whole year, instantly declares itself as one of a system of curves which are referred to the Strait of Florida as the source of heat, and the warm water may be traced (and this is not begging the question, for the temperature is got by dipping the thermometer in the water), in a continuous stream, indicated where its movement can no longer be observed by its form, fanning out from the neighbourhnod of the Strait across the Atlantic, skirting the coasts of France, Britain, and Scandinavia, rounding the North Cape, and passing the White Sea and the Sea of Kari, bathing the western shores of Novaja Semla and Spitzbergen, and finally coursing round the coast of Siberia, a trace of it still remaining to try to find its way through the narrow and shallow Behring's Strait into the North Pacific. Now it seems to me that if we had these observations alone, which are merely detailed and careful corroborations of many previous ones, and could depend upon them, without even having any clue to their rationale, we should be forced to admit that whatever might be the amount and distribution of heat derived from a general oceanic circulation, whether produced by the prevailing winds of the region, by convection, by unequal barometric pressure, by tropical heat, or by arctic cold, there is besides this some other source of heat at the point referred to by these curves sufficiently powerful to mask all the rest, and, broadly speaking, to produce of itself all the perceptible deviations of the isotherms from their normal course.

But we have no difficulty in accounting for this source of heat. As is well-known, about the equator, the north-east and south-east trade winds reduced to meridional directions by the eastward frictional impulse of the earth's rotation, drive before them a magnificent surface current of hot water, the cquatorial current, 4,000 miles long and 450 miles broad, at an average rate of thirty miles a-day. This current splits upon Cape St. Roque, and one portion trends southwards to deflect the isotherms of 21° 15'5°, 10°, and 45° C. into loops, thus carrying a scrap of comfort towards the Falklands and Cape Icorn. While the remainder, "having made the circuit of the Gulf of Mexico, issues through the Straits of Florida, clining in shore round Cape Florida, whence it issues as the Gulf Stream, in a majestic current upwards of 30 miles broad, 2,200 feet deep, with an average velocity of 4 miles an hour, and a temperature of 86° Fahr.' (Herschel.)

I need scarcely follow the course of the Gulf Stream in detail, it is generally so well known. After leaving the Strait of Florida, it strikes in a north-easterly direction conformable generally to the easterly impulse given by its excess of diurnal rotation, towards the coast of Northern Europe. About 42° N. a large portion of it, still maintaining the high surface temperature of 24o C., turns eastward and southward, and, eddying round the Sargasso Sea, fuses with the northern edge of the equatorial current, and rejoins the main circulation. The main body, however, moves northwards. Mr. Croll, in a very suggestive paper in the Philosophical Magazine on Ocean Currents, estimates the Gulf Stream as equal to a stream of water fifty miles broad and 1,000 feet deep, flowing at a rate of four miles an hour, with a mean temperature of 18° C. I see no reason whatever to believe this calculation to be excessive, and it gives a graphic idea of the forces at work.

The North Atlantic and the Arctic Seas form together a basin closed to the northward, for there is practically no passage for a body of water through Behring's Strait. Into the corner of this basin, as if it were a bath, with a north-easterly direction given to it, as if the supply pipe of the bath were turned so as to give te hot water a definite impulse, this enormous flood is poured day and night, winter and summer; almost appalling in its volume and the continuity of its warmth, and its blueness, and bri liant transparency in sæcula sæculorum!

The hot water pours, not entirely from the Strait of Florida, but partly from the Strait and partly in a more diffused current outside the islands, with a decided, though slight, north-easterly impulse on account of its great initial velocity. The North Atlantic is with the Arctic Sea a cul-de-sac. When this basin is full-and not till then-overcoming its northern impulse, the water tends southwards in the southern eddy, so that there is a certain tendency for the hot water to accumulate in the northern basin. It is to this tendency, produced by the absence of a free outlet to the Arctic Sea, that I would be inclined to attribute the special excess of the warmth of the north-eastern shores of the North Atlantic.

When ascertaining with the utmost care and with the most trustworthy instruments, by serial soundings, the temperature of the area surveyed by the Porcupine in 1869, we found at a depth

of 2,435 fathoms in the Bay of Biscay, that down to 50 fathoms the temperature of the sea was greatly affected by direct solar radiation; from 100 to 900 fathoms the temperature gradually fell from 10° C. to 4° C., and from 900 fathoms to 2,435 the fall of temperature was almost imperceptibly gradual from 4° to 25 C.

The comparatively high temperature from 100 fathoms to 900 fathoms I am certainly inclined to attribute to the northern accumulation of the water of the Gulf Stream. The radiant heat de. rived directly from the sun must of course be regarded as a constant quantity superadded to the original temperature of the water derived from other sources. Taking this into account, the surface temperatures in what we were in the habit of calling the "warm area" coincided precisely with Petermann's curves indicating the northward path of the Gulf Stream.

