3. The summit of the mountain has been lowered and part of a buttress in dividing the burning stream and divertflattened. An examination of the lava of 1872 does not appear likely to lead to any new results. Its mineralogical nature is essentially the same as that of the other lavas of all ages that have been found both on Vesuvius and in La Somma. It is composed of a leucitic rock strewn with crystals of augite, and destitute of vitreous felspar; whence the names of leucitiferous or augitiferous, as one or other substance prevails. The most ancient lava which forms the body and crevices of La Somma, is in general very pale; it often contains an abundance of leucite crystals of the size of a foot; but its composition is, qualitatively, essentially analogous to that of the actual black lava. The lava of 1872 differs considerably in its physical appearance from that of 1858. The last is much less scoriated; it has a fleecy surface formed of round embossments, shining and comparatively little roughened. We might liken it to black whipped cream, which has flowed along, forming arches, fibrous stalactites twisted cords, which look at places as if vitrified. The lava of 1872, on the contrary, is extremely scoriaceous, and assumes a form almost like madrepore. On account of the great shrinking of the material, it has been broken up into blocks, entirely separated from each other, and roundish, because the mass was as yet vitreous; porous, in consequence of the quantity of gas it enclosed, ing the two currents into the ravines which slope rapidly to the right and left of the height. But a new outbreak will, without doubt, sweep away the eastern extremity of this crest, and a succeeding one would easily be able to send a stream of lava flowing as far as the Observatory. Foreseeing this danger, M. Palmieri has raised above the building a redan of a very sharp angle. This will form but a weak barrier, though it may be able to retard for a little the progress of the devastating element. Since several of the recent eruptions have happened on the Atrio side, it would seem as if the chief centre of volcanic action was tending towards that point, and there seems little doubt that one of the next eruptions will place the Observatory more or less in danger. Let us hope, however, that when that time arrives a worthy successor of Palmien may safely chronicle what is going on, and that another De Saussure may be there to see. WAGNER'S HANDBOOK OF CHEMICAL A Handbook of Chemical Technology. By Rudolph and full of the most curious irregularities resembling EV coral and vegetation, which render progress infinitely difficult. The difference of appearance, combined with a thin layer of gray cinders which adheres to the lava of 1872, enables one to distinguish at once between it and those of preceding years. It will be noticed also to the north of the Observatory that the current has filled all the bottom of the valley of Ventrana, while on the south it has only run into the crevices of the old lava, surrounding the knolls, separating, re-uniting, leaving here and there inlets, as rivers without any determinate bed do at low water. This difference of structure of the two lavas seems to result from the very rapid cooling of that of 1872. It is not easy to form a notion of the depth of this lava. In the lower parts the bed is about eight metres deep, with a breadth of about 800 metres; its borders form moraines of 45°, which indicate the small fluidity of the matter at the time it reached the place. In Atrio del Cavallo the moraine of the bed of lava which leans against the foot of the rocks of La Somma is less elevated, but the enormous waves in the middle of this surface argue in some places a considerable thickness. The successive eruptions which have taken place in Atrio and which have piled up layer on layer, have enormously raised the level of the ground. A German geologist has conceived the idea of counting the layers which form the vertical dykes on the rocks of La Somma. At present the number would be hidden beneath more than a hundred feet of lava. The stream which debouches from Atrio has ended by considerably overtopping the Observatory; and that the latter has not been threatened this year results from the fact that the saddleback of Monte Canteroni, upon which it stands, rises in the direction of Vesuvius in such a manner that its eastern extremity (Croce del Salvatore) has hitherto performed the tific point of view must have been more or less struck with the fact that nearly all our manuals of chemistry have much of their space occupied with detailed descriptions of various manufacturing processes, and many must have asked why this is. It is not easy to see what utility there is in describing, in works professedly devoted to a scientific subject, such processes as those for the manufacture of chamois leather, wine, vinegar, china and earthenware, &c. &c.; and yet our largest and most ambitious manual, in common with its smaller companions, devotes scores of its pages to the consideration of such subjects. This fashion is much to be deprecated