add the matter necessary to bring his work up to date in science, within square brackets (as in Stephen's edition of "Blackstone's Commentaries"), or as notes, or even as an appendix, the whole work to be in the hands of an efficient committee. The proposition was very cordially received, and I should like to hear what English men of science think of the matter. The book is of the freshest, brightest nature; even as a small boy I delighted in it; and my own idea is that de Saussure, though necessarily behind the giant strides of modern knowledge, made so very few mistakes that re-publication would not have the same dangers for his reputation as it might for that of a mere mediocrity. MARSHALL HALL Vernex-Montreux, Canton Vaud, Switzerland, August 19 "Report of an Unusual Phenomenon Observed at Sea" I CAN supply a second instance of the "unusual phenomenon observed at sea," communicated by the Hydrographer of the Navy to NATURE, vol. xxi. p. 291. One night in April, 1875 (I cannot give the exact date, as my notes were lost in the ship) H.M.S. Bulldog was lying becalmed in a glassy sea off a point of land a few miles north of Vera Cruz, when a line of light appeared along the northern horizon, and unaccompanied by the least breath of wind, swept towards and past the ship, in a series of swift luminous pulsations, precisely similar to those described by Mr. Pringle. Acting on the old sea formula, "observed a phenomenon, caught a bicketful," we dipped up some of the water, and found noctilucæ and crustaceans in it. These may have supplied the luminosity, but if so, the exceedingly swift travelling cause of their stimulation would still remain unaccounted for. A squall accompanied by incessant thunder and lightning overtook the ship the same night. EDWARD L. Moss Kathgar, Dublin, August 19 Boring Molluscs THE following extract from Prof. Joseph [Leidy's paper on "Vertebrate Remains, chiefly from the Phosphate Beds of South Carolina," which appeared in NATURE, vol. xx. p. 354, will serve in aid of the solution of the still open question, By what means do the boring molluscs penetrate hard rocks?—"The_fossils mainly consist of the harder parts of the skeleton and of teeth, usually more or less water-worn, indicating shallow seas and an active surf to which they were exposed. Many of them exhibit the drilling effects of boring molluscs, especially those which are supposed to have been derived from the tertiary marl rock, the operation of drilling apparently having been performed both before and during the time the fossils were imbedded in the rock. Only enamel, or the enamel-like dentinal layer such as is found investing the crown of the teeth of sharks, appears to have been a protection against the drilling power of the borers." Were the burrows produced by the solvent action of an acid, there is no reason why the enamel should have arrested the solvent rather than the dentine, although it might yield more slowly to it; but its refractory behaviour under friction accounts for the Pholades and Teredines being nonplused; while their desistance from fruitless efforts affords an instructive example of pure instinctive action, i.e., reflex action "the prompting to which is given by sensations." PAUL HENRY STOKOE Beddington Park Intellect in Brutes A CORRESPONDENT of yours tells a tale (NATURE, vol. xx. P. 338) about a cat ringing a bell to be let in. Without any wish of "topping" this tale, I think the following will go far to demonstrate the existence of a thinking power in the brute brain, if indeed that fact is ever doubted :— Some relatives of mine living in Sussex owned a very intelligent dog of somewhat doubtful breed, having, however, a decided touch of the French poodle in his composition. In addition to this animal they also had a favourite cat. For some time they were bothered in the way your correspondent describes by runaway knocks, instead of rings, as in his case; however, they discovered that the cat had learnt to stand on her hind legs and reach the knocker which was low on the door, and to knock distinct and separate double knocks until she was admitted. This in itself was curious, but a short time after they discovered this fact they discovered another still more curious. They were in the habit of turning the dog out every evening for an airing. It invariably happened that if the cat was out of the house at the same time, that a short time after the dog was turned out they would hear a knock at the door. On its being opened both animals would be found outside and would immediately come in, the dog always allowing the cat to precede him. There seems to be no doubt that the dog finding out that the cat could obtain entrance was in the habit of searching for her when he wanted to come in, and either waiting till she was ready to knock at the door, or of inducing her to do it to please him. I can myself vouch for the above facts. W. H. KESTEVEN Holloway, August 13 MR. LAYARD'S letter mentioning the bell-ringing cat leads me to send the following account of a wise old Scotch collie with which I was personally acquainted. Toby, belonging to my friend Mr. T. F. Hancock, formerly of Tyes Place, Staplefield, Sussex, was passionately fond of his vocation, but at the same time made much of in the parlour. On one occasion, while lying in front of the fire in the dining-room, he heard sheep going by the house along the farm-road. He ran to the windowseat and then to the door, at the same time looking imploringly at my friend's sisters, as