It is scarcely necessary to say that for every unit of water which enters the basin of the North Atlantic, an equivalent must return. From its low velocity, the Arctic return current or indraught will doubtless tend slightly to a westerly direction, and the higher specific gravity of the cold water may probably even more powerfully lead it into the deepest channels; or possibly the two causes may combine, and in the course of ages the currents may tend to hollow out deep south-westerly grooves. At all events, the main Arctic return currents are very visible on the chart taking that direction, indicated by marked deflections of the isothermal lines. The most marked is the Labrador current, which passes down inside the Gulf Stream along the coasts of Carolina and New Jersey, meeting it in the strange, abrupt "cold wall," dipping under it as it issues from the Gulf, coming to the surface again on the other side, and a portion of it actually passing under the Gult Stream as a cold counter-current into the deeper part of the Gulf of Mexico.

Fifty or sixty miles out from the west coast of Scotland, I believe the Gulf Stream forms another through a very mitigated "cold wall." In 1868 Dr. Carpenter and I investigated a very remarkable cold indraught into the channel between Shetland and Faroe. In a lecture on deep-sea climates, which was published in NATURE, in July last, I stated my belief that the current was entirely banked up in the Faroe channel by the Gulf Stream passing its gorge.

Since that time I have been led to suspect that a part of the Arctic water oozes down the Scottish coast much mixed, and sufficiently shallow to be affected throughout by solar radiation. About sixty or seventy miles from shore the isothermal lines have a slight but uniform deflection. Within that line types characteristic of the Scandinavian fauna are numerous, and in the course of many years' use of the towing net, I have never met with any of the Gulf Stream pteropods, or of the lovely Polycystine and Acanthometrinæ, which absolutely swarm beyond that limit. The differences in mean temperature between the east and w st coasts of Scotland, amounting to between 1° and 2° Fahr., 's also somewhat less than might have been expected.

There is another point which is worthy of consideration. It is often said that about the latitude 45° N. the Gulf Stream thins out and disappears. The course of a warm current is traced farther on the maps, even to the coast of Norway and the North Cape, but this north-easterly extension is called the Gulf Stream drift, and is supposed to be a surface flow caused by the prevailing S. W. anti-trades. There seem to me to be several arguments against this view. The surface of the sea, at all events between 40 and 55° N., has a mean temperature higher than that of the air, and that could scarcely be the case unless there were a constant supply, independent of the wind, of water from a warmer source; and any question is, to my mind, entirely set at rest by our establishment of the mass of warm water moving to the north-eastward, whose curves of excess of temperature, so far as they have as yet been ascertained, correspond entirely with those of the Gulf Stream.

I cannot at present enter at any length into the very fundamental question which has lately given rise to so much discussion, whether the Gulf Stream is actually the agent in conveying heat to the North Atlantic and ameliorating the climate of its north-eastern shores, or whether these results are not rather produced by a "general oceanic circulation."

As, however, I am frequently quoted by my friend and colleague in much scientific work, Dr. Carpenter, as holding an opinion different from his, and as my present remarks place my views beyond doubt, it may be well to give a reason for my want of faith. Dr. Carpenter's view, if I understand him rightly, is that there is a great general convective circulation in the ocean, on the principle of a hot-water heating apparatus, and that the Gulf

Stream is only a modified and partial cause of this general circulation. Now in the first place, as I have already said, it seems to me that the distribution of warm water in the North Atlantic has been traced to its source, and all the general phenomena of the Gulf Stream, its origin, its course, its extension, and its depth at certain points, have been proved by the careful observations of many years, which I see no reason whatever to doubt. The constant impulse of the trade wind drives a broad current of equatorial water against the American coast. A great part of this current is observed to turn northwards through the Strait and round the islands, and to pour an eternal flood of hot water in a certain direction, under known laws, into the closed basin of the North Atlantic, and as a natural consequence the temperature is very considerably raised.

