140 



SCIENCE, 



[YoL. yi., No. 132. 



made a determination of the difference in longitude 

 of Cambridge and Greenwich by means of the Atlan- 

 tic cable. At his suggestion, the series of transconti- 

 nental triangulations have been run connecting the 

 surveys on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, — tri- 

 angulations which are serving for some of the state- 

 surveys now in progress. Professor Hilgard was 

 especially interested in the study of the Gulf Stream ; 

 and many will remember his paper upon that subject 

 read at Philadelphia last summer, but not yet pub- 

 lished. The success of the coast-survey is largely 

 due to his work; and, since 1881, he has been the 

 superintendent, from which position the misfortunes 

 of ill-health compelled him to resign. 



— Mr. Bosworth Smith has been appointed miner- 

 alogist for the Madras presidency. The local govern- 

 ment order says he is '* to create in the Central 

 museum a perfect index to the mineral wealth of the 

 presidency, and to begin a mineralogical survey in 

 consultation with Dr. Bidie and such other officers as 

 government may instruct him to communicate with." 



— The commander of the German gunboat Prinz 

 Adelbert reports that on the 10th of February last, 

 at half-past one a.m., in the roadstead of Aucon, two 

 short earthquakes were felt which lasted ten seconds, 

 and were noticed very perceptibly on board ship. 

 The disturbance seemed to travel from south-west to 

 north-east. The first sound heard was like that of 

 steam let off under water, and escaping to the sur- 

 face. This soon increased to a thundering, rolling 

 noise, like the sound of river-ice breaking up. The 

 damage done by this convulsion of nature was very 

 insignificant on shore, and no casualties have been 

 reported at sea. 



— The German Seewarte has received a bottle 

 which was set afloat by the German bark Suahali, 

 Capt. Frohling, on the 18th of November, 1883, in 

 0° 40' north latitude, and 21° 40' west longitude. On 

 the 4th of February, 1885, four hundred and forty- 

 four days later, this was picked up in the neighbor- 

 hood of the life-saving station at Fort Laundersdale 

 in the Straits of Florida, in about 26° 10' north lati- 

 tude, 80° 05' west longitude. The end of the bottle's 

 drift was about thirty-seven hundred and forty nauti- 

 cal miles distant from where it was set afloat, in a 

 N. W. by W. f W. direction. It is more probable that 

 instead of taking that direction which leads through 

 the Providence Channel, and then across the strong- 

 est part of the Gulf Stream, the bottle first drifted 

 with the equatorial current west-north-west, then 

 north from Trinidad into the Caribbean Sea, south of 

 Jamaica, and by Cape San Antonio into the Gulf of 

 Mexico, and finally with the Gulf Stream through 

 the Straits of Florida to the place where it was found. 

 According to this hypothesis, the drift was about 

 forty-five hundred and fifty nautical miles for the four 

 hundred and forty-four days, which makes an average 

 daily distance of ten miles and a quarter. The See- 

 warte has also received a bottle which was thrown 

 overboard from the German bark Suahali. on the 9th 

 of December, 1884, in 44° 02' north latitude, and 13° 

 16' west longitude. It was found on April 8, 1885, at 



Buen in Ponte Vedra Bay, west coast of Spain, in 

 about 42° 19' north latitude, and 8° 45' west longi- 

 tude. So the bottle had probably drifted, in a hun- 

 dred and twenty days, two hundred and twenty-three 

 miles S. E. by E. i E. 



— The crystalline form of quartz grains in some 

 sandstones has been seen by many observers, while 

 especial attention was called to these forms in the 

 Wisconsin sandstones by Rev. John Murrish in 1870 

 and later. Mr. H. C. Sorby, in 1880, showed that such 

 crystal forms were produced by the deposition of sec- 

 ondary quartz upon the irregular rounded surfaces of 

 worn quartz grains. For the Wisconsin sandstones, 

 the subject was taken up by Rev. A. Young, and 

 later by Messrs. R. D. Irving and C. R. Yan Hise, 

 who have published an extended and valuable paper 

 [Bull. U. S. geol. surv., No, 8), with full illustrations, 

 relating to the enlargement both of quartz and felspar 

 grains ; and for this the thanks of all micro-mineralo- 

 gists and lithologists are due. Our authors conclude 

 that their results prove that most, if not all, of the 

 ancient quartzites, as well as many of the quartzifer- 

 ous schists, are composed in the main of fragments 

 cemented together by a secondary siliceous cement. 



— By the gift of the Hon. Elbert E. Fairman, 

 LL.D., of Warsaw, N.Y., all that remains of the collec- 

 tion of birds made by the famous John J. Audubon 

 is now in possession of Amherst college, Massachu- 

 setts. There are about six hundred skins of birds in 

 the collection, some of which are labelled in the 

 handwriting of Audubon himself, and many of which 

 are the typical specimens by which the species were 

 determined. As the collection has been stored in 

 camphor chests for the last few years, and the skins 

 were unmounted and old, many of them could not 

 be advantageously mounted. About one hundred of 

 them, however, have been handsomely put up by 

 Prof. H. A. Ward of Rochester, and are now well 

 exhibited in the Appleton cabinet of the college. 

 Also there have been added to this collection by the 

 same donor several of the rarer California birds, which 

 have been discovered since the death of Mr. Audubon. 



— The Paris students, according to Nature, are 

 making extensive preparations for celebrating the 

 one hundredth birthday of Chevreul, the veteran 

 chemist, who has been a member of the Academy of 

 sciences since 1826. 



— A movement is on foot in Christiania, says Na- 

 ture, at the instance of the Society for the promotion 

 of the Norwegian fisheries, for the establishment in 

 the Christiania fiord, near Drobak, of a biological 

 station for the hatching of sea-water food-fish and 

 salmon, in consequence of the great success of other 

 stations along the coast. 



— The American ornithologists' union will hold it8 

 next meeting in New York on Tuesday, Nov. 17. 



— The expedition which the Norwegian govern- 

 ment despatches this summer to the coast of Finland 

 is to ascertain whether there are banks or fishing- 

 grounds far from the coast. Hitherto all fishing has 

 been confined to the shore. 



