boiling in strong acids injure the valves of diatoms, and especially those which have delicate markings; Bailey's method as modified by your subscriber subjects them to the least possible risk of being broken or defaced. 4. Proposition for a Humboldi Fund for Scientific Investigations and Travels. We have received from the venerable and distinguished Carl Ritter, the illustrious Geographer of Berlin, the following "Proposition," and take pleasure in laying it before the American public in the hope that the appeal which it impliedly contains for American contributions may not be in vain. We shall be very happy to receive and transmit to Berlin any contributions to the HUMBOLDT FUND which the friends of science may entrust to us.-EDs.] "In the course of centuries there springs up here and there a man who, uniting powers of investigation and generalization, like Aristotle or Leibnitz, represents in himself the multifarious science of his time. Among these few powerful minds belongs ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT; bold and cautious, profound and comprehensive, alike fertile and brilliant, a pride and a joy to his contemporaries of both hemispheres. What he brought to life in science will never die, but will continue bearing fruit by its own inherent power. But his place in the world is left vacant, and that prompt and helpful love, that unwearied and fostering zeal which the struggling scientific talent of every land found in him are departed. No one can render aid productive of such results as that rendered to science by Alexander von Humboldt. Nevertheless it is a natural wish to perpetuate beyond his life through an Institution, this noble department of his activity. "It is therefore proposed to found an institution under the name of the Humboldt-Stiftung, having for its object to afford assistance to rising talent, wherever it may be found, in those directions to which Humboldt devoted his scientific energies, viz., scientific labors, and extensive journeys of exploration. "It is proposed to confide the distribution of any means obtained for this purpose to the scientific body of which he has been a faithful and efficient member for sixty years, and which only a few weeks before his death listened to his animating voice, viz., the Royal Acad. of Sciences at Berlin. "This body upon the proposal being made, has declared itself ready to draft and in conjunction with the Committee to establish the statutes of the Association, adapted to the amount of capital subscribed, and to apply its resources worthily in assisting promising or already developed talent. In pursuing such an aim we recognize the hindrances which arise from the circumstances of this particular period. But we do not shrink in these excited days of war from quietly carrying forward the everlasting mission of peace entrusted to science, which binds all nations in one. "It is due to the memory of Alexander von Humboldt, and it seems to us no impracticable thought, to unite in one efficient body the Princes who honored him, the members of that Nobility to which he by birth belonged, the scientific litterateurs who admired him, learned men who were enchained by his cosmopolitan spirit, the circle of trade who profited by his discoveries, the prominent persons in cultivated European circles where he worked, as well as in other lands of both worlds-to unite them all so as to form a living monument to his name, which shall work on for science from age to age. * Whose demise we have to lament since writing these lines.-See p. 451. SECOND SERIES, Vol. XXVIII, No. 84.-NOV., 1859. "In this feeling we take the liberty of inviting a collection for the Humboldt-Stiftung, and beg that subscriptions may be sent to the banking house of Mendelsshon & Co., in Berlin. The collected capital will be invested with prudence and the interest applied to the specified objects. In six months a report will be rendered to the public. "We recommend then in full confidence to the active friendship of all who recognize in truth and gratitude the greatness of the departed, an institution which will work down to remote ages in Humboldt's spirit, and do honor to his name." [This memorial is signed by F. v. Bunsen, Ehrenberg, Dove, Encke, Lepsius, Magnus, Ritter, and sixteen others.] 5. The 29th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was held at Aberdeen, Scotland, commencing on the 14th of September. It was graced by the presence and the hospitality of Roy. alty. The Prince Consort made a very sensible opening speech, and the meeting appears to have been in all respects a good one. 6. Prof. J. D. DANA sailed for Europe in October, for an absence of about a year. Rest from his too severe and long continued scientific labors which had begun to tell upon his health, was the leading motive of his journey. He spends the winter in southern Italy. 7. PROF. AGASSIZ returned in September from his late visit to Switzerland refreshed in health and spirits, and laden with treasures for the new museum at Cambridge, the building for which we learn is rapidly approaching completion. 8. Government Scientific Expedition in New Mexico.-In our notice of Dr. NEWBERRY'S New Mexican Explorations on page 298 of this volume, we inadvertently neglected to say that Dr. Newberry is connected with a government expedition under the War Department, commanded by Capt. McComb of the U. S. Army, under whose direction the investigations are being made. 9. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. vi, No. 1.