June 19, 1SS5.1 



SCIENCE. 



509 



not perfectly so (witness consols) ; on the left 

 hand, the same words, in the same spelling, but 

 with various devices to show the pronunciation, 

 such as the use of accents, acute and grave, 

 heavy t} r pe for some letters, and smaller type 

 for silent letters. The notation used is a new 

 one, and the final result far from being readily 

 intelligible. The proper course would have 

 been to minimize the inconvenience to the user 

 by making the left-hand column as simple as 

 possible, using always only one sign for the 

 same sound, and omitting silent letters alto- 

 gether. If all the words are respelled solely to 

 show their pronunciation, there is no excuse 

 for not spelling phonetically. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The local committee of the American association, 

 which will hold its thirty-fourth meeting in Ann 

 Arbor during the week beginning Wednesday, Aug. 

 26, announces that the general sessions will be held 

 in University Hall, while rooms for the sectional 

 meetings will be assigned in different buildings on 

 the university grounds. The offices of the perma- 

 nent and local secretaries and of the various commit- 

 tees will be established in the immediate proximity, 

 together with an association post-office ; and all let- 

 ters, telegrams, and express packages bearing the 

 letters ' A. A. A. S.' will be delivered close at hand. 

 The university offers the use of its rooms for any 

 lectures, or specially illustrated papers, which may 

 be authorized by the standing committee. Sectional 

 papers demanding experimental illustration may be 

 supplemented by the use of the apparatus at hand. 

 The university will furnish electricity, either from a 

 dynamo, from a storage-battery, or from primary bat- 

 teries, as may be needed by members reading papers 

 on electrical subjects. Opportunity will also be given 

 any member desirous of making an exhibit of appa- 

 ratus, minerals, or scientific specimens of any kind, 

 to properly display the same. 



The committee is not yet ready to announce com- 

 plete arrangements with the railways, but they state 

 provisionally that over most of the lines return tick- 

 ets will be furnished for one-third of the regular price 

 to all who have paid full fare over the same line. 

 Ann Arbor is situated on the lines of two railways, 

 — the Michigan central, and the Toledo, Ann Arbor, 

 and northern Michigan ; and a special through train, 

 for the exclusive use of members of the association, 

 will be run by the former if a sufficient number de- 

 sire, leaving Buffalo on Tuesday morning, Aug. 25, 

 stopping for an hour or two at Niagara Falls, and 

 reaching Ann Arbor in the evening of the same day. 

 The two hotels at Ann Arbor are the Cook House 

 and the Franklin House, where members will be ac- 

 commodated at two dollars a day. A large number of 

 rooms, with prices varying from fifty cents to a dollar 

 a day, have also been engaged in private houses near 

 the university grounds, where, to accommodate those 



not offering board as well, a restaurant sufficient to 

 accommodate three hundred persons at once will be 

 established, at which, breakfast, dinner, and supper 

 will be furnished at the uniform price of fifty cents. 

 Private hospitality is also liberally promised by many 

 citizens; and there is no question of sufficiency 

 of accommodation, as most of the two thousand 

 students who live in the city during term time will 

 be absent on their vacation. 



An evening reception on a day not specified will be 

 given the association at the court-house, together 

 with a lawn-party on the university grounds at the 

 close of one of the regular sessions. The excursions 

 committee has nearly completed arrangements for a 

 trip, free of all expense, to the Saginaw valley, includ- 

 ing a steamboat ride down the river, and view of the 

 cities of Saginaw, East Saginaw, Bay City, and West 

 Bay City, and the enormous industries in salt and 

 lumber manufacture which have given the Saginaw 

 valley a world-wide celebrity. This valley produces 

 annually a billion feet of lumber, and the excursion- 

 ists will see half a billion piled on the docks. In con- 

 junction with these vast lumber operations will be 

 seen .the production of salt on a scale unequalled in 

 the world, and employing the various improved pro- 

 cesses. The committee has also arranged for excur- 

 sions to Detroit and Mackinack Island, with side 

 trips to Sault Ste. Marie, Pectoskey, and Marquette. 

 Members wishing to make any special inquiries or 

 arrangements should address Prof. J. W. Langley, 

 local secretary, Ann Arbor, Mich. 



— Matusoffski and Nikitine, well known for their 

 travels in China and Sakhalin, have recently finished 

 a new map of China; that is to say, of the Middle 

 Kingdom, with the region bordering upon it. This 

 chart is on the scale 1:4,200,000, and is the best yet 

 issued in point of execution. Paderin, Uspenski, and 

 Sheveleff have served as a committee on the orthog- 

 raphy of proper names, with Professor Vasilieff as 

 umpire in doubtful cases. It extends from the west- 

 ern borders of Corea to the Yung-ling Mountains, and 

 between latitudes 16° and 45° north. 



— The Annuaire de Turkestan for 1S85 has just 

 been issued by Messrs. Sokoloff and Lakhtin. Its 

 contents are of unusual interest in connection with 

 recent events, and comprise, among other things, a 

 chronology of historical events from 1155 to 1884; a 

 memoir on the Merv oasis and on the route between 

 Khiva and the Caspian; notes on the Amu Daria; a 

 description of Ferghana, of the museum at Tashkent, 

 of the fisheries of Turkestan, and an account of pub- 

 lic instruction in Turkestan. 



— A special chair of geology has just been estab- 

 lished in the Indiana university, and Prof. J. C. 

 Branner of the Geological survey of Pennsylvania 

 has been chosen to fill it. Professor Branner was for 

 six years assistant geologist to the Imperial geological 

 survey of Brazil. Prof. J. P. Naylor of Indianapolis 

 has been elected to the chair of physics. 



— Dr. Hermann Koskoschny has projected a series 

 of geographical manuals on European and especially 

 German colonization, under the title ' Europas kolo- 



