54 
Notes. 
[January, 
scientists, multitudes of whom cannot write it or even speak it 
with ease. We have no doubt that a memoir written in English 
would be more widely intelligible than if drawn up in Latin.] 
M. Hureau de Villeneuve maintains that distilled water is 
neither disagreeable to the taste nor hard to digest, and that the 
absence of calcareous salts is rather an advantage than an incon- 
venience. 
Prof. C. S. Minot (American Association) opposes the sug- 
gested trimonial system. He thinks that species should be 
based upon a statistical study of all known variations. [The 
existence of any unknown species vitiating, of course, the result.] 
He holds that individuals are not always homologous, the only 
fixed units being (i) cells and (2) the whole series of genera- 
tions of cells from a single ovum, — the cell-cycle. An individual 
may be almost any fractional part of a cell-cj'cle. Roughly 
speaking, the higher the organism the fewer the number of 
individuals it comprises. 
M. Duponchel (“ Comptes Rendus ”) considers that the 
secular variations of the compass are explained by the pre- 
ponderating adtion of a new ultra-Neptunian planet, Oceanus, 
the revolution of which is about 467 years. In 1580 and 1813 it 
must have passed through the longitudes 8o° and 260°, and is at 
present in the constellation of Capricorn, about 314 0 . 
Mr. A. C. Ranyard communicates to the Royal Astronomical 
Society a description of a dark-blue grey belt upon Saturn, which 
he observed on November 4th, 1883, and which has since been 
seen by other astronomers. 
Mr. J. Fiske, in a work on the “ Destiny of Man,” contends 
that “ the more thoroughly we comprehend that process of 
evolution by which things have come to be what they are, the 
more likely we are to feel that to deny the everlasting persistence 
of the spiritual element in man is to rob the whole process of its 
meaning.” But why in man rather than in other organisms ? 
M. Gaudry (Academy of Sciences) describes the fossil Eu- 
chirosaurus of the Permian of Lebach in Rhenish Prussia. This 
reptile, besides its highly-specialised ribs, had a ventral cuirass, 
flexible, and made up of strong ganoid scales ; its vertebrae had 
spinous apophyses with great lateral projections, such as are not 
yet known in any other animal. Hence it was able to creep 
rapidly on its armour-coated belly. 
According to M. Mary (“Comptes Rendus,”) the length of the 
human step increases little up to a speed of 65 steps per minute. 
From that point it increases decidedly up to 75 steps per minute 
and then decreases. The most rapid walk is at 85 steps per 
minute. 
