welcome this new work on botany as a most acceptable contribution to our resources for instruction. Part i., devoted to histology, has already been noticed (Science, vol. v. p. 157), and it only remains for us to direct attention to the larger part of the complete volume, part ii., devoted to physiology.

The present volume is especially welcome from the fact that it is the finest work of the kind published in this country. The nearest approach to it is the text-book by Dr. Bessey. Until now we have been obliged to depend upon reprints from the German for all text-books upon this very important department of botanical science; but it is to be hoped that the issue of the work before us is indicative of a permanent change in this direction, and that for the future we may have standard text-books capable of bringing the student into intimate acquaintance with the most recent acquisitions.

In its general make-up, the book is very creditable, and a decided improvement upon the usual appearance of text-books. The paper and letterpress are good; while the figures, of which the publishers have granted the author a fairly liberal allowance, are fresh, an evident effort having been made to avoid stereotyped illustrations,-and in most cases admirably well executed. The references to the literature of the various subjects treated are quite full, and will be found a most valuable aid to the student, as also will the large amount of additional matter embodied in the footnotes. The student is also provided at the end of the volume with a large number of suggestions as to the apparatus and materials required in both histological and physiological studies. Also, as of special advantage to those wishing to follow an independent course of study, there are many valuable suggestions as to the subjects which may be most profitably considered. Valuable as such suggestions are, however, they can only serve as a basis; and the student must of necessity outline his own course to a very large extent, since he would otherwise find it physically impossible to accomplish all that might seem desirable.

The author has endeavored to leave no important physiological fact without discussion, while his entire treatment of the subject as a whole will commend itself to teachers generally as clear and logical, although in many instances there appears to be a lack in fulness of treatment which would be highly desirable, but which would hardly be practicable in the limits of a book designed for an ordinary course of instruction.

In some instances, however, this becomes a fault, since the abbreviations are sometimes carried to such an extent as to give the student an

imperfect. conception of the subject discussed. Such, however, are minor faults, and are almost inseparable from necessary curtailment of discussion. They all readily disappear under the guidance of a competent teacher, and the author is certainly to be congratulated upon having reduced errors of all kinds to a minimum. While giving the most recent views obtained, the author wisely errs on the side of prudence in not allowing himself to give too great weight to opinions which are not fully justified.

Our knowledge of both histology and physiology is now advancing at such a rapid rate, that many errors of omission, and possibly, in some cases, of fact also, are almost inseparable from a work of this kind. The time which elapses between the reception of the manuscript by the publisher and of the book by the public, is sufficient to make many statements old, and often to upset previous views. Bearing this in mind, the book is fully up to the times, and we can commend it as destined to meet in a most acceptable manner a long-felt want.

HORNADAY'S TRAVELS IN BORNEO.

ALL things considered, this is one of the most satisfactory books of its kind that we have seen for many a day. Its author possesses to a marked degree the happy but rare faculty of knowing just how much science the general reader likes to have mixed with his narrative, and also how to give it to him without missing either the science or the narrative. Mr. Hornaday's style is none of the best, but there is such a freshness, such a genuine ring, and such a realness to his narration, that one is willing to overlook his many deficiencies in the art of expression, his numerous inelegancies, and even his incessant use of slang words and phrases. In fact, the most serious objection we have to the book lies in another direction, and is something for which the publisher is more to blame than the author. We refer to its weight, a little less than three pounds avoirdupois. Now, there is no objection to printing dictionaries and other works of reference in large, heavy tomes. Such books are designed merely for reference, and can be used when lying open on a table or book-rest. But when it comes to asking one's readers to sit solemnly down to a narrative of sport and adventure as to a Webster's unabridged or a consular report, it is asking too much.

