From the above statement it will be seen that photographic apparatus has been furnished on a scale unequaled elsewhere.  But what is more important, Mrs. Draper has not only provided the means for keeping these instruments actively employed, several of them during the whole of every clear night, but also of reducing the results by a considerable force of computers, and of publishing them in a suitable form.  A field of work of great extent and promise is open, and there seems to be an opportunity to erect to the name of Dr. Henry Draper a memorial such as heretofore no astronomer has received.  One cannot but hope that such an example may be imitated in other departments of astronomy, and that hereafter other names may be commemorated, not by a needless duplication of unsupported observatories, but by the more lasting monuments of useful work accomplished.

EDWARD C. PICKERING,

Director of Harvard College Observatory.

Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A., March 1, 1887.

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THE WINNER OF THE DERBY.

The dark bay colt Merry Hampton had never run in public before winning the Derby on the 25th of May last.  This colt, by Hampton out of Doll Tear-sheet, was one of Mr. Crowther Harrison’s draught of yearlings sent up to the Doncaster sales in 1885, and fell to the bid of Mr. T. Spence, acting for Mr. Abingdon, for 3,100 guineas.  The Oaks, on May 27, was won by a daughter of the same sire.  Merry Hampton is to compete for the Grand Prize of Paris and for the St. Leger.  He has also liabilities in the Thirty-ninth Triennial and Grand Duke Michael stakes at Newmarket, First October; Newmarket Derby at the Second October; Ascot Derby and Twenty-fifth New Biennial; Drawing-room stakes at Goodwood; Great International Breeders’ Foal stakes at Kempton Park, August; North Derby at Newcastle, Summer; St. George stakes at Liverpool, July; Bickerstaffe stakes and St. Leger at Liverpool, August; Midland Derby stakes at Leicester, July; and Ebor St. Leger at York, August; in addition to the following races in 1888:  Champion stakes at Newmarket, Second October; Rous Memorial and Hardwicke stakes at Ascot, and Eclipse stakes at Sandown Park, Second Summer.  Merry Hampton’s name also appears in the Kempton Park Royal stakes of 10,000 sovereigns at the Spring Meeting of 1889.—­Ill.  London News.

[Illustration:  MERRY HAMPTON.  THE WINNER OF THE DERBY, 1887.]

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THE FALLS OF GAIRSOPPA.

At the extreme south of the presidency of Bombay, separating the district of Kanara from the territory of Mysore, are the too little known Falls of Gairsoppa.

Far higher than Niagara, four distinct divisions of the river Shiravatti (traditionally created by a cleft made by the arrow of the great god Rama) fall over a precipice of gneiss rock into an abyss eight hundred feet below.  Each of these cataracts differs in type of flow.