ing Synod, I assume the duty of presenting their answer to the Court of Bishops of the American Episcopal Church, and beg you to accept the assurance of the highest esteem of your brother and coISIDORE, servant in Christ Jesus. First Presiding Member of the Governing Synod of all the Russias, and Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg.

In response to this communication, the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which met at Baltimore in October, adopted the following resolutions:

1. That this Convention cordially reciprocates the expressions of fraternal regard so frequently received within the past three years from the Most Reverend the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Most Reverend the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Most Reverend the Metropolitan of Athens, and the Holy Governing Synod of the Orthodox Church of Russia, by dignitaries of the Church of England, and by members of this Church, both of the clergy and laity; that it takes grateful recognition of the generous action by which the administration of holy rites for the burial of the dead of our communion has been provided for by the authorities of the Holy Orthodox Church: and that it earnestly desires the countenance and increase of such brotherly intercourse and mutual good offices of love.

2. That the Joint Committee on the subject of in

tercourse with the Russo-Greek Church be continued, and be charged with the communication of the foregoing resolution to the venerable authorities of the several branches of the Holy Orthodox Church.

3. That the said Joint Committee be also charged with the duty of taking further steps for the acquisition and communication of such information as may be mutually important and interesting to this Church and to the Holy Orthodox Church in Constantinople, Greece, and Russia, with such publications thereof from time to time as may be deemed needful and prudent.

The Committee consists, on the part of the House of Bishops, of the Bishop of Maryland, W. R. Whittingham, D. D., LL.D.; Bishop of Illinois, H. J. Whitehouse, D. D., LL. D.; Bishop of New Jersey, W. H. Odenheimer, D. D.; Bishop of Western New York, A. Cleveland Coxe, D.D.; Bishop of Florida, J. Freeman Young, D. D., LL. D.; Bishop of Long Island, A. N. Littlejohn, D. D.

On the part of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies it consists of the Rev. John Fulton, D.D., of Alabama; the Rev. R. M. Abercrombie, D. D., of New Jersey; the Rev. Charles R. Hale, of Central New York; Hon. S. B. Ruggles, LL. D., of New York; Mr. Edward Stanley, of California; Mr. Henry C. Pierrepont, of Long Island.

The Bishop of the Russian Greek Church in America recently made a tour in Alaska to ascertain for himself the social, moral, and spiritual condition of the Aleuts, the results of which are thus summarized: "In his journeyings, Bishop Joannes was everywhere received as the Prince of Peace and the Prophet of God. The faithful surrounded him in flocks, humbly kissing his hand, and prostrating themselves before him with the deepest devotion. In return, they were consoled and comforted by the performances of all the sacred rites and ceremonies which the Greek Church

dispenses to its enthusiastic devotees, and, wherever the bishop found suffering and want, he gave generous relief. A large number of the better classes of the Alents are very eager to have their children educated in San Francisco, where they can learn the English language, and become better acquainted with the customs and habits of the American people. In compliance with the request, it is intended to establish a school and seminary in San Francisco, under the direction of the bishop and co-laborers, for the education of Aleutian youth.

The first building in the United States designed expressly for a Greek church was erected in the city of New York, during 1871. It is on Lexington Avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty-second Streets. The cost, about $250,000, is defrayed by the Russian Treasury in St. Petersburg. The church is attached to the Russian legation in the United States, but is directly under the supervision of the Metropolitan at St. Petersburg, and is not in any way connected with the diocese of the resident Greek bishop at San Francisco.

EASTERN QUESTION. In December, 1870, the Government of England invited the great powers of Europe to a conference on London on January 15, 1871. In the mean the Eastern question, which was to be held in while, the exchange of diplomatic notes and diplomatic negotiations was continued. Count von Beust, in a note to Gortchakoff, dated December 10, 1870, undertook to refute the assertions of the latter, and remarked that Austria joined the Conference without preconceived plans, and only in the hope to secure for Turkey a peaceful development, and to bring on a solution which would be apt to spare national sensibilities without weakening the necessary guarantees. The Russian reply was couched in conciliatory language. On the part of England, the exchange of notes with St. Petersburg had not terminated when the invitations to the Conference were issued.