if to beg them to let him out. This, however, they declined to do, and after one or two journeys between window and door, he ran to the long, old-fashioned bell-pull, rang the bell, stood at the door, and bolted out and round into the kitchen as soon as the servant appeared. After this Toby was constantly employed during meals to ring the bell, and I have myself often made him perform the operation, which was always accompanied by a good deal of barking. My friend has a more than life-sized painting of this wise dog, painted by the late Charles Hancock, the animal-painter. One more instance of reasoning I will relate. A few months ago my wife and I were bathing a cocker dog in the stream flowing through the grounds of St. Helen's, Cockermouth. We threw a croquet-ball into deep water, and the dog was to bring it to shore. But the ball was rather large for the size of her mouth, and as often as she snapped at it the ball glided away. After vainly endeavouring to grip the ball, we watched her suddenly give over, and begin pawing it with her fore-feet until she brought it into shallow water, when she easily made the capture, and brought the ball to the bank. The same was repeated several times. It is unnecessary to say that this was not the result of teaching. J. CLIFTON WARD Keswick, August 14 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1879 THE HUMAN SPECIES The Human Species. By A. de Quatrefages, Professor of Anthropology in the Museum of Natural History, Paris. (London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1879.) THERE is possibly no science which is so generally misunderstood, and yet has had so many works of popular exposition, as anthropology. It is but a few years ago that the works of Latham, Lawrence, Pickering, and Prichard formed almost solely the consulting literature of the science in this country; and without referring to the various standard works that have since been contributed on special branches of the subject by English workers, the exclusively English reader has perhaps been enabled to consult the translated works of continental anthropologists to a greater extent than has been the opportunity of the student in other fields of science. During the last fifteen years volumes of Blumenbach, Broca, Gastaldi, Peschel, Pouchet, Topinard, Vogt, and Waitz have appeared in this country in our own language, and now to the list may be added the work of the distinguished naturalist under notice, whose name, however, will be popularly remembered as the author of "Rambles of a Naturalist on the Coasts of France, Spain, and Sicily," which appeared in London in 1857. Naturally, among the above treatises, there are to be found wide divergences of views, and perhaps the student of anthropology should be above all others careful to avoid the scientific extremes of either a Paul or Barnabas persuasion. It is, however, absolutely necessary that we should understand our author, especially that we should learn whether he approaches the consideration of the study of man with any preconceived notions, which may be peculiar to himself or not generally held by other thinkers. This M. de Quatrefages promptly discloses in the first division of his book, entitled "Unity of the Human Species," a subject which seems still somewhat of a burning question among French anthropologists. The question as to there being a fundamental distinction between man and other animals is settled in the affirmative, and for the following reasons : by the destruction of the fowls attacked. It is a question, however, whether the occurrence of melanism in our poultry-yards is not often an instance of atavism, and it is probably incorrect to say (p. 49) that the flesh of black fowls presents a repugant appearance, and for this reason the propagation of the variety is prevented, when, as is generally well known, fowls of the black Spanish breed are greatly valued as table birds. This section concludes with a discussion of the vexed term "species," and, according to M. de Quatrefages, knowledge of facts preceded terminology, and his arguments compel him to the opinion that "species is then a reality." Without, however, going so far as to say with Goethe that species exist only in the copybooks of the specialists, is it not certainly a fact that the founders of zoological nomenclature and classification based their conclusions then, much as we do, and necessarily in zoological descriptions of to-day, on the general outward resemblance and structure of living forms, and that knowledge of facts more frequently follows terminology, as any well qualified and exhaustive monograph of an animal group that has been long worked and studied by zoologists of different views and methods will exhibit? Few ornithologists, in describing a new fruitpigeon from abroad, are guided by the researches of Darwin on the multitudinous variations of the domestic pigeon at home; and as for the descriptive entomologist, he, at least, can hardly realise species as a reality with his present limited knowledge of the life histories of exotic insects. In a philosophic sense the word species, as a rule in zoological literature, is a useful biological conventionalism, as necessary but as difficult to rigidly define as the term atom, and often playing as valuable a part in classification or generalisation as the "imaginary quantity" of the mathematician fulfils in the course of his calculations. It is for these reasons that we have found a difficulty in following M. de Quatrefages in all the rigidity of his specific definitions. The second portion of the work is devoted to the "origin of the human species." To the question whether it is possible to explain the appearance on our globe of a being "which forms a kingdom to itself," M. de Quatrefages does "not hesitate to reply in the negative." It is to be 1. Man has the perception of moral good and evil, inde- noted how such an eminent naturalist as our author is still pendently of all physical welfare or suffering. 