We are undoubtedly most deeply indebted to Dr. Carpenter for the forcible way in which he has brought forward the arguments on the other side; and, after carefully considering everything, I am thoroughly willing, with Sir John Herschel, to cede that "there is no refusing to admit that an oceanic circulation of some sort must arise from mere heat, cold, and evaporation as vere cause;" and that "hence: forward the question of ocean currents will have to be studied under a twofold point of view;" but my strong conviction is that if the sagacious philosopher whose loss we now deplore, had been spared so to study it, he would have only been strengthened in his verdict of 1861 as to the Gulf Stream, that there can be no "possible ground for doubting that it owes its origin entirely to the trade-winds." Dr. Carpenter attributes the general oceanic circulation, of which he regards the Gulf Stream as only a modified case, to tropical heat and evaporation, and arctic cold, possibly aided by differences of barometric pressures; or to convection pure and simple, as illustrated in his experiments before the Royal Institution and the Geographical Society. Now what we expect of Dr. Carpenter before we are called upon to accept to the full his magnificent generalisation, is a calculation and demonstration of the amount of the effect of the causes upon which he depends acting under the special circumstances. We must remember that heat is received by the ocean at the surface only, and that owing to cold indraughts all over the globe, so far as we know the temperature falls the deeper we go; that all our observations tend to show that the temperature of the sea is only influenced by direct solar radiation to any amount to the depth of fifty fathoms, so that all currents depending upon difference between equatorial and polar temperatures must be produced and propagated in a film of water about the depth of the height of St. Paul's and 6,000 miles long. The black line bounding that chart represents pretty nearly the depth of the ocean, and even where the whole of the water supposed to be involved in the movement, it would be difficult to imagine a perceptible current to be produced in so thin and wide a sheet by such feeble cause. It would be impossible to indicate by the finest hair line the tenuity of the film which is actually affected by the direct rays of the sun. How differences in barometric pressure can produce constant currents I do not see. Rapid fluctuations in pressure in places within a short distance of one another will doubtless produce readjustment by a wave motion; but constant differences of pressure will simply produce constant differences of level and no currents. Varying pressures at very distant points cannot possibly produce a constant current. I freely admit that I am quite incapable of undertaking the investigations which might lead to the estimation of the relative or actual importance of these causes of currents. I have several times put the question to specialists in such physical inquiries, but they have always said that it was a matter of the greatest difficulty, but that their impression was that the effects would be infinitesimal.

I fear then that, in opposition to the views of my distinguished colleague, I must repeat that I have seen as yet no reason to modify the opinion which I have consistently held, that the remarkable conditions of climate on the coasts of Northern Europe are due in a broad sense solely to the Gulf Stream; that is to say, that while it would be madness to deny that in a great body of water at different temperatures, under varying barometric pressures, and subject to the surface drift of variable winds, currents of all kinds variable and more or less permanent must be set up, yet the influence of the great current which we call the Gulf Stream, the reflux in fact of the great equatorial current, is so paramount as to reduce all other causes to utter insignificance.

WYVILLE THOMSON

PHYSIOLOGY

The Mouse's Ear as an Organ of Sensation* DR. SCHOBL, of Prague, who lately published a remarkable paper on the wing of the bat, has made similar researches on the ear of the white mouse, with very interesting and surprising results (in "Schultze's Archiv," vol. vii. p. 260.) The first thing which struck Dr. Schöbl was the immense and "fabulous" richness of the ear in nerves. Even the bat's wing is but poorly supplied in comparison. The outer ear was care fully divided horizontally through the middle of the cartilage into two laminæ, each of which was found to be equally supplied with nerves, and was then examined by removing the epidermis and the Malpighian layer of the skin. In each of these laminæ were discovered three distinct strata of nerves, which are thus described: The first or lowest stratum lies immediately upon the cartilage; it consists of the largest trunks which enter the ear, 5 to 7 in number, and their next branches, varying from '074 mm. to 028 mm. in diameter. The mode of division of these trunks is mainly dichotomous, but they are connected by several different kinds of anastomoses; as, for instance, by decussation of two adjacent trunks, by transverse or oblique connecting branches, by plexuses, by loops, &c. ; while branches also perforate the cartilage, and bring the nerves of the two halves of the ear in'o connection. The general distribution agrees with that of the larger blood-vessels. The second stratum lies immediately over the first, and is connected with it by a multitude of small branches, and by a fine marginal plexus at the outer border of the ear, which may be regarded as common to both. The diameter of its nerves is from 0185 mm. to 0098 mm. ; it lies immediately under the capillary vascular network of the skin, and has a generally reticulated arrangement, forming plexuses of very various shapes. The third stratum of nerves, developed out of the very finest twigs of the second, lies at the level of the capillary network; it is composed of branches 0098 mm. to 0037 mm. in thickness, which (like those of the other strata) contain medullated nerve-fibres. It forms an extremely delicate network, like the second layer, but its finest branches may terminate in two ways, Some of them, each containing two to four medullated fibres, run directly to the hair follicles, and form a nervous ring round the shaft of the hair, terminating below the follicle in a nervous knot. Others, again, consisting of not more than two medullated fibres, bend towards the surface where the fibres lose their double outline, and form, immediately under the Malpighian layer of the skin, a fine terminal network of pale fibres, which is the fourth and ultimate stratum of nervous structures. The terminal "knots" or corpuscles, and the nervous rings, are inseparably connected with hairs and their sebaceous glands, so that through the whole of the external ear no hair can be found without this nervous apparatus, and vice versa. The connection of the hair follicle with the nerve termination is as follows:-Under the bulk of the hair in each follicle is a more or less conical prolongation, posed of distinct nucleated cells, which run vertically downwards, and is enclosed within the limiting membrane of the follicle. The nervous twig which, as has been said, runs to each hair follicle from the third stratum of nerves, makes several turns round the shaft of the hair, and from the ring thus formed two to four nerve-fibres run vertically downwards to the prolongation of the follicle, immediately beneath which they form a knot. These knots are almost always spherical, sometimes oval, and about 015 mm. in diameter. In each square millimetre of the marginal part of the ear there are about 90 such bodies, and near the base perhaps 20, so that the average number may be 30. Calculating from the average size of the ear of a common mouse, it is then found that there are on the average 3,000 nerve terminations on each of its surfaces, making 6,000 on each ear, or 12,000 altogether. The function of this elaborate arrangement would seem to be, like that in the wing of the bat, to supply by means of a very refined sense of touch, the want of vision to these subterranean animals.

