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from the development series of the other vertebrates is indicated with special clearness in his comparison of the human skull with that of lower mammals. He here expressly points out several places in the human skull as remains of the animal skull "which are found in stronger proportions in such a low organisation, but have not quite disappeared in man, in spite of his elevation."

No less does his celebrated discovery of the intra-maxillary bone testify to the same conviction. Man, like the other mammals, having cutting teeth must also, Goethe concluded, possess the intramaxillary bone which showed itself in the other mammals; and in point of fact after the most careful anatomical investigations he established his point, although it had been disputed by the highest anatomical authorities.

Highly remarkable, moreover, in this respect is the agreement Goethe expresses with the kindred view of Kant in his "Critique of the Faculty of Judgment," a work the "great main thoughts of which were entirely analogous with his own work, action, and thought hitherto,' The great Königsberg philosopher had enunciated the descent of all organic beings from a common original mother (from man down to polyp) as a hypothesis which "alone was in harmony with the principle of the Mechanism of Nature, without which a Science of Nature was altogether impossible." This theory of descent, however, he had at the same time called "a daring adventure of reason." In reference to this passage Goethe remarks: "Had I first unconsciously and in obedience to inward impulse restles-ly pressed forward in the direction of that Original Form, that Type-had I even succeeded in building up a scheme conformable with Nature; now at length could nothing hinder me from boldly maintaining the Adventure of Reason, as the sire of Königsberg calls it."

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Finally, nothing can more strongly show the extra ordinary interest with which Goethe followed this transformation-theory, down to the end of bis life, than the well-known a'tention he gave to the dispute between Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier. "This event is for me of altogether incredible importance,' exclaims the grey-headed old man of eighty-one years, with youthful fire, "and I have a right to jubilate over the universal victory, at last witnessed, of a cause to which I have devoted my whole life, and which, too, is mine in a quite especial manner." The vivid representations of this most significant dispute, completed by Goethe in March, 1832, just a few days before his death, i the last literary legacy the greatest poet and thinker of the German nation has left behind him; and to this great intel lectual contention also his last word applies, "more light."

It is deeply to be regretted that the "Philosophie Zoologique," by Lamarck, a work of the highest moment which appeared in 1809, was wholly unknown to Goethe. For just in the development theory of this work, which is quite differently arranged and strictly systematically composed, he would have found much that was wanting to himself, much that would have yielded him the most complete supplement for his own incomplete studies. In reference as much to the monistic and com. plete elaboration of the development theory as to the many-sided experimental establishment of it on fact, the great work of Jean Lamarck is much more important than the similar essays of all his contemporaries, more particularly of the like-named work of Geoffroy St. Hilaire. When one considers with what extraordinary interest Goethe took up the latter work, it may be concluded that he would have given a much warmer reception still to the rich-thoughted work of Lamarck.

We cannot I ut regard it as a truly tragic fact, that the "Philosophie Zoologique" by Lamarck, one of the greatest productions of the great literary period in the beginning of our century, met, from its outset, with but extremely little attention, and in the course of a few years was utterly forgotten. Not till Darwin fifty years later on breathed new life into the Transformation theory therein established, was the buried treasure again brought into the light of day, and we cannot now but describe it as the completest representation of the theory of development prior to the time of Darwin. Nay, it seems to us the necessary atonement of a great historical injustice, if again to day (as was done sixteen years ago in the "General Morphology"), we place the great Frenchman side by side with the greater Briton and the greatest German. Each of the three great middle-European nations of culture has in the course of a century presented mankind with an intellectual giant of the first rank, who grasped in its entire significance the fundamental conception of the monistic development of the world from natural causes.

It would carry us much too far were we here to attempt setting forth an abstract of Lamarck's work and comparing it with

