SCIENCE. 



277 



If we should be asked our opinion as to what the origin 

 of these ice-meteorites may have been, we should be in- 

 clined to answer that they are very probably a small part 

 of the collections of water (oceans ?) which, we know, 

 must have existed on the disintegrated planet to which 

 our stone and iron-meteorites once belonged. 



The various theories which have been held to explain 

 certain well-known facts about meteoric bodies, notably 

 Schiaparelli's ingenious hypothesis connecting comets 

 with meteorites, the fact that most comets give a spec- 

 trum, closely resembling that of caibon, and many others 

 will have to be revised in the light of this discovery, and it 

 may be safely claimed that Dr. Hahn's book will prove to 

 be one of the most important contributions to natural 

 science of the present time. 



ASTRONOMY. 



Prof. Mark W. Harrington, of Ann Arbor Observatory, 

 announces, in a private letter to the editor, the varia- 

 bility of star D. M. + o" .2910, the position of which for 

 1855.0 is 



A. R. I2h. 6m. 28.4s. Decl. + 0° 23.5' 

 It reached its rrinimum cn May 22 or 23, when it was of 

 the magnitude of D. M. + o° .2914, which is given by 

 Argelander as 8.7. It is new increasing in brightness at 

 the rate of a tenth of a magnitude a day. The star, in the 

 same right ascensicn and in 15' south cf the variable 

 (D. M. + o° .2911), is of a fine orange color, and should 

 be put in the list of red stars. 



Observers desiring information, charts, or comparison 

 stars, for use in observing the variable, will be cheerfully 

 assisted by Prof. Harrington or the editor. 



M. Eugene Blcck, of the Observatory of Odessa, Rus- 

 sia, has communicated the following observations and 

 elements of Comet (pi), 1881, Swift : 



Odessa M. T. App. a. 



1 881 d. h m. s. 



May 4 14 50 15 

 5 14 28 12 

 7 14 36 2 



h.m. s. 

 o 15 26.53 

 o 19 1. 00 

 o 26 35.05 



App. 



+ 33 25 3.7 

 + 32 24 36.7 

 + 30 15 5-9 



ELEMENTS. 



T = 1 88 1, May 20.8294. 



53 



25 



o 



7T = 299 47 



$2 sr 123 59 



*= 79 33 

 log. q = 9.76570. 

 The corrparison with the middle place gives 



Obs. — e , iS A cos. (5 = — 27" 



6 = + 3" ■ 



Careful search has been made at Boston, at Cambridge 

 by Mr. Wendell, at Clinton, N. Y„ by Prof. Peters, and 

 by others, for Barnard's Comet, but without success. 



Science Observer, 

 Special Circular No. 13. 



Boston, June 2, 1881. 



Underground Wires in Paris. — The Municipal Coun- 

 cil of this city are contemplating adding to their funds by 

 taxing wires placed in the sewers. The proposed tax will 

 be 2ofr. per kilometre up to 500, 3ofr. from 500 to 1,000, 

 4ofr. from 1,000 to 1,500, and so on, with an increase of 

 iofr. for each 5C0 kilometres. L' Electricity says that the 

 number of kilometres of wire placed in the sewers being 

 about 7,000, the Compagnie des Telephones will have to 

 pay something like 59,soofr. It adds that the company 

 make no objection to this tax. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Second Report of the United States Entomolo- 

 gical Commission, for the years 1878 and 1879, re- 

 lating to the Rocky Mountain Locust, and the West- 

 ern Cricket, etc., with illustrations, Washington 1880. 



This volume will be read with interest by naturalists, 

 and the facts and statistics relating to the ravages of lo- 

 custs, and the laws and characteristics governing their mi- 

 grations are very complete. 



The interesting chapter entitled " The Brain of the 

 Locust " opens with these lines. " In order to appreciate 

 the habits, migratory, reproductive, etc., of the locust, and 

 to learn something of its general intelligence as an insect, 

 and as compared with other insects, it is necessary for us 

 to study with a good deal of care the organ of the locust's 

 mind, i. e., its nervous system, comprising its nervous 

 centres and the nerves arising from them. The present 

 chapter will be devoted to a study of the brain." 



It may be confidently affirmed that with methods far 

 subtler and reasoning much more profound, than any em- 

 ployed by the author of this chapter, we shall always fail 

 to find in the structure of the nervous system any explana- 

 tion of the migratory and reproductive or of any other 

 habits as habits in any animal. A large wing-ganglion 

 means a flying insect — of course, a large optic ganglion 

 means that vision is a powerful sense in the animal in 

 which it is found ; an atropic olfactory bulb, in man the 

 monkeys and seals, means that the sense of smell does 

 not play so important a role in these animals as in the fox, 

 dog, lion, camel and opossum, where the bulb is large. 

 The preponderance of the brachial enlargement of the 

 cord in the mole and bat is related to the preponderance 

 of the anterior extremities over the posterior in these ani- 

 mals, but it no more serves to explain the difference in 

 psychical habits existing between the two, nay it does so 

 to a less degree even than the external structure. There 

 are species of locusts which are not migratory and a study 

 of their brains should be made if Mr. Packard wishes to 

 draw inferences as to habits from the cerebral struc- 

 ture ; in other words, if he would trace out the line of de- 

 marcation between a " migratory " and a " non-migra- 

 tory " brain. 



We believe that the clause in question has been in- 

 setted with the purpose of indicating that there is a con- 

 nection between the chapter it opens and the general 

 purposes of the Report. If so, if it was the writer's ob- 

 ject to lead the lay mind to look upon his paper as 

 pointing cut methods by which, through a careful pur- 

 suit of the logical lines and the ratiocination passing 

 through the cells or nerve-tracts of the locust's nervous 

 system, we should in course of time be enabled to over- 

 reach and anticipate him by our superior reasoning power, 

 in a manner comparable to that followed by a detective 

 shadowing a forger, we can only say that it might have 

 been omitted. Science needs no apology and the 

 excellent plates accompanying this part of the Report 

 alone justify the expense incurred by Government in get- 

 ting them up. 



We consider it unfortunate that in a chapter not likely 

 to be perused by the lay reader at all, so much matter of 

 a semi-popular character should have been included. It 

 is the attempt to popularize the distinction between the 

 brain of insects and of vertebrates (p. 224) that has led 

 Mr. Packard to the commission of actual errors. Thus 

 speaking of the nervous system of vertebrates, he says : 

 " The gray matter is situated in the centre and consists 

 largely of nerve or so-called ' ganglion cells,' while the 

 external white matter of the brain or cord is composed 

 of a mass of nerve fibres." This is correct only as ap- 

 plying to the very lowest vertebrates ; in man, the mam- 

 malia and reptilia, the gray matter is more or less near 

 the surface, in some centers altogether cortical, while the 

 white matter is internal. Mr. Packard adds, as another 