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS

com.

PART ii. of the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie contains No. 6 ot Dr. Hartmann's Studies of the History of Domestic Animals," on the yak or grunting ox (Bos grunniens) living wild at immense altitudes in the mountains of Central Asia north of the Himalaya, and largely used in a domesticated state in Mongolia and * From the "Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science" for July.

Siberia. The cross between the yak and common ox has the advantage of thriving in a milder climate than that of the mountainous region of the yak. Dr. Hartmann also continues (No. 2) his summary of the available information as to "Lake Dwellings," here discussing their cultivation and preparation of grain and other vegetables. He reaffirms the usual conclusion that the cultivated plants of the lake dwellers of Central Europe

indicate connection with the Mediterranean and even Africa. Perhaps the most remarkable point in the paper is the comparison of their large earthen jars for store corn, and their stone grain rubbers for mealing it, with similar jars and grain rubbers in modern Africa.-Prof. Meinicke's "Remarks on Wallace's Views as to the Population of the Indian Islands" are written in strong opposition to the English naturalist's theory as to the ethnological relations of Malays, Polynesians, and Papu ns. With regard to Mr. Wallace's argument from contrast of the Malay character with the Papuan as proving difference of race, Prof. Meinicke argues that the Malay's courtesy and reserve may not be a race-character at all, but an effeet of conversion to Mohammedanism; while revenge and bloodthirstiness belong to some Papuans as much as to Malays. In opposition to Mr. Wallace's view of Malays and Papuahs being two distinct races. and of the Moluccas being largely populated by their intermixture, Prof. Meinicke claims the natives of the Moluccas as intermedia'e varieties forming a link of connection between the extreme Malay and Papuan types. As to the relation between Malays and Polynesians, Prof. Meinicke maintains the old and generally received view of an ethnological connection between them. It is good evidence of the activity with which the science of man is now being pursued that Dr. W. Koner's useful bibliography of Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistoric Archæology for 1869-70 extends to twenty pages of the journal.―Dr. Bastian's review of Darwin's "Descent of Man," expressing high admiration for its hypothetically-arranged evidence as a contribution to science, protests against the exaggeration of Darwinism, or rather, the return to Lamarckism prevalent among too impetuous followers of the development theory.

IN the July number of the Geological Magazine (No. 85) the editor, Mr. Woodward, publishes a most interesting summary of the evidence extant as to the existence of limbs in the Trilobites, with a discussion of the significance of a remarkable specimen of Asaphus, lately described by Mr. Billings in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. From a personal examination of the specimen, Prof. Dana was led to declare that the objects described by Mr. Billings as legs were merely calcified portions of the ventral integument destined to support branchial appendages. Mr. Woodward shows, and we think satisfactorily, that Prof. Dana is in error here. This valuable paper is illustrated with a plate contrasting the lower surface of Mr. Billings's Trilobite with that of the Norway lobster.-Mr. Hull contributes some observations on the general relations of the drift deposits of Ireland to those of Great Britain, in which the author confirms and extends the views adopted by Prof. Harkness as to the correlation of the Irish drift deposits with those of Britain, and the accordance of the whole with the principles laid down by Mr. Searles V. Wood, jun. A tabular statement of the phenomena of the three stages of the drift period in Britain concludes this paper. -From Mr. G. A. Lebour we have a note on the submergence of Is in western Brittany, in which, after referring to a Breton tradition that a town named Is was submerged in the Bay of Douarneney some fifteen hundred years ago, he adduces certain evidence to show that a gradual depression is taking place along this coast. notices a submerged forest in the small Bay de la Forêt.-Mr. Mackintosh continues his paper on the drifts of the west and south borders of the Lake district; Mr. A. G. Cameron describes the recently-discovered caverns at Stainton in Furness; and Mr. J. E. Taylor discusses the relation of the Red to the Norwich Crags.