In the mean while, negotiations took place between Russia and Turkey, which it was thought would lead to the drafting of a new special convention and to the consent of Russia to certain modifications of the "agreements," the repeal of which had long been wished for by Turkey. It also appeared that the Ottoman Porte itself no longer attributed so great an importance to the neutralization of the Black Sea as some European diplomatists, for one of its organs, the Turquie, of Constantinople, published in December, 1870, several articles which represented the abolition of the neutralization as a measure involving no danger for Turkish interests. When, therefore, the London Conference met, on January 17th, considerable preparations for a peaceful settlement had been made by the two parties chiefly concerned in it. After the introductory formalities, the ambassadors of Turkey, Russia, Germany, Austria, and Italy, expressed the wishes of their

several Governments for the preservation of peace in the East. The Conference several times adjourned, partly on account of the indisposition of its president, partly because Lord Granville wished to await the arrival of the French ambassador. Unofficial negotiations were, however, continued, and every thing prepared for the public sessions. The hope of the English minister, that the Conference would get through its work before the opening of Parliament (February 9th) was not fulfilled. Lord Granville had invited Jules Favre, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, to come to the Conference. Favre, in a note to the diplomatic agents of France, declared that he could not leave his place in Paris as long as the bombardment of the capital continued. He would nevertheless have gone to the Conference, if Count Bismarck had not refused to give a passport to him as a member of the Government, on the ground that the French Government of National Defence was not in a

condition to act in the name of France, as long as it was not recognized by the French nation. The military authorities would have been justified in giving the passport; for it was not their business to inquire into the objects of the intended journey of Favre, but the official application of Favre, which expressed his desire to represent France at the Conference, prevented the adoption of this expedient. The influence of France in the Conference had, however, been considerably diminished when it became known that Bismarck positively refused to allow the French-German War to be brought before the Conference, and that the Prussian ambassador in London, Count Bernstorff, was instructed to leave the Conference as soon as an attempt to discuss the war was made.

As France was not represented at all at the Conference, and as Austria was too weak to bring a sufficient pressure to bear upon the Conference in support of its view, England had, from the start, but little hope of making to the schemes of Russia an unflinching resistance. Russia, on the other hand, appeared to be determined to adhere to her plans, and was greatly strengthened in this design by the enthusiastic manifestations of public opinion of the Russian people. When, therefore, Austria proposed a declaration that no power is at liberty to abolish the treaties or to withdraw from them, England regarded this as a welcome bridge for her retreat.

The demand of the Government of Servia, to have an official representative in the Conference, was not granted. The Conference also declined to take up the Rumanian question, as the Turkish Government protested against it on the ground that it was a purely internal question, which could not be discussed unless a proviso was adopted guarding the sovereign_right of the Porte. On February 27th the Duke de Broglie, who had been appointed by Thiers as ambassador of France in England, arrived in London. He took part in

the Conference, which, however, in the mean while had nearly finished its business.

As Turkey had adopted the modern view that the continued limitation of the navigation in the mouth of the Danube afforded to her no protection, the other governments had no occasion to oppose the opening of this passage to international commerce. On the other hand, the Conference resolved, on motion of the Porte, to continue the existence of the Commission for the Navigation of the Danube, to which all the treaty powers send one deputy.

On March 13th the following new treaty was adopted and signed by the representatives of Prussia, Austria, France, England, Italy, Russia, and Turkey:

ARTICLE I. Arts. XI., XIII., and XIV., of the Treaty of Paris of the 30th of March, 1856, as well as the Convention between Russia and Turkey included in the said Art. XIV., are revoked and are to be replaced by the following articles:

ART. II. The principle of closing the Dardanelles treaty of March 30, 1856, is upheld, as well as the and the Bosporus, as set down in the separate power of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan to open the said straits in times of peace to the ships of friendly and allied powers, if the execution of the stipulations in the Treaty of Paris of March 30, 1856, should require it.