for many reasons: in the first place, these processes are utterly useless to the student, as, in the majority of cases, they illustrate no rule, elucidate no reaction. In the second, it is utterly impossible to do full justice to them in the space to which they must perforce be confined; and in the last, much valuable matter about the rarer elements and reactions is squeezed out of place altogether, or passed over with a mere mention. This system has borne its natural fruit in the numberless questions bearing on manufactures which are to be found in all our chemical examination papers; and the result is that many a man passes with credit on the marks gained by answering such questions, while others who, perhaps, have a much better knowledge of the science, fall behind in the race, because they have not devoted their time to Technology. It is not difficult to see how this state of things arose. It is not so many years (we were almost going to say months), since chemistry was regarded by the public much in the same way that they now look upon the higher mathematics, as something very mysterious, vers good for a learned man to know-but utterly useless and "unpractical" for all ordinary purposes. Such being the case, writers of manuals no doubt felt it incumbent on them to gild the pill by introducing such matter as tended to show that there was such a thing as a practical application of chemistry to the Arts. However, that time has passed. Perhaps no science has of late become so widely popular, and certainly none has advanced so rapidly towards accuracy as chemistry. It is, therefore, time for it to throw aside the crutches upon which it was bound to support itself whilst struggling for recognition and public favour, and to march boldly forward, depending on itself alone. As a means to this end, it is with great pleasure that we welcome Mr. Crookes's translation of Dr. Wagner's work. He has given us, in the form of a handbook, what could only before have been obtained either by searching in special treatises, or by reading much more cumbersome dictionaries; and the existence of this book cannot but have its influence in setting free much of the space hitherto occupied in educational works on chemistry, by perfunctory descriptions of technological processes. We most heartily join with Mr. Crookes in the hope he expresses at the end of his preface-"We cannot let this work pass out of our hands without expressing the hope that, at no distant date, chairs of Technology will be founded in all our universities, and that the subject will be included in the curriculum of every large school." Such an event could not fail to have the happiest effects on all; for, while it would set free the scientific student from a subject he does not require, it would enable those wishing to become managers of works or manufacturers, to study their special subjects in the best possible way." The work consists of 745 closely-printed pages, with 336 illustrations, and a copious index. The subjects are treated at considerable length, and with extreme lucidity; this is especially the case with the portions devoted to metallurgical processes, where every step is carefully traced, and all the latest forms of furnaces, &c., are represented by woodcuts. We notice, however, that the section on electro-metallurgy is shorter than could have been wished, and that no mention is made of the process of depositing nickel upon iron, &c. In the section on explosive compounds, we have full details for the preparation of picrates, nitro-glycerin, guncotton, &c.,; though the author, perhaps led away by his chemical enthusiasm for these bodies, has treated gunpowder somewhat shortly, and the very interesting results obtained by the use of pebble, pellet, and prismatic powders, we do not see noticed at all; in fact, this article is decidedly behind the times. The preparation of salt, sulphur, soda, ash, bleaching-powder, &c., are well and fully treated, though we do not see Deacon's process for the preparation of chlorine mentioned. The articles on glass and earthenware are remarkably good and full, as are those on cements and lime, paper, sugar, and spirit. Since March 1868, two editions of the work have been issued, making eight in all. Of the eighth, and last, translations have been made into French and Dutch, and everyone will thank Mr. Crookes for the quantity of new matter he has added. In conclusion, it need only be said that the formula are throughout molecular, and that the metric system of weights and measures is used,'except where English quantities were indispensable. We feel sure that this book will permanently take its place among our manuals, and that the editor and translator will, in future editions, correct any little faults and errors which are, in so large a work, unavoidable; while he will keep it fully abreast of the times. R. F. OUR BOOK SHELF Ueber die Bedeutung der Entwickelung in der NaturUeber die Auflösung der Arten nach natürlicher Zuchtgeschichte. Von Dr. A. Braun, Berlin. wahl. Von einem Ungenannten, Hanover. (London : Williams and Norgate.) THESE