516 



sciJEJsrcu. 



[Vol. VI., No. 149. 



the work was attempted by Peter the Great, but 

 at the end of a year, after his defeat at Narva, 

 Peter abandoned the project, which has since that 

 time been periodically discussed. In October last 

 M. Leon Dru, a French engineer, having surveyed 

 a line, was convinced that the project was prac- 

 ticable, and experimental borings have already 

 commenced. 



A ruined city found in Asia Minor. — In the prov- 

 ince of Adana, Asia Minor, not far from Tarsus, 

 at a few hours' travel from the sea, among the 

 mountains, has recently been discovered a ruined 

 town hitherto entirely unknown. The ruins lie 

 near the route from Selef-Ke to Karaman by 

 Mohara. Sarcophagi almost intact, and resembling 

 those of Lycia, exist there, and would seem 

 worthy of study. 



Monuments of Babylonian times. — It is stated 

 that an archeological expedition, under Professor 

 Niemann of the Academy of fine arts, is fitting 

 out in Vienna for the exploration of those parts of 

 Taurus and Anti-Taurus where last year were 

 found remains of monuments dating from Babylo- 

 nian times. 



Siberian interest in geographical exploration, 

 — An exploration, to cover a period of five years, 

 is being organized by Yadrintseff, under the au- 

 spices of the Russian geographical society. Its 

 purpose is the investigation of the ethnology 

 and social economy of Siberia. The party wiU 

 consist of young men, who will be distributed 

 over different parts of that imaiense region for 

 purposes of study. Residents of Siberia have 

 already manifested a laudable interest in such 

 investigations ; and beside museums at Irkutsk, 

 Omsk, Yeniseisk, and Tomsk, M. Martianoff, at 

 Menusinsk, in the Yenisei government, has already 

 gathered a collection of more than six thousand 

 archeological and ethnological specimens. 



The trans-Siberian railway. — The trans- 

 Siberian railway has already finished its first sec- 

 tion of 135 kilometres between Ekaterinburg and 

 Kamishoff , and its early completion to Tinmen is 

 confidently expected. The canal between the Obi 

 and the Yenisei is already so advanced that navi- 

 gation will probably be inaugurated on it by the 

 spring of 1887, if not even earher. Sibiriakoff 

 has established a line of steamers on the Angara, 

 which unites Lake Baikal to the Yenisei, and 

 which has been thought too turbulent for naviga- 

 tion. 



The old bed of the Oxus. — Daniloff, in exam- 

 ining the Oxus, has found what he reports to be 

 the point of its ancient bifurcation into the Amu 

 Daria and the Uzboi. In opposition to the opinion 

 of M. Lessar, cln-onicled in these pages, but con- 

 firming that of Kalitine, Daniloff believes that the 



latter is right in his mapping of an ancient river- 

 bed in the desert, called the Uzboi or Unguz. 

 This will soon be levelled throughout its extent, 

 and the conflict of opinion be settled by the 

 more exact methods of a careful survey. 



ASTRONOMICAL NOTES. 

 Equatorial currents in solar and planetary at- 

 mospheres. — Of the bodies of the solar system, the 

 sun, Jupiter, and the earth are the only ones that 

 have thus far distinctly shown any decided differ- 

 ence of rotation-period, either for different parts 

 of their visible cloud-surfaces, or for a gaseous at- 

 mosphere and the solid or cloud-surface above 

 which it sweeps. Of these, Jupiter ofters by far 

 the greatest variety of detail, but it has never been 

 adequately observed until the sudden appearance 

 of the ' great red spot ' in 1878 attracted uni- 

 versal attention to the planet. The result has 

 been, that not only has this red spot, which is still 

 visible, been shown to have a definite and nearly 

 constant rotation-period, not varying many sec- 

 onds from 9^ 55"i 37s, b^t certain white spots upon 

 equatorial belts are found to be permanent fea- 

 tures for several years in succession, and to have a 

 rotation-period (about 9^ 50m 10^) decidedly shorter 

 than that of the red spot, but equally constant ; so 

 that their conjunction-times, as they sweep by 

 each other, can be predicted pretty accurately. De- 

 tailed micrometric work upon these spots and belts, 

 like that described in Professor Hough's annual 

 reports, is especially valuable, and there is plenty 

 of work still to be done upon the other details of 

 the planet's cloud-surface. As to the sun, it is well 

 known that the spots give a rotation-period of 

 about 25 days for the solar equator, slowing up to 

 about 27.5 days at latitudes of 45°, beyond which 

 there are not sufficient data for fixing any period. 

 But we think hardly sufficient attention has been 

 paid to the fact that Professor Young's observa- 

 tions {Amer. journ. sc, 3dser., xii. 321) upon the 

 displacement of lines in the spectra from, the east 

 and west limbs of the sun gave for the equatorial 

 velocity of the chromosphere 1.42 + .035 miles per 

 second, -^vhile the equatorial sunspot-period gives 

 only 1.25 miles for the photosphere. It is a pretty 

 strong indication that the solar atmosphere sweeps 

 forward over the photosphere; and its bearing upon 

 the probable behavior of the corona and meteoric 

 matter falling into the sun would seem to call for 

 a redetermination of this line-displacement with 

 the more powerful dispersion now available in 

 Rowland's gratings. As to the earth, we know 

 that the general drift of the lower atmospheric 

 currents is eastward, rotating faster than the globe 

 itseK; but of the circulation high up above the 

 clouds we knew absolutely nothing until the red 



