As the result of long-continued observations of annual temperatures the appearance of the earliest leaves, and the return of birds of passage, M. Camille Flammarion has published the conclusions that the maximum temperatures correspond with abundant sun spots and the least humidity, and the minimum temperatures with scarcity of sun spots and great humidity; and that sparrows begin to sit when horse-chestnuts, lilacs, and peonies begin to bloom, and the young are hatched about two days after these plants are in full inflorescence. M. Flammarion also believes that the temperatures of March and April indicate those of the entire year. Little steel capsules containing a small quantity of liquefied carbonic acid are made, _La Nature_ says, at Zurich, Switzerland. One of them is placed in the neck of a bottle of water which is provided with a faucet and the capsule is pricked. The carbonic acid escapes and charges the water, and a bottle of soda water is the result. The capsules are cheap and convenient, and are very popular in Switzerland and Germany. It is proposed to erect a memorial to James Clerk Maxwell in the parish church of Corsock, of which he was a trustee and elder. Subscriptions may be sent to the Rev. George Stimock, The Manse, Corsock by Dalbeattie, N.B. Our obituary list includes among men well known in science the names of Edward Dunkin, an English practical astronomer, for fifty years an assistant and part of the time chief assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, a contributor of many paper on practical astronomy, aged seventy-seven years; H. Vogel, professor of photography, photo-chemistry, and spectroscopy in the Technical High School, Berlin, author of The Chemistry of Light and Photography, in the International Scientific Series, in his sixty-fifth year; Alexandre Pillet, curator of the Musée Dupuytre, Paris, and well known for his contributions on morbid anatomy, at Paris, November 2d, aged eighty-eight years; George T. Allmann, formerly professor of botany in Dublin and of natural history in Edinburgh, who described the hydroids collected by the Challenger Expedition, and was author of a number of monographs on the invertebrates, aged eighty-six; Thomas Sanderson Bulmer, investigator in American archæology and ethnography, and contributor to Filling's Bibliographies of American Languages, at Sierra Blanca, Texas, October 5th; and Dr. Ewald Geissler, professor of chemistry at the veterinary school of Dresden, aged fifty years. Transcriber's Notes: Words surrounded by _ are italicized. Words surrounded by = are bold. Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent spellings have been kept, including inconsistent use of hyphen (e.g. "text book" and "text-book"). Illustrations were relocated to correspond to their references in the text. Pg 568, year assumed in sentence "...Report for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1898..." as the original is unclear.