purposes of study and scientific instruction, into four classes, and organized, for military instruction, duty, and discipline, into a battalion officered from among themselves. The reputation of the school was never better than at present, and it is sending out about 50 officers each year, well trained and disciplined, and usually equal to the duties which they are called upon to perform after graduating.

The appropriations of money for the military service of the country for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1870, amounted to $37,538,852.08; those for the year ending June 30, 1871, were $30,249,148.97. The expenses for the latter year, however, amounted to $32,902,349.97, or $4,636,503.11 less than for the preceding twelve months. The estimates on which the appropriations for the year 1871-72 are to be based require $29,383,998.

But little progress has been made by the railway companies in settling the debts contracted by them at the close of the war by the purchase of the material of the military railroads. The total debt remaining due and unpaid on June 30, 1870, was $6,912,106.97, principally owing from Southwestern companies. Their payments during the year amounted to the sum of $365,820.45, but owing to the amount of interest the entire reduction was only $58,128.04. Action by Congress for their relief has been sought by some of the roads, while suits have in some cases been instituted against those defaulting.

Since the commencement of the present fiscal year (1870-'71) there has been realized, from sales of surplus arms and ordnance to citizens of the United States, the sum of $5,600,000. More than 1,340,000 stands of arms of obsolete pattern, and unfit for issue, have been sold since the close of the war, and it is the intention of the Government to continue the sales as opportunity offers.

The military property of the United States at Harper's Ferry was sold in November and December, 1869, in accordance with the terms prescribed by law. The Secretary of War, in his last report, recommended that Rome Arsenal, New York, Champlain Arsenal, Vermont, Mount Vernon Arsenal, Alabama, Appalachicola Arsenal, Florida, and North Carolina Arsenal, North Carolina, be sold, and that the captured lands in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Marshal and Jefferson, Texas, and in Marion and Davis Counties, Texas, be also disposed of. There are many other arsenals throughout the country, which, in the opinion of the Secretary, should be sold, and the proceeds used, if necessary, for the erection of a principal arsenal for the Atlantic coast. Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, has been established as the principal arsenal for the valley of the Mississippi. An arsenal of like character in the East, he thinks, could be erected from the proceeds of the sales of useless arsenals, without any appropriation of funds from the public Treasury.

Various surveys for military defences and internal improvements have been carried on during the year under the direction of the War Department, but no reports of completed work have been submitted. River and harbor surveys have progressed satisfactorily, and operations on the lakes have been carried on throughout the year. These will furnish material for the construction of charts and maps of great value in a commercial as well as a military point of view. Among the internal improvements under consideration or in progress, are a bridge over the Willamette River at Portland, Oregon, a bridge across the Niagara River, from Buffalo to Canada, a bridge across the Arkansas River at Little Rock, the construction of a canal from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to the Mississippi River, the improvement of navigation from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, by way of the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, and various other works for completing and improving water communications in different parts of the country. The labor of the War Department in connection with these consists mainly in making surveys and examinations, and submitting reports to Congress.

Among the new tasks imposed upon the army, in these times of peace, by the last Congress, was that of observing the weather at different points in the country, and making reports by telegraph "for the benefit of commerce." (See METEOROLOGY.)

The only active military operations in which the army has been employed during the year have consisted of a few attempts to repress or punish the depredations and outrages of the Indians on some portions of the Western border. A band of the Blackfeet tribe, known as the Piegans, roaming about in the Territory of Montana, in the fall of 1869, were guilty of many lawless attacks upon the property of the white settlers, and an appeal was made to the military commander for protection. General Sheridan sent a detachment under Brevet Colonel E. M. Baker, to punish the marauders. They came up with the Indian camp on the Marias River, on the 23d of January, and, without parley, a furious attack was made upon it, killing 173 persons, many of whom, it has been alleged, were women and children. The following is General Sheridan's report of this affair :

General Orders, No. 1. HEADQ'RS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSouri, CHICAGO, March 12, 1870. The Lieutenant-General commanding this military division takes great pleasure in announcing to the command the complete success of the 2d cavalry and 13th infantry, under command of Brevet Colonel Baker, of the 2d cavalry, against a band of Piegan Indians, whose proximity to the British line has furnished them an easy and safe protection against attack, and who have hitherto murdered and stolen with comparative impunity, in defiance and contempt been repeatedly warned, they have at last received a of the authority of the Government. After having designed and well-merited blow.

