4:32 Scientific Intelligence. 



earlier one that the primitive vegetation was essentially anaerobic, 

 gradually adapting itself to the changing conditions by which 

 the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere was augmented and 

 heat diminished, and becoming thus partly aerobic. Looking at 

 cells, he traces their course from primitive vegetal forms of an 

 aerobic type up to the animal cell which is strictly aerobic. The 

 most interesting fact in the paper is quoted from an earlier com- 

 munication, by which it appears that the confined atmosphere, in 

 which a plant of Convolvulus arvensls grew, contained, after 

 three months, a larger percentage of oxygen than is found in our 

 atmosphere. g. l. g. 



IV. ASTEONOMT AND MATHEMATICS. 



1. The Collected Mathematical pallets of Henry John Stephen 

 Smith, edited by J. W. L. Glajsher, with a mathematical intro- 

 duction by the editor, biographical sketches, and a portrait. Two 

 vols., 4°, pp. xcv, 603 and vii, 719. Clarendon press, Oxford, 

 1894. — These volumes contain 47 papers published by Prof. 

 Smith, and one memoir on the Theta and Omega Functions not 

 before published. All but three or four of the papers have 

 appeared in the publications of learned societies or in the scien- 

 tific journals and therefore could be consulted by those who had 

 access to large libraries. But to all others they were as a whole 

 practically inaccessible. The volumes are designed as a memorial, 

 and in the character of the work presented and in this form of 

 publication they constitute a magnificent and most worthy me- 

 morial of a remarkable man. 



Professor Smith's earliest work was in pure Geometry, but 

 very soon he was attracted to the theory of numbers, and his six 

 reports on that subject made to the British Association are well 

 known to mathematicians. In following years he became inter- 

 ested in elliptic functions. The longest paper in the second of 

 these volumes, that on the Theta and Omega functions, grew out 

 of a request to him from Prof. Glaisher that he would write an 

 introduction to the volume of Tables of the Theta Functions, 

 which had been computed by Prof. Glaisher in connection with a 

 Committee of the British Association. For some unexplained 

 reason these tables have not yet been given to the public, h. a. n". 



2. Cordoba Durchmusterung Atlas containing the positions 

 and brightness of all the fixed stars down to the 10'0 magnitude 

 for the mean equinox of 1875-0 in the belt of the heavens com- 

 prised between 22 and J/.2 degrees of southern declination / to 

 accompany vols, xvi and xvii of results of the Argentine National 

 Observatory, published by the Observatory, 1893. Also vol. 

 xvii of Results. — These twelve maps with the Argelander and 

 Schonfeld maps cover the whole heavens down to 42° southern 

 declination. This Durchmusterung and Atlas formed part of Dr. 

 Gould's plan of work in going to Cordoba, but was deferred by 

 him in order to carry out his meridian circle observations. It 