are two of the most recent of the numerous contributions which Germany has made to the literature of Darwinism. The first is an address delivered on the anniversary of the medical and surgical Frederick-William Institute in Berlin, and is a tribute to the enormous impetus given to physiological research by the promulgation of Mr. Darwin's theories. The writer, however, while fully adopting the principle of Evolution, leans to the views which have during the last few years greatly spread among naturalists, that any theory like that of natural selection, which does not recognise an inherent law of progress, is insufficient to account for the phenomena of the transmutation of species. The second of these pamphlets is a more noteworthy production. The anonymous author also admits the principle of Descent by Evolution, but contends that the carrying out of this principle, so far from leading, as is generally supposed, to a multiplication of species and to a gradua rise to more and more perfect organic forms, must neces sarily result in a gradual diminution in the number ospecies, a fusing together of form after form, and a def scent to more lowly, instead of an ascent to more highly organised structures. With the origin of life he does not concern himself, but only with its future; and the succession of organised beings he compares not to a tree branching out into infinite ramifications, but to a river uniting in itself an infinitude of smaller streams. Whether the proposition is a serious one, or whether it is put forward as a reductio ad absurdum by a furtive opponent of Evolution, it is difficult to say; but the argument is carried out with considerable ability, and a strong point is made of the acknowledged degeneracy of many races of men from the condition of their ancestors, and of the gradual dying out of tribes and the consolidation of the human family into an ever decreasing number of types. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] The National Herbarium You will, perhaps, give admission to a few remarks on Dr. Hooker's instructive "Reply' to my "Statement" of 16th May, 1872, bearing in mind that this "Statement" was called for in explanation of the grounds of my requirements and assignment of space in the Museum of Natural History, to be built at South Kensington, for the reception, uses, and applications of the National Herbarium, on the conviction that such would be continued and maintained in the metropolis. Dr. Hooker had put in the van of his evidence,† and recommendations bearing on the reduction,‡ limited applications, § and subordination to Kew ||, of the Herbarium at the British Museum See NATURE, vol. vi. p 516. + Minutes of Evidence of Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction. Ibid. as regards supply,* nomenclature, and government, a summary of the amount of botanical work represented by the 140 volumes having the Herbarium at Kew as their cause or conditions. Seeing that were this summary to be held as decisive, administratively, for carrying out his urgent desires -a Government impressed with its responsibilities for the application of public money, would place on retiring allowances the proportion of the staff no longer needed in the Metropolitan Herbarium-there was a motive in addition to my duty in response to the inquiry of the First Commissioner of Works, to sift the grounds of Dr. Hooker's attack on the Department of Botany in the British Museum. The anxieties of its officers were too well founded. The argument from the amount of herbarium work at Kew since the practice of transferring there the dried plants collected in Government expeditions would be valid if such work could not be done elsewhere, or if such work had not been done in the Metropolitan Herbarium prior to the diversion therefrom of its legitimate supplies. But the "Prodromus Flore Novæ Hollandia," the "Observations Systematical and Geographical on the Herbarium collected in the Vicinity of the Congo," not to cite other works of Robert Brown, well known to botanistsand I may add the "Plantæ Javanice Rariores" of his successor, John Joseph Bennett, F.R.S.-are examples of "scientific work at the London Herbarium, in relation to its legitimate supplies, which will bear comparison with the "scientific work which is turned out from the Herbarium at Kew." The circumstance which, in the emergency threatening a Department of Natural History in the British Museum I was bound to submit to the consideration of Government, was that the works added to Botanical Science, for which before its supplies were intercepted by a 'competing establishment the National Herbarium in London furnished the materials for publication, were works of assigned duty. The officers of such Herbarium had no trusts or responsibilities in relation to the Royal Gardens, but gave their aid in naming the living Plants at Kew; leaving the officers in charge of those gardens free for the works and applications for which a Nation provides and supports its collections of living plants. Had Robert Brown been the director of such establishment, those who had the inestimable pleasure and benefit of his intimacy know that his devotion to the experimental and physiological duties of his office would have been the prime and paramount subject of his time and labours at Kew. Permit me to exemplify my argument. In the "Report of the Royal Garden at Calcutta for 1870" (No. 585, 14th May, 1872) it is stated:-"At the beginning of the year the total stock of Ipecacuanha amounted to five plants in Sikkim and seven in this garden. These represented the only surviving offspring of a single plant received from Dr. Hooker of the Royal Gardens, Kew, in 1866.