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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
race that Dr. Lambert unites the two. The Australians, Tasmanians, and 
New Caledonians in some respects present an exaggeration of the dentary 
characters of the African negro, and they are also more strongly prog- 
nathous. 
The crania from the caves of Furfooz (Belgium) have the lower molars 
decreasing in size backward, as in the white race ; and this is also the case 
with seventy neolithic crania exhumed at Hastieres. But the palaeolithic 
lower jaw from La Naulette (Belgium) approximates most to that of the 
Australian and New Caledonian races, thus showing a resemblance in the 
age of the mammoth between man in Belgium and the existing races of the 
antipodes. — {Bull. Acad. Roy. Sci. Bely. 1877, No. 5 ; and Amer. Journ. Sci. 
October 1877, p. 322. 
ASTRONOMY. 
Sun's Distance deducible from the British Transit Observations 7 
December 9, 1874. — Those observations by the British observing par- 
ties, which of themselves suffice to give a determination of the sun’s 
distance, have been skilfully dealt with by Captain Tupman, and the 
result may be regarded as at least affording a means of estimating the 
value of the method employed. The Astronomer Royal, indeed, believes 
(naturally enough, perhaps) that the result will be accepted as more 
trustworthy than any before obtained, or than the mean of the results 
obtained by all the best preceding observations. Time will show, we 
believe, as it did in the case of his Harton Colliery experiment for deter- 
mining the earth’s mean density, that astronomers will not accept a 
result whose wide discordance from former measures (closely accordant 
inter se) indicates that the method employed is defective. Full credit will be 
given to the Astronomer Royal for his success in demonstrating the untrust- 
worthy nature of Delisle’s method of observing transits for determining the 
sun’s distance. Sir G. Airy’s opponents, in the controversy of 1872-4, only 
rendered the defectiveness of Delisle’s method probable by reasoning more 
or less depending upon theoretical considerations. He has succeeded in 
demonstrating the point practically — at some considerable cost to the 
nation, but that is merely a detail. Whether this view of the gist of his 
results is correct, or that which he himself adopts, can be inferred, we be- 
lieve, from the following facts: — In 1854 Hausen deduced for the solar 
parallax 8".916 (we refrain here and throughout our remarks from giving 
decimal figures beyond the third, as no reliance whatever can be placed 
upon them). Other results at that time ranged between the values 8".80 and 
8".96. Amongst such results should specially be noted one which all 
Greenwich united to honour, Mr. Stone’s deduction of 8 // .92 as the most 
probable result of the transit of Venus observations in 1769. Latterly Pro- 
fessor Newcomb, of America, has carefully gone over the whole subject, 
selecting with special skill the methods on which most reliance can be placed, 
