NOTES.

The committee of the St. Petersburg Astronomical Society for the revision of the Russian calendar, to make it agree with the Gregorian, has found it necessary to move slowly. The festivals prove a formidable obstacle to the desired reform, and the people will have to be prepared for the change before it can be instituted. The plan now is to use both dates, Russian and Gregorian, together till the new style can be made familiar, and it is proposed to make the double use compulsory on private as well as on public documents and papers.

* * * * *

A steamboat company is placing its little vessels on the canals of Venice, and the gondolas, which were one of the charms of the city to travelers, are destined to disappear—unless a few may be reserved to gratify the curiosity of tourists.

* * * * *

The Commissioner of Education of Rhode Island has issued a circular to teachers, calling attention to the work of the Audubon Society for the Preservation of Birds, and to the incalculable value, from various points of view, of bird life, and advises them to foster Nature study as furnishing a natural channel by means of which instruction and information on the subject may readily be brought before the children, and through them to the people generally.

* * * * *

In a paper on The Ultimate Basis of Time Divisions in Geology, T. C. Chamberlin accepts it as proved that there were no universal breaks in sedimentation or in the fundamental continuity of life, no physical cataclysms attended by universal destruction of life, and that sedimentation has been in constant progress somewhere and life continuous and self-derivative since the beginning. He then raises the question whether this continuity of physical and vital action proceeded by heterogeneous impulses or by correlated pulsations. The author’s conclusion is in favor of the hypothesis of correlated pulsations involving a rhythmical periodicity.

* * * * *

Nettle fiber is said to be coming into great favor for the manufacture of fine yarns and tissues. Several factories in Germany are using it, and the introduction of the extensive cultivation of nettles into the African colony of the Cameroons is contemplated.

* * * * *

There are now, according to the last annual Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, thirty-six forest reservations (exclusive of the Afognak Forest and Fish-Culture Reserve in Alaska) in the United States, embracing an estimated area of 46,021,899 acres. This estimate is for the aggregate areas within the boundaries of the reservations, but the lands reserved are only the vacant public lands therein. The actual reserved area is therefore somewhat less than the estimate.

* * * * *

Experiments made by Professor Dewar and Sir W. Thisleton Dyer, and reported to the British Association, upon the effect of the temperature of liquid hydrogen upon the germinative power of seeds, go to show that life goes on at a temperature so low that ordinary chemical action is practically stopped. Seeds of barley, vegetable marrow, mustard, and the pea were immersed in liquid hydrogen for six hours, cooled to a temperature of 453° F. below the temperature of melting ice, and came out unchanged to the eye, and, when planted, all germinated.

* * * * *

Sir John Lubbock, having been raised to the peerage, has adopted Lord Avebury as his title, and will be henceforth so known.

* * * * *

In our obituary list of men known to science are the names of N. E. Green, F. R. A. S., who was distinguished for the excellence of his planetary observations, particularly of Mars, made at Madeira in 1877, and was the second President of the British Astronomical Association, died November 10th, in his seventy-sixth year; Prof. E. E. Hughes, inventor of the Hughes printing telegraph machine, the microphone, and the induction balance, Fellow of the Royal Society, gold medalist, and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, who was born in London in 1831 and was brought to the United States at an early age; Mr. J. R. Gregory, mineralogist; M. Marion, professor in the Scientific Faculty in the University of Marseilles and Keeper of the Natural History Museum there, who took part in the dredging trips of the Travailleur and the Talisman, and contributed to the Annales of the museum at Marseilles; Dr. Hans Bruno Geinitz, geologist and paleontologist, at Dresden, Saxony, in his eighty-sixth year; Walter Götze, botanist, while on an expedition to German East Africa, December 9th; and Mr. W. T. Suffolk, treasurer of the Royal Microscopical Society of Great Britain.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins and Reports. Connecticut: Twenty-third Annual Report. Part I. Fertilizers. Pp. 92; Bulletin No. 130. Commercial Feeding Stuffs in the Connecticut Market.—North Dakota Weather and Crop Service, November, 1899, and January, 1900. Pp. 8 each.—United States Department of Agriculture: Agrostology Circular No. 54. Smooth Brome-Grass. Pp. 10; No. 57. Experiments with Forage Plants in Ontario. Pp. 3; Meteorological Chart of the Great Lakes. Summary for the Season of 1899. Vol. II, No. 9. By Alfred J. H. Henry and Norman B. Conger. Pp. 28, with maps.—West Virginia: Bulletin No. 61. Sheep-Feeding Experiments. By J. H. Stewart and Horace Atwood. Pp. 10; No. 62. A Study of the Effect of Incandescent Gaslight on Plant Growth. By L. C. Corbett. Pp. 38, with plates.

