near Vienna. The botanist of the Station, Baron von Thümen, gives an account in Italian of two fungi, Apiasporium citre and Sphaerella gibelliana which cause disease in the leaves of lemon trees. Another publication of interest is the list of fungi which are found on grape vines, of which the number of species is said to be 224. It must be remarked, however, that many of the species are not peculiar to the vine. W. G. F. 9. Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. Vol. IV, No. 2. Department of the Interior. This number of the Bulletin contains the following papers: The Geographical Distribution of Mammals considered in relation to the principal ontological regions of the earth, and the laws that govern the distribution of animal life, by J. A. ALLEN. Descriptions of new extinct Vertebrates from the Upper Tertiary and Dakota formations, by E. D. COPE. Catalogue of the Fishes of the fresh waters of North America, by D. S. JORDAN. Description of a fossil bird from Colorado, by J. A. ALLEN (see page 382, vol. xv, of this Journal). Coleoptera of the Alpine region of the Rocky Mts., by J. L. LECONTE. Orthoptera of Dakota and Montana, by C. THOMAS. Hemiptera of Dakota and Montana, by P. R. ÜHLER. Lepidoptera of Montana, by W. H. EDWARDS. Fossil insects from the Tertiary of Colorado and Wyoming, by S. H. SCUDDER. These fossils insects are a few out of a large number of species which Mr. Scudder has under examination. remarks that those from the Florissant Shales of Colorado indicate strikingly a tropical relation. A fossil butterfly, which he calls Prodryas Persiphone, is wonderfully perfect, the wings expanded as if in readiness for the cabinet, and even the form of the scales are distinguishable under the microscope. IV. ASTRONOMY. He 1. Observations of Comets made at the Sheffield Observatory of Yale College; by H. A. HAZEN and W. BEEBE, with the ring micrometer of the 8 inch refractor. (Latitude of observatory= 41° 18′ 35′′; longitude 16" 300 E. of Washington.)-All the observations upon which the following results are based were made with a power of 60. The ring-micrometer is one constructed by Professor Lyman, and consists of several concentric rings. Of these, only the two smallest were used; and of the two, one or the other was sometimes omitted, if observation was thereby facilitated. A complete transit across one ring, comprising two ingresses and two egresses of each body, is considered as one comparison. In estimating the weights, an observation derived from six comparisons under fair conditions is assigned a weight of 2. This does not take into account, in case of comet c, the liability to error, arising from the fact that the comet exhibited no defined nucleus, nor has it any reference to the reliability of the catalogue from which a star's place is derived. May 3, h m 8 Comet-s. Apparent Δα ᎪᎴ a log. Apparent δ log. Comp. Par. x A Star. m 8 h m В +3 แ 29, 9 59 48 8.53 +10'27."3 23 19 2.23 7581n+64° 14′35·"0 •9080 9 26 51.55 .9564 43 45 30-8 .7042 - 9 26 52.29 ⚫9464 43 44 55.1 *7396 122123 I-21222 Mean place of comparison stars for 18770, with reductions to Comet c, 1877, (Swift.) s=Bonn obs. I. zone 52 1376, position only approximate. r-Rümker 33 37 2·3+ 1·0 23 30 18.91-1.91 66 10 560 + 9.3 9 42 58-80+1.50 9 50 56 64+1:49 C= h m a 1 2 28-33-1.53 54 4 50 6+ 2-6 2 26 15-09-1.58 v, zone 60, No. 834, position only approximate. 60 34 0.8+ 8.6 δ h m 8 Oct. 2, 13 38 Δα m 8 Δε 2+2 33.60 +25′ 21′′6 8 19 1.59 9569n +42° 49′ 8."6 Place of comparison stars. a log. Apparent δ h m 8 •6170 a 3 1 a=Wash. 26 year cat. 3370 upon V. MISCELLANEOUS SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. tive earthquakes, distributed as follows: It includes notices, drawn from native sources, of 149 destruc HATTORI, Esq. (Rutgers Coll.), of the University of Tokio. fore the Asiatic Society of Japan, March 23d, 1878, by I. Z. "Destructive Earthquakes in Japan," (27 pp.) was read be1. Japanese Earthquakes.-An interesting historical paper Arranging the recorded shocks according to the seasons the author says: "If we take the 11th, 12th, and 1st months of the Japanese old calendar as cold months, 5th, 6th and 7th as hot, and all the others as mild, then during the fifteen centuries, twenty-eight great earthquakes have occurred in the cold months, forty-seven in the hot, and seventy-two in the mild, or in other words, seventyfive in the extreme seasons and seventy-two in the mild, the difference being only three." He also gives a curious description of an early Chinese seismograph "invented by Choko in the first year of Yoka, (132 A. D.)" It is quoted from the Life of Choko in Gokwanjo (History of Kwan), and is as follows. "The seismograph consisted of a copper vessel, whose diameter was eight shaker or feet, and whose convex cover was ornamented with characters, mountain turtles, birds and beasts. In this vessel there was one main piston in the middle with its eight branches, wires and springs. On the outside of this vessel were eight dragon heads, each of them having a copper ball in its full-opened mouth. Under each of the dragon heads there was a frog looking upwards with its mouth fully opened. The wire works and springs were very skillfully arranged in the vessel, but the cover was very closely fitted, and they could not be seen. Whenever the earth shook, one of the dragons dropped the ball, the frog underneath received it in its mouth, and produced a sound. By this means the direction of the shocks was ascertained. Once one of the dragons dropped its ball, but no person near it perceived any shock, and all the learned men of the capital doubted the trustworthiness of the machine; but after a few days a mail arrived from Rosei and reported the occurrence of an earthquake there." The different Japanese beliefs or superstitions about the cause of earthquakes are also described. C. G. R. 2. American Association at St. Louis, Aug. 21.-The headquarters of the Association at St. Louis will be at the Lindell Hotel on the Monday and Tuesday preceding the meeting, and afterward at Armory Hall. All members planning to attend the meeting are requested to communicate at once with Prof. J. K. Rees, who is Secretary of the Local Committee. Communications relative to membership, papers, and payments of assessments should be made to the Permanent Secretary, F. W. Putnam, whose address is Salem, Mass., until Wednesday, Aug. 14, and after that time, St. Louis, Missouri. The first meeting of the Standing Committee will be at the Lindell Hotel, on Wednesday, Aug. 20, at 3 P. M. AM. JOUR. SCI.-THIRD SERIES, VOL. XVI, No. 91.-JULY, 1878. |