cle of his acquaintance.
He was the founder of that school which counts the "Harry Lorrequers"
and others among its humble disciples; but the "Story of my Life," and
"Wild Sports of the West," will not be easily surpassed in the peculiar
qualities of that gay and off-hand style of which he was the originator.
Among his other more successful works are "Stories of Waterloo," "Hector
O'Halloran," and "Rambling Recollections of a Soldier of Fortune."
Besides his novels, he wrote "Notes and Reflections during a Ramble in
Germany," "Victories of the British Armies," and a "Life of Field
Marshal the Duke of Wellington".

ALEXANDER MACDONALD, well known to the public as an antiquary, died
early in January at Edinburgh. He was one of Mr. Thompson's earliest
assistants in the publication of the "Acts of the Parliaments of
Scotland," and other works, undertaken by the Record Commissioners. He
was long a most active member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland;
and the library and museum of that body owe much to his industry and
intelligence. He edited several volumes of the Maitland Club, to which
he contributed "The Register of Ministers in the year 1567"--the
earliest extant record of the ecclesiastical appointments of the
Reformed Church in Scotland. Mr. Macdonald also largely supplied the
materials of Sir Walter Scott's notes and illustrations of the "Waverley
Novels." He held many years the office of Keeper of the Register of
Deeds and Protests in Scotland.

Scientific Miscellanies

MR. WALSH writes from Paris to the _Journal of Commerce_, in the last
month, as follows:

The _Annuaire_, or Annual for the present year, has been issued by the
Board of Longitude. M. Arago has appended to it nearly 200 pages on the
Calendar in which he treats of all the divisions of time among the
ancients and the moderns. This celebrated astronomer does not belie, in
this notice, his reputation for handling scientific subjects so as to
make them clear to common apprehension. He announces, in his second
page, that he has completed and will soon publish a _Treatise of Popular
Astronomy_; a desideratum for France. Sir John Herschel has supplied it
for English readers, in his Outlines. The present history and
explanations of the Calendar may be recommended, as material, to your
Professor Loomis. In the section concerning the period at which the
Paris clocks were first regulated on the mean or true time, Arago
observes: "It will no