2. Man believes in superior beings who can exercise an influence upon his destiny. 3. Man believes in the prolongation of his existence after this life. Readers of Lubbock, Spencer, or Tylor will perhaps scarcely accept this as the philosophy at least of primitive man, but, in justice to M. de Quatrefages, we must endeavour to obtain his definition of the moral and religious stage, and this again is clearly set forth in the following sentence:-"The learned mathematician, who seeks by the aid of the most profound abstractions the solution of some great problem, is completely without the moral or religious sphere into which, on the contrary, the ignorant, simple-minded man enters when he struggles, suffers, or dies for justice or for his faith." In discussing the different colours of mankind, melanism is considered to be the result of accidental variations, and is compared with that which, appearing in our poultryyards from time to time, is only prevented from spreading VOL. XX.-No. 514 opposed to Darwinism, which in this section receives copious treatment, and some of the grounds principally given for its rejection are to many minds who embrace it the reasons of their faith. "The positive knowledge which has been won by nearly two centuries of work" is not considered by Darwinists to be invalidated, but rather illuminated, by the light of "natural selection," and facts which were unmeaning before, now by its aid form one harmonious whole in an evolutionary cosmos. It is remarkable that the doctrine of "natural selection" appears to have been a greater stumbling-block to the French mind than might naturally have been expected, whilst in German thought it seems to have at once supplied a want. Is it that French biology has never cared to depart from the glory that illumines the work of the illustrious Cuvier, and, like other schemes of philosophy, remains true but riveted to the teachings of its founder? Even M. de Quatrefages recognises something of this, and speaks of "the reserve, perhaps exaggerated, which Cuvier imposed upon himself, and the confidence which was placed in U case I am about to relate consist in the discovery of the operation of a not uncommon mode of insect reproduction in a new field, but rather in its altogether abnormal and fortuitous character in the species of beetle concerned, viz., Gastrophysa raphani. My own observations hitherto on this species have been uniformly to the effect that unimpregnated females lay always barren eggs, and that one intercourse with the male renders fruitful all eggs subsequently laid. I bred the female in question from the egg this year, and have kept her isolated since her exclusion as an imago. She has laid, up to the present, about twenty batches of eggs consisting of about thirty-four and fifty-one alternately in the batch. Of these, some fifteen batches have been observed; and only in one of these, No. 10, to wit, consisting of thirty-four eggs, and in one of these thirty-four only were any traces of development observed. This batch was laid between the 2nd and 4th of August. On the 5th I noticed in one an appearance which is usual about this time in fertilised eggs, which I have been accustomed to think about as the "embryonic him" as having weighed heavily upon science by impeding the comprehension of the value of new observations. In discussing the antiquity of man, the present geological epoch is considered with "almost absolute certainty" as having commenced less than 100,000 years ago, and the opinion is pronounced that no facts have as yet been discovered which authorise us to place the cradle of the human race elsewhere than in Asia. As to the appearance of primitive man, our author concludes that "all that the present state of our knowledge allows us to say is that, according to all appearance, he ought to be characterised by a certain amount of prognathism, and have neither a black skin nor woolly hair. It is also fairly probable that his colour would resemble that of the yellow races, and his hair be more or less red. Finally, every-scroll," and which, on reference to Huxley's "Anatomy of Inthing tends to the conclusion that the language of our earliest ancestors was a more or less pronounced monosyllabic one." Once in possession of these views of our author, we can with the greater advantage read the excellent summaries and descriptions which form a large portion of the work relative to migration, acclimatisation, and "fossil races"; but perhaps the most interesting are those devoted to the "Psychological Characters of the Human Species." These tend to show in a new sense the brotherhood of man, so that if political economy could be called the "dismal science," anthropology should be considered as the most cheerful of its learned sisters. M. de Quatrefages combats some of the views of Sir John Lubbock as expressed in his "Origin of Civilisation" with great force, and has some very useful reflections on the danger of attributing all sense of honesty as absent in certain races