ART. III. The Black Sea is open, as heretofore, to the commercial navies of all nations.

ART. IV. The commission appointed under Art. XV. of the Treaty of Paris, in which each of the treaty powers is represented by a delegate, and who was intrusted with the planning and execution of the work to be done below Isaktcha, namely, of clearing the mouth of the Danube as well as the neighboring parts of the Black Sea of sand-banks and other obstructions, in order that this part of the river and the tion, remains in its present composition. The durasaid parts of the sea be put in best order for navigation of this commission is fixed for a further term of twelve years, to wit, from the 24th of April, 1871, to the 24th of April, 1883. The limit for the redemption of the loan contracted by this commission under the guarantee of the Governments of Germany, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Turkey.

ART. V. The conditions of the reassembling of the river commission, created by Art. XVII. of the Treaty of Paris, shall be determined by a previous agreement referring to the Danubian Principalities; and, wherof the river powers, without prejudging the clause ever a modification of Art. XVII of said treaty may be involved, it shall be made the subject of a special convention between the undersigned powers.

ART. VI. The powers which possess the banks of that part of the Danube where cataracts and the iron gates cause obstructions to navigation, while reserving for themselves the right of coming to an understanding with regard to the removal of these obstructions, recognize the right of the high contracting Powers to lay a tax on ships of all nations which derive a benefit from it, until the loan contracted for that purpose shall have been repaid, and they declare that Art. XV. of the Treaty of Paris of 1856 is not applicable to this part of the river for the time which is required for the repayment of the debt.

ART. VII. All buildings and establishments erected in consequence of the Treaty, of Paris of 1856, or of the present treaty, by the European commission, shall continue to enjoy the same neutrality which has future, under all circumstances, be respected by the protected them heretofore, and which shall, in the high contracting powers in the same manner. advantages of the privileges arising therefrom shall

The

18,000 men, as fixed by the firman of the Sultan; the second to the exclusive fortifications on the coast, and other warlike preparations; the third to the oppressive taxes; the fourth to the Armstrong cannon which the Khedive, in 1870, while giving up his iron-clad vessels, had retained. In the fifth place, the Turkish Government demanded that the Khedive for several weeks should receive on the isthmus a Turkish force, the number of which was not specified. In his reply, the Khedive expressed a strong wish to remain at peace with the Sultan, and asserted that on most of the above points the Turkish Government was misinformed; the number of his troops was not larger than was indispensably necessary for maintaining public order; the fortifications were necessary for the defence of the coast; the new loans and taxes had become necessary in consequence of the extensive public works. With regard to the last Turkish demand, the reply was evasive.

Later in the year both Turkey and Egypt showed a more peaceable disposition. The Khedive in August sent his aunt to Constantinople to assure the Sultan that her nephew would strictly fulfil all his duties. The Porte, on the other hand, deemed it best to disclaim for the present any intention to reduce Egypt to a condition of greater dependency than before. In October the Khedive, in compliance with the wish expressed by the Turkish Government, considerably reduced the taxes, and announced his purpose to consolidate the entire floating debt.

The session of the Egyptian Chamber of Representatives was closed by the Khedive on August 7th. The speech assured the representatives that the propositions and suggestions made by them had greatly pleased the Government. The president of the Chamber thanked the Khedive for the kind attention he had given to their wishes, especially as regards the new institution of the Interior.

ELECTRICITY. Duration of the Electric Spark.-Prof. Ogden D. Rood makes a second report to the American Journal of Science with regard to his experiments to determine the duration of the discharge of a Leyden jar, connected with an induction coil. His first paper on the subject was noticed in the ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA for 1869. The later experiments were conducted with a jar having a coating of 11 square inches only, instead of about 114 square inches, used on the former occasions. For the mirror he employed silvered glass, half an inch square, the polished silver side reflecting the light. The mirror was made to revolve 300 times in a second, the apparatus used being essentially like that introduced in the former experiments. With zinc points and a striking distance of 1 millimetre, the duration of the spark varied between .000001 and .000025 of a second, a duration as long as 23 millionths of a second being somewhat rare. With zinc points and a striking distance of 2

