arrangement, and the one that will be adopted in future.  It may be possible also to find positions for the sphere, lens, and paper such that the intensity of the image is a true measure of the intensity of the sun’s light; at present, however, this has not been done, the want of sunlight and the press of official work having prevented the carrying out of the necessary experiments.  A more sensitive paper might also be used with advantage, and in observatories where photographic processes are carried on daily there would be no difficulty on this score, but my principal object was to devise some economical instrument requiring only easy manipulation, so that at a considerable number of places the instruments might be set up, giving a more useful average of the duration of sunshine than can be obtained from only a few stations.  The instrument also gives a record when the sun is shining through light clouds; in this case the image is somewhat blurred and naturally weakened, and it may be difficult or impossible to employ any scale for measuring the intensity under such conditions, but it must be remembered that, even when the sun is shining in this imperfect manner, it is really doing work on the vegetation of the earth, and deserves to be recorded.

It may be well to say that the instrument is in no way protected.  Some friends, whose opinion I highly value, urged me to patent it; but as I strongly hold the view that the work of all students of science should be given freely to the world, the apparatus was described at the Physical Society a few hours after the advice was given, lest the greed of filthy lucre should, on further deliberation, cause me to act contrary to my principles.—­Herbert McLeod, Nature.

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SKELETON OF A BEAR FOUND IN A CAVE IN STYRIA, AUSTRIA.

In the limestone mountains of the Austrian Alpine countries, numerous large caverns and caves are found, some of which are several miles long.  They have been formed by the raising, lowering, and sliding of the layers of sand, or washed out by the stream.

In one of these caverns near Peggau, in Styria, Austria, the skeleton of a bear (Ursus Spelaeus) and the skull of another bear of the same kind were found, both of which are shown in the annexed cut taken from the Illustrirte Zeitung, the detached skull being placed on a board.  The place in which these bones were found had never been reached before, as the skeleton was covered by a layer, from four to six inches thick, of stalagmites, which in turn rested on a layer of pieces or chips of bones and carbonate of lime, sand, etc.  The bones of the skeleton were scattered over a space about eight square yards, and it required several days’ work to remove the layers from the bones by means of a mallet and chisel and to give the bones, etc., a presentable appearance.