614 
Ar the April meeting of the Royal astro- 
nomical society, Mr. Tupman announced that 
Dr. Arthur Auwers of Berlin had communi- 
cated to the society a paper on the chain of 
meridian distances, measured around the earth, 
between 1831 and 1836, in H. M.S. Beagle. 
Capt. Fitzroy was in command of the Beagle 
at that time, when she set out from Bahia, and 
went round the world, returning to that point. 
In working out the results, his selection of the 
chronometers upon which he based his deter- 
minations was somewhat arbitrary ; and he 
found that the successive differences of longi- 
tude round the world, when added together, 
differed from twenty-four hours by thirty-four 
seconds. Capt. Fitzroy did not attempt to 
improve upon this; and the work has been left 
in that state until now, when Dr. Auwers has 
taken it up, and discussed anew all the chro- 
nometer-work on board the Beagle, using as 
the primary meridians those which have been 
correctly determined since, and correcting in 
this manner all the longitudes which resulted 
from the discussion of Capt. Fitzroy. Dr. 
Auwers’s paper will be published in the 
Monthly notices of the society; and, as Fitz- 
roy’s longitudes have been to a great extent 
relied upon by the Hydrographic office in the 
construction of maritime charts, many of which 
are in use at the present day, the work of Dr. 
Auwers will be of great value in giving more 
accurate determinations of the longitude of 
distant islands than were before available. 
WHEN one passes through some sleepy New- 
England village, and has pointed out to him a 
building as the academy at which his grand- 
father or great-uncle once learned his Latin 
grammar, he wonders how his uncle, now sell- 
ing stocks on Wall Street, or pleading before 
the full bench in Washington, or hoeing corn 
in Kansas, and this quiet building, should have 
come together, and why they parted, — an 
academy, a square building, with hip-roof, a 
belfry in the centre, and coated with paint 
of that sobered tone derived of a mortgage. 
There are no little uncles running about the 
building now ; the chief life, or it might be said 
SCIENCE. 
[Vou. III., No. 68. 
the soul, of the structure, existing in the records 
of the school (the newest quite yellow), the 
deed of the land, and an expired insurance- 
policy on the building, — a crumpled bundle of 
papers in the desk of the village doctor and 
only resident graduate, an enthusiast on the 
school, puffed with pride at his own success as 
a wiseacre. 
Such is the dead or dying academy, of which 
each town can produce its sample. A few, a 
half-dozen, still flourish, thanks to a rather 
more liberal endowment, or the fortunate cir- 
cumstance of a long run of successful masters. 
Just at present there are some stirring the old 
bones to find those that may show sufficient 
signs of life to warrant an attempt at resus- 
citation, —a revival of interest possibly due 
as much as any thing to the restlessness of 
human nature, not contented with the high- 
school system developed as far as may be for 
the present. 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
*, Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. 
The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 
The faults of south-western Virginia. 
WHILE engaged in making a series of cross-sections 
in the above region in 1880, I had very frequent op- 
portunity to study the structure of the faults; and, 
as a result, I reached certain conclusions, which may 
be of interest. 
A conspicuous feature, which is of general, if not 
universal, occurrence along the line of faults, wher- 
ever exposed, is an angular fold, as in fig. ‘1. 
An excellent section, showing its manner of occur- 
rence, is found at the mouth of Russel Creek, a tribu- 
tary of Clinch River. It is given in fig. 2, where, at 
a, coal-measures occur nearly horizontal and undis- 
turbed; at b the millstone grit is standing vertically, 
forming an obstruction to the creek, and giving rise 
to perhaps the loftiest and most picturesque fall in 
the region; xy is the fault-plane (seen in the vicinity), 
to the left of which the Knox limestone (c) shows 
a dip closely conforming to that of the fault-plane. 
Other examples might be given, but the above will 
sufficiently illustrate the general character. 
At first I regarded them as a result of the faulting, 
produced by friction along the fault-plane; but further 
observation led me to the opinion that they preceded, 
and determined the location of, the faults. I was 
first led to this opinion by finding a fold, much like 
fig. 1, finely exposed in the line of a small fault at one — 
end, where the displacement had diminished it little 
or nothing. 
Other reasons for so thinking are, 1°, that, although — 
of such general occurrence in connection with the — 
faults as to suggest a very important relation between — 
the two, they are not dependent on the faults, since 
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