Mr. Hornaday's journey to the jungle - which simply means woods was undertaken for the purpose of procuring specimens for Mr. Ward's

Two years in the jungle. By WILLIAM T. HORNADAY. New York, Charles Scribner's sons, 1885.

well-known establishment at Rochester. From a commercial point of view, the venture must have been very successful, although our author was compelled, while in Ceylon, to bottle his snakes and fishes in methylated spirits, upon which the Ceylon authorities had collected a duty of four hundred per cent. He protested in vain, for the money had been paid by his bankers before his arrival on the scene, and the customs authorities refused to refund, even when he offered "to take the unlucky case of spirits through the customhouse, and bury it in a quiet corner of the backyard, where it would not smell bad." The officers only replied, Couldn't do it, couldn't do it.' They had those rupees,' our author declares, and meant to keep them.'

Naturally, in the course of two years in the jungles of Ceylon, India, Selangore, and Borneo, one has many hair-breadth escapes. But the adventure, which he asserts was "ten times more dangerous than any I experienced with the headhunters of Borneo," was experienced much nearer home. It was while engaged in skeletonizing some jackasses in the Emerald Isle that he was set upon by a mob of wild Irishmen,' who assailed him with long-handled hoes, on the ground that the donkeys had been murdered. He was finally allowed to depart by stealth, after having been boycotted for a few days, with his own bones intact, but without his asinine skeletons. These quotations will serve to show not merely the author's unhappy lack of skill in expression, but also the pleasant and truly American way he had of looking on mishaps which would have driven the average British sportsman to the Times or an insane-asylum.

One of the quaint features of the work, and one which we should have been very sorry to miss, is the way in which he loses the sportsman and narrator in the collector, and naïvely tells us where this or that stuffed effigy can be found. Thus, after describing an elephant hunt, and the subse-. quent skinning at a time when the elephant was several days older than when he died, he adds, "The old tusker, who fell under such romantic circumstances on the Animallai slope, now stands, still the monarch of all he surveys,' in the Museum of comparative zoology of Harvard university, Cambridge, Mass.

The whole volume is entertaining, though the most interesting portion, perhaps, is that wherein Borneo, with its head-hunting Dyaks, its treejumping gibbons, and its unpleasantly human orang-outangs, is described. Without disparaging the work of Wallace, Bock, and others, this is the best description of Borneo, so far as it goes, to be found in the books. Our author views the Dyak

in the innermost recesses of his house, and tells us how he eats, drinks, sleeps, dresses, and earns his living. It is worth noting that Mr. Hornaday takes issue with Wallace as to the maximum height of the orang-outang, which Wallace gives as four feet and two inches. Our author and his hunters killed or captured forty-three, no less than seven of which measured more than four feet two inches; one, a Simia Wurmbii, measuring, when fresh, four feet and a half from the top of his head to the sole of his foot.

We wish that there was space to describe the manner in which Mr. Hornaday captured crocodiles with hook and line, and many other curious feats; but it is impossible. The book is finely illustrated with sketches, photographs, and a few other pictures. It further contains two moderately good maps, and but for its bulk would be a most welcome addition to the library.

ASTRONOMICAL NOTES.

First observation of Nova Andromedae. - The earliest observation of the new star, thus far reported, was by M. Gully, director of the public observatory at Rouen, on Aug. 17; and as M. Tempel, director of the observatory at Florence, affirms that it was not visible on the 15th and 16th, we are not likely to get much nearer the time of its first appearance. In l'Astronomie for November, which gives the above facts, M. Trouvelot also states that a 13 mag. star, which precedes the nova about 20s and is a little south of it, and which is now visible with an 8-inch, is not put down upon a drawing of the nebula which he made in 1874 with the 15-inch of the Harvard college observatory, and that he does not think it could have escaped him if as bright then as now. It would seem as if this nebula were an object that should be watched pretty constantly, and of which a series of comparable photographs at stated intervals would be especially valuable.

