January 23, 1885. 



SCIENCE 



81 



from the xviii. dynasty to that of the Ptolemies. 

 The university has also purchased casts, on a reduced 

 scale of 1 : 10, of the two pediments of the temple of 

 Zeus at Olympia. They had recently been executed 

 at Berlin, under the direction of Curtius and Hirsch- 

 feld, by the sculptor Griittner. 



— E. and F. N. Spon announce as in preparation, 

 1 Electricity in the house,' by E. Hospitalier, trans- 

 lated by C. J. Wharton ; also " The animal food- 

 resources of different nations, with mention of some 

 of the special dainties of various people derived from 

 the animal kingdom," by P. L. Simmonds. 



— Specific characters of considerable importance 

 are found in the position of the resin-ducts and de- 

 velopment of the hypoderm cells in the leaves of 

 Abietineae, especially in the perplexing genus Abies. 

 The value of these characters is recognized by special 

 students of Coniferae; and material for the more 

 general study of the structure of the leaves of all the 

 North-American species, exclusive of those of Mexico, 

 is now available for botanists. Mr. J. D. King of 

 Cottage City, Mass., director of the department of mi- 

 croscopy in the Martha's Vineyard summer institute, 

 has prepared and offers for sale microscopic sections 

 of the sixty species of Abietineae of the United States. 

 The sections are cut as thin as practicable, varying 

 from a hundredth to an eight-hundredth of an inch, 

 and are so prepared by bleaching and double staining 

 as to show the cross-section and the whole structure 

 of the leaf very perfectly. These specimens are pre- 

 pared from material collected in connection with the 

 census investigation of the forest wealth of the United 

 States, and were supplied for the herbarium of the 

 Arnold arboretum by Professor Sargent. 



— The crisis in the grain trade, and the American 

 and Indian competition in this commodity, are the 

 topics of the day in Russia, and are being discussed 

 in no less than three societies in St. Petersburg, each 

 of them devoting more than one session to these 

 topics. 



— The need of a periodical of high character, de- 

 voted to the advance of archeological studies, and* to 

 the promotion of interest in them in America, is 

 widely felt; and, to supply this need, it is proposed 

 to publish quarterly, under the title of The American 

 journal of archaeology , a journal devoted to the study 

 of the whole field of archeology, — oriental, classical, 

 early Christian, mediaeval, and American. The 

 Archaeological institute of America has recognized 

 the journal as its official organ. The following is a 

 list of the editorial staff, so far as at present formed : 

 advisory editor, Professor Charles Eliot Norton of 

 Harvard college; managing editor, Dr. A. L. Froth- 

 ingham of Johns Hopkins university, to whom all 

 communications should be addressed; special editors, 

 Dr. A. Emerson of Johns Hopkins university, Mr. 

 T. W. Ludlow of New York, Professor Allan Mar- 

 quand of Princeton college, Mr. A. R. Marsh of Har- 

 vard college, and Mr. Charles C. Perkins of Boston. 

 A reserve fund is required in order to meet the deficit 

 which must occur during the first few years of the 



journal's existence. Contributions to it are solicited, 

 and may be forwarded to the Safe deposit company 

 of Baltimore, which acts as trustee of the fund. 

 Notification of such remittances should be made to 

 the managing editor. 



— Professor Sporer, at a recent meeting of the Ber- 

 lin meteorological society, gave a brief sketch of the 

 present period of sun-spots. The spot-periods being 

 counted from minimum to minimum, the commence- 

 ment of the present spot-period was to be referred to 

 1878. So far as had hitherto been observed, the pres- 

 ent was distinguished from the last two spot-periods 

 by two peculiarities, — first, that the maximum in the 

 present period appeared to have occurred four-tenths 

 of a year later than in the previous periods ; and, sec- 

 ond, that during the maximum, the distribution of the 

 solar eruptions showed an essentially different charac- 

 ter from that usually obtaining. In the former pe- 

 riods it was observed during the maximum that the 

 greatest concourse of spots surrounded with faculae 

 occurred in the median latitudes of the sun; that they 

 were completely wanting towards the poles, became 

 less numerous also towards the equator, and only at 

 the equator itself did they again become somewhat 

 more crowded. In the rotation of the sun, those erup- 

 tions showed a heliographic displacement towards the 

 equator, in contrast to the spots free from faculae, 

 which, in the course of rotation, wandered towards 

 the poles. During the minima of the spot-periods 

 the maximum of the eruptions was generally found 

 in the neighborhood of the equator. In \he present 

 period, again, the greatest concourse of eruptions sur- 

 rounded with faculae was found towards the equa- 

 tor during the maximum as well, — a phenomenon 

 usually occurring at the time of the minimum. The 

 present, on the other hand, resembled former periods 

 in the circumstance that it was only on rare occasions 

 that the concourse of spots was alike on both hemi- 

 spheres of the sun. In the majority of cases, either 

 the northern hemisphere presented a more copious 

 display of spots than the southern, or the southern 

 mustered them in larger numbers than the northern. 



— The inhabitants of the small town of Gelnhau- 

 sen, in Hesse, are putting up a bronze memorial bust 

 of their distinguished townsman, Philipp Reis, as 

 the inventor of the musical telephone. 



— The Italian explorer, Capt. Cecchi, has sailed for 

 the west coast of Africa in the Garibaldi. 



— The lack of amusements at San Diego, Cal., is 

 causing some talk of establishing' a botanic and zoologi- 

 cal garden. The great natural advantages, especially 

 of climate, would make such an institution, in com- 

 petent hands, of great practical utility and scientific 

 value, and far less expensive to sustain than in the 

 Atlantic states. 



— Mr. Tresca reports to the French academy in the 

 Comptes rendus, Oct. 6, that a system of electric 

 lighting, including both arc and incandescent lamps, 

 was arranged from the electrical exposition building 

 in Turin over a distance reaching to 40 kilometres 

 (24.2 miles). The committee of the exposition, in- 



