devoted to a consideration of the modes of attachment of different species of Loranthaceae to the foster plant. This is accomplished by the growth inward of suckers (Saugfortsätze) which penetrate through the bark to the wood. The shape which any sucker assumes depends on the relative activity of the growth of the sucker itself and of the cambium. In some cases, as Loranthus Europaus and L. Sternbergianus, the sucker sends out processes which penetrate into the wood itself. The writer confirms the suggestion made by John Scott that the vascular bundles of the parasites communicate with those of the plants on which they are growing.

Part II is devoted to the vegetative organs of the Rafflesiacere, which had previously been studied only in Pilostyles Haussknechtii Boiss. and Cytinus Hypocistus L. The writer gives the results of his examinations of Pilostyles Ethiopica Hook., P. Blanchetii Gardn., and P. Caulotreti Karst., which closely resemble one another. The vegetable organs of these species consists of threads or, at times, flat expansions which are found in the last and from which suckers are given off which penetrate into the wood. The name given to the thread-like expansions is thallus, from its resemblance to the structures of the same name in cryptogams. The flower buds are produced as adventitious offshoots from the threads of the thallus, and finally burst through the bark of the foster-plant. Pilostyles Thurberi A. Gray, a plant of our own country which is parasitic on species of Dalea, differs somewhat from other species of the genus. Its thallus, which is found in the inner bark, is not composed of threads but of flat expansions of considerable size. They are at first destitute of vessels, which, however, make their appearance about the time of the formation of the flower buds. Part III is devoted to the vegetative organs of the Balanophorea, and the writer concludes as follows: "It is the object of the present essay to call attention to the fundamental uniformity of the development and conformation of the assimilating organs of the phanerogamic parasites. This object has been attained if we have been successful in showing that they all have a common characteristic in the absence of any sort of differentiation of organs of vegetation such as we find in the Cormophytes, that their organs can be neither roots nor stems, but that we are compelled to recognize them as thalline structures equivalent and completely analogous to those of the Thallophytes. This would. have pleased Lindley, as indicating a structural foundation for his class of Rhizogens.

W. G. F.

10. The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants; by CHARLES DARWIN, M.A, F.R.S., etc. 2d ed., revised, with illustrations. 208 pp. 8vo. This work by Darwin, noticed at page 69 of this volume, has recently been republished by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

IV. ASTRONOMY.

1. A series of Astronomical Drawings for the Centennial Exhibition. A unique feature of the Centennial exhibition will be a series of thirty-six Astronomical drawings of interesting celestial objects, executed in pastel by L. Trouvelot, the artist who produced the series of Astronomical engravings undertaken by Professor Winlock at Harvard College Observatory. The pictures vary in size between eighteen by twenty-two inches, and twentythree and one-half by twenty-eight and one-half inches, exclusive of the frames. The following have already been completed, viz: Nebula in Orion, Nebula in Andromeda, Horse-Shoe Nebula, Winged Nebula, Trifid Nebula, Ring Nebula, Dumb-Bell Nebula, Cluster in Hercules, Coggia's Comet, the planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, Sun-Spots in full activity, Solar Protuberance eruptive form, Solar Surface with Chromosphere, Protuberances and Corona, Aurora Borealis, Group of Sun-Spots with bridges, Milky Way in two parts, Zodiacal Light, Shower of Shooting Stars, and Tempel's Nebula in the Pleiades. The original sketches have been for the most part made with an excellent refractor, of six and one-half inches aperture, mounted in Mr. Trouvelot's Physical Observatory at Cambridge. Their production has been a work of immense labor. From fifteen to twenty-five nights have been spent in the study of each nebula. The sketch of Tempel's Nebula in the Pleiades is the result of sixty-five hours' study. In the drawings of the Milky Way, the stars are plotted with considerable accuracy. Over a year was spent in the preparation of these two sketches. Of the sun-spots, protuberances, auroras and the zodiacal light, the most typical forms have been represented. In the shower of falling stars, every one represented was observed on the night of Nov. 13, 1869. It is Mr. Trouvelot's design to make these drawings available at the close of the exhibition, in producing a series of Astronomical Charts for educational purposes.

