306 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. VI , No. 140. 



races of Turkey, perhaps with the connivance of 

 Eussia, to seek its own welfare regardless of the 

 general convenience of Europe. 



Edward Channing. 



THE LATEST SLIDES IN THE WHITE 

 MOUNTAINS. 



The great slide of July 10, upon the north slope 

 of Cherry mountain, has been described in Science, 

 July 31. Since then others have been revealed at 

 various localities, but particularly at Waterville. 

 Upon August IB, the rainfall was excessive in that 

 township. The fields and liillsides about Elliot's 

 hotel were comiDletely flooded and ]\Iad River rose 

 twenty or thu'ty feet. It transpired shortly after- 

 wards that the famous sUde upon the south side of 

 Tripyramid had been renewed and enlarged, and 

 that upon the north side of the same elevation its 

 double had made its appearance. This last one is 

 not visible from any of the Wliite Mountain locali- 

 ties much visited, unless it be from the distant 

 summit of Mount Wasliington. I had the pleasure 

 of visiting both these slides September 10, in com- 

 pany with several gentlemen and ladies from the 

 hotel. We walked up the northern sHde first, as- 

 cended the north peak of Tripyramid, followed the 

 ridge to the south peak and then descended the old 

 slide to its base in ' Becky town.' 



Four slides converge into one at the upper end 

 of the northern stream. Two of them are too pre- 

 cipitous to be ti-avelled over with safety. Each 

 of these tributaries may be about a half mile in 

 length, wliile the united stream below is about a 

 mile long. Its course lay entirely thi'ough the 

 primitive forest, and it did not reach so far as Nor- 

 way brook by a half mile. An immense pile of 

 tree-stumps and roots marks its lower exti'emity. 

 The ledges exposed are mostly of gabbro. From 

 north TripjTamid one can see that the slides upon 

 the westside of Mount Lowell— the old Brickhouse 

 Mountain — have also been m motion the present 

 season. 



The old sHde of Tripyramid started October 4, 

 1869, in that wonderful ramstorm which cost the 

 state of New Hampslme between one and two mil- 

 lions of dollars for repau's. It has been fully de- 

 scribed in the ' Geology of New Hampshire.' The 

 first steep slope amounts to thi-ee-f ourths of a mile, 

 then the current bends at a right angle and flowed 

 to Beckytown, a further distance of more than two 

 miles, where the trees were deposited which 

 marked the end. The new slide takes up nearly 

 three times as much space at the beginning, but 

 the flood was less abundant below the bend. 

 During the sixteen years since the first catastrophe 



bushes had grown over the base ground. Those 

 were not quite aU removed by the last floods, 

 showing it to be less extensive. 



The freshet which moved the bowlder from the 

 Flume in Lincoln (Franconia) three years since 

 seems to have been more powerful than any of this 

 season's slides. C. H. Hitchcock. 



AN HONOR TO AMERICAN OPTICIANS. 



Through the courtesy of Messrs. Alvan Clark 

 & Sons, we are able to publish the following ex- 

 tract from a letter written to them by Dr. Otto 

 Sti'uve : 



' ' I am asked by the government to inform you 

 that, in acknowledgement of the excellent per- 

 formances of the great object-glass, furnished for 

 Pulkowa by your firm, his majesty, the Emperor, 

 has been graciously pleased to confer upon you 

 the golden honorary medal of the Empire. The 

 value of this gift is enhanced by the circumstance 

 that tliis medal is given very rarely and only for 

 quite extraordinary merits. You and Repsold are 

 the first who wiU receive it from the present Em- 

 peror, Alexander III. 



' ' This circumstance produces some delay in the 

 transmission, as the Emperor desires that the 

 medal shall bear his portrait, and not that of his 

 predecessors. Therefore the stamp must be newly 

 engi-aved. When that be done, you will receive 

 the medal through the Russian minister at Wash- 

 ington. 



"When this letter reaches you I shall be on a 

 journey through Germany and Switzerland. First 

 I shall assist at the general meeting of the Astro- 

 nomical association, at Geneva, and then must go 

 for a cure to the weU-known watermg place, Carls- 

 bad. Though my health is tolerably good at this 

 moment, I feel stiU very tired, and from the illness 

 of last winter there is left some affection that de- 

 mands serious treatment. 



' ' You will be pleased to hear that, with the 30- 

 inch refractor in good nights all the most difficult 

 double-stars, discovered by Burnham witli the 

 Washington refractor, can be easily measured. 

 During the last weeks, Hermann has collected al- 

 ready some hundreds of measures on simflar ob- 

 jects that were out of the reach of the old 15-inch 

 refractor Otto Struve." 



Pulkowa, July "23. 



WEST AFRICAN ISLANDS. 



Major Ellis, known as the author of ' West 

 African sketches ' and other works, accumulated 

 the notes from which this volume was prepared, 