Darwin's. It will suffice to cite some of the weightiest funda mental conceptions which characterise his theory of nature, and indicate how far he was in advance of his time. For many decades the great French biologist had occupied himself very searchingly with systematic botany and zoology. Testimony of this we have in his two celebrated and much used special work, the "Flore française," and the "Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres." While he was engaged in substantially classifying and describing not merely the forn s already in existence, but also their extinct ancestors which he incorporated into his system, there was disclosed to him the inner morphologic connection between the former and the latter, and from this disclosure he inferred their common descent. All animal and vegetable forms which we distinguish as species, possess, accordingly, but a relative temporary persistence, and the varieties are the be ginnings of species. The form-group of the species is, therefore, just as artificial a product of our analytic understanding as is the genus, the order, the class, and every other category of the system. The change in the conditions of life, on one hand, the employment or non-employment of the organs, on the other, exercise a constantly transforming influence on the organisms; they effect by means of adaptation a gradual transformation of forms, the fundamental lineaments of which are through inheritance transmitted from generation to generation. whole system of animals and plants is in reality, therefore, their genealogical tree, and portrays to us the relations of their blood-kindredship. The course of development of life on our globe was, accordingly, continuous and uninterrupted, just as was the course of development of the earth itself.

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While Lamarck thus clearly enunciates all the essential fundamental conceptions of our current doctrine of filiation, and by the depth of his morphological knowledge excites our admiration, the clear advanced outlooks he takes in his conceptions of physiology are no less surprising. While in his time the fallacy of a supernatural vital force was yet universally prevalent. Lamarck rejected that idea, and maintained that life was only a very complicated physical phenomenon. For all vital phenomena are based on mechanical processes which are themselves conditioned by the constitution of organic matter. The phenomena of soul-life (Seelenlebens) are also, in this respect, not different from other vital phenomena. For the ideas and activities of the understanding are based on motional processes in the central nerve-system; the will in truth is never free, and reason is only a higher degree of development and combination of the elements. In these and other propositions Lamarck raises himself far above the general theory of nature held by most of his contemporaries, and sketches a programme of future biology which only in our days has come to be carried out. In view of the great clearness and consistency of his system it is only a matter of course that he should assign to man bis natural place at the head of the vertebrates, and explain the causes of his transformation out of ape-like mammals. With equal acumen, however, he handles one of the darkest and most difficult questions of the whole theory of development, the question regarding the origin of the first living beings on our globe. For the answering of this question he assumes that the common earliest genealogical forms of all organi: ms were absolutely simple beings, and that they came into existence immediately out of inorganic matter in water by Spontaneous generation, through the combined effect of different physical causes. Such simplest organisms, however, were at that time not yet at all discovered; not till half a century afterwards were they actually come upon in the Monera.

Lamarck reached the great age of eighty-five years; consequently he lived two years longer than Goethe, and twelve years longer than Darwin. But while the two latter enjoyed the happiness of beholding the long beautiful evening of their life glorified by a sun-like splendour of success and worldly fame, poor Lamarck closed his long and laborious life misunderstood, solitary and needy. Ten years before his death he suffered the misfortune of blindness, and could only from memory dictate the last part of his great natural history of invertebrate animals to his two daughters who tenderly nursed him, and whom he left behind him without any means of support. Let us hope that the bitterness of his hard fate was qualified by the consciousness of his having cast the deepest glances into the mysteries of creative nature, and that the clear intellectual eye of the blind prophet often descried the laurel garland which thankful posterity would one day lay on his lonely grave.

Unquestionably the greatest defect in Lamarck's work was the

insufficiency of the stock of observations and experiments he brought forward in proof of his far-reaching principles. For then, as now, the great majority of naturalists want, above everything, to have palpable facts in the hand. Then as now we find the paradoxical phenomenon, that the great majority of people accept without any misgiving and trample under foot the most absurd hypothe-es and dogmas, while on the other hand they encounter well-founded scientific theories with the more suspicion and opposition the more they approach the truth. Among the experimental proofs of theories, moreover, to most people those are not the most welcome which are furnished by a continuous series of phenomena and a whole large class of facts. What they most desire is the particular observation, the single experiment. A large part of Darwin's immense success is due to the fact that he brought into the field to a truly overwhelming amount exactly such particular pertinent observations and experiments. Poor Lamarck on the contrary, trusting to the logical conclusion-drawing faculty of naturalists, for the most part neglected the business of palpable particulars.