on insufficent data. "Nothing is more common than to hear travellers accuse entire races of an incorrigible propensity for theft. The insular populations of the South Sea have, amongst others, been reproached with it. These people, it is indignantly affirmed, stole even the nails of the ships! But these nails were iron, and in these islands, which are devoid of metal, a little iron was, with good cause, regarded as a treasure. Now, I ask any of my readers, supposing a ship with sheathing and bolts of gold, and nails of diamonds and rubies were to sail into any European port, would its sheathing or its nails be safe?" In conclusion, though many parts of this work show that to the author Darwin must have lived and written in vain, and some of the portions appear as anthropology little advanced from the time of Prichard, we cannot but still feel grateful that the general literature of this littleknown, but most necessary of sciences, should have been enriched by a useful though not infallible book. W. L. DISTANT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed I Do not know whether any instances have been recorded of parthenogenesis in the coleoptera, nor does the interest of the vertebrated Animals," pp. 444-445, I am inclined to think may Milford, Letterkenny, August 18 Fonts in the Rocks of Brook Courses I BELIEVE the present an opportune time to direct the attention of geologists to the occurrence of water graven fonts in the rocks of brook courses, as the season of field-work is come, and the summer conditions of our water-courses facilitate observations of this most curious and interesting, as well as deeply important, of river physics. So long ago as two years, examining the rocks bared on a river channel for the purpose of making a section, I found fonts in the rocks over which the waters run (in Slievardagh coal-field, Tipperary). I had not previously known of their occurrence. Those I first found I then looked on as something exceptional, but as my investigations extended and as I learned to recognise the conditions under which fonts are graven, I found them to be pretty general in streams having rapid descents. Nor do I think their occurrence is generally known and noted by geologists and physicists. I have seen in print but one allusion to them-in NATURE, vol. xix. p. 76, where they are notified as observed in a river in East Africa during the dry season as a "noteworthy peculiarity." In what hereinafter appears, I do not at all mean to question the theory given as explanatory of the large "well-like basins on the African river; doubtless our traveller had his good reasons for his conclusions. The mode of occurrence of these fonts in the Slievardagh brooks is, I venture to submit, as follows:-They are graven in the rocks by falling waters; these waters being the main stream, a portion (and it may be a diminutive quantity) locally detached from the main stream, or a feeder dropping into the main stream from steep, rocky sides. This is the primary cause. But along with the presence of a graving machine in the falling waters, to explain the making of the fonts a concurrent cause is necessary, as otherwise they should be looked for anywhere and everywhere on rapid descents. The conducive condition is the coincidence of falling waters with a weakness of the rock, such as an intersection of the division planes or fissures. I have secured a specimen font, 10 inches deep and 12 inches width across the bell-shaped mouth, in compact siliceous rock graven by a Stream diminutive shoot of the main stream running down the depression which generally marks the edge of a division plane till it reached an intersection; at the intersection it graved a font, and issuing from this went on to the next, and there graved another (see sketch, Fig. 1). The stream, flowing round and kept up by a bed of rock dipping approximately in the direction of the current, overflows in flood-time, or generally except in dry summer weather, down the fissure A B; at the intersections the fonts were graven, and the water on leaving the lower one runs along the edge of a superposed bed. We are now bound to seek a limiting condition, as otherwise almost every pool into which there is a waterfall might reasonably be expected to be a font. The limiting cause is the relation between the size of the blocks into which the rock is divided and the graving power of the falling waters. If the waterfall is sufficient to grave a font of over a certain size in rocks broken by planes into blocks of a certain size, the consequence is that the whole blocks or blocks by frag. ments will be broken away, and the walls will be the divisional planes of the rock and lose altogether the font shape, as is wholly or partially the case under our larger waterfalls owing to the pigmy plan" on which our (Slievardagh) rocks are broken up by planes. Fig. 2 will explain the meaning I wish to convey. The Good Time Begun THE following has just been received from a nephew in the Bombay Presidency, who, after speaking generally of a tremendous gale from the south-west, with heavy sea, fog, &c., all along the West Coast, writes thus more particularly: "That same mist and rain have been for the present the saving of this Presidency from another famine. It (the rain) has been general and heavy all over the country, and was just in time to save the crops, which were fast perishing from lack of moisture. If we have a little more this month and another good fall in September, we shall be quite safe; and