millimetres, two careful experiments gave respectively a duration of .0000022 and .0000019 of a second. Although with the improved micrometric method, adopted by Prof. Rood, an interval of time as small as one millionth of a second could be directly measured, yet he says he could never detect any sign that the "duration of the great body of the spark was other than absolutely instantaneous; " as, however, all the light of the spark is due to incandescent particles, we must suppose that an infinitesimal portion of time is required for attaining its maximum brightness, and, owing to the same reason, its disappearance demands another distinct period of time, however minute. With the mirror revolving 340 times a second, and platinum points at a striking distance of 3 millimetres, the observed duration of the discharge was .000000094. Prof. Rood narrates his further experiments with this difficult problem, as follows:

Before finally abandoning the attempt to determine the actual duration of the discharge, another effort was made; a second lamp-black plate was prepared, in which the breadth of the image of a line, millimetre. These lines were viewed with the terblack or white, on the observing plate was of a restrial eye-piece of a small telescope; it enlarged them ten diameters, and care was taken with all the adjustments, so that a good clean image should be produced. Platinum wires of an inch in diameter By gradually increasing the weight, it was proved were used, with a striking distance of five millimetres. successively that the duration was less than eighty, sixty-eight, fifty-nine, fifty-five billionths of a second; and, finally, the lines, after growing fainter and fainter, entirely disappeared, giving as the result a duration of forty-eight billionths of a second. In a large number of observations I could detect no discharge lasting during a smaller interval, though the apparatus was now fully capable of making evident much smaller periods of time. millimetre, the duration was shorter; in the case of When the striking distance was reduced to one of the sparks, the duration was slightly greater than forty-one billionths of a second, the remaining being slightly less than this figure.

With a striking distance of three millimetres, the ionths; and, when the striking distance was induration was between forty-one and forty-eight billcreased to ten millimetres, it was between fortyeight and fifty-five billionths of a second.

An effort was made to make a corresponding set of points; and it would seem probable that the duration measurements with brass balls instead of platinum of the discharge is somewhat increased by their use (or that many of those with shorter durations are suppressed). With brass balls not nearly so many discharges take place in a given time as with points; hence, the work becomes tedious and less certain. The evidence from twenty-six observations, gathered in not less than three hours, went to show that the duration, with a striking distance of five millimetres, was between forty-eight and fifty-five billionths of a second.

It has thus been shown that the duration of the first act of the electric discharge is in certain cases only forty billionths of a second, an interval of time just sufficient to enable a ray of light to travel over forty feet.

The author has succeeded with this apparatus in measuring intervals as small as 000000028; and he hopes to reduce that as low as .000000010.

Magnetic Experiments.-Some singular experiments in magnetism have been made by Lord Lindsay with a very powerful magnet. The poles of the magnet were 2 inches square in sections, and the magnet was excited by a 30-cell Grove battery. The poles were kept of an inch apart, and a half-crown piece placed between them. When the magnet was not excited, the coin dropped instantly through; but, when the magnet was charged, the half-crown was 6 seconds in falling the distance of 24 inches. In a second experiment, a small India-rubber tube, filled with mercury, was placed between the poles, and an electric current passed from the battery through the mercury. The moment the magnet was excited the tube was set in motion, getting away from between the poles, and assuming the shape of the letter S. On reversing the current the shape of the curve was instantly reversed. After this, a coil of copper wire was placed round the vertical pole of a magnet, and when the magnet was charged, and a current of electricity sent through the copper coils in one direction, the ring of fine copper wire stuck fast in the magnet. On reversing the electric current, the ring jumped off the pole of the magnet to some distance in the air. In order to show the diamagnetic properties of warm air, a lighted taper was passed through a hole bored along the poles of the magnet, the light being brought to the space of inch wide between the two poles. So long as the magnet was excited, the light burned brilliantly, the smoke coming out at the extreme ends of the poles, and not rising up directly off the flame. As soon, however, as the magnet was discharged, the smoke rose straight up and extinguished the flame.

