made there was a slight diminution in the loudness of the tones, but no difficulty was experienced in carrying on conversation. Another change was made, whereby the electrical current was sent to Portland and back by another line to Salem, thus making Salem a terminal station at the end of nearly two hundred miles of wire. The result of this change was, that the tones of the speakers could be heard, but so faintly as to be unintelligible. With electro-magnets of a higher resistance, Prof. Bell is confident that the sounds would have been perfectly intelligible, the magnets used, it must be recollected, being only intended for a twenty-mile circuit.
How to reach the Pole.—Captain H. W. Howgate, of the Signal-Office, sees no grounds of discouragement in the failure of Nares's expedition to reach the north pole. The seasons, he remarks, vary in the arctic circle as markedly as in more temperate latitudes, and in a favorable year the ice of the so-called "Palæocrystic Sea" might be broken up. Captain Howgate would have a party of at least twenty hardy, resolute, and experienced men, with provisions for three years, stationed at some point near the borders of the Polar Sea—for instance, where the Discovery wintered last year. These men would seize the occasion of the opening of the frozen sea to push on to the pole. At the end of three years the party should be visited, and, if unsuccessful in accomplishing the object, should be revictualed and again left to their work. With a good, substantial building, such as could easily be carried on shipboard, they would be as comfortable and safe from atmospheric danger as the men of the Signal Service on the summit of Mount Washington. "A good supply of medicine," adds Captain Howgate, "a skillful surgeon, and such fresh provision as could be found by hunting-parties, would enable them to keep off scurvy, and to maintain as good a sanitary condition as the inhabitants of Godhaven in Greenland. Game was found in fair quantities by the Polaris party on the Greenland coast, and by those from the Alert and Discovery on the mainland to the west, especially in the vicinity of the last-named vessel, where fifty-four musk-oxen were killed during the season, with quantities of other and smaller game. A seam of good coal was also found by the Discovery's party, which would render the question of fuel a light one, and thus remove one of the greatest difficulties hitherto found by arctic voyagers. Let an expedition be organized to start in the spring of 1877, and I firmly believe that by 1880 the geography of the polar circle would be definitely settled, and that without loss of life."
Classification of the Races of Man.—The distinguished Italian ethnologist, Prof. Mantegazza, of Florence, in his introduction to Enrico Giglioli's narrative of a voyage round the Globe in the corvette Magenta, learnedly discusses the question of the classification of the races of man. His principal conclusions are that—1. Man is one of the most cosmopolitan and most variable of animals, and hence presents an infinite variety of races, sub-races, and peoples. 2. The number of races is indefinite; many races are extinct, others are now forming, still others will yet be produced. 3. The farther back we go in history, the larger is the number of races and sub-races, for in early times men less frequently moved away from their native localities and were more isolated from one another than now. 4. At the top and at the bottom of the human genealogical tree the branches and twigs approach one another, so that the most highly-cultured and the least developed races come into mutual contact. The negro developed into a Kaffre approximates to the European, and the European, degraded by cretinism or by hunger, to the Australian or the negro. 5. In general the lowest races are black or dark brown, the middle races somewhat less dark-skinned, and the highest white or nearly so. 6. In classifying the races of man we must, as far as possible, omit the question of their origin, for the investigation of this origin is the most fruitful source of ethnological errors.
The American Geographical Society.—The American Geographical Society was formally installed in its new quarters, No. 11 West Twenty-ninth Street, New York, November 28th. For many years this Society
