124 NOTES. 
of Oonalashka, especially interesting as showing the direction of 
the ocean currents in that region. 
Capt. C. M. Scammon, U.S. R. M., submitted a description of 
a new species of whale, Balenoptera Davidsoni, the geographical 
range of which is from Mexico to Behring Straits ; the specimen 
from which the description was made was taken in Admiralty 
Inlet, Washington Territory. It was a female twenty-seven feet in 
length and contained a fœtus five feet long, thus correcting a 
“prevalent error among the whalers who have generally regarded 
this small species as the young of the ‘‘finback” of the coast; 
this animal and its habits will be fully described in the volume 
now being printed on the ‘‘ Cetaceans and other Marine Mammals” 
by Capt. Scammon. 
Prof. George Davidson read a paper entitled “ Suggestion of a 
Cosmical Cause for the great Climatic Changes upon the Earth.” 
“ Disliking theories and hypotheses, I must characterize as a 
suggestion what I have to state upon this subject. 
So far as I am aware, geologists have failed to indicate any 
reasonable or rational existence of a cause for the subtropical fossil 
flora and fauna found within the Arctic Circle, and for the great 
ice-sheet—the universal glacier—which doubtless covered nearly 
the whole land from the poles toward the tropics at a compara- 
tively recent period. To mention is to condemn the extravagant 
hypothesis of the changing of the direction of the earth’s axis, as 
it involves changes in the gyration of the earth necessarily of 
greater relative amount than the motions of a boy’s top. Partial 
upheavals and great changes of the surface of the earth are insuffi- 
cient to account for the phenomena 
The paleontologist has roughly indicated by his zones of fossil 
floras and fossil faunas that the pole of the earth has not changed 
its direction, and the astronomer utterly rejects such a change. 
My suggestion is that we must look to a cosmical cause for 
these phenomena; and that cause is in the material or materials 
burning upon the surface of the sun. 
The spectroscope has made known to us the connection between 
sudden outbursts or storms upon the sun’s surface, and the exhibi- 
tion of magnetic or electrical phenomena on the sun. There has 
been established a correspondence between the eleven year period 
of the solar spots and certain other magnetic phenomena. This 
ent has revealed to us a sun wherein a sudden outburst of 
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