I do trust we shall not be disappointed, as another year-the fourth in succession of scarcity would well nigh make the bankruptcy of India,' so far as Bombay is concerned, a sad fact." You will note the appearance of this desiderated Indian rain coming from the same direction as the chief part of that which has been deluging our own country; but which Mr. Campbell shrewdly attributed, in NATURE, vol. xx. p. 403, to the sun recovering his forces and beginning already to shine, after his recent languid, spotless years, with increased radiation on the great oceans of the south. PIAZZI SMYTH 15, Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, August 30 Insect-Swarms IN answer to Mr. Hawkshaw's question whether any one had seen a flight of moths and butterflies in England similar to the one he observed at Trouville on August 12 and 13, I can say that on August 12 I was walking on the Dawlish Warren (a bar of sand stretching across the mouth of the Exe) and noticed a great number of P. gamma moths; they were close to the edge Fig 2 Suppose the rocks broken by two sets of planes, and there may be many sets and the stratification as well; now suppose a font graven to the size of the circle; it is plain that this could not have stability, as the blocks at A, B, C, D would have come away during the process. But had the font been so small as to take only a portion of any four blocks no discontinuance of the graving action could yet have occurred. I may add that about 2 feet in width and depth is the size of the largest font I have come upon hitherto. Earlshill Colliery, Thurles WILLIAM MORRIS of the water; many of them were dead, and the sand hoppers were eating them, but many more were alive and trying to flutter inland, but seemed too weak to do so. I picked up some and carried them to some wild thyme and they began to feed at once. Some of the moths were in good condition but others very much battered. The wind was blowing freshly from the sea at the time. The moths swarmed in the hedges all the way from our house to the Warren, a distance of four miles, especially on the bramble flowers. There were a great many V. cardui with the moths in the hedges, but none on the beach. A few days afterwards I had a letter from my brother at Dieppe saying there had been a swarm of moths and butterflies there, especially mentioning P. gamma and V. cardui, but there were also skippers and clouded whites. They swarmed about the town and country and were lying dead on the beach. The swarm of moths and butterflies was also on August 12. EDITH PYCROFT Kenton, near Exeter, August 31 Earthquake in Dominica The A SEVERE shock of earthquake was felt here at 1.20 A.M. yesterday (Sunday) the 10th instant, and at intervals, until 1.52, there were several tremulous movements of the earth. noise immediately preceding the first shock reminded me of the clatter which is sometimes heard on board an ocean-going steamer in very rough weather, when a heavy sea strikes the ship, and all the crockery laid out for dinner is suddenly thrown from the "fiddles" and broken into pieces on the floor of the saloon. After the first shock there was an interval of perfect quiet until 1.30, when subterranean noises like the discharging or booming of distant guns attracted my attention, and then, at intervals varying from two to five minutes' duration, I counted six of these discharges, and following each discharge there came a gentle tremulous movement. Immediately after the last movement, heavy rain fell, and at 1.55 there were several flashes of very vivid lightning accompanied by loud peals of thunder. The rain continued to fall during all yesterday and last night. Although Dominica is essentially of volcanic origin, and contains at the present day three active geysers, called respectively the Souffrière, the Walton Waven, and the Boiling Lake, no unusual quantity of sulphurous or mephitic vapours have lately been noticeable in the atmosphere; in fact, only one of the phenomena usually attending earthquakes preceded the shocks I have just described, and that was violent rain. The planters' dry season" may be said to begin in January and to end in July, and during these months, harvesting, ie., sugar-making, goes on uninterruptedly. This year, however, there has been no "dry season," for 101 67 inches of rain have fallen on the east coast and 45'80 on the west coast of this island. 66 I may add, in conclusion, that being unwell and unable to sleep, I was reading by lamplight when the shocks above described took place, and that I timed them carefully with a chronometer-watch by Barraud and Lund, which was on a chair near my bed. EDMUND WATT Resident District Magistrate, Leeward Islands Dominica, British West Indies, August 11 Is it True that no Animal can be shown to have made Use of Antecedent Experience to intentionally im. prove upon the Past? I HAD a pair of yellow African singing finches last year. The hen laid twenty-two eggs during the year, three at each nesting. In early spring I gave her materials to build with. She selected cotton wool and fine dryish grass for her purpose. It was very cold weather when she built her first nest in a little basket which I fixed high up in her cage. The nest was a mere film of cotton wool lined with a few blades of grass. Of course the little creature could not sufficiently warm her eggs to hatch them, if they had proved fertile, which they did not. At the end of fourteen days the cock, finding the eggs unhatched, set to work to bury