Wire-gauze screens as photometers. Of late years the use of wire-gauze screens, one or more in number, over objectives, has come into use for several purposes. Over one of the halves of a heliometer-objective they are used to reduce the image of a bright star to approximate equality with that of a fainter star from the other half, an essential condition for the most accurate superposition of the two images. With a meridiancircle they are used to reduce the brighter stars to an approximate equality with the faintest that can be observed with satisfactory precision, or to investigate the difference of personal-equation for different magnitudes by taking different tallies of transit-wires, with screen off and on, at the same

transit. In the latter case Professor Holden points out the necessity (Astr. nachr., 2690) of changing the illumination of the field with the change of screen, so that each magnitude may show against its customary degree of color, or brilliancy of background. Such screens may also be used for photometric purposes when once their co-efficients of transmission have been determined. Those having occasion to use them in this way will do well to consult a paper by Professor Langley (Amer. journ. sc., xxx. 210) on this subject. In this it is shown that the effective transmission co-efficients are decidedly different according as the luminous image is an extended surface, or practically a point like a star. In the latter case there is a central image surrounded by a system of diffraction images, into which a large part of the light goes; so much so, that Professor Langley found that a screen (of which one and two thicknesses transmitted .47 and .21 respectively of the full light upon a surface) gave only .18 and .02 for one and two thicknesses respectively, when measured by the brilliancy of the central image of a small pinhole as a source of light.

Comparison stars. M. Folie, director of the observatory of Bruxelles, Belgium, announces that he also is ready (see Science, vi. 427) to determine the apparent places of comparison stars for comets and asteroids, if those desiring such determinations will communicate the approximate starplaces to him.

Rhodope rediscovered. - On Oct. 3 Palisa found and observed (166) Rhodope, the search for which we before noted (Science, vi. 333) as the occasion of the discovery of (250).

The coast-survey system of longitudes. — In Appendix 11 to the coast-survey report for 1884, Assistant Schott rediscusses all the telegraphic longitude work thus far done by the survey, including the three transatlantic cable-determinations of 1866, 1870, and 1872. The whole work now includes 158 individual determinations of A2. Of these, 53 belong to a network covering 33 stations extending from Paris to Omaha, thus furnishing 21 rigorous conditions to be fulfilled by the longitudes of the 33 stations, a much stronger system than that discussed in the report for 1880. The average probable-error of single determination of 42, including every thing since the origin in 1846, comes out 08.038, as determined a priori from the observations themselves, or only 08.016 as the average since 1878, when improved methods were introduced. From the residual corrections, however, which result from the discussion, as necessary to make the 53 values of ▲ satisfy the 21 rigorous conditions, the probable-error of a single ▲ comes out 0.048, indicating, as compared with 0.038,

that there are still some outstanding errors, probably of observers' personal-equation, which the a priori probable-errors do not cover. There is only one resulting correction to an observed value which reaches 0.1, while in the latest adjusted system of European longitudes, which involves 59 measures with 26 conditions, although the average probable-error of a A comes out only 08.035, yet there are six corrections to observed values which exceed 0.1. It will be seen that the American work compares very favorably with the European, while it includes the three difficult transatlanticcable links. Mr. Schott has accepted the decision of the Meridian conference, and in his final table prints longitudes east of Greenwich as +, and west as -. He has also gone through the tedious process of computing the probable-error of a function of adjusted values for the longitudes of Cambridge and Washington, which come out

Cambridge, λ = — 4h 44m 30s.993 ± 0.041, Washington, 2 = — 5h 8m 12.038 ± 0.042. An interesting paragraph at the end shows that the rather remarkable agreement in the three transatlantic determinations of the longitude of the Harvard college observatory, as given in the report for 1874, was more an agreement of adjustment than of observation, and that the observed values have really a range of 0.13. This is the most complete discussion of a network of longitude determinations yet made, and it well sustains the high reputation which the scientific work of the coast survey bears at home and abroad, very much of which is due to the thorough work of Assistant Schott and his efficient computing division.

NOTES AND NEWS.

