Bosnia, in Europe, best known as one of the Balkan Provinces, belonged in the fourteenth century to the kingdom of Stephen of Servia: it attained freedom in 1376, then fell again under the Turkish invasion of Europe. In 1878 the treaty of Berlin provided for the occupation, by Austria-Hungary, of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, accomplished only after severe conflict with the Mahommedans. Count Callay was appointed administrator and made it his life-work to promote harmony between the different races, as well as to develop the country's resources. Ultimately the three provinces were annexed by Austria-Hungary; compensation was awarded to Turkey and the long-feared European war averted. The Vrbas is a tributary of the Save, which divides Slavonia from Bosnia, on its northern border. The accompanying print exhibits the deep, narrow, rocky bed of the Vrbas and the precipitous height of the cliffs forming this magnificent defile, the summits being invisible from certain parts of the road. The river was once probably one of the underground watercourses of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nature is majestic there and hews out her own rock temples. [Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. THE VRBAS DEFILE, BOSNIA] [Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. ROCKING-STONE PINNACLE, MOUNT WELLINGTON, TASMANIA] ASTRONOMICAL NOTES: by C. J. Ryan There has lately been an interesting correspondence in _The English Mechanic_ upon the subject of meteorites, and a remarkable conflict of opinion has been manifested, showing that there is really not much positive knowledge about them. The Earth's atmosphere is continually being bombarded by these missiles, and the dust into which they are transformed during their passage through it falls upon the Earth, sprinkling it annually with a layer of dark mineral substance, which if evenly spread, would cover the surface to about the thickness of a match. For long it was denied by the Academies of Science that mineral masses, varying in weight from a few ounces to several tons, ever fell from the sky, although they had been frequently seen in the act of falling and had been handled while still warm. But the incredulity of the astronomers was broken down about a century ago and they could no longer hold to their axiom that "as there are no stones in the sky, they cannot fall out of it." The careful study of "shooting-stars" has not been undertaken for much more than half a century. Although there is no doubt that meteoric masses do fall to the ground occasionally and that the meteoric dust which is found in the enduring snows on high peaks and in the Arctic regions comes from the disintegration of such objects, it is not certain that all of the shooting stars that flash across our night skies (and day ones too, though we rarely see one by day) are of the same nature as the meteoric stones which we can examine in our museums.