, nitrogen (on combustion) 0*73, ash 5*75 ; and the 