W. A. R.

2. Our Place among Infinities; by RICHARD A. PROCTOR. 324 pp. 8vo. New York, 1876. (D. Appleton & Co.)-This work consists of "A series of essays contrasting our little abode in space and time with the infinities around us," with also "Essays on the Jewish Sabbath and on Astrology." Mr. Proctor aims, in his various works, to put science, especially astronomical science, in an attractive form for the general reader. In presenting his subjects he does not always make it clear as to what are speculations and what known facts; but he is dealing with the marvellous, and this method in his hands makes things the more marvellous. His range of knowledge is considerable, and his style perspicuous and forcible. Astronomers would not accept of all his conclusions, neither would geologists, and probably not biblical critics. After perusing his note on the origin of crater-cavities on the moon's surface by the blows of meteorites, or the passage (p. 84) in which

he describes the encounter and destruction of a comet by a meteoroid stream, the reader will probably be led to question his judgment on other topics.

V. MISCELLANEOUS SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.

1. Mt. St. Elias.-In a notice of Mr. W. H. Dall's paper on Mt. St. Elias (from the Coast Survey Report for 1875) on pp. 77 and 78 of this volume, the remark is made that the views are evidently vertically exaggerated. The author has informed us that the proportions of the mountains are rightly given, from determinations by instruments. The view of Mt. St. Elias was taken from Yakutat Bay (Port Mulgrave), 53 [nautical?] miles to the southeast. The southern face of the mountain, from a line about 5,000 feet above its base, is " an immense rock-face, inclined at an angle of 45° to the sea, and rising 8,000 to 10,000 feet without a break in its continuity." "The apex is pyramidal, sharp and clearly cut, leading to the inference that it is precipitous on the invisible northern side. The whole of the rock-face is marked by straight rigid lines of bedding, which are inclined uniformly to the eastward at an angle of about ten degrees." Mr. Dall concludes from its features and this appearance of stratification, that the mountain is not volcanic but consists, with the high range to which it belongs, mainly of non-volcanic crystalline rocks.

The height of Mt. St. Elias was determined trigonometrically by measurements from four stations, that at Port Mulgrave, 69 miles distant from Mt. St. Elias, and the others (off Lituya Bay, off Dry Bay, and at sea to the south-southwest) over 100 miles distant. The following are the angles of altitude from each station, and the calculated height:

It is time that the geology and altitude of Mt. St. Elias were determined by observations made on the mountain itself.

J. D. D.

2. Harbors of Alaska and the Tides and Currents in their vicinity; by W. H. DALL, Assist. U. S. Coast Survey. From the Coast Survey Report for 1875; Appendix No. 10. Report of Geographical and Hydrographical Explorations on the Coast of Alaska; by W. H. DALL. Ibid; Appendix No. 11.-The first of these papers contains new facts on the tides, currents, ocean and land temperatures, hydrography, topography and other characteristics of the vicinity of Alaska and some of the Aleutian Islands. The Shumagin Islands, south of the extremity of the Alaska Peninsula, are described as composed of granite, various metamorphic rocks and sandstones, overlaid by Tertiary beds, "of which the upper beds contain fossiliferous layers of Miocene age, the lower ones containing remains of warm temperate vegetation, and the

uppermost remains of marine animals, including mollusks and cetaceans." There are also recent lavas.

The second paper contains, besides geographical and hydrographical observations, tables of magnetic declinations at positions among the Aleutian Islands, according to different observers, including new results obtained by the Coast Survey. From them it appears that there is a decrease of the easterly variation at the stations where observations have been taken, when the results are compared with those heretofore published. The following are some of the results obtained:

At Amchitka Island, Constantine Harbor, 51° 23′ 32′′-9 N., 179° 12′ 12′′-2 E., variation 7° 15′ 33′′ E.

At Chichagoff Harbor, Attu Island, 52° 55′ 57′′-23 N., 173° 12′ 22′′-2 E., variation 7° 44′ 36′′ E.

At Kyska Island, 51° 58′ 59′′-11 N., 177° 29' 46'3 E., variation 11° 06′ 27′′ E. At Adaka Island, Bay of Islands, 51° 49′ 15′′-6 N., 176° 51′ 58′′-2 W., variation 13° 52′ 03′′ E.

At Unalaska Island, Iliuliuk village, 53° 52′ 37′′7 N., 166° 31′ 36′′ W., variation 18° 59′ 44′′ E.

At Shumagin Island, Popoff Straits, 55° 19′ 16′′7 N., 160° 31′ 14′′-1 W., variation 20° 29′ 23′′7 E.