WHAT is in some points a remarkable circular is prefixed to the current number of the Zeitschrift für philosophie und philosophische kritik, the most conservative and old-fashioned of periodicals. The management of the zeitschrift announces a new policy in view of the tendency of the best thought of the day, which is "to strive for a revival of the idealistic view of the universe, it being compelled thereto not less by practical than by scientific considerations." Therefore the polemical character of the zeitschrift will cease, the reason for it having been removed. In the second place, the vast amount of criticism will give way to explanatory sketches and sympathetic notices of new books and results, so that no investigation may have injustice done it at the hands of a reviewer of an opposite school. More attention is to be paid to the historical aspect of philosophy and the social sciences, and in especial will the work of countries other than Germany receive its share

of attention. This liberal programme is a cheering sign, and only shows that even the ultraconservatism of this old-established journal has had to yield to the spirit of modern progress.

Dr. Currier of New York has invented an apparatus by which the large class of deaf persons who have some small amount of latent hearing can learn to speak with greater uniformity and exactness. The difficulty is that the person affected hears only the voice of the teacher or the speaker through the tube, but does not hear his own tones. To accomplish this, a tube goes first from the mouth to the ear of the deaf person, and from there to the mouth or car of the speaker.

A stalactite cavern has been discovered in a hill called Kalksberg, near Wolmsdorf. The workmen were quarrying for marble, when they unexpectedly broke into the cavern, which they explored for about a mile and a half. In some places there were deep ponds, and an inner cavern was found that could only be entered by means of a ladder; they have only explored the cavern very imperfectly as yet.

M. Duclaux, a disciple of M. Pasteur, has been studying the effect of sunlight on germs of parasitic life. For three years he has been watching tubes containing cultures of Tyrothrix scaber. This organism grows very well in milk, or in Liebig's infusion, by destroying albuminoid matter as pathogenic bacteria do. Drops of milk containing the organism were taken at the moment of spore formation, and enclosed in glass tubes plugged with cotton wool, so as to exclude external germs. The milk having been evaporated, some of the tubes containing the remaining spores were exposed to various degrees of sunlight for various periods, a few days, a month, two months, a whole summer. Others were placed in a stove at a temperature equal to the maximum of tropical regions, in the dark or in diffused light. Eventually small quantities of milk were introduced into the tubes, so that the spores might be provided with the means of growth. None of the tubes subjected to warmth, but sheltered from the sun, have proved sterile, — a fact which shows that the spores of the microbe in question, even after being retained in a dry state and subjected to tropical heat for three years, do not lose their vitality if sheltered from the sun's light. Fifteen days' exposure to the light produces no observable effect, but after a month's exposure germination becomes obviously slower, while 50 per cent of the tubes exposed for two months have proved sterile. Spores subjected to sunlight proved much more feeble in Liebig's infusion than in milk; that is, a much larger proportion of the tubes remained sterile

M.

after a given exposure, if development in the former beverage was attempted, than if the latter was the medium of culture. Hence we must infer that not only is sunlight a powerful hygienic agent, but that much depends upon the character of the liquid to which a disease germ obtains access. Arloing has tried similar experiments with the formidable Bacillus anthracis, the organism associated with that malady so destructive to sheep, which, when transmitted to man, is known as the terrible wool-sorter's disease. He finds not only that sunlight has an attenuating influence, so that by its aid the germs can be converted into a vaccine, but that the influence can be transmitted and intensified through several generations. A spore born of a solarized' bacillus is more susceptible to the reforming influence than its parent was.

- The Henry Shaw school of botany, in Washington university, St. Louis, was opened on the 6th of November by an inaugural address given by the professor, Dr. Trelease, which has been printed. While the school bears the name of its founder, and will in due time take its full development in connection with the Missouri botanic garden at Tower Grove, the first professorship, as we are delighted to learn, commemorates in its title the late Dr. Engelmann. By this address the earnest and judicious young professor begins to open the eyes of the St. Louis people to the breadth, the interest, and both the educational and practical importance, of the subject which he is to teach.

Felix Plateau has recently published (Bull. soc. zool. France) a series of interesting experiments on the palpi of insects, the results of which are quite opposed to the current idea that these oral appendages are essential both to the recognition and the seizure of food. He found that beetles, cockroaches, etc., may be deprived of either the labial or maxillary palpi, or both, and still retain the power of identifying and masticating their food. It is very curious that the function of such well-developed organs should so entirely elude us.

