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SCIENCE. 



[YoL. YI., No. 138. 



tention to the fact, that, toward the end of November 

 next, the circumstances appear to be extremely favor- 

 able for a recurrence of the slow meteors from An- 

 dromeda, which formed such a fine display in 1872, 

 and which had been previously observed by Heis in 

 1847, by Flaugergues in 1838, and by Brandes in 1798; 

 for if Biela's duple comet still exists in any consid- 

 erable degree of condensation, and if it has preserved 

 nearly the same orbit as during the years 1826-52, it 

 will be in perihelion only a short time before the 

 earth crosses the node; and the conditions for a me- 

 teoric display will be even more auspicious than in 

 1872. The question, however, arises, whether plan- 

 etary perturbations may not have so disturbed the 

 orbit as to have materially altered the periodic time, 

 and to have otherwise so modified the elements as to 

 render the meteor-shower no longer visible, at least 

 in its best aspect, from the earth. There was no sign 

 of the shower in 1879, and the ensuing November 

 ought to settle the question of its continued exist- 

 ence. If there is no shower of these meteors in No- 

 vember, their absence may be interpreted as strong 

 evidence that the meteor-system was so disturbed by 

 contact with the earth in 1872, as to have suffered 

 considerable modification of its orbit. 



— After most careful researches, extending over 

 many years. Professor Karl Petterson has arrived at 

 some very important conclusions concerning the for- 

 mation of the fiords in northern Norway, which are 

 published in Nature. From his studies at Balsfjord, 

 he has concluded that the granite blocks upon the 

 surface were carried along the level of the sea on 

 drift-ice when the sea was about one hundred and 

 twenty feet higher than at present. A sharply 

 defined line at this height, above which no blocks are 

 found, seems sufficient to prove this; for, if the drift 

 was deposited by a slowly gliding inland glacier, there 

 would be no such line. He has therefore come to 

 the conclusion, "that the Balsfjord is not of glacial 

 origin, but formed an incision or depression in the 

 mountain of older origin than the glacial age." He 

 further believes that this conclusion may, in the 

 main, apply to the question of the formation of all 

 fiords in the north of Norway. 



— The island of Formosa, which the French have 

 just conquered, is very rich in vegetable and animal 

 life, on account of its excellent climate. This island, 

 though but three hundred and sixty kilometres long, 

 and one hundred and forty wide from east to west, is 

 the chief source of our camphor supply. The tree 

 (Laurus camphora) grows in Japan, China, Sumatra, 

 and Borneo also, but nowhere in such abundance 

 as on Formosa. In order to obtain the camphor, the 

 wood is cut into small bits, and placed in a crucible, 

 from which the vapors are distilled over by a gentle 

 heat, and collected upon a network of rice-stems. 



— Since 1813 pieces of native iron have been 

 brought from Greenland by many explorers, and 

 have, in nearly every case, been ascribed to meteoric 

 origin. Steenstrup, in his third voyage to Greenland 

 (1876-1880), however, found the iron native in a basal- 

 tic rock at Asuk, in grains varying from a fraction of 



a millimetre to eighteen millimetres. It is also found 

 on the western and northern sides of Disko Island, 

 and in other places. This settles beyond a doubt the 

 question of the origin of the Greenland native iron, 

 and the ore may be of great commercial importance 

 in the future. 



— The signification of the names of some Indian 

 mountains of great height may be of interest. Kin- 

 cliinjinga is the highest of a group of eight principal 

 peaks, which rise from a mountain mass of which 

 the view from Darjiling occupies about sixty degrees 

 of the horizon. Its name is a compound and corrup- 

 tion of four Tibetan words, — kung, 'snow,' chen, 

 'great,' jo, 'masses,' nga, 'five' or 'several;' in 

 short, the five great snowy peaks. The word ' five ' is 

 in this case not explicit, but indicates, so to speak, a 

 handful. Mount Everest of British maps, supposed by 

 many geographers to be the highest mountain on the 

 globe, has a more attractive proper name in Tibetan, 

 — Deva-danga, 'God's home,' usually shortened in 

 conversation into Deodanga. Dobola-giri, the ' white 

 mountain,' rises about one hundred miles westward 

 from Deva-danga, though the name has been mis- 

 takenly applied to one of the high summits of the 

 Kinchinjinga uplift. It is found on most maps as 

 Dhaolagiri or Dwahlagiri; while Deva-danga is often 

 found inscribed with its Indian appellation, Gauri- 

 sanka. 



— Hans Kaan's study of hypnotism (Ueber be- 

 ziehungen zwischen hypnotismus und cerebraler 

 blutfullung. Wiesbaden, Bergmann, 1855. 35 p. 8°) 

 is a maiden effort, in which, more germanico, a 

 single mustard-seed of observed fact is wrung and 

 pressed, and considered in so many lights that a bay- 

 tree of letter-press grows out of it. The fact in this 

 instance is, that a certain very perfect hypnotic sub- 

 ject was awakened immediately out of her ' lethargic ' 

 state by the application of a hot compress to the 

 head, whilst a cold compress had rather the opposite 

 effect. In her ' cataleptic' state, on the contrary, a 

 hot compress was without influence; while a cold 

 compress soon brought her into the less 'deep' le- 

 thargic state, whence by the hot compress, she could be 

 brought immediately into the normal condition. The 

 experiment was repeated, with identical results, more 

 than sixty times. The considerations spun upon it 

 are relative to the condition of the blood-distribution 

 in the brain during the two states. Experiments 

 with the plethysmograph were instituted; and after 

 a discussion, to which the author's lack of literary 

 ability gives an almost impenetrable obscurity, the 

 following conclusions are advanced as probable: that 

 the hypnotizing passes, etc., produce a reflex anaemia 

 of the cerebral cortex, out of which a hyperaemia 

 gradually develops ; and that these states successively 

 pass downwards to the basal ganglia. In the main, 

 Dr. Kaan's observations agree with those of Tam- 

 burini, and with the effects of amylnitrite, which 

 seems to deepen, rather than relieve, the hypnotic 

 state. It is made more and more probable that the 

 cataleptic state, which is rare, and may be considered 

 a sort of climax of trance, is accompanied by an in- 

 tense hyperaemia of the brain. 