He

THE first part of the fourteenth volume of the Atti della Società Italiana di Scienze Naturali, published in April of the present year, contains only three papers, more than one-third of its pages being occupied by the annual report, list of members, &c. The papers are a description of a new species of Dalmatian shell, by MM. A. and G. B. Villa, to which the authors give the name of Clausilia de Cattania; a long memoir on rennet and caseification, by M. C. Besana, and a short notice by Dr. C. Marinoni, of some new prehistoric remains collected in Lombardy.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES

LONDON

Geologists' Association, July 7.-Prof. Morris, vicepresident, in the chair. Mr. J. R. Pattison read a paper "On the Upper Limits of the Devonian System. The author did not wish to reopen the controversy which had taken place between the late Prof. Jukes and the supporters of the classification of the older geologists, but simply to lay before the Association a few facts as a prelude to a more complete paper which he hoped to bring forward during the next session. Mr. Pattison referred at some length to the fauna of the continental Devonian rocks, and strongly opposed the view recently put forward, that the Petherwin series is Lower Devonian and not Upper as generally supposed. He quite agreed with the older geologists in their classification, and concluded by recommending the sections exposed in North Devon to the attention of young geologists. After some remarks by Prof. Tennant, Mr. Henry Woodward, and Mr. Lobley, Prof. Morris described the distribution of the Devonian rocks throughout Europe, and remarked on the absence of vertebrate remains in the Devonian rocks of the South of England, in which corals and brachiopods abound, and the abundance of vertebrate remains in the Devonians or Old Red sandstones of Scotland, in which neither corals nor brachiopods have been detected. In the province of Oranburg, in Russia, however, the Devonian rocks contain both a vertebrate and a molluscan fauna.-A note 6. On a New Section of the Upper Bed of the London Clay," by Mr. Caleb Evans, drew the attention of the Association to an interesting exposure of a very fossiliferous bed of the London clay at Child's Hill, Hampstead. From an inconsiderable excavation at this place, Mr. Evans had collected in a short time twenty-three species, chiefly gasteropoda, in a fine state of preservation. This bed Mr. Evans considers to be the uppermost bed of the London clay, and immediately underlying the Bagshot sands, which form the summit of Hampstead Heath.

MAURITIUS

Meteorological Society, April 28. The Honorable Colville Barclay, vice-president, in the chair.-The following letters and publications were laid upon the table :-1. A letter from Mr. James Duncan, Government Surveyor, forwarding a copy of observations taken at the Survey Camp, Vacoas, during the month of March last, at about 1,850 feet above the sea-level. 2. A letter from Mr. G. Jenner, Rodrigues, forwarding observations taken there in December, January, February, and March last. 3. From Mr. F. Timperley, Pamplemousses, giving a description of a meteor seen by him on the 22nd March. 4. Queensland Observations for October, November, and December 1870, by Mr. Edmund MacDonnell. 5. Singapore Observa ions for January 1871, by Dr. H. L. Randell 'On the Converging of the Wind in Cyclones." The Secretary read the following letter addressed to him on the above subject by Captain Douglas Wales, Harbour Master :"Some remarks of yours respecting the uncertainty of the real position of the centre of a cyclone set me thinking, and I send you a few ideas on the subject, which, as a sailor, I think worthy the serious attention of seamen, and the correctness of which they may put to the test of experience, whenever they have opportu nities of doing so. Allow me to premise that I have no intention of dogmatising. I believe our knowledge of the cause of these fearful tempests, of their origin, their progress in this or that direction, their rate of progression, their recurving, the reasons of those recurvings, and their ultimate dispersion, to be still in its infancy. No doubt, the knowledge already acquired has saved many a good ship from becoming entangled in these storms, especially ships approaching them on their equatorial sides; but at the same time it must be admitted that more than one intelligent seaman, who thought himself well up in the subject, has actually run into the very centre of a cyclone, when, by all known rules, he ought to have been certain of avoiding it. There must be some reason for such an error, and it is that reason that I have been seeking for, and which, I trust, I have to some extent discovered. I send you a diagram on a large scale, which will explain my views more clearly than any written description. I assume that within a diameter of 40, 50, 60, 70, o 80 miles, a true circular storm of terrific violence must be found in every so called hurricane, and that to a considerable distance outside and around this central and circular storm winds are to be found gradually decreasing in force from II, near the outer edge of the

