x 
JANUARY 25, 1884.] 
and 1881. ‘There were very few days during the 
month in which building operations were, not ac- 
tively pushed. The sky was clearer, the wind was 
higher, and the rainfall was more than fifty per cent 
smaller, than the December average. The remarka- 
ble prolonged crimson and orange sunset glow, which 
was observed in the last week of November, contin- 
ued with a somewhat intermittent brilliancy during 
the month of December. 
— We take the following personal notes from Na- 
ture : — 
Prof. W. H. Macintosh has been elected to the pro- 
fessorship of comparative anatomy in Trinity college, 
Dublin, vice Professor Macalister, F.R.S., who re- 
signed on his appointment to the anatomy chair at 
Cambridge. By the death of the well-known 
mathematician, the Rev. W. Roberts, M.A., the Rev. 
Richard Townsend, M.A., F.R.S., becomes a senior 
fellow of Trinity college, Dublin, thereby vacating 
the professorship of natural philosophy held by him 
since 1870. ——The vacancy in the professorship of 
geology and mineralogy, in the University of Dublin, 
has been filled by the election of Professor Sollas of 
University college, Bristol. This appointment will 
give great satisfaction, and will afford Mr. Sollas 
large opportunities for paleontological research; the 
large collections of fossil plants and vertebrates in 
the museum in Dublin remaining to this day almost 
unknown. —— M. Houzeau, who was only recently 
appointed director of the Brussels observatory, has 
resigned his post; and it is reported that M. de Kon- 
kolly of Gzalla observatory, Hungary, will succeed 
him. 
—The Swedish government intends to establish a 
potanico-physiological station in the north of Sweden 
for the study of the flora and the diseases of the 
crops in that part of the country. 
—The Finnish government has ordered a steamer 
to be specially built in Sweden for the scientific re- 
searches about to be prosecuted in the Baltic. 
—Lord Rayleigh has reprinted for private circula- 
tion, in pamphlet form, several of his most valuable | 
optical papers, including those on the manufacture, 
reproduction by photography, and theory, of diffrac- 
tion-gratings, and those on color-mixtures. He has 
also reprinted some of his papers on electricity and 
on absolute pitch, from Nature and from the reports 
of the British association, in a convenient pamphlet 
form. 
— At its annual meeting, Jan. 11, the Cambridge 
entomological club elected the following officers: 
president, Samuel H. Scudder; secretary, George 
Dimmock; treasurer, B. P. Mann; librarian, C. C. 
Eaton; executive committee, Roland Hayward and 
T. W. Harris. 
— Prof. H. Carvill Lewis, of the Academy of nat- 
ural sciences of Philadelphia, has been appointed 
lecturer on geology and paleontology at Haverford 
college, Pennsylvania. 3 
SCIENCE. 
111 
— A dissertation on the ‘Proper names of Panja- 
bis,’ with special reference to the proper names of 
villagers in the eastern Panjab, by Capt. R. C. Tem- 
ple, Bengal staff corps, contains a study of the proper 
names of the peoples of the Panjab. The book 
contains, also, long lists of names, showing by what 
classes of the population the various kinds of them 
are used, and is provided with an index to over four 
thousand proper names. The book is published at 
the Education society’s press, Bombay, and by Messrs. 
Thacker Spink & Co. in Calcutta, aid Messrs. Triib- 
ner & Co., Ludgate Hill, London. 
— Sampson, Low, & Co. announce ‘ Heath’s fern 
portfolio,’ —a series of life-size reproductions of ferns, 
being in form, color, and venation, accurate repre- 
sentations. The work is to be published in monthly 
parts. 
— The Publishers’ weekly announces that Rey. A. B. 
Hervey of Taunton, Mass., has translated Dr. Behren’s 
book on methods of conducting microscopical inves- 
tigations in the botanical laboratory. He has en- 
hanced the value of the translation by adding the 
methods of work used in this country. 
— Cupples, Upham, & Co., Boston, have ready ‘ The 
amphitheatres of ancient Rome,’ by Clara L. Wells. 
—Schuver, during recent explorations in the Galla 
country, purchased from them a young negro of a 
race called Gambil, from whom he obtained interest- 
ing details in regard to his people. It appears, from 
his account in the Revue géographique, that the 
Gambils live on the Komonshi River, an affluent from 
the right bank of the Sobat, — a name which signifies 
Cow River, because in the dry season their numerous 
herds find forage only along its banks. Ostriches and 
elephants abound. They have a tree which bears 
a fruit two feet long, weighing ten or twelve ‘pounds, 
which is softened in water, dried, and eaten. 
The principal village is Komonshok; but some thirty 
others were named by this negro, among them Kepil, 
which is a market where iron, copper, and beads are 
bought by the Gambils from the Gallas. They eat 
fowls and eggs, which the Gallas abominate, and 
raise pigs. They break out the two lower incisors, 
and wear two little horns of the gazelle or goat on the 
forehead. Some years since, they were attacked by 
the Denkas, who almost destroyed the tribe; many 
of whom, for safety, offered themselves as voluntary 
slaves to the Lega Gallas. 
— At the November meeting of the London society 
of biblical archaeology, Mr. Pinches read a paper on 
Babylonian art, as illustrated by Mr, Rassam’s latest 
discoveries. Among the discoveries on the site of 
the ancient Sippar, Mr. Pinches considers the most 
important to be a “‘ small egg-shaped object of beau- 
tifully veined marble, pierced lengthwise with a 
rather large hole, and engraved with an inscription 
of seven lines (two double) containing the name of 
Sargon of Agade (3800 B.C.).”’ 
Another small object, made of a dark-green stone 
in a bronze socket engraved or cast in the shape of a 
