ASTRONOMY, GEOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, BOTANY, MINERALOGY, TOGETHER WITH NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE DURING THE YEAR 1863; A LIST EDITED BY DAVID A. WELLS, A. M., M. D., AUTHOR OF PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY, BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN, 59 WASHINGTON STREET. NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by GOULD AND LINCOLN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. NOTES BY THE EDITOR ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FOR THE YEAR 1859. THE thirteenth meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was held at Springfield, Mass., August 3—9, 1859 Prof. Stephen Alexander, of Princeton, N. J., in the chair. The attendance of members was large, and the meetings harmonious and interesting. The whole number of papers registered for pre sentation was 108. The following gentlemen were elected officers for the ensuing year: President, Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia; Vice President, Dr. B. A. Gould, jr., of Cambridge; Secretary, Prof. Joseph LeConte, of South Carolina; Treasurer, Dr. A. L. Elwyn, of Philadelphia. The Standing Committee recommended that a Winter Session be held in some Southern city in the winter of 1860-1. A new expedition, by Lieut. Gillies, to South America, for the more accurate determination of the Solar Parallax, was recommended, and a committee of seven appointed to confer with him, and further the enterprise. The Association adjourned to meet in Newport, R. I., August 1st, 1860. The twenty-ninth annual meeting of the British Association for the Promotion of Science, was held at Aberdeen, Scotland, September 1859 Prince Albert in the chair. The attendance on the part of the members and the public was unusually large, and the communications numerous and important. The meeting for 1860 was appointed to be held in Oxford, Lord Worthlesley being the President elect. From the report of the Council, we learn that the difficulties which have hitherto presented themselves in the way of a daily photographic record of the sun's disk, have been almost entirely surmounted. "It has been found, after repeated trials, that the best photographic definition is obtained when the sensitized plate is situated from 1-10th to 1-8th of an inch beyond the visual focus in the case of a 4-inch picture; and that when the adjustment is made, beautiful pictures are obtained of the sun four inches in diameter, which still bear magnifying with a lens of low power, and show considerable detail on the sun's surfaces besides the spots, which are well defined. Mr. De la Rue, by combining two pictures obtained by the Photoheliograph at an interval of three days, has produced a stereoscopic image of our luminary, which presents to the mind an idea of sphericity. Under Mr. De la Rue's direction, Mr. Beckley is making special experiments, having for their object the determination of the kind of sensitive surface best suited for obtaining perfect pictures; for it has been found that the plates are more liable to stains of the various kinds, known to photographers, under the circumstance of exposure to intense sun-light, than they could be if employed in taking ordinary pictures in the camera. Now that the photographic apparatus has been brought to a workable state, Mr. De la Rue and Mr. Carrington, joint Secretaries of the Astronomical Society, propose to devote their attention to the best means of registering and reducing the results obtained by the instrument." The customary review of the recent progress of science having been omitted from the annual address by the president, the deficiency was supplied, in part, by addresses from the presiding officers of the sections, on assuming their respective chairs. Prof. Owen, in assuming the chair of the section on Zoology, etc., noticed the progress of Natural Science in Australia and the United States, as follows: "But it is in the younger countries where we see an advance more evident. Australia and Van Diemen's Land, now that wealth permits time and luxury, have attended to science, and in most of the journals of those countries we have original observers, and by-and-by we shall have the results of the study of the remarkable productions of these lands made where they live and grow. New Zealand also has its scientific journal. It is, however, in the New World where the greatest activity at present prevails. She has already, with credit to herself, sent out scientific expeditions of a general character, and those of Wilkes and Rae and Kane are well known, and huge works have sprung from each. But the boundings of territory now claimed by the American people have given rise to surveys and exploratory expeditions at home, and these are proceeding in all directions to fix the boundary lines, and the best railway routes to the Pacific. Naturalists and draftsmen accompany each expedition, the results of which are published in reports to Congress, in which they are assisted by the Smithsonian Institution of Washington. But the work of the greatest magnitude and importance to America is, Contributions to the Natural History of the United States,' by Agassiz, advertised to be completed in ten large volumes. Two volumes for the first year, |