The comparison of these three great natural philosophers in whom the foundation-laying development theory of our current natural science was most powerfully and comprehensively revealed is of high interest, for all three are very different among themselves both in respect of their general genius and the fortunes of their life outwardly and inwardly, as also, very especially, in respect of their courses of study and the ways by which they pursued their high aims. Lamarck starts from the most careful special studies of individual animal and vegetable forms, and by his many years' systematic examination and comparison of them is brought to the conviction that all living and fossil species have developed themselves out of a few simple common geneological forms. Goethe arrives at the same conclusion on the ground of his general studies in comparative morphology, directed by the conviction that the unity of the common type or the hereditary protoform can be traced out, everywhere in all the different organic forms, however manifoldly they may be transformed in individuals through adaptation to outward circumstances. Darwin, finally, first answers to his own satisfaction the question by what causes the new culture-forms of animals and plants reared by men come into being, and then demonstrates that the struggle for existence is the same cause which in like manner by the inter-action of adaptation and inheritance constantly produces new organic species in the free state of nature.

In these wholly different ways and by application of wholly different methods of investigation, all these three naturalists arrive ultimately at the same conclusion-to the acceptance, namely, of a monistic and continuous development of the whole of organic nature, through the operation alone of natural causes, to the exclusion of all supernatural creative miracles. All three, however, being at the saine time deep-thinking philosophers and keeping constantly in their eye the unity of the whole world of phenomena, their idea of development expands to a grand pantheistic conception of the world, to that doctrine of o eness which forms the essence of our current monistic theory of

nature.

The immeasurable effect which the decided triumph of this monistic view of nature already in this day exercises on all provinces of human knowledge, an effect increasing in geometrical progression from year to year, opens to us the happiest prospect regarding the further intellectual and moral development of mankind. I repeat here my firm personal conviction that in future this progress of scientific knowledge will be esteemed the greatest turning-point in the intellectual history of

man.

We would in a quite especial manner emphasise this reconciling and compensating influence of our genetic theory of nature, all the more that our opponents are constantly endeavouring to obtrude disruptive and decomposing tendencies on it. These destructive tendencies are said to be directed not merely against science, but against religion and so against the most important foundations, in general, of our civilised life. Such grievous charges, so far as they really rest on conviction and not merely on sophistic fallacies, can be explained only by the fact of a mischievous misunderstanding of what forms the genuine kernel of true religion. This kernel does not consist in the special form of one's confession of faith, but rather in the critical conviction of an unknowable, common, ultimate ground of all things and in practical ethics springing immediately from the purified theory of nature.

In this confession, that with the present organisation of our brain the last ultimate ground of all phenomena is unknowable, the critical philosophy of nature comes athwart dogmatic religion. This faith in God, however, of course, assumes, endlessly different forms of confession according to the endlessly different degrees of the knowledge of nature. The further advances we make in the latter-the more we approach that unattainable ultimate ground-the purer will be our idea of God.

The purified knowledge of the world in the present day knows that natural revelation alone which in the book of nature lies open to every one and which every unprejudiced man with sound senses and sound reason can learn out of it. From this is derived that purest monistic form of faith which attains its climax in the conviction of the unity of God and Nature and which has long ago found its most complete expression in the confessions of our greatest poets and thinkers, Goethe and Lessing at their head. That Charles Darwin, too, was penetrated by this religion of nature, and did not acknowledge a particular church-confession is patent to every man who knows his works.

Only in law-regulated society can man acquire the true and full culture of the higher human life. That, however, is only possible when the natural instinct of self-preservation, Egoism, is restricted and corrected by consideration for society, by Altruism. The higher man raises himself on the ladder of culture, the greater are the sacrifices which he must make to society, for the interests of the latter shape themselves evermore to the advantage of the individual at the same time; just as, reversely, the regulated community thrives the better the more the wants of its members are satisfied. It is therefore quite a simple necessity which elevates a sound equilibrium between Egoism and Altruism into the first requirement of natural ethics.

The greatest enemies of mankind have ever been, down to the present day, ignorance and superstition; their greatest bene. factors, on the other hand, the lofty intellectual heroes who with the sword of their free spirit have valiantly contended with those enemies. Among these venerable intellectual warriors stand at the head, Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck, in a line with Newton, Keppler, and Copernicus. These great thinkers of nature by devoting their rich intellectual gifts, in the teeth of all opposition, to the discovery of the most sublime natural truths, have become trne saviours of needy mankind, and possess a far higher degree of Christian love than the Scribes and Pharisees who are always bearing this phrase in their mouth and the opposite in their heart.

