not only, as shown by Daniel Bernouilli, through the holes in the divergent part, but also through holes in the contiguous portion of the cylindrical part. In the experiment performed, the angle of divergency from the axis of the tube was four degrees and a half.

Three hundred and forty-eighth meeting.

May 28, 1851. ANNUAL MEETING.

The PRESIDENT in the chair.

Mr. B. A. Gould, Jr., laid before the Academy a letter from the widow of the late Professor Schumacher, gratefully acknowledging the receipt of the letter of condolence, on account of the recent death of her husband, addressed to her by the committee of the Academy appointed for that purpose.

It was then voted to proceed to the choice of officers for the ensuing year. The following gentlemen were chosen officers of the Academy, viz. :

HON. EDWARD EVERETT,.. Vice-President.

AUGUSTUS A. GOULD, M. D., . Corresponding Secretary.

HENRY I. BOWDITCH, M. D., Librarian.

The following gentlemen were chosen members of the several Standing Committees, viz. :

Committee of Publication.

JOSEPH LOVERING, LOUIS AGASSIZ,

A. A. GOULD,

Committee on the Library.

D. H. STORER,

W. C. BOND.

S. L. ABBOT.

Mr. Everett, from the committee on the Toronto Observatory, made an oral report of the doings of the committee. He also made some remarks on the importance of a system of more extended scientific observations than can be carried on by the coöperation of private individuals or of scientific bodies; and, on his motion, it was

"Voted, That a committee of five be appointed by the chair to present a memorial to Congress at the ensuing session, praying that an appropriation may be made to defray the expense of scientific observations, to be taken under the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, or otherwise, as may be deemed expedient by Congress."

Messrs. Everett, Agassiz, Peirce, Bond, and Lovering were appointed a committee to carry the above vote into effect.

The following gentlemen were chosen Fellows of the Academy :

Professor Benjamin Silliman, Jr., of New Haven ;

Professor John P. Norton, of New Haven.

Rev. Dr. Jenks exhibited a copy of an inscription on a rock in the small island of Manānas, near the island of Monhegan, and offered the following remarks:

"The great simplicity of the strokes, their resemblance to marks. for merely scoring articles, often made in the delivery of bulky merchandise; and the supposition, also, that they might have been the occupation of some idle hour, had led me to undervalue them, and speak of them but slightingly. Since, however, mentioning them the last time, before a meeting of the Antiquarian Society, I have had opportunity of seeing the elaborate report on the subject of the American Indians, made by Mr. Schoolcraft, in which he gives an index to the meaning of the celebrated Dighton Inscription. This had been dilated on by Professor Rafn, copiously. But Mr. Schoolcraft has apparently proved that there are two inscriptions of widely differing origin, that the one may be Runic, and certainly is not Indian, since nothing of an alphabetic character appears in any of their rock-paintings; and that the other is decidedly Indian, as testified by Chingwauk, his assistant examiner and expert in Indian picture-narratives.

"On reading this opinion, which appeared to me more reasonable than any I had seen, I reviewed my transcript, and, comparing it with the various Runic alphabets of various ages exhibited by Hickes in his

Thesaurus, and by Professor Rafn and his coadjutors in their various publications, I found that all the characters or combinations of them, except one, were decidedly Runic, or could be so supposed on good grounds; and even that one might possibly be accounted for in some of the known variations of the alphabet or its contractions. The last two of the characters are precisely similar to the last two of the Runic motto chosen by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, and printed on some of their volumes.

"In the Dighton Inscription not more than six or seven characters are claimed as Runic, or even Phoenician, Punic, or foreign. Here are eighteen at least. They are on the side of a ledge of rock near the middle of the little island Manānas, or, as Williamson writes it, Menannah, which is separated from Monhegan island only by a narrow strait that forms the harbor of the latter.

"The island of Monhegan is only about three leagues from the nearest shore of the continent, and was very early and long frequented after the English began to colonize the country. It consists of one thousand acres, and has nearly one hundred inhabitants; the little island containing the inscription consists of but two acres.

