28 
fessor James Hall, On a method of preparing rock- 
sections; Prof. B. G. Wilder, On the preservation of 
hollow organs, particularly the heart and brain; Prof. 
S. H. Gage, On the uses of peroxide of hydrogen in 
preparing skeletons; Dr. George Dimmock, On the 
uses of carminic acid in microscopical work; Mr. 
‘J. H. Emerton, On models of gigantic cephalopods; 
Dr. E. B. Wilson, On methods of section-cutting. 
Upon organization we may note Professor Wilder’s 
paper, On the arrangement of a museum of verte- 
brates, and Professor Cope’s, On academies of science 
in America, etc. Among the educational communi- 
cations were those of Dr. Wadsworth, Upon methods 
of teaching in petrography and mineralogy, and Pro- 
fessor Bickmore’s, Upon methods of teaching em- 
ployed at the American museum, etc. The meeting 
surpassed in interest all expectations, and assures 
the future standing and prominence of the society, 
which, although so young, is yet through its member- 
ship so strong. The following officers were elected 
for the ensuing year: president, Professor Alpheus 
Hyatt; vice-presidents, Profs. H. N. Martin and A. 
S. Packard, jun.; secretary, Dr. Charles S. Minot; 
treasurer, Professor William B. Scott; members at 
large of the executive committee, Profs. H.C. Lewis 
and Lester F. Ward. 
— The Swiss earthquake of 1881 had its centre of 
intensity in Berne and nearest vicinity, and is one 
of the best observed as to its extent and details. The 
geologic formation of the Swiss plateau, where the 
motions were most intensely felt, consists of a ter- 
tiary sandstone of unknown depth, called molasse, 
while the limestone rocks of the northern Alpine 
belt and of the Jura ridge were scarcely touched by 
it. Prof. Dr. A. Forster, the director of the telluric 
observatory at Berne, has collected a large amount of 
well-ascertained details on this earthquake, and pub- 
lished it in an interesting quarto memoir of twenty- 
nine pages, — ‘Das erdbeben der schweizerischen 
hochebene vom 27 Januar 1881 (Berner beben),’ 
Berne, B. F. Haller. The scientific results obtained 
by him may be summed up as follows: the principal 
shock occurred on Jan. 27, in the afternoon, at 2h. 
19m, 58 sec., and was preceded and followed by light 
oscillations of the soil. It took place at a coincidence 
of the perihelion with the perigee, the new moon be- 
ing two days and a half later. There were no dis- 
turbances of terrestrial magnetism noticed for several 
days before and after; but a long period of frost had 
just given way to a sudden thaw, and the upper cul-, 
mination of the moon had occurred five hours before. 
The whole area of seismic motion, with its longitu- 
dinal axis of two hundred and sixty kilometres, expe- 
rienced the shock at one and the same astronomic 
time. 
following the shock took place simultaneously upon 
the whole line. In the majority of places, villages, 
etc., it consisted of a brief, succussory shaking, fol- 
lowed immediately by a few lateral and less energetic 
oscillations, all of them possessing a direction run- 
ning approximately from east to west. The mean 
duration was but three to four seconds, the intensity 
varying from three to eight degrees of the Swiss- 
SCIENCE. 
There was no central shock, for the dislocation . 
Italian seismic seale. 
Noises usually, connecteiignlaaen 
the heavier earthquakes were heard by most observ- 24 
ers who happened to be outdoors: they preceded the — 
shock or were synchronous with it, and none were 
is 
heard after the shock. South of Martleny (Valais) 
and north of Mulhouse (Alsace) no disturbance was 
noticed; though numerous oscillations had occurred 
one and two weeks before, in southern Germany, 
Piedmont, and Lombardy. Compare A. Heim, on 
‘Swiss earthquakes in 1881,’ published in the Annu- 
al of the telluric observatory of Berne (1881). 
— Messrs. Cassino & Co. and Estes & Lauriat, of 
Boston, have issued a prospectus of the ‘Standard — 
natural history,’,—a work in six volumes, imperial 
octavo, fully illustrated, and under the editorship of 
Dr. Elliott Coues and Mr. J. S. Kingsley. The staff 
of writers announced consists of forty-two names, 
including the larger part of our best-known authors, — 
and all are men of repute. The first volume, on the 
lower vertebrates, will be by W. K. Brooks, S. F. 
Clarke, J. W. Fewkes, A. Hyatt, C. S. Minot, A. S. 
Packard, and others; the second, on the arthropods, 
by E. A. Birge, J. H. Comstock, A. J. Cook, J. H. 
Emerton, G. H. Horn, J. S. Kingsley, A. S. Packard, 
C.V. Riley, P. R. Uhler, ete. ; the third, on the lower 
vertebrates, by E. D. Cope, T. Gill, S. Garman, D. 8S. 
Jordan, etc. ; the fourth, on birds, by Dr. Elliott Coues 
alone; the fifth, on mammals, by E. D. Cope, E. Coues, 
T. Gill, S. Lockwood, G. Macloskié, R. R. Wright, 
and others; and the sixth, on the races of man, by 
C. C. Abbott, L. Carr, W. H. Dall, F. W. Putnam, 
and S. Salisbury. The work will be published in 
about sixty serial parts, of forty-eight pages each. 
The numbers already issued leave nothing to be 
desired in typography, good taste, and excellence in 
illustration; and we heartily wish so serious a ven- 
ture every success. 
— A new work on the ‘‘ Theory of deflections and 
of latitudes and departures, with special applications 
to curvilinear surveys for alignments of railway- 
tracks’’ is in press by Van Nostrand. The author, 
Isaac W. Smith, is an engineer for some time con- 
nected with the construction bureau of the Northern 
Pacific railroad. | 
— ‘The legends of the Panjab,’ in monthly num- 
bers from August, 1883, by Capt. R. C. Temple, 
Bengal staff corps, records, in a form useful to in- 
vestigators, the stories and legends preserved in the 
memories of the wandering bards of the Panjab. 
The legends are given in original in the Roman char- 
acter, exactly as they were fan down from the lips 
of the narrators, with translations. The work is be- 
ing published at the Education society’s press, Bom- 
bay, and by Triibner & Co., Ludgate Hill, London. 
— ‘The Nautical almanac and astronomical ephem- | 
eris for the meridian of the Royal observatory at 
Greenwich’ for the year 1887, commonly known as — 
tk 
of 
the British nautical almanac, was published in Lon- 
don late in November. 
sales of this publication for the last ave 7 picoany 
exceeded 15,500 ani ti j : 
According to Nature, the ~ 
