Arrangements for half fare on various railroads can be learned of by addressing Wm. Taussig, St. Louis. 3. Catalogue of Scientific Serial Publications.-An extended catalogue of Scientific Serials is soon to be issued under the auspices of the Librarian of Harvard College. It has been prepared by Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, Librarian of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The work has double the extent of any existing list of the kind, and aims to include all Society Transactions and independent journals in every branch of natural, mathematical and physical science, excepting only the applied sciences, medicine, agriculture, technology, etc. The arrangement is based on the countries and places where published. It will be a work of great value to all libraries and men of science. The volume will be in octavo, and extend to about 300 pages. Those desiring the work should address Justin Winsor, Librarian of Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. 4. Principles of Machine Construction: an application of geometrical drawing for the representation of Machinery; by EDWARD TOMKINS, edited by HENRY EVERS, LL.D. Vol. i, Text, 368 pp. 8vo; vol. ii, Plates, small quarto. New York, 1878. (G. P. Putnam's Sons-Putnam's Advance Science Series.)-A clearly written and well arranged treatise, rendered the more useful by the numerous illustrations in the text, and still more by the forty-seven excellent plates. 5. Geological Survey of Victoria.-Decade 5 of the Paleontology of Victoria, by FREDERICK MCCOY, has appeared. Among the Victorian species mentioned is the graptolite, Didymograptus Headi, described by Hall from the Lower Silurian of Canada. 6. On the Paleozoic fossils of New South Wales; by L. G. DE KONINCK. 374 pp. 8vo, with an Atlas of 24 quarto plates.This work is a complete review of the facts relating to the Paleozoic fossils of New South Wales, and contains descriptions of 176 species. Besides this, it enumerates 76 species described by others, of which the writer had not yet seen specimens. Out of the 176, 74 exist also in European rocks. 7. Mineralogische und petrographische Mittheilungen, herausgegeben von G. TSCHERMAK; Neue Folge, Bd. I, Heft 1. Vienna, 1878.-The Mineralogische Mittheilungen of Vienna, begun by Professor Tschermak in 1872 and published as a supplement to the Jahrbuch of the k. k. Geologische Reichsanstalt have been discontinued. In its place, the Journal, whose title is given above, is to appear independently, in six numbers each year. The new "Mittheilungen" are to be still under the able editorship of Professor Tschermak, and will doubtless take even a more important place among the publications in this branch than the earlier journal. The first number contains five excellent articles upon various mineralogical and lithological subjects. 8. Marine Zoological Laboratories for instruction of Students. -A marine laboratory for zoological instruction is to be opened at Fort Wool, on the Rip Raps, near Fortress Monroe, near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins University, and the charge of Professor Brooks; and another on Salem Neck, between Beverly and Salem Harbor, Massachusetts, by J. H. Emerton and C. S. Minot, between June 1 and October 1, with the terms $20.00 a month. 9. Microscopical Society of San Francisco.-A bulletin from this Society announces that the secretary, Mr. Clarke, will exchange specimens from the diatom deposits of the Pacific Coast on receipt of "any valuable microscopic material." 10. Earthquake of the South American Coast felt at the Russian Observatory at Pulkowa.-In a communication to the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Mr. Magnus Nyrén of the observatory at Pulkowa states that the great earthquake on the coast of South America, in May of last year, was perceptible at Pulkowa by a tremor of the instrument with which he was observing the passage of a star; that the tremor continued sufficiently long to be satisfactorily verified, and that there was no disturbance in the neighborhood by which it could have been occasioned. -Athenæum, May 25th. 11. Probable Distribution of a Spider by the Trade Winds.