3. Memoirs of the Peabody Academy of Science, Vol. I, No. 4. 94 pp. Roy. 8vo, with plates. Salem, Mass., Dec. 1875.- This fourth number of the "Memoirs" is occupied with a paper by the late Dr. JEFFRIES WYMAN, on the Fresh-water Shell Mounds of the St. John's River, Florida.-The facts published by Dr. Wyman in former articles are here brought together along with the results of new observations by him, and they are presented with the usual thorough and cautious method of the author. The mounds are often five or six hundred feet in length, and vary from a few feet to eighteen or twenty in height. Dr. Wyman, after a full description of them, states as his conclusions, that, at the least, two or three hundred years, and probably more, have passed since they were finished; that the fact that the human bones are broken in the same manner as the bones of edible animals proves the makers to have probably been cannibals; that fragments of pottery, while common in the later mounds, are not found in the older; that stone implements are few in the older mounds and rudely made; that the shell heaps contain fragments of the Mastodon, Elephant, Horse, Ox, and some other extinct animals, but that these show by the changes they have undergone, that the animals were not cotemporaries of the mound-builders; ; that the only skull found differs from the skulls of the Indian burial mounds of the country, in being longer, with the ridges and processes more pronounced, and that among the bones of two other individuals the tibia was flattened; that, while it is uncertain whether the makers of the mounds were the same people that were found there by the Spaniards and French, the absence of pipes and pottery, and the rarity of ornaments, are consistent with the conclusion that they were a different people.

4. Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War for the year 1875. Part I, 990 pp. 8vo. Part II, 1254

pp.; each with many maps and illustrations.-The Annual Report of the Engineering Department is of high importance in a scientific point of view. Besides details as to work done in the improvements of harbors and rivers, and discussions of the methods of carrying on such improvements, it contains a great amount of new information, on the geography, resources and trades of the regions examined, results of hydraulic investigations, discussions of the modes of wear, transportation and deposition by rivers, the topography, and on the productions and resources of the territories, besides facts and views on other topics.

Among the articles in the Report for 1875, the following are especially noteworthy: Major Warren's Report on the Minnesota River, which is both historical, descriptive and geological, and contains a map showing the Mississippi when Lake Winnipeg was its head (this Journ., ix, p. 313); Commissioner H. L.. Abbot's analysis of the Mississippi floods; Gen. T. G. Ellis's Report on the Connecticut River, in which the amount of discharge of the river at Hartford is given for each day, from Feb. 1, 1871, to Dec. 31, 1874, and, as an incidental result, the parabolic form of the curve of subsurface velocities in a river, as made known by Humphreys and Abbot (in their Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi), is fully confirmed by observations at Thompsonville; Col. Gilmore's Report on the compressive strength and specific gravity of the building stones in the United States in most general use; Report of Clarence King with reference to the geological exploration of the 40th parallel; Report of Lieut. G. M. Wheeler, on geographical explorations and surveys west of the 100th meridian, noticed beyond; and Col. Ludlow's Report on the expedition to the Black Hills, already noticed in this Journal.

5. Annual Report upon the Geographical Explorations and Surveys west of the 100th Meridian; by GEORGE M. WHEELER, 1st Lieut. of Engineers U. S. A. 196 pp. 8vo. Washington, 1875. This report is included in the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 1875, as above mentioned. Besides the Report on the Geographical, Geodetic, Hypsometrical, Astronomical and Meteorological work of the survey, this volume contains the following: a discussion on Aneroid barometers; a Report on the Geology of part of northwestern New Mexico examined in 1874, by E. D. Cope, containing, besides geological observations, descriptions of fossil vertebrates of the Santa Fé Marls, on the Typothorax coccinarum Cope, from beds supposed to be Triassic (already noticed in this Journal, III, vol. x, p. 153), on the Eocene plateau, and a list of fossil vertebrates from beds of the horizon of the Green River horizon; Geological and Mineralogical Report, by O. Loew, on portions of Colorado and New Mexico; Preliminary Botanical Report, by Dr. J. T. Rothrock; Report upon the Agricultural resources of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, by Dr. O. Loew, in which several analyses of soils, plants, etc., are given; general itinerary by Surgeon H. C. Yarrow; Ornithological notes, by H. W. Henshaw, and also by Mr. C. E. Aiken; Report on the