central storm, to 7 and 6, at the outer edge of the bad weather, but which, instead of blowing in ever enlarging circles farther and farther out from one common centre, are always converging to that centre, and on all sides gradually increasing, until, at a certain distance from the central calm, they acquire the force of a hurricane (12), and thence inwards blow with great violence in what, in all probability, is as nearly as may be a circle. It is these converging lines of wind that are, I think, likely to lead men into error as to the position of the centre of the storm. In the remarks I make I shall, to prevent confusion, confine myself to cyclones south of the equator, every one acquainted with the cyclonic theory knowing that the inverse of rules for the guidance of seamen in the southern hemisphere will be the rules for their guidance in the northern hemisphere. Let us suppose that a ship bound to Europe arrives at the point marked in the outer converging curve traced on my diagram, the wind being N. E. with force 7, that is, double reefs and jib-barometer falling, sky overcast, confused swell, and, in short, every appearance of bad weather-lat. 12° S., long. 70° E.-What ought her commander to do? Heave to on the port tack,' says one, ' and wait for the weather to clear.' Run to the S. W.,' says another, and make use of the storm.' Being a pushing fellow, he makes up his mind to run, and, truth to say, there are as many reasons for approving that proceeding as for finding fault with it. If he succeeds in making use of the hurricane, he is considered a smart fellow; if he runs into it, and is dismasted or worse, 'rash,' 'headstrong,' 'ignorant,' &c., are the best terms he can look for; and yet he might as easily have been wrong in heaving to as in running. The wind being N. E., he infers that the centre bears N. W. He considers that the barometer and weather indicate that he is on the S. E. edge of a cyclone-the N.E. wind upon which he is running forming part of a circular storm, and that necessarily the centre is N.W. of him. Considering, further, that in that lat. and long. the storm is probably travelling W.S. W., he thinks that if he runs S. W. he will be diverging from it, and, that by making use of the storm he will get fine runs perhaps for days to come. But if the N.E. wind be only converging towards the fearful storm raging near the centre, that centre, in the first place, bears W. by N. & N., instead of N.W., so that the vessel, by steering S. W. is not diverging from the centre, as was supposed, but is really drawing nearer to it. In due time the weather gets worse from this very cause; the wind veers more to the eastward, the barometer continues to fall, and the captain begins to doubt whether the storm may not after all be progressing more to the southward than he supposed; whether, indeed, it may not, although so far to the eastward, be actually recurving, and he naturally becomes anxious and uncertain what to do. If he decides on running at all risks, he finds the wind still drawing at first more and more easterly, and then more and more southerly, always increasing in fury, and the sea becoming more and more heavy and tumultuous. But run he must now, and he must run dead before it, and being on what I have supposed a line of wind converging to a centre, he finishes by getting into the real hurricane, and loss and disaster are imminent. He may, however, if his ship be tight and staunch and runs well, get round to the N. W. side of the storm, and so get clear, probably with loss of spars and sail; but he has clearly run into what he was running to avoid, because he was under the impression that winds within the influence of a cyclone, although far from its centre, blew in circles round that centre, the wind everywhere clearly indicating the exact, or nearly exact, position of that centre. These opinions I submit with very great diffidence for the consideration of seamen and cyclonists. I am not going to attempt the setting up of any dogmatic theory of my own, but I am inclined to think this theory of converging winds will probably account for the manner in which many vessels have become entangled in hurricanes when seeking to avoid them according to cyclonic rules. Like all other theories on this very important subject, it requires very careful consideration; but there can be no possible risk in deducing from it the rule that vessels on approaching what the barometer, the state of the weather, and the force of the wind, clearly indicate as the dangerous side of a cyclone, should, in seeking to avoid it, keep the wind quite four points on the port quarter. With the wind thus free, a fast ship would run with great rapidity through the water, and, unless the storm were advancing on her in a direct line, would be always increasing her distance from its centre, and getting into finer weather, and, in any case, would have a very good chance of running across its track and thus avoiding it.

Ships running into cyclones on their equatorial sides are to a very great extent without excuse. There are, however, some exceptional instances; but they are very rare." The chairman, in thanking Captain Wales for his interesting and valuable communication, expressed the hope that the important suggestions it contained would be taken advantage of by seamen, and prove to be serviceable to them in their attempts to avoid the dangerous parts of cyclones. The diagram prepared by Captain Wales fully expiained how it might happen that a vessel, by seeking to keep away from the centre of what was considered a circular storm, would be actually running into it. The secretary was glad that the subject had been taken up by a sailor of long experience and of great practical knowledge and skill, and he had no doubt that Captain Wales's remarks would receive the serious attention they merited. In various papers published during the last fifteen years, he (the secretary) had often called attention to the incurving of the wind in cyclones, and to the losses occasioned by acting upon the supposition that the bearing of the centre was at right angles to the direction of the wind; and he believed that it was now beginning to be admitted that the movement of the air in a cyclone was not at all represented by concentric circles, but by a figure similar to that sketched by Captain Wales. The description given by Captain Wales of the way in which vessels might get involved in a cyclone, whilst acting according to accepted rules, applied to many cases which actually occurred. Captain Wales had framed a practical rule based upon observed facts, and it was for seamen to test its value.

PARIS

Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, July 14. Two seats of associés libres, vacant by the death of MM. Prosper Merimée and Deheque, have been filled at the recent sittings. M. Merimée's seat was given to M. de Robert, and M. Deheque's to M. Thomas Henry Martin, director of the Academy at Rennes. This gentleman has written many valuable volumes on interesting points of history; among others, "On the Physical Opinions of the Greeks and Romans." He was one of the few French savants opposed to M. Chasles' famous letters of Newton, and has written a pamphlet on the subject.