— Rev. H. C. McCook states that the Sarotes venatorius Linn., a large laterigrade spider of the ballooning kind, occurs, according to specimens in his private collection, from Santa Cruz, Virgin Isles, to Cuba, Florida and Yucatan, Central America, Mexico and California, Sandwich Islands, Loochoo Islands and Japan, and thence across Asia and Africa to Liberia, and suggests, in view of these facts and other localities on record, that the trade winds have promoted this distribution. Among the other localities, are the Society Islands, Feejees, Friendly Islands, New Caledonia, Eastern Australia, Mauritius, Madagascar, and several parts of South America. He refers to a fact stated by Darwin, that, at a distance of sixty miles from land, while the Beagle was sailing before a steady light breeze, the rigging was covered with vast numbers of small spiders with their webs, each, when first coming in contact with the rigging, seated upon a single filament of spider web, and so slenderly in some cases that a single breath of air was found to bear them out of sight. Mr. McCook states that the specimens examined by him show no variations which may not be accounted for "by differences in age, or which may not come within those ordinary natural differences which all animals more or less exhibit." But most of the specimens had lost their colors in the alcohol in which they were preserved.-Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., 1878, p. 136. 12. Polymicroscope.-A new improvement in the microscope is reported from Germany. Herr I. von Lenhossék has constructed an apparatus which permits no less than sixty microscopical preparations being observed in immediate succession, without the trouble of changing the slides and readjustment of the objectglass. Its construction is similar in principle to that of the wellknown revolving stereoscopes, and the inventor has given the new apparatus the name of "polymicroscope."-Nature, June 6. 13. The Telephone for Deaf Persons.-Having seen a paragraph in Nature communicated by Mr. Severn, of Newcastle, New South Wales, describing a method of using a telephone to enable deaf persons to hear, I have tried the experiment in the manner Mr. Severn describes-by fastening a string to the parchment diaphragm of a simple telephone made of wood, and carrying this string round the forehead of the deaf person, who clasps the string with both hands and presses them over his ears. The experiment in this way was partially successful; the sound of the voice was always heard, and some words were distinguished. Afterwards I fastened a single string to the telephone and got the deaf person to hold the string between his teeth. He then heard every word distinctly, even when spoken in a low tone of voice at the whole length of the room.-John Browning, in Nature of June 13. New works in Science, notices of which are unavoidably deferred. Report on Astronomy and Barometric Hypsometry, making vol. II, of quarto Reports of the U. S. Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian, under Lieut. G. M. Wheeler. 566 pp. 4to, with 22 plates. Pennsylvania Geological Survey. Report of Progress in the Beaver River District of the Bituminous Coal-fields of Western Pennsylvania: by J. C. White. 338 pp. 8vo, with 12 plates. Harrisburg. 1878. Mineralogy and Lithology of New Hampshire, by G. W. Hawes, Geological Survey of New Hampshire. 262 pp. roy. 8vo. With 12 plates. Concord, N. H. 1030 pp. 1878. 8vo. tor. Report on Food-fishes, Fish-culture for 1875-1876. By S. F. Baird. Report on Forrestry, prepared under direction of the Commissioner of Agriculture. By F. B. Hough. 650 pp. 8vo. Washington. 1878. The Speaking Telephone, Talking Phonograph and other Novelties, by G. B. Prescott. 432 pp. 8vo, with many illustrations. New York. 1878. (D. Appleton & Co.) Annual Record of Science and Industry for 1877, edited by Spencer F. Baird, with the assistance of men of science. 480 pp. New York. 1878. (Harper & Brothers.) Elements of Dynamic; an Introduction to the Study of Motion and Rest in Solid and Fluid Bodies, by W. K. Clifford, F.R.S. Part I, Kinematic. 222 pp. 12mo. London. 1878. (Macmillan & Co.) Die Vereinigten Staaten von Nord America, von Dr. Friedr. Ratzel, Professor der Erdkunde zu München. Erster Band, Physikalische Geographie und Naturcharakter. 668 pp. large 8vo, with illustrations. Munich. 1878. Metasomatic Development of the Copper-bearing Rocks of Lake Superior, by R. Pumpelly. 310 pp. 8vo. Proc. Am. Acad., vol. xiii. Bulletin of the Bussey Institution of Harvard University. Vol. ii, Part iii. Boston. 1878. Tafeln zur Bestimmung der Mineralien von Franz von Kobell. Elfte vermehrte Auflage. 110 pp. 8vo. München. 1878. Notes from the Chemical Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University, Nos. 9-12. Baltimore, Md. Report on the Hydroida collected during the Exploration of the Gulf Stream by L. F. de Pourtalès, Assistant U. S. Coast Survey and forming No. 2 of vol. v of the Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, by G. J. Allman. 