-At the request of the Right Hon. the Secretary of State for India, attention has for some years past been given in Edinburgh to the propagation of Ipecacuanha plants for this country, and during the past year the supplies raised there began to arrive. Five Wardian Cases' containing about 100 plants were received from Dr. Balfour of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Edinburgh." The Curator of these gardens, Mr. McNab, referring to the earlier introduction of living plants of Cephaelis Ipecacuanha into the Kew Gardens, and alluding to the slow and difficult method of its propagation by the adopted methods of cuttings, proceeds to describe the better method to which his experiments on living specimens led. + "The roots or rather rhizomes of the Cephaelis * Ans. to Q. 6,785, "That the British Museum Herbarium and that at Kew should be under one control, and the former be continuously added to from Kew." In his Ans. to Q 6,732, Dr. H. says-"The trouble of supply. ing the South Kensington Museum would be very trifling,"-which I think probable. McNab "On the Propagation of the Ipecacuanha plant," Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, vol. x. p. 318. are peculiarly annulated (Pl. iv. fig. 2). A few of them taken from one of the plants in the Botanic Garden during month of August, 1869, and, after being cut into transverse tions of different lengths, were inserted in a horizontal posi over the surface of a pot prepared with drainage and white an This pot was placed under a hand-glass in a warm propagating bed, and kept moist. A few weeks afterwards the root-cutte began to swell, and showed signs of budding, chiefly on th upper cut surface, as in Pl. iv. fig. 3. In most cases only bud was developed, but in some instances two of more win produced. When several growing plants are observed the ro can be cut through so as to form independent plants." If has not before found a place in the columns of NATURE I be deemed worthy of one, for, as the physiological bocznis charge of the Edinburgh Gardens observes-"Understa that the Government intend to introduce the cultivation of plant in India," and "in order to meet the demand which all likelihood will be made on nurserymen for plants of Ceris it is well to know how it can be propagated independently cuttings" (Ib. p. 318). To give another instance. In an obituary notice of Dr. F::: Welwitsch, the editor of a horticultural journal refers tɔ ". species of a plant which bears his name as follows:Welwitschia mirabilis is about as remarkable a plant as the Rafflesia Arnoldi itself, and equally uncultivatable. Th: simple fact is, the ill success at Kew. One cannot be sure t Edinburgh has had its chance. As a popular premier once defined dirt, so a weed is a plant multiplying in a wrong place. We may hope for a reversion of the sentence on Welwitschia when "cones with ripe sexxis" ar "fine young plants" have found their way to a botanic garde whose officers are not diverted from experimental work, as trammelled and obstructed by that wasteful weed-an overgrow: herbarium. The native conditions of existence of the Tumbo. may then and there be imitated so truly, with ample provision for the descent of the tap-root, as to enable visitors to see the plaz alive, and Mr. McNab may even succeed in giving other horaculturists the opportunity of multiplying specimens. From such instances-and they might be multiplied-of legit mate successes, where a botanic garden is content to use the herbarium in the contiguous metropolis, and has not the low ambition of setting up a competing one in the garden itself, infer an administrative advantage in maintaining the division of labour, which worked well in the days when the Governmer! collections of live plants went to Kew, and those of dead plants to London. I do not merely suggest, but affirm, that the nation loses part, perhaps much, of the benefit of the liberal grants and aids it affords to its garden of living plants through the uncalled-for and unnecessary accumulations there of collections of deal plants and the resulting herbarian work. Dr. Hooker evades the concluding argument of my statement, takes a personal stand-point, assumes the tone of an injured individual, and deems it unfitting to notice what he is pleased to call an "'insinuation." He who is most sensitive as to himself is often least mindful of the feelings of others. If Dr. Hooker will read his answer to Q. 6661 (op. cit., p. 434), he may, at least ought to, have some sense of the pain