Academie des Sciences, July 17.-M. Faye in the chair. A committee was appointed to discuss the respective merits of several candidates for a free associate membership. The com. mittee was composed of MM. Combes and Bertrand for the section of mathematical sciences, MM. Chevreul and Boussingault for the section of physical sciences, MM. Raulin and Bussy for the free members. The chairman of the committee is de jure M. Faye. When a report is to be drawn on the respective merits of ordinary members, the committee is composed from the section to which the late member belonged in his lifetime. In the secret committee held after the public sitting, a discussion was raised as to several candidatures, and it was impossible to come to any definite conclusion.-M. Lacaze Duthiers, a professor at the museum, who claims a seat in the section of zoology, read a paper on a new organ of nervous power which he has discovered in certain gasteropods living in water. This organ is placed behind the oesophagus, and at all events its dimensions are very small indeed. The Academy has appointed a committee to report on the prize Bordin, which is to be awarded this year for the best paper on the function of the stomata in the leaves of plants. -On the 3rd of October, 1870, M. Egger proposed the translation of the four books on Optics by Ptolemy, which were translated from Arabic into Latin, and of which two copies exist amongst the MSS. in the National Library. This suggestion was not lost, as the Royal Academy of Turin passed a resolution to raise the funds required for its publication. Other copies of the same Latin translation are also to be found in the Ambrose Library at Milan, and will be used for the purpose. The translation is very difficult, having been unsuccessfully attempted once in Italian, and once French.-M. Leverrier presented a report on the observation of falling stars, for August 1869. The phenomenon was observed in twenty-seven different stations, viz. Agde, Barcelona, Bordeaux, Chartres, Chebli (Algiers), Genoa, Grenoble, Le Guerche (Cher), Larenore (Basses Pyrenées), Le Mans, Lyons, Marseilles, Mer (Loire et Cher), Metz, Moncalieri, Montpelier, Nice, Orange, Perpignan, Rochefort, Sainte Honorine (Calvados), Observations Toulon, Toulouse, Tremont, Turin, Valencia. were made by competent observers with correct chronometers, and special maps prepared by the Association Scientifique de

in

France, of which M. Leverrier is now the chairman. The discussion on the observations is a long work which is not yet finished in consequence of the late war. The observations could not be completed in 1870, but the Association Scientifique de France is resuming its labours, and will be ready to make observations by August 1871 on the former principles.-M. Leverrier sent the description of a bolide observed at Ioh. 6m. in the afternoon, 1° 30' higher than a Andromeda, and exploding in Pegasus. He asks for some observations from the astronomical public.-The same question is put as to a magnificent falling star seven times larger than Jupiter observed by M. Chapelas 11h. 12m. in the afternoon, on the 18th July, from 3 Pegasus to the horizon in the north-west. It must have been seen in England. At the last sitting we omitted to mention the presentation of some grains of wheat, &c., burned by electricity in a storm, a few years ago and preserved as a great curiosity.-M. Bert, Professor of Physiology at the Museum, formerly a prefect of Lille during the latter part of the war, sent a most interesting paper on the influence that the diminution of pressure exerts on animal life. Living frogs were placed under the air-pump, and proved to be killed very soon if pressure is diminished quickly to seven or eight inches, but if diminished gradually, they can live in a more perfect vacuum if proper precautions are taken to renew the residual air offered to them for respiration. Certainly the same thing can be said of aëronauts, who cannot reach a high level without inconvenience, except by very gradual ascent.-M. Dumas presented a small pamphlet fron M. Janssen, narrating his ascent on December 2 with Volta. Dr. Janssen was himself the aëronaut, and his ascent was the occasion of some interesting observations. He was appointed a commissioner for visiting the meteorological establishments in England, and reporting upon them, and is now on his way to London.-M. Beaugrand, an engineer in the Parisian hydraulic service, presented a report on Roman aqueducts. He has written a very long essay on the matter, which would have been burned by the Communists with his office at the Hotel de Ville, if he had not brought it home on purpose to write out of it a paper for the Academy.

VIENNA

Imperial Academy of Sciences, April 13.-Prof. von Reuss reported on the fossil remains of a crab found in the Leithakalk of the Rauchstallbrunn pit near Baden. The fossil most nearly approaches the living genera Acteon and Daira.-Prof. A. von Waltershofen reported on a new thermopile of great efficacy.-Prof. V. Graber communicated a memoir on the physiology and minute anatomy of insects, especially the Pediculina, in which he treated chiefly of the Malpighian vessels and tracheæ. The former in many cases consist merely of prolongations of the peritoneal membrane.--Prof. V. von Lang presented a memoir containing researches upon the influx of gases, undertaken for the purpose of testing the laws which have been established for the dependency of inflowing gases upon the pressure.-Prof. C. von Ettingshausen presented a first memoir upon the flora of Sagor in Carniolia, in which he described numerous species of fossil plants from the brown coal of that locality. This memoir included the Thallophytes, vascular Cryptogams, Gymnosperms, Monocotyledons, and Apetala. The Thallophytes include a Sphæria nearly allied to the Greenland species, and a Laurencia, which is the only marine plant found in the deposit. Of the Coniferæ Glyptostrobus europeus and Sequoia Couttsia are the most abundant, and of the latter genus three other species

Occur.

