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appropriation at the disposal of Professor Kingston, Superintendent of the Meteorological office of the Dominion, it would seem that the contributions to meteorology by that State are highly creditable. Prof. Kingston states that regular weather reports are telegraphed from fifteen Canadian stations to the Weather Bureau at Washington, in exchange for which a few reports are sent from the United States by telegraph, and a large number by mail. The only station in Canada at present furnished with selfrecording apparatus is that at St. Johns College, at Winnipeg, where, by private munificence, an anemograph has been set in operation by the Bishop of Ruperts Land. With reference to Montreal, which ranks as one of the chief stations, it is stated that the position of McGill College, on account of its proximity to the mountains, is singularly ill adapted for anemometric observations, on which account an anemometer was, in August, 1874, erected on a pole on the summit of the mountain, and connected by telegraph wires with the recording apparatus in the Observatory which is 550 feet lower down on the mountain. There are in Canada thirty-five stations to which storm warnings are occasionally forwarded from Toronto. It would appear that these storm warnings do not give so much satisfaction in the Canadian ports as do the corresponding ones in the United States; this deficiency is explained by Professor Kingston as due in an important degree to the errors of incompetent observers, or to the failure in the prompt delivery of reports to the central office, but perhaps especially to the neglect of the agents at the drum stations to report the results of all storm warnings; and he makes a suggestion, which it would be highly desirable to carry into effect in the United States, and, indeed, in all countries, to the effect that all light-house keepers, and all other government officials at inland places, as well as on the coast, be required, as a part of their regular duty, to report promptly by mail, in a very brief manner, the circumstances attending any gale that may occur in their neighborhood. Among the appendices to Professor Kingston's report, is the annual report of the Director of the Observatory at Quebec, who states that the new observatory and house were finished early in May, and the instrument, etc., were removed thither. This observatory contains rooms for the equatorial, the transit and computing room and photographic, and is directly adjacent to the dwelling of the Director, Commander E. D. Ashe. The principal work of the equatorial consists in taking photographs of the sun's surface from which to determine the time of rotation, inclination of its axis, etc. The principal routine work of the observatory, in a commercial point of view, is to give the correct time to the shipping. The time ball is now dropped by electricity, and the method has been brought to a considerable state of perfection. Commander Ashe has also entered heartily into the work of determining latitudes and longitudes of points in the Dominion.

C. A.

2. Mt. St. Elias.-The recent measurements of Mr. W. H. Dall, Acting Assistant U. S. Coast Survey, of the height of Mt. St. Elias, make it 19,464 feet. The memoir,-a part of the Coast Survey

Between Yokohama and Honolulu the depth is remarkably uniform, averaging 2,858 fathoms, and the material of the bottom is Report for 1875-is illustrated by a map and also a plate contain ing two views of the Mountain. The views, taken at distances of 53 and 24 miles, evidently have the vertical scales very greatly increased, as compared with the horizontal, but how much is not stated.

3. Sea-bottom and Zoology of the deep sea: the Challenger's Observations; by WYVILLE THOMSON.-A gigantic Hydroid was obtained June 17th, in the North Pacific, 34° 37′ N., 140° 32′ E., at a depth of 1,875 fathoms, where the temperature was 1°.7 C. and the bottom gray mud. The species seemed to belong to Monocaulon of Sars, a Corymorpha-like solitary polyp; it measured from tip to tip of the expanded tentacles 9 inches, and the height of the hydroid was 7 feet 4 inches. Another was taken July 5, in 37° 41' N., 177° 4' W., at 2,900 fathoms, the bottom red clay, but with manganese nodules, the weight of which tore the trawl. The hydroid is too delicate in texture to bear the rough change from the bottom to the surface. The tentacles of the proximal range are about 100 in number and 4 inches long. The sporosacs are in close tufts at the base of the tentacles. This gigantic Corymorphoid was associated on June 17th, with Ophidoids, Macrurids, Scopellids, several Gasteropods, Crustaceans related to Dorippe, Galathea, Caridids, and a fine Scalpellum, a few Annelids, many Echinoderms (Brisinga, Phormosoma, Ophiurids, Holothurids), and on July 15th, there were some Aphroditids, a sea-urchin related to Diadema, Holothurids, sponges.