American Grocer Publishing Company. Scientific Testimony against the use of Alum in Food. (Evidence before the United States Senate Investigating Committee.) Pp. 12.

Andrews, William. The Diuturnal Theory of the Earth, or Nature’s System of constructing a Stratified Physical World. New York: Myra Andrews and Ernest G. Stevens, 18 West Forty-fifth Street.

Benson, Lawrence Sluter. Principles of Finite Values in Mathematics. Pp. 6.

Bland, Rev. J. P., Cambridge, Mass. What we Know about God. Pp. 12.

Bulletins, Reports, Announcements, etc. American Association for the Advancement of Science: Forty-eighth Annual Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, 1899. Proceedings. Pp. 527, with plates of portraits.—Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. Vol. XXXII, Part II. Visual Observations of the Moon and Planets. By. W. H. Pickering, Director. Pp. 212, with plates; Vol. XXXIII. Miscellaneous Researches, 1897–1899. Pp. 287, with plates; Vol. XLII, Part II. Observations made at the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, Massachusetts, 1897 and 1898, under the Direction of A. Lawrence Rotch. Pp. 150.—Columbia University, New York: Summer Session, 1900. Announcement. Pp. 24.—Cuba, Department of Posts: Annual Report for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1899. Pp. 215.—Interstate Commerce Commission: Preliminary Report on the Income Account of Railways in the United States, to June 30, 1899. Pp. 70.—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston: Annual Catalogue, 1899–1900. Pp. 357.—Michigan: Thirty-eighth Annual Report of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, and Twelfth Annual Report of the Experiment Station. Pp. 465.—Missouri Botanical Garden: Twelfth Annual Report. By William Trelease. Pp. 151, with plates.—New York State: Report of the Committee on Canals, 1899. Pp. 231, with charts; Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1898. Pp. 1179—Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind: Sixty-eighth Annual Report. Pp. 325.—United States Department of Labor: Bulletin No. 26. January, 1900. Pp. 236.—United States Geological Survey: Nineteenth Annual Report. Part V. Forest Reserves. Pp. 400, with portfolio of maps.

Burns, J. J. The Story of English Kings according to Shakespeare. New York: D. Appleton and Company. (Home-Reading Books.) Pp. 272.

Chambers, G. F. The Story of Eclipses. (Library of Useful Stories.) New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 222, with plates. 40 cents.

Citator, The. Ohio Edition. (Register of Citations in Legal Practice.) Quarterly. Lapeer, Mich. Pp. 102.

Clinical Excerpts. Elberfeld Company, New York. Pp. 20.

Coulter, John M. Plant Structures. A Second Book of Botany. New York: D. Appleton and Company. (Twentieth Century Text-Books.) Pp. 348. $1.20.

Deniker, J. The Races of Men. An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. (Contemporary Science Series.) Pp. 611. $1.50.

Echeveria i Reyes, Anibal. Voces Usadas en Chile. (Errors of Speech.) Santiago. Pp. 246.

Hannay, P. M. How to gain Health and Long Life. Chicago: The Hazel Pure-Food Company. Pp. 114.

I am that I am. A Dialogue of the Gods. By Sum quod Sum. New York: Library of Liberal Classics. Pp. 21. 10 cents.

Kent, Rev. Alexander. The Plan of Salvation. Pp. 16.

La Pouge, G. Vachet de. L’Aryen Son Role Social. (The Aryan, his Social Office.) Paris: Albert Fontemoing. Pp. 569. 10 francs.

Macmillan, The, Company. Announcements of New Books, Spring, 1900. Pp. 44.

McIlwraith, J. N. Canada. (History for Young Readers.) New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 252.

Manning, Warren H. A Handbook for Planning and Planting Small Home Grounds. Stout Manual-Training School, Menomonee, Wis. Pp. 76.

Richter, Victor von. Organic Chemistry, or Chemistry of the Carbon Compounds. Edited by Prof. R. Anschütz and Dr. G. Schroeter. Authorized translation by Edgar F. Smith. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston’s Son & Co. Pp. 671. $3.

Richardson, Harriet. A New Species of Idotea, from Hakodate Bay, Japan. Pp. 4.

Ward, Lester F. Description of a New Genus and Twenty New Species of Fossil Cycadean Trunks from the Jurassic of Wyoming. Pp. 32, with 7 plates.

Wooster, L. C. Educational Value of the Natural Sciences. Pp. 18.

INDEX.

ARTICLES MARKED WITH AN ASTERISK ARE ILLUSTRATED.

THE END.