ma and the Burmans, or 'The best unopened market of the world' (London: Field & Tuer). The late massacres in Mandelay, the capital of independent Burma, have drawn public attention to that part of the globe which the recent actions of the French in Tonquin and southern China have not tended to allay. Probably no one is better qualified by actual observation for his task than Mr. Colquhoun; and this readable essay, with its map and statistical table, should receive the careful consideration of all who are interested in what may at any day become the farthest eastern question. -The Ann Arbor meeting of the American association opens Aug. 25, and closes Sept. 1, not Sept. 10 as erroneously stated in some of the circulars. -The special association train will leave Buffalo at six A. M., Aug. 25, will stop three hours at Niagara Falls, and arrive in Ann Arbor at 8.23 P.M. -The Fitchburg railroad requests us to announce that tickets to Ann Arbor and return, by the Hoosactunnel line, will be sold at reduced rates. -The Annuaire géologique universel et guide du géologue is the title of a projected annual, of which the first volume has lately been received. It is edited by Dr. Dagincourt of the Comptoir géologique de Paris,' and contains articles on a number of different countries by competent geologists. The chief object of the work, as stated in the preface, is to give lists of the geologists of various countries, so as to increase the range of professional acquaintance; to indicate to the tourist the principal collections and localities that he should visit, and to record the annual progress of each nation. Only three months of preparation have been spent on the first volume; its publication having been hurried, that it might appear before the meeting of the geological congress at Berlin in September, and that it might give rise to criticism from which the editor hopes to profit. The materials thus collected embrace brief geological sketches of several countries, North America being treated by de Margerie of Paris; accounts of official surveys, publications, and maps; lists of societies and local geologists, and of universities and museums; notes on recent geological works. This programme is by no means uniformly carried out: uniformity in execution would be a manifest improvement. The printing is not done with sufficient care; and, in the list of addresses, the errors are seriously numerous. - Mr. Clement L. Wragge is arranging, says Nature, for the establishment of a meteorological station in northern Queensland and New Guinea. He hopes to establish an observing station at Port Moresby. An assistant will carry on the work of the Torrens observatory. Mr. Wragge is also arranging for the continuance of his observatory on Mount Lofty. -Two important papers have lately appeared on the reddish corona around the sun, one by Kiessling of Hamburg, who has already given the best statement of the optical process by which the ring is formed; the other by Forel of Morges, Switzerland, who has suggested that the corona be called Bishop's 6 ring,' after its earliest observer, the Rev. Sereno F. Bishop of Honolulu, who noted it on Sept. 5, 1883. The recent papers are concerned with the extension of the area of first visibility; and both writers conclude that there is no question of the connection of the ring with the famous sunsets, or of the origin of both of these remarkable phenomena in the dust thrown out from Krakatoa. Kiessling quotes with approval the name suggested by Arcimis of Madrid, 'Corona solar krakatoense.' The need of observa tions, especially at elevated stations, to determine the duration of the ring's appearance, is emphasized. Mount Washington and Pike's Peak should afford good records. - On Tuesday morning, July 14, an earthquake occurred in eastern and central Bengal which, according to Nature, is said to have been the severest one experienced by the inhabitants for forty years. The shocks lasted for nearly a minute. In Calcutta, the houses rocked and cracked, and the plaster fell in large quantities. There was general consternation, the people all rushing out of doors. A wave was raised in the river like a bore, causing some anxiety with respect to the shipping. Luckily no accident occurred, and no damage was done beyond the cracking of the walls of some old houses; but, had the shocks lasted some seconds longer, the city would probably have been laid in ruins. Some of the upcountry stations were less fortunate. At Serajgunge, a chimney belonging to some jute-mills fell. In many other places some of the houses fell, and people were killed. Twenty-five deaths are reported to have occurred at Aheripore, five at Bogara, eleven at Azimgunge, and several at Dacca. The following morning another shock was felt in Cashmere, which did some injury. According to the latest reports, the earthquake caused altogether seventy deaths in Bengal. -Tuttle's comet of 1858 was seen at Nice on Aug. 9. Johannes Rahts, a german computer, has calculated an orbit from the observations made at the 1858 and 1871-72 appearances, with the perturbations of the principal planets included. His ephemeris agrees with the place in which the comet was found within fifteen seconds of time, and about six minutes of arc; so that, by pointing the telescope to the computed place, the comet would be in the field of view after an absence of nearly fourteen years. Using his elements, the perihelion distance of the comet is ninety-five million miles, and the aphelion distance nine hundred and sixty-seven million, the period being 13.76 years. According to these data, the comet, at its nearest approach to the sun, is at about the same distance as the earth, and, at its farthest distance, it is about a hundred million miles beyond the orbit of Saturn. It will slowly approach the earth and its light increase during the present month, its distance at time of discovery being a hundred and seventy-five million miles. It will not, however, become visible to the naked eye. This is one of five comets discovered by Mr. H. P. Tuttle at Harvard college observatory, two others besides this having been discovered in 1858. - Nature, for Aug. 6, in its leading article, quotes with approval, and re-enforces with new arguments, the claim which Science made last February, that great saving could be effected upon the introduction of prime-meridian time suggested by the Washington conference, by the virtual amalgamation of the nautical almanacs now published separately by each of the maritime nations, and commends our suggestion that the money thus saved should be expended upon an international mountain observatory. The same number contains a long article on the coordination of the scientific bureaus of our government, based upon the two schemes proposed by the committee of the national academy, and by Major Powell, which appeared some time since in Science. The article on the Lick observatory, which we published last June, is also given in full. We shall shortly print another, with illustrations. - A short