140 
fragments were of various sizes and shapes, mostly 
transparent, but, even when examined by strong 
transmitted light, showed no trace of crystalline 
structure. Their diameter was about that of single 
filaments of silk. No crystalline particle of pyroxine, 
or black crumb of augite, such as observers have 
found elsewhere in similar dust, was present; nor did 
a strong magnet stir any particles of magnetic oxide 
of iron, though they also have been found in other 
voleanic dust. It may fairly be assumed that those 
heavier minerals, if at first mingled with the volcanic 
glass, had been already deposited during the iong 
voyage through more than ten thousand miles of 
space and more than four months of time, while the 
tenuity of the intrinsically lighter glass threads (the 
Pele’s hair of Mauna Loa) enabled them to float 
farther from the point of eruption. 
— The maps recently published by the Northern 
transcontinental survey, the discontinuance of which 
we regret, include the Crazy Mountains and Judith 
Basin in Montana, and the Yakima and Colville 
regions in Washington Territory, —a total area of 
about twenty thousand square miles, on a scale of 
two miles to an inch, with contours every two hun- 
dred feet. One has only to look at the best previous 
compilations of these districts to see the need and 
superiority of the new work. With this excellent 
basis, Prof. E. W. Hilgard of the University of Cali- 
fornia, in charge of studies of soils, has prepared 
three maps, four miles to an inch, printed in colors, 
of the Yakima and Colville districts, showing the 
characteristics and possibilities of the surface in much 
detail. Mr. T. S. Brandegee, working under the 
direction of Prof. C. S. Sargent of Harvard univer- 
sity, in charge of forestry, has also completed a map 
of the Yakima district, showing the distribution of 
the valuable trees in much detail: a regretably large 
area is marked as burnt. 
These maps form but a small share of the material 
now collected: the greater part is not yet prepared 
for publication. In Mr. Pumpelly’s first annual re- 
port, mention is made of the discovery, by Mr. George 
H. Eldridge, of valuable coal close to the line of the 
Northern Pacific railroad, near Bozeman, Montana; 
and of explorations of the coal-fields west of the 
Cascade Range by Mr. Bailey Willis. Studies of 
climate and rivers were undertaken by Prof. E. 8. 
Holden of the Washburn observatory, — studies of 
the utmost importance in the interior region, where 
cultivation, unless on the lowest bottom-lands, is 
impossible without irrigation in the drier summer 
months. Much material has been brought together 
by Mr. W. M. Canby concerning the distribution and 
relative abundance of the various forage-plants on 
which the stock-raising interests depend. It is sin- 
cerely to be hoped that the results of these practical 
studies may be brought to light, together with the 
scientific information gathered during the two seasons 
during which the survey has been in operation. 
— Nature reports that the French Société des élec- 
triciens has completed its organization, and has been 
divided into six sections, — Theoretical electricity, 
SCIENCE. 
M. Marie Davy, president; Dynamo-electrical ma- 
chinery, transmission of force to a distance, distribu- 
tion of energy, M. Tresca, president; Electric lighting, 
M. du Moncel, president; Telegraphy and telephony, 
M. Blavier, president; Electro-chemistry and elec- 
trotherapy, M. Jamin, president. 
— At the last general meeting of the Société de 
géographie, M. de Lesseps announced his conclu- 
sions on the subject of the Suez Canal. A project 
had been submitted to the English government; and, 
if a favorable response be not received, the canal 
company will proceed to carry out its own plans. He 
claimed that no one else had a right to make a canal 
by the side of the present one, and that this occupies 
the only feasable route. To the west the topography 
presents obstacles. To the east, a new canal would 
destroy the system of irrigation upon which the 
wealth of the country depends. All that is needed 
is to enlarge the present canal. When this was pro- 
jected, the most eminent engineers of all countries 
decided on a canal with forty-four metres width at 
its maximum depth; but, owing to great expense 
and opposition encountered, the company contented 
themselves with a width in this part of twenty-two 
metres, which completely satisfied the needs of the 
commercial world of that day. Twenty-five years ago 
the increase of steam-navigation was not dreamed of. 
In 1830, of five hundred vessels composing the expe- 
dition to Algeria in the port of Toulon, there was 
not one steamer. In 1882 seven millions of steam 
tonnage passed through the canal, and only one sail- 
ing-vessel of seventy-five tons. The principal question 
to be determined at present, is, whether the enlarged 
canal shall consist of two waterways with an em- 
bankment between them, or whether the breadth of 
the present waterway should be extended to forty- 
four metres at the bottom and a hundred and twenty 
at the surface of the water. This would be decided 
by the engineers consulted, though the speaker was 
in favor of the latter plan, as swift vessels could then 
pass slow ones. The embankments of the canal are 
a relic of the days when vessels were towed. He saw 
no reason why the enlarged canal should have any 
embankments purposely constructed. The dredgings, 
which will be much less considerable than in the 
original work, can be dumped by the side of the 
canal, and thence spread out without maintaining a 
bank of any kind. This, at least, was M. de Lesseps’s 
opinion. 
— Prof. F. H. Snow, of the University of Kansas, 
reports that the chief characteristics of the weather of 
1883, from observations taken at Lawrence, were the 
low mean temperature of all its months except April, 
November, and December; the unusually long period 
of immunity from severe frost; the large and well 
distributed rainfall; the slight preponderance of north- 
erly over southerly winds; the high average wind ve- 
locity; the very high mean barometer, surpassing that — 
of any previous year of our sixteen years’ record; and 
the remarkably brilliant and long-continued orange 
and crimson sunrise and sunset glow of the last five 
weeks of the year. 
[Vou. IIL, No. 52. 