The clayey material of the bottom, brought up June 17, was in a peculiar concretionary state, and bored by an Annelid of the Aphrodite group, some of which were still in the burrows.

In a sounding of June 28th, of 2,800 fathoms, a Rhizopod-like form was obtained, between the Radiolarians and the Foraminifers, its test siliceous as in the former, but the shape as in the latter; their tests were extremely abundant in the "red-clay." There were also obtained a Scalpellum, a number of Annelids, Echinoderms of the genera Pourtalesia, Archaster, Brisinga, Antedon, a Cornularia, specimens of Fungia symmetrica, some Actinic. On July 2d, in 2,050 fathoms, the bottom was a light brownish ooze, with many Globigerina shells; several specimens of an undescribed Hyalonema were brought up.

The cold water which fills up the trough of the Pacific is regarded by Professor Thomson "an indraught from the Southern Sea," as in the Atlantic; and in both oceans the bottom water is constantly moving northward. The temperature of the water for the first thousand fathoms in the Pacific, in the corresponding latitude of 35° N., is much lower than in the Atlantic. Further, in the Atlantic the temperature sinks gradually, though very slightly, through the last thousand fathoms to the bottom, while in the Pacific, the minimum temperature of 17 C. is reached at a depth not greater than 1,400 fathoms, and from that depth to the bottom the temperature is the same.

"red clay," somewhat grayer than the typical "red clay," containing some pumice, numerous siliceous shells, the proportion of which increases with the depth, and scarcely a trace of carbonate of lime (although the water swarms with "ooze-forming" Foraminifers). The pumice was often penetrated with peroxide of manganese, and concretions of the same oxide were abundant in the "red clay." These concretions are rounded or mammillated, fibrous-concentric in structure, and often have a nucleus of some foreign body, as pumice, a shark's tooth, or some other organic relic; and in one case a fragment of a Hexactinellid sponge was preserved as a beautiful fossil at the middle. "The singular point is the amount of this manganese formation and the vast area which it covers." Life was found to be, "although not very abundant in species by no means meagre," in the North Pacific at depths between 2.000 and 3,000 fathoms, all the larger invertebrate groups being represented. In one dredging, at a depth of 3,125 fathoms, a small sponge was obtained, a species of Cornularia, an Actinia, an Annelid in a tube and a Bryozoon. "We were again struck with the wonderful uniformity of the fauna at these depths-if not exactly the same species, very similar representatives of the same genera existing in all parts of the world.” -Extracts from articles in Nature of Oct. 28 and Nov. 25.

The Challenger arrived at Valparaiso November 19th, on her way home.

4. Report of an Expedition up the Yellowstone River, made in 1875; by Lt. Col. J. W. FORSYTH and Lt. Col. F. D. GRANT, under the orders of Gen. P. H. SHERIDEN. 17 pp. 8vo, with a map. Washington, 1875.-This expedition succeeded in navigating the Yellowstone River to a distance of 483 miles above its mouth, the only obstacles to farther progress being the excessively rapid current. It was found that the water of the Yellowstone is deeper than that of the Missouri, above the point where the two rivers join. Some interesting views accompany the report, and also a large map of the river, by Lieut. R. E. Thompson.

5. Preliminary Report of Explorations in Nebraska and Dakota in the years 1855, 56, 57; by Gen. G. K. WARREN, U. S. A. 125 pp. 8vo. Washington, 1875.--This is a reprint of the report of Gen. Warren, originally published in 1858, and noticed in this Journal II, xxvii, 378. The present volume is issued in view of the general interest now felt in the Black Hills country, the original report being practically inaccessible.

6. Atti della Societa Toscana di Scienze Naturali Residente in Pisa. Vol. I. Parts 1 and 2. 146 pp. roy. 8vo. Pisa. 1875.These first publications of the Tuscan Society of Science in Pisa, contain papers on the mammalian fauna of the Pliocene of Tuscany, by C. I. F. Major; on the fishes of the same by R. Lawley; on Eocene corals of Friule by D'Achiardi; on the natrolite (savite) and analcite of Pomaja, by D'Achiardi, and other papers geological and zoological, by Meneghini, De Stefani, Baraldi, Richiardi, with one botanical, Sulla teoria Algolichenica, by G. Arcangeli.

