NOTES. 383 
claimed that Kane’s Polar sea is a strait fifteen miles wide. He 
crossed it in a sledge journey, from which he returned to die 
aboard his ship. 
We are sanguine that the Polaris will be found, and that the sci- 
entific results will be commensurate with the care taken in the out- 
fit at Washington and the selection of men to conduct observations. 
It will be remembered that the chief of the scientific corps is Mr. 
Emil Bessels, a most promising naturalist, author of several works 
on the embryology of the invertebrates, and of an unpublished 
memoir on the embryology of insects. Meanwhile we must wait 
anxiously, perhaps for three or four months, before knowing of the 
fate of Bessels and his comrades. 
Dr. E. Coves has been attached to the International British 
Northern Boundary Survey of the 49th parallel, which takes the 
field on the first of June. 
Tur New Albany, Ind., Society of Natural History is doing good 
work in developing the natural history of Indiana and has several 
active workers in its ranks. Located ina rich fossiliferous region, 
also in the locality of several caves and subterranean streams, we 
look to the members of this society for important additions to our 
Knowledge in these departments, and we are also pleased to note 
that they are doing much in collecting the stone and bone relics of 
the former inhabitants of the region, having already made a large 
and important collection of specimens, as we can testify from a 
Visit of two years ago. The officers of the society for the fol- 
lowing year are — President, John Sloan; Vice Presidents, Charles 
Hutchinson and F. L. Morse; Secretary, W. W. May; Treasurer, 
J. K. Walts; Librarian, Frank Spellman ; Curators, W. A. Clapp, 
Wm. Borden, S. L. S. Smith, John Williamson, Wm. Clark. 
Tue Papers on Natural History read at the Washington meeting 
of the National Academy of Science in April, 1873, were on the 
following subjects :— Biographical Memoir of Dr. John Torrey, 
by Dr. Asa Gray; On Reproduction in Progeny of Defects pro- 
duced by Injury in Parents, by Dr. Charles E. Brown-Sequard ; 
On the Unity of the System of Life in Animals and the true 
Principle of Gradation in the various Animal Types, by Prof. A. 
Guyot. The following members were elected :— Professor Elias 
Loomis, Prof. Joseph Lovering, Prof. W. A. Norton, Dr. Theodore 
Gill, Dr. J. J, Woodward. 