64 pp. 4to, with 34 plates. Cambridge, Mass. 1877. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS. [THIRD SERIES.] ART. IX.-Forest Geography and Archaeology: a Lecture delivered before the Harvard University Natural History Society, April 18, 1878; by ASA GRAY. It is the forests of the Northern temperate zone which we are to traverse. After taking some note of them in their present condition and relations, we may enquire into their pedigree; and, from a consideration of what and where the component trees have been in days of old, derive some probable explanation of peculiarities which otherwise seem inexplicable and strange. In speaking of our forests in their present condition, I mean. not exactly as they are to-day, but as they were before civilized man had materially interfered with them. In the district we inhabit such interference is so recent that we have little difficulty in conceiving the conditions which here prevailed, a few generations ago, when the "forest primeval"-described in the first lines of a familiar poem-covered essentially the whole country, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Canada to Florida and Texas, from the Atlantic to beyond the Mississippi. This, our Atlantic forest, is one of the largest and almost the richest of the temperate forests of the world. That is, it comprises a greater diversity of species than any other, except one. In crossing the country from the Atlantic westward, we leave this forest behind us when we pass the western borders of those organized States which lie along the right bank of the Mississippi. We exchange it for prairies and open plains, wooded only along the water-courses,-plains which grow more AM. JOUR. SCI.-THIRD SERIES, VOL. XVI, No. 92.—AUGUST, 1878. and more bare and less green as we proceed westward, with only some scattering cottonwoods (i. e. poplars) on the immediate banks of the traversing rivers, which are themselves far between. In the Rocky Mountains we come again to forest, but only in narrow lines or patches; and if you travel by the Pacific Railroad you hardly come to any; the eastern and the interiordesert plains meet along the comparatively low level of the divide which here is so opportune for the railway; but both north and south of this line the mountains themselves are fairly wooded. Beyond, through all the wide interior basin, and also north and south of it, the numerous mountain chains seem to be as bare as the alkaline plains they traverse, mostly north and south; and the plains bear nothing taller than sagebrush. But those who reach and climb these mountains find that their ravines and higher recesses nourish no small amount of timber, though the trees themselves are mostly small and always low. When the western rim of this great basin is reached there is an abrupt change of scene. This rim is formed of the Sierra Nevada. Even its eastern slopes are forest-clad in great measure; while the western bear in soine respects the noblest and most remarkable forest of the world;-remarkable even for the number of species of evergreen trees occupying a comparatively narrow area, but especially for their wonderful development in size and altitude. Whatever may be claimed for individual Eucalyptus-trees in certain sheltered ravines of the southern part of Australia, it is probable that there is no forest to be compared for grandeur with that which stretches, essentially unbroken, though often narrowed, and nowhere very wide, from the southern part of the Sierra Nevada in lat. 36° to Puget Sound beyond lat. 49°, and not a little farther. Descending into the long valley of California, the forest changes, dwindles, and mainly disappears. In the Pacific Coast Ranges, it resumes its sway, with altered features, some of them not less magnificent and of greater beauty. The Redwoods of the coast, for instance, are little less gigantic than the Big-trees of the Sierra Nevada, and far handsomer, and a thousand times more numerous. And several species which are merely or mainly shrubs in the drier Sierra, become lordly trees in the moister air of the northerly coast ranges. Through most of California these two Pacific forests are separate; in the northern part of that State they join, and form one rich woodland belt, skirting the Pacific, backed by the Cascade Mountains, and extending through British Columbia into our Alaskan territory. So we have two forest-regions in North America,―an Atlan |