"The characters themselves were reported to me as being about six inches in length, and from a quarter to half an inch deep. On the top of the rock, also, are three excavations, made about one foot apart, triangularly, from two to three inches in diameter, and about one inch deep, as if for receiving a tripod.

"My object, Mr. President, in making this communication, is, as I have said, that, if any gentleman should feel disposed during the sum. mer to visit that vicinity, either for health or pleasure, and has it in his power, he may be induced to make a more accurate and minute copy, or, what is better, take an impression either in papier maché, as has been suggested to me by the Librarian of the Athenæum, or in plaster of Paris, clay, or some other substance, so that we may have a certainty of possessing what yet remains of the inscription itself, and that a communication may be made to the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen."

Professor Horsford exhibited a globe, having a series of parallel lines drawn upon it, to illustrate Foucault's pendulum experiment, upon which he made some remarks. Further comments upon the same subject were made by Professor Peirce and Dr. B. A. Gould, Jr.

Three hundred and forty-ninth meeting.

August 13, 1851. QUARTERLY MEETING.

The PRESIDENT in the chair.

The Corresponding Secretary laid before the Academy a letter of acceptance from Professor Carl Rokitansky, of Vienna.

The following gentlemen were elected Fellows of the Academy :

Professor John H. C. Coffin, of Washington;

Waldo J. Burnett, M. D., of Boston;

Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M. D., of Boston.

Professor Agassiz exhibited some specimens of a new type of Echinoderms; one of Holothuridæ of the genus Orcula, discovered on the coast of Maine, near Eastport, which he called Orcula punctata; one of the genus Synapta, which he called Synapta coriacea; a gigantic Holothuria from Florida, which he called Holothuria heros; and a new species of Ophiura, from Eastport, which he called Ophiura acufera.

The PRESIDENT in the chair.

On motion of Professor Peirce, it was

"Voted, That every communication to the Academy shall, before being made, be entered by its title in a book to be kept by the Recording Secretary for that purpose, and numbered at the discretion of its author, with any number not previously appropriated.

"Voted, That communications shall be made to the Academy in the order of their numbers.

"Voted, That members shall be requested to note the time their communications will probably require."

After some introductory remarks by Professor Peirce, Mr. Blasius communicated to the Academy the results of a very laborious investigation and analysis of the phenomena of the late destructive tornado in the eastern part of Middlesex Coun

ty. He had discovered, in the track of the tornado, a series of points of greatest destruction, which succeeded each other at constantly increasing distances. He endeavored to account for the ascertained facts, by referring them to the collision of a northwest and a southwest wind, of which he thought there was satisfactory evidence.

Dr. A. A. Gould stated some additional observations made by him at the time of the occurrence of the tornado.

Mr. Guyot, who had examined a part of the track of the tornado with Mr. Blasius, testified to the accuracy of his observations, but did not coincide with him in his theoretical views.

Professor Peirce thought that some of the phenomena of the tornado were incompatible both with Espy's and with Redfield's theory of storms, and offered some objections to the explanations of Mr. Blasius.

Three hundred and fifty-first meeting.

November 4, 1851. MONTHLY MEETING.

The PRESIDENT in the chair.

Professor Agassiz gave an account of two families of fishes not before observed in the United States, the Myxinoids and the Erythrinoids, and described a new genus, Phyllobranchus.

Professor Agassiz also communicated some new views in regard to the geological position of the coal at Mansfield, Massachusetts, which led to an animated discussion, in which Mr. Bouvé, Dr. C. T. Jackson, and Professor Horsford took part. He advanced the opinion, that the slate rocks at Nahant are metamorphosed shales of the Mansfield coal formation; that the sienite which overlies them is not the cause of the metamorphic change, and is not an intruded rock, but is itself a metamorphic sandstone of the coal period.

Mr. Bouvé remarked, that, if these views were correct, heat must have been transmitted through the coal-bearing rocks sufficient to melt down and render liquid or semi-liquid the