while an elevation of 8,000 feet leaves more than a fourth of the atmosphere below it. The situation was one of remarkable natural beauty. On the east there was little to mark the altitude except the rocky soil and scanty vegetation; on the north there were picturesque piles of granite; on the north-west lay the Laramie Hills; from the northwest to the south towered the mountain-peaks, many of them covered with perpetual snow. Long's Peak and Gray's Peak were 60 miles away at the south; the great mass of Medicine Bow lay at the west, and between them, over the lower ridges, rose some of the high mountains of the Colorado parks.

The party being located, and all arrangements for observation being made as systematic as possible, work was carried on during the summer months in earnest, and attended with valuable results for the initiatory movement of a work of such magnitude. The weather proved to be unusually unfavorable. An old trapper, who had lived among the mountains for twenty years, said that the amount of cloudy and rainy weather was uncommon for the season. With the exception of a week, when every night and a greater part of ever day were fine, clear nights were rare, and clear days less so. There were but two afternoons when work upon the sun could be kept up from noon till sunset, though there were more than twenty cloudless mornings during the same time. The enormous snow-fall of the preceding winter accounted for the unusual weather-condition of the locality, and the snow, in the middle of July, was still lying to the depths of eight feet on the plateau at the base of the Medicine Bow Mount.

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, valuable scientific results were obtained in five different departments of observation, geographical, meteorological, telescopic, spectroscopic, and magnetic.

The geographical position of the station was completely determined, its longitude being obtained by telegraphic communication with Salt Lake City. It will, therefore, be for the future a referencepoint and base for the numerous surveys which are being made in that part of the country.

A complete hourly meteorological record was obtained for nearly the whole of the months of June, July, and August, which, from the important position of the station, cannot fail to be of great interest and value.

The telescopic observations were full of promise for the result of future and more thorough work in that department. When the sky was unclouded the atmosphere possessed the most ethereal transparency. At night, myriads of stars invisible at lower elevations were plainly discernible. Nearly all the seventh-magnitude stars of the British Association Catalogue were clearly visible to the naked eye. Prof. Young, to whose report we are indebted for the facts recorded in this article, says that, in the quadrilateral forming the bowl of the "Dipper," he could see distinctly nine stars, with glimpses of one or

two more, while at Hanover he could only perceive the three brightest of them. The power of the telescope was correspondingly increased, so that an instrument of 9 inches of aperture was as effective as one with 12 inches at the sea-level. Some views of Saturn were exquisitely beautiful. The inner satellites, the details and markings of the rings, especially a dark stripe upon the outer ring, were clearly seen under powers ranging from 500 to 1,200. Besides the increase of the range of the instrument, the air was vastly more steady, and faint objects much more clearly defined.

The advantage was still greater in the careful spectroscopic observations that were made. Prof. Young had drawn up at Hanover a catalogue of 103 bright lines in the spectrum of the chromosphere; at Sherman the number was extended to 273, while, at moments of unusual solar disturbance, there were glimpses of at least as many more. Sulphur, strontium, and cerium, are almost certainly proved to be constituents of the solar atmosphere, and zinc, erbium, and didymium are strongly indicated. It was hoped that at the base of the chromosphere there might be seen the reversal of the dark lines of the spectrum, which is so wondrously beautiful at the commencement and close of a total solar eclipse. But in this hope the observers were disappointed; the appearance, at the distance of 1" or 15" from the edge of the photosphere, giving a spectrum principally continuous, most of the dark lines vanishing or being much weakened. This result confirms the observations of Secchi, who reports at the edge of the sun a layer giving a continuous spectrum.

Curious observations were made upon the spectra of sun-spots, and a catalogue was made of 155 lines more or less affected, either greatly widened or weakened, or reversed. A number of bright lines were found in the spectrum of the nucleus, and some peculiarly shaded, as if they were the product of a combination of elements which, from the reduced temperature over the spots, had been able to exercise their chemical affinities.

Many solar eruptions were watched moving with velocities varying from 150 to 250 miles per second, and pouring forth their whirlwinds and torrents of ejected gas through the molten atmosphere. The most interesting eruption was visible on the surface of the sun itself in the vicinity of a large spot.

The magnetic observations were as satisfactory as any that were made, and yet prove that, although our greatest magnetic storms are only remotely connected with solar influence, every solar paroxysm has a direct and immediate effect upon terrestrial magnetism. On the 3d and 5th of August there were violent paroxysms of solar eruption. At just the minute these eruptions took place, the record of the vertical Magnetic Force shows marked and sudden magnetic impulses, a peculiar shuddering of the magnetic needle for that very time. The photographic copies of the vertical Force Curve at Greenwich and

Stonyhurst show marked and characteristic disturbances at the corresponding points, which, allowing for the difference in longitude, were the very moments of time when the solar disturbances were watched at Sherman.

The work of the last summer accomplished by the Sherman Astronomical Expedition points clearly to the inference that a great national observatory should be established without loss of time, in that position on the American Continent most favorable to astronomical observation. Sherman is evidently not the place, on account of weather-conditions, but some mountain-station must be found adapted for the purpose, far above the fogs and impurities of the sea-level. A telescope, the best and largest that scientific resources can furnish, and a corps of observers devoted to the work, must be established on this permanent locality. Then, from this high point, sun, planets, stars, nebulæ, comets, and meteors, may be attacked by observers armed with the most effectual scientific weapons, until from the depths of infinite space come answers to some of the great problems that are puzzling the brains of thoughtful students of celestial mysteries.

A recent writer proposes that the whole civilized world shall contribute for a telescope which shall cost $1,000,000. Why should not America contribute enough from her vast resources to possess the most powerful one that can be built, and be the first among the nations to bring about great results, and make certainties of what seem now the shadowy possibilities of the future?