—This Society, in its zealous cultivation of oriental literature, has just now been placing the scientific world under special obligations. Two important papers, revealing to the English reader some of the treasures of Oriental science, occupy nearly the entire number of the Journal now before us, the annual half volume for the current year. The first is an article of 128 pages by the Chevalier N. Khanikoff, Russian Consul-General at Tabrîz, Persia. It consists of an analysis and extracts of an Arabic work on the water-balance, written by 'al-Khâzin! in the twelfth century, and entitled Book of the Balance of Wisdom. This paper, originally in French, the Committee of Publication have here presented in English, with a translation de novo of the extended extracts from the original work, which are here printed in Arabic, in connection with the portions of the article to which they belong. The committee have also appended a large body of critical and explanatory notes. The Balance of Wisdom or Water-Balance, is a balance for determining specific gravities; and the Arabic work here analyzed and translated is a systematic treatise on the subject, containing descriptions in detail, with figures of several ingenious forms of such balances; also expositions of the philosophical and mechanical principles involved in their construction and use, together with experimental results. It is a curious and very instructive monument of the state of experimental philosophy among the Arabs, at a time when they became almost the sole custodians of the science of the world; the treasures which they had obtained by conquest from Greece and India being faithfully kept by them during the long eclipse of European learning until the western nations, emerging from the darkness, were ready to receive them at their hands, and under the influence of a higher civilization develop the germs thus providentially pre served into the rich fruits of modern science. We quote a few specimens of the results for specific gravities given in the "Book of the Balance of Wisdom," in connection with modern determinations. The other article referred to, filling 128 pages, is the first part of a translation from the Sanskrit of one of the oldest and most important text-books of Hindu astronomy, the Sûrya-Siddhânta, with notes and an appendix, by Rev. Ebenezer Burgess, formerly missionary of the A. B. C. F. M. in India, assisted by the Committee of Publication. The We only call attention to this very interesting paper at the present time, as it will deserve a more extended notice when completed. original work is composed, like most of the Sanskrit literature, in metrical stanzas of two lines each, and its concise and peculiar forms of statement would to a great extent, be unintelligible even when translated, without the full and scholarly commentary which has been supplied by the several editors. This commentary, which is largely indebted for its value to the sound oriental scholarship of Prof. Whitney, and to the mathematical supervision of Prof. Newton, of Yale College, is adapted to the wants of two distinct classes of readers,-those who are orientalists without being astronomers, and those who are astronomers without being orientalists; thus rendering this important exposition of Oriental Astronomy attractive to all those who would learn more distinctly how much the world is indebted to the Hindu mind for so many of the elements of scientific, as well as of general, knowledge. - 10. OBITUARY. PROF. CARL RITTER the distinguished Geographer, died at Berlin, Sept. 28th, in his 81st year. He was born August 8th, 1779. Death of Dr. Grailich.-We are pained to record the early death of Dr. Joseph Grailich the distinguished crystallographer and physicist. At the time of his decease Dr. Grailich was Professor of mathematical physics in the Imperial University at Vienna and one of the Adjunct Curators of the Imperial Mineral Cabinet. He died at Vienna on the 13th of September in the 31st year of his age. return from Europe, 450. Blakiston, Capt., on the exploration of two population of, 96. BOTANY- of Japan, A. Gray, 187. N. American lichens, 200. of N. California, &c., 152. fossil of N. America, 21, 85. Bradley, F., shooting stars of Aug., 1859, 446. Agricultural Science, some points of, by S. Buckton, on organic compounds containing W. Johnson, 71. Alcohols, new, by Berthelot, 277. 293. metals, 146. C. Cagniard de Latour, death of, 424. Casseday, S. A., and Lyon, on new species Cellulose, transformation to sugar, 430. Chauvenet, Wm., announcement of his man- Chevreul, odors of perfumes, 427. Comets of 1858, 1859, 153. polarized light of, 155. Cornette, A., on aurora of August, 1859, 398. Crinoidea, nine new species, 233. D. Dana, J. D., on casts of ripidolite, 250. notice of Marcou's strictures, 153. Davy, Sir H., discovery of alkaline metals,||Geology, ossiferous caves of Palmero, 284. Dawson, S. J., his Lake Superior report no- Deville, St. Claire, work on manufacture of Dewey, Prof. C., caricography, 231. Disinfection and dressing wounds, 425. Falconer, Dr., on ossiferous caves near Pal- Faraday, M., researches in physics and Fertilizers, general law of displacement Force, correlation and conservation of, by description of nine new subcarboniferous corals of Canada West, 152. plants from Washington Ter., 85. Fowler, J. W., on a flint implement found in Franklin, Sir John, fate of, 423. Fremy, on ammonia chromium bases, 276. cave in Devonshire, 287. supposed submarine origin of Ten- eriffe, 288. and Paleontology of New York, 149. explorations of Newberry in N. Mexico, 298. of country N. of Lake Superior, &c., Reports of South Carolina, 148. survey of Canada, 148. Mexican boundary Commission, 148. See farther FOSSILS. Gibbs, W., Chemical notices, 144, 276, 432. Botanical notices, 290, 439. Grisebach's outlines of systematic botany, Gutherie on valeral, 145. Gypsum and magnesian rocks, how formed, H. Hall, Jas., N. Y. paleontology, 149. Heer, Prof., on fossil plants of Washington Henfrey, Prof., on rootlets, 442. astronomical notices, 153, 445. on height of auroral curtain of August, on supposed new planet between Mer. Hickok, L. P., Rational Cosmology, by, no- Humboldt, A. v., eulogy of Agassiz on, 96. Hunt, T. S., correction, history of eupho- on salts of lime and magnesia, and for- Huxley, T. H., lecture on the phenomena of I. Ice, sudden disappearance of, on lakes, 359. Japan, relations of its botany to that of N. Johnston, C., improved mode of preparing Johnson, S. W., on some points of agricultu- K. Kingston, G. P., aurora of Aug., 1859, 388. |