he inflicted on fellow-servants of the State ami collaborators in science, on men at least his equals, and one of whom, in a recondite botanical problem, has shown himself his superior. Statements of a certain character may be made by one careless as to cost in few words and at small loss of time. It required the evidence occupying pp. 530, 531, of the published "Minutes" of the Scientific Commission to show the groundlessness of the insinuation conveyed in the answer to Q. 6661. I will not now trespass further on your valuable space. But * The Garden, Oct. 26, 1872. Nov. 7, 1872] NATURE the "Kew Question" has assumed proportions, and may have ,, RICHARD OWEN Physics for Medical Students I AM and have been a "medical student" for many years, and I admit that hope to live in that capacity for some years more. I ought to know" the relation between the surface temperature of the body, the quantity of heat passing away from it, and the amount of heat generated in the body by the food given to a patient," but I do not know all this, and I have never discovered anyone who can tell me where I can learn it or how I can find it out by any efforts of my own. Moreover, I have been unable to get a clear and satisfactory answer to the following simple questions, and have failed to find anyone who will explain to me accurately how I am to set to work to get the information so much desired :-"What is the quantity of heat generated in the body by the food, and how is it to be determined? How is the quantity of heat that passes away from the body in a given time to be estimated with anything approaching to accuracy?" If my friend and colleague Prof. Adams will be so kind as to give answers to these questions in NATURE, I can assure him he will confer a great favour upon many workers and thinkers in my profession, besides proving the value of such questions as that objected to by Mr. Heath At this time we doctors are much in need for medical students. of physical help. I have no doubt that physicists will be much astonished at our ignorance, but never mind that; we are quite ready to leara, and don't mind being laughed at or even spoken of with slight contempt by our physical friends if they will only help us. Nay, we will suffer anything from those who will instruct us so that we may be able to set to work upon living generated" people who are "generating" and giving off heat, and determine with accuracy the different rate at which heat is " and given off under different circumstances. Prof. Adams asks whether "the production of heat in the human body by the consumption of food" is "carried on on principles entirely different from those of the production of steam in a boiler," and seems to regard it as one of the "mildest of questions," in heat that can be proposed for a medical student to Will he answer his own question by asserting that the Heat in the body, principles are the same in the two cases? steam in the boiler-heat, steam; body, boiler !-or shall the question be revised before it is proposed to the student? answer. I have not the slightest doubt about the usefulness of a knowledge of physics to those who are working at medicine, and quite agree that the rising generation of medical students should be taught physics. But this is a very different thing from teaching people to fancy that living things are mechanisms, machines, galvanic batteries, or molecular apparatuses. I venture to think that some of the most distinguished physicists are too fond of deserting their own department for the purpose of trying to make people believe that there is an analogy between steam-boilers and human bodies, when no one has yet succeeded in proving that there is any true analogy whatever. King's College, London LIONEL S. BEALE IN the last number of NATURE Mr. Adams, of King's College, criticised the remarks made by Mr. Heath in his introductory address upon the character of the London University medical examinations, and of the first, the preliminary scientific, more especially. It scarcely needed a column and a quarter of close type for Mr. Adams to tell us that a medical man should be acquainted with physical laws and phenomena, and that in his opinion the mathematical question quoted by Mr. Heath was not too difficult to be fittingly placed in the examination paper. The former point is beyond question, and the latter is not to be settled by declaring the statement of the editor of the Lancet to be shallow." As to the view that a medical man should be able to estimate precisely "the amount of heat lost through a blanket or a seal-skin coat," I will only say that it seems to me that a slight consideration of the physical and physiological conditions involved, and their variations in different instances, will suggest the hope that he will not waste his time in attempting such feats, simple as they may be deemed in physical laboratories. I will not take up space in commenting upon Mr. Adams' argu ments and illustrations in support of his position, since they do Junior Athenæum Club NORTH POLAR EXPLORATION N the last number of the Mittheilungen