How little, on the other hand, blind belief in miracles and the domination of orthodoxy is in a position to manifest true philanthropy is sufficiently testified not only by the whole history of the middle ages but also by the intolerant and fanatic procedure of the militant church in our days. Or must we not look with deep shame on those orthodox Christians who, in our day, again express their Christian love by the persecution of those of other faith and by blind hatred of race? And here in Eisenach, the sacred place where Martin Luther delivered us from the gloomy ban of adherence to the letter, did not a troop of so-called Lutherans venture some years ago to try anew to bend science under that yoke?

Against this presumption on the part of a tyrannical and selfish priesthood it will to-day be permitted us to protest on the same spot where 360 years ago the great Reformer of the church kindled the light of free inquiry. As true Protestants we shall rise up against every attempt to force independent reason again under the yoke of superstition, no matter whether the attempt be made by a church sect or a pathologic spiritism.

Happily we are entitled to regard these medieval relapses as but transitory aberrations which will have no abiding effect. The immeasurable practical importance of the natural sciences for our modern culture-life is now so generally recognised that no section of it can any longer dispense with it. No in power the world is able again to roll backwards the immense progress to which we owe our railways and steamers, telegraphy and photography, and the thousand indispensable discoveries of physics and chemistry.

Just as little, too, will any power in the world succeed in destroying the theoretic achievements which are inseparably bound up with those practical successes of modern science. Among those theories we must assign the first place to the deve lopment doctrine of Lamarck, Goethe, and Darwin. For by it alone are we authorised firmly to establish that comprehensive oneness of our theory of Nature in which every phenomenon

appears as but efflux of one and the same all comprehensive law of nature. The great law of the conservation of force thereby finds its universal application, embracing al-o those biological provinces which hitherto appeared closed to it.

In face of the surprising velocity with which in these last years the development theory has paved an entrance into the most diverse departments of inquiry we may here express the hope that its high pedagogic value also will be even more recognised, and that it will quite perfect the education of the coming generations. When five years ago, at the fiftieth Meeting of Naturalists in Munich, I laid stress on the high significance of the development theory in relation to education, my remarks were so misunderstood that a few words of explanation may here be allowed me. It stands to reason that with these words I could not mean to claim that Darwinism should be taught in elementary schools. That is simply im ossible. For just like the higher mathematics and physics, or the history of philosophy, Darwinism demands a mass of previous knowledge which can be acquired only in the higher stages of learning. Assuredly, however, we may demand that all subjects of education be treated according to the genetic method, and that the fundamental idea of the development-theory, the Causality of Phenomena, find everywhere its acknowledgment. We are firmly persuaded that by this means, thinking and judging conformably with nature will be promoted in far greater measure than by any other method.

At the same time through this extended application of the development-doctrine, one of the greatest evils of our day in the culture of youth will be removed-the cramming of the memory, we mean, with dead lumber, which smothers the best powers and prevents both soul and body from coming to a normal development. This excessive cramming is based on the old fundamental ineradicable error that the quantity of factual knowledge is the best measure of culture, while, in truth, culture depends on the quality of causative science. We would therefore deem it especially useful that the selection of the material of instruction be much more carefully made, and that in making the selection, those departments which cram the memory with masses of dead facts do not receive the preference, but those which cul.ivate the judgment through the living stream of the development idea. Let our worried school youth only learn half as much, but let them understand this half more thoroughly, and the next generation will in soul and body be doubly as sound as the present.

In the most gladdening manner these requirements are being met by the reforms which are simultaneously in process of accomplishment in the most diverse provinces of science. Everywhere is stirring and moving fresh young life, stimulated by the idea of natural development-in the Comparative Study of Languages and in the History of Culture, as also in Psychology and Philosophy; in Ethnography and Anthropology no less than in botany and zoology. Everywhere the most joyful blossoms are bursting forth from the most varied branches of science, and its fruits will concurrently testify that they all spring from one single tree of knowledge and draw their nourishment from one single root. Thanks and honour, however, to the great masters who by their genetic and monistic theory of nature have led us to this clear height of knowledge from which with Goethe we may say: "Dieser schöne Begriff von Macht und Schranken, von Willkür Und Gesetz, von Freiheit und Mass, von beweglicher Ordnung Vorzug und Mangel, erfreue dich hoch; die heilige Muse Bringt harmonisch ihn dir, mit sanftem Zwange belehrend. Keinen höhern Begriff erringt der sittliche Denker, Keinen der thätige Mann, der dichtende Künstler; der Herrscher, Der verdient es zu sein, erfreut nur durch ihn sich der Krone. Freue dich höchstes Geschöpf der Natur, du fühlest dich fähig, Ihr den höchsten Gedanken, zu dem sie schaffend sich aufschwang Nachzudenken. Hier stehe nun still und wende die Blicke Ruckwärts, prüfe, vergleiche und nimm vom Munde der Muse, Dass du schauest, nicht schwärmst, die liebliche volle Gewissheit."'*

OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN

THE BINARY STAR 70 OPHIUCHI.-This star has received even more than a fair share of attention at the hands both of observers and computers, but there remain notwithstanding

This fair idea of might and limit, of will and law, of freedom and measure, of order in movement, of excellence and defect, gladden thee deeply; the holy Muse brings it harmoniously to thee, instructing thee with generous constraint. No higher idea achieves the moral thinker, no higher the active man, the creative artist; the regent worthy to rule finds happiness in his crown through this idea alone. Rejoice, oh highest creature of Nature, that thou feelest thyself able to think after Nature the highest thought to which the creatively soared. Here now stand still, and turn thy looks backwards, examine, compare, and hear the words of the Muse, that without illusion thou mayest contemplate the full, lovely truth.

large outstanding differences between observation and calculation. As regards the orbit a very complete discussion of all the reliable measures to 1868, was made by Dr. Schur of Strasburg, while with eight years later measures, the elements were rigorously investigated by M. Tisserand in a memoir published by the Academy of Sciences of Toulouse. If Dr. Doberck in the course of his skilful and elaborate researches on the motion of the binaries has given attention to this star, his results have escaped our notice, but we subjoin the orbits deduced by Dr. Schur and M. Tisserand ::

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The question naturally arises, how is it that after the most careful and complete determination of the orbit, it happens that in so short a time after the date of the latest measures employed in the calculations, the star appears to bolt, so to say, from its predicted course.

There have been suspicions from time to time that perturbation is indicated by the apparently anomalous differences between observation and computation. Mädler, discussing the elements of the orbit in 1842, when truly he had but a very limited and comparatively imperfect series of measures at his command to what we can now utilise, went so far as to doubt the efficiency of the theory of gravitation to explain the motion of the components of this double star, or at least he considered the question reduced to one of two alternatives, which he thus presents :(1) "The motion in this binary system does not follow the Newtonian law."

Or (2) "The middle point of the images which the stars form to us is not the centre of gravity of the masses.

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And he recommended the star to close scrutiny with the most powerful instruments, with the view to ascertain whether there were any visible disturbing body.

The existence of a third star was suggested by Jacob, to explain similar anomalies which he believed to have been indicated by the measures, but Mr. Burnham, in 1878, examined 70 Ophiuchi with the 18-inch Alvan Clarke refractor at Chicago with only negative evidence: " Both stars were perfectly round, with the highest powers on this occasion, and no trace

of any third star near." Such had also been his previous experience.

It thus becomes all the the more desirable to ascertain how far the suspected deviations from unperturbed motion may exist in the observations themselves, and more attention might perhaps be given with advantage to the investigation of personal equation between the various observers, the elimination of the effect of obliquity of direction of the components, or other cause which could possibly affect the comparison of the separate results. The evidence that such influences exist is pretty evident in the case of this particular star. For instance if we compare the above orbits with an epoch, only one year later than that of Prof. Hall, viz., Jedrzejewicz's for 1880'656, giving the position 62°82, distance 2" 75, we get the following differences between calculation and observation :

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THE GREAT COmet of 1874.-Mr. T. W. Backhouse writes fron Sunderland, pointing out that the tail of this comet attained a much greater length than was assigned in this column, p. 483. The length there mentioned 23°, was that given by observation in the suburbs of London on July 13, when the head of the comet was about to descend below the horizon. On the same evening Mr. Backhouse found the tail 26° long, and 35° on the 14th, and he refers to greater lengths subsequently noted. These, however, refer to dates when the head was no longer visible in these latitudes, Prof. Julius Schmidt gave the following estimations made at Athens :

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July 16 47.2 17 54'0 These, with other observations, will be found in his description of the appearance of the comet, in No. 2067 of the Astronomische Nachrichten.

