June 26, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



531 



— The Parker memorial science class of some 

 seventy members has just closed its course of weekly- 

 lectures or lessons. These were of a very varied char- 

 acter, being given by some twenty-five persons on 

 successive Sundays, on a great variety of topics. The 

 enterprise of the promoters in securing in many 

 cases excellent speakers is to be commended; but 

 one fails to see any harmony in the general plan, and 

 can therefore only question its utility, beyond satisfy- 

 ing a dyspeptic craving for miscellaneous information. 



— An international pharmaceutical congress is to 

 be held in Brussels from Aug. 31 to Sept. 6. The 

 principal subjects of discussion are to be : 1. An 

 international pharmacopeia; 2. Pharmaceutical edu- 

 cation; 3. Adulteration of food; 4. Drinking-water 

 and its properties and circumstances. Tbe language 

 used will be French, and the king of the Belgians 

 will be president of the congress. 



— On the 4th of July, 1SS3, during the voyage from 

 Lisbon to Plymouth, a bottle containing a paper was 

 thrown overboard from the German gunboat Cyclop 

 in latitude 39° 41.8' north, and longitude 9° 41' west. 

 This was afterwards picked up on the 1st of Marcb, 

 1885, on the east side of Grand Turk I.-dand, West 

 Indies. This bottle had been afloat one year and 

 eight months, and had probably travelled back and 

 forth in the North African and north equatorial cur- 

 rents. Through the German embassy in Portugal the 

 German seewarte has received a bottle-post paper 

 which was put overboard on the 4th of December, 

 1864, by the German bark Nubia during a voyage from 

 Rotterdam to Zanzibar, in latitude 16° 13' north, lon- 

 gitude 21° 53' west. This was afterwards picked up 

 near Sal Island, Cape de Verdes, in about latitude 

 1(3° 52' north, and longitude 22° 55' west. The date of 

 tbe finding of tbe bottle was not given. The paper 

 was handed to the German consul at Sal Island by 

 the harbor authorities of tbat place on the 1st of 

 March, 1685. It is likely tbat this bottle travelled 

 about 70 sea-miles N.W. by W. §• W. in 2£ months. 

 It is also probable that it lay ashore for some time 

 before it was found, or that considerable time elapsed 

 before the paper was delivered to the German consul. 

 Through the German consulate in Rochefort, France, 

 the same institution has received a bottle-post paper 

 wbich was put overboard from the German schooner 

 Milly, July z5, 1884, during the voyage from Ham- 

 burg to tbe Marshall Islands, in latitude 48° 18' 

 north, longitude 6° 48' west. This was afterwards 

 picked up on the coast on the 14th of February, 1885, 

 in latitude 46° 27' north, longitude 2° 42' west. It 

 is probable that this bottle travelled 202 sea-miles 

 S.E. by E. in 204 days. The seewarte has also 

 received a bottle-post paper from Corpus Cbristi, 

 Tex., which had been put overboard from the Ger- 

 man steamer Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm, Dec. 26, 

 1882, in latitude 1° 37' north, longitude 30° 43' west. 

 This was afterwards picked up on the 1st of June, 

 1884, near Padre Island, coast of Texas, in about 27° 

 north latitude, 97° 15' west longitude. This bottle 

 had probably travelled 4,160 sea-miles W.N.W^ W. 

 in 523 days. 



— Dr. Bernard Schwartz has written a painstaking 

 work on the history of mountain investigation from 

 ancient times to the days of De Saussure ('Die er- 

 schliessung der gebirge,' Leipzig, 1885), based on his 

 lectures at the Freiberg mining school. It carries 

 the reader through the early centuries of travel in 

 rugged countries, when mountains were merely obsta- 

 cles, not objects, in the road ; through the middle 

 centuries, when attention to nature was awakening, 

 but when observation was still so uncritical that Ten- 

 eriffe, for example, was reported nine miles, and even 

 fifteen miles high; and into the modern era, which, 

 so far as accurate measures of altitude are concerned, 

 began in the famous meridian-arc expedition of Bou- 

 guer and La Conclamine to Peru in 1735. Up to this 

 time Mont Blanc was the ' monarch of mountains,' 

 just as the Alps were the mountains, par excellence, 

 of the world; but then Chimborazo took the lead, 

 and held it till 1818, when the English explorations 

 brought the peaks of the Himalaya up to the first 

 rank. The progress and results of mountain explora- 

 tion are thus minutely chronicled in about five hun- 

 dred pages, themselves almost pathless, as the table 

 of contents is very brief, and index, page-headings, 

 and paragraph-headings are quite wanting. 



-f Professor Nowacki of the Polytechnic institute 

 in Zurich has prepared an introduction to the study 

 of soils ('Kurze anleitung zur einfacben bodenunter- 

 suchung,' Zurich, 1885), from which we may measure 

 the attention given to scientific agriculture in Switz- 

 erland. It gives a general statement of the struc- 

 ture of soils, and of the method of taking samples, 

 and then proceeds to treat tbe analysis and classifica- 

 tion of soils more at length, and to discuss the deter- 

 mination and supply of needful elements. It is all 

 treated as simply as possible, so as not to be too 

 inaccessible to those who have most need of its teach- 

 ings. A supplement, however, gives 'the first at- 

 tempt at a scientific terminology of soils,' which we 

 fear will not soon enter into common use. Seven 

 genera, of six species each, from Terra rudecta limosa 

 aut margillosa to Terra humosa agrestis et hortensis, 

 is at least somewhat cumbersome. 



— An extended list of altitudes for nearly three 

 thousand places in the Carnic and Julian Alps has 

 lately been compiled by G. Marinelli, professor of 

 geography in the University of Padua, and published 

 as a supplement to the Cosmos of Guido Cora of 

 Turin. It is preceded by a list of a hundred and 

 nineteen authorities, forming in itself a guide to the 

 geographic literature of the region, and is introduced 

 by a well-analyzed table of contents, from which any 

 desired point can easily be found. 



— Dr. G. M. Dawson has recently discovered a re- 

 markable Jurasso-cretaceous flora in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, on the branches of the Old Man River, Martin 

 Creek, Coal Creek, and one other locality far to the 

 north-west on the Suskwa River. The containing 

 rocks are sandstones, shales, and conglomerates, with 

 seams of coal, in some places anthracite. It was pro- 

 posed by Sir William Dawson, in his paper before the 

 recent meeting of the Royal society of Canada, to call 



