Miscellaneous Intelligence. - 825 
origina! path takes place within the earth’s atmosphere, it is 
necessary to find some cause which would account for the deflec- 
tion being greater in one plane than in the direction at right 
angles to it. This would be the case if there were some arrange- 
ment of the particles in space which caused them to set them- 
selves with their longer axes north and south. I would suggest 
that if the particles are magnetic they would, on coming up to 
the earth, tend to arrange themselves with their longer axes 
parallel to the earth’s magnetic axis.” 
2. The Boyden Fund.—By the will of the late Urian A. Boy- 
DEN, property, the present value of which exceeds two hundred 
and thirty thousand dollars, was left in trust for the purpose of 
astronomical research “at such an elevation as to be free, so far 
as practicable, from the impediments to accurate observations 
which occur in the observatories now existing, owing to atmos- 
pheric influences.” 
The Trustees of this fund have transferred the property to the 
President and Fellows of Harvard College, in order that the 
researches proposed by Mr. Boyden may be directed at the 
Harvard College Observatory. These researches will be sup- 
ported by a portion of the means of the Observatory, in addition 
to the trust fund itself. Professor Pickering has issued a circular 
requesting information with regard to the altitude, accessibility, 
and climate of various mountainous regions which might natu- 
rally be selected as suitable places for the proposed observations. 
A location in the southern hemisphere will be preferable for 
various reasons. The southern stars invisible in Europe and the 
United States have been less observed than the northern stars, 
and by the aid of a southern station the investigations undertaken 
at Cambridge can be extended upon a uniform system to all parts 
of the sky. 
3. A Treatise on Algebra ; by Professors Oxtver, Wait and 
Jones, of Cornell University.—This work was undertaken as a 
text book, and was developed, as. the authors inform us in the 
preface, with the wants of their classes ever before them. But it 
grew beyond a manual; it is a treatise. It departs from the tra- 
ditional forms of development of algebra in the arrangement of 
the subject, in the notations employed, in the forms of demonstra- 
tion, and by introducing at an early stage the extensions of mean- 
ing of terms and processes required in higher algebra. 
Experience in the class-room will show whether selections from 
this original and thoughtful work can be successfully used in 
elementary teaching. But the advanced student and the teacher 
will surely find in it an abundance of helpful ideas and methods. 
There is one serious deficiency, it has no alphabetic index. 
IV. MiIscELLANEOUS SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 
1. Scientific Writings of Joseph Henry. Vols. i and ii, pp. 
523 and 559 large 8vo. Washington, 1886. Published by the 
Smithsonian Institution.—The contributions to science by Profes- 
