Notes . 
1882.] 
625 
exception, in advance of their ordinary times. From April 14th 
onwards they were almost as regularly too late. 
The “ Bookseller ” places Miss Hunt’s “ Private Instructions 
in Organic Magnetism ” under the heading “ Charlatanism.” 
The “ Popular Science Monthly ” rightly says — “ Two unre- 
gulated and overwhelming passions in this country stifle the 
growth of Science, — the intense and absorbing passion for 
wealth, and the universal infatuation for politics. These are 
great national diseases, not peculiar to America, but malignant 
in America, and the state of mind they engender makes the sys- 
tematic cultivation of scientific thought next to impossible. 
Dr. F. Oswald, in an article on longevity (“ Popular Science 
Monthly”) states that “London holds about the medium in 
death-rate between New York and St. Petersburg.” All returns 
we can find assign a much higher mortality to New York than to 
London. The figures for three weeks taken at random are — 
New York, 34, 31, 30, as against London, for the same weeks, 
21, 18, 17. 
The “ Economical Section ” of the British Association, instead 
of being amputated, has been this year as adtive as ever, and 
appears, to us at least, to approach more and more to the cha- 
racter of a political debating club. 
According to the Report of the Chief Inspector of Mines, in 
Victoria, a very large proportion of the accidents are due to the 
recklessness of the men. 
The new equatorial of the Halsted Observatory, at Princeton, 
in New Jersey, now complete, is the fourth in size in the world. 
Its objedl-glass is 23 inches in diameter, and has a focal distance 
of 30 feet. 
M. Spring (Belgian Academy of Sciences) concludes that the 
seat of the electricity of storms is not, as generally admitted, in 
the moist region of the atmosphere, but in the cold and dry 
superstratum. 
M. Zenger (“ Ciel et Terre ”) maintains that the hurricanes of 
the West Indies and the typhoons of the Chinese Sea have a 
period of twelve days, equal to that of the rotation of the sun. 
Dr. Mackintosh has been appointed to the Professorship of 
Natural History in the University of St. Andrews vice Prof. H. 
Alleyne Nicholson. 
According to M. L. Crie, Pierre Belon, of Mans, in a work 
published as early as 1558, originated the so-called binary nomen- 
clature for animals and plants, the credit of which is commonly 
given to Linnaeus. Belon also devised the classification of birds 
which has been substantially adopted by Linnaeus and Cuvier, 
