August 14, 1885.] 



SCIENCE, 



135 



tion, and the work is accompanied by diagrams, and 

 a magnetic chart of Russia. Investigations in this 

 direction have been very active recently in Russia. 

 Besides the work of Tillo, Miller, Scharnhorst, etc., 

 Schwartz has recently published in the ' Russki inva- 

 lid ' important researches on the magnetics of Tur- 

 kestan, especially of the observatory at Tashkent. 



Charles Rabot has finished a reconnoissance of the 

 Norwegian glacial region, known under the general 

 name of Svartisen. This work is the result of several 

 years' explorations, during which the author received 

 the kindly co-operation of the Norwegian general 

 staft". It is based on a series of triangulations, with 

 the details filled in by means of sketches, and photo- 

 graphs taken at determined angles and azimuths. 

 The result shows a region about 125 kilometres long 

 by forty-five kilometres wide, and divided by moun- 

 tains into four principalg lacial bodies, but whicb, 

 on the latest charts, is shown as covered by a single 

 dome of ice. 



The Military geographical institute of Italy has 

 published a memoir on the mensuration of the area 

 of the kingdom, and a new essay at the same. The 

 figures are as follows in square kilometers: — 



The peninsula of Italy 236,402.1720 



The islets legally connected with its shores . . . 368,8649 



Sicily 25,461.2535 



The Sicilian islets 278.8147 



Sardinia 23,799.5607 



The Sardinian islets 277.6027 



Total 286,588.3 — ■ 



This is about ten thousand square kilometres less than 

 previous official figures, and two thousand less than 

 Gen. Stebnitski's estimate. 



The ethnography of the Austrian litorale has been 

 deduced by Baron Carlo von Czoernig from the 

 census of Dec. -31, 1880. The total is six hundred 

 and eleven thousand in round numbers, of which 

 45.0.3 per cent are Italians, .32.27 Sloveni, 20.21 Cro- 

 ats, 0.35 Rumanians, and 2.14 German-Austrians, 

 and others. Ethnographically, therefore, these coasts 

 are Slavo-Italian. 



Dr. Zelandt has just finished his great work on 

 the Kirgiz, which will be soon published by the west 

 Siberian section of the Imperial geographical society. 

 It is divided into seven heads, treating of the history 

 and archeolosry of Semirechinsk; of the resources of 

 the central Tian-shan; of the life of the nomadic 

 Kirgiz; of their social, commercial, and political 

 institutions; of their ethnic relations; and of their 

 temperament and culture. This work is supple- 

 mented by Katanaieff's recent memoir on the pro- 

 gressive movement of the Kirgiz of the Middle 

 Horde, toward the Siberian frontier. A new chart 

 of Russian-Turkestan, scale 1:42000, has just been 

 issued at Tashkent. 



It is announced that the work on the commer- 

 cial geography of China, by Isidore Iledde, has been 

 interrupted by the illness of the author, who has 

 devoted twenty years to ir, and was formerly a 

 commercial agent of France in China. Two vol- 

 umes still remain in manuscript, and will be printed 

 if a sufficient number of subscriptions are received 



by Paul Ferny, care of the Societe' de geographic, 

 Paris. 



Dr. Ten Kate has just sailed for Surinam, with 

 the intention of ascending the river of that name, 

 crossing the Tumuc-kumac mountains, and descend- 

 ing to Brazil by the affluents of the Amazon River. 



The recent expedition of Professor Chafiaujon on 

 the Orinoco has been heard from. He had reached 

 Caicara, and had prepared a map of the Orinoco and 

 the region closely adjacent to its banks. In this 

 work he was able to obtain much geological informa- 

 tion, and discovered numerous pictorial and graphic 

 aboriginal inscriptions, some of which seemed to be 

 of the nature of writing. An immense mass of eth- 

 nological and natural-history collections had been 

 made. Travelling was very expensive, and a large 

 number of men were required to carry on the work. 



Father T. Gaujon writes that Yidal Seneze, 

 who had undertaken an exploration in the Chincha 

 Islands, died at Guayaquil, and his collections were 

 dispersed. The notes of his previous journey from 

 Zumba to Bella Vista, reviewed by several residents 

 of the region, had a certain importance; and the 

 traveller, though without much training, had a spirit 

 and an energy which make his death a loss to science. 



A. Chaigneaux is about to take part in an expe- 

 dition sent out by the Chilian government to the 

 region where Crevaux lost his life, in Bolivia. 



A CRAB INVASION. 



Aisr interesting occurrence, that should be placed 

 on record, has been recently reported by Mr. L. S. 

 Foster of New York, superintendent of the Spanish 

 American district of the American ornithologists' 

 union. It consisted in the sudden appearance of 

 countless myriads of young crabs on the seashore at 

 Cape San Antonio, the western extremity of the 

 Island of Cuba, where it was observed by Francisco 

 Baritista y Ovenes, keeper of the lighthouse at that 

 place. Specimens of the crabs were sent to the 

 U. S. national museum by Mr. Foster, accompanied 

 by the following extract from a letter by the light- 

 keeper, dated June 14, 1885: — 



"After the light of the lighthouse had been ex- 

 tinguished in the morning of April 3, 1885, we went 

 out on the gallery and saw at the edge of the shore. 

 and at intervals farther out, large and small floating 

 patches, of a reddish color, of what appeared to be 

 wood, gulf- weed, or some other vegetable product of 

 the sea. To our surprise, upon inspecting them more 

 closely, we found these patches to consist of small 

 living and moving bodies, belonging to the crab- 

 family, being of that shape. I proceeded to measure 

 the piles that were forming on the shore, and many 

 of them exceeded one and one-half metres in size 

 [probably diameter]. At eight o'clock in the morn- 

 ing, as more of the patches floated in shore, some of 

 the piles increased to two metres. This multitude of 

 marine animals came from the south-Avest, the wind 

 and tide being from that direction; and the same 

 phenomenon was repeated on April 9, and May 2 and 