Dynamo-Electric Light.-The London Times gives an interesting account of a series of experiments, conducted toward the close of the year, at Sheerness, with a view of ascertaining the applicability of Siemens's dynamo-electric light to torpedo-service in time of war. The light is produced by excessively rapid motion generated from the fly-wheel of a steam-engine, and operating on a powerful set of ordinary galvanic coils in connection with soft iron magnets. The leather strap from a fourhorse-power engine, encircling a small gunmetal pinion, causes it to revolve with the extreme velocity of 1,600 times a minute, inducing motion in an electric bobbin at the side of an apparatus consisting of several sets of strong insulated coils. A stream of electricity consequently passes through them. This stream is conducted to a second series of coils, larger and more powerful than the first, which are also in combination with a pinion revolving 800 times a minute, thus intensifying the stream as it passes through them to a very considerable degree.

Both negative and positive currents are now alternately given off from another "bobbin" at the side of the second series of magnetic coils, to the train of in

sulated wires, which conveys them to the position from which the dynamo-electric light is to be exhibited. Here there is a delicately-contrived apparatus for containing the carbon-points, between which the light is to be generated, adjusted at the top of a tripod somewhat similar in construction to that of a surveying-instrument. At the back of the two cartheir holders passing through it, is a concave reflectbon-points, and "slotted" vertically to admit of or of white polished metal, which collects the rays of light into a focus, and transmits them in any required direction by means of an adjusting hand-, wheel below. A minute aperture in the centre of carbon-points, throws a representation of the flame the reflector, precisely behind the junction of the two upon a piece of opal glass in a frame fixed at the back of the reflector; and, through the agency of another small hand-wheel, which causes the carbonHame can be reduced or intensified at pleasure, by points to approach or recede from each other, the simply turning the wheel, care being taken at the same time to keep a watchful eye upon the picture produced, as the withdrawing of the points to too great a distance from each other will extinguish the ample means are taken, by lubricating the electrical light. It should have been remarked before that apparatus, to counteract the evil effects which might otherwise arise from the excessive friction consequent on the rapidity of motion in the several parts.

The object of instituting the series of experiments was to ascertain if it was possible to throw such a stream of light upon an enemy's working-parties, engaged in interrupting communication with a line of torpedoes at night, as would render them sufficiently conspicuous to be fired at, and, consequently, driven off. The place selected was the new fort at Garrison Point, Sheerness. The engine and "coils" were erected in the enclosure of the fort, while the instrument itself was placed in one of the massive embraand the order given to turn ahead, than the burring sures piercing its sides. No sooner was steam got up noise of the machine indicated that electricity was being rapidly generated, sparks and stars of vivid blue light being given off at the various joints. Another instant, and a vivid stream of light shot across the sea to a number of ships lying in the offing at a distance of about two miles, lighting them up with the brilliancy and distinctness of broad moonlight. The effect was magnificent. Clouds of mists, rendered visible by the intensity of the rays shooting through them, rolled across the broad field of bright the view in their progress. By shifting the direc light from time to time, not, however, interrupting tion of the rays laterally, each object in turn came within the compass of the portion of horizon rendered clear. In fact, it was sufficiently apparent that no objects of any appreciable size, such for instance as an enemy's boats, could come within a mile or more of one of Siemens's dynamo-electric instruments in operation without being rendered conspicuous to any battery in the vicinity, and, consequently, involving to themselves the most imminent danger. Hence the result of the experiments may be pronounced a success; whether, however, a corresponding effect might not be obtained by a succession of parachute-lights thrown from a rocket or mortar is quite an open question.

Electric Railway-Signals.-Robinson's system of electric railway-signals, recently introduced, works automatically, and, it is said, effectively. A train approaching a switch or drawbridge in either direction, when distant half a mile, presses on a lever in proximity to the track. This lever controls an electric circuit, which, being closed by the train, remains closed. When a switch or drawbridge is in place, and safe, a white flag is brought