OBITUARY.

EMILE KOPP, Professor of Chemistry in the Polytechnic School of Zurich, died on the 30th of November at the age of fiftynine years. He was an Alsatian by birth, and held a chair in the University of Strasbourg previous to 1848. He took an active part in the revolution of that year, and was one of the Deputies who escaped to Switzerland at the time of Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat. While residing in Switzerland he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Lausanne, but he left the country voluntarily, with the other French exiles, when their rendition was demanded by the French government. Passing into England, Kopp supported himself for several years as a private tutor at Manchester, and at the same time familiarized himself with the great chemical industries of that vicinity. The influence of his sojourn in England was strikingly manifest throughout his subsequent career. After the lapse of several years he was permitted to return to France on the parol of one of the Senators of that period (probably M. Dumas) who pledged himself that the returned exile should in no way interfere with the imperial government. On reaching Paris, Kopp opened a private laboratory for instruction in applied chemistry, which was maintained for several years, and was always filled with students. From this laboratory he was called to the charge of extensive works for the manufacture of steel at Saverne, in the east of France, which place he left some years later to assume the chair of applied chemistry in the University of Turin, whence he was soon called to Zurich.

For many years Kopp exhibited great literary activity, and he is probably best known to the generality of chemists from his remarkable compilations relating to the history and progress of the coal-tar colors and of the madder colors. He was largely instrumental in writing Hofmann's famous report on the Chemical Products and Processes of the International Exhibition of 1862, as was duly acknowledged by Prof. Hofmann. This report, as is well known, has served as a model upon which most subsequent reports upon chemical matters have been based. But, in spite of much writing, he accomplished a great deal of work in the way of research, notably in respect to the coloring matters just mentioned, and in other departments of calico-printing. He devised novel processes for making soda from salt, and for the recovery of sulphur from soda-waste, and published numerous observations upon a great variety of subjects.

His familiarity with the methods and processes of technical chemistry, as applied in different countries, was very great, and his judgment of them was singularly sound and impartial. He labored untiringly to inform himself of all improvements and discoveries in the domain of chemical technology, and was doubtless at the time of his death one of the best teachers of applied chemistry that has ever lived.

WHEATSTONE.-Sir Charles Wheatstone died at Paris, on the 19th of October, at the age of seventy-three years.

THE

AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS.

[THIRD SERIES.]

ART. VI.-Sir William Edmond Logan.*

On the 22nd of June, at Castle Malgwyn, Llechyrd, South Wales, Canada's veteran geologist passed from his labors. For several years his health had been failing, and he felt more and more the need of rest and change of climate. Accordingly, in August, 1874, he crossed to the mother country, intending to pass the winter there, and then to return to his work in the spring. But rest and a more genial clime were unavailing, and now-kindest of friends, most indefatigable of workers for science and for his country-he is no more!

William Edmond Logan was born at Montreal, in 1798. He was of Scottish parentage, and his father, after a residence of many years in Canada, returned to Scotland, and purchased an estate near Stirling, known as Clarkstone. His education was begun at Mr. Skakel's school, in this city, and completed at the High School and University of Edingburgh.

Ön leaving college he betook himself to mercantile pursuits, and we find that in 1818 he entered the counting-house of his uncle, Mr. Hart Logan, of London. Here he remained for about ten years, and here, it is said, he first became fond of geology, making geological excursions into the country whenever opportunity offered.

In 1829 he paid a visit to Canada; but, returning the same year, took up his residence at Swansea, in South Wales, where he was appointed manager of a copper-smelting establishment, and of coal mines, in which an uncle of his was interested. In * Obituary notice read before the Natural History Society of Montreal, October 25th, 1875.

AM. JOUR. SCI., THIRD SERIES-VOL. XI, No. 62.—FEB., 1876.

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