He was elected a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1833, 1835, 1836, and 1841, and was a State Senator in 1838 and 1839. In 1845 he was elected to the national Congress, and reelected for the two following terms, occupying his seat till 1851. Few members of the House have ever equalled him in valuable service to the nation. Though possessing fine oratorical powers, he was, in Congress, rather a debater than an orator. His knowledge of human nature, adroitness in meeting unexpected circumstances, and in dealing with the prejudices and passions of political enemies, rendered him a valuable man to the Whig party upon the floor of the House, and he was frequently put forward by his friends to manage a difficult case, or confront a clamorous opponent. Mr. Ashmun was a warm personal friend and ardent admirer of Daniel Webster. It is thought by many that this intimacy and admiration tended to interrupt his advancement in public life; though he did not follow Mr. Webster in his abandonment of the "Wilmot Proviso," and was, in fact, surprised and disappointed at the position assumed by the great statesman in his famous "Seventh of March Compromise Speech," Mr. Ashman still defended Webster in the ensuing quarrels. His replies to Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, and Charles Allen, of Massachusetts, when they assailed Webster with personal and political bitterness, were among the strongest efforts of his career in Congress. He could not sustain, however, the position he had assumed, and retired from official political life. When he went to Chicago in 1860, he was heartily welcomed by the representatives of the new Republican party, and was elected chairman of the convention without much controversy. His fine manner and personal presence commanded order throughout the exciting proceedings. He was heartily a patriot, and his wonderful magnetic power over men was exerted, whenever occasion required, in his country's cause. A notable instance of this occurred in April, 1861, just after the surrender of Fort Sumter, when, in a conversation of extraordinary tact and earnestness, he convinced Senator Douglas, of Illinois, by his eloquent appeals and his conclusive arguments, that it was his duty to bring his great abilities and his extensive influence to the support of the Administration and the Union. The great Illinois Senator, never greater than then, was won by his irresistible magnetism, and rose up superior to partisanship, superior to disappointment and to rivalry, and took his stand with the country. "Now," said Mr. Ashmun, although it was very late in the Light, "let us go up to the White House and talk with Mr. Lincoln. I want you to say to him what you have said to me, and then I want the results of this night's deliberations to be telegraphed to the country." That interview at the White House between these three men-Lincoln, Douglas, and Ashmun-was one of the most important events of that critical

time. Then and there, Mr. Douglas gave in, most eloquently and vehemently, his adhesion to the Administration and the country. Mr. Ashmun himself briefly epitomized the story, and it went by telegraph that night all over the country, to electrify and encourage every one on the morrow. Mr. Ashmun retired from public life soon after this event, and, though his pen and voice were always at his country's service in every time of danger, he mingled in public affairs only on extraordinary occasions. His health has been precarious for some years. Few men possessed so wide a range of general knowledge, or manners so felicitous in its use. He was at home in every department of physical science, and a complete connoisseur in all art topics; yet there was nothing assuming or pedantic in his manner of communicating his knowledge. He charmed alike the simplest and the most highly-cultivated intellects.

ASIA. The government of Russia, during the year 1870, was more intent upon consolidating and organizing than upon enlarging its conquests in Central Asia. A considerable portion of what was formerly Independent Tartary has now been fully reduced to the condition of a Russian province.

The hopes of the establishment of closer and more friendly relations between China and the civilized countries of Europe and America were sadly disappointed by the death of Mr. Burlingame. The Chinese Government did not find one capable of carrying forward his work. On the contrary, the greatest excesses were committed in several cities of China against foreigners, and, in particular, against the Christian missionaries and institutions, and it required the most earnest remonstrances on the part of the European Governments, especially those of France and Great Britain, to obtain redress for the outrages committed.

Japan, on the other hand, is making steady progress in civilization, and does not hesitate to adopt important reforms. The year 1870 is remarkable for the opening of several new schools, for the laying of railroads, and the appointment of ambassadors to the courts of Europe.

While Independent Tartary is becoming more and more dependent upon Russia, Chinese Toorkistan and Soongaria, which for many years have been in a state of revolt against the Chinese Government, are consolidating their independence. As early as July 13, 1869, the official gazette of Peking admitted the loss of Toorkistan. Mohammed Jakub Khan, Khushbegi, who bears the title Atalik Ghasi (Protector of the Combatants for the Crescent), has become the ruler of Cashgar and Yarkand, and subsequently conquered Khotan, and extended his power so far northward that Jli and Turumtse have become tributary to him. Thus Thianshan-pelu, and the inhabited parts of Thianshan-nanlu, the so-called Alty - Shehr, are lost to China and constitute an independent

ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA AND PROGRESS. Temperature and Physical Constitution of the Sun.-Professor F. Zollner communicated to the Royal Saxon Society in June an elaborate paper in which he sums up his own and others' late researches into these problems as follows: The eruptive protuberances are explained on the supposition that they break forth from a layer of separation dividing the space from which these hydrogenflames shoot up from the space into which they empty themselves. Respecting the physical constitution of this layer, the further assumption is necessary that it is in some other state than gaseous. It may be either solid or liquid. In consequence of the high temperature, the solid state is excluded, and the existence of an incandescent liquid is therefore conjectured. Concerning the mass of hydrogen enclosed by this liquid layer two suppositions appear at first sight possible:

1. The whole interior of the sun is filled with glowing hydrogen-a great bubble of that gas surrounded by an incandescent atmosphere.

2. The masses of hydrogen thrown out by the volcanic outbursts which cause the phenomena called protuberances are local aggregations contained in hollow spaces formed near the surface of an incandescent liquid

799,359

782,129.318

mass, and then burst through their outer shell where the increased pressure of the material in the interior reaches a certain point.

According to the first assumption, a state of stable equilibrium will only occur when the specific gravity of the liquid-dividing layer is smaller than that of the gaseous layer which lies immediately beneath it. As, however, the density of a gaseous globe, whose particles obey the laws of Newton and Mariotte, increases from the surface toward the centre, the specific gravity of the layer of division must necessarily be smaller than that of the mean specific gravity of the sun. If we assume that the highest limit of specific gravity of this layer is the mean specific gravity of the sun, we shall have to assume that all the deeper-lying layers, and therefore the still deeper-lying gaseous layers, have the same temperature. But the interior of the sun would consist, not of a gas, but of an incompressible liquid, which is the second supposition.

Professor Zollner estimates the internal temperature of the sun to be 68,400° C. at a depth of only 27" under the visible surface of the luminary, or at about of its visible semidiameter. The probable minimum value of the temperature of the chromosphere, he puts at 27,700° C. Assuming the atmospheric press