BIOLOGICAL NOTES

COLOSSAL CUTTLE-FISH.-Mr. T. W. Kirk adds to our rapidly-increasing knowledge of large cuttle-fish in an important paper lately published (Trans. New Zealand Institut. vol. xiv). One species referred by him to Stee istrup's genus Architeuthis, and called A. verrilli, was found stranded at Island Bay, Cook's Strait, New Zealand, in June, 1880. When first found on the beach, it was not quite dead; the longer arms measured twentyfive feet; the blades had a row of fifteen suckers along each side and a middle row of nineteen. The smaller arms were about eleven feet nine inches, with a width of seven and a half inches. They were furnished with suckers and fleshy tubercles, but these shorter arms were of unequal length. The fleshy membrane connecting these was about eleven inches deep. The head was four feet three inches in circumference, the eyes five inches by four; the body was seven feet six inches in length, and nine feet two inches in its greatest circumference. While this large cuttle differs in some respects from the type of Steenstrup's genus, Mr. Kirk prefers to wait for fresh material ere creating a new genus.

Another large cuttle is referred to a new genus, Steenstrupia, but its long pair of arms had been torn off at a length of six feet two inches, when it was found in Cook's Straits; its body was long (nine feet two inches), almost cylindrical, but very slightly swollen in the middle, head long (one foot eleven inches), narrow sides, nearly traight, eyes larger, and with lids, sessile arms, all same length and size (four feet three inches), suckers, thirty-six on each arm, in two equal rows, each with a bony ring armed with from forty to sixty sharp incurved teeth. The fin was rhomboidal, posterior lateral. The

internal shell was six feet three inches long. The new species is called S. stockii.

JAPANESE COTTON.-The Japanese Government have lately presented to the National Museu n of the United States an interesting collection of cotton grown in Japan, accompanying the donation with notes on the specimens, from which we extract the following:-Cotton is produced along the coasts of the districts Kinai, Kanto, Chiugoku, and Kiashiu, where the soil is sandy and the climate warm. In some of the north-eastern parts, where there are early frosts, the attempt to cultivate cotton is rarely made. It is uncertain when the cultivation of cotton in the Japanese empire first commenced, but it would appear that the method of culture adopted in the western provinces came from Kinai, though the seeds grown in the eastern provinces came from Mikawa. In the province of Sett u the crop is the largest, indeed is not surpassed by that of all the other provinces, but the cost of cultivation is high. The staple, moreover, is rather short and hard, so as not to be suitable for very fine yarns. In recent years, however, cotton yarns are imported on a large scale, and fine yarns are easily procured; so the home-produced cotton is profitable in proportion to its yield. This will account for the fact that the cultivation of the long and soft staple is quickly passing away, and that it is becomi the almost universal custom to grow only that seed which wil produce a maximum yield. While cotton plants have differen names in the different provinces, it is believed that there are but three sorts-the Kanto, which produces a long, soft, and stron staple of glossy appearance, from half to two-thirds of an inch in length, the Kinai, with a hard and short staple, from quarter to half an inch in length, and rather destitute of glɔsiness, and the Ainoko, which is a hybrid between the two former. The cultivation of the cotton-plant in Japan is not uniform, varying immensely according to not only the climates and soil, but also according to the customs of each district, but it is to le expected that with the a ivance of time the mode of culture may become more uniform, and that excellence in quality may eve take the place of a maximum in quantity.

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AMERICAN WOODCOCK CARRYING ITS YOUNG.-Whilst it i still somewhat uncertain whether the woodcock (Scolopax rusti cula, Linn.) of Europe carries its young in its claws or between its legs, we believe this habit has, though referred to by Audubon, not been recently observed in the American woodcock (Phitohelia minor). It is, therefore, interesting to note the following observations of Mr. F. L. Harvey, of Arkansas. In April last (1882) a woodcock was flushed from a clump of persimmion trees on the border of a slash. Knowing the bird's habit of rising above a clump of bushes and then suddenly dropping behind it out of range, Mr. Harvey fired as soon as it When the smoke cleared away the bird was seen rising with a laboured flight, and concluding it was wounded its fail was expected, but instead it turned and came nearer. It was seen to be holding something between its feet, which on closer observation proved to be a young chicken recently hatched, which was located between the mother's legs, and supported by her feet placed on its sides. So slow was the flight that by a brisk trot the observer was able to gain on the bird, which he tried to tire out so as to compel it to drop its burden, but in this he was not successful. It would appear that this bird and Wilson's snipe often remain in Arkansas to breed (American Naturalist, September).

