Our Meteorological Society may perhaps take a hint from M. Liais’s suggestion as to the ’possibility of applying photography to determine the height of clouds, and to the observation of shooting-stars;’ and M.F.  Cailliaud, director of the museum at Nantes, says something not uninteresting to naturalists—­namely, that the statements commonly made, that all molluscous animals perforate stone by means of an acid, is not the fact with regard to Pholades and Tarets.  He observes, that although a workman would be amazed on hearing a proposition to pierce calcareous stone with the shell of a Pholas, yet he himself has done it, and holds the success to be a proof that the animal can do the same.  The idea of the acid might be accepted, while it was proved that the creatures were to be found only in limestone; but now that he has sent to the Academie specimens of gneiss and mica schist, containing pholades, on which the acid has no effect, he conceives that they must have entered by boring.  They have also been found in porphyry—­a fact of which Brongniart said, many years ago, that nature had concealed the explanation, and we must wait for a solution.  Whether M. Cailliaud’s solution be the true one or not, is a point that will soon be verified or disproved by geologists and naturalists, who are never better pleased than when an inquiry, which may lead to new views of nature, opens before them.

That the age of great books is not past, is proved by an arrival from America—­the United States’ government having presented to several public and private institutions in this country, a large, handsome quarto, which contains, to quote the whole title, Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, collected and prepared under the Direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, per Act of Congress.  The preparation and arrangement of this work having been intrusted to Mr Schoolcraft is a sufficient guarantee for its value.  It throws much light on the Indian tribes of North America, and rectifies many erroneous ideas and impressions concerning them and their origin.  Perhaps you will allow me to give you, in a few words, the author’s views on this part of the subject.  He considers the ancient monuments, found in parts of the United States and in Mexico, to have originated within five hundred years of the dispersion from Babel; that the Indians are the Almogic branch of the Eber-ites; and that the ancient monuments do not denote so high a degree of civilisation as is generally supposed.  It is only since the discovery of America by Europeans that anything like certainty attaches to the history of the natives.  The Mohicans ’preserve the memory of the appearance and voyage of Hudson, up the river bearing his name, in 1609;’ and among other tribes similar traditions are retained.  In the wrong-headedness and persistence of idea, the Indians entirely resemble the Oriental branches of