them under cotton and grass (he being the only cock bird I had ever kept that built quite as well and as diligently as the hen did). I then removed the eggs and the nest, and gave the birds fresh materials to build another nest with. They very soon accom. plished this, making the nest of the same materials, but thicker and more compact than the last. Again three white eggs were laid in it, but the hen could not get up the necessary degree of heat to hatch them, and at the end of fourteen days the cock set to work to build a third nest over them as before. I again took away the nest and eggs, and I replaced the basket, this time covered externally with wadding and flannel, in hopes that thus I might help the hen to get up the proper temperature. The little creatures immediately set to work to build again, but they this time built a much thicker and warmer and more compact nest than they had ever done before. The eggs proved fertile, and the process of incubation seemed to be successfully drawing to a close; but the patience of the cock did not suffice for the occasion. At the end of the tenth day he set to work to pull the cotton wool and grass about from the edges of the nest, and tried to bury the eggs as before, urging the hen to begin again also. This showed an unaccountable lack of instinct, not to say of reason; but surely the fact that the birds built each succeeding nest more and more thickly and warmly till incubation was possible indicates that they had made use of antecedent experience, and intentionally improved upon the past. These birds built a warm nest this spring, and succeeded in hatching a young one. J. E. S. was appointed Flag Captain to Commodore Sir John Hayes's squadron, and he subsequently received the thanks of the Indian Government for, among other services, his surveys and explorations of the enemy's coasts and rivers. Now the soundings in the gulf would be about the first made. Hence the date would be 1822, or fifty-seven years ago. This shows an average annual deposit of 18 foot, which, although very much less than what Mr. Doyle imagines, is yet almost incredible. May there not have been a gradual rising of the sea bottom to assist? FRASER S. CRAWFORD Adelaide, South Australia, July 16 Sphinx (Deilephila) Lineata As this insect is "unquestionably rare in England," and not common anywhere ("D. Daucus, a native of North America, being placed for it "-according to Mr. Stephens-"in collections"), perhaps I may be allowed to mention that a beautiful and perfect specimen of it was secured in my garden, on the 15th inst., by my little son, William Cecil. He was attracted to its resting-place in a wigelia bush by the flight there of a common gamma, and to his credit, inclosed it gently in his hand without the slightest injury-a prize indeed for a collector eight years old! A specimen was also sent my daughter some months ago, from Porto Fino on the Riviera di Levante, by Mr. Robert Macdonald, but it was unfortunately wrecked in the post. Bregner, Bournemouth, August 18 HENRY CECIL The Recent Hail-storm I INCLOSE a tracing of a broken window-pane-one of the the numerous cases of damage caused by the hail-storm on the morning of the 3rd inst. in this place. I almost fear the subject is one unworthy the attention of your readers, but I am curious to know what relation the space cut out may bear to the size of the hailstone causing it; and whether the clean and regular opening made would indicate an almost horizontal direction of the blow, as in the case of a bullet. Observations of the extreme dimensions of the hailstones on that occasion are various among my neighbours, but one so large as 3 inches seems incredible; and that one approaching such a size should strike a window at a right angle appears also improbable. CHAS. FREDk. White 42, Windsor Road, Ealing, August 20 OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN THE WASHINGTON CATALOGUE.-A second edition, as it is termed, of this extensive and useful work has been published, and will be found to be an even more important aid to the practical astronomer than the former one, which appeared as an appendix to the Washington volume for 1871, and to which reference has been made in this column as the "Washington General Catalogue." Like the first edition, it was prepared for publication by the late Prof. Yarnall, who died suddenly after a few hours' illness on February 27, having been an astronomer at the United States Naval Observatory for twenty-six years. In a note prefixed to this second edition, Admiral Rodgers, the present superintendent of the Observatory, handsomely acknowledges the extent and value of Prof. Yarnall's labours. A large majority of the observations upon which the catalogue is founded were made by him, as well as the computations, and the first printing of the work was executed under his immediate direction. It is stated that the completed volume only reached him when he was already unconscious-an hour before his death. Astronomers will recognise in this volume not only a work of exceeding usefulness to them, but also a fitting memorial coming at the close of the long professional life of its author." As was explained in the introduction to the former edition, the stars forming the catalogue consist mainly of stars used in observations with the zenith telescope, in the U.S. Army Surveys, in the lists of the Coast Survey, and many of Lacaille's stars mostly observed by Lacaille only. But there is a great addition of small stars, the |