BLIND SUBTERRANEAN CRUSTACEA IN NEW ZEALAND. — The existence of blind Edriophthalmatous Crustacea in wells and subterranean cave rivers in Europe has been long known, and now Mr. C. Chilton describes some quite new forms found in New Zealand (Trans. New Zealand Institute, vol. xiv.). They were obtained from a well at Eyreton, about six miles from Kaiapoi, North Canterbury; the well had been excavated about seventeen years previously, was not more than twenty-five feet deep, and was fitted with a common suction-pump through the medium of which these new forms were obtained. These proved to be three species of Amphipoda and one of Isopoda. In none were there to be found in either the living or recent specimens the least trace of eyes. The Isopod is referred to a new genus Cruregens, and is most remarkable from the fact that it has only six pairs of appendages to the seven thoracic segments, whilst the normal number should be seven. In many Isopods the young have at first only six pairs of legs, the last thoracic segment being but slightly developed and destitute of appendages (Fritz Müller, "Facts and Arguments for Darwin"), and

hence at first sight it might appear that the new form was but an immature state. Mr. Chilton, however, states that he has examined altogether twenty live specimens, none of which seemed otherwise to have anything immature about them, and these were obtained at various times from January to October, 1881, he would, therefore, refer the absence of the seventh pair of appendages to an arrest of development. In some respects the new genus resembles Paranthura of Spence Bate. The new species is called C. fontanus. The Amphipods found with this Isopod are Cragonyx compactus, sp. nov., Calliope subterranea, sp. nov., and Gammarus fragilis, sp. nov., all without eyes. The new species are all figured, and at great length described.

GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES

MR. STANLEY has returned to Europe, after an absence of between three and four years, during most of which time he has been on the Lower Congo. From the station which he established at Vivi, below the Yellala Falls, his object was to make a road past the long line of cataracts, about 150 miles, to Stanley Pool. Much of the road has, we understand, been constructed, and five stations have been established. Mr. Stanley himself has been 300 miles into the interior, with what results to science remains to be seen. Meantime the French are diligently exploring the region lying between the Lower Congo and the Ogové, and have already done much to clear up its hydrography.

BARON NORDENSKJÖLD has under consideration an expedition to the Arctic next summer, and is engaged, in company with Mr. William Schönlanck, of Berlin, a gentlemen much interested in geographical discovery, who is at present visiting Stockholm, as to the detailed arrangements of the same.

THE Swedish Geological Expedition returned from Spitzbergen to Tromsö in the yacht Bojna on the 16th inst. It was

danger of the U.S. Polar observing party being in straits for want of food. The fact of the Neptune being unable to get north, combined with the news of the early imprisonment of Lieut. Hovgaard's expedition on the coast of Novaya Zemlya, seems to indicate an exceptionally early and severe Arctic winter.

IN the last number (fasc. 3 tome 7) of the Bulletin of the Antwerp Geographical Society will be found an interesting discussion on the subject of geographical orthography, and the preparation of maps generally. The president took objection to the distinction made by the Commission to consider the subject between scientific maps and maps for common use. He recognised, he said, only one kind of maps, and that was good maps, which indeed might be made to bring into prominence certain features for special purposes. All maps should be constructed on rigidly scientific principles, most of all those for common and school use.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL

INTELLIGENCE

AT King's College, London, Prof. W. Grylls Adams, F.R. S., will deliver a course of lectures on Electricity during the ensuing session. A course of practical work in electrical testing and measurement with especial reference to electrical engineering will also be carried on under his direction in the Wheatstone Laboratory. The lectures will be given once a week on Thursday, at 2 p.m., and the laboratory will be open daily (Saturday excepted) from I to 4.

AT Owens College Prof. Arthur Schuster, assisted by Mr. W. Haldane Gee, will give a theoretical and practical course on the modern applications of electricity one evening a week during next winter. Beginning with the ordinary electrical measurements it is intended to include the usual tests of terrestrial and submarine telegraphy, the construction of telephones, electro

found impossible to land at Beeren Island, as intended, owing dynamo machines, and all measurements connected with electric

to tremendous seas.