THE BATTLE OF LIFE AMONG PLANTS.

EVERY

BY MAXWELL T. MASTERS, M. D., F. R. S.

VERY day, every hour, there is going on around us a veritable death-struggle. It excites little attention. People would be in no hurry to read the telegraphic dispatches concerning it from the seat of war, even if there were any to read. Special correspondents there are, but their letters are appreciated but by a few. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that mankind in general is not interested in the result of the struggle. On the contrary, little as the affair is heeded, it is of very serious import to the human race. Our food-supplies depend on it; the well-being of our flocks and herds is essentially dependent on it; the building of our houses, the fabrication of our raiment, are to a large extent contingent on it; nay, the soil beneath our feet, and the very sky above our heads, are materially, very materially, influenced by the result of the contest of which we are about to speak. Edward Forbes was wont to say that the movement of a periwinkle over a rock might be of greater consequence to the human race than the progress

of an Alexander; and the results of the wars of the plants are assuredly of no less importance, seeing that the very existence of an Alexander depends in .no slight degree upon them. The campaigns we speak of are real; they are not mental figments, or allegorical illustrations. Success in the practice of horticulture, of agriculture, of forestry, depends on the action we men take toward the combatants. If we remain neutral, the weakest goes to the wall, overpowered by the stronger; if we interfere, we exert a very powerful influence for the time; but, immediately we cease to exert our power, the combat begins again, and with enhanced violence. The essence of successful cultivation often consists almost entirely in the removal of the plant from the influence of that hostile "environment" to which, under natural circumstances, it would be subjected. It is this that accounts, in a great measure, though of course not wholly, for the oft-observed fact that certain plants, flowers, and fruits, attain far greater perfection in our gardens than they ever do in their native countries.

That a war of extermination is thus going on around us may strike some with surprise. They are so accustomed to associate flowers and plants with peace and repose, that they are astonished to find that other far less amiable ideas may, with even more justice, be associated with them. And yet a moment's reflection, or a passing glance at the nearest hedge-row or pasture, will show the reality of the struggle. All that beautiful disorder, that apparently careless admixture of divers forms and colors-the sweeping curves of the brambles, the entwining coils of the honeysuckle, the creeping interlacement of the ground-ivy or the pennywort-all are but indications of the fray that is constantly going on. It would seem as if the weakest must succumb, must be overpowered by the stronger-growing plants, and so they are at certain places and at certain times; but, under other conditions, the victory may be with the apparently weaker side, just as the slow-going tortoise may outrun the fleeter hare. In any case, the success is often only temporary; the victor becomes in time the vanquished; the vanquished, in its turn, regains its former conquest; and

so on.

It is proposed in the following notes to give a few illustrations of the nature and effects of this conflict, of the way in which it is carried on, and of the circumstances which favor it.

Agriculturists had long been practically conversant with the advantages derivable from the practice of not growing the same crop on the same soil for too long a period. The advantages consequent on this so-called rotation of crops are due to more than one cause; but it was Dureau de la Malle who, in 1825, called attention to the phenomenon of natural rotation. From long observation of what takes place in woods and pasture-lands, he established the fact that an alternation of growth, as he called it, occurs as a natural phenomenon. In pasturelands, for instance, the grasses get the upper hand at one time, the

leguminous plants at another; so that, in the course of thirty years, the author whose observations we are citing was witness of five or six such alternations.

It follows from all this that a plant, as was pointed out by the late Dean Herbert, does not necessarily grow in the situation best adapted for it, but where it can best hold its own against its hostile neighbors, and best sustain itself against unfavorable conditions generally.

The sources of success in the contest are manifold; they vary more or less in each individual case. Probably they are never exactly the same; nevertheless, there are certain circumstances which must always be operative in conducing to the victory. A few illustrations must suffice. It is easy to understand why first-comers, duly installed, should have an advantage over later visitants; why the more prolific should outnumber the less fertile; and how it is that a perennial plant has a better chance on any given spot, cæteris paribus, than an annual, whose progeny would find the ground occupied, and their chances of survival materially interfered with by their longer-lived neighbors.

Again, there is no difficulty in understanding why such plants as quitch (Triticum repens) or bearbine (Convolvulus sepium) hold their own so tenaciously, and so much to the prejudice of their neighbors. The long, creeping, underground stems, rooting, or capable of rooting, at every joint, give them an immense advantage over plants not so favorably organized. The ends of the shoots of the convolvulus, moreover, dilate into tubers, which are thrust into the ground, to form in the succeeding spring fresh centres of vegetation. A great rootingpower is obviously of great benefit; not less so is an extensive leafsurface. It is not only that the copious feeding-roots absorb the available nourishment from the soil, not only that the wide leaf-surface avails itself of every ray of sunlight, every whiff of air that plays over it, and thus serves to build up the tissues of the plant to which the root or leaf respectively belongs, but they practically oust other plants less favorably circumstanced than themselves. The roots occupy the soil, and rob the weaker plants of their share of its resources. The tree with dense foliage shuts off from its lowlier neighbor much of the light and air necessary for its existence; and hence, in a measure, the absence of vegetation in pine-forests or under the shadow of dense woods. Some plants there are specially organized to resist and overcome these hostile conditions. Among them are the climbers, the twining plants, and those with tendrils of one sort or another. The bramble or wild-rose, with its slender, arching, hook-beset branches; the wild-hop, with its coils of cord-like sprays; the clematis, clinging on firmly by means of its leaf-stalks to any thing it can lay hold of; the ivy, grappling with the trunk of a tree-all these are, in some sense, weakly plants; they would be overweighted in the struggle with their stronger neighbors, if it were not for the special adaptation of