490 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



The work is not a descriptive geometry nor a treatise on per- 

 spective, but is an introduction to the methods of investigation 

 now known under various names of Higher Geometry, Modern 

 Geometry, Geometry of Position, etc. The knowledge required 

 in a student of this work is that of elementary plane geometry, 

 and the simplest elements of algebra. How little of the latter 

 is needed is seen in the fact that ideal or imaginary points and 

 lines, as well as the logical difficulties connected with them, are 

 kept as much as possible in the background. The ideas of lines 

 and points at infinity in the plane, of homology, of duality, of 

 anharmonic ratios, of involution, of poles and polars, of polar 

 reciprocal figures, and of foci, are developed in a manner to give 

 to the student a clear apprehension of the several methods 

 involved in these ideas and a power of using them. It is only a 

 geometer of the highest rank who is capable of producing a first 

 rate work of this character. 



2. National Academy of Sciences. — A meeting of the National 

 Academy was held at Albany, beginning with November 10, 1885. 

 The following is a list of the papers entered to be read at the 

 meeting. Those marked with an asterisk were read by invitation. 



S. P. Langley : On obscure heat. 



J. S. Billings: On a new form of craniaphore, for taking composite photo- 

 graphs. 

 ^00— A. S. Packard: On the Ca rbon iferous Merostomatous fauna-of America. 

 B. C. Pickering: On stellar photography. 



B. D. Cope : On two new forms of Polyodont and Gonorhynchid fishes from 

 the Eocene of the Rocky Mountains. 



C. FI. F. Peters: On certain stars observed by Blamsteed, and supposed to 

 have disappeared. 



James Hall: Remarks upon the International Geological Congress, with a 

 brief historical notice of the origin of the congress. 



James Hall: Notes on some points in the geology of the Mohawk Valley. 



Simon Newcomb : When shall the. astronomical day begin ? 



J. W. Powell: Remarks on the stone ruins of the Colorado and the Ria 

 JUH/^ Grande. 



A. Graham Bell: Preliminary report on the investigation relating to hereditary 

 deafness. 



C. A. Young : On the new star in the nebula of Andromeda. 



C. H. P. Peters : On the errors of star catalogues. 



T. H. Stafford : On the formation of a Polar catalogue of stars. 



James Hall: Remarks upon the Lamellibranchiata fauna of the Devonian 

 rocks of the State of New York, and the results of investigations made for the 

 paleontology of the State. 



*0. T. Sherman : On new lines in the spectra of certain stars. 

 y^**-^ *W. B. Dwigbt : Primordial rocks among the Wappinger Valley limestones, 

 near Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 



*J. A. Lintner : On recent progress in economic entomology. 



*C. H. Peck : The New York State herbarium. 



*Otto Meter: On a Section through Southern Tertiaries. 



OBITUARY. 



Dr. William B. Carpenter, the English Physiologist, died on 

 the 10th of November last at the age of seventy-two years. 