time before his death, Prof. H. R. Göppert of Breslau, in connection with the chemist Professor Poleck, made a study of the Hausschwamm, a fungus commonly known with us as dry-rot, which had caused great injury to buildings in northern Germany. The results of their combined studies now appear in a pamphlet by Professor Poleck (Der hausschwamm, Breslau, 1885). The dry-rot, Merulius lacrimans, seems to be unknown in a wild state in Germany, but is confined to wood-work of different kinds, and attacks by preference, coniferous timber. Strange to say, the fungus does not usually infest old structures, but generally makes its appearance in comparatively new buildings; and a startling series of figures shows the amount of damage done in the region of Breslau. Chemical analyses by Poleck show that the merulius is particularly rich in nitrogenous compounds and fat, which is rather remarkable, when one considers the chemical constituents of the timber on which it grows. Injury to health, or even death, is said to result from exposure to air containing large quantities of the spores of the merulius; and several authenticated cases are reported. In a supplementary note, Poleck considers the relationship of merulius to actinomyces, a fungus which causes a characteristic disease in man and cattle; and he apparently comes to the conclusion that what is called actinomyces is probably only the merulius altered by the peculiar matrix on which it is growing. His statements on this point can hardly be called conclusive, or, in fact, other than vague. Lake Neuchâtel. From 1864 to 1870 the station at Poissine has placed in the neighborhood of 450,000 young fry in the rivers, and from 1872 down to the present time more than 1,000,000. By this means the rivers have been restocked in a very satisfactory manner, and the trout of Vallorbes are far-famed. This total would have been much larger had it been possible to secure the required number of eggs. In 1885, 74,000 fry were developed; the eggs being placed in the incubating cans from the 10th to the 20th of April, and in the stream, between the 20th and 31st of May, according to the rapidity of develop ment. The industry of gutta-percha production, which has been so profoundly menaced by the vast destruction of the trees by the natives, is likely to be greatly increased in importance by the discovery of Mr. Edward Heckel, recently published in La nature. Dr. Heckel has announced that there is a tree in central Africa, Butyrospermum Parkii, called by the natives' karité' or 'caré,' which is likely to replace the gutta tree. The berries of this tree produce a stearic wax called 'butter of karité,' and valued highly by the natives and travellers. The tree covers the vast tropical area of central Africa in dense forests; and, after it has attained the age of four years, it is possible by discrete incision to obtain from its trunk and larger branches an annual supply of four kilogrammes of gutta ($5-6 per year at the present price) without injuring the tree in the least. By reason of the great facility with which this tree grows in all kinds of soil, and because of the success attending its cultivation in a few places, Mr. Heckel thinks that it can be profitably transplanted into the English and French colonies. Guided by botanical analogy, he also suggests it as highly probable that the Indian species of Bassia will give a product similar to that of the karité of Africa. - By a congratulatory letter addressed to him by the society upon the occasion, Professor Asa Gray was recently reminded that fifty years have elapsed since he was elected a member of the oldest naturalhistory society in Germany, the imperial Academia leopoldino-carolina naturae curiosorum. - Dr. A. W. Ljungman has been granted by the Swedish government the sum of 3501., in addition to his salary, for investigating the herring and the herring fishery on the south-west coast of Sweden. - The twelfth number of the German Colonialzeitung contains an article by Herman Soyaux on experimental cultivation in tropical Africa. He maintains that the soil is suitable for agriculture, though it is exhausted in a year by the cultivation of maize and manise: he recommends the cultivation of coffee, vanilla, India rubber, tobacco, cotton, and sugar-cane according to the varieties of soil. Lieut. de Gile, commander of the Upper Kongo division, has published a most enthusiastic description of the country, where nearly all the above-mentioned plants, and many others, grow naturally, or are already cultivated. He represents the climate as healthy, and the country thickly populated. FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1885. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION. PROFESSOR HUBERT ANSON NEWTON, who is the president of the American association for the advancement of science, has held the chair of mathematics in Yale College since 1856. Virtually, he has had charge of the instructions in that branch of science at New Haven since 1853, when the college was deprived, by death, of the services of Professor Stanley. He had evinced, in his undergraduate course, strong proclivities toward mathematical studies; and his appointment to a tutorship, two years after his graduation in the class of 1850, undoubtedly confirmed these predile ctions, and opened to him the career in which he has won distinction at home and abroad. His outward life has been uneventful. From the time when he entered college, almost forty years ago, he has remained in New Haven, assiduously devoted to the work of his professorship. Occasional visits to Europe have brought him into personal relations with the mathematicians and the institutions of other countries. Academic honors, as little sought as they were well deserved, have fallen upon No. 134.-1885. him. He was made an associate editor, many years ago, of the American journal of science, in whose pages his principal memoirs have appeared; he has been a vice-president in the scientific association of which he is now the head; he was one of the original members of the National academy of sciences. In the Winchester observatory of Yale college, he is a leading manager. The University of Michigan conferred upon him, in 1868, the degree of doctor of laws. But he has still stronger claims than these to that recognition which his scientific friends have bestowed by inviting him to preside over their meeting at Ann Arbor. It is as an astronomer that he has won his highest reputation; and, as an astronomer, his name is forever to be associated with the discovery and enunciation of the laws of meteoric showers, so mysterious when he applied his mind to their investigation, so comprehensible now. Professor Newton came into the field of meteors by what might be called an official inheritance. While he was an undergraduate, Denison Olmsted, his teacher in astronomy, with Alexander C. Twining, Edward C. Herrick, and others whom they had enlisted, were intent upon understanding the phenomena of shooting-stars. The resplendent shower of |