WE regret to hear of the death of Mr. Krarup Smith, who has, since 1867, been Inspector of the Northern Districts in Danish Greenland. During the past winter he suffered from constant sleeplessness, and he expired somewhat suddenly on May 28, aged forty-nine. Every traveller who has passed any time at Godhavn during the last fifteen years has spoken of the kindness and attention of Mr. Smith and his wife. He ren

dered important services to various Arctic expeditions, and freely placed his house and resources at the disposal of scientific workers-Nares, Markham, Hayes, Pavy, Whymper, Nordenskjöld, Steenstrup, and many others of various nationalities have experienced their hospitality or received their assistance. Although Inspector Smith was not of a robust constitution, he travelled extensively by boat and sledge in summer and winter throughout the Inspectorate, which extends over more than five degrees of latitude, and took much interest in the welfare of the natives, who sustain a real loss by his lamented death.

THE range of the changes of level in the rivers of Russia in Europe has become, since 1876, the subject of accurate measurements, and M. Tillo has just published in the Russian Nautical Review (Morskoy Sbornik) an interesting paper on this subject, being the result of measurements made at eighty different places. The highest range is reached by the Oka at Kaluga, the difference between the highest and lowest levels being as much as 45 feet; the average range for the same river from its source to its mouth being 32 2 feet; the average for the Volga from its source to its mouth is 33.6 feet, 30°1 feet for the Kama, 252 for the Duna, and 23'1 for the Don. For all other rivers the range is less than 20 feet. Of course this range diminishes very much towards the mouth of each river; but still it reaches 12 feet for the Volga at Astrakhan, and 9 feet for the Duna at Riga. The highest range observed in the lakes of Northern Russia was only 21 feet. map prepared by M. Tillo shows the distribution of hydrometrical stations on Russian rivers, their numbers having been increased in 1880 to 341 stations.

A

WE regret to learn that the Neptune, which was chartered by the American Government to take supplies to the Greely Scientific Expedition, in Lady Franklin Bay, in 81° N., has returned to St. John's, Newfoundland, and reports being unable to get further north than 79°20, owing to an impenetrable barrier of ice. She, however, landed supplies at several ports. From the precautions which have been taken there is, we believe, no

jighting.

THE Calendar of Yorkshire College for the ninth Session has just been issued. In addition to the usual information, we note that Prof. Rucker, who has secured a new assistant-lecturer in the person of Mr. C. Spurge, B.A.. of Cambridge, proposes some additional work in his Senior Mathematical Class, and, what is of more importance, to add a Third Year Course in the The lectures and laboratories in the

department of Physics.

Chemical, Geological, and Biological departments, under Professors Thorpe, Green, and Miall respectively, as well as the classes generally, are to be continued as in last session. In the Textile Industries Department Mr. Beaumont has added a third year's course for such of his students as require it. In the CoalMining Department the recent alterations in the curriculum will come into full operation at the beginning of this next session. The course is in future to occupy two years, and will include lectures by the Professors of Chemistry and Geology, as well as instruction in practical coal-mining by Mr. A. Lupton. A boon to science teachers has been granted in the shape of Assisted Studentships, under which a teacher may work in the college laboratories on payment of one-fourth of the fees, Government paying the other three-fourths. We may add that the Yorkshire College has, at the present time, about 700/. a year to distribute in scholarships.

THE Marquess of Ripon, Viceroy of India, in a letter expressing his warm approval of the decision of the Council of the Yorkshire College, Leeds, to raise a memorial to the first president, the late Lord Cavendish, in the form of a Professorhis intention of ship of experimental physics, announces subscribing 5col. to the fund, which now amounts to 3000l. FROM the Calendar of University College, Nottingham, we see that the teaching staff is well filled up, nearly all branches of a really liberal education being represented. From the interesting statistics given, it is evident that the institution is very largely taken advantage of. The Calendar gives an account of the origin of the College.

THE Winter Session of 1882-83 of the London School of Medicine for Women (30, Henrietta Street, Brunswick Square) will open Monday, October 2. Courses of lectures will be given at the school on Anatomy, Chemistry, Physiology, Practice of Medicine, and Practice of Surgery. A course of Practical Anatomy, with demonstrations, will also be held. Lectures on

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