A Cunninghamia, very like C. sinensis, is remarkable as adding a new genus to the Tertiary flora. Grasses are rare, but Naiadæ are abundant and remarkable. A Pandanus and a species of palm occur. Among the Apetalæ the author noticed two species of Casuarina, one of which is new and allied to C. quadrivalvis. The other orders represented are Myricaceæ 3 species, Betulaceae 6, Cupuliferæ 15, Ulmacea 4, Celtideæ 2, Artocarpeæ 2, Salicineæ 2, Nyctagineæ 1, Monimiacea 1, Santalacea 4, Daphnoidea 2, Proteaceæ, 21, Moreæ 19, and Laurineæ 18.-Prof. Carl Koritska exhibited and explained a hypsometrical map of the Alban Mountains, with profiles and He regarded the district as particularly instructive, from the intimate collocation of the three forms of volcanic craters and their apparent transition one into the other which prevails there. Dr. E. Klein communicated a contribution to the knowledge of the Malpighian corpuscles in the human kidney, by Dr. Victor Seng; and a contribution to the knowledge of the finer nerves of the buccal mucous membrane, by Dr. E. Elin.-Prof. Ludwig Boltzmann presented a memoir containing several pro

views.

positions on the equilibrium of heat, and another on the main proposition of the mechanical theory of heat.-Prof. E. Weiss furnished the elements and ephemeris of the comet discovered by Winnecke at Carlsruhe on the 7th April.

April 20.-Prof. C. von Ettingshasuen presented a me noir on the leaf-skeleton of the Loranthaceæ. -Prof. Simony noticed some peculiarities of the glaciers of the Dachsteingebirge. The Gosau glacier descends to an elevation of 6030 feet, the Hallstatt glacier to 6115 feet, and the Schladminger Fern.r to 6935 feet. The most instructive moraine phenomena are presented by the lower part of the Hallstatt glacier.-Prof. Seeger presented a memoir on the methods at present employed for detecting small quantities of sugar in the urine, which he regards as unsatisfactory.-A paper on the perforations in the vessels of plants, by Dr. Tangl, was communicated by Prof. Ad. Weiss.

April 27.-Prof. Lang communicated some remarks on the abnormal dispersion observed by Christiansen and Kundt in solutions of fuchsine, cyanine, &c. He showed that the appearance is due to the defective achromatism of the human eye.-M. F. Schwackhöfer reported on the occurrence and mode of formation of phosphorite balls in Russian Podolia. He stated that these balls were originally carbonate of lime formed by concretion, and converted into phosphate of lime formed by the lixiviation of the Silurian clay slate in which they occur, which contains phosphoric acid. The analysis of these balls led to the formula 3 (Ca3 P2 08) + Ca F12, agreeing with that of apatite in the proportion of fluorine.

PHILADELPHIA

American Philosophical Society, April 21.-Dr. Geuth described the results of recent investigations by himself into Corundun pseudomorphs of Hersinite, an aluminate of oxide of iron, from specimens from Bengal. He reported finding specimens of Hersinite in N. Carolina Corunduns, and believes the emery of Massachusetts is to be referred to the same mineral. In Chester County, Penna., "Corundun pseudomorphs" occur which are quite soft like talc or scaly talc, which prove to be Margarite. A third pseudomorph very much foliated has not yet been determined.-Prof. Cope presented a paper entitled, "A preliminary report on the Vertebra discovered in the Port Kennedy Cave."-Prof. Cresson stated that the young and tender shoots of the Symplocarpus fortidus (skunk cabbage) had forced themselves through a solid asphaltum composition pavement two inches in thickness in many places in "Belmont Glen," Park. The road was used for heavy hauling at the time. -Prof. J. P. Lesley described a discovery which he had made in East Tennessee of a sharp anticlinal axis crossing the coal measures of the Cumberland Mountains at right angles to the dominant system of disturbances, and showed its important bearing on the question of the conversion of the northern anticlinals of the Alleghanies, into the southern system of downthrows. Also its relationship to the latter and to the cross undulations worked out by Joseph Lesley in his instrumental survey system of faults described by Owen, Hall, and other geologists of E. Kentucky thirteen years ago; and to the N.W.-S. E. in the Valley of the Mississippi.