Dr. Petermann publishes his 67th paper on the Geography and Discoveries of the Polar Regions, in which he gives an abstract of what has been done during the last three or four months. The two projected Norwegian expeditions into the Siberian Seas, under the guidance of Captains Jensen and Mack, have at present been unfortunately frustrated; the from inability to penetrate the masses of ice. However, former from a damage to the screw of the steamer, the latter a projected scientific expedition for next year is exciting much interest at Tromsö. The French Expedition, under Ambert and Mack, has not yet put to sea, having been detained by the delay in settling the estate of Lambert, who left a large sum to be devoted to this purpose. This is much to be regretted, as Captain Mack has already distinguished himself by penetrating farther than any other discoverer into the Siberian Sea. However, the much-talked-of and bold expedition under M. Octave Pavy, has, it is understood, at last left San Francisco, with what results remains to be seen. He expects to reach Wrangell Land by September 1, making his way farther northward in sledges, and hoping He will then to come to open sea about May 1873. proceed towards the Pole by means of a raft of somewhat novel construction, consisting of four hollow cylinders provided with a deck, and capable of holding all necessary which time he expects to have reached the Pole, and reHis companions are Dr. provisions for Pavy and his small party for two years, by turned to San Francisco. the Chesmore, who has travelled much in Alaska; Captain Mike, who a few years ago attempted to cross Atlantic in a vessel of somewhat similar construction to and two sailors of whaling experience in all, the expePavy's; Watkins, a renowned Rocky Mountain hunter; dition will consist of six men. The latest news from the North American Expedition is contained in a letter from Dr. Bessels to Dr. Petermann, dated August 23, 1871, at which time the expe dition had reached Tessinsak, the most northerly Danish settlement in Greenland, in lat. 73° 24′ N., and long. 56° 12' W. Further details as to this expedition will be found in NATURE for September 19. One of the most important and best fitted out expeditions is the Austrian one under Payer and Weyprecht, which left Tromsö in July, for the purpose of exploring the unknown region north of Siberia, to which advices, about the end of July, the expedition was fairly they are prepared to devote three years. By the latest on the road to its field of labour, and Count Wiltschek was to follow with a store of provisions, to be deposited near the Ice Cape, on the north of Nova Zembla, in case the expedition should be compelled to turn back. Of the outfit and plan of the Swedish expedition we gave an account in NATURE for August 29. It left Tromsö on the 31st of July, and when last heard of was off the north-west point of Spitzbergen. We are also favoured with a letter from Dr. Petermann, dated Gotha, October 11, from which we learn that the land on the east of Spitzbergen, which for the last 355 years has had a varying position on the map, has this year for the first time been reached by Captain Altmann of Hammerfest, and again on August 16 last by Captain Nils Johnsen of Tromsö, in his little sailing yacht the Lydeana, who landed and explored it. Captain Johnsen saw the island first when in N. lat. 78° 18′ 46,'and E. long. 30°; in the maps of 1617 it was marked as Wiche Land, between 7810 and 751° N. lat. On the 17th of August he anchored near to the north point in 79° 8′ N. lat. and 30° 15′ E. long., for the purpose of landing and exploring the place. What Captain Altmann, looking from a distance, took to be three islands, Johnsen found in reality one, the high hills being connected by low lying land, with several outlying islets. On no part of the land has he found extensive snow-fields, and saw only one small glacier on the south-east coast, while, on the contrary, there are many large streams entirely free from ice. The greatest length of the land Captain Johnsen has found to be 44 geographical miles. Large quantities of driftwood extended here and there to about 100 feet from the coast, and rose to the height of at least 20 feet. The island abounds in the usual Polar fauna, the plentifulness of seals, especially Phoca Groenlandica, being noted by Johnsen. The reindeer on the island are spoken of as the largest and fattest which anyone on board the Lydeana had ever seen. The rocks seem to be principally of the quartz and argillaceous kind, and some fossils have been sent to Sweden and to Zurich. Captain Johnsen explored the east, south-east, and north-east coasts, and so far as his observations went, ice is to be found only on the north coast. The fact of greatest significance in this latest news from these quarters is that for many months in the year the sea around Spitzbergen is almost entirely free from ice; a position long and sagaciously maintained by Dr. Petermann. "Of interest," says the Academy," in connection with this subject is an account of the finding of the relics of