96 The West American Scientist. 
the Coronado Railway to National City and thence to the Mexi- 
can boundary in the Tyuana valley, where the ladies received the 
official stamp of the Mexican customs on their handkerchiefs. 
Returning, a beautiful spread of fruits and flowers. and more 
substantial edibles, provided by the ladies of National City, was 
found awaiting us under the olive trees of Mr. Warren Kimball, 
to which ample justice was done. On the 1oth an excursion 
around San Diego bay in the steamer Manuel Dublan was en- 
joyed through the courtesy of Capt. Scott. The 11th, the asso- 
ciation visited El Cajon and Lakeside, viewing a section of the 
famous San Diego flume and the orchards and vineyards of the 
valley. | | 
A report of a discovery of a member of the great boa con- 
strictor family having reached the daily press, our friends rather 
cruelly hint that we are in the habit of ‘seeing snakes.’’ Such 
is fame ! 
Dr. Stephen Bowers, of the California Mineralogical and Geo- 
logical Survey, was in attendance at the editorial corvention, and 
we had the pleasure of making his personal acquaintance. He 
recently visited the Colorado Desert at Indio, where a new spec- 
ies of Helix in a sub-fossil condition was found among the granite 
boulders of the hills. A still more important discovery was made 
by the doctor in his ethnological researches on the side of the San 
Jacinto mountain at the edge of the ancient lake, His Indian 
guide here pointed out to him numerous stone “fish-traps,’’ made 
by the ancestors of the present race of Indians. We hope to 
give our readers soon a more detailed description of this interest- 
ing discovery. ; : 
The kindly words of the editor of the Standard of Chicago, one 
of the leading religious weeklies of America,showing an apppeci- 
ation of our work upon the SCIENTIST,are very gratifying to our 
vanity. We shall hope and strive to merit all the praises of our 
contemporaries, but we have not yet been able to present our 
ideal magazine. We must look to our contributors and corres- 
pondents for friendly criticism and assistance in making the 
SCIENTIST all that its friends would desire. 
NOTES AND NEWS. 
Henrich Gustav Reichenbach died at Hamburg, Germany, 
May 6th, at the age of sixty-five. He was the recognized 
authority on orchid nomenclature, and was widely known for his 
extensive knowledge and writings on orchids, to the study of 
which he devoted a great portion of his life. Reichenbachia, the 
sumptuous periodical devoted to orchids, was named for him and 
he was connected with it at the time of his death. 
Charles Fasoldt, the well-known maker of clocks and scientific 
