June 11, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



525 



assistant W. C. Hodgkins to make an examination 

 of the point at Cape Lookout where great changes 

 have been reported since the last examination ; 

 Lieutenant-Commander Brownson, U.S.N., chief 

 hydrographic inspector, is now in New York, in- 

 specting the Gedney, Bache, and Endeavor ; Lieut. 

 F. S. Carter has been detached from the coast- 

 survey steamer Gedney, and placed in charge of 

 the vessels laid up at the New York navy-yard ; 

 reports from the steamers Paterson and Mc Arthur, 

 which are stationed at Wrangle, Alaska, state 

 that the weather is very favorable for work, and 

 the results thus far attained have been most 

 gratifying. 



— The Royal academy of sciences at Turin has 

 announced the grand Bressa prize of twenty-four 

 hundred dollars, to be awarded at the close of 

 1889 for the most meritorious work or discovery 

 in the physical or natural sciences, produced dur- 

 ing the years 1886-89. The prize is open to the 

 world. 



— The International literary and artistic asso- 

 ciation, says the Academy, will not hold its next 

 congress at Stockholm this year, as had been 

 arranged, but at Geneva, on the 18th of Septem- 

 ber. The subjects to be discussed will comprise 

 the right of property in lettres missives, the agree- 

 ments as to publication and the relations between 

 authors and publishers, the right of property in 

 the titles of literary and scientific productions, 

 and the assimilation of the right of translation 

 with that of production. 



— Naturalists will recall that some fossil egg- 

 masses of insects of extraordinary size were found 

 a few years ago m Colorado in beds referred to 

 the Laramie period, and considered by Scudder as 

 indicating the existence of a neuroptercus insect 

 very closely allied to our great ' Hellgramite,' 

 Corydalus cornutus. It now appears that pre- 

 cisely similar bodies, at first supposed to be of 

 vegetable origin, have been found in the lignites 

 of Trets, near Aix, France, associated with Ne- 

 lumbium in beds universally referred to the lower 

 Garumnian, or, even lower, to the Campanian ; 

 that is, to the horizon of the upper cretaceous. The 

 Garumnian has already been compared to our 

 Laramie group. 



— The Wiirtemberg ministry has invited the 

 governments of Bavaria, Austria, Baden, and 

 Switzerland to participate in an examination and 

 surveys of the deeper portions of the Lake of Con- 

 stance, to serve in the preparation of an accurate 

 map of the lake's bottom. A commission of 

 specialists will meet in Friedrichshaven to decide 

 upon the methods and extent of the proposed 

 undertaking. 



— Prof. G. Dewalque of Liege, the secretary of 

 the Commission of the International congress of 

 geologists on the map of Europe, desires to sell his 

 large library en bloc, and wishes to know whether 

 some individual or institution will not make him 

 an offer for it on the basis of- a catalogue of its 

 contents. 



— The output of shad hatched by the U. S. fish 

 commission up to the present time has been 12,- 

 000,000. These have been sent away, as fast as 

 hatched, to various streams, and deposited : 356,- 

 000 have gone to the Cheat River at Grafton ; 

 370.000 to the Chattahoochee, Georgia ; 626,000 

 to the Chickahominy ; 329,000 to the Dan ; 758,- 

 000 to the Mattapony ; 385,000 to the Pamunky ; 

 1,110,000 to the Occoquan ; 757,000 to the Shen- 

 andoah ; 380,000 to the James ; 379,000 to the Ap- 

 pomattox ; 603,000 to the Monocacy ; 609.000 to the 

 Patuxent ; 1,234,000 to the Rivanna ; 390,000 to the 

 Accokeek Creek; 389.000 to Aquia Creek; 1.270.- 

 000 to the Rapidan ; 391,000 to the North Anna ; 

 1,070,000 to the Rappahannock ; 1,282,000 to the 

 Little Falls of the Potomac ; 1,586,000 to the Hud- 

 son ; and 1,000,000 to the Colorado. All of these 

 fish are not, of course, counted and numbered. 

 They are measured in the jars. It is known by 

 actual count how many eggs are necessary to fill 

 a jar to the depth of an inch. A quart, it is 

 estimated, will hold 28,000 eggs. 



— New discoveries of petroleum in southern 

 California are causing much excitement, says the 

 Los Angeles Herald. A well recently bored in 

 Ventura county is yielding fifty barrels of oil daily. 



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. 



Some devices for teaching historical geography. 



A friend having called my attention to some sug- 

 gestions, in Science of April 9, on maps suitable for 

 history classes, it has occurred to me that perhaps 

 the results of several years' experimenting with dif- 

 ferent devices for teaching historic geography might 

 be of interest to some of your readers. 



That helps are needed to illustrate the intricate 

 territorial changes of continental history, scarcely 

 requires to be further emphasized. Much of history, 

 indeed, is little more than the record of such changes. 

 The contrast between the hopeless confusion of many 

 important epochs when studied without historical 

 maps, and the beautiful clearness of the same epochs 

 with the maps, is simply astounding, and is the true 

 warrant for the time honored claim of geography as 

 one of the two eyes of history. 



Having become impressed, after a deal of unsatis- 

 factory teaching, that better machinery than the 

 ordinary is almost a necessity, I have spent considera- 

 ble time and pains trying different devices. For 

 several years I used a map of Europe permanently 