Barents' expedition of 1597 to Novaia Zemlia, by Captain Carlsen in 1871, prepared by M. de Jonge, and newly published under the auspices of the Dutch government at the Hague. The pamphlet contains the journal kept by Carlsen, and a minute description of the relics, accompanied by a photograph of these in a group, and charts comparing the Novaia Zemlia of Barents with the island as mapped from our present knowledge of it." RESEARCHES IN GREENLAND* ranged from 50° to 70°. Until recently we have also b a high barometer; and, upon the whole, very little I have been upon Hare Island for three'days, and bi also been to Umenak, but the chief part of my time t been spent in the Waigat, where you would be surprise: perhaps, to find that a great deal remains to be done have found a great valley leading into the interio Disco, and have gone up it a hard day's march. I ha ascended one of the highest of the peaks on the N.. soak side of the Waigat, and looked down upon the gre valley which occupies almost the whole of its inter The lakes, as given upon Rink's map from reports Eskimo, do not exist, but there is one very large Li which has a glacier or glaciers coming into it at perhap 2,000 ft. above the sea. This valley is the most import one hitherto discovered in North [Greenland. The n flowing down it has the character of a river, and not of torrent; and, after descending through many windings course of at least 100 miles, it pours into the sea a volur: of water equal to that of the Rhone at the Lake of Gene.. At half a mile from the shore I found the water fresh. In Umenak Fiord I ascended a mountain of ate. 7,000 ft. with five Greenlanders, and took my theodoins to the top. As you know the weight of the instrumen: you will be partly able to appreciate this performance. The ascent, first over swamp, then over basalt debris which reposed insecurely upon solid basalt, and finally, at the top, up columnar basalt, was a sweet thing of its kind The picture of your humble servant being lowered by 1 rope, dangling like a bundle from a crane, will, perhaps to some people, be more interesting than the results ob tained by the theodolite. These, however, were not unm portant. My peak, an isolated one, commanded a view of almost the whole of the Umenak district (which contami the highest mountains of Greenland proper), and a magnificent view of the "inland-ice." I found the generi elevation of the mountains exceeded by about 2,000 ft. the height previously assigned to them. Of the altitude of the "inland ice" I shall write on a subsequent occasion. A large part of my time in the Waigat was occupied by the measurement of a base line. This was the most im portant piece of work that I undertook, and it was successfully executed. I find the Waigat to have in some places scarcely half the width which our maps give it. I find its mountains to be about double the altitude that they have been supposed to be; and Hare Island I find to be twice the length represented upon the Admiralty Chart; Hare Island has some points of particular interest. I got from it a rather large collection of fossil plants, and went to its top (1,800 ft.). From the summit, at midnight, I distinctly recognised the mountain called Sanderson's Hope, near Upernavik, which was distant from me 140 miles! I have made an excellent journey, full of interest. My collections are at least as valuable as those of 1867, though, as far as I know, they do not contain anything of the importance of the Magnolia. I have, however, even larger collections of fossil plants than before, and from localities which I did not visit in 1867. My stone imple WHEN I wrote to you last from Copenhagen, I antici- ments are very numerous, and of good quality, and the pated that my season would be very short; and my anticipations were correct. The season, however, in Greenland has been long and brilliant. In the middle of May floe ice disappeared in Umenak Fiord, which was fully six weeks earlier than usual; and in April, in Godhavn men went about in summer attire. When I arrived (on July 6) the land was covered with flowers, the butterflies were beginning to appear, and almost all snow had vanished from the sea-level up to 2,000 ft. Since then, with the exception of a bad week in the Waigat, I have enjoyed the most exquisite weather that it is possible to imagine. In this arctic region it has only frozen on two nights, and during the daytime the thermometer has Copy of a letter addressed to Mr. R. H. Scott, F.R.S., and kindly forwarded by him to us.-ED. natural history specimens are not few in number. Altogether I am very well content. EDWARD WHYMPER Written on board the brig Hvalfisken as it proceeded || out of the harbour of Godhavn, Sept. 10, 1872. THE HELVETIC SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES ancient city of Fribourg on the 19th, 20th, and 21st HE 55th Session of this Society was held at the of August last, and of it we have again to tell of an overwhelmingly hospitable reception by "our hosts of Fribourg;" a well-attended opening address by the President, Dr. Thurler; sectional seances, at which |