The Congress of German anthropologists will meet at Stettin next summer. Prof. Hugo Lemcke, president of the City college, as chairman of the local board of managers, tenders an invitation to be present to all American students of anthropology desirous of attending the congress at Stettin, where they will meet Virchow, Schliemann, Schaffhausen, and others, and where their presence will be especially appreciated by the cordial hospitality of the Stettiners. Mr. E. Lemcke, of B. Westermann & Co., New York, will undertake to forward applications.

The December number of the Botanical gazette is to be a laboratory number, but will contain, in addition, a full description of the memorial vase presented to Dr. Gray, with illustrations of both sides.

The fourth series of the Johns Hopkins university studies in historical and political science' (beginning in January, 1886) will be chiefly devoted to American city government, state constitutional history, and agrarian topics. Among the monthly monographs will be the following: Dutch village communities on the Hudson River, by Irving Elting; Rhode Island town governments, by William E. Foster; The Narragansett planters, by Edward Channing; Pennsylvania boroughs, by William P. Holcomb: Introduction to state constitutional history, by J. F. Jameson; City government of Baltimore, by John C. Rose; City government of Philadelphia, by Edwin P. Allinson; City government of Chicago, by F. H. Hodder; City government of St. Louis, by Marshall Snow; City government of San Francisco, by Bernard Moses; City government of New York.

A unique institution is the Anthropological school of Paris. A good idea of its comprehensiveness is gained from its programme for the coming year. There are no less than six courses of lectures. M. Mathias Duval lectures on zoölogical anthropology, including comparative embryology and kindred topics. General anthropology is in the able hands of Dr. Paul Topinard, whose lectures will centre about the discussion of races and types. M. Manouvrier lectures on ethnology, giving special attention to normal and abnormal craniology. Medical geography, by which is understood the action of the environment, is the subject of a course by M. Bordier. The remaining courses are on Prehistoric anthropology, by M. Gabriel de Mortillet; and on the History of civilizations, by M. Letourneau. The lectures are held weekly, and, in addition, conferences are held from time to time. The course of lectures was begun on Nov. 9.

Dr. Topinard has published a revised series of anthropometric instructions for travellers. The traveller, he says, need not trouble himself with questions of race, but should merely observe varieties of type. For this purpose he should take measures of as large a number of individuals as practicable, ten different measurements of one hundred individuals being more valuable than fifty of twenty-five persons. The measurements must be so simple as to reduce the personal equation as low as possible. They should also be so arranged as not to keep the subject in one attitude any longer than necessary. Men should be selected for measurement rather than women. All the instruments required may be collected into a small anthropometric box, the slide being the most useful. Dr. Topinard furnishes a form for recording results and remarks.

- M. Mercadier recently described before the Paris academy of sciences experiments undertaken in order to show that the elasticity of the metal diaphragms at the extremity of telephonic wires counts for nothing in the transmission of sonorous vibrations, or rather that it merely gives to the voice the nasal tone associated with tele

phonic conversation. M. Mercadier successively substituted for such diaphragms plates of greater and greater thickness, pieces of cardboard, and finally iron-filings. The intensity of the vibrations was diminished, but the tone of the voice became normal, and the most delicate inflections were transmitted with perfect exactitude.

BOSTON LETTER.

VISITORS to Boston many years ago were struck by the then novel sight of large labels attached to the stately trees on the Common, designating their scientific and common names and the country of their origin. This simple device for the instruction of the public was almost entirely the work of a single public-spirited man, the late Dr. A. A. Gould, the naturalist, whom more than one generation of Bostonians held in the highest esteem. Snatching the early hours from a laborious practice, he could be seen by early risers tacking his tins upon one tree after another for a whole seaAfter his death, I think it was, when these had grown dilapidated, some city forester, who, like many others since appointed, had no other than political claim to the place, instead of restoring, removed them. All efforts since made to renew the work have failed until now, when, thanks to the energy of a few interested persons, and the personal attention of Mr. John Robinson of Salem, the Common has again become a good botanical object-lesson.

son.